A Certain Magic

by Mary Balogh

  And oh, yes, she thought, her mind flashing back to Phoebe for a moment, she was fortunate indeed to be without the burden of children. Sometimes she really thought that Phoebe must have forgotten. Or how could she be so cruel?

  Nicholas, with his father’s chubbiness and sweet smile and her own very dark hair and eyes. Well, she thought, it was probably easy for Phoebe to forget. She had never seen the child, and he had been less than a year old when Web had found him dead in his crib one afternoon. There had been no detectable cause of death.

  He would be ten years old now. Doubtless into all kinds of mischief. She was fortunate to have been saved the trouble.

  Web had been unwilling to get her with child again. He had been inconsolable for many months and unwilling to risk that kind of love again. He had been unwilling to risk her life again, especially after Harriet Westhaven had died in childbed less than a year later.

  Piers had been so distraught that both she and Web had feared that he might put an end to his own life.

  Yes, she must be thankful, Alice thought, setting her head back against the cushions and keeping her eyes closed. In all seriousness, she must be thankful. She had lived a good life, and now she had the means with which to do what she pleased and make the remainder of her life as comfortable as possible.

  She had a visitor the following morning. She smiled with some amusement as she rose from her desk, where she was again writing a letter. He had decided to be more proper this morning and send her servant to announce him. Her spirits lifted unconsciously.

  But it was not Piers Westhaven who walked through the doorway, but another familiar figure.

  “Sir Clayton!” she said, extending one hand and moving toward him. “What a very pleasant surprise. What brings you to London?”

  “A need for a change of scenery, Mrs. Penhallow,” he said, taking her hand and raising it to his lips. “And you, of course.”

  Alice smiled and retrieved her hand as soon as she could do so without snatching it. How very tiresome! Sir Clayton Lansing, long-time resident of Bath, had been markedly attentive almost from the moment of her arrival there the summer before. She could not go to the Pump Room without having to promenade around it at least once with him. She could not take tea at the Upper Rooms without having to share a table with him. She could not shop, on Milsom Street without having to relinquish her parcels to him to carry home for her.

  Oh, dear!

  “How very flattering, sir,” she said. “And what a bouncer. It is April and the time of the Season, and reason enough for anyone to come to town. You are staying with your sister?”

  “I am,” he said. “And I trust your, nephew and niece are out of danger, ma’am? Mrs. Potter informed me that they were dangerously ill. I was very distressed.”

  “They have the measles,” Alice said. “Or had them, rather. They are recovering quite nicely, I thank you.”

  She rang for tea and was thankful that Sir Clayton was at least punctilious in his social manners. He would not stay beyond half an hour.

  He did not, but he did ask her, as he kissed her hand on taking his leave, if she would do him the honor of joining him at the theater one evening when he could get up a party.

  “If it is possible, sir,” she said, her tone regretful. “Though it is during the evenings, you know, that my sister-in-law needs me most, her time being given to my elder niece, who is making her come-out.”

  No engagement was made as Sir Clayton bowed himself out. He was to drop her a note when he could make more definite plans.

  One had to be quite firm and quite rude with the man, Andrea Potter had told her with a laugh several months before. There was no way by which persons of Sir Clayton’s obtuseness could be put off with gentle hints.

  “Unless you like him, of course, Alice,” her friend had said, “or could be brought to like him. He is enormously wealthy, by all accounts. And he cannot be above twenty years your senior. Indeed, it sounds quite like a match made in heaven.”

  Alice had given her giggling friend a speaking glance, but had not deigned to reply.

  Sometimes, she thought now, one could be almost thankful for relatives sick with the measles. Measles were indisputable. She would find it very difficult to say an outright no if she did not have a ready-made excuse. Sir Clayton Lansing was so very worthy and respectable.

  ***

  Alice was coming out of a milliner’s shop on Oxford Street a few hours later, a hatbox dangling from a ribbon in her hand. She had only rarely had a chance to shop in London. Web and she had not come often despite the fact that he had always owned the house on Cavendish Square. As often as not he had had it rented out.

  But today was a fine April day and she was feeling free and frivolous.

  “A quite delightful and decidedly wicked smile,” a careless voice said almost at her shoulder. “It is my guess that you have been spending a fortune on a new bonnet that you do not at all need. And that you are not even the smallest bit contrite.”

  “Piers,” she said, turning toward him with a dazzling smile. “You are quite right, of course. It is a thoroughly foolish confection that I shall not have the temerity to wear in Bath.”

  “Then you must wear it in London,” he said. “I shall take you driving in Hyde Park one afternoon. At five o’clock, of course—it must be at the fashionable hour. And all the gentlemen will be smitten from the backs of their horses, and all the ladies’ eyes will turn collectively green.”

  She laughed.

  “They will, you know,” he said. “You have no business still looking as lovely as you do at your age, Allie. Are you thirty? If you are not, you must be perilously close.”

  “Piers!” she said, shocked.

  “Very ungentlemanly of me to have noticed that you were past your eighteenth year, is it not?” he said. “But I am right, I will wager. Let me see. You were fifteen when Web confided to me his undying passion for you. He was three-and-twenty at the time, which would have made me two-and-twenty. Now let me see...” He tapped one gloved finger against his chin and looked up at the sky. “Yes, my dear Allie. That makes you very close to thirty if not right on it. But quite as lovely as you were at fifteen.” He grinned and made her an elegant bow in the middle of the pavement on Oxford Street.

  “Piers!” she said again, laughing.

  He extended one arm to her. “Let me take you for tea and cakes,” he said.

  “Cakes?” She looked up into his face and took his arm. “I had luncheon little more than an hour ago.”

  He looked down at her very trim waistline and pursed his lips. “Definitely cakes,” he said. “The kind that ooze cream from both sides no matter how genteelly one bites into them. The kind one always has in one’s hand when some dowager duchess comes along to be condescending. You really do look very fine, Allie. You are turning heads.”

  “Oh, nonsense!” she said. “I am not even wearing my new bonnet.”

  He settled her at a table in a confectioner’s and ordered tea and cakes. He sat and smiled at her.

  “You have escaped from your sister-in-law?” he said. “I take it the invalids are no longer at death’s door.”

  “They never were,” she said. “They had measles, not the pox, Piers. Phoebe has a free afternoon, Amanda being one of a party that is quite well chaperoned.”

  “Poor Phoebe, “ he said. “Her nose is out of joint over that, I would wager. It must be quite lowering to have nothing better to do with one’s time than tend to ailing children.”

  “You are being unkind,” she said.

  “Yes, I am,” he agreed amiably, smiling at her and showing not one visible sign of contrition. “I have just had the most amusing morning, Allie. I am excessively glad I ran into you, or I would have been forced to laugh aloud on Oxford Street and all to myself. Not at all a tonnish thing to do, at a guess.”

  “I imagine you are right,” she said, frowning over the plate of cakes that had been set down before them and selecting the one that l
ooked least sinful. Then she looked indignantly at her companion, who was lounging back in his chair, his long legs stretched beneath the table. “You are not going to have one, are you?”

  “No,” he said. “I have to watch my waistline. Unlike you, Allie, there can be no doubt whatsoever of the fact that I have passed my thirtieth birthday.”

  “Wretch!” she said, biting into pink icing.

  “I had a letter yesterday,” he said, “a timid and apologetic and self-effacing letter from a lady I had not seen in fifteen years.”

  “Indeed?” she said. “I hope this is not going to turn into an improper story, Piers.”

  “Oh, Lord, no,” he said. “She was—and is—very respectable. Widow of a close acquaintance of mine at Cambridge—Margam. Lord Margam, I would have you know. The poor man hated being a baron. He would have liked nothing more than to spend his entire life lost in a dusty university library. Never had a penny to his name, even though there was a Lady Margam and an infant. I didn’t know he was dead, poor chap. I haven’t seen him for years.”

  “His widow wrote to you?” she prompted.

  ”Yes.” He chuckled. “It is all vastly amusing, Allie. The infant is now a hopeful young lady about to be loosed on society. Except that the mother doesn’t know quite how to loose her, having spent the last dozen years or more rusticating somewhere. I am to be the entrance door, so it seems. The letter was larded with compliments, as you may imagine.”

  “You are to introduce the girl into society?” Alice said.

  “Be careful you don’t choke on your cake,” he said, looking at her assessingly. “I told you this was vastly amusing, did I not? And I have not got to the funny part yet.” He looked down at the plate of cakes and up at her in some amusement. “You might as well have it, Allie. You have been wanting it since the plate was set down before you.” He reached out, picked up a pastry that looked to be all air and cream, and set it down on her plate.

  “Piers!” she said indignantly. “I have not glanced at it even once.”

  “Eat it anyway,” he said. “It would be a shame to waste it. Lady Margam is staying with her brother on Russell Square. I called on them this morning. I have never been so diverted in my life.”

  He grinned at his memories and watched her take the first bite out of the pastry.

  “He is a cit,” he said, “and quite as vulgar as they come. He has about as much subtlety as a ten ton boulder. He wants me to marry the girl, of course.”

  “Did he say so?” Alice was caught with the pastry halfway to her mouth.

  “Oh, dear, no,” he said. “I am to discover all on my own that the girl is irresistible and adorable. He is a quite delightful character, Allie. I mean it. I would spend an hour in his company sooner than I would spend half as long with some of our more respectable lords. Never a dull moment.”

  “And are you going to do it?” Alice asked.

  “Marry her?” he said. “Or precipitate her into society? Perhaps both. I have agreed to escort Miss Borden and her mama to the theater tomorrow evening. Bosley would not hear of coming himself, of course. He is afraid, I would guess, that he will fill the theater with the smell of fish.”

  “Fish?”

  “He made his fortune in it,” he said. “And a sizable one, too, from all accounts. It is my considered guess that he is paying the shot to have the girl fired off.”

  “And the girl herself, Piers?” she asked. “Miss Borden, did you say?”

  He laughed. “A veritable innocent straight from the cradle,” he said. “All lowered lashes and peeping eyes and blushing cheeks and ringlets. Quite adorable, I might add, if one likes the infantry.”

  “And do you?” she asked sharply.

  He grinned. “Very appetizing,” he said. “I shall have to see, Allie. I must confess that the uncle-in-law I would acquire is a definite attraction. And don’t look indignant on his behalf. I am not making fun. I am serious.”

  “Piers,” she said, dabbing the comers of her mouth with her napkin. “This is all a joke to you, is it not? This searching for a bride, I mean. It is not a joke. Your whole future happiness is at stake.”

  “And you think I could not be happy with a blushing infant?” he asked.

  “Be serious, Piers,” she said. “You know you could not. What would you talk about with the girl for the rest of your life?”

  “I imagine I could make cooing noises to amuse her for most of the time,” he said. “It could be vastly diverting, Allie.”

  “Oh,” she said crossly, “Web should be here now. He would talk sense into you.”

  He took the napkin from her hand and rubbed her chin with it. “It is a good thing that dowager duchess is not here to observe you, Allie,” he said. “You might have been mortified to discover afterward that there was cream on your chin. You blush almost as rosily as Miss Borden, you know. And how do you know that I cannot talk good sense to the infant? You have not met her.”

  “No, I have not,” she agreed.

  “Then you must do so,” he said, “and pass judgment only afterward. Come to the theater with us tomorrow night. I think I may need you for moral support, anyway.”

  “You do not need three ladies,” she said. “That would play altogether too much on your conceit.”

  “Now don’t play hard to get, Allie,” he said. “Seriously, I was planning to call on you later, even if I had to risk the danger of a house full of measles in order to do so, to ask you to accompany me. Should I invite another gentleman or two? I will if you think I ought.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I think that would be quite proper, Piers. But wait.” She set her teacup down on its saucer and frowned into it for a moment. “I shall invite someone, if I may.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Suitors, Allie?” he said. “And I have been feeling sorry for the fact that you have been shut up in a sickroom all the time since your arrival.”

  “He is not a suitor,” she said. “And I did not meet him here. He is an acquaintance newly arrived from Bath. He called on me this morning and invited me to the theater one evening. This will work out well.”

  “I hope I am not expected to turn my back while the two of you bill and coo in the shadows of my box,” he said. “I understand such behavior is not considered quite genteel. He followed you here, did he, Allie? And he is not a suitor? I shall have to see this man who cannot bear to see you absent from Bath for three days without following on your heels but is not your suitor. He had better not be a damned fortune hunter.”

  “Nonsense,” she said. “Don’t be foolish. He is as rich as Croesus.”

  “Then he is after your body,” he said, getting to his feet and pulling back her chair for her, “And I can only applaud his taste. Still blushing, Allie? Tomorrow evening it is, then?”

  “Tomorrow evening,” she said. “I shall inspect your infant and give my opinion.”

  “And I shall inspect your Romeo,” he said, “and give mine.”

  Alice stood up. “Romeo!” she said and laughed.

  Chapter 3

  PHOEBE CARPENTER was not at all happy to hear that her sister-in-law was to attend the theater the following evening, even though Alice drove to Portman Square immediately after breakfast and remained until late afternoon. She read endlessly to Mary, whose eyesight was declared too much at risk from the infection to allow of her reading to herself. And she played spillikins with Richard and listened with cheerful interest to his enthusiastic accounts of his brother’s various escapades at Oxford.

  But Phoebe was very disgruntled and peevish.

  “I do think you might have put your brother’s family before your own pleasures for just a couple of weeks,” she said.

  “Mary and Richard are convalescing quite nicely,” Alice said. “You need not have the smallest qualm about leaving them to their nurse’s care for an evening, Phoebe. I shall return in the morning.”

  “Amanda has only an invitation to a concert, which she does not at all wish to attend,�
�� Phoebe said crossly. “We will remain at home. But still, Alice, you might have thought of the predicament you would have put us in if you had wanted to attend the theater tomorrow night. It is Lady Partiton’s ball and like to be one of the biggest squeezes of the Season.”

  ”I did not bring you all the way from Bath so that you might indulge in frivolity,” Bruce chose to add at that moment.

  Alice smiled at him. “Don’t provoke yourself, Bruce,” she said. “I brought myself, if you will remember.”

  “Well,” her brother said, “you will be so independent, Alice. It is not at all the thing. Not when you have a brother to see to your needs.”

  “The children will be as right as rain within the next few days,” Alice said briskly. “I would recommend a short drive for them tomorrow if the good weather continues. Fresh air will do them the world of good.” Phoebe shrieked and pressed a handkerchief to her lips.

  Altogether, Alice thought as she was riding through the streets of London on her way home, she was not sorry that she had agreed to join Piers’ theater party. It would be lovely to dress up for a formal occasion again and to watch a play. And she felt a great curiosity to see Miss Borden and her mama. As for herself, the chance to satisfy Sir Clayton Lansing by including him in the party was not to be missed. After this evening she would consider her duty done and would politely but firmly refuse any further invitations. It was to be hoped that he would take himself back home to Bath within a few days.

  It seemed that Sir Clayton had other ideas. Alice engaged him in polite small talk in the carriage on the way to the theater and was somewhat disappointed to find that the box Piers had taken for the evening was still empty when they arrived. She hoped the rest of the party would not be long in coming.