A Certain Magic (3 page)

“Brother!” the elder lady said, taking his arm in a determined hold and drawing him in the direction of the front door. “The tea will be very welcome, though Cassandra should avoid the cakes. We were forced to spend three nights on the road because of the rain.”

The Honorable Miss Cassandra Borden followed her mother and her uncle into the house.

“So,” Mr. Bosley said as soon as servants had handed around tea and cakes and withdrawn from the drawing room. He smiled fondly at his niece. “Getting ready to take the town by storm, are you, Cassie? You are quite pretty enough to turn all the right heads even as you are. By the toe I have decked you out in all the most expensive finery, there won’t be a prince in England not on his knees to you.” He laughed merrily.

“Oh, Uncle!” the girl said, blushing and staring into her cup.

“We don’t necessarily want a prince,” Lady Margam said briskly. “But living in the country with Margam gone and not a feather to fly with is not finding Cassandra any husband at all. We want someone respectable and well set up.”

“When she is the daughter of Lord Margam and niece of one of the wealthiest merchants in London?” Mr. Bosley said, looking at his sister in some surprise. “Come, come, Lucinda, we can do a great deal better than that. You would like something better than a respectable husband, wouldn’t you now, Cassie? Eh?”

“If you please, Uncle,” she said, not looking up from her teacup.

“As pretty as a picture, “ Mr. Bosley said, gazing with genial fondness at his niece. “You did well by yourself, Lucinda. You can gain entrance to all the most tonnish affairs with no trouble at all. All you need is some of my money to set you and the girl up, and there is plenty of that. After all, you are my only sister and Cassie is my only niece. What else are family for?”

“I am much obliged, brother,” Lady Margam said. “But Margam was never one to spend a great deal of time in town. I do not know how we are to be in receipt of any invitations, I am sure.”

“I have connections,” Mr. Bosley said. “There are people who owe me favors.” He chuckled merrily. “And money, too. I can get the girl taken on. But is there no one you know, Lucinda? It would be so much better if you could gain entry into society on your own account.”

“No one,” she said. “There was only Lady Henley, Margam’s aunt, who is now deceased, may God rest her soul. And Mr. Trentley, his cousin, who is in America, if I do not mistake the matter. And Mr. Westhaven, his particular friend at Cambridge, who may be deceased, too, for all I know.”

“No, he is not though,” Mr. Bosley said. “Westhaven? Heir to Lord Berringer? He is in town and much sought after, too. I have been sniffing around me for the last month or so, since I knew Cassie would be coming to find herself a husband. Westhaven is on the lookout for a wife.”

“He was Margam’s particular friend,” Lady Margam said. “When we were first married and living in Cambridge, that was.”

“Then you must renew the acquaintance,” Mr. Bosley said, beaming. “He will escort you to some grand do, Lucinda, and Cassie too, of course. He will bring her into fashion. This could not be more fortunate.” He rubbed his large hands together with satisfaction.

“But I have not seen him in fifteen years,” Lady Margam said. “Cassandra was a mere baby. Though Margam saw him after that, once or twice.”

“You shall send him an invitation to tea,” Mr. Bosley said. “It will be perfectly acceptable for you to invite him to your brother’s house, will it not? Even if it is a merchant’s house?”

“I don’t know, I am sure,” she said doubtfully.

“He can do wonders for Cassie,” her brother said.

“Mama?” The girl looked up at her mother with large green eyes. “Will I be going to balls soon?”

“Oh, yes, soon, my love,” her mother said. “As soon as Uncle has outfitted you with all you will need. I suppose I should write to Mr. Westhaven, though I daresay he will consider it most strange. He used to be an excessively handsome and amiable young man, to be sure.”

“There is every chance that he will fall for Cassie,” her uncle said. “And why should he not? She is young and pretty and the daughter of nobility—on the one side, anyway. And the daughter of his friend, to boot. I shall let it be known, you may be sure, Lucinda, what dowry I am prepared to give with my only niece. Many gentlemen of the
ton
will find themselves unable to resist that lure, I do assure you. Expensive creatures, every last one of them. Perhaps we will have a husband for you almost before we start, Cassie. How would you like that, girl?”

“Oh, Uncle!” she said, blushing and gazing down into her empty teacup.

“She likes it, you see?” Mr. Bosley said, beaming at his sister. “Mrs. Westhaven. In time to be lady Berringer of Bingamen Hall in Bedfordshire. It sounds fine indeed, don’t it, though? Fine, anyway, to an uncle who made his fortune in fish.” He laughed heartily and sipped noisily at his almost cold tea.

***

Amanda Carpenter had been invited to join a party of new acquaintances on a visit to the Tower two days later. The group was to be well chaperoned. Her presence would not be necessary, Phoebe announced to Alice the evening before, when she and her daughter finally returned from a soiree.

“And glad I am of it,” she said with a sigh, kicking off her evening slippers and sinking onto a sofa. “You can be very thankful you are not a mother, Alice. For no sooner have you finished with nursing and teething and worrying about them falling into streams or down stairs but you must concern yourself with their education and worry that they will turn out to be perfect dunderheads. And no sooner is that all over with but you must start to think about marrying them off as well as may be.”

“Amanda seems to be taking very well,” Alice said soothingly, rising from her chair and folding her embroidery. She would be glad to get home. The children had been asleep for a few hours, but there was no place to relax properly but in one’s own home.

“Her father will be besieged with offers before many weeks have passed, to be sure,” Phoebe said. “And thankful I am that that it is his responsibility to choose wisely and not mine, Alice. It really does not seem fair that all the responsibility for the wellbeing of children falls on a mother’s shoulders, does it?”

No answer seemed to be called for. Alice made none, but placed her embroidery neatly inside her work bag.

“Tending the children on their sickbeds all day and running after Amanda all night is quite wearing out my nerves,” her sister-in-law said. “I am sure you are in good looks, Alice, and glad I am for you. It is unfortunate that you have no husband or child, but you must count your blessings. You do not have a mother’s worries, either.”

Alice smiled, kissed Phoebe on the cheek, and took her leave. She sank back against the cushions of her carriage a few minutes later and looked forward to an unexpected free day on the morrow. Although Phoebe had hinted that she was hagged enough to rest for the whole day if her sister-in-law would just be good enough to come and sit in the sickroom during the afternoon, Alice had resisted. She would sit with the children during the evening, she had promised, when Phoebe would be called upon to accompany Amanda to a rout.

She resisted the urge to feel irritated with her sister- in-law. After all, Phoebe had always been the same, even before she had married Bruce, and certainly before she had had her children. Always self-centered and quite tactless.

Yes, she was fortunate indeed to be without husband or child, she thought, closing her eyes rather wearily. Did Phoebe have any conception of the vast emptiness that life was capable of offering? she wondered. Doubtless not.

Web had been part of her life since she was a girl. They were older than she, both Web and Piers—Piers by seven years and Web by eight. She had thought them both very dashing as she grew past childhood. She had known as soon as she reached a girl’s awareness of such matters—when she was fifteen—that Web loved her, just as surely as she knew that Piers did not.

Web had asked her father for her when she was approaching her eighteenth birthday, and she had agreed to marry him. She had liked him, though he had never been a handsome man. His figure was a little too much on the portly side, his sandy hair was a little too thin, and his face a little too round for classic good looks. But his face had always been kindly and good-humored. She had agreed to marry him because she liked him and because she wanted to spend the rest of her life where she had grown up, though her grandfather probably would have given her a Season if she had asked Papa to write to him, just as he had educated Bruce from the age of twelve and given him a home, too.

She had married Web because she was willing to settle for contentment and because even at the age of seventeen she had been a realist. Life could never offer what she most dreamed of.

She had married Web determined to make his happiness the goal of her life. And she thought she had succeeded. He had never stopped worshiping her until the day of his death. And she had been well rewarded for her devotion to him. She had grown dearly fond of him. So much so that her life had collapsed about her for a full year after his death. Despite what Piers had said just the day before, she had collapsed inwardly. She had not known how to live without Web.

And oh, yes, she thought, her mind flashing back to Phoebe for a moment, she was fortunate indeed to be without the burden of children. Sometimes she really thought that Phoebe must have forgotten. Or how could she be so cruel?

Nicholas, with his father’s chubbiness and sweet smile and her own very dark hair and eyes. Well, she thought, it was probably easy for Phoebe to forget. She had never seen the child, and he had been less than a year old when Web had found him dead in his crib one afternoon. There had been no detectable cause of death.

He would be ten years old now. Doubtless into all kinds of mischief. She was fortunate to have been saved the trouble.

Web had been unwilling to get her with child again. He had been inconsolable for many months and unwilling to risk that kind of love again. He had been unwilling to risk her life again, especially after Harriet Westhaven had died in childbed less than a year later.

Piers had been so distraught that both she and Web had feared that he might put an end to his own life.

Yes, she must be thankful, Alice thought, setting her head back against the cushions and keeping her eyes closed. In all seriousness, she must be thankful. She had lived a good life, and now she had the means with which to do what she pleased and make the remainder of her life as comfortable as possible.

She had a visitor the following morning. She smiled with some amusement as she rose from her desk, where she was again writing a letter. He had decided to be more proper this morning and send her servant to announce him. Her spirits lifted unconsciously.

But it was not Piers Westhaven who walked through the doorway, but another familiar figure.

“Sir Clayton!” she said, extending one hand and moving toward him. “What a very pleasant surprise. What brings you to London?”

“A need for a change of scenery, Mrs. Penhallow,” he said, taking her hand and raising it to his lips. “And you, of course.”

Alice smiled and retrieved her hand as soon as she could do so without snatching it. How very tiresome! Sir Clayton Lansing, long-time resident of Bath, had been markedly attentive almost from the moment of her arrival there the summer before. She could not go to the Pump Room without having to promenade around it at least once with him. She could not take tea at the Upper Rooms without having to share a table with him. She could not shop, on Milsom Street without having to relinquish her parcels to him to carry home for her.

Oh, dear!

“How very flattering, sir,” she said. “And what a bouncer. It is April and the time of the Season, and reason enough for anyone to come to town. You are staying with your sister?”

“I am,” he said. “And I trust your, nephew and niece are out of danger, ma’am? Mrs. Potter informed me that they were dangerously ill. I was very distressed.”

“They have the measles,” Alice said. “Or had them, rather. They are recovering quite nicely, I thank you.”

She rang for tea and was thankful that Sir Clayton was at least punctilious in his social manners. He would not stay beyond half an hour.

He did not, but he did ask her, as he kissed her hand on taking his leave, if she would do him the honor of joining him at the theater one evening when he could get up a party.

“If it is possible, sir,” she said, her tone regretful. “Though it is during the evenings, you know, that my sister-in-law needs me most, her time being given to my elder niece, who is making her come-out.”

No engagement was made as Sir Clayton bowed himself out. He was to drop her a note when he could make more definite plans.

One had to be quite firm and quite rude with the man, Andrea Potter had told her with a laugh several months before. There was no way by which persons of Sir Clayton’s obtuseness could be put off with gentle hints.

“Unless you like him, of course, Alice,” her friend had said, “or could be brought to like him. He is enormously wealthy, by all accounts. And he cannot be above twenty years your senior. Indeed, it sounds quite like a match made in heaven.”

Alice had given her giggling friend a speaking glance, but had not deigned to reply.

Sometimes, she thought now, one could be almost thankful for relatives sick with the measles. Measles were indisputable. She would find it very difficult to say an outright no if she did not have a ready-made excuse. Sir Clayton Lansing was so very worthy and respectable.

***

Alice was coming out of a milliner’s shop on Oxford Street a few hours later, a hatbox dangling from a ribbon in her hand. She had only rarely had a chance to shop in London. Web and she had not come often despite the fact that he had always owned the house on Cavendish Square. As often as not he had had it rented out.

But today was a fine April day and she was feeling free and frivolous.

“A quite delightful and decidedly wicked smile,” a careless voice said almost at her shoulder. “It is my guess that you have been spending a fortune on a new bonnet that you do not at all need. And that you are not even the smallest bit contrite.”