Last Gentleman Standing

by Jane Ashford

  “What luck?” asked Robert.

  “Nothing.” His younger brother had always had the ears of a bat. They used to station Robert as lookout during midnight raids on the pantry at Langford. Robert could catch the creak of a floorboard at fifty paces.

  “Your luck is certainly good,” Robert replied. “Unless you don’t care to sing again. Lady Tolland is bearing down on us. A guinea says she asks you.”

  “Deuce take it,” said Randolph. He slipped behind Sebastian and then along the wall, scattering smiles and nods through several chattering groups. The experience with Miss Sinclair had been too…confusing. He didn’t wish to repeat it. Not now. Perhaps another time? Elsewhere. No, she didn’t like him. Hadn’t. What did she think now?

  Lady Tolland was craning her neck, searching for him. He wasn’t going to spend the remaining hours of this party playing hide-and-seek with his hostess. That would be rude, not to mention ridiculous. Best to go now and let everyone forget about the song, as they inevitably would when the next interesting tidbit came along. He made his way to the door and departed.

  Four

  It was a perfect day for a walk, Verity thought. The sky was bright blue, without a hint of clouds. Hyde Park’s rafts of daffodils dipped and nodded in the balmy breeze. Birds trilled in the trees. Fashionable Londoners strolled and rode and drove all around them. And she had two lively companions to talk with. Verity paused to record the moment. She already thought of Lady Emma Stane as a true friend, and Miss Olivia Townsend was fast becoming one. Olivia knew so many people. Thanks to her presence, their progress was marked by smiles and bows and blithe greetings. Verity appreciated that, because—it was an odd thing—here in London she felt younger than her twenty-four years.

  Back home in Chester, she was a familiar figure and, she thought, respected. After several years of attending assemblies, making calls with her mother, and undertaking various charitable works, she’d seen herself as an assured fixture in society. But London was so much larger, and grander. She felt as if she was starting all over again, which made her search for the perfect explorer more daunting.

  For example, nothing like that astonishing duet would have happened in Chester. She was acquainted with the musical circle there and couldn’t have been ambushed in that way. And so she wouldn’t be haunted by it now. Verity stood still, frowning. What an odd word to choose. Quite silly. She wasn’t in the least haunted. It was true that people still spoke of the performance four days later. And some women combined their compliments with sly glances, as if she’d done something clever. Their air of amused complicity made her uncomfortable. But haunted—no. Nonsense.

  “What is it?” asked Emma. The others were several steps ahead.

  Verity hurried to catch up. “Looking at the flowers,” she said.

  They walked on, following a path that curved toward Rotten Row, with its press of carriages and riders. The wind gusted, whipping their skirts around their ankles. They laughed as they caught the cloth with one hand and held on to their bonnets with the other. “Don’t you wish we could just let go and run with the wind?” asked Olivia.

  Emma shook her head. Verity had noticed that her blond friend was wary of any suggestion that was the least bit unconventional. She, on the other hand, relished the sentiment.

  “Oh look, there’s Mr. Rochford,” Olivia added. She walked faster.

  Keeping pace, Verity saw the interesting gentleman who’d been pointed out at her first ton party. He looked handsome and polished and perfectly at home on a magnificent black gelding. The horse tossed his head, clearly spirited. Mr. Rochford controlled him without visible effort. Verity could imagine this man heading into the wilds on such a mount. He came nearer. He was going to pass right by them. They wouldn’t speak, of course, not having been introduced.

  Olivia put a hand to her chest, and in the next moment the celestial-blue scarf that had been draped around her neck billowed in the breeze. The filmy cloth took flight. It floated up, writhed and twisted, and veered right under the nose of Mr. Rochford’s mount.

  The horse took instant exception to this mysterious attack. He snorted, half reared, and kicked out with his forelegs, then danced sideways as the scarf blew on. Mr. Rochford used knees and reins to contend with his mount as they nearly collided with another rider and threatened a barouche full of ladies just behind. With consummate skill, the man got the horse under control, bringing the gelding to a trembling standstill at the edge of the path.

  “Oh dear, I’m so sorry,” said Olivia, stepping right up to him. “I can’t imagine how that happened.”

  “Carelessness, I expect,” Mr. Rochford replied curtly.

  “Utterly shatterbrained,” she agreed. “I’m Olivia Townsend, you know. I expect you’re acquainted with my father.”

  Verity stared at her. Emma’s mouth hung open at their friend’s blatant disregard for propriety.

  Mr. Rochford looked surprised, then amused. “I am.” He bowed from the saddle and tipped his hat. “Thomas Rochford, at your service.”

  “These are my friends,” Olivia added. “Lady Emma Stane and Miss Verity Sinclair.”

  Emma, who had been shaking her head emphatically, went still and stared as if confronted with a poisonous snake. Verity suppressed what she very much feared was a nervous giggle. She sketched a curtsy.

  “Ladies,” said Mr. Rochford, acknowledging them as he had Olivia.

  Another rider came up with the escaped scarf. Olivia took it with a cordial nod. She did not introduce herself to the newcomer, Verity noticed. Instead, she smiled at Rochford and said, “We mustn’t keep you. I expect your horse is longing for a wild gallop.”

  A tiny sound escaped Emma—something like “Erp.” Verity didn’t dare look at her.

  “He may be,” Mr. Rochford replied. “He’s not likely to get one here in the park, of course.”

  “Such a stuffy place.”

  “I had thought so, Miss Townsend. Now, I’m not so sure.” With another tip of his hat and a glint in his blue eyes, Mr. Rochford rode on.

  “Olivia!” hissed Emma.

  The other girl shrugged off her glare. “We wanted to meet Mr. Rochford. Now we have.”

  “I didn’t want to,” Emma declared. “Not in the least. Oh, you’re just like Hilda.”

  “Who is Hilda?” Olivia asked with a smile. “It sounds as if I’d like her.”

  Emma plumped down on a nearby bench in a flurry of sprigged muslin. She let out a great sigh.

  “Her younger sister,” Verity supplied. “Prone to pranks, I believe.” Emma had shared a story or two during their conversations.

  “This wasn’t a prank,” said Olivia. “It was a plan.”

  “But how could you know that Mr. Rochford would ride by?”

  “I didn’t.” The smaller girl shrugged. “The scarf was just one idea. I had others, for other contingencies.”

  “Contingencies,” repeated Verity, enjoying the workings of Olivia’s mind.

  “Come, Miss Sinclair, you wanted to meet him, didn’t you?”

  Verity couldn’t deny it.

  “So now you have.”

  “Georgina will be annoyed,” said Emma from the bench. “Even though it was not my fault.” She sighed again. “She will say I must take responsibility for my life. But how can I when people just keep…springing things on me?” She gave Olivia another reproachful glance.

  “Don’t tell her,” came the prompt reply.

  Verity had been thinking something similar. She didn’t intend to mention this incident to her mother.

  “She’ll find out,” said Emma. “There were people all around, Olivia. They saw us talking to him. That other man heard what you said about galloping. Which sounded quite improper. Somehow.”

  “Oh, pish.” Olivia waved her friend’s concerns aside.

  “Indeed?” Emma rose and rejo
ined them. “What will your mama say?”

  The other girl grinned. “She’ll scold me, all the while trying not to laugh. She’ll say I must behave myself. And then she’ll give me a load of unnecessary advice about rakes and libertines.”

  “Really?” Verity asked. She couldn’t imagine such a conversation. The word libertine would never pass her mother’s lips. The Townsend household must be very different from her home.

  “As if I would ever do more than flirt,” Olivia added, tossing her head.

  Verity gazed at her. From her crimped brown hair under a stylish bonnet to her shining half boots, Olivia Townsend was the image of London sophistication. Verity wanted to know her better. And meet her mother.

  “Oh no!” said Emma. “There’s Flora. I wonder if she saw. What will I say?”

  “Say nothing,” replied Olivia. “Pretend you don’t know what she’s talking about.”

  “How can I—”

  She broke off as the lady in question drew within earshot. She was accompanied by the young blond girl Verity had noticed at the musicale. “Hello, Emma.”

  Emma murmured a nervous response.

  The newcomer waited, then added, “Perhaps you would introduce us to your friend?”

  “Oh!” Emma hastily presented Verity.

  “How are you, Miss Townsend?” asked the pale-haired girl, who turned out to be Miss Frances Reynolds. “We met at a house party last autumn,” she told Verity.

  “Isn’t it pleasant to have friends in London,” put in her companion. “I’m sure you’ll want to catch up.”

  Miss Reynolds looked hopeful. Olivia said nothing, which surprised Verity.

  They exchanged a few more remarks before the two parties went off in different directions.

  “I don’t think Flora noticed anything,” Emma said when they were gone.

  “Very likely not,” replied Olivia. “And if she thinks she’s going to foist that milksop miss off on me, she’s mightily mistaken.”

  Verity and Emma stared. “Do you mean Miss Reynolds?” Verity asked.

  “None other. She’s the most priggish girl.”

  “She didn’t seem so to me,” Emma ventured.

  “You didn’t see her at Salbridge, constantly putting her oar in when no one wanted her opinion. She snaffled a major role in the play we put on, when she should have had the sense to efface herself and let her betters have the spotlight.”

  “She wasn’t any good?” Verity asked, a little shocked at her new friend’s sharpness.

  “What is snaffled?” Emma asked. “Slang, I suppose.” She sounded resigned.

  Olivia made a dismissive gesture. “Miss Reynolds was adequate, when she wasn’t using the opportunity to make sheep’s eyes at Charles Wrentham. Which was nearly always.”

  “She spoiled the play?” Verity asked, attempting to understand Olivia’s attitude.

  Surprisingly, Olivia giggled. “No. She didn’t.”

  Verity remained puzzled.

  “She’ll find it harder to push herself forward here in London,” Olivia continued. “I certainly won’t be helping her. I wonder…”

  “What?” asked Verity when Olivia said no more.

  “We shall see” was the mysterious reply.

  “People are looking at us,” said Emma.

  “Isn’t that why we’re here?” asked Olivia. But she led them along the path toward the gates.

  * * *

  Randolph plucked out a run of notes on his lute. He could play parts of the melody now, but the sound was still far from the golden song he’d heard during that strange interlude last summer when an Indian gentleman had chanted in Sanskrit and tapped a drum. The combination had somehow evoked a vivid daydream in which Randolph saw himself in archaic surroundings playing a ballad that still haunted him. On a lute.

  By an impulse both inexplicable and irresistible—an uncomfortable duo—he was driven to reproduce those notes exactly. No substitute would do. Not picking the tune out on the pianoforte, or trying to reproduce it with his voice. The whole thing was very odd, and so he kept his practice to the privacy of his bedchamber.

  Randolph set the instrument aside with a strange mixture of regret and relief and went down to join his parents for dinner.

  “I’ve had letters from Nathaniel and Violet,” said the duchess as they began the meal. “Violet is feeling much better. Nathaniel says she’s blooming.”

  “That’s good,” said Randolph. His eldest brother’s wife had been ill at the beginning of her pregnancy, causing the family some worry. Randolph spooned up soup, savoring the complexity of the flavor. His mother’s cook was another attraction of Langford House. He wouldn’t get a meal like this in rented rooms.

  One of the footmen appeared in the doorway. He hovered a moment, looking reluctant. “I beg your pardon for interrupting, Your Grace,” he said to the duchess. “A messenger brought this. He said it wasn’t to wait even a moment.” He held up an envelope with the crest of the Prince Regent on the flap.

  The duke held out a hand. “Patience isn’t one of the prince’s virtues.”

  “I beg your pardon, Your Grace,” repeated the footman. “It’s for Lord Randolph.”

  “Me?” said Randolph, mirroring his parents’ surprised looks. “Why would he be writing to me? I don’t know him.”

  “I introduced you at court when you were eighteen,” said his father.

  “I made my bow. We didn’t speak.”

  “What could be so urgent?” wondered the duchess.

  “There’s one way to find out.” The duke gestured, and the footman stepped over to hand Randolph the envelope.

  Setting down his spoon, Randolph opened it. Inside was a longish handwritten note. “The deuce!” he exclaimed when he’d scanned it.

  “What is it?” asked his mother.

  “The prince wants me to sing at a party.”

  “Sing?” said the duke, suddenly haughty. “As if you were some sort of hired entertainer?”

  “Oh, the request is wreathed in all sorts of polite phrases and fulsome compliments. He abjectly requests it as a favor.”

  “Let me see that.” His father read the note with a frown. “He really will say anything to get what he wants. Who is Miss Verity Sinclair?”

  Randolph did not miss his mother’s raised eyebrows. “A young lady. We sang an impromptu duet at Lady Tolland’s musicale. It was…well received.”

  “Apparently, it was stunning,” the duchess said. “I’m so sorry to have missed it. Robert said you were wonderful.”

  Despite his ambivalence, Randolph once again appreciated the praise from his most discerning brother.

  “The prince hates to miss anything of note,” commented the duke.

  “Must I do it?” asked Randolph.

  “Awkward to refuse a direct royal request couched in these terms,” his father replied. “You can hope the young lady’s parents object.”

  Randolph perked up. “Right. Not the thing for her to sing in public.”

  The duke considered the letter again. “He makes a great point of it being a private party, quite exclusive. Her parents will probably agree to it, unless they’re remarkably straitlaced.”

  Randolph sighed. He hadn’t gotten that impression from his encounters with Miss Sinclair. Hidebound parents couldn’t have produced such a…forthright girl. It seemed he was doomed to perform with her. He’d have to call and discuss the matter. He wondered what new insult she’d find for the occasion.

  “Miss Sinclair is the one related to the Archbishop of Canterbury, isn’t she?” said his mother.

  “Not one of his daughters?” asked the duke. “Doesn’t he have ten? But no, not with the surname Sinclair.”

  “It’s not as bad as that,” Randolph replied.

  “What do you mean ‘as bad’? Is
there something wrong with the girl? She must be related to the Duke of Rutland, too.”

  “Perhaps a good connection for you, Randolph?” said the duchess.

  Randolph knew that look. She was intrigued. There was no stopping Mama when her curiosity was aroused. “Nothing’s wrong with Miss Sinclair,” he replied. Except the way she treated him. “I just need to stay out of the archbishop’s way for a while. A while longer. Not too much longer now, perhaps. I hope.”

  “Why? What did you do to the archbishop?”

  “I didn’t do anything to him, Mama.”

  She waited, rather like Ruff at a mousehole. Papa waited as well, with the amused expression he assumed when his mate was extracting information from one of their progeny. The picture—and the conviction that there was no way out—was as familiar as childhood. Thinking he might as well get it over with, Randolph spoke quickly.

  “It’s ridiculous really. Three years ago, I organized a Christmas pageant at my church. The archbishop happened to be near Hexham at the time, so he paid a visit. Everyone was quite excited. It was a great occasion. But a young…humorist had put a ram in the manger instead of a proper sheep. The archbishop was leaning over to compliment one of the children who played an angel, and the ram, er…”

  “Knocked him down?” said his mother when he hesitated.

  “Bit off one of his coattails?” offered the duke when Randolph still didn’t speak.

  “No.” Randolph sighed. The scene was engraved on his memory. Unfortunately. “The archbishop had on white vestments, from an earlier rite. When he bent down, the ram…seemingly…mistook him for a ewe.”

  His father’s snort was not unexpected.

  “Mistook…?” His mother’s mouth fell open. “Oh. Oh dear.”

  “Two burly parishioners had to help me get the creature off him,” Randolph continued. “The archbishop was thoroughly shaken up and not…understanding.” The prelate’s glare had been searing; his secretary’s even more so. “Since then, I’ve been lying low in church circles.”