Blossom Time (11 page)

“Just one night,” Annabelle said, adopting a moue that always worked with Dick.

“Well, perhaps one night. Truth to tell, I am fagged. I shall put up at a hotel and—”

“You must stay with us, Lord Sylvester,” Annabelle said at once.

Sylvester cocked an assessing eye at Rosalind.

“You are perfectly welcome to stay here,” she said, rather dutifully.

Sylvester swiftly conned his options. But under Rosalind’s own roof, and with her brother here as well, nothing could come of their affair.

Annabelle’s greater enthusiasm carried the day. “You will be closer to London if you stay overnight in town,” she said. “And we have a dozen empty rooms. Mama is so eager to become better acquainted with you.”

With this and other blandishments, and no very strenuous objection from Rosalind, it was settled. Sylvester followed Annabelle’s spanking new landau into Croydon, to a magnificent mansion whose fine old Tudor lines were rapidly being blurred by the throwing out of bow windows and the replacement of leaded glass by large, clear panes that gave a sharper view of the High Street.

Rosalind’s only worry was that Lord Sylvester would find the Fortescues overweeningly encroaching, and that the Fortescues would find Sylvester toplofty. Even these concerns dwindled as she made her toilette for the party. The evening was cool enough for her to wear her autumn evening gown of russet silk with the open skirt in front showing a gold taffeta underskirt. With the upstairs maid’s contrivance (she had never bothered to hire a dresser), she achieved a coiffure worthy of the gown. It was a nest of curls copied from
The Ladies’ Magazine.

When she met Dick in the saloon, he said, “Where is Miss Rafferty?”

“Miss Rafferty is not invited, Dick,” Rosalind replied.

“Ah, she is only coming to the rout party after dinner, then. I shall send the carriage back for her.”

“She is not coming at all.”

Dick’s brow darkened. “Why not? Sylvia is always invited to Annabelle’s large parties. I have met her at them a dozen times.”

“Now that she is working for you, I expect Annabelle wishes to keep the relationship on a more businesslike footing.”

“Dash it, her working for us is all the more reason to invite her. She is a lady after all, her papa was a major. Why, she can speak French.”

“Well, it is too late now. You can speak to Annabelle, and another time—”

“I shall have a word with Sylvia before we leave. I daresay she is blue-deviled at missing out on the party. I think it very petty of Annabelle to take this attitude. As if it weren’t bad enough, her having this lavish do for Sylvester, whom she scarcely knows, but to go leaving Sylvia out on purpose!”

As he finished, Sukey came pelting down the front stairs, with Miss Rafferty rushing behind her. Miss Rafferty displayed not the least trace of being blue-deviled. She wore her usual smile.

“Miss Sukey pestered me into letting her see you both all dressed for the party. I hope I have not done wrong to let her come down to say good-night.”

“I always come to see how Roz looks,” Sukey told her. “Oh, you’re wearing that again,” she said, shaking her curls at Rosalind’s autumn gown. “What did you do to your hair? It looks funny.”

“You look very nice, Miss Lovelace,” Miss Rafferty said. Then she shyly turned to examine Dick.

“Well, don’t I look nice, too, Miss Rafferty?” he asked, striking a pose.

“Very nice, Mr. Lovelace,” she replied.

Rosalind felt a recurrence of those vague stirrings of apprehension. There was a certain tension in the air. Dick was preening like a gentleman after a lady, though Miss Rafferty behaved very properly.

Dick had called Miss Rafferty “Sylvia” a moment ago. Now he called her Miss Rafferty. Which was his usual way of addressing her? Was that “Miss Rafferty” said to lend a businesslike air to what had become more than business between them? Or had the “Sylvia” betrayed the way he thought of her in his secret heart? Either way, it did not bode well for his coming marriage.

“Come and kiss us good-bye, Sukey,” Rosalind said.

Sukey threw her arms around her sister, dislodging her shawl in the process, then hopped into Dick’s arms for a whirl that nearly knocked over the vase of flowers on the table.

“Oh, Mr. Lovelace, do be careful!” Miss Rafferty exclaimed, and rescued the tumbling vase.

Rosalind, listening, thought that “Mr. Lovelace” would have been “Dick” if the two were on a more familiar footing. In her excitement, she would have used the first name that came to mind.

When Dick put Sukey down, he looked at Miss Rafferty with a self-conscious smile.

“I’m sorry you aren’t coming with us, Miss Rafferty,” he said.

“Have a dance for me. And some of Miss Fortescue’s lobster patties,” she replied. If she was heartbroken to be left at home, she didn’t reveal it by so much as a blink as she took Sukey’s hand and led her back upstairs.

“Next time I shall insist that Annabelle invite Miss Rafferty,” was all Dick said about it, but he said it in a very determined voice.

Several carriages were on the road as they headed toward Croydon. Rosalind recognized two or three of them as belonging to friends who would be at the party. Harwell, who always drove like a madman, shot past them in his curricle and waved from the perch.

He was waiting for them outside Fortescue’s mansion when they alit. As his dark eyes raked Rosalind, she observed that he was wearing a new jacket. Its cut told her it was from Weston, London’s premier tailor. The dark bottle green looked well against his swarthy face, with the flash of an immaculate cravat adding a contrast. His cravat pin was an emerald so dark it looked black.

“Yes, it is last year’s gown,” she said.

“But this year’s coiffure.
Très
chic,
Miss Lovelace. I am happy to see that modest gown. I feared Miss Fortescue’s shanghaiing of Sylvester might have led you to some immodest excess with your shears. Or did you give her arm a tweak to talk her into this party?”

“It was Annabelle’s idea.”

“A pity the guest of honor won’t be here,” he said.

“What?”

“Don’t be alarmed. He’s not injured. He stopped at the Abbey on his way from Astonby. He planned to go straight through to London this evening. Pity, after your careful toilette.”

She let him gloat a moment, then said, “Not straight through, Harry. He stopped at Apple Hill to see us. We convinced him to remain for the party. In fact, he will be staying overnight.”

Harwell’s lips pinched into a thin line. He betrayed only an instant’s annoyance before smiling. “That’ll teach me to count my chickens before they’re hatched.”

“Why were you so eager to hatch that particular chicken, I wonder?”

“Selfishness, pure and simple. I dislike the notion of losing you. To London, I mean.”

“I, on the other hand, always look forward to your taking off for London,” she retorted.

“It’s the sugarplums that accompany me back that you look forward to, no doubt.”

“What sugarplums? Sukey is still waiting.”

“Good Lord! Didn’t I give her any?”

“What a convenient memory you have.”

As he took her arm and led her to the door, he said, “I shall buy them the next time I am in Croydon.”

“Promises, promises.”

Chapter Twelve

The party was a fiasco or a wild success, depending on one’s point of view. The food was good and plentiful to the point of excess. Wine of the most expensive sorts flowed freely from the moment Rosalind entered the lavish saloon, whose more garish excesses in the way of red brocade and gilt were hidden behind bushels of flowers.

Twenty-four sat down to a dinner that would have satisfied a glutton, but perhaps not the refined taste of a Lucullus. Still, one did not have to eat soup and turbot and lobsters and oysters. Ham, mutton, three kinds of fowl, roast beef, pork, and rabbit need not all be tried. There was certainly something for every taste, and a host of desserts of all kinds, from a simple syllabub to a cake in the shape of a magazine, with
Camena
inscribed in gold and colored icing on its surface. A wedge of simple apple tart with cheddar was smuggled to the board as well for Mr. Fortescue.

Anyone but a cannibal could find a meal to his liking amid the bewildering array of choices. Even Lord Sylvester was tempted to stop talking for a few moments and eat a stalk of asparagus and an oyster.

When it was over, the ladies staggered to the saloon to sit benumbed until the gentlemen joined them. Half an hour was not really sufficient time to digest such a gargantuan repast, but the moment the gentlemen appeared, Annabelle ushered them to the ballroom, where more delights awaited their jaded eyes. The other guests who had been invited to only the rout began to arrive to swell their numbers.

It was difficult to credit that Annabelle had transformed the ballroom into a Persian tent in only five days, but she had done it, and spiced the room up with an overpowering aroma of incense as well. Pleated muslin covered the ceiling and half the walls. The baroque chandeliers peeked through the muslin, casting refracted light on the stalls of flowers and fruit and vegetables placed between the chairs at the sides of the room. The musicians were dressed in Persian costumes hired from London for the occasion.

“I wager Lord Sylvester has not seen anything to beat this in London,” Annabelle said, as she stood with Dick and Rosalind at the doorway, admiring her handiwork while waiting for the music to begin.

“You’ve gone to a deal of trouble for a fellow you hardly know.” Dick scowled. He was not thinking of his own much simpler birthday party as Annabelle thought, but of how Sylvia would have loved to see this extravaganza.

“It’s not just for him,” she replied. “I wanted to show you how well I can entertain, too. I would like to have a do like this for our wedding party, Dick.”

“Dash it, we ain’t Persians. Next you will be saying you want to go to Paris for the treacle moon.”

“Oh no! Italy, I think. Lord Sylvester was telling me that everyone should see Rome before he dies. Or was it Greece? One of those foreign places anyhow. Not Paree. That’s how the French pronounce it.”

Lord Sylvester had the first dance with Rosalind. He had not come prepared for such a gala affair and wore again the same canary yellow jacket he had worn to Harwell’s small party.

“This do must have set Fortescue back a small fortune,” he said, looking around assessingly. “Such excess is in wretched taste, of course. Had Miss Fortescue consulted me as to what sort of party I would like, I could have spared her the tent and three-quarters of the menu. I would rather have had the blunt put into
Camena.”

“Don’t feel guilty at the expense. I expect the party was as much to display Miss Fortescue’s talents as for you. She is from London, you know, and finds our do’s hopelessly provincial.”

“Yes, she was mentioning that she misses London dreadfully. You ought to have her to Town for a visit, Miss Lovelace. I think her papa might do something handsome for
Camena
if we showed her about a little.”

The irony of inviting Annabelle to London, when the major reason for going was to escape her, was not wasted on Rosalind.

“She will be busy with her wedding plans,” she said.

“Still, she seemed mighty interested in going to London. It is all she speaks of.”

Rosalind didn’t encourage this notion. The surest way of diverting Sylvester’s attention was to let him prattle on about his magazine. She broached the subject, then looked about to see who Harwell was dancing with while Sylvester answered at some length. She saw that Lady Amanda, wearing a strident yellow-and-black-striped gown and gold turban and looking like a gigantic bumblebee, had captured Harwell and was bouncing him about the square.

When the set was over, Harwell joined Rosalind and Sylvester.

“Lady Amanda has been wanting to speak to you,” he said to Sylvester.

“Naughty boy!” Lady Amanda said, as she got a grip on Sylvester’s elbow and led her captive away.

“Well,” Harwell said to Rosalind, “Miss Fortescue has certainly put us all in the shade with this do. Take care or she’ll be snapping Sylvester out from under your nose. This wild extravagance is all in his honor,
n’est-ce pas?”

“I believe he is just the pretext to show us what she can do when she puts her mind to it.”

“Her mind and her papa’s lucre. This must have set him back a packet. Shall we go to the refreshment tent to escape that sickening smell? What the devil is it?”

“Incense, Harry.”

“Ah, incense for the great god Sylvester. He certainly knows how to impress the ladies.”

“Yes, it is quite a novelty for a gent to go out of his way to impress us with cultured conversation, or anything but setdowns and condescension. We provincials never open a book.”

“I didn’t mean you!” he said, then flushed as he realized that this was exactly what he had meant.

They strolled out of the ballroom, arguing amicably. The refreshment parlor felt cool and fresh after the bazaar-like atmosphere of the crowded ballroom.

“Champagne!” he exclaimed, when he glanced at the refreshment table. “Is Sylvester suitably appreciative of all this, I wonder?” he asked, handing her a glass.

“He regrets that the money wasn’t spent elsewhere. I think you know where.”

He peered over his glass at her. “Do I detect an irreverent note of cynicism creeping in?” he asked archly.

“No, a note of common sense.”

A smile quirked Harwell’s lips. “That is music to my ears!”

“I mean I agree with him. His papa wouldn’t forward him any money.”

“Dunston is no fool.”

“You think it foolish to foster culture, Harry? How very like you!”

“I think it foolish for a youngster to squander his patrimony on a magazine that is doomed to failure. These literary rags seldom make a go of it.”

“I see it as a beautiful, idealistic quest.”

“Yes, the sort that ruins a man.”

“Or makes his reputation. Who would have heard of Leigh Hunt if it were not for his
Examiner?”