Sheri Cobb South (20 page)

This, then, was what it was like to be courted for one’s wealth and position. This was the sort of behavior of which he had believed Miss Darrington capable. Good God! He must have been mad. Her pride—the same pride that would not allow her to marry a poor man and then sponge off her sister—would prevent her from behaving in so brazen a manner. Unfortunately, he had not the luxury of pondering in what other ways he might have wronged Miss Darrington; one moment’s inattention, he feared, and he might find himself betrothed willy-nilly to Miss Prescott.

His worst fears were confirmed after dinner, when the ladies excused themselves from the table.

“Now that it’s just you and me,” said Mr. Prescott, dispensing port into two glasses with a liberal hand, “we can talk business—dowries and jointures and such. I’ll wager my Cynthia’s portion won’t be a drop in the bucket to you, but—”

“Sir, I fear you are laboring under a misapprehension,” James protested. “Your daughter rejected my proposal— quite decisively, in fact.”

“Pshaw! I shouldn’t set too much store by that, if I were you. Maidenly modesty, you know—”

“As I recall,” continued James with a trace of the old bitterness, “she laughed in my face.”

“Aye, I’ll not deny she always was a foolish, flighty puss. But a Season in London has smoothed out the rough edges, don’t you know. If you were to ask her again, I’ll wager you would receive a very different response.”

Of that much James was certain—certain enough, at any rate, to know he had no desire to put it to the test. “I had rather show Miss Prescott the courtesy of taking her at her word,” he said in a haughty tone that would have made his ancestors proud. “Now, if you will excuse me, sir, I must make my farewells to the ladies. I must not be late for another engagement.”

* * * *

Although James contrived to make it through dinner without entanglement, he was less sure how to distance himself from a connection the Prescotts seemed determined to exploit. Common courtesy demanded that he call the next morning to thank Mrs. Prescott for her hospitality, and it would have been rude in the extreme not to join the family in their opera box when they had gone to the trouble of saving a seat for him. Likewise, to neglect standing up with Miss Prescott for the waltz at Almack’s would have given rise to just the sort of vulgar speculation he most wished to avoid.

The
ton,
of course, knew nothing of his dilemma. They knew only that the duke of Montford and the divine Miss Prescott were constantly in one another’s company. The romantically minded whispered of young love torn apart long ago by parental ambition; the less charitable observed that Miss Prescott must feel a pretty fool, having unwittingly whistled a duke down the wind.
On one thing, however, all were agreed: an Interesting Announcement was surely imminent.

Such was the social climate when, in early October, the Misses Darrington arrived in London.

While it could not be said that Margaret looked forward to the trip with anything approaching her sister’s eagerness, she was more than ready for a change of scenery. Every room of her beloved childhood home now seemed somehow empty without a certain male presence, and every autumn breeze seemed to whisper his name. As she helped Aunt Hattie pack Philip’s bags for school, Margaret could not help wondering where Mr. Fanshawe was, and whether he had found other employment. Even the plans for Amanda’s wedding lost much of their charm, accompanied as they were by a mocking voice in Margaret’s head that chided,
It might have been you . . .

It was somehow fittingly ironic that, having been at last banished from Margaret’s girlhood fantasies by a far less eligible (and yet somehow infinitely more appealing) alternate, the name upon all of London’s lips should be that of the duke of Montford.

“His disappearance and apparent resurrection from the dead have made him the talk of Society,” explained their hostess, Peregrine’s aunt Windhurst, as the sisters prepared for their maiden visit to Almack’s. “Add to that his very marked courtship of the Season’s most celebrated beauty— although there are those who say the Beauty is courting him—and you have all the makings of an
on dit.”

“Oh, is the duke to be married, then?” asked Amanda, fastening a string of milky white pearls about her slender neck. “Think of it, Meg, Montford Priory will have a mistress at last.”

“I can think only that it might have been you,” retorted Margaret with a smile. “Depend upon it, the duke will be beside himself when he sees what an opportunity he has lost.”

“Does it still bother you that I am not to make a brilliant match?” asked Amanda, slipping her arm about Margaret’s waist.

Margaret returned her sister’s embrace. “All that matters is that you are happy,” she said, and tried hard to believe it. “My only regret is that you are to leave me, just like Philip, and I shall be left all alone.”

“You will still have Aunt Hattie,” Amanda pointed out with the brutal candor of youth.

“Miss Darrington may well make a match of her own,” put in Lady Windhurst. “Depend upon it, there are many gentlemen who have no desire to wed a chit from the schoolroom.”

Margaret smiled, but made no reply. She had rebuffed one such gentleman during her own Season, and might have had offers from a few others, had she given them the least encouragement. Alas, she’d had no desire to marry them then, and she had even less desire to do so now, when they must forever fall short of a certain tutor of her acquaintance.

At last the final ribbon was tied and the final curl pinned into place. In no time at all, Peregrine was at the door, ready to escort his ladies to that pinnacle of social heights, Almack’s.

“I am sure you both remember the rules,” said Lady Windhurst, enumerating them nonetheless. “The doors close promptly at eleven, and no one—not even the hero of Waterloo, Wellington himself—will be admitted after that time. You may stand up for any of the country dances, but do not accept any gentleman’s invitation to waltz unless you have been granted permission from one of the patronesses. Oh, and speaking of patronesses, be sure to express your gratitude to Lady Jersey, who granted your vouchers.”

Once inside the hallowed portals, the Darrington sisters were surprised to find their surroundings so very ordinary. Lady Palmer’s ballroom had been more ornately decorated than the rather austere King Street establishment. But if the rooms themselves were somewhat plain, the occupants more than made up for the lack of ostentation. Here were elegant dandies with shirt-points so high they could scarcely turn their heads, military men whose bright red coats bristled with medals, blushing damsels in demure white muslin, and dashing young matrons in daring
décolletage.

“Pray, Lady Windhurst, who is
that?”
Amanda asked. Although Amanda was far too well bred to point, Margaret had no difficulty in identifying the object of her curiosity. Across the room, a dark-haired vision in primrose yellow laughed up into the adoring gazes of a cluster of admiring gentlemen. The radiance of her smile was such that all eyes were drawn to her like moths to a flame.

“That is Miss Cynthia Prescott,” her ladyship replied.

“Known in certain circles as the Peerless Miss Prescott,” added Peregrine.

“And, did they but know it, the gentlemen buzzing about her like so many honeybees are wasting their time,” her ladyship continued. “Miss Prescott is rumored to be on the verge of becoming betrothed to the duke of Montford.”

“Only fancy, Meg, she might soon be our neighbor! Which one do you suppose is the duke?” Amanda inquired eagerly, standing on tiptoe for a better look.

“Er, hadn’t we better dance?” Peregrine put in hastily. “The next set is about to form.”

“Yes, yes, in a minute.” Amanda patted her fiancé’s arm placatingly. “First I want to see the duke.”

Lady Windhurst scanned the crowd about Miss Prescott. “His Grace is—” She frowned, finding no sign of him. “It appears his Grace is not in attendance tonight. He is not usually difficult to spot, for he stands quite half a head taller than anyone else in the room.”

Margaret, watching as the Beauty laughed and flirted with her court, felt the last of her dreams shatter into a thousand pieces. What folly, to think that any man capable of attaching such loveliness would ever look twice at anything rural Montford had to offer! What a fool she had been! Her plans for salvaging her family’s fortunes had been doomed from the start.

* * * *

James, his shaking fingers struggling to coax his cravat into a waterfall knot, made one false move and inadvertently wrecked the work of the last quarter-hour. Ripping the creased strip of linen from his neck, he muttered a word he would never have spoken from the Fairford pulpit, and felt instantly ashamed of himself. Had the duke already banished the curate so completely?

“If we may be excused for saying so,” his plural valet interposed, “the doors of Almack’s will be shut at eleven, and it is already more than half past ten.”

“Thank you, Doggett, we are—that is, I am well aware of the time,” said James, reaching for yet another cravat to mangle.

“His Grace appears somewhat restless this evening,” observed the valet, displaying a hitherto unsuspected talent for understatement. “Perhaps we may be of some assistance?”

Much as it galled James to admit that, after twenty-seven years, he was suddenly incapable of dressing himself, he could not dispute the evidence of his own reflection in the looking glass. He surrendered the cravat into his valet’s capable hands without protest.

“Very good, your Grace,” pronounced this individual, beaming with approval. “We shall have you ready in a trice. If we may be so bold, we would not wish to disappoint Miss Prescott, would we?”

In point of fact, it was not Miss Prescott who was uppermost in James’s mind. It was, if the valet had only known, a certain card that had been delivered with the afternoon post. This billet, scrawled in Peregrine’s untidy hand, informed James of that young man’s arrival in Town only that afternoon and indicated his intention of calling upon James the next day, as that evening would find him occupied in escorting his betrothed to Almack’s.

And where Amanda went, James reasoned, Margaret would very likely follow. . . .

He arrived at Almack’s a scant five minutes before eleven, and was welcomed effusively by no less a personage than Lady Jersey herself.

“Fie on you, your Grace, for keeping us waiting so long!” she chided, bearing down upon him with ostrich plumes bobbing in her hair. “Poor Miss Prescott has been cooling her heels since nine o’clock. You had best have a care, or someone else will take advantage of your negligence and snatch her away. Shall I take you to her?”

“In a moment,” replied James, scanning the crowd from his superior height. “First I should like you to introduce me to that young lady there.”

Lady Jersey craned her neck in an effort to follow his gaze. “Which one?”

“Right there, the one talking to Lady Windhurst.”

“Ah, the Darrington girl! Very well, your Grace, but I must warn you that she is already betrothed.”

“No, no, not Miss Amanda. The other—her sister.”

The room was filled to overflowing, but such was Lady Jersey’s influence that a word here, a tap of her fan there, and the crowd parted before them. At last James stood near enough to his erstwhile employer that he might have reached out and touched her.

“Miss Darrington,” said the patroness, “may I present the duke of Montford, who is eager to make your acquaintance?”

Margaret turned with a swirl of ivory satin, and froze. Every drop of color drained from her face as she took in every detail of his changed appearance, from his stylishly cropped golden hair to the kid-leather pumps on his feet.

“Miss Darrington,” he said, taking her gloved hand. Then, just before touching his lips to her cold fingers, he unwittingly sealed his fate. He winked.

“Forgive me, Lady Jersey,” Margaret said in a steady yet expressionless voice quite unlike her own, “but I must beg to be excused. I find I have no desire for the duke’s acquaintance.”

And so saying, she snatched her hand from James’s grasp and fled the room.

Chapter 14

Twelve hours later, Margaret sat slump-shouldered in Lady Windhurst’s sunny breakfast room, idly stirring a cup of tea that had already been cold a quarter-hour ago.

“I suppose I have put myself completely beyond the pale,” she observed, avoiding the frankly accusing gaze of her hostess. The two ladies were alone in the breakfast room, Amanda being still abed after her night of revelry. By contrast, Morpheus had been unkind to Margaret, leaving her to toss and turn throughout the long watches of the night.

“Indeed, you have.” Lady Windhurst reached across the table to still Margaret’s restless hand by the simple expedient of covering it with her own. “Delivering the cut direct is not an act that should be done lightly at any time, my dear. When one delivers it to a wealthy and aristocratic gentleman who is also the darling of Society, well, one may hardly expect to emerge unscathed.”

Margaret sighed. “I beg your pardon, my lady. It was not my intention to embarrass you, particularly not when you have been so very kind to my sister and me. I was merely taken by surprise. You see, I—the duke and I are already acquainted.”

A gleam of ironic humor lit Lady Windhurst’s gray eyes, rendering her ladyship a bit less forbidding. “Yes, I rather surmised as much.” When Margaret offered no explanation, she prompted, “Perhaps you would feel better for having told me.”

Margaret took a deep breath. “I knew him, but not as the duke of Montford. In fact, until quite recently he was a part of my own household. I engaged him myself, to teach Latin to my younger brother. He called himself Mr. Fanshawe.” There was more, of course, so much more, but Margaret could not bring herself to speak of it. Indeed, she could hardly bear to think of it without feeling a sudden urge to crawl off into a corner somewhere and howl like a wounded animal.

Her hostess’s carefully plucked eyebrows flew upward. “The duke of Montford, teaching Latin under an assumed name? Extraordinary! Have you any idea why he should have sought such a position?”