The Dangerous Viscount (4 page)

“What are you two doing here? Or did you just come out to escape the heat?” Minerva asked.

“Mama told me to show Mr. Iverley the garden.” “What is there to see?”

“Not much.” Stephen turned to Sebastian. “I’m afraid I’ve brought you out here under false pretenses. But we can’t go in yet. Mama’s giving Diana a lecture.”

“I’m sorry to intrude. I must be in your way.” Sebastian felt awkward. It occurred to him that Lady Fanshawe had shown no great enthusiasm for his company. Suddenly he felt a fool, something that happened often when he ventured into polite society and another reason for avoiding it. He never seemed to register the unspoken nuances behind other people’s words and conduct. Women particularly were incapable of communicating their wishes in a straightforward manner.

Minerva Montrose, for all her diplomatic aspirations, responded with glorious and unfeminine frankness. “Don’t worry, we always welcome a new face at
Wallop Hall. Anything for a distraction. And don’t worry about Diana. Even if she’s a little grumpy I can promise she’d prefer you to a sermon from Mama.”

“Should we rescue her?” he asked.

“It can’t be done,” she replied. “Mama would just tell us to go away again. You might as well look at the garden.”

“I know,” Stephen said. “We’ll show you Will’s clock.”

He took off over the lawn, and Sebastian followed, careful not to trip on any of the more robust tussocks of grass, until they reached a circular flowerbed with plants set at intervals in seedy clumps around the periphery. The three of them stood in a row and regarded the unpromising sight.

“How is this a clock?” Sebastian asked. He would have expected a sundial in the center.

“It’s a botanical clock,” Stephen explained. “Linnaeus said you ought to be able to construct one since different plants bloom at different times of the day. Our oldest brother decided to test the theory.”

“That’s clever,” Sebastian said.

“It would be if it worked,” Minerva said, “but the plants never to seem to behave the same way from one day to the next. At one time Will used it instead of a watch. He was either early or late for everything.”

“Do you remember, Min?” Stephen said. “He swore the problem was that Shropshire is on the wrong latitude. I wonder if he’s managed to build one in South America.”

The activities of the Montrose family made Sebastian feel a little dizzy. “South America?” he asked.

“Yes,” Minerva said. “He’s hunting specimens in the Amazon jungle. Rufus, the next oldest, is searching for Roman ruins in Anatolia. And Henry’s at Edinburgh University reading medicine.”

What a marvelous family, Sebastian thought. The table talk must never be trivial. He wished he were staying at Wallop Hall instead of Mandeville. Dinner the previous night had been sheer misery with Lady Whatshername babbling in his ear, trying to draw him out. Her sister had giggled while Blakeney and his acolytes droned on about their ludicrous pursuits and brayed with laughter for no discernable reason.

Unfortunately it was time to leave this haven of rationality and return to the tedium of the ducal household. Lady Fanshawe appeared on the terrace next to the house and beckoned. On the bright side, Lady Fanshawe beckoning was a sight to behold. From the lawn he took in the full splendor of her figure.

“Are you ready to ride back?” she asked. She smiled at him.

At least he’d have something attractive to look at during dinner.

L
ady Georgina Harville, née Howard, had come out the same year as Diana. The daughter of an earl with a healthy portion, Lady Gee had been invited everywhere while Diana languished on the obscure fringes on the Beau Monde. Nevertheless they’d been distantly acquainted, then and since.

Lady Gee made little secret of her displeasure at Diana’s addition to their group. She and her sister, Felicia, spoke to her as little as possible and with the barest excuse for civility. But this evening, during a convivial dinner, the entire party agreed to address each other informally. Given that level of supposed intimacy, Lady Georgina could hardly maintain her standoffish attitude when the three ladies of the party retired to the drawing room. She was not, however, lacking resources when it came to putting a perceived upstart in her place.

“Remind me, Diana dearest, in which county is Sir Tobias Fanshawe’s country place?”

“Coghill Hall is in Essex.”

“I thought perhaps he was one of the Yorkshire Fanshawes.”

“Goodness, no. No connection at all. He was a
‘Madras Fanshawe.’” Diana had learned that the best way to deal with malicious attacks on her husband’s antecedents was to acknowledge them with an ironic smile. As Lady Gee knew well, Diana’s late husband had been the son of an India merchant named Shawbottom whose name change preceded the purchase of his baronetcy by a matter of weeks.

“I believe you have no children. Did the estate pass to another branch of the family?”

“The ‘Madras Fanshawes’ have no other branch. Coghill belongs to me now,” Diana replied, taking the opportunity to remind Georgina that her fortune was far greater than either of the others. “So convenient to have a comfortable house near London.”

“My husband’s family place is in Cheshire, not very far from Mandeville. Sir Charles and Blakeney are childhood friends.”

“My family lives three miles away at Mandeville Wallop.”

“Really? It seems very strange that Charles never encountered your family during his visits over the years.”

Diana skirted the gibe about the Montroses’ low social standing. “I’m not surprised I never met Sir Charles before, being much younger than Blake. And I wasn’t out.”

Georgina frowned in deep thought. “I vaguely recall that we came out in the same year. We must have encountered each other at some affair or other.”

Pretending not to know someone you’d met on numerous occasions was an affectation Diana found especially tiresome. Nevertheless the set-down was a
compliment of sorts, a backhanded recognition that Diana was no longer naturally beneath her notice and needed to be actively snubbed.

She smiled sweetly. “I do believe you are right, Gee. We must have married at about the same time. Such a coincidence that we both wed baronets.”

Whether that was a winning thrust could be open to interpretation. Sir Tobias Fanshawe was by far the richer. Sir Charles Harville was younger, with an older title. Lady Gee’s luck at attracting the attention of Lord Blakeney, the biggest prize of all, had been no greater than Diana’s, but with her birth and fortune she should have landed a peer. While Diana’s marriage was something of a coup for her, Lady Georgina might have expected to marry better.

Lady Felicia Howard nodded her head from side to side as she followed the exchange, exuding the occasional pointless titter. Now she fixed her eyes on the door.

“Look,” she giggled. “Mr. Iverley has come back with the other gentlemen. What a quiz.”

Felicia was an exceptionally silly young woman, but Diana couldn’t argue with that opinion. The other gentlemen might not be as pleasing to the eye as their host, but they were people of the highest fashion, as were the Howard sisters. And Diana’s own lemon yellow silk was brand-new, perfect in its extortionately expensive simplicity for a lady visiting a ducal seat.

Iverley offered a comical contrast, both to the grandeur of the room and its modish inhabitants. To put it bluntly, he looked like a country bumpkin. Not slovenly precisely: his garments were clean
and well brushed, his linens white. But Diana could scarcely credit that this scarecrow in sagging evening breeches, a shabby coat with shiny elbows, and well-worn though polished buckled shoes, was cousin to the elegant Blakeney. The piece of muslin wound about his collar hardly deserved the title of neck cloth.

“How exactly is he related to the family?” she asked. Lady Georgina hadn’t previously been acquainted with Iverley, which in itself was odd, but she knew who was connected to whom, and how.

“I was puzzled at first, then I realized he’s the son of the duke’s sister, Lady Corinna. She’s lived abroad for years. I don’t know the details, but she married an Italian.”

“He doesn’t look foreign,” Diana remarked, “and nothing like any of the Vanderlins, either.”

The Vanderlins, family of the dukes of Hampton, tended to be very fair. Mr. Iverley was darker, his longish hair brown. Diana hadn’t noticed the color of his eyes, obscured as they were by his spectacles.

“The Italian was her second marriage,” Lady Gee explained. “She’s a contessa or something now. She was married before, to an Englishman. A nephew of the Viscount Iverley.”

“Mr. Iverley is obviously not addicted to fashion,” Diana remarked. “His interests tend toward the intellectual, it appears. I gather he is here to inspect some of the famous rarities in the Mandeville library.”

“I didn’t know you were bookish, Diana.” Georgina Harville had her eye on Blakeney for her sister and was trying to brand the competition a bluestocking.

Diana had waited years for this chance. Nothing
was going to stop her from becoming Marchioness of Blakeney and eventually a duchess.

“By no means,” she said, and asserted her superior knowledge of all things Mandeville. “But growing up in the neighborhood I know a great deal about the duke’s collections.”

Mr. Iverley stood in the middle of the room, looking uncertain. Diana sensed his eyes on her and thought he was headed in her direction when Blakeney, moving faster, reached her side.

“Would you care for a walk on the terrace, Diana?” he asked.

Yes!

Lady Georgina looked sick, Lady Felicia puzzled. Diana tried to keep her face from registering triumph, muted only when Blakeney invited one of the other gentlemen to come with them.

It was one of those midsummer evenings when twilight lingered after sunset, the mysteries of night promised but postponed. Dusk clothed the horizon in stages. First the distant elm groves, then the lake, dissolved from sight. The scent of roses drifted from the walled garden below, flooding the broad raised terrace on the west side of the great house. Inside the crimson and gold drawing room the candles had been lit, but their glow through the open French window wasn’t needed for Diana to see the face of the man standing next to her.

“What a glorious night!” A sweeping gesture encompassed the rose garden and achieved its real purpose, which was to brush against Blakeney’s arm. Blake, she amended. Blake’s arm.

“Look at that climbing rose,” she said. “The profusion of white flowers appears magical in this light.” Her statement happened to be true, but she’d selected that particular bloom for notice because of its location. In pointing at it she had to lean across him. She could feel the fine cloth of his evening coat through the thin silk of her sleeve. She trusted Blake was appreciating the sight of her bosom. The low-cut bodice displayed her assets to great advantage, she knew. Mr. Iverley, seated opposite, had barely taken his eyes off them throughout the evening meal.

The marquis, however, was proving elusive. She was ready to resist the kind of improper advances hinted at by her mother, but none had been forthcoming. So far, Blake hadn’t said a word to her that couldn’t have been overheard by anyone. She’d hoped for more when he’d asked her to take a stroll outside. She told herself that Blake was paying homage to the proprieties by inviting James Lambton to accompany them. Though Diana had nothing against Lamb, an amusing charmer and one of Blake’s closest friends, at this moment she found him definitely
de trop.

“My mother’s devoted to roses,” Blake said. “The walled garden is her scheme.”

“Even from here the scent is heavenly. Close up it must outdo all the perfumes of Arabia.”

Instead of following this blatant hint with an invitation to explore, preferably leaving Lambton behind, Blake actually pulled back from her. What was the matter with him? Diana knew she looked her best and she knew he admired her. Yet in a situation that should have been rife with romantic possibilities he failed to press his advantage.

“Shall we walk?” he asked. At least he offered his arm. She placed her gloved hand on it and they strolled decorously over the flagstones, Lambton keeping pace on her other side.

“If the country were always like this,” Diana said, “I might even be tempted to live here.”

“Don’t say that, Diana,” Lamb complained. “London needs you.”

“I’m not serious. I can’t wait to get back to town in the autumn and take my exercise on busy pavements instead of muddy fields. Not to mention that my wardrobe is in dire need of replenishment.”

“Are you suggesting,” Blake said, “that Mandeville Wallop cannot satisfy a lady’s every whim?”

“There are certain needs that can only be met in Bond Street. I had quite enough of country life in the year after Fanshawe died.”

“Talking of Wallop, are your estimable parents as singular as ever?”

“Thank you, Blake, I found them in good health.” Which didn’t quite answer the question.

“Mr. and Mrs. Montrose are famous in Shropshire,” Blake explained to Lambton. “She is the Master of the Mandeville Hunt. Or should I say Mistress? I never quite know. Which is it, Diana?”

“I believe,” Diana replied, keeping her face and tone neutral, “that she is known as the Master of the Hunt. In this she follows the example of Lady Salisbury at Hatfield.”

“And does your father keep household?” Both men chuckled and Diana gritted her teeth.

“My father is of a mechanical bent,” she said lightly, trying to walk the fine line between irony and
disrespect. “His inventions are not always practical, or even successful, but we appreciate his ingenuity.”

“What’s Rufus doing these days? We used to play together as boys. He became quite a crammer at Oxford, though. Always at lectures or in the library.”

“He is pursuing his classical studies abroad.”

Blake sighed. “Pity. He was a regular fellow once. Then he became as bad as my cousin. Of course, Iverley never was a regular fellow. He hasn’t changed since the first time he came here. We must have been ten or eleven years old and I never saw a worse seat on a horse. He couldn’t stay on at anything faster than a trot. Blind too. We called him the Owl.”