An Affair of the Heart (14 page)

“You are just jealous,” Ellie said, and she left the room, storing up every word spoken to be considered in privacy in her room. She was forced to admit there was likely a good deal of truth in them. She had never supposed he had actually
kissed
Wanda. That showed an unsteadiness of character—of affection—that surprised her. Well, maybe he didn’t love her yet, but if he was determined to marry someone, it might as well be her, for she loved him. Yes, and he would come to love her in time. She would do her hair in papers to please him, wear lovely gowns and learn to flirt, if that was what he wanted. Joan would tell her how to go on. She would not so much mind making her bows in London with Claymore by her side, to bolster her up. Even if he
did
love the Rose—and how she longed to catch a glimpse of this beauty who had set London on its ear—he could never marry her. She was engaged to a duke, so he might as well be married to herself as anyone else. He would not have proposed if he did not at least
like
her. He could have had his choice of anyone (except the Rose and Wanda). Funny though, he hardly looked as if he even liked her when he had proposed.

While Ellie brangled with her sister and worried in her room, Claymore drove back to the Abbey and demanded a bottle of wine, and none of that damned home-brewed ale.

“Ellie turned you down, too, did she?”
Rex asked astutely.

“No, she snatched at the chance to get me.”

“Why are you in such a pelter then? Said you loved her.”

“She looked like the very devil, Rex. White as a ghost, and a plain outfit on her.”

“Lord, don’t let that bother you. The mama will deck her out to the nines before she hits the Metropolis. Don’t worry she’ll look a dowd. As to being a shade pale, well, you didn’t look any too chipper when you lit out for the Wanderley place yourself. Terrible strain it must be. Don’t know how you all go through it, just as though it were nothing. Ellie’s a fine girl, Clay. Make you a very good wife. Got countenance, and she ain’t the sort will be cutting capers behind your back either, like
some
I could mention, but won’t. Take that Wanda now,” he said immediately, apparently abandoning his noble plan of refraining from mentioning names.

“Yes, she’s head and shoulders over Wanda, except for the looks, of course,” Clay agreed. The wine was going down very well, and easing the strain and disappointment of his morning’s work.

“Yes, and think, too, if she’d said no, after you being so stupid as to tell Hansom, of all people, that you was engaged to her. Well, you’d have been ashamed to show your face for a year. You’re forgetting, Clay, how well she looked at that assembly in Needford. Daresay she had the hair yanked back today, and one of them drab old gowns she wears around the garden, but they’ll rig her up right before you have to be seen with her in London. She’ll do.”

“She’ll have to,” Clay said, taking another swig of wine. He was half reconciled to the idea, and wholly unprepared to face London a single man, so he remembered her in Lady Tameson’s green gown, and accepted her.

“Shall we take a couple of rods down to the trout stream?” Rex suggested.

“Rather hunt,” Clay said, and the subject of brides was closed.

Chapter Nine

Ellie had her hair done up in papers, and sent Wanda to the rafters by soliciting her mama’s aid in purloining one of Wanda’s London gowns for the dinner that evening. It was a beautiful pale violet silk with overskirt of gauze. There was a narrow band of violet velvet that went with it, to be wound through her hair. The hair turned out very well, with soft curls around her ears. She was so pale from nervousness before going down that she dipped into her mother’s rouge pot, and blended a little cream into her cheeks to get rid of that deathly pallor.

Mrs. Wanderley had had the presence of mind to send a note over to the Abbey including Rex in the invitation, as she knew his parents were gone to Bath. George Hibbard was to be present as well. Too many men, with Abel along too, but no matter. It was an intimate family dinner. She glowed to think of a marquis now included in the family. If she had another daughter, she made no doubt she could get a duke for her. And to crown it all, Claymore was settling twenty-five thousand pounds on Ellie. A fortune. She would be independently wealthy if anything should happen to him. God forbid. She crossed her heart, a habit she had picked up in the nursery from her Irish nurse.

Wanda, divining Ellie’s plan to shine in her violet gown, donned her white crepe and, with Abel’s contrivance, got an orchid from papa’s conservatory, which she wore in her hair. She looked, she thought modestly, very like a dark-haired angel. She practiced blushing smiles in the mirror, and noticed that she looked better—there was not much difference—from the left side. She must make sure Claymore got a view of her left profile. She transferred the orchid to the left side, and was bewitched herself at the enchanting picture she made. Claymore would be sorry he had not tried harder to fix her affections. Perhaps she would flirt with him a little, to lead him to believe he
might
have had her, had he only been a little patient.

The two sisters, apparently reconciled, awaited their gentlemen in the Green Saloon. George arrived first, and had to be informed of the shocking news of Ellie’s betrothal.

“Only think, George, it was
Ellie
he liked all the time,” Wanda smiled, turning her left profile to Hibbard. “And here you thought he was dangling after me. Of course, anyone might have made that mistake, when it was
me
he drove to Needford in his curricle, and he did appear partial. I daresay he was only shy, for Ellie is so intimidating.”

George looked at Ellie and frowned in embarrassment. “I daresay that’s it,” he said.

Later Claymore and
Rex arrived.

“Why, Lord Claymore—or should I say
brother.”
Wanda trotted up to them, utterly ignoring Homberly. “What a surprise you have given us. And here we thought it was
blondes
you preferred.”

“Evening, Miss Wanda,” Claymore said stiffly, looking over her head to Ellie, who had turned quite pale, with the two spots of rouge thus highlighted on her cheeks.

He walked past Wanda to his bride-to-be. “Hello, Ellie,” he said.

“Hello, Giles. Rex, I am happy you came, too.”

The embarrassment of this, their first meeting as a betrothed couple, was alleviated by the presence of
Rex.
“That chicken I smell, Ellie?” he asked, without even a word of felicitation or any mention of her betrothal. “Nobody makes chicken like your cook. Haven’t had a chicken in an age.” He sat down, feeling he had done very well by Clay’s command that he lend a hand if the conversation flagged.

“We had it last night,” Ellie said, seating herself beside him. “The chickens did very well this year.”

As Clay made no reply,
Rex plunged in again. “Don’t they always? Mean to say, may hear of corn or grain having a bad year, but I never heard of it being a bad year for
chickens.”
Still no help from Clay, who was—now what the deuce was he up to? He had taken out a snuffbox. “Clay, you ain’t never going to take snuff!”
Rex
shouted in a carrying voice, so that every eye in the room was turned toward the Marquis in this, his first public execution of the tricky business of “taking a sniff.”

“Yes, certainly,” Claymore replied with a chilly smile. “Will you try my sort, Rex?” He offered the box, to put off the moment when he must do it himself.

“No, no, wouldn’t have a notion how to go about it. Silly, dirty habit. If I want to go into a fit of sneezing I’ll wear a damp shirt, for it wouldn’t be so uncomfortable as that awful stuff.”

His effort at sophistication shattered in this miserable fashion, Clay decided to slip the box into his pocket unopened. But he was not to be let off so easily. “Well, you’ve gone this far, might as well go whole hog and have a sniff,” Rex rattled on, revealing to one and all that this was in the nature of an initiation.

Hesitating only a moment, Clay flicked it open, attempting to do the whole with his left hand, as he had seen the Corinthians do in the city. Alas, his practice session had been short, and the flick of the lid was given with more force than was required. The little enameled box popped out of his hand, spilling its contents on the sofa, the carpet, and his own trousers.

A trill of laughter from across the room confirmed that Wanda had been watching the whole performance. “You will require a few more lessons before you manage it with one hand,” she called across to him.

Clay began brushing violently at his trousers, and Ellie said, “Pray, wait till I call a servant to do that with a brush, or you will stain your clothing.” She arose to pull a bell cord, and in the interval while awaiting the servant she said, “How do you two bachelors go on with no lady in the house?”

“Fine,” Clay said. His nerves were too ragged to say more.

“Pretty well,” Rex augmented. “Mrs. Ruxted is looking after us. We went coursing hares this afternoon. Got a nice one—
I
did, that is to say. Clay didn’t catch anything. Well, he ran a badger to ground, but that’s nothing. Daresay we’ll have a rabbit stew tomorrow. You like rabbit stew, Clay?”

“Yes, very much,” he said, and thought what a fiasco he was making of this important encounter. It was a wonder Ellie was not howling at him, like that viper of a Wanda. The servant arrived, and Ellie requested a feather duster and a whisk and dustpan to clean up “a little accident.”

“Had some very nice trout lately, too,” Rex
  
continued with their menu. “I caught a beauty of a fellow. Mrs. Ruxted did it up with melted butter and lemon juice. Clay caught an old plaice. I told him to throw it back in, but he lugged it home. The Ruxteds ate it up. Can’t abide plaice.”

“I like sole,” Ellie said.

“Yes, but it wasn’t a sole; it was plaice,” Rex
pointed out.

She demanded a description of this fish while awaiting the return of the servant. Claymore sat like a block, as his friend later informed him. He had never heard such a mundane conversation in such circumstances. Yet he was thankful for Rex’s presence, or he feared he and Ellie wouldn’t have a word to say to each other. The knowledge that it was his own fault, totally, quite cast him into an eclipse. It was in no way Ellie’s fault. She was behaving with perfect propriety and tact, and looking as pretty as she ever had, in a very nice getup.

Eventually the servant arrived, and looked helplessly
at
her mistress, with no idea what to do. Surely
she,
a menial, was not expected to go brushing at the lord’s clothing, yet he made no motion to take the duster from her.

Ellie reached out for it. “Perhaps if you stand up, Clay, most of it will fall off,” Ellie suggested. Claymore complied with this request, and Ellie took a few swipes at his legs with the feather duster, then handed it to the servant and directed her to use the brush on the sofa and carpet.

“Sorry to be such a nuisance,” Clay mumbled.

“It is no matter,” Ellie assured him. “That will be good enough, Mary.”

At this point
Rex recalled the importance of this occasion, and felt some chivalry was called for. “You look nice, Ellie. New dress? Don’t recall seeing that one on Lady Tameson. Your own, is it?”

“Yes,” she said, then owned up scrupulously. “That is, it was Wanda’s, but it did not quite suit her.”

“How’s that, then? Same size and coloring as you. Ought to have suited her, for it looks well on you.”

“I am a little bigger than Wanda,” Ellie said. Actually, the gown was a trifle snug on her, and not very comfortable. She could not breathe as deeply as she would have liked. She looked shyly at her fiancé, and he smiled dutifully, wishing he were elsewhere, or at least alone with Ellie. He felt he could redeem his farouche behavior, if only they were alone, without Wanda staring at him from across the room, and Rex forever saying something to make him look stupid.

Just then, Wanda beckoned to him from across the room, where she sat on a sofa beside the grate. He was happy enough to have something to do, and he excused himself to the others and joined her.

“George has taken the absurd notion into his head that you don’t like him, because of that little affair in the garden at the assembly in Needford. I have told him you two must shake hands and be friends, for you are to be connected now by our marriages.”

“No hard feelings, Hibbard,” Clay said readily, offering his hand.

“Called me a raving lunatic,” Hibbard reminded his new friend, but he accepted the hand and nearly wrenched it from the wrist

Wanda laughed gaily. “That would be because you are so foolish as to offer for
me,”
she taunted.

“Hadn’t offered for you then,” George reminded her.

Wanda ignored this point. “Lord Claymore has no very good opinion, you must know, of gentlemen who prefer brunettes. Oh dear, how could I forget? He has changed his mind on that score—so suddenly! You
do
prefer Ellie to blondes, do you not, brother?”

“Ain’t your brother yet,” George said, and was again ignored.

“Yes, I do,” Clay replied.

“Do sit down. Claymore,” Wanda said, jiggling closer to Hibbard and making room for him at her other side. Then she had things exactly as liked, with all the eligible gentlemen she cared for at her side. Clay sat, looking across the room at Ellie as he did so, and knowing instinctively that he ought to be there with her.

“Now, Claymore,” Wanda began, “you must tell us all about how you came to find yourself so suddenly in love with Ellie.”

“That is a subject best left to you girls to discuss together,” Clay replied briefly.

“Oh, Ellie tells nothing. A regular oyster on the subject. And you, it seems, are another shy one,” she quizzed, an arch smile on her face. She had to crane her neck so she was nearly facing the back of the sofa to allow him a view of her left profile with orchid, for she had forgotten and put him on her right side. “You were not so shy ... on other occasions,” she reminded him.

“Not the thing, Wanda,” George warned in a low voice, nudging her ribs with his elbow. But Ellie was watching from across the room, in
her
good violet gown and she carried on.