Mutual Consent (12 page)

Babs was astonished by her good fortune, but she was not one to stare a gift horse in the mouth. “Pray produce this paragon,” she said with a laugh.

Lady Azaela pulled the bell rope and requested the footman who answered the bell’s ring to have Cook’s sister sent up immediately to the drawing room.

Upon meeting the worthy Mrs. Fennell, Babs hired her on the spot. She was inordinately pleased and relieved to have her major problem solved so easily for her. The running of the household would again be in firm hands before ever the dowager countess arrived. The shortage of maids was not as pressing an affair. Those left on staff would take up the slack until replacements could be found through the usual way. After Babs made final arrangements with Mrs. Fennell regarding wages and so forth, the remainder other visit with Lady Azaela assumed a carefree note.

As Babs returned to the Chatworth town house, she reflected that she was extremely fortunate that Lady Azaela had chosen so many years ago to take a small frightened girl under her wing so completely. Life would never have been so simple and gratifying otherwise.

Barbara entered the town house and with a smile acknowledged the porter’s greeting. She walked to the stairs and had already placed her hand on the banister and one foot on the first step when she heard the Earl of Chatworth call her name. Babs look around, surprised, and saw that his lordship was standing on the threshold of the open door to the drawing room. “Yes, my lord?”

“Pray come into the drawing room, my dear. There is someone that I think you should meet,’’ said Lord Chatworth.

Babs left the stairs and crossed the entry hall to join her husband. She preceded him into the drawing room and he closed the door behind them.

A lady was sitting on one of the settees. She met Babs’ startled gaze with an arrogant lift of her brows. “Well, Marcus? Will you not introduce us properly?”

For an awful instant, the suspicion flew into her mind that the Earl of Chatworth meant to introduce her to his mistress. But Babs banished the thought almost as swiftly as it had come. The earl might be a rake but he was also a gentleman bred. She therefore smiled at the lady and turned an inquiring look of her own onto her husband.

Lord Chatworth took his wife’s hand and formally escorted her to a chair. There was banked laughter in his gray eyes, but he spoke gravely enough. “My dear, allow me to make known to you Lady Jersey. She is one of the stern patronesses of Almack’s, at whose least displeasure the rest of us poor mortals quail.”

“Pray don’t be more of a fool than you can help, Marcus,” said Lady Jersey sharply, but with an appreciative gleam in her eyes. She turned to the young countess.”What have you to say for yourself, my dear?”

Babs was taken aback by the lady’s forthright, rude manner.”What can I say, my lady, but that I am most happy to make your acquaintance,” she said warily.

Lady Jersey smiled slowly. She stared at Babs for a moment and she was not ill-pleased that the young woman’s eyes did not waver from hers. “I like her, Marcus,” she said suddenly, without looking around at the earl. “She has style and fortitude and she does not toady to one.”

Babs was angered to be discussed as though she were not present. “I thank you, ma’am.”

Lady Jersey and Lord Chatworth had laughed. When Babs glanced up to meet his lordship’s gaze, she was startled by the degree of warmth and approval in his expression. He reached down to raise her gloved fingers to his lips. “You’ll do, Babs,” he said.

“Indeed she will, with my help,” said Lady Jersey. “I intend to sponsor her at Almack’s myself, Marcus. That will put a few noses out of joint, but I shan’t care for that.’’ She smiled again at Babs, whose cool expression was undergoing swift transition to one of amazement. “You are already a
cause célebre,
my dear, and you have yet to enter society. Everyone wonders how and why you captured our most unbridled gentleman, and there are such things said! But I shan’t sully your ears with such malicious gossip. You shall hear it for yourself before much longer, I’ll warrant.” She rose and extended her hand to Babs, and the ladies shook hands briefly.

Lady Jersey turned to the earl and reached up to buss him soundly on the cheek. Her eyes were sparkling wickedly as she glanced slyly at the young countess.”I would watch this gentleman closely if I were you, my dear. He is too attractive to be allowed to roam loose among the restless hens of society.’’ She saw that she had managed to ruffle the earl’s composure, and she was still laughing as she sailed out of the drawing room on her host’s arm.

Lord Chatworth returned from seeing out the illustrious visitor. He still wore the frown that had descended upon his face at Lady Jersey’s needling. “Lady Jersey’s manners often border on the ill-bred,” he said.

“I rather liked her ladyship, actually. She was refreshingly frank,” Babs said.

The earl raised his brows. “Indeed! We shall not argue the issue, I think, but rather I shall congratulate you upon making a favorable impression on the lady. Lady Jersey’s sponsorship of you into Almack’s virtually guarantees your acceptance by society.”

“Does it, indeed?” murmured Babs, her thoughts inevitably on a past time when such sponsorship was so sorely needed but unforthcoming to an unknown tradesman’s daughter. Certainly her fortunes had changed for the better with her marriage, she thought wryly.

Lord Chatworth found his wife’s reception of the signal honor done her somewhat lacking in proper enthusiasm. “Your gratitude is hardly overwhelming, my lady.”

Babs was not insensitive to the censorious note in his lordship’s voice. “Is it not, my lord? Perhaps that is because I am not so enamored of society as it would like me to be.”

Lord Chatworth’s brows had drawn hard together and the glance he shot at his wife was impatient. “Come, Babs! Let us have plain speaking between us. The truth of the matter is that you have neither the confidence nor the polish necessary to carry off a high hand against those arbiters of taste and fashion. I recommend that you begin acting the part that better suits you.”

“And what is that, my lord?” she asked quietly, though there was a dangerous light in her eyes.

The earl smiled in his mocking way. “Why, that of dutiful wife.” His eyes grew cold. “As I told you before, my lady, I expect you to live up to the position I granted to you with that ring upon your finger. I expect grace and dignity and tact from my wife.”

“As well as blind eyes and deaf ears,” Babs said swiftly.

Lord Chatworth smiled, but the expression did not quite reach his eyes. “Exactly so, Babs,” he said silkily. He stepped close to her and pretended not to notice that she started back from him before she caught herself and stood her ground. There was a scared defiance in her eyes that he found that he detested. “I also expect a proper respect from my wife.”

Babs could not quite steady her breathing. “When have I not expressed a ‘proper respect,’ Marcus?”

“This morning you left the study in a rare tantrum at learning of my mother’s arrival,” said Lord Chatworth. “I warn you now that I shall not have any rag-mannered harridan presiding at the same table with the dowager countess.”

“Is that all?” Babs spluttered on a laugh as she recalled that she had slammed the study door. She saw that her reaction had infuriated him further and she reached up a hand to his arm. “Forgive me, Marcus. But you have no notion what a rarity it is for me to act thus. I suppose that I possess a measure of the same temper that I have occasionally seen exhibited in your own nature.”

It was a potent shot and she knew it. She was rewarded for her shrewdness when a reluctant laugh was wrested from him. Lord Chatworth covered her hand with his. He looked down at her, a smile still touching his lips. “You are an intelligent wench, I do grant you that,” he said.

He would have said more, but the door to the drawing room was pushed open and a caller was ushered in. Upon seeing who had come in, Babs’ face tightened.

Lord Chatworth dropped his wife’s hand and turned fully to the gentleman who strode slowly about the drawing room as though on an inspection tour. “Cribbage.” The earl’s voice was flat of all expression, as was his face. “To what do we owe this visit?”

Cribbage gave the faintest of smiles. His hard eyes left the earl’s face to flicker toward his daughter’s appalled expression. “Why, is it not usual to call upon the newly wedded couple and offer one’s felicitations?”

“Consider that you have done so,” said Lord Chatworth.

Cribbage’s expression froze; only his eyes remained alive to illustrate his banked fury. Finally he said, “I should like to speak to my daughter in private, my lord.”

Barbara made an instinctive gesture of appeal that surprised the earl. She had long since schooled her expression to one of cool inquiry, but she could not disguise the tenseness of her fingers as they slipped about his elbow. Lord Chatworth did not glance down at his wife as he replied to the man whose presence was so obviously unwelcome to her.

“I do not think that I can countenance that, sir.” At Cribbage’s expression of slack-jawed astonishment, he allowed his twisted smile to come to the fore. “You have forgotten, Cribbage. This lady is no longer just your daughter. She is my wife, and my wishes must take precedence where she is concerned.”

Cribbage had himself fully under control again. “I shall not pretend to misunderstand, my lord.’’ His glittering eyes left the earl’s insufferable expression of arrogance to settle on his daughter’s face.

Babs shuddered inwardly at the promise that she saw in her father’s eyes, but she did not glance away from his furious gaze. She held on to the earl’s arm like a lifeline, grateful for his presence and his strength. She could never have defied her father in such a way.

Cribbage ground his teeth together but he said not another word. He swung around on his heel and stomped out of the drawing room. For good measure, he pulled the door to with a violent hand that left the air vibrating.

Babs let go of the earl’s arm and turned away from him. She still felt shaken and she had no wish for him to see it in her eyes. She had already learned that Lord Chatworth was uncannily prescient where she was concerned.

“I see now where you acquired it.”

“What?” Babs turned her head at that, startled.

Lord Chatworth smiled lazily at her. “Why, the art of slamming doors, of course.”

She laughed shakily. “I suppose that must be so. But how ungallant of you to point it out, my lord.”

“I shall be more ungallant still and inquire why it is that you fear your father so greatly.” There was no longer a teasing note in his voice.

Babs turned her eyes aside swiftly, afraid that her expression was too easily read. Though she was not looking at him, she felt when he came up close beside her. His breath ruffled the wisps of hair on her neck that had escaped their plaits. She stepped hastily away. “How ridiculous! Why ever should I fear my father, my lord? I find that I should like some wine. Shall I pour a glass for you as well, Marcus?”

She went quickly to the occasional table and picked up one of the decanters. Her wrist was caught in an iron grip that slowly forced her to lower the decanter back to the table. She did not look around, all too aware of the weight of shoulder and arm that pressed against her and the hand that still imprisoned her wrist. She let go of the neck of the decanter and her fingers closed against her palm.

“All right, Marcus. Since you ask it of me, I shall give you the truth. I have always been frightened of my father. He seemed overpowering and awesome to me as a child, and I suppose that I have never been capable of shaking free of my childish impressions of him.” That much at least was part of the truth. She bit her lip, hoping that would be the end of it.

She gasped when he pulled her around and caught her against him.

Lord Chatworth held her by the wrists. He looked down into her wide eyes searchingly. What he saw seemed to satisfy him. He released her and Babs backed a step until she could grasp the edge of the table behind her.

“I shall accept that at face value, my lady. But I must advise you that if I discover you are hiding something from me that will in any way undermine my ability to win free of your father’s noisome intrusion into my life, it will go very hard with you,” Lord Chatworth said quietly.

“There is nothing— nothing of that sort. I give you my word,” said Babs shakily. She had the distinct impression that in him she faced an incalculable danger of a sort that had never before come into her experience.

The earl bowed to her then. His expression did not warm, nor did he utter another word. He exited the drawing room, leaving her still standing against the table and staring at the space he had vacated.

The days passed swiftly and the date of the dowager Countess of Chatworth’s visit came too soon for Barbara. She awaited her mother-in-law’s arrival with scarcely disguised and increasing nervousness. She looked up quickly at any opening of the door during dinner, but each time it was only the next course to be served.

After the covers had been removed, she left the earl to his wine and retired to the drawing room. Several minutes later she was startled when his lordship joined her. The Earl of Chatworth had uncharacteristically elected to remain at home that evening in order to be present when his mother arrived. He was disinclined for conversation and indicated it by opening the newspapers.

The hour continued to advance, the ticking of the clock loud in the silence between herself and Lord Chatworth. Babs had difficulty concentrating on her embroidery and she noticed that the earl could not seem to settle himself comfortably with his newspapers. The butler brought in the after-dinner coffee and later returned to carry it back out. Still the dowager countess had not arrived.

The growing lateness of the hour served to make Lord Chatworth anxious on his mother’s behalf, and as a consequence, his countenance was more forbidding than usual.

Babs made an attempt to introduce light conversation, but his lordship was barely civil in his short replies. His impatient eyes strayed often to the clock. Babs saw only that her husband was bored in her company.