The Golden Season

by Brockway, Connie

  It was just the sort of machination Smyth would expect of someone with Lady Lydia’s social acumen—and he respected her for it. Now she, he realized, would make him a good wife. She had looks, influence, and a worthy name. More worthy than his own, truth be told, despite the irregularity of her parents’ marriage. But that was old news.

  She also had a fortune—though this was the least of his concerns. The fortune he would inherit from his grandfather upon marrying was treble that of hers.

  She was also, as he’d already noted, sophisticated. She would not object to Kitty. Not once she gave him an heir and as long as she had freedom to do what she liked and with whom.

  Why, he even liked her.

  Bangs and thumps disturbed these interesting musings. The door to the hallway burst open and the Phillip Hickton-Tubbs and Lord Harry Lockton pair stumbled in, grinning like apes. Both lads were handsome, as all the Locktons were, though Harry had the appeal of being the heir. If in a few years they managed to develop some sophistication, they would be plums on the matrimonial tree. That is, if they didn’t bankrupt their family first.

  Ah, well, Childe thought, watching the pair attempt to navigate what he could only conclude they perceived to be a pitching floor. If the earl wanted to keep making good the debts of these two, Childe might as well be the one they owed. At least he gave them time in which to come up with the ready. Some of his fellow gamesters demanded their opponents pay their debts within the day, a demand that necessitated a trip to a banker or worse, a cent-per-center. There had been a sad affair last year where a stripling had chosen an even more extreme measure of ending his indebtedness by shooting himself. Poor bastard.

  “Are you quite all right?” he asked, rising to his feet.

  Lord Harry, tall, golden- haired, and noble- looking, nodded and canted sideways, falling into his chair. Phillip, redheaded and slighter but just as comely, remained standing, swaying slightly and staring owlishly about the room. “Where’s Twee’ . . . I mean, Tweed. Confound it, feller has to give another feller the chance to recoup his losses. Only sportin’.”

  “I am right here,” Tweed said, smiling wolfishly from the door. “Did you miss me?” His teeth gleamed like fangs in the lamplight. In each hand he brandished a bottle of gin. “I have simply been making sure we have the means to allay our thirst. And fear not, I shall give you as many hours as you wish in which to reclaim your vowels.”

  “Tha’s most decent of you, Tweed,” young Phillip slurred and took his seat.

  “Ain’t it though?” He had the audacity to wink directly at Childe, as if he considered him to be complicit in the ruin of these children.

  It was too much. He didn’t care if Tweed declared him cowhearted. He was not a . . . Tweed. He’d had enough stealing from babes for one evening.

  “Your deal, Mr. Smyth,” Tweed said.

  He could make it to the Holland House fete by midnight if he left now. Lady Lydia was bound to be present. And after . . . ? His thoughts turned to Kitty.

  “I fold,” he said shortly and rose.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The butler appeared at Ned’s shoulder as he critically studied his reflection in the drawing room mirror. Ned was due to arrive shortly at Lord Young’s fete and he wasn’t yet satisfied he’d pass muster.

  The butler cleared his throat.

  “What is it?”

  “Another handkerchief, sir.” He extended a tray upon which rested a silk handkerchief lavishly trimmed with lace.

  Ned looked at it blankly. “Who is this one from?”

  “Like the others, sir, it was sent anonymously. But if I were to be so bold as to hazard a guess, I would say Helene, Marchioness Dupont.”

  “Oh?” He did not recall the lady.

  “A titian-haired lady with a propensity for wearing turbans with towering ostrich plumes.”

  “Oh.” He did recall the lady. “Well, put it with the others in my room, I suppose.”

  “Yes, sir.” The butler bowed and retired with the handkerchief.

  He returned to study his attempt at tying his cravat into the fashionable—and deucedly convoluted—knot known as Cupid’s Throne. One would imagine a sailor wouldn’t find the task too onerous, but thus far he’d been defeated by the endeavor. He wrenched the cravat loose, preparing for one last attempt.

  If he couldn’t affect this one, he would have to admit to having lost the wager Lady Lydia had made claiming that no gentleman could adequately tie his own cravat. Ned could easily imagine Lydia smiling merrily when he admitted such to her later this evening. “Easily” because the lady was never far from his thoughts.

  Ridiculous at his age to be so smitten, but there it was.

  Her exotically tilted eyes would sparkle with triumph and she would tip her chin at a subtle degree. He would gladly lose any number of bets to have the pleasure of watching the corners of her lips turn up for just a fraction of a second before blossoming into a full smile. If she was feeling completely at ease, one graceful, long-fingered hand would reach up and brush a curl from her temple, a gesture heartbreakingly jeune fille for London’s most sophisticated lady and one he found overwhelmingly attractive.

  Someday she would reach up and he would find himself clasping her wrist and drawing her into his arms and brushing away that curl away with his lips.

  His smile faded. It had been a month since he’d accompanied her to Gunter’s. Since then, it had become an unspoken ritual for him to arrive at her door every Monday and Thursday far earlier than etiquette allowed to spirit her away to Gunter’s in a hired carriage.

  She never suggested they take her famous barouche, and Ned finally thought he knew why. If her barouche were seen, their trips would be remarked and the short, coveted moments they could spend together, alone, would end. She’d be inundated with requests to go on early drives. Indeed, Ned thought in amusement, she might single-handedly change Society’s notion of proper visiting hours.

  But for now the short, private hours they shared had become the centerpiece of his week.

  He often saw her at other functions to which he was invited and she always appeared pleased to meet him there, but she never singled him out for special attention. She treated everyone, man or woman, with the same interest and attention. But he was growing greedy of her time; he wanted more of it. More of her.

  He’d left off visiting other single ladies or spending any time that might be remarked upon in their company. There was no sense to it. His . . . affections had been engaged. But the more he desired Lydia, the more urgently he felt the need to explain his family’s financial situation.

  She might present the world with a facade of urbane and sophisticated insouciance, but he had glimpsed beneath her brilliant disguise to the uncertain romantic beneath. She loved so easily, so naturally, and yet she was uncertain about her ability to inspire love. He was not certain she would like the reasons that initiated his quest for a wealthy bride. And she was uncertain enough of herself that he wondered whether he could convince her that she, not her wealth, had initially attracted him—and continued to do so. That worried him.

  He needed to tell her soon about his family’s imminent financial collapse.

  A sharp rap broke through his reverie. “Come in,” he called.

  “Lady Josten, Captain,” the footman announced, and before he could move aside, Nadine flew into the drawing room with her muslin skirts flapping and tight blond curls bobbing like coiled springs. The footman bowed and hastily withdrew. Ned did not blame him.

  “You have to do something, Neddie. You must,” Nadine cried and promptly collapsed on the settee.

  Ned met his sister- in-law’s miserable countenance in the mirror and continued tying his cravat. Since Nadine and Beatrice had arrived in town with Mary to enjoy “a little of the real Season,” not four days had passed without one of them arriving at his door heralding some crisis or another, a pattern that had resulted in Ned gaining a newfound appreciation for his older brother’s shr
ewdness in remaining stubbornly entrenched in Norfolk.

  “What seems to be the problem, Nadine?” he asked.

  “It’s Harry and Pip.”

  “Ah.”

  He was not surprised. Most of the crisis involved either her son, Harry, or Beatrice’s Phillip. More often than not, both. A simple visit to the magistrates in the morning generally sufficed to bail them out of whatever hobble they’d landed themselves in.

  After retrieving them after the first such incident for “boxing a charley”—the apparently hilarious act of tipping over a night watchman in his box—Ned did not expect he’d have to do so again. He’d assumed that spending the evening in a vermin-riddled jail would act as deterrent enough. He had, alas, made this assumption without taking into account the inanity of high-spirited and—he privately thought—not overly bright young men for whom such nocturnal stays acted as a badge of merit.

  “Ah?” Nadine echoed. “Our world is nigh on shattering and all you can say is ‘ah’?”

  “What would you have me say, Nadine?” Ned glanced at the clock. He was promised to dine in less than an hour.

  “I don’t know.” She’d given up the tears and segued into exasperation. “Think of something. If Josten finds out he will kill the pair of them this time. I swear he will.”

  “I doubt that,” Ned said. “He’s invested far too much time in getting ’em to this point. As nothing suggests potential successors will turn out any better, he seems resigned to seeing the boys reach their majority.”

  Nadine didn’t know how to receive this. She regarded him blankly as his meaning slowly sank in. When it did, she took it seriously. “I don’t want any more babies, Neddie.” She pinked up. “My figure, you understand . . .”

  “I see. Quite.” He cleared his throat to keep from smiling. Nadine’s figure had once been the fantasy of many a young blade, but those days were long since past. Though still pretty of face, her figure had rounded to a neat little oval.

  “Besides, even if Josten doesn’t kill Harry, he might kill Phillip and Beatrice will never talk to me again if that happens. I should hate that. And so should Harry. He likes Phillip. And so does Mary like him. And I do, too, for that matter.”

  Now it was Ned who stared in bemusement, wondering if Nadine could possibly be twitting him. But one look in her face and he saw she wasn’t. Again he was reminded of how fond he was of his family. Whatever their faults, a dearth of affection or loyalty was not one of them. His impatience faded. Whether or not she had cause, her concern for her son and nephew was real.

  He went to her, sat down at her side, and took her hands in his. “Tell me what this is about.”

  “It’s Harry and Phillip,” she repeated. “They are determined to make a splash of themselves in Society and are convinced the only way to do so is to become one of these dandies and ape their habits, both the bad and good, though honestly, Neddie, from what I have seen of them they have no good habits and only bad ones.”

  She paused only long enough to sniff. “They are unconscionably rude and unspeakably full of themselves. And everyone allows it. Did I tell you that the other night one of the blackguards told Lady Wingbow that her dress was tolerable only from the front and that her train was an offense to the eye and then bade her walk backward out of the room? It’s true. And she did!”

  “Yes, Nadine. But what has that to do with Harry and Phillip?”

  “Everything. They were with the blackguard! I have it on the account of several people present.”

  Ned triumphed in keeping his expression bland.

  “But it is even worse than that.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, once their father and uncle, my husband, Josten,” she added unnecessarily, “told them that you had been so princely as to pay off their debt for them, they were of course overjoyed.”

  “How heartening,” Ned said. “Alas, I can only imagine, as they neglected to inform me of their delight.”

  “Exactly!” Nadine exclaimed, looking dutifully indignant on his behalf. “They are horribly rude, are they not?”

  Ned decided to ignore this query, as instinct told him that while a mother might criticize her son, it would be impolitic for an uncle to do so. “Aside from neglecting to post me a note of thanks, what is it they’ve done that distresses you so?”

  At this gentle question, Nadine ducked her head. Color flooded up her plump neck into her round cheeks. He was startled to realize Nadine was sincerely embarrassed. This was not the feigned melodrama at which she excelled, but honest misery.

  It made him angry to see her so put out. He’d a mind to give the lads a taste of the kind of discipline used to punish sailors. Unfortunately, Nadine and Beatrice would never forgive him—though he suspected Josten might secretly be relieved should he overstep the avuncular line.

  “Whatever it is, you can tell me, Nadine,” he said gently. “I am sure it is not as disastrous as you think.”

  How much more disastrous could things be? He’d talked to all the private parties—barristers, bankers, stockbrokers, and the money lenders—who now owned some small portion of the Lockton fortune and together now owned nearly all of it. It wasn’t just the boys’ gambling that had brought the family to this state. Theirs was simply the final step in several generations’ long habit of mismanagement, profligate waste, unfounded trust in incompetent brokers, and bad luck.

  Ned’s private funds had been drained by the myriad financial holes he attempted to plug. It would take years of careful planning and budgeting to drag the family up out of the ditch into which circumstance, carelessness, recklessness, and an overweening sense of noblesse oblige had pitched them.

  “Nadine?”

  “They . . . they are gambling once more.”

  He stared. By God, he would have to whip them, after all. Of all the asinine, lout-headed, irresponsible . . .

  “You have to stop them. Last night they lost three thousand pounds, Neddie, to some blackguard named Tweed.”

  “You are sure?”

  She took a folded piece of paper from her reticule and handed it to him. It was a page from a scandal sheet. His gaze fell on the betraying article: Two young gentlemen from North, folk of a certain earl, last night together hazarded three thousand pounds and lost.

  “And, Neddie,” she sniffed bravely, but then courage failed her and she wailed, “They are doing it again tonight!”

  “What? How do you know this?”

  “I heard them discussing it this evening when they thought they were alone. I would have confronted them, but then . . . well, I didn’t. I’m no good at confronting people and I shan’t be made to feel guilty because I don’t pretend to be what I’m not. I do wish Beatrice had been home, but she is chaperoning Mary at the Vedders’ musicale. Not that Beatrice would have done any differently, but I should have liked the comfort of her presence when I was obliged to come to you.”

  She said this last in such a way that Ned felt a villain for his earlier impatience. But, then, reason told him this is exactly what Nadine meant him to feel.

  “How long ago did they leave?”

  “A few hours.”

  Ned’s brows rose. “It took that long to come to me here?”

  Nadine looked at him. “It took that long to dress. My heavens, Neddie, I was in no state to be seen in public. I am the Countess of Josten.”

  He closed his eyes.

  “Are you frightfully angry?”

  “No.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. “I knew you wouldn’t be. You never are. That’s why I came to you. You always keep yourself so well in hand. You won’t act impulsively. You couldn’t. But you must act, Neddie. You mustn’t just sit around here and hope they come back and all will be well. They won’t and it shan’t be. I know. I have tried. So, please, do something.”

  He always did. He would again.

  “Don’t worry, Nadine. I’ll take care of it.”

  She didn’t ask him how.
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br />   Chapter Fifteen

  “Will I pass?” Lydia asked, twirling around before Emily.

  The gown had arrived from the modiste that morning. Though certain to excite comment, Lydia still was not sure it was the sort of comment she should welcome. It was a bit bold for a spinster. Even one of Lydia’s flamboyance.

  For one, there was the color. No gauzy drift of colorless muslin for Lydia. But instead tissue-thin silk in a stunning peacock blue that rustled like the tittle-tattle of gossip—gossip sure to follow her—when she walked. Its puffed sleeves were slashed and inset with shimmering copper-colored satin. The same satin trimmed the bodice and deep flounce embroidered with tourmalines. A tourmaline necklace she’d borrowed from Eleanor hung around her neck and tourmalines hung from her earlobes.

  Then there was the cut. The small puffed sleeve sat at the very crest of her shoulders, the neckline plunging in a deep vee, exposing a great deal of pale skin. Perhaps it was a bit more than daring. Perhaps Ned would find it vulgar. Or, she secretly hoped, enticing.

  They had spent more time together in the past month than many engaged couples did and he still maintained a strictly respectful proximity. It was beginning to confound her. She’d been kissed before—perhaps too many times, truth be told—and on far less encouragement than she’d given Ned. But the thought of being kissed by Ned made her pulse race. Perhaps, she thought, studying her reflection, tonight that would change.

  “You look splendid, Lydia,” Emily confirmed. “But you do not need a dress to achieve that.”

  Lydia laughed and twirled again. “Ah, but you are prejudiced, Emily. You see me with loving eyes.”

  “It is not my affection that lends you such rare looks these days.”