His gaze shot away from her. He intensely examined the shop, studying every other patron in it. “He is not here.”
“How would you know? You do not know what he looks like.”
He just shook his head thoughtfully, while he continued perusing the shop. He pulled out his pocket watch. “It is past the appointed time by over a quarter hour now.”
“You did ruin it. He probably looked in the window, saw you, and left.” Disheartened and at her wit’s end, she ached to rid herself of this interfering man. “Excuse me, please. I must return to Daphne. She will wonder what has become of me.”
She strode to the door. Out on the street, polished boots fell into step beside her.
“Do not interfere with me now,” she said. “I am half-inclined to shoot you for real. If I am going to pay the price, I may as well do the deed.”
“In a manner of speaking, you already did shoot me. You cocked the hammer. The pistol would have never gone off otherwise.”
“Please. I do not want to be seen with you. I do not want anyone thinking that I arranged an assignation.”
“You have already been seen with me. Our meeting will be all over Mayfair in an hour.”
“Oh, that is simply wonderful. Thank you very much.”
“Come now, the scandal can hardly get worse. Also, our meeting today has been most fortuitous.”
“I think it has been most infuriating. Now, my cousin waits for me in there.” She pointed to a milliner’s shop. “I must bid you adieu.”
He did not take dismissal easily. As she strode across the street, those boots kept in step beside her.
“Allow me to explain why it is fortuitous, Miss Kelmsleigh. My brother has expressed an interest in your situation. He would like to meet you. I planned to send invitations to you and your mother.”
“My mother!”
“Of course. However, since you are in town today, I could take you to him now if that is agreeable to you.”
“What possible interest could your brother have in meeting me?” She imagined sitting under the scrutiny of a marquess who had ample cause not to like what he saw.
“I believe he wants to condole with you, that you are suffering this cruel gossip. He is a very sympathetic person that way.”
“Is he not too ill to receive guests?”
“Due to his war wounds, his movements are curtailed and his health is frail. But he is not so ill that he does not miss company.”
She wavered. It would sound very harsh to refuse to visit a housebound invalid who had expressed sorrow for her plight.
“Ah, here is your cousin. Mrs. Joyes, I have just invited Miss Kelmsleigh to visit my brother. I hope that you will agree to allow it and accompany her so that tongues do not wag more.”
Daphne showed no surprise at seeing him as she exited the milliner’s, or at hearing the impromptu invitation. “That is generous, Lord Sebastian. However, I regret that I have several errands still to complete.”
“Pity. It will have to wait for those other invitations after all, Miss Kelmsleigh.”
Daphne cocked her head in curiosity.
“He intends to invite Mama and me together,” Audrianna explained.
Daphne’s eyes widened the barest fraction. No doubt she was imagining Mama’s reaction to such an invitation, and the chilly atmosphere of such a visit if she decided to accept. Which she would feel forced to do. One did not turn down a marquess.
“I could accompany her as far as your house,” Daphne said. “If the marchioness is at home, no one could question the propriety of such arrangements.”
“Splendid. Once we are there, you must use the carriage to complete those other errands. I will have our man take you both home as well.”
Wittonbury House was a mansion on Park Lane, facing Hyde Park and flanked by other massive homes of notable families. The façade displayed a restrained flamboyance that hinted at its construction in the prior century. Audrianna gazed up the six stories to where a large, scrolled pediment perched near the cornice, emphasizing the way the building projected out slightly in the center.
She had never visited a house this grand. Roger had some connections among the ton, but with him away with the army during most of their engagement, she had never enjoyed invitations to their homes for balls or parties.
They bid Daphne off in the carriage and approached the door. Once inside, Lord Sebastian spoke privately with the butler, then invited her to accompany him up to the drawing room.
“We will have to go to my brother. He does not leave his chambers,” he explained as they mounted the stairs. “I hope that you do not mind.”
“I pray that I am never so fastidious about etiquette as to insist that an invalid come to me at his inconvenience.” She strolled around the drawing room. The chamber shimmered with costly fabrics and furniture. Even the walls proclaimed wealth, with oil paintings by Raphael, Titian, and Poussin. “Have you always lived here?”
He watched her progress around the room’s edges, as if he found her gait interesting. “I returned when my brother was brought back from Spain. I lived elsewhere in town for some years prior to that.”
She traced her fingertips over the luscious silk tassel holding back a drape in Vienna green. It felt as sensual as it looked. “Did you mind returning?”
This house was all luxury, but his coming back would be a bit like her returning to Mama now. She loved Mama, but did not think she could take her place there again without it chafing.
It was probably different for men, though. They were free of shackles wherever they lived, once they came of age. This homecoming’s only penalty to his old life would be some inconvenience, perhaps, especially in the indulgence of his sensual appetites.
“I believed that I was needed here,” he said.
“It was good of you to return, then, no matter what your preferences.”
She peered out a window at a garden. “I hope that you did not tell your brother about our last conversation. The one on the lane at my cousin’s house.”
“I did not say a word to him about that.”
“Thank you. This would be very awkward otherwise.”
“My brother would find it amusing that you rejected my proposal. He might think the news the best part of his day.”
He actually smiled while he said it, as if he found it amusing too. He most likely was relieved she had turned him down. The result had been ideal—he had offered to do the right thing, but had not actually had to do it.
“I did not expect you to show such good humor about it if I saw you again,” she said.
“I understand your position, Miss Kelmsleigh. I did not take great offense. Some offense, but not great offense.”
Again that smile. She forced clarity on her thoughts so she would not gaze upon him like a bedazzled fool.
A footman appeared in the doorway, then, and communicated a message without speaking a word.
“My brother is ready, Miss Kelmsleigh. I will take you to him.”
Wittonbury’s apartment was larger than most homes. They entered into a chamber that looked to serve as an anteroom.
Its pale walls and deep red upholstery made one ignore that it was a captive room with no window.
A crisply dressed man, heavyset and ruddy faced, greeted them. Lord Sebastian introduced him as Dr. Fenwood.
“My brother is well, Fenwood?”
“Very well, sir. He is pleased that you have brought him company. He is in the library.” Dr. Fenwood paused. “Lady Wittonbury just arrived and is with him.”
“Did my brother send for her?”
“I do not believe so, sir.”
“Fortune is raining upon us today, Miss Kelmsleigh, if my mother is joining the party,” he said as he escorted her to a door giving off the chamber on the left.
“You mean that good fortune is raining on us, do you not?”
“I doubt it.”
The library proved much larger than the anteroom, and had the benefit of large windows al
ong two walls. Twice the size of the library in her familial home, it made Audrianna wonder about the real library down below, the one that served more than one person.
Her perusal of the appointments and dark cases, the Turkish carpet and tall windows, abruptly ended when she saw the marchioness sitting near the fireplace.
Lady Wittonbury was formidable. All other descriptions would be secondary. Audrianna ticked them off anyway. Beautiful, even in her middle years, with her younger son’s intense dark eyes and a tall, willowy body and a halo of midnight hair. Imperious, in the way she sat there, her back straight as an iron rod, her poise that of a queen. She arrested Audrianna’s attention so thoroughly that it took a few moments to notice the man in the deep chair beside her.
Except for the marquess’s face, cravat, and shirt collar, he was all dark. His face was a softer version of his brother’s, and much older looking, with a weary, dull countenance. His black coat descended to a dark blanket that covered the lower part of his body. He sat in a dark chair. One might think he would fade away into the shadows if his luminous mother did not sit nearby, shining her vitality on him.
“Please sit here, Miss Kelmsleigh,” he said after introductions. He indicated a chair to his right. Lord Sebastian remained standing.
“Do you live in town, Miss Kelmsleigh?” the marchioness asked.
“I live in Cumberworth, in Middlesex.”
Her eyebrows rose. It communicated disdain more than curiosity. “Cumberworth? I do not recall the newspapers mentioning that your father had property in Cumberworth.”
The reference to her father and the stories in the paper was no accident. Audrianna resented this woman making a point of mentioning that, as if there were some danger anyone had forgotten it. “I live with my cousin.”
“Her cousin, Mrs. Joyes, grows flowers in an immense greenhouse,” Lord Sebastian said. “A grape vine grows within it.”
“A grape vine?” Lady Wittonbury said. “How . . . rustic.”
“We do live in the country, Madam. So, yes, it is a bit rustic.”
“The garden is not rustic at all,” Summerhays said. “When it is in bloom, I am sure that it would do the finest manor house proud.”
Audrianna thought it kind of him to defend the garden and grounds of her home, although she suspected he enjoyed disagreeing with his mother more than complimenting her.
“So you do not live with your mother,” Lady Wittonbury mused. “Two unmarried young women living alone in the country . . . That is unusual.”
“Not at all,” the marquess said. “Since the war, it is too common.”
“Mrs. Joyes, Miss Kelmsleigh’s cousin, is indeed a war widow,” Summerhays added.
That silenced Lady Wittonbury, but it did not stop her scrutiny. Audrianna felt like a disagreeable bug under her pointed attention.
“What sort of flowers are grown in this greenhouse?” the marquess asked.
Audrianna described the bulbs they forced in late winter, and the amaryllis in fall, and the many pelagoriums that they propagated and even hybridized.
“Your gardeners must be very busy,” Lady Wittonbury said.
“We do it ourselves, Madam. Or rather, Daphne and Lizzie do most of it, and Celia and I help.”
“Lizzie? More young ladies. Rather like an abbey.”
“That is what my cousin says. Not abbey, but a home for beguines. They were common in medieval France. Lay-women would live together as we do. Some would take employment outside the walls, and none took vows, but they lived communally.”
“Your cousin has put her property to good use then,” the marquess said approvingly.
His mother stood, becoming even more formidable as she towered over Audrianna and the marquess. “I am delighted to have met you, Miss Kelmsleigh, and to have learned about your unusual home. It all sounds radical and far too independent to me, but I am an old-fashioned woman. Now, I must ask your forbearance. I have to attend to a pressing matter.” She bent down and kissed the marquess on his head, as if he were a child. She gave Lord Sebastian a direct look as she took her leave.
“I will escort you,” he said. “Miss Kelmsleigh, my brother will be glad for your continued company while I am gone, if you would be kind enough to indulge us both.”
“Yes, do stay,” the marquess said. “Tell me about the grape arbor.”
“Why is she here?” The question came in a tight, low snap once the door closed behind them.
“She is here because I invited her,” Sebastian said.
“Oh, give me patience. You sound so much like him with your sardonic dodges.” She aimed not for her own chambers, but down to the library. There she paced back and forth, shooting him glares of displeasure.
“You have not done anything rash, have you?” she demanded. “It is one thing for you to dally with the daughter of a man exposed the way her father was. It is quite another if you attempt to rectify the indiscretion by—”
“By what?”
She stopped walking and faced him. “It is shocking that you brought her here, inviting more of society’s scorn. She is most unsuitable, in every way. Even without this humiliating scandal, even without her father’s disgrace, she would not do. This is not a situation where honor requires you do the right thing. Furthermore, whatever is between you and this woman must end. Even a continuing liaison will only damage the family and your influence.”
“If I sound so much like him, it is because you sound so much like you,” Sebastian said. Her criticism of Miss Kelmsleigh annoyed him deeply, more than it ought.
“I only remind you of your duty.”
“I will not tolerate your rudeness to my friends.”
“Friends! You count her as a friend now? Is it your goal to vex me to the point of apoplexy?”
“It is my goal to remind you that I am indeed too much like him, and not likely to accept your interference. In that, at least, I have not taken Morgan’s place.”
Her eyes narrowed and her pale face flushed. “As if you could take his place in anything.”
“Of course not. I am not he.”
“That is certain.”
“Your vexation is of your own making, and I will leave you to stew in it now. Fill my brother’s ears with your advice if you choose, but spare mine in the future.”
He left the library and headed back upstairs. His mother had soured his mood more than he cared to admit. They both knew he had, in fact, taken Morgan’s place in many ways. That was the true source of her anger.
And of his own sometimes.
Chapter Ten
Morgan and Miss Kelmsleigh did not notice him when he opened the door. They were too busy laughing.
The sound was so unnatural to these chambers that Sebastian paused in the threshold.
“It is good to hear my lord making merry.” Fenwood spoke lowly. Sebastian turned to see Fenwood right behind him, craning his neck to look into the library now that the door had been opened.
Morgan’s high spirits transformed him. His face took on color while he guffawed at Miss Kelmsleigh’s joke. He appeared more animated, more alive, than he had in months.
Had merely the presence of a woman done that? Other than their mother and a few servants, no woman had entered this apartment in a very long time.
He stepped back so he could shut the door again, but Morgan noticed him before the retreat was successful. “You did not warn me that Miss Kelmsleigh possessed such a wit, brother.”
He strolled toward them. “I know it to be sharp, that is true. I am jealous that you have been entertained by the cleverness of her tongue. Regrettably, I have only received its lashes.”
“I would share her cleverness, but so often the retelling loses so much,” Morgan said. His eyes actually twinkled while he and Miss Kelmsleigh shared a conspiratorial glance.
“Why do I think the joke was on me?” Sebastian said.
They both laughed again.
“Your company has been as refreshing as a fair day, M
iss Kelmsleigh. Promise me that you will call again,” Morgan said.
The suggestion took her aback. “I will try to do so. Thank you,” she said.
She would not try very hard. Sebastian knew that she intended never to come here again.
“I would like you to see the house and garden before you leave. My brother will have to escort you, since I cannot.”
“That is unfortunate, since the day is truly fair and might refresh you all the more. Can you not at least watch from the window while we take a turn in the garden?”
“I suppose I could, now that you mention it. I can be the chaperon watching from on high, and my brother will not have to request my mother’s presence. I will call Dr. Fenwood and have him move me.”
“I will do it,” Sebastian said. With no further ado, he lifted his brother. Only after Morgan’s surprisingly light weight was cradled in his arms did Sebastian consider that moving an invalid marquess in Miss Kelmsleigh’s presence was undignified and inappropriate.
He had done this often enough that Morgan displayed no distress or embarrassment. Nor did Miss Kelmsleigh. She positioned a chair right beside the window and Sebastian set his brother down.
“Open it, please,” Morgan said.
Sebastian could not remember the last time Morgan had risked the chill of fresh air. “Are you sure?”
“Open it.”
Miss Kelmsleigh opened the casement a crack. Sebastian found another of the lap blankets in a chest and draped it over his brother’s shoulders.
“I will send in Fenwood. He will ensure you do not catch a chill,” Sebastian said.
“Do not. He will close the window, even if I agree to wear ten blankets and a fur. Tell him I forbid him to enter for half an hour.”
Sebastian could not find ten blankets, but he located one more, which he tucked around Morgan as well.
Miss Kelmsleigh watched. “I did not intend to endanger your health with my little suggestion.”
“This fresh air is so delicious, I do not care if I suffer a fever later.” He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes while he savored the light breeze. “Off with you both now. You must write and tell me what you think of the garden, Miss Kelmsleigh. Perhaps The Rarest Blooms will have ideas for its improvement.”
Ravishing in Red Page 11