But there was an unbridgeable chasm between Miss Golden and the second plum. There was no one who came near her. “Whom do you have in mind?” Clay asked, with little interest
“Miss Sitwell, say.”
“That mousey little thing.” Clay waved a hand in dismissal of this unexceptional lady.
“Ain’t mousey. Got nice teeth.”
This only served to call up the bewitching smile of Miss Golden, who had, naturally, a set of matched pearls in her mouth.
“Or Miss Danfers. Striking woman.”
“I don’t recall Miss Danfers.”
“That would be because you wasted the whole Season trailing after the Rose. Miss Danfers is a brunette. You like brunettes.”
Clay scanned his mind for an attractive brunette. “I
do
seem to remember seeing a pretty dark-haired girl, early on in the Season. But she just—disappeared.”
“Well, Miss Danfers didn’t disappear, for you stood up with her at Marston’s ball two nights ago.”
“Did I?”
“Course you did. So did I. Wore a flowered gown, with pink roses in her hair.”
“Oh, that one,” Clay said, already dismissing the girl from his mind. A plain, platter-faced woman. “That wasn’t the one I meant.”
“Don’t know who you could have meant then.”
“She was some connection of the Siderows, I believe. Looked a little like Lady Siderow.”
“Ah now, there’s a smashing-looking woman, or must have been five years ago. One of the Wanderleys, you know, neighbors of mine. Fine-looking women, the whole bunch of them. Lady Tameson was one of them too. Four girls in a row. Have a son now, though, the last born.”
“Well, and was one of these Wanderleys presented this year?”
The cane not being to his liking,
Rex
stuck his thumb in his mouth and worried it a while, as he pondered this weighty matter. “Wanda,” he announced at last.
“Wanda Wanderley?”
“Yes, she was brought out by her sisters, Lady Siderow and Lady Tameson. That is, the mother was here, certainly, but I think it was the Siderow house that was used as a base of operations, for old Adam don’t have a townhouse. Well, stands to reason you couldn’t be growing orchids in a townhouse.”
“Orchids?” Clay asked. He was accustomed to his friend’s elliptical manner of speech, and felt secure that some sense would eventually emerge from his natterings.
“Yes, the father, Adam Wanderley, grows exotic flowers, you see. Has an orangery a couple of acres in size, full of the grandest flowers you ever saw, Clay, and not an orange in it. Has one in there that
eats
you.”
“Indeed!”
“Yessir, or eats flies and midges and such things anyway. A vicious-looking little plant, all spikey around the edges. Showed it to me once. Put a fly in front of it, and it just snaps and eats it up whole. Ain’t that terrible? A curst rum touch, old Adam.”
“But a breeder of beautiful daughters, as well as flowers?”
“Four of them, before his good woman finally gave him a son. Must have been a vast relief to them, eh? Just goes to show you—if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again. I got the right number of trys in there? Four daughters, then a son comes along. Called him Abel. Papa’s name is Adam, you see, and of course they wouldn’t want to call the boy Cain, because of the mark and all, so they called him Abel. A good chap is Abel, but only seventeen.”
With singular tenacity, Claymore recalled his friend to the main thread of the conversation. “And this Wanda Wanderley, would she be the dark-haired girl I saw early on in the Season, I wonder?”
“Very likely. Certainly she’d stand out in any room. Would have given the Rose a run for her money if she’d stuck around.”
“But what happened to her? I don’t remember seeing her but once or twice.”
“Yes, I’m coming to that. The pox, was it? No, she’d have got over that in time to come back for the rest of the Season. Ah, I’ve got it now. She broke her leg.”
His patience rewarded, Clay continued. “Will she be returning in the Little Season, then, in the fall?”
“Might be, if she ain’t buckled by then.”
“Ah, already been sold, has she?”
“Sold? No such a thing! Adam may be a fool, but he don’t
sell
his girls.”
“Let’s them do the bargaining, does he? They must be singularly capable, for both Lady Siderow and Lady Tameson have made creditable matches.”
“Yes, and with no dowry to speak of either, for old Adam squanders every cent he can get his hands on for his flowers. Paid five hundred pounds for a stupid old flower Abel was showing me. From Brazil it was, growing right out of a tree stump. Had the stump and all shipped in from Brazil.”
“And what bargain has this Wanda struck? She can’t have had had much time to look about her, for she wasn’t at more than two or three balls, I think.”
“Wouldn’t take her that long. The fact is, though, she was as well as buckled to the squire’s son before ever she came to London, and once she had to go home, he’d be forever hanging around. Crazy about her. The mama had hoped for a title, which is why she presented her.”
“Only a squire’s son? Come, come. Rex. You must know my title and fortune take precedence over a
squire’s
son. I shall attach Miss Wanda before the month is out.”
“Don’t be such a sapskull, Clay. You’re only saying that because you want to put the Rose’s pretty nose out of joint. I know you. Too proud by half. Think she’ll be boasting about her offer from you, and you want to saunter in with a pretty chick on your wing to show her how little you’re suffering.”
Clay concealed his sheepish smile behind his ale glass, and feigned deafness. “I was extremely taken with the young lady, I promise you,” he replied blandly when he had drained the glass. In point of fact, he would not have recognized Wanda had she walked into the room that minute. He vaguely recalled a pretty dark-haired girl who had been around, then suddenly vanished. But as his obtuse friend had surmised, his reason for interest in Miss Wanda was to put the Rose’s nose out of joint. Make a laughingstock of him, would she? And lead him to declare himself when she was already promised.
His pride stung, he was determined to have the last laugh yet. If Miss Wanda was half so pretty as her sisters, she would be just the one to help him. Squire’s son, indeed. He of all people knew the efficacy of a title and fortune!
“I daresay you were, and it’s a pity she couldn’t have stuck around to give the Rose some fair competition. Really nobody else worth a second look brought out this year. Just like the Wanderleys, though, to go breaking their legs. Hoydens, Clay, the whole lot of them. Joan rode astride till she was into her teens—that’s Lady Siderow. And Caroline—”
“About Wanda,” Claymore interrupted impatiently. “Took a tumble from her horse, I suppose?”
“No such a thing. She don’t ride much, actually. She was climbing a tree, not to be outdone by Ellie, you know.”
“Another sister?”
“The fourth of the Wanderley beauties. No, or is it third now? Yes, she was born a little before Wanda.” He had to nurse his thumb after the strain of delivering this news.
“Some nine or ten months before, I must presume.”
“No, it wasn’t nearly that long.” Claymore stared at this miracle, and Rex rambled on. “They was twins, you see, that’s how it was.”
“I see. And why was not Miss Ellie presented this year, then, being, er, older. Broke her head climbing a tree, did she?”
In spite of considerable thumb-sucking and ear-rubbing, Rex could not explain the mystery, though he assured his friend there must have been a good reason for it. Even if Ellie wasn’t quite as pretty as the others, she would certainly get her crack at the London beaux; her mama and her married sisters would see to that
“Well then, my friend, you must present me to these wonderful Wanderleys,” Clay declared magnanimously.
“Can’t do it, Clay. For one thing, the Season’s over, or next to it, and they ain’t in town. As I said, Wanda’s as well as hitched. Wouldn’t be surprised to read the announcement any day.”
“I have not read it yet, and I’ll wager a pony we will not read any such thing once
I
have offered for her.”
“Lord, you haven’t even
met
her! You might not care for Wanda at all.
I
don’t. Like her the least of the batch, and that’s a fact. You’d do better to have Ellie, though of course she ain’t so handsome, and wouldn’t square you with the Rose at all.”
“It is Wanda I have decided on.”
“Well, if you ain’t a loose fish, Clay. Getting yourself buckled to a girl you don’t even know, just to spite the Rose.”
“What does a man ever know of the girl he marries?” Does Everleigh know, for example, that his bride called him ‘the old goat’ behind his back, and showered her kisses on anyone who bothered to reach out and take them? No, indeed, all you
knew
was what you could see, and if Miss Wanda proved attractive to the eye, he would have her.
“You know Wanda don’t love you, for I’m telling
you
she’s powerful fond of George Hibbard.”
“We’ll see if she isn’t powerful fond of a title and a fortune as well. I think I shall do you the honor of accepting your kind offer to pass a few weeks at the Abbey.”
“What offer?”
“The offer you are about to extend.”
“I was thinking of going to Bath, Clay.”
“Think again. You are about to go home and visit your mama.”
“
She’s
going to Bath, too.”
“Not till July, I think?”
“Yes, but dash it, Clay, I want to get there before her, and have a bit of time to enjoy myself, for you know once she and my sister, Missie, get there, I shall be pressed into service taking them to Pump Rooms and libraries and such dull stuff.”
“It is only early June, Rex. I shan’t burden you with my presence for more than two weeks. That should be sufficient time to reach an understanding with Miss Wanda.”
“I wouldn’t wish that woman on my worst enemy, let alone my best friend. Just such a spoiled beauty as the Rose.”
“That is precisely the sort of beauty I require,” Clay returned firmly, even grimly.
“Yes, to flaunt in Miss Golden’s face, and pretend you ain’t all cut to ribbons by her having Everleigh.”
“Just so.”
“Well, we’ll go to the Abbey, but Wanda won’t have you, and I’m glad of it, for you two wouldn’t suit in the least.”
“We shall deal exceedingly,” his friend replied. Then he walked to the center of the room, dumped the three cards that were in the hat on the floor, handed the hat to Rex, and ushered him to the door.
Once alone, Claymore felt very much like bawling, but he called for his housekeeper instead, and in a fierce tone demanded to know why he had not been handed the
Morning Observer
with his breakfast, and felt very foolish when she pointed out that it had been put on the table and he had not picked it up.
“Well, see that it doesn’t happen again,” he said.
His poor servant hardly knew whether she was to refrain from having it in the breakfast room at all, or to personally place it in his hands, and she frowned at him in perplexity.
“That will be all,” his lordship said in a voice nearer normal, which did not enlighten her very much, but at least informed her that he “was getting over his snit.”
Chapter Two
It was arranged that the two would set out early for the Abbey, Homberly’s ancestral home in Surrey, just north of the Sussex border. But somehow it was very late in the morning before they eventually got away, and between stopping for luncheon and wasting the better part of an hour on a wager to determine which of the two could down a glass of ale faster, it was just turning dark when they tooled their curricles into the drive that led to the Abbey.
They were both a trifle foxed, as it had taken some six bottles to ascertain that Rex could consume his drink nineteen seconds faster than his friend. Rex, however, was not so foxed as to fail to welcome the news that his parents were dining out. Cut up devilish stiff would his mama if he landed home anything but cold stone sober. He was wonderfully happy to know he need not curtail his drinking, for the parents were at Ashton Manor, five miles away, and were as well staying for a game of cards, too, it was unlikely he would see them before midnight
Therefore, he and Clay might have as many bottles of wine as they pleased cracked open, lift their hessian-clad feet to the table (no need even to change for dinner), and proceed to become as drunk as wheelbarrows. This pastime was engaged in, upon this occasion, to drown Clay’s sorrow at losing the Rose. He had scarcely been sober since her refusal the day before. The preceding evening they had dined alone at Claymore House in London, as Clay was feeling too disgraced to visit any party when it was four pence to a groat Miss Golden would be there, decorating the arm of her old goat.
By the time they had finished the second bottle of claret, Lord Claymore had the marvelous idea of presenting himself that very night to his new beloved, Miss Wanda Wanderley.
“Not the thing, Clay,”
Rex was still sober enough to reply. “Too late. Damme, it’s ten o’clock.”
“Damme yourself, she wouldn’t be in bed at ten o’clock. Nobody goes to bed at ten o’clock.”
“Yes, but we ain’t
there,”
Rex argued. “They live in Sussex, you know. This is Surrey.”
“You said they live next door. Remember distinctly,” Clay pronounced, not very distinctly.
“That’s because Surrey turns into Sussex about a quarter of a mile down the road. Another foot of land and Papa could boast he had estates in two counties. Don’t though. We stop at the border, and Wanderley owns Sussex.”
“Must be devilish rich. I never knew Wanderley owned Sussex. East
and
West Sussex?”
“Dash it, Clay, you’re bosky. I didn’t say he owned Sussex.”
“Dash it, you’re foxed yourself. Course you did. Just said it. Ask anyone.”
Rex looked around the table obediently. “Know what, Clay? Ain’t nobody here to ask. We’re all alone.”
“The devil you say!” Clay answered, also looking around. “By Jove, you’re right. All alone. All alone,” he repeated forlornly. “I’m sick of being all alone, Rex. Going to meet Miss Wanderley.”