The Golden Season (17 page)

Now he understood. There was an ancient ecumenical ban against marriages between people of affinity, such as a brother’s widow. Such marriages were frowned upon in England but more important, they could be declared void by anyone desiring to bring suit. Though marriages of affinity occurred, it was hard to find British clergymen willing to perform the ceremony, especially when the peerage was involved. In Europe, the clergy was more accommodating.

Lady Lydia’s parents must have gone there to be wed, then stayed, fearing their return might inspire someone to contest the marriage, a suit that if won would render Lady Lydia illegitimate.

“So you see why I suspect my parents were trying to put a good face on an uncomfortable situation by presenting our nomadic lifestyle as one of choice.” She was watching him closely, gauging his reaction.

“Perhaps. Perhaps she simply wanted you to love those things she loved. Did you?”

She flashed a smile. “I did when my parents lived. I never wanted for anything or anyone. But after they died . . . I discovered—” She broke off, looking away.

“Discovered what?” he asked softly.

Again that hesitant, distracted glance. “I realized the disadvantages of the life we had led. No one knew me well enough to claim me, or to feel obligated or responsible. When my parents died I felt as though I had died, too. Or at least, I felt that I, along with the life I had known, ceased to exist.”

Poor child. Poor girl.

“The Crown appointed me a guardian, a pleasant old fellow who had as much interest in a young girl as he did two-headed goats. He moved me to one of his houses in Wilshire. I realized then, when no one came, when no one wrote, that for most of the people we had met and known for a few short weeks in various capitals and manors and palaces, I
had
ceased to exist. And I began to wonder if I had not ceased to exist not just after my parents died, but as soon as we left whatever state, whatever home, whatever country we were currently visiting. Had we been forgotten as soon as we left?”

“I’m sorry.”

She lifted her shoulders, almost in apology. “It makes no difference now. I only say it by way of explaining why I didn’t follow my mother’s footsteps—so many as they were. Despite her best efforts to produce in me a love of a nomadic lifestyle, I resist change now. The older I become the more I treasure what I have. Those people and things I know, I want to continue to know.”

He understood. Josten Hall represented a similar permanence and continuity to him.

“I do not want to be forgotten as soon as I leave the room.”

It explained much: her flamboyance, her charm, her loyalties.

“But maybe,” she added, “my mother had the right of it. Perhaps it makes no sense to cleave too strongly to a thing or a person or even a way of life.”

“Surely there are traditions and places and relationships worth maintaining?”

“But to what lengths should one go to hold on to them?” she asked. “Change is inescapable, is it not? How does one know whether a thing is worth the struggle, even the sacrifices, one must make to preserve it?”

He had no facile answer for her. He was willing to enter into a marriage of convenience for the sake of his family, to preserve a manor house and a way of life he had shared for only a scant fourteen years. He’d never questioned whether or not his decision had merit. It was what his family required of him. It was his duty.

The waiter, Sam, appeared at the side of the carriage, come to collect their bowls and spoons. He looked over Lady Lydia’s clean bowl approvingly. “Now see here?” he instructed Ned in a friendly manner. “Her ladyship is one who knows how to appreciate a thing to its fullest. A gift that is that few has. A rare ’un, she be.”

In the short space of an hour in her company, Ned had experienced fascination, amusement, lust, and finally had been made to evaluate his own choices.

A rare ’un, indeed.

In the back room of a Lisle Street gaming hell, Childe Smyth held up a snifter of second-rate brandy. He eyed the amber liquid despondently. The color reminded him of his mistress’s eyes. He ought to be in her bed now, rather than waiting for one of Josten’s brats to finish casting up his accounts in the alley so they could commence dealing the cards. But he had a reputation to maintain and part of that reputation was as a high flier, not as some devoted dog so agog over his mistress he couldn’t bear to leave her.

He wasn’t. Of course not. But still, he wondered how his mistress kept herself occupied during his absence. He’d never considered himself a jealous man until Kitty. Even after all these years as her protector, he hated it when other men leered at her. Many men took great delight in flaunting their mistresses at Covent Garden and Vauxhall and the opera, but he preferred to keep Kitty to himself. She didn’t seem to mind.

In part, that is what had kept him besotted all these years. Not only was Kitty a beauty; she was a comfortable beauty. Satisfied and sensual, she put him in mind of some luxuriant cat that knows a world exists outside the boudoir door but has deemed it not worth the effort to explore. The only time Childe was completely content was in her amiable and attentive company, for those lovely hours finding respite from having to keep up appearances.

Appearances and status were important to Childe. More than important, imperative. His family name was not especially old or illustrious. He was a gentleman, true, and a very wealthy gentleman, but nothing more. His aim was much higher. He longed to stand at the very pinnacle of Society, to be admired and copied and emulated, to know that with a few words he had the power to destroy or elevate—like Brummell.

Childe scowled. It rubbed him raw that someone with far less breeding than himself had reached the pinnacle to which he aspired. But now Brummell was gone, fled in front of his creditors to the Continent and there was a place open for a new king of the
beau monde
. So far he had failed to climb over the other pretenders to seize that throne.

He did not understand why he hadn’t succeeded yet. He’d done everything he could think to elevate his status and image. His friendships included Society’s most elite members, he adopted their mannerisms and their tastes, he cultivated the right friendships and the right mien, and yet still, social triumph eluded him. Well, he thought, his mood growing even more sour, there was at least one clear path to his goal: wealth.

Not standard wealth. Not well-off wealth. Not plum-in-the-pocket wealth. The sort of wealth that could not be discounted or dismissed, the sort of fortune that could buy a small country. The sort of fortune he was heir to . . . if he should marry before his grandsire died.

At this reminder of his upcoming nuptials to an as-yet-undetermined young lady, he stopped studying the brandy and took a deep swig of it.

It wasn’t that he was opposed to marrying. He’d always expected to do his duty and produce a litter of brats to aid in spending his grandfather’s fortune. But he resented being pressed to
point non plus
by the old demon’s failing health. He had no doubt the hard-fisted whoreson would cut him out of the will with his dying breath if he wasn’t leg-shackled by the time said breath was expelled. The only thing the old man hated more than Childe was not being able to force Childe to his will. Well, it looked like he’d finally found a way. . . .

And the old man weren’t doing too well of late, either. Damn and blast. He supposed that if he wasn’t with Kitty, he might as well be at some dreary cotillion or other, hunting up the future Mrs. Smyth. Someone who would increase his social standing. He just hoped whoever he married did not think he would give Kitty up, for he had no intention of ever doing so.

“Josten’s lad still out back counting the cobbles?” an accented voice asked.

Childe glanced up as Prince Carvelli returned from the front of the establishment with three other men, cits with deep pockets.

“Yes,” he replied. “His cousin is holding his head and Borton is back there, too, clucking like a broody hen, doubtless cautioning the children about playing with the likes of me. Don’t know who designated Borton the boys’ nanny.”

Carvelli shrugged, his expression sad. “Little good it will do. Lads intent on ruin will find a path leading there.”

“Zounds, you sound like deacons, not gentlemen of the green baize road,” a hard-eyed young debauchee named Tweed sneered.

“Perhaps we should call it a night?” Carvelli suggested.

“Certainly,” Tweed sneered. “If you’re too cowhearted to play the deeper game.”

Childe disliked the Tweed. He was some baronet’s by-blow, a mushroom who thought better of his talents than they deserved, hotheaded and eager to make a name for himself as a Captain Sharp. His two friends, gentler bred and trying hard not to let that be known, clearly lionized him.

Still, he could not let such a whelp call him cowhearted. He shrugged. “Josten can well afford to pay for his cub’s education.”

He’d play a few hands, then make the rounds of the soirees on the other side of town.

“I’ll find us blue ruin. Why don’t you lads hunt down the rest of our party?” Tweed said to his chums.

Amidst snickers and grumbles they complied, leaving the room to Childe and Carvelli.

“I do believe that I will excuse myself,” the prince said. “Cowhearted as I am.”

He was neither cowhearted nor in debt, but clearly he was eager to be gone. Lately, the prince seemed distracted and on edge. One would think
he’d
been given some matrimonial ultimatum.

“You don’t have an ailing grandfather back in Italy, do you, Prince?” Childe asked. “One with an unaccountable yearning to dandle your scion on his knee?”

Carvelli started. “No. Why do you ask?”

“I happen to have one myself and was thinking it seemed a pleasant night to find myself a bride. I thought perhaps you, too . . .” He trailed off with an ironic curl to his lip.

“As you might recall, my friend, I already have a wife,” Carvelli replied.

“I had in truth forgotten,” Childe said. “You rarely speak of her or your family.”

“Everything that might be said of her can be summed up in one sentence: She is a saint,” Carvelli said and laughed bitterly. “Alas, I am a sinner, a fact both her family and mine and, of course, she herself, remind me of at every opportunity. Is it any wonder I stay in England in order not to give them many?”

“But eventually you’ll return to her and raise up a passel of brats. One must fulfill one’s duty.”

“Saints do not breed,” Carvelli said roughly, but then realizing his aplomb had been breached, relaxed into a smile. “I do not foresee my departure anytime soon.”

“You ought to get yourself a mistress, my friend,” Childe said, thinking once more of Kitty.

Carvelli smiled. “Do you think? Perhaps you are right.”

“Without a doubt. Get yourself a mistress and everyone will be the happier for it.”

“Perhaps I shall. In fact”—Carvelli clapped him on the back—“I think I should commence taking applicants for the post at once. If it is a pleasant night to find a bride, it stands to reason it must be an even more pleasant one in which to find a lover.”

And with a gay laugh, and a glitter in his black eyes, he strode from the room calling for his coat and cane.

Silently, Childe cursed. Now he was stuck with Tweed and his friends, and Borton and the Lockton unlicked cubs. At least this last bit provided some amusement.

Oh, how very unhappy the good Captain Lockton would be if he only knew with whom his nephews were keeping company. Not that he’d evince any distemper or utter a word of disapproval. Except at their initial meeting at Boodle’s, he’d never heard the fellow make any comment that was not entirely cordial. Lockton had the physique of a Corinthian and the looks of a Greek god, but he did nothing with these qualities. He had no arrogance, no style, no panache or fire.

Not that it mattered what he thought; the ladies of the
ton
certainly did not find him wanting in any way. For the past month, they had been pursuing the man like a pack of hounds after spring’s first rabbit. He was ubiquitous, invited to more fetes and routs than Childe himself.

Lockton had even found favor with Lady Lydia Eastlake. Her interest wouldn’t last, of course. It never did. Childe fully expected to win his bet off Carvelli. But at three separate soirees last week Lockton had two dances with Lady Lydia. It gave one pause. . . .

No. No. It was nothing but an encroaching fancy on Lady Lydia’s part, Childe decided. She was sophisticated, worldly, too fly to the time of day to settle for a passionless sea captain, no matter how handsome or pleasant or well connected. If the rumors were true—and Childe had no reason to believe otherwise since Lady Lydia’s patroness, the Duchess of Grenville, had verified them—the violet-eyed Incomparable was toying with the idea of marrying. It explained much. In the eight Seasons since she’d made her bow, Lady Lydia had never shone more brilliantly than she did this one. And that was brilliant, indeed. Her laughter was like a love charm, her pleasure palpable, her excitement investing the very air around her with champagnelike effervescence.

He mused. Why waste her vivacity on a man who seemed incapable of appreciating fire? Childe thought he knew the answer. These last few Seasons, Lady Lydia had kicked up some larks that had the
ton
’s more staid members raising their eyebrows. Some of them had worthy sons. What better way to reestablish her respectability than by allowing the
entirely
respectable captain to squire her about?

It was just the sort of machination Smyth would expect of someone with Lady Lydia’s social acumen—and he respected her for it. Now
she
, he realized, would make him a good wife. She had looks, influence, and a worthy name. More worthy than his own, truth be told, despite the irregularity of her parents’ marriage. But that was old news.