The Homecoming (12 page)

“You must not take the attentions of Mr. Parkes too seriously,” said Lizzie. “He only plans to amuse himself.”

“I am in no danger from Mr. Parkes,” said Tiffin. “Do you know Mr. Bond quite well?”

“We are friends.”

“He is a very fine man and very handsome.”

Lizzie repressed a smile. How irritated Gerald would be if he knew that Tiffin rated the secretary’s sensitive and unassuming looks higher than his own.

“Yes, very handsome and very kind,” she agreed. “But your aunt expects you to secure the duke.”

“Aunt Bertha is going to be furious with me. The duke will not even look at such as I, and he is too old.”

“Not very old,” said Lizzie. “My sisters are all married to men older than they and are very happy.”

Tiffin studied Lizzie’s reflection in the mirror. “Do you find the duke attractive, Miss Beverley?”

“Lizzie. And I shall call you Tiffin. I find him a fine figure of a man but rather cold and autocratic.”

“Yes, he probably is,” said Tiffin. “I only hope we may leave as soon as Aunt feels able to rise from her bed, for if she sees how indifferent the duke is to me, she will blame me for it. It is monstrous uncomfortable when one’s father and aunt have social ambitions.”

“Peter will take care of you.”

“Peter?”

“Mr. Bond.”

“Ah, his name is Peter. What a lovely name,” sighed Tiffin.

Lizzie suppressed a grin and began to arrange Tiffin’s hair in a fashionable style.

P
ERHAPS
G
ERALD WOULD
have given up any idea of pursuing Tiffin had not his parents given him a lecture before he went down to dinner. Mrs. Parkes had sustained a call from Peter Bond. Peter had politely called to ask if everything was to their pleasure but had then gone on to tell Mrs. Parkes about the unexpected arrival of Miss Moon and her aunt. “Such a charming lady,” he had said, “but cursed with a socially ambitious father who is nothing more than a farmer and the rough type of fellow who would drive any socially presentable man who even looked at his daughter to the altar with threats of breach of promise.”

Mrs. Parkes considered herself shrewd enough to recognize a warning when she heard it. She repeated to her husband what Mr. Bond had said and Gerald had been summoned.

They were devoted parents but often worried about what they considered to be a wild and heedless streak in their son.

“Have you been pursuing that farmer’s daughter, Miss Moon?” asked Colonel Parkes bluntly.

“Hardly,” said Gerald crossly. “Miss Moon is just arrived and her aunt is unwell.”

“See that you don’t,” said the colonel. “Miss Moon is a respectable young lady, and unless you wish to marry her, you must treat her with respect.”

Gerald opened his blue eyes to their widest. “I can only suppose that some jealous female has been dropping poison in your ears,” he said, thinking of Lizzie. “I have done nothing wrong.”

“Just see that you don’t,” warned the colonel.

And so when the guests gathered in the drawing-room before dinner, the very air was throbbing with schemes and plots. Verity and Celia descended on Lizzie and asked her to take a turn with them about the room. Lizzie, who knew various members of London society through her sisters, chatted amiably. Her conversation was unexceptionable and both Celia and Verity were baffled. There seemed nothing particularly fascinating about Lizzie Beverley. Gerald then joined them and separated Lizzie from Celia and Verity. “Was it necessary to warn my parents that I was chasing Miss Moon?” he demanded in an angry whisper.

“I said nothing to them,” retorted Lizzie. “But I did drop a word of caution in Miss Moon’s ear.”

“You had no right to do that,” exclaimed Gerald. “I thought you were fun, but you have a low mind.”

“Not as low as yours,” said Lizzie sweetly.

Gerald swung away and went to join Tiffin. “How goes your aunt?” he asked.

“Very well, I thank you,” said Tiffin.

“I find these house parties curst dull,” Gerald went on, keeping a cautious eye on his parents, who were chatting with the Chumleys. “Do not you?”

“I have never attended a gathering like this,” said Tiffin. “I find it all quite overwhelming. I do not know quite how to go on.”

“Tell you what,” said Gerald eagerly. “It is a fine night. After dinner, we could go for a stroll in the gardens and I’ll tell you all about things like this.”

“Would that be correct?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll tell my parents, if you like.”

Tiffin hesitated and then said shyly, “I suppose if your parents have no objection…”

Gerald crossed to his parents, bowed to the Chumleys, exchanged a few innocuous remarks about the weather, and then returned to Tiffin.

“There. That’s done,” he said cheerfully. “Conventions observed.”

Peter Bond entered. Gerald, having secured the promise of that walk, had left Tiffin. Peter bowed to the company and then joined Tiffin. “I am so glad to see you again, Mr. Bond,” confided Tiffin. “I am not used to grand company. Although some of the young ladies at the seminary were from very grand families, I did not socialize with them, so this is different. Mr. Parkes has offered to take me for a walk in the gardens after dinner and to instruct me as to how I should go on.”

“That would hardly be a correct thing to do. You cannot go out into the gardens in the evening unescorted with a young man.”

“But he asked and secured his parents’ permission.”

Good manners stopped Peter from saying cynically that he doubted if Gerald had obtained any such permission. He saw Miss Trumble watching them. “Excuse me, Miss Moon,” he said. “I have an idea.”

He joined Miss Trumble and told her of Gerald’s invitation. “You were right to tell me,” said Miss Trumble. “Tell Miss Moon from me that it will be quite conventional if she is chaperoned. I elect myself her chaperone while she is here. Tell her we will
both
join Mr. Parkes after dinner. I wonder how he will like that?” Peter smiled and returned to tell Tiffin of Miss Trumble’s offer.

“I do not know how to thank you,” said Tiffin. “I feel so
safe
with you beside me, Mr. Bond.” Peter felt ten feet tall.

The duke was talking to Lizzie. “Are you recovered from the ordeal of saving my life, Miss Lizzie?”

“I feel quite well, Your Grace, but I fear I shall have bad dreams.”

“What did Mr. Parkes say to annoy you so much?”

“Nothing of consequence,” said Lizzie.

“Are you angry because he seems to have fallen for the charms of Miss Moon?”

“If he is set on breaking Miss Moon’s heart as a way of providing himself with some excitement, then I shall be very angry indeed,” said Lizzie. “I do not like philanderers.”

His eyes sparkled. “Alas, you cannot like me. I am devastated.”

“I cannot imagine you philandering!”

“Do you find me staid and serious?”

“Your Grace, when I think of our previous conversation, I feel I have insulted you enough.”

He put her hand on his arm and began to walk down the long room with her. “Advise me. What entertainment should I provide for these guests of mine? Or do you think I should pretend to fall ill and so be shot of them?”

“What of your marriage plans?”

“I fear I am destined to remain a bachelor.”

“You must try harder.”

“What if I have decided I wish to remain single?”

“Then that is your choice.”

Sarah Walters felt she could not bear it any longer. The duke had not even looked once in her direction. Somehow, she must distract his attention from Lizzie.

She moved until she was directly in their path, put her hand to her brow, and pretended to swoon in a dead faint at their feet.

Lizzie let out a gasp. The duke put his hand over her hand on his arm and held it in a firm clasp and guided her round Sarah’s recumbent body, saying over his shoulder, “Mrs. Walters! Your daughter is unwell. Pray ring for the servants to remove her to her room, and should you need the physician, please summon him.” He turned back to Lizzie. “To return to my earlier question, what entertainment should I supply?”

“Cards for the old people and dancing for the young,” said Lizzie. “There is quite a good little orchestra in Hedgefield which plays at local assemblies.”

Sarah was being carried from the room by two strong footmen, followed by her parents and an anxious-looking Peter Bond. “You did not believe she really fainted, did you?” asked Lizzie.

“No, I did not,” he said. “But if she did, then she has her parents to look after her. I fear Mr. Bond might be gullible enough to believe her really ill.”

“Did you see that?” hissed Verity to Celia. “He is so taken up with Lizzie Beverley that he paid absolutely no attention when Miss Walters fainted at his feet.”

“Why do not we rescue him from death?” said Celia.

“And how do we do that?” asked Verity with contempt.

“We manufacture some event.”

Verity looked at her curiously. “Such as what?”

“I have been thinking about it,” said Celia eagerly. “We could perhaps wait until he is ready to go out riding. One of us will go up on the leads and drop a piece of masonry down on him and the other will push him clear.”

“It could work,” said Verity slowly. “You could be stationed on the roof and I—”

“Why me on the roof? I thought of the idea. I should be the one to save him.”

“We will toss for it,” said Verity, fishing in her reticule and producing a crown piece. “Heads I go on the roof, tails you do.”

“Oh, very well,” said Celia sulkily.

Verity tossed the coin. “Tails,” she said triumphantly. “You go on the roof.”

“Then you must think up a rescue for me to perform,” said Celia, feeling quite tearful. “I think it most unfair that you should be the first to act the heroine when it was all my idea.”

Verity ignored her. “We must have a word with him in private and find out when he plans to go out next.” She left Celia and joined the duke and Lizzie. To the duke’s irritation, Lizzie murmured something and walked off to join Miss Moon.

“Do you often go riding early in the morning?” asked Verity.

“Quite often.”

“Tomorrow?”

He looked down at her impatiently. Gerald had joined Lizzie. What were they talking about?

“Yes, but too early for anyone else to be about. I leave at nine to ride to Hedgefield.”

To the duke’s relief, dinner was announced.

*   *   *

At dinner the duke said to Miss Trumble, “I am riding to Hedgefield in the morning.”

“For any particular reason?”

He smiled. “Only to put a little distance between myself and my guests.”

“So it was all a mistake.”

“A very great mistake.” He hesitated. “I may ask Miss Lizzie to accompany me. There can be nothing wrong in making an innocent expedition to a local town with Miss Lizzie.”

“Why do you wish her to go with you, Gervase?”

“She amuses me.”

Miss Trumble sat for a few moments in deep thought. “Lizzie is in no danger of losing her heart to you,” she said at last. “If there was any other gentleman in this party I considered a suitable beau for my Lizzie, then I would tell you to keep away from her and stop ruining her chances. I distrust Gerald Parkes. I fear his attentions to Miss Moon will be short-lived and he will soon turn his attentions back to Lizzie. You may go.”

“Thank you,” he said drily. “Your time as a governess shows in that you manage to make me feel about ten years old.”

Miss Trumble smiled. “I will tell Lizzie of your proposal so that she knows she has my approval.”

Sarah Walters lay in bed, a cloth soaked in cologne on her forehead. Her father’s acid words rang in her ears. “What possessed you to faint in that silly way? His Grace ain’t interested in you. And why? Because you’ve left the field to Lizzie Beverley, that’s why, with all your moping and maundering. If it hadn’t been for the Beverley chit, you might have had a chance.”

Oh, why didn’t Lizzie Beverley die? thought Sarah miserably.

To ease her mind, to take away the awful shame of that memory of the duke’s paying absolutely no attention to her “faint,” she began to dream up ways of murdering Lizzie. An hour of hard dreaming intensified the idea that without Lizzie she, Sarah Walters, could become a duchess. Having, in her dreams, disposed of Lizzie, her dreams of that wedding to the duke came flooding back. But as she fell asleep, she plunged straight into a dream where she was at the duke’s wedding but he was marrying Lizzie.

She awoke with a start. Something would have to be done.

Lizzie looked out nervously at a grey, misty morning. She had been so sure that the fine weather would last. She sensed approaching rain.

But she dressed with care, wearing the same riding outfit and hat. She had an older one she could have put on, but she felt that the new one was smarter.

With a feeling of nervous and happy anticipation, she walked down the stairs to meet the duke. It was not that she was in any way attracted to him, she told herself. It was just that she was only human and it was flattering to be selected as his companion a second time over the other eligible ladies in the house.

Celia was up on the roof, peering down into the swirling mist. She felt weak and dizzy. She was clutching a large square brick of Portland stone. If only the mist would clear.

It was too bad of Verity. It had all been her, Celia’s, idea, and she should be the one down there prepared to rescue the duke.

The shapes below her moved and changed in the mist. Horses neighed. Which figure was the duke?

Then she heard Verity’s voice. “I declare I am a light sleeper. Why do I not change into my riding habit and join you?”

Treacherous girl, thought Celia furiously. That was not part of the plan.

Anger at Verity gave her strength as she heaved up the brick. Now all she wanted to do was get it over with and get down from this cold and dizzying perch.

Verity, a smile pinned on her face, wondered what was holding Celia up. She tried to delay the duke with further conversation, but Lizzie was already mounted. The duke swung himself up into the saddle, touched his hat to Verity, and he and Lizzie rode off down the drive.