Elizabeth Mansfield (7 page)

"No mischief at all. A certain lady suggested an assignation. Is there anything wrong with that?"

"I haven't enough information to tell. What lady?"
 

"Only the prettiest lady in the house. In the whole county, if I'm a judge."

Harry's brows knit. "You've an 'assignation' with Deirdre?"

This took Benjy by surprise. "Do you find Deirdre the prettiest?"

"Yes, of course. Don't you?"

"No, I don't. Deirdre is lovely, I grant, but my lady puts her in the shade."

Harry suddenly gasped. "Good God! You're not thinking of... dash it, Benjy, are you saying you've an assignation with
Kate Rendell?"

"Well, you needn't look at me as if I planned to grapple her under the stairs!" Benjy said in annoyance. "It's only an appointment for a game of cards."

"Of course," Harry said, feeling foolish. "I suspected as much. Grapple her under the stairs, indeed!"

"I wouldn't grapple a housemaid under the stairs, much less someone like Kate," the boy muttered, throwing himself on his bed in disgust.

"Alright, enough!" his brother said, laughing and tossing a pillow at him. "Go on your 'assignation' with Kate, with my blessing."

"I don't need your blasted blessing," Benjy said.

Harry sat down on his bed and began to pull off his boots. "You have it anyway," he replied mildly. "I'm glad she's managed to cheer you up."

"So am I." Benjy sat up and looked over at his brother. "Did you see how she had me escort her into dinner?"
 

"Yes, I did."

Benjy sank back against his pillow. "She likes me," he said, a beatific smile lighting his face.

I wish she liked me,
his brother thought, yanking off his second boot. Aloud, he only said, "In the game of love, old man, appearances are deceiving."

Some minutes later, when Harry was under his covers and the candle blown out, Benjy's voice came to him in the darkness. "Seriously, Harry, don't you think Kate is
something like?"

"Yes, I do," he answered. "She is certainly something like!"

ELEVEN

Benjy was waiting for Kate in the library at the appointed time the next morning. It was a good while after the gentlemen had left for their shooting expedition but before any of the ladies had come down to breakfast. Benjy, bright-eyed and eager, had already set up the card table, so Kate, wasting no time with greetings, sat down and began to play. By the time most of the ladies had come down, Kate had lost all her coins and was forced to write vowels. Benjy was evidently as wizard at ecarte as he claimed to be at loo.

At mid-morning Deirdre discovered them and asked to watch the play. "Now that there are three of us," Benjy suggested eagerly, "we can play copper loo."

'*Oh, no, indeed," Deirdre objected. "You're just a boy! Much too young for such gambling games."

Benjy didn't argue but merely dealt the cards for another round of ecarte with Kate, which, with a bravura show of expertise, he quickly won. After she paid up, Kate looked up at Deirdre with a twinkle. "Do sit down for copper loo, my love. I think he's old enough now."

Both the ladies were no match for Benjy, who quickly amassed a sizeable pile of pennies from Deirdre and more notes from Kate. "You, my boy, will grow up to be a cardsharper," Kate teased as she signed another note.

By noon, a heavy rain was falling. The hunters, wet and disgruntled, were forced to give up their sport and come home. After they dried off, the older gentlemen went to the billiard room, but Harry and Leonard went looking for the young ladies. The sounds of voices led them to the library, where they were eagerly welcomed and encouraged to join in the game. Before long, the sound of loud laughter echoed through the room. Kate noticed that Harry's quips kept everyone in high spirits. Benjy, his eyes sparkling, seemed to have forgotten his injury. Deirdre giggled girlishly over every witticism. Leonard chortled as loudly over a good joke as he did over a good hand. It was, Kate thought, as pleasant a way to spend a rainy afternoon as any.

But the cheerful feeling was not destined to last. When Deirdre failed to get a trick, Leonard counted up the pool and announced that she owed a shilling and four pence. "No," Kate pointed out, "she owes only sixpence."

"Not by the rules I know," Leonard argued. "According to them, you must pay the sum of the pool."

"The rules we've been using require paying only the price of the deal," Kate insisted.

"I'm perfectly willing to abide by Leonard's rules," Deirdre offered cheerfully, reaching for her small pile of coins.

"But we're not," Kate said. "We've been playing with these rules all morning."

"But," Leonard objected, "they're children's rules."

Kate's eyebrows rose in disdain. "Yours, sir, sound like gamesters' rules."

"I suggest," Harry said to Leonard in a tone of playful warning, "that you surrender and accept Miss Rendell's rules. To insist on yours will only waste time. She's too strong-minded ever to give in."

With Benjy agreeing with a loud "Hear, hear!" and Deirdre putting a restraining hand on her lover's arm, Leonard shrugged in surrender, and the game proceeded with no further argument.

But Kate's mood was decidedly deflated. Her mind kept going over the little exchange.
Too strong-minded ever to give in
—those were Harry's exact words. Though they'd been spoken in support of her position, they could not be interpreted as nattering. They were, in fact, rather hurtful. To call someone strong-minded was not necessarily an insult, she supposed, but being described as
too
strong-minded could certainly be considered so. It was akin to being called arrogant. It was that possibility that cut her to the quick. Was she truly as arrogant as he seemed to believe? And if she were not, would it matter to his way of thinking? It seemed to her that Harry would forever think of her that way.

He seemed bent on interpreting everything she said and did in that light. And having a kissable mouth apparently made no difference to him at all.

With her cheerful mood thus destroyed, she decided she'd had enough of cards. She excused herself as soon as she could politely do so and went in search of her mother.

She found her mother in the small sitting room. Astonishingly, Mama did not have her embroidery with her. Instead, she was engaged in a seemingly flirtatious conversation with Sir Edward. Kate was taken aback. What was going on here?

She backed out of the room silently. She wanted to remain unnoticed. If Mama was indeed involved in a flirtation, Kate had no wish to interfere. In fact, she wanted to dance about the room in glee. This was just what she'd been hoping for—that Mama would find an admirer. For far too long, Isabel Rendell had occupied her days with nothing more than her everlasting embroidery. If the attentions of a gentleman, even so old-fashioned a specimen as Sir Edward Tyndale, would enliven her—even if only enough to make her forget her needlework—Kate would be the last to discourage the arrangement. And if something more should come of it, so much the better.

Out in the corridor, she wondered what to do next. She could, of course, select a book from the library and spend the afternoon reading, but the card players were there, and she did not wish to face them again. There was nothing else to do but put on a shawl and take a walk in the rain. With a discouraged sigh, she started toward the door. At the next turning, however, she collided with a gentleman in a blue coat. "Oh," she cried, stepping back, "I beg your—"

"You needn't beg my pardon," came a familiar voice. "It's only me, Percy."

"Percy!" She surprised herself at the gladness in her voice. It was the first time in years she felt pleased to see him.

He, too, was surprised. "You sound glad to see me!" he exclaimed.

"I am. When did you get here?"

"Just a little while ago. Didn't your aunt tell you I was invited?"

"Yes, she did. But I... I didn't know if you'd accepted."

"Oh, yes, I had every intention of coming. Though I had no intention of speaking to you. I'm still miffed at you, you know."

"But you
are
speaking to me."

"Only because you said you're glad to see me. Are you?"

She peered up at him, wondering how to respond. She had no wish to encourage him in his pursuit of her, but, on the other hand, it would not do for them to be at loggerheads during this visit. That would only give His Lordship Harry Gerard another reason to find her arrogant. If, on the other hand, he would notice Percy gazing at her adoringly during the next couple of days, it might prove to him that there were
some
people on this earth who found her loveable. "Yes, I am glad to see you," she purred, taking his arm. "I've been in dire need of some really congenial company."

An expression of beatific disbelief spread over his face. "Do you mean it? Congenial?
Me?"

"Of course, you!" She met his beaming smile with one of her own. "Come along, now, my dear, and I'll introduce you to the others. They're playing an utterly childish version of copper loo. It will give me enormous pleasure to be able to interrupt them."

TWELVE

Like Percy, guests for Saturday evening's ball began arriving on Friday afternoon. All eight guest bedrooms were occupied by the time the sun set. Two dozen guests would sit down to dine that evening. Dinner, therefore, would be an even more formal affair than the night before. The necessity to dress for the occasion brought the card game to an end by late afternoon.

Kate did not fuss over her dressing. After putting on the green brocade gown (which, she pointed out to Megan with an I-told-you-so satisfaction, would have been more appropriate for the night before, just as last night's lavender silk would have been more suitable for this evening), she decided to look in on her mother. She found her sitting at her dressing table with her widow's cap in one hand and a white ostrich plume in the other. "I'm glad you're here," Lady Isabel greeted her daughter. "I can't decide which of these to wear."

Kate did not hesitate. "The plume, Mama, by all means."

Lady Isabel threw her daughter a worried glance. "You don't think it will make me appear too... too ...dashing?"

"I see nothing wrong with a bit of dash." She came up behind her mother, pulled the cap from her hand, tossed it aside, and promptly pinned the plume in place. "There! I'm sure Sir Edward will find it fetching."

"Oh! You've noticed," Lady Isabel said with a small smile, turning about on her chair to face her daughter.

"That Sir Edward admires you? Yes, I've noticed."

"You don't disapprove, do you?

"No, of course not." Kate perched on the bed and grinned at her mother. "I rather enjoy seeing you being pursued by an admirer."

"I enjoy it, too," Lady Isabel admitted. "It's been a long while since I attracted the attentions of a gentleman. I quite like the feeling of being admired."

"I hope you admire more than the feeling. It helps if you also admire the gentleman himself."

Lady Isabel shrugged. "Well, my dear, I must admit that Sir Edward Tyndale isn't quite the stuff of a lady's dreams, but then I myself am not dream material."

"You, Mama, are a very attractive woman and still in your prime," Kate insisted. "And Sir Edward appears to be a charmer."

"He's very pleasant," Lady Isabel said, "but one would wish the fellow did not still powder his hair. Don't you find it makes him seem older than sixty-one, which he claims is his age?"

"No, I don't. I thought him even younger."

Lady Isabel ignored her. "And wouldn't he seem less antiquated if he didn't bow quite so much? And if he weren't so ponderous in his manner?"

"I think, Mama, that you wouldn't be finding so many petty faults with the fellow if you didn't truly like him."

"You're right. I do like him. Besides, I have as many petty faults as he. Look at me! Swollen ankles, wrinkles about the eyes and mouth, and a waistline comparable in girth to the entire circumference of Buckinghamshire."

"Oh, pooh!" Kate laughed, jumping up and planting a fond kiss on her mother's cheek. "You know perfectly well that you look lovely."

Lady Isabel rose and studied herself in the mirror with a dubious frown. "Do I, dearest? Would you honestly say I am well preserved for a fifty-year-old?"

"Well preserved? What a dreadful phrase, Mama! What I would say is that no stranger would take you for a day over forty. So there!"

Lady Isabel snorted. "If you were any proper sort of daughter you'd have said thirty." Suddenly, her face falling, she dropped down on the little dressing-table chair again. "Oh, dear, Kate, what's come over me? Why am I being so... so
missish?"

"Nerves, Mama, I suppose. Nothing but nerves."

She bent over her mother and gave her a quick embrace. "I think it's sweet that you're being missish."

"Oh, yes, very sweet! A better word would be addlepated." She turned to her daughter with an expression both anxious and self-mocking. "Do you mink Edward is feeling nervous at this moment? I wonder how he'd describe me, if he and Leonard were having a conversation like this."

Kate smiled back at her fondly. "Judging from your manner these past couple of days, I think there's one word he would
not
use to describe you," she said as she made for the door.

"Oh?" her mother asked curiously. "What word is that?"

"Serene," Kate said as she sauntered out. "He would not, thank goodness, describe you as serene."

THIRTEEN

The rain, still falling during dinner, did not dampen the excitement of the guests on hearing—some for the second time—the announcement of the forthcoming nuptials. By the time the men were drinking their after-dinner ports, even the weather seemed to join in the celebration. The rain stopped, and bits of moonlight could be seen edging the striated clouds. This gave Percy an opportunity to step out on the terrace to puff away at his pipe.