“I know just the gown.”
Magdalene knew better than to argue. Her present frock, donned this morning without any thought of calls from viscounts, was not grand enough for dinner at Vaincourt. Before long, Tilly had her dressed in gray silk with slippers dyed to match.
“Hold still,” Tilly said. “Let me do something with your hair.” She produced a comb and drew it through Magdalene’s short curls. With the best made of her fine hair, Tilly draped Magdalene’s best shawl over her shoulders. It had once been cream-colored wool but had been dyed black. Over time, the color had faded and was now light enough to pass as a deliberate match for her gray silk.
They both turned when someone tapped on the anteroom door. Tilly put away her comb and straightened Magdalene’s shawl.
“Lord Daunt, mostly likely,” Magdalene said. “He must have forgotten to tell me something.” A stir set up in the pit of her stomach at the prospect of seeing him again. This reaction must be dealt with and dealt with firmly.
Tilly, however, announced someone she did not know, a Mrs. Taylor, who proved to be the woman Magdalene had glimpsed earlier when she and Daunt were on their way here.
She curtseyed to this vision in pink and pale blue silk. With her golden hair and blue eyes, she was a veritable confection of English beauty. “Good day. Evening.” What did one say to such a woman? “I am Daunt’s neighbor.”
“Goodness, you’re tall. A giant among women.” Mrs. Taylor smoothed the bodice of her lovely gown. “I hope you do not mind I’ve come to introduce myself. I thought we might go down to dinner together.”
“No.” She did not know Mrs. Taylor, nor why she’d come here to find fault with her for being tall, or why she wanted to go down to dinner together.
The other woman swept in and kissed the air just above either of Magdalene’s cheeks. Her perfume smelled divine. “When I heard you were here, I came immediately. I am convinced we shall be the very best of friends.”
Magdalene managed a smile, and that seemed to satisfy the woman.
“Now, when you’ve changed to something more suitable, I should be happy to show you the house,” Mrs. Taylor said. “Shall I wait for you?”
There was a brief silence that threatened to be uncomfortable. She did not do well with strangers. Her pulse was racing, and she had to concentrate on breathing slowly. “I have been to Vaincourt many times.”
Mrs. Taylor’s perfect eyebrows rose. “Have you?”
“Yes.” She did not make friends easily, and on top of that general anxiety, she resented the woman for coming here without warning or introduction. She rarely went out, but even she knew the woman’s visit was presumptuous. “The previous Lord Daunt knew my husband. As did the current one.”
“Whatever the reason you are here, Mrs. Carter, I must warn you I am determined to shake Daunt out of his doldrums. He simply cannot be allowed to slip into a deeper melancholy.”
Magdalene let out a breath. She would get through this. “What melancholy?”
“I intend that Lord Daunt shall be sufficiently cheered and entertained and therefore kept from undue depression of his mood while he is here.” Her smile was blindingly lovely, but the thought flashed into Magdalene’s head that there was some degree of cunning there.
“Undue.”
“I have been considering the best methods of entertaining him.”
“There are festivities.”
“Yes. For the locals, who are so very charming. There is dancing tonight. That should be quite jolly.”
“The weather was fine today.”
“Yes, wasn’t it? The young ladies who have arrived so far are not, how shall I say this, first in fashion. But they are handsome, robust examples of the beauty to be found only in the English countryside.”
“There are festivities.”
“My dear Mrs. Carter.” She smiled kindly without actually looking kind, but that often happened to her in situations like this, when she was forced into conversation with strangers with no chance to prepare herself. “Gentlemen are always diverted by youthful beauties arrayed in their finest, Lord Daunt most of all, as I am sure you are aware.” She looked Magdalene up and down again. “Perhaps not. Daunt tells me he does not intend to attend the ball.”
She lifted her hands and then was not sure she had appropriately conveyed her confusion. Now what?
“You cannot know Daunt well.”
Magdalene blinked. “I suppose not.” The admission pained her, but one must face the truth with stoicism. “He did not seem sad this morning.”
“You saw him this morning? Where?”
“Home.”
“What an honor to have Lord Daunt condescend to call on you. And when he is host to so many people!”
“Yes.” She was more and more puzzled about the reason for the woman’s visit and increasingly anxious that the conversation was continuing in this pointless manner. “An honor.”
“He requires entertainment.”
“Why?”
Mrs. Taylor grew serious. “Dear Mrs. Carter, if you knew him as I do, you would know that since his father’s passing, he is dreadfully changed.”
“Changed.” She winced. Even to herself she sounded awkward. She never had any trouble conversing with Daunt. With strangers? Such encounters never went well.
“He has completely withdrawn from society.” Mrs. Taylor took a turn around the room, stopping every few steps to touch something, the table, a gilt-framed etching, which she set askew, a bird’s nest on the mantel.
Magdalene could not stop herself. She went to the etching and straightened it. She also returned the bird’s nest to a less precarious position.
“Now he’s come here, where there is no one who is a friend and confidante, and where, as charming as the country can be, there cannot possibly be sufficiently elevated entertainment.”
“It is Accession Day. There are festivities.”
“In London, Daunt entertains constantly. The most brilliant people. Artists and scholars, learned men, beautiful women. But here? There is nothing to keep him diverted. I am gravely concerned.”
“Gravely. Yes.”
Mrs. Taylor took both of Magdalene’s hands in hers and leaned back for another examination of her. A frown marred her perfect features, and while it lasted, Magdalene wondered whether Mr. Taylor remained among the living. Upon the heels of this followed an inappropriate curiosity about just how intimate was the relationship between Daunt and Mrs. Taylor. “Trust me in this matter. I know what’s best. Daunt and I have a great deal in common, as I am sure you have guessed.”
She seized on that as something to break her out of her conversational paralysis. “Are you a member of the Bibliomania Club?” Perhaps that was how she’d come to know Daunt so well. The club had at least one female member. Mrs. Taylor might be another female member.
The woman’s smile reappeared. “He left London directly after the last meeting of the club. Other members have also dispersed. I fear they may soon disband from whatever falling-out occurred. Did Daunt tell you?”
The woman’s sly question gave her pause, and for the first time, her anxiety settled enough for her to make a deliberate, considered response. “Tell me what?”
“One worries when one’s particular friend leaves behind everyone capable of entertaining him.”
Magdalene smiled weakly.
“You are in colors again, aren’t you?” Mrs. Taylor fingered the edge of Magdalene’s shawl. She stepped out of reach. “I do hope so, for I would not wish him to be reminded of his recent loss, and if you are not out of mourning, why, you shan’t fit in at all.”
“I rarely do.” The color of her clothing was completely immaterial to Daunt, of that she was certain. Why anyone else would care was also mysterious.
“Men declare themselves baffled by a woman’s interest in fashion.” Mrs. Taylor shook her finger at her, then began another turn around the anteroom. “I promise you they understand and applaud the effect.” She exa
mined a rather dreadful painting of a dragon poised to devour a knight. “A gentleman may tell you he does not care what colors ladies wear, but it is not true.” Mrs. Taylor walked away with the painting listing to the left and stopped near the windows.
Magdalene straightened the dragon painting, and when she turned again, Mrs. Taylor was staring at the flowers on the table. “Those flowers.”
“Are in a vase.”
Mrs. Taylor’s upper lip twitched. “Entirely inappropriate, I fear.”
“How so?” Should they be simply lying about on the table? What nonsense.
“They are excessive and the wrong color.”
From Daunt’s supposedly dangerous melancholy to parties and the colors of ladies’ gowns and now on to flowers? “Flowers are the colors they are.”
“Yes,” the woman said.
If those sly and cunning glances hadn’t convinced her, her disapproval of the flowers did. They were not destined to be friends.
“This is not the sort of bouquet one gives a grieving widow.”
“Yes. I am.” Her heart lurched. She wanted very much to sit down. “A widow.”
“Naturally, I inquired about you, Mrs. Carter. You must not be shocked that I know who you are.”
“I am Lord Daunt’s neighbor.” Behind her back, she clasped her hands hard. Her palms were damp. She was better focused now that their conversation had turned to flowers. There was relevant history to relay. “Daunt says Vaincourt’s gardens are superior. I dispute this.”
“I went for a stroll shortly after I arrived to enjoy the beauty that is Vaincourt. I can tell you categorically that Vaincourt’s reputation is well deserved.”
“Nevertheless, the gardens at Plumwood are without parallel.”
“Plumwood. Do you mean the charming cottage a forty-minute walk from here?”
Forty minutes? Unless the weather was inclement, which it was not now, the walk between Plumwood and Vaincourt never took longer than twenty minutes. “That is likely.”
“I agree the gardens there are lovely. What I saw of them.”
“You have been to Plumwood?”
“I do believe so. Entirely by coincidence, I found myself passing the most charming cottage. Such a lovely little house. So cozy and rustic.”
“Daunt claims Vaincourt’s gardens are superior to Plumwood’s—”
“I’m sure they must be.” Mrs. Taylor seated herself on the only chair. “Vaincourt is renowned for its history and beauty.” She considered the flowers, which, yes, must indeed seem excessive to a casual observer. “My dear… You do not understand.”
“I believe I do. The flowers are beautiful and extravagant exactly as Daunt intended.”
“Daunt makes extravagant gestures whenever he has ulterior motivations.”
“He hasn’t got those.”
Mrs. Taylor laughed, and it was a beautiful, compelling laugh.
“The colors of a bouquet can only come from what is in bloom.” Magdalene squeezed her fingers. She’d talked enough. Too much. “Daunt is making a point.”
“How droll you are.” Mrs. Taylor let her amusement fade. “Perhaps you understand more than I gave you credit for at first.”
With that, the conversation took another sharp left. “Droll.”
“When he wants something, no gesture is too grand.”
“The flowers are a point, not a grand gesture.”
“Are you really so naïve?”
“No.”
“I hope you do not think he intends to have an affair with you.”
Magdalene was too horrified to speak. In a sideways sort of way, she had been thinking that. About that. Not that it would happen, but the remark hit uncomfortably close to home.
“He is responsible for those flowers, so I daresay you were an expected guest rather than one who merely arrived.”
“You arrived from?”
“London, of course. I must say you strike me as far too sweet and gentle a woman to understand men and their motives.”
“Motives. Again, motives.”
Mrs. Taylor rose and faced Magdalene from across the table. “Motive is all that matters.”
“I do believe I understand the motives to which you refer. I have a son who was conceived with a great deal of motivation.”
“With your husband.”
“Yes. Good heavens, who else?”
“Do you agree Lord Daunt’s interest in you is limited to your knowledge of books?”
Now a sharp right. “Books. Yes.”
“And so, my dear Mrs. Carter, given your infamous husband—”
She stiffened. “Infamous?”
“Given your most infamous husband, you must be aware of the very real possibility that Lord Daunt intends to seduce you—”
“Are you mad? You must be.”
“Lord Daunt is a rake. As charming and delightful as he is, that is indisputable. Every tolerable-looking woman in London has a story to tell of him.”
“Why would Daunt seduce me, then?”
“Oh, you poor, dear woman. You are too precious. You are a widow, and Lord Daunt is an accomplished flirt and an even more accomplished lover. I adore him for both reasons. But surely you see that those flowers prove he invited you here for the purpose of obtaining one of the Dukes.”
The reason for those sly looks came into sharp focus. “You mean De Terris Fabulosis.”
Mrs. Taylor smiled slowly and with altogether too much satisfaction. “I presume you found the book in your husband’s collection.”
She made a show of consulting the watch pinned to the bodice of her frock. “You must go now. It was a pleasure meeting you.”
“If you’re wise, you’ll heed my warning about Daunt.”
“You must go now.” She met the woman’s gaze head on.
Mrs. Taylor curtseyed and headed for the door. Once there, she paused. “I hope you will do everything you can to convince Daunt to attend tonight’s celebration. His happiness and good spirits depend upon it.”
“Good night, ma’am.”
When she left, in a cloud of perfume and the rustle of silk, Magdalene stared at the door for some time, very much worried that Mrs. Taylor was a bibliophile of the ruthless, cutthroat sort.
Chapter Four
‡
Daunt was sitting on the floor in front of one of the shelves of books when Magdalene came into the library. She wore a gray silk that suited her complexion and a gray shawl with fringe of a darker shade. Not deep mourning any longer. She held one end of her shawl and rolled a few strands of the fringe between two fingers.
He liked the color on her. The color made her hair look more definitively brown. A silver watch was pinned to her upper bosom, dangling from a short, silver mesh chain. She looked harassed and out of sorts.
While she closed the door, he reshelved the book he’d just inspected. “Ave, Daunt,” she said when she was done.
“Ave.” He blew out a breath to move a lock of hair off his forehead. “Forgive my disrepair.” He’d taken off his coat while he worked and was in his shirt-sleeves, hardly decent, even between good friends. “I do not mean to offend.”
“You haven’t.” She stayed with her eyes cast down while he retrieved his coat from a chair that was too far away. “Any man who fills my room with flowers that are almost as beautiful as those at Plumwood may presume a great deal.”
He buttoned his coat and grinned at her, quite smug now. “You like them?”
“I do.”
He bowed. “I presume, then, that our dispute is concluded, and you concede that Vaincourt has the better gardens.”
“I concede nothing.”
“I shall try harder to persuade.” Good. He’d made her smile.
“Do.” She continued into the room. Her hair was all curls, without any combs or ribbons or silk flowers. She looked as if she’d done little but run her fingers through it before she came downstairs. He’d once accused her of favoring the Welsh-comb-style of hairdressin
g, and she had laughed at him without any embarrassment or denial. From across the room, Angus had winked a confession of his wife’s disregard for fashion. “I have recently learned you are a very… charming man.”
He turned to keep her in his line of sight as she came in. “I am devastated you did not come to that conclusion years ago.”
She blinked, and a shiver of arousal shot through him. “I take it you have not found any Dukes.”
“No.”
From the corridor, someone tapped on the door, and then Gomes called out, “Dinner, my lord.”
Daunt raised his voice. “Come in.”
While Gomes supervised setting out their meal, Magdalene went to the shelf she’d been working on earlier and recommenced. A woman of no nonsense and action. He liked that she was tall, given that he was a tall man. An internal energy burned from her eyes and propelled her body through space with emphatic determination. She was no dainty female, and he liked that too. Because she was so slender, her features were sharp. Her face was strong and somewhat irregular. She was only sometimes handsome but was always compelling. When she was among friends, she was full of life and good humor.
By design, he’d ordered simple fare, but even simple fare from his kitchen was sublime. Soup, roast beef, a selection of cheeses, bread, two or three sweets, wine, and a decanter of cognac. As they ate, they chatted about the marginalia in a manuscript she had recently acquired.
“When we are done here,” she said, “and we have all our Dukes, you must come to Plumwood to see it.”
“I look forward to it.” He would, no matter the outcome.
Their conversation continued in that vein for a while, but when they were done and the dishes cleared away and the servants gone, rather than return to the shelves, she stayed at the table with her hands pressed down flat and her eyes on her hands. “May I ask, my lord, about Mrs. Taylor?”
She said the name as if she expected some reaction other than confusion from him. “Who?”
“Mrs. Taylor.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know her. Or don’t recall her, take your pick.”
How to Find a Duke in Ten Days Page 25