Her dress showed a similar lack of concern. Her gown was old and outmoded, a flimsy confection of muslin with a low bodice and narrow skirt, dating, William guessed, from her girlhood, when les merveilleuses had been the fashion leaders in Paris. A bosom of pleasing maturity appeared above her décolletage, set above an attractively small waist.
Considering her untidiness, a man of less perception might have been excused for thinking he had been intruded upon by the scullery maid; but William noted a certain grace to her movements and an unmistakable air of quality in her carriage. A quick estimate of her age and her casual air convinced him of her identity.
Seeing that surprise had paralyzed her for the moment, William stepped forward and stooped to pick up her flowers. He held them out to her with a bow.
"Your flowers. . . Your Grace?"
She blushed and tried to take the flowers from him, losing another dozen in the process.
"Oh, do forgive me!" she said. "I am not always so shatterbrained. But you see, I was not expecting visitors!"
William cleared his throat, but refrained from glancing at his mother, who instantly exclaimed, "How awkward! Well, perhaps I ought to have written a note to remind you, Duchess, but it does not really signify, you know, for we are here now."
Her Grace of Upavon seemed perplexed by this rambling speech, but she overlooked it and, assuming her role as hostess, begged them both to be seated again.
"I would be delighted," William said, "but something tells me I ought to present myself first. I am Westbury."
The duchess coloured again and smiled up at him shyly. "Of course. How foolish of me not to think of it! For of course, we never have been presented, have we?" Her fair skin responded readily to even the slightest hint of a social blunder.
"Now that we have met, I hope you will forgive me for appearing in this fashion. I always garden in the morning, so I am not normally home to visitors. But perhaps Barlow did not inform you?"
"If you mean your manservant," William said, coughing discreetly for his mother's sake, "I'm afraid he tried, but we were not so easily discouraged."
The duchess looked at him questioningly; but before an awkward silence could result from William's attempt to bait his mother, Lady Westbury took command of the conversation.
"Westbury can only be here for a very few days, Duchess, so we thought we should take this chance to call in the hope of seeing dear Lady Pamela." Her voice dwelt fondly on the girl's name, so much so that the duchess was clearly taken aback.
"To see Pamela?" she repeated. She looked back and forth from William, who had achieved a distant expression, to Lady Westbury, who was smiling at her most intently.
"Yes, of course." Lady Westbury tittered in what was meant to be an encouraging way. "I have spoken so often of Lady Pamela in my letters to William that he has declared himself quite wild to see her! You must not hide her from us forever." She coyly wagged a finger at the duchess.
Her Grace of Upavon gazed open-mouthed at Lady Westbury for the better part of ten seconds. It was clear to William that this playful mood of his mother's had struck the duchess as unnaturally as it had him. Privately, he thought that Lady Westbury's charade had gone on long enough, and he was prepared to call an end to their unexpected visit if only he could do so gracefully.
But then the duchess surprised him.
She stopped staring at Lady Westbury and turned towards William with a suddenly hostile eye.
William met her look with a bland countenance, concealing the fact that he understood what was behind her shrewd expression. She had tumbled to his mother's interest in a match between himself and Lady Pamela and was trying to measure his complicity. He thought he recognized the look. The duchess could only be interested in appraising him as a suitable husband for her daughter.
To most mothers of young ladies, his visit— given the size of his estate and his standing as a peer— would have been immediately welcomed. But it soon became clear that the dowager duchess was not so easily won. After some moments of silence— during which the duchess's look changed from mere guardedness to an expression of active resentment— William was at pains to hide his amusement. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips, which did not escape her notice.
She flushed and turned to speak to Lady Westbury firmly. "I'm afraid you have been put to a great deal of inconvenience for nothing. At this hour, Pamela will be occupied with her lessons, and I would not wish you to wait while she prepares herself to meet visitors."
This excuse would be quite inadequate to discourage Lady Westbury, as William could have told her. Surprised— and slightly piqued— that the duchess had found him wanting, he abandoned his intention of leaving and settled down with pleasure to watch the coming confrontation. The duchess, for all her firmness, was a delicate seedling to his mother's hearty vine. If any of his wagering cronies had been present, William would immediately have put one hundred pounds on the likelihood that Lady Westbury would prevail.
"Oh, we would be only too happy to wait for her," Lady Westbury cooed. An underlying steel gave the lie to her tone. "You should call your man and tell him to ask Lady Pamela to come down. He left us to wander about in search of you and never returned. It will do him good to be set a task for keeping us waiting so shamefully."
William was quite accustomed to his mother's rudeness, but the duchess heard her with astonishment. The criticism on the politeness of her staff could hardly be ignored. It required her to call the butler at the very least. This she did, and then waited in rigidly smiling silence for the servant to answer.
The snub had no effect on Lady Westbury, but William, feeling that it was merited, set about making pleasant conversation, to the end that he managed to coax at least one smile from the duchess before the servant appeared.
By the time the elderly Barlow had entered the room, Her Grace of Upavon had sufficiently recovered under this gentle treatment to do further battle in her daughter's behalf.
"His lordship and Lady Westbury would like to see Lady Pamela, Barlow, but I have informed them that my daughter is probably immersed in her studies or, I daresay, even resting. Would you happen to know?"
She exchanged a meaningful look with her servant who, after betraying only a glimmer of surprise, said after a slight hesitation, "Your Grace is undoubtedly correct."
The duchess turned back to Lady Westbury, folded her hands in her lap and smiled, blissfully unaware of the dirt on her nose. "You see," she said, "Pamela is occupied."
William hid a smile. Her triumph— grossly premature, if only she knew— could only goad his mother to greater rudeness.
"Nonsense!" Lady Westbury declared, more in keeping with her normal manner. "We shall wait until he has carried your message upstairs."
The duchess bit her lip, obviously unaccustomed to such an accomplished adversary. William felt a strong urge to explain to her that this lack of tact on the part of Lady Westbury constituted his entire reason for living in London the year round.
Nonplussed, the duchess turned back to her servant. "But I daresay the governess will be most annoyed if Pamela's lessons are disturbed. Don't you agree, Barlow?"
"I quite agree, Your Grace."
Lady Westbury huffed. She gave Barlow the look she used to depress all pretension in servants. "You must not let yourself be bullied by the child's governess, Duchess! I would not, for one moment, tolerate such a thing in my household!"
Finally at point non plus, the Duchess of Upavon turned to William as if for assistance. She still clutched the flowers in her hands. They had long since wilted.
William debated for a split-second whether to respond to her silent plea and call an end to the encounter, but by this time he had begun to enjoy himself far too much. He knew that he would do no harm to Lady Pamela, no matter what the duchess thought. Her reluctance to present the girl had made him start to wonder just what sort of nonpareil she was hiding. His intentions could not be altered; no girl of fifteen could interest him enough
to hold his affection. But if the girl had even half her mother's beauty, he would count it worth the trip merely to have seen her.
Besides, it piqued him to know precisely what the duchess had found in him to make him ineligible. He was not accustomed to being thought lacking. Curiosity and his rather cynical nature, at this point, got the better of him.
"I must confess— " William clasped his hands behind his head, crossed his legs, and settled himself more deeply into his chair "— the longer the wait, the more eager I become to see her."
There was a pause while the duchess's eyes grew round with dismay, but William's last words finally seemed to decide the issue. With a startled breath, Her Grace of Upavon immediately instructed her servant to inform Lady Pamela that visitors wished to see her. Then, as an afterthought, she told him to make certain that Nanny Phillips accompanied her charge.
"My daughter is scarcely out of the nursery," she informed them with her chin in the air.
This offended posture gave William a better look at her enchanting profile, but he could not resist provoking another flash from her blue eyes.
"The nursery? But I understood Lady Pamela to be some fifteen years of age. Surely it is unusual for a girl of fifteen to be in the care of a nurse?"
The duchess coloured as if he had caught her telling the biggest bouncer of her life.
"Nanny Phillips has been in my service since well before Pamela was born," she explained rather vaguely. "I regard her more as a companion for Pamela than as a nurse, but my daughter is— still— quite young enough to be in her charge."
There seemed nothing to say to this, so William leaned back in his chair and awaited the entrance of the mysterious Lady Pamela.
Lady Westbury filled the interval with boasts about the Norton family, something she took pleasure in doing on even less pertinent occasions. From time to time, she threw a compliment to her son, which he did his best to ignore. It was clear that his apparent about-face had placated her, so that she was willing to overlook the teasing barbs it had pleased him to send her way.
Before too many minutes, the door opened to admit Lady Pamela, accompanied by Nanny Phillips. They were followed by three or more fine hunting dogs, who came so closely in Pamela's wake as to seem almost a permanent escort. Remembering them as she advanced into her mother's morning room, the girl uttered a sharp sequence of commands. The dogs immediately sat at attention, their adoring gazes fixed firmly on their mistress's face. So well mannered were they, they never once took the slightest notice of the guests.
Pamela's quick entry only served to confirm William in his suspicions, coming as it did a mere five minutes after her summons. Evidently, Lady Pamela had been neither resting nor studying too deeply. She had the air of someone who had been out and about for hours.
William rose and made his bow to the girl and the elderly nurse at her side.
After so much preamble, however, Lady Pamela's appearance came as something of a disappointment. She was certainly no beauty to be guarded from moonstruck suitors. In spite of a pleasant openness of countenance, she did not favor her pretty mother in the least, unless the paleness of her hair could be ascribed to the duchess. But unlike her mother's silken strands, Lady Pamela's were curly to the point of being frizzy. They surrounded a round face possessing none of the duchess's delicate features. Her skin, though fair, was of the sort that tended to redden under embarrassment rather than blush a rosy pink. Her figure, too, being on the stout side, lacked the elegance that would find favour with most gentlemen. She was dressed in a simple, but fashionable gown that did nothing to hide a rather masculine stride.
William did not allow any hint of his disappointment to cross his features, but immediately set himself the task of putting the young lady at ease. He could see she was not accustomed to strangers. She curtsied most awkwardly.
From his own mother, this lack of polish would have drawn an instant wince and a subsequent rebuke when the company had departed, if not immediately. He half suspected he had tumbled upon the reason for the duchess's attempts to put him off; surely, she would have wished to prepare her daughter better for such a meeting.
But glancing at the duchess's face to see how she was taking her daughter's clumsiness, William found no criticism of Pamela's performance. Instead, he saw in the mother's look only a rather touching protectiveness, as if she were blind to her daughter's deficiencies.
Since William's mother had no right to govern Lady Pamela yet, she only winced mildly at the child's awkwardness. Then she covered her grimace with an embarrassing plethora of admiring phrases, encompassing the child's hair, her face and her gown. The more she effused, the more annoyed the duchess seemed and the redder Lady Pamela's face became, so William offered the poor girl his arm and conducted her to the window seat to spare them both his mother's compliments.
Nanny Phillips followed them and stood at her charge's elbow. She was, if anything, even older than Barlow— a shrunken, wizened, almost fairytale creature, who looked as if she might have been spawned by an acorn. William warmed to her instantly, but noticed that she was striving to hide a yawn as if she had just been wakened from a morning nap. Her cap was put on neatly though, and she fulfilled her, perhaps, unaccustomed duty in good form.
Quite pleased with her son now, Lady Westbury did her best to hold the duchess captive by engaging her attention with impertinent questions about Westbury Manor.
After seating himself beside the young lady, William made several attempts to draw her out with the ballroom chatter he had perfected on other girls of a similar age. She responded to him awkwardly and with an obvious lack of interest. Her complete deficiency in social skills at first amused him, and then rapidly grew tedious. He began to wonder why the duchess had been so determined not to expose her daughter to his notice, for surely there could be no danger of his falling in love with the chit. His mind was increasingly taken up with this question, to the point that he was at pains to find something to say to Lady Pamela, when a chance remark about one of his horses brought a gleam to the girl's eyes.
"Are those your horses in the stables now?" she asked excitedly.
"The pair of greys? Yes. They brought us in my chaise. Did you see them?"
"Oh, yes." She sighed on a note of bliss. "Mama's head groom called them to my attention when I came in from my ride this morning. He knew I would wish to see them."
So much for the governess story, William thought, wondering again at the duchess's reluctance. "And did they meet with your approval?"
"Such prime bits of blood? How could they not! They are bang up to the nines!" At a reproving sound from Nurse, who had come awake at such language, Lady Pamela covered her mouth. "Oh, sorry. I'm not supposed to use expressions I pick up from Tim."
"Is Tim your groom?"
"Yes."
"Then I quite see that he would not be the best person to emulate."
He was rewarded with a giggle. Happy to find a successful topic, he continued, "So you enjoy horses, do you? And you ride. Do you drive a team?"
Lady Pamela gave a scoffing laugh and waved him away with a most indelicate gesture. "Of course not, silly," she said. Evidently, now that she knew William to be a good judge of horseflesh, she was willing to accept him as a friend. "Whomever should I get to teach me? My mother rides, but Papa never allowed her to drive a team, and coachman is far too old and deaf." She sounded rather wistful.
"Well, perhaps I could teach you," William said, thinking in passing that the house seemed remarkably full of old retainers. "If I decide to stay in the country for a time, I would be happy to call and take you for a drive."
He wondered what on earth had induced him to make such an offer. He had begun to like Lady Pamela, but certainly not to the extent that he would change his plans for her. She was an honest, engaging child, free from all the affectations he so earnestly detested in other debutantes. As engagingly unaffected as her mother, in fact, but without an ounce of her beauty.
"Oh, wo
uld you?" Lady Pamela responded gruffly, reddening with pleasure at the thought. "That would be just the thing!"
Nanny Phillips made another tut-tutting sound. William promised Pamela to make his best effort, and then told her stories about his younger brother that he thought would appeal to her. Gerald was the most bruising rider in the family. In spite of his thin frame, he had a "neck-or-nothing" courage that got him over every fence without a spill. He seemed to speak a horse's language, so that he was able to extract the best behaviour out of the most poorly mannered beast. William reflected that it was too bad Gerald was not yet down from Oxford.
As she listened to his stories about Gerald's prowess, Lady Pamela's eyes shone with excitement. But after a while William was at pains to hide the fact that the task of entertaining her had grown tiresome. From time to time, he glanced surreptitiously at the duchess and found her straining to listen to her daughter's conversation. The spot of dirt still bedecked her nose, and she had long since given up on her flowers. The sight of her daughter's eager receptiveness to William's interest seemed to trouble her, and before long she found a means of bringing their tête-à-tête to an end.
Interrupting Lady Westbury, she rose and said firmly, "I am afraid you will have to pardon me, but I think Pamela has had enough society for one day. She will more than likely be tired from all the excitement."
Pamela looked surprised and started to protest, but the duchess turned to Nanny Phillips and asked, "Isn't that right, Nanny?"
Nanny Phillips hesitated only a second over the unfamiliar question.
"That's right, Miss Mattie - er, Your Grace," she said. "I was just thinking it would be time for Pammy's nap."
Pamela's face betrayed signs of a sustained shock, which revealed that she was not used to being treated like a baby.
William ignored this, however, to turn towards the duchess with a lift to his brow. "Miss Mattie?" he repeated with interest.
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