A Loyal Companion (5 page)

W
hat is beauty? What is the mystery of one creature's attraction to another?

Someone likened truth to beauty, but you cannot taste truth, or touch it, or feel it. It won't get your heart thumping, your pulses racing. It won't lick your ear. Besides, what a frog might find fascinating won't hold true for the titmouse. Then again, human persons find beauty in daubs of paint, chunks of marble, and Italian sopranos. Who can understand taste?

Take ticks, please. No one likes the bloodthirsty little buggers, no one finds them the least attractive—except other ticks. I truly believe this is where love enters the equations. The ugliest equine in horsedom could be grazing in the field, all swaybacked and moth-eaten, but let that mare come into season, and the stallion is in love. Old Gigi is the most beautiful creature he's ever seen. The sap rises, his heart sings. If he cannot be with her, he'll die. That's love. That's the fire that lets creatures as silly as sheep perpetuate their species, and the
flame that helps a lady starling select one gentleman out of a flock of a hundred identical males.
It's magic.

If marriage has nothing to do with love, as Muffy so firmly believes, there is no reason for cosmetics or corsets, padded shoulders or hairpieces. Solicitors could handle the transactions. We could be home in the country. Instead we spend boring hours planning for balls—dancing parties, not the fun chase-me kind—and improving Miss Sonia's appearance. We are not laying a trap, as Miss Sonia so inelegantly puts it; we
are kindling a blaze.

Obviously Ned the butcher's boy did not generate any warmth. No magic. I myself thought he smelled delightful; it seems Miss Sonia prefers a gentleman to smell of Hungary water or snuff. I admit I have made mistakes before, but he seemed to fit her specifications so well. I guess I was barking
up the wrong tree.

Lady Almeria revived after the Watch left. The already too-long-suffering Marston took charge, clearing the front steps of curious bystanders and the entryway of slack-jawed servants. Next the butler paid off the butcher and saw that the delivery boy was reimbursed for a new pair of breeches, plus a handsome tip for the trouble. The unfortunate animal was remanded to house arrest in Miss Randolph's room, and young miss, still giggling, set off for her appointment with the dressmaker. Properly escorted, of course. Then, his duties discharged with what dignity befitted a ducal residence, Marston withdrew to the butler's pantry, firmly locking himself in with a bottle of the late duke's vintage port, not to reappear until dinner.

This was not what he was used to, no, not even when Lady Allison, Master Thorndike, and Viscount Harkness, the heir, were young. Lady Atterbury and the late duke—and Marston—agreed that children were best raised in the country, by someone else. That was how the new little duke was being reared, in the country with his mother and an entire army of nursery staff to see that he did not burn down Atterbury Hall. He would seldom be in London to cut up Marston's peace until he reached his majority. Viscount Harkness did not live long enough to succeed to the title, predeceasing his father due to overindulging in brandy and underestimating a jump. He never got to see the son everyone said was in his image, and Marston was almost hoping he himself wouldn't be around to see the lad either.

In all of Marston's days at Atterbury House, there had only been one ignoble episode, that concerning Miss Allison and her would-be betrothed. The event was of such monumentally vulgar proportions, it was still spoken of at the nearest pub. Now Miss Allison's daughter was here for just one day, and Marston could never show his face at the Red Stag again.

Oblivious to Marston's distress, Miss Sonia was shopping. For once, she was enjoying the experience. Madame Celeste did not make her feel like a cabbagehead, instead encouraging her—and her father's remorse-driven generosity—to create a style of her own.

"I can see that Mademoiselle is not in the usual mode," Madame understated when her newest customer blew into the shop. Miss Randolph, with tousled tresses and laughing blue eyes, had instantly pleaded that, if she absolutely had to wear white for her come-out, Madame would please find a way to make it different from every other white debutante gown.

Sonia had never had so much choice before, and the new styles were looser and more comfortable. Sunny thought she'd feel more herself in them. Madame unerringly brought what was suitable for her coloring and situation, and wooden-faced Bigelow was an unobtrusive guide. "The blue to match the eyes. No frills; we have nothing to hide. Colors are unexceptionable for daytime."

Sonia held up a fashion plate of a gown cut daringly low, winking at the assistant who was standing by to record the order. Madame Celeste clucked her tongue and threw her hands in the air, but Bigelow did not fail Sonia. "Haymarket ware." Sonia and the girl laughed, until Madame frowned at them.

After Sonia was measured, two ready-made gowns were presented for consideration. "An improvement," Bigelow decreed, so Miss Randolph was helped into the peach muslin in order to complete her shopping with less embarrassment to her grandmother's abigail. Best of all, Aimee, the shopgirl, was found to be of a size and shape with Miss Randolph, and was willing to stand in for all but the final fittings. Sonia handed the girl a handsome douceur. "Just please do not use it on so many strawberry tarts that I'll have to undergo those hours of pinpricks," she said, laughing.

"Mais non, mademoiselle, I save for my dot. Better a girl make a good marriage than make a good meal, n'est-ce past"

Further stops saw the crested coach fill up with bonnets and boots, fans and feathers, parasols and petticoats, stockings and… gloves. Sonia still had energy left to visit Gunther's to see about ices for the ball, and a florist to order the flowers. Bigelow was limp on the facing seat for the ride back to Atterbury House. "Youth" was all she said.

Monsieur Gautier called that afternoon. The coiffeur studied Miss Randolph from every angle. He lifted a curl, he let a wave drift through his fingers. He chewed his mustache. Then he began to cut. He cut and he cut, muttering all the while. Sunny was beginning to wonder how many sheep Bud Kemp could have shorn in this time when the slender Frenchman stood back, kissed his fingertips, and proclaimed, "A la cherubim." He had to pause to wipe his eyes. "I am a genius."

Sonia shook her head and felt three pounds lighter. She laughed in delight. Then she finally turned to look in the mirror. "Oh, sir, you are." What had been unruly wisps and wayward locks was now a golden halo of naturally and Gautier-tumbled curls, curls that couldn't fall down or fly away. They framed her face, revealing the high cheekbones and ready dimples. Her blue eyes sparkled even brighter. Not quite an angel, not quite an imp, and very, very appealing.

"What do you think, Fitz?" Hearing his name, the dog ran over and barked, bestowing the cut hair more liberally around himself and the room. "And, Bigelow, do you like it? Do you think Grandmama will? What about the gentlemen?"

"Yes. Yes. Heaven help them."

The next major project, in addition to writing out two hundred invitations, hiring an orchestra, and planning a menu, was finding servants. One of the underfootmen was promoted—or not, depending on who you asked, Marston or Bigelow—to be Miss Sonia's personal man. Redheaded Ian was big, strong, and liked dogs.

An abigail had to be hired from an agency. Bigelow thought they should request an experienced older woman to pilot Miss through the shoals of society. Marston wanted to hire a warden from Newgate. Sonia selected her own maid partly because Maisie Holbrook had freckles and partly because she looked as if she needed the job. Holbrook's last mistress had suddenly eloped—"with no connivance from me, on my honor, ma'am"—and Miss Martingale's parents had turned the abigail off without a reference. The position was secured when the neatly dressed young woman, not very much older than Sonia, said, "That's a fine-looking dog, ma'am. Can I walk him for you sometimes?"

At first Maisie and Ian were inclined to be over-protective, especially after receiving their instructions from the dowager duchess, through Marston and Bigelow. Ian was terrified of all three of them, and Maisie knew another social misstep would end her own career. Ian insisted on holding Fitz's lead in the park, lest Miss Randolph be tugged or tripped. Maisie wanted to fuss for hours over Miss Randolph's hair and clothes.

Sonia swayed the pair to her way of doing things with two simple sentences: "Lady Atterbury does not pay your wages. I do." After all, she was Allison Harkness's daughter. So she got to Astley's Amphitheater and the Menagerie and London Bridge and the cathedrals with no one the wiser, and struck up friendships with flower girls and piemen and the Watch and a kindly old gentleman who fed the squirrels in the park. He didn't even mind that Fitz chased the squirrels away, as long as he didn't catch any.

Lady Atterbury was pleased with her granddaughter's progress. Bigelow judged her passable, and Marston was relieved there were no further Incidents. With more than a fortnight still to go before the ball, they deemed her ready to get her feet wet with minor socializing, to test the waters, so to speak, at small, private gatherings of the dowager's set. Sonia nearly drowned from boredom.

Lady Atterbury's crowd was not comprised of the great hostesses of the day, the Almack's patronesses and such. Her coterie contained instead those powerful figures' mothers and aunts and belles mères. The old beldams were therefore an even greater force to be reckoned with. They got together of an afternoon for silver loo, charitable committee meetings, musicales, poetry readings, and scientific dissertations. They also served up the latest gossip along with their tea and culture.

Sonia was not expected to participate in the conversations, thank goodness. In fact, she was often waved away to a secluded corner after her appearance and demeanor were scrutinized, lest her innocent ears be sullied. Many of the ladies refused to carry their ear trumpets, however, so the conversations were perforce loud enough not only to reach Sonia, but to rise above Herr Mitteldorf's performance on the harpsichord. Few of the grandes dames could rise without a footman's help after the performance, in fact, and fewer could see Herr Mitteldorf at all without their spectacles or looking glasses. Sonia thought she must be the only one there with all of her teeth, until she noticed another young woman across the way, concentrating not on the music or the chitchat, but on the book in her lap.

The young woman read her way through a lecture on the electrical properties of wool carpets, and through a dramatic presentation of an endlessly epic poem by a lisping young man with flowing locks.

Sonia made sure she sat near the young lady at the next gathering, a report from the directors of St. Bartleby's Institute for the Destitute, to which no one listened. The girl, for she could not be much older than Sonia, did not raise her eyes from her book, but she did reach into her reticule and pull out a matching purple-covered volume. "Here," she said, "you'll need this."

"This" was a purple-prosed gothic from the Minerva Press, and the young woman was Blanche Carstairs.

"Lady Blanche if you care for those things," Sonia's new friend and literary advisor introduced herself at the intermission. "I'm a countess in my own right, but don't let that bother you. I don't. It's one of those ancient land-grant titles that can pass through the female line. That's my aunt over there, the one in puce who is snoring."

Blanche—they were quickly on a first-name basis—was a drab, graceless type of girl, with little conversation and less fashion sense, but she knew everything. She flipped the pages of her book. "They think I'm not listening, so they say anything. Like how you're expected to make a grand alliance, despite coming from the gentry, if you don't make a mull of things."

Sonia gasped in indignation, but Blanche held her hand up. "It don't fadge. They"—she nodded toward the clusters of crones—"say I won't take, especially being fired off the same time as you, but Auntie says the lands and title will turn the trick. Of course, my dowry isn't as large as yours."

"Do you mean they all know the size of my dowry?"

"Goosecap, they all know the size of your shoes!" Blanche went back to her book. Sunny shrugged, then opened hers.

Some new, younger faces were added the afternoon Grandmama held open house. The old ladies trotted forth spotty-faced, stammering grandsons just down from university, bored middle-aged bachelor sons, and the occasional rakish man-about-town nephew who owed his living to the ancient relative.

"The hounds are on the scent," Blanche commented, making Sonia smile. They'd reluctantly put their books away for the afternoon. Sonia liked reading about the dashing heroes and put-upon heroines far more than she did pouring tea and listening to empty chitchat and insincere flattery.

Sonia finally got to meet Grandmama's goddaughter Rosellen Conover, Lady
Conare, a brittle young matron who covered her slightly faded beauty in
flamboyant dress. Rosellen was supposed to chaperone Sonia for the season. The
older woman's eyes narrowed to slits when she saw Miss Randolph's fresh young beauty.

"Why, Lady Almeria, whatever can you be thinking?" Lady Conare chided. "Surely the chit's too young to be presented. She looks a veritable schoolgirl. Or a little milkmaid."

Lady Atterbury just cackled and waggled her sticklike finger under the woman's nose. "Told you she was a Diamond, didn't I?"

Lady Atterbury's assessment was quickly and eloquently seconded by Lady Rosellen's escort and brother, Lord Ansel, Baron Berke. The baron was a fairly attractive man of about thirty, trim if not muscular, and exquisitely tailored. There was just a touch of dandyism in his patterned waistcoat, crossed fobs, and heavy scent. Nor could Sonia appreciate the way he looked at her through his quizzing glass. Still, he was friendly and polite, and his compliments went far to restoring Sonia's confidence after his sister's cutting remarks. She was further impressed with Baron Berke when she saw him cross to where Blanche sat alone and unpopular—until she spoke to her friend later as they exchanged books.