Julia London (14 page)

Freddie chuckled again. “Rather shy, ain’t she?”

Darien frowned at Freddie. “I’ve not the slightest interest in her,” he said sternly. “Anyone who says I do is quite mistaken.”

“Not me,” Freddie said, throwing up his hands. “I’ve only heard it. Lady Southbridge told me at tea just yesterday.”

“Good morning!” Mr. Anglesey called out as he passed them with his aging mother.

“Morning,” Darien and Freddie echoed, and as he passed, Freddie nudged Darien. “There’s another one,” he said low.

“Another what?”

“Another bachelor who has called on the vicar’s widow of late. Had that at tea, too, you know. Seems rather a string of them have been calling, hoping to find the same success as Connery.”

Darien glared at Freddie. “The same success?”

Freddie chuckled. “You’re intent on slaying the messenger, are you, my lord? Just another bit of gossip from Lady Southbridge. It would seem the widow has removed her widow’s weeds and embraced life,” he said with a wink.

“I shan’t allow you to speak of Mrs. Becket thus, Frederick,” Darien said icily. “Hasn’t the lady suffered enough without the entire
ton
speaking ill of her?”

Freddie’s eyes rounded wide. “My, my, Lord Montgomery. I had no idea you were the defender of widows and the suitor of young girls. And here I believed I knew you well.”

“You know me well enough,” Darien snapped as the church bells began to toll for the final call to services. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I should join my sister and her family.”

Freddie very sarcastically extended one leg and bowed long over it as Darien passed by on his way inside. He didn’t care in the least; his mind was churning with what Freddie had said.

He took his customary seat next to his sister and glanced to the left, to the place Kate always sat, her eyes keen on the vicar, her sweet voice rising above the others in song. She was not there. For the first time since he could remember, save the Sunday following her husband’s death, Kate had not come to church services.

That was when the panic sank its tentacles firmly in him, twining around his heart and all but squeezing the very life from him. Something was horribly, terribly wrong.

 

 

The Southbridge Charity Auction Ball was to be held Friday evening, and it was the last place Darien hoped to speak with Kate before resorting to more drastic measures, of which he had not yet divined—so unaccustomed was he to this particular game of the heart—but that he
would
divine before he let her slip through his fingers.

In fact, it was the more drastic measures he was mulling over a very cold and wet afternoon, not unlike the afternoon that reminded him of the one he’d spent with Kate. That day was indelibly scored in his mind, a day he could not stop thinking about, could not stop reliving, every moment, every snippet of conversation, looking for a clue.

He was sitting before the fire in his study, a glass of whiskey dangling between two fingers, his legs stretched negligently before him when Kiefer entered to announce a caller. “Mr. John Forsythe,” he said as he presented the man’s card.

Bloody hell.
Darien didn’t bother to pick it up—he imagined the man’s wife had put him up to it, if not the girl. “Show him in, will you, Kiefer?”

Kiefer returned a moment later with Mr. Forsythe in tow.

Darien managed, in his lethargy, to come to his feet and extend his hand in greeting. “Mr. Forsythe,” he intoned. “Frightful weather to be out and about.”

“Indeed it is, my lord. But I felt it imperative that I speak with you.”

“Imperative?” Darien asked, cocking a brow as he gestured for Forsythe to sit. “We’ve no business that I am aware.”

Forsythe laughed nervously, and flipping the tails of his coat, sat where Darien had indicated. Darien sat, too, picked up his whiskey. “A bit of whiskey to warm you, Forsythe?”

“Please, my lord.”

Darien nodded at Kiefer, who poured the man a generous amount before leaving the study and pulling the door shut quietly behind him. Darien waited for Forsythe to taste the whiskey, then lazily lifted his glass to him before downing the rest of his. “Very well, then, Forsythe. What business have we?”

Forsythe laughed again and cleared his throat. “I recognize that this might be a bit premature, my lord, but what with all the rumors going about, I thought it was prudent of me to have a chat, man to man, about . . . about what the future may hold.”

“And are you privy to what the future holds, sir? If you are, I’d very much like to know.”

That seemed to rattle Forsythe a bit; he cleared his throat again, put the whiskey glass down, and fidgeted nervously with his neckcloth. “Surely, my lord, you are aware that rumors continue to circulate about the
ton
as to your intentions.”

Darien chuckled. “Rumors of my intentions have been the rule rather than the exception for years now, Mr. Forsythe. I rarely pay them any heed at all.”

“Ah, well,” the man said, looking a bit ill at ease, “as these particular rumors involve my daughter Emily . . . I hope you can see the need for a bit of a chat.”

He’d just said he paid the rumors no heed, implying that perhaps Forsythe shouldn’t, either. With a shake of his head, Darien flicked his wrist and said, rather insouciantly, “Chat as you like.”

Mr. Forsythe frowned at his lack of regard and looked down at his hands for a moment before speaking. “We’ve heard, on more than one occasion, that your interest in our daughter has . . .
blossomed
. . . and that you might be considering something perhaps a little more . . . long-term.”

“And where have you heard this blossoming rumor?” Darien asked, refraining from chuckling at his own jest as Mr. Forsythe was beginning to look a bit like a pomegranate in the face, which, already quite round, was getting redder.

“Where? I, ah . . . well, then, I can say in all certainty that our Emily has been apprised by Lady Southbridge. And, ah . . . Ladies Cheevers and Bristol, and, I believe, Ramblecourt.”

Now there were four women with nothing better to do than wag their bloody tongues all day, Darien thought. But he did think it rather interesting that Forsythe credited Emily with the repeating of the rumors. “And your wife, Mr. Forsythe? Has she attributed these rumors to the same sources?”

“I . . . I believe she has, my lord,” he said, looking a bit confused. “But as Emily is the one who is out in society, more so than her mother, you see—that is to say, she is fond of calling on Lady Southbridge, for example, to talk about upcoming events, that sort of thing.”

“I know very well about that sort of thing,” he said with sly smile, and thought it curious that Freddie had attributed the rumors about Kate to Lady Southbridge as well. The old woman was certainly busy this season. But while Lady Southbridge was notorious for spreading gossip, she was not, as far as he knew, given to fabrication. No, fabrication and deceit were the handiwork of young girls. Girls like Emily, for example, who feigned fainting at large balls.

“No matter how the rumors are started, my lord,” Mr. Forsythe said, as Darien looked at the fire, his mind starting to turn, “it is my duty to inquire as to your true intentions for my daughter.”

Darien suddenly remembered the day at the church spring social, when Emily had so boldly approached him while he was conversing with Kate, and something clicked in his brain.

“Of course,” Darien said absently. “No matter how these rumors are started, no matter who they harm.”

“I beg your pardon?” Forsythe asked, confused, his face getting redder. “Might you speak of your intentions, my lord?”

A light was suddenly dawning, and while Darien wasn’t certain what to make of the things he was thinking, or how they might all fit, his suspicions of Emily Forsythe were suddenly raging. But before he could sort it all through, he had to rid himself of her hopeful father.

He smiled at Forsythe, lifted his glass, and said, “Mr. Forsythe, I am touched by your concern for you daughter. I hope to make my wishes known at the Southbridge Charity Auction Ball.”

Forsythe blinked. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. And then he smiled and sat a little straighter, having obviously reached the conclusion Darien wanted him to reach. A conclusion he hoped the man would repeat to his chit of a daughter and anyone else who would listen.

“I think I take your meaning very well, sir,” Forsythe said, sounding decidedly happier than a moment ago. “Yes, my lord, I do indeed take your meaning! Well then,” he said, coming to his feet, “I believe I have taken enough of your time.”

Darien smiled, too, and gained his feet. “I believe you have,” he said and, clapping the man congenially on the back, he showed him the door.

No one, unless they were dead or in the process of dying, missed the Southbridge Charity Auction Ball.

It signaled the home stretch of the season and was the event where debutantes who had not received an offer, and dandies who were toying with making an offer, wanted to see and be seen. It was the event where the next year’s crop of debutantes was talked about, and speculation made as to how they might be paired up with the idle young men of the
ton.

Married couples looked to the event as the last time they might see their lover, either real or potential. The older couples relished the hijinks of the young and speculated openly as to their various chances for success.

The event was held annually at the Southbridge mansion, in the grand ballroom that some said rivaled that of Carlton House, and was, according to most, just as elaborate as that of Carlton House. The walls were covered in blue silk that matched the paint on the ceiling, where a scene depicting heaven, complete with clouds and angels and naked cherubs playing their trumpets of love, had been artfully portrayed. The room was so cavernous that it required a twelve-piece orchestra, positioned in an alcove above the dance floor, which had been polished to perfection with hundreds of beeswax candles and dotted at its borders with potted orange trees.

At the other end of the ballroom, a platform had been erected, and it was from that platform the auction would commence at precisely midnight. In addition to being
the
event of the season, the Charity Auction Ball could also be credited with raising hundreds of pounds for the Ladies Auxiliary Charitable Works Benefiting Orphans and Pensioners.

Up until the auction commenced, and for hours long after it was over, there would be dancing in the main ballroom, gaming for the gentlemen across the way in the library, and supper served in the formal dining room for those in need of sustenance.

It was
the
place to be, and the last place Kate wanted to be.

If it hadn’t been for Papa, she wouldn’t be in attendance at all. But he’d been quite firm in this—he’d insisted she attend (“You’re not getting a day younger, Kate,”) and had even commissioned a lovely pale gold gown for her, made of gossamer silk with a train studded in tiny crystals that swept down from the middle of her back. Certainly it was the loveliest gown she’d ever worn, and even she could agree that the pale gold complemented her coloring.

But she’d been appalled when he’d first presented it to her, arguing that a vicar’s widow did not wear something so lovely, and in addition, he could not afford something so fine on his pension.

“I suppose I can, and I did,” he’d said gruffly.

“But
why,
Papa?” she’d asked as she had taken the gown from the modiste box to admire it.

“Is it not obvious, Kate? You are a young woman in the prime of her life. I can’t bear to see you sitting about this tiny house wearing that drab vicar’s wife gown, reading to an old man night after night! You deserve happiness! You deserve the very best this life has to offer! But you’ll not find it rapping at your door—you must seek it, and I’ll be damned if I’ll allow you to seek it looking like a martyr.”