by M C Beaton
Miss Wilkins primmed up her mouth and turned her head away, as she always did when Lady Lovelace mentioned her sisters.
“Do you think this Lord Philip will be at Almack’s?” asked Amaryllis.
“Bound to be,” said Miss Wilkins. “He’s all the crack.”
Amaryllis sighed. “I shall try to engage his attention but I fear it is looking too high. I keep hoping Mr. Worthy will work some miracle and perhaps I may not have to get married at all. It was amazing kind of him to return so swiftly to my employ. He will put the land in good heart again. But the returns from the harvests are a long way away and there is so much debt. So very much. You know, Tabby, it seems as if Bertram was not a particularly pleasant young man after all.”
“So the whole of London Society would have us believe, my lady.”
“Well, so… but to return to our muttons. I think perhaps I should use a little paint, Tabby.”
“Never!” said Miss Wilkins, appalled. “Your skin is beautiful, my lady, and the blanc that these women plaster themselves with has a lead base and you will end up dying of cosmetics.”
“I bought a packet of Spanish papers, Tabby. Now, they would not hurt anyone. I don’t know why they’re called Spanish because they are made in China and they are so easy to carry. See, I have it here. The box holds twenty-four papers. Is it not cunning?
“See, there is a small black paper for the eyebrows. This one which looks green actually gives a very fine red for the cheeks and a white one for the neck and forehead. You just wet the tip of your little finger and then transfer the color from the paper to your face.”
“Handsome is…”
“As handsome does. Oh, Tabby. If I am going to succeed in alluring the devilish Lord Philip, then I must endeavor to appear a little younger.”
“You don’t look a day above nineteen!” said Miss Wilkins stoutly. “Good health is the only beauty aid anyone needs.”
“Oh, dear. You sound just like Miss Armitage. She has a stern regime. She rises at six in the morning, takes a walk at a brisk pace for up to three miles to work up an appetite for a simple breakfast of broiled beafsteak (lean and underdone), plain biscuits, and a half pint of Scotch ale.”
“I don’t know why you cultivate her company, my lady. Miss Armitage is all airs and fancies.”
“Nonsense! Miss Armitage is just what I need. She would make anyone’s remarks appear witty. And she does giggle so. You are making me nervous, talking about this Lord Philip. He will probably not notice me. Unfortunately, Sally Jersey has made everyone in London think I am a great heiress and so far I have attracted a great deal of unwanted attention from every gazetted fortune hunter in London.
“Ah, well, my Tabby. We shall arm ourselves to the teeth in all our finery and see what the evening will bring.”
Amaryllis had heard enough about Almack’s not to be disappointed by the plain rooms and plain food. The dancing floor was roped off like a sort of cattle pen. But the guests were magnificent in their finery and Amaryllis could only be glad that she had taken such pains over her appearance.
She was wearing a round train-dress of Moravian muslin, let in all around with fine footing lace and fastened up the side with gold embossed clasps. Her brown-gold curls were confined with a gold filet and her flat dancing slippers were embroidered with gold thread. She had not been used to much in the way of company apart from the elderly friends of her husbands, and was inclined to view any mortal under the age of forty as being in the prime of life.
She cheerfully danced quadrilles and gallops and reels and country dances with various young men, most of whom had not a feather to fly with and were obviously hoping to make her fortune their own.
“Has he come yet?” she asked Miss Wilkins.
“Lord Philip? No, not yet. Perhaps he will not come. It only lacks fifteen minutes to the eleventh hour.”
“I shall sit down with you, Tabby, if we can but remove ourselves from the view of my fortune-hunting partners for a few moments. Behind this plant under the gallery will be just the refuge I need. Sit beside me, Tabby. How I wish I were home! It is all very fatiguing. I think perhaps I should put it about that I have lost all my money on ’Change. I cannot see any possible suitors for the forest of gallants devoted to my imaginary fortune. Ah! Lucky Miss Armitage! Who is that she is dancing with?”
Miss Wilkins peered round a pillar. “From his looks and dress, I would say that that is none other than Lord Philip. He must have just arrived.”
“Indeed! He is very handsome. Miss Armitage is suitable for him, don’t you think? She has those pale blond looks which the ladies swear are so unfashionable and all the men seem to admire. And her father is a general so it is a military family and that must appeal to him. Only see. She has made him laugh!”
“Then you should be encouraged,” said Miss Wilkins sourly. “For if Priscilla Armitage can make him laugh, then you, my lady, will send him into enraptured whoops.”
“What a terribly long dance it is, to be sure,” said Amaryllis, impatiently tapping her little foot. “I have decided not to try to attract him, Tabby. I am suddenly weary of the whole thing. Let us retire to the refreshment room and fortify ourselves with weak tea and stale bread.”
The dance finished at last. Lord Philip found it extremely long, too. Although he was often separated from his fair partner by the movements of the dance, she nonetheless contrived to say a very great deal to him any time the figure brought them together.
“Where is your fair widow?” he demanded of Harry Bagshot, after he had thankfully delivered Miss Armitage to her next partner.
“In the refreshment room,” said Mr. Bagshot. “I just saw Toby Anstruther following her there. I know him so I can arrange an introduction.”
The two men walked into the refreshment room. Mr. Bagshot made straight for an extremely pretty lady who was standing flanked by an elderly dragon of a female with a sour expression. “Ah, Toby, m’boy,” cried Mr. Bag-shot. “Always with the prettiest of ladies, heh! Allow me to introduce Lord Philip Osborne. Met him in India.”
Toby Anstruther reluctantly introduced Lady Lovelace and her companion.
Lord Philip and Amaryllis covertly surveyed each other while Mr. Anstruther and Mr. Bag-shot exchanged hearty, pointless gossip.
Amaryllis saw a very tall, slim man with strange, glittering green eyes in a lightly tanned face. He wore his black hair unpowdered. His evening coat was molded to his broad shoulders and his black tights revealed a pair of long muscular legs. His cravat was an intricate snowy piece of sculpture, lightly starched.
Lord Philip looked quizzically down at the pretty, diminutive figure before him. She had a pointed elfin face with very large hazel eyes fringed with heavy black lashes. Her curls were shining and glossy and he found himself wondering what oil or cosmetic she had used to achieve the effect, and after a few moments realized with surprise that her hair was purely and simply very clean indeed.
“Since Harry and Mr. Anstruther seem to have so much to talk about,” he said lightly, “they will excuse us, I think, if we wander off and chat for a little.”
He steered her expertly to a small sofa in the corner. Mr. Bagshot and Mr. Anstruther turned and looked after them with their mouths open. Miss Wilkins, after a little hesitation, whisked herself off to join the chaperones in the ballroom.
Amaryllis felt strangely breathless. Here was no elderly gentleman to be easily charmed, but a disturbingly handsome man who was looking at her in a strangely calculating way.
“May I compliment you on your gown?” he began. “Your beauty quite overshadows that of any other lady in these rooms.”
“Sir, you flatter me.”
“On the contrary. I speak the truth.”
“You speak the truth in manner so bored and so indifferent that it quite takes the charm from the compliment. On the other hand, had you said it in any other tone then the flattery would have been too much.”
“I maintain an attitude of bored in
difference to mask the confusion of my emotions, my intense delight in your company.”
Amaryllis raised her eyes to his in amazement. His own looked down into hers, as cold and green as the arctic seas.
“I shall be the envy of every man at the ball,” he went on, spoiling his additional gallantry by impatiently flicking a piece of fluff from the sleeve of his coat.
“Then I am surely the envy of every woman,” laughed Amaryllis with a lightness she did not feel. “Everyone talks of naught else but our latest nabob.”
“Dear me? Am I accounted so rich?”
“Yes.”
“And you? You find that renders me attractive in your eyes?”
“Really,” said Amaryllis quite crossly. “If someone has an attractive personality, then that is all that is important.”
“And you find mine attractive?”
“La! I hardly know you.”
“Nor I you. But that does not stop me from finding you attractive. Immensely so.”
“You are embarrassing me quite dreadfully,” said Amaryllis, becoming increasingly annoyed with him. Did he have to sound as if he did not mean a word of what he was saying?
“My humble apologies. What does one usually talk about? I am not in the way of being in Society.”
Amaryllis looked at him again to see if he were by any chance mocking her but his expression was quite serious.
“Well, one talks about the latest on-dit, the races at Newmarket, who is about to marry whom… that sort of thing.”
“I must learn. For none of that interests me in the slightest.”
“No doubt you consider yourself intellectually above such trivia?”
“Yes.”
“My dance, Lady Lovelace.” Amaryllis looked up gratefully into the round, florid face and small black eyes of Toby Anstruther. All she wanted to do was escape from this infuriating lord who made her feel breathless, awkward, and gauche.
She arose in a flurry of silks and then hesitated with her hand on Toby Anstruther’s arm.
Lord Philip had risen punctiliously to his feet.
“Lady Lovelace,” he said gently.
“Yes?” replied Amaryllis impatiently.
“May I have the honor of the next waltz with you?”
Amaryllis smiled her relief. “I have not yet obtained permission to waltz, so I must refuse.”
Lord Philip raised his thin eyebrows. “So one needs permission, does one? Amazing! I shall secure that permission, madam.”
“In that case, how can I refuse?” mocked Amaryllis, tugging at Toby Anstruther’s sleeve. As she walked toward the ballroom, she hoped that one of the stern patronesses would give the arrogant Lord Philip a much-deserved setdown.
She tried to analyze the turmoil of her feelings as she nimbly executed the steps of a reel to Neil Gow’s fiddling. At last she decided that she did not like Lord Philip. He was arrogant and cold and, she suspected, very unkind. But at least he would soon find that permission to perform the waltz was not easily given and certainly not at the last minute. So that was all right. It would be better to put any idea of a younger type of man out of her mind and return to the gentlemen she knew best—the elderly.
Accordingly, when the waltz was announced, she went to take her place beside Miss Wilkins. Her large eyes blinked in astonishment. For no sooner had she sat down and arranged her skirts, than Lord Philip was bending over her hand, a mocking smile on his face.
“How did you obtain permission?” she asked, as he put his arm around her waist.
“Ah, that is my secret.” He smiled. “How enchantingly you dance!”
And Amaryllis, who had just trodden on his toe in her confusion, scowled quite horribly at his middle waistcoat button.
She was intensely aware of his nearness, his maleness, and the pressure of his hand on the small of her back.
After a few moments, he said, “The top of your head is quite enchanting, Lady Lovelace. I appear to have been studying it for quite some time.”
She looked up then, defiantly, an irritable burst of anger taking away her shyness. “You seem to take delight in teasing me.”
“Ah, no. I am trying to change the expression in those beautiful eyes.”
“From what, I pray?”
“From wariness and calculation, to adoration.”
Amaryllis felt a stab of sheer fright. Was that how she looked? Had her mercenary motives become writ large on her face for all the world to see?
She tried to laugh but in her ears it sounded like an inane titter.
Amaryllis searched around the room for something or someone to talk about to take his attention from her eyes.
“Oh, there is Mr. Brummell,” she said with relief. “I did not know he was present this evening.”
“Are you a devotee of Brummell?”
“I leave that to the men,” said Amaryllis. “Take away Mr. Brummell’s tailor and… why!… you have nothing left.”
“Ah, no,” he mocked. “Take away Mr. Brummell and his tailor would have nothing left. As our Beau points out, he makes his tailor, his tailor does not make him.”
Amaryllis bit her lip in vexation. All her beaux so far had greeted all her sallies with chortles of glee and had hailed her as a wit. She did not like to be contradicted.
“I suppose you slavishly copy everything that Mr. Brummell wears,” she countered.
“Not all. Most things. You ladies have your fashion plates to tell you what to wear, we gentlemen have our Mr. Brummell, who has the advantage of being a moving fashion plate.”
“Oh, what are we talking about Beau Brummell for?” said Amaryllis pettishly.
“I don’t know. You tell me. You introduced the subject.”
“I see you are determined to argue with me,” said Amaryllis in a low voice.
“I? Never. I am merely debating with an intelligent woman whose beauty sets my senses reeling.”
Her eyes flew upward to his to be met again with that cool green gaze.
“Then why do you look so,” snapped Amaryllis. “Your expression makes all your compliments appear trite.”
“True love is trite,” said Lord Philip. “And I am in love with you.”
I think I have her with that one, he thought cynically as her eyes dropped and a delicate blush mantled her cheek.
“My hard expression,” he went on, pressing his hand firmly into the small of her back and yet managing to keep her at the regulation twelve inches away from him, “is because I try to mask my feelings. I have never been in love with any woman before and I don’t quite know how to go about it.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Amaryllis breathlessly. “You are funning.”
“Drive with me tomorrow,” he said urgently. “At least accord me that honor. If it embarrasses you, I shall talk only of the fashionable scene. You will drive with me tomorrow. At five.” And without waiting for her reply, he kissed her glove and strode off in the direction of the refreshment room, leaving her to be claimed by her next partner.
Amaryllis danced on in a daze. All this was so much more than she believed she could handle. But he had said he loved her. And she would see him tomorrow. Of course, he was an attractive man but it was only his fortune in which she was interested. Somehow, her step became lighter and her eyes shone brighter, and several most eligible elderly men sighed as they watched her, and would have been quite prepared to lay their fortunes at her feet. But the subtle poison of love, unknown to Amaryllis, was already seeping through her veins toward her heart and she did not notice or pay heed to any other man at the ball for the rest of the night.
Three
“Well, how did it go? I did not see you after your waltz with Lady Lovelace.”
Harry Bagshot was sprawled in an armchair in Lord Philip’s lodgings, watching his friend being shaved by his valet.
“Very well,” mumbled Lord Philip from behind a mask of lather. “Wait until I am finished.”
Harry swung his booted foot and admired t
he gloss of his toe cap.
At last Lord Philip was finished and the valet dismissed.
“Well?” pursued Harry impatiently.
“I did quite well,” said Lord Philip. “I am taking her driving this afternoon. I think her attention is caught.”
“You looked so grim when you were dancing with her that I quite thought you were paying her insults instead of compliments.”
“I was merely mocking her. A certain type of woman finds that approach irresistible.”
“I begin to feel sorry for Lady Lovelace. I’ve been wondering, Phil, is it necessary to go through with this? I mean, what about the succession? I have heard your father is poorly.”
“He affects bad health, that is all,” shrugged Lord Philip, arranging his cravat in front of the looking glass. “But even if he did die, there’s my eldest brother, George, and his eight children, six of them boys, then there’s James, the next in line, and his five brats, all boys and then there’s brother Perry who’s been married not above a six month and already his bride looks as if she is about to drop another little Dunster into the family pool.”
“But I mean, well, couldn’t you live at home, dear boy? Your father wouldn’t turn you out. Get all the farming you wanted.”
“Oh, yes, he would,” said Lord Philip, rummaging in his jewel box for a stickpin. “I had a letter from him the other day, cursing me for having sold out of my regiment and reminding me that it is my concern as to how I support myself.”
“That must hurt very much,” said Mr. Bagshot sympathetically. “Your own father.”
Lord Philip swiveled around and surveyed his friend with some surprise. “If I were at all fond of my father, I suppose it would hurt. But he is, and always was, a stranger to me.”
“But your mama…”
“Look, Harry, my dear, dear chap. How on earth was I ever supposed to know my parents, brought up as I was at Dunster Abbey? I was never held in my mother’s arms. I was taken from her womb by the midwife, who promptly handed me to a wet nurse. I lived my young days in the nursery wing, and sometimes on occasions such as my birthday or Christmas, I was taken downstairs and introduced to my parents.