There!
A flash of motion on the road, a cloud of dust traveling up from town!
The galloping rider disappeared from view behind the trees, but Grace’s heart had already leaped up into her throat. Butterflies crashed about inside her stomach.
He’s back.
Chapter 13
Now that the guest of honor had returned to Thistleton, the Windleshams’ dinner party (or the Win-Din, as Papa had privately dubbed it) could finally proceed.
A couple of nights after she had seen her neighbor thundering up the road on his horse, the grand occasion arrived at last.
Grace was nervous to see Lord Trevor again after their angry parting at the tavern. She was not sure if he would greet her with a smile or a snub, but it would determine how she would receive him, in turn.
Her father fully expected her to be nice to him, and, of course, she’d be gracious, she told herself with some indignation—as if their quarrel were all her fault!
But since she did expect a certain degree of hostility from her handsome neighbor after she had behaved so condescendingly to him (though she really hadn’t meant to), she kept her expectations low.
She would live up to her father’s standards if it killed her. But she wished with all her heart that Lord Trevor might signal a willingness to end their hostilities and enter into a truce.
Only time would tell. But at least she wouldn’t have long to wait.
Windlesham Hall was quite the finest baronial manner for miles around, save only the grand ancestral pile of the Marquess of Lievedon. As the Kenwoods rode up in their carriage, they found the long, stately drive up to the house illuminated with lanterns.
Pulling up to the entrance, they saw the front pillars swathed in gauzy lengths of fabric. Massive urns teemed with mounds of flowers whose parti-colored blooms and trailing tendrils waved in the breeze.
A row of liveried footmen stood by to assist the arriving guests. One whisked Grace’s Paisley shawl away from her when she and Papa walked into the entrance.
The impressive space was hung with garlands and bunches of grapes, and the British flag was proudly displayed, draped over the upper railing of the grand staircase. All very suitable for the occasion of welcoming a conquering war hero to a dinner party held in his honor, Grace thought rather dryly.
She and Papa exchanged a glance.
“Quite a show, even for the Windleshams,” he said under his breath, as they waited for the lady of the house to receive them.
Grace took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, mentally battening down the hatches as Lady Windlesham sailed toward them.
“Reverend! Miss Kenwood!”
Greetings were exchanged, the expected compliments offered, then the Kenwoods were assigned to their respective groups.
Of course, Papa had a longer leash than she did. He got away with lingering in the entrance hall for a while longer, talking to a couple of the other gentlemen about some sporting news, while Grace was politely ordered upstairs to the drawing room, where the other ladies and the more obedient gentlemen awaited Lord Trevor’s imminent arrival.
“He has not yet come?”
“No. Listen—my dear.” Lady Windlesham grasped Grace’s forearm to command her full attention while she walked her up the staircase to the drawing room. “There is a matter I wish to discuss with you.”
I’ll bet. “Yes, my lady?”
“I was shocked, Miss Kenwood, shocked, I say, to hear that you let my daughter go rushing over to the Grange unchaperoned.”
Grace blinked in astonishment at this rebuke. Oh, this was going to be a wonderful evening.
“Fortunately, however,” the baroness conceded with a sly half smile, “I believe it worked in her favor. He had no choice but to notice her. Still, it could have been a disaster.”
“I tried to tell her so, my lady. But she wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Of course she wouldn’t listen to you!” Calpurnia’s doting mother exclaimed. “She is eighteen! She doesn’t listen to anyone, not even her own father. I just would have thought that you would have managed to go with her there! Not to trouble you,” she said in reproach, “but you have always been so solicitous toward her ever since she was a child. I’m sure you don’t want to see her ruin herself any more than I do.”
Grace hated how the woman had made her stammer. “I-I’m afraid Miss Windlesham dashed off so quickly that day—well, I followed as fast as I could.”
“I understand,” Her Ladyship said with lavish condescension. “I just hope you will be faster if such a thing should happen again. In the meanwhile, I have talked to her. She understands now that if she intends to win a man of the world like our new neighbor, she is going to have to cool her heels and not chase him about like she’s riding to the hounds. Oh, Miss Kenwood. You were there.” Lady Windlesham stopped near the top step and pulled Grace to a halt, turning to her with a hint of shame. “By the time you caught up to her, what did you see? Did my daughter make a fool of herself? As her mother, I really should know, and, of course, Calpurnia would never admit to any mistake. But if she disgraced herself in any small way, it will help me determine how to treat my guest. Are apologies in order, or—”
“No, no, not at all, my lady,” Grace assured her. “I believe Lord Trevor was charmed, and simply saw her as an innocent girl full of youthful exuberance.”
The baroness pressed a hand to her heart. “Oh, I am so relieved to hear it. Thank you, Miss Kenwood, you have put my mind at ease. I know you would not lie to me.”
“Never, ma’am.”
“Well!” Lady Windlesham took another commanding grip of Grace’s elbow and resumed steering her up the stairs and into the upper hallway. “Tonight I am determined that Lord Trevor should see my daughter as a possible future bride.”
“I’m sure he will, ma’am. Look at her,” Grace said fondly, as they stepped into the drawing room. “She looks like an angel that fluttered down to earth.”
“If only she would act the part,” her mother quipped. “If you’ll excuse me, I must go and gather the rest of our guests. I am glad we understand each other,” she added, giving Grace a conspiratorial nod before she bustled off.
Turning to face the drawing room, Grace offered the gathered company there a curtsy.
“Grace!” Calpurnia exclaimed from the striped sofa, where she sat on display like a doll in a fancy toy shop.
Grace smiled at her with the loving admiration of a proud elder sister as the girl popped up out of her seat and flounced over to her in a whoosh of the pale yellow satin skirts. “I’m so glad you’re here!”
“I’m glad to be here.”
Calpurnia took hold of her and steered her away from the others before she could do more than exchange a few smiles and nods with the assembly of their more genteel neighbors. “What is it, dearest?”
“I’m so nervous to see Lord Trevor!” the girl confessed in a giddy whisper. “I’m so afraid I’m going to make a cake-head of myself again!”
“Oh, no, I’m sure you won’t. Just be yourself.”
“Pshaw, that’s not going to work. I already tried that, and everyone scolded me. Including you! But now Mother’s told me what to do. Might as well try it,” she said with a wide-eyed shrug.
Grace looked at her uneasily. “What did your mother advise?”
“Less is more,” Callie quoted. She then proceeded to elaborate in hushed tones on the advice the baroness had given her. “ ‘Do you remember when you were a little girl and you were enchanted with your father’s fancy pigeons?’ she asked me, and I did. I was a toddler back then. How I loved those beautiful birds with their shaggy, tufted legs! I always wanted to pick them up and hug them. ‘But every time you’d go tripping toward them,’ Mother said, ‘you’d scare them away, and then you’d scream bloody murder until somebody handed one to
you.’ She said it’s the same with men.”
“Really?”
“ ‘You must let Lord Trevor come to you in his own time, or he will flee you like the pigeons.’ I suppose she’s right. Ladies have been probably trying to snare him ever since he came of age. After all, he is the son of a duke. So—” Calpurnia let out a sigh. “I will bide my time and restrain myself somehow. Then he will think I’m demure and biddable, then, once I’ve married him, I can go back to being myself!” she finished brightly.
“Ahh,” Grace echoed with a mystified nod. Beyond that, she was speechless at these machinations.
As Calpurnia bounded off again to answer a question from Lady De Geoffrey, Grace was left wondering if she should be a little insulted that it did not even occur to Lady Windlesham—let alone her daughter—that she herself might have an interest in their new neighbor.
Or that he might be interested in her.
She supposed it seemed unlikely. Although Marianne had told Papa that Lord Trevor had been asking questions about her, that didn’t necessarily mean he was interested in any romantic sense. He could have been simply gathering information about life in the village. At this point, Grace wasn’t even sure if she was really interested in him. So what did it signify?
She had not liked the way he had yelled at the Nelcott boys, and she had not at all approved of how quickly he had found his way to Marianne. But thinking back to that darkened parlor in Lievedon House, she had to admit that she certainly liked the way he kissed.
Just then, a commotion and a loud cheer from the entrance hall below could be heard all the way up in the drawing room.
The fat, jolly countess Lady Stokes flew across the room with startling speed for a woman in her sixties. She pushed aside the drape and peered out the window overlooking the courtyard. “He’s here! Man alive, no false calves on those legs, I wager. Ha!”
At this, the pinched, gray Lady De Geoffrey, her nemesis, nearly fainted dead away into the fireplace.
Grace lowered her head and pressed her fingertips to her brow, letting out a sigh. Hero or not, Lord Trevor had no idea what he was in for tonight at the Win-Din. Hopefully his spy training in how to endure interrogation and detect others’ hidden agendas would stand him in good stead.
When Papa and Lord Windlesham showed him into the drawing room a few minutes later, the ladies stared for a second in awed silence.
He was devastating in formal black and white, larger-than-life, his broad shoulders hugged by an excellently cut tailcoat. Smooth black trousers hugged the long expanse of his legs—and Lady Stokes was right. No false padding there.
His starched cravat was snowy white, his silk waistcoat a pin-striped silver shade that brought out the gray of his eyes.
Grace was loath to admire him, all things considered, but even she was slightly breathless by the magnificence of their new neighbor.
He bowed to the assembly, and as he straightened up again, he had the most beautiful posture she had ever seen. His chin high, his shoulders back, chest out; he carried himself with an almost princely air. But his tone was one of humility, and his attitude most warm and gentlemanly as he turned his attention to their hostess.
Every lady there seemed to be fighting not to swoon, but Lady Windlesham snapped out of her study of him.
He appeared to meet with her approval right away, except for his long hair. But that, she no doubt told herself, was an easy fix in a future son-in-law.
She went gusting toward him, grasped his arm with a proprietary air, and led him around the room like a prize stallion she had just bought at auction.
Her first stop, of course, was Calpurnia, who dimpled at him and blushed and looked like the perfect doll on the sofa again.
He seemed charmed. “Nice to see you again, Miss Windlesham.”
“My lord.” She bowed her head demurely.
From there, the baroness brought him around, introducing him to all the other guests in order of precedence.
Precedence was everything with Lady Windlesham.
“Now then. You must meet Lord and Lady Stokes.”
“Jolly good!” said the earl, a man as jovial and rotund as his wife, and every bit as vulgar.
The high-ranking pair unashamedly enjoyed shocking their more decorous neighbors, especially Sir Phillip and Lady De Geoffrey, who came next.
“Sir Phillip was knighted after years as a judge of the King’s Court in London. Before that, he was a barrister.”
Lord Trevor bowed. “Pleased to meet you, Sir Phillip, Lady De Geoffrey.”
The stately pair, gray-haired and angular, greeted him politely.
“Now Sir Phillip serves as our local magistrate, or justice of the peace,” Lady Windlesham rattled on, as if none of her prized guests could speak for themselves. “The Marquess of Lievedon himself appointed him—you do know Lord Lievedon is lord lieutenant of the county, don’t you?”
“I do now,” he replied with a smile, and Grace thought he’d better be careful around Sir Phillip. The justice had been complaining of late that they needed a new constable, and the war hero might just find himself tapped for this honorary post, just one of the many little duties of local life.
It was supposed to be no more than a yearlong commitment that rotated among the leading male citizens of the community, but somehow, old Clive Reese, their leading local chess player, had insisted on carrying the burden of the office for many years now, never mind that he was entering his eighties. Fortunately, there was never anyone in Thistleton to arrest.
Beaming with pride in her assembly, Lady Windlesham tugged her guest of honor along. “Now, then, this is our dear Dr. Bowen-Hill and his wife, Mariah. He is not just our local physician but a great writer of books on health advice. He invented Dr. Bowen-Hill’s Mint and Lavender Tonic for the Sore Throat. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”
“Er, it certainly sounds familiar,” he answered, obviously lying, Grace thought, but his smile was charming. “Pleased to meet you both.”
“And, of course, you already know our dear Reverend Kenwood and his daughter.”
Lord Trevor stopped in front of Grace and met her gaze warily, then bowed. “Miss Kenwood.”
“My lord.” She offered a modest curtsy in reply, her heart pounding, but he was impossible to read.
His gray eyes were mirrors, revealing nothing of his sentiments toward her, neither warm nor cold, but carefully guarded. She did not know what to make of it, but she was soon forgotten, for everyone had a million questions for him, and moments later, it was time to go down to dine.
Not even a blind man could have missed the true purpose of the dinner party as everyone was paired up like the animals in Noah’s Ark for the procession down to the dining room.
Lady Windlesham, as hostess, took the arm of Earl Stokes, the highest-ranking male. Lord Windlesham, a perennially annoyed man, escorted the laughing Lady Stokes down the stairs with a stoic look on his face though he never quite managed to hide his general irritation.
Lord Trevor was directed toward Calpurnia, to the surprise of none. Sir Phillip and Lady De Geoffrey were absorbed in conversation with Dr. and Mrs. Bowen-Hill, and since they lingered, Grace took her father’s offered arm.
They exchanged a wry look and proceeded down the stairs.
Strictly speaking, the couples had fallen out of the correct order of precedence. Fortunately, Lady Windlesham did not notice this infringement of protocol, busily telling the gourmand Lord Stokes about the grand meal ahead. In any case, since the Kenwoods had fallen in behind Calpurnia and the hero of the evening, Grace found herself privy to their exchange whether she liked it or not.
She didn’t.
Indeed, what she heard made her eyes widen. Good God! Surely this was not part of Calpurnia’s plan to “play it cool.”
It seemed the girl could not restrain her exuberant nature.
“Please don’t think that I’m one to listen to gossip, my lord, but I couldn’t help overhearing how you’ve suffered a recent disappointment. Please—don’t be alarmed,” she assured him. “I don’t mean to intrude. It’s just that I, too, have experienced a broken engagement to a young man. I know from personal experience how painful it can be. So I just wanted to tell you, if you ever need to talk . . .”
Grace closed her eyes, mortified for her feckless young friend. Papa coughed to hold back a laugh.
Lord Trevor looked at the girl as if she had sprouted two heads.
“You can call on me at any time,” Callie vowed with all earnestness. “I’m a good listener, and I know what you’re going through.”
The poor man managed a smile.
Perhaps he was merely touched by an artless young dunce. Perhaps he was attracted to her or merely amused. Grace did not dare not venture a guess, but listening over his shoulder she heard his answer, smooth as velvet. “Miss Windlesham, you are as kind as you are lovely. Fortunately, such things are in the past. I’m sorry to hear about your own misfortune. But we all must realize when it’s time to move on, don’t you think?”
“Oh, definitely, sir.” Calpurnia stared earnestly into his eyes, no doubt reading more into his answer than she ought. “We must share our own toast this evening—a toast to moving on to better things!”
“Yes,” he said cautiously. “Just so.”
Even from her angle behind him, Grace could tell his smile was forced. He gave Callie a polite but extremely uncomfortable nod.
She beamed at him, in turn.
Looking over his shoulder, Grace couldn’t help but feel somewhat amused at his discomfiture. In truth, she would not have been surprised if the Grange were back on the market again by tomorrow morning after this.
It was going to be an interesting night.
Chapter 14
As the guests all filed into the resplendent dining room and found their seats, liveried footmen in powdered wigs pulled out their chairs for them and pushed them in again.
Gaelen Foley - [Inferno Club 06] Page 16