by Claudia Dain
And still, it was nothing serious. Edenham took all her serious thoughts. But perhaps Iveston could have whatever was left over.
“I should say it’s essential that you do,” Sophia said, walking over to them. “Iveston, you shall play for Miss Prestwick. That is why you have sequestered yourselves, to choose your music and your key.”
And with that, the doors burst open and Lady Lanreath beckoned them in with a cautious smile and the beginnings of a frown. It might have been possible that Lady Lanreath did not care to have a girl ruined at her house, not when she entertained so rarely. But of course, if Penelope could arrange for Edenham to ruin her tonight, then Lady Lanreath would just have to live with the results. As would Penelope.
The thought was not as cheering as it had been just an hour previous. She couldn’t think why, except that it must have something to do with her impending performance.
Yes, that was logical, wasn’t it?
Twenty
“WHAT song can you sing passably well?” Iveston murmured as they walked with as much innocence as was possible given that their clothing was horribly mussed.
“What can you play?” she countered, smiling at her brother, who did not smile in return.
Oh, bother. If she weren’t careful, George would make a fuss over the wrong man entirely and botch the whole thing. She simply had to get him alone and explain things, though she could not but wonder if George was perhaps beyond the point of explanations. Brothers did have a notoriously short leash when it came to their sisters. What they felt about other women was entirely different, which did seem the worst sort of illogic. Did they really believe that their own sisters were any different from any other woman? How was a sister supposed to do all that was required to catch a man if her brother put all sorts of hindrances in her way? Hindrances of the no touching before marriage variety? How could a woman get a man if she wasn’t allowed to touch him? Innocently, of course.
Or nearly so.
“I play beautifully,” Iveston said.
“I suppose you think you do everything beautifully.”
Iveston smiled and said, “Only because I actually do.”
She couldn’t help it. She chuckled.
Lady Paignton looked at her in distinct disapproval. As if she had the right! Lady Paignton was a scandal and should be more tolerant of others, a definite judge not lest ye be judged approach. Of course, there was nothing about Lady Paignton that suggested one whit of intelligence so Penelope was forced to allow her a great degree of latitude. But she did not like her.
She could ignore Lady Paignton: who was she but the sister of the hostess? She could not as easily discount Lady Richard, Edenham’s sister. Lady Richard, a remarkably beautiful woman, was looking at her with a great degree of scrutiny. That never boded well. No one, especially a woman on the marriage mart, could well tolerate scrutiny. Why, Society would crumble into ruin if anyone actually looked very hard at it.
The pianoforte was in the front corner of the room, near one of the windows that faced Berkeley Square. Iveston walked to it with an easy stride, displaying no hesitation or discomfort that she could detect. She did so hope she was matching him in that. What to sing? She couldn’t think of a thing. Every song she had ever learned, and she’d learned upwards of one hundred as she did enjoy singing very much, had run out of her head like a pack of braying dogs. Not a single song.
Iveston sat with singular elegance, looked up at her with a pleasantly bland expression, and began to play “Of Plighted Faith,” an air from the opera The Siege of Belgrade. She knew it. Of course she knew it. Everyone knew it.
And with the melody lifting her, she opened her mouth and began to sing.
“I didn’t think it was possible, but his cravat looks even worse. He should sack his valet,” Lord Raithby said.
“It’s not the fault of his valet,” Lord George Blakesley said, his gaze fastened on Miss Prestwick.
“Ah, the girl then,” Raithby said. “I shouldn’t have thought she had it in her, though I can’t say that I know her even slightly. However, she does give one the impression of severe respectability, doesn’t she?”
“I hadn’t given it a bit of thought,” George answered.
“Well, I had,” Lord Penrith said, entering their number without qualm, which really was very bold of him given George’s state of mind, “and I, while finding Miss Prestwick pleasant enough, also thought her a bit unusual. Perhaps it is only that Lord Iveston magnifies the unusual bits in her, though how or why remains a mystery.”
“I should think it all remains a mystery, wouldn’t you?” Raithby said. “The wagers are all over the field, though Edenham is still quite the favorite.”
“As he hasn’t even approached her yet this evening, I find that inexplicable,” George said, not at all wanting his brother to appear lacking, yet not wanting him to be married just to win a bet. It was a most uncomfortable state of affairs.
“Perhaps that is the answer. Get Edenham with her, let us observe them together, and the wagers will likely level off. Iveston may even pull ahead,” Raithby said.
Penrith said nothing more, but he did appear to be watching Sophia Dalby with pointed interest. That was not an unusual occurrence on the most ordinary of days, but George did not think in this instance that Penrith’s interest was amorous.
“Ten pounds more on my brother,” George said abruptly.
“That’s family loyalty, I must say,” Raithby said.
“Not at all. It’s his cravat, Raithby. One simply cannot ignore the evidence revealed upon his crumpled cravat.”
“IT looks to me as if she attempted to pull his cravat off with her teeth,” Lady Richard said, looking quite severe. But then, Katherine had developed the knack or perhaps the need of looking severe upon her marriage to Lord Richard, her completely irrepressible late husband.
“She may have done,” Sophia said mildly, nodding a greeting to Anne Warren, wordlessly encouraging her to join them.
Katherine, more than ever, was sunk into an abyss of misery that hadn’t got a bit better, and indeed, may have actually got worse since her husband’s death. Completely understandable, even with a husband such as Richard Becklin had been. Handsome, charming, dangerous, and dead. That was the usual order of things. The problem was that Katherine had married for love and love, in the form of Richard Becklin, had betrayed her. It wouldn’t do Katherine a bit of harm to spend a little more time out of her own thoughts and into the light of the world, as dirty and spoilt as it sometimes appeared. Why, look at Anne, and she did hope Katherine would look hard at Anne. Anne Warren had suffered more in her life than Katherine had in her brief marriage. Surely some resiliency was expected. She was the daughter of duke, after all. Did these delineations mean nothing anymore?
But of course they didn’t, which was the entire point, wasn’t it?
“And you say she would very much like to marry my brother?” Katherine said. “She has an interesting way of going about gaining his attention.”
“And yet she has it. Fully,” Sophia said, taking a glass of Madeira as a footman passed them.
“They do sound lovely together,” Anne said, staring at Iveston and Penelope. “Almost as if they had practiced before tonight, but that’s not possible, is it?”
The three women looked at the pair, and what a pair they made. Iveston so tall and fair, Penelope so dark and petite, yet they looked a match for all their mismatched looks. There was something in the air between them, some deeply rooted comfort, a certain sense of play that, unless they were more careful, would send Edenham out the door and into the gloom of rejection.
“Hardly,” Sophia said. “They met just this week, I believe, at the Prestwick ball, though I don’t think they exchanged even ten words between them. Then. Of course, now they seem to get on very well together.”
“They certainly do,” Katherine said, looking at her brother. Edenham looked frigidly composed and gave every appearance of enjoying the music. What a
performance. Edenham’s, of course. “I can’t think why a girl should be so bold as to proclaim her desire to marry a particular man. It’s quite scandalous, I’m sure.”
“It’s in her nature to be bold, I believe, and she is utterly determined to marry well, for which she can scarcely be faulted. Actually, I find there to be a sort of blunt charm about her, and clearly Iveston appreciates her in precisely the same way.”
“The charm or the bluntness?” Katherine said, casting a glance at Sophia.
Ah, it was so good to see a little fire in Lady Richard’s eyes again. She looked better already.
“Perhaps in the way she chews on his cravat,” Sophia said, laughing lightly. “But no, can’t you see, darling, that Miss Prestwick, so young and so inexperienced, is using Iveston to capture Edenham? It is quite an old game, nearly instinctive, but as it is so boldly performed by her the effect is certainly dulled, wouldn’t you say? Edenham doesn’t look alarmed in the slightest. After three wives, he certainly knows his way around any trap a female is likely to set.”
“I spoke to Lord Iveston at the Prestwick ball,” Anne said, “and he seemed a delightful man, though one with absolutely no interest in marriage, at least not at present. I think this might be all for show, though I can’t see what Lord Iveston would have to gain from it.”
“Can’t you?” Sophia said with a smile, putting her empty glass on a table behind her. “There are many wagers in play regarding the delightfully bold Miss Prestwick. I should think Lord Iveston’s behavior rests very firmly on a financial foundation.”
“That makes perfect sense,” Katherine said, sighing and looking at her brother again.
“Yes,” Sophia said softly, watching the pair at their musical outpouring, “it does, doesn’t it?”
“I can’t make sense of any of this,” George Prestwick said as he watched his sister singing, and very prettily, too, in perfect time with Lord Iveston’s playing. Anyone watching them would think they’d been practicing together for a month. It wasn’t possible that they had, was it?
No, ridiculous. He would have known.
Wouldn’t he?
“Tell me, didn’t Miss Prestwick meet Iveston for the first time just this week?” Lord George Blakesley asked.
It should have been something of a relief to know that he wasn’t the only brother caught unawares. It wasn’t.
“Last week, in fact,” George Prestwick answered. “At our ball. I don’t even think I saw them speak.”
“Things can happen that no one sees,” George Grey said from his slouch against the wall. “Especially where women are concerned.”
“She’s not a woman. She’s my sister,” George Prestwick said.
“It’s even worse with sisters,” George Grey said.
“That’s true, isn’t it?” George Prestwick asked, glancing at him.
Grey nodded.
“Only boys in the Blakesley nursery,” Lord George said. “I suddenly find I am thankful for my brothers.”
“You seem very observant,” George Prestwick said to George Grey. “Have you noticed anything? Anything I should know about?”
Grey shook his head. “Only the wagers. You know about those.”
“I think the wagers might have more to do with this than anyone supposes,” Lord George said. “Certainly Iveston has barely shown an interest in leaving the house before this week. I begin to wonder if, the wagers nullified, all this would evaporate.”
The three men nodded, considering it. They looked nothing alike, behaved nothing like, and as far as Mr. George Grey was concerned, their life experiences had been nothing alike. Yet they each understood two things to varying degrees: women and wagers. Combined, those two separate and disparate elements could produce anything, absolutely anything. If men had any sort of sense at all, they should avoid putting women and wagers together as a life principle as women and wagers were rather like fire and oil. Yet, without fire and oil coming together, there could be no light.
Pity that women could not produce something as practical as light. All they seemed able to produce was trouble. Oh, and heirs. Must have heirs, after all. Society would falter rather quickly without them, but it did seem a high price to pay, didn’t it? All that combustion just for a few heirs.
“The only way,” George Prestwick said, “for a wager to evaporate is for it to be won or lost. The thing settled, as it were.”
Lord George nodded. George Grey crossed his arms and put his foot against the wall, which was really not at all polite of him, but one did not go about telling an Indian that he was not being polite. It seemed entirely beside the point.
“Which means,” George Prestwick continued, “that either my sister marries Iveston or Edenham.”
“Or she marries no one at all,” Lord George said. “The wager, on all parts, will be lost.”
“Small loss, to save a sister from an unwelcome marriage,” Grey said.
But was it unwelcome? George Prestwick looked at his sister and could not see an answer to that.
Women and wagers. What a colossal mess.
EDENHAM didn’t know what he had been thinking, letting Sophia convince him that Penelope was his for the taking. Taking? She gave every appearance of being an hour away from a betrothal with Iveston. Wagers flying all over Town, on White’s book, recorded for all time, and he with no woman to show for it.
He didn’t precisely want a woman, at least not this one, certainly not at present, but his name was on White’s book! Preposterous mess. He couldn’t think how his life could have been so pleasant yesterday and such a muddle today.
Oh, yes he could.
His gaze moved from the happy couple at the pianoforte to Sophia Dalby, standing and talking to his sister and Anne Warren. She caught his gaze and smiled at him, looking as innocent as a spring lamb. If he’d been in a better frame of mind, he would have laughed outright.
Penelope and Iveston gave every appearance of having practiced this piece for a month. What sort of fairly made wager was that? As to appearances, there was something very specific about the mess that was Iveston’s cravat. He’d heard the rumor about what had happened to Penelope’s dress, the rain, the rat, the rescue, and he was willing to accept it, but a man’s cravat only looked like that after some serious effort. He was no stranger to either cravats or women, after all. If he was not entirely mistaken, it looked as if Iveston had a love bite on his neck.
Truthfully, he would never have supposed Miss Prestwick had it in her. She looked so very proper and her manner of speech was quite irregular for a woman. Bold, actually, though there was certainly nothing amiss with a woman being bold, depending entirely upon to what she turned her efforts.
Was it a love bite? For all that Iveston’s cravat looked as though it had been nested in by rats, it was still too well-placed to reveal much.
“I can’t think what she has against his cravat,” Lord Dutton said. “He looked quite presentable when he arrived.”
Edenham looked askance at Dutton. He was his usual well-turned out, polished self. Not at all cut that he could see. Dutton, quite out of his usual manner, had been lolling about Town three sheets to the wind more often than not the past month, and over a woman, too. The right woman, which is to say, the wrong one, could do that to a man. It was good to see that Dutton had got hold of himself and his pride and was shaking off the shackles of melancholy.
“He’s out to win a wager. I think he can’t care that his cravat was sacrificed.”
Dutton continued to stare at Miss Prestwick and Iveston; they did sound well together. “What of your wager? What will you sacrifice to win it?”
The question acted as a spur, shaking him out of his muddled thoughts. He had the answer and it was the perfect answer.
“I made no wager, Lord Dutton,” Edenham said calmly. “A wager was made without my knowledge or direction. Certainly whomever Miss Prestwick agrees to marry is of no concern to me. Why should you think otherwise?”
And withou
t waiting for an answer, Edenham walked off and rejoined his sister, leaving Dutton with his mouth open and apparently nothing to say, which was ideal, wasn’t it?
Twenty-One
“THEY certainly appear as if they’d spent much time together,” Katherine was saying to Sophia as Edenham joined them. “Their timing on the piece is nearly perfect.”
“No, not at all,” Sophia said. “I’m certain I would have heard of it. This is their first pairing, I assure you.”
It was at that moment that Penelope came to a particularly pretty run of notes, and that Iveston joined her. Their harmony was perfect.
“Nearly miraculous, isn’t it?” Edenham said, staring at Sophia.
“I should say so,” she said. “It’s quite startling, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” Lord Ruan said, coming up behind Sophia.
He looked quite as dashing as usual, which was so convivial of him. There was very little Sophia enjoyed more than a man who knew what he was doing and enjoyed himself while doing it.
“Quite,” Sophia said.
“I can’t think that much startles you, Lady Dalby,” Ruan said.
“An astute observation,” Edenham said, “and one I quite agree with.”
“I’m flattered,” Sophia said. “I shouldn’t like to be thought of as a woman who starts at nothing.”
“Is this nothing?” Edenham asked, turning slightly to face Miss Prestwick and the pianoforte. “Before today, no one had heard of this girl and now she is the subject of wagers.”
“That’s hardly to her credit, Hugh,” Katherine said. “I don’t think it kind of you to point it out.”
“I make no judgments, only observations,” Edenham responded.
“I couldn’t disagree more,” Sophia said, facing Penelope. The song was just ending. “It is to her credit, and you should judge her well for doing such a splendid job in a single day of that which every girl of every Season wishes for; she has made a name for herself. She, this darling girl, has grabbed everyone’s attention and is determined to keep it for as long as she requires it. Such a girl should be applauded.”