The Rambunctious Lady Royston (10 page)

"It has been dry this last week and more," her sister pointed out anxiously.

"Is that a fact? Have you turned weather-watcher then, Isabella? How droll," Samantha chided. "Really, Izzy, all this fuss about one timid old lady. I can handle the dowager with both hands tied behind my back. After all—"

"Ahem. Madam," cut in Carstairs, who had stepped inside the room.

"If you're about to tell me luncheon is served, man, I'll eat when it suits me, not you," Samantha cut him off shortly—slightly drunk with her new power and more than ready to establish herself as mistress of the household. Turning back to her sister, she went on as if there had been no interruption: "After all, Izzy, even if the old tabby takes it into her head to cut up stiff at me, do you think me unable to send her to the rightabout directly?" she finished smugly.

Isabella, whose chair faced the doorway, could see the

butler was obviously in the throes of some serious dilemma. "Ahem! My lady, if you please—" he began in strangled tones.

"Now see here, Carstairs," Samantha began, only to stop when she noticed the color leaving her sister's face. As her back had been to the door, Samantha slowly turned her head to see what had sent Isabella's eyes to near popping from her head and was greeted by the sight of a hand-wringing, cringing Carstairs, who was vainly striving to keep a truly majestic looking grande dame from fully entering the room.

Realizing the futility of his efforts, he gathered about him the rags of his respectability, pumped up his chest and announced: "The Dowager Countess of Royston, madam," whirled smartly on his heel, and quit the room for the kitchens and an alcoholic restorative.

All the commotion had served to rouse Aunt Loretta, who proceeded to yawn, stretch, inquire if luncheon was served, and—on being told it was not—sink gracefully back into dreamland.

"And what," the dowager demanded in a deep voice that set the Sevres vase on the mantelpiece to jiggling, "is that?"

Whilst Aunt Loretta was performing her only party trick, Samantha had taken the time to rise and face the dowager, doing a quick inventory of her ladyship at the same time. Egad, she thought, the woman must be six feet tall if she's an inch, and built more along the lines of a village blacksmith than a peeress of the realm. All in all, quite an imposing figure, decked out as it was in deep purple draperies, the whole topped off by a veritable bush of hair that was incongruously snow-white on the crown and sides and coal-black at the back. Zachary's hair will look like that one day, Samantha thought to no purpose. Then she shook herself mentally and, valiantly blocking the dowager's view of the rapidly wilting Isabella, told her newest relative, "That, as you put it, is our dear Aunt Loretta—chaperon, companion, and mentor of our formative years."

"Hummph!' snorted her ladyship. "Preserve me from dotty, middle-aged ape leaders. So that's all the resistance Zachary had to overcome in his rush to rob the cradle. I don't count yer father, of course: the man most likely drooled all down St. John's best waistcoat in his ecstasy over the match. We Roystons are quite plump in the pocket, besides being able to trace our line back to the Domesday Book," the dowager concluded, as she settled herself into a nearby chair.

"And so modest with it all, too," Samantha fairly purred, as she retook her own seat.

Oh, dear, Isabella groaned inwardly. I knew Sammy would cause a scene the moment I laid eyes on the dowager. I just knew it. Drat Sammy and her quick tongue! Will she never learn to keep her thoughts to herself? Look at the two of them, she thought as she sank deeply into her chair, eyeing each other like birds of prey sizing up their quarry. She dragged her eyes from the two staring adversaries to search out Aunt Loretta, who was still deep in dreamland and promising to be of no more help than a brass doorstop once the feathers started to fly. If there was only one thing about her aunt that could be depended upon, it was that she could not be depended upon at all.

The dowager was the first to break the tense silence that followed Samantha's irreverent remark. "So," she cackled, slowly eyeing Samantha up and down as if she were a bit of goods on a shelf, "this is the best my grandson could come up with, heh? A spoiled chit dressed up like a Bartholemew baby, trying to ape her betters but unable to do more than come off looking for all the world like a brass faced light-skirt, and with the manners of an orange girl at Drury Lane to boot. What a sorry state the St. John name has come to, if a creature like you is to be the mother of the next generation. Tell me, gel," she added insultingly, "is that by some sordid chance the real reason for all this unseeming haste to get to the altar? Are you in fact already breeding a bastard for Zachary?"

Samantha didn't bat an eye as she replied in bored tones: "Frankly, madam, when it comes to motherhood— and especially when it comes to mingling my bloodline with that of the so-blue St. John strain—the prospect of that delicate condition leaves me totally unmoved."

"And besides," Isabella said, as she found herself staunchly supporting her sister (who didn't seem in the least need of any help, but blood is thicker than water), "my aunt and I happen to think Sammy's gown is slap up to the echo." At a piercing glance from the dowager Isabella subsided, mortified past all bearing for having in advertently succumbed to one of Wally's cant expressions in her agitation.

"There's no need for you to set yourself up as a martyr in my cause, Izzy, but thank you anyway," Samantha soothed.

The dowager took a moment to assess Isabella—this fluffy kitten who had so unexpectedly shown her claws— and chanced idly, "This must be the debutante. I'd wondered why Royston passed you by for a younger sister, but now I can see his reasoning. He would have devoured you with one gulp and had enough appetite left for half the opera company. But you're a fair enough beauty," she added condescendingly. "If you can remember to keep your mouth shut and your expression blank, I imagine you will take well enough in this inane circus we call Society."

Isabella didn't know whether to thank the dowager or demand an apology, her kittenish courage not extending to any great lengths, so she merely nodded and busied herself with the buttons on her gloves.

Thankfully, Carstairs picked that moment to bring in the tea tray, thinking it to be the lesser of two evils since her ladyship had not rung to tell him to set another cover for luncheon as was her plain duty. He did not place so little value upon his skin that he could ignore the demand for refreshment the dowager had issued upon her arrival, no matter how his mistress might choose to ignore common good manners (not that he could find it in himself to blame her for her lapse).

The three ladies (the insubstantial nibblings a tea tray normally held were not enough to rouse Aunt Loretta) maintained a tense silence until Carstairs made his bowing exit, but he was still within earshot when Samantha chose to take umbrage at the dowager's cutting remarks about Isabella.

"It is more than plain that you are up in the boughs over the belated delivery of our wedding invitation, caused—so my husband says—by the muddy roads to the south," she supplied in such a way as to let her audience know she was merely retelling an obvious fib made up to hand out to anyone at the wedding who inquired as to the dowager's whereabouts. "But that," she said, her voice stiffening perceptively, "does not give you the right to speak vulgarly to or about my sister." Samantha charged in righteous indignation.

Once again the dowager eyed the girl who dared to take her on in a battle of wills. "My dear child," she imparted mockingly, "don't you know that vulgarity is just one of the many privileges of age, and—although I am convinced your sister there is no more or less than any of the charming, vacant-faced nitwits that abound throughout London —you, gel, I am forced to admit, are fast on your way to becoming a bit of a tartar. It is only my generation—the few of us that are left aboveground—that retain any sense of individuality or spark of spunk at all. But I seem to sense a bit of kindred spirit in you."

"If I believed that, madam, I would promptly ring for Carstairs to bring me a knife—which he would doubtless deliver with solemn pomp, the blade borne on a silver tray and cushioned by a lace napkin—and I would proceed to slice my throat," Samantha retorted with some asperity. She had already admitted to Isabella her desire to be an original, but if she had thought her natural high spirits and frankness of speech would with age degenerate into obstinacy and hurtful sarcasm she would have to rethink her plans.

If, on the other hand, moderation was to be Samantha's new motto, her resolution was never to see the light of day. For just then the dowager raised her quizzing glass, a gold-rimmed circle that had until this moment been dangling from its black riband just below that awesome bosom, and proceeded to inspect her surroundings to see if her grandson had kept so much as one stick of the furniture that had been her choice when she reigned supreme in Portman Square. He had not.

Almost immediately Samantha's eyes lit with admiration for at least one of the dowager's affectations. Isabella saw the look and squirmed in her chair; she knew that gleam in her sister's eye of old, and would have wagered her pin money for the next quarter that Samantha would be sporting a quizzing glass of her own before the week was out. Her sister's impish wink in her direction confirmed her worst fears.

But the dowager Countess was wrong when she prophesied Samantha would someday be very like herself, Isabella decided loyally. Anyone who knew how endlessly kind the girl could be to those less fortunate than herself would with clear conscience promptly swear Samantha didn't have a mean bone in her body. As to the rest—the spark of spunk the dowager spoke of her possessing, along with the definite air of an excessively unique individual—oh, yes, Isabella concurred grudgingly. The dowager had hit the nail full on the head that time, though even she, at least on such short acquaintance, could not imagine the depth and breadth and height of Samantha's vibrant personality.

But she must pay attention. The dowager was speaking again, and by the sound of things she was rushing blindly in where angels fear to tread—to quote Alexander Pope, a poet best loved by the older generations but one seemingly not on the dowager's list of favorites.

"Enough of this verbal jousting, pleasant though it may be," the dowager was saying. "The time has come for me, the head of the family, to lay out a few pertinent facts. Since your family don't have the good grace to leave us to speak in privacy—by the way, are you quite sure that lump in the corner, the one that doesn't answer when you call her Aunt Loretta, has not silently slipped over to the other side? Ha!" she chortled merrily. "And if she had, how ever could you tell?"

"I don't care a button what you say of me, my lady, but you will refrain from tearing up my relatives or, for that matter, my friends, once I am out in Society—either to my face or behind our backs. Have I made myself sufficiently clear, madam?" proclaimed Samantha with countess-like dignity, not in the least penitent for having spoken so to Zachary's grandmother. It was a dignity only slightly impaired by the mulish expression on her face and the whiteness of her knuckles as they clutched the chair arms, as if she was just barely managing to hold herself back from making a direct physical assault on the woman who had so blatantly insulted her kin.

She felt as if she had been caught out in a blizzard in her nightdress, unaware of and unprepared for the unexpected appearance of this bizarre woman and the vicious attack that she'd launched within moments of her arrival. Drat Zachary and his vague explanation that: "Grandmother is a bit of a dragon and we never did get on. I left her invitation too late in order to avoid a scene before the wedding, but I shall put it abroad that the wet weather delayed her removal from Dorset. Once we're married she'll not have any choice but to bow to the fact gracefully, in public that is. In private I'm afraid we'll have to put up with at least one small scene. As I said, the old girl's a trifle overbearing."

A
trifle?
Trust Zachary to understate the case, Samantha seethed helplessly. And trust him too, to disappear the single time I could be passably pleased to have his company. Standing alone against the force of the dowager's anger was much like trying to light a candle in the wind. Every time you think you have struck a spark, another gust comes along to snuff it out. And the dowager was like a strong blast of wind, sweeping onto the scene and creating turmoil with each fresh gust of air she sets whistling past your ears.

What a brimstone of a female! Samantha marveled. If Wellington had a hundred more like her, the war would have been over a good three years earlier. The portion of the enemy she and her pattern-copies could not slay with a look would soon take to their heels at the sound of her booming voice, which would rattle their brains and jangle their nerves until they broke ranks and ran for their lives.

"Now that we have dealt with the preliminaries, and I have laid down a few ground rules," Samantha at last offered charitably, "you may proceed with whatever it is you came to say. I can tell you will not budge from that chair until you have emptied your budget of grievances. I regret my rash remarks, if only because they set you off on another tangent, thus delaying the stating of the true purpose of your visit sooner, and freeing you to push on to your destination with all deliberate speed. I would, of course," she added with disarming sweetness, "beg you to stay in Portman Square with us, but I know you don't wish to intrude on newlyweds."

There, Samantha thought smugly. That should serve to put a spoke in her wheel!

The dowager had been more than a little surprised by Zachary's choice of bride. Oh, yes, the chit's extreme youth was a shock— but then many a man pandered to his self-esteem by opting for a
jeune fille
who would worship her worldly-wise husband and be content to be molded like soft clay, to conform to his every desire. But this girl was more than just youthful. She was pretty—beautiful, actually—and would be even more stunning once she matured. Moreover, she was also intelligent, witty, self-confident, and a person of strong principles. Zachary had chosen himself a rare handful. The dowager, if she could only allow herself to relax her belligerent attitude a bit, could almost find herself liking Samantha, but she had worn her protective armor of cold pride too long. She would not know how to begin to change at this late date.