“Yes, yes. And I am Grey Sheffield, and this is Bernard McGowan, and we did this all the other morning, did we not?” Grey’s impatient voice broke their subtler communication, and for the first time Hayden found himself in accord with those social hostesses who, when informed by their husbands that Greyson Sheffield would be on their guest list, silently wished the ill-mannered fellow to perdition.
The color deepened in Amelie’s cheeks. “Of course. Excuse me for being late.”
“No need to apologize,” Grey said, deciding to be magnanimous. “Every deb in London considers it her right to be late in order to make an entrance. No reason you shouldn’t, too.”
“Greyson!” Hayden breathed, appalled.
“What?” Grey asked, looking around. “Am I wrong? No. Then why are you glowering at me? You don’t really believe every young lady in London is constitutionally incapable of telling time, do you, Hayden? Of course not. Their tardiness is orchestrated. No harm to it. Just a bit of showmanship, eh?”
Grey’s jocularity was suspicious. What the hell was his uncle up to?
“Necessary for any sale, like…” Grey waved his hand, searching for an example. “Oh, what is that amusing term the Americans have for it? Ah, yes, like a snake-oil salesman hawking his magic cures. One wants a bit of a song and dance to make the wares more intriguing.”
“Amelie is not wares,” Mrs. Walcott declared icily. Until this moment, she’d been motionless and silent, her dark eyes fixed on Grey.
“Of course she is.” Grey wheeled on her. He’d been waiting to engage her, Hayden realized. In fact he’d likely been deliberately provoking her to achieve this very result. There was an eagerness to his stance, a keenness in his gaze, that hadn’t been there a second ago. “As is any young lady in society. Why else would they call it the ‘marriage mart’?”
For a long moment no one spoke. Amelie flushed, Bernard fidgeted, and Hayden joined him. Mrs. Walcott stood rigidly. Then, abruptly, as though she had come to some decision and it had lifted a great weight from her, she took a deep breath and raised her chin. Her left brow climbed in an attitude of mockery.
“They? Oh. You mean your contemporaries. I fear you are dating yourself, Lord Sheffield,” she said. “Your ideas are so clearly those of a previous generation. But then, you are Lord Hayden’s…uncle, did you say? Or was that great-uncle?”
Hayden fought back a surprised bark of laughter. Gad! She’d scored a proper hit.
She continued, her tones unctuously kind. “But I suppose there’s really no need for you to try to keep current with the attitudes of younger people. Many older men cling to their preconceptions. I suppose prejudices offer some comfort in a world that is changing at such an alarming rate.” She regarded Grey with a sort of bland pity, making it clear she placed him amongst that company.
Good Lord. Hayden’s amusement turned to awe laced with trepidation. He believed this paid companion living in a backwater hamlet in the middle of nowhere had just called his sophisticated, thoroughly au courant uncle an old mossback.
“Why, you baggage,” Grey uttered in a hushed and wondering voice. “You incorrigible bit of baggage. What cheek!”
Hayden started, shocked speechless by Grey’s rudeness. Even for his uncle this was extreme.
“Do not dare call my dear friend such a terrible name!” Amelie said, her lower lip quivering.
Grey ignored her, his gaze still on Mrs. Walcott.
“Greyson!” Hayden found his voice. “We are here as these ladies’ guests.”
“Ladies,” Grey intoned righteously, still locked in a battle of stares with Mrs. Walcott, “do not insult their guests by implying that they are ridiculous old fossils.”
“Gentlemen do not call young girls ‘wares’!” Mrs. Walcott shot back. She did not look offended. She looked angry. Grey looked angry, too. And both of them looked oddly exhilarated.
Outside, a dog began yapping.
Amelie moved closer to Hayden, as though seeking safety from a brewing storm. He understood the impulse. The atmosphere was thick with the promise of disaster. At any moment, he expected spontaneous combustion to consume them—
“I believe I would like that drink, after all.” Bernard McGowan gulped.
Chapter 14
Grey, along with the rest of the company, turned to McGowan. The banker stood beside the decanter, an empty glass in his hand, smiling anxiously.
For several minutes Grey had forgotten he was there, so engaged had he been in his verbal skirmish with Fanny. The audacious creature had actually been baiting him, thinking to best him. Damn and blast McGowan’s ill-timed thirst. He’d been enjoying himself.
He glanced disgustedly at the banker, who was being soothed by a contrite-looking Amelie Chase.
“Poor Mr. McGowan,” she said, laying a hand on his forearm. “What terrible heathens you must think us! Forgive us for making you uncomfortable.”
McGowan flinched, doubtless at being called poor by the woman he’d seen as a prospective mate. “No cause for an apology, Miss Chase. None at all. Really—”
He was spared from making further reassurances by the arrival of what appeared to be a London guttersnipe. Dressed in an ill-fitting and not particularly clean uniform, a condition shared by her small, wizened face, a child stalked into the room.
“Food’s waiting and getting cold,” she announced.
“Ah. Thank you, Violet,” Fanny said with regal aplomb.
Violet stomped off.
“Shall we?” Fanny asked, and, without waiting for a response, sailed majestically from the room.
With a relieved smile, Bernard offered Amelie his arm and followed, leaving Hayden to fall into step beside Grey.
“I am mortified to call you my uncle,” Hayden murmured.
“Then don’t. Grey will suffice,” Grey replied.
“I am serious. Miss Chase is embarrassed, and you are the author of her discomfort. I will not—”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Hayden.” Grey stopped and regarded his nephew with unusual irritation. He was generally the most equitable of men. “If you’re going to call me out over some imagined insult, have done with it so that I can refuse and we can carry on.”
Hayden remained stubbornly mute. Grey studied his nephew in exasperation. “Do the young ladies of London really find this sort of overreaction attractive? Because if they do, I cannot help but feel pessimistic about the fate of society.”
“I am sorry if my attempt to shield an innocent from your bad manners strikes you as being excessive,” Hayden clipped out.
Grey clapped Hayden on the arm. “Apology accepted, old son.”
“I was being sar—”
“Still,” Grey interrupted, “perhaps you ought to spend less time at the theater this year. I fear all that histrionic claptrap has inspired in you an unfortunate tendency toward melodrama.”
Hayden sputtered. “You are the most im—”
“Ah, here we are.” Grey shoved Hayden into the dining room, looking around expectantly, his good mood restored. Hayden, spying Amelie waiting while Bernard seated Mrs. Walcott, hurried to hold her chair.
She smiled up at him. “Thank you, Lord Hayden.”
“Please. I would be honored if you would use my Christian name.”
She dimpled. “I thought I had.”
“Without the title,” Hayden said, twinkling.
God preserve us, Grey thought, watching the little byplay. Surely he’d never been so wet behind the ears, so painfully obvious?
Grey secured a seat beside Fanny, eager to renew their conversation. Hayden took the chair next to Amelie, opposite McGowan.
“Well,” Grey said, as soon as they’d all been seated. “Now, about this death threat. I assume you’ve all spent the last few days considering any possibilities. Whom do you consider most likely to have sent the letter?”
Though he was watching for Fanny’s reaction, he couldn’t help but note Amelie’s. The girl gasped and visibly blanched before turning huge, re
proachful eyes on him. He had the uncomfortable sensation of having kicked a kitten.
“Please, Lord Sheffield. It is such a fine evening. Cannot this wait for some later time?” Amelie said.
“But the purpose of this dinner was to—”
“Of course it can,” Hayden blustered manfully, his chest puffing and his eyes flashing in the approved hero manner. “Can’t it, Grey?”
“Well,” Grey grumbled, caught between Amelie’s reproach and Fanny’s unconcealed glee. “I suppose it can.”
After that the meal, punctuated by brief appearances by Violet bearing various dishes she unceremoniously slapped down in front of them, dragged on with disappointing geniality. Hayden and Amelie chattered without the apparent need to breathe, and Francesca and McGowan rattled on, too, mostly about golf, a game at which Fanny apparently excelled. Along with bicycling, tennis, and ice-skating. The woman must be a bloody Amazon. At least the food was good.
“Mrs. Walcott, have you visited London?” Hayden finally tore his attention away from Amelie long enough to ask.
“Oh, yes. At one time, Fanny lived in London with her husband,” Amelie said.
Grey mentally rubbed his hands with anticipation. This was more like it. Let Fanny try to slip and slide her way through this interrogation. She hadn’t the excuse of wet clothes to aid her flight.
“Did she?” Hayden asked eagerly, willing to find anything Amelie said riveting.
Amelie nodded. “When she was young.”
A crocodile smile spread across Grey’s lips. “Young, did you say?” he asked casually, leveling a pointed glance at Fanny. “And how long ago was that?”
“Oh, quite a while,” the girl said, unconsciously but effectively relegating her sainted companion to the land of dodderers, where he, according to said companion, also resided. He raised his brows.
Fanny caught his glance and, rather than glowering, actually looked like she might laugh. A shock of magnetism raced through his body.
He’d always appreciated people who could laugh at themselves, and a beauty who could laugh at herself was immeasurably more attractive. And a beauty whose dark eyes invited him to share her humor was…
He looked away, annoyed with himself. She was not at all what he expected, the usual toadying variety of confidence artist, with facile charm and ingratiating manners, but with a dearth of wit. Fanny had no charm, facile or otherwise, her manner distanced rather than ingratiated, and her wit was as sharp-edged as a Japanese sword.
What a fascinating creature she was. How unique. On whose unfortunate hide had she honed that tongue? Had necessity made her acerbic, or was it, as Mrs. Twinnings had suggested, her nature? And was it her true nature? Or was this persona simply another skin she wore, like the one of Alphonse Brown’s sylphlike wife?
Abruptly Grey’s pensiveness vanished, replaced by chagrin.
“Before her husband…departed,” Amelie was explaining.
“Departed?” Grey snapped, ill temper arising from his preoccupation with… No. From his attraction to Fanny. It was not only a betrayal of his father’s memory, but of his own logic. “Where did the fellow go?”
“To that country from which no traveler returns,” Bernard answered with pious dignity.
Grey glanced at him. Once more, he’d almost forgotten the banker, he’d been so quiet. “Oh,” Grey said flatly. “There.”
He faced Fanny. “Despair not, Mrs. Walcott. I have it on great authority that even though a chap may not return to this sphere in corpus, he may well still be floating about nearby, sight unseen.” He waved his hand at the ceiling. “Indeed, there are people who claim they can put you in touch with the dearly departed. For a certain financial remuneration. But if you’d care to take a stab at contacting the chap without one of these professionals present, I’d be more than happy to oblige. I feel certain you have the necessary sensitivity to make a go of it.”
Her dark eyes shot sparks. “Thank you for your concern, Lord Sheffield, but I don’t require their or your services.”
“Why? You don’t miss your husband?” he asked innocently.
“Grey!” Hayden said from the other side of the table. He tossed his napkin down and rose dramatically from his chair. “Mrs. Walcott. I am so sorry. Please accept my sincere apologies.”
Fanny, who’d been grimly studying Grey, looked up at his nephew, her expression baffled. “For what?”
“For what?” Hayden echoed, nonplussed.
Grey threw an arm over the back of his chair as he watched disgustedly. Of course, Fanny wouldn’t be offended by mere verbal swordplay, he thought. He would wager a year’s salary that being used to fighting her own battles, she resented interference.
“Why…why…my uncle’s regrettable…insensitivity. Regarding your bereavement,” Hayden stammered.
Fanny waved a dismissive hand. “Lord Sheffield isn’t the only boor I’ve ever encountered, young man. Nor will he likely be the last.”
He watched her approvingly. He’d known he was right.
She turned her black eyes on him. “Regardless,” Fanny continued, “it isn’t your place to apologize for your uncle. He ought to be able to do that for himself.”
If she thought to embarrass an apology from him, she would have to think again.
Hayden’s eyes rounded, but he gulped and plowed on. “You are too gracious, Mrs. Walcott.”
Grey snorted. Hayden shot him a glare but went on. “But I do not want you to think that I am unconscious of his earlier…unpleasantness, either.”
“What earlier unpleasantness?” she demanded peevishly. “Lord Hayden, what are you talking about?”
He blinked.
“Yes,” Grey put in, scowling. “What the blazes are you nattering on about, Hayden?”
Hayden looked from Fanny to Grey, his confusion growing. “I was concerned that you would take exception to my uncle’s manner. I…I must have been mistaken,” he finished lamely.
“Indeed, yes,” Grey said. “If you’d unglue your gaze from Miss Chase and attend the conversation at the table, you wouldn’t be making odd statements like this. Mrs. Walcott and I are getting along famously.” He issued her a challenging glance. “Aren’t we, Mrs. Walcott?”
She met it by tilting her chin up another degree and blasting him with a smile. “Indeed, we are, Lord Sheffield,” she said. “Famously.”
Seconds stretched into an interminable minute. Bernard shifted in his chair, Hayden tossed down the rest of his wine, and Amelie began studiously cutting the last piece of beef on her plate into minuscule portions. Once more, Violet saved the day.
“Dessert’ll be in the library,” she announced from the hall without bothering to enter. “Pudding.”
“Lovely! I adore a good pudding!” Amelie declared, overly bright.
“Me, too!” Hayden said.
“A sweet sounds just the thing.” Fanny set her napkin down preparatory to pushing herself from the table, but Grey gainsaid her efforts by shoving his chair back with so much force he nearly upended it and leaping to his feet to assist her. She accepted his ministrations with a noblesse oblige reserved for royalty, the hoyden. One would think she were a queen, not a second-rate trickster.
But then he gazed down at the elegant column of her slender throat, her polished ebony hair, and the snowy sheen of her pale skin. There was nothing second-rate about her.
Someone coughed, recalling him to the present. Damn. She’d done it again! Used her mesmerist tricks on him. He looked around. Hayden and Amelie were gaping at him.
“What?” he demanded. “Can’t a fellow offer a lady a service without occasioning comment? I wasn’t raised by wolves, you know.”
It was only later that night that Grey realized he’d called Fanny Walcott a lady. And meant it.
Chapter 15
After such a promising beginning, the evening was quickly heading toward disaster, Hayden thought, following McGowan and Amelie into the drawing room. The blasted Scotsman had taken advanta
ge of Hayden’s momentary amazement at his uncle’s claim of good manners to offer his arm to Amelie. Of course, she hadn’t any choice but to take it.
And what had Grey’s bit of chivalry been about, anyway? All through dinner Grey had been variously angry, amused, and contemptuous, only to cap it all by bolting into uncharacteristic gallantry.
Once in the room, McGowan secured a place next to Amelie on the divan and commenced chatting her up with the comfortable familiarity of an old friend. A very old friend, Hayden thought, dragging an armchair next to Amelie’s unattended flank. The banker had to be on the far side of thirty.
The girl, Violet, materialized. “Puddin’ll be late. Ploddy needs me help gettin’ to bed ’counta bein’ whiffed, and Miss Oglethorpe ain’t willin’ to serve,” she announced, and vanished.
Mrs. Walcott took this news without a hint of embarrassment, but with a certain degree of irritability. “He will be useless tomorrow,” she muttered.
“You have an interesting staff,” Hayden said conversationally.
“Servants are hard to find. Especially those willing to work at Quod Lamia,” she replied, moving a stack of newspapers from a lumpy-looking armchair and taking a seat.
Grey alone remained standing. Looming, actually. Over Mrs. Walcott. Who, it must be admitted, didn’t appear to notice or, if she did, didn’t particularly mind.
“Colonel Chase’s will might oblige Little Firkians to live in the vicinity of a witch,” she elaborated, “but they refuse to enter service to one. Besides, why work when you can muddle along on credit?”
There was more than a hint of bite in her voice. She was an uncomfortable sort of woman, Hayden decided.
“We have tried importing help, but those few servants sent up from the agencies in Edinburgh rarely last out the month,” Amelie put in.
“Once they discover their employer is a witch they flee?” Grey suggested.
“No. They become bored and flee. Can’t say I blame them,” Mrs. Walcott replied. “Little Firkin is exemplary only for its inhabitants’ xenophobic attitudes. It’s not fear so much as disapproval.”
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