Lady Pamela (11 page)

Amanda rolled her eyes. “I concede your point,” she told him. “Crusty old colonial, not much taken with British notions of aristocracy–”

“Lot’ a tom-foolery.”

“Agreed. Get in.”

“Eh.” But, at last, he climbed into the cabriolet, and she pulled the curtains closed, signaling the driver to take a turn around Green Park.

Their conversation did not begin smoothly.

“Don’ know nobbut ’bout that lady,” Josiah claimed, before Lady Detweiler had said a word.

“‘That lady’?”

“The fancy lady with the yeller hair. Don’ know nobbut ’bout her.”

“You don’t remember Lady Pamela Sinclair?” This was nonsense, thought Amanda. Pamela and the duke had spent every possible moment together, those few weeks at Luton Court. Josiah Cleghorn did not strike her as the type of manservant who would have let that pass unnoticed.

“Remember her, alright,” he replied. “Don’ know nothing about her and his lordship.”

Amanda closed her eyes. She wanted to get information, not give it away, but sometimes one had to adjust for circumstances. “I didn’t say anything about Lady Pamela and the duke,” she began.

“Eh?” The valet seemed startled.

“But now that you mention it–” Lady Detweiler, having made the decision to break any measure of confidentiality she owed Lady Pam, went about it wholeheartedly. She reminded Josiah of the time Lady Pamela and Lord Torrance had spent together in Bedfordshire, during the few weeks before Charles and Helène’s wedding. She informed him that his grace had proposed marriage to Lady Pam; Josiah said nothing, but Amanda was inclined to think that the valet had not been aware of that fact.

She informed him that the duke’s offer had been refused.

This got a reaction.

“
Refused
him?” the valet sputtered. “Refused his dukeship?”

“Indeed.”

Further speech was temporarily beyond Josiah, so Amanda continued. “I must say, however, that I believe the lady’s answer was not predicated on her true feelings.”

The valet took a moment to work this out.

“She wants– Why’d she turn him down, then? Stupid–”

He broke off at Lady Detweiler’s raised eyebrows. “People make mistakes,” she reminded him.

“Eh,” said Josiah. “The duke’s as fine a man as walked these shores. Someone like her, turn him down, she’s an all-fired fool.”

Someone like her.
A trifling phrase, perhaps.

“Someone like... Lady Pamela?” asked Lady Detweiler.

Josiah seemed to realized that he had said too much. He clamped his mouth shut and edged away from her, his hand raised to the curtain of the cabriolet.

One could easily jump from the carriage. Amanda grabbed his arm. Her grip was iron, and the valet yelped.

“Din’ say nought that were’ n true!”

 Lady Detweiler increased the pressure on his arm. She leaned forward and spoke calmly, directly–“Tell me now, little man. Tell me all of it, or I’ll have you strung up by your breeches before matins, and ’twill be hours before Lord Torrance can cut you down.”

“Din’ say nought!” cried the valet again.

Amanda hung on, waiting. A few seconds of silent struggle ensued, the valet unable to free himself without striking her–and Amanda’s groom not three feet away.

Finally– “I told him about her! That night.”

Lady Detweiler released him. “The night of the wedding ball?”

“Eh.” The valet nodded his assent, rubbing his arm.

“You told the duke what, exactly, about Lady Pamela?”

“Her being a mistress. That earl.”

Fury surged through Amanda’s veins. The muddling clodpole, the cross-eyed, addlepated jackass. How dare he? She reached again for the valet’s arm.

“It were the truth!” protested Josiah, fending her off. “An’ I din’ know he loves her, not then!”

He loves her.
The valet did not know it then– At Luton, he must mean.

But he knows it now.

“I liked her well enough,” Josiah was saying. “A fine lady, an’ pretty enough for anything. But I had to tell him. He’s the duke.”

Amanda would grant him this point. Lord Torrance was the valet’s employer, and as such, his first loyalty. ’Twould be an impossibility any other way. Still–

“And so,” she said to Josiah, fixing him with a glare, “you chose to interfere in the duke’s... romantic life?”

“How was I suppose’ to know he’d be pining away the whole summer for her?” the valet rejoined. “Known him ten years or more. Never pined for nobody before.”

‘Pining away’ had promise, thought Amanda. And it jibed with her impression of the duke’s feelings, as well. But if Lord Torrance was pining and Lady Pamela was moping, what were they arguing about?

The valet’s answer didn’t satisfy Lady Detweiler..

“She turned him down, be enough, seems like.”

“Hmm...”

Lady Pamela had indeed turned down the duke’s offer of marriage. But why? Amanda could make a guess at the answer, and it only confirmed her opinion of the stupid knots people tied themselves up in when they took the suggestions of polite society and turned them into rules.

Rules were no good. Rules assumed everyone was the same.

In this case, the rule said that a grown woman and a grown man could reside together and enjoy each other’s company only under carefully selected circumstances.

To whit, marriage.

’Twas foolish, in Lady Detweiler’s mind. Some people claimed to despise the very thought of marriage, so much so that they ran from the opposite sex as a fox from the hounds. Others made such a snarl of it– Lord Amesbury, for example, the man ought not have been allowed before priest and altar–that the life of their wife or husband was a daily misery.

Lord Torrance, she presumed, had asked Lady Pamela to be his wife, only to find out that she had been mistress to the Earl of Ketrick. He had rescinded his offer–

No. No, Pamela had said she turned
him
down.

Well, then, thought Amanda. He had offered for her in such a way to convince Lady Pam that he was not in earnest. Perhaps he had even managed to suggest that Lady Pamela was beneath him, that he was lowering himself to accept her,
besmirched
as she was.

Amanda leaned back against the cushions of the cabriolet and blew out a long breath.

“Well, it’s a pickle,” she commented, addressing herself to no-one in particular. “I dare say she won’t waltz with him again, but if only they could meet under less...emotional circumstances.”

“Waltzed?” Josiah looked pleased. “At that ball?”

“Indeed. But they seem to have argued their way through the entire dance.” Lady Detweiler shook her head. “If only there was a way...”

The valet puffed his chest. “It were
me
got the duke to that ball,”

“You?” Amanda raised her eyebrows. “How extraordinary. Now, I don’t suppose...”

* * * *

Her conversation with Josiah Cleghorn lasted only a short while longer. The valet was nearly her equal in scheming, Amanda discovered, and it took the two of them little time to organize one or two preliminary stratagems. London was a large city, but not so big that Lady Pamela and the Duke of Grentham would never meet again.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Lady Pamela regularly received visitors in the late mornings. The hour was a break from
ton
tradition, which decreed that calls should take place in the mid-afternoon, but it was her habit, and against this even Lady Detweiler could make no headway. For several days past the Marthwaites’ ball, however, Pam had accepted only cards. She had not been feeling quite the thing and told herself she needed rest, a brief respite from the ongoing social tides.

But this morning found her in the
petit salon
at her usual hour, determined that she would spend no more time in the dismals, that she would return to the usual activities of her days in London. Comfort was to be found, Pam decided, in routine.

Morning calls, given and received. An afternoon’s shopping with Lady Detweiler. Walks in Green Park, or carriage rides with–

Well, with any gentleman who might request the pleasure of her company. Lady Pamela was ever popular among the males of the
ton
. The younger ones adored her beauty for itself, and the
cachet
of being seen with someone as exalted as Lady Pamela Sinclair had always set flocks of them at her feet. The older gentlemen appreciated her wit and common sense, Pam supposed. They knew she had no designs on their bachelorhood or fortune.

And she had no fear of improper advances from males of any age. The very few gentlemen who mistook matters, who imagined that the Earl of Ketrick’s mistress could also be their own, had long since been sent on their way.

Lady Detweiler claimed that she took none of them seriously enough, young or old. Amanda thought she should marry. But Pam insisted that she felt no need for such a relationship. Her few years with Edward Tremayne had been pleasant, but they had still taught her that people were apt to hurt each other, even good people, and even when they meant no harm. The occasional wounds had not been deep for Edward and herself, and were quickly healed, but with...someone else, the injury might be profound.

 Still, Lady Pamela could have seven suitors by this time tomorrow, should she wish, and on this morning she felt that she would be delighted to accompany each and every one. There could be nothing better than a ride in the park with one of London’s fine young dandies, nothing better than easy laughter and careless conversation. She would be released from all worry and thoughts of her own worth in the eyes of others.

She
was an acceptable lady to everyone else, and if the Duke of Grentham had other ideas,
c’est tant pis.

She had instructed Cook to prepare an especially fine
plateau à thé
for this morning, and had dressed in her newest acquisition from Madame Gaultier, a chemise dress of lavender chintz, high-waisted, the neckline set with lace. ’Twas time, Lady Pamela felt, to look and feel her best, and to regain her previous enjoyment of London society.

Such as it was.

She was
not
worried about Lord Torrance, of course. London was a very big place. One could live there for years and years without happening across any given individual, so there was no need for concern that she might be walking in the park some fine morning and happen to see him, a female on his arm, perhaps, young and beautiful, all virginal smiles...

The Duke of Grentham’s activities were of no concern to her.

A carriage rattled past on the street below and soon, to Lady Pamela’s relief, she had visitors to attend to, and conversation to rescue her attention from her own thoughts. The Viscountess Lac-Chèvres and Lady Cartleigh were paying an early visit that morning; these two were not among the more sensible of her acquaintances, but lively and cheerful in their interests. Pam was chatting with them about the viscountess’s young niece–married to a marquess at seventeen, my dears, such a coup!–when the butler announced Lady Detweiler.

“Good heavens,” said Lady Pamela, astonished to see Amanda awake at that hour. “Up at the crack of dawn?”

“Mmm,” replied Lady Detweiler, throwing off her shawl. Amanda looked disconsolately at the table, which was set with a pleasing variety of cakes, tiny sandwiches of cucumber and cress, and preserved fruits–but a lone samovar of tea.

“ ’Tis nothing but tea all the day long, then?”

“I’ll send Maggie for coffee.”

“Bother it, no,” said Amanda, already pouring herself a cup from the samovar. “Tea it shall be.”

She sank into the nearest sofa, a steaming cup in hand, and Pamela had no time to wonder what had roused Lady Detweiler from a noon’s sleep before the butler again appeared at the
salon
door.

“His grace, the Duke of Grentham,” announced Smithers.

His grace–

* * * *

Benjamin entered the
salon
, noticing several ladies present besides Lady Pamela. He should not have expected her to be alone, the duke realized. ’Twould hardly be proper, at any rate, but what could they say to each other now, within the very public confines of this room? How could he make amends?

Amends? No. He had
not
come to seek forgiveness, Lord Torrance reminded himself. Not at all. His words at the ball had been unfortunate, perhaps, but Lady Pamela must have realized he had intended no offense. He had merely remarked, most offhand, that he had once offered her marriage.

Hardly an insult! There had been no need for her to fall into such a pet over a harmless accident of phrasing. And Lady Pamela herself had been most disagreeable, thought Benjamin. All that nonsense about scruples and requirements and acceptable ladies. Pah!

No, he had nothing to regret. He merely wanted to see her again, to make sure that

she...held no grudge.

Lady Pamela raised her head, her eyes meeting his, and for the moment the duke was confused. Who was to forgive? And who was to be forgiven?

* * * *

The Duke of Grentham stepped into the room, his tall frame and wide shoulders seeming to fill the doorway, his handsome face crinkling in an easy smile. Lady Cartleigh and the viscountess chirped in excitement, as Pam’s heart leaped, slammed against her ribcage, and settled back into its accustomed place.

Lord Torrance–paying her a call? But what could he mean by it? After their most recent encounter, she had not expected to see him for...forever. He had given her no sign, no communication, and here he was, smiling at her, after his insults of only days before! She could not cause a row, not in front of the other ladies. Pam took a deep breath and stepped forward in welcome.

“Lady Pamela,” said the duke, sweeping her a bow.

“Your grace,” she replied, dropping a quick curtsey. The lavender chintz of her skirts rustled over the carpet, and the golden curls of her hair fell forward into a halo around her shoulders. She thought, for a moment, that she heard a sharp intake of breath from the duke. But when she looked up he had already directed his attention to the other ladies in the room.

“Lady Detweiler,” said Lord Torrance, bowing to Amanda. “And might I have the pleasure?” His smile indicated the viscountess and Lady Cartleigh, who were nearly bouncing on the sofa in their anticipation.