The Bath Trilogy

by Amanda Scott

  “Would you understand better”—there was a distinct edge to his voice now—“if I were to insist that you cease your flirting, perhaps avoid entirely the company of such men as Cumberland, Lyndhurst, even Manningford, until you learn to behave properly?”

  Her eyes widened as resentment rose swiftly within her. “No, I wouldn’t,” she said tartly. “You do not have that right, sir. Indeed, this conversation is foolish and I cannot think why I stay to talk to you.” Glaring, she arose from her chair.

  “Sit down, Carolyn.”

  She nearly obeyed on the instant, so startled was she by the snap in his voice, but she caught herself and, straightening, lifted her brows in what she hoped was a fair imitation of his own manner of silent inquiry.

  He responded with a wry smile. “Please sit down. I will apologize. I can’t imagine why I allow you to exasperate me as you do, for anyone would think that if Mama can no longer take a rise out of me, you could not do so, either.”

  Oddly reassured by these words, she sat down, and when the music began again, they parted as friends. She did not speak with him again that night, but by the time she retired to her bed, she had replayed in her mind’s eye every minute of their time together, hearing each word he had spoken and every reply she had made. This mild exercise only confused her all the more.

  No more than she could explain why his failure to scold her had rankled could she explain her instant resentment when he had dared, mildly, to reprove her. She didn’t want him to be angry. But if he was angry, she wanted him to tell her so. On the other hand, she didn’t want to hear it when he did tell her so. Very little time spent with such thoughts as these was sufficient to make her bury her head in her pillow, deciding that further such contemplation was no more than pavement on the road to madness.

  The following day, she awoke late to the news that the Regent was ill and a large number of the guests departing. Lady Skipton insisted at first that his illness had nothing to do with them, but by three o’clock, when it had become obvious that the duchess was no longer interested in visiting with those guests who had remained, her ladyship informed the rest of her party that she was ready to leave at once for Bathwick Hill House. They traveled to Maidenhead that day, finishing their journey late Saturday evening.

  Since the weather was clement, Sydney rode, and there was no opportunity on the road or at the inn in Maidenhead for Carolyn to speak privately with him. When they reached Bath she went straight to bed, and the following day, they household returned to its normal routine. Sydney had numerous duties to attend to each day that kept him busy until midafternoon, when he generally disappeared for two hours before dinner.

  Carolyn saw little of him. She was still smarting emotionally, and since there was no one to whom she could unburden herself, her guilt increased until she was certain that he must despise her for a fool. Telling herself that he could not know she had learned her lesson, and determined to show him that she had, she decided that henceforward she would behave with irreproachable propriety. There would be no more incidents like the one in the grotto, for she could be as proper as anyone if she set her mind to it.

  With this end in view, she exerted herself to be of assistance by bearing the dowager company and by making herself generally useful instead of spending her days as she had before—idly reading, riding, walking in the gardens, or writing letters to her friends. She helped Miss Pucklington with those chores the dowager was constantly finding for her to perform and even assisted Maggie in finding glue to mend the hat she wore with her blue riding habit. Such virtuous behavior, though wearisome, eased her guilt until newspaper accounts of the Oatlands ball began to appear, and certain rumors began to fly.

  Lady Skipton announced at supper a week after the ball that she feared for the future of the Empire.

  Miss Pucklington gasped. “Good gracious, Cousin Olympia, whatever has happened?”

  “Why, the Regent is proving to be as mad as the King, that is what,” the dowager said. “What we are coming to in this country, I cannot think, to be at the mercy of a royal family tainted by madness. My father would not have approved, and nor, I can tell you, Sydney, would your father have done.”

  Sydney had been placidly eating, but thus addressed, he replied gently, “I must suppose that you have this information on excellent authority, ma’am.”

  “Well, certainly. I have it directly from Lady Lucretia Calverton, who had it from her niece in London, who had it from Lady Bessborough, who had it, I am certain, directly from the Queen. Surely, Sydney, if you’ve heard nothing else, you must have heard about the dreadful things the Regent did while we were at Oatlands.”

  “I cannot think of anything he did that was particularly dreadful, ma’am, but no doubt I have mistaken the matter. I pray you will enlighten me.”

  “Well, I certainly thought you must have known,” she said with a click of her tongue, “for I saw you myself, talking with the man on at least two separate occasions.”

  “He asked my advice several times,” Sydney said. “He does that frequently, and though I had not previously thought it a sign of madness, clearly I am biased, so you must forgive me.”

  Carolyn choked back a sudden urge to laugh, but Lady Skipton did not notice, her attention being firmly riveted upon her son as she retorted, “Do not be nonsensical, sir. You know I meant nothing of the sort. And while you may choose to see frivolity in the occasion, there is none, for the Regent has so lost his wits that he grossly insulted Lady Yarmouth and was soundly thrashed by her husband, in consequence. Surely you have heard of the so-called royal indisposition!”

  “Certainly,” Sydney said. “But then I—Did you wish to speak, ma’am?” he asked, glancing at Miss Pucklington.

  Flustered, she gaped first at him and then at Lady Skipton, whose expression was unencouraging. But when Sydney said gently, “Well, ma’am?” she blinked, then hastily found her tongue.

  “I did not mean to intrude,” she said, “but I thought the Regent injured himself when he slipped and hurt his ankle while showing his daughter how to do the Highland fling.”

  “That is certainly the substance of what we were told at Oatlands,” Sydney agreed.

  “Yes,” Miss Pucklington said in a gratified tone, “and it must have been a gallant effort, you know, for he is such a heavy man and his ankles are known to be weak. According to the Morning Chronicle, he opened the ball with the princess, and while they were dancing, his right foot came in contact with the leg of a sofa, and he sprained his ankle; however, I know that was not true, since York danced with her and no furniture was in the way in that huge ballroom. Moreover, we know the Regent did not dance. But surely the truth was printed in the Morning Post, for that was the same tale we heard at Oatlands, though perhaps it is not precisely where I read that it was the Highland fling.”

  The dowager had not interrupted her but had been regarding her with increasing displeasure, and said now, “Really, Judith, I cannot think when you have time to read all the newspapers, but it is not at all becoming in you to do so when there are more important matters to which you might be attending. I do not ask you to do very much, certainly, and I should think that you—”

  “Godmama,” Carolyn blurted, “I heard the same thing at Oatlands, and I saw the article in the Morning Post, too, so I am persuaded that you must be mistaken about the Regent and Lady Yarmouth. He would never have insulted her, and surely Lord Yarmouth was one of those most often in attendance upon him when it was discovered that he had injured himself more seriously than had previously been thought, and he had taken to his bed.”

  “You’ve only to see the broadsides being sold in the streets of Bath to know I am right,” the dowager said firmly. “That was no sprain. Under all that linen, I fancy, his ankle is as healthy as my own. Perhaps you are right about the Yarmouths, however,” she added with an air of giving credit where it was due. “I put little credence in what can be no more than a rumor, since Lady Yarmouth is not likely to attract hi
m when he is still enamored of her mama-in-law. However,” she added as a clincher, “no less a person than the Duke of Cumberland has said the illness has infected a portion of the Regent’s body higher than his foot and that a blister on his head might be more efficacious than the poultice on his ankle. And what will become of us if our Regent, like our King, goes mad? Answer me that!”

  No one wished to debate the matter, but although Sydney managed with his usual adroitness to divert her, it was by no means the final word she spoke on the subject. Nor was she the only one to indulge in such interesting speculation. When the Regent remained at Oatlands through the first week of December, spurring one wit to send the newspapers a complex, passionate ode entitled “The Royal Sprain, or a Kick from Yarmouth to Wales,” the rumors flourished anew, and Carolyn thanked Providence that it had been Lady Yarmouth and not herself who had chanced to accompany the Regent’s party back into the house.

  By the time Brandon Manningford, thinking the ode an excellent bit of satire, brought Carolyn a copy one rainy afternoon in case she had not yet seen it, she was thoroughly sick of the conjecturing. He had been shown into the library, where he found her alone, reading a book she had previously denied herself in the interests of conspicuous propriety.

  “What the devil’s the matter with you?” he demanded when she received his offering with a grimace of distaste.

  “It is only that I am sick to death of hearing about poor Prinny’s accident. We were there, you know, and nothing of the sort transpired. Indeed,” she added incautiously, “I believe all the rumors originated with the odious Duke of Cumberland, whose greatest desire in life is to make the Regent look no account.”

  “Even if that were true,” Brandon said, “Cumberland was there, too, wasn’t he? And the simple fact is that everyone else has been dashed cagey about the whole thing if all Prinny did was fall down while he was practicing some fool dance.”

  Feeling warmth flood her cheeks when she realized how near she had been to telling him the truth, she said swiftly, “Where have you been? We have not seen you since my rout party.”

  “In London,” he said, accepting the change of subject without comment. “I was run off m’ legs, and m’ father refused to advance me a farthing, so I threw m’self on Ramsbury’s mercy, he being a softer touch than m’ sister Mally’s husband. At first he said I could stay with him and Sybilla till quarter day, but I could stand it only three weeks. Daresay he didn’t like it much either, because he didn’t raise a whisper when I said I’d best dash back to Bath and look in on the old man. Even dug into his pockets—and right deep they are, too—so here I am.”

  Laughing, Carolyn said, “How very thoughtful of you—to visit Sir Mortimer, I mean. Do sit down and don’t snap off my nose when I ask if he even knows you are in town. Does he?”

  “Well, of course he does,” he said indignantly, taking a seat, “or so I should think. Haven’t seen him m’self.”

  “Brandon, it is not natural for a son never to see his father. I think you ought to make it a point to visit him.”

  He tilted his head to one side and regarded her for a long moment, speculatively, before he nodded and said, “Tell you what it is, Caro. You’ve got windmills in your head, that’s what.”

  “No, I haven’t. What could he possibly do to you? I’ll go with you if you like,” she added impulsively. “I am bored to distraction, and it would be just the thing to amuse me.”

  “Now, Caro, really …”

  “Oh, come on,” she coaxed. “I’ll wager ten pounds that you cannot get the pair of us into his library long enough for me to have a look at him. There! Will you refuse a wager?”

  He grimaced comically. “Now, dash it all, Caro, I wish you wouldn’t put the matter like that. Sneaking a bear into the Pump Room or carrying an egg on one’s nose the length of Pulteney Bridge … Now those are sensible—”

  “Sensible!” She laughed.

  “At all events,” he said with dignity, “they are more sensible than confronting a cantankerous old lion in his den, and that’s what we’d be doing, my girl.”

  “Oh, pooh, I think you see Old Bogey where there is no one but a lonely old man. No doubt your poor papa hid himself away out of his desperate grief for your mother, and even if that is not the case,” she went on hastily when he hooted with derisive laughter, “the fact is that you’re a coward, Brandon Manningford, and that’s all there is about it.”

  “I’ll show you who’s a coward,” he said, his expression changing instantly from merriment to grim purpose as he leapt to his feet. “Get your cloak. It’s cold as ice outside.”

  Carolyn stood up at once, delighted. “Where are we going?”

  “Don’t be daft, my dear. You’ll be the most sought-after dinner guest in Bath once you can tell folks you’ve met the eccentric Sir Mortimer Manningford. Are you coming?”

  “Now?”

  “Now,” he said severely, “or never.”

  Knowing he might change his mind as quickly as he had made it up, she didn’t hesitate for a moment, snatching up her skirt and fairly running upstairs to her bedchamber, where she dragged her red-wool cloak from the wardrobe and flung it over her shoulders. Then, taking a pair of warm gloves from a drawer, she hurried back down, pausing not even long enough to smooth her hair, telling herself the hood would cover it. Downstairs again, she found Brandon awaiting her in the hall.

  “That was quick,” he said, “but where are your boots?”

  She regarded her thinly shod feet in dismay. “I never gave them a thought. Oh, and it’s still raining, and I left my pattens by the side door this morning!”

  “Well, don’t fret yourself. The rain’s eased, and they’re bringing my carriage ’round. Daresay I can contrive to toss you in without straining m’self, so you’ll keep your toes dry.”

  “Brandon,” she said when a thought occurred to her as they were hurrying down the front steps, “you didn’t tell anyone where we’re going, did you?”

  He shook his head. “Just ordered the carriage brought ’round. Why?”

  She twinkled up at him from beneath her eyelashes. “It has occurred to me that, uninterested as Godmama is in my comings and goings, she might be displeased to learn that I had visited your house without a proper chaperon … or with one, I suppose.”

  “Well, I won’t tell anyone.” He grinned mischievously. “Much better, I think, to keep mum. I believe I now know the perfect way to be revenged upon you if you ever decide to play me any of your tricks.”

  “I do not play tricks anymore,” she informed him with dignity. “I have decided to abandon such nonsense altogether and behave always in the manner of a proper lady.”

  “Going with me today being but a momentary lapse, is that it?” he demanded, shaking his head at her in amusement. “What stirred this sudden desire for propriety, anyway, Caro? Something happen to teach you the error of your ways?”

  She had begun to chuckle at his teasing, but the rider stopped the laugh in her throat, and before she had time to swallow it, he had scooped her off her feet to carry her down to the carriage, which was drawn up to within a few feet of the bottom step.

  The footman who was holding the door open for him suddenly looked at a point above and beyond him, giving Carolyn a scant second’s warning before she heard Sydney’s familiar drawl.

  “Abducting the lady, Manningford?” he said. “I confess, I admire your practicality in leaving by the front door, and in broad daylight, too, such as it is.”

  Still holding Carolyn in his arms, Brandon swung around. “Saint-Denis!”

  Sydney remained poised on the top step, his quizzing glass raised to his right eye. “Good afternoon to you,” he said calmly. “Haven’t you forgotten someone?”

  “What? Who?” Brandon looked distracted. “Look here, Saint-Denis, this ain’t what it looks like.”

  “No, I rather thought it wasn’t, which was why it occurred to me that perhaps you had merely forgotten Miss Hardy’s maid.�
��

  “Her maid! Good God, man, we don’t want her maid!”

  “Ah, perhaps not, but I assure you that for you to carry Miss Hardy off without her is not to be thought of.”

  “Sydney, stop it,” Carolyn begged, struggling to keep from laughing. “You don’t think anything of the sort.”

  “I assure you, my dear, I should take the strongest exception to your driving off alone with him.”

  “Brandon is not abducting me,” she said tartly. “Nor are we eloping. Put me down, Brandon.”

  “Well then, I will,” Mr. Manningford said, suiting action to words, “but I tell you, my girl, this is no way to win a wager!”

  Sydney turned a sharp gaze on Carolyn. “Perhaps you would care to explain this wager to me.”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” she said candidly. “In any event, the wager is off. I have changed my mind.”

  Sydney said, “How very unsporting of you, my dear, but I daresay he will forgive you. Do you come back inside with us, Manningford?”

  “No, I don’t,” Brandon said, adding in a mutter for Carolyn’s ears alone, “You may play this hand alone, my dear. I believe I’d be wise to return to Leicestershire for a time.”

  XI

  SYDNEY DARED NOT TRUST himself to speak as he turned to go back into the house, for he was as much annoyed with himself for allowing his temper to flare at the sight of Carolyn in Brandon’s arms as he was at the sight itself, and the combination was particularly difficult to overcome. He had made it a point to avoid close contact with Carolyn since their return from Oatlands for the simple reason that, in the grotto, he had realized that his feelings for her were beginning to have a far greater impact upon his emotions than was commensurate with the state of calm he had worked for so many years to attain.

  With Ching Ho’s assistance, he had advanced far beyond his natural boyish determination to annihilate all his enemies. His mind and body were rigorously disciplined, he had thought, into an inseparable entity. But now, in Carolyn’s presence, although the slightest thought of her produced an undeniable effect upon his body, he could not call the response a disciplined one.