“I’ll see you downstairs later,” Tarquin said and left her feeling small and lonely.
Luckily she had Chantal, who made no secret of her delight at being in a house worthy of her status as a first class dresser. The maid was less pleased when she saw the size of her room. “When I came with milady last year,” she complained, “we had one of the best rooms with a view of the grande allée. That was when I thought milady would wed Milord Blakeney. This is a closet.”
“I’m sorry, Chantal. I believe there are a great many people staying here so perhaps nothing better was available.”
“It doesn’t matter, but there is no dressing room or place for me. I shall have to sleep in the servants’ quarters.”
Though there’d been times in India when she enjoyed considerable luxury, in England Celia was accustomed to small bedchambers, first in Lady Trumper’s cramped Mayfair house and then as governess with a family of respectable but modest means. She found her Mandeville quarters more than adequate. The furnishings, including a washstand, wardrobe, chest of drawers, dressing table, and small escritoire, seemed lavish to her. The floor was carpeted and the bed and window curtained in chintz that had certainly been imported from India and made her feel quite at home.
After a carriage journey of three miles she was hardly travel-stained, but Chantal subjected every inch of her apparel to a minute inspection and tidied up her ever-unruly hair. The maid wouldn’t allow her to be seen in public until pronounced impeccable.
Half an hour later, when a footman led her downstairs, she was grateful. She might not be the prettiest or most elegant of the ladies, but at least she looked good enough not to embarrass anyone. If she’d had to see to her own toilette she’d have appeared the country bumpkin she was. The knowledge that her attire was in fashion and her grooming flawless gave her the confidence to face a palatial saloon filled with the rich, the powerful, and the beautiful. She had a fleeting fancy that Tarquin’s exquisite appearance was inspired by a similar need to face a critical world in full armor.
What nonsense. Tarquin Compton had no need of armor. He was born to this world and had never known a moment’s doubt in his pampered life.
Tarquin settled into his large and luxurious chamber with a sense of relief, delighted to be reunited with his valet and not to be sharing a room with Henry Montrose. It wasn’t London, but he was on home territory, a haunt of the beau monde. He stood at the tall double windows and looked out at the vista of Mandeville’s famous Grand Avenue, leading up a hill to a triumphal Roman arch. The grounds contained an artificial lake and half a dozen classical follies, set amidst carefully arranged plantations. If he had to be in the country, this was as it should be: nature tamed by art and subordinated to the service of mankind.
An excellent setting, come to think of it, for a dandy. Some fifteen years ago Lord Hugo had found him cowering beneath the steel slipper of the Duchess of Amesbury and introduced him to the art of the tailor. Hugo’s kindness had taught the unhappy schoolboy a lesson he never forgot: that being well dressed was the best defense.
Hard on that thought came another vision: the freedom of striding the hills barefoot and laughing at the open skies, the wild beauty of Yorkshire. Of home.
Ridiculous. He thrust it aside and descended to the piano nobile and the state rooms, symbols of the Duke of Hampton’s wealth and power and thrown open to impress a large gathering of the nation’s most influential subjects. He had a duty to see Celia comfortably settled.
He found her alone in the corner of a crowded drawing room, looking anxious, the fearless Amazon of the moors cribbed, cabined, and confined by society.
“Are you acquainted with anyone here?” he asked.
“Not a soul but you,” she said. “I suppose you know everyone.”
“Probably.” He looked around and didn’t find a single unfamiliar face.
“You are lucky to have so many friends.”
Friends? Were they friends? A few of them were better than acquaintances, people he liked: men he boxed and fenced and dined with; ladies who invited him to their parties and eagerly consulted him on matters of taste. But none of them was an intimate. Sebastian Iverley, the Marquis of Chase, and above all Hugo were the only people in the world worthy of that designation. In the loftiest circles of the English ton, where he was universally accepted and admired, few people were important to him.
He found the idea unsettling and unwelcome.
“Have you met your hostess?” he asked. “I’ll take you to her.”
Although he didn’t particularly mix with the political set, he of course knew the Duke and Duchess of Hampton. The latter, a clever woman whom even Tarquin found a little intimidating, received them without a great deal of interest, beyond inquiring after the health of the Iverleys, and her neighbors the Montroses.
“Where is the duke?” Celia whispered as they departed the regal presence.
“No doubt closeted with some gentlemen, deciding the fate of nations.”
“Wouldn’t Minerva love to be there!”
“She’d set them straight in no time.”
“Cousin!” Their conversation was interrupted by a fashionable couple, approaching him arm in arm. “What a surprise to see you!”
Bowing politely, he introduced them to Celia. He never could remember how this particular pair was related to him but the young matron with an unfortunate penchant for lavender and lace always claimed him enthusiastically. She wouldn’t, of course, dare to openly solicit his praise of her gown. But she preened and adjusted her gauze shawl, clearly angling for his opinion. She should count herself lucky he didn’t give it.
Her husband possessed less self-preservation. “What do you think of my waistcoat?” he asked as they exchanged greetings, gazing hopefully up at Tarquin from his eight-inch disadvantage.
Tarquin surveyed the offending garment, made prominent by too many good dinners settling in its wearer’s stomach. “I do believe it matches your wife’s gown,” he said with a polite bow toward the lady. “The pair of you could start a fashion. Please excuse me. I see someone I know.”
He wondered if they felt complimented and if so, whether they would persuade any of their friends that his-and-hers matching clothes were the new thing.
Celia, who had lost the pinched look she’d worn when he first joined her, regarded the departing couple with a mischievous smile. “So you think they will? Start a fashion, I mean.”
“Perhaps. Last year Sebastian set off a rage for peacock feathers in bonnets when he told someone I’d said they were the latest mode.”
“Good Lord. Just because you said so?”
“Just because he said I said so.”
“I don’t believe it!”
“I’m afraid it’s true.”
“I knew you were powerful but that is absurd.”
“Quite absurd,” he agreed. “It lasted two weeks before some intelligent lady realized it was all nonsense.”
“I should like to meet her.”
They laughed in cautious amity.
The peacock feather affair had been an amusing episode. Even more amusing had been the challenge of turning Iverley from a shabby bookworm into a man of fashion. But otherwise, Tarquin realized, in the last couple of years he’d found ton entertaients tended to get repetitious. Climbing the ladder to the pinnacle of fashionable power had been fun. Ruling from on high lacked variety and spice. Perhaps he needed a new challenge.
Celia looked about her, bright-eyed and smiling. He had never seen her bored, and he’d never been bored by her. Infuriated, certainly. Fascinated and entranced even, when he wasn’t in his right mind. The picture of her naked to the winds, her face transformed with bliss, swam into his brain. He beat it back.
That was not the new challenge he needed.
With relief he greeted the approach of half a dozen ladies and gentlemen. He presented Celia to the party, concluding with Lady Georgina Harville and her sister, a dim girl wearing over-trimmed yellow musl
in and a hopeful smile.
“Excuse me, ma’am. I do not believe we are acquainted.”
The young woman’s face fell. “Oh, indeed . . .”
“Lady Felicia Howard,” said one of the gentlemen.
Tarquin bowed. “Lady Felicia, your most humble servant.”
“You knew that girl perfectly well! How can you be so callous?” Celia hissed at him once the party drifted on. “You are rude.”
“I never encourage uarried girls. I wouldn’t want to give them ideas.”
“Do you have any idea how arrogant that statement is? You insulted her by pretending not to know her. If she knows you were pretending. If not, if she really thinks you have forgotten her, her feelings must be hurt.”
“Really? How do you know what Lady Felicia feels?”
“Because, Mr. High-and-Mighty . . .”
“Enough! I remember now. I ruined your life by forgetting your name . . .”
“Pretending to forget my name.”
“And you called me Terence Fish.”
“It served you right, Fishy. I shall never apologize for that.”
Their squabble, conducted a couple of tones above a whisper, was beginning to attract attention. He placed a warning hand on Celia’s arms and raised his voice. “I am sure you are right about that, Miss Seaton. Let me accompany you to the tea tray.”
He meant that he believed she’d never apologize. But perhaps it did serve him right. The idea that the reverence of the ton gave him the right to be unkind aroused his conscience. He’d noticed how unhappy Celia was, standing alone in this vast room full of indifferent strangers. Many who lacked the birth and connections, or even just the beauty and personality, to impress the leaders of the beau monde must feel like that much of the time. Why, even he could recall feeling awkward and out of place as a youth, before Hugo took him in hand.
Fishy. His lips twitched. Inventing a silly name for him wasn’t such a terrible crime. And Terence Fish was a funny one.
But the comic christening was only the beginning of Celia’s deceptions. Far worse was the way she’d misled him into behavior unbecoming to a gentleman. Worse still was that he would very much like to repeat the misconduct and he no longer had the excuse that they were betrothed.
Chapter 23
When a gentleman offers advice, pretend to consider it before doing whatever you originally intended.
In three days as a guest of the Duke and Duchess of Hampton, Celia learned two things. Young ladies had a very dull time of it at gatherings of the politically prominent; and she, Celia Seaton, was virtually invisible. The two facts were not necessarily connected.
No one quite knew what to make of her. She was accepted as being a slight acquaintance of Lord Blakeney’s, invited as a courtesy to his eccentric neighbors the Montroses whose house was too small to accommodate their entire family. To be an excess visitor of such an undistinguished family put her beyond anything but the most perfunctory of notice.
To her surprise she didn’t much care. The previous year she longed to be one of the inner circle; now she was a disinterested and often bored observer. Had she any knowledge of politics, she might have found meaning in the machinations of the Members of Parliament who spun in the Duke of Hampton’s orbit. Most of the men and a few women, older friends of the duchess, were gripped by weighty matters of state or wallowed in the shallows of patronage and political jockeying.
When in London she’d heard people boast of being invited to the great country houses, she’d been curious and envious. But once she got over the beauty and splendor of the mansion and became accustomed to the army of servants, there wasn’t much to do. The gentlemen may have been having fun; she wouldn’t know; they were absent most of the day. The ladies sat around and talked, dabbled in genteel accomplishments, and waited for the next meal when the gentlemen would join them.
Tarquin, needless to say, didn’t share her invisibility. She doubted most of the three or four dozen guests at Mandeville even connected her with him. They were simply too thrilled to have the famous dandy among them. Hearing the ladies flutter like deranged doves in his presence, preening and flapping to win his attention, reminded her of the miserable days of her London season. The third morning of her stay, the younger members assembled in the Yellow Morning Room, a modest designation for a large and elaborately decorated chamber. At breakfast there had been some talk of cricket among the gentlemen and to Celia’s surprise she gathered Tarquin was to take part. Despite firsthand observation of his prowess as a boxer, not to mention direct knowledge of his muscles, seeing him in this milieu made it difficult to recall his appearance and behavior in those other circumstances.
As happened far too frequently, her glance was drawn across the room to where he stood with two or three of the gentlemen. Always the center of attention in any group, regardless of sex, he said something that raised a crack of laughter. A response from one of the men drew a brief smile. Celia remembered that smile, all too rare but transforming his face from stern judgment to irresistible warmth. Her knowledge of Tarquin as a very different man from the social peacock came flooding back as her heart thumped, heat suffused her torso. Oh yes, indeed. Under the perfect grooming Tarquin Compton possessed a physicality that was belied by the tailored shell. She felt a little short of breath as she remembered what lay beneath the exquisite clothing.
“Do you think Mr. Compton handsome, Miss Seaton?” She’d been caught staring, luckily by Lady Felicia Howard. Celia had become quite fond of the youngest, kindest, and dimmest of the female guests.
“I don’t believe anyone denies that his appearance is perfect in every way,” she replied.
“Do you think so? Of course, he is very well dressed. Everyone says so, though I like to see a gentleman wear a little color. He is so severe, and satirical too. I find him quite frightening.”
“Do not, I beg you, Felicia, say anything foolish in front of Mr. Compton.” Lady Felicia’s dominating married sister, Lady Georgina Harville, joined the conversation. Or rather she joined her sister, whom she was desperate to wed to Lord Blakeney. Celia, she ignored. “He may say something to Blakeney and all your prospects will be dashed. Why must Mr. Compton come here at this time? He rarely accepts invitations to country houses. I didn’t even know he was a friend of Blakeney’s.”
“I wonder whom Mr. Compton will marry,” Felicia said. “I can’t imagine any girl being good enough for him.”
“Do not even think about him,” her sister ordered, mostly unfairly, Celia thought, since Felicia’s question had been driven by idle curiosity rather than the least interest in Tarquin as a potential husband. “He is to wed Miss Bromley.”
“Belinda?” Felicia giggled. “She must be two feet shorter than him.”
“I had it a month ago from the Duchess of Amesbury herself. As his aunt and hers she is in a position to know.”
Celia wasn’t aware she’d tensed up, till she found herself relaxing. It amused her to be privy to knowledge the so-fashionable Lady Georgina lacked: that his aunt the duchess was the last person Tarquin Compton would take into his confidence, and any niece of hers the last girl he’d marry. She’d love to hear Lady Georgina’s reaction to the information that Tarquin had preferred to marry her.
Another lady entered the discussion. “I heard that he is all but betrothed to the widowed Countess Czerny. She is a connection of the duke and very wealthy. Mr. Compton has no need to settle for a lady of lesser fortune and I daresay Miss Bromley has no more than twenty thousand pounds. Lord Hugo favors the countess and his influence is great. They are to be wed before Christmas.”
“Don’t say! I met the countess at Devonshire House. I never saw a more elegant gown. Straight from Paris, I swear on my honor. It seems that skirts are to be much wider next year.”
Don’t talk about skirts, Celia silently begged. She wanted to hear more about this countess. The minute her name was mentioned she’d had an ominous feeling.
Lady Georgina’s brow
creased. Clearly she was torn between pique at having her own gossip contradicted and fascination with this new tidbit. “I must admit they would be well suited. I cannot imagine a more elegant pair. Are you quite certain?”
“My mother had it from her cousin Lady Juno Danvers.”
“Of course, Lady Juno is almost as old as Lord Hugo and they’ve been acquainted forever.”
“Came on the town in the reign of George II, can you imagine?”
Don’t talk about Lady Juno.
“I believe Lord Hugo once offered for Lady Juno but the old earl, her father, wouldn’t hear of it.”
“She would have been better off than with Danvers. Bad blood there.”
“Lady Juno was heartbroken. On the other hand it’s difficult to fancy Lord Hugo wed, the dear old gentleman.”
Celia was ready to scream. She had no interest in a putative and long-forgotten romance between two people she’d never met, but was consumed with curiosity about Countess Czerny and Tarquin. While she could dismiss the power of the duchess, she knew of his affection for his Uncle Hugo.
It had never occurred to her that he might have an understanding with another woman. Not a formal engagement, for surely he wouldn’t then have offered for her. But if he had courted this countess, come close to making her an offer, her own deception was all the more shameful.
Perhaps Tarquin was in love with Countess Czerny. Celia envisioned her: beautiful, dressed in the height of fashion, possessed of an intriguing foreign accent and a fortune that made twenty thousand pounds seem contemptible.
She scarcely noticed when the ladies drifted off into recollections of other ancient alliances and never returned to the present day before the arrival of Lord Blakeney. Lady Georgina nudged her sister, who tried to look enticing. At least that was Celia’s interpretation of an expression that put her in mind of a friendly mouse. Felicia needn’t have bothered.
“How are you, Miss Seaton? Are you being looked after?” Blakeney made a point of inquiring at least once a day. He even, with a little effort, remembered her name. It was likely the only reason anyone bothered to speak to her at all, his attention and that of Mr. Compton. Though after the first day Tarquin had spoken to her very little.
The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton Page 17