Miss Dower's Paragon

by Gayle Buck

  Mr. Woodthorpe frowned, quick to catch an implied slight. “I fancy my cattle are the equal of any, Mr. Hawkins. I’d stake them against any corners.”

  Miss Woodthorpe had been listening curiously, her intelligent gaze all the while fixed on Mr. Hawkins. As she noticed that Sir Charles had openly turned to listen to the conversation, a slight smile touched her lips. She said casually, “I have seen Sir Charles’s bays in action, Ned. I do not think that yours could hold a candle to them.”

  Mr. Woodthorpe glanced quickly at his sister. He was impressed despite himself by her opinion, for he knew her to be an expert judge of horseflesh. Yet he had great pride in his own team, as well as confidence in his own abilities as a driver. It rankled to hear that another man’s horses were considered to be the better. “Indeed! Then I should very much like to see the gentleman’s team.”

  As Mr. Hawkins had anticipated. Sir Charles could not resist coming over to join in the conversation.

  “What is this, Peter? Have you found a race for me?” asked Sir Charles. There was a competitive gleam in his eyes. Miss Dower trailed behind, a somewhat puzzled expression in her eyes.

  Mr. Hawkins laughed, well satisfied that his ploy had successfully broken up the tête-à-tête between Miss Dower and Sir Charles. “No, no! Mr. Woodthorpe, who is himself something of a whip and the proud owner of an excellent team, has merely requested the favor of watching your team in action. No one has said anything of a race.”

  Mr. Woodthorpe possessed strong sporting instincts, and he immediately protested. “Here, now! If it is a question of a race, I am game enough for it.” He turned to Sir Charles. “Sir, I would count it an honor to race you.”

  “You have a race, sir,” said Sir Charles instantly.

  The gentlemen shook on it, both vastly pleased with the way things had turned out.

  “I fear that I must bet against you, Ned,” said Miss Woodthorpe.

  Her brother threw a startled glance at her. “Pol! I thought you would back my chances in this.”

  “Yes, and so did I,” said John Woodthorpe indignantly. He clapped a hand to his brother’s shoulder. “I shall back you, Ned, never fear!”

  Miss Woodthorpe gave her deep-throated laugh. She patted her elder brother’s arm in a conciliatory fashion “Despite my loyalty as a sister and my solid faith in your skill, I have seen Sir Charles’s team on the road, and I must tell you that it will be all uphill for you.”

  “So much the better,” said Ned staunchly. “There is nothing I prefer more than a good challenge.”

  “Well said, sir! Though I must admit to a certain prejudice which forces me to agree with Miss Woodthorpe’s assessment of my chances”—Sir Charles made the lady a sweeping bow—”I shall endeavor to make the occasion a memorable one. Perhaps a small wager of twenty pounds would be acceptable to you?”

  “Done, Sir Charles!” exclaimed Mr. Woodthorpe, shaking the gentleman’s hand with enthusiasm.

  “I should like to add to the sporting nature of the occasion, if I may,” said Viscount Waithe, having listened to the proceedings with great interest. “I would normally back Sir Charles against all comers, but in the interest of supporting the local champion, I shall put twenty pounds on Mr. Woodthorpe.”

  “A mistake, Percy,” said Sir Charles, shaking his head.

  “Perhaps, but then again it is Mr. Woodthorpe’s home turf,” said Viscount Waithe with the flash of his boyish grin. He turned to the only gentleman who had not yet made known his preference. “Whom shall it be for you, Peter?”

  Mr. Hawkins shrugged his shoulders and with a smile said, “My apologies, Mr. Woodthorpe, but I feel compelled to defend my previous observation regarding Sir Charles’s team.”

  “Not at all, sir. Of course it is understood. A matter of honor and all that,” said Mr. Woodthorpe.

  Evelyn had listened to the spiraling talk with disbelief. Not moments before, she had been entertaining deliciously outrageous compliments from Sir Charles. Now she stood virtually forgotten by that fascinating gentleman and quite neglected by every other gentleman in the room, including even Viscount Waithe, who could previously have been counted upon to leap forward whenever the opportunity had offered.

  Evelyn caught her soft underlip between her teeth in vexation as the gentlemen entered into a discussion to determine when and where the impromptu race was to be held. A quiet suggestion made by Miss Woodthorpe was taken up with enthusiasm, earning her a compliment from Mr. Hawkins for her speedy rendering of a proper solution.

  “How prodigiously exciting it all is!” Mrs. Dower exclaimed in Evelyn’s ear. “I vow I never thought to hear anything so stimulating discussed at tea. I know young Ned Woodthorpe to be a very skillful driver. Why, he could be naught else coming from that family! Yet Sir Charles for all his dapper ways gives one the impression of complete confidence in his own abilities. I am sure I do not know how to choose between them.”

  “Nor I, Mama. I wonder that we should bother our heads about it at all,” said Evelyn.

  Mrs. Dower regarded Evelyn with slight surprise. Her expression altered almost instantly to one of sympathy as understanding came to her. “I am sorry, dear! But when gentlemen begin to talk about racing and horses and such, one cannot really expect them to notice one in just the same way as before.”

  Evelyn felt telltale heat rise in her face. “Really, Mama, you speak as though you suspected me to be in a state of pique. I care not one whit, I assure you,” she declared.

  Mrs. Dower patted her daughter’s slender arm. “Never mind, Evelyn. I am certain that they must recall your existence when they have exhausted this talk of the race. Silly creatures that they are. I wonder—shall I ring for sandwiches? Gentlemen do seem to cultivate an appetite simply from talking over sporting matters.”

  It was on the tip of Evelyn’s tongue to make an acid rejoinder, but she managed to resist it. She sighed instead. “Yes, Mama, perhaps that would be a good notion.”

  There were two more callers while tea was being served, both of them gentlemen, and when they learned of the proposed race, the conversation inevitably rounded back over familiar ground. The latecomers staunchly defended their local whip against the unknown challenger, and the stakes placed on the outcome of the race rose.

  By the time tea finally ended, Evelyn thought she would fly into hysterics if she heard one more word about the race. She smiled and said polite good-byes to her so-called admirers. None of the gentlemen had given her any real notice at all once they became aware of the upcoming race. The occasion had been both disillusioning and illuminating. Gentlemen were fickle in the extreme, and Evelyn was heartily glad to be done with the lot.

  Evelyn’s leave-taking with Miss Woodthorpe was a shade cooler than usual, for she had not been behind in observing that her friend had been perfectly comfortable with participating in the masculine conversation. She knew that it should not have mattered, especially when she was aware that Miss Woodthorpe was a great horsewoman and talented driver in her own right, but nevertheless it bothered Evelyn that Miss Woodthorpe had become the recipient of attention that by rights should have been paid to the daughter of the house.

  Viscount Waithe’s admiration for Miss Woodthorpe’s knowledgeable observations, in particular, had been most patent. Though Evelyn had never actually considered the viscount in the light of a serious admirer, nevertheless his defection rankled even as it astonished her.

  At one point, his lordship had exclaimed, “By Jove, ma’am! I had no notion a gentlewoman like yourself could take such interest in these things.”

  “Pol has a better eye for horseflesh than most gentlemen I know,” John had declared proudly.

  Viscount Waithe had looked at Miss Woodthorpe as though seeing her for the first time, and his regard had been so pointed that it had caused a faint blush to come to the lady’s cheeks.

  Evelyn assured herself that it was not that she was jealous of her friend. It was simply that she had grown accustomed to being the focu
s of the pretty speeches and elaborate compliments. It was humiliating, indeed, to be superseded by all this interest in an idiotic horse race, and it was made especially so when Miss Woodthorpe had not suffered the same neglect.

  Mr. Hawkins was the last to take leave of Evelyn, having lingered behind the others to speak quietly with Mrs. Dower. When he took the hand that Evelyn offered to him, he smiled into her eyes. There was a pronounced twinkle of amusement lurking in his own. “Until we meet again, Miss Dower. I hope to be granted a few more minutes with you than I managed to snatch this afternoon.”

  Evelyn cast him a suspicious glance. Mr. Hawkins had been as unattentive toward her as the rest, and so his statement was decidedly odd. He did not say so, but Evelyn gathered the impression from the humor in his eyes that he knew very well of the dissatisfaction that she was feeling and the reasons for it. She stiffened therefore and injected a haughtiness into her tone. “Indeed, Mr. Hawkins?”

  Mr. Hawkins laughed as though she had uttered a cordial witticism and took himself off, promising to call again quite soon. “Perhaps I may even persuade you to watch the race with me,” he said.

  Evelyn smiled, but daggers flew from her eyes. “Good day, Mr. Hawkins.”

  When the door closed behind him, Evelyn stamped her foot. Really, Mr. Peter Hawkins was the most infuriating, the most insensitive gentleman of her acquaintance. If he were not always so very proper, she could suspect him of having purposefully needled her. As it was, he had managed once more to put himself into her ill graces, and that, she could have informed him, was not the way to win her heart.

  But, said that tiny voice, did he really wish to any longer?

  “My dear! Whatever can the matter be? I rather thought tea went very well,” Mrs. Dower said, startled.

  “Oh! You are utterly impossible, Mama!” Evelyn whirled and exited the drawing room, unable to endure more.

  Chapter Fifteen

  An unseasonal rainstorm swept the street and tossed the trees as a coach drove up to the steps of a certain town house in Lansdown Crescent. A servant climbed down from the coach and ran up the steps to the town house door to bang hard the knocker.

  Thus was the household alerted of the advent of an unexpected visitor.

  Lady Pomerancy received the gentleman in her private salon. As he entered the room, she raked him with piercing eyes. A gentleman in his late fifties, he was still handsome even though his eyes were world-weary, and a permanent cynicism seemed to have settled onto his countenance. He was dressed fashionably with an obvious taste for magnificently embroidered waistcoats and rich living.

  “You have begun to go corpulent, Horace,” she said.

  There was little in her expression or her voice to suggest welcome, but Lord Horace Hughes, Viscount Perigree, merely laughed as he advanced to take the hand that she held out to him. “As brittle as ever, I see. I am glad that you, at least, have not changed, dear sister.”

  His glance passed over her with seeming indifference, but those acquainted well with the gentleman would have noticed a shadow of shock in his eyes. Lady Pomerancy was the elder by fifteen years, and from his earliest memories she had always appeared a commanding figure. He had not expected to find his indomitable sister confined to a wheelchair.

  “Are you indeed!” Lady Pomerancy smiled satirically. “Pray save your charm for those who are gullible enough to swallow it. Sit down. You will take wine with me, of course.” She raised her hand in command. The footman in attendance stepped forward with a decanter tray and placed it on the small table beside her chair.

  Lord Hughes settled himself into a wingback chair. “Of course I shall,” he agreed with a rakish grin. He took the glass offered him and sniffed at the wine before he took a small amount. After a moment of rolling it on his tongue, he nodded to Lady Pomerancy, swallowed, and said, “A superior vintage, my lady. I am impressed that you possess such an excellent cellar.”

  “I may not reside in London, but that does not mean I am become a rustic,” said Lady Pomerancy. She set aside her own barely tasted wine and settled back in her chair, her arthritic hands folded in her lap. “Now, to what do I owe this totally unprecedented visit?”

  “You were always such an abrupt creature,” Lord Hughes complained. He flicked a glance in the direction of the footman, as well as to the maid that stood in attendance behind Lady Pomerancy’s chair. “Might I not take it into my head to visit my only sister out of family feeling? You wound me to the heart, I assure you.”

  Lady Pomerancy snorted, not at all taken in. That her brother wished to speak privately with her was evident, and his uncharacteristic desire for discretion was such that her curiosity was engaged. Quietly she requested that she be left alone with her visitor. When the footman and maid had left the room, Lady Pomerancy turned her glance back to her brother to regard him with narrowed eyes.

  Lord Hughes had calmly and appreciatively sipped at his wine while the servants exited. When he noticed that he had come under close scrutiny, he gave a broad smile. “Are my motives so suspect, then, Agatha?”

  When she said nothing, merely by the lift of her brows indicating her opinion, he sighed and crossed his elegantly shod ankles. “Very well then. Mea culpa and all the rest. I am here for purely selfish reasons.”

  “I did not doubt it for a moment,” Lady Pomerancy dryly assured him.

  Lord Hughes laughed. He cast her a fond glance. “Ever up to all the rigs. You were the only one whom I could never fleece, in one way or another. I have often wondered, if we had been born closer in age and temperament, whether our relationship might not have been somewhat different.”

  “If I take your meaning correctly, you harbor regrets about not being able to use me as you have anyone else who was unfortunate enough to come into your sphere,” said Lady Pomerancy mendaciously.

  A flash of temper crossed Lord Hughes’s face, but it was as quickly gone with his returned smile. “That is it exactly. You have not lost the touch of annoying me, Agatha, but pray do not take that admission as a compliment.”

  Lady Pomerancy laughed. “No, I shall not.” There was actually a twinkle in her eyes. “You are a rake and a rogue, but a likable fellow for all that.”

  Lord Hughes pressed a wide hand vaguely over the region of his heart. “I am touched, dear sister. I never thought to hear such accolades of my poor self pass your prim lips.”

  “I have always given you that much, Horace. As for the rest, I prefer never to think on it,” said Lady Pomerancy.

  “On the contrary. You have thought on it often and often.”

  Lord Hughes’s voice was stripped of its former jocularity. He regarded his sister with shrewdness. “It is why you refused to allow me to take poor Lionel’s brat. It is also why not I, nor any of the rest, were given the opportunity to have any hand at all in the boy’s raising or education. Imagine my astonishment when a handsome young buck approached me at a function a few years back and announced that he was my grandnephew. I was never more taken aback in my life when Peter Hawkins claimed kinship with me.”

  “I would not have expected less of my grandson,” said Lady Pomerancy composedly. “He is a gentleman born.”

  “He is a gentleman made,” Lord Hughes corrected. He swirled the wine left in his glass. “It is on Peter’s account that I have come.”

  He looked up and saw that he had succeeded in startling her at last. He smiled, rather wearily. “I have no designs of corruption in mind, my lady. Those days are past, would you not agree? He is too much settled in his ways to be swayed by anything that I might throw in his way.”

  “I must give thanks for that in my evening prayers tonight,” said Lady Pomerancy sharply. “Why have you come, Horace? You said before that it was purely for selfish motives, and now you say it is on Peter’s account. Which is it, then?”

  “It is one and the same.”

  Lord Hughes chuckled at her stiffening expression. “No, I do not mock you. The honest truth of the matter is that I am begin
ning to feel my own mortality. I am not as impervious to the effects of riotous living as I once was. Your grandson is my only heir and—”

  “What, have you no byblows to show for the excessive sowing of your wild seed?” Lady Pomerancy asked sarcastically.

  There was a moment’s silence. Lady Pomerancy was surprised by the pained expression that fleeted across her brother’s face.

  “None that have survived,” said Lord Hughes evenly. “The last died this two months past.”

  Lady Pomerancy was silenced. She turned her head so that she was looking into the fire, her expression shuttered.

  Lord Hughes set down his wineglass with exaggerated care. “As I was saying, Peter Hawkins is my only heir. He will inherit the title. I wish to be assured that there will be another after him, and that is why I have come to Bath. I intend to see the boy wed.”

  Lady Pomerancy stared at her brother. “You must be mad.”

  Wrath kindled in her eyes. “How dare you come here and state your intention, as though your wish is all that matters. I take leave to tell you that I find it both insulting and ludicrous that you have taken it upon yourself to attempt such an ordering of my grandson’s life.”

  “Why not?” The viscount shrugged. “You have had a free hand in ordering it for more years than I care to count. Now the time has come for someone else to speak up.”

  “Your concern is unnecessary and unwarranted, Horace. Peter and I go along very nicely as we are,” said Lady Pomerancy, ruffled.

  “Perhaps I have Peter’s future interests closer to heart than yourself, dear sister. I do not hold him still tied to my apron strings.” Lord Hughes spoke with his habitual smile, yet there was a hard look about his eyes and mouth.

  Lady Pomerancy shook with reaction. Her hands clawed at the arms of her chair. “I shall not sit still for this tripe! I have done all in my power to give that boy the best of everything. Everything! I will not have you—you—cast aspersions upon—” She struggled to rise, and in her clumsy fury she knocked over the decanter table beside her chair.