Elizabeth Kidd (7 page)

“My lord—”

“Duncan, stop! Something’s happening there.”

Robin jumped down almost before Kedrington was able to halt his horses and hobbled down a narrow lane shouting, “Ho, you there! What are you doing?”

“Blast!” Kedrington said. “Here, Thomas, stir yourself and take the horses’ heads. Here’s a pistol, but for God’s sake, don’t shoot my best cattle!”

He followed Robin into the lane and found him confronting two thugs with his walking stick. They did not, he was relieved to see, carry pistols, but the knife one of them held and the size of the other’s fists were sufficiently formidable weapons. Behind the two, a man lay on the ground moaning, but Kedrington could see no more than that he was younger and smaller than the other two.

“Bloody ‘ell!” said the thinner man, backing up until the wall stopped him. “It’s ‘is bleedin’ ludship!”

“Shaddup!” the big men hissed. “It ain’t ‘im. It’s some other nob.”

“Well, what’s he doin’ ‘ere, then?”

Kedrington approached the larger man slowly, with an amiable smile and his hands spread out to show that he meant no harm.

“Now, why don’t you gentlemen just take yourselves off before you really hurt someone. We won’t turn you in if you assure me that you had nothing to do with the plight of the poor fellow on the ground there. What do you say?”

The larger man apparently had nothing to say, for he only grunted and lunged for Kedrington, who easily sidestepped his charge. He delivered a swift blow to the back of the man’s head as he went by, unable to halt his momentum, and the thug fell to the ground, silent once more.

The other man’s eyes grew wide in the dim light. “Bloody ‘ell!” he muttered again. Then, slipping past Robin, he fled down the lane away from them.

Kedrington leaned down beside the fallen man and turned him over, but that groan had been his last utterance. He was dead. Searching the man’s pockets for some identification, he found only a few coins—one of which was a gold guinea—and what appeared to be a house key. He pocketed this surreptitiously and rose to his feet.

“We can’t help him, I’m afraid.”

“What will we do with him?”

“Leave him. I’ll send Thomas to Bow Street to report the incident, and we’ll have to hope they get here before he’s stripped bare.”

“What was all that about a ‘lordship,’ do you suppose?” Robin asked as they walked back to their vehicle.

“I don’t know,” Kedrington said. “But I confess to finding it most curious. I’ll think about it.”

“So will I, by God!”

They reached the curricle, and Kedrington took the reins from Thomas, who quickly scrambled back up onto the back. Kedrington looked up at him, then said to Robin, “On second thought, I shall drop him at Bow Street myself. It isn’t much out of our way.”

The next ten minutes were spent in drilling Thomas as to what he was to report to the magistrate and making him repeat it, including the location of the incident, so that in his nervousness he would not forget it all before he got the story out. They left him there with the viscount’s card as an entrée and sufficient cash to take a hackney back to Brook Street, and set off again at once.

“Will we be late after all?” Robin asked, hanging on to the sides of the curricle.

“I think not,” Kedrington said, as he took a corner smoothly and bowled down Oxford Street. “But there will be no time to spare. Is my cravat straight?”

Robin smiled. “Not a fold out of place.”

They did in fact arrive with five minutes to spare to eight o’clock. Robin was fascinated to see his fearless friend turn into an unexceptional, even ordinary, doting husband the moment he entered the house and kissed his wife in greeting.

“Well, my dears, I had nearly given you up,” Antonia said, shaking Robin’s hand. “But here you are just in time to sit down at the table. Trotter had begun to fret, I can tell you.”

Trotter neither confirmed nor denied this as he took the gentlemen’s hats, and Kedrington smiled at his wife. “You, of course, were not in the least concerned.”

“Why no—that is what we hire servants for. But now that you mention it,” she said, taking her husband’s arm. “What
have
you been up to all afternoon?”

“Oh, nothing to interest you,” Kedrington said. “Just reliving old times, you know.”

Robin grinned and followed them into the dining room.

Old times, indeed.

Chapter 6

Lady Kedrington glanced out the library window, saw that the warm afternoon would linger into a fine evening, and went back to arranging profusions of spring flowers in a silver bowl on a side table. It was only one of many such arrangements scattered throughout the house for, as she had sensibly pointed out to her husband when he raised his eyebrow at the stream of blooms being carted in from the florist’s wagon, there was nothing like flowers to accentuate a happy occasion. Furthermore, she had every intention of showing Elena all around the house so that she would feel at home in it, and she wanted every room to look its best for her future sister-in-law.

“Were there not sufficient quantities of tulips at Windeshiem to satisfy your requirements?” his lordship enquired mildly from his chair, where he was perusing the morning’s post.

“As a matter of fact, there were not,” his lady informed him. “I really must speak to Robinson when we are next at home about planting more bulbs.”

“We shall be there before you know it,” Kedrington said. It was indeed their habit to retire to their country estate by the end of July, after taking a short holiday in some seaside town, if not Brighton, which could be more trying than London when the Prince Regent was in residence.

Antonia glanced at him. “Do not think, dearest, that I miss Windeshiem so much as all that. I know I am a country girl at heart, but with all that is going on in town just now, I cannot be sorry to be here in the midst of it.”

“I know that your delight in arranging a social affair is forever at war with your desire for a comfortably rural life.”

“It is contradictory of me, is it not? You are a treasure, Duncan, to be forever patient with my contradictions.”

“For purely selfish reasons, I assure you. It keeps me on my toes to anticipate your next whim—that is, your pleasure.”

“Whim is the correct word. I do not deny it. I daresay one day you will tire of my flightiness, but so long as you find it novel, I will take advantage of your peculiar fascination.”

His lordship smiled and went back to his letters. “Here is one for you, Antonia. Trotter must have overlooked it when he sorted our correspondence.”

Antonia took the letter and tore it open carelessly. “It is from your Aunt Hester, confirming her attendance at dinner tonight.”

“Julia, one gathers, expects Miss Melville to wait upon her like the rest of us, now that she has approved her entry into the family.”

“Of course, and I cannot say I am sorry for Julia’s absence. It was all I could do to whittle down the guest list to a number that would not cause Elena to blanch at seeing them all gathered at the same dinner table.”

“Yes, I noticed that your little soirée turned into a dinner party almost overnight. What is the final tally?”

“Twelve. I did attempt to limit the number to six—Carey and Elena, you and I, Hester, and Arthur Melville—but then there would have been no one to make an announcement
to
. You don’t think Elena will be overwhelmed, do you?”

“I can only congratulate you on your restraint.”

“I did my best to keep the menu simple and drew the line at inviting only those persons who are resident in town, although I should have liked to have Octavian and Isabel to complete the family.”

“A wise distinction.” Kedrington glanced at his wife speculatively. “How is Isabel?”

Antonia’s niece, her late older brother’s only child, was in the family way only six months after her wedding, and while Kedrington knew that Antonia was as happy for her as she could be, he did not doubt she harbored a certain envy at the apparent ease with which her niece, only eight years younger than herself, was blossoming into motherhood. He hoped Antonia would not have much longer to wait. He wished he could alleviate that particular longing of hers, and he did not attempt any such platitudes as assuring her that he would always love her whether she gave him an heir or not. It was true, but that did not mean she would believe him.

“Blooming, according to her latest letter. Perhaps I should have included Mr. Campbell,” Antonia went on, apparently unafflicted by such thoughts as troubled her husband. “Elena seemed at ease with him.”

“Nonetheless, they are virtual strangers.”

“That is true.” Antonia sighed and bent to kiss her husband’s forehead. “And the announcement will appear in the
Times
tomorrow morning. We can always wave it about or post it on the door by way of official announcement.” She gathered up her gardening shears and said, “I shall leave you to your correspondence, dearest. I must see if the berries for the sweet course have arrived.”

With a smile and a gay little wave, Antonia left the library and closed the door softly behind her. The instant she heard it click shut, however, she took in a deep breath and snatched a handkerchief out of her sleeve to wipe away the tears that welled up despite her determination not to let them.

“Do stop being so foolish,” she told herself in a fierce whisper. “Fretting yourself to flinders will achieve nothing!”

Refusing to dwell on her secret, unreasoning fears about her inadequacies as a wife and the dreadful possibility that she would never be a mother—those doubts would pass, they always did, she
knew
they would—Antonia went off to bedevil the cook, harry the maids, and drive her dresser to distraction. And, as always in the Kedrington household, when it came time for her guests to arrive, Lady Kedrington looked as fresh and lovely as a spring day, the decorations were perfection, and the servants went about their remaining tasks with smiles and giggles, as if they had never been more happy in their work.

His lordship appeared, fresh from the talented hands of his valet and ready to greet his guests ten minutes before anyone was expected. He presented himself for his wife’s approval in knee breeches and striped stockings, a beautifully cut dark blue coat, a white waistcoat, and a cravat tied in a style she recognized as his own but to which he refused to put a name.

“You
do
look elegant,” Antonia told him, “as always.”

“And as always,” he replied, “you, my love, look delicious.”

“Why, thank you, sir,” she said, spreading her skirts in a curtsy which served to show off the supple radiance of her pink satin gown. The amethysts in her ears and at her throat had been a gift from Kedrington on their second wedding anniversary.

“Are you coming down to greet our guests?” she asked him.

“No, I leave that chore in your expert hands. When you need me, send Trotter. He will know where to find me.”

Antonia gave his a look he dared not attempt to interpret and, with no further word, swept past him toward the stairs. He surely only imagined her saying, as she disappeared, “Slacker!”

* * * *

The first of their guests to arrive was, unsurprisingly, Hester Coverley, in a youthful but unusually restrained gown of lavender and white stripes. The moment the door was opened to her, she swept past the butler, hugged Antonia, and snatched off her bonnet.

“You need not hide your bonnet from
us
,” Antonia said, laughing. “Although I should not suppose you need it indoors.”

“Oh, do forgive me, Antonia, dear. Force of habit, you know. Julia does take on so when I wear what she considers a too frivolous or too expensive hat. I do think this one is quite elegant, though, don’t you? It’s a real ostrich feather. And I got it for a song, I assure you.”

“I’m sure you did,” Antonia replied, leading Hester into the drawing room. She thought, but did not say, that she would have expected Hester’s modiste to give her a large discount for the sheer volume of business Miss Coverley brought her way.

Hester rattled on for several moments about her activities that day, but it was not long before the knocker sounded again, and Carey was announced. He glanced briefly around the room, said, “Ah—Kedrington’s not down yet, I see,” and announced that he would go up to fetch his brother-in-law.

He bounded up the stairs, and Antonia sank into a chair, prepared to be regaled with more chatter from Hester.

The arrival of Cloris and Edmund Beaumont, however, provided Hester with a companion even more voluble than she, and the two ladies exchanged gossip while Antonia took Edmund aside to enquire how he did.

Cloris Beaumont, née Beecham, had been a schoolmate of Isabel Fairfax during the year they had spent together at a Bath seminary for young ladies, and she had been the first friend the Fairfax ladies found when they came to London for Isabel’s season three years before. A vivacious redhead with green eyes and a sunny disposition, she had declared her intention at that time of marrying for money, and no one was surprised when she did so. It was a cause of much more bemused speculation that she actually loved her husband, a handsome but scarcely dashing gentlemen some twenty years her senior. That he adored her remained apparent, not so much from his demeanor toward her as from Clory’s constant references to “the Beau,” as she called him, always with a slight blush and a proprietary tone.

But while Cloris was an old friend, Edmund was still a relatively unknown quantity, and Antonia was glad for a few words with him before the rest of their guests arrived.

“How are you this evening, Edmund? I trust the weather has not become too sultry for you.”

“Not at all. But then, I am used to the Indian climate. Cloris is eager to leave town, however, and I have engaged a house for the summer in Worthing.”

“Not Brighton?” Antonia teased.

He smiled, acknowledging the unmodishness of Worthing. “You would be surprised to know that it was Cloris’s choice. She claims to be bored with Brighton and says there is nothing new to do there.”

“Does she, indeed!”