Elizabeth Kidd (17 page)

She went on in this vein for several minutes, assuming that Antonia knew all about childbirth and raising children, and appeared not to notice that she had very little to contribute to the discussion. Antonia found herself listening avidly but at the same time hoping the conversation would not come around to her own expectations.

Fortunately, Lady Overton had not exhausted her own interest in the subject when the curtain went up for the next act, and at the next interval, Antonia quickly asked her husband to take her for a walk around the rotunda.

“Are you feeling unwell, my love?” he asked. “We need not stay for the entire performance if you do not wish to.”

“Oh, no, thank you, Duncan. I am perfectly well now. I was only tired of sitting still. I am enjoying the performance,” she assured him, although she could not recall a word of the third act.

An acquaintance hailed Kedrington just then, so Antonia made her way to the ladies’ retiring room to splash a little cold water on her face, which felt unusually flushed. Fortunately, she encountered a friend there whose own countenance was turning pink and served to pique Antonia’s curiosity sufficiently to enable her to put aside her own distress.

Maria Sefton was rarely discomposed by anyone, however boorish or unpleasant, and indeed, the lady with whom Antonia saw her now would not have struck her as causing any kind of distress in so accomplished a diplomat as Maria Sefton. The other woman was tall and thin, striking rather than beautiful, but Antonia had to admire her regal manner, which must draw both masculine and feminine admiration. She herself had long since given up wishing for more inches and the ability to command respect as well as affection, but she could not help admiring these qualities in other women. And yet, Lady Sefton—Antonia did not think she was mistaken—most definitely disliked the woman.

Curiosity overcame self-consciousness, and as Antonia accepted the moistened cloth the attendant offered her, she watching the other women out of the corner of her eye. She examined herself in the glass and rearranged the folds of her gown, scarcely seeing the image that looked back at her as she unashamedly listened to their conversation.

But she could make out no more than a few words, and she was about to leave when Lady Sefton exclaimed, in an artificially high voice, “Oh, there is Lady Kedrington! Do forgive me, Lady Fenton, while I have a few words with her. Perhaps we may meet after the next act…?”

She did not sound as if this prospect pleased, but the other woman agreed, as if nothing would give her more pleasure. She shot a glance at Antonia as she left the withdrawing room, and Antonia was surprised at the cold calculation in her eye, which scarcely matched the honey in her voice.

“
Who,
” Antonia said to Lady Sefton when the door had closed behind the other woman, “was
that
?”

Maria sighed. “Lady Fenton. A most disagreeable and trying woman. I wish I could be rude to her, but you may be sure she would spread the tale all over town,
not
to my credit.”

Fenton? Antonia frowned. Where had she heard that name recently?

“What did she want?” Antonia asked, inserting her arm companionably into her friend’s and strolling back into the foyer of the theater with her.

“She is determined to become a great political hostess, and for some unaccountable reason thinks I can help her. As you know, my dear Antonia, I am not ignorant of politics, but I do not choose my friends on that basis, nor do I organize my own entertainments around that subject. But I think what I particularly dislike about Helen—I beg her pardon, she prefers
Helène
nowadays—is her motives, though I am glad to say they are not entirely clear to me. I should hate to think my mind works the same way.”

Antonia smiled at this increasingly peevish diatribe. “One would ever accuse you, my dear, of being—er, having underhand motives.”

Lady Sefton sighed. “Well, it is not that precisely. She is nothing if not candid. But I think what I dislike is that all her ambition is for herself—and her husband, presumably—but not to improve the lot of anyone else.”

“All ladies should be ambitious for their husbands,” said Lord Kedrington, joining them just in time to hear this snippet of conversation. “Would you care for a glass of lemonade, Lady Sefton?”

“My dear Duncan, the very thing,” Lady Sefton exclaimed, accepting the cup he held out to her with a grateful sigh. His lordship bowed, murmured, “My pleasure to be of service,” and handed the second cup to his wife. He then raised one eyebrow enquiringly at her expression.

“May I ask whose reputation we are cutting to shreds? May anyone join in the game, or is it reserved for ladies?”

Lady Sefton laughed and said she did not dare to think what license to be cutting would produce from Lord Kedrington, but Antonia, who could venture a guess, interrupted to ask if it was not nearly time for the next act.

“Indeed, yes,” his lordship said, affecting his tulip-of-the-Ton manner. “May we escort you back to your box, Lady Sefton?”

“Thank you, Duncan, but I shall find my own way. I do thank you, however—and you, too, Antonia—for the refreshment.” She gave Antonia a light hug. “Indeed, I feel quite myself again,” she said, and left them with a smile.

As they returned to their own box, Antonia gave her husband an abbreviated account of the little incident in the ladies’ withdrawing room, and asked what he made of it, but he claimed to have no opinion.

“When you say that, I know you are only working out your opinion in your mind. You will tell me what it is when you come to it, won’t you?”

He smiled. “Do I not always tell you what is on my mind?”

“Well, I don’t know, do you? If you keep it in your mind, I will never know if you haven’t told me.”

He smiled and borrowed her opera glasses to survey the boxes opposite them.

“Do you see the Fentons?” Antonia asked.

“Yes. They seem to be with a party of friends, so perhaps you will not be bothered by them again tonight.”

“
I
was not bothered, only poor Maria. But I did think it curious that Lady Fenton should have struck up a conversation like that.” She frowned and looked thoughtfully into the darkening theater.

He put the glasses down and looked at her. “But something has cut up your peace, my love. What is it?”

She kissed his cheek and answered brightly, “Why, nothing at all. You are imagining it, for how could I not be content here, with my husband to dance attendance on me and two good friends to make a comfortable evening?”

“I am relieved to hear it.”

He did not raise the subject again, for which Antonia was grateful, for even she could not put her finger on what was causing her discontent.

Later that night, however, he said, “Have you thought where you would like to go when we leave town next month, my love? If you do not care for Brighton or Worthing, we might go somewhere less crowded—another seaside town, perhaps, or even the West Country.”

“That would be nice,” Antonia murmured, already half asleep in his arms. He kissed the top of her head.

“Good night, my love. Sleep tight.”

He left her then to retire to his own room, but found he could not sleep. He rose and went down to his study, where he lit a candle, trimmed a pen nib, and began making notes on a sheet of paper. It had once been his habit to do this when he was working out a problem, but since his marriage, he had been able to confine this practice to the workings of his country estate. Even that required little enough concentration, and in an odd way, he found that reverting to this practice now, when several genuine difficulties called for resolution, soothed as well as sharpened his mind.

On the first sheet of paper, he wrote:

Marbles.

Persons with access to them.

Persons with the means to remove them.

Persons with a motive to do so.

When, however, he had completed this list, he found that no one name fitted all three categories. He began again from another direction:

Dimitri Metaxis.

Greek patriot organization—leaders?

Arthur Melville.

Sir John Drummond.

He thought for a moment, then added another name:

Lord Fenton.

Chapter 15

Lady Kedrington was surprised to find her brother still at the breakfast table when she descended at ten o’clock the next morning en route to an appointment with Cloris Beaumont to look into the Bond Street shops, Antonia not having forgotten her husband’s windfall from the gaming tables. She rather fancied a new writing desk for her room and hoped Cloris would not find such a purchase too boring.

“Good morning, slugabed,” she said to Carey, posing picturesquely in the doorway, her pert bonnet at a rakish angle and her green spotted muslin walking dress falling elegantly from a rounded neckline. From her shoulders a Norwich shawl hung negligently. “I believe you have not appeared in this plaza for some time, sir.”

Carey grinned. “You picked that up from Duncan, didn’t you? Did he tell you about the time we watched that bullfight in Zamora right under the nose of the French commandant?”

Antonia shivered. “No, and I do not believe I care to hear it now, however distant the event may be. What are you doing here, Carey?”

She sat down across from him at the table and observed him eating with gusto a large helping of eggs and sausage. She felt slightly queasy just contemplating such a repast. He appeared not to notice and went on eating while he talked.

“What do you mean, what am I doing here? You offered me a room, which I slept in last night, so I assumed the offer was still open.”

“Of course it was. I only meant, we have not seen you lately. Where have you been?”

He hesitated, looking as if he had boxed himself into a corner without realizing it.

“You’re looking very fetching in that outfit, love,” he said, in what his sister recognized as a diversionary tactic. Next he would be asking how she had enjoyed the theater if she did not bring him to heel at once.

“You are not as accomplished a prevaricator as Duncan, nor such a flatterer that I will come all over missish when you tell me how beautiful I am,” she told him.

“I meant it!”

She reached out and patted his hand. “Thank you, dear. Now, what have you been up to?”

He broke off a piece of toast, spread creamed eggs on it, and swallowed both before he replied. “Only helping Robin Campbell on guard duty—you know, the marbles.”

“Yes, I know. Why does he need more help?”

Carey glared at her. “You
have
been learning from Duncan.”

She fluttered her eyelashes at him. “I am only being my usual candid self.”

He laughed. “You’re incorrigible.”

She did not reply to that, knowing in what misdirections it could lead, and finally he could maintain the silence no longer.

“There may have been another—a theft of another—some—of the marbles.”

“
May
have been? Even you could not be so oblivious as to miss
several
large pieces of marble. How many have disappeared since the first one?”

“Well, they aren’t precisely missing.”

“I know all about that—they have been replaced by replicas. How many is it now?”

“Four in all. But look, Tonia, you won’t tell Duncan I told you, will you?”

“What? Oh—no, not if you don’t wish me to.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Unless he asks me directly, of course. I never lie to him.”

“Tonia!”

She added ruefully, “I’d never get away with it.” Seeing Carey’s stricken expression, however, she soothed him with, “I’m sure he’d never think to ask me, love. Why should he? Anyway, you’re going to tell him, aren’t you? Or are you leaving it to poor Mr. Campbell to break the news?”

Carey squirmed a bit in his chair and conceded that he would have to tell Kedrington.

“He hasn’t gone out already, has he?” he asked, half hoping she would say he had gone to Burlington House and Carey had just missed him.

“I believe he’s still in the stables. One of the horses we took last night has gone lame, and he wanted to consult the groom about it. You’d best look for him there.”

He sighed and rose to do so, but Antonia took his sleeve for a moment. “Carey, you will be careful, won’t you? And look out for Duncan too? We don’t know how desperate the people behind this scheme may be.”

This succeeded in putting him in a position to reassure her, which improved his spirits markedly. He was at heart a chivalrous man, Antonia reflected with a smile.

“Don’t worry, Tonia.” he said, patting her hand avuncularly. Even if there’s trouble lurking, we can take care of ourselves.”

This did not reassure her as he might have hoped, but she smiled gratefully nonetheless and promised herself not to give in to her apprehensions.

“I shall be off then. Will you be home for dinner by any chance?”

“’Fraid not, love. Duty calls and all.”

“Of course. And the company at Boodle’s is much more agreeable, I have no doubt.”

She left him protesting that it was no such thing, but she was glad that he had not once mentioned Elena, or apparently even thought of her, for his melancholy of the last fortnight had left him. She hoped this was a good thing. She hoped it did not indicate that he no longer thought of Elena and that she was therefore wrong in working toward a reconciliation.

She left the house in renewed contemplation.

* * * *

A few hours in the company of Cloris Beaumont, however, was more than enough to make Antonia merry again. After making several extravagant purchases each, the ladies repaired for a refreshing stroll through the Green Park, followed at a discreet distance by one of the Kedringtons’ footmen.

“Does he go everywhere you do?” Cloris asked, smiling coyly and giving a little wave at the young man, who remained straight-faced. “He’s rather sweet.”

Antonia laughed. “William would blush to the roots of his hair to hear you say so. And no, he does not follow me everywhere, but he is under orders from Duncan to protect me, so I do allow him to carry out his duty in public places. Were I to trip and break some joint, for example, he would come in handy for carrying me back to the carriage.”