Carola Dunn (2 page)

One of Lord Daventry’s grooms was waiting with the curricle. Handing Lady Sophia in, Felix said, “I have borrowed Lord Fitzroy’s carriage. I trust you will find it as comfortable as St Gérard’s barouche.” He joined her on the seat, the groom swung up behind, and they set off.

“In general I consider the curricle to be an unsuitable vehicle for a female of delicate principles--even a trifle fast. However, Mama assures me that I am a deal too nice in my notions. After all, we are abroad and cannot expect the same attention to the details of propriety as in England.”

“Very true.”

“You will not drive too rapidly. Major Peters drove me in his phaeton at great speed last week. I was forced to point out to him that haste is vulgar and unseemly.”

“We shall not go above a trot,” promised Felix, who had hired the best horses he could afford in the hope of impressing the Goddess with his skill in handling the ribbons.

As a result of their sloth on the road, they reached the parade ground, a natural amphitheatre on the banks of a river, considerably after the Duke and his entourage. The rim of the declivity was crowded with the carriages of fashionable ladies in pastel gauzes, elegant gentlemen in swallowtail coats and polished top boots. All the world had driven out from Brussels and from the French king’s temporary court at Ghent to view the splendour of the British Cavalry.

In the carnival atmosphere, Felix had to remind himself that the serried ranks of gaudy-uniformed Dragoons and Hussars, rigid on their magnificent chargers, were preparing for war.

The gleaming guns of the Horse Artillery were an ominous confirmation. Shading his eyes against the sun, Felix gazed at each battery in turn, hoping to catch sight of Captain Ingram so that he could tell Fanny he had seen her brother. In the mass of men, no individuals were distinguishable.

He could pick out some members of Wellington’s entourage, though, as they proceeded slowly through the lines, inspecting the troops. “There is the Duke,” he pointed out to Lady Sophia, “as always the plainest dressed among all the glittering foreign dignitaries. That’s Lord Uxbridge in the Hussar uniform. The stout old chap with the white whiskers is Marshal Prince von Blücher, the Prussian commander.”

“I see the Duchess of Richmond and Lady Georgiana,” she said. “Pray take me to their carriage. I simply must ask Lady Georgiana where she bought that delightful hat. Is it not charming? Something like a Villager hat but with a subtle difference of shape, I fancy.”

Helping her down from the curricle, Felix mentally kicked himself for attempting to draw her attention to the armed might drawn up before them. Fanny might knowledgeably discuss military matters, but delicate young ladies could not be expected to take an interest, he thought with fond indulgence. Thank heaven! If Lady Sophia read the message of those howitzers and 9-pounders, she’d take fright and persuade her parents to flee the country. In that case, months might pass before he saw her again.

The Duchess of Richmond was acquainted with Felix’s mother, Lady Westwood, and asked Felix for news of his family. While he chatted with her, Georgiana, a lively damsel of seventeen, laughingly dismissed her court of admirers and invited Sophia to join her in the barouche for a comfortable cose.

Felix caught some of their discussion of the delectable hat, of high crowns and low crowns, plumes and silk flowers. He was recalling with pity Fanny’s only headgear, garnished with its single drooping feather, when Georgiana said, “Mama is planning a grand ball, you know. You will receive your invitation as soon as we have settled upon a date. And you too, my lord. I trust you will still be in Brussels?” She smiled up at him with a flirtatious twinkle.

“Now how can he possibly know that,” the duchess protested, “when we have not yet set the date, Georgy? I mean to consult Wellington first.”

“Oh yes,” cried her unrepentant daughter. “How shocking if he could not come!” She turned back to Lady Sophia.

“I was thinking more of the military situation, Roworth,” said her grace in a low voice. “Have you any news from Paris? You have connections there, I collect.” She was one of the few who had some notion of his position, her husband being an intimate of Wellington’s.

Felix passed on the most recent word he had received from Jakob Rothschild in Paris, information he had given to Wellington yesterday. “Napoleon’s grand gathering of his supporters--the
Champ de Mai
, he calls it--is now planned for the first of June. I believe the Duke expects him to be disappointed in the numbers, but whether that will dissuade him from marching on Belgium, who can guess?”

“The whole affair is sadly unsettling. I should take the girls home if it were not for Richmond’s insistence on staying. William, too, is determined to be in the middle of things, though he is far from recovered from his fall. And of course March cannot leave. Indeed, he is very happy with his position on the Prince of Orange’s staff.”

“Slender Billy is an congenial young man, and it is to be hoped that your son will act as a steadying influence upon his volatility!”

The duchess laughed. “Yes, March is a serious boy, compared to the prince at least, though they are both no more than three-and-twenty. And if he fails to restrain the prince, why, I daresay the more experienced officers on his staff will manage it.”

“I understand that Prince Bernhard, despite his youth, also has a head on his shoulders.”

“Poor Orange must feel quite hemmed in, I vow.”

Felix and Lady Sophia strolled on to exchange greetings with a number of other spectators. They moved in the same circles and knew many of the same people.

Lady Sophia remained cool and gracious in the scorching heat, while all around ladies fanned themselves vigorously and gentlemen’s starched neckcloths wilted. Proud to have her on his arm, Felix noted the many envious glances cast at him by the officers of foot regiments who mingled with the crowds. Those confounded Life Guards in their flashy scarlet and gold were used to having things all their own way with the ladies. “The Gentlemen’s Sons,” they called themselves; “Hyde Park soldiers” was the contemptuous name given them by Peninsular veterans like Fanny’s brother.

Down on the parade ground, the Review continued. The faces of the Hussars, sweating in fur caps and fur-trimmed pelisses, shone almost as bright as their silver lace. At one of the artillery batteries flanking their precise squadrons, Marshal Blücher had paused and appeared to be inspecting every horse. An occasional guttural exclamation of “
Mein Gott
, fery goot,” floated up.

“This looks as if it could go on for ever,” said Felix. “Do you care to leave now?”

“If you wish, sir,” Lady Sophia agreed obligingly. “I see that several carriages are departing already.”

They made their way back to the curricle. Waiting beside it was Major Sir Henry Bissell of the 95th Rifles. Felix greeted him with annoyance. He had thought the fellow routed at the Daventrys’ hôtel.

“How kind in you to come to meet us, Sir Henry,” said Lady Sophia, sounding indifferent, “but we are just about to leave, you know.”

“I shall ride beside you,” declared the major, bowing. “Beauty cannot have too many escorts.”

As they returned towards Brussels, Lady Sophia politely divided her attention between the two men. She gave no particular encouragement to the soldier in his smart green regimentals, but nor could Felix flatter himself that she favoured him.

The Goddess’s preferences, if any, were a mystery. He was the more determined to win her hand.

Chapter 2

As Felix reached for Madame Vilvoorde’s front door knob, a small man in a frieze coat and catskin waistcoat darted from the shade of a nearby doorway. He doffed a hat that appeared to have been sat upon at some point in its history, then bashed back into shape with questionable success.

“‘Ere, guv, you live in this ‘ouse?” he queried in unmistakably Cockney tones.

“What of it?” Felix assumed his haughtiest manner.

“It’s like this, guv: Oi’m looking fer summun by name of Ingram.”

Frank and Fanny must have left debts in England, Felix guessed at once. Well, it was none of his affair and he’d be damned if he’d assist the bailiffs. Fanny and Anita in debtors’ prison didn’t bear thinking of. What was more, come to think of it, he rather doubted that an English writ could be enforced in Belgium.

“Young chap, army orficer,” the man went on urgently. “There’ll be a sister, too, if me hinformation’s correct. Oi needs ter know their ages, precise-loike, and where they was born, and...”

“My good man, even if I happened to be acquainted with the people you are looking for, such personal details cannot possibly be of any concern to either of us. Be off with you, or I’ll call a gendarme.”

However legitimate his business, the man must have had qualms about tangling with foreign officials for he looked round nervously. Felix made his escape.

Closing the front door firmly behind him, he went into the parlour. Anita knelt on a chair at the scarred deal table, playing with the toy soldiers, made by Corporal Hoskins, that she much preferred to her doll. Fanny sat nearby, sewing a wristband onto a shirt.

“‘Lo, Tío Felix.”

“Back already, Lord Roworth? I daresay Lady Sophia was drooping from the heat.”

“Not at all, but I was. Ingram will be late home tonight, will he?”

“Yes, he’ll have to see his men and guns safely back to their cantonment. The company is at Braine-le-Comte with Slender Billy now, you know. Frank may even spend the night there.”

Captain Ingram probably had a pretty Flemish farm girl in starched white cap and wide, full skirts waiting for him. In his absence, Felix was in two minds whether to tell Fanny about the inquisitive Cockney. He didn’t want to alarm her--but after her adventurous life she was not easily overset.

His unusual enquiry after her brother alerted Fanny. “Did you wish to speak to Frank?” she asked. Her busy hands stilled as she saw his uncertainty. Fear clutched her heart. “News of Napoleon?”

“No, no, it’s probably nothing. I met an odd little man on the doorstep just now, enquiring about you and Frank, your birthdates and so on. I sent him off with a flea in his ear but I thought you ought to know.”

“Madame Vilvoorde said someone asked after us,” she told him, puzzled, yet more aware of a flood of relief that a battle was not imminent. “She refused to speak to him. I cannot imagine who he is, or why he is asking such strange questions. If she understood him aright, he wanted to know Mama’s maiden name, and what we were christened!”

“Now that is something I have long wished for an excuse to pry into. Fanny and Frank--Frances and Francis?”

Her peal of laughter made Anita look round, beaming. She had always loved to hear Fanny laugh. Knocking her soldiers in a heap, she announced, “All fall down,” jumped down from her chair and ran to her. “Tell me what’s funny, Tía.”

“A grown-up joke, darling.” She set down her sewing and pulled the little girl onto her lap, where Anita settled contentedly. “Yes, Roworth, Frances and Francis.”

“You were born in India, I think you said, when your father was stationed there?”

“In the monsoon season, and baptised in the middle of a flood. I was supposed to be christened first, being the elder by two hours. Mama was unwell, and Papa was too worried about her--and about his beloved guns!--to notice when the chaplain picked up the wrong baby. Asked for a name he just said ‘Frances’. When the mistake was discovered, the chaplain refused to revoke the sacrament, though he did change the spelling of Frank’s first name. Papa couldn’t think of any girl’s name he liked other than his wife’s, so we were both christened after Mama.” She sighed, recalling how, every time their birthday came round, her father had told the tale as a joke on himself.

“Frank inherited your mother’s middle name, too, I collect?” Lord Roworth enquired. “Dare I ask what it is?”

“I am sworn on pain of death never to reveal it to a living soul.”

He grinned. “Like that, is it?”

“Ask him and he’ll deny possessing a middle name. Did you see him at the Review?”

“No, though I looked. In the mass of uniforms any one face was impossible to make out.”

She nodded her understanding. “Did Lady Sophia enjoy the outing?”

“I believe so. She is not given to effusions.”

“Did she not thank you?” Fanny demanded, indignant on his behalf.

“Of course. Her manners are perfection. However, I cannot pretend that the troops interested her. Fortunately it was something of a social occasion, also, so among the spectators we met many mutual friends and acquaintances.”

“It must be fun to make one’s come-out and spend one’s time in fashionable entertainments,” she said with regret. Lady Sophia did not realize how lucky she was to be able to dismiss the war preparations from her mind and think only of pleasure. “We do have our own dinner parties and informal hops in the army, but Wellington only invites officers of good family to his formal balls.”

He looked vaguely guilty, and she guessed that some grand party was planned to which he was invited. She was grateful when he did not proceed to tell her all about it. Instead, to her surprise, he consulted her.

“Lady Sophia made her début three years ago. Would you not expect her to grow weary of constant social engagements, to long to settle down with a family? I cannot understand why she is not married. I know she has had dozens of offers.”

“Who can blame her if she prefers to be single, spoiled by indulgent parents, rather than taking on the responsibilities of married life!” Afraid he might think her irony due to envy, she added, “But perhaps she simply has not yet found a gentleman she cares for enough to choose to wed.”

“I must hope she continues particular until I am in a position to offer for her. I wish I could be sure what her feelings are for me,” he groaned. “Surely she must care for me a little, since she permits me to squire her although she’s aware that my pockets are to let.”

“You have told her you work for a living?” No doubt the high-and-mighty Lady Sophia would despise his employment. The more Fanny heard of her, the less she liked her.