Encounter with Venus (5 page)

“Getting up wasn’t a hardship for me,” Horace said with hearty enthusiasm. “Algy ain’t up to it, but I’ve been looking forward to a good shoot since the day you sent me the invitation.”

The other men heartily agreed. A good shoot was just what they wanted, and after hasty introductions and equally hasty downing of their drinks, they shouldered their rifles and started off. They were all in high good humor, in spite of the overcast sky and a cold wind. But they’d no sooner flushed out their first flock of grouse when an icy rain began to fall. It continued to fall steadily throughout the morning, the downpour squelching their spirits and their marksmanship. By the time they gave up and turned back toward home, they had gained only a cold soaking to their hunting jackets and two dead birds. It was a glum and sodden group that tramped back to the Abbey. As soon as they’d changed into dry clothes, they one by one made their way downstairs to the East Salon where the ladies were gathered. The sight before them of the enticing ladies, who’d spread themselves about the room in various poses of ennui, and the smell of hot food emanating from a large buffet table set before the windows were enough to restore their good spirits. In short order they were sipping Felicia’s famous hot drink called Lambs’ Wool (a concoction of hot cider, home brew, and wine) and loading their plates with cheese biscuits, honeyed ham slices, coddled eggs, cabbage flowers with Parmesan, and sugared buns.

Thus warmed and provisioned, they mingled with the ladies, answering questions about their morning’s activity by transforming their misadventures into feats of comic or heroic proportions. Horace regaled Beatrice and Elaine with a boastful account of how he managed to shoot one of the two birds they’d snared, while George set his sister and Lady Stoneham into peals of laughter by demonstrating how one tries to take aim on a highflying bird while sleet is pelting down on the eyelids.

Algy, who’d come down before the hunters returned, had managed to insinuate himself beside Beatrice. His altercation with his brother the night before had stiffened his backbone, and he was determined to come out from behind his brother’s shadow and assert himself. “You, Miss Rossiter,” he declared boldly, “are the prettiest creature in this room.”

The shy little lady, who usually tried to hide that shyness by babbling about anything that came to her head, was so flustered by this astounding compliment that she was stricken dumb. Thus Algy was able to hold forth, uninterrupted, on his favorite topics—the problems of London’s sanitation and the ridiculousness of tying one’s neckcloth in complicated folds. With Beatrice’s wide eyes fixed on him attentively, he glowed with pride.

When the hunters returned, Algy called his brother aside. “I think I’ve made a mark on that young lady over there,” he whispered urgently, “so I warn you, if you wish to avoid a frightful
contretemps,
don’t dare interfere with me!”

Horace only shrugged. He was not interested in Beatrice. He’d already intended to make Elaine the object of his attentions, and he promptly and purposefully crossed the room to her and sat down beside her. Elaine, however, had other plans: she rose from her chair and crossed the room to where George was holding forth. The rapt manner with which she listened to his account of the shooting adventure made it plain to Horace that he had no chance with her. He therefore turned to Olivia, who was sitting a little apart from the others. Pulling up an ottoman beside her chair, he perched upon it and began again to describe to her his amazing prowess in shooting a grouse against such terrible odds.

George, having relinquished the floor to his brother-in-law, stepped back out of the circle and, sipping his drink, studied the people in the room. Again, as on the night before, he found his eyes drawn toward Olivia Henshaw. He couldn’t help noticing that though she kept her eyes on Horace’s face, she shifted in her chair and twice tried to excuse herself. But Horace seemed to be engaged in a long-winded monologue that gave her no opportunity to do so. For no reason that he could account for, George decided to go to her aid. He put his glass down on the sideboard and crossed the room to her. “I beg pardon, Thomsett,” he cut into the monologue, “but my sister is asking for you.”

“Oh, is she?” The big fellow pulled himself to his feet and bowed to Olivia. “Excuse me, Miss Henshaw. I shall be back directly.” And after awkwardly backing up a few steps, he bowed again, turned, and hurried away.

George stood looking down at her. “Did you want something, Miss Henshaw? I had the impression you were trying to rise.”

“Had you, indeed?” She gazed up at him shrewdly. “Then your sister didn’t really ask for Mr. Thomsett, did she?”

“No.” George threw her a small, conspiratorial smile. “I thought you might need rescuing.”

She did not return the smile. “That was good of you, my lord,” she said coolly, “but I was not in need of rescuing. I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.”

George was taken aback. “I assure you, ma’am, that I meant no disrespect.”

“I’m sure you didn’t. It is disrespectful nonetheless to assume that someone is helpless when she isn’t at all.”

“You’re quite right, of course,” he said, but he seethed inside. He’d tried to do a good deed, and she was turning the kindly act into an insult. But he could see that it would do no good to argue the point. He would let it pass. “I do apologize,” he said.

She nodded and looked away. Her manner made it clear that she was dismissing him. This infuriated him even more. Who did this spindly old maid think she was to dismiss him in that high-handed way, the Queen of the Realm?

He stood his ground. “May I sit down?” he asked.

“Here?” She seemed truly surprised.

“Yes, of course here. You didn’t think I was asking your permission to sit across the room, did you?”

“Well, I... I...” She was obviously flustered. “I. .. didn’t think you’d...”

“You didn’t think I’d what?”

“I didn’t think you’d wish for my...” Her eyes flitted up to his and down again. “Never mind.”

“Then may I sit down?” he persisted.

She looked over her shoulder as if hoping for a rescuer. “I think Mr. Thomsett is starting back,” she said in hurried refusal.

His eyebrows rose in mock offense. “Don’t tell me you want to save this seat for
him
!
Are you truly interested in hearing again how, despite the sleet, he managed to direct his bullet right into the bird’s eyeball?”

She winced at the words, but a little laugh bubbled up from her chest despite her effort to stifle it. “Oh, sit down, sit down!” she said helplessly. “You, Lord Chadleigh, have a decided streak of—if I may be blunt—of assertiveness in you.”

He dropped down on the ottoman. “Assertiveness? That, ma’am, is not being blunt. It’s being tactful. I think you really mean impudence.”

“That
is
being blunt. But yes, that’s just what I mean.”

“And you’re quite right to recognize it. It’s a quality I encourage in myself.”

“Yes, you would,” she retorted in dry disapproval.

He cocked his head at her. “By the tone of that remark, ma’am, I conclude that you’ve made a quick assessment of my whole character. A negative one.”

“Well, impudence can scarcely be considered a positive characteristic, can it?”

“It certainly can,” he insisted, “if one is disposed to be positive.”

“How, my lord, can impudence be looked at as a good?”

“Think about it, ma’am.” He leaned toward her, speaking with earnest persuasiveness. “To be impudent, one must have courage, right?”

“The courage to be rude, perhaps,” she said, dismissing his point with a wave.

“But courage, nevertheless, to be able to speak out,” he persisted, smiling at her. “And if one is talented at being impudent, honesty is essential. To that must be added a sense of humor—wit, if you will. Wit can give impudence a veneer of charm.”

“That is frivolous nonsense, my lord,” she said, refusing to smile back. “Pure self-justification, nothing more. Impudence is neither courage nor honesty nor wit. It is simply rudeness, defiance, disrespect, and, at its worst, unkindness.”

His expression darkened, the earlier fury he’d felt toward her rising up in him again. “And in your quick assessment of my character is that how you see me— rude and unkind?” He threw her an ironic sneer. “You, ma’am, if I may be blunt, have a decided streak of... of the judgmental in you.”

“Judgmental?” She did not miss the irony in his expression. “That, my lord, is not being blunt. It is being tactful. I think you really mean contemptuous.”

“That
is
being blunt.” He studied her for a long moment. Never before had he believed that anyone could hold him in contempt. “It seems,” he said at last, “that you have little liking for me.”

Her eyes dropped from his face. “It seems we have little liking for each other.”

George heard those words with a sudden feeling that they might not be as true for him as they were for her. But there was no time now to analyze the feeling. After what she’d just said, he could not remain sitting there. “Then I suppose I’d best turn this seat back to Mr. Thomsett,” he muttered, rising. “He’s standing just behind you, waiting for his opportunity.”

He walked swiftly away, but when he’d crossed the room he found himself looking back at her. She was apparently listening to Horace, but her eyes looked absent. Her face was motionless, expressionless. But he had to admit the intelligence of her eyes and her high forehead, the sculptured spareness of her cheekbones, the proud chin, and slender neck all combined to give her a look of admirable dignity.
Strange,
he thought,
how different she appears now from the way she looked only last night.
She was no Venus, certainly, but she was not a spindly old maid either.

EIGHT

As her abigail arranged a row of small curls along the sides of her face, Felicia smiled at her own reflection in the dressing-table mirror. “Oh, Katie, that’s perfect—just as I wanted it,” she exclaimed.

“Thank ye, ma’am,” the maid said, dousing the coals that had heated the curling iron. “Shall ye be wearin’ the dark green crepe tonight?”

“No. The amber Florentine, I think.” She rose from the dressing table and whirled round in pleasure, spinning easily on the soles of her new dancing slippers. “I want to look as cheerful as I feel.”

Everything pleased her this evening—her hair, her new slippers, and the prospect of appearing before her guests in a gown of glowing yellow. She was at last beginning to enjoy the party she’d so carefully arranged. In spite of the sleet that had spoiled their morning, her guests had begun to warm to each other. The late breakfast had produced some animated moments, the afternoon games (they’d played penny loo and had haggled like children) had engendered much laughter, and she was certain that the evening ahead, unlike the night before, would be a lively affair. The cook had promised to prepare his outstanding
poulaille filets à la marechale,
which was sure to please the most discriminating palate, and his Turkish Mosque Ruin would end the meal with oohs and aahs. The glow was bound to last throughout the evening, even if Beatrice should decide to sing again.

Just as the thought of Beatrice crossed Felicia’s mind, the girl herself appeared at the dressing-room door. “May I speak to you, Felicia?” she whispered, glancing nervously at the abigail.

“Of course, Beatrice, my dear,” Felicia assured her, while throwing Katie a meaningful glance. “Do come in.”

The abigail promptly slipped out of the room, tactfully closing the door behind her. Felicia motioned Beatrice to the chaise—the room’s only furnishing other than the dressing table and its little upholstered bench. Felicia herself perched on the bench and looked over at her visitor curiously. “Is something troubling you?” she asked kindly.

Beatrice lowered her light eyes to the hands clenched in her lap. “No, not exactly. I’m having a perfectly lovely time, really I am. I know I didn’t sing very well last night, but you know how addled I get when I have to perform before strangers, and then, right in the middle of the song, I realized that I’d chosen the wrong selection, it should have been something livelier, something more—”

Felicia cut her off. “Beatrice, you’re chattering. And you know that you only start chattering when you get nervous. But surely you needn’t be nervous with me.” She leaned over and took her visitor’s hands in hers. “Tell me what’s troubling you. Whatever it is, I shall understand.”

“Well, I... I—”

“Do speak up, dearest. What is it?” Felicia urged. “It can’t be last night’s singing. Your voice was lovely and the song just right.”

“No, it’s not the singing. It’s—” She looked up at Felicia and took a deep breath. “It’s Algy. I think he’s”—a flush of color rose up in her full cheeks—”he’s taken with me.”

Felicia suppressed the urge to laugh. “Is he? I’m not at all surprised. And are you taken with him, too?”

Beatrice dropped her eyes again. “Perhaps. But I... I know so little about him. He’s a bit shy, you see.”

“Is he really?” Felicia murmured. “I’d not have guessed—”

Beatrice suddenly turned an intent gaze on her friend’s face. “What do you think of him, Felicia? Tell me the truth. Do you like him?”