Byron's Child

by Carola Dunn

  “Ah, men’s the very devil, begging your pardon, miss. That Frederick for one.” Dinah giggled. She did not look in the least as if she wished to consign the footman to hell. “Can I ask you something, miss?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Where you come from, would a lady’s dresser be lowering herself if she walked out with a footman? A right smart footman as’ll be butler some day,” she added quickly.

  Jodie was perplexed. She tried to think of the nearest equivalents: a beautician and a waiter? Not really—but she was losing sight of her democratic ideals.

  “Lower herself? Heavens no. But can you marry and keep your places?”

  “Lor, miss, I’m not thinking to wed yet awhile. ‘Sides, I ‘spect Miss Emily’ll want me to go with her when she’s my lady Thorncrest.”

  “I am quite sure she will.”

  “I s’pose she might ask his lordship to take Frederick too, but there’s no knowing, is there? If we was to end up in the same household, why then’ll be time enough to think on weddings. If there’s naught else I can do for you, Miss Jodie, I’ll be off to see Miss Emily’s comf’table. And thank you, miss, for advising me.”

  Jodie hoped her advice had been sound. She could recite the ranks of the peerage in order of status, but she was much less sure of the lower classes’ pecking order. In spite of “Upstairs, Downstairs,” it was all double-Dutch to a Southern Californian anyway. She wondered how much of the caste system was still around in modern England, whether it would be a shocking mésalliance for a viscount to marry the daughter of an American lawyer and a half-Chinese biology professor.

  Whoa, there! she scolded herself. There was no reason to suppose Giles felt anything but a sense of responsibility towards her.

  No, he did like her at least. He probably saw her as the younger sister she was pretending to be, a frequently irritating younger sister. Brother and sister—no hope of anything more if they were stuck here in the past. Jodie wanted to go home.

  Self-pity would do her no good. She reached for her book. Her place was still marked, with Cassandra’s first letter, the one announcing her presence in 1816. Cassandra had given up her time and her career for Harry Font’s sake. From what little Jodie had seen of them together they seemed a well-matched pair, unlike Lord Byron and Annabella Milbanke.

  In the short time that the latter couple had lived together, the prim, scholarly miss and the libertine poet who referred to her as his “Princess of Parallelograms” had made each other absolutely miserable. At this very moment, Annabella was busy destroying her husband’s reputation and beginning the long years of self-justification.

  Their daughter and Lord Lovelace had started out well. It was impossible to guess how much Lovelace’s increasingly stodgy, stingy personality had contributed to Ada’s unfaithfulness and gambling debts. A need for excitement inherited from her father was partly to blame, and the primitive medicine of the day that prescribed laudanum for all ills.

  Jodie read on. Her candle was guttering when at last she put down the biography with a sigh.

  A horrible death, with her mother dinning into her that her suffering was payment for her sins—what a dreadful end for the little girl now sleeping peacefully no doubt at her grandmother’s Kirkby Mallory estate in Leicestershire. An unnecessary death in twentieth-century terms, and if Ada had lived in the twentieth century, what might she not have done with her mathematical talents?

  The candle flickered out. Jodie fell asleep with that question in her mind and the warm, sweet scent of burning wax in her nostrils.

  ~ ~ ~

  The next morning, the three Faringdale ladies called at Lady Bestor’s little house in Dover Street. Cassandra welcomed them with slightly surprised pleasure.

  “I haven’t quite got the hang of this morning call business,” she confessed to Jodie, while Charlotte and Emily exchanged remarks on the weather with the aged aunt. “I guess it’s something of an honour to have Lady Faringdale call on me?”

  Jodie frowned in thought, then gave up. “Could be. American widow and rich viscountess. Charlotte’s the dearest creature, though. I hope you’ll want to keep in touch with her, and Emily, when—if Giles and I leave.”

  “They know about me?”

  “Yes, and you can talk openly about it with Emily but go easy on Charlotte. She prefers not to think about it if she’s not forced to. Emily’s betrothed, Charles Thorncrest, had to be told, too.”

  “Jodie,” Charlotte claimed her attention, “only think, Lady Bestor knew Lord Thorncrest when he was a child.”

  “And a naughty little boy he was too,” said Aunt Tavie roundly. “Charming, withal, and a good-looking young devil. Still is, by what I hear.”

  “Have you met the earl, Mrs. Brown?” Charlotte enquired.

  “No, ma’am. I do not go about much in Society,” Cassandra admitted.

  “I hope you have no rooted dislike for company, ma’am. Lord Faringdale and I hoped you and Lord Font might join us for dinner one evening.”

  “A family party,” Emily added. “Do come.”

  “Thank you, I shall be delighted. I cannot speak for Lord Font, though. He is not in town at present.”

  “We shall wait until he comes to arrange a date,” Charlotte assured her. “Lady Bestor, may I beg you to honour us with your presence also?”

  “Prettily said, young woman,” Aunt Tavie replied. “However, I generally fall asleep round about the time you modern fashionables dine. In my youth it was dinner at three, you know, and none of these skimpy three courses neither. Nine courses was thought a decent dinner. I remember the roast peacocks at the Squire’s, and tureens full of syllabub.”

  Charlotte and Emily gave their attention to the old lady’s reminiscences or inventions. Jodie turned back to Cassandra.

  “I’m hoping you can help me,” she said. “Charlotte’s breeding—pregnant, I mean.”

  “I’m not a medical doctor, I’m afraid.”

  “I know. I just wondered whether you’ve found someone here who’s half-way competent. Charlotte’s seen Dr. Croft. He’s very well thought of but I don’t trust him.”

  Cassandra hesitated. “There is a man, a friend of Harry’s cousin. I’ve taught him a bit about hygiene, and using nitrous oxide for anesthesia, not that I know much. He’s willing to learn. The trouble is—well, he has a drinking problem. He’s good if you manage to catch him sober but he’s just as likely to be in a stupor.”

  “Sh—drat, that doesn’t sound too great.”

  “It’s post-traumatic stress syndrome. He was in the Peninsula with Wellington’s army. Not that that’s any comfort to a patient when his hands start shaking.” She shrugged. “The best I can say is that I’ll keep an eye on Lady Faringdale and do what I can for her. I’d worry most about childbed-fever, and I expect one could find a midwife who could be persuaded, or bribed, to be particularly careful about cleanliness.”

  “Thank you, I can’t ask for more. Or rather, I can. There’s something else I’d like to know.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I hope you don’t say that to Harry! This is my question: What do you think would happen if a person from this time travelled to the future?”

  “I don’t know.” Cassandra frowned. “Unfortunately, Giles has pointed out a few flaws in the law of Conservation of Reality, and Harry tends to agree with him. I haven’t had a chance to work on it—I guess I never will, now. If you’d asked me a month ago I’d have said nothing would happen, according to both the math and to my own experience. Now I have to say it depends. No more satisfactory than my doctor, I’m afraid.”

  “It’ll do,” said Jodie optimistically.

  Charlotte chose that moment to take their leave. Cassandra accompanied them into the entrance hall.

  “You are not expecting Lord Font today, I collect,” Jodie said to her as the footman opened the front door.

  “Not today. He writes that he intends to come tomorrow without fail.”

  “He writes to
you daily?”

  Cassandra nodded, blushing. Jodie was prepared to wager that Dr. Brown of MIT hadn’t known how to blush before she took up residence in the past.

  As the three young ladies settled in the barouche, Charlotte said guiltily, “Oh dear, I do not know what Lady Bestor must think of me. We stayed far too long for a morning call. Only I could see that you wanted to talk to Mrs. Brown, Jodie, and it must be such a comfort to her to know a female who understands her situation. I did not want to interrupt.”

  Jodie decided she agreed with Cassandra, she simply did not understand the etiquette of morning calls. If one found congenial company it made no sense to limit one’s visit to a polite quarter of an hour.

  “And then,” Charlotte went on with a roguish look at her sister-in-law, “Emily started to question Lady Bestor about Lord Thorncrest’s childhood. Naturally it was impossible to leave until all had been discovered.”

  Emily blushed. “I believe her ladyship did not object to my questions,” she said defensively.

  “Tell me everything she said,” Jodie ordered.

  The recital lasted until they reached home. A message awaited them there that brought further blushes to Emily’s cheeks. Lord Thorncrest begged pardon for the short notice, but would the Faringdales do him the honour of dining at his house that very evening, before the Duke of Devonshire’s ball.

  It was the first time the earl had issued an invitation. Jodie had no hesitation in ascribing it to his new-found respect for his betrothed. She envied Emily, though she had decided long since that dashing, handsome, macho Lord Thorncrest was not what she wanted. An arranged marriage might have its drawbacks but undeniably it added a certain sense of security to the courting process, a security Jodie was far from feeling in any aspect of her life.

  At least, since Harry was still in Kent, Giles had no excuse not to go with them to the ball at Devonshire House.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I’m glad to see you’re not wearing your livery to this affair,” said Giles as Jodie joined him in the living room. “A ball gown suits you much better.”

  “I only hope all the gossipmongers do not recognize it.” The amber silk had been retrimmed with knots of rich brown velvet ribbon. “Charlotte wanted to buy me a new one but I simply could not accept it. Sometimes I think she has forgotten that I am not really your sister, that I have no possible claim on her and Roland.”

  “I know what you mean, even though I am distantly related. Fortunately a gentleman is not expected to turn out in a new coat for every occasion.

  “You are prodigious elegant in black and white. Do you ever wear a tux at home?”

  “A dinner jacket? As rarely as possible. You should see me in my robes for the state opening of Parliament.”

  “You mean you get all dressed up in red velvet and ermine and parade around the House of Lords? Oh Giles, not a coronet?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Now that I have to see to believe.” She giggled.

  “I’ve only done it a couple of times, but I do go up now and then to speak on scientific matters. I wear a white lab coat; it seems to impress people.”

  “You constantly surprise me. I did not know you had any interest in government.”

  “Noblesse oblige. Given a free soapbox, I feel it’s my duty to stand on it occasionally. Roland’s the same, I may say. He’d rather steer clear of the place and tend his acres. However,” he added, deliberately sententious, “we Faringdales have duty bred in the bone.”

  “And pomposity,” Jodie snorted. “It’s Roland’s besetting sin. If it wasn’t for that, his other faults might be easier to overlook, because he’s not a bad guy in lots of ways.”

  “I shall endeavour to overcome my inherited tendency to pomposity,” said Giles solemnly.

  “Idiot. I never met anyone less pompous in my life.”

  The others came in and they all set off for Lord Thorncrest’s house. Emily was wearing deep rose with a white lace overdress. Jodie thought she had never seen her look so happy and carry herself with such confidence. It was amazing what simply having her opinion consulted had done for her, and all because the earl had recognized Jodie in the Royal Saloon.

  His lordship came out to his vestibule to greet them, and escorted them to the drawing room. To Jodie’s surprise, he had also invited a number of his own relatives, all appearing perfectly respectable. His younger brother and his wife, both plump and cheerful, welcomed Emily with open arms. There were also an aunt and uncle, and their daughter with her husband, all amiable if uninteresting.

  Emily met them with composure and joined in the conversation, which centered around Princess Charlotte’s coming marriage to Prince Leopold. Though Lord Thorncrest listened with a cynical air to the romantic raptures of the ladies, Jodie noticed that more than once he cast a glance of approval toward Emily. Towards Jodie, his attitude could only be described as wary.

  After a few minutes, he took Emily aside and spoke to her privately and briefly. She colored, hesitated for a moment, then nodded, whereupon he took her hand and led her back to the group. There was an expectant hush.

  Thorncrest cleared his throat and tugged at his neckband with an uncharacteristic uncertainty. “Most of you know, or have guessed,” he began, “that Miss Emily and I have been unofficially engaged for some weeks. I wish to announce that she has done me the honour of agreeing to make the betrothal official. A notice will be sent to the papers immediately.”

  There was some applause and a great deal of kissing and congratulating, and then they went in to dinner.

  Emily was seated at the earl’s right hand and Jodie was some way down the table, but she watched the couple whenever she could spare attention from her neighbours.

  To her exasperation, she saw that Emily had returned to her bashful reticence. Lord Thorncrest helped her to the most delicate morsels with evident solicitude, but then he had never treated her with less than courtesy since Jodie had known them. She wondered whether his attitude had really changed.

  Most of the party were not going on to Devonshire House. Rather than fit a sixth person into the Faringdales’ carriage, thus endangering the ladies’ gowns, Thorncrest suggested that he should take up Emily.

  Emily looked alarmed, and Charlotte a trifle worried, but Roland considered it a most suitable notion which settled the matter.

  “Don’t worry, he can’t eat you,” Jodie whispered to Emily, squeezing her hand. “If he misbehaves, remind him that I shall await him at Devonshire House.”

  Emily managed a feeble giggle.

  In fact, it was she and the earl who arrived first, as Roland’s coachman had settled comfortably in the Thorncrest kitchens and had to be routed out. When Jodie reached the ballroom of the vast mansion on Piccadilly, Emily and Thorncrest were among the dozens of couples already on the floor. Fortunately, Giles managed to find the four of them seats near the set in which the pair were dancing.

  “Oh dear, what has gone wrong?” Charlotte said softly to Jodie. “I thought Emily was quite comfortable with him, but they are as stiff as marionettes.”

  “I don’t know,” said Jodie, frowning, “but you may be assured that I mean to find out.”

  The dance ended. The earl brought his woebegone partner to join her family. He looked puzzled. It was hardly possible to embark upon an interrogation in the ballroom, but to Jodie’s surprise he abruptly asked her to stand up with him for the next set.

  “All right—I mean, thank you, my lord, that will be delightful. Only let us not dance. I want to talk to you.”

  Again the wary look entered his eyes, but he said grimly, “Precisely my own desire. Pray take my arm, Miss Judith, and we shall find somewhere less crowded. However,” he added, “I am not going anywhere with you unless you wipe that scowl off your face.”

  Jodie forced her lips into a bright smile. Charlotte was anxiously whispering to Emily. Giles and Roland—typical men!—apparently had no idea anything was amiss. Jodie took Thornc
rest’s arm and they made their way around the ballroom.

  There were several anterooms. They decided the card room was the most appropriate for their purpose, inhabited as it was by matrons playing silver loo and gentlemen of all ages with more serious games in mind. There were a number of small tables set up for piquet players, and at one of these Lord Thorncrest seated Jodie.

  A footman brought cards and another offered a tray of champagne-filled glasses. The earl accepted both.

  “A game of piquet, Miss Judith,” he asked politely, setting one glass before her.

  “I do not want a drink and I cannot play piquet.”

  “Pretend. We cannot sit here doing nothing, and I refuse to play pinochle in public. It will only arouse attention. I shan’t dun you for my winnings.” He removed a number of cards from the pack, shuffled and began to deal.

  She glared at him. “What did you do to Emily?” she demanded.

  “Nothing.” He shrugged helplessly. “That is, nothing but ask her to allow me to publish a notice of our engagement. She agreed, as you know.”

  “You did not try to kiss her in the carriage?”

  “I do not go about forcing my attentions on defenceless fe…” He flushed. “Well, you were not precisely defenceless. Pick up your cards and pretend to be interested.”

  She obeyed. “So you did not kiss her. Perhaps you should have.”

  “For heavens sake, Jodie!” he said in exasperation. He put down four cards face up and picked up four from the pile on the table. “I mean, Miss Judith. How could I kiss a girl who shrank into a corner and when I spoke to her would only murmur ‘Yes, my lord,’ and ‘No, my lord.’ It’s your play.”

  “She just suddenly clammed up, huh?” Jodie laid down four cards at random.

  “Yes. No, you can only discard three unless you want one of those I discarded.”

  “How the hell do I know whether I want one? I haven’t a clue what I’m doing. Okay, okay, I’ll take that one. She must suddenly have gotten nervous when you brought her to the point.”

  “I have twenty-three points. I have sometimes wondered whether Faringdale forced Emily to accept me.”