“I am content with my present circumstances,” Antonia replied as they traversed a corridor between alternating pier glasses and seascapes. “I have independence few women can aspire to at my age, and I manage my funds as I see fit. I have my charities, my literary interests, my cousins…”
“And a herd of puppies slobbering over your hand,” her ladyship said, turning the handle of a carved door. “Some would envy you your situation, my friend.”
“You haven’t remarried.”
Lady Canmore had pretty ways. Her smiles were winsome and friendly, her gestures graceful, her walk ladylike, though she was more curvaceous than the standard English beauty. Antonia envied her all of that, but she also envied the countess knowledge only a wife was permitted to gain, knowledge of intimacy that went beyond the bedroom and gave a woman a partner in life.
Though marriage could also inflict an intimate enemy on a lady.
“We are not the first to seek refuge among the portraits,” Lady Canmore said, advancing on a tall gentleman halfway down the long wall. “Lord Casriel, good evening.”
“Lady Canmore, Lady Antonia.”
The earl had been introduced to Antonia at a ridotto several weeks earlier. She always noted the tall gentlemen, because they were potential dance partners. In her first Season, she’d had to endure partnering short men, and they’d invariably spent the entire waltz in conversation with her bosom.
“My lord.” Antonia’s curtsey was polite, while Lady Canmore’s was somehow elegant. “I take it you enjoy art?”
“I do,” he replied. “And you?”
Because he was standing near a sconce, Antonia could see what made the Dorning gaze so noteworthy. His eyes were the beguiling hue of periwinkles or violets in bright sunshine. She’d never seen another with eyes that shade.
“I like a good landscape,” Antonia said. “Portraits are fine for memorializing a beloved ancestor, but for my parlors and bedrooms, I’d rather not have anybody’s countenance gazing at me.”
The countess took to smoothing her perfectly unwrinkled gloves, suggesting Antonia’s comment had been less than refined.
“I’m of a similar disposition,” the earl replied. “I keep a landscape of the family seat in my London office, a reminder of happy times and places. Lady Canmore, what sort of art do you prefer?”
He was an attractive man, not stunningly handsome, not a golden god, not a fop. His hair was brown, perhaps shading russet in the out of doors. His voice was cultured, and he was a baritone, if not a bass.
He was an earl. She was an earl’s daughter.
Antonia made these assessments while Lady Canmore prattled on about the honesty of caricatures in contrast to the flattery in most portraits, not a point Antonia would have thought to make. They wandered as a trio from one end of the room to the other, and the elderly couple who’d been chatting by the window left before the circuit of the gallery was complete.
“The supper waltz approaches,” the earl said. “If one of you ladies has yet to commit that dance, perhaps you’d consider partnering me?”
How polite he was, how genial and gentlemanly.
The countess spoke up before Antonia could accept. “I believe her ladyship has yet to offer that waltz to anybody.”
Was Lady Canmore’s good cheer a bit forced?
Casriel smiled, not a hint of flirtation in his expression. “I’m also without a partner, my lady. Might I have the honor?”
Had he been hiding up here, lurking where an older couple would provide him chaperonage? “The pleasure would be mine, my lord. Lady Canmore, will you accompany us back to the ballroom?”
“I think not,” the countess said, curtseying again with enviable grace. “I must ensure my coiffure is in good repair before I attempt a waltz. Enjoy the music.”
Antonia had observed the earl often enough to know he was competent on the dance floor. He was also gentlemanly, titled, not bad looking, and tall. Tall was important to a woman who’d been referred to as a Long Meg since her eleventh birthday.
So why did she feel as if the earl’s invitation had been aimed not at her, but at the countess? And why had the countess, who did not suffer fools, refused a man who was clearly no kind of fool whatsoever?
Chapter Three
“You were very bad, Aunt Freddy,” Beatitude said, drawing a finger along the mantel. A smudge developed on her fingertip, meaning another scold was in order for Aunt’s housekeeper. “You should not importune an earl to repair instruments that have been broken for ages.”
Fredericka Beauchamp had been a great beauty in her day, back when fashion had favored well-curved females rather than the willowy, boyish figure now in vogue. In later years, Freddy had grown plump, and Beatitude had loved her hugs. They were soft and fierce at the same time, and fragrant with the scents of camphor and verbena.
Now, Aunt Freddy seemed to grow smaller each year. Her hugs were still fierce, but they’d become bony, and Beatitude didn’t dare hug her back with the abandon of a favored niece.
Aunt Freddy, don’t leave me. The same plea Beatitude had made when she’d been banished to boarding school and when Aunt had come to pay her rare calls at the vicarage. Don’t leave me amid these joyless, dour saints who are crushing my spirit one sermon at a time.
“I have not been bad, Addy mine,” Aunt Freddy replied, knitting needles clicking away. “I knew Casriel’s parents. Lovely couple, though the earl was a bit distracted with his horticulture. Not too distracted. Between his first and second wives, he had a regiment of children, all of them with those lovely eyes. The present titleholder is too serious. He has his papa’s focus, but has aimed it entirely at duty rather than at any particular passion.”
Casriel was passionate about the harp. Beatitude traced the base of a candlestick and found more dust. “His lordship is an adult, and you must respect his choices.” As I must.
“Addy dearest, where has my fun-loving, warmhearted girl gone? Did Roger take all of your joy with him when he wrecked his curricle in that ditch?”
The windows were also in need of a good scrubbing, coal dust being a chronic problem in London. Then too, the parlor smelled less than fresh. The carpets needed beating and a liberal sprinkling of dried lavender, while the drapery should have been tied back with verbena sachets.
“I am a widow,” Beatitude said. “I loved my husband. Grief changes our perspective.” Though that husband had never called her Addy or dearest.
Aunt laughed, her mirth dry and papery. “I’ve been at widowing rather longer than you, my dear. I loved my darling husband too, and yes, widowhood changes us. It needn’t turn us into angry nuns.”
“I am not angry.” Though I am as celibate as a nun.
Aunt put down her knitting needles, struggled to her feet—she boosted herself off the chair arms more than she rose on main strength—and crossed the room.
“Beatitude, I shall soon go to my reward. Please do not trouble what time remains to me with worries for my favorite niece.”
Aunt was so tiny, so pale and frail, as if the girl she’d once been was haunting her from within. “You give me this speech every Season, Aunt.”
“Not every Season. I waited until Roger had been gone for three years. I like Casriel. A woman can like a man, and a man can like her in return. Casriel knows virtually every tune written for the harp and all styles of crafting the instrument. He sang me a little Scottish air about some fool who’d sold his fiddle for a dram of whisky, and I realized the concert hall is missing a fine talent. Did you know he’s a first-rate painter of landscapes?”
He sang for you. Addy tucked the shawl up around her aunt’s shoulders. “You can be friends with a man half your age. My options are more limited.”
“Quite the contrary. Your options are greater than my own, provided you are discreet. I suspect Casriel was born discreet.”
“While you were born with a naughty streak.”
“You wanted to grow up to be just like me.” Aunt resumed h
er place in the wing chair, settling into the cushions with a sigh. “When you’re staring death in the face, Addy my girl, you will not wish you’d spent more evenings at home knitting shawls.”
“No more talk of death, please, and no more inveigling the Earl of Casriel with matchmaking-by-harp. Were he interested in me, he’s had plenty of time to make that interest apparent.”
Aunt picked up her knitting, arranging the completed portion of the shawl over her knees. The yarn was a soft, lavender blue that put Addy in mind of Casriel’s eyes, but then, everything brought the earl to mind. Not since Addy had been smitten with her late husband had she felt this unruly fixation on a male of the species.
“Casriel isn’t like that boy you were married to,” Aunt said, needles clicking. “Roger clung to the privileges of boyhood, though he was an understandable choice and a charmer. Casriel is a man. He’ll not come simply because you crook your finger, and he’ll not come laughing in any case.”
“When did you become an expert on enticing men?”
Aunt aimed a particularly solemn glance at Addy, her needles moving in the same steady rhythm. Some snippet of mythology tugged at Addy’s imagination, the Fates perhaps, spinning out the length of mortal lives.
“I am an expert on living for decades without a companion to share my days, young lady. See that you don’t grow up to be just like me in that regard, at least.”
That salvo was all the more devastating for being quietly offered. “Casriel needs money, Aunt. I haven’t much of that now and never will.”
Aunt Freddy flipped the half-made shawl over. “Money is not the only form of wealth a man can appreciate. All aristocrats think they need money, when, in fact, they have a roof over their heads which will stand for centuries, more land to cultivate than the common man can fathom, art treasures cluttering up their attics, and stables that provide better accommodations than some inns. He does not need money, he merely wants it.”
If the Earl of Casriel was marrying for money, then he needed money. “He doesn’t want to marry at all.”
Addy made another circuit of the room, concluding that more than a lecture was due the housekeeper. The time had come to issue a threat. The carpet needed beating, the whole room wanted a good dusting, and no flowers had been brought in from the garden to beautify an old woman’s day. Creeping damp was the next phase of neglect, and from there, a house could crumble in a very short time.
“Lord Casriel told me his father hadn’t wanted to marry either,” Addy said, peering more closely at a sketch beside the hearth. “Is this me?” She hadn’t noticed the drawing previously, or perhaps it hadn’t been on display. “It is me.”
The younger version of Beatitude was a little thinner, a little more lithe, and she was radiantly happy. Her resemblance to Fredericka was obvious about the smile and the warmth in her eyes.
“Who did this?”
Aunt did not reply, and her needles had gone silent.
She’d fallen asleep in the middle of a call, a rare occurrence until recently. Clearly, matchmaking had tired the old dear out. Addy extricated the needles from Aunt’s grasp, folded up the shawl so the needles were on top, and set the lot on Aunt’s knitting basket.
“I’ll come again soon,” Addy said, kissing her aunt’s cheek.
Though visiting Aunt had become a labor of love. She had been Addy’s dearest friend and relation, and she was fading.
Addy committed the unpardonable offense of appearing in the housekeeper’s parlor without notice and issued a writ of ejection, stayed only by the housekeeper’s assurances that Mrs. Beauchamp refused to let anybody clean in her private parlor, and she noticed if the maids tried to dust on the sly.
“Dust anyway,” Addy said. “If Aunt has callers, she will be embarrassed by the state of her parlor, and if her parlor is a disgrace, she won’t be home to them anyway.”
The housekeeper curtseyed until her cap came loose. Addy inspected the rest of the house and found the housekeeper had spoken honestly. For the most part, the dwelling was clean and orderly. Only the bedroom and sitting room—where Aunt spent most of her time—had been neglected.
Perhaps another trip to Bath was in order. That daunting thought occurred to Addy as she met her footman at the bottom of Aunt’s porch steps.
“Where to now, my lady?”
“Home, Thiel. I’m only capable of so much socializing in a day, and I’m expected at a card party tonight.”
“Pretty day to be out and about, though, ma’am. London shows to best advantage in spring.”
A footman typically did not converse with his employer, but Thiel was a holdover from before Roger’s death. He’d come with Roger from the seat of the Canmore earldom and declined to return there when Addy had been widowed. He was probably five years her senior, handsome as footmen were supposed to be, and cheerful.
Addy liked him. When she’d first put off mourning, she had wondered if she was attracted to him, but had reasoned that if attraction was a matter of speculation, it wasn’t attraction, but rather, boredom, or some other more troubling sentiment.
She was attracted to Casriel—no question about that, more’s the pity—and she suspected he was attracted to her as well. His lordship was simply too proper to yield to any wayward impulses.
“Looks like you’re to have company,” Thiel said as they approached Addy’s house.
A tall gentleman was striding up the walk. He wore standard daytime attire—breeches, waistcoat, morning coat, top hat, cravat in a simple knot, no ornamentation. His walk was not the gentlemanly saunter, however.
This fellow would arrive at his chosen destination long before the saunterers or strollers. He moved with the purpose of a man who expected to cover miles in the course of a day and who decided exactly where he would arrive and when—and in whose company.
“Lord Casriel.” Addy curtseyed.
He swept off his hat and bowed to a correct depth. “My lady. If you could spare me a few minutes of your time, I’d be grateful.”
“Of course.” Addy took the earl’s arm, and Thiel trotted up the steps to open the front door. His lordship’s usual genial demeanor had been replaced by a gravity that reminded Addy of Mrs. Palmyra Whitling’s words.
Casriel was not a boy.
“Shall I ring for tea?” Addy asked when Thiel had taken his lordship’s hat and walking stick.
“Tea will not be necessary. A word with you in private would be appreciated.”
“This way.” Addy led him not to her formal parlor, but to her personal sitting room. She wanted to see him among her favorite artwork and comfortable furniture, wanted the quiet available at the back of the house.
“How are you?” Casriel asked. The question was nearly fierce.
“I am well, and you?”
“In good health, thank you.” He stared down at her. “I am not like Tresham, who needed the services of a matchmaker to find him a suitable lady.”
This was interesting. “But you are angry.”
“Frustrated, my lady.”
“With me?”
“Because of you.”
“Should I be flattered?”
Casriel ran a hand through thick chestnut hair. “Probably not, but with ladies, a gentleman can never be certain.”
“Might we sit?”
“I can’t stay long.”
“But you won’t leave without saying your piece, so let’s be done with it, shall we?”
The countess exuded serenity, while Grey felt torn between foolishness and determination. He’d slept badly, then his horse had thrown a shoe in the park at first light. What should have been a good gallop had become a hike through Mayfair’s streets towing a gelding who had perfected the art of the theatrical limp.
Grey had attempted to deal with his correspondence, because he was two weeks behind with the steward’s reports from Dorning Hall, but Sycamore had wandered by, intent on discussing his new business venture. The morning had been a waste, and luncheon at th
e club had seemed like a small consolation.
Ha. Grey had been unable to enjoy his steak in a dining room that still reeked from last night’s smoking in the cardroom across the corridor. He’d made the mistake of glancing at the betting book on his way out the door, and his day had gone from trying to impossible.
Her ladyship took a seat, making a portrait of feminine contentment in a wing chair near the window. She clearly wasn’t afraid of sunlight, though that thought brought a question. What did she fear? What could ruffle her composure? What preoccupied her when she laid her head on her pillow and waited for sleep to come?
Not you, old chap.
“My club keeps a book,” Grey said, rather than attempt any small talk. “The ledger records wagers of all kinds.” He wanted to pace, but this little parlor would afford him about two strides in any direction. The appointments were comfortable and pretty, also delicate enough to be easily smashed by a heedless earl.
The mantel held a series of porcelain figures in gilded pastels—a laughing shepherd boy, a girl in a straw hat with a goose curled adoringly against her skirts, another girl who was barefoot and leading a small cow. Sheep figured among the collection, as did a white donkey with a blue butterfly on its nose.
Whimsical, bucolic choices for a Mayfair countess, and the sight of them helped settle Grey’s temper. This might have been a series of scenes from the home farm in Dorset, where Grey could return when his task in London was completed.
“Are you the subject of a wager?” Lady Canmore asked.
“I am the subject of a host of wagers, all of them recent and inappropriate.”
Her ladyship looked as if she were studying a hand of cards, deciding what to toss and what to keep. “I was married to a man who took enthusiastically to life’s joys. I am familiar with the mechanics of conception. I know that across the street and three doors down, a pretty woman of years comparable to my own maintains a common nuisance. From my morning room, I can see who patronizes her establishment. I know who spends the entire night there, and who is in and out—so to speak—in less than half an hour.”
A Truly Perfect Gentleman Page 4