“Very gentlemanly of you, but I’m not such a cheese-parer as to begrudge my only tolerable grandnephew a few crowns to make the challenge worth his best effort. Do you accept or not?”
He hesitated, which a gentleman would not have done. He couldn’t help but think how 2000 guineas would set him up. In the end, he stopped dithering and gave the honorable answer. “No, I cannot.”
“Oh, dear, oh my, my-my chest feels tight—” she said in a fading voice.
“But I do accept your commission,” he added quickly. “Marrying the Impossible off is George’s headache, but I’ll do all I can to bring it about by the end of the Season.”
Lady Abingdon recovered miraculously. “Not as I would’ve put it,” she said repressively, “but well enough. I commend your scruples, too, but I insist we wager.”
When he opened his mouth to argue, she raised a hand to preempt him.
“Please,” she said with a calculating look, “I am too ill to quarrel.”
He admired her gallantry even as he worried that her failing health left him little time to perform the feat she proposed.
No matter. He would succeed and refuse the money when the time came.
Chapter 4
In which our hero’s words haunt our heroine.
When Jane and Iphigenia stepped down from the Duke of Bath’s town carriage outside Hookham’s Subscription Library in Bond Street, a lurid purple phaeton with yellow wheels rolled up to Number 15 bearing Lillian, Countess of Twickenham, dressed in spring green.
The countess sat bolt upright in her aubergine carriage like a worm in an eggplant.
Her headgear was even more diverting. The oversized bonnet’s swooping ostrich plumes hovered above her pinched face like birds eager to pluck her from the produce.
Iphigenia exchanged a knowing look with Jane, who said, “Good day, Countess.”
“Lady Jane, will we never see you take the air with a husband?” the lady tittered to disguise her malice.
“My goodness, your carriage is most remarkable,” Jane said, as if too distracted by the lady’s equipage to hear her dig.
Lady Twickenham offered a puckered, superior smile and could not resist boasting, “Twickenham does appreciate my color sense.”
“He must,” Jane replied. “There’s no ignoring it unless he’s colorblind. Hm. Hm.”
The ostrich-beset worm blinked and her lips tightened to a thin crease. With nose lifted, she bade her coachman pull up.
Their enmity dated to the year of their come out. The Earl of Twickenham pursued Jane first, failed, and afterward offered for the Hon. Lillian Cutter.
When Jane’s rejects moved on to marry others, she wished the couples happy; however, some of those ladies resented being their husbands’ second choice. In the countess’ case, she could not resist spitefulness when their paths crossed at Hookham’s, where ladies gathered to discuss pressing issues of the day. Nor was Jane a Christian of the turn-the-other-cheek variety when insulted. As a result, their mutual antagonism flourished under a glossy, brittle veneer of civility—much to Jane’s amusement.
With a nod and smile communicating how far above the fray she considered herself, Jane’s adversary crossed the pavement to the library’s arched entry but hesitated awkwardly while a footman held the door open.
Had it been a formal event, the countess must have let Jane precede her inside in deference to her superior rank. Even here, the countess intended to followed the duke’s daughter inside as a courtesy, though doing so lent Lady Twickenham’s sour expression a touch more bile. But Jane waved Lady Twickenham in first and entered with Iphigenia.
They found seats on opposite sides of the main room from each other.
“Lillian’s milliner,” Jane said under her breath, “must hate her. Why else put that thing on her head?”
Iphigenia frowned.
Recalling Seelye’s criticism, Jane corrected herself, “I shouldn’t say that. No wonder I’m insufferable.”
“Fudge, she’s a vicious cat,” Iphigenia whispered. “And her plumassier doesn’t like her any better than her milliner.”
The meeting came to order and they undertook the topic of climbing boys, the abused apprentices to chimney sweeps often in the news.
There were sniffles and a great deal of tut-tutting.
When Iphigenia stood and ventured to speak, she reminded the group quietly that Mr. Smart’s mechanized, long-handled brush could replace malnourished children.
Jane leapt up next to propose a resolution for those present ‘to prevail upon their husbands or whomever they must’ to hire only sweeps using the tool. Her word choice, ‘prevail upon,’ caused a ripple of titters but she did not sit down.
“We can change the world with our choices and our money, can we not?” she asked in a satisfying rhetorical flourish.
Looking about her, Jane encountered blank stares.
Lady Twickenham cleared her throat in the silence and rose to her feet.
“And what will all those children do without honest work?” She glanced about the room for effect. “Steal?”
“Better that than die from lung disease or cruelty,” Jane said and heard clucks of disapproval.
The ladies seated nearest refused to meet her eye.
Nevertheless, Jane exhorted the group, “They should go to parish schools and learn a modern trade.”
Only the countess dared respond. “It’s an ingenious tool, I’m sure, Lady Iphigenia,” she said graciously. “But my husband has informed me that a mechanical brush only works in recent construction. May I make a motion that Lady Jane address herself to the rich shopkeepers building homes in Mayfair these days?” She turned to Jane. “Perhaps Lady Elizabeth Damogan can ‘prevail’ upon her father. After all, Damogan Square was built scant years ago. For those of us with older establishments, the tool is worthless.”
The lady’s condescending reference to her friend provoked Jane to observe, “Only the ignorant would dismiss the new as worthless, don’t you agree?”
There were gasps.
Lady Twickenham narrowed her eyes.
“Bad temper cannot alter facts, Lady Jane,” she replied coldly. “The tool is worthless on the narrower, more intricate chimneys of older townhouses, something you would know if you had a husband as well informed as mine.”
Heads turned Jane’s way.
“True,” she purred, “but as you’ll recall, I chose not to have him.”
The room hushed. The countess blanched.
After Jane smiled her opponent into her seat, she yielded the floor and whispered to Iphigenia, “This is pointless.”
“If we discuss it, we might find a compromise,” Iphigenia suggested.
“Why compromise with those who want to do nothing?” Jane asked. “I mean to make a difference.”
Standing again, Lady Twickenham changed the subject to the urgent need for more sweepers to remove horse manure on secondary streets in Mayfair, and in particular her own. Others added to the growing list of neglected byways and a consensus developed quickly.
Much as it irked Jane to admit, Lord Seelye had a point. Gatherings at Hookham’s were ‘much said, nothing done’ affairs.
Indeed, the ladies seemed to prefer it that way. These meetings allowed them to set aside their menu planning, postpone compulsory morning calls, and relax together just as gentlemen did at their clubs. Time after time, they ‘shared their Christian concerns’ about the indigent or the mad and seconded ‘motions to abhor’ the mistreatment of climbing boys or the manure. Over dainty refreshments, they congratulated one another for their compassion or civic-mindedness and went home perfectly satisfied, whereas she left Hookham’s vibrating with frustration.
Jane gathered her reticule and asked, “Would you rather stay, Phidge, or leave with me?”
Outside the library, the duke’s second coachman, whom everyone called John Coachman the younger, helped the ladies into the town carriage.
Inside, Jane told her friend
, “The Berry sisters’ salon is different, Phidge. Politicians and activists gather there to exchange ideas and formulate policy. I heard William Wilberforce argue for the abolition of slavery last autumn.” Jane grew more animated in her enthusiasm. “Next spring, the Berrys will host an ally of Lord Erskine’s, a Mr. Richard Martin, to speak against animal cruelty. I’ve read excerpts of his speeches in the newspaper. He’s a firebrand in the Commons who’s not afraid to denounce dog- and cockfights or the mistreatment of draft horses. My brother says he loves to cause a furor.”
“In other words, he’s a man after your own heart,” Iphigenia teased.
“Would you like to come with me?”
She nodded.
“I am so anxious to meet him,” Jane said. “I’ve rescued a few strays and found them good homes on my own, but the problem is so much greater than that.”
“Won’t I need an invitation, Jane?”
“I know Mary Berry. I’ve only to ask her.”
And that was that.
Chapter 5
In which our hero tames a shrew. Or not.
17 November 1816
Grosvenor Square
Shortly after Seelye called on Lady Abingdon, he went to a private ball certain Jane would attend and could not leave in a huff if his efforts to bring her to heel provoked her.
The Duke and Duchess of Bath’s grand ball for Jane’s twenty-first birthday was a complete crush despite the time of year and the mortifying number of times the Babcock family had already observed the annual occurrence.
Wymark opened the front door and Seelye beheld a seeming wall of greenery. Mystified, he penetrated the thicket of overgrown ornamental potted trees crowding the grand foyer to take his place in the receiving line.
When Seelye reached his brother-in-law, he asked, “George, what is the meaning of the jungle theme?”
His grace took him aside, puffed out his chest, and said, “Not a theme, Seelye. It’s a sign. Gert’s nurturing came on like a firestorm when she was expecting our Caro. Everything ran riot in the house, not just m’damnable sister.” He peeked over his shoulder at his wife. “I don’t care what goes native for I’m to be a Papa again.” Suddenly stern, he said, “Till Gert wants it known, mum’s the word.” His eyes lit up. “Listen to me, I’m punning. Mum!” and he chortled in amusement.
“I am happy for you, George,” Seelye said and what little festive mood he felt fizzled. Suddenly, his future appeared bleaker in contrast.
Ah, well, once more into the breach!
No matter how badly she ripped into him, the ton must meet a more amenable Jane by next spring. With only six months till then, he must gird his loins and undertake to tame the shrew immediately. Or rather, immediately after looking into another wager.
Seelye sidled around the ballroom’s perimeter of overgrown verdure to find that bet’s subject, Lord Clun, lurking behind a sprawling fan palm by the far wall.
Against long odds, general opinion, and every indication to the contrary, Seelye had laid a substantial wager on his friend’s marrying his betrothed Amazon by mid-February. Time to see for himself where matters stood, for the sums involved would determine whether or not he remained in England by March.
Clun looked fit to kill, when he wasn’t batting at fronds for a better view of the dancers. What this meant, Seelye could not yet discern but doubt passed quickly. There was something uncharacteristic in his glowering friend’s sulking.
Like a physician examining a patient for unbalanced humors, Seelye probed for symptoms of love. Signs abounded.
The Welshman glared at every man who sought a set with Lady Elizabeth Damogan, his fiancée. He did not joke or smile at Seelye. Nor could he put a sentence together, so complete was his concentration on her. He grunted, he grumbled, and he swore under his breath, but his black eyes never left the lady no matter how Seelye teased him.
Poor Clun. Here he stood, lovesick and suffering as much as any poor sot deserved to, who, to quote the man himself, ‘was idiot enough to let such a calamity oveRrrtake him.’
His bad temper and snarled responses reassured Seelye. Only a man in love was so testy. (One had only to recall Ainsworth’s foul temper in Bath.) Thus, the fouler Clun’s mood, the better his own chances of winning the wager.
To be thorough, Seelye studied Clun’s betrothed as well. The baron might send most young ladies scurrying, but not Lady Elizabeth. Judging the way she glanced at the baron during the quadrille, and how she peeked at him from where she stood afterward, she was as smitten with him as he with her.
No need to book passage to Calais just yet, Lady Jane.
What should have reassured Seelye bothered him instead. That is, it did until he reminded himself that a wastrel lordling mustn’t begrudge true love to those more fortunate, especially his dearest friends.
He scanned the crowd to locate the subject of his other wager.
The only attendee more exasperated than Clun was the honoree herself. Jane stood ramrod straight and regal among her friends. Closest to her were the mousy lady he’d often seen with her, Lady Iphigenia, and Lady Elizabeth, upon whom any number of gentlemen danced attendance.
“I do so love seeing Jane in a pet, don’t you?” Seelye asked.
“Not particularly,” Clun said, “Why not make her misery complete and dance with her.”
Seelye left, swinging his quizzing glass on its ribbon. He slipped through the crowd, bowing here, nodding there, receiving and doling out gracious attention on an unswerving course to his next undertaking.
“Good evening, ladies,” he said with an elegant bow to the three.
“Good evening, Lord Seelye,” two of the ladies responded politely.
Jane glared.
“Lady Jane, have you a set free?”
“I don’t believe so,” she replied, making no move to consult the dance card dangling from her wrist, the insult unmistakable.
“Truly?”
He took up the card, dragging her arm from her side to hang in mid-air like a marionette’s. He studied the pasteboard at his leisure, lips pursed.
“You may waltz by now, yes?” he asked. “After so many Seasons, you must have gotten permission.”
Her low, wordless growl rewarded him. He helped himself to the small pencil folded in the card and scribbled his name.
“There,” he said and punched a neat hole through it with the pencil point. “Y’ servant, ladies.”
He bowed and left satisfied that Jane seethed in his wake.
There was a country set he danced with one young lady, the Boulangeries with another, and the cotillion with a third. He attended each partner afterward, fetching lemonade or a shawl and charming their mamas before moving on. He danced with no one twice.
Before the waltz, he went to collect Jane from his sister.
The Impossible turned her back. He cleared his throat noisily and Her Grace, Gertrude of Green Thumb, quietly ordered her, or him, or both, to behave through clenched teeth in a fixed smile.
“Jane is the terror, Gert,” he said. “I am merely her next victim.”
Seelye heard Jane’s humorless little, “Hm, hm.”
He led her to the far side of the dance floor out of Gert’s sight. He clasped her slim hand and placed his other hand low at the small of her back but within the bounds of brotherly carelessness. Her face was placid but her nails bit into the web between his thumb and forefinger through their gloves. Her fierceness made him chuckle.
Swooping strains of music filled the air. She danced superbly, making the waltz a signal pleasure, puncture wounds aside.
“You dance well, Lady Jane.”
“Thank you, my lord,” she said, staring at his cravat.
“You might look up at your partner and blush a little when he compliments you,” he said. “It’d be fetching.”
Tilting her face up, but not her eyes, she said coldly, “In point of fact, a lady does not make cow’s eyes at her partner or simper when he deigns to acknowledge that
endless hours with a smelly continental dance master sank in. Any gentleman would know that.”
“My apologies. Do you dislike dancing?”
“I dislike the rules that bleed the joy from it. A lady must not hold her partner’s gaze or she’s labeled fast. A man must lead, even if he’s pulverizing her toes. A lady mustn’t talk of anything consequential or, heaven forbid, complain about how fast he turns her. It sickens me.”
He hadn’t stepped on her toes, but she did look a little peaked. He held her at arm’s length and turned her more sedately.
“If you’re going to be ill, Jane, warn me. I’ll dance you over to one of Gert’s potted monstrosities.”
Caught off guard, she choked back a snort. At least, the Impossible had a sense of humor.
“Your impatience with rules surprises me,” he said.
Her eyes flashed up at him briefly.
“It wouldn’t if you knew me.”
“I know all about your devotion to propriety. You’ve made yourself a famously proper pain in the arse.”
She frowned at his cravat. “You needn’t be coarse, sir.”
“I wanted to get your attention,” he said. “Now that I have it, tell me, were you courteous to Earl Rostand when he offered for you?”
“I was not. He whips his horse. I saw him at it and denounced him. He hates me now, don’t bother denying it, I don’t care.”
“Having a temper isn’t a crime,” he said.
“It ought to be. Poor horse.”
“Perhaps it shied suddenly. He might’ve been thrown and injured.”
“Didn’t you used to say, ‘Judge the horseman not the horse’? Besides, any man who’d abuse an innocent animal would feel free to slap a child or beat—” she swallowed the rest and looked away.
“Beat an impossible wife? He shouldn’t but he might,” Seelye said.
“There’s no excuse for a gentleman striking a woman, or a child, or a horse,” Jane said. “Did you know the earl is a founding member of the Hellfire Club? That makes him even more contemptible in my eyes.”
“He’s not the only gentleman in that club, Jane.”
His Lordship's Last Wager Page 4