The Ardent Lady Amelia (4 page)

A strange thing happened after that night. Whereas Amelia could not recall having seen Lord Verwood at a solitary entertainment previous to that time, now she saw him everywhere. He was at evening parties, at routs, at assemblies, at balls, at breakfasts. He was there in Hyde Park when she went riding or driving, he was in Bond Street when she went shopping. He was even, occasionally, in the house in Grosvenor Square.

Not that he paid the least attention to her. If they chanced actually to face each other, he would give her an icy sort of smile and murmur her name, as though he could barely recollect it. He never stood up with her for a dance, nor brought her a glass of ratafia, though she saw him dance a few times, despite his limp, and bring other young women beverages, though he hardly accomplished the task in the approved gallant manner.

It annoyed her to see that, after the first few days, he dressed just like all the other elegant gentlemen. Amelia couldn’t feel that he looked comfortable in the tight pants and the exquisite coats, but no one else seemed to notice. His neckcloths were now arranged with all the fanciful falls and knots one could possibly wish — not too high, always a sparkling white. Amelia decided he must have acquired a valet, a teasing remark which she tried out on her Aunt Trudy.

“A valet?” the older woman grunted. “Well, of course he’d have a valet, Amelia. Every proper gentleman has a valet.”

“I thought you didn’t regard him as quite a proper gentleman. You said yourself that he was odd.”

“Odd? Not a bit of it. I’ve seen him absolutely everywhere this past week, and there’s not a thing out of the ordinary about him. He doesn’t talk a great deal, to be sure, but then, you’re always complaining about the gentlemen who  blather on about nothing. I should think you’d find him a refreshing change.”

As Trudy had not particularly noticed that Lord Verwood never spoke to her at all, Amelia had no intention of enlightening her. “Has he told you more about himself?”

Trudy gave her a haughty glance. “I’m not one to press where a gentleman wishes to preserve his privacy. His silence is no more than a healthy reserve. We discussed architecture at Lady Morestead’s ball, and he was eminently knowledgeable on the subject. I haven’t the least doubt that his own home is Jacobean, since he is most informed on that subject. One can learn a great deal by simply reading between the lines, my dear.”

From her friend Clarissa Shipton, Amelia was able to find out very little about the viscount. “Verwood?” she said as she studied one of her shoes, wiggling it back and forth and comparing it with the other. “You know, I do think the left one looks slightly larger, Amelia. And it’s a bit loose on my foot. I’m going to have to take it back, I’m afraid, and they’ll never be able to match it perfectly. Mother says he’s from Derbyshire. He’s been in the army, though she couldn’t find out whether he’ll be returning or not. In Egypt, I believe it was. Now, why would they fight in Egypt when Napoleon’s in Europe?”

Amelia made no attempt to explain the ramifications of the fiasco in Egypt, since she knew Clarissa wasn’t really interested. That Mrs. Shipton, a woman whose reputation for knowing everything about everyone was as well known as her astonishing penchant for wearing all of her jewelry at once, didn’t know more about Verwood surprised and alarmed Amelia. “Did your mother find out if he was married?”

“Married?” Clarissa abruptly allowed both feet, which had been swinging in the air for her inspection, to snap back against the floor. This was almost an accomplishment for her, since she was so tiny that in many chairs her feet didn’t even reach the ground. “Are you interested in him, Amelia?”

“No, of course I’m not interested in him. That is, not personally. I just feel there’s a great deal of mystery about him. No one seems to know anything at all.”

“I’ve seen him around with your brother. Why don’t you ask him?”

“I
have
asked him. Peter told me absolutely nothing. You wouldn’t think Lord Verwood could just mingle in society with no one knowing where he came from, or who he was, would you?”

“Well, I dare say Peter’s vouched for him, my dear. He doesn’t look very mysterious—Verwood. Just sort of stiff and uncompromising. Not a comfortable chap, if you know what I mean. Did you think the title wasn’t real?”

“Oh, no. Peter seems to believe in it, and Peter isn’t easily fooled. Couldn’t your mother find out anything else?”

“My dear Amelia, what are you suggesting?” Clarissa demanded with a twinkle in her eyes. “Surely you don’t think Mama is inquisitive! Hardly more so than Miss Harting, I promise you.” Clarissa laughed and tapped one of her shoes against the floor. “I don’t see what’s so interesting about Lord Verwood, anyhow. His face is quite sun-browned and rather... rough. And those eyes. I had the odd feeling he could tell what I was thinking when he looked at me. Perhaps I won’t return the shoes after all. You didn’t notice the difference, did you?”

Amelia was soon frustrated by this type of response to her queries. No one seemed to know or care from whence Lord Verwood had sprung. For all they noticed, he might have hatched full-blown from an ostrich egg. There seemed little curiosity engendered by his sudden appearance in society, and not even much speculation as to whether he would be an appropriate match for one of the eligible young ladies making her debut that season. The latter might have been caused by his obvious lack of interest in the debutantes, but Amelia suspected the dearth of curiosity stemmed directly from Verwood’s own handling of people who questioned him too closely. He had an uncanny habit of turning the tables on them, asking questions they would have preferred unraised.

Ellis Winchfield, one of her supposed suitors, seemed the most unlikely person to be able to provide some background on the viscount, but Amelia, out of perseverance, posed her standard question to him as they stood together after a country dance at the Candovers’ ball. “Verwood, you say? Known him for years. That’s to say, I knew him years ago. Haven’t seen him since I was fifteen.”

“Where did you meet him?” Amelia asked.

“Well, at school, of course. He was a few years older, come to think of it, so it may be I haven’t seen him since I was thirteen.”

Amelia remained calm, and patient, and dogged. “What school was that, Mr. Winchfield?”

“Why, Harrow, of course. Surely you knew I went to Harrow.”

“Now that you mention it.
. . .
I understand he’s from Derbyshire.”

“Wouldn’t be surprised. Lot of the lads were.”

“Did you know him well?”

“Not to speak of. Only knew him at all because he was great at games, you know. Lord, it makes me shudder to think how all those boys ran around in the mud. We’d stand there and cheer for them while they knocked their brains out and got filthy as pigs. I don’t know what it is about some boys, that they want to
exhaust themselves that way and ruin their clothes. I never took part in that sort of thing. Well, it stands to reason, doesn’t it?”

Amelia nodded and allowed herself to be claimed for the next dance.

It was progress of a sort. Lord Verwood had gone to Harrow and he was good at sports. She wasn’t surprised that he was good at sports, only that he could have escaped from Harrow without learning more polished manners. While she conversed with her partner, and executed the steps of the boulanger, it occurred to her that she hadn’t taken the most logical step of all in trying to find out about him: asking her host and hostess of the evening. The Candovers were from Derbyshire, and Lord Verwood had actually confessed to an acquaintance with them. What more logical source for information?

Sir Arthur and Lady Candover were not particularly well known to her. He was a tall, emaciated-looking fellow with graying hair, and she was rather nondescript and painfully shy. They were not frequent visitors to London, being quite content to spend their time in the country. But they had spawned a bevy of daughters, and arrived in the city for a season as each of the young ladies reached the proper age to be launched into society.

The girls themselves never seemed to have the slightest difficulty contracting a suitable alliance. They were as a rule attractive and pretty-behaved youngsters, obedient but without that docile quality that frequently irritated Amelia in new debutantes. The current daughter, Genevieve, had not quite outgrown a coltish sort of awkwardness, but she was all the more appealing for it, with her eager eyes and her ready smile.

Since it was Genevieve’s big day, Amelia didn’t wish to detract from it by taking up any of the young woman’s time, and she decided to approach Lady Candover instead. Sir Arthur might have done just as well, considering his wife’s shyness, but he was constantly surrounded by a group of sporting gentlemen whom Lady Amelia had no intention of intruding upon. That was his standard protective measure on these occasions, since he was not inclined toward social gatherings in general, and Lady Candover sometimes seemed at a loss without his support. Amelia considered it almost a kindness to spend some time with the woman.

Lady Candover stood on the edge of a group of matrons, watching her daughter dance with a stalwart young man a few years her senior. Genevieve’s two married sisters were in the group as well, both of them large with child. Amelia supposed, with an inward sigh, that Genevieve would be in a similar condition by a year from now. It wasn’t difficult to cut Lady Candover off from the others. With a smile and a kindly comment that Genevieve was a charming girl, she placed herself between the baronet’s wife and her daughters.

“Oh, Lady Amelia, how good of you to say so,” Lady Candover murmured. “It’s such a nerve-racking time, isn’t it, waiting to see if a child will take? But I do think she’s going on very well, don’t you?” A flood of color rushed up into her cheeks suddenly. Amelia couldn’t understand the cause until the older woman stammered, “Not that you didn’t take... That is, anyone could see you were immensely admired from the first time you put in an appearance in London society. Why, you’d have been the talk of the town if Sally Cheriton hadn’t come out the same season. I mean, you
were
the talk of the town, of course, but Sally Cheriton was always doing such outrageous things, wasn’t she? And Lady Caroline. People always make such a fuss over the obstreperous ones. They don’t seem to notice those who are well-behaved.”

It was possibly the longest speech Lady Candover had yet made in society, but her words did not, somehow, seem to comfort her for what she considered a grievous faux pas. Amelia quickly interjected a word as her hostess prepared to further muddle the matter. “I understand Lord Verwood is from Derbyshire.”

Lady Candover looked utterly confused, and then relieved. “Why, so he is. Sir Arthur knows him very well. Or, maybe not so well. They do know one another. That is, I’m sure they’ve met before.”

“Then his home is not, perhaps, too far from yours?”

“A matter of twenty miles, I should think. No, closer to twenty-five, as he’s beyond Chesterfield.”

“That’s a fair distance in the country,” Amelia acknowledged. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever been to his home.”

“No, never. Some years ago I met his mother, but she’s gone now. His father, too. I don’t believe they approved of his going into the army, as an only child, you know. There was some talk that his father would get him a seat in the House, just to keep him occupied and out of the army, but nothing came of it.”

This was just the sort of thing Amelia wanted to learn, and she pressed for more detail. “Did he actually stand for a seat?”

“I don’t think so. He was an impatient young fellow, I believe, and couldn’t be bothered with waiting around for a safe seat. But I could be wrong,” she added hastily. “That’s just county gossip.”

“Have you heard anything of him since he returned? Was he wounded?”

Lady Candover was vague on the subject. “I heard he was in Derbyshire recuperating for a while. Or was that Tom Owlsbury? Perhaps both of them. They were friends as boys, or so I surmise. The Owlsburys have all been a little wild. Nothing extravagant! Just the usual playfulness as youngsters.”

“Did Mr. Owlsbury go to school with him at Harrow?”

“Harrow? Dear me, no. The Owlsburys never have two pennies to rub together. Maybe that’s what makes them so wild,” Lady Candover said thoughtfully.

“And Lord Verwood,” Amelia pursued, fearful of losing Lady Candover’s attention, “is he married?”

The older woman blinked at her. “Married? Oh, I shouldn’t think so. When would he have had the time to marry? Unless he chose some exotic woman while on his travels.”

Which made his army career sound like the Grand Tour, Amelia thought, discouraged. “I take it you haven’t seen him previously in London.”

“Goodness, no. We weren’t on the kind of terms where he’d be likely to leave a calling card. We did just hear that he was in the city, though, and thought it proper to send an invitation for this evening.”

“Do you happen to remember how you heard he was in town?”

Lady Candover gave her a puzzled, indeed a very peculiar, look, before shrugging her shoulders. “Heavens, I haven’t the slightest idea. One just does hear, doesn’t one?”

“Yes, of course,” Amelia agreed in the most demure manner possible. “He’s rather a friend of my brother’s, you see. I thought possibly Peter mentioned it to you.”

“Ah, perhaps.” Lady Candover clearly felt the subject wasn’t of the least interest. “If you’ll excuse me, Lady Amelia, I should just speak to Mrs. Woolbridge for a moment.”

“Certainly.” Amelia watched the older woman struggle through the crowd toward a matron with what must have been two dozen ostrich plumes in her frizzy white hair. People did think you were awfully peculiar if you asked unusual questions. Poor Lady Candover patently believed there was something strange about Amelia’s interest in Lord Verwood, but she was too polite to say so. Amelia decided it was time to abandon her efforts for the evening, and enjoy herself, as Peter had suggested. She placed herself in a spot where the searching Mr. Rollings would see her, and accepted the next dance.

* * * *

But that was the first evening she had the distinct impression Lord Verwood was watching her. Until then it had seemed only peculiar that he happened to appear wherever she went. Even if two people moved in the same circles, it was highly unlikely one would run into the other so often, but since that seemed to be the case, for a week Amelia had accepted it.