by M C Beaton
The now less intimidated Colbys, fortified with wine, looked at her with dislike.
Susan was wearing a white muslin gown, cut low enough to reveal more of her angular, bony body than Amanda felt was decent. Her black hair was dressed with an elaborate confection of flowers and jewels.
Aunt Matilda was attired in scarlet merino with black stripes, making Amanda wonder if the Fitzgeralds were getting rid of all their unsuitable clothes by giving them to their guests.
The next arrival was an extremely handsome woman in her late twenties. She was wearing a white evening dress of leno, a thin linen fabric worked in the Etruscan pattern, cut low at the back and worn high in the front. The back was drawn and finished with a loose bow ornamented with footing lace. On her blonde hair she wore a headdress of white satin, ornamented with flowers.
She had very bright blue eyes and that breezy, unaffected manner which is often assumed by people who are in fact extremely affected.
“Lady Mary Dane,” announced the butler as she swept into the room.
This, then, was Lord Hawksborough’s fiancée.
Mrs. Fitzgerald performed the introductions. Susan, to Amanda’s surprise, made an attempt at cordiality, even going so far as to compliment Lady Mary on her gown.
Lady Mary’s bright blue gaze rested for a long moment on Richard, flicked over Amanda, and then settled on Aunt Matilda.
“You must be Mrs. Fitzgerald’s old school friend,” she cried, holding out both hands to Aunt Matilda. “Are you not fatigued after your journey?”
“I…” began Aunt Matilda, but Lady Mary had already swung around. “Charles!” she exclaimed.
Lord Hawksborough walked into the room. Amanda drew in her breath. Beside her, she could sense Richard’s stillness.
Lord Hawksborough raised Lady Mary’s hand to his lips. He was in full evening dress, looking much more magnificent than the last time Amanda had seen him. Even his eyes seemed different, she thought, seeing the amused warmth in them as he looked about the room.
Without the bad-tempered expression which had marred his features at the assembly, he appeared an extremely handsome, vital, and attractive man.
He was introduced to Aunt Matilda and then he turned to face the Colbys.
The silver eyes blinked a little as he looked at Amanda. Amanda felt very dowdy and insignificant beside the other ladies.
Lord Hawksborough was still looking at her and he was beginning to frown. Amanda’s heart missed a beat and she moved a little closer to her brother.
It’s that girl from the assembly, Lord Hawksborough was thinking. Colby, of course. And this Richard is her brother!
He saw the familiar turn of her head and the way the elegance of her London hairstyle set off the proud shape of it. He saw the translucence of her skin, complimented by the dark stuff of her gown. He saw the strange gold-flecked eyes with their wary, watching look. He thought she looked enchanting.
Feeling increasingly plain and dowdy, Amanda dropped a curtsy.
“Miss Amanda,” he said, smiling into her eyes. “We have met. How could I forget you? No one has noticed my leg since. And this is Richard, your brother? There I was at that wretched, boring assembly, pining away because I thought he was your country swain. You cannot conceive the agonies of jealousy that racked my poor frame.”
Lady Mary took his arm in a possessive grip and smiled at Amanda in a kind of brittle way. “Pay no attention to Charles,” she said. “He is always breaking the hearts of little girls with his empty compliments.”
Lord Hawksborough glanced at his fiancée.
He was about to give her a set-down by saying he had meant every word of it. But he was about to be married, and his flirting with Miss Colby had been insulting to his future bride.
He gave Lady Mary’s hand a warm squeeze. “You know me very well.” He laughed, leading her towards the fire.
“As if you would look at her when you’ve got Lady Mary,” said Susan. Susan gave Lady Mary a fawning look and Amanda thought with irritation: She has a schoolgirl adoration of Lady Mary.
Lord Hawksborough turned around and glared at Susan. “You were sent to that seminary against my wishes. We could well have afforded a governess for you, but Mother said the company of other girls would humanize you. The experiment seems to have failed miserably. Try for a little courtesy.”
Susan flushed to the roots of her hair, and Amanda found herself almost sorry for the girl.
Dinner was announced.
Amanda was by now not surprised to find that Mrs. Fitzgerald had chosen the state dining room for dinner, rather than settling for one of the smaller family dining rooms.
Dinner was a long and awkward meal. They were all seated so far away from each other that conversation had to be carried on at the pitch of the voice.
The only ones this seemed to trouble were Amanda, Richard, and Aunt Matilda. Lord Hawksborough and Lady Mary seemed to be able to make their voices carry without bothering to shout, and mother and sister talked in very loud voices even when they didn’t have to.
At last the ladies arose to leave the gentlemen to their wine, the only gentlemen being Richard and Lord Hawksborough. The viscount noticed the nervous, almost warning look Amanda threw her brother before she left the room. He assumed Richard might not be able to carry his wine.
Amanda suffered the tortures of the damned waiting for the gentlemen to join the ladies. What if Richard’s conscience got the better of him and he blurted out the whole story?
But when they returned, after what seemed like a terribly long time to Amanda, Richard looked happy and excited and Lord Hawksborough urbane and amused.
Susan was pressed by Mrs. Fitzgerald to entertain the company, which she finally did with bad grace. She plumped herself down at the flat harpsichord-pianoforte and started to play “The Woodpecker” with amazing verve and quite terrible inaccuracy.
The muslin of her gown and petticoat had become caught on the edge of the piano stool so that Susan was exposing an unmaidenly length of hairy, muscular leg encased in a flesh-colored stocking. “I must tell her to pull her gown down,” whispered Amanda to Richard. “No one else is going to trouble.”
“Never mind her wretched legs. I say, she is a hairy ’un, ain’t she?” said Richard, his voice tinged with awe. “You’ll never guess what Hawksborough said to me!”
“What?” Amanda’s attention was successfully diverted from Susan.
“He is sending me off to Oxford! Imagine! I am to live with his old tutor until I am ready to start the new term.”
“Richard!” gasped Amanda, clinging to his arm and turning quite pale. “You cannot leave me. Take me with you.”
“Don’t clutch,” said Richard crossly, shaking his arm free. “What’s come over you, Amanda? You’ve got everything here a girl could possibly desire.”
“How can you? How can you say such a thing? I am to be left with that dreadful Susan and that awful Mrs. Fitzgerald. And what about the jewels?”
“Shhhh! Not so loud. Forget about the jewels. Don’t you see? It will be easy for me to skip down from Oxford and pick them up and return them quietly. Hawksborough’s a great gun, Amanda. I wish to goodness we had never done such a thing. And to think I took his ring! I only did it because you said he had been horrible to you. You’re an awful liar, Amanda. He couldn’t be awful to anyone.”
“Richard!” gasped Amanda, white to the lips. “I don’t know you. I don’t know you at all.”
“Stop talking fustian. Look, I’ll write.”
“When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow.”
“You can’t leave tomorrow. We’ve only just got here!”
“Stop saying can’t, can’t, can’t in that maddening way. This old tutor of Hawksborough’s happens to be leaving London tomorrow. I’m only going to Oxford.”
Amanda shook her head in a dazed way. Never in her wildest dreams had she ever thought of Richard so selfishly abandoning her.
Mrs. Fitz
gerald chose that moment to call for a game of whist, and Richard, anxious to ingratiate himself with his hosts and to get away from his demanding sister, eagerly offered to make up a four. Susan slammed the keys of the pianoforte in an angry way and then strode from the room.
Mrs. Fitzgerald was partnered by Aunt Matilda, and Richard was partnered by Lady Mary.
Lord Hawksborough strolled over to where Amanda was sitting in the corner, his quick eyes taking in the pallor of her face and the slight trembling of her hands.
“Has young Colby told you his news?” he asked.
Amanda nodded. “It is all very sudden,” she said in a low voice.
“It is a good opportunity. Are you frightened at being left alone in a strange house with… er… strange people?”
Amanda nodded again, and then shivered, for the room was cold.
“Come with me,” he said. “We can talk more easily in the library. It is much warmer there.”
“Won’t Lady… won’t anyone mind?” asked Amanda, looking over at the card players.
“No, why should they?” He offered her his arm as he had done at the assembly.
He led the way through the vast expanse of the cold hall and up the stairs to the first floor and into a large and pleasant library.
A cheerful fire blazed on the hearth and firelight flickered over the rows and rows of calf-bound volumes along the walls. He rang the bell and ordered wine and biscuits, and then settled Amanda in a chair by the fire and took the chair opposite.
“Now, Miss Amanda,” he said, pouring her a glass of wine after the servant had left, “tell me your troubles. My mother is not so frightening as she appears. She will bully people if they let her. Susan is a great problem. I really don’t know what is wrong with her. If Mother hopes to marry her this Season, then she has much more confidence in the attractions of a large dowry than I. Susan is rude and loud, but not malicious. So what made you so pale this evening?”
“It was when Richard told me he was leaving.”
“You love your brother very much?”
“Yes. I don’t know. I don’t know anyone else, you see.”
“Ah, now I remember. I gather that you have practically no money and that, if I recall what you said correctly, you had no social life.”
“That is correct,” said Amanda, looking away from him, because the interest and concern in his strange eyes were doing things to her breathing. She took a great gulp of wine and went on, “Richard and I did everything together. We went hunting and fishing and shooting. I did not go to school, but Richard did, and he taught me to read and write.”
“You had better begin at the beginning,” he said gently. “When did your parents die?”
And so Amanda did as she was bid, beginning to lean back in her chair and relax under the soothing effect of the wine, the heat from the fire, and his interest in her life.
It was a dreary little story, reflected the viscount with a stab of compassion: weeks and months and years of scrimping and saving with no friends or family other than a faded spinster aunt and a twin brother.
The firelight brought out the red and gold lights like little sparks in her hair and her eyes grew wider and darker as she became absorbed in her story.
When she had finished, he said quietly, “I think you would feel better about your situation here if you were to know that you had a certain measure of independence. My mother is inclined to be thoughtless, and would have you begging for every penny. She likes to be generous. She is generous. But she likes to exact friendship and affection in return. It is the only way she knows of getting it.”
Amanda arched her brows in amazement at his candour. Did all people see their parents in such a detached way? Amanda could not remember her own.
“And so,” he went on, “I shall see that an allowance is paid to you and we will furnish you with a dowry.”
Amanda’s eyes filled with tears. She remembered the jewels. She remembered his ruby ring and how it had blazed on his finger and how it was now under the stable floor.
She felt so miserable and guilt-ridden that she said, “You were not thus at the assembly! You seemed so hard… and… and I heard you tell the earl that you had never spent a more boring evening, and I heard you, and I wanted to sink through the floor with humiliation!”
“Oh, my wretched tongue,” he said. “I am as bad as Susan. I did not mean you, my fairy. I meant the earl and his terrible food and his dreadful guests.”
“But you looked so grim!”
He smiled at her anguished expression. “Indigestion, Miss Amanda. It was the first time I had ever suffered from it and I hope it may be the last. I had never had such filthy food as I was forced to eat at Hardforshire’s.”
“I cannot accept your generosity,” wailed Amanda. “I will not take, you know.”
“During the Season? Why on earth not?”
“Well, I am not exactly… well, Richard and Aunt Matilda are very kind about it but they do know that I am very plain.…”
“My dear child, you are the most enchanting creature I have seen in a long while. You have a very rare, elfin sort of beauty which is very captivating. I shall be beating your suitors from the door by the beginning of May.”
“You are too kind,” said Amanda in a stifled voice.
“I mean it. Did no one tell you you were beautiful before?”
Amanda dumbly shook her head.
“Then you are. I can see you do not believe me, but there will soon be plenty of other men to tell you so.”
She looked at him, her whole face illuminated with happiness. He felt a strange pain in his chest and wondered if he was about to be cursed with a recurrence of indigestion.
“Thank you,” breathed Amanda. “You have just given me a wonderful present.” She darted from her chair and kissed him impulsively on the cheek.
“Oh,” she said, blushing with confusion and subsiding back in her own chair again. “How very forward of me.”
“Not at all,” he said, his eyes enigmatic. “I am not averse to being kissed by pretty girls.” His silver eyes lit up with a wicked glint. “Like to try again?”
“Oh, my lord, I really do not think Lady Mary—”
“No, of course not,” he said quickly, wondering what there was about Miss Colby that gave him this overwhelming desire to flirt.
“Talking about Lady Mary,” he went on, “she is to go into the country tomorrow and this is the last time I shall see her for a few weeks. I must make my way back and enjoy as much of her company as I can.”
He rose to his feet.
“Could… do I have to go back?” asked Amanda.
“No, I will make your excuses for you.” He walked to the doorway and then hesitated. “I do not have any commitments tomorrow. After you say good-bye to your brother, I will show you a little of London if you would like.”
With all my heart and soul, Amanda was about to say, but she managed to bite it back and say demurely, “I should like that above all things.”
“Very well,” he said. “Good night, Miss Colby.”
After he had gone, Amanda pirouetted around the room, overwhelmed with joy about having a protector against the stern Mrs. Fitzgerald and the awkward Susan. But then she remembered those wretched jewels and wished it had all never happened. If only she could move the clock back to the night of the assembly.
She walked from the library and up to the second floor, trying to remember where her bedroom was.
As she passed a door, she heard noisy sounds of crying.
Susan!
Her hand went to the knob and then dropped. Whatever ailed Susan, Amanda was sure she would not tell a stranger like herself. She wandered along one corridor and then another until she found a servant trimming the lamps and asked him to show her the way.
With the optimism of youth, Amanda decided to forget about the jewels for the moment and simply enjoy the fact that although Richard was going away, she had already found another brother to replace
him.
The brother being Lord Hawksborough.
5
Amanda was still hurt by Richard’s callous unconcern and made a very formal good-bye to him the next morning. To her irritation, Richard was so excited, he did not even seem to notice.
Lord Hawksborough told Amanda to put on her warmest clothes because they would be riding in an open carriage. Mathers, the maid, was miraculously on hand to help her into a blue velvet carriage costume and a Cardinal mantle of black cloth lined and trimmed with white fur. A capote was placed on her head, that bonnet with the soft crown and a stiff brim framing the face. And wonder of wonders, she found herself the proud possessor of a new pair of York tan gloves, those buff-colored suede gloves which were fashionable wear for men and women alike.