The Waltzing Widow/Smith (8 page)

“How should I have children when I’m not even—” Lucy clenched her jaws. “No, I have no children,” she said grimly.

“Not even married, eh? Well, well. You find the guise of widow elicits sympathy from susceptible bantlings, I expect. There is much to be said for a maiden, however. There is just a little something about a secondhand woman....”

Lucy rose majestically to her feet. “Get out,” she said, pointing to the door. “I will not hear any more of your insults.” Her breast rose and fell as she tried to contain her wrath.

Avedon remained seated, consciously adding an unspoken insult by doing so. Lucy stalked from the room and left him alone. Deserted, Avedon got up and sauntered toward the hallway. Lucy had said a word to the butler, and was just on her way upstairs.

She stopped and looked down over her shoulder, with fire flashing in her eyes. “Do pray tell your sister I look forward to seeing her at her garden party tomorrow, Lord Avedon. She invited Miss Percy and myself the day she arrived, and Tony is most eager for me to go and meet all his family.”

Avedon was much impressed with her gall and sought quickly for a leveler. “Lady Sara managed to hire some extra girls from the village,” he replied with a satirical smile. “She won’t require your services to hand around the ices.”

Lucy felt an overwhelming urge to stamp her foot, but quelled the childish impulse. “I am going, and don’t think you can scare me away,” she said, and continued on her way upstairs.

“I shall personally escort you off my property if you set one toe on it,” he answered, but he didn’t think she heard him. She neither turned around nor stopped but continued to her room.

Lucy longed to pour into her aunt’s ears the iniquities that had been heaped on her head but did not like to disturb her. The man was a monster! To put her in the same class as Ronald Pewter—a fortune hunter. And to think she would have that silly twit of a Bigelow, whom she could hardly endure the sight of! To insult her under her own roof, to call her thirty years old, and to laugh so slyly when she let slip she wasn’t married. To put her in a class with Mrs. Lacey, whoever
that
was! It was infamous.

She was of half a mind to marry Tony to show Avedon a lesson. And she would go to his sister’s blasted garden party. What a temptation to put on an apron and go as a servant, still hanging on Tony’s arm. It would serve him well. But she would not wear anything so unappealing. Her best garden bonnet, which framed her youthful face to a nicety, was what she would wear, and a flowing gown and a parasol. If the other local ladies were as unattractive as Lady Sara, she would put them all in the shade.

She had a strong desire to show Lord Avedon it was not only his nephew who found her attractive.

* * * *

Lord Avedon had already made the discovery for himself. Mrs. Percy was younger than he thought. Twenty-two she claimed, and there was no point thinking she had lowered her age more than a year, if at all. She was also much too attractive for him to think he could control Tony if it came to a contest between them. A beauty was what the girl was. If he were not aware of her designs, he could fall in love with her himself. Not that he would ever marry such a creature. A strumpet, posing as a widow to curry pity from schoolboys. It was disgusting.

The war was a boon to her sort. They could claim alliance with some respectable person, dead and unable to defend himself. He’d look into this business of a Captain Percy. Ciudad Rodrigo Sal had mentioned as the place where the husband was supposed to have died. Perhaps if he confronted Tony with proof of her lies, he would see the light. He wondered if she would really attend Sal’s garden party. He certainly did not put it a pace past her. To go setting up a farm on his doorstep to enable herself to remain, after all his work and expense to be rid of her. He had met a manager precariously close to being his own equal, but she wouldn’t get her talons into Bigelow.

“Lady Sara has got beautiful weather for her garden party,” Lucy said the next morning to her aunt. Lucy stuck by her intention to attend the party but felt her aunt would not go with her if she knew Lord Avedon’s threat. It struck Lucy as better in every way that her aunt not attend, in case of unpleasantness.

“I forgot all about it!” Mrs. Percy exclaimed in consternation. “Tony has promised to send the Craw-ley boys to me this afternoon to weed out the back garden. I cannot leave them unattended after the shambles they made of the roses.”

“We dare not leave them alone,” Lucy agreed.

After a great deal of discussion, her aunt decided she must miss the party. “Be sure to make my excuses to Lady Sara,” she said. “She will understand. It is so difficult to hire anyone, since Lord Avedon has employed every odd-job lad in the neighborhood. I expect he added them to the Canterbury crew to hasten the work,” she said, trying to make sense of it. “I daresay Tony will be happy to escort you, so you need not go alone.”

Her niece said not a word to enlighten her. Tony used the loan of the Crawley brothers as an excuse to call in person at Rose Cottage that morning. He was delighted to escort Lucy, and after a hint or two from her, he suggested that his mama and Cousin Morton might as well go with them—a family party. No word was mentioned of Lord Avedon’s visit the evening before.

Avedon was less circumspect in broadcasting his visit to Rose Cottage. He told Lady Sara the whole of it over breakfast. “The brazen hussy refuses to budge an inch. She has got a cow and a batch of hens from the idiot, and says she will see you at the garden party this afternoon.”

“She would not be so bold!” Lady Sara gasped, delighted at such melodramatic doings. “I hope you let her know she will not be welcome.”

“Ho, much she cares about welcome. She’ll be here if she has to shoot her way in, and you may be sure she’ll be hanging on the idiot’s arm, so we can hardly ask her to leave.”

“No, Tony will come with Isabel and Cousin Morton.”

“Possibly. But what shall we do if she comes?” Avedon asked.

Lady Sara gave it her deep consideration. “We can hardly turn them off after I invited them. We shall give them a cold shoulder, and the neighborhood will see what we think of women of Mrs. Percy’s kidney.”

“You aren’t fully aware of the nature of her kidney, either. I don’t believe she was ever married at all,” Avedon said. “She let something slip last night.”

Lady Sara promptly demanded all the details. “She may not even be a Percy for all we know,” she said after the tale was unfolded.

“She could be anyone. There is a respectable family of Percys at Dorset, but I doubt she’s any kin to them. You know that fellow in Hampshire who was in the Peninsula, Sal. Can you find out form him if there was a Captain Percy there, and if he was married?”

“Yes, George Wesley lost an arm, poor soul. I shall write to his mama this very day. Mrs. Percy is a scheming woman, come here to snap up Tony, but we shall soon be rid of her. How could she have heard of him, Adrian? Your advertisement was so discreetly worded.”

“Mrs. Lacey, perhaps. No doubt the muslin company has a freemasonry amongst themselves to share word of their victims. If they have, Tony’s name must be at the top of their list. It is a great pity Mrs. Percy is so attractive. She just might succeed in nabbing him.”

Lady Sara shot a suspicious glance at her brother, but Adrian was not susceptible to upstarts. He held too high an opinion of himself for that. If Adrian had a fault, which was by no means positive, it was pride. His angry face assured her he was in no danger from Mrs. Percy, no matter how pretty she was.

“We shan’t worry any more about it till we see whether she comes. Her sister-in-law may deter her. She, at least, seems well-bred. Of more importance to me is my husband. He deserves that appointment, Adrian. And after he is archdeacon, he will be a bishop. It is only right that he should be called a lord, for
I
am
Lady
Sara. He’ll never manage it by himself. All he thinks of is the church; it is for us to make the connections. I am sure that a word dropped in the right ear would secure the appointment for him. Papa’s old friend, Judge Almont, is acquainted with the archbishop, is he not?” The conversation turned to the other inevitable subject, and Mrs. Percy was forgotten.

With a letter to write to Hampshire and the arrangement of a garden party that must eclipse every other garden party in the county, the morning was a busy one for Lady Sara. There were the ices, always a dreadful nuisance but essential, as no one else served them. There was the punch, and the squeezing of three dozen lemons for lemonade, and only two squeezers in the whole house. There were the meat pies and lobster patties for the adults and sandwiches for the children. Cakes and petits fours and cream buns had to be tasted for freshness and quality—no tiresome part of the morning for Lady Sara, who enjoyed tooth work.

On top of her other duties she had to examine the grounds for signs of slovenly gardening, to count the chairs and tables and see all was in order. One hundred and four bentwood chairs. One hundred was such a nice round number that she decided to take the four extra back to Hampshire with her. And perhaps that little iron-topped table for the rose garden.

She found little fault with anything. Say that for Adrian, his house and grounds were properly maintained. As to the kitchen, though, it was a shame for the waste that went on. Four hams in the larder. One would never be missed when she left.

At two o’clock the crowd began to arrive. At two-thirty, with his eyes weary from scanning the gate for Mrs. Percy, Avedon began to relax and think she had decided to stay away. His first swell of satisfaction gave way to regret as two-thirty turned into two forty-five. It was a demmed dull party after all. Mrs. Percy had scored a minor victory. She had kept Tony and his family away. Avedon wondered what they were all doing. Lady Beatrice got hold of his arm for a “nice little coze,” as she invariably described her endless gossip.

It was a quarter of an hour later that he saw Tony romping toward him. His mother and Cousin Morton were with him, but Avedon paid them little heed. It was at Mrs. Percy, hanging on Tony’s arm, that he and most of his guests stared. She wore a charming bonnet with pink rosebuds around the brim, and a fine white gown with a broad pink sash. Long pink kid gloves picked up the color of the trim and looked stunning. She might have stepped out of a Fragonard painting into his garden.

Avedon could almost forgive the besotted smile Tony wore. How vibrant and alive she looked, how young and lovely. Say that for the muslin company, they knew how to make themselves look attractive.

Lady Beatrice tugged at his elbow, and he turned perforce to her. The contrast was strikingly obvious. She was past the first blush of youth and hopelessly plain. In fact, as he reviewed his female acquaintances, Avedon realized there wasn’t a real dasher in the parish. No wonder Tony trailed after the other sort.

“Is this Tony’s latest flirt?” Lady Beatrice asked in a sarcastic voice.

Avedon felt a strong and inexplicable urge to defend the interloper. “It is his new tenant, Mrs. Percy,” he said stiffly.

Before long the desire to defend was swept away. Mrs. Percy was clearly in no need of defense. She came sashaying forward with a bold, glinting smile. “Lord Avedon, I am come, as I promised you last night when you called,” she said.

Lady Beatrice pokered up. Avedon calling on this commoner?

Avedon performed a brisk bow. “Good afternoon, ma’am. Has your sister-in-law not come?”

“She is taking advantage of Tony’s kind offer to loan her a couple of gardeners. Workmen are unaccountably hard to find this season,” she replied. Her flashing eyes reminded him of the reason. “Lady Bigelow and Mr. Carlton and Tony took pity on me and asked me to come with them,” she added.

The smiles of her companions told Avedon they knew nothing of what was going on. Morton Carlton, in particular, looked fascinated, and he was a gentleman who had vast experience of ladies. As he approached his fortieth year, an attractive frosting of silver decorated the hair around his temples. His face showed some incipient signs of aging, but he wore his wrinkles so debonairly that they appeared an added attraction. His dark, dangerous eyes, his vulpine smile, and his excellent tailoring set him quite apart from the provincial gentlemen.

“It is a pity about Mrs. Percy’s road being dug up,” Mr. Carlton said. “I was just telling her she ought to come to Milhaven till it is mended. It shouldn’t be more than a day or two.”

“You tempt me, Mr. Carlton,” Lucy said, with a batting of her long lashes in his direction.

“We would be very happy to have you, I’m sure,” Lady Bigelow said, smiling. The dame was a byword for foolishness. Avedon thought it exactly like Isabel to invite a scheming hussy into her home to seduce her son.

“That would be inconvenient to Mrs. Percy, since she has set up a farm,” Avedon replied.

‘The servants could take care of the cow and my few hens,” Lucy assured him. “I am considering Lady Bigelow’s kind offer. If the road is not usable
very soon,
I shall remove to Milhaven.”

Avedon read the note of warning in her seemingly innocent remark. She had him over a barrel, and they both knew it. “I shall make it top priority,” he told her, swallowing the gall of defeat and forcing himself to put a smiling face on it. He looked as if he were eating a lemon.

“I was sure you would. So kind of you, Lord Avedon.”

“I am happy to hear it,” Mr. Carlton said, “as I for one plan to make many calls at Rose Cottage, and I’m sure Isabel will accompany me.”

Lady Bigelow smiled vaguely and said to Lady Beatrice, “No flies this year. The place is usually swarming with them for Sally’s garden party. This year she has provided dust instead. It must have blown in from the meadow.”

“You do not have anything to drink, Mrs. Percy,” Lady Beatrice mentioned during a lull in conversation.

“Are you short of servant girls, Lord Avedon?” Lucy said to him. “I was sure you told me last night you had sufficient. Had I known you were short, I would have put on my apron and offered to give you a hand,” she said playfully.