Elizabeth Kidd (3 page)

When no further defense was forthcoming, Elena shooed the older children away and sat on the bench for a few minutes with the smaller girl. Carey could not hear what was said, but five minutes later, the child skipped happily away, apparently none the worse for her unfortunate encounter. He applauded lightly.

Elena, startled, looked up. A frown sketched her forehead but—much to Carey’s astonishment—disappeared when she recognized him.

“Good morning, Mr. Fairfax.”

Carey tipped his hat and contrived not to trip over his tongue. “Good morning, Miss Melville. That was a salutary lesson you delivered.”

She sighed. “I fear it will make no difference. The Allenbury children receive no discipline at home and nothing an outsider may say will make any difference.”

“Still, you made the effort. And you seem to have a way with children.”

An expression that seemed to Carey very like sadness crossed Elena’s face briefly, but it was gone before he could be sure. She rose briskly from the bench and approached the garden gate, which Carey quickly opened for her. She paused, studying him—as if, he thought, he were something on display in a vegetable barrow—and said, “Would you be kind enough to walk me home, Mr. Fairfax?”

“My pleasure, Miss Melville,” he said, seizing the opportunity to offer his arm. He valiantly essayed no further conversation—fearing to say the wrong thing and remind her of what a fribble he was—until she ventured to inquire politely about his health. He responded suitably to this opening, and after an unexceptional ten-minute stroll, he delivered her to her doorstep in good order; she smiled when she bade him good day, and Carey felt he had won a victory.

Following this incident, Carey began to hope that Miss Melville’s opinion of him had taken a turn upwards, and he made strenuous efforts to improve it still further. He was not quite sure why he did this, except that their brief conversation by the garden gate had given him much food for thought. He was not at all certain of what lay behind Elena’s remarks or her sudden desire for his company.

Indeed, when she agreed to pay a visit—accompanied by her guardian, of course—to Carey’s country home in Leicestershire, he was both elated and wary. He had heard more than enough tales from his army cronies about scheming females who knew to a nicety how to bring a fellow up to scratch only for the pleasure of turning the poor clunch down when he came to make an offer.

On the third hand—Carey often found himself weighing the myriad possible outcomes to their strange courtship in this way—Elena was scarcely your typical female. She was unencumbered by an avaricious mama; indeed, Mr. Melville encouraged Carey’s suit with an ill grace. Elena’s fortune was not large, but neither was it so small that she needed to marry money. She appeared to have no interest in cutting a dash in society—indeed, she shuddered at the very idea. Perhaps she only wanted to settle down and raise a family. But any reasonably presentable fellow would do for that. Why did she choose him?

“Dash it, Elena,” he said finally, exasperated, “Why don’t you marry me and put me out of my misery.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized that this was the most unromantic proposal he had ever made, although certainly the most heartfelt.

They were riding in the springtime glory of England’s finest hunting country at the time, and Carey reined in and reached for the reins of Elena’s mare to bring her around to face him.

“I’m sorry—”

She put a gloved hand lightly over his mouth to stop him. “For what? For proposing to me so impulsively? Did you not mean to do so when I accepted your invitation to come to Wyckham?”

“Is that what—I mean, I did, yes, but I never—”

She smiled. It was not something she did often, but it lighted her face like the sun and made him feel she did it for him alone and no other. It was then that he stopped wondering and knew he was in love with her.

“I will marry you, Carey,” she said simply.

For the next days, he walked on air, nodding happily whenever Elena made some suggestion about their wedding, which was to be in the summer—much too long a wait for Carey’s taste and a shockingly short time in Elena’s opinion, but it was the compromise they finally reached. He came down to earth only long enough to write to his sister that he had found the perfect bride. Elena was the most beautiful, mysterious, and fascinating woman he had ever met. He could scarcely wait to introduce her to his family and watch them be fascinated too.

To this end, therefore, Carey had contrived his scheme to bring Elena to the Drummonds’ reception, and by the time he handed her down from the hackney in front of the Cavendish Square mansion, he was fixed in his determination to show her off to all and sundry as his future bride.

Somewhat to his disappointment, their entrance at the reception caused nary a ripple in the social current. Elena, however, confessed that she was relieved to find they were not the center of all eyes—or of any eyes, so far as Carey could tell—and she became a little braver.

Carey scowled. “I don’t see Kedrington or my sister anywhere. I hope we haven’t missed them.”

“Do you see our hostess? We ought to greet her before anything. Perhaps she can tell us if the Kedringtons have left.”

Lady Drummond was her gracious self, although Carey did not fail to notice the curious inspection she bestowed on Elena—rather as if she could not decide whether Miss Melville’s presence on this occasion was a social coup or a come-down.

“You were kind to invite me, ma’am,” Elena said warmly, as if she had been welcomed with open arms. Carey admired her poise more than ever. He had always thought Lady Drummond an old battleaxe, but she actually smiled on him—at least, he thought it was a smile—as if bestowing her approval on them both.

“Almost as good as a voucher for Almack’s, by jove!” Carey muttered as they made their excuses and went in search of Antonia, whom Lady Drummond advised them would very likely be found in the upstairs salon.

“What can you mean?” Elena asked.

“Sorry, love, I was just being a clunch again. Of course, you wouldn’t know what I meant. I say, there’s Cedric Maitland. Haven’t seen him in an age.”

Elena stopped him before he could dash off to greet an old friend. “Please, Carey, let us find your sister first. If I do not meet her soon, I shall die of anticipation. I’m so afraid she won’t like me.”

“Stuff and nonsense. Antonia likes everyone—I mean, she really likes the people she likes, and she makes up her mind in an instant when she decides to dislike someone.”

Elena looked stricken.

“Dash it, I’m putting that all wrong again. Look, let’s go find her first thing, shall we? I haven’t seen Duncan—my brother-in-law Kedrington, you know—for an age.”

As it happened, Lady Kedrington was looking out from the alcove in which the marble Apollo—and her very much livelier husband—were entertaining her and saw her brother and his betrothed enter before they saw her, which gave her an opportunity—when she had recovered from her surprise—to scrutinize Miss Melville.

She had only seen her before at a distance and had never been introduced, but her initial impression of a quiet, almost drab girl proved, on closer inspection, to be unjust. True, Elena was not a fashionable beauty, but her features were regular, almost classical, with a straight nose, full lips, and large dark eyes. Her heavy, almost black hair was parted in the middle and drawn back into an elaborate knot, lacking the usual flirtatious tendrils hanging from it. Her gown was plain but of good quality and a flattering shade of dark green, and she wore only a cameo broach on a green ribbon and a pair of simple earbobs in the way of ornamentation. Everything about her, indeed, was plain but of high quality. Antonia hoped that her character would prove of a similar high order.

She nudged Kedrington, then smiled and waved at Carey to catch his attention. She hurried forward to greet him.

“Dearest, most
distressing
brother of mine, here you are back in town so soon! I vow, your letter arrived only today and sent me into quite a tizzy. But at least my curiosity to meet Miss Melville is quickly satisfied, and for that I suppose I must be grateful to you.”

She held out a hand, which Elena took with a tentative smile. “Pay no attention to my chatter, my dear, it is only to cover my nervousness at meeting someone who will be playing such a large part in my family in future. Normally, I am quite a sensible woman, as you will learn.”

“When will she learn that?” Kedrington said, coming up just then. “I’ve yet to see any sign of it myself. How do you do, Miss Melville.”

“Very well, thank you, my lord,” Elena said.

“Good God, don’t call me that or I shall feel twenty years older. Duncan—or Kedrington, if you must have a title—will do nicely among ourselves.”

Carey cast his brother-in-law a look of gratitude which caused Kedrington’s eyes to crinkle in amusement, but he did not embarrass Mr. Fairfax by any further acknowledgement of his brother-in-law’s apprehension on subjecting Miss Melville to his mercy.

“We were just going upstairs to look at Lord Drummond’s collection of drawings of the Elgin marbles, as everyone now seems to refer to them,” Antonia said. “Won’t you both join us?”

“Only if it’s a small collection, and I can get something to eat afterward,” Carey said.

Antonia took Elena’s arm and patted it and they ascended the carved marble staircase to the upper level of the mansion. “I daresay you have learned by now that Carey spends a great deal of thought on where his next meal will come from. My husband tells me that it is a habit resulting from constant privation in Spain, but he seems to have got over it, while Carey, despite being back in this country for more than two years, has scarcely stopped eating to draw breath. Has he given you a colorful account of his adventures in Spain? I assure you, you need not believe a word of it.”

Antonia went on in this voluble fashion until she felt the muscles in Elena’s arm relax a little; then, when she also saw the tiny lines in her forehead disappear, she allowed Elena a few words in edgewise, and thus it was not long before they were on easy terms. Elena was not, thank goodness, one of those misses who had nothing to say for themselves; she had opinions, which she did not hesitate to voice, although only in the most discreet way, and she actually smiled at Antonia’s jokes. Lady Kedrington was fast coming to like Miss Melville, and it was not until some time later that she wondered if Miss Melville had liked her in return or was merely being polite.

They entered the salon in which the drawings were displayed, followed by the gentlemen, to whom Antonia was about to address some remark when she felt Elena stiffen again. She glanced at her, only to find her staring fixedly ahead of her; her face had gone pale, except for two spots of bright color in her cheeks.

“My, dear, whatever is the matter?” Antonia asked, following Elena’s gaze to a drawing—of a frieze of rather ferocious-looking figures which otherwise did not appear to contain anything to give even an innocent girl a fright.

Elena started, recovered herself, and stammered, “I-I beg your pardon. I only—that is, I felt faint for a moment, but it has passed already. I did not mean to startle you.”

Carey heard this and hastened to offer his support, making concerned noises until Elena whispered with unusual ferocity, “Please do stop, Carey! I am perfectly well. I do not wish to go home. Let us look at the pictures now and say no more about it!”

Kedrington had fallen back to join his wife and whispered, as the young couple wandered off, “What can that have meant?”

“I’m certain it was something about this drawing,” Antonia said, staring at the charcoal sketch. “But I see nothing unusual about it, do you?”

Kedrington gave it a considered study. “It is neither unusually bad nor unusually good, although it succeeds in representing its subject with reasonable objectivity. As I recall, the figures depicted are not nearly so heroic as one might suppose from this illustration, but undue license cannot be said to have been taken.”

“When you go on in that erudite fashion, I know your mind is working on some other problem—what is it?”

“The same problem—Miss Melville’s odd reaction to seeing this perfectly ordinary picture. However, I fear the answer will be revealed only with time, if then, so I expect we had best put it out of our minds for now.”

She gazed at him, frowning slightly, but he only kissed her cheek and said, “Shall we join the youngsters again?”

Chapter 3

The morning following the Drummonds’ reception seemed designed to improve the already excellent reputation of English springs, and Lady Kedrington, glancing out of her window, smiled back at the sun as at a good omen.

Antonia was not in general an early riser, having been, as she was the first to admit, corrupted by town ways. When she had lived in the country and run her brother’s estate for him during the years while he served with the army in the Peninsula, she had been perfectly content to be up with the chickens, but two seasons in London had been sufficient to reveal to her an unexpected inclination to lie abed until at least nine, or later after an evening social event.

Thus it was unusual for her to be awake and prepared to venture into the world at ten o’clock, but she was dressed in an appropriately seasonal India muslin day dress and a villager hat with pink plumes which bounced jauntily when she moved. She had put her husband’s oddly inscrutable behavior at last night’s reception out of her mind even before they returned home, for her thoughts were already on how best to show Miss Melville that she would be welcomed wholeheartedly into the family.

She had begun planning a busy social schedule to introduce Elena to the rest of their circle as well, until it occurred to her that the younger lady’s tastes might not run to the kind of merry, highly voluble dinners and card parties which Antonia favored. She therefore turned, as she often did when she found herself in a social quandary, to her husband’s aunts, and that morning found her on her way to consult them.