by Joan Smith
“I’ve tried that. Thank God it is over. No, a man likes to accomplish something useful with his life. Feeding men instead of shooting them.”
She didn’t answer, but he read the interest and approval in her expression and was encouraged to press on.
“I had such plans when I returned from Spain. I heard, while I was there, of my brother Algernon’s death, and realized the brevity and uncertainty of life. Odd it didn’t occur to me when I saw my comrades being mowed down every day, but it was Algernon’s drowning that brought it home to me. I couldn’t wait to get home, marry the most beautiful lady in London, and turn South Winds into a rural Eden. Fill a nursery with sons and daughters and live to a hundred.
“Then to come home and find the ladies I had been dreaming of didn’t exist. I wished I had brought a sweet señorita home with me. They are sweetly gentle and innocent, the Spanish ladies, yet with fire in their eyes too, when you offend them. You remind me a little of them. Perhaps it’s the way you wear your hair, and its dark sheen.”
“What was it that displeased you in the local ladies?” she asked.
“The debs were just mindless, giggling girls, and the older ladies were all scheming hussies, dangling after the title —until I met you.”
“What makes you think I don’t want a title?” she asked.
“Because a lady like you could have had one long ago, if that was what you were after. With those Spanish eyes of yours, you could have had all London at your feet if you had condescended to flirt and tease a little. But you are too proud to resort to such tricks. That, too, is a Spanish trait. It is a part of what I love about you.”
He gazed into her eyes, bemused, and she listened, enchanted. Was this how gentlemen talked to their mistresses? How different from the way John talked to her. It almost made a lady want to become a mistress.
“You realize you saved my life,” he continued, pretending to be stern now. “That entails a great responsibility on you. You must now see that the life you saved is a happy and fulfilled one, Miranda. I should not call you that until you give me permission, after a month or two. But I have waited too long, and am too impatient to get on with it to observe all the niggling proprieties that don’t really mean anything. And besides, we have been quasi acquainted for a millennium.
“To me, you were ‘Miranda’ the moment I heard Mrs. Hazard speak your name. And Hornby Hall is your desert island, where you were insulated from the dissipations of London. I am referring to Shakespeare’s Tempest, in case you have lost track of my rambling and think I have run mad.”
“I knew what you meant,” she said. She smiled and listened to his invention and ingenuity, believing one word in ten. But it was flattering to be courted in this romantic style, even if the aim wasn’t marriage. Of course she would not become his mistress, but a lady could listen. There was no harm in that. Forewarned was forearmed.
Their waltz was over too soon, and it was time for her country dance with Hume. It would be like going from a moonlit garden into a rowdy fair, but Hume’s name was on her card, and it didn’t even occur to her to ignore it.
Chapter Eight
Lord Bolton was looking forward to seeing Mr. Hume make a spectacle of himself by undertaking the boisterous country dance, but he was disappointed. When Hume came to claim Miranda, he carried her off across the dance floor to the refreshment parlor. Now what was the old bleater up to? Bolton decided to go and investigate. At the very least, he would have the fun of watching Hume make his excuses for avoiding the boisterous romp.
But when he reached the parlor, he saw Hume speaking to Cleary, while Miranda stood with an arm protectively around Dotty a few yards away. When Dotty saw Bolton, she detached herself and hurried forward to greet him.
“The most shocking thing, milord!” she exclaimed. “Mr. Cleary was trying to induce me to leave this lovely do and go to a masquerade party at some place called the Pantheon. He said we could be back in time for supper here. I very nearly accepted, for it sounded ever so much fun, and he said it was unexceptionable. His own sister is there. But then Mr. Hume came and rescued me just in time.”
“Mr. Cleary doesn’t have a sister,” Bolton said.
“I know. He was making it up to deceive me. Mr. Hume told me. Miranda said that Mama had seen me with Mr. Cleary, and asked Mr. Hume to just see that he wasn’t up to something horrid. Mr. Cleary seemed very angry when I told Mr. Hume where we were going. And Mr. Hume was angry, and I expect Mama will be angry as well. I had no idea Mr. Cleary was so horrid.”
Tears trembled but did not quite course down her cheeks. “Oh I am so glad you came to rescue me, Lord Bolton,” she said, and leaned weakly against him.
He instinctively put his arm around her, and led her to a chair as he disclaimed credit for her rescue.
Miranda watched as he obtained a glass of punch for Dotty and sat a moment consoling and advising her. Cleary directed a hostile glare at the group and left at a stiff-legged gait. Mr. Hume and Miranda joined Bolton and Dotty.
“That was well done of you, Mr. Hume,” Miranda said. “What did you say to Cleary?”
“Did you challenge him to a duel?” Dotty asked, with an air of eager anticipation.
“Indeed I did not, Miss Hazard. Duels are for foolish young hotheads. There is nothing Cleary would like better. I told him that if he pestered you again, he would find himself persona non grata at all his favorite gambling clubs. He knows I could arrange it, too. That will have more effect than challenging him to a duel, and it will keep any whisper of scandal from your fair reputation as well.”
Dotty expressed her lukewarm appreciation. It was for Miranda to give him his due. “We are very grateful, Mr. Hume,” she said warmly. “You handled the matter with commendable discretion.”
“Experience counts for something in the world,” he said modestly. “But it cost me a good deal. We missed our dance, and I am sure you have every other set on your card filled.”
“I have, but you shall have whatever set you wish at the next party,” she said.
“I am too eager to wait for the next party,” he said archly. “Say you will come with me to the theater tomorrow evening. You and the Hazards, of course. Ca va sans dire.”
“I shall have to speak to Mrs. Hazard first,” she replied. It seemed impossible to refuse after the favor he had just done them. With Lord Bolton listening with both ears, she even took some pleasure in accepting, although she did not want to give Hume too much encouragement.
“Let us go and speak to her at once.” He turned to Bolton and Dotty. “We can safely leave Miss Hazard in your care, eh, Bolton?”
Lord Bolton rose and helped Dotty from her chair. “Let us all speak to Mrs. Hazard. She will want to hear what happened here, and know that her daughter is unharmed.”
“What a gossoon you are, Dotty,” Mrs. Hazard exclaimed, when the tale was told. “Didn’t I tell you a dozen times to have nothing to do with Cleary? This isn’t Manchester or Surrey, where you can go waltzing off to a party without knowing what you’re going to.” She turned to Bolton. “What is wrong with the Pantheon, then? A vice den, is it?”
“It is not a fit place for young ladies,” he replied discreetly.
“Well, Dotty, you are fortunate to have a young gentleman looking out for your interests, for it seems to me you have no more sense than a peahen.”
“It was not my doing,” Bolton said. “The credit belongs to Mr. Hume.”
Hume accepted their thanks with becoming modesty and put forward his scheme of taking them to the theater the next evening.
“Shakespeare, is it?” Mrs. Hazard asked, with very little enthusiasm.
“They have just opened one of Murphy’s comedies called All in the Wrong at Covent Garden, if you prefer,” Hume replied.
“That’s dandy. Let me see, now. You and Miranda, Bolton and my Dotty, and me. That leaves an empty seat. Who could you dredge up for an old relict like me?”
Hume bowed and lifted her hand
to his lips. “The problem will be of selecting one fortunate gentleman from the throng, madam,” he said.
“Go on with you,” she said, laughing, and gave him a clout on the shoulder, but her face was pink with pleasure.
The evening was not going at all the way Bolton had hoped. It seemed he became more tightly enmeshed with Dotty every time he tried to see Miranda. Dotty was hanging on to him like a barnacle now, casting languishing glances his way.
And he knew that if he called on Miranda tomorrow afternoon, he would somehow end up with Dotty in his rig. To put the cap on his vexation, he sensed that Miranda realized his predicament, and was laughing at him.
She did find the situation amusing. What concerned her was that she was being drawn more closely into Mr. Hume’ s net. Mrs. Hazard and Lydia might say he was interested in marriage, but she didn’t think a seasoned bachelor of fifty years was likely to change his stripes so easily. And even if he was serious, she had no interest in marrying him. She consoled herself that she hadn’t come to London to find a husband, so it was no tragedy. She could always tell Mr. Hume she was not interested in whatever offer he made, if he made one.
As the supper hour approached, the elder Lady Bolton came bustling across the floor like a hurricane in puce satin to join them.
“Let us all sit together,” she said, edging her way into the circle beside Dotty, and nudging Bolton aside in the process. “Helen has saved us a table. You, too, Mr. Hume,” she said, gathering him up by the elbow.
Bolton followed behind with Miranda. He put his hand on her arm, inclined his head to hers and said in a quiet voice, “You must look to your laurels now, Lady Wetherby.”
She was ridiculously pleased that he had fallen into step with her, and strangely excited by the warm intimacy of his hand on her arm. “What do you mean?” she asked, with an air of indifference.
“Did you not realize you have dangerous competition in Helen?”
Miranda just looked at him blankly. Was it possible he was so conceited he not only assumed she was chasing him, but said it out loud? And why competition in Helen? He had never seemed the least interested in her.
“I can’t imagine what you’re talking about, as I am not competing for anyone or anything. It is Dotty you should speak to.”
“Dotty?” He looked at her a moment, then laughed. “Well now, there is a facer for me. I had the notion our Dotty was throwing her bonnet at me, not Hume.”
“She is,” Miranda said, and blinked. She appeared to have lost the thread of this conversation. It happened all too easily when she was with Bolton. She had never before met a man who excited her in this physical way.
“Why are you grinning like that?” she scowled.
He looked at her, a long, deep look that was like a caress. “Because I have just learned what I wanted to know: that it is my poor self you are ‘not’ competing for.”
Miranda quickly reviewed their conversation, and as she figured out that she had read his speaking of competition to refer to himself, she felt the blood rush to her face. “What are you talking about, if anything?” she asked disdainfully.
“I was talking about Hume, actually. But never mind. It’s not important — now. “ The fingers on her arm gave a squeeze.
“You mean Helen has a tendre for Hume?” she asked.
“This is the wicked London I was telling you about. Such well-inlaid gents are never lacking for admirers.”
“But he’s much too old for her!”
“Yes, he is. She’s about your age, actually.”
Miranda noticed that Helen seated herself beside Hume, and did indeed put herself to great pains to amuse him. As Miranda, seated on his other side, did not encourage him in the least, Helen had a good deal of his attention.
The other Lady Bolton spoke loudly and often to Bolton of some Lady Virginia, whom he had apparently been seeing a good deal of.
“I advised Virginia’s mama to tell her daughter to forget you, Max,” she said playfully. “You have become a dreadful flirt since returning from Spain.” She turned to include Mrs. Hazard in her noisy confidences. “He dangles after every new girl for two weeks, then drops her when the next pretty face comes along. A lady would be a fool to waste her time on Max, and so I told Virginia’s mama.”
“You are mistaken, Adelaide,” Bolton said. “I am, in fact, eager to marry and set up my nursery. It was just a question of finding the right lady.”
Dotty gave Lady Bolton a triumphant look, and Bolton mentally winced as he saw how his reply had been interpreted. The Hazards assumed he had met his bride in Dotty.
“What is Lady Virginia’s dowry?” Mrs. Hazard asked.
“Ten thousand,” Mr. Hume said, and everyone laughed, perhaps to ease the tension, as ten thousand was not to be sneezed at.
There was an uncomfortable air of tension at the table. Miranda was hard put to account for it. Was it Lady Bolton’s blatant efforts to turn Dotty away from Lord Bolton? Was it Helen’s desperate efforts to attract Mr. Hume? Was it embarrassment at Dotty’s die-away airs because a rake asked her to the Pantheon? Or was it her own acute awareness that every time she glanced at Lord Bolton, he was gazing at her with an enigmatic smile lurking in his dark eyes, as if the two of them shared a secret.
When the ladies were back in their own saloon after the party, Mrs. Hazard said, “Is Bolton calling on you tomorrow, Dotty?”
“No, I asked him to tea, but he has to go to some place called Manton’s. Something to do with the army, I believe. He mentioned guns and shooting.”
Miranda didn’t disillusion her that Manton’s was just a shooting gallery in Davies Street where gentlemen went to practice. It sounded like an excuse. A strange way for a gentleman who claimed to be interested in marrying and setting up his nursery to behave. But then no stranger than to be courting a mistress and a bride out of the same house simultaneously.
“Is Mr. Hume calling?” she asked Miranda.
“He asked if he might. I told him we would be busy with modistes. You remember we have asked Madame Blanchard to call tomorrow. I could not like to postpone it. We are all running out of gowns.”
“I am looking forward to it. I shall get a new turban to match my next outfit, and pin my diamond brooch on it, as that lady with the liverish complexion did this evening. It looked very stylish.”
The conversation was easily diverted to turbans and gowns and bonnets. Even Dotty stirred from her lethargy long enough to agree to a few new gowns.
The next day passed pleasantly examining materials, choosing patterns, and being measured. Mr. Cleary called and was told by a stern-faced Samson that Miss Hazard was out. Helen was allowed admittance. She called, ostensibly to invite the ladies out for a drive in her tilbury, but her real aim was to discover what they were doing that evening. When she learned they were to attend the theater with Mr. Hume and Lord Bolton, she rushed off to Covent Garden to hire a box and round up a few friends to fill it.
The Hazards had purchased new shawls ready-made from the modiste and added them to their gowns for the trip to Covent Garden. Miranda, who had to watch her money, wore her white fringed shawl over a dark green gown, and didn’t know whether she was underdressed or the Hazards were overdressed when they came down to dinner glittering in diamonds and shining like sunlight on water.
She only knew that in an hour she would be seeing Lord Bolton, and the knowledge both thrilled and frightened her.
Chapter Nine
The gentleman Mr. Hume “dredged up” for Mrs. Hazard was Lord Peter Potter. Though not far short of sixty, he was a younger son, with his most fashionable pockets entirely to let. He made his living by cadging off his noble friends and relatives, with an occasional donation from his elder brother, the Duke of Dalmain, when he was in actual danger of being thrown into debtors’ prison.
Despite his lack of funds and unprepossessing appearance (shortish, corpulent, balding), he was well-bred, well-dressed, well-liked and welcome everywhere. Mrs. Hazard loo
ked him up and down as if he were a horse she was thinking of buying and decided he would do for one outing, but she wouldn’t want him in her stable. A bit frisky for her simple tastes. She was not aware of the intricacies of noble titles, but she knew that a lord who used his first name wasn’t the preferred kind of lord. And when he was the youngest of six sons, he might as well be a commoner for all the title meant.
The group met at Berkeley Square for the trip to Covent Garden. Lord Bolton suggested that Miranda and Hume go with Dotty and him in his carriage. Mrs. Hazard gave him a sly wink and said, “We’ll leave you two youngsters to yourselves. You won’t want us hanging over your shoulder, your lordship. Miranda and her beau can come along with me and Lord Peter. But mind you don’t do anything I wouldn’t, Dotty.”
“You may be sure I will be on my best behavior, ma’am,” Bolton replied. Dotty gave him a shyly adoring smile and attached herself to his arm like a plaster.
Covent Garden had burned down and been rebuilt since Miranda’s last visit to London. The new theater was a vast compound done in the classical style. The auditorium held nearly three thousand people. They were led to their box on the grand tier and ushered into fringed plush seats.
Lord Bolton enjoyed a brief respite from Dotty’s clinging arm when it was decided that the ladies would have the best view of the stage from the front row of the box, leaving the three gentlemen to sit behind them. He sat, gazing at the back of Miranda’s head and shoulders, admiring the way a wayward curl escaped from its pins and settled on her creamy neck, like ebony on ivory. His fingers ached to reach out and touch that warm, velvet skin. How could he arrange some time alone with her?
Mrs. Hazard was a farouche creature, and Miranda was her guest. If he offended either the mother or daughter, he would be as unwelcome at their door as Mr. Cleary. Yet to go on as he was doing was only aggravating the problem. What he required was a gentleman to replace him in Dotty’s affections, and he needed him quickly.
There was no shortage of candidates, but he could not like to produce a gentleman who was only after the Hazard fortune. The mama, whatever of Dotty, would not settle for anything less than a lord. He mentally ran likely candidates through his mind as the farce on stage began. The deuce of it was that, with the Season over, not many of the lords were in London.