The Lonely Earl (12 page)

Egmont glared balefully at Lady Waverly. “You wouldn’t!”

Louisa smiled sweetly at him. ‘Pray persuade Pendarvis to attend my ball, James?”

James Kennett, Baron Egmont, no longer master in his own house, slammed the door with a resounding crash behind him.

“The Kennetts,” said Louisa kindly to Julia, who sat round-eyed with shock, “have always had strong tempers. A vice I often pointed out to my sister. Julia, pray hand me my embroidery silks.”

Chapter 9

The day of the ball dawned promising fine weather — sunny, not too hot, a gentle breeze drifting in and out of the open windows, carrying the scent of early roses, aromas of spice and vanilla, the fragrance of beeswax, and the sound of many servants employed diligently and usefully.

Faustina frowned at the sunshine splashing across the deep carpet of her bedroom. Meg brought her tea and, wisely, slipped away without a word. The talk belowstairs had centered for two days on the unaccountably touchy mood of their mistress. Speculation ranged from Lady Waverly’s incessant demands to a renewal of a quarrel between that lady and her niece over a man in London last year.

And if Mrs. Cotter, having been privileged to observe part of the scene in the hall when Pendarvis left, had her own ideas about Miss Faustina’s sudden decline in spirits, no one would hear about it from her. The cook listened without comment to the conversation around her. At length, she had had enough.

“If Miss Faustina wants to be in a mood, well, I’m sure it’s a privilege none of us will begrudge her, since none of us feels the sharp edge of her tongue, nor ever has. Besides, she’s probably upset because the work for the ball is going along so slow, while you all sit here drinking tea and observing the habits of your betters!” she finished pointedly. Without a word the servants’ dining room was emptied of its occupants, and Mrs. Cotter cleaned away the cups with a satisfied smile on her face.

While the servants were scurrying back to their chores, Lord Egmont was riding to the far reaches of his estate. It was his determined intention to remain as far from Kennett Chase as possible until the very last minute that civility allowed. He would be in his own house to welcome guests, dressed in proper attire. He had calculated his absence very nicely, and the afternoon sun was casting long shadows before Lord Egmont, with Windhook, his factor, rode soberly back to the stables.

Windhook, in the privacy of the stable, complained in a muttering voice to Yarnall, the head groom. “His lordship could have found out all he needed to know about the farms in an hour! But no, he has to spend the entire day looking into how many rabbits the poachers took last week as compared with the week before, and why didn’t we try the new strain of fescue on the slopes, and—”

“Don’t tell me,” said the unsympathetic groom, “he’s the smart one. They even had me carrying chairs down from the box rooms — some party this is going to be!”

Windhook regarded him sourly. “I suppose you’ll spend the evening looking in at the windows!”

“I might, at that.” Yarnall grinned. “
And
I won’t be the only one, you can count on that!”

If Lord Egmont had not been out supervising his vast acres that day, he would have been on hand to welcome the unexpected visitor. As it was, only Faustina received him.

A smart little tilbury drove up the long sweep before the door. The black horses that drew it, and the rig itself, partook of the nature of their owner — the horses a bit plumpish, yet sound of wind and limb and strong stayers, and the rig neat and trim, of a sober conventional black, and spotless in spite of having been driven at speed from London.

Faustina peered through the front door around Bone’s bulk, and cried out, “Ned! What a wonderful surprise!”

She flew down the stairs and embraced her cousin. “Ned Waverly,” she said, “will wonders never cease! You came down for the ball! I didn’t think you would cross Berkeley Square to attend one, and here you are in Devon!”

“Cousin, I’m glad to see you in such high gig!” Ned dropped a kiss somewhere in the vicinity of her left cheek. “I vow rustication does you no harm.” He turned to greet the butler with cordiality. “How do you do, Bone? Can you have Yarnall see to my horses? And here is Linden, who came with me. I am sure you remember him?”

“Of a certainty, Sir Edward,” said Bone, smiling.

Ned allowed Faustina to slip her hand through his arm and draw him into the house. Still talking gaily, she failed to notice Ned’s expression until they reached the library. “The only place we can sit down,” she said ruefully. “The floors are waxed and the chairs removed in the drawing room, and… Ned, what’s the matter?”

She looked with anxious fondness at her cousin. She did not share Aunt Louisa’s laments over her son, Edward. Ned prosed on, his mother deplored, and never said anything with fun in it!

And rightly, Ned responded frequently, with more than a touch of acerbity, “since your accounts are enough to send one jumping off a high wall!”

Ned in turn was fond of Faustina, and now, seating himself in a big leather chair, he smiled affectionately at her. Ned partook of his mother’s coloring — light brown hair, blue eyes, cheeks pink and a little plumper than his mother’s — but Ned was his father’s son, full of good sense and, fortunately, surprised at very little. His position at the office of Inland Revenue he kept by sheer ability, coupled with an intense interest in his work.

“I wish Papa were here!” Faustina exclaimed. “But he could not abide the hurly-burly, and I cannot blame him. I only wish it were possible for me to go and do likewise. But there! I should have missed your arrival!”

“Can you put me up for a few days, Faustina?” said Ned. “I shall ask my uncle, of course…”

“No need to,” said Faustina. “We already have a houseful of Waverlys. Now you’ve come, and—”

Ned was mystified. “A houseful? Of
Waverlys
? Faustina, you’ve stayed too long in the country. Addled your wits.”

“No, Ned, I’m not gone quite mad yet. Although,” she said reflectively, “I make no promises for the future. Although you are right, of course. Two — or even three — Waverlys do not make a houseful.”

“Let me understand you,” said Ned, getting up from his chair and taking a quick turn across the room and back. “My mother?”

“Of course. She’s upstairs lying down. She must be fresh for tonight. Though why, I don’t know, since Hugh won’t be here.”

“My mother is here. In this house?”

“Ned, I wonder at your hearing. Have you seen a physician?”

He brushed that aside. “My mother. And Julia, of course.”

“Naturally.” She watched him for a moment, as bewilderment crossed his ordinarily pleasant face and joined some other emotion. “Where did you think she was?” she added curiously.

“Beaufort.”

“Oh, I begin to understand.”

“That stupid affair with Captain Abernethy, I suppose. You knew about that?”

“Only that he offered for someone else,” said Faustina. “Was it really dreadful? I’ve only heard Julia’s version.”

“Dreadful enough,” said Ned, bleakly remembering certain scenes with great distaste. “So she left London. But why here? I shouldn’t have thought that you and she were such great friends.”

“We’re not,” agreed Faustina, “nor are we likely to be. But she has stirred us up here. She’s giving a ball, or rather, we’re giving it for her, and all the countryside is coming — almost all — and it will be fun.”

She rose and slipped her arm through his. “I’m so glad you’re here, Ned.” Then, suddenly alarmed, she added, “Your mother doesn’t know you’re here, either?” He shook his head. “Then how is it that you have come all the way from London?”

He didn’t answer. With a wry smile he said only, “I must trust that my mother’s anticipation of the ball will overcome any resentment she might have at my presence.”

“We will all trust in that,” said Faustina solemnly.

*

The first strains of the music had struck up before Louisa revived from the shock of coming down to dinner to find her only son in evening dress and obviously looking forward to a visit of some days at Kennett Chase.

“Send him away,” whispered Louisa urgently to Egmont. “I don’t doubt he’s come to devil me about my accounts, and I don’t wish to hear about them.”

“I can’t do that,” Egmont said dryly. “He’s the only Waverly I find it possible to like.”

Louisa sent him a petrifying glance before she turned her attention to the rooms open for the party. She audibly approved the wealth of flowers from the greenhouses, the roses particularly scenting the air.

Faustina thought her aunt looked particularly well, if a trifle overdressed for what she insisted on calling a simple country rout — yellow satin, a frothy zephyr gauze overskirt of the same color, trimmed with an intricate festooning of gold cord. Little topazes were set in the heels of her yellow satin slippers, giving her a sparkling look as she danced. Faustina admitted that her aunt had style.

Julia was painfully demure in white with a sky-blue satin sash. “If Louisa wants to get the girl off,” muttered Egmont in his daughter’s ear, “why doesn’t she dress her right?”

“I confess the thought occurred to me to lend her one of my own gowns,” confided Faustina. “But alas, I dared not!”

Not until the rooms were filled to suffocation did Faustina have a chance to draw her breath. She was proved right — the earl had not come. Nor had Vincent, but at least he had sent word of pressing business elsewhere. She suspected the “pressing business” was simply an unwillingness to come under Lady Waverly’s eye again.

Lady Waverly left the reception line for a moment, and Faustina was alone when the last guest arrived. 

“Good evening.” The voice was low, pleasant, and familiar.

She caught her breath in surprised recognition.

“I must apologize for being late,” said Hugh Crale, “but I confess I am out of the way of fashion, and it took me longer than I planned to tie my neck-cloth.”

He smiled sweetly at her. Does he know that smile could turn one’s heart over? wondered Faustina, and blushed at her totally reprehensible thoughts. But if he knew, he did not presume on its effect. He turned to Lady Waverly, hastily returning, with suitable remarks, and left Faustina to puzzle over his behavior.

If ever a man had swallowed yesterday’s anger, that man was Hugh. There was, she noticed as her eyes followed him, no trace that he had ever — just beyond that library door there — turned rigid with rage and devastated pride. Now he was smiling and gracious, and she found time to note that if she were meeting him for the first time, she would be put to it to control some very wayward thoughts.

She watched, as in a trance, as Hugh renewed his acquaintance with her cousin Ned, was polite to the vicar, and greeted Aubrey Talbot with obvious pleasure. What a changeable man! she thought. Totally unreliable. She turned to speak to Julia.

“See?” she said in an undertone. “Not a word about his daughter.”

Reasonably, Julia responded, “Why should he mention her?”

Sometime later, Faustina saw that Hugh was making the rounds, dancing, as befitted his exalted position, with each of the women present before he danced with any a second time. He had, of course, considered Lady Waverly his hostess, and had gallantly swung her first onto the floor. Far down the list for herself, Faustina guessed, or perhaps not at all. Morosely she moved through the crowd, fighting an obscure impulse to flee upstairs and give herself over to weeping.

The next time she found Hugh in the press, although she would not admit she had been looking for him, he was dancing with Julia. Aunt Louisa had managed! Julia was looking up into Hugh’s face with every appearance of total engrossment. Hugh smiled down at her. Faustina thought: All Julia’s innocent charm, wasted on an odious, arrogant villain!

How pleased Aunt Louisa must be, thought Faustina, but she found that Aunt Louisa was showing signs, familiar in the family but not otherwise visible, of testiness. A slight tightening of the creases at the comers of her eyes, a tiny muscle jerking at the jaw.

“What is it, Aunt?”

“The child doesn’t have to throw herself at him,” complained Lady Waverly. “She’ll ruin it all!”

Faustina said nothing. If she could have allayed Aunt Louisa’s displeasure over her daughter’s behavior, she would have done so. But she too had noticed the absorption that Julia exhibited in every word that fell from Hugh’s lips. After some time she saw that Julia was now dancing with Aubrey Talbot, and unaccountably Faustina began to enjoy her evening.

Helen Astley pulled at her wrist when she passed by. “Have you noticed,” Helen said in a waspish undertone, “that your cousin is dancing with Mr. Talbot?”

“Of course,” Faustina answered evenly. “I even noticed that you were dancing with him. Does that signify something I don’t understand? If so, I must give myself the experience!”

“Don’t be frivolous,” snapped Helen. “Your cousin shouldn’t be dancing at all. I know that she has not gone into society yet.”

Faustina surveyed her old acquaintance without favor. “And what difference does it make?” she asked gently. “If my aunt deems Julia’s behavior appropriate, under our roof…” She left the implied rebuke hanging.

“The earl surely must see that Julia is throwing herself at him,” complained Helen, pursing her thin lips.

“When she dances with Mr. Talbot?” marveled Faustina, pretending she herself had not seen Julia’s absorbed attention to Hugh only moments before. “I confess I do not have your power of insight into the significance you read into it. Pray enlighten me!”

Helen realized that Faustina was rallying her, but, possessed of no sense of humor herself, chose not to venture into regions where she knew Faustina was superior. Instead, she sniffed. “Mr. Talbot is the earl’s great friend, you know,” she said mysteriously, “and of course you can see now what Julia’s plan is.”