Joan Smith (2 page)

Luten made a curt bow, walked to the hall to regain his malacca cane, curled beaver and tan gloves, and strode out into the sunshine. It was a mystery how Maggie managed to keep the least ray of sun out of her saloon. It had three high windows facing south, but somehow no sun got through. No wonder Peter escaped as often as he could.

To escape into the arms of a cunning widow or divorcee was not acceptable, however. Luten was surprised that Peter’s first real folly should involve a woman. Had he been asked for an opinion, he would have said “horses,” without blinking. The woman must be something rather special to have weaned Peter from the stables. He wondered what she was like. An older woman, Maggie had said. Probably some out-of-work actress or Cyprian past her prime and sunk to preying on boys. He’d make short shrift of her.

He hopped into his curricle and headed to Albany, that exclusive double row of chambers that served as a sanctuary for London’s bachelors. He felt quite righteous, playing the role of savior. Doing a good deed wasn’t a normal part of his routine, but he could well spare a quarter of an hour. Not being possessed of psychic powers, he couldn’t foresee he was embarking on an enterprise that would eat up considerably more than the fifteen minutes allotted and engage him in doings that made Peter’s scrape sink into insignificance.

“Are any of your young gentlemen coming to call this evening, Trudie?” Mrs. Harrington asked her niece as they finished their modest dinner of a chop and apple tart.

Trudie Barten leaned her head on her hand and assumed a listless air without too much dissimulation. “! am at leisure tonight. Shall we attend the duke’s ball, or would you rather stay home and help me unscramble Norman’s last letter? It has sat menacingly in my pocket since it was delivered this morning. I have it half-decoded.”

Mrs. Harrington cast a wry smile on her charge. “Do you mind terribly that we’re having such a flat time? I
did
think when Norman suggested we come here that it would be livelier for you. A young lady ought to be going out in the evenings. I know you do not truly aspire to consort with dukes at fancy balls, but a nice young gentleman
...
”

Trudie shrugged her impertinent shoulders and made a moue. Of course a young lady minded having a flat time, especially when she had come from the country to London carrying a headful of impossible dreams. For a month before leaving home, she had envisioned a round of balls and routs, beaux calling at the door and taking her for spins in the park. But she was sensible enough to know, even while she was moon-raking, that none of it was likely to happen. It was just daydreaming, except London had such an aura of glamour that it seemed within the realm of possibility that
something
interesting might occur.

“I can live without balls for a year. I never expected I would end up a tutor, though, when Norman moved us to London. Still, it passes the time and gives us some spare change. Perhaps this letter says something about money,” she said hopefully, drawing a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket and straightening it out on her knee to frown at it in perplexity. “It says money—or is it mare, or possibly mirey, only he has forgotten to dot the i. Yes, that’s it; the roads around Brighton are mirey. What a catastrophe! He is off to Brighton for the selling races. He’ll be putting up at the Princes. No, no, he doesn’t mean the Prince’s Pavilion, Auntie! It’s the name of an hotel there—a cheap hotel.”

“There should be plenty of money at least,” Mrs. Harrington said. “He got over a thousand guineas for letting Walbeck Park for the year. I daresay he has spent it all on a horse by now. There’ll be stabling fees and trainer’s fees and entrance fees for the races. He’ll never recover a penny of it either. To be thinking he can win the Triple Crown with some bowlegged filly no one ever heard of is the height of nonsense. I can’t for the life of me imagine why you encouraged your brother in this folly, Trudie.”

Trudie lifted her eyes from the crumpled letter and stared out the window. Nothing was visible beyond, for darkness had fallen. Glancing at her, her aunt thought the girl was miles away. Her dark eyes were glazed, her full lips turned up at the edges. Her auburn hair, lit from behind by the lamp, glowed like fire. Just as her aunt despaired of having a reply, Trudie returned to attention.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said pensively. “I think everyone deserves one folly in his life, don’t you?”

“I never had one,” Mrs. Harrington answered promptly. “And neither have you.”

“Norman is young—too young to get married, as he would have done had he stayed at Walbeck. Since he came down from university, Georgiana Halley has regarded him with a very proprietary eye. She’s hastening him into it. He’s not ready. Let him take one year out of his life to live his folly. What is he losing? The rent from Walbeck will cover all the expenses, and at the year’s end, he’ll go back home and become a good squire. Squire Barten. And only think if he should win, Auntie! Imagine the glory of winning the Triple Crown, and then the Golden Bowl at Ascot. He means to sweep the board clean. The time to try such things is while you’re young, with no heavy obligations. The Alexanders will take excellent care of Walbeck for us. I don’t mind living in rooms for one year. It’s rather fun,” she added bravely.

Mrs. Harrington’s stern eye roved the modest dining room, through the open door to the equally modest saloon, and back to her niece. “It cannot be much fun giving Latin lessons three nights a week,” she pointed out.

“I don’t mind. I’m not doing it for the money, you know. Norman gave us enough to live on. Indeed, I don’t take any pay from Mr. Haskins, whose papa can’t afford it. Peter was going to hire a tutor in any case, and he says I explain it to him better than any tutor he ever encountered, so why should I not accept a fee from him? He’s loaded with blunt.”

“Pooh!” her aunt said with lively disgust. “He likes to sit and moon at you across the table. I would not mind you giving Lord Clappet, Norman’s particular friend, a little help, but I do not think it quite the thing for him to have brought
his
friend along. I don’t just care for that Nicolson fellow. There is something uncouth about him, with all his airs and graces.”

A spark of mischief danced in the dark depths of Trudie’s eyes. “Sir Charles Nicolson uncouth? How can you say so? Nick is top of the trees, Auntie. He told me so himself.”

Mrs. Harrington snorted. Her brindled head shook angrily, and her lips pinched into a thin line. “Top of the dung pile. That’s what I think of your Sir Charles. He was rolling his eyes at you, Trudie. I do believe that Rolfe woman has taken the notion Nicolson is your beau. She looked very sour when he came in yesterday evening. She spies on us. I hear her door open and close every time one of your gentlemen comes to our door. Then when young Clappet came to call for him after his lesson, she was at it again.”

Trudie gave a
tsk
of annoyance. “If she has nothing better to do, let her spy. She shan’t see much.”

“She’ll
hear
plenty! That piano was still banging away at ten o’clock last night. Nicolson was very miffed when I closed the lid on him, but to be playing a pianoforte at ten o’clock in a flat is not considerate. I never hear the Rolfes playing theirs past nine-thirty.”

“It was hammering till midnight on Saturday. I’m surprised you forgot it; you mentioned it nine or ten times.” Trudie felt a twinge of guilt over Nicolson, and her guilt lent a note of asperity to her answer. She knew perfectly well that he was infatuated with her, and letting him remain for a social visit after the lesson was unwise. But it was better than being perpetually alone with her aunt.

“The noise
did
go on rather late Saturday, but it stopped before the Sabbath broke. Had they played into Sunday morning, I should have felt obliged to lodge a complaint with Mr. Evans,” Mrs. Harrington said.

“I won’t let Sir Charles play the pianoforte again, and I shan’t let Peter bring any more of his friends to be coached in Latin. Will that satisfy you, Tartar?” Trudie asked, softening the harsh word with a smile. “Papa was quite a scholar, you know, and as I’ve managed to master the arcane matter myself, I might as well make some use of it. It will please Lady Clappet when Peter is reinstated at university. She kicked up quite a fuss, it seems, when he was plucked, and it was only the Latin that was holding him back.”

“I have no objection to Clappet’s coming,” Mrs. Harrington allowed. “He has often enough been to us at Walbeck when he was in school with Norman. If only he were a few years older,” she added wistfully.

“Yes, a very eligible parti, Auntie, but he is
not
a few years older. He is not quite twenty, and I am an old hag of three and twenty years. An ape leader, I believe they describe such antiques as I here in the city.”

“Such a very odd expression.”

“Shakespeare,” Trudie said vaguely. “It has to do with leading apes in hell, from ‘Shrew,’ I believe.”

Mrs. Harrington shook her head in despair. “It is amazing how a young lady who knows so much doesn’t know enough to nab an eligible parti when it is clear as day he is in love with her.”

“In love?” Trudie asked, and laughed heartily. “No, he only plays up to me to pester Nicolson. A boy not yet finished school is not eligible. And I don’t know anything either, except what I’ve read in books. Sir Charles tells me I am a bluestocking, and a greenhead. Not a very harmonious combination, chromatically speaking, I fear.”

“The devil take Sir Charles! I don’t think he cares in the least for learning Latin. He comes to flirt.”

“He’s a brave man to attempt it with you guarding me like a Vestal Virgin,” Trudie said pertly. “I only let him come to wile away the dull evenings. I’d never go out with him. Let us speak of other things, since my ‘gentlemen’ annoy you so,” she said, lifting Norman’s letter. “I’ll try if I can decipher this sheet of hieroglyphics. Yes, he’s bought his hope for the Triple Crown and calls her True Lady after us—since we share the name Gertrude. True Lady has gone off her feed, poor dear. They are concocting a new mélange to tempt her jaded palate. Lucky Lady, she should be called.”

She studied another passage, then looked up brightly. “Oh, Peter will want to hear this! Norman has discovered a horse he thinks Peter will want to buy. It only costs two hundred guineas. Two-fifty is the top price Peter is ready to spend, you know.”

As she spoke, there was a clatter of heavy boots on the stairs rising up to their rooms. “It is Lord Clappet!” Mrs. Harrington exclaimed, a smile alighting on her lips, and they both left the dining room. Lord Clappet was welcome to darken the door anytime he pleased, but he was never so welcome as on those occasions when he did not carry his Latin tomes. The aunt harbored the hope that his infatuation for her niece would mushroom into true love. When he came without Sir Charles Nicolson, he was doubly welcome. After one loud bang, Peter opened the door and pounced in.

“The greatest news, Trudie!” he exclaimed. “Norman has found me a racer!”

“I was just reading the same thing,” Trudie answered, taking his hat and gloves and setting them on the hall table; there was no butler to perform this office for their infrequent callers.

Lord Clappet was tall and well-formed. His dark curls framed a face that was boyishly attractive and would one day be as handsome as even he could desire. His earnest wish was to be a sophisticated Corinthian like his uncle Luten, but his youthful enthusiasm kept getting in his way. He fancied he was already as fine a fiddler as any of the bucks. He could handle his fists without causing mirth in any corner; he had hardly missed the wafers last time he visited Manton’s Shooting Gallery and was a bruising rider to hounds. All that remained was to own a string of winning racehorses. The racer of which he spoke was the first step in this direction.

In his excitement, he preceded his hostess into her small, cozy parlor, made a very short bow to her aunt, then sat down, but remembered to pop up again when Trudie entered the room behind him.

“I darted down to my bank the minute I read this,” he said, the words tumbling out in his excitement. “Only two hundred guineas—imagine! I wouldn’t have thought it possible. Norman is up to anything. She won a selling race at Brighton. Norman spoke to the owner, and I am to go down and take a look at her as soon as possible. I shall leave tomorrow morning with Nick. You have to make an early start in the racing season. I’ll get her a good trainer, enter her in some of the lesser races for experience, and when she is fit ...” He tossed up his hands. His audience was to understand by this gesture that the next inevitable step was that he, like Norman, would walk away with the Triple Crown.

“Norman didn’t mention the sex. A promising youngster, he called it. So it’s a filly, then?” Trudie asked.

“Yes, and with a streak of Arab blood in her. Her dam has won a dozen hurdle races, and her sire took the maiden plate at Newmarket three years ago. Excellent blood.” He smiled happily.

“Have you told your mother?” Mrs. Harrington inquired, throwing quite a pall over the lad’s enthusiasm.

“Not yet,” he replied briefly. “As Norman has got me such a bargain, there is no need for her to know. I got my quarter allowance just last week and am loaded with blunt. I can handle all the expenses for the present at least. I may need a little advance if Firebird works out and is to be entered in the large races. Nick thinks I might be wiser to start out small till I learn my way around the turf; then, when I am more up to snuff, go for the big ones. But if Firebird is half so promising as Norman indicates, I mean to jump in this year.”

“You’ll have to tell her, if you mean to go up north for the training,” Mrs. Harrington pointed out.

“Oh, as to that,” he mentioned ever so casually, “I am no longer living with Mama.”

“Peter, what has happened?” Trudie asked, staring. She already knew Lady Clappet for an eccentric. Such a plethora of excuses had been offered for Peter’s not taking them to call that they understood her to be a virtual recluse, and a bad-natured one to boot.