The Kidnapped Bride (21 page)

“How do you do, my lady?”

“Very well, I thank you. So you are Sarah. How pretty you are, my dear, and how lucky to be rid of the deplorable Darcy! You must be ever so much more comfortable without him. And don’t look at me like that, Nicholas, for I am still your mother, and that scowl is definitely impertinent. You may pour me some Madeira instead.”

“As you wish, ma’am,” he replied stiffly.

“Oh, isn’t he impossible?” she twinkled at Sarah, as she took her seat with a graceful swish of satin. “Here, sit beside me, my dear. I wish to become better acquainted. I must say at the outset,” she added as Sarah obeyed, “that I hope you don’t hold me responsible for Nicky’s absurd sense of propriety.”

“Certainly not, ma’am,” Sarah said quickly, then feeling his lordship’s eye upon her, she flushed, adding, “that is, I—”

“Oh, don’t give it another thought,” laughed Lady Packwood. “I assure you I have been listening to him prosing on most of the afternoon, and I cannot for the life of me think how he came by such starched-up notions.”

“Can you not, ma’am?” Sarah encouraged sweetly, avoiding Nicholas’s eye and Colin’s as well, albeit for vastly different reasons.

“Not at all,” replied her ladyship, “for you must know that I am not at all nice in my notions, and his father, may he rest in peace—though I doubt he’d find a peaceful situation very amusing—was a rake of the first stare.”

“He was!” Sarah was astonished, for she had thought of Darcy’s grandfather as rather a stuffy old man, an early replica of Nicholas at his most censorious.

“Indeed,” chuckled Lady Packwood. “He was dashing, outspoken, and outrageous right up to the end. I daresay he would have abducted me, had I not been entirely willing to marry him.”

“Mother!” Nicholas expostulated. “Surely, we might change the course of this conversation. It is not at all suitable for either Lady Moreland or Colin.”

“Oh, fiddle-faddle,” replied his mother. “You are becoming positively fusty, my dear. I daresay you hadn’t noticed, so you will thank me for dropping a hint in your ear. And pray do not call poor Sarah Lady Moreland in that stuffy way. It sounds positively puritanical. What a good thing I thought to marry Percy before coming down. It would have been quite dreadful otherwise.” She glanced around brightly at the circle of puzzled faces. “Well, my dears!
Two
dowager countesses of Moreland! It wouldn’t have done at all. Too, too confusing!”

Noting the storm warnings in Nicholas’s eye, Sarah hastily inquired about the recent nuptials and discovered them to have been very recent indeed.

“Four days, my dear,” informed her ladyship. “Why, as soon as I received word of the deplorable Darcy’s death—dear me, what a brat he was as a child, a whining, puling brat, I promise you. Where was I? Oh, yes. Well, as soon as word reached us, I ran to Percy and said, ‘The time has come, my love.’ Those were my very words, were they not, my love?” She turned to her spouse, who had moved to stand behind her chair. He patted her shoulder comfortably.

“Indeed, yes, my sweet. Your very words, indeed.”

“There, I knew he would remember! But it had to be immediate. You understand that, Sarah. One simply cannot be married in black gloves, so I had to accomplish the deed before ever the tattle-mongers had the tale.”

“They must not have had it yet,” stated her son ironically, “since you still have not put on your black gloves or any other sign of mourning.”

“Do you truly think I should wear mourning for the deplorable Darcy?” inquired her ladyship, wrinkling her lovely nose at him. “I cannot think why. I am only his grandfather’s second wife, no kin to him at all, which I always counted among my blessings, of course. I daresay I shall unearth my black gloves for the brief time we shall be in London, as a sop to the tabbies, you know. I think I must have packed a pair somewhere or other. At least, I daresay my woman probably remembered to do so.”

“Do you go to London, then, ma’am?” Sarah asked, in another hasty diversionary attempt.

“Indeed, yes,” replied her ladyship on a note of
ennui
. “It is too bad of Percy, but he insists that he has matters of business to attend before we can leave for the Continent. And, of course, we will leave Lionel there. He would be a trifle
de trap
on our honeymoon, don’t you agree?”

Sarah nodded, refraining from speech for fear of overstating the case. The idea of Lionel on anyone’s honeymoon, including his own, was nearly more than her sense of the ridiculous would tolerate. Lady Packwood watched her closely, and her merry hazel eyes began to twinkle.

“Just so, my dear. I expect he will get into all manner of mischief, but he can only learn from his mistakes. Percy is leaving his finances in the hands of a very competent man of affairs, so Nicky will not be expected to tow him out of River Tick as he did, more than once, I’m sure, for the deplorable Darcy.”

“I wish you will stop calling him ‘the deplorable Darcy’!” snapped Nicholas.

“Pish tush. He
was
deplorable—grew from a detestable child into a contemptibly insignificant little dandiprat—and Sarah is very much better off without him, as I am certain she would agree, were anyone to inquire.”

“Damn it, Mother, that has nothing to do with the matter—”

“Begging your pardon, my lord, and no wish to shove my oar in. Bad form, don’t you know.” It was Sir Percival, and the astonishment Sarah felt at his voluntarily putting in a word of his own seemed to be shared by everyone. Even Nicholas stopped midsentence, as Sir Percival went blandly on. “Well, stands to reason, don’t it? Oughtn’t to speak to your doting mother that way. She is doting, y’ know. Told me so herself. Well, anyway, free country, ain’t it? Lady can say what she wants. Particularly, if you’ll pardon my sayin’ so, about her own relatives. Lot of dirty dishes, more ’n likely. Stands to reason, don’t it? Most folks’ relatives—” He turned a jaundiced eye toward his heir. “—well, most of ’em put one to the blush at best.” He paused, looking around for confirmation.

“Don’t they just!” exclaimed Colin. “Well, uh—” He stammered, as his words caught him up. “—I mean to say, not you, Gram, or Uncle Nick or Cousin Sarah—Lady Moreland, I mean—I suppose she’s one of mine now since she married Cousin Deplor—”

“Colin!” Nicholas half rose from his chair, but as Colin began to back away from him, stammering a hasty apology, Lady Packwood burst into merry laughter.

“Do, for heaven’s sake, relax, Nicky! The boy merely suffered a slip of the tongue, and it was my fault entirely. I know you’d dearly love to tear a strip off me, but that is no reason to rake poor Colin over the coals.”

“Well, it’s the
very
reason I wanted you to stop all that improper talk,” retorted Nicholas, taking his seat again, much to Colin’s visible relief.

“Of course it is, and I daresay you were perfectly right. I expect it comes of not having to worry about proper conversation. Your father said most other females talked nothing but missish drivel, and Percy doesn’t mind my unruly tongue at all. Do you, my love?”

“Not at all, my sweet,” he responded gallantly, adding with more truth than tact, “Don’t notice it.”

But her ladyship was not offended in the least. She merely chuckled. “There, you see, Nicky! It does not unsettle the people I care about, except you, of course, dear boy. But it needn’t, you know. And, come to think of it, it never used to do so.”

Her son did not respond to this gambit, so she looked at him closely, then directed her gaze at Sarah and smiled a little smile. It disappeared almost immediately, however, and she turned to Penny, who was quietly working a bit of elegant petit point.

“Pray forgive our manners, Miss Penistone,” she said cordially. “It must be difficult to pretend that one’s mind is otherwhere during a family quarrel.”

“But my mind was not otherwhere, your ladyship,” replied Penny in her usual placid way, as she set another stitch. “It would be quite impossible to ignore speech in a room as small as this one is, you know. But I promise you I shan’t regard it.”

“Indeed?” Simple respect dawned in her ladyship’s eyes, and Sarah, finding it impossible to repress a chuckle, was grateful that Dasher chose that particular moment to announce dinner in tones stentorian enough to compete with the most experienced London butler.

A
FTER SHE HAD SAID
good night to Lizzie, Sarah thought back over an evening that had been a good deal livelier than its predecessors. She was quite certain that Penny disapproved of Lady Packwood, for were not Penny’s watchwords, “poise, posture, and propriety”? The three P’s. And no matter how much her ladyship possessed of the first two, she certainly had little notion of the third. What was more, she seemed proud of it!

Sarah snuggled under the coverlet, found the perfect place for her head on the down pillow, and thought about Lady Packwood. She had been prepared to like Nicholas’s mother, but she had never expected Lady Packwood to be exactly the sort of woman she would like to be herself. And, she had set them all by the ears!

Heretofore, their conversation at the dinner table had been, for the most part, polite and conventional. Sarah chuckled, thinking that tonight had been neither. Lady Packwood had barely taken her seat before she demanded to know why Sarah was dressed as a crow.

“Darcy was her husband,” Nicholas said sternly into the stunned silence. “It is expected that his widow wear deep mourning.”

“Poppycock!” announced her ladyship with bland disregard for his subtle gestures toward Dasher, the footman, and two maidservants who were serving the first course. “Anyone with sense knows how poor Sarah came to marry that lobcock, and no one believes she really mourns his loss. No one with sense,” she repeated. “Well, I mean, how
could
they? How could anyone mourn the loss of such a ninnyhammer?”

“Nevertheless,” Nicholas pronounced stonily, “Lady Moreland will not flout convention. She will appear appropriately garbed for the customary year.”

“Gothic! That’s what you are! Isn’t he, my love?”

“If you say so, my sweet,” replied her amiable spouse, applying his attention to the succulent pigeon pie upon his plate.

“Relicts always wear black for at least a year, just as Cousin Nicholas says,” declared Lionel in accents perilously near a lisp.

“Rot!” retorted his stepmama, rounding on him. “You keep your tongue between your teeth until you’ve learnt some sense. Nicky is
not
your cousin, and you shall address him by his title until he gives you leave to do otherwise. And you are
not
to call Sarah a relict. Abominable word!”

“Papa!” protested Lionel.

“He’s right, my sweet,” mumbled Sir Percival through his pie. “‘Relict’ is a perfectly respectable word.”

“Well, I don’t like it. Never did.”

“Ah, now that’s another matter entirely,” responded her love, turning a withering eye upon his son. “She don’t like it, Lionel. Don’t use it again.”

Flushing, Lionel muttered, “She shouldn’t speak to me so.
I
don’t like it.”

“Nonsense!” Sir Percival retorted. “Daresay it’s good for you. May learn sense yet, if your stepmama pounds it into you.”

“Yes, that’s very true, Lionel,” added her ladyship, “for whatever has been said against my own children, no one has ever yet accused them of lacking sense. But I shan’t have time to do it properly, you know, for your papa and I shall soon be leaving for the Continent, and you will be quite on your own. I daresay you’ll make a muck of it, but that cannot be helped. Pass me that dish of dressed salmon again, Dasher, if you please.”

Lionel looked slightly cheered as a result of what Sarah thought to be a rather daunting speech, and she glanced at Nicholas, surprised to see amusement in his eyes. His gaze met hers, and a delicate flush tinged her cheeks. She looked away only to encounter a direct and rather speculative look from Lady Packwood. But her ladyship had not finished with Nicholas.

“I daresay he’s right, you know,” she mused, “and it would be another matter entirely if black were a color that flattered you, Sarah, but it don’t. Makes you look old-cattish when you’ve not seen eighteen yet. Your skin looks pasty, and your hair looks dull. You need colors with a bit of warmth to ’em. Isn’t that right, my love?”

Thus appealed to, Sir Percival dragged his eyes from the truffled rice and creamed squab and even went so far as to lift his eyeglass, the better to examine Sarah. “I daresay. Damned pretty piece though, whatever color she be.”

“This discussion is pointless,” said Nicholas, jaws clenched. “She will wear black because I want no more scandal. It is the color she is expected to wear to show proper respect for her husband.”

“Respect for that—” But Lady Packwood broke off the sentence in response to a wrathful glint in her son’s eye. “Oh, very well, my dear. I suppose I have plucked that crow quite bald. But is it necessary that Sarah wallow in her mourning when there is none to see her save ourselves?”

Sarah caught her breath as Lady Packwood’s intent became clear. It would be wonderful if Nicholas would allow her to wear colors, even dull colors, at home. She looked at him, willing him to agree. But he was frowning.

“I cannot believe hypocrisy is the answer, madam.”

“Piffle! ’Tis the height of hypocrisy to dress a lie. Better she should do it as little as. possible. I see no reason why she should not dress as usual here. If she goes elsewhere, she can don her respect.”

“And if we have callers? A fine thing it would be for someone to encounter a recent widow dressed in colors!”

“Fustian! What on earth do you keep Dasher for, if not to delay or get rid of unwanted company? If he cannot arrange it so that she has adequate warning of callers, he’s not much of a butler. He’s not much of a butler anyway, come to think of it. You really ought to get yourself a proper one, Nicky, to puff up your consequence.”

“He’ll do for the present. He knows my ways,” Nicholas said absently. He glanced at Sarah. “Would you prefer to wear your other clothes, Countess?”

“Oh, yes,” she breathed.

“Well, I shall take the matter under consideration,” he said finally.