The Golden Season (12 page)

Jenny did not look convinced. “That’s easy for you to say. You’re Lady Lydia Eastlake. You can do whatever you want with no one to gainsay you.” And then, realizing she’d just chided London’s reigning toast, she flushed. The surly expression dropped back over her features like a shutter.

“Yes,” Lydia murmured, more to herself than Jenny as her thoughts returned to the project at hand. “Well, all things must come to an end.”

“What do you mean?” Jenny asked sharply.

Lydia eyed Jenny thoughtfully. She intended to reveal her interest in becoming married anyway and the sooner the better. She could accomplish that mission and do this girl a good turn by letting her be the bearer of the news. At least, it would give her something to talk about.

She mustn’t be too obvious, however. “Oh, nothing. It is just that, well, I’ve been wondering lately if I should consider changing my situation.”

“You are going abroad?”

“No, dear.”

“Oh, you are thinking of purchasing a new town house?” Jenny asked.

Good heavens, how was the chit to gain bluestocking status when she was so obtuse?

“I’m not referring to my
physical
situation.”

“You are converting to Catholicism?” Jenny gasped, her hand flying to cover her mouth.

“No,” Lydia said, resisting an impulse to shake the girl. “Though if I follow my current inclination, I will certainly be
converting
my name to another.” She spoke with heavy emphasis.

For a second, Jenny stared at her in visible consternation. Then the dust cleared, as it were, and understanding dawned. “Oh. Oh!” Then, realizing the choice bit of gossip that she now possessed, her face brightened to something nearing animation.

“Well, it’s been so nice talking to you, Lady Lydia, and I shall certainly take under advisement your suggestion regarding my intellectual pursuits, but I mustn’t take any more of your time.” She didn’t wait for Lydia to agree. She spun around and sped straight to her mother, who’d reappeared by the terrace door.

“I see you’ve launched your missile into the midst of the fete,” Eleanor’s droll voice murmured from beside her.

“Is it as obvious as that, Eleanor?” Lydia asked, watching Jenny make her mother’s side.

“Oh, yes. I can think of very few things that would inspire Jenny Pickler to actively seek out Lady Pickler, especially since she actually looks eager to do so. Therefore, she is either telling her mother she has received a marriage proposal or she is telling her that you are looking for one.” She tilted her head. “Do you think that wise?”

“Definitely. Lady Pickler is one of the
ton
’s biggest gossips. She will spread the word far more effectively than taking an advert out in the
Times
could have done.”

With a whisper in her ear and a hand on her arm, Jenny urged her mother a short distance away from the group where Lady Pickler had been holding court. Lydia could follow the conversation simply by watching the changing expressions on Lady Pickler’s round face: first annoyance at being dragged away, then impatience, then skepticism, and yes, now amazement, as Jenny repeated Lydia’s words verbatim, followed by glee at the choice tidbit she had been handed, and finally horror as she realized Lydia meant to go husband-hunting in the same waters in which her Jenny was currently trolling.

“Well done, Lydia,” Eleanor said approvingly. “By breakfast tomorrow, all of London will be speculating whether Jenny is mad or if you really do mean to marry.”

Lydia turned. “Thank you. I hope Miss Pickler makes good use—” Her words died on her lips, for as she turned her gaze fell on a tall figure emerging from the house onto the terrace. It was him.

Here.

She spun back around.

“Lydia?” Eleanor asked in concern.

“
Who is that
?” she whispered tightly, though no one was standing near enough to overhear had she spoken in a normal voice.

She stood facing Eleanor. From the expression on the duchess’s face she could tell the moment Eleanor spotted “that.” Her aplomb wobbled and for a second the unflappable duchess stood on the precipice of looking impressed. With a visible effort, she regained her composure.

“I do not know. But only give me a moment and I shall find out.” Before Lydia could protest, she’d motioned over a footman. “Find out the name of the gentleman speaking to Lady Pickler. Be discreet but quick.”

The footman bowed and hurried off, leaving Eleanor studying her younger friend.

“Oh, you needn’t look at me so, Eleanor,” Lydia said.

“And how is that, Lydia?”

“Superior, smug, and amused.”

Eleanor’s answer to this was simply to look more superior, smug, and amused. “Tell me, Lydia. From the way you reacted I would swear you have seen this gentleman before. How so? Your eyes met across a wooded glen, perhaps?” she asked sardonically.

No, across a dusty, cluttered store.
“Why are you so certain I have seen him before?” Lydia asked.

“Well, generally when you see someone new you don’t color up like a boiled lobster, duck your head like a chambermaid caught gawking at the master, and hiss questions with no proper pronouns. ‘Who is
that
?’ indeed.”

“I remarked him when I was shopping the other day.”

“And did he remark you?”

“No. Most definitely not.”

“Then why are you standing to the side quaking and tossing glances over your shoulder?”

Begad, she was quaking. Silly. There was no possible way he would equate the shopgirl with the creature she now presented. She lifted her chin. “I’m not. How odd of you to think so, Eleanor.”

Eleanor was not deceived, but she was too good a friend to press Lydia. At least, not here and now.

Lydia glanced at the gentleman. He was not looking at her, Lydia noted with a mix of relief and disappointment. His head was bowed to hear whatever Diane de Mourie was lisping up at him, his expression courteous and interested and . . . oh my, wasn’t he glorious?

He stood at least half a head taller than any of the other gentlemen present, but carried the additional height so easily and was so well proportioned that one did not note it until another man passed near him. He’d clasped his hands lightly behind his back, a stance that accentuated the breadth of his shoulders in the blue broadcloth jacket. Encased in biscuit-colored trousers, his long muscular legs owed nothing to artifice. His dark gold hair was clipped short, an easy style with no artfully arranged tumble of locks. He wouldn’t see the point in looking purposefully disheveled, she thought on a moment of inspiration.

“Begging your pardon, Your Grace.” The footman had returned. “But the gentleman speaking to Lady Pickler is Captain Edward Lockton.”

Eleanor’s eyes widened at this information and she dropped a coin into the footman’s waiting hand. “Thank you.”

He pocketed the coin, bowed, and left them.

Lockton
. Lydia vaguely recalled some pretty young pup at a ball last year scraping together the courage to ask for a dance. Wasn’t he named Lockton?

“What is it, Eleanor?” Lydia demanded. “You know the name, I can see that. Who
is
he?”

“Josten’s youngest brother. Josten being Marcus Lockton, Earl of Josten.” She gave a light laugh. “I had heard he’d returned from his duty in His Majesty’s navy. I should have recognized him. All the Locktons are unrepentantly ravishing.”

At Lydia’s questioning look she elaborated. “Josten was one of the
ton
’s most eligible bachelors when I made my bow.” She smiled in recollection. “I quite favored his company for a while. But I aspired to rule the Polite World and he did not.” Her smile faded.

“What happened to him?” Lydia asked. “Why have I never encountered this paragon?”

“Oh, he’s still about. He just doesn’t fly high or often. He married Nadine Hiddystole, a pretty little widgeon without two ideas to keep each other company.”

“And why has this kept him from enjoying Society?” Lydia asked. She lowered her voice. “Is she unacceptable? ’

“Heavens, no. Very respectable. No, it’s something even more outré than that. Josten prefers the company of his wife to ours.” She turned a bright smile on her friend, but Lydia imagined there was something painful beneath this last gay bit of practiced astonishment. “And, dare you believe it? She, his.”

Lydia did, indeed. Her parents had been a similarly fond couple—except they were never alone, always at the center of a social whirl that was international. She assumed Josten and his wife must be very dull, sitting in their country house together with naught but themselves for company.

Why, what would one speak of without a constant influx of new people to talk to or gossip about . . . ? The thought was unexpectedly lowering. Was that all she was? A receptacle for gossip and mimer of other people’s ideas?

“Not only did he withdraw to rusticate with his new wife, but after he became earl, he insisted his widowed sister, Beatrice Hickston-Tubbs and her brats come live with them,” Eleanor went on, adding again in a soft murmur, “And I had higher aspirations.”

So Josten was a generous man. All for the good. But the brother wasn’t the man. “Yes. But what do you know of
him
, Eleanor. Tell me.”

Eleanor looked up, startled out of her musing. “A definite contender,” she said in a businesslike voice. “He’s a naval captain. Or was. He retired after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in spite of the admiralty pressing him to remain. They even promised him a commission, and you know how hard those are to come by now that there are no French or Spanish ships to blow up.”

Eleanor lowered her voice. “And speaking of which, the rumor mill says that during his last commission he netted a captain’s share worthy of the wounds he suffered.”

“Wounds?” He’d been injured? How? Lydia wondered worriedly. Her concern was such that she didn’t even notice she hadn’t asked the question that was most relevant to her particular situation, that being how much the captain’s share had been. “Is he all right?”

“Apparently he survived.”

“Tell me of his family,” Lydia said.

“Oh, they are very well off,” Eleanor said composedly. “They’d have to be to support the current generation. A litter of dandified greenheads and goosecaps always in some hobble or ’nuther. The kits have discovered gambling and the young heir especially has a penchant for gaming hells and the
tapis verte
. Smyth blistered the boy for a ruinous amount a few weeks back and Josten let him stew damned low in the water trying to raise the ready before sending the captain to settle up. But he did.”

Wealthy, well connected, well mannered . . .
Why
wasn’t he looking at her? Gentlemen always looked at her, openly, covertly, too forward, too shy, but they always looked. He hadn’t even glanced in her direction.

She looked down at her dress. The color was too bland; it made her hair dull. It did not drape properly; it hung. Even the weather refused to cooperate; the diffuse light made her appear sallow. And her bonnet obscured her only really outstanding features—

“Lydia,” Eleanor suddenly said. “Now, don’t gape, my dear, and try not to stutter, but if you turn around, I believe you are about to be introduced to your paragon.”

Lydia wasn’t gaping . . . well, quite . . . and she had
never
stuttered in her life—but what if he
did
recognize her? No, she reassured herself. That wasn’t possible. That disheveled shopgirl and Lady Lydia Eastlake bore no resemblance one to the other. She turned around.

For a second she thought perhaps he did. There was something in his eyes, something quizzical and observant. But . . . no.

“Lady Grenville, how delightful to see you again,” Childe Smyth said, bowing to Eleanor before turning to Lydia. “And Lady Lydia, I had hoped to find you here.”

Distracted as she was, she still contrived a welcoming smile. She knew others thought little of Smyth, but she had always thought his airs were protective armor and that at his core he was simply a man who’d been taught to question his own value too much. “How are you, Mr. Smyth?” Drat. She sounded breathy.

“Tolerable,” he replied. He turned to his companion. “Lady Grenville, may I present Captain Edward Lockton? Captain, Her Grace, Eleanor, the Duchess of Grenville.”

“Ma’am, it is a pleasure.” The captain bowed, gravely inclining his head just so.

“Thank you, Captain.”

“Lady Lydia,” Smyth said, and a devil danced in his eyes, “may I make known Captain—”

“Yes, yes, Mr. Smyth, Captain Lockton. I was standing right here,” she said with an arch of her brow. She looked up at Lockton, her heart thundering so loudly she was certain he must hear it. “How do you do, Captain?”

She looked straight up into his eyes. They were just as clear and remarkable as she recalled and she could not discern a whit of recognition in them. Her racing heart slowed; she felt an odd little twist in her chest. It must be relief. Not disappointment. Why would she be disappointed? He hadn’t recognized her as a dirty little shopgirl. That was hardly a cause for disappointment.

“Very well, Lady Lydia,” the captain said. “Thank you.”

“As you can see, Lady Lydia does not bend to protocol,” Childe Smyth explained. “Protocol accommodates her.”

“You are restive of formality, Lady Lydia?” the captain asked curiously.

“Good heavens, Mr. Smyth,” Lydia said, with a scolding glance at Smyth. “Only see what you’ve done. You have given the captain to believe I am an unconventional creature when I am in fact the very definition of conventionality.”

“Are you?” the captain asked before Smyth could respond.

“Oh, yes. I may tease propriety at times, but that is all part of the role. At least, my role. And a very unoriginal one at that, I’m afraid.”

“And what role may that be, Lady Lydia?” he asked with such apparent earnestness she almost forgot to be worldly and insouciant. But in many respects she had been worldly long before she had arrived in London and it would take more than a naval captain to make her forget her lines.