by Balogh, Mary
“Thank you, Estelle,” Matilda said. “You make me sound very staid and very dull.”
“You are not dull at all,” that young lady cried, startling her by rushing at her and catching her up in a hug. “Or staid.”
“What I want to know about,” Boris said, “is your flighty youth, Aunt Matilda, when you were in town with Uncle Humphrey and made your come-out and knew Lord Dirkson. Was everything very different back then?”
“Oh yes, indeed,” Matilda said, slightly dizzy over the fact that everyone’s attention was upon her. “We lived in caves, you know, and wore animal skins.”
“And hunted down our food with stone mallets,” Charles added to the great delight of the young people.
Matilda, catching his eye and noting the twinkle there—oh she recognized that twinkle—felt suddenly giddy with joy.
Joy?
When had she last felt joyful? When she had also felt youthful? A long, long time ago. Back when they lived in caves and rubbed sticks together to make fire. Even before the time of bows and arrows.
“And did you waltz at those balls, Aunt Matilda?” Boris asked.
Alas, no. The waltz had not been invented until long after she was young.
“We stamped about barefoot to the beating of drums,” Charles answered for her, actually grinning for a moment.
Matilda laughed aloud and then felt horribly self-conscious. For though the young people and most of the adults were laughing too, Charles’s eyes were fixed upon her, and suddenly he was not laughing at all. His eyes had even stopped twinkling.
Ah, but she wished, wished, wished the waltz had become popular thirty years or so before it had. It was surely the most romantic dance ever. She wished there was the memory of waltzing with him, even if only once.
“It was decent of you to offer to accompany our party,” Adrian said the following morning as he rode his horse alongside his father’s through the streets of London.
“I shall enjoy seeing Kew on my own account,” Charles said. “I just hope you will not feel constrained by my presence.”
“Not at all.” Adrian grinned. “If I wish to become amorous, I am sure I will discover some bushes behind which to slink while you are looking the other way.”
“You fancy one of the ladies, then, do you?” Charles asked.
“Lady Jessica Archer has a court of admirers large enough to fill our drawing room,” Adrian told him. “I would be totally lost in the crowd. And I do not fancy Lady Estelle Lamarr, though she is exceedingly pretty and I like her. I do not believe I have met Miss Rigg, though I may recognize her when I see her. I have no intention of fixing my interest for many years yet.”
The group was to gather at Archer House on Hanover Square, home of the Duke of Netherby, Lady Jessica’s half brother. They were to take one carriage, provided by young Bertrand Lamarr’s father. The ladies would ride in that. The men would accompany it on horseback. And they had perfect weather for the excursion. After a few cloudy, blustery days, the sun was shining and the wind had died down at last. It was going to be a warm day, though probably not oppressively hot.
Why the devil had he made the offer to accompany the young people? Obviously he could not be the sole chaperon of a group of unmarried young ladies. Yet without them there would have been no need of chaperonage at all. He could fulfill his role only if there were an older lady with him, yet he had no wife. Had he imagined the shocked silence with which his offer had been received? He knew why he had made it, of course, for he had already had a lady chaperon in mind.
Strangely, he had not really thought of the implications of his suggestion until later. It had been such a spur-of-the-moment thing. It had hardly occurred to him that he was dooming them both to spending the day in company together. He had thought only that Matilda was free to go with the young people, that she would probably be well accepted by them all since she was the mother of none of them. He had thought that she would probably enjoy a day out with young people, free of her own mother. He had thought that she would enjoy a day at Kew. She had enjoyed it thirty-six years ago. And yes, Adrian, there were bushes there behind which a couple could slink for a quick kiss.
He had wanted her to be visible. They were a decent lot, the Westcotts, but they had one collective shortcoming that had irritated him all evening. None of them saw Matilda. Oh, they did not ignore her. She was a part of their family and was included in all their activities and conversations. But none of them saw her. None of them, with the exception of her mother, had seen her, lovely and graceful, eyes bright, cheeks flushed with animation, dancing a minuet. None of them knew her. A presumptuous thought, no doubt, when he had had no dealings with her for well over thirty years and had known her even all that time ago for only a few brief months.
But she was a person, by God, even if she was past the age of fifty. Even if she was a spinster. She deserved a life.
But now he was stuck with being in company with her all day. It was not a happy thought, though he had found himself dressing with greater than usual care this morning—to his great annoyance when he had realized it.
“I think I want to meet him,” Adrian said abruptly.
Charles turned his head to look at his son.
“Lieutenant Colonel Bennington,” Adrian explained. “Gil.”
“He lives in Gloucestershire,” Charles told him. “I doubt he will want to meet you, Adrian. He has no desire to see me ever again.”
“A man can travel,” Adrian said. “A man can knock on a door. It can remain closed to him, of course, but he can do those things.”
Charles frowned. “And will you?” he asked as they turned their horses into Hanover Square.
His son shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not.”
There was no further chance to consider what Adrian had just said. Dorchester’s traveling carriage as well as a cluster of horses was drawn up outside Netherby’s house. A chattering group of young people was gathered on the steps and out on the pavement while the young Duchess of Netherby and the dowager duchess, Lady Jessica’s mother, looked on from the top step, presumably preparing to wave them on their way. Lady Matilda Westcott was standing by the open door of the carriage.
He had once told her, Charles remembered suddenly, that pale blue was her color, that she should wear it as often as possible. Where the devil had that memory come from? She was wearing it now. It might have been thought to be too youthful a color for a woman of her age, but the dress and the spencer she wore over it were smart and elegant, neither youthful nor dowdy. She wore a small-brimmed navy blue bonnet, neat, with no added frills or flowers or feathers. She had spotted him and inclined her head, rather prim mouthed. He wondered if she regretted agreeing to his suggestion. But she had done it without hesitation. And then she had made that light, humorous answer about living in caves and wearing animal skins to the question one of the young people had asked about life when they were young. And then, when he had added his own silliness, she had laughed aloud with what had sounded like genuine glee.
And, ah …
She had been Matilda in that moment, as she had once been. As though all the years between had fallen away.
“Mr. Sawyer,” Lady Estelle Lamarr cried gaily, addressing Adrian as they rode closer. “There you are. You are almost late. And you see? We have added two more members to the party. Mr. Ambrose Keithley and Dorothea, his sister, have agreed to join us.” Miss Rigg and the Keithleys were identified and made their bow and curtsies.
“How do you do, Lord Dirkson?” Bertrand Lamarr called, grinning up at Charles. “Both Mrs. Rigg and Lady Keithley accepted you without question as a chaperon for their daughters.”
“I believe, Bertrand,” the dowager duchess said, “it was the fact that Matilda was to go along with the group that persuaded both of them. Good morning, Lord Dirkson, Mr. Sawyer.”
Charles touched his hat to the ladies and smiled at Matilda. Her lips grew even primmer. Even her kid gloves, he noticed, were pale blu
e. Had she dressed with as much care as he had this morning? Had she remembered what he had told her about the color? Or had she discovered for herself over the years that it suited her?
“If the horses are not to stage a rebellion at being kept waiting so long,” she said, not specifically addressing Charles, “we should perhaps think of being on our way.”
“Oh yes, indeed,” Lady Estelle cried. “You will sit on the seat facing the horses, Aunt Matilda. We are all agreed upon that. The rest of us drew spills, and Jessica won the seat next to you, the lucky thing. Charlotte, Dorothea, and I will squeeze onto the other seat, our backs to the horses.”
“How fortunate the gentlemen are,” Miss Keithley said, “being able to ride the whole way in the fresh air. We ought to have drawn also for the middle seat. Now we will have to squabble over it.”
“Not in my hearing,” Matilda said. “You may occupy it on the way there, Miss Keithley, and Estelle on the way back.”
“Bravo, Aunt Matilda,” young Boris Wayne said. “You keep them in line.”
Miss Keithley laughed and climbed into the carriage. The other three young ladies lost no time in following her, all talking and laughing at once.
“Matilda,” Charles heard the dowager duchess say to her sister, “I hope you know what you have taken on. I doubt they will stop giggling all the rest of the day.”
“I expect to survive the ordeal, Louise. I was once young myself,” Matilda replied before looking, obviously startled, at Charles, who had dismounted in order to hand her into the carriage. “Thank you, Lord Dirkson.”
She rested her hand lightly upon his outstretched one and he closed his fingers about it. It was a slim, long-fingered hand and warm through her glove. And then she was inside the carriage and turning to sit beside Lady Jessica, and the coachman was putting up the steps and closing the door before climbing to the perch and gathering the ribbons in his hands.
Charles mounted his horse again, and the whole cavalcade set off on its merry way to Kew. Adrian was already laughing with the other young men, perfectly at his ease.
Now this, Charles thought, was a new experience. The rake turned chaperon.
Bertrand had thought overnight of a friend of his who would be sure to want to join them. Perhaps more significant, Matilda had understood from the studied carelessness with which he had made the explanation, the friend had a sister who was very pretty and vivacious and had danced a set with Bertrand at her come-out ball a month or so ago in addition to several since then. So the carriage was more crowded than originally planned, and three of the young ladies were forced to sit squashed together on the seat opposite the one she shared with Jessica. Their spirits did not seem to be in any way dampened by discomfort, however.
It was a merry group indeed. Matilda had half forgotten how the very young behaved when they far outnumbered any older persons. She might have tried impressing a more sober decorum upon them and thus securing some peace for herself, but why should she? She was actually pleased to discover that her presence seemed not to have any inhibiting effect upon the spirits of her charges.
“Mama was not at all inclined to permit me to come,” Miss Keithley said when the carriage was nicely under way, “even though Ambrose was to come too. I almost died. But then she was told that you were to chaperon us, Lady Matilda.”
“Oh dear,” Matilda said, twinkling back at the girl. “Does that mean I have a reputation as something of a dragon?”
It was a quite unwitty remark, but it nevertheless set off a renewed gust of giggles from all four of her fellow travelers.
“Not at all,” Miss Keithley assured her. “Mama said you were eminently respectable—her exact words.”
“Ah, a dragon, then,” Matilda said. “I shall try not to breathe fire over any of you, however. Provided, that is, you all display your most sedate conduct from this moment on.”
For some reason that suggestion called for another burst of merry laughter, and Matilda felt happy for no reason she could explain. She had not felt at all happy all through a night of disturbed sleep. She had never been a chaperon. More to the point, she had never been a chaperon with Charles Sawyer. Whatever had possessed him to offer her name when Viola had been about to suggest going with the young people and Louise had been about to make a martyr of herself by agreeing to go herself? Mama had not been at all pleased. She had told Matilda on the way home last night that she ought to have put that man in his place with a very firm refusal. Since he was going too on this ramshackle excursion to Kew, who was going to chaperon Matilda?
Mama, Matilda had protested. I am fifty-six years old.
And Viscount Dirkson is a rake, her mother had retorted.
Was a rake, Matilda had said. His own son is to be of the party, Mama.
She had lain awake wondering why he had suggested her name and why she had agreed with such alacrity and what she would do if any of the young people misbehaved. Surely that would not happen, though. They were all properly brought up young persons. And she had wondered what she and Charles would talk about if they happened to be paired together, as was surely very likely since the young people would want to be with one another. She had wondered if he would offer his arm and if she would take it. The very thought had interfered with her breathing and she had wondered if she could develop a head cold or smallpox or something similarly dire overnight so that she could send her excuses and beg Viola to go in her stead. But there was her notoriously healthy constitution. No one would believe her.
But now she felt happy and carefree, almost as though she were one of these youngsters herself. Almost as though she had suddenly shed thirty-six years and might start giggling too at any moment. Goodness, they would all look at her as if she had sprouted another head.
“One thought bothered me last evening,” she said. “The excursion was planned to include six young persons. But it was going to be impossible, I thought, for the six to be sorted out in such a way that two were not going to be paired with either a sibling or a cousin. What a dreadful waste of an outing and lovely weather that would have been.”
Again the delighted, trilling laughter.
“But now that the number has increased to eight,” Matilda continued, “you may each walk with a gentleman who is not related to you in any way at all.”
The laughter this time was mingled with a few blushes.
“And that includes you, Lady Matilda,” Miss Rigg said. “For there are ten of us in all, are there not?”
“Well, goodness me, yes, you are quite right,” Matilda said, hoping she was not about to become one of the blushers. “Now let me see. I need to avoid Boris Wayne, as he is my nephew, and Bertrand Lamarr, since he is my former sister-in-law’s stepson. Does that make him in any way my relative? Hmm. Maybe not, but he does call me Aunt Matilda. He is very handsome, is he not?”
“He is,” Miss Keithley said with a scarcely disguised sigh.
“Bertrand and I both consider you our aunt,” Estelle told Matilda. “And do not tell him he is handsome or his head will swell.”
“But you will be paired with Lord Dirkson, Lady Matilda,” Miss Rigg told her in all seriousness, as though there were any alternative.
“I suppose you are right,” Matilda said, “since he is the only one close to me in age. Well, he is rather handsome too, is he not?”
“I think Mr. Sawyer is nice looking,” Estelle said. “He has kind eyes and a sweet smile.”
“Was Viscount Dirkson really a friend of Uncle Humphrey’s?” Jessica asked. “And did you really meet him all those years ago, Aunt Matilda, and dance with him at balls? I think he must have been very handsome as a young man. He must have looked a bit like Gil but without the scar. Did you fancy him?”
“Fancy?” Matilda said, raising her eyebrows. “Is that the sort of language your mama encourages you to use, Jessica?”
But Jessica only laughed with glee, as did the other three. “Were you in love with him?”
“Oh, head over ears,�
�� Matilda told her. “So was every other girl on the market that year, and probably a few who were not. But there were many other very gorgeous young men to ogle too. I am convinced men were more handsome in those days.”
“Oh, Aunt Matilda,” Jessica said, still laughing, “is that the sort of language Grandmama encouraged you to use? Ogle?”
“Touché,” Matilda said, and patted her niece on the knee.
The attention of the young ladies turned beyond the windows at that point. They would have claimed to be admiring the scenery, no doubt, if asked, while what they were really admiring was the gentlemen, who often rode within sight of the windows. They did it deliberately, Matilda believed, in order to see and be seen. Oh, she had forgotten so much about the mating rituals of the very young. But how easily the memory of it all came back—the preening and flirting, the fan waving and pretended indifference, even disdain.
Men always showed to advantage on horseback, provided they had reasonably trim figures and good posture and well-muscled thighs and rode as though they and the horse were a single entity.
All of which Charles had and did. The thought was in Matilda’s mind before she could guard against it. He was fifty-six years old, for heaven’s sake. But he was still gorgeously handsome and attractive. Though probably only in her eyes. She doubted any of her companions were sparing him a glance when there were Bertrand and Boris to gaze at, and Mr. Sawyer and Mr. Keithley.
She wondered if he had noticed she was wearing pale blue. She hoped not, or, if he had noticed, for after all he had eyes, she hoped he did not remember once telling her that she should always, always wear blue of the palest shade because it accomplished the seemingly impossible and made her even prettier and more desirable than she already was. He had actually used those words—more desirable. She had been shocked and thrilled to the core. But how foolish to think that he might remember. So many years had passed. She had not chosen her outfit deliberately for that reason. She had tried three different dresses first—the dark green, the tan, and the dark blue—before she had instructed her maid to pull this one from the back of her wardrobe. She had worn it only once before even though she had possessed it for two years. She had concluded after that one occasion that it was too youthful. But today she had tried it on and had felt immediately happy in it. She might be going as a chaperon, but she was not ancient. Not quite, anyway. And she wanted to look her best.