Byron's Child (11 page)

Giles was beside her, elegant in black coat and satin knee-breeches.  “Beautiful,” he murmured. “But then I thought you beautiful in denim jeans.”

Jodie found herself blushing like the veriest ninnyhammer, especially when she remembered that he had also seen her in far less, back in the Waterstock stables.

She thoroughly enjoyed the ball, just the sort of glittering affair she had so often read about. Their hostess greeted them graciously, and Charlotte pointed out several notables Jodie had read of. Among these was a handsome, redheaded gentleman she named as Lord Palmerston.

On seeing him, Jodie plucked at Giles’s sleeve. “Lady Cowper’s his mistress,” she whispered, “or at least they’re very good friends. Her mother, Lady Melbourne, on her deathbed tells Emily to be true to him, and she’ll marry him eventually, when she’s widowed and he’s prime minister.”

“Scandalmonger,” said Giles, amused.

“How many people have a chance to tattle about the future as well as the present? Lady Melbourne herself had any number of lovers. In fact the future Lord Melbourne, who will be prime minister too, is supposed to be Lord Egremont’s son. He’s married to Caro Lamb, the one who fooled around with Byron.”

“I’ve heard of her. She was mad, wasn’t she?”

“Definitely peculiar. She sent Byron clippings of her pubic hair, among other escapades.”

“Good heavens!”

“
Glenarvon
, her roman à clef, will come out this year,” Jodie went on. “It savages both Byron and Lady Melbourne who, by the way, are also ‘very good friends’ though she’s so much older. And Lord Melbourne is Lady Byron’s cousin, into the bargain. I wonder if Byron is here?” She stood on tiptoe and peered around the crowded ballroom. “Talk about an incestuous society. I’m amazed they care two hoots about poor Augusta Leigh.”

“Augusta Leigh?”

“Byron’s half-sister, that he had an affair with. No doubt you’ll be hearing all that gossip as you’re not an innocent young lady and you won’t be dancing.”

“On the contrary. I mean, yes, I have already heard that scandal, and no, I’m not an innocent young lady, but I shall be dancing. I hope you will waltz with me?”

“You took lessons on the sly,” she accused.

“No, it’s just another advantage of an old-fashioned education.”

She smiled, glad that Cassandra had not taught him, and allowed him to swirl her about the floor with unexpected abandon.

Emily was much in demand, not sitting out a single dance, and Thorncrest watched her with a possessive air. Though their betrothal had not been announced, rumours were circulating. Jodie heard more than one matron enviously congratulate Charlotte on her sister-in-law’s splendid catch. The earl had evaded the matchmaking mamas for years.

His complacency did not stop him flirting abominably with Jodie when they stood up together.

Charlotte herself danced once with the earl, once with her husband and once with Giles. Then Roland insisted on her taking her place with the chaperons, where she sat looking a little forlorn. Jodie made a point of returning to her after every set.

“It is our fault, Giles’s and mine, that Roland thinks you are breeding,” she whispered remorsefully.

“Oh no, you must not blame yourself. It was entirely my idea to make such a fuss about the nursery.” She brightened. “I shall see Dr. Croft the day after tomorrow, so I shall be able to dance as much as I wish at the next ball.”

Roland wanted to leave early, but Charlotte refused to spoil Emily’s and Jodie’s enjoyment. The sky was already paling in the east when they drove home after the ball. It seemed to Jodie a bit silly to go to bed. Hyped up, as she put it, she was ready to start a new day. Roland persuaded her that it was simply not done; a lady was supposed to lie abed until noon on the morning after a ball.

~ ~ ~

The morning after that, however, the entire household was astir betimes. Everyone from the viscount to the lowliest scullery maid knew that Dr. Croft was expected—and why.

Charlotte was in a flutter. She scandalized Roland by asking Jodie to be present during the doctor’s examination.

“Cousin Judith is unmarried,” he pointed out.

“Yes, but she is older than I and…and besides, Red Indians understand these things,” Charlotte invented wildly, her bottom lip quivering and tears swimming in her blue eyes.

Her husband was not proof against this appeal. “I thought you had asked your sister to come,” he said plaintively. “Since you did not…if Cousin Judith does not object?”

“Not at all.” Jodie was more than willing to lend Charlotte her support. Besides, after reading about the incompetent doctors who mistreated Ada Byron’s various illnesses with vast quantities of laudanum, she was both curious and anxious to add a note of sanity to the proceedings if necessary.

Dr. Richard Croft, the eminent accoucheur, had a bedside manner that explained his popularity with the ladies of Society, guaranteed to put the most nervous patient at ease. What the world had gained in medicine by the end of the twentieth century, Jodie reflected, it had lost in kindliness. The doctor put a number of questions to Charlotte in a paternal tone, and by the time he asked if she would object to removing the upper part of her clothing, she was quite composed.

She clung to Jodie’s hand while Dr. Croft gently examined her breasts. Jodie expected him to do a pelvic exam, but never having been pregnant herself she was not sure if it was necessary, so did not make an issue of it. Besides, the notion might have sent Charlotte into hysterics.

“My lady,” he said with a smile, “I am happy to inform you that you are approximately six weeks pregnant.”

Charlotte gaped at him. “But I cannot be! I mean, I …the…”

“Her period,” Jodie came to the rescue. “Menstruation.”

“The menses do occasionally continue for a month or two after conception. You mentioned, ma’am, that it was a light flow. It is nothing to be concerned about, though I advise you to avoid exertion for the next two or three weeks. If the bleeding should recur, call me in. Otherwise, you are a healthy young woman, I foresee no difficulties. No horseback riding, if you please, and limit yourself to two or three dances at a ball. I shall be happy to attend your lying-in if you wish, but any competent midwife should do as well.  Good day, ma’am.” With a bow to Charlotte and a nod for Jodie, the doctor departed.

Jodie and Charlotte looked at each other.

“Roland was right after all.” Charlotte giggled.

“In every way,” Jodie agreed, grinning.

They both collapsed in gales of mirth.

In the midst of her laughter, Jodie recalled what she had read about Dr. Richard Croft—or rather, Sir Richard Croft. It must be the same man; doubtless he would soon be knighted or inherit a baronetcy. Next year he would be Princess Charlotte’s obstetrician. The heir to the throne would die in childbirth, and the doctor, blamed by the public though not by the royal family, would commit suicide a few months later.

Reminded of the primitive state of medicine, Jodie sobered. There was no guarantee that kind, practical Charlotte was to be the mother of the next Viscount Faringdale, even though Roland was Giles’s ancestor. If she suffered her royal namesake’s fate, Roland would simply marry again and have children by his second wife.

Charlotte had stopped laughing and was looking questioningly at Jodie. Fortunately at that moment Roland and Emily came in, saving Jodie from the need to explain her sudden gravity.

A partial knowledge of the future was definitely a mixed blessing.

~ ~ ~

Later that day, vouchers arrived from Lady Cowper for the Almack’s assembly the following week. Jodie had passed the test and been judged unexceptionable.

“But not unexceptional,” Emily teased her. “No one could possibly be more exceptional than you are.”

Charlotte readily promised Roland that she would not dance at Almack’s, nor at Mrs. Carpenter’s ball two days later. Since discovering that she really was pregnant, she had attained a serenity that Jodie admired and envied. She accepted Roland’s sometimes irritating solicitude with a patient good-humour much better suited to her character than the guilt she had felt before. Nor did she repine at being unable to dance; the baby was far too precious to risk.

To Jodie, Almack’s was an illustration come to life. All that she had read about it, the pictures she had seen, were suddenly infused with light and sound and movement. In the receiving line, Mrs. Drummond-Burrell nodded haughtily while next to her Lady Jersey, popularly known as Silence, chattered with the expected vivacity. Gentlemen in knee-breeches and ringletted ladies hopped and skipped their way through a country dance to a lively tune from the musicians in the gallery above. The odour of wax candles burning in the great chandeliers vied with a hundred expensive perfumes.

And it was hot. After a couple of sets, Jodie was glad to retreat to the less crowded supper room with Lord Thorncrest, though the refreshments were notoriously stingy.

“What do you think of Society’s Mecca, Miss Judith?” he enquired, presenting her with a glass of orgeat. “You have nothing similar in America, I daresay?”

She sipped cautiously at the sweet drink. “I believe New York society is very exclusive.” She was getting good at avoiding questions about her homeland. “It is interesting, but on the whole I prefer a private ball or even an informal dance. I keep feeling Countess Lieven’s eyes on me, waiting for me to do something wrong and damn myself forever.”

The earl’s eyebrow quirked at her use of a word reserved for masculine lips but he said only, “Very true. An informal gathering of friends must certainly be preferable to a crowd  of strangers of who-knows-what provenance.” He gazed around the room with a look of disdain that deserved a quizzing glass, then his face brightened as two plainly but perfectly-clad gentlemen came through from the ballroom. “Ah, there are George and Scrope. May I present Mr. Brummel and Mr. Davies to you, Miss Judith?”

Fascinated, she nodded her assent and he waved to the pair. Beau Brummel and Scrope Berdmore Davies, the founder of the dandy set and one of its leaders. What a scoop!

Brummel looked unwell, and his legendary witty repartee was sadly lacking. Jodie remembered, pityingly, that he was deep in the River Tick and in a month or two would flee to France, pursued by creditors. Davies had a similar fate in store some years hence. In the meantime, as one of Byron’s closest friends, he would accompany the poet to Dover on his way into exile.

How many others of the bright, laughing company were living on borrowed time? How many were living by their wits, like Brummel and Davies, or gambling away inherited fortunes; how many were pursuing rich husbands for aristocratic but impoverished maidens, or rich wives to keep younger sons from debtors’ prison; and how many, like Roland and Thorncrest, were simply seeking to unite two wealthy families to the aggrandizement of both?

Not for nothing was Almack’s known as the Marriage Mart: its chief purpose was to sell the daughters of the nobility to the highest bidder. The glittering gaiety suddenly appeared artificial to Jodie, as she curtsied and gracefully accepted the Beau’s invitation to dance.

~ ~ ~

Mrs. Carpenter’s ball set the seal on Jodie’s dissatisfaction. Dancing the nights away was all very well but London provided a hundred other amusements, and she was missing them.

With his rakish reputation, Lord Thorncrest undoubtedly was familiar with the places she wanted to visit.

“Will you take me to the Royal Saloon?” she asked the earl as they stood awaiting their turn to swing up the set.

“The Royal Saloon? Lord, no. You cannot know what you are asking.”

“I know perfectly well. I want to see it.”

“Miss Judith, I have grown accustomed to your occasional lack of decorum, but be assured that to be seen in such a place would put you beyond the pale. Do not look to me to take you anywhere so disreputable,” he paused, “at least while you share a roof with my betrothed.”

Jodie did not care for the gleam in his eye as he added that qualification.

At the end of the dance, she found herself near Emily and abandoned the earl without a backward glance. “Your fiancé is absolutely maddening,” she fumed.

“Fiancé? Affianced? You mean Thorncrest?”

“Is ‘fiancé’ not anglicized yet? Yes, Thorncrest.”

“What has he done?” Emily enquired. “I must say that I am quite out of temper with him, too. At supper I asked him about the Corn Laws and listened to his opinion. I have very strong views on the Corn Laws, but when I attempted to express them, he simply patted my hand and told me not to worry my pretty little head. I wanted to kick him under the table but in these thin slippers I should only have bruised my toes.”

“Let’s go home,” Jodie proposed. “I want to speak to Giles before he retires for the night. I daresay Charlotte will be glad to leave.”

They made their way to where Charlotte was sitting. Roland was beside her, having forsaken the card room to keep her company. In his presence they could not explain that they wanted to depart because they were annoyed with the earl.

“Charlotte dear, you look unwell,” Emily improvised.

“Not unwell, merely a little tired,” Jodie contradicted, seeing Roland’s alarm. “It would be unconscionable of us to keep you from your rest. We shall not repine at leaving early, shall we, Emily?”

“Oh no, indeed I am a little fatigued myself.”

With a disbelieving look, Charlotte collected her fan and her reticule. They took their leave of their hostess and drove home to Grosvenor Street.

As the carriage pulled up in front of the house, Jodie was glad to see a light in the window of the book room. It seemed a long time since she had had a proper talk with Giles, but if he acceded to her proposal she would be seeing a lot more of him.

Chapter Ten

Giles looked up as Jodie came into the room. In her ball gown, the sheen of silk glimmering gold in the lamplight, she was a vision of loveliness. All the same, he couldn’t help remembering the glimpse of her scantily-clad body he had had in the Waterstock stables. It seemed like years ago.

He put down his pen and smiled at her as she rustled towards him.