Duel of Hearts (7 page)

Lady Stanborough visibly softened. “But I
enjoyed
supervising her. I told him so a dozen times!”

“Nevertheless, Lord Lindsay was extremely reluctant to ask you to put yourself out a second time. It was only when I offered my services as a sort of … guardian, you might say … that he agreed to let her come.”

“Well, I suppose one could consider it thoughtful of him, but I don't see, Mr. Middleton, how this business is to be contrived. I hope you don't expect me to ask your approval for every invitation I accept in Corianne's name or for every outing on which I take her!”

Edward smiled at her reassuringly. “Of course not, ma'am. I don't mean to be in your way at all. But I
would
like your permission to call on Corianne every few days, to take her riding or to escort her on any little errands you may wish her to execute for you. In that way I can learn about her activities and report to her father that all is well. And, of course, I am instructed to handle all matters of expense which she may incur. Lord Lindsay is quite aware of the problem involved in the supervision of a volatile young girl. He hopes that my presence nearby will make dealing with them easier for you. I'm staying at the Fenton, which is not far from here. You may count on my assistance or advice whenever you have need of it.”

Edward had accented the positive advantages to her of his presence, and though she was not quick-witted, Lady Stanborough could see that he might be an asset to her. “Would you be willing also to lend us your company for an occasional service as escort?” she asked, looking at him measuringly.

“I am entirely at your service.”

She smiled. “Well, then, Mr. Middleton, I must say you have quite won me over. I admit that when I first heard about you, I was considerably put out. But perhaps things may turn out very well indeed.”

“I hope so, ma'am.” He rose to leave. “Please feel free to call on me at any time,” he assured her, bending over her hand.

She looked up at him with a sudden impulse. “
Tonight
, then!” she said, half to herself.

“Tonight?”

“Yes. The opera. Can you escort us tonight?”

“Well, yes, if you wish.”

“Delightful. Eight-thirty?”

He bowed. “My carriage will be at your door.”

“Oh? You have your own carriage?” She bit her lip as her momentary euphoria dissolved in a wave of doubt. What if the man's carriage were as shabby as his boots? “There is no need for you to trouble, you know.
My
man can pick
you
up.”

“It's no trouble at all, Lady Stanborough,” Edward said, eyeing her shrewdly.

Lady Stanborough became distinctly uneasy. She would rather
die
than be discovered at the entrance of the Covent Garden Opera House alighting from a hired hack or an outmoded, lumbering equipage! “Will you … er … have room for us
all
, Mr. Middleton? My daughter intends to make one of the party, and that, I believe, makes four.”

Edward understood just what troubled her and, being too kindhearted to tease her on the subject, decided to set her mind at ease. “My coach is quite capable of carrying four, ma'am,” he assured her. “I had it from Tattersall's, you know, only a year ago. I think you'll find it to your liking.”

“I
will?
” she asked in considerable relief. “How lovely.” But as her daughter had often noted, she tended to latch on to an idea hammer and tongs once it struck her. Mr. Middleton had shabby boots, and therefore he might be guilty of committing other solecisms. While she didn't mind his country clothing
now
, she might find it objectionable before her friends. As she rose to show him the door, she couldn't resist remarking, “Of course you
do
realize, Mr. Middleton, that full dress is required at the opera.”

A corner of his mouth twitched. “I believe that I'd heard something to that effect up in Lincolnshire, ma'am,” he said.

The irony passed over her. She merely smiled and patted his hand. “Good,” she said, hoping his dress clothes were better than his daytime rig.

In the meantime, Corianne was having a good deal of difficulty trying to persuade her cousin to come to meet her guardian. Poor Sarah had tried every excuse she could think of, but Corianne had an answer for each one. At last, she'd pointed out that she was not properly attired to receive visitors. “Oh, pooh!” Corianne insisted. “No one cares about that. I'll wager Edward won't even notice.”

He undoubtedly won't
, Sarah thought in self-disgust. Next to the dewy loveliness of her cousin, she looked positively insipid. But it was too late to improve matters now, and it seemed impossible to avoid giving in to Corianne's importunities. With a helpless shrug, she put away her papers and rose from her desk. “Very well, Cory, I'll go with you,” she said dolefully.

Corianne had little patience with her cousin's reluctant pace. She grasped Sarah's hand and pulled her down the hall. Lady Stanborough and Edward were just emerging from the drawing room when the cousins came upon them. “Oh, you're
finished,
” Cory chirruped happily. “Good. If we hurry, Aunt Laurelia, we shan't be very late.”

“Don't worry, love,” Lady Stanborough said calmly. “Everyone arrives late at London gatherings. Ah, there you are, Sarah. Don't stand there in the shadows like a gawk. Come and meet Corianne's Squire. Mr. Middleton, my daughter Sarah.”

Sarah tried to keep her head lowered, even though her posture reminded her of the dreadfully awkward granddaughter of their cook who, when she'd been brought up to the drawing room to “meet the family,” had come forward in miserable shyness and had hung her head in this very same way. Of course,
that
girl could be excused for her behavior—she was only fifteen and getting her first glimpse of the “nobility.” Sarah, on the other hand, was twenty-seven, a woman of considerable sophistication, who had met the
Prince Regent
on more than one occasion without the least inner perturbation. What excuse had
she
for standing about like a frightened housemaid?

“How do you do, Miss Stanborough?” Edward said politely, noting that the young woman seemed to be even more withdrawn than he'd expected.

Sarah dropped a curtsey and gave him a quick, sharp glance. She'd noticed at once that he
was
her rescuer, and the knowledge made her even more tremulous. She'd listened carefully to his voice when he'd greeted her, but she couldn't determine from his words whether or not he remembered her. The one sharp look, however, was enough to reveal that he had not a spark of recognition in his eyes.

Surprisingly, this fact relieved her tension. She straightened up, feeling quite capable of responding to his greeting at last. But before she could say a word, Corianne stepped between them, throwing her arms about Edward's neck. “We've got to
go
, Edward,” she said impatiently, planting a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for coming. I hope you aren't miffed with me for dashing off like this, but if we don't go soon, we will be dreadfully late, won't we, Aunt Laurelia?”

He laughed and removed himself from her clutches. “Go ahead, Miss Prattlebox. I shall see quite enough of you tonight at the opera.”

“She's a veritable whirlwind, isn't she?” Lady Stanborough said indulgently as Corianne pulled her to the door. “Good afternoon, Mr. Middleton. Until eight-thirty.”

They were gone. Left alone with Edward, Sarah's heart began to hammer as if she were a green girl again. Should she ask him to stay to tea? Perhaps in the quiet of Corianne's wake, she could recover her senses and become capable of making adult conversation with the man.

She glanced up at him again. He was looking at the door through which Corianne had just disappeared, a faint smile still playing about his lips, as if a little bit of Corianne still lingered in the hallway. Sarah almost sighed aloud … the poor fool was still afflicted with the same besotted affection for that silly and selfish girl that he'd displayed two years ago.

Sarah took a deep breath to steel herself to invite him to remain for a cup of tea or even a bite of luncheon, but he suddenly turned and smiled at her with abstracted politeness. “I'm afraid I've taken you from some occupation, Miss Stanborough,” he said.

“Oh, no, no,” she said hastily. “Not at all—”

“You are very kind, ma'am, but I fear I
have
disturbed you. Let me not take any more of your time. I wish you a very good day.” He made a hasty bow, picked up his hat from the table near the door and left.

Sarah stood motionless for a moment while a quick succession of bewildering emotions swept over her. The first was a wave of inexplicable anger. The fellow had treated her as if she were a veritable dowd! She might just as well have been a strip of faded wallpaper hanging in the corner of the room! But she immediately realized she'd brought it on herself. It had been
her
choice to hang back as inconspicuously as possible, so why should she be so angered at
him
?

Her illogical anger was soon followed by an assault of self-pity. It was no wonder he'd cut her—what could one
expect
when one's bloom was gone, when one was past twenty-seven and dressed in a shapeless, faded gown and an old-maidish cap?

But finally, from some inner wellspring of resourcefulness and good sense, a laugh bubbled up to the surface. The entire scene was quite funny, really. The drama which she'd rehearsed with such agitation the night before had taken place, and it had proved anti-climactic in the extreme. For all the notice her
hero
had taken of her, that dreadful occurrence at the come-out ball might never have taken place!

She laughed aloud—a somewhat bitter laugh, to be sure—as she crossed the hallway to the stairs. All the adroit, sophisticated, self-assured remarks she'd rehearsed—how ridiculously futile that sleepless night had been! He'd said his how-d'ye-dos, and she'd said …
nothing
! She laughed again and started up the stairs. In her room, she dropped wearily on the little bench before her dressing table and looked at herself in disgust. “Well, Miss Stanborough,” she told her reflection, “I must congratulate you. You were brilliant, positively brilliant.”

Her eyes lit upon the innocent little cap perched on her head. Suddenly it seemed unspeakably offensive. “As for you,” she said aloud to the irritating headpiece, snatching it off furiously, “you've brought me no good at all! Where is the maturity, the serenity, the acceptance of reality which you're intended to symbolize? Do you know how I intend to punish you? Nothing less than
banishment
!” She threw the cap into a lower drawer and slammed it shut.

“For a couple of months, anyway,” she added sheepishly.

Chapter Five

L
ADY
S
TANBOROUGH'S DRESSER
emerged from Sarah's bedroom with a look of startled satisfaction on her face—Miss Sarah had suddenly requested her services to dress her hair this evening! Miss Sarah had always dressed her own hair except on one or two occasions of very special importance. But what was so special about tonight, the dresser wondered, to have caused Miss Sarah to ask for her assistance? It was only the opera, after all.

Of course, this often-wished-for development
would
come at a time when she was terribly rushed, what with having to attend to her ladyship and the visiting niece as well. Nevertheless the pleased dresser looked forward to the challenge. If any dresser in London could handle three heads in one evening, she could!

The energetic little woman called herself Madame Marie, but the French appellation was only recently acquired. The closest Madame Marie had ever come to France was an outing to an eastern suburb of London. But Madame truly believed that everything French was more stylish, more elegant, more chic than its British counterpart. Paris was the
beau monde
, the
dernier cri
… and the determined Miss Mary Dabbs of Finsbury, who was gifted with a talent for styling hair and had an eye toward improving her station in life, had become Madame Marie Antoinette Honore Dabbs when she'd applied for her first post.

If the various ladies who employed her were bemused by the French name and the French words which were interspersed in her vocabulary (for Madame Marie had acquired a French dictionary which she studied in her spare time) and pronounced with a native Londoner's accent, they made no comment. For whatever her eccentricities, Madame Marie was a
find
.

The culmination of her career was her present post as dresser to the stylish Lady Stanborough. Except for the housekeeper and the butler, she was the highest-paid member of the household staff. Her ladyship found Madame's services completely indispensible. She'd often confided to friends that she wouldn't know how she'd get on if she lost Madame Marie. She'd sooner do without her cook!

Madame Marie was quite content with her post, but she had to admit that she'd been finding it somewhat dull of late. Lady Stanborough insisted that her hair be dressed in the same way each day—a complicated arrangement in which the popular curls-over-the-ears were kept to a minimum, and the rest of the hair was piled on top to make her ladyship appear taller. At first, the styling had been challenging, but it was no longer so, and Madame Marie yearned for a chance to exercise her considerable creativity. How delightful that tonight she would have that opportunity. What a
bon chance
!

But as she walked down the hall to the back stairs, she rubbed the side of her very English nose in bafflement. She must discuss this matter with Cook. There
had
to be a good reason for Miss Sarah's about-face. What was so special about a night at the opera to cause Miss Sarah to feel this sudden
souci
about her appearance? After wearing that hideous old-maid's cap for almost a month, why was Miss Sarah suddenly desirous of blossoming out? If Madame Marie knew anything about life, she'd wager there was a new man in the picture.
L'amour
. It was always the cause.