by Archer, Kate
Giles admitted to himself that he’d not been very clever on his first approach since their meetings at Newmarket. But then, she was so very pretty and when he’d seen her, that marvelous dark hair, those lively features. He could not help…well, there was no use analyzing the thing. He must just do better when he saw her next.
He began to get a sinking feeling as he trotted toward Destin’s to meet Cabot. It was not only that he’d been rather uninspired in his speech. She had been downright dismissive! Lord Grayson was to be nothing in comparison to the shopkeeper that awaited her inside.
He attempted to cheer himself with the idea that she would not be so entranced by endless stacks of literature when the balls and parties began. In fact, the Bergrams’ ball was on the morrow and certainly she would attend. He had it on good authority that Miss Dell’s mother, Lady Penderton, was a longstanding acquaintance of Lady Bergram. That most of London was a longstanding acquaintance of Lady Bergram seemed beside the point.
He leapt off his horse in front of Destin’s and strode inside to find Cabot.
The club was more casual than White’s, and a deal more pleasant. Destin’s was a young man’s club and Marty Destin was a young proprietor. One might find any sort of bet to lay a wager on, take a room for the night, or have a good dinner when nothing else was on offer. However, what one would not find at Destin’s was the old guard haunting its halls. Particularly the old guard that was just now engaged in a solemn pact to get their sons married.
Giles strode up to the table at the bow windows, Cabot already having commandeered it for them.
“So,” he said to his friend, “here you are leaving your bride behind in the countryside already?”
Lord Cabot laughed. “Do not be ridiculous,” he said. “I would not very well visit Tattersall’s without Lady Cabot. Of course she has come with me.”
Giles took the coffee Marty Destin had silently supplied the table with. “I do not see why she should have come. A lady cannot visit Tattersall’s anyway. What does she do, stay in the carriage while you conduct your business?”
Cabot’s brow wrinkled. “Grayson, my wife is not an ordinary lady. She is Mendbridge’s daughter. She walks into the subscription room whenever she likes and nobody dares say a word about it.”
Giles should have known as much. Miss Darlington, now to be known as Lady Cabot, had never followed any particular rules when it came to horses. She’d always been given latitude as the daughter of the revered Lord Mendbridge. Giles remembered nearly unseating himself from his horse the first time she’d sailed by at an alarming pace, smartly driving her own Hooper High Flyer.
“I must know, are the rumors true that the lady rode your filly for the thousand guinea stakes at Newmarket?” Giles asked.
“What an idea,” Lord Cabot said, staring intently into his coffee. “Where did you hear it?”
“Whispered everywhere,” Giles said. “Females are near-swooning over the notion. The romance of it, you know.”
“Kindly stop it when you hear it discussed,” Lord Cabot said. “You were there and saw with your own eyes it was my groom who rode Bucephalus.”
Giles took that as rather a confirmation than not. He’d seen somebody ride the horse, though it would have been impossible to confirm who it was at such a distance. Then, Cabot’s groom had been ill afterward and carried away. Could his groom have been ill all along? That was the rumor, though he would drop the subject as he could see that his friend did not wish to discuss it.
“Talk of romantic rides to the finish aside,” Giles said, “how do you get on with married life? I know it would not be gentlemanly to admit that you’d have been better to put the whole thing off for a few years, but we have known each other most of our lives. I would know the truth.”
“Are you certain you want the truth?” Cabot asked.
Giles nodded and leaned forward. He was absolutely certain he wished to hear the truth. Just as certain as he was that all this talk of marital bliss from his recently married friends could not hold up long under scrutiny. Infatuation would fade and be replaced with he knew not what. He would hear the real case of it.
Cabot said, “I came very close to failing to win Lady Cabot, and if I had failed I would have regretted it for all of my days. I can no more imagine being parted from her than I can being parted with my right arm.”
Cabot paused in the silence. “Recently, I have found myself at once wishing for a son, and not wishing for a child at all.” His voice dropped to a near whisper. “What if she dies in childbirth? You see, that is the thing that haunts me.”
Giles noted the hint of desperation in his friend’s voice. If he had hoped to hear a tale full of regret, he would not hear it from Cabot. The man was besotted.
“God’s will and all that, I suppose,” Giles said, stirring his coffee.
“God’s will can go to the devil,” Cabot said. “In any case, my wife says I worry too much and she’s as strong as a well-bred mare. I don’t know though, she cries at the most unaccountable things. She says I am not to worry over it, it is only her temperament. Did I tell you I had to write it into the marriage contract? If I make her cry too much I go to the road and proclaim myself a beast. I’ve already done it once.”
Giles had no wish to hear any details of the lady’s weeping or Cabot’s humiliation on the road. He said, “Lady Cabot compares herself to a well-bred mare? This is the result when you put two people who live for horses in the same house together. I can only imagine the metaphors of all things horse that must fly through your rooms.”
“Never mind my house,” Cabot said. “How do you get on in Dalton’s house?”
“We are, for all intents and purposes, penniless. We can barely get things on credit anymore, as every tradesman in the world has heard of the pact. Dalton is as prickly as you might imagine over it. It is only his butler that does not seem to mind, as the wine cellar will last a few more years yet.”
“No lady has yet presented an allurement sufficient to tempt you out of that Eden?” Cabot said with a sly smile. “I suppose you are eyeing Miss Dell for one of your ridiculous flirtations—you trailed her like a fox on a scent when we stayed in Newmarket.”
“Miss Dell,” Giles said. “I just saw her as a matter of fact. She looks as charming as ever. More charming, possibly. I will have enormous fun flirting with her.”
“She does not strike me as a frivolous lady,” Cabot said.
“She certainly is not,” Giles said. “Miss Dell will be a contest, I do not delude myself on that score. At this moment, dusty books are more to her taste than anything I can offer, but what am I without a challenge?”
“Perhaps you might seek to accommodate the lady and actually read one of those dusty books,” Cabot said.
Both gentlemen roared with laughter over the idea. After they had settled, Lord Cabot said, “I believe your pursuit of Miss Dell will come to nothing, and I am glad of it. She is my wife’s particular friend and I would not wish to hear the recriminations after you have left a lady with disappointed hopes, as you always do. I would find myself standing on the road and shouting that I am a beast for even having known you.”
“Nonsense, my lack of scholarship cannot put a lady off entirely. And by the by, there is nothing at all wrong with a season’s flirtation. Not for myself, and not for the lady. It is all but expected for a first season, unless the lady is without sufficient means to return for a second round. It is the second season that is time for seriousness and by then I will have made my graceful exit.”
“You view the thing from the wrong angle,” Lord Cabot said. “It is not what Miss Dell thinks of you that will unravel your scheme, it is what Miss Dell will think of Sir John Kullehamnd. Lady Cabot is determined to introduce them at Lady Bergram’s ball. She is certain it will be a match.”
Giles felt a strange sense of outrage over this communication. Who was this Kullehamnd? Why should Lady Cabot be so keen on foisting the rogue in front of Miss Dell?
Cabot folded his arms. “He is twenty-eight, said to be of adequate means, and a fellow of the Royal Society. You see? He is eligible and he is a scholar. Lady Cabot says nothing else will do for Miss Dell.”
*
Kitty had been wrangled into her dress for the Bergram’s ball as she read from a book, only having to switch it to another hand when Martha needed an arm for a sleeve. Her maid had chattered away about the evening and Kitty was certain Martha was more interested in it than she was. Kitty’s life, always demarcated by two different poles, seemed as starkly contrasted as ever. One part was all intellectual curiosity, the other was dresses and pretty steps on a ballroom floor. One was meat and the other a summer trifle.
As the carriage was now making its way swiftly to the Bergram’s door, she ought to be turning her attention to summer trifle, but how could she at such a moment? Only yesterday, she had gone to meet Mr. Lackington and had ended meeting Mrs. Herschel! Her thoughts had been so taken up with it.
The lady had been kind and had taken a real interest in her experiments on Cornish eyebright. It had been almost as if she debated with her father, though it was instead another lady.
After she and Mrs. Herschel had thoroughly discussed her experiments, and likely for far longer than Frederick had patience for, Mr. Lackington had ordered tea brought in. Kitty, Mr. Lackington, and Mrs. Herschel spoke of books and flew from one topic to the next. Mr. Lackington, who was turning out to be a dear and considerate gentleman, soon realized that the conversation had left Frederick far behind. After asking her brother a suitable number of questions to uncover his interests and quickly discerning his primary interest to be the management of his father’s estate, Mr. Lackington spoke to him about how nitrogen in the soil affected harvests and how one might adopt the method of convertible husbandry to capitalize on it. Frederick was so cheered by the turn of conversation that he ended leaving with a book on the subject.
What society she’d kept yesterday afternoon! Everything had been stimulating and new.
That a particular encounter with a particular condescending gentleman kept intruding on these happy memories was unfortunate, but she did not allow them to linger long. Lord Grayson might have looked wickedly handsome on horseback, but as soon as he started talking the illusion collapsed.
“Kitty,” her mother said, seated across from her in the carriage, “you seem a thousand miles away, and have done since yesterday.”
“It’s Mrs. Herschel’s doing,” Frederick said. “Though you would hope my sister’s head would be turned by some single gentleman, it has been turned by the lady astronomer.”
“No more than your own head turned upon meeting Tom Cribb,” Kitty said. “You blathered on about it for months. Even poor Miss Crimpleton had tired of it.”
“Cribb is a renowned pugilist!” Frederick cried. In a lower voice, he said, “Did Miss Crimpleton really complain of it?”
Kitty patted his hand, sorry she had dragged Miss Crimpleton into it. “No, she did not. I should not have said it. You might talk to Miss Crimpleton about Mr. Cribb’s defensive stance for months on end and she would do nothing but admire.”
Frederick appeared entirely mollified by this theory and Kitty hoped he would not actually take up the idea.
“Kitty, dear,” the baroness said, “do remember that there are hours and hours in the day to think of Mrs. Herschel, but only the next hours to think of this ball. I know your rational mind will understand me.”
Her rational mind did understand her mother. She must keep up her end of the bargain. She had been to Lackington and Allen. She would go many more times while she was in town. She and the baroness had been invited to call on Mrs. Herschel on Tuesday. That was all lovely, but now she must turn her thoughts to the matter at hand.
It was no small matter, either. As much as she’d like to live as an intellect, she must marry. She was no Mrs. Herschel. She would not receive a royal pension. And, while she might have the means to live independently as a spinster, she did not wish to.
She wished to have children and had already mapped out their education, whether they be boy or girl. Especially for a girl. Though, even a boy would not be sent away to school. She had seen the result of that particular education well enough. Lord Grayson had done it all, right through Oxford, and left with nothing. Even her own brother, while not quite as empty-headed, had likely spent most of his school days on wagers and wine.
Aside from children, she wished to be of society, and spinsters were always forgotten. Though she liked to spend hours upon hours reading and thinking, a lively dinner at the end of it was always welcome. She would not like to imagine herself, sometime in future, ordering a tray to her room so as not to get underfoot of the mistress of Frederick’s household.
To say that a lady was on the shelf was no exaggeration. A spinster became that piece of porcelain sitting in some corner cabinet that had been there so long that nobody really sees it anymore. If, one day, that porcelain is broken and swept away, people are left with only vague ideas that there used to be something there at all.
She wished to have her own house and had particular ideas of having a room dedicated to her telescope and her microscope.
All of this required a husband. The husband was necessary, though he felt somewhat superfluous to the whole scheme. She harbored some grand hopes, though. She might meet some gentleman who had her own penchant for exploring ideas and learning new things and might also be pleasant to look at. He need not be an Adonis, only pleasant in the middling way.
In any case, she could not deny that she liked dancing. There was nothing intellectual in it, society gained nothing from it, but she adored it all the same. Like the soft velvets and rounded corners in her bedchamber, some things just suited her. She ought not scold herself over it.
And then, she looked forward to seeing Penny this night, as her friend had written that she would attend the ball. Lady Cabot and her husband were in town on some sort of horse business and she had not seen her since their marriage. Kitty had been invited to Dorset more than once, but the baroness had forbid her to go. Her mother had said the first months of a marriage would set the tone for the rest of it and the couple should be left on their own to discover it.
Kitty was determined to enjoy herself this evening. Her mother was right, there were other hours in the day to contemplate Mrs. Herschel or any other serious matter. Now was a time for levity and enjoyment.
If a certain dashing gentleman insisted on putting his name down on her card, she was determined to appreciate his looks by studiously ignoring anything idiotic he might say. Her stomach might flutter all it liked.
“Ah, here we are,” the baroness said. “It is to be the usual crush, I see.”
Chapter Three
Though Kitty had been to a smaller ball at Newmarket, and several exceedingly small dances in private houses in Devon, this was her first encounter with a large London ball. In truth, it might well be the largest ball of the season.
The baroness had told her the Bergrams were an inoffensive kind of people. The sort one never thinks about until an invitation is delivered or one is composing the list for a large party. As they were neither reviled nor held in particular esteem by anybody, they were vague friends with everybody. And, as they had an enormous ballroom and gave very good dinners, all of London accepted their invitations.
They had finally entered the house, paid tribute to their host and hostess, and deposited their outer coats in the cloak room.
The crush of people already in the ballroom nearly overwhelmed Kitty.
“Never fear,” the baroness said in Kitty’s ear, “half these people will make their way to the card rooms when the music strikes up. As will I—Mrs. Cheldup insists I partner her at whist and goodness knows she needs somebody to hold up the other side of the table. I will not bet high, as I know I will lose every single pound of it.”
&
nbsp; Kitty smiled at the mention of Mrs. Cheldup. She was a sprightly and friendly lady who made up for her rather dim understanding of everything, including whist, by her charming joy in life. No amount of failures at the card table could dampen the lady’s spirits.
Frederick said, “Jost is here. I will go and say hello.”
“As you wish,” the baroness said, “but do not leave your sister stranded for long.”
Frederick nodded and set off winding round people toward his friend.
“Ah,” the baroness said, “there is Penny. She brings somebody with her.”
Kitty looked in the direction of her mother’s gaze. Penny, now Lady Cabot, smiled and waved as she made her way over. Her looks were blooming, her cheeks pink, and Kitty thought only her happiness with Lord Cabot could account for it. Following Penny was a tall and serious-looking gentleman in rather somber-looking attire.
Penny kissed Kitty and said, “We have been parted too long, I am determined to come and see you on the morrow. However, just now, I would like to introduce you to Sir John Kullehamnd.”
Kitty curtsied and the serious man bowed.
“Sir John is a fellow of the Royal Society, Kitty,” Penny said with a twinkle in her eye.
Kitty was momentarily taken aback. The Royal Society! This gentleman must be exceedingly learned.
She suppressed a smile to note in herself a higher estimation of his looks than she had initially experienced. He was not dandified, he was not a Lord Grayson with the remarkably tied neckcloth. In truth, his neckcloth might have been tied by himself and possibly in a hurry. But a member of the Royal Society? Suddenly, his simple dress seemed far more attractive than any expensive coat could ever be.
“Delighted, Miss Dell,” he said, in a deep voice devoid of cheerfulness.
“And this is Lady Penderton,” Penny said.
Lady Penderton regarded the gentleman quizzically, though not unfriendly.
“Kitty,” Lady Cabot said, “I have taken the liberty of mentioning your proclivity for books and your recent conclusions about…” Penny paused, as if searching her mind for information. “Well, it was a plant, or two plants, I remember that much.”