Barbara Metzger (8 page)

Miss Trevaine could face Squire’s wrath and think nothing of taking hedges higher than her horse, but tonight’s dinner had her quaking: her new gown, her new hair style, her new role—and to be putting them on for the first time at such a gathering! Most of the guests had known her forever. What if they laughed? No, as her father said, they were all friends. These people, her father had insisted, were the ones he wished to share his pride with, so the county would see this was no hole-in-corner affair. The alternative was worse, the evening alone with Claibourne and his aunt, so Jacelyn hurried to get ready.

*

Squire was fidgety too, ruining his second cravat. “Can’t see what your daughter needed a new dress for. She’s too young to be dining out in company anyway.”

“Jacelyn particularly asked that Samantha attend. I’m sure she’ll feel easier having another young lady there. Besides, it will be good for our Samantha to get out more before her own presentation. Those young girls pitchforked into Society all at once often make a mull of it.”

“Well, I won’t have a gal of mine picking up any froward behaviour from that Trevaine chit. Deuce take this linen!”

“Hush, George, let me. Though why your valet has to be in the stables is beyond me.”

“He knows a lot more about physicking, humans and animals, than any stableman I’ve ever had, that’s why, and that new gelding Raindancer’s a deuced sight more important than all this dandification.”

“Anyway, dear, think of how nice it will be for Samantha in her own Season next year, if one of her best friends is a countess. I’m considering bringing Samantha to London for Jacelyn’s come-out ball next month. There, your neckcloth is tied. Don’t tug at it so.”

“What, another dress for the chit? Next you’ll be expecting me to leave the country to go to London and do the pretty. No, madam, I tell you the girl is too young.”

“Just as Jacelyn Trevaine is too young to face all of this without her friends nearby.”

“Gammon. If you mean by that what I’ve heard all week, that the chit’s too young to deal with a man of Claibourne’s stamp, why, I say it again, he could be the making of her.”

“He could break her heart. If it weren’t for you and your—”

Samantha was going to London.

*

Bien.
Everything seemed to be going
bien
. Mme. Aubonier had arrived on schedule, a tall, rigidly erect, thin-faced woman dressed all in black. She had raised her lorgnette to survey the house and its occupants, and declared them all
“Bien, bien.”

“How was your journey, Madame?”

“Bien, bien.”

“May I show you to your room? Would you care to rest before dinner? Shall I have tea sent to you?” All received the same answer, till Jacelyn wondered if perhaps Madame didn’t speak English. Hesitant to practice her schoolgirl French, she was relieved when Madame surveyed her chintz-papered room, fire well lit, fall asters in a Meissen pitcher, and declared it all “Lovely, lovely.” What a peculiar chaperone this would be!

At least her presence saved Jacelyn from the awkwardness she’d been dreading, that first meeting with Claibourne who was, incredibly, as handsome as she’d remembered. She curtseyed, he bowed, a few polite words were exchanged between the
biens
. Then she’d gone off to see to his aunt’s comfort, her own toilette, the rest of the guests, and finally the dinner, all without having to face that first private moment. Madame, seated between Jacelyn’s father and Vicar Shankman, seemed to have found her vocabulary, English or French, Jacey could not tell from her place at the opposite end of the table. Claibourne’s scarecrow of an aunt also seemed to have found her appetite; she appeared to be a trencherwoman of Squire’s caliber. And for all his grumbling, Squire seemed to enjoy the turbot in oyster sauce and the veal
marselaisse
as well as he did the plain rack of lamb Jacelyn had Antoine include for his benefit. Even Samantha was managing well, between the vicar and Admiral Hopkinton, who was an old dear, even if he was nearly deaf and persisted in refighting the Peninsular Campaign across the table to Claibourne, in a voice booming enough to stir the autumn leaves Jacelyn had arranged for a centerpiece.

Claibourne was all poise and polish, making his replies to the admiral through Jacelyn, so she was the one forced to shout out Wellington’s strategy, while Leigh conversed quietly with Mrs. Bottwick on his other side. Claibourne looked even more elegant in evening clothes, Jacelyn noted during a lull in the admiral’s wargames, and she was quite sure his shoulders weren’t padded, as Arthur’s undoubtedly were.

All in all, she thought, the evening was going quite well, with only one adverse comment about her new looks. When Samantha had exclaimed over the green gown, Squire had commented to the admiral, in a necessarily carrying voice, “Well, I suppose it’s an improvement, but I wouldn’t let any daughter of mine go out in public without her stays.” Claibourne’s lips twitched, but he didn’t miss a word in his description of the road conditions to the vicar’s wife. Thank goodness no one mentioned the episode behind this whole celebration, not even Squire, who was still feeling guilty over his part in it, according to Sam.
Bien
.

Dinner was finally over; the men had their port. Madame retired to her bedchamber to rest for the next day’s journey, and the vicar, Squire, and Admiral Hopkinton joined Jacelyn’s father for a round of whist while the vicar’s wife and Mrs. Bottwick discussed winter floral arrangements for the church and Samantha softly played the pianoforte.

“Do you play?” he asked—the only
he
in the room, as far as Jacelyn was concerned. He sat beside her on the sofa.

“About as well as I do watercolours,” she said, laughing.

“Ah, that’s the first time in two weeks I’ve heard that sound. I thought you must have packed it away with your britches.”

Jacelyn was fingering the silk of her gown. “Do you…do you like it, my lord?”

“Fishing for compliments, are you, dewdrop? ‘Well, I suppose it’s an improvement,’” he teased, quoting Squire and looking where Squire hadn’t found any corset. He smiled at Jacelyn’s furious blush, then let his hand between them softly brush her thigh. “And here I was looking forward to strolling down Rotten Row with you in Lem’s castoffs.
N’importe
, you’ll make just as big a stir now, poppet. You look quite beautiful.”

She laughed again. “Stuff! It’s only the dress! I just didn’t want your friends to think I was a shabrag. I didn’t need the whole butterboat poured on me!”

He gave her a quizzical look. “Then you are the first woman I’ve ever met who didn’t love flattery. How do you feel about diamonds?” he asked, taking a little box from his pocket. The ring he held out for her inspection was gold with a round diamond set in a circlet of tiny rubies.

“It’s beautiful, Leigh, but—”

“But what, rosebud?” he asked, trying to see which of her fingers it fit best, while she sat benumbed.

“But I thought we didn’t have to have a real engagement. You said we could just put it about that we had some kind of understanding.”

“And so we do, don’t we? Never fear, that’s not the Claibourne diamond, just a little piece from the family collection. We’ll have to fatten you considerably in London if you’re to wear the real thing, else you’d not have strength to hold up your arm. There’s a tiara and a bracelet, besides the wedding set. I simply thought you might like this.”

“Oh, I do, Leigh. It’s just that, well, if we’re not really engaged, is it proper for me to accept such a gift?” Regretful, she looked over to the facing sofa, where the older ladies sat, pretending they weren’t watching her every move.

“What, are you going all prunes and prisms on me? Fancy gowns, elegant hairdos, the perfect hostess, and now the picture of respectability! You must be a changeling; I’ll wager you’re some other brat Lord Trevaine’s trying to foist off on me so he can keep the real thing to himself.” He drew out his eyepiece and surveyed her slowly through it with all the affectation of a Bond Street Beau. From her side, of course, his eye looked like a distorted blue billiard ball.

“Silly, I suppose you’d prefer it if I still set frogs loose in the dining room.”

“‘Still’?”

“Only once. I put some frogs under the covers of the serving dishes so when Phipps opened them to serve…”

“No wonder the man has white hair! And no, pet, I don’t mean to encourage you to such pranks. Just know that I like the bandit as well as the belle, so you don’t have to playact for me.”

“Since you are being so agreeable, Leigh, there is something we should discuss.”

“Uh-oh, I’m beginning to recognise a particular golden flicker in your eyes that betokens some deviltry or other, and I misdoubt that tone of voice. What horrible scheme are you concocting?”

“I want to take Pen to London with us. She’ll be unhappy here without me and won’t get enough exercise, so I’ve decided she has to come along. Either she comes or I don’t,” Jacey ended militantly.

Smiling, Claibourne raised Jacelyn’s hand, the one with the ring, to his mouth for a sweet salute. “Of course, Jay-bird, it’s all part of the deal.”

“What deal?” she asked with suspicion.

“Why, the deal I made with your father and Bottwick, of course. Your father agreed not to call me out if I took you off his hands, and Squire agreed not to challenge me if I agreed to take the dog out of the county.”

“Do be serious,” she told him, meanwhile very aware that he had not released her hand.

“Serious? Then listen, Jacelyn, I’m not your father, nor even the squire, to call you to account for your actions. I want us to be friends, not keep coming to cuffs over foolish things. Agreed?”

Jacelyn nodded, though she couldn’t help wonder if he meant she should be as complacent about his behaviour as he seemed prepared to be over hers. What if he meant he’d overlook a huge dog in the drawing room, in exchange for her turning a blind eye to…to a fancy piece in his flat! They didn’t have a real engagement, of course, but even the idea sat like a lead weight in her chest. Many men had mistresses, she knew, yet how could she bear the earl’s ever touching another woman’s hand the way his thumb was stroking hers? Or smile that warm, slightly lopsided grin at someone else? She’d toss her in the Thames, decided Jacelyn, and see how easygoing his lordship was at that foolishness!

“About the ring.” Jacelyn thought it best to change the subject lest she blurt out her intentions. “I don’t understand why you’ve kept all these beautiful pieces in a vault somewhere gathering dust, when you needed money so badly. You could have sold them long ago and reinvested the money in the estates, or whatever, couldn’t you?”

“The diamonds were handed down from countess to countess for centuries, part of the Merrill clan’s history. They weren’t mine to sell.”

“But you can give this one away?”

“Yes,” he told her, squeezing her hand but gesturing around the room with his other. “You see your home, your friends, your father? I wanted to bring you a bit of my heritage, to have you meet the family, so to speak. I wanted the pleasure of making you smile, and I wanted something of mine to be special to you. Do you understand?”

Bien. Bien.

The heavy old coach had new black paint and the Claibourne family crest. It had four hired horses and two hired postillions with weapons. On the box it had Clive, Madame’s old coachman from the Abbey in Durham, and a huge, scraggly dog sitting beside him, to Clive’s disgust. His first trip to London in twelve years, and to arrive looking like a travelling road show.
Pah.
Enough to throw a man off his feed, it was, especially when the beast had enough of feeling the wind in its face and stretched out across the box seat—all across it, so those big cow eyes looked up from Clive’s own lap, and hairs were clinging all over his new uniform. “I wouldna do this for nobbut the young master,” Clive told the animal as he watched the road ahead, where Claibourne led the way on his grey stallion. Clive spat tobacco juice over the side of the coach. “You’re my paying off a debt, belikes, for all them easy years a-driving madam to the village ’n church on Sundays while Master Leigh was off to war. ’Sides, if gettin’ you and young miss to London is going to settle ’is lordship down ’n right things at the Abbey, guess I’d tote a bear up here.”

*

The situation inside the coach was very similar. Mme. Simone would rather have stayed in Stockton-on-Tees than spend another day being jostled across the length of England, but she also dearly wished to see Claibourne happy and the Abbey restored to a semblance of grandeur, if not glory. The little heiress seemed to suit on both counts. In her day the deed would have been done: a scandal, a wedding. Simple, no? Names and funds would already be transferred, and the bride and groom would be left to find love and affection later, inside the marriage, it was to be hoped. But these young English, they wanted it all. Leigh wanted to woo the
fille
and show her a good time in London. His Aunt Simone would do her part.

“So,” she said to her charge when they were finally on their way and silence had lasted long enough. “We go to make you a success, no?”

Jacelyn laughed. “Oh no, Madame, we’re not attempting the impossible, only the improbable, getting the
ton
to accept me.”

“Why should it not? You have the birth, the breeding, I see. My nephew gives his ring. What is to interfere? You have manners, no?”

“Well, not always, Madame!” Jacelyn was looking self-conscious in her new navy wool Spenser and light blue travelling dress. She’d placed her new bonnet on the seat opposite almost reverently, to protect the blue silk flowers which peeped from under the brim. His lordship had called it a lovely cross between innocence and allure. Just like Jacelyn, he’d said, giving her a great deal to think about, beyond how she was going to miss her father and all she held dear. What a confused muddle her emotions were in altogether!

She was sad to leave Treverly, of course, but eager to explore London’s attractions, including the exclusive shops, now that she had a taste of fashion. She was excited over Claibourne’s company, yet anxious that she wouldn’t please him. Mostly Jacelyn was uncertain she
could
remain a lady under such conditions as Mrs. Bottwick and Mrs. Phipps tried to drum into her up to the last minute: A lady never goes anywhere alone, a lady never walks on Bond Street in the morning. A lady may not waltz until approved, may not speak to a man unless introduced, may not—not—not! So many senseless and stupid restrictions, yet the slightest breach of this etiquette would see her sent home in disgrace. His lordship certainly wouldn’t want a wife who was laughed at, no matter what he claimed.