Lady Roma's Romance

by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

  Despite her vow, Roma refused to indulge in hinting, a female practice she despised. If a woman wanted to do something, she should allow no fear of public opinion to prevent her. She was not, after all, seventeen. “Would you care to dance, Mr. Donovan?”

  Now his face darkened with a blush. “I... um ...”

  Roma realized that she knew all sorts of things about Bret Donovan. His favorite color was yellow, though she told herself that was not why she’d chosen this butter-colored dress. He confessed to a fatal weakness for Sally Lunn buns, but only those of authentic Bath-make. Otherwise, he’d choose anything with fruit. He preferred instructing works over novels. He didn’t like scented soap but would accept sandalwood if they had nothing else. He’d been born on the west coast of Ireland to an English woman married to the master of four hundred largely worthless acres which ended abruptly at towering, sea-washed cliffs. He’d learned to ride at four years of age.

  Yet, for all this, she felt she knew nothing, not even whether he could dance. What did he want from his life? Why did his smile sometimes turn bitter? Did he admire her or was this merely habitual flirtation? She feared the worst.

  “Can you dance?” she asked quietly.

  “No. I...”

  Before he could make whatever answer hesitated on his lips, Roma heard a very familiar laugh, like scales played on silver bells. “Dina,” she said, turning. “She’s seen us. There’s no escape.”

  “Do you want to escape?”

  “Of course. She read me such a scold .. . Well, I don’t mean that exactly, but she thought it most improper to be caught in the rain with a stranger.”

  “So it is, or would be, if it had been anyone but me. Who is the man with her? Derwent?”

  “No, it’s someone else. I don’t know him.” The slender young man, hardly more than a boy, was frightfully well dressed, everything both new and handsome about him. Yet, though his fine feathers fit to a nicety, he seemed far from comfortably at home in them. He adjusted his cuffs, ran his fingers over the lapel of his coat, and plucked at his fantasy of a cravat.

  “Playing off the airs of an exquisite,” Bret said briefly. “You’re right; she’s corning this way. Shall we make a strategic retreat?”

  “By all means,” Roma said.

  They retreated as far as the refreshments, where, to Roma’s alarm, they were trapped between two fires. Her father, surprisingly, had left his eyrie in search of coffee. Roma glanced at him, up at Bret, and back at Dina. She wondered for one instant what she had done to deserve this.

  “Come meet my father,” she said, choosing the safer alternative.

  “How do you do, Mr. Donovan?” Lord Yarborough inclined his head, his eyes sharpening for a moment.

  “Very well, indeed, my lord. A most pleasant evening.”

  “I, alas, am too old to benefit from such social events. But the young people seem to appreciate them.”

  “Are you tired?” Roma asked, eyeing the cup in his hand. He didn’t usually drink coffee so late. “Shall we go home?”

  “No, no. I had a long chat with a very interesting gentleman recently returned from the Peninsula. He was quite the mine of information, full of good words regarding Wellington.”

  Bret straightened. “He couldn’t very well say anything else, my lord.”

  “Ah,” Lord Yarborough said, nodding. “You are also one of his partisans?”

  “I admire his battle strategies.”

  “And the man?” Lord Yarborough grimaced as he brought his cup to his lips.

  “Are you feeling worse, Father?” Roma asked. She’d agreed to attend this evening’s dance only because he’d assured her that his back was much improved and that his escort duty was a welcome one.

  “The waters are working their usual miracle, my dear. I bathed for more than an hour today, though the attendants did not appreciate my lingering so long. But, alas, not even Bath can cure all ills.”

  “Lumbago, sir?” Bret asked with sympathy in his tone.

  “A trifle of stiffness,” Lord Yarborough admitted. “Comes of digging too enthusiastically. And yourself, Mr. Donovan?”

  “I? I don’t suffer from anything the waters of Bath can aid.”

  Roma recalled the limp she’d seen the first day they’d met. Was he hiding some infirmity? Was this why he would or could not dance with her? She resolved to visit Lady Brownlow, not merely as a sick visit, but to question her subtly about Bret.

  “I understand from my daughter that you are assisting Lady Brownlow with some legal difficulties?”

  “Yes. She is a dear woman but not always wise.”

  “A very trusting woman. Given to great sensibility. If I can assist you, do not scruple to call upon me.”

  Roma released a little breath. It was always chancy introducing two men. She recalled well how Elliot had resisted meeting her father. When they did at last meet, his politeness had smoothed over whatever natural emotions they’d felt Elliot had been very talented at that sort of family diplomacy.

  “Here you are!” Dina swept up, caroling, as though she’d found children playing at hide-and-seek. “May I present Mr. Gilbert Bascom?”

  Young Mr. Bascom looked as if he’d been washed, pressed, and polished to a high sheen. The impression of nervousness Roma had received at first sight was reinforced by his awkwardness upon meeting an earl and his daughter. His bow nearly put him into her father’s lap, and he ... twitched. She smiled on him as warmly as she could, trying to put him at ease.

  “Are you new come to Bath, Mr. Bascom?”

  “Y-yes, Lady Roma,” he said, ducking his head as if to avoid a blow. “I arrived only yesterday.”

  “And my cousin Dina has brought you to your first Assembly in the Lower Rooms. An excellent start to your visit. I have rarely seen such a fine bevy of dancers.”

  “Yes, indeed.” Though the impact of the music was considerably lessened by the space between themselves and the orchestra’s alcove, Mr. Bascom’s well-shod toe tapped.

  “Dina will have to introduce you to a partner.”

  “Oh, that’s why she brought...” He blushed, the rest of his words lost in an embarrassed mumble.

  “That’s why she brought you to the Assembly? Well, you are not alone in arriving knowing no one and departing with a host of new acquaintances. If Dina doesn’t know someone, rest assured that I do.”

  She realized she sounded odiously conceited, as one very much run after, but at least he did not tempt her into uttering any but the most banal phrases. Then she looked up to catch Bret looking at her, and she choked down a sudden laugh. Without a word, he handed her a glass of lemonade from the sideboard.

  As she sipped it, glad to have something to do with her hands, she noticed Dina making faces at young Mr. Bascom, the sort effaces a mother would make at one of her more thick-witted young. Catching Roma’s looking at her with alarm, Dina showed a smile. “Mr. Bascom is a friend of Mr. Derwent.”

  Roma doubted that. Mr. Derwent was well into his fifties, and Mr. Bascom had the appearance and mannerisms of one but newly come into his majority. Recalling that Dina had said Mr. Derwent had not yet been called to be guardian to minor children, she could yet believe that he’d been Mr. Bascom’s trustee.

  A moment later, Mr. Bascom confirmed her guess. “He’s been like a father to me,” the young man said. “I have a father, of course, but he’s in India. Mr. Derwent has stood by me in his absence. No one could have been kinder or... or more awake on every suit. And he never scolds, you know, not even when I deserved it.”

  “Mr. Derwent is a great man,” Roma said, moved by Mr. Bascom’s evident affection for his mentor.

  Dina agreed, but absently. Once again, she’d begun to widen her eyes, this time giving little encouraging side flips of her head. It dawned on Roma that Dina was trying to get Mr. Bascom to ask her to dance rather faster than it occurred to Mr. Bascom. “What a charming tune they are playing,” Dina said archly. “Can it be a waltz?”

&nbs
p; Given this broad hint, Mr. Bascom bowed to Dina and asked her to favor him. Her brows frowned, but her voice remained gay. “Not I. We matrons know it is only politeness when a man asks us to dance when younger, prettier girls stand by.”

  At the end of their turn on the floor, Roma found a sweet child of seventeen, only just fledged, and introduced Mr. Bascom as an excellent performer in the dance, as indeed he was. After a moment, she excused herself and left them on the best of terms, watched over by her mother. Mr. Bascom’s voice dropped an octave when deferred to as an undoubted Man of the World.

  Roma returned to the refreshments, only to find her father and Bret were gone. Quite a few people milled about, greeting acquaintances and choosing their dainties. Dina, however, sat by and looked up with interested eyes when Roma approached her. “Such a time I had preserving this seat,” she said, waving Roma to the other side of the small settee. “You would think people pay merely for the privilege of sitting beside me.”

  “Where’s my father?”

  “Oh, he and that Mr. Donovan went off to play loo or whist or some such. But tell me your opinion of Mr. Bascom.”

  “I have none.”

  “None?” Dina squeaked, fanning herself. “What do you mean ‘none’?”

  “He’s a pleasant boy.”

  “He’s twenty-one,” Dina said. “Well, just.”

  “And that isn’t a boy?”

  “Perhaps you are right. I must be growing old, Roma. They all look like children to me. Even girls I knew as babies have babies of their own.”

  “Poor Dina,” Roma said, with a teasing smile. “But I notice you don’t lack for admirers.”

  “No, thank heavens. What it must be to have not one devotee left to you.”

  Though she knew Dina hadn’t thought about Elliot when she’d said it, Roma decided not to tease her anymore. It was, indeed, dreadful to feel that no one noticed how she did her hair or whether she was ill. Well, Pigeon always noticed, but it wasn’t the same. At least Elliot would guess that she’d altered in some way if she prompted him.

  Dina put her fan to her chin in the way that meant she was thinking. Roma saw her cousin’s eyes flickering under their smooth white lids as she categorized and sorted the men present. That one was too old. Another had been cosseted by his mother from birth. A fortune hunter, discretely corseted, bowed with a creak as he passed. This one was too recently widowed, another too young, yet a third had thirteen sons....

  Roma put her hand on Dina’s and pressed lightly. “No, Dina.”

  “Certainly not. Even if you were at your last prayers, I wouldn’t inflict those children on you. Perfect hellions and their father without a penny that doesn’t go toward feeding them, clothing them, and their education.”

  “I meant . . . don’t trouble yourself to find me a husband.”

  “Why, I don’t know what you mean,” Dina said, belatedly.

  “When I am ready to marry, no doubt Providence will provide me with a suitable mate.”

  “I didn’t realize you had such faith,” Dina answered with a sniff.

  Roma did not tell her that she would rather trust unseen heavenly intervention than her relations to find a man she could imagine herself marrying. She fully realized that compared to many other girls, her position in this matter was enviable. She had no need to marry in order to keep herself from poverty, her father showed no wish to have her gone, nor had she any particular yearning for her own hearth, home, and children.

  On the other hand, to be an ornament merely to her father’s house for the rest of her life wouldn’t satisfy her either emotionally or intellectually. “I’ll tell you what, Dina. When the time comes, I may ask you to be the instrument of Providence.”

  Dina brightened and opened her mouth.

  “But not yet.”

  Chapter Six

  Lord Yarborough walked in a crowd wherever he went. He could hardly take one step, especially in the south of England, without feeling jostled by ghosts. Julius Caesar was there and his lesser relation, Claudius. But not all his specters were of such high lineage. Lord Yarborough was as apt to be fascinated by the lowest pot thrower or meanest foot soldier as the great names of history. They had all come here, some for plunder only, others to stay, carrying the image and ideals of Rome with them. Even when Rome’s greatness perished, they stayed on, mingling their blood with the natives’, leaving traces of their glory buried everywhere they had dwelt.

  Bath especially thronged with phantoms. His father had been staying in Bath when they’d taken down the Abbey House and discovered the Roman bath that had hidden there through the long centuries. He’d often described to his son in after years the way rough stone coffins of lesser men had rested on the thick brick pillars of the ancient bath and how coins from Saxon kings had been found only a few feet above the far more sophisticated architecture of Rome.

  Lord Yarborough recalled with an inward laugh how he’d pictured history like one of the great layered cakes the household pastry chef would make for special birthdays and at Christmastide, small charms and trinkets scattered through the layers. Perhaps the fascination had started then, but it had been cemented on his wedding journey to Italy.

  The joy of discovering his bride had taken second place to the sheer giddiness he felt on beholding Rome herself for the first time. She was battered and worn, dirty and shorn of the worship once granted her by even her meanest citizen. Yet to him, infatuated, willing to garnish her in imagination with all the beauty she once possessed, she carried all the dignity and splendor of her most glorious hours.

  As he turned the corner into Hot Bath Street, drawn once more by the small display of locally discovered antiquities, Lord Yarborough sighed for those lost days. Gilda, poor soul, had never resented his passion for all things Roman, a passion so much stronger than any she’d ever inspired.

  They had married young, too young perhaps, urged into the match by their parents. He had a title which must be protected and passed on. That duty had been drummed into him for as long as he could recall. Gilda had acknowledged that duty as well. Lord Yarborough winced away from the memory of her deathbed, when she’d clung to his hand, begging him to forgive her for dying and leaving him only a daughter.

  He thought instead about the unknown geniuses of Roman engineering who had invented plumbing such as modern man had only just begun to create anew. Bath had thrived in those days before fading into a centuries-long sleep. How fortunate to live in these latter days of her second glory! With light steps, he trotted up to the front door of a small house and tugged vigorously at the bell. Handing in his card to the boy who opened for him, he was welcomed almost at once by the curator.

  “You’ve changed things about rather since I was here last,” Lord Yarborough said, craning his neck for a glimpse of the room beyond.

  “Yes, my lord. Those coins are new and that bronze. A householder in John’s Street knocked a hole in his cellar floor and discovered them. As they had no value in themselves, he donated them to us, happily.”

  “Fortunate man. Pray provide me with his address. I will send him a token of my regard. Such actions must be encouraged. I cannot bear to think how many beautiful things have been destroyed for their mere material value.”

  The curator, rather a monk-like figure with his brown coat and balding head, nodded and smiled. “With the widening of streets going forth almost daily, we have great hopes of more discoveries.”

  “You’ll keep me informed?”

  “Naturally, my lord.” He leaned forward to whisper behind his hand. “I have some hopes in that direction myself. I am negotiating with the owner of my house to let me undertake some investigation in the cellars. It was originally part of the Abbey, and, as you know, the monks sometimes covered up some interesting objects.”

  “Excellent. I hope the owner sees reason.”

  “I think she will,” the curator said, rubbing his hands together dryly. “A widow is susceptible to certain blandishments, you know.”


  “No breach of promise, now,” Lord Yarborough admonished, well aware of the lengths that a true collector was willing to go in order to obtain a rarity.

  The curator chuckled. “Not until I’ve found something good at any rate.” He cocked an ear toward the rooms at the back of the house. “If your lordship will pardon me ... I’m mixing up a batch of plaster of Paris.”

  “Certainly, certainly,” Lord Yarborough said absently, his attention fixing on the new finds. “I know my way about.”

  “I shall be glad to hear your lordship’s views, especially on the new pottery shards. Lincoln says they are ‘Samian’ ware; I have my doubt.”

  Lord Yarborough wasn’t impressed by the coins; they were all familiar faces to him. The patina of the broken bronze vessel was all greenish black, yet despite the corrosion he could make out the head of some animal on the side of the curving piece, a bull perhaps? He knew well that the worship of Mithras, a Persian god, had been popular with soldiers. Could this be ... ?

  Breaking in upon his thoughts, he heard a female voice from another room. It was so unexpected that he was drawn from his contemplation of the bronze. For an instant, he thought that perhaps Roma had come in search of him. True, he had not mentioned to her where he was going, but he knew, with a wry smile, that deducing his whereabouts would present no great challenge. He always came here after his return to Bath, to investigate and criticize any new finds.

  “If you are entirely certain I shall be in no one’s way . . .,” the young lady said.

  “There’s no one here but his lordship,” the curator said. “He’ll pay you no mind.”

  “His lordship?”

  “The Earl of Yarborough.”

  Was there a slight feminine gasp of surprise?

  “He’s a well-known authority on Roman ruins and remains.”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, I know.”