She looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘No, it certainly doesn’t, especially if you want to please everyone. You’re always playing a part, always alone. It’s easy to lose yourself, to forget who you are.’
Just listening to her lifted his burden. She knew. This beautiful woman knew precisely what he carried with him. ‘Until last week, I was content being a country gentleman. I still would be, if the world would allow it.’ What would she think of his camel dairy and his brood mares? Would she laugh at him? Would she find such humble ambition too far beneath her as Anabeth had? Or would she understand because she had quiet ambitions, too, ambitions that she’d laid aside because the world demanded it. He suddenly wanted to know what they were. ‘What would you do if you could do anything? Be anything?’ he asked in a husky whisper, letting the semi-darkness of the gallery weave a spell around them as he watched her gaze soften with thought, as if no one had ever asked her such a thing before. Perhaps no one ever had. Maybe one did not ask princesses such questions. Maybe he didn’t deserve an answer.
At any rate, he wasn’t going to get one. His mother swept into the gallery. ‘There you are! I’ve been looking for you.’ She smiled, but her gaze drifted to Elidh, critical and full of speculation before returning to her son. ‘Dinner has lingered far longer than it should have. Everyone is waiting for a signal from you to start the evening entertainments. Some of the girls have brought their musical instruments to play while we gather in the gardens to visit.’
Sutton met her gaze evenly, silently asserting his authority. ‘I will be along shortly once we’re finished with the gallery.’ It was clear she did not approve of his departure or his reason for it. But he was not a young boy who needed his mother’s approval for every little action.
The Principessa was more congenial. She stepped away from him and smiled at his mother. ‘Ah, an Italian evening, just like at home. How wonderful,’ she effused with good grace. Keynes applauded her for it. Here was a woman would not be intimidated by a man’s mother no matter how strong his mother’s stare. It was a rare woman who did not find his mother overwhelming. ‘I do so enjoy a beautiful summer evening in a garden with strolling minstrels. Excuse me, Mr Keynes. Perhaps we can finish the gallery another time? My father will be wondering where I’ve got to. It was generous of you to devote yourself so singularly to me.’
‘It was my pleasure.’ He bowed as the only pleasure he was likely to have tonight disappeared into the ballroom.
‘I see you’ve met our Italian guest,’ his mother said coolly once the Principessa’s red skirts were out of sight and her ears out of range.
‘She is quite charming...refreshing, even,’ Sutton replied with equal coolness, not pleased with his mother’s interruption. She had chased away the best part of his evening and signalled his return to the hell of the ballroom, to a reality that would be harder to endure now that he’d had a brief slice of heaven for company.
‘Charming? Well, I suppose she’s as charming as a woman in a red dress can be in a room full of pastels,’ she replied archly.
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Sutton felt defensive on Chiara’s behalf.
‘It means she is not for you.’
‘She would agree with you. She spent most of the conversation, in fact, making that same point.’ A point that had done nothing to deter him from finding her fascinating. She’d shown him empathy and humour. Even now, the story about the duc brought a smile to his lips.
‘And yet she has your attention while a ballroom full of girls do not.’ His mother’s tone gentled. ‘The others will be jealous. It will be difficult for them to see that you mean nothing by it.’ There was warning and instruction in her words.
‘Perhaps giving her my attentions will raise the bar,’ Sutton mused out loud. ‘If those girls want my attentions, they need to claim them. Maybe I went looking for the Principessa because she knows how to hold a man’s interest. The others are all milksops, Mother. If I am out of sorts, it’s because I’ve discovered I don’t need a two-week house party to deduce that.’ All he’d needed had been two hours. These girls were as pale as their dresses. Whereas Chiara was as vibrant as her red skirts, red lips. Red, the colour of caution, the colour of passion. The colour of life.
‘I’ve never known you to be unfair, Sutton,’ his mother scolded. ‘Give them time. They’ll improve, but as an experienced man, you have to help them. It’s a gentleman’s job to show a young girl how to go on in the world, how to find her own confidence once she steps out of the schoolroom and into society. You can’t expect them to be dazzling when all you do is glower at them,’ she pressed. ‘Try to understand the pressure they’re under. They all want to win, but there’s only one you.’ Win. What an awful word. They wanted to win him. The great prize. Not a man, but a thing to covet.
‘The pressure they’re under?’ Sutton bristled. ‘What about the pressure I’m under? No one here understands that.’
‘But the Principessa does? Is that it?’ his mother challenged. ‘How convenient for her. Think about that, my son, the next time she contrives to get you alone, no matter what her father claims their reasons are for being here.’ Her gaze softened. ‘You’re wrong. I understand the pressure you’re under. Your uncle has asked you to make an impossible decision in an indecent amount of time if you want to do the right thing and protect that fortune. But I am here to help.’
She reached into the hidden pocket of her evening gown. ‘I’ve drawn up a shortlist of the most viable girls as you’ve asked. Perhaps that will help minimise the “milksops” you have to deal with. I’ve also arranged, per your instruction, to have these young ladies put in close proximity to you at meals and during activities, so that you may get to know them especially.’
Good lord, the list. That, too, seemed like a poor idea now, since Chiara Balare’s name was probably not on it.
She snapped the list open. ‘Isabelle Bradley, daughter of a baron, Eliza Fenworth, daughter of a viscount. She’s here with her brother. Virginia Peckworth, Southmore’s youngest, Alexandra Darnley, Eagerly’s oldest, Ellen Hines, Wharton’s girl in her third Season. Wharton’s desperate. Philomena Whitely, Viscount Sheraton’s daughter, and Imogen Bettancourt, the Marquis’s daughter.’ Her nose wrinkled in worry. ‘She’s young—’
‘Yes, very,’ Sutton cut her off. ‘I met Lady Imogen at dinner already. Her parents all but cut her meat for her.’ He sighed in apology. He was seldom sharp, but the whole affair had put him on edge. He just wanted to be down at the dairy. It was deuced difficult to be here, but not be able to indulge in his usual activities. ‘I am sorry to be gruff, Mother. I know you’re attempting to help. I do thank you.’ He reached for the list and folded it, trying for graciousness. ‘I will spend time with these girls—meanwhile, I would like to add the Principessa to the list.’
His mother gave him a stare that conveyed without words the message, I thought we’d settled that.
‘Why ever for? These girls can give you more than your uncle’s condition for nobility. Some of these girls like Imogen Bettancourt can give you access to a seat in Parliament, a seat you can choose to fill as you like, if you want legislative teeth to take action against Baxter.’ There was a vehement edge to her tone that said she was frustrated with him.
‘Mother, I haven’t forgotten.’ This marriage wasn’t only about keeping his cousin from the fortune, it was about using the fortune to stop him and others like him once and for all. That fortune would go towards standing for election, campaigning for laws that would stop the black market trafficking, an issue that had been overlooked to date because it affected so very few and because it affected the poorest among them, those who couldn’t protect themselves and had no recourse to protest.
‘Good. Then you need to get out to the garden and take Lady Imogen for a walk while the musicians play. It’s all been arranged.’ His mother’s own temper was simmering close to the surface, to
o. They were alike in that way. But she needed to realise he wasn’t five any more. Lines needed to be drawn before this went any further. Helping him was one thing, dictating to him was another.
‘Thank you, Mother. I appreciate the arrangement tonight, but I am a grown man. I don’t want to give anyone the impression otherwise.’ Mostly her. He might not have any say in the matter of his uncle’s will and its conditions, but he’d be damned if he’d let his mother spoon-feed him a bride.
* * *
It might have been the sense of rebellion his mother’s assistance engendered in him, or it might simply have been the natural laws of attraction. Whatever the reason, Sutton could not take his eyes off Chiara. The more Imogen Bettancourt tried to make stuttering, youthful small talk as they strolled the lantern-lit garden, the more his eyes strayed to the Principessa.
He tried, truly he did, to give poor Imogen his attention. He asked questions but she had a habit of answering with a question of her own. If he asked what she liked to read she would say, ‘I like to keep up on whatever is popular. And yourself?’, until it became something of a private game to count how many times she used the phrase ‘and yourself?’ Meanwhile, Chiara was holding court at the fountain, a coterie of gentlemen gathered around her as the lantern light caught the facets of crystals in her tiara. What was she saying to those men to make them smile? To make them laugh? Was she telling them stories about guarded bedchambers?
‘And yourself, Mr Keynes?’ Imogen Bettancourt was gazing up at him expectantly with large brown eyes that reminded him of his favourite hound. She would be just as loyal and obedient, too, he was sure. She wouldn’t know how to be otherwise. It wouldn’t be a choice with her. She was trained for obedience, raised to it. Such devotion should inspire reciprocal devotion, but he’d missed her question. What had she asked him?
He brazenly overrode her question with an offer to disengage from the crowd. She would not miss the import of that, although she would misunderstand his motive. ‘I was thinking, Lady Imogen, how much you might enjoy an evening tour of the topiary. They can be very beautiful by lantern-light, whimsical, I think.’ He hoped that was the case. Perhaps away from the crowd, he would be able to focus more singularly on discovering Lady Imogen’s charms without the distraction at the fountain. Despite his best intentions, his gaze managed one last look in Chiara’s direction as they passed.
* * *
‘He couldn’t take his eyes off you!’ Elidh’s father slipped into her chambers as the hall clock struck one. The house had officially retired an hour ago, although Elidh wondered how many conversations just like this one were taking place in hushed bedrooms up and down the corridors; parents and daughters gathered to assess the fruits of the evening, to plot and strategise now that they’d seen the lay of the land. The Bettancourts were most certainly up and in alt since their daughter had been singled out for the evening walk.
‘His eyes might have followed me, but he walked with Imogen,’ Elidh reminded him before her father could celebrate too early. She didn’t want to get her father’s hopes up, especially when it would be for naught. She would continue to discourage Sutton Keynes if he persisted in seeking her out. She should have taken comfort in the sight of him with Lady Imogen. After all, she didn’t want his attentions, yet Elidh couldn’t deny there’d been a small sting of jealousy at the sight of them with their heads together, knowing Lady Imogen was breathing in the basil and sandalwood of his scent, knowing what it felt like to have his mouth so close to one’s ear. Did Lady Imogen also feel that little trill of excitement as he whispered to her?
‘He gave you a rose!’ Rosie exclaimed, putting away the red gown. ‘Was he handsome? Was he as arrogant as you thought?’
‘Yes and no. He was handsome, but he was not arrogant. I was wrong about that.’ Elidh played with the rose in her lap before setting it in a bud vase on her vanity.
Elidh looked around at Rosie and her father. They were all dressed for bed, Rosie in a simple, heavy cotton night-rail with a wrapper, her father in an elaborate damask banyan with a rolled silk collar and beaded pointed slippers that had once served in a production of King Lear. Each of them was dressed as befitted their stations, everyone acting their parts to the full. It reminded Elidh how deep their conspiracy went. Even in sleep, they couldn’t let their guard down. Prince Lorenzo of Fossano wouldn’t be caught dead in the drab grey-striped nightshirt her father wore at home.
No. Not home. They had no home any more. They’d given those boarding-house rooms up the day they’d left for Hartswood. There could be no going back because there was nothing to go back to. She hoped they weren’t in over their heads. After tonight, she was more worried than ever before. ‘How did the search for a patron go? I thought a few of the men at our table were promising.’ That was the sort of talk she wanted to encourage, not discussion of Sutton Keynes. He was a pipe dream and she was glad her father had other reasons for coming. Tonight had shown her that in sharp relief. She had no hopes of winning Sutton and nothing to entice him with. It was more obvious to her now after an evening spent listening to men posturing and women jockeying for position. Everyone here had something to offer in exchange for Sutton’s consideration: connections to power, connections to Parliament, investments, estates, land, even more money.
‘Indeed, I think a few of them might be willing to engage a play for Twelfth Night, something to liven up their Christmas house parties.’ Her father nodded. ‘But we might not need them, not if Keynes keeps looking at you like he did.’
‘I doubt that will continue. Lady Imogen’s father is a marquis. He has political power,’ Elidh said swiftly.
‘Does that appeal to Keynes?’ her father argued. ‘We must discover what matters to him and then we cater to it. These people are indiscriminately throwing their merits before him and hoping something sticks. We will be more discerning, Daughter. We will discover what matters most to him and offer him that.’ Her father smiled confidently.
Elidh found the prospect of deepening and pursuing that lie alarming. ‘We don’t have estates or seats in Parliament. We can’t have the latter. We’re supposed to be Italian.’ They had paste jewels and trunks of remade costumes, hardly the stuff of enticement.
‘Maybe what he wants most is not a thing at all.’ Her father was not daunted. ‘He walked with Imogen Bettancourt, but not because he enjoys her company the way he enjoys yours.’
Was that true? The alarms in her head rang loudly now. She’d glimpsed that man in the gallery, one who might indeed covet something different than a tangible thing. What had he said? I doubt any one of those women is interested in me. Only his money. That man had hinted at different expectations, different hopes for a marriage, that marriage might be a partnership of people and personalities instead of bank accounts and bloodlines. That man had her empathy and her concern. She needed to stay as far away as possible from him. She could not give him what he wanted. She would hurt him and that was not what she was here to do. She might be willing to go along with a scheme that netted them a patron for the winter, but she drew the line at hurting a man who didn’t deserve it.
‘As for estates, those can be fabricated.’ Her father waved a hand as if he could conjure them out of thin air. ‘We already have a villa in Sardinia for the summers. Delightful breezes off the sea. I may have mentioned it to Mrs Keynes during dessert.’ He winked. ‘She seems quite taken with Prince Lorenzo.’ As did her father. Elidh hoped he’d remember the character was a fiction.
‘Don’t overdo it,’ she cautioned. ‘And remember to tell us what you invent so we don’t confuse the facts.’ Her father fabricated without worry, without concern for getting caught.
Her father rubbed his hands together, his face alert. ‘Rosie, what’s on the agenda for tomorrow?’
‘Archery in the morning, then luncheon and a croquet tournament on the south lawn in the afternoon. People are drawing names for teams, the ladies’ m
aids were all giggling about it below stairs tonight,’ Rosie informed them. ‘I’ve already laid out the white linen for tomorrow with the olive-green ribbon.’
‘Perfect,’ her father agreed. ‘The Principessa would have done archery at our villa on Lake Maggiore.’
‘Ahem. I am still here,’ Elidh interrupted. They were arranging her like a player on a stage, blocking out her every move. ‘It wasn’t our villa on Lake Maggiore, it was the Duc’s. We were merely invited to watch his sons shoot.’ Sometimes she wondered if her father bothered to separate fact from fiction. The fiction came so easily to him. Maybe because the fiction was so much more pleasant.
‘And they taught you to shoot afterwards,’ her father added.
‘I have shot precisely ten arrows in my entire life. That does not make me William Tell.’ Any more than playing a princess on stage made her a princess in real life.
‘Then, it provides a perfect opportunity to ask for help.’ Rosie joined forces against her. ‘It’s a chance for a gentleman to have a legitimate reason to put his arms about a lady, his mouth close to her ear as he whispers instructions. Perhaps it’s best if you don’t know archery at all.’ Rosie giggled like a schoolgirl and her father crowed. They were both enjoying this too much and at her expense. She’d never admit the thought of Sutton’s arms about her brought a certain warmth to her cheeks. She didn’t dare let the fantasy go any further. Tonight had been far enough.
Her father grinned confidently. ‘Sit out the archery if you must. You’ll redeem yourself at croquet. No skill necessary there. Just whack the ball with a mallet and stay as close to Keynes as you can.’
Chapter Seven
They were all cheating! It became quite evident halfway through the nine-wicket course of croquet that the female players were more interested in keeping their balls near Sutton’s than going through the wickets and that the male competitors were patently ignoring such antics in the hopes of impressing a lady of their own. While such consensual conspiring certainly made Elidh’s self-assigned task of avoiding Sutton easier, it did nothing for fair competition. The game itself had become nothing more than an excuse for men and women to be together.
Tempted By His Secret Cinderella (Allied At The Altar Book 3) Page 6