by Amanda Scott
“Better?”
She glanced up at him. “I cannot think what came over me. You must think me a fragile flower, sir, and indeed I am not.”
“I know.”
She hesitated, then decided to speak her mind. “I thought you were angry with me, but I cannot think why I should have reacted so oddly. When Papa begins to bellow at Alicia or Cicely, I have been known to feel faint, but I have never reacted like this. It seems most peculiar.”
“Does your father never bellow at you?” he asked.
“No. Do you think he should?”
“That’s better,” he said approvingly. “I am sorry if you mistook my small concern for anger. I certainly have no right to reprove you for your actions. I merely spoke as I did because crowds are unfortunately so entirely unpredictable. You would both have been far safer in your own home.”
“But then Alicia would not have seen her mystery lady.”
“You say all you saw was her forehead and eyes. Will that little glance satisfy your incorrigible sister?”
Brittany sighed. “Oh, I hope so, but I fear you are right to suggest it might not, sir. My only hope is to keep her otherwise occupied, and that is where I require your advice and assistance. You did indeed see the way Tony looked at her today, did you not?”
“I did.” The crispness was there in his voice again, but Brittany was able to ignore it this time.
“Well, I think he’s in love with her. Do you believe that is possible?”
“He has quite clearly been more intrigued by your sister than by yourself since I first made the acquaintance of your family,” replied the marquess with unflattering candor. “However, may I point out that the regard is scarcely mutual? The Lady Alicia appears to be utterly determined to despise him, you know. Moreover, she is rather young, is she not, to be contemplating matrimony?”
“Well, of course she dislikes him,” Brittany said, ignoring the rider, “for he is forever carping and correcting her. A saint would dislike him if he did that. But I think Alicia rather likes his attentions, for all that she scorns to say so. Something she said once about its being good for him to be stirred up a bit now and again makes me think that, given the opportunity, she, might well come to love him.”
“What of Faringdon? I doubt he recognizes his own feelings, you know.”
“Oh, no, I am quite certain that he does not, for he could not have spoken so lightly to me as he did tonight if he had the least awareness of being in love with Lissa. Tony has not got a deceitful bone in his body.” She paused, then said quietly, “I had thought I must break off our engagement, you know, but I quite see that that will not do.”
“No,” he agreed, his tone a little sharper than before.
“Well, of course not, for how, then, could he get to know Lissa better or she get to know him? He would stay away altogether out of respect for my feelings, I daresay, and that would never do.”
“What are your feelings if I might be so bold as to inquire?” the marquess asked more gently.
“Well, do you know, I think I must be quite devoid of all those romantical sensibilities one reads about in the best gothic romances, for I felt nothing at all beyond a slight touch of annoyance over the fact that he had mistaken his affections. And even that, I don’t scruple to tell you, was more because Tony was making such a cake of himself than out of self-pity or whatever emotion I ought by rights to have felt. ’Tis the oddest situation. I suppose I should be quite put out with him, should I not?”
“You will do better to take the matter as you do,” he said without emotion.
“Yes, I quite agree. Clearly I must pretend to go ahead with my plans for the wedding, as well, until the two of them can be got to recognize their true feelings for each other. Oh, this will be fun, don’t you think, Cheriton?”
“I beg your pardon.” His composure was rocked at last and he stared at her as though she had quite lost her senses.
“Well, I shall require your help, of course. I thought you quite understood that.” She regarded him with childlike innocence.
“What I understood,” he said, his words carefully measured, “was that you required my advice, and that advice is that you ought to steer well clear of what does not concern you, my lady. To mix in the business of others never answers, believe me.”
“Such advice is absurd, sir, for this matter concerns me very nearly. I can scarcely marry a man, knowing—even if he does not—that he cares more deeply for my sister than he does for me. Nor can I merely shut my eyes and turn away when I see that she will be a deal happier with him than I would be.”
“Your sister is too young to marry,” Cheriton repeated firmly. “Moreover, when she does marry, her husband will have to be someone for whom she has deep respect, someone who can control her foolish starts.”
Brittany chuckled. “A lion-tamer, in fact. I have met no one who can do that, sir, but I believe that if Tony cares enough, he may well learn the trick of it. I certainly know of no one else who would dare to lock her in the wine cellar to keep her out of mischief, but I have no doubt that Tony would do so. He has threatened to more than once, I can tell you that.”
“Threats and actions are often quite different matters,” Cheriton said grimly, but he did not argue further. After a rather lengthy silence he sighed. “What, precisely, did you hope I might do to assist you?”
Sitting a little straighter on the bench, she rewarded him with a brilliant smile. “There, I knew I was not mistaken in you, sir. It will not be a great deal, I promise, nor anything you will particularly dislike. I have thought things over, you know, and I believe the best course to follow is one that will throw the two of them together as often as possible. Arabella will help if she does not know our exact purpose—for she will agree with you that Lissa is too young—and I daresay Toby will also help. I think we must embark upon a series of expeditions, don’t you? Your task will merely be to see that Tony doesn’t go haring off to watch a bout of fisticuffs or a cockfight just when I wish him to make up a party. That shouldn’t prove to be too difficult for a man of your capabilities. We can also include Sir David and Sally Lynsted, Mr. Carrisbrooke, Sir Reginald Blakeney, and some of the others, so that neither Tony nor Alicia will suspect our intent.”
Cheriton sighed more deeply than before. “Tell me something, Lady Brittany. Have you found it an easy matter to persuade Tony to do anything he doesn’t want to do?”
“No, of course not. That is why I shall plan only expeditions that are particularly calculated to amuse him. No more musical parties, for example.” She paused, thinking. “Perhaps it would be better if I were simply to insist upon his presence, but I do not wish to nag at him, you know. That would more than likely set up his back, and then it would be more difficult for you to bring him up to scratch.”
“Very pretty language,” he murmured.
“What, don’t you know what it means?” she asked, opening her eyes very wide.
He laughed then. “Lady Brittany, despite my mother’s constant demands upon my time, my life has been singularly uncomplicated for several years, a state of affairs that appears most likely to change drastically in the next weeks. I wonder if Mama would be quite so cheerful about my return to the social scene if she knew the sort of business in which I find myself embroiled. But, then, she always said that a gentleman needs adventure to stimulate his mind.”
“Did she, sir?” It seemed a rather odd statement to come from a lady who had managed to keep her son tied so long to her apron strings. But then the dowager marchioness was no doubt a prodigiously odd lady all round. Nothing she had heard about the eleventh marquess stirred her to imagine his wife to be anything but put upon and complaining, or perhaps whiny and a bit of a clinging vine.
The dryness of her tone seemed to stir Cheriton’s sense of humor, for there was laughter in his voice when he said, “She did, indeed. I am pleased to believe she was glad of, even grateful for, my company these past years, for they were not easy ones for
her, but she felt guilty about my missing what she called the ‘fun and nonsense’ of London. I am persuaded this must be some of the nonsense.”
“Indeed, sir?” Her tone was chilly.
But he only chuckled again as he got to his feet and held a hand out to her. “Stir your caldron, my little witch, and see what spells you can concoct. I have given my word to assist you as I may, but do not expect too much. No more than Tony Faringdon am I a natural deceiver.”
She let him take her hand, wondering just what he meant by those words, but Cheriton did not give her a chance to ponder them long. He began a conversation carefully calculated to make her laugh, and by the time they returned to the ballroom, her spirits were high, her emotions easy, and as she took herself off to bed that night, she told herself she had been very lucky to find a friend in the Marquess of Cheriton.
Though the next day was Wednesday, which meant the duchess’s at-home day and Almack’s, Brittany began her new campaign the very next day after that, announcing that since Astley’s had been so kind as to extend their new show, Hypolita and the Amazons, and since from one cause or another none of them had yet been to see it, the very least they could do was to allow Faringdon to take them as soon as an expedition might be arranged. As she had expected, the earl was delighted with the suggestion, and that very night found them all at the huge amphitheater in Westminster Bridge Road. Even Amalie had joined them, for Faringdon had begged to be allowed to include the child in the treat. And Amalie was enthralled. Even before the first event had been announced, she was squirming excitedly upon her seat, speculating in a steady stream of chatter about what they might expect to see.
“I have heard they accomplish things one would never even suspect might be accomplished on horseback,” she confided to the group at large before turning directly to Faringdon, seated beside her, to ask, “How do you suppose the notion of such an exhibition as this one came to Mr. Astley in the first place?”
Her question shot wide of its mark, however, for the earl was watching Alicia as though he expected mischief from that quarter, and failed to hear it. Brittany, seated between Amalie and Cheriton, was on the point of confessing that she hadn’t the slightest notion what the amphitheater’s history might be when Roger Carrisbrooke, seated with the Lynsteds in the tier behind them, leaned a little forward and said cheerfully, “I can tell you this much. Mr. Philip Astley was honorably discharged from the cavalry in 1768 and given his horse as a leaving present. He then bought another horse at Smithfield and began giving unlicensed open-air equestrian displays in the fields of Southwark.”
“Surely he has a license by now,” Amalie said, chuckling.
“Indeed, he does,” said Cheriton, joining in. “He received one as a reward after a chance incident the following year in which he helped our present King George subdue a spirited horse near Westminster Bridge. Afterward, Astley erected a canvas-covered ring near the bridge and called it the Royal Grove. After a fire in 1794, the Royal Grove was rebuilt as the present Astley’s Amphitheater.”
Satisfied, Amalie turned her attention back to the ring in the center of the huge theater, where the show was about to begin. The exhibitions included clowns, acrobats, and conjurers, as well as Mrs. Astley as queen of the Amazons, performing with a large number of other equestrians to support her. Sword fights and exotic melodramas were also presented, and Philip Astley himself, a man with the proportions of a Hercules and the voice of a Roman senator, announced each attraction as it was presented.
When Brittany heard her little sister exclaim, upon seeing the redoubtable Mrs. Astley circumnavigate the ring, which was quite thirty feet in diameter, while standing erect atop her horse and waving a British flag, that she wagered she could do that very same thing on her bay mare, she spoke sharply. “Amalie, you are not to attempt anything you see here, if you please. You will come to grief, if not through falling off your mare, then through having the grooms report your antics to Papa.” The child’s face fell, making Brittany feel a bit of a dragon, but there was nothing she would say to palliate her words. Better that Amalie feel sorry for herself than come to believe she could try such tricks and get off unscathed. She looked away and found Cheriton watching her, his brows drawn together, giving him an even fiercer look than usual.
Unexpectedly, in the silence that fell after the cheers and shouting had died away, Faringdon said, “Let the child be, Brittany. She’s got more sense than Alicia, you know. Bound to. Won’t do anything harebrained.”
“Well, I like that, Tony Faringdon,” put in Alicia, annoyed. “I certainly wouldn’t make a cake of myself by riding about with scarcely a rag to my back and without a decent saddle. If anyone here has acquired the habit of behaving irrationally”—she paused with a pointed look at him—“it certainly is not I.”
“Oh, no, of course not. Never do a thing your mama wouldn’t do, I daresay.”
“For heaven’s sake, the pair of you,” said Arabella, sitting in the tier below, “you are making more of a spectacle of yourselves than Mrs. Astley is making. Do, please, hush.”
“Yes, do,” added Lord Toby beside her. “All this bickering fair makes my head ache. Stifle your noise, Faringdon.”
The music grew louder just then, forcing them to be silent or to shout, and Brittany was grateful. Her plan, so far, was scarcely proving itself a roaring success. And now that Cheriton was annoyed with her for speaking as sternly as she had to Amalie as well as for her attempts to manipulate a better relationship between her sister Alicia and Faringdon, she would have to be careful to avoid his disapproving eye for the rest of the evening.
But when the music softened again, the marquess leaned across her, saying in a quiet tone meant to reach Amalie’s ears but not beyond, “You know, Amalie, now that I have watched Mrs. Astley for some time, I must say I have a good deal more respect for a lady with an excellent seat than for one with an excellent foot upon a horse. So much more elegant, you know, and so much more obviously in control of her mount. I have seen you ride, and I can tell you for a fact that I had far rather be seen with you than with the daring Mrs. Astley in Hyde Park. It would scarcely suit my dignity to be seen with a lady who leapt to her feet in the saddle whenever she heard a band playing, for bands, you know, are in the habit of striking up when one least expects them to do so in Hyde Park.”
Amalie chuckled with delight, but there was an arrested look in her eye as well. She turned to look at him searchingly. “Would you really rather ride with me, sir? She is very pretty.”
“I suppose she is, if one’s taste runs to dark-haired ladies with very pale faces. I prefer ladies with roses in their cheeks, a touch of gold in their hair, and a decided sense of decorum. Perhaps you would like to ride with Lady Brittany and me tomorrow.”
“Oh, Tani, may I?”
Brittany had started at the casually left-handed invitation, but there was not much she could do in view of her little sister’s bubbling excitement but agree that such an outing would be very pleasant. As Amalie turned back to watch the action in the ring below, Brittany favored the marquess with a chilly glare, but when he asked blandly if she had eaten something that disagreed with her, she was forced to smile. Indeed, she was grateful to him for his tactful manner of dealing with Amalie. The distressing fact was that she did not know whether she had been more annoyed by his casual assumption that she would ride with him the following afternoon or by the fact that the first real compliment she had heard from the man had been addressed to her little sister and not to herself.
9
IN THE WEEK THAT followed, Brittany came to decide that her plan to unite Faringdon and Alicia had been doomed to failure from the outset, for neither of the principals cooperated at all. The earl continued to lecture Alicia at every opportunity, while Alicia pointed out his shortcomings with the same consistent regularity, stating far too often for her sister’s comfort that a man of his reputation had no right to say a word to anyone else about proper decorum.
The s
trife that had begun at Astley’s continued the following day, although neither Alicia nor Faringdon joined Brittany, Amalie, and the marquess for their ride in Hyde Park. Indeed, the afternoon began peacefully. The day was warm, although overcast, and the three riders were in excellent spirits. Amalie was pleased to be included in the outing, and Brittany enjoyed watching her little sister enjoy what amounted to a near flirtation with the marquess. And then the park provided a quite unexpected bonus.
“Good gracious!” Amalie exclaimed when, having ridden along Rotten Row as far as Kensington Palace gardens, they turned their mounts toward Apsley House again. “Who is that figure of fun riding toward us on that stunning Persian gray?”
“Lower your voice, Amalie,” Brittany commanded automatically, but when her gaze encountered the party in question, she could not suppress a small chuckle. “Oh, dear, how furious Alicia will be to have missed this opportunity. That is none other than his excellency the Persian ambassador.”
“So it is,” agreed Cheriton surprisingly. “And the gentlemen with him are the Regent’s representative, Sir Gore Ousley, and his excellency’s secretary, Mr. Willock.”
“Well,” said Amalie in properly lowered tones, “that horse of the ambassador’s is magnificent, but I cannot approve his master’s taste in costume. How garish!”
Brittany had to agree, for the ambassador was dressed with as much dazzling formality as the first time she had seen him, only this time his costume was of rich crimson satin. He sported the same wide red sash, glossy knee-high black boots, and the same bejeweled dirk, and was thus rather gaudily turned out even for an hour when everyone dressed to be seen. His mount, on the other hand, was a beautiful gray, accoutered with a magnificent, silver-embossed Persian saddle and bridle. Altogether, the pair made a distinctive and colorful sight, affording the three riders a good deal of delight.