“You ought not to speak so soon, Jo, dear,” Amelia declared, barely containing her laugh of glee as she played the winning hand, escorting her and her partner to victory.
“I demand a rematch!”
The cards were barely laid before Joanna was calling for a second hand, and she summoned Emily closer.
“You will play with us this time, Emily, surely?”
“Yes, dear, you may take my place,” began Mrs Hardcastle, but her words could not be acted upon before the door to the parlour opened to admit the gentlemen, returning as conquerors, with merry smiles for all the ladies.
“Well, now!” Mr Crampton declared, his voice peculiarly loud in the quiet room. “I believe we were promised harp music, were not we? Come, Miss Hardcastle, do not disappoint us now!”
Grace kept her eyes on the table, collecting together the cards she and her friends had been using and setting the small pack down.
“I think we might allow Miss Hardcastle a moment’s respite before pressing her into service,” Captain Sudbury said, and in spite of herself, Grace felt her gaze lift in his direction.
“Oh, she is in no need of further rest, brother, dear!” Amelia said, brightly. “I believe that of all of us, Miss Hardcastle was the most eager for your return so that she could play. Alas, it seems we ladies alone are not enough of an audience to warrant a performance.”
“I see that did not deter you from making fine use of your time,” Sir Benjamin Devereaux teased, as he skirted the card table and offered his hand to his bride-to-be. “Miss Grace, please do not allow my sister and Miss Sudbury to lead you astray. Their minds are too quick to ever be at ease for very long. If not conversation then cards, if not cards, then books.” He feigned a yawn. “It is devilishly exhausting to be in their company for very long.”
“My brother is a comedian,” Joanna drawled, slipping her arm through Grace’s and lowering her voice to a whisper. “At least he considers himself to be so.” She lifted her chin, firing her slight at Sir Benjamin’s back. “I think he is just jealous that ladies’ minds are so much quicker than his.”
“Ow!” Sir Benjamin clutched at his heart as if Joanna’s blow had been a physical one. “And to think, I was given to understand it was a blessing to have a sister.” He raised his eyebrows at Joanna, who stuck her tongue out at him in a most unladylike manner. “Perhaps it is not a sister in the abstract, but the sister in particular that I have been blessed with.” He turned to Captain Sudbury. “What say you, Sudbury?” His voice grew teasing once more and Grace was strangely pleased to see the easy manner that existed between the two friends. “I am quite sure you can summon no ill-will towards a creature as perfect as your sister. Of course, I am perhaps a little biased.”
“A little!” Joanna murmured, and Grace stifled a laugh at the comical expression that rested on her friend’s face. “Grace, I assure you, if any of us are blessed it is you for having no idiot brother to contend with. Sisters are far preferable, I am sure.”
Grace said nothing and then felt guilty for staying silent. Whilst she and Emily had never been close confidants, they had not been enemies, or as opposed to one another as some sisters could be. In fact, when she had been in London Grace quite missed her, although she had readied herself for the break that would surely come when Emily came home with a suitor in tow. When that did not happen the first time, she rejoiced in another year of having her sister beside her and indulged in the petty squabbles that dominated their days. When, after a third season, Emily still remained unwed, though, something changed between the sisters. Emily’s teasing became less good-natured, her ire easier to attract. When, lately, Mr Hardcastle had begun to speak seriously about retrenchment, Emily had become almost unbearable. She would not condone talk of taking a smaller home and even the idea of removing to Bath or Brighton, where they might stay considerably comfortably for rather less outlay than it cost them to remain where they were, provoked a tantrum that would not have looked out of place on a child a third of Emily’s age.
“Quiet, please! Quiet!” Mr Crampton had seemingly declared himself chief arbiter and conductor of their entertainments for the evening, clapping his hands and looking imperiously around the room. Grace’s gaze flew to her father, expecting to see annoyance on his features at one of his guests acting so in his own parlour, but instead, Mr Hardcastle was speaking intently to Sir Benjamin again, quite wilfully ignoring Captain Sudbury, who sat beside him.
Joanna muttered something that Grace could not hear but obediently everyone took their seats and silence descended on the room as Emily began to play. She was not a talented harpist, although she was enthusiastic, and her fingers flew over the strings, hitting easily as many wrong notes as right. Grace arranged her features into a smile, eager to encourage her sister, who was surely nervous to perform before such a group. When she saw the expression of abject adoration on Mr Crampton’s face, she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. He was so utterly besotted with Emily that Grace supposed that he would applaud her ability to walk and talk at the same time. But Captain Sudbury, too, wore a smile, and Grace’s heart sank further to see it. You ought to be pleased, she reminded herself. Did not you wish for this? For Arthur to be happy? If Emily makes him happy then who are you to oppose the match? She knew the answer, although she would not allow her thoughts to form it, and when Emily reached the end of her piece, she was the first to applaud, as loudly and enthusiastically as Mr Crampton.
Chapter Nine
“Ah, a pity. The dealer wins this hand.”
Devereaux smiled, gathering up the cards and shuffling them before dealing again. It had been a few days since the dinner at Grafton Hall and Arthur had found himself at Roland Park, eager for a little distraction. He and Devereaux dominated the parlour, playing cards and talking, while Joanna attended to her embroidery and pretended to ignore them.
“Buck up, Arthur!” Devereaux dealt one card and hesitated before dealing a second, raising a questioning glance at his friend. “Unless you do not wish to play again?”
“No, no.” Arthur waited for his second card and lifted the pair to his eyes, scanning them quickly and running a calculation. “Twist.”
Devereaux dealt a third card and Arthur added it to his hand, summing the total and holding up his hand.
Devereaux consulted his own hand and dealt a third, fourth, fifth card to himself, before throwing the hand down in despair as his cards far out-paced the longed-for vingt-et-un.
A sound outside caught Arthur’s ear and he looked at the window, groaning when he saw the grey morning clouds had given way to a downpour.
“I suppose you might wish to stay to lunch with us, Captain Sudbury?” Joanna asked from her corner. She smiled sweetly at him. “We certainly shall not seek to turf you out into the rain!”
“Very noble, sister,” Devereaux said, collecting the cards and setting them to one side, effectively ending the game that had grown increasingly lacklustre with each hand. “You are a fine hostess. I dare say we must put your skills to the test before long and invite the Hardcastles to dine.” He let out a sigh that might have been unintentional, but that drew Arthur’s attention.
“You sound as if you do not relish the opportunity,” he accused. “Do not tell me that Sir Benjamin Devereaux is not fond of parties?”
“He is not!” Devereaux growled. “Not anymore. I have retired, and hung up my boots, and shall be a cantankerous old married man, for the foreseeable future.” His fierce expression relaxed into a grin. “You must advise your sister, for she still has time to change her mind and not marry me if she wishes.”
Arthur laughed, leaning back in his chair and surveying his friend. He had been unsure of Devereaux when they first met but many meetings since had solidified a fine friendship between the two. He could understand why the fellow had won Milly’s heart, and, for her part, she seemed to have a softening, civilising effect on the more prickly parts of Devereaux’s nature.
“She must do no such thi
ng!” Joanna piped up, from her corner. “For if she does not marry you, I shall be tasked with looking after you and that will seriously limit my future plans!”
“What plans?” Arthur asked, turning to look at her “Have you a scheme in place the rest of us are ignorant of? Do not tell me there are still more eligible bachelors in Westham that I have not yet had the thrill of meeting and being unfavourably compared with.”
Joanna said nothing, merely attended to sewing with intent concentration.
“That reminds me...” Devereaux shifted his weight, stretching out his long legs and crossing them at the ankle. “I do not suppose our friend Crampton will wear the title of bachelor for very much longer. Did you see the way he made eyes at Miss Hardcastle? I dare say there will be an announcement made before long!”
Arthur’s gaze lifted in a silent question.
“I make no judgment,” Devereaux shrugged. “Merely to suggest that if other people profess an interest in the elder Miss Hardcastle, they might be advised to act on it before someone else beats them to the punch.”
Joanna sniffed and both gentlemen turned to stare at her.
“You wish to weigh in, sister?” Devereaux called.
“I wish to do nothing of the sort!” retorted Joanna, although she set down her embroidery and regarded them carefully. “Merely to suggest that a young lady who survived three seasons in London without the slightest interest from the male half of the world is not likely to delay accepting the first gentleman who asks her.” She rested an insightful gaze on Arthur. “Whoever he may be.”
Devereaux laughed.
“Hark at my cruel sister, to whom no worse fate can be imagined than not capturing the heart of a wealthy gentleman in the London bride-market. Still, Sudbury, t’would do you good to consider what you wish for before you move any further. You are a good catch now, beware you are only caught by one you want to be caught by.”
He clapped his hands.
“Now, let us see about summoning up a morsel of lunch. I, for one, am hungry after having my wits thoroughly taxed all morning...”
Arthur smiled, but his thoughts were elsewhere, on the words first Devereaux and then his sister had dropped into his consciousness. Emily Hardcastle was eager for a husband - well, that was logic enough. What young lady did he know who was not eager for a husband? Joanna’s scathing assessment of her friend was surely borne of the natural dislike that existed between the two young ladies, of which Amelia had informed him in a whisper before dinner so that he was careful not to force the two to interact more than was strictly necessary. But were his friends encouraging to make a play for Miss Hardcastle’s hand or not? And, for that matter, where did his own heart lie? He had once dreamed of nothing finer than proposing to Emily Hardcastle again, of putting his suit before Mr Hardcastle and having it not rejected but accepted, welcomed, even. Now he had succeeded well enough that the thought could be a possibility and not merely vain fantasy. And yet, he held back. Was it because he thought it likely some agreement already existed between Emily and Mr Crampton or was there some other reason?
“What a pity you did not bring your sister with you, Captain Sudbury,” Joanna remarked.
“So that she, too, might join in your campaign on my heart and my future?” Arthur grumbled, winning a snort of laughter from Devereaux.
“That she might make a fourth!” Joanna countered him. “We could play whist, which is a far more entertaining game than vingt-et-un.” She smiled. “We had a fine game at the Hardcastle’s the other evening. Grace is a charming player.”
Arthur’s eyes snapped to her. Did Joanna’s voice change at the mention of the younger Miss Hardcastle, or did he imagine it? He felt certain there was some emphasis, some unspoken question in her raising Graces name, but her features betrayed nothing, and she took up her embroidery again, sewing away with gusto.
“Come, Sudbury,” Devereaux said, kicking Arthur and getting to his feet. “Let’s leave my sister to sew in peace. I know how much she dislikes being forced to share her opinion...”
Joanna’s hand, armed with her needle, swatted out at him as he passed, and he dodged to one side to avoid it. Arthur’s movement was rather less energetic, but he followed his friend nonetheless, his mind still puzzling over Joanna’s words.
GRACE WAS GROWING IN strength daily, so it seemed like even more of a punishment to be kept indoors by rain. She paced irritably around the parlour, until Mama begged her to stop, at which point she threw herself down in a chair, ignoring the twinge in her ankle, and began scribbling forcefully on scraps of paper she had saved in her drawing case. She was not drawing anything of consequence, merely giving vent to her frustration, but even that drew Emily’s interest before long.
“I do wish you would share your work with us, Grace! What artist does not wish to receive praise for their skills?”
This one! Grace thought, striking mutinously through her rendering of one of Mama’s ornaments, whose intricacies had proved a particularly challenging study.
“I know I much prefer playing the harp when I have people to play for,” Emily continued, oblivious to the scowl that had settled over her sister’s face.
“That is because you cannot abide not being the centre of attention,” Grace muttered, in a low enough voice that it would not reach Emily’s ears.
“What was that?”
“I said, we cannot all be performers, as you are,” Grace said, through gritted teeth. “I have never heard of an artist sitting before an audience and sketching.”
“Well, no,” Emily conceded. “But there are galleries. Exhibitions.”
Grace laughed, bitterly flipping the leather cover of her drawing case closed.
“I assure you my work is not good enough to exhibit anywhere, except perhaps in my own home.”
“Of which we are a part!”
Grace’s eyes flashed dangerously and Emily conceded the point, retuning to her embroidery, which had been in progress above a year, for the little attention that was ever paid to it.
Silence reigned undisturbed for above five minutes before Mama broke it.
“I do not know where either of my girls get their prodigious talents from! I certainly am no artist, and was forever tangling my fingers around one another when I attempted to play the piano!” She laughed. “I suppose it was my good fortune to be a good dancer, for I am sure it was my graceful movement that won your father’s heart.” She beamed, evidently eager for one of her daughters to bid her to tell the story of when she had met Mr Hardcastle, which story she adored telling and was forever changing and embellishing, depending on her mood. When neither daughter spoke, she sighed, returning to her point.
“Yes, I think it a fine thing to have two such charming, accomplished daughters. I am sure when you are married -”
“Captain Sudbury has not called here in ever so many days!” Emily sighed. It was as if a dam had burst and she, having once spoken of Captain Sudbury, could now not stop. “It was at our dinner that we last saw one another. I do hope he enjoyed it. You recall that evening, Grace, did he seem quite well? You spoke to him, I think, when he escorted you into the parlour after our meal. What did he say?”
“Nothing of consequence,” Grace said, her throat tightening at the memory she was forced to revisit. It had been a kindness of his to help her get safely to the parlour and had she thought it came from anything more than his good manners she might have been happy to recall the moment that he paid her such particular notice. She was tired of forever wrangling her thoughts into the lines they ought to follow, rather than those they wished to. She wished to think that Captain Sudbury chose to notice her for herself, and not because he was a gentleman and she was her sister’s sister. She wished to be permitted to miss his presence at Grafton Hall as much as Emily claimed to, although this was the first time she had mentioned him or even seemed to notice his absence since that fateful dinner. On days when Mr Crampton called - there had been several - Emily did not seem to miss h
im in the slightest, so busy was she in prinking and preening and allowing Mr Crampton to ply her with compliments and even a gift or two. Those were the occasions that Grace had sought an escape out of doors. Today she must be grateful that the rain that kept her inside also kept Mr Crampton away, she supposed, even if it served to keep Captain Sudbury away too.
“You can hardly expect him to come all this way in the rain, Emily,” Grace said, eager to draw the conversation to a close. It was too much of a challenge to speak naturally of Captain Sudbury before her sister and not betray her own conflicted feelings towards him. But Emily, as was her habit, was far too fixed on her own concerns to notice any agitation in Grace’s manner. She spoke on, pursuing the topic with a toss of her pretty head.
“The rain was not enough to keep Mr Crampton from calling to visit us, Grace. Recall, yesterday, how he fairly steamed by the fire, he had got so wet on his journey here.” She giggled, recalling the comical picture that poor, damp Mr Crampton had made, perching uncomfortably on the edge of a chair and shivering as he listened to Emily speak in detail about her latest attempts to trim an old bonnet for new.
Perhaps, Grace thought, Captain Sudbury does not come because he does not care for such trivial conversation! She knew few gentlemen who took more than a passing interest in ladies’ fashion other than to compliment the ladies on their beauty, and even that was most often a product of manners rather than genuine feeling. Mr Crampton took more interest than most, she supposed, for his trade was in lace, but even he must be more concerned with profits, loss and pound-weights of the stuff, rather than the particularly cunning trim Emily had constructed from a twelve-inch length.
Emily sighed, unwilling to leave the topic alone until she had exhausted it, or received the requisite amount of petting and encouragement she felt entitled to, on account of Captain Sudbury’s apparent snub.
“No, I fear I must face facts. Captain Sudbury does not care for me the way I thought he did. I hoped, once he witnessed Mr Crampton’s attentions, he might be spurred into speaking, for surely he only required a little encouragement, as most men do.” Her voice took on a conspiratorial tone, and even Mama laid down her work to look fondly at her elder daughter seeing, perhaps, the image of her own feminine youth reflected back to her. Grace bit down hard on the inside of her cheek to keep from replying as she thought: that Emily was Machiavellian and cruel to speak so, to act so, to think so!
A Captain of Consequence (Westham Chronicles, #2) Page 7