My Lord Winter (15 page)

“Why, certainly, sir.” She smiled at him, her heart dancing. “I shall gladly forgive you if you will only stop frowning at me as if I were the one seeking forgiveness.”

His smile was uncertain but it warmed his grey eyes. “I beg your pardon, I did not mean to frown.”

“Enough of pardons! Between friends they are unnecessary, and we are friends, are we not?” In a quake, she wondered if she had been too bold.

“I am honoured to be considered your friend,” he said at once, to her relief. In fact, his response was sufficiently fervent to silence them both for a moment; then he said, “You have finished your tea, Miss Brooke. May I fetch you more?”

As he took her cup, his fingers brushed hers. Through her thin cotton glove—no kid for Miss Brooke—a spark leapt between them. To hide her confusion she reached for another macaroon, while he quickly turned away to ask Miss Gracechurch to refill the cup. When he brought it to her, they were careful not to touch.

The reminder of their kiss was too close, Jane thought. After another meeting or two, he would not fluster her so.

“Are you enjoying your stay in London?” he asked. “Have you seen all the sights?”

“A few,” she said noncommittally. Between shopping and morning calls and evening engagements, she had seen little outside Mayfair and St. James’s. “There is a great deal to see.”

“If there is anywhere in particular you wish to go, I should be happy to escort you.” He sounded oddly unsure of himself.

Jane racked her brains for an excursion that he would not despise, yet where she was unlikely to meet her fashionable acquaintances. “The British Museum?” she suggested.

“An excellent choice. You will find it interesting, I believe. Montague House is open to the public on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, from ten o’clock until four, and I am entirely at your disposal.”

Today was Wednesday. Would he think her too eager if she said Friday? Had she any afternoon engagements for Friday? If she had, she would cancel them. “Friday will suit me very well, sir.”

This time there was nothing tentative about his smile. He really was excessively good-looking when he smiled.

“Friday it is. May I call for you in my carriage?”

“Thank you, but...but there is no need for you to go out of your way.” Panic-stricken, she cast about for a reason to refuse his offer. “Mr. Selwyn mentioned that Montague House is just around the corner.”

Though he looked disappointed, Lord Wintringham was too gentlemanly to argue. They arranged a time to meet at the museum.

“Will you have another macaroon?” he offered. “You appear to be fond of them.”

“Tut, sir, a gentleman ought not to take note when a lady overindulges.” She helped herself. “Especially since you have not eaten your cake.”

He cast a glance over his shoulder at his host and said softly, “As a matter of fact, I abominate seed cake, whereas I should very much like a cup of tea. I have let mine grow cold. What shall I do?”

“Open the window, water the daffodils, and feed the birds,” she advised in a conspiratorial undertone.

Grinning, he followed her advice while she made a loud comment about the beauty of the flowers, as if he were leaning out merely to admire them.

His cup replenished, he rejoined her. They spoke of spring flowers, and she told him of her feeling that the seasons passed unnoticed in the city. They agreed in preferring country life. Jane realized with chagrin that her mother would very likely approve the earl as a suitor, were he in search of a wife. Thank heaven he was not!

Through the open window came the sound of church clocks striking the hour. Miss Gracechurch rose to her feet, saying that it was time to leave. Lord Wintringham seemed about to offer to see them home, but Mr. Selwyn detained him with a question. The housekeeper showed them out and they hurried round the corner to Bury Lane, where a well-paid jarvey awaited them with his hackney carriage.

“How fortunate that Mr. Selwyn’s sitting-room does not overlook the street!” said Jane as they set off. “Oh Gracie, I wish I did not have to pretend.’’

“Is it really necessary? You are not obliged to meet his lordship again.”

“I made an appointment to visit the British Museum with him on Friday,” she admitted guiltily. “Ella can go with me if you are otherwise occupied.”

“Oh dear! No, I shall go with you. In that case, perhaps you had best simply tell the earl who you are.”

“Not yet. Not until I know him better. Promise you will not tell, Gracie.”

“I promise,” said Miss Gracechurch, but she looked disturbed.

* * * *

“Well, now, Ella, we don’t need to meet on street corners no more, now my lord’s took up with your young lady.”

“I’m sure I can’t guess what you mean. Look at that bonnet, in the window there, the one wi’ yellow feathers. Isn’t that fine as fivepence?”

“You don’t need no fancy bonnet to be the prettiest lass I ever seen.”

“Ooh, Alfred, you do say the nicest things.”

“I’ll say ’em more often if you’ll let me come calling.”

“It’s not that I don’t want you coming round, it’s just I can’t tell you where.”

“His lordship’ll tell me.”

“That he won’t!”

“Why not?”

“Acos he don’t know and my ladies don’t want him to know.”

“They don’t? Whyever not? He’d come and fetch ’em and save ’em a walk or sixpence for a hackney.”

“Look, here’s a pastry-cook. My, them pies smell good.”

“I’ll treat you. You want a pie? Or one o’ them French apple tarts?’’

“An apple tart’d be nice.”

“Here you are, then. Mind it don’t drip on your gown. Come on, Ella, what’s so secret ’bout your lodgings? I don’t care if you don’t live in the best part o’ Town.... What’s the joke?”

“Nothing. But I can’t tell you why it’s secret or you’d know what the secret is.”

“I see what it is, you don’t trust me. Like you said to me, I won’t walk out with someone as don’t trust me.”

“I do! I do trust you. Only it’s not my secret.”

“I wouldn’t tell my lord.”

“You mean it, Alfred?”

“Take my oath on it.”

“A’ right, then. Miss Brooke’s not Miss Brooke, she’s Lady Jane Brooke, and her pa’s the Marquis of Hornby.”

“That’s a fine Banbury story!”

“It’s true! Why would I make it up?”

“Why wouldn’t she want his lordship to know?”

“Just listen and I’ll tell you all about it.”

* * * *

Jane and Miss Gracechurch turned into Great Russell Street, hurrying beneath their umbrellas. Under the shelter of the porch of the British Museum stood a gentleman. Though he had his blue-coated back to her, his glossy beaver on his head, Jane recognized Lord Wintringham at once.

Turning, he saw them and came down the steps towards them, despite the drizzle. His smile brightened the damp, grey day.

“I hope we have not kept you waiting, sir.”

“Not at all, Miss Brooke. I have spent an hour or two in the reading-room, and I just now stepped out for a breath of air. Good day, Miss Gracechurch. Come in out of the rain.”

He offered each lady an arm and they went in.

As they wandered through the exhibit-crowded rooms of the old mansion, Jane was pleased to find that her reading had been extensive enough to allow her to ask intelligent questions. The earl had most of the answers, whether they were studying old coins, classical marbles, Egyptian antiquities, or collections of natural history and curiosities.

His first love, however, was plainly the medieval manuscripts. Jane wholeheartedly admired the jewel-like colours and gold leaf of the illustrations and illuminated letters.

“But I wish I could read the text,” she exclaimed. “They all seem to be in Latin or Old French.”

“I can manage the Latin, with a struggle, but the Old French is beyond me,” Lord Wintringham admitted. “Come over here and see Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales.
You will like the portrait of the author standing within the initial
W.
Look: ‘When that April with his showers sweet...,’ in modern parlance.”

“Oh yes, it is delightful. And I can read the first few lines, but only because I know them by heart. I am glad the printing press was invented!”

He laughed. “So must we all be. Books were rare and precious when they had to be copied by hand.”

“And still rarer when carved in stone,” said Miss Gracechurch. “If you have no objection, I should like to look again at the Rosetta stone. Mr. Selwyn is acquainted with Dr. Thomas Young, who is attempting to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs with the aid of the Greek and demotic inscriptions on it.”

They went back to the Egyptian collection, presented to the museum by King George after the British took it from the French at Alexandria. The Rosetta stone, a slab of black basalt, looked to Jane just like a large tombstone. While the earl and Gracie discussed the importance of being able to read Ancient Egyptian, she wandered off to examine painted sarcophagi and statues of gods and pharaohs.

Lord Wintringham found her poring over a magnificent collar of beaten gold set with turquoise and lapis lazuli.

“That would suit you,” he said. “The lapis is the colour of your eyes. Beautiful.”

His gaze was not on the necklace but her face. She felt the warmth rise in her cheeks.

In an effort to divert him, she pointed out, “It must have been excessively uncomfortable to wear so heavy a necklace in the heat of Egypt.”

“True,” he said, smiling, “and the lapis was wasted on them since their eyes were dark, not heavenly blue.”

She was glad when Gracie rejoined them.

It was four o’clock and the museum was closing. Outside, the drizzle had become a downpour. As they paused beneath the porch, watching the raindrops splash in the puddles in the street, a carriage came round the corner and stopped before them.

Jane recognized the Wintringham crest on the door, having seen it at the Abbey.

“Ladies, I cannot permit you to walk home in this weather,” said the earl with determination. “I am going to return to the reading-room, which is still open for members, but my coachman will take you wherever you wish to go.”

Jane and Gracie exchanged a glance.

“We shall be happy to accept, sir,” Gracie said composedly, before Jane had worked out an excuse for refusing.

“Good. Where shall I instruct him to take you, ma’am?”

“To Mr. Selwyn’s house, in Hart Street, if you please. I must enquire of his housekeeper whether she has found a handkerchief I mislaid on Wednesday. Then Mr. Selwyn’s boy will find us a hackney.”

He acquiesced with a wry smile. “As you wish. Miss Brooke, I trust you have another outing to propose?”

Jane had a list, prepared in hopeful anticipation. “I should like to see the paintings at the Royal Academy, sir, at an early hour before the fashionable crowds arrive. Or Westminster Abbey, or...”

“Hold! Enough for the present. When may I have the pleasure of escorting you to the Royal Academy?”

A date chosen, he gave them each an arm down the rain-slicked steps, while his damp footman jumped down from the perch at the rear of the carriage to open the door. Lord Wintringham handed them in, spoke to the coachman, then stood in the rain watching them drive off, the brim of his hat dripping onto his broad shoulders.

Jane sat back with a sigh. “I was afraid for a moment that you were going to let the cat out of the bag.”

“Jane!”

“I beg your pardon: to allow his lordship to discover who I am. You must admit that I have not used any expression of Derek’s this age, and never in company. The museum was fascinating, was it not? And Lord Wintringham knew so much about everything. Can you imagine visiting it with Lord Charles, or Lord Ryburgh? Lord Ryburgh would be
aux anges
over the wheat harvest in the Egyptian paintings, and I daresay Lord Charles has never even heard of the British Museum.”

The next afternoon, when Lord Charles squired Jane to Lady Jersey’s breakfast, she tested her assumption and found it true. Not only had he never heard of the British Museum, but the Royal Academy was no more successful at calling a spark of recognition to his eyes. Nonetheless, he bravely assured Jane that he’d be delighted to take her there. His relief when she declined was palpable.

“To tell the truth,” he confided, “I don’t care for art above half.”

In view of Lord Ryburgh’s venerable age, she forbore to tease him on the subject. She was surprised, however, to receive from him an invitation to attend a performance of
Macbeth
at Drury Lane Theatre. She nearly laughed aloud when he admitted, somewhat shamefaced, that he didn’t care for the theatre above half.

“A fellow called Edmund Kean will be playing Macbeth
,”
he went on. “I hear he’s all the rage, so I thought you might like to see him. I’ve borrowed a box from a friend. If you agree, I’ll ask Lord Fitzgerald and Miss Chatterton to join us. I know
they
are particular friends of yours.”

Jane graciously accepted.
Macbeth
was one of her favourite plays. Besides, she had no intention of letting the marchioness guess that neither of the suitors she favoured met with her daughter’s approval.

By the evening of the theatre party, Jane had already enjoyed visits to both the Royal Academy and Westminster Abbey with the Earl of Wintringham. His lordship had been charming. The two or three times some trifle made him poker up, she had succeeded in laughing him out of his haughty mien. As a change from intellectual pursuits, she had persuaded him to take her on the river in a steamboat one day the following week.

Fitz would undoubtedly have preferred a steamboat excursion to
Macbeth.
“I don’t care for Shakespeare above half,” he told Jane. “A good farce at the Haymarket’s more like it, with plenty of singing and dancing. Trouble is, Daphne’s taken a notion to see that actor fellow, Kean. She ain’t felt up to going out this age and she wants me to go with her.”

Lady Chatterton cried off with a megrim, so Fitz, Daphne, and Lavinia joined Jane, Miss Gracechurch, and Lord Ryburgh in his friend’s box. The young ladies were seated in the front row, Jane in the middle. She had been to Drury Lane before and admired the magnificence of the theatre, rebuilt after the fire of 1809. Now she chatted with her friends and looked about the audience, nodding and smiling at acquaintances. All the ladies were fanning themselves, for the crowd drawn by Kean as Macbeth, together with the gas lighting, made the place hot as an oven.