Amanda Scott (17 page)

The old lady stopped on the threshold. “What is it, my dear? Do I intrude?”

“Certainly not, ma’am,” Nell said as she stood up, stretching her arms in a most unladylike fashion. “Forgive me, but my limbs seem to have turned to sticks, and my fountain of inspiration has dried up at the source. I cannot think why, but the writing has come to a complete stand.”

“There must be a cause,” Lady Flavia said practically. “Of what are you writing?”

“’Tis no great thing. Merely that Elizabeth has made one of a party with Sir Percy to attend a public ball at the town’s assembly rooms. The duke intends to abduct her from there, you see, to force her to marry him. I don’t doubt that the words will begin to flow again once he does so, but the bit about the ball seems out of reason difficult.”

“I see what it is, of course,” Lady Flavia said with a wise look. “You have never been to the Bath Assembly Rooms.”

“But that cannot signify, ma’am, for I have never been to a gentlemen’s club either, and I can assure you that, after all I have heard from Papa and Nigel, I experienced no difficulty whatever in imagining what one must be like when I wrote of the villainous wager between Sir Percy and the duke.”

“Ah, but you know that while most of your readers will never have set foot in such a club, any number of them will actually have attended a public ball or concert. You must visit the upper rooms, of course. Once you have seen them and know how things go on there, the words will flow again.”

“But I am in mourning, ma’am. I cannot attend a ball.”

“Oh, piffle, I daresay no one would think a thing about it. You need not dance, after all, but only watch to see what is done. And if you are of a mind to be particular,” she added hastily, seeing the mulish look on Nell’s face, “there is nothing to be said against attending a concert, for you are no longer in deep mourning, my dear. And unless there is good reason for Elizabeth to dance, she, too can merely attend a concert.”

“I did hope she might dance with Sir Percy,” Nell said with a sigh. “Will there be a concert soon, do you think?”

“Oh, yes, certainly, for although the Season here no longer lasts nine full months, as it was used to do, there are concerts and balls from midsummer through Christmas. We must send young Amos to purchase a newspaper, but I daresay there will be a concert Thursday, and if there is not, there will be an assembly Wednesday evening. I am persuaded that Mr. Manningford will accompany us if we ask him to do so. You needn’t dance, truly, my dear, but only see what occurs,” she added when Nell still seemed reluctant, “and now, if you are not going to write any more tonight, perhaps you would care to take a hand of cribbage.”

Nell agreed and managed to turn her mind from her work for an agreeable hour, but as she prepared for bed that night, she found herself wondering how difficult it would be simply to skip the part about the ball and go on writing from the point of the abduction. She wondered why she had not thought to do that before and began to look forward at once to the morning. She fell asleep instantly, and there were no abductions in her dreams. Instead she dreamed she was dancing with Manningford. As they danced, he held her in his arms in a delightful but most unseemly way, gazing down into her eyes so steadily that she knew he wanted to kiss her. She waited, gazing provocatively back at him, encouraging him far more than any lady ought to. He did not do as she expected, however, and when the music changed abruptly and he looked away, she reached up and grabbed hold of both his ears, kissed him soundly on the mouth, and woke up laughing.

She had scarcely sat down at the escritoire the next day when Sudbury entered to announce that Manningford and Mr. Lasenby were in the hall requesting an interview with her. Rising to meet them, she suddenly remembered her dream and, feeling warmth flood her cheeks, turned quickly from Manningford to greet Mr. Lasenby with rather more enthusiasm than he might have expected.

“I thought you had gone to Brighton, sir,” she said, giving him her hand.

He bowed over it, saying with a twinkle, “Had to return, ma’am. Knew Bran must be finding things in the deuce of a pucker, what with the old gentleman so ill again and all.”

“The truth is,” Manningford said with a grin that made Nell instantly remember the first day they had met, “that the stupid fellow claims to have forgotten where he was bound. If he could forget that, I suspect we ought to be grateful he remembered where he had been.”

“Didn’t have to,” Lasenby retorted. “Just told the lads to turn round and go back where they came from.”

Shaking her head at him as she gestured for both gentlemen to sit down, Nell said, “But you cannot have forgotten about Miss Wembly’s ball, sir. You promised her you would not.”

He grimaced. “Can scarcely believe it myself, ma’am, but I did. Bran tore a strip off me, of course, and m’ grandfather will set up a devil of a screech. I’m only a younger son, you see, so one can’t blame the old fellow for doing his possible to see me wedded to a girl who’s inherited a fortune. M’ memory’s clearly failing though. ’Tis the oddest thing.”

“But didn’t the postilions know where you were going?”

“’Course they did,” he admitted, “but the fools only knew to take me to Brighton, and much good that did me when I couldn’t think why I was wanting to go there, so I did the best thing I could think of and told them to put me back where they found me.”

“Well, you must write to Miss Wembly and explain the circumstances. I daresay that if you make your apologies with suitable eloquence, she will forgive you.”

“Do you think so?” He seemed extremely doubtful, but when he showed a marked inclination to discuss the matter more fully, Manningford cut him short, asking bluntly if Nell had attempted to do as he had asked.

“Yes, sir,” she replied, gesturing toward the manuscript on the escritoire. “You will not want to read it now, of course—”

“The devil I won’t,” he said, getting to his feet and striding across the room to sit down at the desk. “You just talk to Sep and pay no heed to me. I want to see what you’ve done.”

Her stomach clenched as she watched him begin to read, and though she tried her best to attend to Mr. Lasenby’s attempts to suggest possible reasons for his odd lapses of memory, she found it impossible to keep her attention from wandering. When Manningford chuckled, she glanced at him anxiously, but he did not so much as look up from the page, and a moment later, Mr. Lasenby, who had stopped talking and was watching her, suggested that perhaps she would like to take a hand of piquet with him.

“Generous fellow, Bran is—as I’ve got reason to know—but he can be dashed rude when he’s of a mind to be, and it ain’t a particle of use to try to distract him if he don’t want to be distracted. Dash it, ma’am, but it’s a good thing I came along. You’d have been bored to distraction otherwise, for I daresay your aunt is out paying calls at this hour.”

“Yes, she has gone to visit her friend Mrs. Prudham,” Nell said, still watching Manningford. Though he was seated at the desk, he had turned his chair so that he might sit with one leg crossed negligently over the other, and she could see his expression change as he read. When he frowned, she instantly interrupted Lasenby, who had continued his flow of small talk, to demand to know what was amiss.

“This bit here about the gentlemen’s club is all wrong,” he said. “’Tis plain as a pikestaff you’ve never set foot in one.”

Before Nell could attempt to defend herself, Mr. Lasenby protested, “But, dear fellow, of course she has not. Moreover, I can’t think what difference it can make, for only girls read that sort of book, and none of them will know the difference.”

“Everyone reads my father’s books,” Manningford said curtly, “and not only has she got maidservants tripping about when anyone must know there are none in such a place, but she’s got this fool of a hero of hers wagering a straw against a pot of gold that he can ride a horse backward from Bath to Bristol in a day’s time.”

“Well,” Mr. Lasenby said reasonably, “but you have made nearly that same wager yourself, Bran, only as I recall it, it was from Hampton Court to Richmond, rowing backward against the tide. Or was that the time—”

“Never mind that,” Manningford retorted. “I never wagered such a paltry sum in all my life. A straw! Give me patience. Why write of what you cannot know?” He glared at Nell. “Can you not keep your idiotish heroine down in a country house? Have her get off a stagecoach and into the wrong carriage by mistake; then your wicked duke can force her to marry himself or anyone he chooses, even a rogue at death’s door, for pity’s sake.”

“That would make no sense at all,” Nell protested. “No one could induce a young woman to marry a dying man.”

“Well, ’twould make as much sense as this,” he said, tapping the pages before him. “Your Elizabeth has allowed this duke to murder her father, not to mention his own, banish her brother (who is naturally the rightful heir) to some far-off foreign land, and take over her vast estate without so much as lifting a finger to stop him. She gets the wind up only when the fellow wants to marry her. Stands to reason, most readers would think her a fool to run off just when he wants to make an honest woman of her. You’ve got to change some of this.”

“Well, I won’t,” Nell said hotly. “I take leave to tell you, sir, that your notion of a good tale is absurd. I daresay next you will be wanting me to make Elizabeth consort with free-traders, or Sir Percy tend a turnpike or train bears. Or perhaps you’d prefer Elizabeth to fall out of a window into his waiting arms and go off adventuring with him, or, even better, have her rescue him by shooting the wicked duke with an arrow from her trusty bow. This story of Sir Mortimer’s and mine is real!”

“Fustian. It can be no such thing. There never lived a duke as wicked as yours.”

“Perhaps not a duke,” she snapped furiously, “but there are men as wicked right here in Bath at this very moment!”

Instead of taking up the gauntlet as she expected him to do, Manningford fell silent, looking at her now in a speculative way that made her flush to the roots of her hair.

Mr. Lasenby said diffidently, “Bran, dear fellow, I daresay Miss Bradbourne will make allowance for your distress over the old gentleman, but dash it, my lad, there ain’t no cause to speak so objectionably to a lady.”

Ignoring him, Manningford said gently, “Right here in Bath, Nell? Perhaps you would care to explain that statement to me.”

“No, I shouldn’t,” Nell said hastily.

“Well, but I think perhaps you’d better. Sep, go for a walk or something, will you?”

Mr. Lasenby leapt obediently to his feet, but Nell said quickly, “No, no, there is no reason for him to leave.”

“Yes, there is,” Manningford insisted. “I have come to wonder about a number of things these past weeks, my girl. I mean to have this one explained to me.”

“I am not your girl,” Nell said. When he merely continued to look at her, she sighed. “Very well, I suppose there can be no good reason not to explain at least a little of it to you, but there is likewise no cause for Mr. Lasenby to leave.”

“By Jove, I’m glad to hear that,” that gentleman informed her with a lazy smile as he took his seat again. “My memory being what it is nowadays, I daresay I should forget how to get back here.”

Manningford leaned back in his chair and glanced at him, murmuring, “Just so you forget whatever she tells us, Sep.”

N
ELL CAUGHT HER LOWER LIP
between her teeth, reluctant to speak, but both gentlemen remained silent, waiting, the one with well-bred patience, the other not patiently at all. “I don’t know where to begin,” she said at last.

“At the beginning,” Manningford recommended.

Had he shown sympathy, she might not have been able to oblige him, for it was difficult to think back to the beginning without falling prey to her emotions. Since he did not make that error, however, she was able to say almost matter-of-factly, “That would be the wager, I expect.”

“Ah, yes,” he said, “you mentioned your father’s penchant for odd wagers with his uncle. ’Tis from that you got the notion for the straw against the pot of gold, I suppose, but it will not serve. Their stakes cannot have been so uneven as that.”

“Well, they were certainly as ridiculous, sir, for my father staked the Highgate hatchment against his uncle’s brewery. You will recall that I told you about that brewery. At the time their disastrous wager was entered in the betting book, it was once again on Crosshill land and had been there for some years.”

“Wait a bit,” protested Mr. Lasenby. “Did you say he staked a hatchment against that brewery? A hatchment? The bits of black ribbon on a coat of arms that one puts above one’s door when a member of the family cocks up his toes?”

“Just so, Mr. Lasenby. Papa’s wager, made some time before her death, was that the Queen would outlive the King. When his majesty became so ill last summer, Papa was in alt because he believed the income from the brewery would eliminate his most pressing debts.”

“I can understand that,” Mr. Lasenby said feelingly.

Nell smiled. “Then you will also understand his distress when the King survived. In any case, the wager was nearly forgotten—by Papa, at least—when Reginald was killed in a hunting accident in mid-November. Papa was deeply affected by his death, so you can imagine his shock when Jarvis arrived at Highgate the afternoon following the announcement of the Queen’s demise, a fortnight later, to declare that he had come to collect on the wager. What was even more shocking was his insistence that, according to Reginald, Papa had staked Highgate itself against the brewery, not merely the stupid hatchment.”

“But surely the estate is entailed,” Manningford protested.

“No, for Papa was heavily in debt when Nigel came of age, so the entail was broken then by mutual agreement in order that Papa might sell off a few acres. He intended to resettle, of course, as soon as he was able, only through one cause or another, he had not yet done so. But he would never have staked it in a wager! In fact, he knew he had done no such thing, and he said Reginald must have been joking, for he was a great jokesmith.”