By a Lady

by Amanda Elyot

  “More familiarly than that kiss? And I am of age, your lordship.” C.J. smiled. “Were there any doubt in your mind.”

  “In that case, I shall advise you of the nature of the conversation I intend to have with Lady Dalrymple.” He seemed to pause for emphasis. “While I allow that we have known each other for only a brief space of time, I have spent enough hours in your company to have been able to arrive at an informed decision. I may appear to you, Miss Welles, to be a propertied man of leisure. That is certainly true in many respects; nevertheless, I also pride myself on being a man of action. And as I mentioned to you in one of our prior conversations, I am one who derives immense pleasure from acts of discovery. Therefore, tomorrow morning I shall ask your aunt if I may pay my addresses to you.”

  Why not. Why the hell not?

  He was answered with a spontaneous cry of joy and a passionate embrace. What followed were many kisses and sighs and the promise of a pastoral promenade the following day. C.J. hated to part company with him and stood outside Lady Dalrymple’s town house watching the earl’s barouche traverse the modest length of Brock Street until it rounded the Circus and disappeared from view. Had she been capable of becoming airborne, she would have giddily floated all the way to Lady Dalrymple’s beloved moon.

  Yet not a half hour later, C.J. paced the floor of her chamber trying to figure out how, or even whether, to tell Owen Percival the truth.

  AT TEN O’CLOCK the next morning, C.J., who had passed a sleepless night, was taking breakfast with her “aunt” in the sunny front drawing room when Collins entered, bearing a cream-colored note on a silver salver. “This just arrived for you, Miss Welles,” the butler announced.

  “Thank you, Collins.” She gingerly lifted the folded note from the tray and turned it over to inspect the seal. Lady Dalrymple instantly recognized the Earl of Darlington’s burgundy and black crest embossed and outlined in gold leaf at the top of the sheet of vellum. After scanning the note to see if it contained anything of an exceptionally personal nature, C.J. shared the missive’s contents with the countess.

  Miss Welles,

  I regret to postpone our engagement to parade in Sydney Gardens this afternoon; however, Miss Austen remains delighted to accompany you and I hope to join the two cleverest young ladies in Bath, albeit at a later hour than I had anticipated. Please accept my apologies if I have caused you even a moment’s disappointment.

  With fond thoughts,

  Darlington

  C.J. refolded the note and looked at Lady Dalrymple.

  “Perhaps I should have signed it ‘Percy,’ ” a warm baritone voice teased, as the earl himself entered the room.

  “Why did you send Collins in with a note?” C.J. asked.

  “I was afraid you might turn wrathful at the prospect of a temporary setback in our plans,” he smiled. “I must make certain arrangements today that interfere with our appointed hour of rendezvous, but the morning’s most pressing engagement of all could not be postponed.” Darlington then greeted Lady Dalrymple, depositing a kiss on both of her cheeks. “May I say, Aunt Euphoria, that you are indeed the picture of health. I am greatly encouraged to see you so fully restored in so short a time.”

  Lady Dalrymple blushed. “Fie, Percy, only you have this effect on me. And under the present circumstances, I think you should consider an alternative term of endearment for me. I cannot have both of you calling me Aunt Euphoria, can I?”

  “I don’t see why not. But if I may be so bold, I can only hope that it will soon be acceptable for Miss Welles to address Lady Oliver as Aunt Augusta.”

  C.J. spluttered into her coffee. The delicate Wedgwood cup teetered on its saucer. “I do not think your aunt fancies me,” she said, recovering her poise and hoping his lordship had not observed her unmannerly reaction.

  “Nonsense,” Darlington smiled slightly. “She fancies no one.” He was only half joking. “Aunt Euphoria, I have come to pay a call of a particular nature upon you this morning—and perhaps it is proper for your niece to absent herself from—”

  “Felicity?” C.J. interjected sweetly, unable to resist the Shakespearean reference.

  “—the room, so that I may speak to you privately.”

  “Don’t be silly, Percy. Cassandra is not a child. Unless you plan to say something that would surprise one of us, I see no reason not to throw custom to the hounds. Let my niece continue to enjoy her eggs and porridge before they become cold and inedible; otherwise you will also incur the wrath of my cook!”

  “Since you phrase it so delicately,” Darlington began, “last night I gave Miss Welles an inclination of what I intended to say to you, in case she should not feel kindly disposed toward me . . . and it appears to be the case that Miss Welles is quite . . .” Darlington twisted his signet ring. “I feel like a schoolboy. Here I am, a widower, closer to forty than thirty, and I have become tongue-tied. I confess to both of you gentle ladies that I had not anticipated being at a loss for words, even under the circumstances.”

  “Shall I make it easy for him, Cassandra? Come, Percy, I trust I am not mistaken in the hope that my niece and I have a rather good notion of what you wish to say to me.”

  C.J. drew herself up into as elegant a posture as possible, a playful sense of triumph in her dark eyes, and regarded Lady Dalrymple. “Oh no, Aunt,” she insisted impishly. “All my life I have waited to hear such words. I daresay every woman feels quite the same way. You would not deprive me of that pleasure?”

  The countess looked at Darlington. “Speak, Percy. ’Tis your cue.”

  “The paces you women put us poor menfolk through,” he sighed.

  “Aunt” and “niece” exchanged a mischievous glance.

  Darlington affected an elegant bow. “Lady Dalrymple, although I have known her a comparatively short time, I should like to pay my addresses to your niece, Cassandra Jane Welles, with your kind permission and the fervent hope that you will do everything in your power to encourage my suit.”

  “Heavens, Percy! Why did you not say so before?” The countess emitted a full-throated laugh. Darlington and C.J. joined in.

  When he recovered himself, the earl apologized to his hostesses for his need to depart their mirthful company, and promised that he would endeavor to meet up with Cassandra and Miss Austen in Sydney Gardens as soon as his plans would allow. There seemed to be a spring in his step as he left Lady Dalrymple’s lemon-yellow drawing room.

  “I did do the right thing, yes?”

  “Yes, you did, Aunt,” C.J. acknowledged softly. “And I am very, very happy. But has it not been your design from the first?”

  Lady Dalrymple sighed dramatically. “And here I thought that for all my years, I was still a woman of mystery.”

  C.J. gave her “aunt” a warm hug. “Have no fear in that regard, your ladyship.”

  The women resumed their repast. C.J. much admired the countess’s “lady pamper” table, purpose-built so that two ladies could cozily breakfast and gossip across from one another in their respective chairs while enjoying all the comforts of a more commodious piece of furniture, owing to the table’s shelves and crannies. What a pity, C.J. thought, that such a table—and the custom—would one day go the way of the dinosaur. Somehow, Lady Dalrymple’s cook had procured a melon—a most exotic addition to the meal. How different it tasted from the bland hothouse fruit that was all C.J. had known in her other life. The ripe melon drizzled its juice down her chin, and she caught it with her finger, then licked it off, savoring the sticky sweetness. C.J. took another spoonful of melon and paused, midbite. “Aunt Euphoria, if I have indeed entered into an understanding with Lord Darlington, I should like to know everything about his family and connections, for curiosity’s sake if nothing else. You referred to Lady Oliver as the subject—or perhaps the object—of some dreadful scandal. I have often wondered about her, since, for all her thorniness, you still esteem her and claim her for a bosom friend.”

  Lady Dalrymple stirred some cream into her coffe
e with a delicate silver spoon, dramatically replacing it on her saucer before she began to speak. “Augusta Arundel had the misfortune to be the firstborn into a family where beauty was prized above all else.” The countess nibbled the edge of a rout drop cake. The currant-studded cookies infused with rosewater and sherry were an especial favorite of hers.

  “Gustie was serious and thoughtful; and even then, as girlhood friends, she admired me as much for my mirthful nature as I envied her seemingly endless capacity for pragmatism and practicality. Abigail and Arabel, her inseparable twin sisters—dark-haired, blue-eyed beauties two years Gustie’s junior—were lively and loud, quite the opposite of their older sibling. Gustie became a handsome woman, though she never had the delicate prettiness of her twin sisters, nor was she the darling of every ball and the delight of every male, suitable or otherwise, within a fortnight’s journey of Sussex. Naturally, it was a tremendous surprise to all when Oliver offered for her. He was a notorious rake and the devil’s own gambler. Oliver could win and lose an inheritance all in the same night. Many a rascal wondered what he could possibly have found to fancy in Augusta Arundel, but there was wide speculation that Oliver’s father had threatened to disinherit him if he did not sober up and settle down by his twenty-fifth birthday.”

  C.J. pursed her lips. “Did Augusta know about Lord Oliver’s reputation?”

  “If she had, it would not have made a bit of a difference. Arundel was a strict adherent to the custom of the firstborn to be the first wed, and, in fact, he was tremendously relieved to be rid of an aging spinster who was neither a beauty nor a wit. Both fathers had agreed upon the match. The wishes of the future bride and groom were not a matter of consideration. What just transpired in this room, Cassandra, is not the customary manner of courtship. I had a sixth sense, if you will, that you and Lord Darlington would suit, and it did not take long to prove my intuition correct. Percy has endured a great deal of unhappiness and upheaval in his life and, of late, has finally begun to regain the humor for which he was once so admired. Your mirthful outlook upon the world, your strength, compassion, and capacity for quick comprehension, in addition to your obvious grace and beauty, make you an ideal match.”

  “I shall do everything in my power, Aunt, never to disappoint his lordship,” C.J. said, painfully aware that if she could manage to return to her own century, it would be inevitable for her to go back on her promise. In the most literal sense, it was only a matter of time.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In which we learn more of Lady Oliver’s misfortunes, our heroine takes a stroll through Sydney Gardens with Miss Austen and has a delicious encounter in the maze, and Lord Darlington admits that his past contains a secret.

  DESPITE HER PRIVATE MISGIVINGS, C.J. tried to take comfort in her “aunt’s” complete certainty and pressed her for further details about Darlington’s misunderstood distaff relation. “Then what happened with Augusta and Lord Oliver? Clearly, they did marry, since she is Lady Oliver.”

  “It was the wedding of the season,” Lady Dalrymple explained. “But the embers on the marital hearth were barely banked when Oliver bolted, abandoning his new bride. If the match had been purely for pragmatic purposes, Augusta might have been better able to bear her burden, but she had become quite smitten with the rake and truly believed his fervent declarations of love. Having never received the ardent attentions of any suitor, Gustie was completely taken in. To compound the betrayal, Oliver had absconded with both of Augusta’s younger sisters.”

  “Well, you did say that Abigail and Arabel shared everything,” C.J. commented, attempting to conceal her shock. She had read a good deal about the Georgian era being a licentious time, compared with later periods, but a scandal along the magnitude of the aftermath of Lady Oliver’s nuptials would have even shocked Hollywood.

  “I suppose, Cassandra, that this was their last act of sharing. The day after the wedding, the three of them fled to Switzerland, leaving Augusta to mourn her loss and face the censorious world alone.”

  “And her sisters?”

  “Scandalized. Entirely ruined.”

  C.J.’s eyes widened.

  “And Lord Oliver had his father to rights regarding his inheritance,” the countess continued. “He had indeed wed before his twenty-fifth birthday; the ceremony was legal, and there was nothing the father could do to renege on the bargain he had made with his renegade son. So Oliver inherited the land and the title, and his bride of one night earned the right to be called Lady Oliver.”

  C.J. shook her head. “And Owen Percival—Percy is . . . ?”

  “Abigail’s son. His mother sent him back to England to be raised by his austere aunt so that he could take his place in society. His younger brother, Jack, later earned the same privilege.”

  “But Percy is the Earl of Darlington. Then he was not Lord Oliver’s son?”

  “For the briefest space of time that was thought to be the case. However, soon after the Arundel sisters arrived in Switzerland, Oliver tired of Abigail and concentrated his attentions on Arabel. She lived as his paramour after Lord Arundel successfully petitioned the Consistory Court in London for a divorce a mensa et thoro on behalf of his eldest daughter. The twins never spoke to each other again. The bohemian Abigail recovered from her broken heart with astonishing alacrity and married Peregrine Percival, Lord Darlington, the adventurer who had gotten her with child a few months after her departure from Oliver’s ménage. Percy was born legitimate, though conceived as a love child. His parents permitted him to join them on their archaeological excursions in countries as far-flung as India, believing the experiences there would expand his educational horizons better than any tutor might do. During Percy’s early childhood, both Peregrine and Abigail, possessed with a certain wanderlust, traveled the world over while their eldest son was afforded the finest opportunities and an English education under the exalted eye of his abandoned aunt.”

  C.J. assayed one of the rout drop cakes, which she discovered tasted more of fragrance than flavor. Perhaps it was the rosewater. She lifted the heavy silver coffee pot and poured for her “aunt,” filling the cup only halfway.

  The dowager topped off her cup with cream. “Like Portly and me, the elder Percival was one of those aristocrats who enjoyed flouting convention. Some considered him merely eccentric, but most branded him outrageous. Yet Peregrine never laid store by what others thought of him. You must know, Niece, it is endemic to the Percival men that once they fall in love—no matter what unfortunate circumstances may have befallen the object of their affections—rabid dogs could not dampen, diminish, or dissolve the desire to woo and win their ladyloves. It’s quite medieval!” Lady Dalrymple said gleefully. “To my memory, every Lady Darlington has had a ‘past,’ and nonetheless, the Percivals have pursued each of them like the Holy Grail.”

  “Where is everyone now?” C.J. asked curiously, thinking that her past would trump them all.

  “Gone. All dead, except for Augusta and Percy. Arabel died of ague in 1791. A year later, Oliver took a nasty fall down a flight of stairs and never recovered. Abigail and Peregrine both perished during a devastating monsoon in India. The old earl—Peregrine—left his estate, Delamere, in quite a shambles too.”

  “What kind of divorce did you say Lady Oliver won?”

  “A mensa et thoro. One can only obtain a divorce by petitioning the ecclesiastical court assigned to handle such matters. Lord Arundel’s solicitors appeared on behalf of him and his daughter at the Consitory Court in Doctors’ Commons in London. Neither spouse may testify, and only the aristocracy has access to such a procedure. It is extremely costly, but as Arundel was quite close to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who sat just a few feet away from him in the House of Lords, several special dispensations that are ‘not on the books,’ as they say, were granted him.”

  Lady Dalrymple smiled slyly. “Nothing, of course, should be inferred by his lordship’s sudden and extreme generosity to the Church by way of a rather large land grant. The natu
re of Augusta’s decree permits neither spouse to ever remarry, but effects a separation that is legally recognized by the Church of England.”

  C.J. could not stop shaking her head in wonderment at the magnitude of the scandal. “I suppose Augusta never spoke to her sisters after that fateful day?”

  “Only as concerned Abigail’s son. She never again exchanged a word with her estranged husband. Everything was settled by the legal representatives on either side.” Lady Dalrymple placed her coffee cup on the large silver tray. “Which reminds me. I must make arrangements to speak with my solicitor.”

  “And I suppose I should dress for my promenade with Miss Austen,” C.J. proposed. She beamed in anticipation of her adventure.

  C.J. REGARDED HER reflection in the gilt-framed mirror as she remade her toilette. She was accustomed to wearing considerably more makeup than was thought appropriate for young ladies, particularly in this era of naturalism where women were expected to resemble either country lasses or classical statues, neither of which were known for their overuse of powder and paint. The cosmetics now available to her were lead based anyway, so it was probably a good thing to avoid them as much as possible. But oh, my kingdom for a few modern tubes of lipstick and mascara! she thought. Pinching her cheeks as a substitute for a pot of rouge had thus far resulted in more bruises than blushes. As she studied her image, she replayed the morning’s events. “Heavens!” to quote Lady Dalrymple’s outspoken parrot. She went to her writing table, unable to resist the temptation to see what “Cassandra Jane Percival, Lady Darlington” would look like in print, then sanded the signature to hasten the drying of the ink and prevent its smudging. Smiling, she noted that her penmanship had vastly improved. Would that she could flaunt it under Lady Wickham’s nasty beak.