Blossom Time (17 page)

She was sorry for her little outburst. “You don’t have to do that, Harry.”

“You mustn’t expect anything on the scale of Annabelle’s extravaganza.”

“What, no turtle soup?” she asked with a moue.

He found it odd that she should adopt this coquettish attitude now, when she had chosen Sylvester. If she had behaved like this any time over the past decade, he would have realized he loved her. “That would require a week’s advance notice. When will you be leaving?”

“As soon as possible. Sylvester is very eager. And so am I. To get on with our work, I mean,” she added, blushing. “It would be nice if you could have the dinner party while he is here. You don’t really know him very well, Harry. I would like you two to get to know one another better.”

This confirmed that she was serious about the demmed fop, but at least he hadn’t offered yet, or she would not have bothered with that prevarication about getting on with their work.

“I know him as well as I want to, but if it would please you, then let us make it the day after Annabelle’s party. Should I invite her as well?”

After a frowning pause, she said, “That will depend on what she says to Dick tomorrow evening at her party. Perhaps we should wait and see. She is hoping for an offer from Sylvester, but I fear she hopes in vain.”

“You think that is what she has in mind?”

“Why else did she set that date as the time she would give Dick her answer? She is very sly, but I fear she is out in her reckoning if she thinks to buy Lord Sylvester with a thousand pounds.”

“Her dowry is considerably more than that, I think?”

“How you harp on money! Sylvester is a poet. Money is not that important to him—except to keep
Camena
afloat, I mean.”

Harwell didn’t shake his head, as he wanted to. He just looked and listened, with a great weight pressing on his heart. As her talk was all of Sylvester and
Camena
and London, he soon said, “I have to be going now. I have an appointment at the Abbey,” and left.

Rosalind remained in the garden, musing over her letter.

Chapter Eighteen

The major impediment to Rosalind’s happiness on the day of the party was that when Sylvester failed to offer for Annabelle, as, of course, he would, then Annabelle would not jilt Dick. Rosalind mentioned her fear to Dick, who frowned in confusion.

“Why wouldn’t he offer for her? She has bushels of blunt. He is staying at her papa’s house. The Fortescues went with him to London. It’s clear as a pikestaff she’s nabbed him.”

“I rather think Lord Sylvester is interested in me, Dick,” she explained.

“You! Surely you jest. You wouldn’t marry that young Jack Dandy.”

“I might, if he offered.”

“Good God! All that poetry has rotted your mind. As if leaving Apple Hill for London weren’t bad enough, now you speak of marrying Sylvester Staunton. I would as lief see you marry Jack Ketch.”

“I’m sorry you don’t approve. In fact, I have not decided to have him. The point is, I don’t think for a moment Sylvester is going to offer for Annabelle.”

“Then we’ll have to get someone else to do it. By Jove! Harry! He’ll do.”

“Harry!” she gasped. “Are you mad? He’d never marry her. She is the last person he’d marry.”

“High time the old benedict settled down. And she has the blunt, remember. It must cost Harry a fortune to run the Abbey.”

Rosalind felt a pronounced revulsion for this match. To have Miss Fortescue lording over the neighborhood as milady, littering the Abbey with her notions of finery—the thought was obscene.

“Even if he didn’t actually offer, he could make up to her, let on he was interested,” Dick said, as he recalled that Harry had never seemed very fond of Annabelle. “I’ll suggest it to him. She’ll go along with it. Mad for a title.”

“No! She might manage to nab him!”

“What’s that to us? You’ll be in London. I’ll be here with Sukey—and Miss Rafferty.” He could not quite control the little smile that twitched at his lips.

“I would sooner see her marry Sylvester than Harry,” Rosalind said, and strode angrily from the room with her heart banging like a hammer on an anvil. The very idea!

She had always known Harry would marry one day. Probably one day soon, as he was edging into his thirties. Every June 4 when he returned from the Season, she braced herself to hear he was engaged to some fine lord’s well-dowered daughter who would make a suitable mistress for the Abbey. That would be fitting, indeed inevitable. But Annabelle Fortescue! He would be better off with herself. At least she was a real lady, not some jumped-up solicitor’s daughter who was barely fit to marry Dick.

She went up to her bedchamber, slumped onto the edge of her bed, and sat repining. This summer, which had begun in such a blaze of glory, was rapidly turning into one of the worst since the year her mama had died and she had had to delay her wedding to Lyle Standish.

Nothing was working out as she had hoped. It seemed the only well-matched pair in the parish were Dick and Sylvia Rafferty, and even they could not get on with their romance. She thought of Sylvester, not in the light of the precious letter in her pocket but as Dick saw him. Sylvester was too young for her, too superficial, too dandified. Harry hadn’t a good word to say for him either. If she were perfectly honest with herself, she would admit she didn’t care so much for him as for the entree to the literary world she had long coveted.

Compared to Harry, he was a mere stripling. Her thoughts were easily diverted to Harry. She saw him again in her mind’s eye, walking hand in hand with Sukey, carrying Snow Drop. He would not be allowed to run tame at Apple Hill if Annabelle nabbed him. Her ladyship would see to that! Harry had been a part of her life for as long as she could remember. He was always there, laughing, joking, cadging favors, and granting them, too, when she and Dick needed a wiser head to advise them. Oh, why couldn’t things remain as they had been?

She blinked back the tears that pricked the back of her eyes and went to her toilet table to contrive a coiffure for the party. She would not wear the turban after all. She’d look like Sylvester’s mama.

At six-thirty she and Dick went to say good night to Sukey, who always liked to see them arrayed in their finery when they were going out. Rosalind had drawn her hair into a nest of curls on top of her head and wore again her rose gown. Miss Rafferty, looking like Cinderella deprived of the ball, sat with Sukey reading her a story.

“You look very nice, Miss Lovelace,” she said. “I hope you have a good time.” Then with a shy glance at Dick, “And you too, Mr. Lovelace.”

Dick’s lips clenched into a grimace. “Thank you, Miss Rafferty. I’m sorry you aren’t coming with us. Demmed foolishness.”

The trip to Croydon was made in near silence. They were as dispirited as if they were in a tumbrel on their way to the guillotine. Their spirits revived somewhat when they reached Fortescue’s mansion. The flaming torches, the row of scarlet-clad footmen, and the canopy erected over the doorway were enough to bring a smile to Rosalind’s lips. Really, it was too ridiculous! How Harry would stare!

Annabelle’s gown of Olympian blue was all one could imagine and more in the way of ribbons, lace, ruchings, and silk flowers. The daring cut revealed her white shoulders, but one’s eyes were more likely to be drawn to the sapphires around her neck. Sylvester sat beside her like a tame puppy. His supercilious manner had left him entirely. Annabelle greeted the Lovelaces with a chilly smile.

“How nice you look, Rosalind. I am becoming fond of that gown,” she said, with a dismissing glance at the familiar gown. She merely nodded to Dick, before turning to address some comment to Sylvester. Sylvester smiled uneasily at Rosalind and murmured his greeting. The Lovelaces hurried on to speak to other guests and were soon sharing exclamations of astonishment at the canopy and conjecture as to the turtle soup to come. Miss Vickers’s maid had got a look at the live creature and thought it looked very old and tough for eating.

Lord Harwell was one of the last to arrive. Rosalind had been waiting for him, and when she saw him, she gazed a long moment. How fine he looked compared to every other man in the room. His shirt points were not so high as some, his diamond not half the size of Fortescue’s, but he had an air of dignity and of casual, unstudied charm that set him apart from the common herd.

He glanced quickly around the room and smiled at Rosalind when he saw her chatting to the Floods, on the far side of the room from Sylvester. Their eyes met and held, as if they shared something deep and important. Then he heard his name spoken and turned away.

Annabelle drew Harwell to her side and engaged him in some banter. Rosalind watched from the corner of her eye as the chit batted her fan, twitched at her necklace, preened her hair, laughed too loudly, and generally behaved as commonly as one expected.

When all the dinner guests had arrived and consumed a glass of very good sherry, a footman sounded a gong and Mrs. Fortescue led the party in to dinner.

The guests invited to dinner were limited to two dozen, but the meal might have fed ten times the number. Lady Amanda Vaughan, the only titled female present, was placed at Mr. Fortescue’s right hand. Lord Harwell sat beside her. Annabelle sat beside him, with Sylvester on her other side, thus hogging the two most eligible catches at the party.

Rosalind and Dick were not seated below the salt, but they were not distinguished in any way from lesser guests. Annabelle divided her time between Sylvester and Harwell. Rosalind, seated farther down the board on the other side, had difficulty keeping an eye on her goings-on. A floral arrangement as big as a bathtub made vision difficult.

The turtle soup was a great triumph. Mrs. Fortescue regaled her end of the table with the tale of the turtle’s acquisition and preparation.

“Mr. Fortescue had it brought down from the London market in a tub of water to keep it fresh, so you need not fear you’ll get food poisoning from it. A deal of bother, but Belle had her little heart set on turtle soup. ‘Tis all the crack in London, so she tells us. She had the receipt from Lady Dunston’s chef.”

Despite its strange taste, the guests felt compelled to clean their bowls and pronounce it the best turtle they had ever tasted. As it was the only one most of them had ever tasted, this was no lie.

Course followed course and remove followed remove until a glutton could not ask more. But still there was more. Desserts, six of them, and a savory followed. Whipped cream, fresh berries, all manner of dainty cakes and tarts were handed around by the footmen, and new plates placed on the groaning board on either side of the floral arrangement. Rosalind was not the only lady wondering what would become of all the leftovers. Even with every spare person in the village pressed into service, they could not consume all that went back to the kitchen.

All the work and money were deemed worthwhile when Harwell said at the meal’s conclusion, “Prinny could not have done us more proud, Fortescue. A meal to remember.”

A beaming Mrs. Fortescue said, “Now, that is what I call a pretty compliment!” Mr. Fortescue smiled his satisfaction, and Annabelle shot a spiteful little glance down the board to Rosalind.

The ladies escaped to the Red Saloon to sink, replete, onto the sofas and await the gentlemen. Annabelle waited to see where Rosalind sat, then went to her, but did not sit down.

“Lord Sylvester will have something to say to you later, Miss Lovelace,” she said, with a triumphant smile, “and I shall have something to say to Dick.” Before Rosalind could reply, she glided along to the other end of the room, leaving Miss Lovelace to wonder about a few things, not least why she had suddenly become Miss Lovelace when she had been Roz for half a year, and even a premature Sis on a few occasions, when Annabelle was in good humor.

Chapter Nineteen

When the gentlemen joined the ladies, Harwell took up the empty seat Rosalind had been expecting Sylvester to occupy. Sylvester did not go to Annabelle at least, but sat with her mama. The smiles in that quarter suggested he was inventing compliments on the feast.

“I shall have to have a word with Cook,” Harwell said. “I was planning only two courses and two removes for your farewell dinner. After this repast, I feel I ought to borrow Careme from Prinny and do the thing up properly.”

“And all this for no special occasion either,” Rosalind said. “Unless one can call Fortescue’s thousand pounds to
Camena
a special occasion. The party must have cost twice that.”

“Those sapphires Annabelle is sporting didn’t come cheap either. Fortescue’s pockets must be even deeper than I thought.”

Rosalind noticed that he was looking at the sapphires. When his eyes wandered up to Annabelle’s face, he smiled. There was no denying she was pretty. Why had Dick suggested Harwell should offer for her? Had he noticed some attraction between them that she had not? Harry was always sure to stand up with Annabelle at all the assemblies. Rosalind had always taken it as a sort of compliment to Dick, but perhaps there was more to it than that. A strange fluttering began in her chest. She wanted to tease him, but no words came. Surely he was not admiring the hussy? Before more was said, the company invited for the dancing party began to pour in, and soon Mrs. Fortescue announced that the musicians were ready in the ballroom.

Sylvester went to Annabelle then and offered her his arm. Did it without thinking, as if it were a settled thing. As if he were her acknowledged escort. Harwell shot a questioning look at Rosalind, but she didn’t see it. She was busy rationalizing that as Fortescue’s houseguest, Sylvester was merely being polite.

“Looks like you are stuck with me,” Harwell said, and rose to offer her his arm. She took it silently, feeling embarrassed in front of him after having boasted about Sylvester. Harwell sensed her gene and said, “What’s the matter, Roz? Don’t give her the satisfaction of seeing your nose is out of joint.”

“I am just wondering what Dick thinks of this performance,” she replied.