'Who is she?' Rupert asked, his tone curt.
'Name of Hoyland. A bit of a bore, talks about herself all the time, but she's a pretty chit, though she has a strict duenna I'll have to get round. Flowers, you know, and seats at the opera, suppers afterwards. It all costs, and they won't give credit. I'll make a start at the ball tonight. And if I marry her, I'll make sure she stays in Yorkshire most of the time. She seems to think nowhere else is good enough for her.'
Rupert, as he always did, promised to settle Cedric's debts if he gave the bills to him the following day. He decided to go to the ball, and perhaps be amused to watch his nephew try to make up to Lady Rushton. Somehow he did not think the lady would be taken in. She had seemed far too sensible when they had chatted at Lady Barlow's dinner party.
He reached home to find Amelia debating whether to walk the few yards to the ball, or call out her carriage. David cast a desperate look at Rupert.
'We'll never get there at this rate,' he sighed.
'Call up a chair,' Rupert said, bored. 'In fact, since so many of the balls take place here in the Square, or just round the corner, I don't know why you don't keep a private chair and chairmen. You could start a new fashion.'
'Oh yes, that would be fun! Dear Rupert, will you buy me a chair? I'll have it lined with pink satin, my favourite colour, and dress the men in livery. Black and green, I think.'
'I can afford to buy you a chair, you don't need to impose on Rupert,' David said sharply, and Rupert hid a grin.
David was a moderately wealthy country squire, but he could not afford to hire a London house in the best part of town, and Amelia insisted she could not bear to live in any other area. He had, reluctantly, accepted Rupert's offer of his own house, when Rupert pointed out that he was unlikely to be there much, and only needed two rooms when he was. Besides, he didn't want to dismiss his servants, but neither did he wish them to be idle when he was not there.
'I'm going to change, and I'll walk along with you.'
*
Chapter 5
Matilda was furious. She had seen the Earl approaching, and had been preening at the thought he was going to ask her to dance before he had to dance with other girls. But he had given her just a casual nod, and turned straight to her chaperone, who was old and not at all pretty, and had dreadful fashion sense. She struggled not to show her chagrin, remembering Louise's strictures about proper behaviour in company. Fortunately Cedric came up then, and asked her to dance. He was tall, slender, with elaborately brushed hair, high collars and looked far more fashionable than his cousin. Then, to her renewed fury, he ignored her, turning to Lady Rushton and breaking in on what she was saying to the Earl.
Rupert turned swiftly to him. 'Cedric, mind your manners! Lady Rushton was speaking!'
Cedric gulped and grew red in the face. 'My lady! Oh, I do beg your pardon, I didn't see!'
'No doubt that ridiculous collar cut off your view,' the Earl said. 'Now take Miss Hoyland for some lemonade, while Lady Rushton and I continue our conversation.'
Cedric turned away, and with injured dignity offered his arm to Matilda, and led her to the side room where refreshments were laid out.
Louise chuckled. 'He's your cousin, isn't he? Are you always so stern with him?'
'Always, when he is so discourteous. Let us forget him. How is your protégée enjoying herself?'
'She's finding friends, and being driven out by various young men. I'm afraid she does not appreciate the importance of being given vouchers for Almack's, and I dread her offending the patronesses. She simply does not understand how vital it is not to ruin her reputation if she is to make a respectable marriage.'
'I imagine the sooner she finds a husband the better you will be pleased.'
'Yes, but my conscience tells me I must ensure it is a suitable marriage, and so far none of the young men who have shown an interest, or taken her driving, seem suitable.'
'Not even my cousin?'
Louise frowned. 'I do not wish to offend you, but I cannot approve. He is not serious enough.'
'Nothing you say against Cedric will offend me. He's a witless, spendthrift rattle with not a serious thought in his head apart from how to adopt the latest fashionable folly.'
She laughed. 'You are severe, sir.'
'Oh, I could be much ruder! Let us forget him. Tell me about your home. I'm not familiar with Devon. My main estates are in Hampshire.'
'I didn't know Devon either until I married, for I was brought up in Gloucestershire. It's quite a small manor. Richard wasn't wealthy. I live there now with my Mama-in-law. She had only just moved to the Dower House when – when Richard was sent back to Spain. So when he was killed she came back to keep me company, and to teach me how to manage a house. She keeps saying she ought to move back, and I keep insisting I don't know enough and still need her.'
'I haven't seen you in London before, though of course I am not here very often, I've been in Spain for the past several years.'
'It's my first visit since I married, and I only came because my grandfather made it impossible for me to refuse. He is Matilda's great-uncle, and her trustee, and he said he was eager to marry her off before he died. He is always threatening to die, which makes defying him difficult!'
'So he's a Hoyland?'
'Yes, but he's sly, not one of the clever ones. When Matilda's father inherited he pushed Joseph out of the business and the old man retired to Bath where he can pretend he was the mainstay of the business. I suppose he had his uses, entertaining customers. They would either have enjoyed his company, for he can be jolly, or felt so sorry for him they were obliged to buy whatever he was selling.'
Rupert was laughing. 'You are severe!'
'Oh dear, my tongue runs away with me.'
'Refreshingly so. Listen, the orchestra is tuning up for the cotillion. We need to take our places.'
*
To Louise's astonishment, she was asked to dance by men she had known five years ago who claimed to be delighted she was back in town, and others who begged her mother or Lady Rushton for introductions. The Earl, after the cotillion, said he would consider it an honour if she would waltz with him, and when she agreed declared he was taking time off from the Foreign Office on the following afternoon, and hoped she would drive with him in the Park.
The Dowager Lady Rushton had insisted, a year before, that Louise learn the steps of the waltz. Louise had protested, asking when she might be expected to perform the dance.
'We are not going to live in complete isolation, my dear. I intend to resume a more public social life, and we will attend assemblies where you will be asked to dance.'
She had not enjoyed these occasions. They had reminded her too forcibly of the year of her come-out, and the many times she had danced with Richard, though in London at that time the waltz had not been considered proper, and she had never danced it with him. Some of her partners at the assemblies had held her too tightly, taking advantage of the need to clasp her round the waist, so that she had refused most future invitations. So why had she so readily agreed to dance with the Earl? Was it that she knew he would not seek to take advantage, or, and she cringed inwardly at the notion, was it because she found him attractive, in a way she had never done for any man since Richard?
It was with a faint trembling that she permitted him, when the time came, to clasp her hand and lead her onto the dance floor. But his touch was impersonal, he held her lightly, and with a polite distance between them. He was, she admitted when she had begun to think instead of feel, a superb dancer. She had heard that Wellington's officers were expected to be competent on all social occasions.
'Relax,' he murmured. 'Look at my nephew and your girl. He's making a mull of it.'
Louise glanced round. Cedric appeared to be dancing the much more energetic polka than the waltz, and she was ashamed to see Matilda apparently encouraging him. The couple bumped into another pair, and several dancers moved hastily out of their way. The Earl smothered a laugh.
'How are you enjoying London?' he asked when they had found a small table and he had supplied her with lobster patties and other delicacies.
'It's pleasant to meet old friends,' she said. 'I hadn't realised how circumscribed our life has been in the country.'
'It's natural after a bereavement,' he said. 'I believe you had not been married for long?'
'We were married for two years before Richard died, but he had to return to the Peninsula two months after we married, and I never saw him again.'
'I am sorry. That must have been devastating for you.'
'Yes, and one of the worst things was the unwillingness of people to mention his name. They were embarrassed, far more than I was, if his name was mentioned. They appear to believe that if they never spoke of him it helped me to forget, when in fact I wanted to talk about him, to remember him, not push him aside as though he had never existed!'
'Do you still want to talk about him?'
'Not so much,' she admitted. 'I'll never forget him, but the pain of losing him is less.'
Some time later, after Louise had danced a country dance with a man who had once proposed to her before she met Richard, and who showed signs of wishing to know her better, the Earl came to bid her farewell, saying he had work to do in the morning, but would call for that drive in the afternoon.
*
Matilda was excited on the way home. She had, she said with great satisfaction, danced every dance, and several of her partners had invited her to drive out with them.
'I'm glad you are making friends,' Louise said.
'The Earl didn't have a chance to ask me,' Matilda said, 'I was so much in demand.'
And that, she said to herself, explained why he had danced with her dowdy chaperone. He had almost certainly wanted to talk about her, ask questions, and perhaps try to arrange for future meetings. It would be difficult, she conceded, for him to meet her without coming to the house in Half Moon Street, but she would contrive. Until now she had not managed to rise early enough to ride in the Park before breakfast, as she had planned, and it was almost dawn now, but perhaps tomorrow. She would get her maid Jenny to wake her. They did not, she thought, have any important engagement the coming evening, just a musical entertainment at some house, and as she did not like listening to screeching violins and squawking sopranos, she would say she was tired after the ball, and plead to go to bed early.
Before then she was driving out with Cedric. He was by far the most attentive of her escorts. None of the others had asked to drive her out a second time, but she was being asked by many new young men, and even some who were older. Sir Henry Goodger had invited her, and when one day she had no other escort, she sent a note and he had come. He had been driving the pair borrowed by Lady Barlow, and spent much of the time extolling their virtues.
'I like a quiet, reliable pair,' he said. 'I'm not like some of these young sparks, eager to show off by driving half-broke nags. Now, tell me about Yorkshire. I've never been so far north, my own estate is in Norfolk. I'm a great friend of Coke, you know, and doing some experiments on crops, and sheep, like he is, though of course I'm not there very often.'
Matilda had no idea who Coke was, or what experiments he might be doing, nor was she at all interested.
'My estate is one of the biggest in Yorkshire,' she said. 'It's not a huge house, like Nostell Priory or Castle Howard, but my grandfather and father bought up a good deal of land surrounding it. There is a deer park, an artificial lake, and a dozen farms. It all belongs to me, though Mama has her portion, of course.'
'Why is it not your Mama who is bringing you out?'
'She's always unwell, especially if she is asked to do anything. She spends most of the time in Cheltenham. I don't expect she'll live for much longer, and then I'll have her money too.'
'And Lady Rushton is a cousin, I understand?'
'I suppose so. Her grandfather, Joseph, is still alive and lives in Bath. It was my grandfather, Frederick, who was the clever businessman, and my father was even cleverer, but he died, and left Great-uncle Joseph as my trustee. I have to ask him before I can increase my allowance, which is annoying. Oh look! There is Louise! Lady Rushton, I mean, and she's with the Earl! I expect he called in Half Moon Street to ask me to drive, but when I was out felt constrained to ask her in my place.'
'Yes, I expect so, but I am glad I obtained your company first, my dear. Tell me, did you enjoy the ball last night?'
'Yes, and I danced every dance. But were you not there?'
'I don't dance, but if I had known you would be there I would have gone for the pleasure of watching you.'
Fortunately, Matilda thought, the Earl was driving along a different path, so she did not have to be polite to Louise. How aggravating to have missed the opportunity of driving with him. He did not, she understood, drive very often, since his work often kept him late dealing with dispatches from Spain. She wondered briefly what was happening in that tedious war everyone talked about. What did it matter, except that it took too many young men away from England, when she wanted to meet as many as possible so as to choose the best husband. She had to marry this year, Great-uncle Joseph had told her in a very curt letter he had sent telling her of the arrangements he had made for the Season. He would not finance a second, so she had to make her choice this year, or return to Yorkshire and marry one of the country yokels he'd heard were after her fortune.
They were approaching one of the main paths, and crossing in front of them was a smart phaeton drawn by a team of match greys with black manes and tails. Matilda glanced at the couple riding in it and gasped.
'Look, that's the Dowager Lady Rushton! And Sir Arthur Warton! Well! I'd have thought he was too old to be driving such a team.'
Sir Henry laughed. 'One is never too old. Now I wonder? He was very attentive at that dinner party, the old goat. Is he looking for another wife?'
'Surely not! Men his age don't get married, nor women as old as Lady Rushton. She must be well over forty.'
'But a fine figure of a woman.'
Matilda wasn't listening. She wanted to get back to Half Moon Street so that she could demand an explanation from Louise.
*
The Earl had driven into a quieter area of the Park. The horses were trotting gently when suddenly Louise felt the Earl slump against her shoulder. She looked at him in alarm. He was very pale, and seemed to be unconscious, and the reins were loose in his hands. Quickly she grasped them and brought the pair to a halt. Then she turned to the Earl, wondering if she ought to loosen his cravat. But he seemed to be coming round. His eyelids were fluttering, and he put up a hand to his forehead.
'What is it? Rupert, are you unwell? Do you need a doctor? Shall I drive us back?' She was unaware she had used his name.
He frowned. 'I'm sorry, my dear. I hope you were not too frightened.'
'Of course I was frightened! You fainted and I didn't know what was wrong, or what to do. What is wrong?'
'It's a legacy of the wounds I received in Spain. I lost a great deal of blood, and it's assumed that is why I get these occasional attacks. Which is why they won't permit me to go back to Spain. As you can see, they last barely a moment, and are coming less frequently.'
'It didn't seem just a moment to me.'
'My Uncle Arthur assures me they will stop, but until I am free of them for a few months he will not permit me to go back to the army. Please, Louise, don't mention it to anyone.'
'Of course not, so long as you promise to tell Sir Arthur.'
'I feel such a fool, fainting like a green girl,' he said, and Louise caught his hand and pressed it against her cheek.
'I won't mention it to a soul. But now we had best go back. It's a pity you didn't bring
your groom.'
'How could I talk openly with you when a groom is sitting behind listening to every word?'
Louise thought of their conversation that afternoon. She had told him more about Rushton Manor, and he had spoken with great affection of his own home. His main seat was in Hampshire, but he also had a shooting box and stud farm in Leicestershire, and a small experimental farm in Norfolk. And he had called her by her name, not seeming to notice the intimacy.
'I am longing for this war to be over, so that I can devote more time to these interests. Since Napoleon's defeat in Russia, perhaps he will be weakened and Wellington can make more progress in Spain. How I wish I were there!'
*
Chapter 6
Louise was almost as nervous as Matilda as they entered the hallowed portals of Almack's for the first time. She had changed her own gown twice, until she had what she regarded as an appropriate chaperone's look, in a grey silk dress shot with silver threads. She was still feeling heated after an argument with Matilda.
'You cannot wear a coloured gown tonight,' she had insisted.
'But it's a lovely colour.'
'It's rose pink, and you should be wearing white. Besides, it has far too low a neckline, it is quite unsuitable for a debutante.'
Matilda had protested. 'But I like it.'
'Either you change or we do not attend the assembly.'
'Oh, these are such old-fashioned rules!'
She had, however, changed into a demure white muslin, and Jenny had persuaded her that diamonds did not go with it, but a simple gold locket was ideal.
It was over five years since Louise had last been here. It had been somewhat of a surprise when she had been given vouchers, since her grandfather was in trade. Her father, however, had become a soldier, and her mother was distantly related to the wealthy Drummond family, and Mrs Drummond-Burrell was one of the patronesses, even though the Drummond fortune came from banking. Banking, it seemed, did not count as trade.
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