Madrigals And Mistletoe

by Hayley A. Solomon

  For Seraphina, lively—mischievous, naughty Seraphina—had just made a most unsuitable discovery. In less than a second she had fallen for her music master and all the activity in the room faded into nothingness as her eyes met and held quite the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

  If Captain Argyll felt a similar stirring, nothing in his demeanour suggested it. He gravely took Seraphina’s gloved fingers in his and promised to do his best by her. She made no objection to this rather high-handed pronouncement, but rather gazed soulfully into his eyes and suggested they adjourn at once to the music room.

  Ancilla’s eyes met Cordelia’s over their heads. Her expression was so outrageously smug that the elder daughter nearly choked. She wouldn’t have put it past Ancilla to choose a music master so charming that Seraphina would not make the faintest protest at having to practice her lessons. Ancilla’s way was always the most flighty, but in the strangest manner she invariably achieved what she wanted.

  The duchess looked slightly disapproving, commenting that, whilst Seraphina undoubtedly needed to hone her musical skills, the haste seemed unwarranted. The younger Miss Camfrey had the grace to blush and Cordelia rushed to the rescue, stating that both sisters had been certain the duchess would want to be private with their mama and so had arranged for other afternoon activities. At this, her grace inclined her head regally and acknowledged that this was so. She did wish to speak alone with Ancilla.

  Captain Argyll’s clear blue eyes meekly met those of the duchess and Mrs. Camfrey. He allowed himself to be steered out by both sisters without so much as a backwards glance.

  Her grace produced her lorgnette once again and stared out past him. A puzzled frown furrowed her forehead as she tapped her stick against the floor. “I have the oddest notion I have seen that boy before!”

  Ancilla shook her head. “Impossible, your grace! I personally inspected his references and they state quite positively he has been out of England gone on ten years now. He has been situated in Spain, Italy and India I believe.”

  Since the references had been hastily scrawled by the captain himself, he had found it necessary to deal in half-truths, sketchily outlining a life abroad that could have been true, had he not been otherwise engaged in doing service to king and country. Of course, the Iberian War had kept him on the Peninsula for close on two years, so the Spanish part of the fabrication was semiveracious at least. The duchess remained unconvinced, but she shook her head at the memory that was patently eluding her.

  “Yes, well, we are not here to discuss music masters I suppose!”

  Ancilla desisted from asking what they were here to discuss. Of late she had learned patience and her grace would probably not take kindly to prompting. She therefore assented with a half smile and poured a cup of the chamomile.

  “I don’t doubt your thoughts are heading in exactly the same direction as mine!” The duchess burst out with this remark so fiercely that Ancilla nearly dropped her cup.

  “Pray enlighten me, your grace! I do not know—”

  “Fustian! Any mama awake to her suit would be casting her eye in Rhaz’s direction. What I say is—”

  “Beg pardon?” Ancilla still appeared bewildered.

  The thought dawned on the duchess that she had genuinely not thought of coupling her daughter with the duke. After the amazement came amusement. She chortled rather rudely and reached for her reticule, from which she extracted a large, hand-embossed handkerchief emblazoned with the crest of Carlisle.

  “You really are such a widgeon, Ancilla! Any other mama would have grasped at the chance of catching my son but I do believe the thought simply has not crossed your mind!”

  “Indeed it has not! As a matter of fact I should tell your grace that Cordelia has just accepted a most eligible offer. She is to become Lady Winthrop, you know.” Her tone held an element of pride that was quite lost on the duchess.

  “Tush! That is all very fine, but I do not speak of Cordelia! I speak of Seraphina of the auburn hair! I quite see why Rhaz was taken with her, for she is undoubtedly a beauty even if she is a little too flighty for my tastes!”

  Ordinarily Ancilla would have rushed to her daughter’s defence. She was too flabbergasted, however, to do more than set down her teacup and gaze at the duchess with wide, puzzled eyes. An attachment? You must be mistaken, your grace! I daresay they have not met above twice!”

  “That may be so but their meeting certainly created a stir by all accounts!”

  Ancilla began to see the light. “I collect you refer to the disastrous soiree when my little fledgling was invited to sing? I may be an abominable parent but you yourself have seen I’ve done everything I can to rectify the situation. Captain Argyll has been retained for the quarter at least!”

  “Ancilla, I do believe you have not two thoughts in your head! Forget about Seraphina’s deplorable skills! You should be more interested, by far, in the fact that my son paid her so huge an attention! It can only mean one thing, I assure you! He was attracted and I intend helping you to snare him!”

  If Mrs. Camfrey had been speechless before, she was struck dumb now. Fortunately, the duchess did not seem to notice, for she was caught up in a long-winded monologue by which Ancilla was given to understand that dowry was of no consequence, for Rhaz was “as rich as Croesus” and did not need an heiress to bolster up depleted fortunes. More salient to the duchess was whether Seraphina was wellborn—and she had satisfied herself on this score—and well-bred. This she seemed to be, though a “trifle high-spirited.” Still, as the duchess mourned, they did not make offspring the way they used to and beggars could not be choosers. By all accounts Seraphina was a dutiful daughter if not quite biddable. When the duchess stopped for air, Ancilla opened her mouth to speak but was again forestalled by a rush of words. It appeared that the duchess considered Rhaz’s commitment to the single state “reprehensible” and she intended rectifying the position. When she finally folded her arms and looked inquiringly at Ancilla, it was all Mrs. Camfrey could do not to stifle a laugh.

  “Your grace, I do not believe one duet can be considered an attachment!”

  The duchess eyed her fiercely. “No? You do not know Rhaz! He would not trifle with single ladies and set up their expectations unless he has intentions!”

  “But he did not set up Seraphina’s expectations!”

  “No? Then he should have!”

  All of a sudden Ancilla doubted. It was true Seraphina had been in high grig when the note from the duchess had arrived. True, too, that she had worn the duke’s posy the instant it was delivered. . . . She looked doubtfully at the colourful dowager duchess. She looked so positive that all her troubling doubts were removed. If Seraphina was attached to the duke and he to her, nothing could be so eligible. A social coup, in fact, though Ancilla did not care the snap of her finger for such things. Still, she loved Seraphina and if there was ought she could do . . .

  The duchess breathed a sigh of satisfaction. Ancilla might be a blockhead at times, but she was the sister of a marquis, and though she had married beneath her, her bloodlines were unimpeachable.

  The duchess leant forward eagerly and Ancilla politely ignored the creaking of her stays.

  “Now listen, Ancilla . . .”

  By the time her grace had said her piece, Mrs. Camfrey was left in no doubt as to her role. In a matter of moments the duchess had turned her pleasant, well-ordered life topsy-turvy and upside down. In the scurviest of ways she was to connive and contrive with the bossy old so and so to steer Seraphina into the duke’s sphere of influence.

  Her grace was too cunning to invite Seraphina to a mere house party. Rhaz had foiled her intentions before by his annoying manner of slipping out of town just at the times she most wanted him to stay. No, there would be no muddles and sudden urgent, pressing engagements this time. If her grace wanted to be certain of throwing Seraphina her errant son’s way, there could be only one suitable time to invite the Camfreys.

  A pity it was still two mon
ths away, but there, addlepated Ancilla would probably need that time simply to prepare. She must point out to her the necessity for riding habits and chic, understated gowns of shimmering lace. . . . She caught herself up and smiled. No, two months was not so very long, after all. Better a well-laid plan . . .

  “You shall stay with us for Christmas. Doncaster Place, Rhaz’s chief residence, is not seventy miles from London. I shall have two carriages sent round for your baggage and your servants—”

  “Christmas!” Ancilla put her hands to her cheeks. She had thought to spend it quietly en famille, not in some draughty mausoleum that was probably the handsome ducal edifice of the fifth Duke of Doncaster. Besides, without his personal invitation . . .

  “Stuff and nonsense, Ancilla! Rhaz shall do exactly as I say! He is a most biddable son, you know!”

  Ancilla refrained from asking why it was then necessary for her grace to go to such extraordinary lengths to secure his compliance in this scheme which she was not sure she could quite approve. Instead, she mildly mentioned that perhaps an afternoon tea or a simple evening whist party might suffice.

  The duchess looked her scorn as she pulled out an immense filigree fan studded with rubies and wrought, in immeasurable places, with gold. Ancilla wondered wherever she could have procured such a hideous thing and whether it served any useful purpose whatsoever, for it looked so heavy that it surely could not function quite as it ought.

  Happily, the duchess was oblivious to her disparaging musings and began a lengthy discourse on quite why Christmas was the most opportune moment to foist two young ladies, a flighty mama, three abigails, a manservant, a groom, a music master and nigh on ten portmanteaus on the fifth duke’s noble attention.

  By the time she had finished, the duchess had glibly announced a whole host of entertainments that left Ancilla bereft for speech. The crowning glory came when her grace announced, with great satisfaction, that Seraphina would have a chance to prove the superiority of her music master when she was allotted pride of place in the traditional Christmas pageant held on the Carlisle estate.

  Ancilla was stretching out for the smelling salts with an unusually faltering hand when the duchess unstopped some of her own and rather indelicately wafted it under the poor woman’s nose. The vile concoction was enough to revive anyone and Ancilla recovered sufficiently to push the bottle away and indignantly remark that she felt very ill used.

  The duchess humphed, commented that this was precisely the type of behaviour one would expect from a peabrain and proceeded to rattle off a million and one reasons why the connection was desirable and why Christmas was by far the best time to accomplish it.

  She assured the beleaguered Ancilla that no more than a few gentle prods would be required to extract a proposal of marriage from her exasperating son’s lips. Ancilla did not share her classmate’s optimism.

  Still, in the face of the duchess’s overpowering glare, she acquiesced mildly and held her peace.

  SIX

  The music room was more a library cum sitting room, with several instruments scattered about in rather haphazard a manner. Frederick’s eagle eyes noted a harpsichord and cello in the far corner and a little spinet somewhere in the muddle of some volumes stacked up high. These last, he noted, were probably more used than the instruments, for they abounded in bookmarks and revealed none of the deplorable dust that seemed to have settled upon the two larger pieces. In an instant he detected several scores in the mahogany-and-glass cabinet on his left. More were lying upon the music stand, but whether they had recently been consulted was hard to say.

  Seraphina unwittingly answered this question, for seeing the direction of his eyes—which were vivid blue, verging on violet, she quickly announced that it had been an age since she’d practiced, but Cordelia was tolerably well versed in the art. Since her accents bordered on disgust, the captain was given to infer she thought her sister’s virtue quite incomprehensible.

  Cordelia laughed pleasantly, her soft, bell-like tones a strong contrast to her sister’s more striking tenor. She declaimed, giving Captain Argyll to understand that, while she enjoyed tinkling on the harpsichord and was reasonably able to produce a melody, she was by no means proficient. The captain then handsomely invited her to join his lessons to which Cordelia laughed and promised that perhaps she would. Seraphina felt suddenly rather possessive of her music master and strangely loath to share him, though she loved her sibling dearly. Fortunately for them both, the elder Miss Camfrey recalled a pressing engagement for four and bid herself excused.

  Alone with her captain—for she thought of him as that—Seraphina’s high spirits surfaced to the fore. Though she deemed practicing “vile,” she peeked at him through abundantly adorable lashed eyes and murmured that she was ready to learn.

  The captain almost laughed aloud. The chit was obviously self-willed and spoiled, but he felt she would suit. He had expected to be bored to tears with his charge, but now he felt that she might present something of an unexpected challenge. Heaven knew, she was angelic to look at and angelic by name. He wondered if the appellation of “Seraph” suited her, but thought not.

  He was singularly undeceived by her meekness on meeting him. She was a cheeky little devil if ever he saw one. Still, that made for an interesting life and there was nothing good Lord Frederick liked more than that. He thought with amusement on Rhaz’s hope for him. Anything less like a “cross-eyed cit” was hard to come by.

  Certainly, in her morning dress of canary lemon with ringlets of auburn spilling out from abundant coils, she could hardly be described as a dowd by even the most exacting of critics. Frederick’s experienced eye roved downward to the more obvious of her charms. An innocent, but enticing nonetheless. He brought himself up sternly when he noticed his pupil colouring. He was here to teach and teach he damn well would.

  The fierce thought was soon tempered by a more cautious adjoinder. He would teach, but in his own inimitable way. Stuffy music rooms bored him to tears. He suspected Miss Seraphina suffered from the same complaint.

  “When would you wish to start, Miss Seraphina?”

  “Now if you wish! I promise to try with those detestable scales but I warn you, sir, you shall regret it, for more clumsy, muddlesome fingers you would not credit!”

  “Then I shall not press you, Miss Camfrey! There is nothing I loathe more than cowhandedness when it comes to music. We shall take a stroll through the gardens rather.”

  Seraphina was so taken aback she quite forgot how pleased she should have been at escaping the misery of scales. Instead, she scowled in a most unbecoming manner and announced she was not in the habit of being called cowhanded.

  “No?”

  The captain’s one-syllable response brought the blood rushing to Seraphina’s cheeks, for behind the syllable lay a wealth of meaning. Seraphina could tell he meant that, if she had not previously been so described, she should have been.

  Useless to tell him that she was being hailed as a diamond of the first water from all sources. A music master would not be privy to high society and so he would not understand its significance. Besides, being boastful would hardly recommend her to him. There would be only one thing he could be interested in and that, maddeningly, was the one thing Seraphina fell far short of: music, music, detestable music! True, she adored listening to some of the baroque composers, but listening was worlds from performing and performing, as she knew, was something that she simply could not do.

  She was at an impasse and Frederick, watching her struggle with her thoughts, knew it. He stood with his back to the window. His shoulder-length chestnut hair was caught in a velvet riband at the back of his head, slightly old-fashioned, but then, he had never been an arbiter of taste like his good friend Rhaz.

  He had taken care not to dress above his station, so his coat, while an excellent fit, was not of the first stare and his cravat would have reduced any self-respecting valet to tears. Though crisp and ice white, it was nevertheless tied in a deplorably
simple knot, threaded through shirt points of such a constrained height that any dandy seeing him would have chortled himself into fits.

  Still, there could be no denying the perfectly smooth outline of his buckskin knee breeches, nor the athletic muscles that they encased. Seraphina, glancing downward, found herself dwelling on intriguing parts no lady strictly ought to. In fairness, it was hardly her fault, for the breeches were such a snug fit she would have had to be blind not to be drawn to the very region that they so artlessly covered.

  A slow curve crept across Captain Argyll’s slightly pink, bow-shaped lips. He placed his gloved hands upon his head and regarded Miss Camfrey with a twinkle. “Do I pass scrutiny?”

  Seraphina was shaken from her reverie. What a detestable man! He was positively gloating at her, as if he had read her thoughts! She turned her nose up coldly. “I have no notion of what you mean, captain!”

  To her chagrin, the infuriating man merely chuckled and pointed out the window. “What lies out there?”

  “A forest does!” Seraphina’s words were abrupt to a fault. She could not imagine why the man should wish to know, since he had been engaged for the sole purpose of tying her remorselessly to the stuffy old room.

  “Excellent! I have a mind to a walk!” The captain’s tone was bracing and brooked no argument. Seraphina’s eyes widened in surprise. “A walk? I thought we were to begin our lesson!”

  “We are!” The captain grinned and an engaging twinkle lit his eye. “Music is an intonation of nature. Its echoes, its crests, its waves and its silences are all an aural reflection of that which we see. To understand it, one has to live it, breath it, sense it. A music room is sadly flat when one can have the wind at one’s back and soft, verdant green clover at one’s feet.”

  Seraphina could hardly make sense of his words, but his eyes were so magnetic and his voice so beguiling that she thought she could follow him anywhere forever. The forest seemed but a small distance to traverse if it would be with him.