A Season for Love

by Blair Bancroft

  The young marquess immediately straightened to his full height, squared his shoulders, and looked his uncle-in-law straight in the eye. “It’s true,” he pronounced with all the drama of a seven-year-old nobleman’s injured dignity. “We’ve been no farther than the garden since papa returned. We might as well be prisoners in the Tower,” Laurence added on a decided grumble. “So may we go with you? Please?” The marquess’s cornflower blue eyes, inherited from the first Duchess of Longville, filled with the abject pleading Tony had previously associated only with puppies.

  “Please, Unc’a Tony,” piped Susan, who had now finished descending the stairs and was tugging on the tails of his burgundy jacket.

  The viscount forced himself to a severity he was far from feeling. “You have escaped Miss Tompkins, both of you. I am quite certain you know that is not the proper way to behave.”

  “My lord,” Laurence declared, “we were desperate.”

  “Des-prit,” Susan echoed plaintively.

  Lady Caroline paused on the uppermost curve of the staircase, seeing all her cherished plans for the afternoon teetering on the brink of extinction. She had dressed with care for her drive in the park with Viscount Frayne. Her carriage dress of French Blue overlaid by a series of panels piped in midnight blue was a color that suited her to perfection. Her bonnet was made to match, the severity of its design, decorated solely with two white rosettes on the band, enhanced rather than detracted from her natural beauty. She had planned to make a grand entry from the top of the staircase, allowing Tony Norville to savor her appearance during her slow and elegant descent.

  Instead, as she took in the scene below, Caroline picked up her skirts—heedless of the viscount’s unobstructed view of a lace-trimmed petticoat and neatly turned ankles above her blue kid half boots—and charged down the staircase. “Laurence, Susan, upstairs immediately!” she ordered. “Do not trouble Lord Frayne.”

  “We are not troubling him,” Laurence explained grandly. “We are merely asking him to take us to the park.”

  “Ye-es,” Susan agreed.

  “Sims,” Lady Caroline said to the hovering butler, “pray see what is keeping Miss Tompkins.”

  “Sims,” said Viscount Frayne, raising his hand to stay the butler’s orders, “is Longville at home?”

  “No, my lord.”

  “My sister?”

  “No, my lord.”

  “Then I believe the decision is ours,” Tony said to Caroline, raising one slightly wicked brow.

  Caroline, incensed by his attempt to countermand her orders, glared at him. There was nothing she wished to say that could be stated before two children and the butler.

  Laurence promptly threw his arms about his sister, crushing the gown she had so carefully arranged before leaving her room. “Please, please, please,” he begged. “We are like those poor lions at the Tower. Miss Tompkins says they are withering away from captivity.”

  “The garden is horrid,” Susan added. “I do not wish to know the names of all the fl’wrs.”

  Instantly contrite, Caroline looked helplessly at Tony. She had been gadding about town for two weeks now while the children stayed home. She had attended routs, balls, Venetian breakfasts, musical evenings, poetry readings, the opera, and the theater. The polish on her town bronze was considerably more burnished than on the evening of her debut at Almack’s. And on nearly all of those occasions she had enjoyed the familiar attentions of Viscount Frayne.

  The children, however, had not set foot outside the confines of Longville House.

  She was a selfish wretch. Exactly as her mother had warned, she had fallen into the ton’s trap and quite forgotten the most important things in life.

  “Very well,” Caroline sighed. “Sims,” please inform Miss Tompkins that the children—”

  “Oh, miss . . . my lady,” Nell Brindley cried as she came crashing through the green baize door and scooted across the black and white tiles. “I’m that sorry. It be Miz Tompkins’s ’alf day, y’see, and I—”

  “Then you will have an hour or so to yourself as well, Nell,” Lady Caroline announced, “for Lord Frayne and I will be taking the children to the park. Please be sure you are available when we return.”

  “Oh, I will, mi—my lady. It weren’t my fault,” she added unwisely. “Those little scamps do be good at—”

  “That will be all, Nell,” Caroline interjected, continuing to glare after the girl as she bobbed a curtsy and made a hasty retreat behind the door to the servants’ portion of the house.

  “I daresay we should not indulge them when they have been naughty enough to escape their bounds,” Tony murmured, half to himself, as he found himself seriously wondering if he might prove to be an overly indulgent parent.

  “I daresay you’re right,” Caroline sighed, “but it’s true papa has kept them confined, though I cannot imagine why.” Over the heads of the eager children she gave the viscount an anxious look. “Do you know, Tony, why papa has kept them so close?”

  “General unrest,” the viscount offered without elaboration. “But I believe Longville cannot object if we take two outriders.”

  “To the park?” Caroline squeaked. “You cannot be serious.”

  “Two outriders, Caroline, or we all stay home.”

  Tension hovered. The children held their breaths. Caroline frowned as the viscount remained adamant.

  “Oh, very well,” Lady Caroline sighed. Then, struck by a sudden thought, she brightened, momentarily forgetting her attack of conscience. “But how are we to travel? We cannot all fit in your curricle, Tony.”

  “The landau is available, my lady,” Sims ventured. “His Grace took his curricle, and Lady Longville has the barouche.”

  “Thank you, Sims,” the viscount said as Lady Caroline remained markedly silent. “Please see that it is brought ‘round.”

  The Marquess of Huntley chortled, while Miss Susan Wharton clapped her hands and beamed at her uncle. Lady Caroline, torn between lost dreams of a private drive in Hyde Park with Lord Frayne and her genuine concern for the children’s welfare, waited for the landau with mixed feelings. And somewhere in the midst of her whirling thoughts came a niggling voice that asked what her papa would think. Were they wrong to take the children out . . . or was that her personal foolishness talking? Surely her papa was being overly protective of his new family. Did he truly fear the London mob? Or was his prohibition due to fear of the vicious tongues Laurence and Susan might encounter on their afternoon excursion into the ton’s most well-known showcase?

  Another small frisson of regret shook Lady Caroline as the landau pulled up in the bricked drive in front of Longville House. In all the hustle and bustle of acquiring gowns, bonnets, shoes, shawls, spencers, pelisses, an evening cloak, and sundry other accessories, from gloves and reticules to fans and ostrich plumes—all while attending as many as four social events a day—Lady Caroline had had almost no private moments with Viscount Frayne. In truth, until this simple pleasure was snatched from her, she had not realized how much this afternoon in his company—his sole company—had mattered.

  What a foolish girl she was, to be attracted to a fribble. A town beau. A care-for-naught.

  A gentleman who could not resist the appeal of two pairs of eager young eyes.

  Perhaps Tony was not, after all, so dreadful, Caroline conceded. Yet it was his kind heart, the gentleness behind his mocking smile that made him so dangerous. Surely, Viscount Frayne was exactly the type of man her mama had told her to shun.

  A frisson of a different kind shook her as Tony took her hand to help her into the carriage. Their eyes met, his stating quite clearly his apologies for the change of plan. The devil! She welcomed the children, truly she did. When Tony Norville was around, she needed all the chaperons she could find.

  In the end, the afternoon passed with no further incident than heads turning to stare at the children or at the outriders who accompanied their leisurely drive through Hyde Park. While waiting for the landau to
be harnessed, Caroline had sent for the blue and white sailboat, which had been unearthed from the attic directly after her first drive in Hyde Park. So a pleasant half hour was spent at the Serpentine while Laurence learned to sail the small craft. The only unpleasantness came when Susan demanded to sail the boat as well, and it had taken all of the viscount’s diplomatic skills, and Lady Caroline’s as well, to settle the resulting argument. Viscount Frayne, in fact, resolved to go sailboat shopping the very next day.

  The duke’s roar, however, when he heard about the children’s afternoon in Hyde Park could be heard all the way to the attics of Longville House.

  The duchess made a surprising discovery. She no longer quaked when her husband roared. In fact, she was beginning to welcome the sparks that flew when she stood up to him, occasionally as close as toe to toe and nose to nose. He would glower, she would speak softly, while remaining as adamant as he. The duke had married her to have a mother for his children. She would, therefore, perform that duty to the best of her ability. Even if it meant thwarting their papa’s decrees.

  Near the end of their argument about the children being allowed out of Longville House—after the duke had ordered his daughter to her room to reconsider her stubbornness and filial disrespect—Jen proffered a coaxing smile, placing two fingers on her husband’s still-snarling lips. The snarl softened into a brush of lips across her fingertips. Then his lips were somehow on the back of her hand, moving up her bare arm to the inside of her elbow, nuzzling her neck, flirting with her lips until her knees threatened to melt and she lost all track of the point she had been trying to make. Their encounter ended quite satisfactorily for both, although until the next morning at breakfast, when the duke casually allowed that the children might go out as long as they were attended by two armed outriders, the duchess assumed she had lost the argument.

  Extraordinary. In truth, she was forced to concede that Marcus, Duke of Longville, was considerably more complicated than Captain Gordon Wharton. A fact Jen found more intriguing than annoying.

  In the following days the servants in Longville House could be seen winking and nudging each other as the duchess passed by. “A rare one,” was the general consensus. “A mistress what did the house proud.” Although Sims and Mrs. Jenks were above such backstairs gossip, they had actually been caught a time or two in something close to a smile. There could be little doubt that since the arrival of the new duchess and the three children, life at Longville House had taken on a glow of warmth and color it had not seen in years.

  “Shame ’er Grace’s brother don’t seem to see what’s right under his nose,” declared one of the parlor maids that night as the servants gathered round the long pine dining table in the kitchen. “Spooked by thought of a leg-shackle,” the footman, Kerby, offered.

  “Lady Caroline ain’t anxious to jump into parson’s mousetrap neither,” Nell Brindley shot back.

  “Then what’re they doin’ t’gether all the time?” Kerby demanded. “Fair growin’ roots in the drawing room, ’e is.” A grumble of assent swept the table.

  “That,” declared Sims from the head of the table, “is none of our affair.”

  “Mebbe each thinks the other’s safe,” Nell whispered in a voice audible to more than half the table.

  “You may leave us, Nell,” Mrs. Jenks pronounced. “Perhaps doing without Cook’s raspberry tart will remind you not to comment on your betters.”

  “Just you wait,” a defiant Nell asserted as she pushed back her chair. “When Lady Caroline’s ready, she’ll snap her fingers and he’ll come runnin’. You’ll see.”

  “For the next week you will eat above stairs with the children,” the housekeeper decreed. “And if you still cannot mind your manners, you will find yourself on a coach back to whatever backwater village you came from quick as cat can lick an ear.”

  Though her chin was squared in defiance, Nell Brindley’s flashing eyes revealed the publican’s daughter was still far from tamed. She sketched a curtsy and managed a creditable, “Yes, ma’am,” before leaving the kitchen for the long climb up the back stairs to the nursery.

  “Vauxhall? No, no, no, Tony, doing it too brown,” Sir Chetwin Willoughby protested. “I’ve stood up with Lady Harriet at every ball, been seen chatting with her at the Seffington’s rout. Escort her to Vauxhall, and the blasted baron will be expectin’ a declaration of my intentions.”

  “Do not be absurd,” Lord Frayne told his friend. “We are all of a party, with no particular escort—”

  “Can’t say that, Tony,” Peyton Trimby-Ashford interjected. “The duke’s paired with the duchess, don’t y’know? And you never let Lady Caroline out of your sight. And I plan to do the same for Miss Emily. I mean, Vauxhall, ain’t it? Not exactly the safest place for a young lady. Let anybody in, don’t they, if they’ve the price of a ticket? So that leaves Lady Harriet to Willoughby. Plain as a pikestaff. Can’t blame him for hesitatin.’”

  “Speaking of Miss Emily,” Sir Chetwin drawled, “I never thought I’d see the day you’d be such a mooncalf, old chap. Need to marry money, do you not? Ain’t going to find it with a colonel’s daughter.”

  “I do not need to marry money,” declared an indignant Peyton Trimby-Ashford.

  “Wouldn’t hurt.”

  Mr. Trimby-Ashford drew himself up until his nose reached Sir Chetwin’s chin. “Happiness,” he pronounced, “is far superior to wealth. I would prefer to live in simple comfort with the wife of my heart rather than cut a swath through society with funds brought to me by a woman who turns my veins to ice.”

  “Bravo!” Tony couldn’t believe those were his hands applauding his friend’s noble declaration. He did not believe in love, truly he did not. Someday, preferably far in the future, he would marry for the sake of an heir, a marriage arranged for land or wealth or simply because the lady had an outstanding pedigree. And yet, Peyton’s words touched something hidden far inside him. A longing for something better, something more. The need to feel what he could see in his sister’s eyes when she looked at Marcus. Would the duke, Tony wondered, ever realize what a treasure he had in his second wife?

  Would Anthony Norville ever admit he might have found a treasure of his own?

  Putting this annoying inner voice aside, the viscount proposed a compromise. Two more young people, including the parents of the young lady, would be invited to Vauxhall. This would, Tony assured Sir Chetwin, make a large enough party that no one should feel paired with a particular escort. Grudgingly, Willoughby allowed himself to be persuaded. It wasn’t as if he didn’t like the chit, he kept repeating, it was merely that—

  “We know, we know,” Tony murmured, clapping him on the back. “There’s a good chap. Peyton and I need your support.” He winked. “Just think of all the things that can happen at Vauxhall.”

  “You might think of them, too,” Sir Chetwin snapped back. “I believe, on a previous occasion, we’ve mentioned Longville’s prowess with a pistol at dawn.”

  Tony covered his inner turmoil with a laugh. He did not want to acknowledge the strange compulsion that kept drawing him back to Longville House. The frisson down his spine that guided him unerringly to Caroline Carlington, no matter how crowded the ballroom or rout party. Yes, it was foolish to deny he was plunging downhill out of control, straight toward a fatal crash upon the altar at St. George’s. But he was plunging kicking and screaming.

  At least he thought he was.

  “Ten bricks shy of a load ye are, Bert Tunney,” Flann McCollum declared. “I been on the dub-lay for more years than I care to remember, and I know what kin be snatched and what’s goin’ to bring on the nubbing cheat.”

  “Dook’s got to pay,” Alfie Grubbs asserted. “Bert ain’t the only one ’urt. Big black ’orse knocked me down, stomped m’ hands. Couldn’t work for a fortnight, I couldn’t.”

  “Work!” Bert Tunney snorted. “What d’ you know about work? A cutpurse, a jostler? A bit of bump and dip, and you’re set up for a week, while I’m out t
here breaking m’ back hauling goods fer those kin afford to pay for ’em. If I hadn’t tossed y’ a shilling or two for past services, you’d a starved.”

  “And ain’t that just what I’m sayin’?” demanded the indignant pickpocket. “Lost m’ livelihood, I did. And all account of the dook and that giant of a woman ’e married.”

  “Don’t matter a bit,” Flann interjected. “Give me a lock to pick, and I’ll be past it in a flash. But snatch a child out from under a coachman, a groom, and two men with shotguns, I can’t. I won’t. And you’re touched in the upper works if y’ think you can.”

  Bert Tunney stroked his chin, obviously thinking hard. He was a man who seemed to have been born disgruntled, his anger at the government genuine. The London drayman had joined every riot since the turn of the century. But for this particular job he needed men who were willing to go beyond occasional political protest, men who scoffed at the law on a daily basis. Until now, he thought he had found them.

  “I suppose the girl might do,” Tunney conceded. “I hear the dook’s right fond of ’er.”

  “Don’t want no screamin’ female,” Alfie Grubbs protested.

  “Jay-sus!” bawled Flann McCollum. “Ye don’t want nothing. “The fencing cull pays so fine, does ’e, that you’re set for life? Retiring to the country, are y’ then? Your pockets so well lined ye don’t need none of the dook’s gold?”

  “I don’t fancy ’anging,” the pickpocket stated firmly. “And for that, it don’t matter whether it’s the boy or ’is sister. It’s the nubbing cheat for sure.”

  “It’s the Canadas for me,” the Irishman countered. “I’ve fought long enough. I leave riot and revolution to Bert here. Ye might think on it yourself, Alfie,” Flann advised. “A new world, a clean slate. Not a bad choice, if y’ have gold enough to get there.”