The Houseparty (12 page)

Elizabeth looked at Lady Elfreda's cold face and detected not the slightest trace of remorse. "You're absolutely right,
Brenna,"
she said calmly. "It was unwise in the extreme of me not to pay more attention to Lady Elfreda's dubious advice. I will be a great deal more careful the next time."

"Elizabeth!" Sumner's shocked tones carried to her ears, and she controlled a start of irritation. A moment later her elegantly clad brother had joined the group of women, with the
contessa
holding back, watching them all with a trace of amusement. "What in heaven's name has happened to you?" he
demanded,
his normally mellifluous voice high-pitched in outrage. "Don't you know better than to go around looking like some sort of . . . of . . ." Words failed him, as they usually did. Elizabeth noted absently the golden hair and angry blue eyes, the beautifully shaped nostrils flaring as they always did when he was angry with her. Not for the first time she wondered why a cruel fate would give her boring brother the prettiest face in the family.

"I was trying to get to my room," she said calmly. "And if everyone would stop asking me what happened, I would do so."

"But what did happen?" cried her brother with singular obtuseness, and Elizabeth wondered how a sensible, pretty girl such as
Brenna
could possibly love such a creature, no matter how angelically fair.

She smiled up at him limpidly. "Lady Elfreda sent me out on a dangerous horse, and I fell."

"Elizabeth!" Sumner gasped in horrified accents. "I am shocked and saddened to hear you speak in such a way of this good kind lady who is our hostess. Your want of sensibility has often distressed me, but never so much as now. I am grieved by your levity and only hope dear, kind Lady Elfreda will forgive you."

Dear, kind Lady Elfreda smirked. "Do not distress yourself, Sumner. Your sister is a trifle overset by her accident. No doubt when she has time to rest and reflect, she will regret her lack of manners and apologize."

"Elizabeth!" Sumner said sternly. "I want you to apologize to Lady Elfreda
immediately.
You will not go up to your
room until you have
begged this kind woman's pardon."

"Sumner," she replied in deceptively dulcet tones, "you and Lady Elfreda may go to the devil." And turning her back on them, she moved upstairs with an understandable alacrity, leaving her brother sputtering and fuming behind her.

Dinner was a trifle delayed that evening as a result of the belated appearance of their host. While Lady Elfreda tapped one overlarge foot on the
Aubusson
-carpeted marble floor and Sumner flirted almost desperately with a willing
contessa,
Elizabeth found a comfortable spot somewhat out of the way of the action and observed those around her.

She was dressed in one of her new silk gowns, the one with the greatest amount of
décolietage
showing off her admirable breasts and shoulders. The dull gold of the silk made her brown eyes appear almost sherry-colored, and her slightly tawny skin glowed in the candlelight. She was pardonably secure in the knowledge that she was in her best looks, her afternoon adventure having produced no deleterious effect other than a few blisters on her palms from riding without gloves. She folded the offending hands peacefully in her lap.

She was just as glad, she told herself, that Michael was off in the corner talking with
Brenna.
Not a glance in her direction had he bestowed. No looks of glazed admiration, not even that small, mocking smile that held a world of meaning acknowledged the elegance of her toilette. And now he stood towering over the tiny Irish girl, his eyes rapt,
his
attention totally absorbed.

The same could hardly be said of
Brenna.
Whenever she could, she would cast a surreptitious glance at Sumner's bemused face, and the misery in her fine green eyes would have been apparent to a complete
moonling
, Elizabeth thought angrily. Doesn't
Fraser
realize she wants to be left alone? And doesn't he realize that I would like to give him a piece of my mind?

Sir Henry
Hatchett
hadn't been much of a reassurance either. He had proved to be a short, round little man, with a cheerful expression about his myopic eyes, a drooping white mustache and side whiskers, and a slight Scots accent. His wife, Lady Beatrice, he had explained with a faint burr, had become indisposed and would be unable to join them. Elizabeth had thought it somewhat odd that Sir Henry had come on ahead with his adjutant, but no odder than his preoccupied, absentminded behavior. He seemed hardly the type to hold a high position in the Foreign Office, as Sumner had whispered to her importantly, and Elizabeth wondered if, as usual, her brother had merely been claiming more intimate knowledge of a situation than he actually possessed.

All in all, Sir Henry
Hatchett
inspired no confidence in Elizabeth's worried breast. She could no more unburden the tangle of information that had come her inquisitive way this long day than she could have confided in the forbidding General Wingert.
At least, not yet.
She would give Michael a little more time to inspire her with confidence. As her eyes swept over the planes and shadows of his tanned face, she uttered a tiny sigh.

The one real improvement in the status quo of the
houseparty
moved to her side, and she smiled up at him welcomingly, hoping that the wretched Captain
Fraser
would notice.

Sir Henry
Hatchett's
right-hand man was none other than Rupert St. Ives, Jeremy's roommate at Oxford and one of Elizabeth and Sumner's oldest friends. When Elizabeth first entered the drawing room, conscious of her elegance and determined to be cool and remote, she'd taken one look at Rupert's tall, familiar figure and let out an unladylike shriek of joy.

"Rupert!" Ignoring Fraser's quizzical expression, she had run across the room and flung herself on Rupert's broad chest, into arms that were only too happy to welcome her. Even Sumner had left off his elaborate
posturings
to greet Captain St. Ives with real pleasure, pumping his hand and begging his sister to "leave off crushing the poor fellow."

"Why such a sigh, Elizabeth?" he questioned now in an undertone.
"And such a pensive look?"

"I was thinking about Jeremy," she said mendaciously, and then felt swamped with guilt as Rupert's handsome face looked suitably grave. She
should
be thinking more about
Jeremy
and about what villains such as Michael
Fraser
could do to his safety if they weren't stopped in time.

"You haven't heard from him in a while, then?" he questioned.

"Not a word for weeks."

"Well, from my experience let me tell you that usually
means
that all is well. With any luck old
Jem
will be back with us by summer."

"Oh, do you really think so?" she questioned eagerly. "I confess we've both been terribly worried these last months."

"Yes, I really think so," he said firmly, and Elizabeth smiled up at him gratefully, noticing for not the first time in her life how very attractive he was.

Rupert St. Ives was a military man from the tips of his well-shod feet to the top of his well-cropped brown hair. He was just a bit over medium height, but his soldier's bearing lent the impression of added height, and the broad shoulders, trim waist, and well-turned legs appeared to advantage in uniform. His hazel eyes had an uncomfortably sharp expression in them when they dwelled on most people, his mouth was a thin, determined line, and the jaw was just a trifle too decisive, especially coupled with a
hawklike
nose. But on the rare occasions when he smiled, he could appear quite charming, and Elizabeth, having known him since childhood and having survived a desperate crush on him at the tender age of fifteen, still had a latent tendency to think him a veritable Adonis. Although Mars might be more apt, she thought now, looking at him with more impartial eyes.

"Tell me, Elizabeth, how long has that fellow been here?" he requested suddenly in a disapproving voice.

"Whoever do you mean?" she questioned with a great show of innocence, knowing perfectly well the object of his censure.

"Michael
Fraser.
I can't imagine what he's doing here. The man's got a terrible reputation. I hate to see you having to be polite to him. I, for one, have no intention of having anything to do with him."

"What's so terrible about him?" she queried.

"Now is hardly the time to tell you. But I don't trust him, and I'm amazed that an astute old soldier like Maurice Wingert tolerates him on his staff." He shook his closely cropped head reprovingly.

"But what . . ."

A sudden lull in the quiet hum of conversation told them that their host had arrived. Looking up toward the door, Elizabeth was for once in her life struck dumb.

Sir Adolphus Wingert had outdone himself that evening. Attired in ells and ells of pale pink satin trimmed with falls of the finest
Mechlin
lace, he made an astounding figure. Despite the tight lacing that announced itself with a great creaking at his every move, his formidable stomach, adorned with a waistcoat of ivory embroidered with tiny blue forget-me-nots and golden fleurs-de-lis, and the generous jowls that drooped gracefully over the high shirt points and rested carefully on the intricate folds of a tie that Elizabeth recognized with her usual acumen as
Dolph's
rendition of the Oriental, proclaimed him as a man of great appetite.

His pale pink unmentionables clung to voluptuous thighs, the clocks on his silk stockings matched his waistcoat, and a lace garter adorned with rosettes decorated one plump calf.

The pale moon face was carefully shaved, the thinning blond hair was thickly pomaded and swept into an
ar
-
rangement
that Elizabeth failed to put a name to, and from one pendulous earlobe dangled a large diamond earring.

As he paused to allow his assembled guests to fully appreciate his sartorial magnificence, he flicked open his snuffbox, cunningly designed to resemble a small casket, and applied his favorite mixture of snuff to one nostril with the expedient of a tiny silver shovel. Sneezing delicately, he blinked his pale, watering eyes and smiled benevolently on his assembled guests.

The assembled guests were speechless. Clearly, Adolphus expected praise and admiration for his turnout; clearly, no one felt able to voice such approval. As the silence lengthened and
Adolphus's
moon face lost some of its benevolent glow and began to turn sulky, Elizabeth gave herself a small shake.

Rising from her seat, she gave Adolphus the dazzling smile that had won more than one man's heart and had the ability to bring forth a furious frown from the watching Michael
Fraser.

"You needn't expect, dear Dolph," she said lightly, "that any of the ladies will have a thing to do with you. It is wicked and unconscionable and a great deal too bad of you to outshine us so. We all look like drab hags compared to you.
Unfair and uncivil of you, Dolph."
She leaned up and kissed him in a cousinly fashion on one plump cheek, which promptly turned pink to match his ensemble.

"Yes, indeed," Sumner added smoothly, belatedly realizing which side his bread was buttered on. "You look absolutely glorious. I doubt the Prince Regent has anything quite so fine. You quite outshine us all, yes indeed."

Adolphus bestowed a gracious smile upon his vicar.

"You're quite correct, Sumner.
Prinny's
clothes are positively shabby compared to this.
Thought I'd do the ladies honor by wearing it."

The ladies did their best to look honored, while Lady Elfreda rose to her full height. "Well," she said in frosty tones. "I suppose we may finally eat, Adolphus?"