An Extraordinary Flirtation (4 page)

If Lord Mannering was interested in this conversation, and he appeared to be, Zoe was not. “How providential,” she murmured, with a practiced sideways glance, “that we should meet here today.”

The marquess looked pensive. “Apparently my memory isn’t what it used to be. I seem to recall a missive requesting that I discover in myself an overwhelming desire for a sorbet.”

Zoe regarded him reproachfully. “You’re not eating
a sorbet! It’s an age since we’ve seen you, Lord Mannering. I was beginning to think myself forgot.”

Nick studied the vivid little face turned so en-chantingly toward his. “Impossible that anyone should forget you, Miss Loversall. You know that I am yours to command.”

She dimpled. “Fiddle! I know that you’re no such thing. Which is very odd in you, since everyone else admires me excessively.” She glanced again at her cousin, deep in a conversation now—rather, Baron Fitzrichard was conversing—about the principles of female dress, which apparently had much to do with hostile colors and subordinate compounds. “Although Ianthe would scold dreadfully if she heard me say so! My cousin is positively Gothick. And so is Beau—he doesn’t like me to call him ‘Papa,’ you see, because it makes him feel quite old. I’m never allowed to go anywhere. It’s all a horrid bore.”

Lord Mannering didn’t make the mistake of taking these complaints to heart. This lamentably mistreated young woman was not only currently at Gunter’s enjoying an ice, but also frequently to be seen at fashionable gatherings everywhere. The sensation that Zoe had created upon her first appearance in Society showed no sign of abating yet. So charming was her manner, so irrepressible her spirits, that only the most coldhearted of critics whispered that she was
fast,
or recalled with anticipatory relish that her family tended to take things to excess. “How could I not admire the most beautiful damsel in London, if not all England? I await your pleasure, milady. Shall I slay a dragon for you? Or perhaps, if I may presume— “ With a handkerchief, he wiped an errant drop of sorbet from the edge of her luscious mouth.

Her little tongue darted out to lick her lips. “You’re teasing me,” she said. “And I don’t really want anyone slain, not even Cousin Ianthe, although I think she should be more
understanding.
After all, she suffered a romantic disappointment in her youth, and would have gone into a decline if it weren’t for me. Is it true that older men like younger women because younger women rekindle their sense of romance, Lord Mannering?”

Cousin Ianthe was looking none too robust at the moment, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine why. “I assume you are asking my opinion because of my advanced age. Alas, ‘tis true that elderly gentlemen such as myself demonstrate their admiration differently than the young sprigs to whom you are accustomed. Rheumatism prevents us from getting down on our knees and spouting poetry to your eyebrows, although of course I long to do so.” A slow smile curved the edges of his mouth. “Don’t be so anxious to grow up, little one. You’ll tumble violently in love ten times before you’re twenty, mark my words.”

Was Lord Mannering ravishing her with his eyes? No, he looked amused instead. Zoe couldn’t help but admire his high cheekbones and chiseled jaw.

Not to mention the strong muscles of his thighs. She tilted her pretty head. “You make me sound a horrid flirt.”

“The most hardened flirt in London,” Nick said gravely. “Look at how you’re flirting with me now, even though I am ancient enough to be your papa.”

Zoe abandoned her posturing to giggle. “My papa is hardly ancient! And of course I’m flirting with you. Though I don’t lack for admirers, or poetry, or all that, it’s very dull stuff. I don’t think
you
could be dull, milord, even if you tried.”

Lord Mannering was far too fly to the time of day to make the mistake of paying any one young lady particular attentions, entice him as she might. Entertaining though this conversation might be, it had gone on long enough. “There are those who wouldn’t agree with you,” he murmured, and glanced at the annoyed gentlemen hovering about them, several of whom looked like they thirsted for his blood. “I must monopolize you no more.”

“Wait!” The marquess was Zoe’s latest conquest, or would be as soon as the stubborn creature could be made aware of his own mind. “Do you go to Lady Miller’s rout?”

Nick could think of few things more insipid. However, the little imp looked absurdly hopeful. “Perhaps.”

She beamed at him. “Then I shall save you the dinner dance!”

“I’m honored,” Nick said gravely, and bowed politely, and took his leave.

Fitz broke off his own conversation and followed, with the result that Ianthe was left uncertain as to whether she should wear orange with green, or green with purple, or all three at once. “I don’t like this, Nicky,” Fitz said, as the gentlemen strolled out of earshot. “It ain’t like you to amuse yourself with the infantry.”

Lord Mannering questioned whether “amusement” was the proper term for what he was doing. “I was merely being polite. Would you rather I was not?”

Fitz looked exasperated. “Of course you’re supposed to be polite, you’re a marquess. But you weren't being polite just then! In fact, if you weren’t getting up a flirtation, my name ain’t Adolphus.”

Alas, Adolphus was poor Fitz’s given name, a fact known only to his closest friends. Nick glanced at him. “I’m not trying to get up a flirtation;
she
is. I daresay she finds it more exciting than practicing her scales upon the pianoforte.”

Fitz blinked. “Is the girl mad?”

Nick reclaimed his reins from his groom and took his place on the curricle seat. “My dear Fitz, she is a Loversall. The entire family is mad. They are creatures of the senses, not of logic. It is a large part of their charm, as you would know if you had an interest in anything other than the latest furbelow.”

Fitz climbed into the curricle. “I ain’t a fribble!” he protested.

Nick lifted the reins. “I never said you were.”

Fitz turned awkwardly toward him. “This is a fudge, ain’t it, Nicky? Please tell me that it is!”

Nick smiled. “What if I were to tell you instead that I am quite
épris?”

Fitz sniffed. “I’d say maybe
you
drank too much champagne.”

It was late in the day when Lady Norwood’s traveling carriage drew up in front of the Loversall town house in Brook Street, which if not among the most fashionable of London neighborhoods, was still respectable. From the carriage emerged Lady Norwood, her maidservant, Barrow, and Daisy, who at the last moment had refused to be left behind. Unfortunately, it had soon been discovered that the setter didn’t travel well. Beau was grateful that he had ridden alongside the carriage, and not inside.

He dismounted, handed his reins to a groom, and strode toward the front door where the butler stood. Widdle had only recently come into the Loversall employ, following an unfortunate incident involving some missing silver plate. Servants did not last long in this household, but at his age—Widdle’s hair was sparse, his posture bent—opportunities were scarce. He squinted at the women approaching in his new master’s wake. One, a middle-aged female who looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, was evidently a servant. The other was unmistakably a member of the family. Widdle hoped she might be more conversant with the proprieties than the other residents of this household seemed to be. Except for Miss Ianthe, but of course no one listened to her. And was that orange-and-white-speckled creature a
canine?

It was, and it knocked him over. From a prone position between lapping tongue and wagging tail, Widdle suggested that the lady might like some tea.

The lady first preferred to freshen up. Once safely inside her chamber—which had not changed a bit since she last saw it, from the canopy bed with blue silk hangings to the flowered china ewer on the corner basin stand, although she hoped dust and spiders had not been gathering all that time—Cara pulled off her bonnet and sank down in a chair. “I don’t like this, mum,” said Barrow, for what seemed the hundredth time since they’d set out from Norwood House. “What will Squire Anderley think, you running off like that?”

Paul would think, quite rightly, that Cara was playing least-in-sight, and he could make of it what he wished. Difficult, however, to reprimand a servant who’d been with her since she was a girl. Barrow only wished the best for her, in this case that Cara should marry Paul.

“Mortimer will tell him where we’ve gone.” Cara wondered as she spoke if Mortimer would do any such thing. Her abigail wondered also: Cara winced as Barrow’s brush tangled in her hair. Order at length restored to her person as well as to her coiffure, Cara left Barrow unpacking and muttering darkly beneath her breath, with a subdued Daisy to keep her company, and descended the stair.

The house was as she remembered it, furnished in a gay rococo fashion grown somewhat shabby with use. The drawing room displayed an elaborate variety of carved shells and scrolls and fish scales, ribboned flowers and butterflies, ormolu and asymmetrical scrollwork. On either side of the chimney stood a sofa, and on the opposite end a confidante. An elegant narrow-waisted grandfather clock ticked away the hours in a somewhat eccentric fashion, its brass dial richly ornamented with cherubs in relief. The polished wooden floors were adorned by several small rugs, the walls covered with chinoiserie paper, the plaster ceiling enriched by simple ribs in low relief.

On a gilt bow-fronted table decorated with strings of bell flowers sat an oval japanned tea tray. Wrapped in a Chinese robe of puce silk, a lace cap, and a Norwich shawl, Ianthe stood by the fireplace.

She looked worn-down with fuss and worry. Cara felt a stab of guilt. Ianthe had lived with the family for as long as she could remember; had been like a second mama when Cara’s own mother had decided she had exhausted all her maternal impulses (not to mention her patience with her husband’s stable of mistresses) and embarked with the widow of a Russia Company merchant on an extensive round of sightseeing, during the course of which she published several volumes about her “Tours” in Scandinavia, Russia, and Poland, before succumbing to malaria in Madagascar.

Ianthe would no doubt have enjoyed a nice stay in the country. Cara had thought several times of suggesting that her cousin come to Norwood House, but withheld the invitation because she hadn’t wished her peace also invaded by her volatile niece. After all she owed Ianthe, to behave so shabbily!

Cara cleared her throat. “Oh! You came!” Ianthe hurried across the room to envelop Cara in a great hug. “I have so wished to see you. Everything is in such a muddle! I’ve been standing here teasing myself with thoughts of what to say to Beau.” She burst into tears.

Cara drew her cousin to a sofa.
“He
should say ‘thank you,’ though it would never occur to him. You might have had a home of your own instead of staying here with Zoe.” As she herself had a home, Cara thought.

“Fiddle!” Ianthe pulled out a handkerchief, wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and picked up the teapot from a tray decorated with a huge chrysanthemum. “Someone had to look after the babe, and you were far too young. Beau, as we know, is useless in such matters. Zoe has him wrapped around her thumb.” Her blue eyes brimmed with tears. “Still, I can’t help but think I’ve done a dreadful job of it, for Zoe is—I won’t mince words with you, Cara: she’s a horrid brat! Oh, she’s sunny-tempered enough until her will is crossed. But since she’s also highly capricious, it’s next to impossible to guess what she wants from one moment to the next.” Ianthe dabbed the handkerchief to her eye.

Cara accepted a cup of tea, and reminded herself that Ianthe had not been spared the family tendency for melodrama. “Perhaps Zoe is merely reacting to the strain of her come-out. You remember how it was. Everyone waiting and watching for the latest family scandal. We disappointed them, you and I.”

“I sometimes wonder if we would have caused more gossip by behaving badly than we did by being circumspect.” Ianthe gestured with her teacup. “As for Zoe, you are too generous. Easy enough for her to behave reasonably when you’re around, because you haven’t been around that much. No, I wasn’t scolding! You have a life of your own, and I’m grateful that you do. But now that you’re here, you’ll soon enough see how things really are. When denied anything on which she’s set her heart, Zoe screams and bites and kicks. You doubt me, I can tell. Look at this, if you please!” Ianthe drew aside her shawl to display bright scratches on one arm. “In her tantrums, she’ll smash china, throw herself on the floor in paroxysms of rage, and worse. Do you recall that lovely vase that once sat on the mantelpiece?”

Cara surveyed the empty niche. “Oh, dear.”

“Would that she had flung herself out the window instead! And all that Beau can say to me is that he wishes I would not enact the watering-pot. I am almost out of patience with them both.” Ianthe was one of those females whose looks were not diminished by tears, which was fortunate, considering the number of them she shed, as she was doing again at the moment, while she clasped her cousin’s hand. “Cara, I’m so very glad you’re here.”

“As are we all!” Beau stepped into the drawing room, looking refreshed; his valet, Flitwick, had bathed and combed and powdered his master before bearing off his riding coat to treat it lovingly with spirits of hartshorn and a good stiff brush. Beau glanced unappreciatively at the tea tray, headed for the brandy decanter, and poured himself a glass. Then he glanced around the chamber. “Where’s Zoe?”

Ianthe squeezed Cara’s fingers. “She called me an addle-plot. Then she said it made her feel quite waspish to never have a moment to herself. I suggested that she take her dinner alone in her room. Yes, I know that you will say it was very
unfeeling
of me, and so she told me, but I could bear no more."

“There, there!” Beau said hastily, for his cousin’s lips had begun to tremble. Ianthe must surely be the best weeper in all of England, at last count holding a record of twenty bouts of sobbing in one day. “No need to make a piece of work of it!”