by Wylde, Anya
“Who?” Penelope asked.
“Sophia,” the duke mumbled, “my grandmother.”
“She is also George’s great aunt,” Lord Adair said.
Penelope’s face cleared, “the one whose name has been crossed out in the family—”
“Yes,” the duke cut in sharply.
“Why is her name crossed out?” Penelope asked, failing to interpret the duke’s warning look.
“Because—”
“I will tell the tale,” the duke snapped at Lord Adair. “She is my grandmother.”
Lord Adair’s eyes twinkled. He gestured for him to proceed.
“Now, Sophia Radclyff, my grandmother, is someone we do not discuss and we will continue not to discuss in the future,” the duke said, his eyes boring into the three faces in front of him.
“After today you mean, that is, after you tell us why she is not to be spoken of in the first place,” Penelope agreed.
“What I am about to disclose shall not leave this room,” the duke added quietly. It was not a request but an order.
Celine bit her lip wondering if she had any right to learn the duke’s family secret. Penelope’s hand clamped down on her arm forcing her to remain.
“Continue,” Penelope begged her husband.
The duke closed his eyes, “Sophia Radclyff …”
“Yes,” Penelope prompted.
“Had an adulterous affair with a French royal.”
“Hmm,” Penelope said not impressed.
“She was twenty five at the time,” the duke continued. “And then she turned thirty and …”
“And?” Penelope encouraged.
“She had an illicit affair with a Spanish Royal.”
Celine’s eyebrows shot up.
“After that,” the duke concluded crisply, “she ran away with a sultan. When she came back to England, it was on the arm of a Rajah. She died at the old age of eighty and in the arms of a flea trainer.”
“Good Lord,” Penelope whispered. This time she was impressed, as was Celine.
A small silence ensued after this revelation.
“But I still refuse to believe that my grandmother is this scoundrel’s great aunt,” the duke burst out. He grabbed the bell and rang it furiously, “I am going to get my own family tree out and then we will see.”
Perkins’ old nose appeared inside the door, “Your grace?”
“Get me the Radclyff family tree,” the duke barked.
The tree arrived. The duke poured over it. He frowned, traced, counted, held the paper up to the light, and finally glared.
After another minute of going back and forth between the two sheets, he said, “My wife is indisposed and Celine is unmarried. I am not going to have this sort of fellow in the house at this time.”
“Gunhilda and I are good enough chaperones for Celine,” Penelope broke in.
“No,” the duke snapped.
“Someone is trying to kidnap him. I can’t leave him alone in England, especially when he is refusing to go to his father for protection. You have to keep him. If he gets too vexing, then just let the fellows kidnap him. Let him stay for a while and then decide,” Lord Adair requested one last time.
“Oh, let’s wake him up,” Penelope cried in frustration.” I am sick of the man sleeping away while we talk about him over his head.” She picked up a crimson vase from the table, grabbed the lilies in it and savagely flung them aside. She then poured the water from the vase on top of Lord George Rodrick Irvin, the future ninth Earl of Devon, currently holding the courtesy title of Viscount Elmer and having nine thousand pounds of yearly income.
The duke watched her lustily, while the rest eyed her warily.
George Rodrick Irvin finally spluttered awake. He blinked the water from his lashes, and his vivid blue eyes fell on Celine who was directly in his line of vision.
Not squinty, Celine thought, her own brown gaze caught and trapped by his bright blue one. And for someone who had spent the night overindulging and was rudely awakened by the contents of a flower pot he looked remarkably well. She stared at him like a mooncalf, her breath stuck somewhere in her throat, her limbs frozen and her wits cruising.
George’s lips curved up in a crooked smile.
She shyly smiled back.
George closed his eyes, opened his mouth and sang in a rich rumbling voice,
Up and down the market town,
Wearing a bonnet and bridal gown,
You hollered, you hollered and you hollered till your face was blue,
That your love was off to Timbuctoo.
Now you are free to join me in my feather bed,
Where we shall play heels over head!
Celine’s smile vanished and she inched closer to Penelope. “What is he doing?” she asked from the corner of her mouth.
“He is singing a bawdy song,” Penelope whispered back.
“Whatever for?” Celine asked.
“I think he thinks he is in a tavern.”
“But he isn’t,” Celine said. “Should I inform him?”
“No, from the looks of him I suggest we stay silent.”
“He does look wild eyed.”
“He should stop singing. It is disturbing the men,” Penelope frowned.
“I think a wheel in his brain has dislodged,” Celine suggested.
“And now that wheel is rattling around in his head,” Penelope agreed.
“Not rattling but sloshing around so loudly that he can no longer think, and hence he is spewing nonsense.”
Penelope pressed Celine’s hand warmly, “I am glad we are related. We can read each other’s thoughts so well.”
Celine smiled.
“Wench,” George stopped singing and addressed Celine, “what sort of an establishment is this? Get me a brandy.”
Wench, Celine mouthed in shock, while Mrs Beatle inside her head collapsed in a dead faint.
“Celine is not a wench,” Penelope informed him, “she is a lady.”
“Pardon me, Miss, you do look like someone starched enough to cut a man in two,” George corrected himself cheerfully.
His smile vanished when he spotted Penelope’s large belly, “Is that—” he started to ask but never finished, for Penelope swung back her fist and punched him in the face.
A minute of stunned silence later, the duke carefully asked his wife, “My dear, was that necessary?”
“He was ogling my bosom,” Penelope replied primly, “and singing a bawdy song. I am surprised you did not take offence, Charles.”
The duke wiped his brow, “I would love to agree with you, but I don’t think he could see straight or think straight. You might have been a little hast—”
“Lord Adair,” Penelope cut in, “I have been told that most aristocrats are related to each other. Is that true?”
“I suppose to an extent, yes,” Lord Adair replied, confused at the sudden change in topic.
Penelope chewed her lip thoughtfully. “Do you think Lord Elmer is related to the king?”
“Undoubtedly,” Lord Adair said.
Penelope howled in distress. “I have given the king’s cousin a bloody nose. I am so, so sorry.”
Celine let the duke handle Penelope. Meanwhile, she spent her time ensuring that not a speck of blood tarnished the duke’s excellent Turkish carpet. Within a few moments she had every handkerchief in the room laid under George’s head and under his nose. She then called for the brandy. The clock was striking eight ‘o’ clock in the morning, but the way things were going she was sure that everyone would need something far stronger than tea or coffee.
Perkins wobbled into the room with the brandy tray, and Celine picked up a glass and froze.
The silver tray was well polished, and in it she could clearly see her reflection and the fact that not one, not two, but three strands of dark brown hair had escaped her coiled bun.
She frowned.
Chapter 5
Celine dipped the quill in ink to write a letter on behal
f of the duchess politely declining an invitation to yet another party.
The duchess herself sat reading her favourite novel with her feet up on the footstool while a maid fanned her with a bunch of large peacock feathers.
Celine paused to stretch her arms and rub her tired eyes. The morning’s excitement combined with precious little sleep the night before was taking a toll on her.
The large grandfather clock struck three times.
Her wits woke as if doused with cold water. She had twenty minutes to finish all the letters before Dorothy was done with her music lessons and half an hour before she would have to insist that Penelope retire to her room to rest. Thereafter, Mrs Cornley would meet her in the …
The duke stormed into the Blue Room. “Lord Elmer cannot stay,” he groused.
“He is only here for a day, Charles,” Penelope soothed her irate husband.
“Adair should have taken the fellow with him,” the duke muttered.
“You know he had to urgently leave town on the King’s business. Besides, I invited Lord Elmer to stay for dinner. It would have been rude not to ask him. Mrs Beacon’s handbook for housewives that your mother kindly left for me clearly states that—”
“Penny, I don’t like him. Adventure seems to trail him, or he seeks out danger like an irresponsible child. All my life I have heard of pickles that the fellow has got into. Once I heard he was shipwrecked, another time kidnapped, and then that he had kidnapped someone. I remember now, I had met him in a pub once when he had come to return a priceless vase that he had stolen from Lord Belair. He said he had stolen it to see if he could steal it. Then when he realised that he had successfully stolen it and that no one realised that it was him who had done the deed, he decided to return the vase.”
“That was noble of him.”
The duke’s mouth twisted humourlessly, “He said the vase was so ugly that it offended his refined senses. He couldn’t sleep with the thing in the same room as him. He was compelled to give it back. He is a thief, a blackguard, a flirt.”
“So is Jimmy the highwayman, and he is my friend,” Penelope snapped.
The duke gave up and glared at the only other person present in the room … Celine.
Celine smiled. She was used to the duke’s moods. He had a heart of gold even if his face wore a constant glowering expression. She picked up the glass which Perkins had just brought into the room and dangled it in front of Penelope. “Here, Penny, drink up.”
“No,” Penelope said firmly.
“Come, just a sip,” Celine coaxed.
“You are trying to poison me,” Penelope said, her nose wrinkling in distaste.
“With cow’s milk?”
“Where is Lord Elmer?” Penelope asked taking a reluctant sip.
“In bed. Lord Adair suggested that I let him sleep all day and only wake him at dinner time,” Celine replied going back to her chair and picking up the quill.
“Do you want to marry him?” Penelope asked, dumping the milk into a priceless vase.
“Marry who?” Celine asked producing another glass of milk.
“Lord Elmer.”
“Penny!”
“I could ask the duke to keep him around if you fancied him,” Penelope persisted.
“You can safely send him home.”
Penelope sighed, “Once this babe is born, I will invite you for a season in London. You will have plenty of men to choose from.”
Celine produced a third glass of milk, since Penelope had dumped the second into a potted plant. “Drink … for the babe.”
Penelope drank.
***
Later that evening Celine caught Lord Elmer on his way to the dining room. She scrutinised his pallor from beneath her lashes. Sleep had done him good. He was only a trifle green and looked far handsomer than he had that morning.
She swallowed and peeked again.
He smiled, his vivid blue eyes crinkling at the corners.
She searched his bright clear gaze for a hint of tragedy, a crumb of madness or a smidgen of sorrow. She waded through the sparkling intelligence and dug through the humour. Alas, all she could find was an odd alert expression, which she realised after a moment of contemplation was happiness.
He cleared his throat.
She did not hear him, her brain whirling speedily as she judged, dissected and guessed what sort of a man-beast stood in front of her. It was a habit of hers to liken men and women to various creatures of the animal kingdom. It helped her understand them better. For instance her father was a scrawny hen and her mother a wild angry goose who often honked and waved her wings at him.
Now, Lord Elmer seemed the sort of man that women, animals and children adored on sight. He was a dog, not one of those small moody creatures but a large dog with a pleasant, easy countenance that would, if one insisted, eat a banana peel just to oblige you. Though, he was by no means an idiotic dog but a smart one. One that looked muscular enough to take down a couple of robbers with well-placed bites using sharp, white teeth ….
George waved his hand in front of her glassy eyes. “A penny for your thoughts,” he said and then chuckled at his own joke when he noticed Penelope waddling towards them.
“I was wondering what dog … err … Did you sleep well?”
“I did. The mattress was stuffed with a sufficient amount of goose feathers.”
Celine didn’t know what to say in reply to that, so she quickly moved on to the reason she had accosted him. Thrusting a silver tray with a selection of moustaches towards him, she said, “Here, Lord Elmer, choose a moustache.”
George promptly picked up a full, bushy red moustache. He patted it into place and asked, “How do I look?”
“Moustached.”
He smiled and waggled his eyebrows, “Come, admit you have never seen a more handsome specimen.”
“I have,” Celine said smiling back, “Your third cousin, Lord Adair.”
“Dashed cousin! Your words wound me, my dear. Couldn’t you cushion your darts?”
“We will be late for dinner.” She handed the silver tray to a passing maid and made her way towards the Grand Stairs.
“Ah, you are one of those,” he said softly.
She halted, her brow rising in query.
He took hold of her elbow and gently tugged her forward.
“What do you mean?” she asked, refusing to budge until she had an answer.
“You are a rational creature. A sensible creature,” he expanded.
Her mouth tightened.
“Or you pretend to be. I will have to find out which it is.”
“You have an entire evening, Lord Elmer, to dissect my personality, but it would be better if you spent your time appreciating the food. We have a wonderful chef who has gone to great pains to impress you with his culinary skills.”
“Celine?” he said, pausing outside the dining room.
“You may call me Miss Fairweather.”
“I shall call you what I like. After all, I am here for just one evening. Now, Celine, be a good hostess and tell me why am I wearing a fake moustache to dinner?”
“Sir Henry is the duke’s maternal grandfather and he does not like men who do not wear moustaches. He does not think men without moustaches are … well, mannish. He is very old, so rather than distress him, the duke presents a moustache to all the bare faced guests and asks them to stick it on in Sir Henry’s presence.”
George nodded unimpressed.
Celine hurried on, “Also Sir Henry may keel over and die any moment, so please be prepared for that. He may cough, choke and wheeze during the dinner as well. Ignore it unless the duke clearly indicates that this time he has definitely set sail for heaven because you may think he is dead and bewail the occurrence only to find out that he has only fallen asleep while eating his soup. It can be embarrassing. I speak from experience,” she finished and breathlessly waited for his response. He was sure to have questions. Everyone did.
“I hope we have peas. I am fo
nd of peas,” George said and walked into the dining room.
***
Penelope and the duke were already seated at the dinner table when Celine and George joined them.
Sir Henry arrived a moment later carried on a red velvet chair by four muscular footmen. He barely nodded at George. His hungry eyes were on his pocket watch. At eight sharp his hand slammed the tabletop signalling that the first course be served.
The soup arrived and everyone picked up the right spoon, dipped it into beautiful bowls, and expertly avoiding chins sipped correctly and noiselessly. The servers too were like shadows, flitting in an out, removing, filling and replacing food and drinks at regular intervals. It was a perfect aristocratic meal that was conducted in ear splitting silence.
The second course arrived when all of a sudden George flung down his napkin declaring that he couldn’t help it, he had to break the silence and speak.
Spoons halted in mid-air. Disapproving heads turned his way.
George kept his eyes fixed on Sir Henry, bravely ignoring the icy atmosphere. He had to speak, he said, for he could no longer hold back his admiration for Sir Henry’s remarkable, envious, a thing of legends moustache. He had to ooze and compliment and positively kiss the hands that kept such a moustache well groomed and shining.
Sir Henry’s valet in charge of the grooming was quickly called forth and his flattered hands dutifully kissed.
The moustache, George declared, turning his attention back to Sir Henry’s hairy upper lip, was even more beautiful in the flickering candle light.
It sparkled, it glowed. It was, he roared, a masterpiece.
Sir Henry simpered, thawed and finally melted into a warm puddle of pleasure. No one had dared to be so bold, so daring and so rebellious in his presence for a long, long time. George had behaved like a man. In fact, he was almost heroic in the way he had declared his admiration for the moustache. George was paying homage to Sir Henry’s most prized asset, and every one of those hairs on Sir Henry’s white moustache was charmed beyond words. In fact, they were so thrilled that they almost blushed pink.
The aristocratic silence had been broken, and with Sir Henry’s happy mood, the room turned warm and informal. Spoons scraped plates, glasses clinked and voices rose and fell.