Barbara Metzger (26 page)

Ian put down the child he was holding, handed Athena the sticky bag of sweets, and took the female’s hand. He brought it to his lips with a smile that belonged in the bedroom Athena had been daydreaming about.

It seemed he was not going to miss his mistresses.

Athena would wait for her uncle’s return, after all.

Chapter Nineteen

To make a good marriage, be good lovers.

—Anonymous

To make a good marriage, be good friends.

—Mrs. Anonymous

Ian would never understand women. He knew better than to try, but now that he was contemplating—nay, now that he was keeping that special license close at hand—he wished he could make sense of one of them.

Athena had started out the afternoon all smiles. She had admired his carriage team, delighted in the drive, when he pointed out landmarks and such, and seemed pleased with his compliments on her simple bonnet, with its one turquoise feather, which matched her eyes. She approved of the orphanage and its management, and of him by association. She’d promised Matron to come again to bring the books in person, and she’d promised to help some of the older girls find employment.

Then her smiles evaporated. Her mouth took on a closed, set look, as if she had eaten a sour grape, and she stopped looking over at him, stopped asking him questions, stopped walking by his side. She walked with his mother instead, chatting about the family’s other charitable works.

On the way home, she did not seem pleased with her ice at Gunter’s, either, merely commenting that she wished she could bring one back to Troy. Then, when they strolled through the park before going back to Maddox House, she turned to stone, it seemed. Carswell and Doro had driven ahead in Carswell’s curricle to try out the paces of his new—Ian’s old—pair of bays. There would be a fight over who held the reins, unless the earl missed his guess, but that was not his concern. Athena’s coolness was.

His mother told the driver to stop so often to greet old friends that Ian asked if Athena would like to get down for a walk. His mother almost shoved her out of the carriage, so she had no chance to refuse—or she might have, he thought.

It was not his fault that every female in the
ton
wanted to meet the young lady who was to become Countess of Marden one day. Her presence with him, with his mother close by, made her the odds-on favorite for the position. If she wished, his wife could be a leading light of society, with influence and opportunities at her fingertips. No one wanted to slight her now, so the ladies kept stopping them along the path, fawning at his sleeve for an introduction.

Athena was everything polite and well-bred, as he knew she would be, but she grew cooler and cooler toward him with every pause to present her to this patroness of Almack’s, that political hostess, two young matrons who were starting a charitable fund-raising circle, and one not-so-young widow, who invited them to a dinner she was hosting for some military friends of her late husband’s.

The widow might have stood too close to Ian, and she might have directed her invitation to him, but she had definitely included his mother and sister and Miss Renslow in the invite. That blown kiss when she walked off was a mere affectation, Ian knew. Did Athena?

She could not be jealous, could she? he wondered. Hell, no. They were not even formally engaged, and he had not engaged in any flirtations, besides. She must be unused to meeting so many strangers, he decided. Perhaps she was shy.

“You’ll get used to the crush,” he reassured her. “And we do not have to stay in London all the year, although I will have to be in town for Parliament’s sessions. But you should know these women, as tedious as it all seems now. They are the ones who will make your entree into Society easier.”

“I do not think I wish to enter their environment,” she replied through closed lips.

“I doubt you shall have much choice. My mother is determined to see you take your rightful place in the beau monde. That is why she is chatting with every dowager in the park—other than to share with them her latest ailment, of course. I’d wager that cards of invitation will get to Maddox House before we do. You can argue with my mother about which to accept, but experience has taught me it is easier to agree than watch her go into a decline.”

“But I—”

“No, you cannot claim your brother as an excuse to stay home. The boy is doing better, and he and the footman, Geoffrey, who attends him, have become fast friends. Even that wretched dog has accepted the chap who walks her
and takes her to the kitchens for supper. Geoffrey is teaching your brother how to swear and spit and play dice, I suppose, while Master Renslow is imparting his considerable knowledge of horses to the young man, who has aspirations of joining the stable crew.”

“I see. Then I will be attending parties, willy-nilly? My life is out of my hands?”

“I would not have put it that way. But you will enjoy yourself, I promise.”

“It seems to me you have been making a great many promises lately, my lord.”

He noted the honorific, rather than the
Ian.
“But all for your—”

“While I have made none, except to wait for my uncle.”

Any other female would have been pleased to find herself welcomed to the
ton,
to waltz and sip champagne, to go to five parties in a night. Any other female would have realized that, even if she retired to the country, her daughters—his daughters—would need these connections someday. Any other female would have smiled at him when he purchased a bouquet of violets from a street vendor for her. Not Athena Renslow.

Two hours ago she was as melting as honey, as warm as velvet, as willing a bride as Ian could hope for. Now she might have been carved out of cold, hard marble for all the friendliness he saw. She liked the orphans better than the beau monde, it seemed. And better than him.

Lud, he thought, the last thing he needed was a changeable bride with inexplicable moods and imagined complaints. A fellow had his mother for that.

No, he would never understand women.

He did far better with men.

Lord Rensdale was waiting at Maddox House when they returned home, in a pother. He did not have news of Athena’s uncle, but he had had a letter from his wife. Lady Rensdale was not insisting he abandon his half-siblings and return to her side. Oh, no, she wanted a great deal more of him. Veronica wanted a new wardrobe, to be exact. Now that she was increasing, her clothes did not fit. The local seamstress was competent enough to make gowns that could be let out as the need arose, and Lady Rensdale would not be attending any truly fashionable functions, anyway, not in her condition. Rustic dressmaking could do, as long as she had the latest fashion plates from Paris and the finest quality yard goods from London, with bonnets and gloves and shoes and fans and shawls to match. Since her husband was in London anyway, he might as well make himself useful. Rather than devoting all his time to the unworthy brats he had inherited, he could be spending his time—and his brass—on the woman who was bearing—at no inconsiderable pain, discomfort, and nausea—his heir. Oh, and a few trinkets would not go amiss, she had written.

“What the deuce is a trinket?” Rensdale asked as he and Lord Marden retired to the library and the brandy.

“Jewels, man. Do not tell me you have been wed for all these years without learning that?”

“Devil take it, she has a box full of gold and gems from my mother, some older than time. Been in the family for generations. Besides, a man don’t buy his wife baubles.”

“He does if she is breeding,” Ian told him. “Everyone knows women in her condition need special handling.”

“Gads, what do I know about ladies’ fashions?”

“Never fear, I know enough for both of us. Having a sister and a mother, of course.” And a score of mistresses over the years whose bills he had paid, but that went unsaid. “What I don’t know, Carswell will. He has a good eye.” Carswell’s eyes had both better be on the bays and not on Doro, Ian thought, checking his watch for the time and wondering why the pair had not returned an hour ago. Carswell and his sister, not just the pair of bays, that was, although he worried about the horses, too. His friend was a dab-hand with a neckcloth, less proficient with the ribbons.

Rensdale was still in despair, and into his second glass of brandy. “But bonnets? Worse, she’s making me go to a corset-maker.”

“I think you can leave that up to my mother. There is nothing she likes better than shopping. My sister has also expressed an interest in expanding her wardrobe while she is in town—and in Carswell’s company, I fear. Your sister will need additional gowns if she is to attend balls and the theater and such, so she can help, too.”

“Gads, between them, Attie and my wife will bankrupt me.”

Ian wound his watch. “Surely you are not suggesting that I pay for your half-sister’s trousseau, are you?”

Rensdale choked on the too-large swallow he had taken. When he was done coughing, he gasped, “You said additional gowns, man, not an entire trousseau!”

“Isn’t that what a bride buys, and doesn’t her family pay for it?”

Rensdale mopped at his receding hairline. “Dash it, I thought her uncle would come down heavy for the bride clothes.”

“But he is not here, and she needs new gowns now. I don’t believe she has more than two for evening.”

If Rensdale sensed the disapproval in Ian’s tones, he disregarded it. “Well, I ain’t buying the gal no ‘trinkets.’”

“I would not think of letting you,” Ian said. “That will be my pleasure. After we are wed, of course. It would not do to shower her with jewels before, not that she does not deserve them.” Not even Rensdale could be dense enough to miss the disdain. He chose to scratch his protruding belly instead of looking at Lord Marden.

“Your pleasure,” Ian went on, “will be in seeing Miss Renslow turned out as befits the sister of a gentleman, and in making your wife happy.”

Rensdale brightened. “Veronica is a different woman when she has a new bonnet to show off in the neighborhood, the silly goose. They all are.”

Ian drank to that.

*

“Do go, Attie. Spartacus owes you a new wardrobe for all the years you helped keep the estate books and looked after his tenants.”

“I don’t know, Troy. Why do I need so many new gowns?”

“So you don’t look like a dowd. No insult, of course. I think you’re the prettiest girl in the world—”

“Prettier than Squire’s niece?” she teased.

Troy blushed, but he was not going to be distracted. He went on with his exercises, saying, “But there is no denying you don’t dress as fashionably as the other women. Even I can see that. Why, Lord Marden’s sister looks better than you sometimes, and she’s old and can’t hold a candle to you.”

“Troy! You must not say such things. Lady Dorothy cannot help her scars.”

“What scars?”

“Nothing, dear. But I have not had any use for the latest styles, and do not know if I will in the future.”

“Of course you will. Geoffrey says there’s a pile of invitations on the hall tray with your name on them already. You can’t go to all those fancy balls in the same two gowns you’ve worn to all the assemblies back home. People would say Rensdale is a skinflint, keeping you in rags. Well, he is, but the rest of the world doesn’t need to know that. They’ll say you have no taste, and you do, don’t you, when you get the chance?”

“I like to think so.”

“Besides, Marden might be embarrassed to be seen with you in your old frocks. He’s used to regular dashers, Geoffrey says, prime articles.”

“Geoffrey says a great deal too much. I do not know if I wish to be considered another of his lordship’s dalliances.”

“Well, you won’t be if you look frumpish or like a schoolgirl. They’ll say he is only being nice to you because he has to. But if you look like a Diamond, then they’ll say he’s smitten by your beauty. He will be, too. I just know it.”

“You wouldn’t be trying a little matchmaking, would you?”

“Gads, no. But what would be wrong with that? Marden is top of the trees. You couldn’t find a better man, not if your dowry were ten times what it is. And I like it here. He says I can stay. Spartacus says I can, too. If you do, that is.”

Athena could not discuss her doubts with her little brother. “I agree that Lord Marden is a fine gentleman. And attending one or two balls might be fun, so I think I will have a new gown made up, at our brother’s expense. I said I would help select fabrics and such for Veronica, so I’ll be in the shops anyway.”

“Pick her an ugly bonnet, won’t you? You can say it’s all the crack in London and she won’t know the difference.”

“That’s mean and unworthy. What do you think of puce with orange feathers?”

“Perfect,” Troy said, grinning. “Especially if you add one of those stuffed birds on top. Oh, and Attie?”

She turned in the doorway. “Yes, dear. Was there something I could bring you from the shops?”

“No, I have everything I could need. But when you order your new gowns, could you make that part on top, the part that covers your, ah, you know.”

“The bodice?”

“That’s it. Could you make that part lower? A fellow likes to look at a woman’s, ah…that is, Lady Paige’s were half out of her gown.”

“We shall not discuss Lady Paige, or my, ah, attributes. And wherever did you learn about such things? If Geoffrey has been filling your ears with such, I will have a talk with that young man.”

“No, Geoffrey never said anything. Lord Marden did.”

Athena squeaked. “The earl talked about my—”

“Gads no, not to a lady’s brother. Don’t you know anything about gentlemen? He said something about Lady Paige, was all, but he did not have to. I noticed myself. That’s what I am trying to tell you. We men notice such things.”

“‘We men’ don’t shave yet, bucko, so mind your tongue. You can go back to rebuilding your muscles, not planning my wardrobe, because I expect to dance with you sometime soon. Meantime, Lady Marden will advise me on the proper depth of my décolletage.”

*

The earl’s mother would have seen the neckline on Athena’s new gowns dropped almost to her waist if she thought that might encourage this cabbage-headed courtship. But no, that might encourage other men to take a second or third look at the petite beauty. That would never do, the countess decided. Her slowtop son had enough trouble without competition.