Elizabeth Kidd

MY LADY MISCHIEF

Elisabeth Kidd

Chapter 1

“Oh, dear,” said Lady Kedrington with a long-suffering sigh. “Carey has got himself betrothed—again.”

Her husband, who had chosen just that moment to come up behind her and begin nibbling lightly at the alabaster expanse of skin sweeping from Antonia’s neck into the low décolletage of her evening gown, paid no attention to this announcement of the latest familial crisis. He and Antonia’s brother had been through too many campaigns together for him to worry about Carey’s surviving this one.

“Duncan!” Antonia exclaimed as his hands came around her waist and began moving gently upwards. But her mind was otherwhere than on his caresses, and as she made no further attempt to stop him, Viscount Kedrington continued his exploration of the velvet zone beneath her cheekbone.

“Hmmm?” he murmured, deep in contemplation.

She turned slightly in his arms and waved Carey’s letter at him. “He wants to marry Elena Melville.”

“What? The Greek statue?”

That gave even his lordship pause. He removed one hand from his wife’s waist and took the letter from her. “Did he soften her, or did she flatten him?”

“Don’t be vulgar. I’m sure she is a perfectly delightful girl—underneath.”

He laughed. “I am prepared to concede her hidden depths, my love, and I confess that I would be interested to hear the tale of this courtship—but you must concede that her reputation is not such to give one to hope for another Antonia Fairfax.”

It was true that Elena Melville was known among the
ton
more for her cool disposition than her warm Mediterranean features—her raven hair, olive complexion, and large, melancholy dark eyes being sadly out of fashion. Her fortune had attracted numerous suitors who—at least until now—could not in the end weather her unspoken disdain. Lady Kedrington’s golden hair and wide blue eyes were much more à la mode and her warm nature much more universally appealing, but Antonia was very thoroughly married, as all her would-be cicisbeos constantly regretted.

Indeed, Kedrington thought, watching his wife put the finishing touches on her toilette, Antonia was even lovelier now than when they were married two years before—and it was not only her doting husband who said so. But he alone was aware that of late she had been subject to a restlessness which he could only attribute to the continued lack of a child to complete their happiness. There was time enough for that, he knew, although he did not attempt to convince her of it. He had learned not to raise the subject, for she would only make a joke of it—and then turn away to conceal the hurt in her eyes. Instead, he strove to fill her time with travel and amusements, and to spoil her with numerous servants and extravagant gifts until the day that the magic should, without her realizing it, happen.

Meanwhile, they continued on their social round, each of them pretending there was not even that one tiny cloud on their horizon. The Kedringtons were not only the most popular hosts, but also the most sought-after guests in London, for any hostess could count on their being charming to the most tiresome obligatory relation and enlivening any evening that threatened to languish, even if their notions of amusement were often unorthodox and occasionally even scandalous. The
ton
remembered afterward only that the event had been a success.

The occasion immediately before them was a reception given by Sir John and Lady Drummond in honor of Thomas Bruce, Lord Elgin—or more precisely, in honor of his lordship’s infamous collection of antiquities emancipated from the Acropolis in Athens when Elgin was posted there as ambassador to the Ottoman Porte.

The Act of Parliament transferring ownership of the so-called “Elgin marbles” to the nation had been passed only the week before, so the Drummonds were well to the front of the pack in making use of them as the excuse for yet another
ton
party. Sir John had been a member of Parliament for twenty years, long enough to insinuate himself into the inner circles of both houses of that institution and thus be privy to even the most incidental news before it became public—hence the invitation which arrived at the Kedringtons’ Brook Street mansion on the very morning that the Times announced passage of the bill.

“Will Lord Elgin actually put in an appearance?” Lady Kedrington asked her husband an hour later, as they waited in their carriage in the parade of vehicles disgorging guests at the entrance to the Drummond mansion on Cavendish Square. “I was under the impression that there is no political love lost between Lord Elgin and Sir John.”

“Sir John is that singular combination—a shrewd politician and an astute patron of the arts. Even had he disagreed with Elgin’s behavior as ambassador, he would have voted for the purchase of the marbles only to keep them in the country. In any case, he would not be so rash as to let politics intrude on a social occasion—particularly one which will win him praise for being a good fellow.”

“Which means,” Antonia concluded,” that Lord Elgin
will
attend so as not to be seen to be any less gracious to the honorable opposition.”

“Well put, my love. You are beginning to understand politics after all.”

“Enough to know that I am glad you never went in for it.”

“Do you think I should have?”

“I don’t think you
could
have. You may be secretive, but you are not devious.”

“Thank you. I think.”

“It
was
meant as a compliment.”

“Very well, and you may accept my compliments on your political astuteness.”

“But…?” Antonia prodded, knowing there was more to come.

His lordship smiled and began ticking buts off on his fingers. “First, Elgin no longer sits in the Lords. Second, he has recently endured lengthy and sordid divorce proceedings which have done nothing to alleviate the dire financial situation he contracted in the service of his nation. Third, and finally, he suffers from a physical disfigurement—likewise contracted in his country’s service—which precludes his even walking about in public without being recognized. In short, he
won’t
come.”

Antonia, suspecting another reason behind this catalogue of Elgin’s trials, glared at her husband. “Do not attempt to play on my sympathy for his lordship’s misfortunes, Duncan, believing it will change my mind about the marbles. I am sorry for him, but as ambassador, I consider him to have been acting in his nation’s behalf, which makes the rest of us as liable for his actions as he is—and I resent being made a party to the affair.”

The national debate over the marbles had settled into the Kedrington household as a permanent topic of conversation, but when her ladyship touched on that particular theme, the viscount generally considered it politic to end the discussion. He now lapsed into silence, and after several moments remarked only, “Did Carey say when he would deign to call and introduce the Greek statue to his family?”

“Momentarily, according to his letter—although as usual he was annoyingly unspecific. And you are being evasive.”

“Better than devious.”

Antonia laid her head back on the squabs and plied her fan languidly. “June is too sultry for subtleties,” she observed with a sigh. “I expect we are in for another spell of wet weather. Where do you suppose Carey could have met Miss Melville?”

“Perhaps he’s reformed his behavior and been allowed back into polite society and near places of public accommodation,” Kedrington remarked. “We can go to Brighton if you like.”

“No, I think not,” Antonia said vaguely, referring, he assumed, to Brighton. Their private conversation tended to be laced with non sequiturs and obscure references that generally made perfect sense to both of them, but when one’s mind wandered, the point tended to do so as well.

Kedrington feared that he sometimes guessed wrongly about what Antonia was thinking, although she had never given him any indication that he was not living up to her fondest expectations of the married state. He wished he could make her perfectly happy, but knew that after two years, he was still feeling his way very cautiously toward that goal.

A moment later, they were let down at the Drummonds’ front door, and Antonia came back to life. She always enjoyed parties, and although Sir John and Lady Drummond were not what she would ever consider intimate friends, they had a spacious, elegant house and did not pinch pennies where food and drink were concerned.

“Oh, dear,” she said, when they had been announced, and she surveyed the crowded room with delighted anticipation. “Where do we begin?”

Kedrington followed her glance, nodding his head at several acquaintances but resisting tacit invitations to join their various circles. From his superior height, he spotted a waiter bearing a tray of champagne glasses and steered Antonia in that direction, deftly lifting four glasses off the tray with his two hands as they passed the bemused waiter and offering two to her.

“This should smooth our passage into society.”

In unison, they drank one glass of wine each, returned the empty goblets to the waiter, then sought out their hosts.

Lady Drummond was a tall, handsome woman with impeccable social address but not an ounce of humor in her make-up. For this reason, Antonia admired her but did not like her, as she was herself unable to maintain a conversation for more than a few minutes without making a joke. And while she did not require that people laugh at her jokes, she did expect them to understand that what she had said was in fact meant in jest.

Lady Drummond had, however, mastered the exercise of moving her lips into a smile, and she performed this maneuver smoothly when Antonia greeted her and thanked her prettily for the honor of her invitation. Lady Drummond remarked no irony in this speech, and her smile warmed notably when she extended her hand to Kedrington.

“My lord, I am pleased to see you,” she said, almost flirtatiously.

Disregarding his wife’s quizzical glance, Kedrington bowed over the gloved hand extended to him and raised it fleetingly to his lips. “The pleasure is ours, Lady Drummond. You have a goodly crowd, I see.”

Sir John laughed at that and said, “You need not say that as if this were intended to be a political rally, Kedrington. I assure you, our only motives this evening are to celebrate the glories of our new national treasure.”

“Why, how stupid of me,” Antonia said guilelessly, “I thought they were
Greek
national treasures.”

“You must forgive my wife, Sir John,” Kedrington said. “She is firmly planted in the anti-Elgin faction—which may perhaps be the first time she finds herself on the same side of any argument as Lord Byron.”

“Ah, yes,” offered Lady Drummond. “’The Curse of Minerva.’ Such a melodramatic poem…and so much scenery to endure before one finds the explanation of the title. It is full of allegory, of course.”

“Like the banks of the Nile,” Kedrington murmured so that only Antonia could hear, but she pretended not to.

“I am
not
in the Byron faction,” she said, making her stand on political rather than literary ground. “I am perfectly aware that had Lord Elgin not removed the marbles from the Parthenon, the French would likely have done so had the Turks not carried them off first to pound into plaster. Nevertheless, we ought to have tried harder to persuade the Greeks to protect their own statues—or bribed them to do so, since Lord Elgin did not scruple to display his blunt.”

This snippet of vulgar cant caused Lady Drummond to raise her brows, but as Antonia went blithely on voicing her opinion that the marbles ought never to have been moved from their natural setting, her hostess’s silent admonition went unheeded.

“There was nothing natural about it,” Lady Kedrington’s husband pointed out. “They were man-made objects in a man-made edifice, not trees in a forest.”

“You will forgive my mentioning it, Lady Kedrington,” said Sir John, vastly amused by her passion, “but the Greeks had very little to say to the matter. And their Turkish rulers appear to have little regard for art.”

“May we hope that Lord Elgin will put in an appearance tonight?” Kedrington asked, steering the conversation into waters which, if not calmer, might at least prove less deep.

“He sent his regrets,” Lady Drummond said, a little tartly, as if miffed that her invitation did not bring the savior of Greece—or the plunderer of the Parthenon, according to one’s lights—running to show his gratitude for her patronage. “Lord Aberdeen, one of his staunchest allies, is here,
and
”—her ladyship finished triumphantly—“Sir Thomas Lawrence will join us for a cold supper later. Indeed, if you will forgive me for a moment, I shall go and see that the punch is well iced.”

With that, Lady Drummond sailed majestically away, remarking in her wake that the Kedringtons must not fail to view the marbles in the upstairs salon.

“Good heavens,” Antonia exclaimed. “Surely you do not have any of the actual pieces here?”

“Certainly not in the upstairs salon,” said Sir John. “We should scarcely have been able to drag one of them into the hall without widening the door. No—what we have are some very fine drawings which I commissioned from a young artist friend of mine. He took them from the original pieces while they were still in Elgin’s house in Park Lane. Mr. Metaxis is a talented young man, if somewhat overheated on occasion. Only to be expected of a Greek, I daresay, in the presence of his—er, patrimony.”