Winter Wedding (6 page)

“I am used to waiting for Nel” was his very unsatisfactory reply.

“You haven’t got her very well trained, have you?”

“Her spirit is unbroken and unbent. A proper wild little filly. It is unpardonable for me to foist her off
on to you. I still think I should stay at the inn. There is no impropriety in it, do you think?” His brows rose and his gray eyes, as clear as crystals, studied her.

Clara shrugged unhelpfully. “I am only an amateur chaperon—I haven’t even put on my caps. Your aunt thinks it undesirable; I rather think Anglin might feel the same.”

“I see your point. Who chaperons the chaperons?” he asked, rubbing his hands and leering facetiously. “But as to Anglin’s taking a pet over it, he is so relieved to have her off his hands he wouldn’t care if I locked her in a dungeon. In fact, he threatened to do it himself.”

“What did she do?” Clara asked, her curiosity reaching a new pitch at his thoughtless comment.

For a moment, she thought he was about to tell her. He looked on the edge of some interesting revelation, then as she watched, his face became passive. “Nothing so very bad, really,” he said vaguely. “She is merely high-spirited. And of course so damnably attractive she has all the beaux in a twitter, including Oglethorpe. Did you ever see such a mackerel? He on the verge of his own wedding—” He came to a conscious stop as he remembered her relationship to the groom. “I mean ...”

She let him stammer a moment, then said, “I know what you mean. Frankly our opinion of Cousin Oglethorpe does not run high. You must not desist from denigrating him only because he is my cousin. Between your aunt and myself, we agree the only wise move he ever made was to offer for Prissie.”

“Hardly an inspired piece of genius either. We all have our less-than-perfect cousins. She is hardly taking this contretemps like a lady.”

“I beg to differ. She is taking it exactly as most ladies would take it.”

“Not as
you
would take it, Miss Christopher, I think,” he said, and smiled warmly.

“Not so very differently.” She was every bit as jealous as Prissie, and she had no groom for Nel to flirt with. No, her pique was aroused that Nel chose to flirt with her own beau, and possibly husband-to-be. But what galled her even more was his lack of disapproval of Nel’s behavior. Everyone was held to blame except the troublemaker.

“You appear to have got on remarkably cosy terms with Aunt Charity in a short space of time. No hiding the skeleton sheets in the closet. Do you like her?”

“I like her enormously. We are kindred spirits.”

“Sister cheeseparings, eh?” he joked. “I never took you for a skint, Miss Christopher.”

“The more accomplished skints conceal their vice. I taught your aunt a few tricks, and vice versa,” she said playfully.

“I would like to hear more of this.”

“I shall just drop you a hint, Lord Allingcote. You waste a few pennies by having your cards printed. You might cut them from a large sheet of cardboard and write them up by hand, as we did the place cards for the table. Mind you, we bought a dozen real cards for the titles who will be attending.”

He studied her with a bemused smile. “I thought I knew you quite well. Not long, but well. I hope Auntie hasn’t taught you to cut the wine with water. That is one of her little economies I cannot countenance. I don’t mind the mended sheets and short candles, or even the two logs she leaves for the grate. Three is the minimum that will actually kindle, you know. But cut wine is an abomination.”

“I shall personally see you have a bottle of undiluted claret in your chamber, sir, if it means a trip to the bowels of the cellar, which it will.”

“Been elevated to butler, have you? Auntie mentioned having a million or so jobs for you. You can save yourself that one job, however. I always bring my own wine to Branelea, and have also instructed my valet to see I get at least lukewarm water in the morning.”

“I hope Miss Muldoon and myself fare as well at the inn.”

“You will. I’ll go with you and speak to the proprietor. And Cla—Miss Christopher, let us not have any embarrassing arguments about paying the bill. You are doing me a favor by helping me look after Nel.”

“Very well,” she agreed, not embarrassed, but not wishing to linger on the subject either.

“There is just one little thing. I hope you don’t mind adjoining rooms? I think you ought to leave the door open between, in case ...” He didn’t finish the statement, and Clara looked a sharp question at him.

“Is she subject to nightmares, or—”

“Yes!” he said, but too swiftly, with too much the air of grasping at a straw.

Clara studied him closely. The signs of apprehension were easy to see: the flush around the neck, the unsteady eyes. “And now perhaps you will favor me with the truth, sir?”

Allingcote seemed almost relieved to have the charade done with. “You know me too well, Miss Christopher. The fact is, she might take into her head to—well,
leave.”

“Good gracious, a runaway! What have I gotten myself into?”

“A pack of trouble, milady!” he laughed. “No really, I don’t think she’ll bolt on us. Not tonight at least.”

“But why would she do it at all? What sort of girl is she, Allingcote?”

“Oh she’s a darling, but she requires the greatest vigilance. Are you a light sleeper, I hope?”

“I sleep like a log. Oh but I shan’t close an eye tonight, I know it.”

“I wish she might stay here, at Branelea. If only Prissie hadn’t set her face against the plan. And that demmed jackanapes of an Oglethorpe drooling all over Nel ...”

Clara overlooked these rationalizations. Her mind was busy trying to determine just how closely she must guard Nel. “Surely she won’t try to run away with no carriage, nor anyone to help her?”

“Probably not. I’ll check the hours of the stages to be sure.”

“Lord Allingcote, I think you owe it to me to tell me the whole. If I am to be responsible for the girl, I must know.”

“You are
not
responsible for her.
I
am, and I
will
stay at the inn. It is too much to saddle you with.”

“Well—but you cannot stay with her, with the adjoining door open as you suggested ...”

“No, but I hope you will, and between the two of us, we’ll ride herd on her so hard she won’t have a chance to sheer off on us.”

“This was all I needed,” Clara said, and turned to walk slowly from the room.

She went upstairs to pack her bag. The many various impressions gleaned that afternoon swirled through her brain as she worked. Allingcote had seemed not only happy but delighted to have met her again. His conversation suggested that he had thought of her often during the months they had been apart. Yet he was certainly mixed up in some close manner with the irresistible, the “darling” Nel Muldoon.

There was a possibility that the three of them staying at the inn was an indiscreet thing to do, but she was committed to it, and if Miss Muldoon was likely to take off into the night, she was not eager to be in sole charge of the girl. She remembered Lady Marguerite’s words when she had asked what Nel was like. “You’ll see,” she had warned. She had already seen she was a beautiful flirt and feared what else was to be revealed in the near future.

Chapter Six

Dinner at Branelea on the twenty-sixth of December was the opening salvo of the nuptial festivities. Twenty-four persons were seated in the dining hall. To a not overly discerning eye, the table was a picture of elegance. Candlelight flickered benignly on crystal and silver and linen. Only Clara and Lady Lucker knew that the best linen tablecloth was being saved for the wedding feast. For this occasion the cloth was mended at one end where it had got caught in the paddles of the washing dolly. Miss Georgiana and Miss Gertrude could consider themselves fortunate to be at the table at all. A mended cloth was plenty good enough for these suppliers of flannelette nighties and bed jackets. Lady Lucker’s supply of good china and crystal and sterling silver was sufficient to serve twenty-four, however, and her neighbors had supplied a splendid array of viands.

With Clara’s help in arranging the table, Miss Muldoon was set well away from Oglethorpe. From some perverse sense of martyrdom, Clara placed Allingcote well away from herself as well. She could only observe him across the board at the far end of the table, entertaining Miss Muldoon to the top of his bent. Her small consolation was that he frequently glanced down the length of the starched linen to herself.

The meal went off without a hitch. When the ladies left the gentlemen to their port, Miss Muldoon marched straightway to Prissie. Clara was after her in a flash, to lure her off to a corner out of mischief. Lady Lucker nodded in commendation of this wise precaution and sent Lady Marguerite along to join them. Clara was happy for the ally, particularly as the two young ladies were well acquainted.

“We didn’t expect to see you here, Nel,” Lady Marguerite said.

Miss Muldoon gave a triumphant little smile and replied, “Benjie arranged it all with Uncle Anglin. He didn’t want to be away from me for so long.” By some oversight of nature, Nel lacked dimples, but she had all the other paraphernalia of the flirt. The head cocked at a coy angle, the glance up through the long lashes, the teasing smile. Even in conversation with ladies exclusively, she practiced all her winsome tricks.

“When was it arranged?” Lady Marguerite asked unconcernedly.

“When Ben was with us for the whole week before Christmas.” Nel preened her hair with a fragile white hand.

“Ben was at the Domes’ last week,” Lady Marguerite countered.

“For part of the week we were at the Domes’,” Nel replied. “I convinced Benjie to take me, for I was bored to flinders waiting for Christmas to come. But he fell into one of his jealous fits when Mickey Dome tried to set up a flirtation with me, and we left earlier than we had intended.”

Her questioner shrugged and looked away, but Clara was listening avidly. It was becoming as clear as the three sides of a triangle that Nel was either engaged to Ben or about to receive an offer. Nothing else could account for his living in her pocket. Miss Muldoon turned a sharp blue eye on Miss Christopher and said, “You have known Benjie for quite a long time, have you?”

“I scarcely know him at all. We met once at a house party a few years ago.”

“I thought from your manner toward him it must be rather more than that,” the girl said pointedly, but still smiling. “I noticed a certain—familiarity, but then you older women are not so restricted as we young girls are.”

“I haven’t noticed you placing any restrictions on yourself, Nel,” Lady Marguerite said, not even trying to hide her dislike. Turning to Clara she added, “You didn’t mention knowing Ben, Miss Christopher. How long have you been acquainted?”

“We met two years ago. About two years ago—it was before Christmas actually.”

A curious expression seized Lady Marguerite’s face. “It wasn’t at the Bellinghams’ house party? The one where Ben had to come home unexpectedly because of Papa’s illness?”

“Yes, that was the one. I haven’t seen him since.”

“I see,” Lady Marguerite replied enigmatically. She began to examine Clara with a new, keener interest.

“It is strange Benjie should choose such a slight acquaintance to chaperon me,” Nel said with an air of pique. Her manner suggested he was usually more fastidious regarding who he let near her.

“I volunteered for the job,” Clara said dampingly, and made no secret of her lack of pleasure in it.

Nel skewered her with a blue gimlet eye and said, “I wonder why?” Clara ignored this mischievous statement.

Lady Marguerite was paying no heed to these few remarks. She looked preoccupied. “Did you go to Scotland after the Bellingham’s party, Miss Christopher?” she asked, with still that strange, almost gloating look.

“Yes, I did. How did you know that?”

“Ben mentioned it. He happened to go north himself a little later and said he had just missed someone from the Bellinghams’.” She turned to Nel and said, “I have figured out why you found Miss Christopher’s manner toward Ben strange. It was his great pleasure in seeing her again that accounts for it. You mistook the direction of the familiarity.”

The Incomparable did not condescend to reply to this remark. With a smirk and a steely eye she turned to Marguerite, showing Clara a broad view of her back. “What do you think of Oglethorpe?” she asked.

Knowing that he was Clara’s cousin, she replied, “He seems very nice.”

A trill of laughter greeted this. “What a quiz he is! I cannot think what your cousin sees in him. She is no great shakes herself, but she could surely do better than Oggie.”

Clara said coldly, “That was not the impression you gave this afternoon when you were with him. You seemed quite infatuated.”

“Oh I was just pestering Benjie. He is a fiend of jealousy—you’ve no idea. I don’t know why men are all so jealous.”

“Sure it wasn’t Prissie you were pestering?” Lady Marguerite asked with a sapient look.

“I can’t help it if she took a snit. As if I’d look twice at him, with Benjie in the same room. But she was always a ninny.”

Yet Nel had looked more than twice at him, with Ben not only in the same room, but right at her elbow. In her broad dealings with society, Clara had encountered many specimens of human nature, but it had not fallen to her lot before to meet anyone quite like Miss Muldoon. Clara had long ago discarded the old myth that homely girls were better-natured. They were more likely to be bad-natured, from jealousy or lack of attention or just plain anger at being unattractive. Pretty girls, especially if they were heiresses, as Miss Muldoon was, were generally agreeable. They had more than their share of suitors and attention. They were silly and a little vain sometimes, but not composed of pure spite.

Miss Muldoon, with a fortune at her back and the face of an angel, was pure mischief from the top of her golden curls to the toe of her dainty blue slippers. And she had taken on the job of chaperoning this minx all during the busy nuptial party. It would not do to begin by being rude to her, as she was sorely tempted to be. Clara braced herself to be agreeable and complimented Nel on her gown. It was not the lutestring of the afternoon, but a silk empress style in a similar shade of blue.