The Chocolate Debutante (11 page)

“I called her a withered spinster.”

Charles was deeply shocked. “I cannot believe any lady would ever forgive such an insult.”

“But you will do your best?”

“Yes, I can but try.”

“Then, as Miss Susan has not yet accepted you, may I make a suggestion on how to win her heart?”

“Go on.”

“Before you call on her, purchase the finest box of chocolates which Gunter’s has on offer. With your hand on your heart, promise her a lifetime of sweetmeats. That will do more for you than talk of love.”

“She
is
inordinately fond of sweet things.”

“As she does not appear to put on a pound or develop spots, I see no drawback to a happy marriage.”

“I am grateful to you and I will indeed do my best to restore your friendship with Miss Tremayne.”

Susan accepted with good humor the news that Charles Courtney was to propose to her. “Am I supposed to accept him?” she asked.

“Oh, yes,” said Harriet. “He is highly suitable.”

“Sir Thomas is quite interesting.”

“He has been kind to us, but not a suitable man for you, Susan. Too old and experienced.”

“You mean like Dangerfield. Such a pity you are not experienced as well as being old, Aunt Harriet.”

“You are impertinent, miss.”

“I did not have my morning chocolate. Lucy said you told everyone I was to have tea instead. Without my morning chocolate I feel crotchety.”

“I have told you and told you that you will ruin your teeth and your health. Now, go and tell Lucy to make sure you are wearing one of your best gowns.”

Harriet waited in the drawing room for Charles. Susan had been told to wait in her room until summoned. The heat was still stifling. The awnings outside covering the windows cast a gloom over the drawing room. Flies buzzed over the gallipots. She felt tired and jaded. All at once she missed her bluestocking friends and longed to return to her old life. Would this Season never end?

Charles Courtney was announced. He came in carrying the largest box of chocolates that Harriet had ever seen. She wanted to protest but then decided that the present would encourage Susan to accept him.

“I am come,” he said, “to ask your permission to pay my addresses to Miss Colville.”

“You have my permission. Your parents approve?”

“Yes, very much so.”

“Then I will send Susan to you. You may have ten minutes alone with her. All that tiresome business of lawyers and settlements can be dealt with later. Although her mother and father trust my judgment, I feel it would be politic for you to go to the country and ask their permission as well. I will give you their direction before you leave. Now I will fetch Susan.”

Susan was a vision in white lace and white muslin. Her golden hair shone with health and her big blue eyes were calm and serene—too serene, Harriet thought, for a young lady about to receive a proposal of marriage.

“Am I to see him now?” she asked.

Harriet nodded.

“And what do I say?”

“You say yes,” said Harriet tetchily.

“Just yes?”

“You can say you are honored to receive his proposal of marriage.”

“And that will make you happy?”

“Oh, Susan, it will. But will it make
you
happy?”

“I suppose it will. I’ve got to marry someone.”

And with those disheartening words, Susan left the room.

She entered the drawing room. Charles promptly held out the large box of chocolates.

Susan’s eyes lit up. “How splendid!” She opened the lid and stared greedily down at the contents. She sat on the sofa and balanced the box on her lap, her fingers hovering over the contents.

Charles got down on one knee in front of her.

“Miss Colville?”

“Mmm?” Susan had popped a large chocolate into her mouth and her eyes closed into slits of pleasure.

“Will you do me the very great honor of accepting my hand in marriage?”

“Yes, have a chocolate.”

He sat down beside her on the sofa and looked at her ruefully. “Did you really hear what I said?”

“Oh, yes, you offered me marriage and I accepted.” Her fingers hovered over the box. He gave an angry little click of annoyance, took the box away from her, and laid it on the sofa on the side away from her. Susan pouted.

“Kiss me, Susan.”

“If I kiss you, Charles, may I have another chocolate?”

“Yes,” said Charles impatiently, trying to banish a bleak picture of having to entice his wife into the marriage bed by leaving a trail of chocolates leading up to it.

He took her gently in his arms and kissed her soft mouth. Susan sat very still in his embrace, feeling all sorts of new and sweet sensations surging through her. She mumbled something incoherent against his mouth and suddenly wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back, sending them both swimming away into a world of sweetness. At last he raised his mouth from hers and said huskily, “Would you like a chocolate?”

Susan gave him her blinding smile. “More kisses, please,” she said.

Harriet, entering the drawing room, stopped short in amazement at the sight of the abandoned couple. She coughed loudly and they broke apart, Charles leaping to his feet, his face flaming. “I—I am so s-sorry,” he stammered.

“Think nothing of it,” said Harriet, looking at her flushed and happy niece. “Are you engaged to be married?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then, as I have things to do, perhaps you might like to take Susan for a drive, and when you return, I will give you her parents’ address.”

“I can do that,” said Susan with a gurgle of laughter. “In fact, I will go with Charles.”

“That will not be suitable,” said Harriet, “unless I go with you, and I do not wish to make the journey at the moment.” She then felt guilty, for there was really nothing to keep her in London. But for some reason she would not admit to herself, she did not want to go.

When a thoroughly besotted Charles Courtney was driving his love toward the park, he suddenly remembered the earl’s request.

“My darling,” he began.

“Cannot you kiss me again?” demanded Susan impatiently.

“Not in the middle of a busy London street, but we will have plenty of opportunities. I have something to talk to you about concerning your aunt.”

“Aunt Harriet?”

“Dangerfield has an interest in her.”

“Then he has no hope. She slapped his face.”

“Because he called her a withered spinster. Now he wishes our help in ingratiating himself back into her good graces.”

“I should think the damage is irreparable, but we will try. Oh, why, there he is!”

Lord Dangerfield drew his carriage alongside. “I am to marry Charles,” said Susan sunnily.

“My felicitations,” said the earl.

“And I am out here and Aunt Harriet is at home alone.”

“I doubt whether she will receive me.”

“Then you may say you are calling on me and she will see you then in order to give you a jaw-me-dead about leaving me alone and to tell you I am betrothed to Charles.”

Lord Dangerfield drove off. He could not imagine why he should want so desperately to renew his friendship with such as Harriet Tremayne. But he did know he felt he had behaved disgracefully. He would go. She would see him. And she would accept his humble apology or he would ram it down her throat!

When Harriet heard that Lord Dangerfield had called, she was about to tell her butler to send him away, but assuming he had really called to see Susan and eager—in Susan’s best interests, or so she told herself—to tell the wicked man that Susan was now beyond his reach, she asked the butler to show him up.

When the earl entered, she felt the same little sharp shock she always experienced when she saw him. He was indeed a handsome man with his red hair, powerful build, and clear gray eyes fringed with those thick, sooty lashes. They surveyed each other in silence like two strange cats.

Then Harriet found her voice. “Please sit down, my lord.”

He sat down opposite her. She said, “The reason I have granted you an audience…”

“An
audience
, Miss Tremayne? Are we become royalty?”

She bit her lip and then went on. “The reason I wanted to see you was to inform you of Susan’s engagement to Mr. Charles Courtney.”

“I know all about that. I have already offered the happy couple my felicitations.”

She surveyed him in surprise. “Then why are you come? After the insults we traded at the Debenhams, I did not expect to see you again.”

“I am sorry I said what I did. Pray accept my apologies.”

“The insult was great.”

“So was your calling me a vain lecher.”

“Well, I suppose I must accept your apology, and I offer you mine.”

“Thank you.” He rose to his feet. “I would be your friend, Miss Tremayne. London can be a wicked city. Should you ever need my help, please call on me.”

He bowed and left.

She sat down, feeling bewildered and breathless. She then became aware her butler was announcing Sir Thomas Jeynes. She nodded vaguely as a signal that he was to be admitted.

“I saw Dangerfield leaving,” said Sir Thomas. “I am surprised you saw him.”

“He came to apologize,” said Harriet.

“Ah-ha! He is trying to get back in your good graces so as to be near Miss Colville.”

“I do not think so. He already knew that Susan had become engaged to young Courtney.”

Sir Thomas went very still, like a lizard on a rock when a shadow falls on it. “This is news to me,” he said at last.

Harriet walked to the window and looked down into the street. “I am relieved. Susan is safe. It is all highly suitable.”

A man was selling watercress, another mackerel. Their salesmen’s cries filtered up through the hot, still air.

“And yet,” said Sir Thomas behind her, “I would still be careful of Dangerfield.”

She swung around. “Why?”

“Miss Colville is not yet married. I do not believe he will give up that easily.”

Despite her own unrealized jealousy, common sense came to Harriet’s aid. She said impatiently, “Lord Dangerfield has shown no signs of undying passion for Susan.”

“That is not his way. He waits, coiled, like a serpent ready to strike.”

“Fiddle.”

“We will see. I would be honored if you would accept my escort to the opera tomorrow night.”

“Susan and I are going to the Durveys’ turtle dinner tonight and I think tomorrow after the Michaelsons’ breakfast that we will both enjoy a quiet evening at home.”

“But I will see you at the Michaelsons.”

“Of course, Sir Thomas.”

He bent and kissed her hand. “You are indeed a handsome and intriguing lady, Miss Tremayne.”

Harriet smiled at him, his compliment pleasing her inordinately, for although she had said she forgave the earl, his insult still rankled.

The following day was still unusually hot. Lord Dangerfield was not present at the Michaelsons’ and Harriet found she had to watch Susan and Charles closely, as the couple had a habit of slipping off together. It was when she finally tracked them for the last time to an arbor in the garden and found them kissing each other, Susan with all the greed that she usually gave to chocolate, that she decided it was time to take Susan home.

She wondered bleakly after she had given the couple a severe reprimand whether she was in fact the withered spinster the earl had accused her of being. She found such “slobbering,” as she described it to herself, infinitely distasteful. Everyone knew that passions existed only in the lower class of women. She wondered how Susan had come by such a common streak.

When they returned home to Berkeley Square, Harriet said she would take a bath and suggested that Susan do the same. But Susan had never become used to her aunt’s odd desire for baths and went down to the drawing room to write a love letter to Charles.

One of the footmen, John, was bedazzled by Susan, and so when a note had been delivered to him in the street and a guinea handed to him with the request that he deliver it privately to Miss Susan, he had agreed, thinking it a love letter.

Finding her alone in the drawing room, he handed it to her, whispering, “I shouldn’t be doing this, miss. Don’t tell anyone. I was to give this to you in private.”

Intrigued, Susan broke the plain seal and opened the note.

Her eyes widened as she read, “Your betrothed, Mr. Charles Courtney, has a mistress in keeping. If you wish proof of this, tell no one, but come immediately to Plum Lane, off Ludgate Hill, at the sign of the Cock and Bull. A Well-Wisher.”