Joan Smith (12 page)

“Isn’t it lovely,” Aurelia sighed.

“Charming.”

The prince recognized Sir William, and seeing the Incomparable with him, gave the drawstring a pull. The carriage stopped. The prince lowered the window and said, “I say, is that you, Sir William? What the deuce are you doing in Brighton at this time of year?”

“Just showing Miss Townsend your magnificent pavilion, Your Highness,” Sir William said with a bow. His hope that the name Townsend would be recognized, and some little compliment offered, was fulfilled.

“Miss Townsend, eh? Not one of Edward Townsend’s daughters?” Miss Townsend was shaking like a blancmange, but she managed to curtsy low. “She is dashed pretty. My compliments of the season, Miss Townsend. I enjoy your papa’s brew.”

He nodded graciously, raised the window, and continued on his way, while Miss Aurelia stood gazing after the carriage with her mouth open.

“That was the Prince Regent!” she said in a hushed voice.

“Yes.”

“He knew your name!”

“I have played cards with him a few times.”

“Marie will never believe it. I wish I had been wearing my new bonnet.”

She looked at her escort with a respect bordering on awe as they went to the carriage. She could not think of anything else all the way home but having met the prince.

* * * *

The shadows were lengthening by four o’clock, when Nick left his office. He met Jane just descending the great staircase.

“Are they back yet?” he asked her.

She peered into the Gold Saloon. “It seems not. Aurelia is not abovestairs.”

They walked into the saloon. “How is your aunt?” he asked.

“She is resting. I believe Willie is right, and it is just a mild cold. She has no stomach upset. Your uncle is resting quietly as well.”

Nick couldn’t settle down. He poured two glasses of wine, but kept pacing to and fro in front of the fireplace.

“I cannot imagine what is keeping them,” he said. “I told her to be home before dark.”

“It is not quite dark yet,” she pointed out. “It always looks darker from a bright room. When you are actually outdoors, it seems brighter somehow.”

“What a debater you would have made.”

“Do sit down, Nick. You are making me nervous with your pacing. She is not alone.”

“That is what concerns me. Willie
—”

“Willie is a gentleman,” she said firmly. “He would never misbehave with a young lady, and certainly not with your fiancée
.
”

“She should not have gone at this time, with the party to prepare, and Uncle sick.”

“You are working yourself into a pelter over nothing. It is not Aurelia’s place to prepare the party. The fact is, you are feeling guilty for not having gone with her, and want to place the blame on her.”

Nick gave a sheepish grin. “I expect you are right. You must keep me in line, Jane. I would appreciate it if you could also pass along some of your common sense to my fiancée. Aurelia is inexperienced. You could guide her—this party, for instance. She has been pestering Lizzie to send to London for flowers and arrange an ice sculpture for the dinner table.”

“Actually, Aurelia has asked my advice. I have told her how country parties are run. I believe she wishes to smarten us up. Perhaps we are in need of it,” she added pensively. “The neighborhood has always looked to Clareview to set the pace. It will be her role to lead society. How should I presume to teach her, when I have no experience beyond Amberley?”

Nick listened, and had to admit that there was some truth in Jane’s reply. Yet he was still not happy. He didn’t want to be smartened up. He wanted things to continue as they had always been. He thought of the coming wedding—was it to be at St. George’s or at home? And what of the demmed honeymoon?

“I wish—” He bit back the foolish thing he had nearly blurted out. I wish I had never asked Aurelia to marry me,

Jane looked at him curiously. At that moment the front door flew open and Aurelia came rushing in.

“You’ll never guess what, Nick!”

“You’re late,” he said sternly
.

“I met the prince! Willie introduced me to him.” She turned an admiring look on Sir William, who tried to look modest. “And I bought a new bonnet.”

So that was her great surprise. She had gone pelting off to Brighton without him to buy yet another new bonnet, in the dead of winter, and with a flu going around.

Jane saw the frown darkening his brow; she gave him an admonishing look and rushed forward. “You met the prince! How lovely! You must come in and tell us all about it.”

Until dinnertime, there was but one subject: Aurelia’s meeting the prince. Every detail was described at length: how he looked, what sort of carriage he was driven in, what he wore, but most of all, what he said.

“He asked if I was Edward Townsend’s daughter, and said I was dashed pretty,” she told Nick, even before removing her bonnet.

By the time she was in the Gold Saloon relating the story for Jane’s edification, she had become “so pretty.”

When the group met for a glass of sherry before dinner, she was overheard telling Pelham the prince had told her she was “very pretty.”

“Pretty?” Pel asked. “The man must be blind. Anyone can see you are beautiful.”

“Perhaps that was the word he used,” she said, blushing daintily. “Do you remember, Willie?”

“I am sure he said beautiful. Dashed beautiful, wasn’t it?”

“I wish I could remember.”

It took only the twinkling of a bedpost until she remembered the word the prince had actually used was Incomparable, at which point Willie remembered it, too.

“I own I am surprised,” Lizzie said, “for in the usual way, what Prinny finds beautiful is older, stout matrons like Lady Hertford. But let us not spoil dinner by speaking of Prinny. We can find a more appetizing topic.”

As country hours were kept at Clareview, dinner was over by seven-thirty, with a long evening to be got in.

When
Lizzie
said she was going abovestairs to keep Emily company, Pel said, “There goes our card game, then. What shall we do instead? James has brought in some boughs to decorate the ballroom. Shall we put them up?”

“The servants can do that,” Aurelia said, fanning herself with a silk fan bearing a likeness of the prince’s pavilion at Brighton. She picked up one of her many fashion magazines and went to the sofa by the grate.

“The family always hangs the festive boughs,” Nick told her. “It is a tradition.”

“Our tradition at home is for the servants to do the work,” she replied. “That is why we hire them.”

“I shall help you, Pel. You come along, too, Willie. We need someone to hold the ladder and someone to climb it,” Jane said, thinking to leave the engaged couple alone to smooth away their troubles. She had noticed at dinner that Nick was still in a brooding mood. Having Willie on his hands wouldn’t help.

“I promised Lizzie I would do a stint with the old boy,” Willie replied, meaning Lord Goderich.

“Then Pel and I will do the decorations. We don’t really need three people,” Jane said.

Willie picked up the latest journal and left,

“We shall all go,” Nick said, rising to join them. He glanced at Aurelia, who turned a page of her magazine, oblivious to the conversation going forth around her.

“No, no,” Jane replied. “You keep Aurelia company. Pel and I can handle it.”

“We ain’t really family,” Pel said. “I mean to say, the tradition. Although we hung the boughs while Nick was away.”

“I consider you both honorary family members,” Nick said.

It was clear to Jane, who knew Nick so well, that he was embarrassed at his chosen one’s lack of interest in family traditions, or indeed in anything except her magazines. Jane took Pel’s hand and led him off.

“I ain’t much good at heights,” he muttered, but Jane soon teased him into a good mood.

Nick watched them go, wishing he were with them. He remembered they used to sing carols while hanging the boughs. He recalled the year a mouse had scampered up Pel’s leg, and Pel had come crashing down from the ladder when Jane screamed fit to wake the dead. He had thought that effectual lady would whack the mouse with a broom, as he had seen the servants do when he was a young tad. That was the year she had put on long skirts and become a lady. He and Pel had teased her, pretending to see a mouse in every corner to hear her scream. It seemed a hundred years ago.

In the ballroom, Jane saw the servants had brought up a ladder. There were hooks placed high on the wall to hold the boughs.

“Do you want me to go up the ladder?” Jane asked. “I’m not afraid of heights.”

“I’ll do it. It’ll be a challenge for me. I like to challenge myself from time to time.”

“Have you challenged your memory yet? To learn the wedding ceremony, I mean?”

“It ain’t settled for sure where the wedding will take place. No point learning it for nothing.”

He arranged the ladder beneath the first hook. Jane brought a bough and held the ladder until he had mounted high enough to reach the hook. Then she handed him up the bough. As the ballroom was fifty feet long, there were a great many boughs to place. They chatted as they worked.

“Am I imagining things, or is Nick in the sulks?” Pel asked. “I think he would have liked to help us do these decorations.”

“He is a little upset that Aurelia went off to Brighton without him, I believe.”

“Gudgeon. He ought to have gone with her. I ain’t too sharp at picking up on affairs of the heart, but it seems to me Willie and Aurelia were looking pretty cozy at dinner. When the syllabub was served, she looked at Willie in a certain way, sort of moonish, and said, ‘We had this for luncheon.’ I don’t know. As I say, I ain’t too sharp, but I could have sworn she was flirting with him.”

“What did Willie say?”

“Nothing. That’s just the point. He looked at his syllabub and turned pink as a rose. Now, why should a dish of syllabub make him blush? I’ve never seen Willie Winston blush before in my life, and I have known him from the egg.”

He placed the bough and they continued on to the next hook. “It probably has something to do with meeting the prince,” Jane said. “She is very excited about that.”

“And there’s the fan.”

“I noticed she carried a fan. One does not often see ladies use them in winter. What has the fan to do with it?”

“I don’t know that either, but every time she touched it, she looked at Willie in that way I was telling you about. Mushy.”

“I didn’t notice anything.”

“You wasn’t sitting across from her. I was. There was a noticeable breeze in that dining room. No wonder we are all catching cold, but she kept fanning herself between courses. Dashed odd.”

He peered into the hallway and put a finger to his lips. “There is Willie back downstairs. He is supposed to be with Goderich.”

“I expect Goderich has fallen asleep by now.”

“And here comes Aurelia, darting out of the saloon to meet him. By the living jingo, I am right. There is something afoot between those two.”

“She is arranging some surprise for Nick. The only thing she brought back from Brighton was a bonnet. That cannot be the surprise.”

“You’re right there. Her buying another bonnet is no surprise. Nick will have to set aside a special room to hold them.”

“Perhaps Willie is in on it and they are discussing it.”

Pel went closer to the door, drew it nearly shut to hide himself, and’ listened.

“Pelham Vickers!” Jane said in a condemnatory whisper. “Don’t eavesdrop! That is horrid.”

He made a shushing motion with his hand and applied his eye to the slit in the door.

He saw Aurelia vigorously fanning herself, and  looking at Willie again in that mushy way. “Willie,” she said softly.

“Where is Nick?” Willie asked, looking over his shoulder.

Pel beckoned Jane to the doorway. “Listen to this!” he whispered excitedly. She only hesitated a moment before joining him. She felt like a criminal, but was too overcome with human curiosity to resist.

“He went to the library to get me a book,” Aurelia said. “I told him I wanted one when I saw you come downstairs.”

“Sly minx!” Willie said approvingly. “I see you are using your fan.”

Pel narrowed his eyes and bobbed his head at Jane, as if to say,
I
told you so!

“I
shall always treasure it, Willie,” Aurelia said. “This has been the most beautiful day of my whole life.”

“It is not every day one meets the prince,” he said, in a questioning way.

“It was not just meeting the prince,” she said, gazing at him and batting her eyelashes shamelessly.

“He’s coming!” Willie cautioned, and they stepped apart. Aurelia hid the fan in the folds of her skirt and turned to greet Nick.

“We don’t seem to have a copy of Byron in the library,” Nick said. “I shall pick you one up in town. I am curious to have a look at his work myself.”

“Byron is best appreciated in person,” Willie said. “His conversation outdoes even his poetry.”

“Do you know him, Willie?” Aurelia asked in an excited voice.

“Yes, I met him at Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Parlor.”

“Did you hear that, Nick? Willie knows Lord Byron.” Then she turned to Willie. “You know
everybody,”
she sighed.

“Only the fashionable fribbles,” Willie said. “It is our Nicholas who is acquainted with the worthies. And now I shall leave you two lovebirds alone. I have some letters to write.” He strolled away, and Nick led Aurelia back to the saloon.

“There you are,” Pelham said to Jane. “Willie is trying to beat Nick’s time. I knew he could not resist the Townsend fortune.”

“They didn’t really say much,” Jane said uncertainly. “It was sly of Aurelia to have sent Nick off for a book to be alone with Willie, but all she actually said was that she had had a wonderful day. And Willie didn’t say anything incriminating.”

“He’s too cagey for that. You saw the way they were looking at each other. I feel it my duty to tell Nick.”

“Oh, no! You mustn’t! Let me talk to Aurelia. You have a word with Willie. There is no need to worry Nick about it. I’m sure it is just a ... a passing fancy. Any girl’s head might be turned by Willie. He is a wicked flirt, but it doesn’t mean anything. Aurelia has known him for some time, you know. He is a friend of her sister.”