by Mary Balogh
His appearance, elegant and gorgeous, quite reassured her and made her joy complete. But the crowning glory was the high-perch phaeton into which he lifted her when he had escorted her outside. It was a splendid confection of a vehicle, all show and lack of practicality. It was painted a bright blue and yellow. How fortunate, she thought, that she had dressed to match it. Two almost identical chestnuts were harnessed to it.
“This,” she said later, as they were turning into the park, “is surely the most exciting afternoon of my life.” And then she turned her head in order to smile apologetically at him. “I am not to enthuse, am I? Lady Elizabeth has constantly to remind me of that. But no matter since it is only to you. I shall behave myself when we are among the crowds, I promise.” She opened her parasol since she had just become aware that they were very close to being among the crowds, and gave it a vigorous twirl above her head.
“Just so,” Lord Francis said, looking at her. “But why young ladies feel obliged to squash the natural exuberance of their spirits in order to appear tonnish escapes my understanding at the present moment.”
“I believe it appears gauche,” Cora said. “Or rustic. That is what Elizabeth says anyway. Oh, my!” Such a crush of vehicles and riders and walkers it had been impossible to imagine though she had been told about it. No one could possibly be out for the sole purpose of a drive or a ride. Or even a walk.
“It would be far more sensible,” she said to Lord Francis, “for everyone to leave their carriages and horses at the gate and merely stroll here. It is obvious that everyone has come here to talk.”
“Ah,” he said, “but how would we impress one another, Miss Downes, if we could not be outdoing one another in the splendor of our carriages and the superiority of our cattle? We can observe one another’s clothes and persons at any ball or concert. What would the day have to offer of novelty?”
“How absurd,” she said.
“Quite so,” he said agreeably. “Absurdity is amusing, Miss Downes. Endlessly entertaining.”
She wondered if he ever dressed out of any sense of the absurd and decided that he probably did not. But there was no more time for private reflection or even for conversation tête-à-tête. They were among the throng and they were not being ignored.
Whatever he might be, Lord Francis was no outcast with the ton, Cora discovered now even if she had not noticed it the evening before. Gentlemen hailed him and very often stopped to exchange civilities. Ladies, both old and young, had their carriages stopped in order to converse with him. Old and young tittered at his practiced and smoothly flattering gallantries. Some, particularly the older ladies, gave as good as they received. Cora guessed that ladies felt it safe to flirt with someone like Lord Francis.
But it soon became obvious to her that she herself was not invisible. Several people merely nodded pleasantly to her when Lord Francis presented them to her and then continued their remarks to him. But far more people seemed to have approached him with the intention of making her acquaintance and commending her on the jolly good show of her heroism in the little Henry incident. Two of the gentlemen she had danced with last evening—Mr. Corsham and Mr. Pandry—rode up beside her and engaged her in conversation while Lord Francis chatted with other people. Mr. Corsham remarked with a smirk that now he knew the identity of the gentleman with whom she had told him earlier she was engaged to drive, he would likely slap a glove in the face of Lord Francis the next time he saw him alone. Mr. Pandry asked her if she was to attend a certain ball next week and hoped she would reserve a set for him.
It was all very flattering. So were the particular attentions of two or three gentlemen to whom Lord Francis presented her as the heroine they must have heard of by now, and daughter of the Mr. Downes who had recently purchased and rebuilt Mobley Abbey near Bristol. Cora had not even realized that Lord Francis knew those facts himself.
She was enjoying herself immensely.
But as usually happened, her mind wandered from the here and now after some time. There were just too many people at whom to smile and nod, too many names to remember, and too many faces to which to have to attach those names in the future. She withdrew a little into herself, became more of a spectator than a participant.
It was very clear that a number of people had come to the park neither to take the air nor to converse. Some had come merely to be seen and admired. The lady in pink, for example, who was walking her dogs, four tiny poodles, each on the end of a different-colored silk leash. An insignificant little maid moved along slightly behind her mistress. The pink plumes in the lady’s pink bonnet must be at least four feet high, Cora thought. Her mind was occasionally prone to exaggerate. And she carried herself with great dignity, a proud, half contemptuous smile on her lips. The dogs were for picturesque effect, Cora decided. But poor little things—it had not been the wisest idea in the world to bring them into such a crush. They were in considerable danger of being trodden upon.
And then there was the gentleman in green and buff, who was riding a magnificent black horse, which was far too spirited for the crowded circumstances. He was a very proud and haughty gentleman too, Cora thought. He had a decidedly prominent nose but no chin at all. He had a quite fascinating profile.
They fancied each other, Cora suddenly realized. The lady was lifting her chin and her bosom and was tugging on the leashes entirely for the chinless gentleman’s benefit, and he was prancing on his black horse for hers.
How very, very amusing. If only Lord Francis were not engaged in conversation with an elderly lady and gentleman who had finished congratulating her and were tackling the weather with him, she would be able to point out the scene to him. He would be entertained by it, she was sure.
But as the two approached each other, Cora became aware of something else. The trotting poodles and the prancing black were soon going to be trying to occupy the exact same spot of land. It did not take a vivid imagination to guess which animals were going to have the worst of it. There were going to be a couple of squashed poodles at the very least.
“Oh,” she said in great agitation just as Lord Francis and the elderly couple took their leave of each other and he turned to her. “Oh, dear. Oh, dear.”
There was time neither to explain the situation to him nor to shout out a warning, though she did the latter anyway. But at the same moment she hurled herself over the side of Lord Francis’s high-perch phaeton.
DURING WHAT HAD remained of the morning after his ride and his nonbreakfast, Lord Francis had sat in White’s, reading the papers and conversing with various acquaintances. Actually he had maneuvered the latter activity so that he spoke with the gentlemen he wished to speak with. It had not been difficult to steer the conversation to last evening’s ball and the new arrivals—any new faces were to be remarked upon this late in the Season. And it had not been difficult to focus upon Miss Downes and her heroic deed. It had been, as Walter Parker remarked, “a demned fine show.”
And it had not been difficult to drop the subtlest of hints about the father and Mobley Abbey and the splendid job he appeared to have done in restoring it to modern grandeur. It went without saying that the man must be enormously wealthy. It also went without saying that the daughter’s dowry would in all probability be more than substantial.
Now Lord Francis had the satisfaction of seeing his hints begin to bear fruit. A number of the gentlemen he had spoken with this morning happened to be riding in the park this afternoon—he had, of course, mentioned the fact that he was to drive Miss Downes there at the fashionable hour—and deemed it a courtesy to stop to pay their respects to him and their gallantries to his companion.
Being a matchmaker, he was discovering, was providing definite amusement. And God knew, he was desperately in need of amusement.
She was looking really quite handsome this afternoon in yellow and pale blue. The vivid colors suited her far better than last night’s virginal white. And her smiles, her sparkling eyes, and her general exuberance were a little less c
onspicuous in the outdoors. Not that he had any particular objection to them anywhere.
But he sensed her tiring after a while. She was a little quieter, a little more withdrawn. He supposed all this must be somewhat bewildering to a young lady who had not been brought up to it. He would maneuver his phaeton out of the crowds after this particular conversation, he thought—she had not participated in it beyond nodding and smiling in acknowledgment of the usual congratulations on her heroic deed. He would drive her through a quieter part of the park and then take her home. The afternoon had done well for her. He had hopes that with very little more effort today’s admirers would turn into tomorrow’s partners and escorts and the day after tomorrow’s suitors—well, one or two of them anyway. Even one would be enough—only one of them could marry her, after all.
He would keep an eye out, of course, to make sure that no mere fortune hunter bore her off. Not that it was his responsibility to see to any such thing. There were the duchess and Bridgwater to look to her interests, not to mention her father and brother. Lord Francis had no doubt that the father at least was a shrewd judge of a man’s character and motives.
He turned to her, his mouth opening to suggest that they move on. But several things happened in such close succession that he was never sure afterward if his mouth had been left hanging open to the breeze or if it had snapped shut. Her gaze was fixed on a point a little to one side, away from him, her whole manner was agitated, she muttered, “Oh, dear. Oh, dear,” and with a shriek, she hurled herself over the side of his high-perch phaeton. To her certain death, it seemed. Only perhaps a fraction of a second passed before he went after her, abandoning his horses to their own devices, but in that split second he saw several things. He saw Lady Kellington walking her poodles and issuing come-hither glances to Lord Lanting, who was preening himself before her on his giant black and proceeding to come hither. He knew that the dogs were too accustomed to this sort of scene to be in any danger from the horse’s hooves and that the horse was too well trained to trample them anyway.
He also saw that Miss Cora Downes, if she survived the descent from his phaeton, would be in considerable danger from those hooves.
He jumped.
Those close enough to observe what followed—and there were many—could not have found more thrilling entertainment even at Astley’s, Lord Francis thought ruefully later, when he was at liberty to think. Lady Kellington’s poodles yapped with sudden panic at the descent of a shrieking whirlwind into their ranks and tried to break loose in as many directions as there were dogs. The lady clung on to their leashes and screamed. Lord Lanting’s black whinnied and reared. His lordship roared but displayed superb horsemanship in not being ignominiously tossed into the crowd. Cora Downes shrieked—or rather, she continued to shriek—and grabbed for poodles before the horse could plant all four feet back on earth, or on whatever happened to be between them and earth. Somehow she succeeded in gathering two of them under one arm and one under the other. Almost at the same moment Lord Francis himself, muttering what he hoped later had not been either obscenities or blasphemies, launched himself at her, grabbed her about the waist, spun her away from those dangerously flailing hooves, and landed heavily on the grass with her and an indeterminate number of poodles beneath him and colored leashes twined all about him.
Lord Francis’s first sane thought since he had sat perched up in his phaeton was of the spectacle they were offering to the avidly curious eyes of the ton. To do him justice, it was of Cora he thought first. Before he rolled off her and released the furiously barking dogs, he checked hastily to make sure that her dress was decently down about her legs. It was.
But moving off was not simply a matter of rolling to one side. They were both entangled in leashes, and the dog that had remained free was now rushing in wild circles about its fallen comrades, making the tangle worse.
“The devil,” Lord Francis muttered, struggling free with a superhuman effort.
Miss Cora Downes was laughing. “Ouch!” she said. “Are there supposed to be two suns up there? Are the dogs all safe?” Her face, he saw, was flushed. Her eyes were dazed—or rather her eye. Her hat had swiveled about her head so that it covered one side of her face. One of her short puffed sleeves had almost entirely parted company with the rest of her dress. Her bosom, decently covered, fortunately, was heaving.
“Lie still,” he commanded her, sitting up and preparing to take inventory of his own various parts and garments. She must be suffering from a concussion.
But suddenly reality rushed in with considerable noise and motion. The poodles were all free, though they were hopelessly tangled together, and barking. Lady Kellington was on her knees in the midst of them, trying to hug them all at once while they tried all at once to lick her face. Lord Lanting was on his feet just behind her, a firm hand on the bridle of his horse, which was still snorting and rolling its eyes. A whole army of other people was gathered about.
“My darlings, my darlings,” Lady Kellington was crooning. “You are all safe. You might all have been killed.”
“I say, Lucy,” Lord Lanting said. “I say, I am most awfully sorry, old girl. I do not know what got into Jet. He don’t usually behave like that.”
Lord Francis could have given him an idea or two on what had got into the black—she was currently lying face up on the grass, gazing at two suns through one eye.
But she was not to remain neglected for long. Lady Kellington gently pushed away her poodles, having assured herself that they were all not only alive, but unharmed, and turned to grasp one of Cora’s hands in both of her own.
“Oh, my dear,” she said. “My dear, you have saved the lives of my darlings. How will I ever be able to thank you?” And she raised Cora’s hand to her face in order to wash it with her tears.
“Oh, I say,” Lord Lanting added, his eyes turning in Cora’s direction, “a splendid act of courage, m’dear.”
“You might have killed yourself,” Lady Kellington said through her tears.
The crowd acted like a Greek chorus. There were mutterings and murmurings and a few quite distinct voices. All of them were singing the same tune. All of them were chanting the praises of Miss Cora Downes, who had saved the lives of Lady Kellington’s poodles at considerable risk to her own life.
The leather of his new pantaloons was scuffed beyond repair, Lord Francis noticed with deep regret. So was one of his boots. One side and one sleeve of his coat were covered with dust. His white shirt cuff was stained green from the grass. So, he noticed with a grimace when he turned his arm, was the elbow of his coat. His hat was nowhere in sight.
“By Gad,” someone said, “she is Miss Downes. The Duchess of Bridgwater’s protégée. She was at Lady Markley’s last evening.”
“The one who saved Bridgwater’s nephew by jumping into the river in Bath after him.” Someone else had taken up the chorus.
“The heroine!” It was almost a communal whisper of awe.
5
T WAS A LITTLE MORTIFYING TO EMERGE FROM A DAZE to find oneself lying prostrate on a grass verge in Hyde Park, gazing up at a blue sky that was rimmed about like a fluted picture frame by the concerned faces of half the ton. It was even more mortifying to realize that one reason for the distortion of one’s vision was the fact that one’s new hat, which one had thought looked very fetching earlier in the afternoon, was now being worn sideways.
Cora dared not look down to observe the state of her dress.
She realized then what was being said. They were calling her a heroine—again. Because she had saved a poodle or two from extinction beneath a horse’s hoof.
She laughed.
“If you please,” someone said firmly as the picture frame moved in closer to the center of the sky, “it would be wiser to give her air. She is winded, I do believe, and perhaps suffering from a concussion as well.”
Lord Francis Kneller’s voice. She felt a rush of gladness when she recalled that it was with him she had been driving. She would hav
e felt horribly embarrassed if it had been any other gentleman. Of course, she was feeling horribly embarrassed anyway. She laughed again.
Someone was weeping all over her hand. The lady in pink—the owner of the poodles. The poodles! Were they all safe? But they must be if she was being hailed as a heroine. Had she been heroic this time? She rather thought she had.
And then Lord Francis was bending over her. His hair looked adorably rumpled. His coat was dusty. His elbow was grass-stained. Oh, dear, he would be dreadfully upset over that. The coat really was a gorgeous shade of pink.
“Miss Downes,” he said, “are you all right?”
“Oh, perfectly,” she said and sat up, lifting her arms at the same moment to straighten her hat and try to inject a little decorum into the scene. Her father, had he been present, would have been tossing his eyes skyward. Edgar would have been calling her a clumsy booby or something lowering to that effect. Sky and picture frame did a complete spin before slowing down. “Oops,” she added.
There were murmurings of concern from the picture frame.
Lord Francis helped her to her feet and even brushed some grass from her dress. There was a swell of sound, almost like a cheer, from the gathered ton—presumably in congratulation over the fact that she was upright.