Barbara Metzger (14 page)

Most of the guests reassembled in the gold salon chose to treat the pig incident as a fine joke, reinforcing St. Cloud’s belief that an earl with upwards of forty thousand a year had a great deal of social latitude, and that Society was a jackass. It also appeared to St. Cloud that the joke became funnier the more females a man had to marry off. The admiral, with his three platter-faced chits, thought it was hilarious. He joined the squire, with one daughter and two nieces, in proposing toasts to the earl’s birthday. Everyone joined in, in high good humor, especially once the lambs’ wool punch was served round twice, except Mr. Hilloughby, his mother’s current tame cleric, who stuck to tea, and Uncle Harmon, who was in high dudgeon.

Lady Pomeroy sat at the pianoforte, having arranged the candelabrum to best highlight her mature décolletage while shadowing the tiny signs of passing youth. She skillfully picked out carols, seemingly by heart, but purred a request for the earl to turn her pages for her.

Uncle Harmon frowned when St. Cloud acquiesced, taking a seat on the bench so near Sydelle that a draft couldn’t have come between them. Lord Wilmott wanted the earl for Elsbeth, Lady Sydelle and her inheritance for the spendthrift Niles. The older man grew perfectly bilious at the thought of his goddaughter and his nephew making a match of it, melding their fortunes while his own expensive progeny got short shrift. Being well aware of his uncle’s ambitions, and dyspepsia, the earl moved closer to the alluring widow.

The reverend decided it was time for one last Christmas invocation, for faith, hope, and chastity, and a benediction for the Christ child.

“Speaking of children, St. Cloud, when are you going to provide some for this old pile?” The dowager did not wait for Hilloughby’s amen. She couldn’t see the blushes of the younger girls, invited for his consideration, St. Cloud made no doubt, and wouldn’t have cared anyway. “It’s time and past you married and got yourself an heir. I want grandchildren!” She thumped her cane down, hard, on one of the squire’s chits’ gowns. The girl ran crying from the room, trailing a flounce. “What’s that ninnyhammer Fanny crying about now?” the dowager demanded.

St. Cloud removed the cane from her fingers. “You don’t need this while you are having tea, and that was not Lady Fanny, Grandmother, but an innocent miss you have embarrassed with your wayward cane and wicked tongue.”

“Humph. If all the young gels are such niminypiminy, milk-and-water chits, it’s no wonder you haven’t taken leg shackles. But I can’t wait forever, you know. This place has been in the Jordan family for centuries, boy, and it’s your job to see it stays there.”

He sipped slowly from his cup. “I am no longer a boy, Grandmother.”

“And I wouldn’t ask a boy to do a man’s job!”

Lady Fanny tried to play peacemaker again, handing round a plate of sugarplums. “I am sure St. Cloud knows his responsibilities to the name, Mother St. Cloud.”

“And to his family,” Uncle Harmon put in, as blatant as a battleship. He dragged Elsbeth away from one of the squire’s sons and thrust her onto the sofa next to her cousin.

Elsbeth was her usual sulky self, in a pet this evening because she was not the center of male adulation. She and Aunt Fanny had invited the plainest girls in the country for St. Cloud’s perusal, knowing Elsbeth would shine in contrast. Now he and every other man in the room, including the squire’s gapeseed sons and her own brother, were panting after that fast Sydelle Pomeroy. Even Mr. Hilloughby’s collar got too tight when the widow walked past him, as slow and slinky as sin. Elsbeth bet the widow’s skirts were dampened. Red silk, while Elsbeth sat as demure as a debutante in pink chiffon! It wasn’t to be borne. Worst of all were the calf’s eyes St. Cloud was making at the older woman, when everyone in the room knew he was as good as promised to Elsbeth. Papa said he was only sowing more wild oats, that he’d only offer a lightskirt like Sydelle a slip on the shoulder. Well, Elsbeth was tired of cooling her heels in Berkshire while St. Cloud was kicking his up in London.

“Yes, cousin,” she lisped. “Just when are you going to drop the handkerchief?”

He dropped a bombshell, not a handkerchief. “I already have.”

The admiral called for another toast. He’d wasted an evening, but the punch was good.

“No, sir, it’s not official yet. I haven’t had a chance to seek her family’s permission, but I expect her here within a few days.”

“Oh, dearest, how wonderful! Who are her people? Shall we like her?” The countess’s various shawls and draperies dipped in the tea, in her excitement.

“Her name is Juneclaire, and I’m sure you’ll love her, Mother. And, no, you do not know the family. They are from Farley’s Grange.” He pushed the tray back farther.

“Nobody who’s anybody lives in Farley’s Grange, boy. When do we get to meet her?”

“As soon as I can arrange, Grandmother, and her grandfather was from the
ancien régime,
not that it matters a halfpenny.”

“Foreigners,” the dowager muttered, secretly delighted he’d chosen anyone but that Pomeroy high flier or Harmon’s brat.

“You must give me her address, dearest, so I can extend a formal invitation.”

St. Cloud took a deep breath. Thinking it was better to get over rough ground quickly, he flatly announced, “I have no idea where she is.”

His mother dropped her vinaigrette bottle. “You aren’t bringing one of those independent London blue-stockings here, are you? I couldn’t bear to live with another pushy fe—” She held her gauze scarf to her mouth and looked away from the dowager.

St. Cloud patted her hand. “No such thing, Juneclaire’s sweet and gentle. You’ll see.”

“When you find her, cuz?” Niles taunted. He was also delighted, recalculating his odds of winning the Pomeroy’s hand. “How did you happen to mislay the bride-to-be?”

“There was a bit of a mix-up with the coaches. That’s why I was detained,” he said with a bow in his still-speechless uncle’s direction. “I am not sure precisely which carriage took her up when the one she was traveling in had a spill.” The spill may have been all over Scully, the footman, but St. Cloud was sticking to the truth as closely as possible. He had no idea what he would say if anyone thought to ask how he met the young lady, much less when. “There’s nothing improper about it,” he lied now, for the squire’s wife and the rest of the neighborhood who would have the story by noon tomorrow. “She may have returned home or be staying with the vicar and his wife at Bramley. She might even have gone with her housekeeper on to London. I’ll send the footmen out tomorrow to make inquiries, and I’ll ride to London myself.”

“But you can’t send the staff away tomorrow, dearest; it’s Boxing Day. All of the servants have the day off for their own feast and celebration. And you have to be here when the tenants come calling for the wassail.”

“For their gifts, you mean. Damn.”

“Oh, but Mr. Talbot takes care of the staff gifts, and your secretary in London remembered the check for the church alms box. And the bailiff delivers the boxes for most of the Priory tenants. They come just to see you and wish you joy of the season.”

“Like feudal times, cuz, you know, lord of the manor and all that.
Noblesse oblige
.”

Lady Fanny thought a moment. “I suppose Harmon could stand in for you.”

St. Cloud put his teacup down with a thud. “That’s all right, Mother. As you say, they are my people, and I shall be here.”

The countess looked toward her brother to make sure Harmon saw what a good boy St. Cloud was. “Besides, dearest, you cannot go up to London, not with our New Year’s ball next week. You couldn’t have forgotten?”

St. Cloud bit the inside of his mouth. How could he, when she’d written to remind him seven times in the past month? The Priory hadn’t made much of Christmas since his father’s accident and Uncle George’s death, but the dowager insisted that Lady Fanny had to entertain the county somehow over the holiday season, to repay all the invitations she received and to uphold the St. Cloud name. They had settled on a New Year’s masquerade ball when they were out of blacks years ago, and the tradition took. Lady Fanny still wore half mourning, and she still piled all of the details for the ball on Talbot, the housekeeper, the bailiff, and her son. He hated the whole affair. “Now there I should appreciate Uncle Harmon’s management. It’s time Cousin Elsbeth learns how to manage a party, too. I make no promises after tomorrow, Mother.”

“But you did promise to see about the ghost, son. I haven’t slept easy in my bed in weeks, and that cannot be good for my health, on top of all the work for the ball. And then there was the upset about your tardy arrival and now the excitement of your betrothal. I really must have my rest. Of course I cannot be comfortable in my room. . . .”

“Blast it, Fanny, I told you I had the steward go over the whole east wing, and the fellow found nothing. The ghost is all in your head.” Lord Wilmott finally found his voice with the realization that there could be no wedding without a bride. Let the boy go haring off to London while Harmon made his own investigation. There was some hugger-mugger here, and he was determined to get to the bottom of it and get rid of this upstart nobody. Elsbeth still had a chance.

For once in her life Fanny held firm, even against her brother’s wrath. “No, Harmon, it’s a St. Cloud ghost and perhaps only St. Clouds can see it, although the servants have heard it crying through the chimneys. And there was
no
wind that night, so you can take a damper, Harmon.”

“Brava, Fanny,” the dowager said approvingly. “You can’t keep the boy tied to you with your megrims or your mutton-headed mismanagement. Now you’ll try things that go bump in the night!”

Fanny held the cloth to her eyes, and St. Cloud was tempted to take the cane to the dowager and his uncle. Yes, Lady Fanny was vaporish; did anyone think she was going to change now? “I thought you’d heard noises in the Dower House, too, Grandmother.”

“I’m getting old, boy, not senile. You worry about finding the gel, St. Cloud. Hilloughby can say an extra prayer to get rid of the ghost. That’s about all he’s good for anyway.” The dowager had almost given up hope that the cleric—or anybody—would offer for Fanny and get the peagoose and her Wilmott relatives out of the Priory once and for all. The New Year’s ball had been her idea at first, to get Fanny socializing again in hopes of marrying the wigeon off. No one wanted her, more’s the pity.

With the St. Cloud fireworks seemingly over for the night, the dinner guests took their leave. There was no reason to stay later, with the earl as good as a tenant for life and snow falling. If the snow hadn’t been falling, Lady Sydelle might have ordered her carriage and headed for London. As it was, she was in such a snit, she forgot to slink on her way down the hall, after excusing herself to the family still in the gold salon. She stomped down the hall and up the stairs with such determination that she split the back seam of her too-tight dress. There was a crash below in the hallway. Talbot was not made of stone, after all, and neither was the Limoges teapot.

With only family left, Aunt Florrie wanted her Christmas gift, since she wasn’t getting to keep the pig and Harmon took the sugarplums away. They all moved to the smaller parlor, where a wooden candle pyramid had been set up on one of the tables and lighted, St. Cloud’s gifts on a red cloth beneath. Harmon did not hold with bringing a tree into the house, even if Queen Charlotte was trying to foist her Teutonic notions of
tannenbaum
on the London gentry. Fanny thought a tree with candles, apples, garlands, and cookies sounded lovely. Maybe next year, she thought, when there was a new countess.

She gave her son a pair of slippers with the family crest embroidered on them by her maid. He gave her a pearl-and-diamond brooch selected by his secretary. The dowager gave him her late husband’s gold watch, which, besides being mentioned in the entail, was the same watch she gave St. Cloud every year. Every year he had it returned to her bed stand, knowing she hated to be without it. The earl gave her an ebony cane with a carved handle.

“What is it, boy? A snake?”

“No, you old fire breather, it’s a dragon.”

He gave Aunt Florrie a music box with a bear in a tutu twirling around on top, and she gave him a rock.

Elsbeth presented the earl with some monogrammed handkerchiefs. Her maid did not sew as well as Lady Fanny’s. She went into raptures over the gold filigree fan that caught his eye one day as just the kind of gaudy trumpery she might enjoy.

St. Cloud next delighted his other cousin by saying he’d write out the Christmas gift as soon as Niles presented the reckoning, so Niles gave him the snuffbox in his pocket.

He and Uncle Harmon exchanged nods.

“You know, Papa,” Elsbeth said, practicing her attitudes over the fan, “now that I am not to marry my cousin, can I finally have a Season in Town? I know Aunt Fanny doesn’t go to London, but perhaps St. Cloud’s wife can present me. Is she good ton, cousin?”

“Don’t be a gudgeon,” her brother told her, still in an expansive mood. “If she were a gap-toothed hunch-back from the Outer Hebrides, St. Cloud’s countess would still be good ton.”

“Why? Aunt Fanny isn’t.”

T
he horses were straining in the traces, hurtling into the night. Foley rode silently beside him. No, it was Todd—no, someone else, watching him try to manage the runaway team. He couldn’t do it. They were out of control. Then the carriage shaft started creaking, crunching, cracking under the stress of the wild ride. They’d be thrown, or dashed under the horses’ hooves, and the passenger just watched. Then St. Cloud felt the wind and waited. His legs must be broken; he couldn’t move them. The horses! Someone, help! The passenger laughed and laughed and—

St. Cloud jerked awake, gasping. He could feel the sweat on his bare chest and hear the echoes of distant laughter. The velvet bed curtains were open—and Pansy was sprawled across his legs. “Damn.” There was no way the pig could get up on the huge canopied bed herself. St. Cloud even used the low stool. If this was Todd’s revenge for having to nursemaid a pig, St. Cloud would have his head come morning. Boxing Day indeed. He’d give the fellow a box on the ears for this night’s work. Then again, this was more like Cousin Niles’s style of bobbery, foolish since the check was not yet signed. St. Cloud wouldn’t even put such a prank past Sydelle, a woman scorned and all that. He sighed. Either way, he was awake.