Petticoat Rebellion (5 page)

The dinner table was not the opulent display Abbie had half feared and half hoped. In fact, the dining room was not at all grand, but a cozy room with an unfashionable hearth and a table that seated eight comfortably, and with squeezing might have accommodated ten. A simple bouquet of wildflowers formed the centerpiece. The array of knives and forks was only moderate, as was the meal. The simplicity of the arrangement was soon explained.

“Do you usually take dinner in the morning parlor, cousin?”
Lady Susan asked Penfel.

“I didn’t know Algie was coming,”
his mama replied from the foot of the table, making clear she did not consider the ladies alone enough reason to set up the grander dining room. “If I had known you were coming, Algie, I would have had a better dinner. For school chits, you know, it did not seem worthwhile ordering the fatted calf. We have just got our Metcalfe relatives blasted off. They were here for two weeks, and you know how they like to eat! You were not here to shoot any game for us. The chickens are decimated. Johnnie has put on a couple of pounds, and I feel like a Strasbourg goose myself. Cook did us proud. She deserves a rest.”

Lady Penfel had met her match in outspokenness. “The dinner is not so bad as to require an apology, cousin,”
Lady Susan said. “At school, we are always served only one course and one remove. I have eaten even tougher mutton than this at Miss Slatkin’s.”

“And at Wycliffe, if memory serves. Your mama sets a dreadful table.”
She shook her head and gave a tsk. “Poor Nettie. But then she was never trained to be a duchess. Such a wretched chore for her, trying to run a house the size of Wycliffe. It only encourages hangers-on, having a place the size of a hotel. For myself, I find fifty bedchambers sufficient.”

“Really?”
Susan said, surprised. “For small house parties, I daresay you manage. A duke, of course, entertains on a grand scale. Papa spoke of adding a wing after King George and Queen Charlotte stayed with us one autumn. We had a deal of other company—it was at the time of my brother, Lord Godfel’s, marriage to Lady Sylvia Trane. Her papa is also a duke—a very suitable match in every way. Godfel, of course, is Papa’s eldest son. Their majesties brought several of their children and fourteen servants, and stayed a month.”

“Royal servants are more trouble than their masters,”
Lady Penfel scolded. “I did not find old Farmer George any trouble at all. He was as easily amused as a child, but those ladies-in-waiting! They were as proud as peacocks. Farmer George was a great help in the vegetable garden. I remember he and a couple of the princesses picked beans for our dinner one evening.”

“Ah, that would be after he became mad,”
Susan said, and tackled another bite of the tough mutton.

The ladies from Miss Slatkin’s were accustomed to Lady Susan, but being with new company made them aware of her unconscious rudeness. Abbie felt positively sorry for Penfel when she turned to him and asked in no quiet voice, “Why did Lady Eleanor turn you off, cousin? Was it because of your rackety reputation, or were your pockets to let?”

Penfel smiled blandly, “What a lack of imagination, Susan. There are other reasons.”

She nodded, always happy to learn something new. “What are these other reasons?”
She glanced at her hostess. “There is not insanity in the Penfel family, is there, ma’am?”

“Only a touch,”
she replied, then turned to her elder son. “I daresay you got too forward with Lady Eleanor, eh, Algie? She is one of those schoolmistressy gels who raises a hue and cry if a gentleman tries to snuggle her. Fancy a son of mine losing control with Eleanor Bagshot. It would be like kissing a cow. The Bagshots all have those great calf eyes and placid expressions.”

“Was that it, lechery?”
Susan asked Penfel.

“How are you liking school, Susan?”
was his reply.

“Fine. You did not answer me, Penfel.”

He gave her a haughty stare. “It is not only ladies who grow deaf when the conversation is unsuitable for mixed company. I wonder they do not teach manners at Miss Slatkin’s Academy.”

He looked down the board, where Kate and Annabelle were snickering into their napkins, and Abbie was working heroically to dismember a
piece of mutton from her chop. “What subject do you teach, Miss Fairchild?”
he asked.

Abbie sensed the moment had come to broach the da Vinci cartoons, “I teach art,”
she said. “I have been to Penfel Hall three times before to admire your magnificent collection.”

Mr. Singleton looked up and stared at her with dawning knowledge. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.

Penfel and Abbie discussed art intelligently for a few moments, then she said, “I have never seen the da Vinci cartoons, as they are not on display. I am a great admirer of da Vinci. Would it be possible to see them?”

“I’ll show them to you tomorrow,”
he replied promptly. “They’re really marvelous, but perishing a little around the edges, you know, being so old. That is why they are not on display.”

“Leonardo lived from the late fifteenth to early sixteenth century,”
Lady Susan informed them. “That would make the sketches three hundred years old. Naturally, it is one’s duty to preserve such priceless treasures. Papa, the duke, feels the weight of responsibility in that respect. Wycliffe has so many irreplaceable artworks. He has seven Van Dycks at Wycliffe and three Rembrandts, along with many Italian masterpieces. Also a collection of Chinese jade, and a small golden epergne in the Blue Saloon, said to be the work of Bernini—he was an Italian sculptor of the seventeenth century. In the front hall, there is a quartet of life-size statues of the seasons by Canova. And in the—”

“Why do you not send us a catalog, dear?”
Lady Penfel said.

“I would be very happy to, ma’am. I didn’t know you were interested in art.”

“I’m not.”

Mr. Singleton made a choking sound in his throat. Abbie glanced at Penfel, and saw he was watching her closely, with an amused smile twitching his lips. He lifted his glass and made a silent toast in her direction. For that brief moment, she felt a special closeness to him, as if they two alone found this strange meal and strange collection of humanity interesting and amusing. It was not a cynical smile, but displayed a tolerant appreciation of foolishness. She felt an answering smile spread across her lips.

“Tell me about the show we shall be seeing tonight, Algie,”
Lady Penfel said, breaking the mood.

Lady Susan blinked once and returned her attention to her dinner. Penfel outlined some of the treats in store for them, and the remainder of the meal passed more lightly. Lady Susan was not allowed to collar the conversation again. As she was not much interested in learning about a circus, she ate instead. Kate was making great headway with Lord John. Once Mr. Singleton discovered Miss Kirby was as ignorant as a swan, he relaxed a little and managed a few questions.

“Ah, er, your papa?”

Strangely, Annabelle, who could usually misunderstand most things, seemed to understand his cryptic utterances.

“Kirby’s ale,”
she replied. “Are you familiar with it, Mr. Singleton?”

“Excellent stuff. Prefer it to Whitbread’s.”

“Really? I shall tell Papa. Are you a teacher like Miss Fairchild?”

“That’s it.”

“You must be very smart.”

“Not pretty, though, like—”

“No, handsome,”
Annabelle said. Singleton turned bright scarlet.

The gentlemen made short work of their port after dinner while the ladies went abovestairs to remove their jewelry and don their mantles. They were all soon back in the saloon, eager to attend the circus. With three gentlemen escorts, Abbie did not think any harm could befall them. When they left, Lady Susan had a firm grip on Penfel’s right arm, his mama on his left. Lord John offered Kate his arm, and Mr. Singleton, for the first time in his life, had the pleasure of escorting two pretty ladies out the door. Neither of them paid him the least heed. Abbie was too busy admiring Penfel’s manly figure, and Annabelle’s chatter was all about Lord John and Kate.

“I believe she has a
tendre
for him,”
she said, smiling at such romantical doings. “He is very handsome, is he not, Miss Fairchild?”

“Very handsome—and very young,”
Abbie replied.

A hum that might have been agreement or its opposite issued from Mr. Singleton’s throat.

Abbie could not work up much interest in Kate’s romance. As Penfel left, he had cast one rather wistful look in her direction, shrugged as though to say, “What can I do? I have been shanghaied.”
Then he said over his shoulder, “We shall have a good coze in the morning—about da Vinci.”
But his gleaming eyes did not speak of art.

She did not think again of her first meeting with him until they were actually at the circus ground, when the women’s tent reminded her of it. He had been in that tent, flirting with the showgirls. He had made a date with one of them for later that same evening. He was a lecher—that was why Lady Eleanor had turned him off.

Abbie was determined to see those da Vinci cartoons, to copy them if possible, but she must be on her guard against their flirtatious owner, who could say more with his flashing eyes than most gentlemen could say with words. She sensed he had some interest in her, but common sense told her it could be nothing but a flirtation. But why should she not enjoy a flirtation with a handsome lord? As
his own mama had said, why should gentlemen have all the fun and the ladies have none?

Mr. O’Leary, back in his imitation of an army officer’s uniform, welcomed the audience to O’Leary’s Traveling Circus. The most eager face in the crowd was Lady Penfel’s. Her party had choice seats in the first row of a raised platform that surrounded the central stage. She shrieked in glee when the horses, decked out in head feathers and gilded saddles, were trotted out and performed their tricks. The clowns, the dancing dogs, the bear who balanced a ball on the end of his nose—all were equally enjoyable to this indiscriminating lady, and indeed to her guests, for at Miss Slatkin’s an evening out meant a dull concert of antique music or a lecture on history, philosophy, or morals. The dancing girls were particularly enjoyed by the gentlemen.

“I could do that!”
Kate boasted, as the girls undulated to the accompaniment of violin and drum.

Lady Susan stared at her as if she had suggested she could dig a ditch. “Ladies do not perform for money,”
she said.

Lord John gave Kate a smile that held a shadow of his older brother’s mischievous charm, “I promise not to pay you if you’d care to perform for us one evening.”

Abbie was so well entertained by the show, she didn’t realize Lord Penfel had left until the intermission, when his mama demanded refreshment. He had sat on one side of Lady Penfel, Abbie on the other, so she had not had a direct view of him; but she had been anticipating the intermission when some rearrangement of the seating was possible, or at least some general conversation.

“Where has Algie gone?”
his mama demanded. “Off chasing the girls, I warrant. Never can keep his hands off a pretty wench. He certainly did not inherit that from his papa. Say what you like about Penfel, he was no womanizer. He hated most women as much as he hated men. You will have to get us refreshment, Johnnie. Do they have any ices?”

“It is a little chilly for ices,”
he replied, and went after lemonade and gingerbread.

There was some moving about and changing of seats during the intermission. When they regrouped, Abbie found herself on the end of the row, with Mr. Singleton on one side and an empty seat on the other. Mr. Singleton’s attention was riveted on Miss Kirby.

As enjoyable as the show was, Abbie felt some pleasure had gone out of the evening. She wondered which one of the dancers Penfel was meeting. The saucy redhead, the voluptuous blond, or the vivacious brunet? Still, it was a salutary lesson for her. She meant no more to him than these circus girls. She would bear it in mind next time he tried his flirting tricks. As if fate were determined to put her to the test, he immediately appeared in the empty chair by her side.

“What have I missed?”
he asked.

She quelled down her pleasure and replied, “Lemonade and gingerbread.”

“Thank God for small mercies. I have been having a word with O’Leary.”

She gave him a knowing smile. “I see.”

“No, really!”
He uttered a nervous laugh. “Where did you think I had gone?”

“I hadn’t noticed you were missing, until your mama began looking for you.”

“I see I have made a powerful impression on you! O’Leary wanted to purchase oats and hay from me for his horses,”
he said. “I had had a word with my groom, and was arranging the transfer of the feed.”

“I have already told you once, Lord Penfel, you need not account to me for your deeds.”

“This sounds like a friendship made in heaven. A beautiful young lady who has a sense of humor, some conversation, and demands no accounting for one’s misdeeds.”

She noticed the subtle shift from deeds to misdeeds, but didn’t think Penfel was aware of it. He had been doing something he oughtn’t, and the word had slipped out unheeded. “Do you usually feel obliged to account to virtual strangers for your behavior, milord?”

“No, no. I am not so scrupulous as that. Only to charming schoolmistresses who are staying under my roof. One would not like to have his romantic career bruited about Miss Slatkin’s. All the best debs are nurtured there.”

“They would be disappointed to hear your notion of romance is feeding horses,”
she replied. When a quick frown drew his eyebrows together, she said, “That is what you were doing, was it not, arranging feed for the horses?”
Her cynical smile made a jest of the question.

Penfel lowered his head and peered at her from below his eyelashes. “Hoist by my own petard, I believe, is the expression called for here.”

Abbie realized this was not the sort of conversation she ought to be having with her host, and determined to raise the tone. “About the da Vincis, Lord Penfel, when might I—”

“Well done, ma’am!”
he said, and clamped her on the arm. “A quick change of subject is the best slap on the wrist when a gent has allowed the conversation to wander into forbidden purlieus. You seem mighty interested in da Vinci.”