by Sally James
“With one of the Westering females, I think,” Jack answered. “You do not fear he will call me out?” he added with a laugh.
“No, of course not, but he does do mad things! Let us go and sit down. It’s impossible to converse while dancing. Tell me about the race. What are these horses you have bought?”
“Oh, the sweetest goers you’ve ever seen,” Jack enthused. “I had them from Pauling.”
“Lord Pauling?”
“Yes, do you know him?”
“No, we haven’t met, but Elizabeth was boasting about his horses and his big house in Berkeley Square, and how he was making up to her.”
“Has she a large fortune?” Jack asked quickly.
“Not enormous, but quite enough to buy a title. Why do you ask?”
“It’s going round the clubs that Pauling was badly dipped last month, and was retrenching. He’s sold several of his hunters, and means, he explained to me, to go abroad for a while. Unless, I’ll hazard, he can find a rich wife! I had hoped to get his bays, for they’re the primest bit of cattle I’ve ever seen, but he wasn’t selling them and I had to make do with his second pair. But they’re still good enough to beat Harry’s greys,” he added, grinning down at Charlotte. “Will you back me?”
“Harry’s greys are unbeatable when he is driving them,” she replied quickly. “No, Jack, I’ll not bet on you. Not unless you permit me to drive with you.”
“Drive with me? What nonsense is this?”
“Oh please, Jack. Just consider, unless one is the most depraved female, like Letty Lade, one can never do such things as drive in races, like you men can. If you take me, I might persuade Harry to ask Elizabeth. She says she is afraid, but if it were really possible, and she thought Harry might invite some other girl she might agree. And if he won, she would regard him more favorably.”
Jack was reluctant, but in the end she persuaded him, and he promised faithfully to arrange it with Harry.
“Though he won’t be at all pleased, it might induce him to take fewer risks,” he warned.
“But you’ll take fewer as well, so the race will still be even,” she pointed out, and watched gleefully as he left her to seek out Harry.
She discovered not all of the men shared her confidence that Harry’s greys were unbeatable. The projected race was a favourite topic of conversation amongst the sporting young men, and Charlotte, as cousin to both the contestants, was asked for her opinion so many times she grew to dread hearing the opening gambits. While Harry’s friends were unstinting in praise of his skill, and readily admitted his pair could outmatch any they themselves possessed, they showed great admiration of Jack’s new chestnuts.
“They’ve never been matched with Harry’s cattle before, but it’s well enough known only Pauling’s own bays have ever bested them, and that was a close thing, though admittedly Pauling was driving the chestnuts, and he’s a capital whip,” Richard Davies explained.
“Harry drives better than Jack,” Charlotte persisted. “Surely that makes a difference?”
“Jack’s not so cow-handed as you seem to think,” Richard replied with a laugh. “It can make some difference, but will it be enough? I’m tempted to lay my blunt on Jack!”
He led Charlotte off to dance and they joined a set next to Lord Fenton and a small dark girl. Lord Fenton bowed to Charlotte, introduced his partner as a Miss Wolverley, a distant cousin who was staying for the season with his mother, her godmother, and then turned to ask Richard about the race, opining that both contestants would come to grief or else cause some serious accident through racing on the public highway.
Charlotte defended her cousins spiritedly and was infuriated by the calm condescension Lord Fenton displayed when he replied that females should have no opinion on such matters.
“He and Elizabeth would make such a conformable pair!” she muttered angrily to Richard.
“He and Miss Maine?” Richard asked, surprised. “Is Fenton one of her suitors?”
“He dangles after her,” Charlotte replied curtly.
“I think the dowager will have some influence against such a match,” Richard said thoughtfully. “I heard my mother saying she intended Miss Wolverley for him. She’s an even bigger heiress than Miss Maine, you know.”
At the end of that dance Charlotte found herself near Elizabeth, and went to express the hope she had fully recovered from the fright Wolf had given her. Elizabeth smiled, and then looked up at Harry who had also walked across to them.
“Indeed yes, and I do so regret behaving so foolishly! You must have thought me a complete ninny!”
Politeness prevented Charlotte from agreeing, but Harry spoke before she could think of an unexceptional answer, or ask whether Harry had yet invited Elizabeth to drive in the race with him.
“It was no wonder, since you have an aversion to dogs, and had not expected to see Wolf,” he said calmly, and Elizabeth cast him a grateful look. Then Harry turned as he heard his aunt say his name, and found Lady Weare standing next to him with Mr Penharrow, whom she introduced.
“What was that about Wolf?” she asked, after all the introductions had been made. “It was Mr Penharrow who rescued James on that occasion.”
“And was in a way responsible for introducing Wolf to the house, so I trust he has not been misbehaving?” Mr Penharrow remarked, looking quizzically down at Elizabeth.
She blushed slightly, and glanced quickly at Charlotte.
“I am not accustomed to large dogs, and was a trifle nervous when—when he tried to make friends,” she said hesitantly. “I had not expected him to come bounding into the room like that, and he looked anything but friendly! But it was nothing, I assure you.”
“He did not expect you to be there,” Charlotte said indignantly. “And as for looking friendly, why, his tail almost swept the journals from the table!”
Mr Penharrow laughed.
“Still, I can imagine such an experience to be decidedly unnerving,” he commented, earning a grateful look from Elizabeth. “Ah, they are striking up the next dance. Miss Maine, will you honor me?”
She inclined her head and walked away with him, smiling confidingly at him, leaving Harry looking after her with a frown in his eyes that caused Charlotte to boil inwardly.
“Mr Penharrow has no title,” she said to the air. “Is he very wealthy, Mama?”
Lady Weare suppressed a smile and glanced at Harry.
“I believe he is exceedingly rich, and there is only one elderly uncle between him and an Irish barony,” she said smoothly. “From what I hear, the uncle hates him, and has recently married a girl young enough to be his granddaughter!”
Charlotte giggled, but Harry pursed his lips, and abruptly asked her to dance. Regretfully she refused, saying she was promised to Wilfred Scott, one of his friends, who at that moment approached to claim her, breathlessly apologizing as he had been delayed by having to fetch a glass of orgeat for his mother.
“The crush, it’s frightful,” he complained, “and not nearly enough waiters on duty. That’s what comes of trying to do things on the cheap. M’father always says it don’t pay, and it should be the best champagne, and no scrimping!”
Charlotte looked about her at the lavishly furnished ballroom, hung with pink silk, and thought there could have been little scrimping on anything else connected with the ball, whatever the number of waiters.
Harry had made his way across the room towards Amanda Gregory, but Charlotte caught a glimpse of Jack leading her into the set, and Harry stood propping up the wall, one shoulder hunched, as he gloomily watched the dancers. Elizabeth smiled at him sympathetically, and he turned and disappeared into the card room, emerging as the dance ended and advancing, determined, Charlotte suspected, on taking Elizabeth into supper.
She was herself promised to Richard, and as he appeared and they stood chatting, she was disturbed to see Jack adroitly steering Elizabeth past Harry in the lee of a tightly packed, noisy group. Surely Jack was not interested in Elizabet
h? He’d often stated he did not intend to become leg-shackled until he was at least thirty years old. Or was it inevitable she drew all the young men to her? Then she wondered if he were deliberately trying to make Harry jealous. There was no need of that, she ought to tell him. Harry was jealous enough.
* * * *
Elizabeth was in such great demand Harry obtained only one dance with her, and was in consequence still gloomy when Charlotte accompanied him riding in the Park on the following afternoon. His gloom increased when they saw Jack driving Elizabeth in his curricle, and he began muttering about false friends. In an attempt to placate Harry she told him what Richard had said about Lord Fenton, and the probability he would make a match of it with his mother’s goddaughter.
“And Lord Pauling seems to be in some difficulty, if he is selling his horses and going away,” she added consolingly.
“Richard knows a great deal too much!” he snapped. “I noticed he danced twice with you and took you down to supper last night. Is he growing particular in his attentions?”
Charlotte stared in surprise.
“He’s one of your best friends,” she exclaimed. “I’ve known him for years. He is just being friendly, as he always has been, and I think it ill done of you to be spiteful. How many times I dance with him or anyone else is my business, not yours. You are merely piqued because you danced only once with Elizabeth and jealous Jack took her down to supper!”
“And what’s all this Jack tells me about taking you with him in our race? It’s not done, and no respectable female would agree to it.”
“Has Elizabeth refused to ride with you, then?”
“That, Miss, is none of your business.”
They continued the ride in a silence which remained unbroken until they had almost reached home. Charlotte was concerned, both to discover whether Harry would ask anyone else to drive with him, and if so who, or whether he would convince Jack to abandon her. As they entered the Square they saw outside Norville House a huge traveling carriage which was being unloaded of innumerable boxes and trunks, and they forgot everything else.
“What the devil?” Harry exclaimed. “I did not know anyone was coming to stay, did you?”
All animosity forgotten, Charlotte shook her head.
“No one is expected, or mama would have told me,” she replied. “Who in the world can it be? Jack’s mother is the only one I could imagine coming without letting us know, and she would never travel with so much baggage. There’s enough there for a household!”
“Come on,” he urged, and they skirted the garden to halt behind the coach.
Harry’s groom, recovered from the assault by James, apart from some bruising round his eyes, was standing with the coachman. He saw them and ran across to take the horses, and without waiting for Harry to help her Charlotte slipped from the saddle.
“Who is it, Pritchard?” Harry asked in a low voice, but the groom shook his head in bewilderment.
“I ‘eard as it were Lord Claude, ‘ooever ‘e is,” he replied, and Harry, looking puzzled, nodded and followed Charlotte up the steps and into the hall.
This was littered with luggage, and a somewhat bewildered looking Rivers was endeavoring to restore order from the chaos while having his efforts considerably hindered by a voluble small lady. She, attired in an elegant pale blue pelisse and matching bonnet that caused Charlotte to gasp in admiration, was standing in the midst of the disorder and insisting in a shrill voice, heavily accented, that nothing more must be done until the portmanteau containing her jewels had been discovered.
Charlotte halted in surprise, Harry just behind her, as they took in the sight of a girl who looked like a maid, and a small man, clearly a valet, searching through the baggage and spreading it around the hall even further. Their startled gaze took in the fact that Lady Weare, almost as dazed as they were themselves, stood in the doorway of the small saloon to the right of the front door, and a tall, florid gentleman dressed in a traveling cloak stood behind her. As they looked, this gentleman turned and spoke to someone in the room behind him, then bent to say something to Lady Weare, but what it was Charlotte could not tell for the confused noise in the hall.
Then Lady Weare saw them, and a look of mingled relief and apprehension crossed her face. She started towards them.
“Charlotte! Harry! How fortunate you have returned, for I’m afraid Henry has gone out. Come, my dears, in here. Ah, Claudine, you have it, so now you can leave everything to the servants and come and sit down.”
She shepherded them into the room and firmly closed the door, though privately Charlotte thought the servants were so confused they would not have been able to understand anything they might have overheard. Standing by the mantlepiece was a slender young man, his height accentuated by the cloak which was hanging from his shoulders and thrown open to reveal a dark green, tightly fitting coat, pale biscuit-colored buckskins, and a somewhat vividly colored floral patterned waistcoat. His cravat was tied in the fashionable waterfall, and a large diamond pin gleamed from within its folds. One elegantly shod foot rested negligently on the firedogs, and he was swinging a gold-handled quizzing glass slowly back and forth at the end of a delicate length of gold chain. He surveyed Charlotte and Harry with a hint of mockery in his eyes as they looked, puzzled, at him.
Lady Weare took a deep breath and turned to Charlotte and Harry.
“Such a surprise! A delightful, unexpected surprise. Here are my daughter Charlotte, and nephew Harry. Of course you knew them before, but it is so many years ago, and they have all grown so much in that time! This, my dears, is your Aunt Claudine, Lady Norville, and Claude, the cousin we feared might be dead. And Monsieur de Vauban, your aunt’s brother, who has accompanied them from France. I scarcely recognized you, Claudine, let alone Claude!”
Chapter 5
Having thus given them time to master their surprise, she smiled brightly at them, and Charlotte, responsive to the unspoken plea in her glance, dutifully dropped a curtsey, wondering whether she ought to offer to kiss her aunt. Before she could decide Lady Norville beamed delightedly at her, and approached to sweep her into her arms, bestowing several kisses on Charlotte’s unresponsive cheeks.
“The dear little Charlotte! How well I recall you as a child. Such a mischievous one, at that, but so much the young lady now. So elegant. I shall have to tell you some of the secrets we have in France, so that you can dazzle the young bucks. And your big cousin Harry. My, how he has grown. I believe he is taller even than Claude!”
She released Charlotte and went to embrace Harry, but he forestalled her by grasping her hand and raising it to his lips.
“Welcome, Aunt Claudine,” he said with an effort, and then, unable to control himself any longer, burst out: “Claude? What is this? My cousin’s name is Frederick!”
“Frederick Claude, named after his dear father and me. Don’t you recall? But Frederick is so ugly a name, and so difficile for us to pronounce, and in France, you know, these last years, it has not been wise to puff off English connections, so my boy is called Claude.”
Harry stared at her for an instant, frowning, before he spoke.
“The head of the family has been called Frederick for several generations,” he said quietly, and turned at last to shake the limp hand his cousin extended to him. “It’s good to see you back, Claude. My father sent a man to France a short while ago to try and trace you. It has been a long time.”
“And there must be so much to tell,” Lady Weare put in. “I am still so startled I cannot think straight. But Claudine, you will wish to go to your room. I will take you up. Let us hope the servants have taken up some of the baggage, and your maid can find you a gown to change into. Harry, will you show Claude to his room? I have ordered the oak guest chamber to be prepared for him and the one next to it for Monsieur. I hope that will be comfortable for you, Claude. “
“We were so pleasantly surprised to find the house lived in,” Lady Norville said, smiling at her sister-in-law. “I dread
ed having to put up at an hotel while Claude saw his man of business, and sent for Henry, and we had this house made habitable. How well I recall it. But it seems very old-fashioned now. No doubt Claude will want to redecorate and throw out this dreadful old furniture. And pray do not disturb yourselves by moving out of the main bedrooms, the others will do admirably for us for the time being.”
It’s a wonder she doesn’t ask us all to move from our bedrooms immediately, Charlotte thought. She cast a swift glance at Harry, whose face was set and his lips clamped together as though he were restraining himself from comment. She could see life with the newly returned Norvilles was going to be tricky, if not downright unpleasant.
“My brother wished to keep the house in good order, while not altering it beyond recognition,” Lady Weare said calmly. “You will find he has had all the necessary repairs done, though he would not permit me to indulge my love of redecorating,” she finished with a rather forced laugh.
“Rowanlea is entirely as it was left also,” Harry put in, his voice cold with suppressed anger. “My father has kept only a skeleton staff there, but has exercised his duties as trustee from Rowanlea Manor. The servants here are in fact his own, and naturally paid for by him.”
Lady Norville beamed at him and attempted to pat his hand, but Harry moved away.
“I am sure he has done everything proper, not simply his duty. I do not mean to criticize, my dear boy! I know how much Claude will rely on him to teach him what, after all, he should have been learning these last years, had things turned out differently. And as for you, Sophia, I shall depend on you to show me how to go on in London society, and introduce me to all the people I ought to know, and the ones I have most like forgot!”
She swept out of the room and Lady Weare followed. After a moment Harry asked the men if they too would wish to go to their rooms. Charlotte was left alone, thinking of the blow this would be to Harry’s hopes of winning Elizabeth, and determined she would, in some manner which as yet was unclear to her, persuade Elizabeth to accept him.