Salt Hendon Omnibus 01 to 03

by Lucinda Brant

  “I cannot perform a toast to our return if you do not have a glass of champagne. Besides, you have not sipped anything since you arrived. You must be parched.”

  “I am, for a cup of tea,” he replied, a frown at the glass in his hand. He went to return it to the tray but Diana stayed his hand.

  “I insist. Our guests insist.” She leaned into him, and said, as if needing to remind him, “You, the most polite man I know, could never be bad-mannered and not raise your glass. You must, and join our friends in taking a sip or two at the very least.”

  He bit back a retort about sisterly interference and instantly reminded himself that the being inhabiting the beautiful outer shell of his sister was something else entirely, and he must not give himself away. Thankfully, into the tense moment stepped Lady Dalrymple, who held up her glass of champagne, and with a sweeping look at the assembled company, said with sincerity,

  “I speak for everyone here when I say we are so very pleased our dear friend Lady St. John has returned from her Continental wanderings. We have greatly missed her company and the company of Sir Antony, and we hope they never need leave us again.”

  There was a general rumble of agreement and Sir Antony smiled and said no more.

  Quiet was called for; a light tapping of gold quizzing glass rims against crystal set off a musical tinkle across the room. Conversations hushed then stopped. All powdered faces and coiffures turned to where Diana Lady St. John stood beside her brother. No one thought it odd that Diana and not her brother should make a speech. As her friends, they knew she completely dominated him. She had led most of those in the crowd to believe her brother an ineffectual Merry Andrew of little consequence. Drunken episodes witnessed in Sir Antony’s past did nothing to disabuse them of this belief.

  Thus, when the tall, straight-backed Adonis with the piercing blue eyes had entered the room upon the butler’s announcement, more than a few of the gentlemen and most of the ladies let their mouths drop to half-cock. The cold cruel Russian winters had certainly not done their friend’s little brother any harm, and so a few of the guests murmured with approval to Diana St. John. One guest went so far as to congratulate her on recommending to the Earl of Salt Hendon that a post to St. Petersburg would do Sir Antony the world of good. Diana St. John inclined her auburn coiffure at the compliment and did nothing to dissuade her guests that this was indeed the truth of the matter.

  Glasses raised, the was toast made, and champagne sipped then downed with relish.

  Sir Antony followed the crowd and lifted the glass with a steady hand, but did not allow the rim to touch his mouth. His nostrils quivered when the enticing bitter sweetness of champagne bubbles tickled his nose. He breathed in and swallowed hard. He craved the taste of the golden fluid on his tongue and to feel its coldness slide down his throat and warm his blood. But he kept his mouth clamped before temptation overwhelmed good sense and he did the unthinkable.

  There’s no harm in one tiny sip. Drink and see for yourself you have the willpower to resist the whole glass, coaxed the demon of temptation that sat on his shoulder.

  No sooner had the demon posed the question than out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of one of his Russian servants. The man was standing tall and proud in his new livery, but startlingly incongruous was the growth of facial hair. Instantly, the demon of temptation vanished, replaced by a memory and words of encouragement from his good friend Prince Mikhail, who had noticed the signs of the habitual drunkard well before Sir Antony had admitted it to himself, for he, too, was one.

  With a less-than-steady hand, he returned the untouched glass to a tray. He did not look at his sister, although he knew well enough that her gaze remained fixed on him the entire time he held the champagne flute. Instead, he pretended to make eye contact with someone at the opposite end of the room and hailed them with a raise of his quizzing glass.

  It was an old trick, one he had employed often at dull embassy get-togethers or at the end of a long evening when he, Misha and Katya wished to slip away for a night of cards and easy conversation. With a heavy sigh of escape, he shouldered his way through the silken group as they devoured oysters, delicate fish tarts, and fruit of the season. He smiled at a middle-aged dowager here, saying a few words in reply to a welcome home from a familiar face from White’s Club there, until he was at the open French windows that led out onto a balcony with a view of the orange trees in the courtyard garden below. Here, between the windows, perched on its inlaid cherrywood trolley was the welcoming sight of his ornate silver samovar.

  Two footmen stood sentry either side of the trolley, while under the butler’s watchful eye one of the Russian servants filled the samovar’s drum with hot water. A second Russian carried a pail of hot coals necessary to fill the vertical pipe to keep the water at the correct temperature for tea drinking. A third Russian held to his chest a large polished rosewood box that had within it three ornate silver tea caddies. It was locked, and the key to it was dangling from Sir Antony’s gold fob chain pinned to a waistcoat pocket, where also dangled a clutch of intricately carved intaglios.

  Boyle sidled up to him, holding two teapots, and said confidentially at his shoulder,

  “Unfortunately, Sir Antony, none of my fellows know what to do with that urn, and Mr. Semper says only the Russians are permitted to touch it. I should have had them organize the water and coal earlier, before the guests arrived, but her ladyship was unaware it would be needed.”

  “That’s perfectly all right, Boyle,” Sir Antony replied with a smile, handing him the key to the polished rosewood box. “Two scoops of the black tea from the middle caddy in the silver teapot, then just cover the tea leaves with hot water. The other teapot, fill three quarters with hot water. Set out the tea cups and I’ll do the rest. I wonder if you might direct me to Lady Reanay; I was told she would be attending this afternoon…”

  “Seated behind you, my lord. Lady Reanay, Lady Caroline Aldershot and a Miss Kitty Aldershot.”

  Sir Antony gave a little jump of surprise and instantly turned on a heel, feeling his face grow hot as he did so. He came face-to-face with three females perched on a chocolate-brown damask and gold leaf settee, straight-backed and silent. All three pairs of eyes locked to his tall frame, pretty gouache painted fans moving the breeze coming in off the balcony across their décolletages. It was the young woman with the blonde coiffure he glanced at first, as he straightened out of a bow of welcome.

  He had heard much of Miss Kitty Aldershot from Tom Allenby’s letters. She was pretty, but not to his taste, but he well understood Tom’s infatuation. Next, he directed his gaze at his aunt at the other end of the settee because he couldn’t yet bear to look at Caroline. He feared what he might find in her expression. His eyes might do as he ordered, but he could not stop his heart pounding hard in his chest. He was suddenly dizzy. Of course, he could be light-headed due to a lack of anything to eat or drink in many hours. Being romantically minded, he preferred to blame Caroline. His gaze disobeyed him and fixed on her as she rose with her companions, then curtsied at his bow of welcome.

  He was not disappointed. Four years disappeared in an instant as her dark green eyes flickered up at him but did not hold his gaze. She was the same Caroline he had left behind. Same glorious sunset-red hair, same pert mouth that invited kissing. Her face had lost its plumpness, but the smattering of freckles to her cheeks and across her nose was just visible under the light dusting of powder, her only cosmetic.

  Standing before him, she was a good half a head taller than his remembrance and it made him wonder if she had grown in his absence. He glanced at the polished parquetry floorboards and saw peeping out from under the hem of the light layers of silk petticoats the points of a pair of matching silk shoes. Well, there was something new! On his visits to Salt Hendon, she was always out and about the estate, riding, walking with her dogs, or taking care of her menagerie of animals, and thus was always in sturdy half-boots. The thought of her stockinged feet encased in a pair
of very feminine shoes ripened the heat to his cheekbones, and he quickly took his thoughts elsewhere.

  Why had he stupidly thought she would be unchanged? Naturally she would be wearing the latest fashion in footwear! It was London after all, and she was now a married woman. Why could she not look him in the eye? Where was her husband?

  The last question brought him out of his reverie and landed him firmly in the reality of the here and now. He looked to his aunt, but before he could construct a coherent sentence of welcome, Lady Reanay was tugging his upturned cuff, brow furrowed with confusion.

  “Antony? Why is Diana droning on about St. Petersburg when she has never been there a day in her life?”

  SIX

  ‘AT LEAST you’re none the worse for your journey home. But you must not lose any more weight, it’s not good for a man of your height and width,” Lady Reanay continued, hardly drawing breath to give Sir Antony a chance of reply to her first question, which was just as well because he did not know what to tell her about Diana. “Perhaps it is the trick of your tailor. That blue suits, not quite the color of your eyes, but near enough. Why is Diana talking about St. Petersburg? You never mentioned she had paid you a visit. I was with you a good six months and departed just before the Russian winter set in. For her to have traveled—Oh dear! There I go rattling on like a runaway carriage! Caroline will scold me. Give your dearest aunt a kiss,” she said, her four feet eleven inches on tiptoe, rouged cheek presented. “It is good to have you safe home and looking so well, my boy. We are all pleased to see you.”

  Sir Antony lightly brushed her cheek, careful to avoid the dyed ostrich plumes sprouting from her red silk turban, and before she could continue, turned and bowed to Kitty Aldershot.

  “I have not had the pleasure of an introduction, but I am very sure you are Miss Aldershot?”

  Kitty nodded, curtsied prettily, and bit her lower lip. She blushed with delight that Sir Antony had chosen to introduce himself. He was even more handsome at close quarters than she had anticipated, but what tied her tongue was the soft timbre of his deep voice. It gave her goose bumps. She went to speak, and was rudely cut off before uttering a syllable.

  Lady Reanay, thinking Kitty’s hesitancy due to shyness, said, “Dear me! Yes! This is Kitty Aldershot, Poor Stephen’s sister and Salt’s ward. You may recall the Aldershots better than me. Their small estate was some five miles west of Hendon. Poor Stephen’s father rode the hunt with Salt’s papa. I remember him but not Poor Stephen’s mamma. Diana would know. Which brings me back to her visit to St. Petersburg…”

  “Tea? I’m sure we would all welcome a cup,” Sir Antony said as his aunt paused for breath. He forced himself to look at Caroline, his well-practiced diplomatic smile fixed in place. “How thoughtless of Boyle not to see you had a glass of champagne. Would you like one fetched? Lady Aldershot? Miss Aldershot?”

  “Thank you, Sir Antony, I will have champagne,” Kitty Aldershot stated clearly, finding her voice and her bright smile.

  “We will all have tea, thank you,” Caroline enunciated, a quick warning glance at Kitty before turning to look at Sir Antony.

  Yet, she could not bring herself to lift her gaze above his chin. She fixed on the pearl-headed gold pin nestled in the folds of soft lace at his throat. Such delicate lace, so white and finely wrought, and in such marked contrast to the ruggedness of his square heavy chin which, despite having been shaved earlier that day, was already showing a blue cast. There was something enticingly appealing in the juxtaposition of the feminine lace against the masculinity of that chin… She was very sure that if he rubbed his skin against hers it would be very rough indeed, the stubble chafe and redden her flesh. He would certainly leave his mark…

  She sat heavily on the settee in a ripple of mauve silk and silver gauze petticoats, mortified. With mortification came the realization she had been deceiving herself for four years. She was not cured of her desire. She wanted Sir Antony Templestowe every bit as much as she had wanted him before his exile. It made her blurt out nervously, the public setting forgotten,

  “It’s Lady Caroline Aldershot. I’m still Caroline. I haven’t altered in the slightest!”

  “Yes, of course you are,” Sir Antony replied placidly. “And no, you haven’t.” He made her a short bow. “Excuse me while I see to the tea.”

  He turned his shoulder, smile spreading into a grin, catching the following exchange,

  “He has such a lovely voice. Caroline? Your face is quite red. Are you al—”

  “Hush, Kitty!”

  “You’re as giddy as a one-winged beetle, Caroline! And there’s no hushing the truth,” Lady Reanay stated. “Be a good girl, Kitty, and wave air onto Caroline. Your face is an alarming shade of apple, my dear. A nice cup of tea will take the shock away.”

  “I’m not—I’m not in shock! I am—I was—surprised.”

  “Shock. Surprise. ’Tis the same. I remember the shock I received when in Constantinople I was confronted with a splendid Turk, naked from the waist up. My knees were all atremble and gave out, and I…”

  Sir Antony did not hear the rest of his aunt’s startling monologue. A hand clamped his arm in welcome and a thin gentleman in a silk suit the color of stained grape pounced on him, much like an overeager puppy jumps at its master when he steps in the door after being away. Not only was the gentleman’s entire ensemble a faded hue of purple, so too were his stockings, the enormous ribbon at his nape, and the bag into which his long queue was placed. The only article about the gentleman’s person that was less startling and less colorful, and this in itself was a surprise, was his wig. It was plain, neat and powdered white. Such a wig on the head of the eccentric poet Hilary Wraxton Esquire was unusual indeed. Yet, upon closer inspection, as he shook hands with the poet, Sir Antony revised this opinion because the poet’s wig was in fact made from the feathers of a white mallard, or were they goose feathers?

  “Antony! What luck to see you here! Well, not here, not seeing you here, in your own home, seeing you here, back in England.”

  “What a pleasure to see you, dear fellow! I thought you fixed on the Continent for some time?”

  The poet lost his smile.

  “Was. Was fixed there. Having a jolly good time of it, too. Paris. Berne. Rome. Florence.”

  He followed Sir Antony to the tea trolley and watched him fiddle with the silver samovar and tea things, standing so close at his shoulder that more than once he was politely requested to stand aside while Sir Antony went through the precise steps of his tea-making ritual.

  The ritual helped distract Sir Antony from temptation and kept the demon from his shoulder, for within arm’s reach there were enough bottles of champagne and decanters of wine to feed his addiction and send him into blissful oblivion. The habitual drunkard in him held to the persuasive, but thoroughly deluded, line of argument that he had the willpower to drink one small glass of champagne without any ill effects. However, his tea-drinking self knew this for a lie. Cured of his addiction was in the realms of believing in fairy folk and pigs flying through the sky. Prince Mikhail had counseled him: Each step closer to the perfect cup of tea was another step away from the compulsive need for alcohol to get him through his day.

  “Tea, Hilary?”

  The poet waved a ruffle-covered hand in dismissal.

  “Liked living in Florence; good for the creative juices. Then it all went sour!”

  “What went sour?”

  “Ha! Knew you’d understand. Always said you had more sentiment than wit.”

  “I’m not entirely sure that was complimentary. But, please, tell me before I rudely cut you off to take tea to three parched ladies.”

  “Well, there I was enjoying a lovely glass of vino in the sun on the Palazzo Saint Marco with Mann—that’s Sir Horace Mann, our Resident in Florence, but I’m sure you know that—”

  “I do.”

  “Yes, well, there was Mann and I having a tipple when Pascoe pounces on me with the most appalling news.
Just like that! No warning. Nothing. Absolutely floored me. Pascoe said five months was time enough to get used to Lizzie’s interesting condition. Couldn’t imagine anything more hideous than Pascoe Church cooing over a brat. Took leave of the place, subito. No screaming brats for Hilary Wraxton!”

  “Are you telling me the good news that Lady Church was delivered of an infant and that Pascoe is now the proud father of a son and heir?”

  “Something like that. No! Not something like. Precisely like. Come to think on it, that’s not what I wanted to tell you! That was the thought in my mind, to tell you about Pascoe’s brat, but not what I wanted to tell you, if you get my drift.”

  Sir Antony removed the hot teapot off the samovar and poured a precise amount of the rich black tea into four lemon yellow porcelain cups, leaving room for the weaker tea from the second silver teapot. He replaced the teapot on its stand, saying casually,

  “Sorry, Hilary, but you are drifting rather wide of the mark for me to get anything.”

  The poet looked up at Sir Antony, head tilted to one side. “I can confide in you, can’t I, Antony?”

  Sir Antony pressed his lips together to stifle a smile. With his absurd wig of white feathers and small black eyes blinking up at him, Hilary Wraxton was reminiscent of an enquiring pigeon. He half expected the poet to take a peck or two at the lumps of sugar in the silver sugar bowl he placed on the black lacquered chinoiserie tray.

  “What is it you wish to confide in me, Hilary…?”

  “Stopped in Hendon at the White Horse for a change of horses. Wish I hadn’t. Wish I’d pushed on to the next town. But I dare say church bells were pealing there, too. Your cousin Salt owns most of Wiltshire, so stands to reason all the bells in the county were clanging loud and clear in congratulations of the Countess’s safe delivery of a second son. But the clanging was enough to give me an infernal headache!”