Two Corinthians (21 page)

“So it seems, except that something Lizzie said makes me think they have no hopes of Almack's.”

“Aha, just let me have a word with Sally Fane.”

“Lady Jersey?  You know Silence too?  You astonish me, Tillie.”

Mrs Tilliot snorted with laughter.  “She always was a talkative creature, even as a small child. Yes, your dear mother and I knew little Sally's mama intimately. Ann Fane's father was a banker, you know, Robert Child.  The poor dear had a difficult time of it, Countess of Westmorland though she became, until the Marchioness of Bellingham took her up. Ann inherited the bank, and her daughter owns it now, I collect, for all she's so set against the taint of trade. Explains her being such a high stickler, I daresay, that and her Gretna marriage.  I've no doubt Sally...what's her name now?...will be happy to do me a small favour.”

“Lady Jersey. Now I come to think of it, Jersey breeds his own hunters in Oxfordshire.  He must know Sir James Sutton well, I imagine. I shall take you to call on her this morning.”

“Lud, no. I am too old to be running all over town paying visits. You shall go this morning and fetch your Miss Suttons to me, and while you are gone I shall make a list of people to invite to my at-home.  It is by far the easiest way to advertise my arrival, and it will serve as a formal introduction for your Miss Suttons. None of your scrambling modern manners.”

“Yes, ma'am,” said George obediently, “but I beg you will not refer to them as my Miss Suttons. It makes me feel like an Eastern potentate with a harem.”

“Not too far from the truth, if there is anything in the rumours by the time they reach Northumberland.”

“Tillie, I am shocked!  Besides, I have given up the muslin company since Daniel found himself a respectable match.”

“No wonder you are so fidgety then. Go out and find yourself a high-flyer, boy.”

George put his hands over his ears, grinning.  “Scrambling modern manners and niminy-piminy modern tongues.”

“Oh, be off with you!” ordered his cousin.

George had not attempted at the Hollands' ball to explain his absence to the Suttons. As he knocked on the door of the house in Portman Square, he decided not to tell Claire immediately but to wait and see if she asked. He was in no way accountable to her. Besides, he did not want her to feel herself under an obligation because he had gone all that way just to do her a favour.

If she did not ask, Lizzie was bound to.

Claire was alone in the front parlour. She glanced up from her book as Enid announced, “It's 'is lordship, miss.”

“George!”  She smiled and held out her hand. “Come and sit down. Enid, send Molly down, if you please.”

“Is Lizzie still abed?” he asked, his disobedient heart jumping as he took her hand in his. No gloves this morning. Her fingers burned him.

“On the contrary, she has already left for the Marchmonts. There is more room for her admirers in their drawing room.”

Her soft laugh tore at his self-control. He wanted to cradle her in his arms, brush his lips across hers, teach her the meaning of passion. Molly came in. He sat down.

Tillie was right: he must find himself a ladybird.

“So Lizzie has collected a multitude of beaux, has she?”  He forced his voice to display casual interest. He was not used to dissembling.

“Yes, but they are almost all boys, and half of them she shares with Nell Marchmont. There is little hope of marriage. Still, she is enjoying herself excessively.”

“I am glad Lady Caroline has been so successful.  I needn't have gone all the way to Northumberland.” The words escaped him, half against his will.

“Is that where you were?  What has your journey to do with Lady Caroline?”

“I went to fetch my Cousin Tillie, hoping that she might help you introduce Lizzie to the Ton.”

“Then it was a plot!  I suspected it, but I did not like to ask Bertram. Was it your idea?”

“Yes.” He tried to sound modest. “But Pomeroy's execution was better. He beat me in the curricle race too.”

“By a few feet. And Oxfordshire is closer by two hundred miles. It was your idea, and that is what counts.”

“You are kind to say so, but you must allow Bertram credit for adopting my idea when he must have wished me at the devil for coming up with it first.”

“So you think he has serious intentions of offering for Lizzie?”

“For Lizzie?”  The modest darling thought it was her sister Pomeroy was after!  “I must not dare venture an opinion.”

“She does tease him so, though she is very good in public. She has been trying to persuade him to waltz with her, despite not having permission, and you know what a stickler he is for observing the conventions.”

“If anyone can shake him from his orthodoxy, it will be Lizzie. However, she may not need to. Tillie vows she can obtain vouchers for Almack's for you.”

“George!  Lizzie will be
aux anges!”

“And you?”

“It will be interesting to see what it is like.”

“I somehow doubted that you would be overwhelmed at the honour,” he said drily. “You must not tell Lizzie until it is certain. Will you come and meet Tillie now?  I have strict orders not to return without you.”

“I am expecting callers,” she said with a doubtful frown.

Though he would have preferred to smooth away the wrinkles with his fingertips, he limited himself to words. “Unless you have promised to be at home, you need not let that concern you. You must learn that nothing increases interest like occasional unavailability.”

“I find I enjoy entertaining visitors,” she confided, “even though most of the gentlemen talk of nothing but horses.  But I should like to meet your cousin and I have no definite engagement until Bertram comes at four to take me to the park. Most people have left by then, you see, except Horace Harrison, who will stay on and on. Bertram protects me from his importunities. I daresay he feels in some sort responsible since Mr Harrison is his cousin. I shan't keep you waiting above a minute.”

She hurried from the room before George could demand details of Harrison's importunities. By the time she returned, he had recollected that it was none of his affair.

~ ~ ~

Mrs Tilliot was favourably impressed by Miss Sutton.

“A delightful girl,” she told George later.  “I can't say I didn't have misgivings. However, it's clear she's not one of your lightskirts and even if she had proved as vulgar as I feared, I'd have done my best to establish her, for your sake. She confessed that her sister is a trifle outspoken, but I ain't mealymouthed myself. I don't pretend to know what you are about, but I like the girl and I'll do what I can for the two of them.”

George was left speechless.

For his own peace of mind, he deliberately avoided Claire during the following week.  It was not easy, for she spent a great deal of time at Bellingham House, helping Tillie prepare for her party.  After losing the caterer's estimate, Lizzie was dismissed from this task, so he took it upon himself to keep a fatherly eye on her while her sister was occupied.

He was therefore extremely annoyed when, in the middle of the at-home, Lady Caroline took him aside to berate him.

“I don't know what you mean by giving a party in Claire's honour,” she hissed. “It looks most particular!  I warned you that Bertram means to offer for her.”

“You are mistaken, ma'am,” he responded coldly. “My aunt is giving the party to introduce Lizzie to her friends. If your brother chooses to interpret it otherwise, then perhaps a hint of competition will make him appreciate Claire better.”

She flushed. “Just because he is not demonstrative, you must not suppose that he does not hold her in affection.” Glaring at him, she flounced off.

As well be hanged for the deed as the appearance, he thought, and went to look for Claire. He grinned when he found her surrounded by fellow-Corinthians, friends whom he had invited this evening but whom Bertram had originally presented to her in his absence. There was more competition there than Bertram had bargained for.

Claire smiled at him, but he decided against breaking into her circle. Instead he went to find Lady Jersey. The handsome, malicious leader of the Ton was of an age with him, and she always enjoyed flirting with an attractive gentleman. Though it would be improper for him to request vouchers for the Suttons, there was no harm in turning her up sweet before Tillie approached her.

~ ~ ~

As duly noted in the Morning Post, on Wednesday, 25th April, 1821, Miss Sutton and Miss Elizabeth Sutton made their first appearance at Almack's, escorted by Mrs Tilliot and George, Lord Winterborne.  His lordship had had too many flirts in his time for the latest to be worthy of a mention in the gossip column on the next page. Besides, it was filled with the names of those who, having unwisely visited Queen Caroline, had been crossed off Carlton House's guest list. Prinny, it was said, had taken to his bed at the news that his wife was still insisting on being crowned at his side.

George tossed the paper aside. He had derived much amusement from the evening.

There was Lizzie's sotto voce indignation when she found that this mecca of the Fashionable World was decorated without distinction and served an inferior supper.  It had not prevented her jubilation when Sally Jersey, with a slyly inquisitive glance, presented George to her as a partner for the waltz.

There was Horace Harrison's vexed wail, “But they are shockingly outmoded,” when he was turned away at the door for wearing turquoise trousers instead of the
de rigueur
knee-breeches.

There was Mrs Drummond Burrell's horrified face when Tillie informed her that modern society was utterly lacking in all the social graces.

Best of all, there was Pomeroy's annoyance that George, not he, had been instrumental in obtaining their admittance.

~ ~ ~

Matters came to a head between them towards the end of May. George was on edge, increasingly disturbed by Pomeroy's slowness in declaring himself. Since he had maintained his self-imposed distance from Claire, never dancing with her more than once and escorting Lizzie more often, he failed to see why Pomeroy should be equally touchy. Be that as it may, when Gentleman Jackson paired them in a bout of fisticuffs in his saloon, they both waded in with uninhibited fervour.

They were equally matched, George with a slight advantage in height and reach, Bertram with comparative youth on his side. George emerged with sore knuckles and a sore face, satisfied that his final uppercut had left Bertram with a sorer jaw, though he'd not feel it till he woke. He was annoyed with himself, though, for indulging in such a juvenile display of rivalry. Brushing aside congratulations, declining first aid, he summoned a hackney, since he had walked to Bond Street, and went home.

As he stepped into the imposing front hall of Bellingham House, Lizzie emerged from the drawing room, looking back over her shoulder.

“Then we shall see you this evening, Mrs Tilliot,” she said, then turned her head and shrieked, “George!  You've been in a carriage accident!”

She ran to his side, tenderly took his arm and peered up into his face as Claire and Tillie followed her into the hall.  The butler, two footmen and three maids appeared from nowhere.

Claire hurried to George's other side and, ignoring his expostulations that he was perfectly all right, they led him to the drawing room. On the way, they passed a large mirror, and he caught a glimpse of what all the fuss was about. His lower lip was split and swollen to the size of a damson, traces of blood from a nose-bleed stained his upper lip, while his right eye was half-closed, surrounded by a blotch of angry red that already showed signs of purpling.

His ribs began to ache as Claire and Lizzie deposited him on a sofa. Tillie took her first good look at him, moaned, and sank back on another sofa with her eyes shut.

Claire promptly abandoned him in favour of succouring the old lady. At that moment the butler appeared with a bottle of brandy.

“Jarvis, tell Mrs Tilliot's maid to bring her sal volatile,” ordered Claire.

To George's disgust, the brandy bottle disappeared again with the butler. However, a moment later it reappeared, clutched in the fist of a footman who bore in his other hand a plate with a slice of raw beef-steak on it. He was grinning. Slade, the valet, followed him with a bowl of warm water, clean white cloths and a pot of salve.

“Your nose is bleeding again,” announced Lizzie. “You are too big for that sofa. Lie down on the floor, flat on your back. Where's Jarvis?  We need to put his keys down the back of your neck.”

“I cannot drink the brandy if I am flat on my back,” George mumbled through his swollen mouth, but Slade was on Lizzie's side and he found himself examining the ornate plasterwork of the ceiling through the one eye now available to him. The beef-steak descended on the other eye.

Lizzie's blond curls eclipsed the ceiling as she gently wiped his face with a warm, wet cloth.

“What happened?” she asked.

He gasped as Slade's hand descended on his nose with a cold wet cloth and considerable pressure.

“Duthig,” he muttered irritably. “It was odly a fredly batch.”

“Best wait till his nose stops bleeding, miss,” advised Slade. “Ah, Mr Jarvis, may we borrow your keys?”

“Mrs Tilliot's maid says she has no sal volatile, miss,” the butler reported to Claire as an icy, jagged bunch of keys was forced down the back of George's neck.

Somehow he managed to turn his head a little to look suspiciously at his cousin. She threw him a large wink.

“Hartshorn, then, or whatever she uses,” said Claire impatiently, chafing Tillie's hand.

“She don't have any remedies because she never faints, it seems, miss. Might I suggest a drop of brandy?”

“An excellent idea,” said George, scattering nurses, cloths and beef as he surged to his feet. The keys slid down inside his shirt. “Thank you, Lizzie, thank you, Slade, I shall be much the better for a glass of brandy. Ouch!”  The keys stabbed him in the back as he flung himself into a chair. He jumped to his feet again. “Slade, get these damn things out of my clothes.”

“You had best see a doctor,” said Lizzie anxiously, averting her eyes as the harrassed valet pulled the tail of his master's shirt out of his pantaloons. “I believe you are delirious. Do sit down and try to tell us what happened.”