Lord Sidley's Last Season

by Sherry Lynn Ferguson

  “‘Beautiful’! Marian, are you daft? How can a book be beautiful?” Katie fussed with the wrapping before setting it aside in an ungainly bundle. “Perhaps there truly is something wrong with Lord Sidley. In … in an eccentric way, you understand. And it is a shame, too, for he is so very handsome. And I do think he dresses divinely. But I am not at all certain I should find it agreeable, tolerating some of these pranks he plays”

  “Sending a gift of a book is scarcely a prank”

  “You may not think it so, Marian, for you like the dusty old things. Why could he not send flowers-or some sweets-as all the other gentlemen do?”

  “I suspect that is the last thing Lord Sidley should ever want-” Marian said, staring thoughtfully out the window at the bright afternoon, “-to be like all the other gentlemen”

  She had spent most of the morning painting in Edith’s charming walled garden, where the late-spring and early-summer blooms warred for prominence. Despite the auspicious weather, Marian had been unable to shake her melancholy. Her thoughts had dwelt overmuch on one subject.

  Lord Sidley’s sad prospects depressed her. And she felt crushed, some part of her grieved, that Katie disparaged this magnificent book, which had been forwarded so kindly. Bestowing it might even have been his last act.

  Marian ran her fingers lightly over the binding, then opened the book. Her aunt had mistakenly assumed the offering for Katie, but Marian thought that most unlikely. She was convinced that the Microcosm had been intended for her. And now she must thank the sender, though she did not know how. She feared to look again into those laughing eyes and find herself near tears.

  At twenty, she had had too much of death. The passing of her mother and, four years later, her father, had left her an orphan at sixteen. Her village had lost many men to decades of war, and for two years Marian had feared for William Reeves’s safety on the high seas. She would not have wanted to believe herself callous to any life, but her dismay at the thought of Lord Sidley’s end confounded her. She could not attribute her concern to solicitude for Katie, because Katie seemed remarkably sanguine regarding her favorite’s fate. So Marian had concluded that she must simply like Lord Sidley, as strange and inexplicable as that thought might be. Because she hardly knew him and apparently never would.

  “‘Twas a kindness to send this, Katie,” she repeated. “The illustrations are astonishing. You shall see. When you are away from town, you will treasure this as a remembrance.”

  Katie grinned roguishly. “I intend to return to town often enough never to need a remembrance, Marian. But you are so sweet to make the best of this. Perhaps you ought to keep the book, for when you return to Brinford. You are unlikely to return to town very often once you are wed”

  That was certainly true. William had always claimed to dislike London. And he had written often enough in his letters that he had seen his fill of the world. Upon his return he intended to purchase a holding near Brinford and never leave. Though she loved Northamptonshire, Marian found that limited a future difficult to contemplate.

  Her fingers trembled against the pages. “We must ask your mother,” she said. “Perhaps she will want it for the country-for Enderby”

  “Oh, Mama never looks at half the books she buys! Do keep it, Marian. I am convinced you must appreciate it more than any of us, since you know so much about art”

  “Thank you, Katie.” Her cousin’s consideration, though often carelessly expressed, had always been frequent enough to sustain Marian’s own fondness. “Katie, Lord Sidley mentioned that Ackermann’s holds an open night each week, for people to view these prints. I am not certain, but I … I had the impression that he might try to attend. If we were to go, you might see him there”

  “And then I might mention my ball to him in person! Oh, Marian, how shrewd you are! Why, of course we shall go! Unless-Well, let us hope it is not tomorrow. There is Lady Malvern’s supper! Let me just see …” And she impatiently rang the bell, to ask Jenks to inquire regarding Ackermann’s open evening.

  Marian cradled the book and wondered why she should find it so disastrously affecting that Lord Sidley should be dying, when Katie, who professed to want to marry the man, should be affected not at all. If Marian were proved correct, and the earl did trouble to grace the Ackermann’s showing, she sensed it would be in her best interest to leave him to Katie’s company. If she were to speak to him, she might embarrass herself, and he might what? Tease her? Yet she must thank him.

  She thought of feigning illness and letting Katie go alone to Ackermann’s. But Marian had rarely been ill a day in her life. And given Sidley’s situation, the ploy seemed grossly unacceptable, even craven. She could only do her best to avoid him.

  That resolve was more easily kept in the abstract. For when she and her cousins entered Ackermann’s three nights later for the weekly viewing, Marian’s sole wish was for Lord Sidley’s presence. She did not spot him on entering and moved about listlessly before stopping to examine closely a stunning, printed depiction of a fire in London.

  “You were not there,” Lord Sidley said very softly. Though he stood at her side, he looked not at her but at the print before them. At her quizzical silence he explained, “You did not attend Lady Malvern’s supper.”

  “I was not expected to attend.”

  “I expected you” As he turned to her, one of his dark eyebrows rose. “You are more selective than your cousin?”

  “I am not-” Marian looked away from his surprisingly accusing gaze. “I have not been presented at court, my lord. I am here only for the month, and only to study, not to seek-not to seek companionship.”

  “You are still one of the family, and should be welcome in society. Though you may not indeed be seeking companionship, as you so subtly term it. I understand you have already sniggled a fellow. I commend you, Miss Ware. When is the happy day?”

  She did not like the word sniggled any more than she cared for his tone of voice. “Lieutenant Reeves and I-”

  “You call him `Lieutenant,’ then?”

  “Of course not. William is-”

  “Ah, William!”

  Marian looked him full in the face. “You sound rather unpleasant, my lord.”

  “‘Sound’? Miss Ware, I had no inkling that my voice offended.”

  “‘Tis not your voice. ‘Tis your tone.”

  “Well, with regard to tone, I know enough of music-”

  “My lord, I will not spar with you.”

  “I regret that very much.”

  She reviewed him then-his magnificent, bottle green coat, his high shirt points, and his delicately crafted cravat. His elegant dress distracted from his too-pale complexion. But his manner, his nonchalance, distressed her. And for some unfathomable reason she felt extremely angry.

  “I suppose,” Marian said softly, as quietly as she could, “I suppose we must all indulge you, Lord Sidley, because you are … because of your disappointed prospects. The rest of us must bear with your ill humors, and suffer your deficits in courtesy, because the sad truth is that we need not suffer them for long.”

  He answered her with silence. Marian wished instantly to take back the words. She kept her attention fixed on the print before her while she struggled to think. She should have thought before. But she was not given the opportunity to recover.

  “Apparently you’ve been apprised of my impending demise. Nothing else might so easily explain the alteration in your manner. Though I confess, I must indeed have been indulged by others, since I am more used to sympathy than scorn. Your own tone, Miss Ware, is quite scathing.”

  She turned quickly to face him. “My lord, please permit me to apologize. I could not be more sorry, and as for sympathy-”

  “Spare me, Miss Ware. On such short acquaintance, your sympathy can only be perfunctory”

  Marian drew a sharp breath. “Even strangers,” she managed, “like myself, might … might feel for you, my lord.”

  “‘Feel for’ me? How quaint. I assure you, t
here is little feeling involved, merely curiosity, that of watching my morbidly entertaining little existence come to its close.”

  He observed her narrowly; she thought she must look as ill as she felt.

  “Do not waste your time pitying me, Miss Ware. You are young, with much to experience and enjoy yet in life. Indeed, anticipating your marriage! What can I be to you?” He did not give her a chance to attempt an answer, but shrugged and again looked away. “And perhaps my situation is not as dire as others would have it. In fact, I might wager so. I choose to be optimistic. However inconvenient you might find it that I should linger, or even survive.” His smile when he turned back to her was humorless.

  Marian knew she was blushing; she could do nothing for it. And, sharp as he sounded, Lord Sidley seemed to derive satisfaction from toying with her.

  “Our conversation has been so diverting, Miss Ware, that I find I still await the answer to my question. When do you and Lieutenant William Reeves wed?”

  “Perhaps later this summer. We have not yet determined. We are friends of many years…

  “How delightful! There is nothing like a carefully measured romance to warm one’s blood. One would never wish an excess of anticipation to spoil the nuptials.”

  “That is an unconscionably suggestive-” Marian broke off and bit her lip. “No doubt you, my lord, have great contempt for delay and yield frequently to the madness of the moment-”

  “Frequently’!”

  “-and would have no understanding of arrangements that extend beyond the immediately available.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “My word! What has put you in such a pother? Surely I am to be permitted a few excesses. My time may be limited. And duty has not been so kind to me that I’m now inclined to neglect my pleasures. Forgive me. I would not in the usual way speak so to a young lady, Miss Ware, but you do … provoke me”

  Marian looked down and swallowed. “It is no concern of mine, of course. Do you-have you-that is, my cousin Katie-”

  “Lady Katherine is charming!”

  “Yes, she is,” Marian said, meeting his gaze once more. “And she thinks most highly of you, my lord.”

  “I am glad to hear it,” he accepted lazily.

  “I should not like to see her hurt.”

  “No indeed!” He peered down his nose at her. “Has someone hurt her?”

  “Oh! You are-Of course I am concerned that you should not hurt her!”

  “I believe I might safely claim that I shan’t.” He frowned at her. “On Saturday, at the Malverns’, Lady Katherine invited me to this week’s ball. No doubt you know that”

  “You must not feel pressured to attend on such short notice..

  “Do you not wish me to attend, Miss Ware?”

  “Why, of course it is nothing to do with me. But Katie would be most disappointed.”

  He was again examining her face. “Did you receive the book, Miss Ware?”

  “Oh! Oh, yes indeed. It was so very thoughtful … and we are all most, most appreciative.”

  “‘All’ of you?” His lips twitched, but his gaze was serious. “Miss Ware, we have not done well here this evening. The fault rests entirely with me. Might we start again?”

  He spoke softly, confidingly. The request was generous. In that instant Marian sensed her heart was very much at risk. But she had not even a second to reflect on the discovery.

  “There you are!” Katie said at her side. “Has Lord Sidley been entertaining you, Marian?”

  “Miss Ware has been most forbearing,” Sidley offered. “I fear I have grown tiresome.”

  “Not at all, my lord,” Marian managed. “I look forward to continuing our discussion at some future date.”

  “Perhaps at Lady Katherine’s ball?” he asked, and his gaze met hers steadily as Katie tapped his arm with her fan.

  “You have decided to attend, my lord!”

  “With great pleasure, Lady Katherine. Miss Ware.” And he bowed before departing.

  “Oh, I knew he would!” Katie enthused. “He was most coy last night-he even claimed he might have another engagement-but now here he is, obliging as can be. I do hope I shan’t have much difficulty with him.”

  “‘Difficulty’?” Marian had some trouble swallowing the lump in her throat.

  “Why, if we are to be married, I should hope for a good deal more amiability. Complaisance.”

  Complaisance! From Lord Sidley? Marian glanced at her cousin with some impatience. “I wonder, Katie, if you understand the man at all”

  “Oh, do not sound so severe, Marian. Honestly, just because you yourself are engaged, ‘tis no reason to assume you know everything about gentlemen.”

  “That is not what I assume! I spoke only of Lord Sidley.”

  “And why should you know Lord Sidley better than I?”

  Marian could summon no response. She knew only that Katie’s plans and attitude filled her with something akin to foreboding.

  “No reason at all, Katie,” she said at last. “You are right-I am imagining much. You know it is always my way.”

  And with that disclaimer Katie seemed thankfully content.

  “Lady Katherine would do very well for you, Sidley.” His aunt, Adeline, regally ensconced in a high-backed chair, smoothed out her black bombazine skirt. She had worn mourning for her brother, Sidley’s father, and now wore mourning for her nephew, Sidley’s brother. Indeed, when Sidley reflected upon it, Lady Adeline Pell had worn mourning of some sort for the greater part of the past thirty years. “Edgar, Lord Formsby, has already declined several offers for his sister’s hand,” she added. “The girl is of excellent family, an admired beauty, just bearably loud, and shall have at least four thousand a year.”

  Sidley turned fully from the window, from which he’d been pensively observing the street outside the family’s town home. “And you believe those qualities are what should suit me?”

  “They are qualities that should suit any gentleman in your position.”

  “What a boon to matchmaking, that all of us should be so conveniently interchangeable.”

  “This is a serious matter, Sidley. Your quirky humors are ill-gauged to the matter of matrimony. I was halfafraid you would return home wed to a Spanish dancer!”

  “Were you?” He smiled. “Instead, I gave you a different kind of fright.”

  “Yes, well, we will speak no more of that,” she said uncomfortably. Her loss of composure on his return would forever be a source of embarrassment for her. “You are well enough now, and equally well cognizant of your duty”

  “Yes,” Sidley said on a sigh, at last abandoning the window to take a seat at the fire, across from his aunt. He selected a sweet of some sort from the tea tray between them and tossed it indifferently into his mouth. For the past few days he had lacked appetite, but he knew he must continue to build his strength. He looked steadily across at his aunt, of whom he was surpassingly fond, despite her tendency to management.

  “So, pretty and pampered Lady Katherine meets with your approval, does she? You are certain your friendship with her mother has not swayed you too positively? The girl is very young.”

  “Eighteen is a perfect age! And why should I not be `swayed positively,’ as you say, by as close a friend as the Countess of Formsby? Edith and I have always understood each other.”

  “Did you plot this fate at the foot of Lady Katherine’s cradle then, Auntie? Or-I had forgotten-no doubt she was intended for m’brother Simon, who, by the way, would almost have been old enough to be the chit’s father.”

  “Not quite, Sidley,” Lady Adeline corrected him. “And in your case, a difference of ten or eleven years will scarcely signify.”

  “More than a decade is a great deal of experience.”

  “In my opinion, some of your more recent experiences would have been better avoided.”

  “I see you wish my brief holiday to end.”

  “It has not been that brief.”

  “I beg to differ. Six weeks
is nothing at all.” He sat back on the sofa and idly tapped his left boot with his cane. “And I have not been wholly well. You think me a more attractive prospect than I am, Aunt Adeline.”

  “Humbug! You are the prize catch of the season, even given the … the …”

  “My imminent death? I believe my numbered days are precisely what has propelled me to the top of the ladies’ lists”

  “Do not be coarse, Lee. You were always considered a prize. Even as a second son”

  “Really! Why?”

  “I shall not flatter you, outrageous boy.” Adeline sniffed delicately as she eyed him. “You always had funds enough through your mother.”

  “No doubt you have the right of it, Auntie. My personal charms have never mattered in the slightest.” But his smile faded as he looked again to the fire. “Simon should have stayed at home and seen to the family fortunes. We would have been spared much”

  “We could no more keep him at home than we could keep you. After Vitoria he was wild to go”

  “The more fool he,” Sidley muttered darkly. “After Vitoria I wanted only to return. But I digress. You wish me married and starting a nursery. Re-establishing the eroded Sidley line! I intend to do as I must. As you say, there is considerable property at stake. But next season strikes me as sufficiently soon”

  His aunt shook her head. “You will be twenty-nine this December.”

  “Surely that is not too ancient, ma’am?”

  “To assure the line, you need an heir.”

  “There is an heir,” Sidley countered impatiently. “Cousin Nigel shall do nicely.”

  “Nigel Boscombe is a fool!”

  “As I said, he shall do nicely.”

  “You cannot convince me you are pleased that Nigel might inherit.”

  “I am not pleased. You know very well how thoroughly the prospect repels me. Not enough, however, to suffer the lifelong irritation of rushing to prevent it.” He fingered the sofa’s upholstery. “I should prefer to hold out for some soupcon of affection.”

  “‘Soupcon of affection’ ! Would you even recognize it, I wonder?”