by Amanda Scott
Arabella’s color heightened appreciably, but she responded with admirable poise, “Thank you, sir, ’twas a present from a cousin, who purchased it in the north of France. I was a trifle nervous lest the bright colors prove overwhelming to one of my complexion.”
“Nonsense,” replied Lord Toby bracingly before nodding to the duchess and to Cheriton.
The harpist had finished tuning her instrument and it was clear from the commands to hush coming from all corners of the room that some people had actually come to hear the music, so of a necessity conversation waned for the moment. When a pause in the entertainment was declared an hour later, Cheriton arose at once.
“Daresay the ladies will like some refreshment. Come along, Toby.”
“A packhorse,” grumbled Lord Toby, getting obediently to his feet. “Like this all over the Peninsula, it was. Do this, Toby, fetch that. And I’ll wager you ordered your poor old mum around in that same arrogant tone of command, and that’s the real reason she packed you off to the city, my lad. Hoped you’d badger the rest of us for a while and give her some well-earned peace.”
Cheriton only grinned at him, and they were soon back with wine punch and lobster patties for all. As Brittany glanced back toward the rear of the room, she saw a crowd of gentlemen gathering around the serving tables. Clearly, Cheriton had beaten the rush, seeing to it that the duchess and her daughters were among the first to be served.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, smiling up at the marquess. “You do seem to have a knack for seeing to one’s comfort. Do you go to Peddlar’s Hill on Sunday?”
“But of course, doesn’t everyone?” he replied. “After all, no one wishes to miss the dance of the sun.”
“How absurd you are, sir,” Arabella teased him. “The sun does not dance. I am sure it maintains a perfectly stationary position in the heavens.”
“Ah, no, ma’am, you are quite out. ’Tis an ancient belief that the sun dances in the heavens with joy every Easter Sunday morning. ’Tis why everyone finds a hilltop, to be assured an unobscured view of the phenomenon.”
“I don’t believe you,” Arabella said flatly. “You made that up.”
“No, no, I give you my word.” But Cheriton’s eyes twinkled merrily as he added suavely, “Of course, the trick is to keep one’s eyes fixed unwaveringly upon the rising sun. Before long, as one’s vision becomes dazzled, the sun will clearly be seen to quiver or dance in the sky. You wait. You will see.”
“Don’t get her hopes up, Cherry,” Lord Toby advised with a straight face. “Never know when the devil will interfere. That,” he added wisely, “is what the ancients believed happened whenever they failed to see the sun dance. You must be careful to do nothing to annoy him, ma’am.”
Arabella tilted her nose a little higher in the air, but she was clearly pleased to have been included in their teasing conversation. Brittany, watching her, smiled to herself. There had been times in the past when Arabella had spoken scornfully of the flirting, the fast pace, and what she had once called the mindless repartee that seemed to be the main factors that went to make up the social Season, but now she evidently was enjoying herself completely.
At home the following day, Brittany chanced to mention the dancing sun to Amalie and Alicia, and so it was that early Sunday morning, when the two carriages carrying Malmesbury’s family joined the cavalcade moving with ponderous dignity toward Peddlar’s Hill through the dark, chilly twilight, Alicia, riding with her sisters in the rear carriage, demanded to hear about the phenomenon from Cheriton himself when he rode up alongside them on a mettlesome bay stallion, followed closely by Lord Toby, Roger Carrisbrooke, and Faringdon, all mounted upon well-bred cover hacks.
“Don’t shout like a hoyden,” Faringdon said sharply to Alicia. “Do you want to bring your father’s wrath down about your ears again, my girl?”
“Is that your own horse?” Amalie asked Cheriton, her high-pitched voice sounding at almost the same time as the earl’s.
Nodding, Cheriton smiled at her, then turned to Alicia. “Surely, your sisters told you as much about the sun dance as I can, my lady.”
“Lord,” Faringdon said scornfully, “don’t encourage her. You didn’t really feed them that old chestnut, I hope.”
“Chestnut?” Cheriton frowned in mock irritation. “How can you say such a thing? ’Tis a solid belief in the north, me lad, so look how you speak, lest you offend.”
“Aye,” Lord Toby said chuckling, “and they still blacken their faces up there, like as not, and go from house to house through the countryside, demanding Easter eggs. What is it they chant as they go? Something about old Mrs. Whiteleg, ain’t that it, Cherry?”
Cheriton obliging recited,
Please, Mrs. Whiteleg,
Please to give us an Easter egg.
If you won’t give us an Easter egg,
Your hens will all lay addled eggs,
And your cocks all lay stones.
“Oh, did you go egging when you were a boy?” Amalie asked, round-eyed. “Papa will never let us do so, although he does not object to our rolling Easter eggs on the hillside when we are at Malmesbury Park.”
“They call it pace-egging where I come from,” Cheriton told her. “No doubt that is some derivative of Paschal. And I might add, my parents were as opposed as yours to my partaking in the fun. But I daresay ’tis easier for adventuresome boys to evade the parental eye than for young ladies to do so,” he added with a wink.
“I daresay,” Alicia put in, very much upon her dignity and careful to avoid Faringdon’s critical eye, “that customs vary a good deal throughout the country.”
“Well,” said Lord Toby, “in Hallaton—that’s in Leicestershire near my papa’s place—they have a thing called a hare-pie scramble with a bottle-kicking contest to follow. Can’t say I ever saw either event myself, though,” he confessed.
“At home in Warwickshire,” Faringdon said quickly, as though not to be outdone by the others, “the young men of each village rise early in the day after Easter to run down a hare. If they catch one and bring it to the rector before ten o’clock, he is obliged to give them a calf’s head and a hundred eggs for their breakfast, as well as a groat each in money.”
“Ugh,” said Alicia, “calf’s head is a delicacy I’ve never learned to appreciate.”
Brittany had been silently watching Cheriton during this exchange, admiring the way his dark coat sat upon his broad shoulders and wondering how it was that he wore his clothes with such an air of elegance when Faringdon, who no doubt patronized the same tailor, always looked rather casually put together. She glanced quickly at the earl now, hoping he would not find it necessary to call Alicia to task again. When he turned sharply toward the younger girl, Brittany opened her mouth, intending to say something clever to divert him. Fortunately, since she could think of nothing that would serve the purpose, Mr. Carrisbrooke suddenly called attention to the fact that the sky was rapidly growing lighter. Teams were urged to a faster pace, and the Malmesbury carriages reached the hilltop in time to see glimmering halos outline a band of clouds on the eastern horizon. Within moments a fiery glow appeared behind them and soon the golden edge of the sun could be seen.
Brittany dutifully attempted to keep her eyes on the rising sun, but it soon grew too bright and she had to look away. Her gaze encountered Cheriton’s. He was watching her, his look unguarded, his brow knitted into a slight frown. Before she had time to wonder what she had done to displease him, he realized she was looking at him and his expression lightened. She waited expectantly for him to say something teasing about her failure to see the dance of joy. Instead, he smiled and turned away to watch the sunrise. Warmed more by that smile than by the rays of the sun, she glanced at Faringdon, hoping a little guiltily that he had not noticed the exchange. But he was watching Alicia, who had stood up in the carriage in an awkward attempt to catch the attention of a friend in a nearby vehicle.
“Lissa, for pity’s sake, sit down,” Brittany said q
uickly before the earl could expostulate. “If Papa glances over here, you will find yourself in the suds again, I promise you.”
Alicia obeyed with a saucy look. “You would also feel as though you were sitting on springs if you had been cooped up as I have been these three days past, Tani. I do hope tomorrow’s entertainments will be exciting ones, for Madame Mariot promised last week that my newest dress will be quite finished and I mean to make a stir, I can tell you.”
Brittany saw Cheriton looking her way again, and this time she read unmistakable sympathy in his eyes. She wished she might reassure him that she needed no sympathy, but she was not by any means sure that that was the truth of the matter. And since by the time they had returned to town and entered their pew in St. George’s Chapel in Hanover Square she had three times more had to call her young sister to order, she was quite ready to collapse into her place and shut her eyes to relax. She scarcely noticed that the church was filled with spring flowers of every kind. Arum lilies and white narcissus adorned the high altar, with the dark-green branches of yew, which stood for life everlasting, and in other parts of the church, flowers of all sorts, especially primroses, filled every corner.
A moment later, Amalie nudged her. “’Tis the new-fire ceremony,” she whispered. “Watch.”
The flint and steel were brought out, and soon the paschal candle had been lit from the new flame and the blessing of the water had been given. Even so, the rector was in fine fettle, and the service was a long one. By the time it was over, Brittany’s stomach had begun to protest its lack of sustenance.
Amalie giggled at the rumbling sound, but fortunately the choir chose that moment to begin the offertory, and the sound did not reach the duke’s ears. Nevertheless, Brittany breathed a long sigh of relief when she found herself in the carriage again. The gentlemen, including Mr. Carrisbrooke, were riding alongside once more, for they had been invited to break their fast at Malmesbury House, and soon the little cortege reached the front entrance.
“I can smell the hot cross buns from here,” Alicia announced happily.
“Well, you need not tell the world,” said Faringdon crossly as he assisted her from the carriage.
Cheriton, glancing at the earl, who continued to speak in a low tone to an unresponsive Alicia, turned to assist Brittany, while Mr. Carrisbrooke helped Arabella to alight. Lord Toby swung Amalie, to her huge delight, high in the air as he lifted her down.
Cheriton bent a little to murmur in Brittany’s ear, “To my mind, Toby has more the knack than Faringdon. My mama would say he knows when to bend the rules and when to stickle them.”
“Stickle them, sir?”
“Sticklers stickle, do they not?” he inquired with one eyebrow gently lifted.
She chuckled, accepting his escort up the broad steps and into the house, where the duke announced that they would adjourn at once to the dining room.
“Long morning,” he said gruffly. “Ought to be famished, the lot of you. I am.”
In the dining room, Brittany found a small gilded Easter basket at her place, containing an exquisitely decorated Easter egg nestled in a bouquet of primroses. “How lovely!” she exclaimed, glancing around quickly to see if her sisters had like gifts. Their places were bare. “But what is this? How is it that no one else has such a gift?” She looked questioningly at the butler. “Pinchbeck, do you know aught of this?”
“Yes, m’lady. A footman in a livery unknown to me delivered it an hour or so ago with orders that it was to be placed where it is. There was a card, ma’am. I placed it beneath the basket.”
Eagerly, she lifted the little basket and snatched up the card. It read, “An Easter message from a secret admirer to the one lady in London who truly walks in beauty. All that’s best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes.”
“Goodness me, how odd,” said the duchess, taking her seat. “I do not know that it is at all proper for you to be receiving gifts from an unknown admirer, my dear. Particularly one who writes such stuff as that.”
“Oh, pooh, Mama,” said Alicia, grinning. “I think it is quite the most romantic thing. And ’tisn’t ‘stuff’ at all, but from something Lord Byron wrote. Moreover, perhaps attention from a secret admirer will prevent my lord from taking Tani’s affections too lightly.”
“Enough, prattler,” said Faringdon, but he smiled at the duchess. “I do not object, ma’am, and if I do not, there can be nothing unsuitable about it. If it amuses the Lady Brittany to have a secret admirer hovering about, even one who writes silly claptrap to her, I am sure that can distress no one.”
“I’ll wager you sent it yourself,” said Amalie excitedly. “Oh, that is romantic. I wouldn’t have guessed that you would think to do such a thing, my lord.”
“Oh, did you indeed send it, Tony?” Brittany looked at him in glowing appreciation. “How thoughtful of you.”
“Well, now, look here,” said the earl, tugging at his neckcloth, clearly embarrassed. “Never said I sent the thing. Just said I didn’t mind.”
“Doubt he sent it, y’know,” Mr. Carrisbrooke said musingly. “Not his style of thing at all.”
“No, that it ain’t,” agreed Lord Toby.
“Put it away, put it away,” commanded the duke in annoyance. “Lot of damned nonsense. Where the devil’s my breakfast, Pinchbeck? Ought to be on the table. At once, man. Hop.”
Though the stately butler was quite incapable of hopping, he did set the other servants quickly in motion, and the conversation turned at once to other, safer channels. Brittany set the little basket aside with a mild feeling of disappointment. To have one’s own secret admirer might indeed prove to be amusing, but it would have been far nicer had Faringdon proved to be romantic enough to have thought of doing such a thing himself. Of course, he had not actually denied having sent the gift; however, she could not help but agree with Mr. Carrisbrooke and Lord Toby. Such chivalry was not in the earl’s style.
In the days ahead, more little gifts arrived. Most of these were floral offerings, but on Thursday a book Brittany had expressed a desire to read appeared, tied about with a red ribbon, on the front-hall table. The card that accompanied it read, “There be none of Beauty’s daughters with a magic like thee; and like music on the waters is thy sweet voice to me.” On the following Monday a scroll was delivered to her at the dinner table, which when unrolled proved to be Robert Herrick’s “Cherry Ripe” copied out in exquisite calligraphy with Brittany’s name written in place of Herrick’s Julia.
The days passed otherwise without incident, however, for no one had sufficient temerity to question the fact that the duchess was firing off two of her daughters instead of one as, somehow, people had originally thought she meant to do.
There was no news for some time of the Persian ambassador and his train, who seemed to be stranded by uncooperative weather at Calais, so Alicia had to make do with stories about the Algerian ambassador instead. Aside from the one description of him in his turban and baggy trousers, however, she found little written about the gentleman to stir her interest. Fortunately, from her point of view, the Duke of York had broken his arm while in attendance upon the king at Windsor Easter Sunday, and the accounts of his progress appeared in the papers daily for more than a week.
“At least,” she observed after perusing the morning’s offering on the following Tuesday, “his accident has given the papers something to write about other than the ten thousand pounds he receives each year for looking after the king. It does seem to be an extraordinary amount for a son to receive merely for the task of looking after his aging and decrepit father, though I,” she added pointedly, “can certainly imagine a case or two where a child might require an extraordinary sum before agreeing to looking after a contumacious parent.”
“Well,” replied the duchess, to whom, along with Brittany and Arabella, this observation had been addressed, “I daresay York would have preferred some other manner of diverting the newspapers’ attention.”
“In my opini
on,” said Arabella firmly, “it was prodigiously careless of him to have caught his spur in the loop at the bottom of his pantaloons, for that is what caused him to fall, you know. He was merely opening a door at Windsor Castle, for heaven’s sake.”
“Well, you know,” Brittany said fairly, “I don’t think he can be much in the habit of opening doors for himself. Perhaps he got flustered and forgot how to go about it.”
“He ought not to have been wearing his spurs in the house at all,” Arabella said flatly.
“No,” Alicia agreed, “that is quite true. Even Faringdon would not do so.”
For once Brittany said nothing to defend her betrothed. Instead, her thoughts turned to the fact that Cheriton had invited her to drive out with him that afternoon. She could not flatter herself that he desired her company, however, for, as usual, he had been encouraged by Faringdon, who would be otherwise occupied, to extend the invitation. A cockfight, she thought Tony had said. She couldn’t deny that she would prefer to have Cheriton’s company anyway, for she had begun of late to contrast Faringdon with his many friends. Most of the latter were flatteringly attentive, even romantic in their behavior toward her. And although Cheriton was neither, she had begun to sense a kindred spirit in him despite his casual attitude toward her and the fact that he displayed a tendency to quote his mother rather more often than was consistent with Brittany’s interest in that lady. Cheriton didn’t flatter her, but he did converse with her the same way he conversed with the rest of his friends, as though what she had to say was truly of interest to him. Indeed, she had begun to value his friendship and, as a result, to desire more depth in her relationship with Faringdon.