“I know, Lady Mallow, and I value your social guidance. It was the thought of my union with the ... catch of the century that seemed absurd.”
“Umph, indeed,” Lady Mallow agreed. “The most eligible bachelor in the land linked to the most ineligible of ... uh ...” She paused, and uncomfortably regarded the young woman seated next to her.
Quintilla reached over to pat her hand. “The most ineligible of women, Lady Mallow.”
“Not necessarily, Quintilla, but you must be serious about it. Your aunt tells me of the plan for you. So sensible! Oh! Look at Winifred Ambleton! Can you believe she would wear pale yellow when she has such a whey-face? As I was saying, the Ice Baron...”
The Plan. Does everyone know of it? thought Quintilla, no longer listening to Lady Mallow’s palaver. Was there a notice in the Times?
Venerable family of eroded wealth with limping daughter seeks widower whose first marriage was so agreeable a love match he can live on its memories—and its money, finding contentment with a second wife to efficiently and affectionately manage his household of motherless children. Apply to Sir Ian and Lady Guthrie at No. 7, Sloane Crescent.
Maybe Quintilla should go further and join the street peddlers who cried out “watercresses” or “hot loaves.” What would her cry be? Envisioning herself ringing a bell while perched atop the large barrel on a water wagon, she could not stifle a wisp of laughter.
“Yes, you laugh, Quintilla, for she was foolish.” Misinterpreting the humorous response, Lady Mallow droned on. “No legal right at all, but her Woodville marriage had been a poor match, and she wanted everything for her Dhever son, William, by the eleventh baron.”
Lady Mallow’s babbling nudged Quintilla’s thoughts along parallel tracks. Her parents wanted everything for her, especially the happy safety of marriage. Quintilla had few illusions about attaining marital paradise, and dared not dream too often of finding an uncommon man to share its pleasures. She aimed to have a good life, marriage or no. Wedding processions were not the only successful parades!
“Success in all he touched. Young as he was, he quickly learned, and outfoxed her and her bumbling Woodville son. She lives now in the North Country, in great style.” The gossip’s angular body twitched at the injustice.
No. Not in style. His black hair was just a bit too long, his snow-white cravat folded too simply. Not a Corinthian. She had not seen his arrogantly confident figure here in the ballroom, though there was such a crush. She looked around, then at Lady Mallow, at long last silent. The tattler regarded Quintilla expectantly, evidently awaiting an answer.
Quintilla nodded. Agreement was always safest when one did not listen to conversations occurring around the edges of ballrooms.
This signal of positive support pleased Lady Mallow. “La, Quintilla, so intellectual! I look forward to our coz at the next ball.” With her fan, she playfully tapped Quintilla’s arm. “And there is your aunt—so tall, one can never miss that beautiful white head in a crowd.”
Lady Guthrie’s white hair was dressed in a formal style that evoked the previous century. As she progressed from the card room, in triumph over a rare winning streak at whist, she gently inclined the classic coiffure to the right and left in greeting to acquaintances. Lady Guthrie took seriously her position as wife to a royal physician, and relished every deference due Sir Ian’s renown.
Regal, gracious, she pronounced it time to leave. Sir Ian and Dr. Edward Jenner, another Berkeley visitor in the Guthrie household, were retrieved from the corner where they engaged in serious conversation with other masculine refugees from the dance. Grosvenor Square’s diverting luxury was abandoned for the quiet refinement of Sloane Crescent.
In the library, having hastily banished the vision in shining blue, Warrick Dhever, the Baron Eysley, drew a deep breath. Was there no escaping the schemes of the Woodville clan and their pliant female cousins! Although this one had seemed different somehow. Quite appealing, in truth.
He walked to the wing chair by the fire and sat feigning ease as he faced the windows through which a righteous Edwina, pliable Lord Storr in tow, would now stalk, demanding the banns be posted for her compromised relative. Warrick had heard her approaching voice outside. He was as willing to dally as the next man, but not during an ambush. Not if the result was a wedding on the instant!
Intractable as her mother, Edwina sought to control him and his fortune via the marriage bed after her family’s failure in the courts. How satisfying to undercut tonight’s plot, given the waste of his conciliatory efforts in attending her ball, her tedious ball.
Why the delay in their dramatic entrance? Warrick had thought they were just outside. God! Had years of family warfare left him seeing enemies behind every door, every window?
And had he then misjudged his beguiling dance partner? Come to think of it, she did not resemble the Woodvilles. It was her smile. It had enchanted him with its innocent promise of happiness, leaving him vulnerable, and an easy prey to his suspicions.
He noticed a book on the sofa and rose to retrieve it, swearing in amazement at its cover. Exploring New Britain—how he had pored over it as a lad! Had she been reading it here? If she read, then she was definitely not a Woodville cousin. He must find out who she was, and why she read his book.
He sat back in the wing chair, prepared to recapture past pleasure in the familiar worn pages, but a loud thump outside the window grabbed his attention. A shaft of cold air behind a billowing curtain preceded someone’s cautious probing. This was not Edwina making a grand entrance.
Elated with a reason, after all, for preparedness, Warrick vaulted from the chair to sprint across the room. He lunged and seized an arm. Twisting it back, he pulled the interloper clear of the curtain.
“Ooww” came a pained wail from the surprisingly slim body.
“What are you about?” The baron’s voice was grim.
“He said he b’longed here.” It was a youthful voice, quavering. Was that an American accent?
“Who?” The baron tightened his grip.
“Will.” Hair and shirt were plastered to the fellow’s skin.
“Where is he?”
“Jus’ outside. Lyin’ on the ground. Please lemme go. I’m Will’s friend.”
But the hold stayed firm as the two moved outside. Sprawled on the terrace in the serenity of the slightly inebriated lay young William Dhever, half brother to the Baron Eysley.
William lazily opened hazel eyes. Resting his elbow on the ground, he propped his head on his hand. “Hello, Warrick.” Dark curls fell over his forehead, glistening with moisture from the damp night. “My legs gave out on me.”
“Dhever men hold their liquor, William.”
“Don’t get up on your high ropes, Warrick” was the affable comment.
“Let’s get him inside.” Warrick and the stripling supported young Dhever to the wing chair by the fire. Keeping careful watch on the shivering stranger, Warrick indicated the seat on the sofa nearest the fire and sat beside him. “Now, what’s all this?”
“My friend Amos will tell you.” William gestured grandly towards his companion.
Warrick scowled and queried, “Amos?”
The boy hesitated and looked at his friend Will.
“It’s all right, Amos. Old Warrick’s top of the trees.”
“Sir, I’m tryin’ to get home. Runnin’ away from the British Navy.”
Warrick let out a long breath. “Hell’s fire!”
“Both running away, Warrick. Escaping. Just need some blunt and we’ll go on.”
Warrick examined his half brother. How like Edwina he sounded. Made it difficult to like the youth. Nineteen years old, and too much flesh on him already. Warrick had been not quite twenty when he returned from America to wrest his inheritance from the grasp of his stepmother, the erstwhile Mrs. Woodville. Had he looked this artless? No wonder she had thought she could bamboozle him.
“We want to go to America, Warrick. That’s where Amos lives. The British
impressed him, stole him right off his ship. Kidnapped him, that’s what they did.” Amos, who had stopped shivering, nodded in reply to Warrick’s questioning look. “Took me off the Lafayette, sir, out of New York. I’m tryin’ to find somethin’ sailin’ back there. Ran into Will, here; uh, don’t rightly know where we were.” He turned to his new friend, but that resolute had dozed off.
“Out of New York?” Warrick asked the wiry seaman. Another nod from Amos and Warrick enquired, “From the Wall Street docks on the Hudson River?”
The young American looked puzzled, and did not answer immediately. “No docks on Wall Street, sir.” He spoke tentatively as he regarded his interrogator.
He took his time, thought Warrick. Not quite sure about the docks. He could be giving out Spanish coin, though the accent was genuine enough. And he could be a slow thinker. “Jefferson still President?”
“Uh ... Madison, sir.”
Warrick rose, walked over to the wing chair, and kicked the sole of his dozing brother’s boot. “William!” He woke with a start, and seeing Warrick’s forbidding face, sat up straight in the chair. “Umph.”
“What does your mother think of your plan, William?”
“Knows nothing about it, but I doubt she cares much, Warrick. Too busy playing queen of the county. As long as there’s someone she can order about, she’s happy. I just don’t want to take any more of her orders.”
Warrick was amused at William’s complaint. It was past time for his half brother to test his mettle. However, care must be taken to maintain the fragile family truce.
The baron stood silently, hands behind his back, and observed both youths. “It is serious business to aid a deserter from the British Navy.” Assuming the fellow’s situation is as advertised, thought Warrick, wondering at his doubt. The hands! Not the hands of a seaman.
Both young men were solemn when Warrick continued. “If we are to bring this off—” He put up his hand to curb what looked to be the beginning of wild jubilation. “If we are to be successful in getting you to America, we must be exceedingly circumspect.” He looked at Amos. “I can easily get you on a ship to Virginia where my brother lives. Can you make it to your home from there?”
The youth bobbed his head. Grey eyes shone with an exultation Warrick could understand. Only with great reluctance had he relinquished carefree American adventures for family responsibilities in England. His brother, younger, had elected to stay on, and Warrick returned minus his best ally to a home that had become enemy territory.
So, here was a seaman with a maiden’s hands wanting to go to America. Could his obvious joy be feigned? Did it matter? No harm in getting him out of an old country for life in a new one.
“First, we leave here for my rooms at the Albany. It is late, and the night quite foggy, so we ought to be unobserved,” Warrick said sternly. “William, we must inform your mother before you leave. Now come.” Edwina’s ball had not been so tedious after all. Warrick would get these cubs off on their venture into manhood. Then he would find out who the dancing miss was, and if she could read. They could finish their dance, and, who knows, they might even dally.
He grinned. There had been no plot in the library. He was too quick with his suspicions. As for the dangers of a sentimental entanglement, he had long ago ceased to believe in love, and happiness.
2
Mythological triumphs in love and war were depicted in huge pictures which adorned the walls of the Great Hall, bathed in opalescent light from the dome windows three storeys above. Warrick Dhever, twelfth Baron Eysley, mounted the stairs at the centre of the light stream amidst the reverberating sound of his polished black boots striking the marble steps. His coat, tailored by Weston, was the grey of Dartmoor granite near Eysley Court, the family seat. Pale grey pantaloons verified his lean fitness. His sable hair, brushed back to wave above the nape of his neck, was not cut in any identifiable style currently in fashion.
Disquiet—no, dissatisfaction—haunted the baron. Three and thirty years. Now what? Did he keep on developing urban property, breeding sheep, digging mines, financing mills? Never let your guard down—he tired of that lesson, instilled in him by wily Kentucky woodsmen. Would it always be applicable in the sophisticated wilderness he now inhabited? Evidently, given his past. Here he was, planning to so bombard Edwina with intriguing news, she would not attach importance to his query for information about last night’s beguiling dance partner in the library.
At the door to his stepsister’s salon, he rapped and immediately entered to survey the room’s present opulence under Edwina’s stewardship. Light green walls contrasted with mahogany settee and chairs upholstered in varying shades of forest green brocade. A white marble chimneypiece was inlaid with colored marble representing ivy leaves while the stucco design of the high ceiling repeated the ivy leaves pattern. He thrust aside dim recollections of happiness here, before the pox had claimed his mother and her infant.
At his entrance, Edwina, Lady Storr, arose from her seat, a plump daffodil in her yellow muslin morning gown. The yellow ribbon threaded through her pale copper curls gave her a look of guilelessness useful for this morning’s dialogue with her stepbrother.
“Darling Warrick!” she trumpeted, then quickly suppressed the flash of joy in her eyes. Edwina rarely admitted to herself how much this stalwart male appealed to her.
“How pleased I am to see you. I scarcely had a glimpse of you last night.” Arms outstretched in welcome, she walked towards him. This morning, no jewel in his cravat, no embroidered waistcoat softened his severe elegance, a tiger’s fearful symmetry. She had wanted him passionately when he returned from America to claim his birthright. He had ignored her, older as she was, and married.
“For you, Edwina. My compliments on your unexceptionable ball.” He placed the small package in her open hands, forestalling her embrace.
Edwina’s cry of pleasure was genuine when she tore open the package and held up a tiny gold thistle. An amethyst served as its blossom; emeralds marked out leaves and stem. “Warrick, how perfect to complement my dress for the Regency Fete at Carlton House. All ladies attending have been requested to dress in products of British industry. I will add this to my gold tunic with Irish shamrocks woven in it. It is all so exciting! Something to relate to our grandchildren. You will be there, of course?”
“If I am in town.”
“Warrick! You cannot slight the Prince!”
The baron shrugged. “Edwina, William came to my apartment last night.”
“William? What is he doing down here? Mama thinks him too young for London’s ... pleasures.”
“He wants to go adventuring, to America. I think he needs it. Your mother’s leading strings chafe. A shipment is being readied to send brother Champ in Virginia. William can accompany it.”
“And Mama approves?” Edwina enquired dubiously.
“I wrote her early this morning to inform her of arrangements after I sent William to Wellands.”
“Wellands? But that is so isolated. Why not Eysley Court?” Edwina asked.
“Wellands better fits in with the start of an adventure,” the baron answered smoothly.
“Who is there to look after him?”
“Digby.”
“Is he still alive? He was half-blind the last time I saw him, and no fit servant for William!”
Warrick coldly regarded his stepsister. He did not bother to address her objections. Edwina lost interest in pursuing outrage, and prepared instead to be offended. “I am not even to see my half brother before he absents himself from the bosom of his family for who knows how long?”
“Does it really matter?” The baron looked straight at her until a smile that acknowledged his question started to disguise her petulance.
“No,” Edwina admitted ruefully. She had married and left home before her mother’s alliance with the eleventh Baron Eysley and the subsequent birth of William. Nevertheless, Edwina enjoyed the myth of herself at the centre of a scattered but loving family.<
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“Did I mention I received a letter from Virginia?”
Warrick changed the subject.
“How are things with Champ?”
“They have a new son and he thrives. I believe Champ enjoys his family life there. No, Edwina, do not start on mine,” the baron sternly admonished his stepsister.
“It is just that I want the happiness for you that Lord Storr and I have.”
“A pattern card for marital bliss.”
At this dry comment, Edwina looked at her stepbrother suspiciously, for marital bliss as experienced by the Storrs was not of a calibre to cause a great rush to the altar. What they did have, however, satisfied them both.
Warrick’s expression was bland. Edwina continued. “You are past due the joy of companionship, children, dear Warrick. You need to share things.”
“With one of your innumerable unmarried cousins, Edwina?” Still only a hint of a smile as Warrick regarded her silently from the corner of his eye.
Just as silently, Edwina returned his look. Then she laughed, and he did, too. There followed further discussion of the Virginia Dhevers, which brought a slight disagreement as to whether this most recent offspring was their fourth or fifth child.
Edwina tempered her pleasure in their conversation, reminding herself of what she must accomplish. Thank God she had stayed clear of her mother and brother in their attempts to discredit, if not actually disinherit, the new young baron in favor of William, though Warrick was generous in victory. Her mother lived in splendour, lording it over her corner of Yorkshire, while Edwina and her husband lived rent-free. Edwina savoured her view of London’s society from the Eysley town house. It was imperative she gain the funds to cover Storr’s increased gambling debts. The man had totally lost his reason before she could rein him in.
“I must not stay, Edwina. I have an appointment with the builder James Burton to explore the possibilities of land development on London’s north side.”
Waltz with a Stranger Page 2