Amanda Scott - [Dangerous 04] (17 page)

Something in his tone warned her to tread lightly, so returning his greeting, she added simply, “You know Lady Witherspoon, I trust.” As she said the words, she had a mental vision of him walking in on Catherine the way she had, and a bubble of laughter rose in her throat. Ruthlessly suppressing it in the time it took him to assure her that he knew Catherine, she missed what he said next. “Forgive me, sir, what did you say?”

“You should attend when someone speaks to you,” he said sternly. “I merely said I hoped you had not been sharing your political views with Lady Witherspoon.”

Unable to resist, she said, “Are you afraid I might convert her to a Tory, sir?”

Sounding shocked, Catherine said, “Pray, don’t even suggest such a thing!”

Raventhorpe’s eyes gleamed with sudden humor. “Take care, Lady Witherspoon. I have heard her discuss Bombay banking matters with an expert. If you don’t take care, she will doubtless try to persuade you that the Tory position on Jamaica is the correct one. Witherspoon would not approve.”

With an answering gleam, Catherine said saucily, “You are impudent, my lord. We did speak briefly of Jamaica, but if you mean to scold her for such things, you should know first that I have decided to count her as my friend.”

“Have you indeed?”

A little smile played on Catherine’s lips. “I believe I have. I can see that you wish to have a private word with her, however, so I will leave you, but beware, sir.” With another smile at him, she drifted away.

“She was flirting with you,” Letty said in surprise.

“She flirts with every man she meets. Haven’t you noticed?”

Much as she would have liked to contradict him, she could not. Catherine did flirt. She said instead, “I would never try to influence her politics, you know.”

He said, “I hope not. Do you even know the Tory position on Jamaica?”

“Of course I do, and in my opinion, it is the correct one. The British government has no business sending arbitrary orders to the Jamaican assembly, ignoring the fact that the island has enjoyed self-rule for centuries.”

“Indeed, Lady Letitia,” the queen said grimly from the nearby doorway, where she stood with several of her bedchamber ladies. “Do you deny the transcendental power of our Parliament over colonial legislation?”

“No, ma’am,” Letty said, sinking hastily to a deep curtsy. “Forgive me if I failed to make my point clear. It is not Parliament’s power that I question, merely its wisdom in this particular instance.”

“Indeed,” said the queen haughtily.

Letty distinctly heard Raventhorpe groan.

R
AVENTHORPE WAITED FOR THE
royal ax to fall. He could scarcely believe his ears when, instead of remaining sensibly silent, Lady Letitia said, “Your Majesty, again I failed to make myself clear. I do apologize.”

To his further amazement, Victoria said, “Do you honestly think you
can
make yourself clear on such an important government question?”

Raventhorpe stifled another groan. He would have given much for the power to tell the queen not to be such a fool as to bait the chit. However, not only did protocol strictly forbid him to address Her Majesty before she had spoken to him, but the impertinent chit was already off and running.

“As you are doubtless aware, ma’am,” Letitia said earnestly, “no one in Parliament has condemned outright the bill to supersede the Jamaican assembly’s powers. It arose, after all, from a simple misunderstanding over an earlier act.”

“Did it indeed?” Victoria’s tone was icy.

“Yes, ma’am, the bill that puts control of all colonial prisons into the hands of a council of three salaried Whig commissioners. The assembly has freely legislated all regulations in Jamaica since the reign of Charles II, as you know, and there can be no doubt that management of their prisons falls under their general powers. Surely a wise government would make some effort toward conciliation before superseding any, let alone all, of those powers.”

“’Tis fortunate that our government is wiser than you, Lady Letitia,” Victoria said with an austerity worthy of a matron at least twenty years her senior.

“Forgive me, ma’am; it was never my intention to displease you,” the chit said hastily, giving Raventhorpe hope that she had come to her senses. That hope died, however, when she added, “It does seem unfair that some members of Parliament have insisted upon making this a party issue when—”

“If that is so,” Victoria interjected tartly, “it is Tories who are to blame.”

“But Sir Robert Peel speaks for the Tory party, ma’am, and his position all along has been that the government should grant the Jamaican assembly time to deliberate. If they do, one of two things must happen. Either they will submit to the wishes of Parliament and pass a prison law of their own, conforming with the one passed here, or else they will remain obstinate. In the first case—”

“In
any
case,” Victoria interjected grimly, “it is no concern of yours.”

Apparently regaining her wits at last, Letitia made another deep curtsy, saying, “As you wish, ma’am. I did think, when you asked if—”

Unable to stop himself, Raventhorpe snapped, “Lady Letitia, Her Majesty has guests awaiting her, and you have duties to attend.”

Turning scarlet, she held her tongue.

Victoria waited a beat, as if to be sure the chit would say no more. Then, with the austere tone she had employed earlier, she said, “If you cannot recall your duties, Lady Letitia, you must ask Lady Tavistock to explain them to you.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Letitia remained in her curtsy until the queen had swept past her into the green drawing room, where conversation still hummed but the music of the pianoforte had given way to the soft thrumming of a harp. Rising at last, she looked around as if hoping to find a supporter, but Catherine Witherspoon had vanished moments after the queen had spoken. Only Raventhorpe remained.

Fighting to control his anger, he said grimly, “You deserve—”

“Don’t say it. I know what I deserve. Looking at her, I somehow quite forgot she is the queen and saw only another person my age who had asked me a question. I was already annoyed with you, and not thinking straight, but—”

“So it is my fault, is it?”

“No, of course not, but how she can support one of the most arbitrary measures ever presented to a British House of Commons, I do not know. They want to suspend the Jamaican assembly for years, saying they need the time to prepare the former slaves to vote properly for new members. Those are the same men who, on all former occasions, represented the freed slaves as already ripe for every enjoyment of civil liberty. If I could have made her understand that—”

“You couldn’t do it,” he said harshly. “Moreover, you have oversimplified the situation beyond all reason.”

“Well, I know that varying opinions exist within the Whig party on this issue, and I’ll do you the honor to think yours must be one of the more sensible ones. But the liberal wing of your party, sir, see themselves as the exclusive lovers of freedom. Yet they are now up in arms to suspend a free constitution, and to do so on utterly false pretenses.”

“That’s enough!” He caught her by one arm and pulled her well away from the entrance to the drawing room. With the queen’s return, the noise of conversation had grown louder, and the throne room was empty but for the two of them. Since no one else could hear what he said to her, he decided to give his temper full rein. “You listen to me now, my girl.”

“How dare you!” She wrenched her arm from his grip, but although her quickness surprised him, he caught her easily again, grabbing her by both shoulders and giving her a shake.

“Someone has to dare,” he snapped, “before you find yourself banished from court and shunned in society. Can you honestly tell me that your father would approve of what you’ve done here tonight?” When she remained silent, he gave her another shake. “Would he? Look at me, if you can, and say that he would.”

After a small silence, she looked at him. His gaze locked with hers, and in that moment something happened that neither would later be able to explain. In the first second or so, he thought it was no more than an unnatural (considering that he felt like murdering her) awareness that her eyes were not truly silver, but blue, with a sunburst of white rays coming from the pupils. But he knew it was much more than that, a different kind of awareness, one that stirred feelings far removed from anger.

“You know I cannot say he would approve,” she said quietly. “He would probably feel like doing just what you want to do to me.”

“I doubt that,” he said dryly.

“Well, he has never beaten me, so I daresay he would not threaten it, but I am not sure that he would not want to. And he can certainly make me quake in my shoes when he gets angry with me.”

“Since he knows you well, perhaps he will realize there was provocation.”

“Even so, he would say that I ought to have ignored it, and he would be right. At the very least he will be exceedingly disappointed in me.”

To his shock, tears welled into her beautiful eyes, and he felt a nearly overwhelming impulse to make them go away again. Before he could think of anything to say, however, she added, “I don’t know what came over me. I certainly know better than to set my opinions against Her Majesty’s. She began it, of course, by commenting on an observation that was not intended for her ears. Still, she
is
the queen, and I ought simply to have apologized and then kept silent.”

Since this analysis exactly matched his own, it was with dismay that he heard himself say, “She did provoke your response, and that was not well done of her. It is not always easy to hold one’s tongue merely because it is the proper thing to do.”

Her eyes widened with surprise. “Mercy, sir, I never expected to hear you say such a thing.”

“I never expected it, either,” he retorted.

She managed a watery chuckle as she pulled a lacy handkerchief from her reticule and dabbed her eyes. “You must think me a dreadful watering pot, but I am no such thing, I promise you. I rarely give way to tears. Moreover, I was about to explain to you that, in a way, it was perhaps your fault that this happened.”

“Indeed?”

“Mercy, you sounded just like her when you said that!” This time her laughter was more natural. “Don’t frown. I meant it before when I said it was my fault. But I think it’s because of you that I felt obliged to puff off my reasons to her. The same impulse overcame me at dinner, you see.”

“Bombay banks?”

“Yes, I knew you were listening, because you looked at me as if you felt sorry for me, or thought I was helpless before the flood of my partner’s discourse. I wanted to show you it was no such thing, and so I succumbed to a horrid temptation to show off what I knew about the East India Company. I think your presence again just now stirred me to debate Jamaica with Her Majesty.”

“You don’t have to impress me, you know.”

“Impress you! I wanted to silence you, to show you that I’ve got a brain and don’t need you or anyone else to give me advice.” She grimaced ruefully. “Instead I have probably managed to get myself banished from Her Majesty’s court.”

Still feeling strongly that she deserved a scolding, but wholly unable to deliver it, he said, “Perhaps it will not be so bad as that. Still, you ought to go back into the drawing room before someone else comes in search of you. I think it would be better—if you will not dismiss my advice this time—if you go ahead of me.”

“Yes, it would, because Lady Tavistock would think I had been flirting with you again if we went in together.”

“Again?”

Her eyes danced. “Yes, she scolded me for flirting that first day, when I spoke with you. It was the time you accused me of accosting you.”

He smiled. “In that event, you can definitely go in by yourself. I shall wait a good long time before following, too.”

The wry look she gave him told him that she had recovered her equilibrium, but he could tell, too, that she expected worse to come. The fact that Victoria might dismiss her disturbed him more than he would have thought possible even half an hour earlier. Banishment from court would ruin her, and he knew of only one person with sufficient influence to keep that from happening.

Letty walked away with her head high, but inside she felt an odd and most uncharacteristic mixture of irritation and dejection. Not one to give way to her sensibilities, she felt irritated that Raventhorpe, of all people, had seen her at a weak moment. More than that, though, she was angry with herself for twice giving way to a childish impulse.

No one, in her opinion, was more boring than a person who puffed off his or her political ideas to others who did not want to hear them. Of course, others often encouraged her to express hers, but such encouragement generally came from within her family. She certainly could not say no one had ever taught her to curb her tongue in public, or in diplomatic circles. If Victoria’s court did not count in the latter category, she did not know what would.

“Letitia!” Catherine hurried toward her. “I thought you would never come. Lady Tavistock has twice asked what became of you. I told her I thought you were feeling unwell.”

“Thank you,” Letty said with sincerity.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Catherine said with an impish grin. “Her ladyship informed me that maids of honor are not allowed to be ill. Unfortunately, Puck Quigley overheard her, and said that that had been made clear to all and sundry by the Marquess of Hastings’ letters about Lady Flora in the
Times
.”

Letty groaned. She had met Puck Quigley and liked him. He was as open and friendly as a puppy, and although he had no head for politics, he occasionally turned a phrase in an amusing way. His comment about Lady Flora would not have amused the chief lady of the bedchamber, however. “Where is Lady Tavistock?”

“Yonder with the queen, of course. You know Her Majesty likes to keep her ladies swarming round her. Was she furious with you? I fled, thinking the less she saw of me the better, but I feel as if I abandoned you. Whatever got into you?”

“The devil,” Letty said flatly. She drew a long, steadying breath. “Shall we go to her?”