Minor Indiscretions (22 page)

"Yes, Miss Ashton? You interest me."

"One can only assume from his lordship's, ah, distress that he did indeed encounter the twins, who were most likely swimming. They swim the same way they do everything, boisterously and with great enthusiasm."

"And au naturel if I don't miss my guess!" Corey laughed out loud. "What a sight it must have been. I hope those bare-bottomed little urchins soaked some of the starch out of his stuffed shirt, but I doubt it."

"Then you aren't sorry to see him go?"

"Heavens, no. I am only sorry you had to be insulted by the prig."

Melody smiled. "Don't be. I told him which path to take." Corey smiled back, raised her hand to his mouth, and tenderly kissed her fingers.

Major Frye coughed and called for the match to resume. Melody's fingers tingled, and she missed the first wafer. Cheyne missed, with no such excuse. Squire and Lord Tarnover were busy making side bets, and Corey stated that he would cover any and all.

"Come on, Angel," he encouraged, and she never missed another.

After three or four of Melody's dead hits, Lord Cheyne cheerfully conceded, but Corey asked Melody to continue, just to show the company he had not been idly bragging of her skill. Harry loaded, Pip threw, and Melody hit anything at which Corey pointed. Then he was declaring her the winner and ordering champagne to be poured and placing a thin gold victory circlet on her curls. If anyone was thinking of other gold bands, they were too well-bred to speak their thoughts aloud.

Squire Watson wanted to know what Coe would have done if one of the men had been triumphant.

"I've seen most of you gentlemen shoot, remember, so I was not worried. However, if the little lady was having an off day or something equally as unlikely, for instance the sky falling in, why then
I
would have challenged the winner myself. Have to keep the house honor, don't you know."

Everyone was laughing and calling for a match between Corey and Melody, and she was looking at him speculatively. She had never seen his lordship shoot at all.

Melody was never to have her curiosity satisfied, because just then Corey let out an oath. The stem of the wineglass snapped in his fingers, and champagne spilled on the lace cuffs of his shirtsleeves. His face lost all color, as if he had just seen a ghost.

He had.

The whole assembly turned to follow his gaze, where Lady Erica was slowly walking up the path with an officer in scarlet regimentals at her side. He was seen to be limping, and his arm was across her shoulders. From the expression on the soldier's face when he looked at Corey's sister, his arm was not there just for support. Meggie danced along beside them.

When they were close enough, Lady Wooster announced: "Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Lieutenant Bevin Randolph, late of His Majesty's Second Cavalry."

"I thought you were dead." Corey spoke before anyone could greet the new arrival.

The young officer looked Lord Coe in the eye and addressed him as if no one else was there. "I was. That is, I was declared missing and presumed dead. When I recovered and found myself in a French gaol, I had no way of communicating with our forces. Later, too late, I was released only to discover that Lady Erica had been married. I know who to blame for that."

Corey, too, seemed to have forgotten the eager-eared audience. "You were gone, man. And you were young and penniless besides. I couldn't let my sister waste herself on—"

"On a mean-spirited old man who made my life a misery?" Erica put in. "Who wouldn't let me see my own daughter?"

"
My
daughter," Lieutenant Randolph bit out. "And I will never forgive you for that, my lord, nor for the way you settled matters between us in Scotland. You would not listen to reason, not even your own sister's sworn oaths that we were on our way back from Gretna, not on our way there. You knocked me unconscious and had me trussed like a hen, to be shipped out to my unit. My lord, you cost me seven wretched years, for each of which I have been waiting to do this." And he pulled his fist back and struck Lord Coe a smashing blow to the jaw.

Corey wasn't expecting the punch, wasn't even thinking of anything but what a fool he had been. His feet went out from under him and he hit the ground, hard. One minute Corey was seeing stars, the next Melody's green eyes, deep with concern. He stayed where he was, finding the cradle of Melody's lap much more comforting than getting up and facing the avid crowds or his sister's long-lost love. While Melody used Corey's neckcloth to dab at the blood dribbling down his chin, Corey felt his jaw—nothing broken—and said, "Welcome home, Lieutenant Randolph."

Erica smiled and tossed her handkerchief down to Melody. "I can see you have gained a little sense in all these years, brother. We'll continue the discussion later, if you don't mind." She turned to go, the scarlet-clad officer's arm back around her. "Oh, there was one more thing," she said, giving Corey back his own one-sided grin. "I have had the lieutenant's bags brought to my bedchamber. Those were your instructions, weren't they?"

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"Why didn't the silly widgeon say anything for all those years?" Lady Ashton wanted to know. She had Melody pulling out every gown in the wardrobe. The nabob had finally arrived. Melody was trying to explain why they should put Sir Bartleby up at their own house rather than impose on Lord Coe and his sister at such a sensitive time.

Mama had slept through most of the startling events of the picnic and had seen nothing of the Oaks contingent for the whole day and night after. Brief close-mouthed calls from Lady Cheyne and Major Frye told Melody little, for if either of the visitors to Dower House had any more information about Lady Wooster's marriages, they were not discussing details, out of courtesy to their hosts and friends. Rupert came to call on Felice, but since he hardly knew the time of day, Melody did not believe he could shed any light on the situation. Who would tell such a rattlepate anything?

Melody had been wondering if she could call at the Oaks that morning, just to see how the viscount was getting along, of course, when Lady Wooster, or Mrs. Randolph as she must be, hurriedly came to call. Erica begged Melody's pardon for causing a scene and for keeping her in the dark. Now Melody was trying her best to explain the delicacy of the situation to her mother. It was like explaining diapers to Baby.

"Nonsense," Lady Ashton declared, making a face at the purple satin gown Melody held up for inspection. "They have a house full of guests right now. One more won't matter, and Barty don't stand on ceremony. No, that one won't do. I look like someone's mother in it."

Melody blinked. Mama
was
someone's mother, hers. Because of that, Melody felt she had to save the older woman from a possibly deserved setdown. According to his sister, Lord Coe was already nursing a dreadful sense of ill-usage along with a bruised jaw.

"But Mama, with Sir Bartleby at the Oaks, they will have to invite us to dinner; that's at least five strangers they would be wishing to Coventry, and Lady Erica is top over trees as is."

Lady Jessamyn shook her head. "Foolish beyond permission."

"Lady Erica? I think she was worried over the lieutenant's reaction to Meggie, that's why she did not want to tell anyone in advance."

"No, you peagoose. That gown. I look sallow in yellow. Whatever possessed me to purchase it? What was that about Meggie? They are going to take her off our hands, aren't they?"

"Yes, Mama, but Lady Erica could not be sure, earlier. When Lieutenant Randolph finally wrote to her, after he learned she was widowed, he knew nothing about a child. Once Lady Erica saw Meggie, though, she never wanted to part with her daughter again, so she was going to go live in Cornwall where no one would know the child wasn't Wooster's."

"But I thought you said she was married to that soldier, Melody. Hold up that pink sarcenet again."

"She was, but she had no papers to prove it, and if he chose not to acknowledge Meggie, she was going to reject him, despite all the sorrow. But he adored Meggie on sight and wants them all to emigrate to Canada, away from any gossip. There was another dreadful row, it seems, for Lord Coe wants to set them up in London, so he can share Meggie with them. Lieutenant Randolph refused to be so beholden to the viscount, but I believe they have compromised on some plantations Lord Coe owns in Jamaica, where Bevin, that's the lieutenant, will act as his agent. Of course, Corey made Bevin swear to bring his family back to visit. I'll miss Meggie, too, won't you?"

"The magenta? No, it's much too puritanical. I bought it when I was hoping to impress that toad Pendleton for you. Isn't there a figured silk in that closet?"

Figured? The gown had cabbage roses down its length. Mama would look like walking wallpaper. "No, I don't see it. Perhaps it got left at the Oaks by error. What about this pretty lavender India muslin? It would be perfect for a small dinner here, just the family, you know, to welcome the nabob, ah, Sir Bartleby home."

"Melody, you try my patience. I have not seen Barty in almost twenty years except for the twenty minutes when he first arrived. Do you think I am going to entertain him at this dowdy place and have those little monkeys hanging off him all evening? No, I am going to welcome him home to
my
home, in style, where there are enough rooms that we can have a private tête-à-tête if he desires. Without dog hairs on the furniture and infants bawling and Nanny's needles going click-click-click every blessed minute."

Obviously, Melody was missing something here. "Mama, isn't Sir Bartleby coming to fetch Felice?"

"No, didn't I tell you? Barty is going to settle in England. He's discussing it with Felice up at the Oaks now. I don't know what's to become of the chit, after all the high expectations she had. I just don't think London will accept her, but I couldn't make her see that she'd do better with that nice boy Edwin at Mr. Hadley's office. Rupert Frye is an ivory tuner if I ever saw one, and after your father, I know the breed. He's only hanging about for the money, 'pon rep, which Barty ain't about to hand over to some here-and-therein knight of the baize table. Barty didn't get to be a wealthy man by bankrolling basket scramblers. Maybe he can make Felice see sense, for he doesn't want her living with us."

"Us?"

"Perhaps I should wear the ecru lace. That high waist won't show what he needn't see, although I've kept my figure well enough, wouldn't you say, Melody?"

"Us, Mama?"

"Of course, Barty always did like his women plump. Do stop that goggling, Melody. You look like a goldfish. Us. Barty and I, together as we should have been these twenty years past."

Twenty years? "But what about Papa? I thought you were so in love, marrying despite your families' opposition."

"In love with that feckless Ashton? Oh, he was a handsome devil and had a title, and we did think his father would come around in time. But I married the useless lobcock
to spite Barty, pure and simple. We had an understanding, but he refused to give
up his opera dancer till the wedding. That was Felice's mother. I wouldn't set
the date with any faithless whoremonger, so there was a big rowdydow right in the park. I was very young, of course. Got straightaway into James Ashton's carriage and convinced him how romantic it would be to flee to Scotland. I didn't know he found it politic to leave town right then because of the duns at his door. He thought
I
had money. Romantic, hah! The inns were damp, his horses were bone-rattlers, and we had hardly a pound note between us."

Melody sat down, dumping her mother's dresses off the chair and onto the floor to do so. "You eloped to Scotland like Lady Wooster? I thought you were married in Hazelton. I saw the marriage records there."

"We had to come live with Judith when I found I was increasing. Ashton was below hatches, for a change. Judith called the Scottish wedding a heathen rite and insisted on a grand, public, religious ceremony for the neighbors' sake. She also insisted on taking in Felice when the opera dancer left the chit on Barty's doorstep and his parents washed their hands of him except for buying his passage to India. Judith did it just to spite me, I always thought, though sometimes I suspected she had a soft spot for Barty herself. I tried to love Felice like Judith did, for Barty's sake, you know. The child could have been mine, but I was always glad she wasn't."

Neither woman heard Felice's soft steps outside Lady Ashton's door. Lady Ashton was searching out kid gloves to match the ecru gown, and Melody was too busy in her mind, blowing notions of her parents' storybook love affair to pieces like the wafers in the rifle tournament. They did not love each other; they were adolescent fools who spent years regretting their hasty vows. But they were married, over the anvil or not, long before Melody's appearance. She wasn't a…

"How dare you, Melody Ashton!" Mama was thoroughly indignant, and not just because her dresses were on the floor. "What kind of woman do you think I am? I'll have you know your mother is a lady!"

The nabob was a caricature, thought Corey, in his upward-curving, pointy-toed slippers, baggy trousers, billowy silk robes, water pipe, and more rings than Rundell's. He was outspoken, overfamiliar, overweight. How could it be that Melody was too busy getting ready for this overstuffed mushroom to so much as inquire into Corey's well-being? She had to know his phiz would only frighten the children if he came to Dower House, so obviously she did not care. Hell and tarnation, now Corey had to entertain her would-be
fiancé. If the blighter didn't stop puffing smoke in Corey's face and didn't stop crowing what a fine figure of a gel she was, he would be out on his fat ear in jig time. By Jupiter, Lord Coe knew what a fine figure Melody had, and the idea of this sausage-fingered caper merchant so much as touching her made the rest of his face look as bilious as his injured jaw.

"Do you think she'll have me? I mean to do it right this time, don't you know," Sir Bartleby was nattering on.

"Do you mean to say you've proposed before and been turned down?"