by Amanda Scott
“I didn’t have any time to think what else to say,” she said. “I was afraid he would go to prison. Mr. Grimthorpe—”
“Grimthorpe? Mama’s tame solicitor? What’s he got to do with this?”
Even as he asked the question, Sybilla remembered how accurately Grimthorpe had described her brother, and her doubts returned. Had Brandon not said he would pay Ned back the money he had borrowed from him? Had he not said something, too, about how if all went well he would have money this very day? She wished now that she had paid closer attention to him.
“Answer me, Syb. What about Grimthorpe?”
“He laid a trap, but the man got away.”
“Man? The letters were from a man?”
“So it appears.” She hesitated, then added morosely, “A slim blond man with greenish eyes. That’s why I thought … Oh, Ned, are you sure it cannot have been Brandon?”
“I’m sure. Now, hush, I must think.” A moment later, he looked her straight in the eye again and demanded, “Are you truly well?” When she nodded, he said, “I believe an idea is beginning to stir, and in celebration, I think I shall be so unfashionable as to escort my own wife to a dinner party tonight.”
XII
RAMSBURY WOULD SAY NO more about what he thought, and by the time Sybilla began preparing for the evening ahead, her doubts about Brandon had returned. Having seen her younger brother in a clearer light, she did not find it difficult to believe him capable of taking money from Ramsbury and then applying to the marchioness for money to repay him.
Ramsbury had not told her where they were going, but Sybilla really didn’t care. Just to be getting out of the house was enough. By the time Medlicott had helped her into a gold silk evening gown, embroidered around the hem with a wide band of blue and pink roses, she was beginning to look forward to the party.
“A little rouge, I think, Meddy,” she said, peering into the glass at her pale cheeks. “I look a hag.”
Medlicott obediently presented the rouge bottle and watched while her mistress applied a touch to each cheek and rubbed it in. Then, when Sybilla sat back again to study the results, the dresser said diffidently, “Perhaps your emeralds, m’lady. The color of the gown is rich enough to support them.”
“Not emeralds,” declared Ramsbury from the doorway that separated his dressing room from Sybilla’s bedchamber.
Startled, she turned. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
He gave her a teasing look. “Did you think I would knock on my own wife’s door, sweetheart? I have never yet done so.”
“No, of course not,” she replied, shooting a glance at her dresser. Medlicott looked her usual complacent self, however, so she added quickly, “He is right, Meddy. I’ll wear my sapphires.”
A few moments later, Ramsbury handed her into the carriage and told the coachman they were bound for Norfolk House.
“The duke is in town?” Sybilla said when he had settled himself beside her.
“He is, and entertaining the beau monde. Everyone who is in town will be there, I daresay. Not my parents, of course, for my father don’t approve of Norfolk, but everyone else. Perhaps even Prinny. What a fortunate thing that I forgot to send regrets!”
She smiled, feeling better just to be with him, and twenty minutes later the carriage drew up before the front entrance of Norfolk House, on the southeast corner of St. James’s Square.
“As the critic once aptly observed,” Ramsbury said, peering out the window at the unremarkable front door, “ ‘all the blood of the Howards can never ennoble this house.’ ”
Sybilla could not disagree, for although the three-story house, built of brick and faced with stone, was a full nine bays wide and as large as any of the numerous mansions facing the square, it was hardly a noble edifice. More than one critic had snubbed its appearance, and now, even with the welcoming lights from its lower seventeen windows, the open front door, and the linkboys’ torches, the house looked more like a public building than a nobleman’s London mansion.
Inside, however, it was a different matter. From the spacious entrance hall, they were guided up the grand stair to the principal floor with its lofty, magnificently decorated ceilings and ornate furnishings, where they were received by their host and (since the duchess had been mad since shortly after their marriage) his cousin Lady Katharine Howard, a nondescript woman in her early sixties. Amenities accomplished, they passed into the glittering crimson and gilt great saloon, where a large number of persons were already gathered.
Ned and Sybilla were quickly separated while greeting their particular friends and acquaintances, and Sybilla found herself telling first one person, then another, but she was perfectly stout again. It was with great relief that she turned to find Mr. Saint-Denis at her side. Laughing, she said, “You, at least, will not demand that I recount all my ills and megrims.”
“I should think not,” he replied, raising his quizzing glass to look her over. “You look the picture of health again.” Then, surveying the rest of the elegant throng, he added in his usual drawl, “You know, Sybilla, if we are to be reduced to dining with the scaff and raff, I do believe I shall return to Bath at once.”
She chuckled. “I shall be sad to see you go, sir, but I return soon myself. My father’s housekeeper has written twice, first informing me that Papa had discovered my absence at last and then to say he has been writing notes of complaint ever since, so I fear that my days in London are sadly numbered.”
Sydney murmured something she didn’t catch, but before she could ask him to repeat it, Mally hurried forward to greet her, and his attention was attracted by someone else.
Her sister was in excellent spirits. “Every time I come to this house,” she said, “the richness of its interior dazzles me. The huge mirrors in this room make one see a crush when there are no more than forty people. ’Tis a shame his grace don’t have the same scintillating quality as his furnishings. Do you know that they say he must be dead drunk before one can get him into a bath? Of course, they call him the Drunken Duke, so perhaps that is not so difficult a task as it—”
“Hush, Mally,” Sybilla expostulated, laughing. “Someone will hear you.”
“Well, it won’t be the duke,” her irrepressible sister retorted, “for he has taken Prinny off somewhere to talk about the latest attempt at creating a Regency. I think it disgraceful even to think of pushing a man who behaves as badly as Prinny does onto the throne before his papa has even relinquished it.”
“Well, I don’t understand it all, but I am sure that whatever is decided will be for the best. The king cannot last very long, in any event. They say he is shockingly ill.”
“But not dead,” her sister reminded her, “and I have yet to hear that talking to trees leads to a quick demise. And no matter how ill he is, he is still a better ruler than Prinny will be. You cannot deny that, Sybilla.”
Sybilla glanced hastily around to see if anyone might have overheard Mally, but her concern was forgotten when she saw Ramsbury with a merry group near the white marble fireplace. He was standing next to the seemingly ubiquitous Lady Mandeville. Feeling her temper rise, Sybilla made an effort to remain calm, gritting her teeth and forcing herself to look away.
“Sybilla?”
When Mally touched her arm, she started. “I’m sorry. My thoughts wandered. What were you saying?”
“It doesn’t matter. Look here, Sybilla, don’t let that cat get her claws into Ramsbury tonight. If that were Harry standing over there, I’d be right beside him, ready to scratch her eyes out if she so much as smiled at him.”
“Where is Harry?”
“Right over there, and don’t think I’m not keeping a close eye on him.”
“I’d have thought it would be the other way around,” Sybilla said, smiling fondly at her. “Now don’t snap my head off. ’Tis only that first you castigate Prinny for misbehavior, and now you tell me you are keeping your eye on poor Harry, who to the best of my knowledge has never done anything more outrage
ous than to care more for hunting and shooting than for this sort of thing—and object to your eloping with Brentford, of course.”
“But now that I’ve got his attention at last, I don’t intend to lose it. Brentford is here tonight, too, but you won’t see me talking to him, for I promised Harry I would not, and I mean to be a model wife, in my own fashion.” She paused, then added gently, “I know you are more accustomed to giving advice than to taking it, Sybilla, but if you can take some from me, you will look after Ramsbury, and even learn to look at life occasionally from his viewpoint rather than your own, for unless you truly intend to live without him, you must learn to live with him.”
“You sound very philosophical, my dear, and quite unlike yourself.” She glanced at Ramsbury again, gritting her teeth when she saw him laugh at something Lady Mandeville had said. Then, thoughtfully, she said, “Though goodness knows you never willingly took my advice, perhaps I will take a bit of yours and at least put a stop to that nonsense.”
Mally laughed. “Thank goodness I am all grown up now, and needn’t take anyone’s advice if I don’t choose to, or obey anyone except dearest Harry. But I have learned a little about myself, and him, too, these past few days, and I am right about Ramsbury as well, aren’t I? Things have changed between you, and you no longer choose to live without him, do you?”
“Don’t I?” But if Mally responded to that murmured question, Sybilla didn’t hear her, for her feet, as though they had minds of their own, were carrying her rapidly toward the group by the fireplace.
Ramsbury was speaking to a young brunette, but Lady Mandeville stood beside him, her hand tucked into the crook of his arm, her head held a little forward, as though she listened to them. She started when Sybilla touched her shoulder.
“You will excuse us for a moment, I know,” Sybilla said, looking pointedly at the offending hand. “I wish to have a word with my husband.”
No doubt it was the gentle emphasis on the last two words that brought the spark of bitter anger to Lady Mandeville’s eyes as she stepped aside, but her tone was perfectly civil, if slightly patronizing, when she said, “Certainly, Sybilla. Here is your wife, Ned. I will speak to you later.”
Ramsbury turned away from the brunette and smiled at Sybilla. “Did you want me, my dear? Come, let us go into this room, where we may be more private.”
The door he indicated led into the state apartments, thrown open for the company, and for a moment Sybilla feared that they might interrupt their host and his royal guest, but the first apartment, the bedchamber, though lit by a profusion of wax candles that made its peach and gilt furnishings gleam, proved to be empty. Ramsbury shut the door, and turned to face her.
“What is it?” he asked sharply. “Are you ill again?”
“No.” Face-to-face and alone with him, Sybilla suddenly did not know what to say. She had no wish to quarrel, and she was certain that if she were to accuse me of flirting with Lady Mandeville, he would quickly become angry. Perhaps it would not be altogether wrong to take some more of Mally’s advice and think before she spoke. “I … I merely wanted to talk with you,” she said at last.
To her astonishment he grinned at her. “You really must learn to speak the truth to me, Syb. It answers much better than when you try to dissemble.”
“I don’t—Oh, very well, but you always fly into the boughs when I accuse you of flirting with that scrawny bitch.”
“I wasn’t flirting, but I might do so if you don’t behave. I saw you with Saint-Denis, you know. Bringing you more little gifts, was he?”
“Don’t be absurd, Ned. He was merely complaining and saying he rather thought he’d go back to Bath. Sydney has never given you the slightest cause for jealousy.”
“Not Sydney, perhaps, but there have been others. We will not quarrel about such stuff tonight, however. I’ve more important matters to attend to, and I believe that they will be announcing dinner very soon. Shall we go and see? Unless, of course, you’ve something else you wish to say to me.”
She sighed. “No, there’s nothing.” But when she moved toward the door and paused, waiting for him to open it, he surprised her again.
“Just a moment, love. You have forgotten something.”
She looked at him, bewildered. “Forgotten what?”
“This.” He pulled her close to him, tilted her chin up, and kissed her before she could react. Then, his arms went around her, and the kiss became more demanding. She felt his tongue, first against her lower lip, then pressing until she opened her mouth to him, sighing, her body melting against his, her hands moving to his waist and around to hold him.
A moment later he released her, and she stood silently for a long moment, gazing up at him, trying to read his expression. Her own feelings were mixed. She felt disappointment that the moment had not lasted longer, but also a certain amount of consternation. Things were moving too fast. She had not had time to think. The only thing she knew for sure was that she wished it were not necessary to leave London quite so soon.
She thought he would speak, but he did not, and she could think of nothing to say to him, so when he held out his arm, she placed her fingertips upon it and allowed him to take her back into the saloon. Dinner was announced only a few minutes later, and the guests began moving toward the north end of the room, where two doors led into a pair of rooms that had been thrown together for use as a dining room for the large company.
Lady Mandeville’s sweet voice sounded from behind them as they moved with the others. “Ned, darling, I believe you are my dinner partner. You will forgive us, I know, Sybilla dear.”
Sybilla turned angrily to tell the woman she was mistaken, but Ramsbury spoke before she could think of any words she might use that could be properly overheard by other guests.
“I intend to keep Sybilla by me tonight, Fanny.”
“But her proper partner is Brentford,” Lady Mandeville said. “I know she would not wish to disappoint him, for he has been looking forward to renewing his acquaintance with her.”
“How do you know?” Sybilla demanded. “That is,” she added when she realized how rudely she had spoken, “how can you know he is meant to be my partner? The matching cannot be by rank if that is the case, or indeed,” she went on as growing anger overcame good sense, “if you are to be my husband’s partner.”
Lady Mandeville shrugged. “The duke don’t care for any rank but his own,” she said, “and he don’t take in the highest ranking lady, but the most comely. He believes the other men should also have interesting dinner partners.” She winked at Ramsbury.
He winced when Sybilla’s hand curled into a tight claw on his forearm, but when he spoke his voice was calm. “I am persuaded that you will find Brentford an amusing partner, Fanny, and I really must insist upon keeping Sybilla at my side. As you know, she has been ill. This is her first outing, and I want her under my eye. Ah, here is Brentford now.” He nodded to the tall, handsome, dark-haired man who approached them. “You and I have exchanged partners, Brentford, and you are so lucky as to be taking Lady Mandeville into dinner.”
There was nothing Lady Mandeville could say after that, but Sybilla did not miss the furious glance her adversary shot her before they went in.
“Sybilla, do you mind not clawing my arm to shreds?”
Instantly relaxing her hand, she glanced up at him guiltily. “I’m sorry, but I do not like that woman.”
“Is that a fact? She does not like you either, I fear. Hasn’t since I married you. I do hope you are not incensed with me for commanding your presence at my side,” he added. “I know you don’t like me to play the heavy-handed husband, but I was not about to allow Brentford to set you up as his next quarry.”
“Goodness, do you think that is what he intended to do?”
“I don’t know what he intended, but I’d wager it is what Fanny intended him to do. She adores making mischief, but she’d better watch it with Brentford. He’s a more dangerous sort than she’s accustomed to.”
She did not commit the solecism of speaking to anyone other than the gentlemen on either side of her, but her comments were clearly not meant for their ears alone.
“You say your cousin is ill?” she said to the man on her right, but she did not wait for his reply before adding, “Are you certain? You know, so many women exaggerate their symptoms in order to call attention to themselves. Why, I’ve even known one who fainted merely because her husband had been ignoring her—quite rightly, in my opinion. We will name no names, of course.”
Sybilla, furious, could feel the heat in her cheeks and knew she must be flushing deeply enough to convince every person at the table that hers was the name not mentioned. Though the gentleman next to Lady Mandeville did not speak so loudly, his reply was clearly a protest, but her ladyship merely patted his hand and turned to Brentford on her other side.
Sybilla felt Ned’s hand brush her thigh, and when she looked at him, he was smiling at her. She muttered, “How you can smile at behavior like that, I cannot imagine!”
“ ’Tis not her words, but your reaction. Do not give her the satisfaction of seeing that she can stir your temper.” He spoke low and kept smiling, but she knew by then it was only to keep others from guessing what he talked about.
He was right, and she knew it, but it didn’t help, for her temper was already aroused. And fifteen minutes later, more fuel was added to the flame when Lady Mandeville’s clear voice rose once again above the murmur of conversation. “I do think ladies ought not to dash about the countryside on horseback or driving gentlemen’s carriages—at least, I consider a high phaeton to be more a gentleman’s carriage than a lady’s, do not you, my lord?”