Lord Buxley began to bite on his bottom lip. “Oh, dear,” he breathed quietly, his anxious gaze flying to Bramwell’s face. “She looked like the mother,” he said, swallowing down hard as he ran a finger beneath his neckcloth. “Plump, as you said, Dickie, and still very much the child. About ten years old, or mayhap eleven, I’d say. I remember curls. Lots of curls. But smart, and with the look of Connie to her. And she’d be more like nineteen now, I believe.” His florid face suddenly gone white, he picked up the Baron’s half-empty glass of wine and drained it. “Oh dear.”
Bramwell looked to Lord Upchurch, to see him smiling wistfully, obviously still remembering the child Sophie had been when he had been a part of her life. He’d probably spent more time dandling Sophie on his knee and feeding her sugarplums than he ever had in bedding her mother.
And then he looked to Sir Tyler Shipley. He, too, was smiling. Not at all wistfully.
The stem of Bramwell’s wineglass unexpectedly snapped as he held it tightly in his fingers.
Once the trio of “uncles” was gone, scuttling back to their own table, Bramwell swore his two friends to secrecy and called for two new glasses and another bottle of wine.
“I want to be there,” Baron Lorimar said. “But I don’t suppose you’ll allow it.”
“I’d sell tickets if I could,” Bramwell answered honestly, knowing he was going to be privileged to watch as Sophie went about dazzling her “uncles” all over again, as she obviously had done as a lovable, eager-to-please child. “But, no. I think not, Lorrie. Although I’d like your opinion now, if you don’t mind.”
“Upchurch is a sentimental fool,” the baron supplied willingly. “So is Buxley, although Upchurch has more to lose if word of his liaison with the Widow Winstead comes out. Sleeping in the dressing room, you know.”
Bramwell laughed. He’d actually found himself counting the number of times Upchurch had slipped another “you know” into his sentences. “I agree. But Buxley has everything to gain. Who would have thought he could capture the lovely Constance, even for a short time?”
“That’s true enough,” Sir Wallace put in, patting his own fairly expanded belly. “Gives me all sorts of hope, it does.”
“But Sir Tyler is another matter,” Bramwell said, remembering the avaricious look on the man’s face when he’d considered the notion that Sophie could resemble her beautiful mother. “I think he’d delight in bedding the daughter as well as the mother. Ambition, as someone once said, can crawl as well as it can climb.”
“Yes, I’d watch him. He’s deeper than the others, Bram,” Baron Lorimar agreed solemnly. “And with more to lose, I think, as his wife controls the purse strings. I don’t think he wants to bed Sophie as much as he wants to be rid of her.”
Bramwell threw back the last of his wine and stood up. “Well, it’s been quite an afternoon, hasn’t it, gentlemen? And a conversation to remember, although I’d ask you both to forget it. But I hope you’ll excuse me now. I’ve got some thinking to do.”
“Fine enough, Bram,” Sir Wallace said, waving him away. “I want Lorrie here to myself for a while anyway. There’s this footman of his I’ve been considering.”
“Told you,” the Baron said, smiling at Bramwell. Then he propped his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands, and turned to Sir Wallace. “I’d never suspected this of you, Wally,” he drawled, sparing a moment to wink up at Bramwell. “Tell me, how long have you been admiring men’s calves?”
Bramwell smiled until he was back in his coach and on his way home to Portland Square, upon which time his countenance became decidedly more solemn. Then, mentally, he began preparing his speech to Sophie Winstead, already dreading the evening.
...has told enough white lies to ice a cake.
— Margot Asquith
Chapter Eight
It was three in the afternoon, and there had to have been less commotion in the Roman Coliseum when the lions were set loose and tasty Christians were in Season.
As it had been since the morning after the opening night of Almack’s, the mansion in Portland Square was crammed to the rafters with a seemingly never ending parade of eager young men, optimistic old men, middle-aged men with empty pockets—men with an eye to beauty, with posies clutched in their fists, poetry at the ready, and the burning hope that Miss Sophie Winstead would deign to smile in their direction.
Instead, Sophie gave them Giuseppe, who hopped about the drawing room tipping his red hat and baring his teeth while collecting flowers and optimistic love letters. He then dutifully delivered everything to his mistress, who sat in court with Lady Gwendolyn to her right, Miss Isadora Waverley to her left.
Mrs. Edith Farraday, who had hidden her ear horn and steadfastly refused to retrieve it, sat in a chair quite apart from the rest, tending to her knitting.
As each bouquet or Ode to the Beauty Mark Caressing Milady’s Fair Cheek was delivered, the gentleman responsible for either the posies or the poems stepped forward for his treasured five minutes of conversation with The Winstead, as Sophie had already found out she was now referred to in gentlemen’s circles.
“You smiled much too broadly at that one,” Miss Waverley whispered to Sophie as Baron Somebody-Or-Other backed from the drawing room as if leaving the presence of the Queen, nearly tripping over the earl of Somewhere-Or-Other as he went.
“Oh, but how could I not, Miss Waverley?” Sophie whispered back, already smiling encouragingly at the red-faced young man now advancing toward her, looking as if he might suffer an apoplexy at any moment. “He promised to die for me, should I wish it. What nonsense! As if I would ever ask anyone to die for me. I should have been much more impressed if he had said he would fetch me a glass of lemonade. Unfortunately, all that many of these sweet, foolish creatures want to do is promise me the impossible—the stars, the sun, the moon. As my dear Desiree says, a woman could perish of thirst, Miss Waverley, waiting for the moon, yes?”
“Ah, she’s got you there, Miss Waverley,” Lady Gwendolyn said leaning across Sophie to wink at her nephew’s fiancée. “I waited for the moon, you know, and all it got me was splinters in my backside from sitting on the spinster’s shelf.” She winked at Sophie, then sat back as the younger woman dealt with the red-faced young swain who wouldn’t know what to do with a Sophie Winstead if one dropped ripe and ready into his lap.
Today, as she had done since Sophie’s arrival in Portland Square, Lady Gwendolyn had once more left off her turban, choosing instead to consider herself as definitely removed from the spinsterly shelf she’d been on these past thirty years and more, and back in the hunt.
After all, there had been more than a few contemporaries of hers, gouty widowers now for the most part (as well as a few octogenarians who should have known better and been ashamed of themselves), traipsing through the house. The dear lady, thanks to Sophie’s careful suggestion, thought it couldn’t but be prudent to let the gentlemen know that she, too, was available for courting.
So far, she’d gotten herself two winks, one pat on the cheek, and an invitation to go out driving tomorrow afternoon with Sir Wilford Kingsley, who had been one of her beaus back in her salad days. His wife had been underground for more than five years, he was childless, and he had the most endearing way of calling her Gwenny. Yes, Sir Wilford was definitely a possibility.
It was the rouge pot, Lady Gwendolyn had confided to Sophie just that morning. The rouge pot, and taking off those dratted turbans, burning those dashed caps. She had thought herself old, had acted old, and everyone had seen her as old. Until Sophie had come into her life. Now, Lady Gwendolyn was feeling decidedly younger. Happier. Even, as she’d confided to Desiree—never to an innocent child such as Sophie—a bit frisky, like a young colt just released into the pasture. And if Sir Wilford wanted her? Well, she just might give that notion some thought, that’s what!
Sophie kept smiling, even after it had become an effort, until the last of her gentleman callers had departed. She then, as Bobbit brought th
e ladies a fresh round of cakes and tea, obediently turned to Miss Waverley for that young woman’s critique of the afternoon.
She listened with only half an ear as Isadora recounted the names, titles, and fortunes of the small army of eager gentlemen, sorting them out by rank, by social importance, and discarding those who were impecunious second sons or half-pay officers on the hunt for a fortune. Isadora was really rather good at this type of thing, her store of information seemingly boundless, her enthusiasm, although carefully contained, forever at a high, civilized pitch.
Isadora liked to organize, Sophie had observed, and delighted in planning out strategies, fitting person to person, rank to rank, interest to interest. A born manager, that was Miss Isadora Waverley.
She’d probably “manage” Bramwell into either a bottle or his grave within a decade.
“I particularly favor Lord Anston’s suit, Miss Winstead, disa—er, surprised as I was to see him here,” Isadora said, carefully patting at her lips with a corner of her serviette. “A widower, not without considerable funds of his own, and with four daughters to marry off. Four, Miss Winstead! Lud, such an interesting challenge, don’t you agree? Yes, you’d be confined to the country on and off for some years yet, as the oldest is no more than ten and five, I believe, and you’d want to be setting up your own nursery. But the country does have its charms, especially Surrey, where Lord Anston is situated. I adore the country. And you’d be back in Town soon enough, an established matron, your mother’s past forgotten as you go about setting up the girls for their come-outs. Lud, the shopping, the presentations at Court, the balls, finding just the right gentleman for each of them.” She pressed her clasped hands to her breasts. “And no male heirs in sight, so that your offspring would one day have the earldom. I cannot think of anything more perfect.”
“Except to have your son be the tenth duke of Selbourne,” Lady Gwendolyn put in, her elbow jabbing sharp and quick into Sophie’s side.
“Lud, my lady, as if that signifies a scrap.” Miss Waverley rolled her eyes, gaining Sophie’s admiration as she did so, for today was the first time she’d seen real emotion in the woman. “Lord Anston’s title, although not as high as Selbourne’s, is every bit as honorable, dating back as far as anyone can remember. And without a whiff of scandal attached to it,” she added thoughtfully, and Sophie looked at her quickly, her admiration now tempered with the realization that Miss Waverley put great store by such things as untarnished reputations. Why, of course she did. What a blow it must have been to her to have the Widow Winstead’s daughter thrust on her, and how noble Miss Waverley was to be bearing up so well under the strain. Yes, Sophie really did like Isadora Waverley.
She just didn’t like the idea of Isadora Waverley married to Bramwell Seaton.
She didn’t like it at all.
“Lord Anston does seem a very nice gentleman, Miss Waverley, and rather handsome into the bargain. And all those daughters to be herded, taught, organized and successfully launched? What delicious fun!” Sophie said now, as if truly considering the man as a possible husband. “Would you please be so kind as to tell me more about him?”
Miss Waverley would be pleased, and went on at some length, until, in fact, Lady Gwendolyn began yawning into her fist. But Sophie paid very close attention to the woman’s every word....
“There were a pair of them here today, you know,” Sophie told Lady Gwendolyn as the two lounged in that lady’s bedchamber before dinner. They were sitting at their ease, clad in their dressing gowns, their bare toes wiggling against the carpet, both of them sipping wine Bobbit had sneaked upstairs to them and enjoying a few peaceful moments together out of the sight of the bound to be disapproving but now thankfully departed Isadora Waverley.
“Only two of them? Oh, pooh. There were three yesterday. But never say Sir Wilford was one of them, because I don’t want to hear that, Sophie. Truly I don’t.”
Sophie shook her head in the negative, then watched as Lady Gwendolyn breathed a sigh of deep relief. She’d noticed her ladyship eyeing Sir Wilford as that man departed the drawing room. There had been a certain spring in his step that hadn’t been in it as he’d entered looking much like a man come to see an oddity he’d been told not to miss, but not sure he wasn’t about to be brought into the presence of some fascinating Medusa, snakes waving in her hair. “Never Sir Wilford, Aunt Gwen,” she assured the woman. “He’s not to be found anywhere in Maman’s journals.”
Her ladyship’s aristocratic nose actually seemed to quiver as she sat up very straight, gaping at Sophie. “Journals? Did you say journals? Good God, Sophie—the woman took notes?”
Sophie became busy with pleating the skirt of her dressing gown as it lay over her knees. “Did I say that?” she asked sweetly, then giggled. “My goodness, Aunt Gwen, you look ready to fly up to the chandelier, like Giuseppe. And that’s exactly what I meant. Maman did keep a journal. Several of them, as a matter of fact. She had a full life, yes?”
“Fair to bursting, I’d say,” Lady Gwendolyn murmured in some distraction, hopping to her bare feet and beginning to pace. “If those journals were to fall into the wrong hands...” She stopped, a finger stuck between her teeth, and turned to Sophie. “You wouldn’t think to publish them, would you, Sophie? Harriette Wilson has thoughts along those lines, or so I’ve heard it said, charging her former paramours to keep them out of her memoirs. But, no. You don’t need the money, for one thing. And you would never be so tasteless.” Her eyes began to twinkle. “But that doesn’t mean that you and I—”
“You don’t really mean to beg me to allow you to read them, do you, Aunt Gwen?” Sophie asked quickly, to save the old woman embarrassment. “Oh, no, of course not! How silly of me to even think such a thing. You’d never ask such a question, not my dear Aunt Gwendolyn.”
Lady Gwendolyn cleared her tight throat, gave herself a shake, and sat down once more. “Me? La, of course not, my dear. I shouldn’t think any lady would wish to read another lady’s private journals. Oh, no. Not a lady. Not me. Oh, no. Never.” She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, wistfully, almost painfully. “Never... never... never... nev—”
“The two were Colonel Blythe, and his lordship, the earl of Strood,” Sophie supplied quickly, as it appeared Her Ladyship might go into a sad decline, caught between a nearly overpowering curiosity and the need to set a good example to her young charge. “I don’t remember either of them, of course, any more than the gentlemen who came to call before them,” she went on as Lady Gwendolyn’s expression cleared. “I was still in the baby nursery, as Maman termed it, and not allowed into the drawing room until I had become a very precocious ten-year-old.”
“And that’s when you began meeting the uncles?”
Sophie nodded. “Yes. And Maman began keeping the journals only a few years before that. I met Uncle Tye first, just as another gentleman was departing—I barely saw him at all. He’s dead now, so that doesn’t matter. Then came Uncle Dickie, Uncle Willy, and, lastly, and for nearly four years, Uncle Cesse.”
She became quiet for a moment, reflective. “I liked them all, but I adored Uncle Cesse. He was so lively, so full of fun and mischief. I cried for weeks and weeks when he and Maman died. At times, Aunt Gwendolyn,” she said, blinking back tears that stung her eyes, “I was hard-pressed to say which of them I missed most.”
Lady Gwendolyn had already pulled her handkerchief from the pocket of her dressing gown, and was dabbing at her own watery eyes. “Cecil was wonderful, wasn’t he? Always up for any rig, ripe for any adventure. I tend to forget sometimes, when I’m angry at what he did. But he was a good brother. A terrible father, but a good brother.”
Sophie eyed her companion in purposeful confusion. “A terrible father? But how could that be? He was all that was good to me.” She bit at her bottom lip, remembering how Bramwell had reacted when she had praised his late father, remembering her mother’s journal concerning the ninth duke. It was all so sad. “They didn’t get on—Bramwell and Unc
le Cesse?”
Lady Gwendolyn shrugged. “Who could tell if they ever would have been friends? Cecil and his wife were social animals. Lord knows my sister-in-law didn’t want any babies hanging on her skirts, spoiling her fun. The only thing she cared about was producing an heir on the first go, which she did. After that? Well, my nephew was pretty much on his own then, especially when Cecil was off playing at war. Yes, Bramwell was stuck in the country until he could be shoveled off to school, while Cecil was always running about somewhere, warring, hunting, fishing, dancing, drinking—wenching. I think he was waiting for Bramwell to grow up, so that they could meet each other man to man. But Bramwell took it upon himself to go into the Royal Navy, just to spite his father, I’m sure, and the two were never more than civil to each other after that the few times they did meet.”
She sighed, downing the last of her wine. “And then Cecil died and—well, that was that, then, wasn’t it?”
“So they never did get together, get to know each other? I think I understand now,” Sophie said, her mind full of memories of her Uncle Cesse, of the times she’d spent sitting on the floor at his feet, her chin propped on her folded hands as they rested on his knee. For hours on end she had listened to him talk about his life, his happiness, his regrets, his hopes for the future. And, she had read the journals. “I suppose I should have understood. Bramwell did seem to dislike his father, the one time I spoke of him. Oh, dear. He doesn’t know. Poor Uncle Cesse. Poor Bram. Well, I’ll just have to fix that somehow, won’t I? But how?”
“Fix what, my dear?” Lady Gwendolyn asked, blowing her nose.
“Oh, never mind,” Sophie said quickly, jumping up from her chair and going over to Lady Gwendolyn’s large jewelry chest, pulling open the top drawer before turning to look at her dear friend. “Shall I help select your jewelry for this evening, Aunt Gwendolyn? We’re to go to the theater, remember. I can barely contain myself, having never been to the theater. Pearls, I think, as you’re to wear the burgundy taffeta, yes?”
The Straight-Laced Duke Selbourne Page 14