by Jane Ashford
“You?” She was torn between further laughter and outrage. “You are only three years older than me.”
“Older than I,” he corrected solemnly, though his blue eyes twinkled.
“Anyway,” continued Susan, ignoring this, “Christopher is the head of our family.”
“Not of the Wyndhams. As Mama’s husband, of course he has our respect. But I hold the title and the estate.” As he said this, his joking tone disappeared, and there was something impressive about the declaration despite his youth. It was obvious that he took his responsibilities very seriously, and was eminently capable of fulfilling them.
His younger sister was not impressed. “Sir William Wyndham,” she mocked. “I wonder you don’t have a long gray beard by this time. I shall write to Mama at once and tell her there is no need to take you away from your precious estate. We are getting along splendidly.”
William shifted from one foot to the other. “I…wish you wouldn’t, Susan.”
“I won’t be watched over like a prisoner!”
“Who said any such thing?” He paused, seeming a little embarrassed. “The thing is, I’ve a fancy to see something of London. I am of age now, and…”
Susan’s green eyes glowed. “The country squire is giving in at last,” she crowed. “I thought you hated the very idea of town. I thought you did not care if you ever attended an assembly at Almack’s or saw the king.”
“There are other amusements in London,” he answered loftily.
“Oh, I see. Then you will not be accompanying us to any of the ton parties?”
“Dash it, Susan,” he began, for clearly this was not his intention.
But she dissolved in laughter and ran forward to hug him. “I’m only bamming you. It will be splendid to have you here if you are not to be an odious watchdog. We will have such fun! It’s too bad Nick is still at Oxford.”
Her brother laughed again. “He’s far happier there than in town. You know how he hates society.”
“You changed your mind,” she pointed out.
“I always liked our country entertainments,” he countered. “Nick would far rather read a book.”
For a moment they marveled silently at this aberration; then Susan shook her head and looked up. “Come and see all the invitations we’ve received just in the last week. I’m sure you can come with us to the parties.” She looked him over. “After you buy a new coat, of course.”
“What’s wrong with my coat?”
“Oh, William,” she said in pitying accents, and turned toward the hall. Instantly he caught up to her and tweaked at the ribbon threaded through her red curls. Unfastened, they tumbled down about her shoulders. Susan whirled to snatch the ribbon back. “You beast! It took me half an hour to tie it up.”
“Perhaps you should get a new coif,” he retorted.
Susan lunged as if to pull his cravat. William jumped back, but in doing so his heel caught on something, and he fell heavily to the carpet. His exclamation of surprise was nearly drowned out by a yowl, and both young people turned to watch a mass of ginger fur streak for the doorway.
“Susan, you haven’t brought that damned cat to London?” exclaimed Sir William.
She merely smiled. He pushed himself up and stood, looking disgusted. “You’d think that creature would improve with age. He must be…what, nearly fourteen?” He shook his head incredulously. “But he’s as mean-tempered as ever.”
“Daisy is never mean to me.”
“And why you insist on calling him Daisy—it’s ridiculous.”
Susan, who had acquired the cat at an early age, shrugged. “He’s used to it.”
“Well, we’re none of us used to him,” muttered her brother, examining his sleeve to make sure it wasn’t torn.
“Come and see the invitations,” she coaxed, taking his arm and urging him forward. After a moment, he yielded, and they walked out together.
* * *
Marianne MacClain’s conversation was also just ending. The butler had come to say the young gentleman’s room was ready, and Tony Brinmore had risen to follow him upstairs. But he paused in the drawing-room doorway, seeming uneasy. “There’s one other thing,” he said.
Marianne looked politely interested.
“I’ve, er…” He stopped, flushing.
Marianne wondered what could be the matter now. Her talk with their visitor had been halting. He was very like some of the young men she met at parties, awkward and tongue-tied in her presence. She found it rather wearisome. Tony seemed a pleasant-enough boy, but her visions of a replacement for her brother and his wife had dissolved.
“Actually, I’ve brought a dog,” he blurted out.
“A dog?” she repeated, startled.
“Yes. I put him in the stables. He’s so old now, you see, that I couldn’t bear to leave him behind. He would have fretted so, perhaps died. I’ve had him for years and years.”
This made their guest seem younger than ever. Marianne smiled. “That’s all right. He can stay in the stables.”
Tony’s face cleared. His relief was almost ludicrous. “Thanks.”
“Not at all. I like dogs. You must show him to me later.”
His anxiety returned. “Oh, well, he’s not a purebred, you know. I daresay you may find him…that is, he may not be your sort of dog.”
Marianne couldn’t help but laugh. “We shall see. Now, go and settle into your room. Mama will be home for dinner, and you can meet her and Sir Thomas then.”
This did not seem to lighten her guest’s mood, but he nodded and turned to follow the long-suffering Hobbs.
Three
The Countess of Cheane was that evening presenting an eminent Italian singer to society at a musicale, and the haut ton was nearly all in attendance. Though genuine love of music was by no means widespread, the event had acquired immense cachet during weeks of gossip fostered by the countess and her friends. Thus, both Marianne and Susan were able to assure the newcomers to their households that the evening was the height of fashion, and the young men accompanied them with far more enthusiasm than either would normally have shown for such an outing.
“Here we are,” said Susan unnecessarily as they pulled up before the countess’s house. “Those are linkboys, William. They light the way for the chairs.”
“If you lean so far out, you will fall in the street,” responded her brother shortly, not pleased to be lectured on the ways of the town. Susan grimaced at him.
They went inside, and the ladies left their wraps. As they climbed the stairs to the drawing room, William hung back a little. “Do you think my coat is all right?” he asked Georgina quietly. “Susan seemed to find it hopelessly countrified.”
“It is not the latest fashion,” agreed Georgina, knowing that he would see this for himself soon enough and that false reassurance would be useless. “But it is well made and you look the gentleman.”
He nodded. “That should be good enough for anyone.”
“There is that girl,” hissed Susan over her shoulder.
“What girl?” answered Georgina in a normal voice.
“Shh! The one from the ball.”
There could be no mistaking this reference, and Georgina looked up to find Marianne MacClain greeting their hostess on the landing.
“That one?” asked William admiringly. “Are you acquainted with her?”
“Shh!” repeated Susan. “Let us wait here until…” But more guests came up behind them, forcing their group to move up the stairs and reach the countess before Marianne’s party had left her. Indeed, the press was so great that the two families were forced to walk into the drawing room together.
Susan and Marianne exchanged nods, and might have left it at that had it not been for William. Clearly struck with Marianne’s charms, he requested an introduction, and this led to reciprocal presentations
of Lady Bentham and her husband, Georgina, and Tony Brinmore. Lady Bentham, unconscious of any awkwardness, immediately suggested they find chairs and to Marianne’s amused consternation and Susan’s obvious outrage, they all sat down together near the back of the room.
Lady Bentham was quite content to talk to her husband, and Georgina offered an occasional remark in counterpoint to their duet. William had taken care to place himself beside Marianne, leaving Susan and Tony to occupy the end of the row of gilt chairs.
“I understand this is to be a famous evening,” William ventured as soon as they were settled.
“Yes, indeed,” replied Marianne with a smile. “You are fond of music?”
“I? Well, tolerably fond.”
“That’s good. They say Signora Veldini can go on for hours, once she begins. She is to do the aria from The Marriage of Figaro, you know.”
“Is she, by Jove? How, er, splendid.” William smiled unconvincingly.
Marianne began to laugh. “I don’t believe you care for opera at all.” As William began to protest, she added, “It doesn’t matter. I don’t myself. Indeed, half the people in this room will be dreadfully bored by the singing. More than half.”
“But why do they come, then?”
“Why did you come?”
“Susan told me it was all the crack.” He glanced at his sister accusingly, at the same time savoring the sensation of using a bit of fashionable slang he had picked up only in the last half hour.
“Oh, it is. Undoubtedly. And that is the answer to your question. Nearly everyone is here so that they may say they were. A great many ton parties are like that.”
“A dead bore?” wondered William, half-suspicious that she was mocking him.
Marianne nodded, her blue eyes dancing.
His suspicion confirmed, William sat straighter, his face losing some of its eager openness. He looked suddenly older, and much more dignified. “I don’t see why you bother to attend in that case,” he replied.
Marianne opened her eyes very wide. “I didn’t say I was bored,” she retorted teasingly.
“Very true.” William withdrew still more, his expression freezing and his eyes, which had been so ingenuous, hardening.
Marianne’s smile faded, and her russet eyebrows drew together in puzzlement. She’d been playing the conventional game of flirtation. Why was he responding so coldly? It was almost as if he was offended. Too, she realized that her initial judgment of him had been incomplete. She’d thought him a typical country squire, awed by town trappings and fairly uninteresting to one who had already spent a season among the haut ton.
There was more to his character, she saw now. He had a sternness and an air of maturity that beyond his years. “I was only joking, you know,” she was moved to say.
“Obviously,” was the only reply.
Marianne’s frown deepened. Really, he was prickly. But some spark of interest in him made her add, “As I would with anyone. It is a way they have of talking here.”
He thawed slightly. “They?”
“Well, Londoners, the ton. I hardly count myself one of them.”
“No?”
She was annoyed now, by his oversensitivity and the superior tone he took. But this very annoyance was intriguing. Marianne had met a variety of gentlemen since she came to town, from eager boys to blasé Corinthians, and this one was unlike any other. He seemed ready to enjoy the Season’s amusements, but not to lose himself in them—neither bored nor dazzled. In an odd way, he reminded Marianne of her brother Ian. Yet that was ridiculous, she thought at once; the two were nothing alike. “No,” she found herself saying, “I come from Scotland.”
“Really, Scotland? I’ve always wanted to try the fishing there.” William smiled—not sheepishly, but to show that he was more than willing to converse rationally on almost any subject she should suggest.
“It is good,” answered Marianne, smiling back. She was, she found, relieved at the change in his mood. The two of them settled happily to discuss the north, gaining a more favorable impression of each other with every moment.
It was far otherwise with the couple on their right. Susan’s first words upon sitting down were, “What a stupid place. We are much too far back. Why didn’t Georgina object?”
Understandably, Tony Brinmore had no ready reply to this. He contented himself with a murmur that might be construed as assent and crossed one leg over the other in an effort to appear at ease. At first glance, Susan’s elfin prettiness had attracted him, but it appeared that London girls were all intimidating, in one way or another.
Susan fumed silently for a few moments, but when her attempts to catch Georgina’s eye failed, and she saw that William was not to be dislodged, she sighed audibly and turned back to the only available target. The appraising look she gave Tony caused him to shift uneasily in his chair. “Who are you, exactly?” she asked him.
“I…I beg your pardon?”
“I don’t understand who you are,” she repeated. “You are a connection of Lady Bentham’s family?”
“No. Friend of Sir Thomas’s sister. That is, my cousin is.” Feeling this to be confusing, he added, “Name’s Tony, Tony Brinmore.”
“I heard your name,” answered Susan. “So you’re staying with Sir Thomas and Lady Bentham for the Season?”
He nodded warily.
“This is your first visit to London?” Susan was impatient, but she was also enjoying the sense that she was more at ease than he. Since entering society, she had suffered certain shocks to her self-esteem in this area.
“Yes.”
“Mine also. This sort of thing is amusing, is it not?” She waved a hand to indicate their surroundings, thrilled by the world-weary tone she’d managed.
This was too much. “Have you been to a musical evening before?” inquired Tony aggressively.
“Well, I…”
“I suppose you know all about this”—he consulted the program sheet he had been given—“Signora Veldini? What’s she like?”
“I have not actually…”
“No, I don’t suppose you have. In fact, you know nothing whatsoever about it.” He stopped abruptly and flushed at his own rudeness, then told himself that she had deserved it.
Susan Wyndham’s green eyes were sparkling alarmingly. “I know more than you,” she snapped. “I know, for example, that that neckcloth is wretchedly tied. It looks as if you crumpled it in your fist.”
Tony drew himself up with a gasp, his flush deepening. She had hit a sore point; he’d had serious doubts about the neckcloth himself. But these were, of course, forgotten now. “I’ll have you know this is a perfect Mathematical,” he sputtered, using a term hastily recalled from a gentleman’s periodical.
“Mathematical?” Susan sneered. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Tony longed to give her a sharp setdown, but he also knew that he was on weak ground. He would go out and order a whole new wardrobe first thing tomorrow, he vowed. “Obviously you know nothing about fashion either,” he replied loftily.
Susan began a scorching reply, but at that moment she caught sight of Baron Ellerton making his way along the back of the room to a chair three rows behind. Immediately, Tony Brinmore was forgotten. She followed the elegant figure of the older man, and eyed with rancorous curiosity the stunning brunette by whose side he settled himself.
Tony, conscious that he had lost her attention, followed her gaze. The sight of Baron Ellerton turned his anger to glum envy. Here, clearly, was a true man of fashion, and the contrast between his appearance and Tony’s own filled him with despair. It was no wonder girls laughed at him, he thought. He had to find a tailor at once. Sir Thomas would know someone.
To Tony’s relief, the countess mounted the low platform that had been erected across the end of the drawing room and called her guests to order for the beginning of the prog
ram. Susan was forced to turn back, and William and Marianne to drop what had by now become an animated exchange. Slowly the hum of conversation died, and the audience fell into an anticipatory silence.
Signora Veldini’s voice was impressive; it filled the room with ease. Indeed, some of the countess’s guests thought it overfilled, though few would have admitted it. Too, the statuesque Italian seemed tireless. Each mark of appreciation as she finished a selection spurred her to further efforts, and the audience’s enthusiasm was clearly strained by the time their hostess again mounted the platform and announced the interval. The signora looked surprised and displeased, but the listeners rose at once, giving her no chance to protest that she was not yet at all tired.
“Who is this Figaro, anyway?” asked William as their party moved slowly toward the refreshment room. “His marriage must have been a rum go.”
Marianne laughed aloud, but when William frowned, she answered, “It must indeed.”
“I think this party is rum,” put in Tony Brinmore, who had overheard. “If this is the haut ton’s idea of amusement, I’m sorry I ever came to London.”
William turned to agree, and the two young men sized each other up approvingly. They were similar in age and height, though they didn’t resemble each other. Tony’s hair was dark blond to William’s brown, and his eyes a sparkling hazel while William’s were blue. Too, Tony’s frame was rangy rather than compact. But they were drawn together by the like state of their clothes. Surrounded by male elegance, and conscious of amused glances from more than one pink of the ton, they at once made common cause. William’s concern was far less than Tony’s, but he saw the other’s discomfort with understanding. And their total agreement about the music further cemented the bond. Before the group reached the refreshment room, the young men had made a date to visit a tailor the following day, and were talking as if they’d known each other for years.
This left Marianne to chat with Georgina, for Susan was paying attention to nobody, her eyes fixed on the other guests.