Lady Isabella's Ogre

by Emily Larkin

  His next object was his club, where he dined and settled down in a winged armchair in a quiet alcove to read the newspaper and drink a glass of claret. Here, his nephew found him half an hour later.

  “Sir! I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  Nicholas lowered the newspaper and observed his relative. Harry’s face was flushed and anger was kindled in his eyes—one of which was almost buried in dark and swollen flesh.

  “Been brawling, Harry?”

  The color in Harry’s face heightened. “Yes!” he said. “And I’ll do so again! It’s infamous, sir. Infamous!”

  Nicholas folded the newspaper and placed it on the mahogany table beside him. “You alarm me, Harry.” He gestured to an empty chair. “Please be seated. Would you like a glass of claret?”

  For a moment Harry stood, fists clenched, radiating outrage with every line of his body, then he strode to the chair and pulled it closer. Some of the fire seemed to leave him as he sat.

  “I haven’t seen you for several days,” Nicholas said mildly.

  “I’ve been at a horse race in the country. There was this cracking mare called Winnit— But enough of that, sir!” Harry’s eyes flashed. “I came back as soon as I heard. It’s infamous!”

  “So I gather,” Nicholas said, amused. “Er . . . what’s infamous?”

  “What they’re calling you, sir. I told Grantham it’s a filthy lie!”

  Nicholas glanced at his nephew’s hands, curled again into fists. “Is that how you acquired your black eye?”

  “Yes! And I shall do so again! I’ll make them stop—”

  “I thank you for your defense of me,” Nicholas said. “But I don’t need you to fight my battles, Harry.”

  “But, sir—”

  Nicholas signaled to a waiter. “Two glasses of claret,” he said firmly.

  He eyed his nephew while they waited. Harry bore little resemblance to the young man who’d visited him only few days ago. Gone was the languor and the sullenness, and gone, too, were the pomaded hair and the absurd shirt-points. In their place were animation and anger and a plainly tied neckcloth.

  “It’s infamous,” Harry said again, once the waiter had brought their claret. “How can you bear it, sir? It makes me so furious!”

  It was odd, Nicholas thought, sipping his wine, but Harry’s outrage made his own less. “Ignore it,” he said.

  “Ignore it!” cried Harry. “How can I? You’re not an ogre, sir, and anyone who says so is—”

  Nicholas put down his wineglass. “Harry, it’s nonsense. Unpleasant nonsense. And best ignored.”

  “But, sir—”

  “I beg you not to come to blows with anyone else over this.”

  “But—”

  “To do so is to set yourself up for London’s amusement.” He smiled, and tried to make a joke: “One in the family is enough.”

  “As if I should care!”

  “I should care.” Nicholas held his nephew’s eyes. “And your father would, too.”

  “Father?” Harry’s flush deepened. “He blames you. Says you’ve humiliated the whole family.”

  The wine suddenly tasted sour in Nicholas’ mouth. “Does he?”

  Harry’s lip curled. “He’s talking of leaving town.”

  Nicholas put his wineglass down on the table beside the newspaper. He rubbed his forehead.

  “I wish he would go!” Harry said hotly. “Of all the mean, cowardly—”

  “Harry!”

  Harry closed his mouth.

  “You’ll speak of your father with respect, or not at all. Is that understood?”

  Harry’s gaze dropped. “Yes, sir.” The familiar, sullen note was back in his voice.

  The silence between them was awkward for a moment, broken by new arrivals entering the room. “Hello, Ogre,” one of the men called out cheerfully.

  Nicholas returned the greeting with a nod, and glanced at Harry. His nephew’s cheeks were flushed again. “How can you bear it, sir?”

  “There was no malice in that.”

  “No, but . . .”

  Nicholas laughed. He reached for his wineglass again. “So where was this horse race of yours?” he asked, turning the subject.

  But Harry refused to be diverted. “I wish I knew who’d started it! I’d—”

  “Don’t worry,” Nicholas said. “I’m handling it.”

  Harry’s eyes lit up. The last remnants of sullenness vanished. He leaned forward. “You know?”

  “I shall very soon.”

  Harry sat back in his chair. His expression was slightly awed. “What will you do, sir, once you know?”

  Nicholas swirled the wine in his glass, considering the question. What will I do? It required careful thought.

  He swallowed a mouthful of claret and put the glass down firmly on the table. “A salutary lesson,” he said.

  Chapter Eight

  Nicholas danced with Lady Isabella at the Alleynes’ ball—a quadrille and a waltz—and then claimed her hand several hours later at the Warwicks’, in a ballroom draped with pink silk. The champagne, when he procured two glasses after a particularly energetic country dance, was also pink.

  After handing Lady Isabella to her next partner, Nicholas retired to the back of the ballroom and leaned his shoulders against the pink-swathed walls. He took an idle sip of champagne, surveying the dance floor, his eyes sliding from one débutante to the next. Clarissa Whedon would be acceptable as a wife, as would Agatha Harrow. Miss Whedon wasn’t a beauty, but pulchritude was unimportant in a bride. A compliant nature, a quiet disposition, youthfulness—those were what he required, and Miss Whedon had all three. Miss Harrow was pretty, in a rather colorless way, but her air of timidity reminded him strongly of Harriet Durham.

  Nicholas eyed the pink champagne distastefully and took another sip. His gaze returned to Clarissa Whedon. He tried to imagine her seated across the breakfast table from him, plain-faced and quiet. It could work. It could work very well.

  He had settled on his possible choices of bride—Harriet Durham, Clarissa Whedon, Patience Bourne, and Agatha Harrow—by careful observation over a number of days. He’d finally chosen Harriet because she was the youngest and therefore—or so he’d thought—the most easily molded into a suitable wife. And, he acknowledged wryly, because she was the prettiest.

  A poor choice, as it had turned out.

  Nicholas swallowed the last of the champagne. He would dance with Clarissa Whedon and perhaps take her to supper, to confirm his decision.

  He straightened away from the wall, oddly reluctant to solicit Miss Whedon’s hand as a dance partner.

  The reason for his reluctance was easy to identify: if he had a choice, he would prefer to dance with Lady Isabella.

  Nicholas shook his head, annoyed with himself. He placed his empty glass on a table cluttered with discarded glassware and strolled around the ballroom to where Clarissa Whedon sat with her mother.

  Miss Whedon was of middle height, with a round face, brown hair, mild blue eyes, and a robust figure. One day she would be as stout as her mother. That was unimportant. What he liked about her was her air of calmness. She didn’t blush, as Harriet had used to, when he asked her for the next dance. Her manner was unflustered as he escorted her onto the dance floor.

  There was no need to ask Clarissa Whedon to join him for supper; the dance had confirmed what he already knew of her: in temperament and character she was precisely what he was looking for. Nicholas searched for a word to describe Miss Whedon as he led her from the dance floor. The only word he could come up with—stolid—he cast aside. Stolid wasn’t the word he was looking for.

  He returned Clarissa Whedon to her mother’s care, bowed, and went in search of something to drink. The question now was: when to make his offer?

  Nicholas plucked a glass of pink champagne from a tray and swallowed a mouthful. It was flat, like his mood.

  He grimaced, and turned the stem of the glass between his fingers. Why not speak to Mrs
. Whedon tonight? Ask if he could call on her and her husband tomorrow morning? He’d spent the past ten months preparing for this moment: selling his commission, taking over the administration of his estate, readying the house for a wife and children. He should be eager, enthusiastic—

  “Nicholas.”

  He turned his head. His brother stood before him. Gerald’s lips were tightly pursed and his nostrils ever so slightly flared, as if he smelled something unpleasant. Nicholas could only smell lavender water, which fragrance surrounded his brother.

  “Gerald,” he said, inclining his head in polite acknowledgment. “How do you do?”

  Gerald’s shirt-points and neckcloth were so high and so starched that he was unable to return the gesture. He bowed stiffly from the waist. His person was overloaded with jewelry. Diamonds glittered on his buckles, his fingers, and in the folds of his neckcloth. “I’m leaving town tomorrow.”

  Nicholas swallowed another mouthful of champagne and said nothing.

  Gerald leaned closer. “If you had any respect for the family, you would leave town yourself!” His tone was bitter and affronted, each s hissed, each t hard. “Instead of forcing me to leave.”

  If you had any backbone, you would stay. Nicholas didn’t utter the words; he held his temper in check.

  Gerald glanced at Lady Isabella, going down the contredanse with her partner. “You’re wasting your time,” he said contemptuously. “She won’t have you. She refused two dukes.”

  “I have no intention of marrying Isabella Knox,” Nicholas said, stung into replying. Fool. You let him goad you. He tightened his grip on the champagne glass and made his voice bored, disinterested. “We’re merely friends.”

  Gerald snorted. He turned on his heel and left, taking his outrage—and the scent of Steele’s lavender water—with him.

  Nicholas sipped the pink champagne, his annoyance diminishing with every mincing step that Gerald took away from him. He watched Lady Isabella dance: golden hair and creamy skin and rosy, laughing lips.

  She stood out from among the other dancers, dazzling in a ball gown of forget-me-not blue stitched with seed pearls, but what drew his eyes was more than the gown and the golden hair, more than her height and her beauty. It was something else, something that was purely hers.

  Nicholas narrowed his eyes, trying to identify what it was that made Lady Isabella different from every other lady in the ballroom. Not merely her poise and the easy, graceful confidence, but something more than that, something that made her seem to shine from the inside.

  She had an unselfconsciousness that few people in the room had. An inner serenity.

  She’s happy to be herself, he realized.

  How many people could say that? Could he?

  Nicholas lifted his hand to the scar, caught the movement, and lowered his hand. The burn was what people saw. But it’s not who I am.

  He scanned the ballroom again, examining the débutantes. They were girls, their characters only half-formed. What would they be like as women?

  He returned his gaze to Lady Isabella. Would Clarissa Whedon grow into a woman like her? Would she shine from the inside?

  “Good evening, sir.”

  Nicholas turned his head, to discover a second member of his family standing alongside him.

  “Harry?” he said, surprised. He surveyed his nephew’s clothes. Harry was no longer aping the dandy set. Gone were the extravagances of fashion. The lad was dressed neatly, but quite plainly. Almost like—

  Like me.

  “Isn’t this rather tame for you?” he asked, wondering if Gerald had seen his son’s attire.

  Harry flushed faintly. “Oh, I like balls well enough,” he said in an airy, careless tone.

  “I had thought deep play at gaming hells was more your thing,” Nicholas said sardonically.

  Harry’s flush deepened. “If you must know, sir, I’ve decided to not gamble for a while.”

  “Pockets to let again, Harry?”

  “No, sir.”

  Nicholas let his gaze rest on the boy’s black eye. “Fallen out with your crowd?”

  Anger flared in Harry’s face. “They had no right to call you an ogre. No right at all!”

  “All London is doing it,” Nicholas said, dryly. He swallowed the last of the pink champagne. It was lukewarm, and even less palatable than it had been before.

  “Well, they shouldn’t!”

  Harry’s loyalty was oddly touching—and if it separated the lad from the wild, expensive crowd he ran with, so much the better. “I can’t recommend the champagne,” Nicholas said, looking for somewhere to put the empty glass.

  Harry continued, as if he hadn’t heard him. “When you find out who’s responsible, I hope you horsewhip him!”

  “It’s a woman.”

  “Oh,” Harry said, his outrage deflating slightly.

  Nicholas glanced around the ballroom, at the matrons sitting with their heads bent together in gossip, at the ladies dancing. Perhaps even a woman in this room.

  The major danced well, his hand warm in the small of her back, but he seemed to derive little pleasure from the waltz. His face held a polite smile, but beneath that was grimness. Isabella knew the reason; she’d heard the excited exclamation as clearly as he had: Have you seen the Ogre? I hear he’s here. The débutante who’d uttered those incautious words had flushed a vivid red when she’d turned to find Major Reynolds standing almost at her elbow. He had made no sign that he’d heard, had uttered no comment as he escorted Isabella onto the dance floor, but anger had been bright and cold in his eyes.

  Isabella danced silently. Her pleasure in the evening was gone. In its place was guilt. My fault. My tongue that did the damage. And alongside the guilt was anger. She might disagree with Major Reynolds’ decision to choose so young a bride, might feel contempt for his reasons, but in all other regards the major was a man to be admired. He was courageous. He was intelligent. He was honorable. Fine qualities; and yet London chose to laugh at him.

  “Would you like something to drink?” Major Reynolds asked when the musicians had laid down their bows. “Champagne?”

  Isabella looked up at his face, at the hard green eyes, at the livid scar. “Thank you. That would be nice.” She laid her hand on the major’s arm, aware of a foolish urge to protect him, to shield him from ridicule.

  “Reynolds!”

  The major turned his head swiftly. “Mayhew? By all that’s marvelous!” He extended his hand. Gone were the grimness and the suppressed anger. In their place was a grin that made him look quite startlingly attractive. “Lady Isabella, may I make Lieutenant Mayhew known to you?”

  Lieutenant Mayhew bowed over her hand. He was a lanky, loose-limbed man of perhaps her own age, blond-haired and brown-eyed. His face was tanned above a green Rifleman’s uniform, and alive with levity. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lady Isabella.” His gaze was openly appreciative. “May I beg the honor of a dance?”

  The major made a sound beneath his breath that was almost a laugh. He turned to Isabella, still grinning. “Be warned, my lady. Mayhew is a rackety, ramshackle fellow. A regular here-and-thereian!”

  The lieutenant matched Major Reynolds’ grin and made no attempt to deny the charge.

  Isabella laughed and allowed herself to relax. “Certainly we shall dance, Lieutenant Mayhew.”

  She took her place opposite him in the quadrille. “How unexpected for you to meet Major Reynolds here,” she said, as they waited for the dance to start.

  “Unexpected?” The lieutenant shook his head. “I should have known I’d find him at a ball.”

  “Really?” Isabella lifted her eyebrows. “I was under the impression that Major Reynolds didn’t much care for dancing.”

  “Reynolds? Not like dancing?” Lieutenant Mayhew laughed and shook his head again. “I’ve seen him dance the night away on many an occasion.”

  “Oh,” said Isabella.

  “Why, if you’d seen the lengths he went to in Madrid to procure ti
ckets for himself and his—er . . .” The lieutenant hesitated for a moment, and then hurried on. “It was a grand ball—in Wellington’s honor, you know. The tickets were dashed hard to get hold of.”

  Isabella glanced across the ballroom to where Major Reynolds stood. She studied his face for a moment, trying to imagine him in Madrid with a Spanish beauty on his arm. It was a difficult image to conjure up; there was nothing of the libertine about Major Reynolds. She couldn’t envisage him uttering practiced, flowery speeches and whispering sweet nothings in a lady’s ear. He was too hard-faced, too disciplined, too stern.

  The lieutenant was another matter. She had no doubt that he’d left a trail of broken hearts behind him, with his easy manners and the light-hearted laughter in his eyes—and the disarming thread of seriousness underlying the levity. “You served with Major Reynolds?”

  “In the Peninsula, and at Waterloo. He was my brigade major. A regular Come-on.”

  “A Come-on?” Isabella said, baffled.

  “Officers are either Come-ons or Go-ons,” the lieutenant explained. “They lead from the front, or the back. Reynolds led from the front.”

  “Oh,” she said, understanding. She turned her head again and observed Major Reynolds, now talking to a young man she recognized as his brother’s oldest son. “He was a good officer?”

  “The best,” Lieutenant Mayhew said simply. “There’s no one else I’d rather have served under.”

  The quadrille claimed their attention and Isabella spent an agreeable half hour, the lieutenant’s tongue being light and flirtatious and never wanting for words. Their bows made and the musicians’ instruments laid down, the lieutenant escorted her to where Major Reynolds stood. Young Harold Reynolds was sporting a black eye. He bowed politely to Isabella and greeted Lieutenant Mayhew most correctly, but his expression as he gazed at the lieutenant’s uniform approached awe.

  “Do you remember the ball at Ciudad Rodrigo?” Lieutenant Mayhew said. “These draperies remind me of it.”