The Marquess and Miss Davies (5 page)

Carys showed doubt for the first time. “I would hope ... that Talfryn would be willing—”

“And Lady Reggie as well? The entire family is to rusticate because you wish to avoid the occasional ball?”

“Occasional! ‘Tis every night of the week!”

“None of which you have attended for a half-month.”

“To our mother’s displeasure, as you know.”

‘Twas true enough. Isolde had accepted that her sister would find her own way along the paths that
ton
society set out for its young women, and Talfryn had thought so as well; but Lady Davies had not given in. Without her daughter’s regular attendance at balls and such there was no marriage.

And without marriage there was nothing.

Isolde regarded her sister thoughtfully. “And this is the person you believe will make you happy. Someone who is sober and ... careful?”

“Happiness can be achieved, yes” said Carys, obstinately. “In fact, I believe ‘tis the only way I am likely to find it.”

“I cannot agree.” Isa shook her head. “To be in love—”

“Posh. Lady Besborough and Lord Picardie were in love.”

“Lady Besborough—”

“He wrote her poetry!”

“Amelie Besborough is a flighty, half-witted goose.”

“Which is precisely my point. If Lord Picardie—”

“You, on the other hand, are nothing like—”

 “Then look at our own parents!” Carys burst out. “Two people without a single common idea between them!”

There was silence for a long moment. Isolde took a deep breath.

The twins’ father, the late viscount, had taken so little interest in his wife and children that toward the end of his life they had gone weeks without seeing him, despite living in the same house. Lady Davies’s bitterness at her husband’s lack of regard had been no secret.

But— “Look at our brother and Lady Reggie,” said Isa. “Head over heels, the both of them. Do you really believe ‘tis unlikely to last?”

“No ... “

“Well, then.”

“But I believe them to be an exception, and fortunate that—”

“And so you attend the lectures at the Royal Society.” Isolde spoke as if something was finally becoming clear to her. “To find the sober and careful man.”

“Yes,” said Carys.

The ball of the season was the grand affair put on every year by the Duke of Lincolnshire; to be held, as the marquess had reminded Lord Harcourt, within a month’s time. His grace’s ballroom was one of the largest such in London, everyone of account was invited, and everyone came. Lord Leighton considered the facts of this matter for several days, and found himself more and more preoccupied with a question; would Miss Carys Davies of Cardingham House be attending, or not?

Preoccupied to the point where Mrs Bess had to remind him, again, about hiring the chimney sweep.

She
must
be planning to go, Anthony decided, her interest in the Royal Society notwithstanding. But he wanted Lord Harcourt’s assurance, and so he broached the topic at White’s one evening.

“I suppose you have the right of it,” said Benjamin, yawning. “She was certainly there a year ago.”

“A year ago? How can you remember one dance twelve months past?”

“The
Lincolnshire
ball, old man. ‘Twas the week after Grenbye bought those six greys, and everyone was talking about how he could hardly afford them. Which turned out to be exactly the case.”

“Ah, yes, Grenbye’s greys.” Anthony chuckled, remembering.

“Who owns them now, do you suppose?”

“Somerset, I believe.” The marquess turned thoughtful. “I should think I would remember the Misses Davies.”

“The family had only just returned from Cornwall. And you hardly danced at all that night.”

“I hardly danced? Why?”

“
Last
year, if you will recall, was the year of your wager with the Earl of Derby.”

“Oh gods, don’t remind me.”

Benjamin snorted.

The Earl of Derby owned a stallion called Diablo, an animal who had exactly the hell-spawned temperament suggested by his name. Or a bit worse. The wager in question had involved the quick downing of several glasses of the Lincolnshire’s claret cup—very well fortified with spirits at that late point in the evening—followed by a hell-bent ride through Green Park. On Diablo. In the dark.

“You were lucky,” said Lord Harcourt, “that you didn’t break the damn thing.”

Meaning his arm. Or leg. The marquess had fallen from the stallion, dislocating his shoulder and spraining his ankle badly enough to be unable to walk for the next sennight. They—Benjamin, the Earl of Derby, and Randall Dalton, a mutual friend—had carried Anthony back to the ball and managed, with the coachman’s help, to stuff him into Lord Harcourt’s carriage for the ride home, the marquess roaring with pain the entire time.

Lord Leighton grinned at his friend. “Now those were the days,” he said.

“You’re an idiot, you know that. You could have been killed.”

“A marquess, killed in Green Park?” Lord Leighton tut-tutted. “Very bad form, old man. It simply isn’t done.”

The truth was that the Anthony had been bored. He was quite fond of dancing, and extremely fond of young women, and one did find the two together at a ball—but gods, it was one damn thing after another in London, and even the grandest ball of the season was only one more of the same.

He hated cravats.

“But you think they will be there?” he asked.

Benjamin raised his eyebrows.

“I ... I was just wondering.”

“Let me find out.”

* * * *

Lord Harcourt returned to his father’s home very late that night—as free lodging, he preferred it to any other, and ignored all paternal hints otherwise—and drank one last glass of the duke’s finest brandy.

Benjamin considered the matter at hand. Miss Carys Davies. The marquess.

He had assured Lord Leighton that he could discover whether the Misses Davies had plans to attend the Lincolnshire’s ball, and that if they did not have such plans, to encourage them. Lord Harcourt had no doubt of his success in this venture. A brief note to Miss Isolde Davies should do the trick, a note in which he would make certain advantages clear.

Harcourt saw no reason to beat about the bush. And the interest of a marquess was nothing to sniff at, especially for a quiet wren like Isolde’s sister. Not that Lord Harcourt disliked Carys; quite the opposite, in fact. He found both of the twins pretty, intelligent, and charming, but Isa was the livelier by far, and Carys reserved enough in her manner that—despite an acquaintance beginning in childhood—he felt he hardly knew her at all.

Benjamin had never understood how the girls had developed such entirely different characters.

Just another finger of brandy, perhaps—

As it happened, Lord Harcourt’s concern in the matter of the Lincolnshire’s ball had relatively little to do with the twins, and much more with Lord Leighton himself. They were friends, and Benjamin had always tried to make up for what he could not provide in that relationship—to whit, money—by a more general concern for the marquess’s welfare. He wondered why he was the only one of the man’s connections to notice that it was all going wrong. Anthony’s life was spinning and lurching closer to some cliff that Benjamin could not yet see. But when such as Lord Leighton fell, ‘twould be a fall from height.

The duke’s son sighed. He disliked anxiety and fuss, but found them unavoidable in this event. Something must be done.

The Marquess of Clare had always been a man with a broad appetite for fun. Lord Harcourt had accompanied him on expeditions near and far, had seen him drink and flirt and gamble, and—most assuredly—ride fast and hard. The dislocated shoulder had been only one of the injuries, fortunately all minor, that his lordship had sustained over the years.

Still, Anthony Leighton was always in control of his life. Or at least he
had
been. Benjamin was growing less certain of this. During the past few months Lord Leighton had fought several times at Gentleman John’s until he was bruised and bloody, been deep in his cups more often than usual, and his boisterous good nature had taken a turn for the difficult. The episode on the front lawn of Cardingham House was a first, but Lord Harcourt began to wonder if it would the last.

‘Tis all the fault of Josephine, thought Harcourt. The marquess had known for much of the past year that his youngest sister—out of all the siblings, the one the Lord Leighton was closest to, the only member of the family that he spoke with almost as frankly as with Benjamin himself—would be leaving soon, that the huge old house would be his alone, with only the dowager for company. But perhaps he had not quite believed it until Jo was really gone.

Jo
, thought Lord Harcourt, and his gaze locked on something unseen for a long moment.

At any rate— Anthony and Lady Leighton were never an easy combination. Josephine’s wedding had taken up much of the dowager marchioness’s energies for a number of months, but now she was free to spend her time organizing the marquess.

Anthony cannot wish to marry merely to satisfy his mother, thought the duke’s son. He is hardly in her pocket, and there is time enough to provide an heir. So why this sudden interest in Miss Carys Davies? Benjamin could only hope it was more than a whim born of boredom and the need for change—something, anything—in the marquess’s life.

If Lord Leighton hurt Carys Davies, Isa would never forgive him—or Lord Harcourt. And Benjamin would rather ride Diablo on another moonless night than face Isolde Davies’s wrath.

“We are going,” said Isolde, “to the Lincolnshire’s ball.”

“You may be going,” replied Carys. “
We
are not.”

Isa turned to one of the wardrobes. “You must go,” she said. “I have already purchased a new gown for you.” She held up a silk of the latest style, overlaid with gauze, the waist
a l’empire
in a pale, robin’s-egg blue. The dress seemed to shimmer in the candlelight.

“It’s beautiful,” said Carys.

“Isn’t it, though? The beading is
just
the right amount.”

“You will look delightful in that colour.”

“Pah. I have purchased another gown for myself,” said Isa. “You cannot wish this lovely silk to go to waste? Along with our brother’s blunt?”

A threat of wasted money was usually enough to bring her sister around. But not this time.

“Our brother,” said Carys, “can afford the loss. Besides, there will be other balls. You can wear it to one of them.”

Isa’s head was back in the wardrobe. She emerged with a pair of ball slippers in the identical robin’s-egg blue, and a small reticule.

“The marquess will be there,” said Isolde. She put on one of the slippers and demonstrated the elegant line of its strapping to her sister.

“Very nice. And which marquess do you mean?” said Carys.

“You are quite amusing, I’m sure. But a poor actress.”

“Nevertheless, I am
not
going to the Lincolnshire’s ball.”

Isolde chewed on her lip for a few seconds, and then said, “Oh, very well.”

Carys glanced up at her sister. It could not be that easy.

“Remain home and embroider something. But
if you
do
go to the ball I will allow you to teach me to ride.”

There was a long moment of silence as Carys stared at her sister. “Truly?” she said finally.

“Truly.”

“Well ... perhaps ... “

“I cannot believe that you hesitate. One evening—one!—against a chance for your beloved sister to join proper society in all of its horsey manifestations.”

Carys snorted. “You’ve managed perfectly well in a carriage.”

“Lord Deshram asked me to join him for a canter in Hyde Park only last week. And I could not.”

Her twin was surprised. “You never said.”

“I was chagrined.”

* * * *

Isolde Davies could not ride.

‘Twas a skill assumed of any high-born lady or gentleman. Neither twin had acquired it during their schoolroom years in London, but upon their remove to Cornwall and the Pencarrow estate, the viscount had decided that it was time. A small paddock was prepared, a riding master engaged, and two habits sewn and tailored, one of forest green velvet, and the other of a deep plum.

Isolde adored her habit, which she would have worn around the house all day if permitted, and particularly the shako cap with its feather. Both girls were excited at the
idea
of riding a horse. The theory of the thing, if you will. And when the weather turned fine, and the morning of the first lesson arrived, each twin was nearly bouncing with anticipation.

Then reality intervened. Carys took to the endeavor as a fish to water, and for the remainder of their time at the estate when she was not walking through the Bodmin moors she was riding through them. But Isolde—

‘Twas something to do with the animal’s size. Talfryn had picked a smallish mare of good disposition for each twin, but from the moment Isa had gotten close enough to see her mount’s true height—seemingly a mile above her own head—and to
feel
, somehow, the mare’s massive weight, the bones and the muscle and those awful hooves making Isa’s own body seem insignificant and utterly fragile, she had been terrified.

Heaven knew she had tried. For days Rose—the mare—walked slowly around the inner paddock with the groom at lead, Isa near tears the entire time. And Talfryn, to his credit, had not insisted further.

“I’m sorry!” she had sobbed to her brother, curled in his arms and shaking. “I’m sorry! I just can’t!”

Carys, ready to gallop for hours on her own mount, had been confused by her twin’s response. How could the pleasant little mare be frightening? And there had been nothing before that she and Isolde had not done together. She and Talfryn shared a worried conversation outside of Isa’s hearing.

“I’ve never gone anywhere without her!”

“Well,” said Tal, “then this will be a first.”

“Perhaps I should not ride at all,” said Carys.