The Tudor Signet (13 page)

Lady Lilian had told the butler to show Lord Wareham in and his steps were heard in the hall. As he appeared in the doorway, Emily who had been showing her mother her embroidery, hurriedly moved to a seat next to Mariette.

“Is he not handsome?” she breathed. “But he scarcely knows I exist.”

“Good gad, Emmie,” Mariette exclaimed, horrified, “he is old enough to be your father.”

“I don’t want him for a husband, only for a flirt. Lizzie Phillips danced with him at an assembly in Plymouth at Christmas and she says he is a splendid flirt.”

“Ugh!” Mariette wondered whether it would have been better or worse if Lord Wareham had tried to flirt with her instead of turning up his nose. Worse, she decided.

“To tell the truth,” Emily whispered, “I don’t like him above half, and I am not sure how to flirt. Uncle Malcolm, must one like a man to flirt with him?”

“I’d say liking is not a requirement, though it makes for a vastly more enjoyable experience. At least you should not dislike him! In any case you are by far too young to think of flirting.”

Emily pouted. Mariette pondered Lord Malcolm’s words and regretfully decided he must be a practised flirt to speak with such expertise. He had been flirting with her. She must take care not to read more into his words than he intended.

What a pity she did not know how to flirt back!

She looked at him, to find him watching Lord Wareham and Lady Lilian. Bowing, the baron raised her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. If that was flirtation, Lady Lilian did not appear to enjoy it. She looked vexed and quickly extricated her hand from his.

“Morning, Wareham,” Lord Malcolm drawled in a loud voice, forcing him to turn away from Lady Lilian.

“Morning, Eden.”

“B’lieve you’re acquainted with Miss Bertrand?”

“Miss...?” He gazed at her as if he had never seen her before. “Oh, Barwith’s niece. Have we met, ma’am?”

“Once. How do you do, sir.” Mariette was not forced to think up something polite to say since he was already turning back to his hostess, scarcely acknowledging Emily’s curtsy. She found she did not care a groat for his disregard, now that she had supportive friends about her.

“Is he not horrid?” Emily said in a low but indignant voice. “He must know you have been ill yet he did not even enquire how you go on!”

Lady Lilian reluctantly invited the baron to be seated, indicating a chair at a little distance. He pulled it up close to her before sitting down.

“You a huntin’ man, Wareham?” Lord Malcolm enquired, still in the lazy drawl so unlike his usual mode of speech. Mariette looked at him in surprise. He wore a rather vacant, fatuous expression, eyelids drooping to hide his eyes, his posture languid.

“I go out occasionally with the local hunt,” Lord Wareham said, a hint of irritability in his tone.

“Was talkin’ to Bolger yesterday.”

And that was a downright taradiddle! Mariette distinctly recalled his utter lack of interest in Sir Nesbit’s favourite topic. She realized he had intervened to save his sister from an unwelcome tête-à-tête.

“Yes,” said Lord Wareham tersely, “Bolger’s our Master of Fox Hounds.”

“Run a good pack?”

“Tolerable. I am no expert.”

“Nor I, but I thought I might turn up at a meet or two while I’m here.”

“You hunt?” sneered the baron, making no attempt to hide his disbelief.

“Lord no! Like Brummell, I don’t go beyond the first field.”

“I’ve heard the Beau’s afraid of dirtying his boot-tops.”

“Very proper.” Lord Malcolm gazed down with every appearance of satisfaction at the spotless white turnovers of his top-boots. “Shockin’ bad ton, dirty boots.”

“Not in the country, I assure you.”

“Shockin’ place, the country.”

“Quite shocking. Do you stay long?”

“Haven’t quite made up my mind,” Lord Malcolm confided. “A fellow has a duty to keep his sister company, don’t you know.”

Mariette glanced at Lady Lilian, who seemed to be struggling with dismay, amusement, and gratitude. Her face quickly smoothed as Lord Wareham turned to her.

“I cannot regard keeping Lady Lilian company as a matter of duty,” he said suavely. “Call it rather a great pleasure and a delight I constantly aspire to.”

Miss Thorne’s entrance at that moment was for once welcome. Lady Lilian rose and went to meet her, asking, “Did you find your new wool, Cousin Tabitha?”

“Yes, thank you, Lilian. I had put it on a shelf at the top of my clothes press and Pennick had carelessly pushed it to the back. Emily, if you are not otherwise occupied you may come and help me wind the skeins.”

Emily’s groan was inaudible except to Mariette. She obediently went to join Miss Thorne in her usual place near the fire. Lady Lilian sat down again, on a chair considerably farther from Lord Wareham than her previous seat.

“When does the hunt next meet?” Lord Malcolm enquired. “Daresay Bolger told me but I’ve forgot.”

“Tomorrow, I believe,” said the baron impatiently. He stood up, moved to the fireplace, and held out his hands to the flames as he went on, “But I suspect you will be disappointed--or perhaps relieved?--by a cancellation. I observed as I rode over that the clouds definitely threaten snow, and a fair amount if I’m any judge.”

Leaving the fire, he headed towards the chair beside Lady Lilian. She jumped up with somewhat less than her usual grace and said quickly, “Then we must not detain you, Lord Wareham. It would be beyond anything if you were caught in a snowstorm on your way home.”

“Unthinkable!” said Lord Malcolm, a hint of smugness in his drawl. He had risen when his sister stood up and now advanced, sauntering yet somehow purposeful, on Lord Wareham. He took the baron’s arm. “I’ll see you out, my dear fellow. No, no,” he insisted when the baron opened his mouth to protest, “we quite understand. It was civil in you to come all this way in such inclement weather to enquire after Miss Bertrand’s health but you must not stay at risk of foundering your horse in a snowdrift.”

Still chattering inanely, he drew the hapless baron out of the room.

Mariette met Lady Lilian’s eyes and both at once clapped their hands to their mouths to stifle giggles.

“Uncle Malcolm is a complete hand,” announced Emily.

“A clever...” Lady Lilian started to correct her daughter, then smiled. “You are right, Emmie, he is a complete hand.” She went to the door and sneaked a peek into the hall. Returning, she sank into her chair. “Perhaps I flatter myself, but I do believe the wretched man hoped to be confined at Corycombe by bad weather.”

“You don’t flatter yourself. He said he aspires to your company,” Mariette pointed out. “He admires you, ma’am.”

“I wish he did not! Enough of ‘ma’am,’ Mariette. I could easily be your elder sister. Pray call me Lilian.”

“Humph!” said Miss Thorne, starting to wind another ball of her new wool--mud brown as a change from mustard. “I hope you know what you are about.”

Lilian was not listening. Lord Malcolm came in and she demanded, “Malcolm, is it really going to snow?”

“My dear, I’m no weather-glass. I didn’t even go outside. I handed your importunate suitor over to Blount.” He strolled towards a window.

“My suitor! Surely not!”

“Your beau, then, though I don’t think it a word he cares for! Yes, the sky does look very like snow.”

“Suppose Captain Aldrich is caught in a snowstorm? You had better send a message postponing his visit.”

“I daresay he won’t start out if it is already snowing heavily. If it begins when he is on his way, I hardly think enough will fall in an hour to discommode him seriously.”

“Perhaps not,” she said with unwonted uncertainty. “But if it starts to snow when he is here? I cannot let him go out into a snowstorm at night! I shall tell Mrs. Wittering to make up a bed.”

“An excellent notion.”

As she hurried out, Malcolm returned to his seat beside Mariette. Her reaction to Wareham’s arrival had reassured him that the baron was not his rival, but he wished he knew what the man had done to make her loathe him.

“So you survived Wareham’s presence,” he said.

“Yes, but he did not survive your brilliant manoeuvre!” She laughed--a gleam of white teeth between rosy lips--and her dark eyes sparkled. “Very neat.”

“He dug the trap himself,” Malcolm disclaimed modestly, “and Lilian saw it before I did. He was too eager to deprive me of my hunt meet.”

“Do you truly wish to attend a meet?”

“Not in the least.”

“I thought not. When Sir Nesbit talked about the hunt you did not seem precisely enthralled.” She looked puzzled. “But what was the nonsense about not riding beyond the first field? You told me you enjoyed galloping on the moor.”

“I do. I was just provoking Wareham.”

“Because he judged you by your waistcoat? Is that why you spoke that way while he was here, as if it were an effort hardly worth making? No, you were the same with everyone who has called.”

He was disconcerted. Accustomed to playing the idle fribble to all but his closest friends, he adopted the pose automatically in company. It was not difficult. He had been an idle fribble--until disgust at his way of life led him to investigate the possibility of a career in the Navy, an institution devoid of brotherly precedent.

His foray to the Admiralty had led not to a life at sea but to a meeting with a certain gentleman. This gentleman suggested that no one would suspect him of hunting out England’s enemies at home since no one imagined he had anything on his mind but the design of exotic waistcoats. So Malcolm joined the hunt while continuing to hide behind his waistcoats and his mask of inanity.

He had not considered how odd it must appear to Mariette. The circumstances of their meeting had not allowed a pretence of indolence. Knowing her to be perceptive, he ought to have reckoned she would notice and be intrigued by the change in his manner.

Not that it mattered. He was convinced she was not a French spy. However, her cousin was probably in it up to his neck and she had proved she would go to great lengths to protect the wastrel. She must not guess Malcolm had any purpose in Devon but to visit his sister.

“Many people behave differently in company and with their intimate acquaintances,” he said. “You do yourself.”

“I!”

“Ask any one of our callers these last few days and they will say you are reticent, even bashful. That is not at all how I should describe you.”

“Oh! How...? No, I am sure I had best not ask.”

He would have told her anyway but Miss Thorne interrupted. “Miss Bertrand,” she said sharply, “since you are able to sit up now, I am sure you are as capable as Emily of holding my wool for me. She ought to be practising her music.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Resignedly she started to get up.

Malcolm put his hand on her arm. “You stay here, where all has been arranged for your comfort. Miss Thorne, pray take my place.”

Grumbling, Miss Thorne gathered her wool. Emily, passing on her way to the pianoforte, leant down and whispered to Mariette, “Sorry! When I told her I must practise I did not suppose she would call on you instead.”

“I don’t mind,” said Mariette. “I like to hear you play.”

Emily looked gratified, and Malcolm felt a sudden extra rush of love for Mariette. How the devil had she managed to bring herself up to be so utterly enchanting?

* * * *

The last ball of wool was nearly finished when Lady Lilian returned to the drawing room.

“Cousin Tabitha!” she said in dismay, “Mariette should not be holding your wool for you. She is a guest, and convalescent besides.”

“Humph!” said Miss Thorne, winding the last strand. “The least she can do is help where she is able.”

“I don’t mind, Lilian, truly,” Mariette assured her, though her arms were tired and aching from holding up the skeins. “I can scarcely claim to be convalescent still.” It was the perfect opening to announce that she was well enough to go home, but she hesitated. Miss Thorne would be so pleased to be rid of her! She had rather tell Lilian alone.

“Where is Malcolm?” Lilian asked, looking around the room.

“He went to take Ragamuffin for a run in case it snows later.”

“As though a groom could not take the dog out!” Miss Thorne snorted, stuffing the balls of wool into her knitting bag.

“I expect Malcolm will be glad of the fresh air.”

“Humph! Catch cold, more likely.” With a sniff, Miss Thorne marched to her preferred place by the fire.

Lilian watched her go, a tiny frown creasing her brow.

“I don’t believe Lord Malcolm is likely to catch cold,” Mariette said hesitantly, “not just from taking Ragamuffin out for a little while.”

“I wonder what...Not that she has ever been precisely conciliatory...I beg your pardon, I was woolgathering! Malcolm catch cold? No, not at all likely. He is excessively healthy for all his hothouse airs. But, oh dear! I do hope Captain Aldrich will not be caught in a snowstorm and fall ill.”

“Is the captain not in good health? Somehow one thinks of naval men as being fit for anything.”

Lilian gave an embarrassed laugh. “I daresay he is, and I am making a mountain out of a molehill. He has lost his arm, you see, and no longer goes to sea, but of course that does not mean he is not otherwise robust. Indeed, he seemed quite hale and hearty.”

“Mama,” said Emily, coming to the end of the piece she was playing, “may I stop practising now?”

“Go on a little longer, my love. The Clementi is still not quite right. Perfect it and you may play it this evening for our hero of Trafalgar. I wonder whether Captain Aldrich cares for music?” she said to herself in a musing tone. “I do hope so.”

Mariette was dying to know more about the Navy captain who awakened such solicitude in her hostess. “Who is he?” she enquired. “I thought I knew the names of all the neighbours for several miles around.”

“Captain Aldrich is a schoolfriend of Malcolm’s, a close friend, I collect, although some years older. As he lives in Plymouth, or rather Devonport, Malcolm looked him up when he came to Corycombe. They have some sort of business together, though what I cannot imagine.”

“Business? Perhaps Captain Aldrich has good ideas for spectacular new waistcoats.”