Bath Scandal (5 page)

“I’m going,” Southam said. When he spoke in that final way, argument was futile.

Deborah tucked in her chin and said, “Very well, if you insist. I trust you will be back by Saturday?”

“That would only leave me one day there.”

“How long does it take to have a chat with Gillie and reassure yourself that all is well? We are promised to dinner at the Comstocks’ on Saturday evening.”

“I shall send in my excuse. I should be back late Monday.” Deborah’s embroidery frame twitched in angry silence. Southam liked her least in this mood of self-righteous indignation. She had a way of pinching her nose and lips that always reminded him of a mare pulling her ears back. “Or perhaps Tuesday,” he said.

Deborah’s needle punched into the canvas with vehemence. She had learned by experience that when Southam was in this mood, rational discussion soon degenerated into a squabble. She did not squabble.

As Southam meant to leave on the morrow, there was no point writing to inform Mrs. Searle of his coming. He felt it was as well to pop in without warning and see exactly how things were going on.
 

As he drove through the countryside, with spring burgeoning on every side, he felt impatience with Deborah’s foot-dragging about their marriage. Damme, he was five-and-thirty years old. If he meant to have any enjoyment from his family, he should be starting his nursery. Still, he could hardly blame Deborah for not wanting to take on Gillie. The girl was hot at hand and ill-mannered. She could make Deb’s life a hell. Some animosity had sprung up between them from the very beginning.

Fortunately Mrs. Searle had no complaints about managing Gillie. As he considered it, he had to wonder why. Was the woman so lax that she let Gillie do as she wanted? Was she taking proper precautions for Gillie’s welfare? All his own fault, of course. He should not have sent Gillie to her. He had thought any friend of Deborah’s must be well-bred and cautious. Deb’s hint that the woman was conniving for a free Season in London didn’t make her sound like the sort of person he wanted Gillie to be with. If he didn’t like the look of things, he’d bundle Gillie up and take her home. Wouldn’t Deborah love that!

What was he to do with Gillie? The more he thought about it, the less he liked the idea of her marrying Stuyvesant. She might never find a husband, and Deborah would not marry him till she was out of the house. Women!

When he reached Bath, he was relieved to see that at least Mrs. Searle lived in style, in a fine brick house on Saint Andrew’s Terrace. He arrived late in the afternoon, but the lights in the saloon told him Mrs. Searle was at home. As he approached the door, he heard music. Odd she should be having a rout in the afternoon! It was not concert music, but the strains of a waltz, on piano, cello, and violin. A quick peek in at the saloon window showed heads and bodies moving about. Demmed odd! The word
ramshackle
came to mind, and when he lifted the knocker, he banged it rather hard.

The worries of his life made a scowl a familiar expression on his saturnine face. It was firmly in place when the butler opened the door.

“Lord Southam to see Mrs. Searle,” he said.

The name was known to the butler. “I shall call madam. She is busy with a party at the moment, but she will be happy to see you,” he said, and ushered Lord Southam into a small parlor to wait.

Bea felt a surge of excitement when she was given the message. “Lord Southam! And he didn’t even let me know he was coming!” she exclaimed. Her pleasure was tinged with vexation as she hurried off to meet him.

She found him pacing the small parlor with his scowl firmly fixed in place. He removed it to greet her, but she was aware of a coolness in him. Bea’s sense of ill-usage by Southam, which had dwindled over the weeks, was reactivated. Instead of warm greetings and loud thanks, she received a brief bow and a curt “Good afternoon, Mrs. Searle. I hope I am not come at an awkward moment. I had not thought to find you hostess to a ball so early in the day.”

He noticed she was wearing an evening gown at four o’clock in the afternoon. A handsome gown, to be sure, of some gold-and-bronze material that shimmered when she moved. It was cut low enough in front to give a tantalizing glimpse of incipient bosoms. Good God! What did she wear in the evening, if this was her idea of an afternoon gown? Her face, though, was just as he remembered. She had hardly changed at all.

“No ball, Lord Southam, but a dancing lesson.” So that was the cause of his stiff expression! He mistook the waltzing lesson for a wild, abandoned party.

One crow-black brow lifted in question. “A waltzing lesson, to judge by the music? At home we do not allow Gillie to waltz. She should have told you so.” His tone suggested, “You should have known better.”

“She did tell me so. As she is considered ripe for marriage, however, I do not see that a waltz is too risqué for her. And when she goes up to London—” She stopped and waited for his response to this venture. “You
did
receive my letter about giving Gillie a Season?”

“That is why I am here.”

Their initial conversation was held standing up. “As you have come fifty-odd miles to discuss it, perhaps you would like to sit down,” she said, taking a seat on the sofa.

Southam sat on the chair facing it. “I fear I cannot go along with your scheme. I have no relative who is in a position to sponsor her.” As he spoke, he continued to examine Mrs. Searle’s toilet in a manner that annoyed her. It was early for evening clothes, of course, but it was her house, and he was here uninvited. She owed him no explanations.

“I wondered if that was why you had not planned to present her. I shall be going to London myself. I would be willing—”

He heard the echoes of Deborah’s warnings and spoke firmly. “I’m afraid not, Mrs. Searle. My house hasn’t been open for three years. It would hardly—”

“I did not mean in your house,” she interjected swiftly. “Leonard’s aunt lives in a more than respectable way. As it is your aim to get Gillie married as quickly—and one presumes as advantageously—as possible, London is surely the place for it.”

He was somewhat mollified to hear her plan. “You are very kind, but my hope was only that you smarten her up a little.” Again his eyes moved over her low-cut gown and the necklace of topaz and diamonds at her throat. “A little,” he repeated, frowning.

“But to what end, if not to finding a husband?”

Left with nothing sensible to say, he resorted to the old plan of catching Stuyvesant. “There is a chap at home. . . .”

“Lord Stuyvesant? Gillie detests the man.”

“She is young.”

“Old enough to know what she likes and does not like!” she retorted sharply. How different this meeting was from what she had originally imagined it would be. How had she ever thought Southam was anything like Leonard? He was a prig. He and Deborah would get along just fine.

“May I see her?” he asked, to forestall further discussion on this tender point.

“Yes, certainly, she will be eager to see you. I hear the music has stopped.” He followed her to the saloon, where the furniture had been rearranged to make room for six couples.

Glancing around at the youngsters, he found them no worse than he was accustomed to at Alderton. He soon spotted Gillie, and stared in disbelief. It was hard to believe that this fashionable creature was his Gillie. Her wild hair had been trimmed into fashionable curls. She wore a smile such as he had not seen since his betrothal to Deborah. Soon his eyes fell lower, and he discerned her gown. It was cut lower than he liked for his little sister, though to be fair, no lower than the other young ladies were wearing.

The party were invited to dinner at Mrs. Carrington’s after the waltzing lesson, from whence they were to go directly to the Assembly Rooms, properly chaperoned by two of the mothers and Mrs. Searle. This arrangement made it necessary for them to wear their evening clothes to the waltzing party.

Gillie rushed forward and threw her arms around Southam’s neck in a girlish display of welcome. “Rawl, I didn’t know you were coming! Why didn’t you write me? How are Effie and Alice, and Abe and Elmer?”

“They are all fine, and missing you very much. Deborah sends her regards,” he added. Deborah would have sent her regards if she had not left Elmland in a huff. Her manners, honed amid royalty, had not lost their edge.

Gillie ignored this statement and went on to inquire after the various bloods in her brother’s stable. Bea spoke to the musicians and arranged a ten-minute intermission, to allow Southam a few words with his sister. She introduced some of the chaperons to him. She wanted to bring the duke forward as well, but he demurred.

“I’d only step on him or trip. I’ll meet him later,” he said humbly, and moved back against the wall to study Southam in silence. Southam was even more fearsome than he had anticipated. The sort of chap who never dropped anything, who talked loud among men, and always knew what to say, even to ladies.

At the end of ten minutes, Bea joined Southam and Gillie. “Our dancers are becoming impatient,” she said. “Let us find a seat, Lord Southam. I’ll tell you what Gillie and I have been doing.”

“I’ll stay with you,” Gillie said eagerly.

“Now, my dear, you know we have two extra gentlemen, so that you ladies will all be in high demand. It would be unfair of you to deplete the ranks of ladies by even one.”

Southam waited for Gillie’s objection. “I expect you’re right,” she said with a smile. “Besides, I promised Tannie the next waltz.” She looked around for him.

He came loping forward at an awkward stride. When Southam spotted him, a frown drew his brows together. He said, “So this is the Tannie you have been writing me about, Gillie. I am afraid I cannot say much for your taste.”

Beatrice sat, listening and watching. She had purposely withheld any mention of the duke when she wrote to Southam. She did not wish to raise hopes she could not fulfill. Her curiosity was high to discover whether Southam was aware of Tannie’s social position. She judged from that disparaging tone that he was not.

“He has wonderful nags, Rawl,” Gillie confided. “We go riding every day, and he lets me drive his curricle, too, but only in the countryside.”

Southam directed a sharp look at Mrs. Searle. “Every day!”

Before Bea could reply, the duke reached his quarry and made a clumsy bow in Southam’s direction, while reaching out his hand to Gillie. “Our dance, I believe,” he said.

“I don’t have the pleasure of your new friend’s acquaintance, Gillie,” Southam said. His voice was tense with displeasure. The raking gaze he bestowed on Tannie reduced the recipient to charred cinders.

“This is Tannie. I told you about him,” Gillie said, in her offhand way. “Tannie, this is my brother, Lord Southam.”

“Very pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” Tannie mumbled, and blushed.

“And
still
I do not have your friend’s last name,” Southam pointed out.

Gillie frowned a moment in perplexity. “I don’t actually know it.” Southam’s mouth fell open. She turned to the duke and asked, “Would it be Evendon, like your Uncle Horatio?”

“That’s right. Tannie’s short for Tanford—my mama’s maiden name,” the duke explained.

Southam’s face was as transparent as glass. Bea saw him search his mind to identify the name. The present duchess sprang from an undistinguished family and was noble only by virtue of her marriage. The name Tanford, from Northumberland, was obviously unknown to him, for his expression stiffened to hauteur as he raked the duke in a cold glance from head to toe. “Gillie, I think you and I—”

Bea jumped in to forestall offending this prime
parti.
“Perhaps you were acquainted with Tannie’s papa, Lord Southam,” she said hastily. “The late Duke of Cleremont, and this, of course, is the present duke.”

She watched as Southam blinked in astonishment, and his frozen features congealed to a delighted smile. “Ah, the Duke of Cleremont! Yes, indeed. I knew your papa well. I have a mount from his stable. And the duchess—I did not recognize her maiden name.”

“Black Lady,” the duke said. “The horse, I mean. Tanford was Mama’s family name.”

“Just so, from Northumberland.”

“May we go now? The squares are forming,” Tannie pointed out.

“Certainly! You youngsters run along. Enjoy yourselves. We must have a chat later, Duke,” he called after their fleeing forms. The duke and Gillie scuttled off like a pair of miscreants.

Bea gave Southam a mocking smile and said, “The duke is a dear boy. Why did you frighten him with those black scowls, when I have been at such pains to make him comfortable here? He is an excellent
parti,
Southam, despite his creased jacket. Much better than Lord Stuyvesant.”

He shook his head in confusion. “One would never guess it to look at him. He has all the countenance of a junior clerk at Whitehall. So that is old Cleremont’s heir. Yes, a prime
parti.
What do you suppose he sees in little Gillie?”

“A lonesome youngster, like himself,” she replied.

“Gillie lonesome? My house is full of people. She has her sisters and me, and Deborah.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Searle said, but she did not rescind her first statement. “You must be feeling peckish after your trip, Lord Southam. Would you care for some mutton?”

“I shan’t disturb you at this busy time. I’ll run along to the inn. May I return later?”

“I would ask you to dinner, but we are dining out this evening. A few of my friends and I have arranged to take these young ladies to the Upper Rooms after dinner. I wanted Gillie to have some girlfriends, as well as beaux.”

“That was very kind of you. I did wonder, when you were dressed for evening so early in the afternoon.”

“I noticed your remark about a ball,” she reminded him with a cool look but one not devoid of laughter.

Lord Southam looked younger and much more handsome when he smiled. “I did put my foot in it, did I not? I had to wonder at your wearing such a charming gown so early in the day. It is the business of our not being very well acquainted that accounts for my confusion.”

“I wondered at your choosing me for the honor of chaperoning Gillie,” she said frankly. The speech, in its polite way, demanded an explanation.