The Duke's Messenger (3 page)

Chapter Three

Nell wakened when young Polly timidly set down her early morning tea tray. Nell watched the maid cross to the windows and open the curtains.

“Polly,” she murmured, emerging slowly from sleep, “what kind of day is it?”

“Dreary, miss,” Polly reported. “Gloomy, like. Begun raining in the night it did, and dark you can’t see the street.”

Nell came fully awake. With a rush she remembered the astonishing event of the evening before. “Oh, Polly, you must be wrong. It’s the most glorious day since I’ve been in London!”

The maid cast a cautious eye in the direction of her young mistress. “Very good, miss,” she said quickly, and scuttled out of the room.

Nell leaped out of bed and went to the window. To an ordinary eye, she conceded, it might be gray, damp, and dispiriting. How many unfortunates looked out this very morning and saw only dreariness!

Nell considered herself the most fortunate of creatures. She alone was the recipient of Lord Foxhall’s attentions.

He was coming to call — and Lady Sanford did not yet know!

She scarcely felt the stairs beneath her feet as she descended to take breakfast with her aunt. In fact, she was hardly aware that her aunt Phrynie was scarcely in a mood to receive confidences, being hollow-eyed from lack of sleep and with a tongue excessively furred.

Whitcomb the butler had every sympathy for his lady. With deft and silent motions he placed black coffee before her and forbore to offer ham or eggs. He considered toast and honey, but with a second sidelong glance at his suffering mistress, he decided against them.

When Nell breezily entered the breakfast room, Lady Sanford closed her eyes. Whitcomb winced in sympathy and favored his mistress’s niece with a cold eye of warning. Nell, caught up in her own rosy euphoria, did not notice.

“Dear aunt!” she exclaimed as she paused to drop a kiss on Lady Sanford’s soft cheek. “Wasn’t it a perfectly splendid ball!”

Lady Sanford’s response was more moan than articulate agreement. “I do not know quite what the duchess put in that punch,” she said severely when she reached the bottom of her second cup of strong coffee. “Ratafia, she said it was, but I warrant you I will never again believe her.”

Whitcomb reflected upon the empty bottle of brandy that had met his eyes that morning in the salon. Lady Sanford, having entertained her solitary guest somewhat lavishly after her return home, had no need to blame the duchess for her splitting headache.

Nell gradually became aware that her aunt was indeed suffering. Her own pleasure at the ball had taken place far removed from the scene at the punch bowl. But she was possessed of a kindly nature and lowered her voice at once. She heaped her plate with feather-light scrambled eggs and the most delicately flavored pink ham, brought especially from the Sanford country estate in Essex, and proceeded to indulge her hearty appetite.

Not until she saw her aunt reaching tentatively for a biscuit did she dare to engage her attention. “Aunt, I must tell you — “

“My dear child, must you? I confess I do not wish to hear anything this morning. Not even the juiciest titbit of gossip. Unless, of course, you have heard why the Fitzgerald woman has left Mount Street in such great haste.”

“Nothing like that, Aunt. Something far better.”

Phrynie Sanford was no stranger to duty. Now, visibly, she pulled herself erect and prepared to be, if not enthusiastic, at least civil. “Better? In that case, I should like to hear.”

Suddenly shy, Nell did not answer at once. Now that she was invited to share her news, she was most unaccountably loath to do so. However, she was aware of her aunt’s somewhat bloodshot eye commandingly on her and, like a winter swimmer, plunged into the water.

“Dear aunt, I owe it all to you. You’re so generous, so — “

“So impatient,” interrupted Phrynie, tartly. “Do you indeed have something to tell me? If not, I believe I shall lie down somewhere.”

“Oh, no, Aunt, you mustn’t!”

Her protest was met by a raised eyebrow. “Mustn’t I?”

“You are to have a caller this morning.”

Lady Sanford’s nerves were not at their best. “Nell, I must warn you…”

“Aunt, Lord Foxhall is coming to call.”

Lady Sanford stared at the tablecloth. Her fingers, apparently of their own volition, began to plait her napkin. “Dear me. That punch cup must have been insufferably strong. Nell, my dear, forgive me, but I thought you said Lord Foxhall.”

“Yes, Aunt.”

“Nell, I must inform you that if this is a species of japery, I shall be seriously displeased. I agree, this kind of mischief is much more in Tom’s line. However, I am a bit too addled this morning to be tolerant of any funning.”

Her aunt’s reception of Nell’s stupendous news boded ill. “Dear Aunt, pray believe me,” cried Nell, nearly in tears. “He asked last night — after the first waltz, it was — permission to call this morning — for a private interview. With me.”

“Good God!” said Phrynie, at last comprehending the situation. “Foxhall. No one will believe it. Precisely no one, not even me. Private interview with you? Then of course he will wish to see me. What shall I wear? Nell, you must send for me at once when you’ve accepted.”

Nell was silent. Misgiving struck her aunt. She fixed Nell with a commanding eye. “Surely, Nell,
this
offer you will not greet with missish refusals? You will accept?”

“Oh, yes, Aunt. I will.”

“But Foxhall,” said Phrynie. “Coming to call. That means — of course it must, no question about it. We are not presuming too much, child. It means an offer!”

Aunt Phrynie’s reaction was all that Nell could have wished for. Lord Foxhall was indeed a catch to addle wits even sharper than Lady Sanford’s, whose perceptions in the ordinary way were not in the least dull.

Now she simply stared at her niece. The full significance of Nell’s triumph was realized. “You sly puss.”

Nell basked in her aunt’s warm approval. “I hoped you would be pleased, Aunt. And to think I almost didn’t want to go to the ball last night!”

Phrynie was too much a woman of the world, however, to take Nell’s news at face value. Nell’s information was indeed startling, not to say unbelievable. No matter how sincere the child was, thought her aunt, her inexperience might well lead her into a misapprehension of Foxhall’s intentions. Now, noting well Nell’s euphoria, she believed she had solved the mystery of the girl’s recent abstracted moods.

Phrynie hoped devoutly that Nell would not be devastated when — that is, if — she learned she was in error over Foxhall’s sentiments. Best to be prepared for disaster, she thought, and began to explore the possibilities.

Her thoughts ran swiftly over the previous evening. Lord Foxhall had indeed danced — in fact, waltzed — with Nell, besides standing up with her for the first set. “But what about the Freeland woman?” Lady Sanford spoke her thoughts. “She’s been all but in his pocket this long time.”

“Penelope Freeland,” said Nell, somewhat stiffly, “has nothing to do with dear Rowland.”

“To think,” mused Lady Sanford, unfortunately aloud, “that he would offer in the end for you!”

Nell was stung. “And why not?” She bristled. “Surely he has a right to make his own choice, and it was not Miss Freeland. He — he has a
tendre
for me,” said Nell, demurely. “And he is so handsome!”

Nell slipped easily into the dream that had kept her company since she had first seen Lord Foxhall at her aunt’s ball, given in her honor when she first came to London last April. That first glimpse of dear Rowland, coming up the stairs to meet his hostess, had struck her as though with an arrow, and she still marveled at it. Her impression had been then that the god Apollo, the embodiment of physical beauty, had suddenly donned elegant evening clothes and arrived in some inexplicable fashion on her aunt’s staircase.

Stunned by such masculine beauty, she had found in him the substance of secret dreams, both waking and sleeping. Nell’s clear adoration of him, while not obvious to her aunt, was apparent to Lord Foxhall himself. He had to that moment expected to offer for Penelope Freeland, comfortable in the persuasion that she was more than willing to accept him. His certainty that she looked upon him with favor, coupled with her regrettable tendency toward tactless instruction, led him into dilatory ways, and he had not yet declared himself when he saw a pair of speaking gray eyes, fringed with long dark lashes, looking at him with adoration.

Lord Foxhall had moved slowly, but with deliberate intention, to make further acquaintance of this discerning miss, so different from Penelope, who was prone to point out to him his failings.

Nell’s simple worship came as welcome balm to him.

“But you hardly know him!” objected Lady Sanford now.

Under judicious questioning, Nell, with faltering shyness recounted snatches of conversation held with Foxhall over the past weeks. Lady Sanford, past mistress in the interpretation of nuances, at length admitted that Nell, if mistaken, nonetheless had a reason to expect his offer — this very morning!

Now, Nell’s dream had, quite miraculously, come true. The handsome Nonpareil was to be her very own!

“My goodness!” cried Lady Sanford, once more able to speak. “I must say you’ve done well.”

Nell was suddenly practical. “Dear Aunt, pray find a gown more suitable. He may be here any minute!”

Lady Sanford glanced down at her simple poplin morning gown. “Very well,” she agreed, “though it is not I he is concerned with. It will not matter what I wear.” She considered the Incomparable Foxhall for a moment, then added, “A pity, of course.”

“Aunt!”

“All right, child. I shall endeavor not to embarrass you. Though I will admit he is quite the handsomest man I ever saw. But handsome, Nell, is not all there is to be desired in a husband. Sanford was far from a Greek god, you know.”

Nell was not interested in the uncle she had never met. “Do hurry, Aunt!”

Phrynie was caught up in Nell’s impatience. She did re-fleet, as she hurried up the stairs to change, that she would not be in the least surprised if Nell had been enchanted by moonbeams and simply misunderstood Foxhall. It was quite beyond anything that a prime catch could be interested in a modest heiress like Nell.

Loyalty chided Lady Sanford. Nell was quite as well born as, for instance, Penelope Freeland, and there was no reason on earth why Nell did not deserve to become a countess, one day. Phrynie was a woman of the world, however, and she was aware of a lingering element of strong disbelief, not to say cynicism, in her apparent acceptance of the prospective betrothal.

Nonetheless, obedient to Nell’s sensibilities, she changed into a gown of gray India muslin with pale green satin stripes, primly suitable for the occasion of speaking to a niece’s prospective betrothed. She had just reached the entrance hall when Foxhall arrived.

Nell, peeping from the breakfast room, was gratified to see that Whitcomb, who had not turned a hair when announcing the flamboyant figure of the Prince Regent, was stunned by the exalted personage who was just now arriving.

Lord Foxhall illuminated the foyer. Handing his damp hat and gloves to a footman summoned by Whitcomb, he stood at his ease, his golden hair forming a kind of halo around his head. He was knowledgeable in the manner of presenting himself — not for the Foreign Office was the exotic cravat, the extreme cut of a coat lapel, the adaptation of the newest fashions.

Instead, Lord Foxhall appeared in public in the most costly but exceedingly conservative coat that Weston could prove. His neckcloth of superfine linen fell in simple folds, and Hoby’s boots wore a mirror-like polish.

“Is Lady Sanford at home?” he asked.

“I will inquire, my lord.”

As Lady Sanford crossed the black-and-white-tiled foyer, she shot a conspiratorial glance at her niece, smoothed her own still beautiful features into a suitable expression, and passed through into the green salon to greet her guest.

After an agony of waiting, Nell was rewarded by seeing the salon door open and her aunt emerge. Lady Sanford’s expression was unreadable, but her gesture was imperative. Nell hurried to her.

“Go in,” said Lady Sanford. “Lord Foxhall —” She drew a deep breath, rallying from the interview just past. “He wishes to speak with you.”

Nell floated through the salon door, Whitcomb closed the door softly behind her and, with the privilege of an old and valued servant, joined his mistress to wait the outcome in the breakfast room.

Nell was alone for the second time with her beloved Rowland.

“My dear Miss Aspinall. May I dare — Elinor?” said the golden Lord Foxhall.

Golden was the right word, she thought once more. His hair was the color of liquid sunshine poured down upon a nobly shaped head.

The Paragon took her cold hand in his. “Dear Elinor,” he repeated, “I have sought your aunt’s permission to make my offer to you.”

When he did not continue, she looked at him with dismay.

Her mouth was suddenly dry. “Surely my aunt did not disapprove?”

“Not at all,” said Lord Foxhall, secure in the conviction that any mother or chaperone would not dare to refuse him. “But of course you realize that before I speak to you I must speak to the head of your family.”