Elizabeth Kidd (2 page)

“I should like to see his drawings,” Antonia said, glancing at her husband to see if he would accompany her, but his eyes were directed elsewhere.

“Lady Sefton has just come in,” he observed. “Did you not say you hoped to speak with her tonight?”

“Oh, yes,” Antonia said, diverted, then smiled at her host. “Do forgive me, Sir John, but I must conduct some necessary female business tonight before giving myself up to Greek drawings and iced punch.”

Sir John bowed and then gazed admiringly at her as she glided gracefully away and murmured, “Lovely.”

“I like her.”

Sir John laughed. “You’re a lucky dog, Kedrington. Don’t blame the rest of us for admiring from afar what we cannot hope to approach. What does she want from Maria Sefton, by the way?”

“An entrée to Almack’s for one of her protégées, of course.”

“I might have guessed. Never could see why that place is such a magnet, myself. It’s crowded, hot, and the refreshments are insipid at best.”

“One could say the same about White’s.”

Sir John chuckled and concurred. “One conducts one’s business where one must, I suppose.”

“Why
are
you supporting Elgin this way, Drummond?” Kedrington asked, but did not succeed in catching Sir John far enough off his guard to surprise a direct answer out of him.

“I was on the select committee that recommended the purchase of the collection, you know.”

“Why?”

Drummond smiled. “Always the skeptic, eh, Kedrington? Can you impute no noble motives to me?”

“Not to any politician.”

“Ah. Yes, you’ve always had that blind spot. Very well. If not noble, I can at least be candid. I did it because I believe the marbles
will
in the end be accepted as a national treasure—a
British
national treasure—and I shall not hesitate to take as much of the credit as I can. There are more important matters coming up in the next Parliament, and a reputation for being forward-looking never hurt anyone—certainly no Tory. It is only the Whigs who seem able to make insight look like radicalism.”

Kedrington laughed. “You are an opportunist, John, pure and simple.”

“Of course,” Drummond agreed, unapologetically. “And thirty-five thousand pounds is a small price to pay for a golden opportunity, particularly since it did not come out of my own purse. I do not doubt the artistic value of the collection, so my approval of Elgin’s ambassadorial conduct was a mere gesture.”

“It was a particularly small price to pay compared to Elgin’s outlay. I understand that it cost him twice as much to collect and ship the marbles in the first place.”

“He should be grateful that they were not packed back to Greece at once, a victim of the economic zeal of the current administration—which behaves like a housewife who suddenly finds she cannot afford a pint of beer, and so economizes by not buying bread.”

“Have you no loyalties, John?”

Drummond smiled. “Certainly. But as long as no one knows what they are, and my favor continues to be courted in the hope of gaining my vote, I shall continue to enjoy a successful parliamentary career. In pursuit of which, my dear Kedrington, I shall now go and flatter Aberdeen, who I see has been left temporarily without sycophants.”

“Beware climbing too high too quickly,” Kedrington advised. “The way down can be precipitous.”

“I shall keep a good foothold,” Drummond assured him with a parting smile.

* * * *

It was some time before Kedrington was once again able to speak with his wife, both having numerous acquaintances, singly or in common, with whom they felt obliged to spend at least a few minutes in conversation. It was not until Kedrington noticed that Antonia’s
bon mots
were beginning to be conveyed to him at second-hand by some of their mutual acquaintances that he pointedly steered himself back in her direction.

“What a devious man,” she remarked when he cornered her near a niche containing a statue of Apollo.

“Who?”

“Sir John, of course. I suspect he has his eye on a peerage one day—why else does he insinuate himself so cosily with Aberdeen, and I daresay every other member of the upper house? And have you never noticed the way he assesses whomever he is speaking with for their reactions to his words before he has scarcely uttered them? I am certain he has hidden motives beneath his ulterior reasons.”

She held out her empty goblet to him. “I should like another glass of champagne.”

“You should have some supper as well, or you’ll get tipsy,” Kedrington said, taking the glass from her and setting it down on Apollo’s plinth.

“If I eat any more of those lobster patties, I’ll get fat and you’ll divorce me.”

“It would be cheaper to keep you in lobster patties.”

“Beast.”

“I think you underestimate Sir John,” Kedrington said, contemplating Apollo.

“Yes, I daresay he is more devious that even I give him credit for.”

“Possibly, but not necessarily to a dishonorable end. Observe this statue, for example.”

She did so. “A copy of the Apollo Belvedere?”

“Indeed. It used to stand in the small rotunda as you enter the house.”

“I remember. Why has he hidden it away back here?”

“He told me he approved Elgin’s actions because he believes the marbles have artistic merit. Yet the Parthenon figures are so far from the aesthetic ideal which Apollo here represents that they force one to look at art with new eyes. Politicians such as Sir John are notoriously incapable of looking at
anything
in a new way. He therefore risks appearing a dilettante to his peers in order to enlighten them—a risky course.”

Lady Kedrington greeted this speech with a resentful look. “I wish, Duncan, that you were not so clever at making me see six sides to a two-sided issue. Now you have made an honest man of Sir John, and I suppose I shall be obliged to invite him to our little soirée next week.”

“Which little soirée is that?”

“The one in honor of Carey’s betrothal.”

“I’m glad to hear that we have reduced the celebration from a ball to a mere soirée, considering Carey’s past poor finishes in the matrimonial stakes—not to mention that we have yet to actually see him and Miss Melville in the same place at the same time. Although Lady Drummond informs me that Carey accepted her invitation to this affair, that may have been before he was distracted by Miss Melville’s acceptance of his proposal. I daresay they will not put in an appearance here after all.”

“The evening is young. I daresay we can amuse ourselves while we wait and see.”

Kedrington leaned closer to whisper into her ear, “I’d rather wait at home.”

She slapped his hand, which had wandered onto a private preserve, with her fan. He sighed exaggeratedly and picked up her empty glass.

“Would you rather have your champagne glass refilled, my arm to lead you to the supper room, or a look at the drawings upstairs?”

“I should like some supper—
and
more champagne, and
then
a look at the drawings.”

“Greedy woman.”

“Whose fault is that?”

He had no answer.

Chapter 2

“Dash it all, Elena,” exclaimed Mr. Fairfax. “Why can’t I kiss you? We’re going to be married, aren’t we?”

“Of course you may kiss me,” Miss Melville replied calmly. Elena was always calm. “But not in quite so public a place, if you please. What will people think?”

“They will think I’m besotted with you,” Carey murmured against Elena’s earlobe, “and they will be right.”

Miss Melville permitted Mr. Fairfax’s lips to brush hers in an exploratory gesture, but when his hand came up to move her chin more in his direction, she brushed it away and exclaimed, not entirely without regret, “Carey! Do behave yourself! What if someone saw us?”

“A hackney coach is as private as we ever seem to get,” Carey grumbled, sitting back on his side of the vehicle with an exaggerated sigh.

It had been the devil of a to-do to persuade Elena’s guardian to consent to her driving alone with Carey even the short distance to the Drummond reception, although Carey suspected that Arthur Melville’s mixed feelings about their destination preoccupied him more than his ward’s reputation. Melville had social-climbing ambitions for Elena, and while privately he expressed admiration for Lord Elgin’s actions in acquiring the Parthenon marbles, he had told Carey frankly that he was reluctant to expose Elena to a situation which might result in half of London society condemning her for the company she kept.

Mr. Fairfax found this mildly insulting, as if his engagement to Miss Melville did not provide her with sufficient protection from censure on either side, but not wishing to exacerbate the already delicate relationship between himself and Elena’s guardian, he had only pointed out that his sister and brother-in-law—who were themselves on opposite sides of the controversy although in perfect harmony otherwise—would be at the reception. The mention of Viscount Kedrington reanimated Melville’s social awareness enough that, in the end, he permitted Mr. Fairfax to escort his ward to the reception.

Carey had not revealed to Melville that he intended to surprise his sister by appearing with Elena at the Drummonds’ and had therefore not informed either her or Kedrington that he would come. It had seemed an excellent notion to demonstrate from the outset how well his future bride would pass muster amongst the sorts of persons whose company Carey personally found tiresome but whose approval he was well aware his wife should have. This strategy would also spare Elena the prolonged anticipation of a pre-arranged meeting to be interviewed—however cordially—for her future position. His brother-in-law, he well knew, could be formidable until one got on his good side.

Apart from all these considerations, he could not, until the last minute, be assured of gaining Melville’s approval for the evening’s program. But gazing at his intended in the dim light of the conveyance now rattling along Wigmore Street, he reflected that, had Melville proved obdurate after all, and even if Kedrington gave her one of his snubs, he would have fought very hard to have Elena beside him as she was now. He had never met anyone quite like Elena, and the more he was with her, the more fascinating she became.

It was not that he had not looked long and hard for a suitable bride. His sister had despaired of his ever making up his mind to marry, and his brother-in-law made sly jokes about his trying on new girls like new hats—a different one for every occasion and every season. Carey had said he did not know what he was looking for, but he would know it when he saw it and he could not overlook any possibility. But when he found what he sought, it was not what he had expected. And he had not expected to find it in Elena Melville.

He had in fact seen Elena two or three times at the kind of large gathering where Carey had been wont to wear his latest feminine decoration on his arm, before he came to understand that while some young ladies’ brilliance was ephemeral, the gold beneath Elena’s earthenware exterior was the genuine article.

Kedrington had accused him of giving the various candidates for his hand a trial run at filling the social niche his fortune and connections would give her—and the results were, admittedly, variable. One shy thing had declared breathlessly afterwards that one ridotto was quite enough for her, thank you, and that was the last he saw of her. Another, more ambitious, girl found that she quite liked having the power to cut other people but thought she could find a more powerful consort to support her in this aspiration.

Now that Carey came to remember it, on the third occasion that he had encountered Elena Melville, they did not speak, as he was escorting yet another matrimonial candidate at the time. Elena made an obviously acute assessment of the situation, and when her horse passed his curricle in Hyde Park, she gave him a withering look that spoke eloquently of her opinion of him as a fribble, good for nothing but being decorative at parties or making a fourth for whist. That had irked him—in no small part because he suspected that she was right and that he was turning into just such a charming but useless hanger-on.

The next time he saw her, fortunately, she seemed not even to remember him. At first he thought it was because he did not have an ingénue hanging on his arm at the time—the latest having declined his offer of marriage coolly but not entirely heartlessly, assuring him that he was a dependable friend and expressing the hope that he would find some lady who found dependability romantic enough to marry for.

On the occasion—Carey remembered afterward that it was a Tuesday and there had been a brisk March breeze—he had been walking down Baker Street early in the morning following one of the rare evenings nowadays that he spent among exclusively male companions, one of whom had put him up for the night, when the sound of children squabbling in a small, private square to his right caught his ear. He would have passed by, but a different voice, feminine but authoritative, rose above the hubbub.

Carey rose on his toes to peer over the bush just inside the garden fence and saw Elena Melville holding a freckled youngster firmly by the ear and lecturing him on the injustice of picking on someone smaller than he—his victim being, apparently, the curly-haired little girl sitting on a bench and sobbing.

“You see?” Elena said, giving the ear a sharp tug, “it’s not such sport when someone bigger turns on
you
, is it?”

“She took our ball!” protested another girl, whom Carey judged by her freckles to be the miscreant’s older sister, in a whining tone.

“No, you kicked it at her, and she quite naturally picked it up,” Elena said, adding firmly, “I saw her.”

The freckled girl poked her bottom lip out belligerently, but said no more, and Elena pressed her case. “I’m sure that the young lady would have returned the ball to you in another moment if you had only given her the chance before attacking her.”

“I never—!” persisted the boy, but Elena cut him off.

“And it would have been gentlemanly of you to ask her to join your game, don’t you think? As for you, miss”—Elena turned on the older girl, who was now smirking in a superior way at her brother—“you must learn to have a little more sympathy to others of your sex. You never know when you will need their good will.”