Lord Sidley's Last Season (4 page)

Though the combination of illness, inebriation, and
severe mal de mer had indeed rendered Sidley temporarily insensible, he had in fact been assured at least a few
more days of life.

But the gossips had speculated wildly. Once he had
rallied enough to attempt correction, no one had believed him. Of course he would deny it, wouldn’t he? Such a
gentlemanly thing to do, to divert attention from his difficulty. Why, the man could scarcely walk! And similarly, though Lady Adeline had made every conceivable
effort to refute the talk-her nephew was not dying; she
had been overcome on seeing his distress; he was, after
all, the last Sidley-her own reputation for near-stoic
reserve had been her undoing. Poor woman, the ton had
clucked, she was fated to experience a most difficult
mourning. It seemed Lady Adeline was destined to wear
black for many more years.

Frustrated by such implacable belief, still recovering
his health, and unwilling to make public mockery of his
aunt, Sidley had ceased to protest. And yielding had
brought with it unanticipated benefits and pleasures-for
one, an absurd forgiveness of failings, but most noticeably a freedom from both expectation and restriction.
Though he was still passably young, titled, comfortably
wealthy, and not, he hoped, too physically repugnant,
marriage-minded mamas had no wish for their daughters
to be too soon widowed.

Or did they? Sidley frowned as he glanced at his
friends’ reflections in the mirror. Benjamin and Vaughn,
however reluctantly, had aided him in furthering his deception. They had also provided invaluable insights
into the thinking of the ton. Despite Sidley’s efforts to
remove himself from consideration, to indicate that his
finances might be troubled-a lack of the ready which
he sought to emphasize with some of his more prepos terous wagers-the interest had persisted. Increasingly,
the young ladies indicated that they shouldn’t much
mind a brief marriage-if it were succeeded by a wellfunded, and no doubt equally brief, mourning.

Which brought him to his Aunt Adeline’s plans. She
had, she claimed, unintentionally permitted him this holiday. But she had her hopes for the family, or, more accurately, for its expansion. He might kick over the traces
for a time, but she expected him to do his duty, preferably by marrying a young lady of her choosing. And she
had recently fixed her hopes on the beautiful and buoyant
Lady Katherine, young Lord Formsby’s sister.

Sidley sighed.

He had been enjoying his idyll, with its glorious absence of accountability. Though his aunt had accused
him of making an exhibition of himself, she could not
truly fault him. He had only done what any exhausted
and relieved veteran of the years-long Peninsular campaign might reasonably have been expected to do in his
first weeks home-and to the same excess. Though he
was to some extent limited by his still-game leg, all his
other faculties had recovered. Aunt Adeline wanted him
to turn his mind to the future-and so he had. Not a day
passed that he did not deal with correspondence regarding Aldersham or the other estates, Sidley House, tenants, workmen, or vexations of one sort or another. He
knew his romp must shortly end. But Lady Katherine?
He did not wish to apply himself to marriage and setting
up a nursery. Certainly there could be no reason for hurry. He was still shy of thirty. He was not, after all, fading
any more precipitously than the next man.

“If Lady Adeline knows,” Lord Benjamin mused
aloud, having taken again to pacing, “why won’t she convince everyone?”

“She has tried, Benny,” Sidley said, “but the mob will
not budge. Once having placed me on my last legs, society is equally determined to topple me into my grave. I
shall probably have fathered my third child before all of
them awake to the reality.”

“You intend to be a father, then?” Vaughn asked.

Sidley sent his friend a guarded look. Vaughn had
ever been too perceptive. “Not imminently. I should
hardly have troubled to go to such lengths to evade the
matchmakers if I were eager to deliver up an heir.”

“Then why your pronounced interest in Miss Ware?”

“‘Pronounced’? I assure you, I have no interest in
Miss Ware”

“You stared at her for fully twenty minutes at the Osbornes’ rout last week”

“Did I? I was unaware of it. As was she”

“Why’d you intervene yesterday evening, then?”
Benny asked.

“Because the young lady was at a disadvantage. I believe only I should place people at a disadvantage.”

Benny grinned but pressed, “And you played the gallant that first time as well-because she was at a disadvantage?”

“Perhaps I needn’t `play,’ you young cub. Perhaps Miss Ware inspires gallantry. But you forget she had her
cousin Formsby as escort. You may have observed that
he lacks a certain care. Miss Ware might easily have
suffered a fall. Indeed, Formsby is so shortsighted, he
sees little beyond his lapels” Sidley pointedly brushed
his own lapels.

“How I admire you, Sidley!” Lord Benjamin gushed.
“To be in town mere weeks, and all the crack! New, and
unknown, and unlikely to last! ‘Tis such a coup! My
word, I am in awe!”

Sidley shook his head at Benny’s raptures. He and
Vaughn had taken the younger man in hand as a favor to
Benjamin’s father, the Duke of Derwin. His Grace, fearing that his third son’s enthusiasms might otherwise lead
the boy into more mischief than the scamp had already
sampled, had pressed an oversight role upon the two
older men.

“Before you commend him too thoroughly, Benny,”
Vaughn cautioned, “let us see how he extricates himself
from this business.”

“You doubt that I shall?” Sidley asked.

“Confessing to such a clanker will be hard enoughwithout the added difficulty.”

“‘Added difficulty’?”

“You are in very grave danger, my friend.”

“Grave danger, hah!” Benny laughed. “I like that!”

But Sidley was not to be diverted. “Explain yourself,
Vaughn,” he said sharply.

“Miss Ware.”

“Miss Ware is in no danger. I do not trifle with young
ladies’-”

“‘Tis your danger I mentioned, not hers.”

“What’s this, then?” Benny asked. “Isn’t Miss Ware
just a bit of a sparrow?”

As Sidley’s glance narrowed on Benny, Vaughn
laughed. “You lack discernment, Benny,” he said. “The
girl is lovely.”

“Undoubtedly,” Sidley agreed. “Since your taste runs
to painted opera dancers, Benny, or-to stretch your
metaphor-to flamingos, Miss Ware’s subtler attractions must elude you. I myself should most liken her
to-oh, a thrush, perhaps. Or a nightingale.” He did not
look at his friends as he dabbed more powder onto his
face. “Never forget that paint tends to mask more than
it reveals, young Benny”-he turned at last from his
mirror-“and that a gown tends to reveal more than any
woman suspects we see”

As Benny laughed again, Vaughn snorted. “You look
even more ashen than you did yesterday.”

“That is the aim, my friend.”

“But since you will be recovering … ?”

“Not yet”

“You will not long be able to hide your own health,
Lee. You bested Hewitt yesterday morning at Jackson’s.”
“

“But I have not yet bested you, Vaughn.”

I would take out your leg.”

“No one else would dare. So you see, I am not fit
enough”

Benny was again pacing with his annoyingly youthful
energy. “Miss Ware, a thrush?” he repeated. “Yes, I see
it. She is pretty enough, I ‘spore, if viewed apart from
her cousin, Lady K. Else she wouldn’t be betrothed”

Sidley checked himself in the act of pulling on his
gloves. “Miss Ware is betrothed?” he asked lightly. “To
whom?”

“Does it matter?” Vaughn asked.

“Oh, some naval lieutenant,” Benny supplied. “From
her home in Northants. Apparently a friend of her
brother, the curate. We had it from Wilfred last night.”

“And why did you not tell me this last night?”

“Does it matter?” Vaughn repeated.

“Why,” Benny responded, “we was travelin’ on to
Brooks’s, and it completely slipped my mind. I-”

“‘Tis nothing,” Sidley said quickly, turning to examine his collar closely in the mirror. He concentrated with
some effort. “Where is this naval lieutenant?”

“Where would you wish him, Sidley?” Vaughn asked.
“The bottom of the sea? He is due back from Gibraltar
within the month.”

Sidley felt as though a much-anticipated meal had just
been removed from in front of his nose. The reaction surprised him; perhaps Vaughn was right, and he really had
been in some danger. He would not have credited it, on
such short acquaintance.

He forced himself to smile at Vaughn as he accepted
his cane from his valet. “Then there is no problem, my
friend. Since I now know Miss Ware to be doomed to the altar, and she believes me simply doomed, we are admirably matched. What harm in that, Vaughn?” And, reflecting that he was a bigger fraud even than his friends
supposed, he escorted them from his dressing room.

“Whatever can he mean by it?” Katie wailed, the
brown paper wrapping slipping from her lap onto
the floor. “Sending Mama a book?”

Marian gazed at Katie’s pretty, puzzled face, then
reached across to rescue the volume before it, too, slid
to the carpet. “‘Tis a beautiful book, Katie.”

“‘Beautiful’! Marian, are you daft? How can a book
be beautiful?” Katie fussed with the wrapping before
setting it aside in an ungainly bundle. “Perhaps there
truly is something wrong with Lord Sidley. In … in an
eccentric way, you understand. And it is a shame, too,
for he is so very handsome. And I do think he dresses
divinely. But I am not at all certain I should find it
agreeable, tolerating some of these pranks he plays”

“Sending a gift of a book is scarcely a prank”

“You may not think it so, Marian, for you like the
dusty old things. Why could he not send flowers-or
some sweets-as all the other gentlemen do?”

“I suspect that is the last thing Lord Sidley should ever
want-” Marian said, staring thoughtfully out the window at the bright afternoon, “-to be like all the other
gentlemen”

She had spent most of the morning painting in Edith’s
charming walled garden, where the late-spring and early-summer blooms warred for prominence. Despite
the auspicious weather, Marian had been unable to
shake her melancholy. Her thoughts had dwelt overmuch on one subject.

Lord Sidley’s sad prospects depressed her. And she
felt crushed, some part of her grieved, that Katie disparaged this magnificent book, which had been forwarded so kindly. Bestowing it might even have been
his last act.

Marian ran her fingers lightly over the binding, then
opened the book. Her aunt had mistakenly assumed the
offering for Katie, but Marian thought that most unlikely. She was convinced that the Microcosm had been
intended for her. And now she must thank the sender,
though she did not know how. She feared to look again
into those laughing eyes and find herself near tears.

At twenty, she had had too much of death. The passing
of her mother and, four years later, her father, had left her
an orphan at sixteen. Her village had lost many men to
decades of war, and for two years Marian had feared for
William Reeves’s safety on the high seas. She would not
have wanted to believe herself callous to any life, but her
dismay at the thought of Lord Sidley’s end confounded
her. She could not attribute her concern to solicitude for
Katie, because Katie seemed remarkably sanguine regarding her favorite’s fate. So Marian had concluded that
she must simply like Lord Sidley, as strange and inexplicable as that thought might be. Because she hardly knew
him and apparently never would.

“‘Twas a kindness to send this, Katie,” she repeated.
“The illustrations are astonishing. You shall see. When
you are away from town, you will treasure this as a remembrance.”

Katie grinned roguishly. “I intend to return to town
often enough never to need a remembrance, Marian.
But you are so sweet to make the best of this. Perhaps
you ought to keep the book, for when you return to
Brinford. You are unlikely to return to town very often
once you are wed”

That was certainly true. William had always claimed
to dislike London. And he had written often enough in
his letters that he had seen his fill of the world. Upon his
return he intended to purchase a holding near Brinford
and never leave. Though she loved Northamptonshire,
Marian found that limited a future difficult to contemplate.

Her fingers trembled against the pages. “We must
ask your mother,” she said. “Perhaps she will want it for
the country-for Enderby”

“Oh, Mama never looks at half the books she buys!
Do keep it, Marian. I am convinced you must appreciate it more than any of us, since you know so much
about art”

“Thank you, Katie.” Her cousin’s consideration,
though often carelessly expressed, had always been frequent enough to sustain Marian’s own fondness. “Katie,
Lord Sidley mentioned that Ackermann’s holds an open
night each week, for people to view these prints. I am not certain, but I … I had the impression that he might try
to attend. If we were to go, you might see him there”

“And then I might mention my ball to him in person!
Oh, Marian, how shrewd you are! Why, of course we
shall go! Unless-Well, let us hope it is not tomorrow.
There is Lady Malvern’s supper! Let me just see …”
And she impatiently rang the bell, to ask Jenks to inquire regarding Ackermann’s open evening.

Marian cradled the book and wondered why she
should find it so disastrously affecting that Lord Sidley should be dying, when Katie, who professed to want
to marry the man, should be affected not at all. If Marian were proved correct, and the earl did trouble to grace
the Ackermann’s showing, she sensed it would be in her
best interest to leave him to Katie’s company. If she
were to speak to him, she might embarrass herself, and
he might what? Tease her? Yet she must thank him.