“You said Anita is a charming child,” she said. “How old is she?”
“Three and a half. Her mother was a Spanish lady. She died in childbirth and the father was killed very soon after.”
“Then she must regard Miss Ingram as her mama.”
“Yes, and Frank as her father, of course, though she calls them aunt and uncle. She adores both of them. I flatter myself I have wormed my way into her affections, too.” He laughed. “She used to call me Tío--that’s Spanish for uncle--Tío Felix my lord, but she has dropped the ‘my lord.’“
“I do so wish I might meet them all!”
“So do I, m’dear, but it’s simply not possible. Do you still have that sluggish old mare? Will you ride with me later?”
Though he had changed the subject, Constantia was satisfied that Miss Ingram was very much on his mind. “I’d love to go riding,” she said, “if you are willing to dawdle along at Skylark’s pace.”
In a flurry of white muslin, Vickie burst into the breakfast room, her long, flaxen hair flying. “Felix,” she cried, “let us ride together this morning.”
“You’re just too late. Connie’s going with me.”
“Drat! It’s too bad you and I have to share poor Skylark, Connie, or we could all go.”
“Weather permitting, I’ll take you tomorrow,” Felix promised. “And I shall look around for another mount. I’ll have to check with Father, but I believe you need not share any longer.”
“Prince of brothers!” Vickie swooped on him and kissed his cheek, then stared across the table at her sister’s breakfast. “You have raspberries. We didn’t get raspberries for breakfast in the schoolroom.” She dashed to the sideboard, helped herself to a heaped bowlful, and sat down beside Constantia.
“Fruit for breakfast is bad for little girls,” Felix teased. “You will break out in spots all over.”
“Pooh, I’m not a little girl. I...Oh! Good morning, Papa.” She jumped up and curtsied, and Felix rose to his feet, as Lord Westwood entered the room.
Though the earl’s hair was grizzled, his face lined, he bore a strong resemblance to his heir, tall and broad-shouldered, with a still-handsome patrician countenance. His haughty air had not been crushed by a decade of struggling to stay one step ahead of the bailiffs. Nor was it softened, Constantia noted, by the end of the struggle.
He responded courteously to his children’s greetings, then turned his stern gaze on the youngest. “You are not at your lessons this morning, Victoria?”
“Miss Bannister let me come down to see Felix, Papa, since he has been away so long. I must go back now.” She made a hurried escape, taking with her the bowl of raspberries. Constantia caught Felix’s eye and smothered a smile.
“Miss Bannister appears to be less successful in inculcating a sense of propriety in Victoria than she was in your case, Constantia,” said Lord Westwood austerely, moving to the sideboard.
A maroon-liveried footman came in with fresh coffee. When he left, and the earl was seated at the table, Felix said, “Sir, will it be possible to purchase another horse for my sisters? Victoria will doubtless learn a more ladylike style of riding from Connie than she can from a groom.”
“Doubtless. Yes, by all means look about for a suitable mount. Now that the burden of the mortgage repayments is lifted, the income from the estate will be sufficient to support a proper style. I have not allowed the farms to deteriorate during our difficulties.”
“Of course not, sir.”
“I fear perhaps I did not make myself plain last night, Felix. I would not have you suppose that, because I cannot approve the means, I am ungrateful for your most valuable assistance to the family.”
Looking thoroughly uncomfortable, Felix muttered something Constantia failed to catch. She felt quite uncomfortable herself, and she was about to make her excuses and depart when her father continued.
“If you should be so happy as to win the hand of the distinguished young lady upon whom your affections are fixed--I daresay you have mentioned her to your sister?” He bestowed an indulgent smile on Constantia. “She is in your confidence, I know. If, as I say, you wed Lady Sophia Gerrold, the family fortunes will be more than restored and you will earn the wholehearted esteem of your mother and myself.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Felix’s obvious gratification vexed Constantia. Under the sun of their parents’ outspoken approval of Lady Sophia, Miss Fanny Ingram’s chances melted like snow. She reminded herself that she had never met either young lady. Perhaps Felix was inarticulate on the subject of Lady Sophia’s amiable characteristics because he was so much in love.
But in that case, why was he so eager to talk about Miss Ingram?
Her breakfast finished, Constantia changed into her old grey riding habit and went down to the stable yard. She and Felix rode up the steep track behind the mansion, up into the Mendip Hills. At the top, they stopped to look back over the green Somerset plain, to the isolated prominence of Glastonbury Tor with its tower, and beyond into the hazy distance.
Felix told Constantia how Fanny had crossed the Spanish mountains on mule-back, and how terrified he had been seeing her mounted on a huge troop horse at a Review in Brussels.
“I was all ready to rake her escort over the coals for endangering her,” he said ruefully. “Then I discovered that she was quite capable of handling the brute, and that Frank was among her escort.”
An image of Captain Frank Ingram was building in Constantia’s fancy. She envisioned him tall, strong, and handsome on a powerful charger, smart in his regimentals, a valiant soldier yet gentle and loving to his sister and the child. Like the knights of King Arthur’s Round Table, he was both bold and chivalrous. How different from the fashionably languid gentlemen she had rejected!
When they returned to the stables, the earl’s steward was just leaving to ride around the farms, and Felix turned around to go with him. The train of her habit over her arm, Constantia went into the house.
Crossing the spacious vestibule, with its Corinthian columns framing each doorway and Classical statues posed in niches, she felt the usual twinge of regret. The Tudor Great Hall--the panelling carved with fruit and flowers and mythical beasts, the minstrels’ gallery, the hammerbeam roof--had vanished along with a fortune in the earl’s passion for modernization.
As she started up the magnificent marble staircase, balustered in gilt wrought-iron, her mother’s abigail appeared at the top.
“Lady Constantia, her ladyship wishes to see you in her sitting-room, if you please.” The last phrase was undoubtedly added to the countess’s command by the tactful maid.
“Oh dear, I cannot go in riding dress,” Constantia said in dismay, “and with my hair all blown about. I shall come as soon as I have changed. Pray send Joan to me at once.”
Her own maid soon had her fit to be seen by her ladyship and she hurried to Lady Westwood’s apartments. She met Vickie on the threshold. Exchanging a curious and apprehensive glance, they entered together. Their mother’s private sitting-room retained its formal elegance despite the slight fading of green-striped satin. As a child, Constantia had often been summoned here to receive rebukes for falling into mischief, but Felix had always been chastised more severely for leading her into scrapes than she for following.
More recently, her rejection of several perfectly acceptable suitors had led to lengthy lectures on obedience and obstinacy. In her quiet way, she had held firm.
Lady Westwood was seated at her cherrywood bureau, writing letters. She turned when her daughters entered and motioned them to a pair of spindly-legged chairs. The countess’s hauteur was no more reduced by straitened circumstances than her husband’s. Beneath pale-blond hair with no hint of grey, her smooth, calm face was untouched by any mark of anxiety, passion, or sorrow, by smile or frown. Constantia sometimes wondered whether her mother had ever succumbed to any emotion stronger than displeasure.
Displeasure was not now in evidence. In fact, Lady Westwood appeared coolly complacent.
“You have heard, no doubt, of your brother’s good fortune. It is your good fortune that, unlike many young men, his concern is for his family, not for a life of idle pleasure. I trust you will express to him your appreciation of his generosity.”
“Yes, Mama,” they chorussed.
“Constantia, I shall take you to London in the autumn for the Little Season. Victoria, you shall be presented in the spring. That is time enough, I believe, for you to amend your carriage and conduct so that I shall not be put out of countenance by your lack of decorum.”
Vickie opened her mouth to protest, and closed it again. Though she blithely disregarded her mother’s prohibition on reading romances, with that cold gaze upon her she did not quite dare to argue. “Yes, Mama,” she said meekly.
“I shall speak to your governess. You may leave us now, Victoria.”
Curtsying, Vickie departed with the energetic gait the countess so deplored. Constantia wished she could follow. Her hands, clasped in her lap, tightened as she steeled herself to object to Lady Westwood’s plans.
“I daresay Felix has spoken to you of his hopes of marriage, Constantia?”
“Yes, Mama.”
“I venture to disclose to you that your father and I have been deeply concerned by Felix’s propensity for forming an undesirable acquaintance. In the position he insisted on taking up, against all advice, no doubt a certain amount of social contact with persons of no consequence was inevitable. However, your brother has an unfortunate tendency to regard some such persons as friends. We even feared that he might so disgrace his name as to choose a bride of low condition, thus injuring your hopes of contracting an eligible alliance.”
She paused, but Constantia had nothing to say. No words of hers would convince her mother either that she did not hope for a husband, or that Felix was perfectly capable of choosing his own estimable friends.
“However, in fact his choice has fallen on an excellent
parti
, Lady Sophia Gerrold, daughter of the Marquis of Daventry. Such a match cannot fail to enhance your chances, and Victoria’s also, of course.”
Constantia was driven to demur. “I understood that nothing was yet settled!”
“True, but now that financial difficulties are no longer in the way, it can only be a matter of his making formal application for her hand. Surely you do not suppose that the heir to the Earl of Westwood might be judged unworthy of any female to whom he paid suit?”
“No, Mama.” Alas! If Felix proposed he’d be accepted by any female with eyes in her head.
“Nonetheless, as you say, the matter is not settled, so you will not speak of it. I merely wished to advise you that you are likely to have the pleasure of the company of your prospective sister-in-law when we go up to Town.”
“Mama, I don’t wish to go to Town in the autumn!” Constantia cried.
Lady Westwood stared at this unseemly display of emotion. “You prefer to wait to accompany your sister in the spring? To bring out two girls at once is generally considered unwise, as one is certain to overshadow the other. It would hardly be fair to Victoria. Of course, you are too old to be formally presented to the Ton.”
“Much too old, Mama.”
“You have lost a great deal of time, owing entirely to your own obstinacy. No, you cannot afford to delay. We shall go to London for the Little Season.”
Taking silence for consent, she dismissed her daughter.
Constantia imagined refusing, and having to live with her mother’s constant reproaches. How much easier to submit! After all, it was not London she feared, not the balls and theatres and concerts Felix had described, which sounded delightful. Perhaps she’d find Lady Sophia good-natured and charming. Perhaps, in the bustle of Town life, she’d even be able to slip away with Felix for a few hours and meet his friends.
But in Mama’s eyes, the sole reason for going to London was to acquire a husband. The compulsion to conform might be more than Constantia could withstand. Felix would support her if she explained, but he must never learn the truth.
If Felix ever discovered why she refused to marry, he’d blame himself. She had never held him responsible for the childhood accident, for the hateful scar, but their parents did and he had accepted the guilt. Seven years older than his little sister, he should have known better than to help her climb the towering cedar.
When she fell, when the broken branch tore her tender skin and blood poured forth from the jagged wound, he had been devastated. Yet by now the accident was tucked away in a hidden corner of his memory. He did not know--only her abigail knew--that the white, puckered scar still slashed across her chest, an ugly furrow from the hollow of her right shoulder to the swell of her left breast.
The décolleté London fashions were not for her. And even if she managed to persuade her mother to let her wear high-necked, concealing gowns to balls and soirées, sooner or later the moment of truth must come. On her wedding night, if not before, her lover would see the dreadful disfigurement and turn from her in revulsion.
Chapter 2
How could anyone be so muttonheaded as to prefer that ice maiden, Lady Sophia, to his sister? Frank wondered. Not that he had ever met her ladyship, but sharing quarters with Viscount Roworth he had taken an interest in the Goddess and picked up snippets of information. A cold, supercilious beauty was the general concensus--except among her besotted suitors.
And Roworth was one of those suitors, and Frank very much feared that Fanny had lost her heart to Roworth.
Lying back against his pillows, he watched her leave his chamber. Though slim and pretty in an altered evening gown of Miriam’s, with her round face and brown curls she could not compete with Lady Sophia in looks any more than in rank or wealth. Damn Roworth if those were more important to him than a warm heart!
Bravely though she tried to hide it, she had been blue-devilled since Roworth left Nettledene. Had Frank been wrong to agree to leave Brussels? Not that he had been in any case to argue, especially when Roworth, with that high-and-mighty air he put on sometimes, accused him of sacrificing Fanny’s comfort to his own pride. No, he could not regret coming to the Cohens. Anita was happy, Fanny did not have to struggle for existence, and much as he had mistrusted the notion of a female physician, Miriam was working wonders.