Carola Dunn (24 page)

Lord Daventry ushered him into a large, light room decorated in the chilly perfection of the Classical style.

“Someone to see you, Sophie,” he announced.

Lady Sophia sat by the window, a book in her hand. Her pale blonde ringlets gleamed as she turned her head and said in her usual calm way, “Good day, Lord Roworth.” The perfection of her beauty stunned him anew.

Her mother dropped the fringe she was knotting. “How delightful to see you!”

“I believe your housekeeper wishes to have a word with you, m’dear,” Lord Daventry said to his wife in voice heavy with significance.

“Oh yes, I’m so sorry, Roworth, I must have a word with my housekeeper. You will excuse me, I know.”

Felix bowed, murmuring “Of course, ma’am,” while in his head a little voice screamed, “Don’t go, don’t go!” Silently he admonished it: “No more pluck than a dunghill cock. Fanny would be ashamed of such faint-heartedness.” He marched across the room to the Goddess’s side.

“I trust I see you well, Lady Sophia?”

“Very well, I thank you, sir. Pray be seated.” The awkwardness of their situation had no visible effect on her composure. She must be aware he had come to make her an offer, for otherwise her mother would never have left them alone together.

Felix sat down in a chair with a curved, inlaid back on which Grecian ladies in flowing draperies posed in unlikely attitudes. It was as uncomfortable as it looked. “I understand I am fortunate to find you at home,” he said. “You are on your way to Paris?”

“Yes. You know the city, do you not?”

“I was there last year, before I had the honour to make your acquaintance at the Congress of Vienna.” In Paris he had acted as liaison between Wellington, then ambassador to France, and the Rothschilds--could he mention his work, now that he had as good as resigned the position? Better not, he decided, recalling his parents’ bitter opposition. He went on to describe the city to her.

“Whatever his faults, the Emperor has made many improvements to his capital,” he finished.

“It sounds charming, even pleasanter than Brussels. Such splendid balls we had there, especially the Duchess of Richmond’s, and so many other entertainments. Do you recall the Cavalry Review?”

Felix remembered it well, and also the picnic where he had pleaded Fanny’s cause and been given the cold shoulder. And the Horse Artillery picnic where Fanny had so effectively deterred an over-ardent suitor. He wondered whether the unfortunate Barnstaple had survived the battle. Fanny might have heard, from Mercer or Prynne. He’d ask her; she’d understand that he felt a sympathetic interest in the lieutenant.

“You are very grave, sir,” said Lady Sophia in a questioning tone.

He called his wandering thoughts to attention. Neither Fanny nor bloodshed and death were suitable subjects for polite conversation. Seizing the first topic that came to mind, he asked what she was reading.

“An essay on St Paul, by Mrs Hannah More.” She handed him her book. “Her writings are excessively edifying.”

“No doubt.” He glanced at the title page and hastily set it down. “Have you by any chance read Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin’s
Vindication of the Rights of Women
?”

“Certainly not,” she said coolly. “It is a most pernicious book, written by a wicked woman. I assure you, sir, my mama would never permit such a work in the house.”

“Nor, I daresay, would mine,” said Felix, and she looked gratified. Connie was right. Lady Sophia was very like his mother, his patterncard of what a countess should be. “It’s a great pity,” he added, “for Mrs Godwin presents a number of ideas worthy of serious consideration. I suppose Lady Daventry does not allow you to read novels, either.”

Inadvertently he had succeeded in disconcerting her. Caution vied with confusion in her lovely face as she responded, “Some novels are unexceptionable.”

Not the ones Vickie sneaked under her bedcovers, he’d wager. While he was in London, he must go by Leadenhall Street and buy her the latest volumes from the Minerva Press. And he’d borrow the
Vindication of the Rights of Women
from Miriam, if Fanny had finished with it, and smuggle it into Westwood for Connie to read. Perhaps she’d like to correspond with Fanny and Miriam about it, though they could never meet.

“It has been a pleasure to see you again, Lady Sophia,” he found himself saying. He rose and bowed over her hand. “I wish you a very enjoyable sojourn in Paris. Pray make my excuses to Lady Daventry for not taking my leave of her, but I have an urgent engagement elsewhere.”

And he strolled from the room. In the hall, the butler handed him hat and gloves with a sympathetic air. No doubt he thought Lady Sophia had rejected one more suitor.

But she hadn’t. Felix descended the front steps in a daze as he absorbed the realization that he had failed to come up to scratch. Much as he admired the Goddess, he did not like her. He positively disliked her intolerance, especially the way she had snubbed Fanny.

It was devilish lucky he had come to his senses in time, for once he had proposed, honour forbade a gentleman to cry off.

He wanted something more in a wife than a perfect countess. He wanted Miriam’s warmth, and generosity, and open-mindedness. He wanted a sense of humour, and a sense of passion, and he wanted a friend. How could anyone who had once loved Miriam be satisfied with the cool, calm, and always collected Lady Sophia Gerrold?

Had her composure survived his departure, he wondered guiltily. He had raised her expectations, then shattered them. He consoled himself with the thought that she might not have planned to accept him anyway. Besides, within a week in Paris she’d have collected another court. She had never suffered any shortage of admirers.

And he
had
admired her, yet now he could not understand why he had ever wanted to make her his wife. Felix was not an introspective man, but as he walked he searched his soul.

He had never loved her, he realized. Pride came into it, a need to feel his birth made him worthy of courting a marquis’s daughter, despite his slender means, his employment, his civilian status among those magnificent uniforms. And that was another reason for his pursuit: the determination to triumph over his rivals. Most of all, he had chosen her because his parents would consider Lady Sophia the ideal bride, and he wanted to please his parents.

Connie had had the pluck to reject the suitors pressed upon her by their parents.

Without conscious volition, his rapid, agitated strides had carried him back towards the City. He had no particular destination in mind. Indeed, he was at a loss as to what to do next. He ought to go home and tell his mother and father that he was not going to marry Lady Sophia. Once again they would be bitterly disappointed in him, and they would not understand why he had not made his offer.

Fanny would understand, and sympathize. He’d go back to Nettledene first, to talk over his decision with her. She was bound to tease him, but he didn’t mind that.

As Felix reached Charing Cross, he suddenly stopped and stood staring blankly at the statue of King Charles I on his horse.

Good gad, he wanted Fanny!

Chapter 17

“So the lady accepted you,” grunted Nathan Rothschild.

Feeling like a proper nodcock, Felix confessed, “Well, no, as a matter of fact I didn’t offer in the end. I realized I want to marry a different lady. The thing is, my parents aren’t going to be exactly cock-a-hoop over this.” But he had weathered their disapproval over his employment. Whatever he had felt in his mother’s sitting room, he was no longer a child. It was his life, and life without Fanny didn’t bear thinking of. “She’ll need all my support. How much notice will you require, sir?”

“A month.” He looked sardonically amused at Felix’s dismay. “You may work it off persuading Lord Westwood to accept your ineligible young lady as a daughter-in-law. If you succeed, perhaps the practice will enable you to convince his lordship that a Jewish banker is not the Devil incarnate.”

Felix grinned. “I’ll do my best.”

“Then all that remains is for me to work out how much I owe you, my lord.” He pulled a heavy ledger towards him and opened it.

“Sir, that’s not at all necessary! You have been more than generous and it has been a privilege to...”

He was interrupted by the eruption into the private office of a stout, grey-whiskered gentleman he recognized as the Duke of Oxshott. His grace’s face was crimson with fury.

“Do you know what your whippersnapper of a chief clerk has done?” he bellowed. “He has the unmitigated gall to tell me...”

“Take a chair,” Rothschild invited, perusing his ledger.

“Do you know who I am, sir, do you know who I am?” Purpling, the duke tossed his card on the desk and began reciting his noble lineage in a roar that must have been heard on the other side of New Court.

The banker glanced briefly at the card. “Take two chairs,” he suggested, entering figures in the account book in his neat hand.

As the duke, eyes popping, opened and closed his mouth in flabbergasted silence, Mr Rothschild took a sheet of paper, wrote, signed, and handed it to Felix. “Take that to my whippersnapper of a chief clerk,” he said blandly. “A month of paid leave, and the coming month, which I daresay will tax your abilities to the utmost. However, I rate your abilities highly. Good day, my lord.”

Felix shook his hand heartily. He was tempted to stay, but he wasn’t sure whether he’d be called upon to rescue the banker from the duke or, more likely, the duke from the banker. He made good his escape.

His only desire now was to rush back to Nettledene and tell Fanny he loved her. When a small man in a battered hat accosted him in the courtyard, he brushed him off, scarcely noticing, and hurried on. A plaintive “Oy, guv, just a word...” faded behind him.

He made for Bedford Square, hoping that Isaac would already be at his father-in-law’s, ready to leave. The revolution in his feelings was going to come as a great surprise to the Cohens, but he was sure they would be pleased. They had grown amazingly fond of Fanny, as did everyone who knew her.

With the probable exception of his parents, he admitted, his euphoria fading. His love for Fanny did not change the fact that she was a penniless nobody with a decidedly unconventional upbringing. He’d have to go down to Westwood and prevail upon them to receive her with complaisance, if not joy, because he was going to wed her with or without their consent. But first to Nettledene, to offer her his heart and his hand.

A tiny doubt crept in. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with Fanny, but would she want to marry him?

To his relief he reached Bedford Square and was forced to abandon that discouraging line of thought. He rang the Jacobsons’ doorbell. The door opened promptly.

“I’m to meet Mr Cohen here,” he told the footman. “Has he arrived yet?”

“Come and gone, sir, not half an hour since. You’ll be Lord Roworth? Mr Isaac left a message to tell your lordship he had to go fetch Miss Miriam--Mrs Cohen, that is. The master’s been took ill.”

“Oh Lord, now of all times!” Felix recollected his manners. “Please convey my sympathy and best wishes to Mr and Mrs Jacobson. Where are the nearest livery stables?”

Directed to Caroline Mews, he hired a mount and set off for Nettledene.

His horse was a powerful but skittish grey. Even after they left the city streets, the busy traffic on the Dover road kept Felix on the alert. He had no chance to reflect until he turned off into a country lane, by which time the brute was tired enough to behave. Then, the niggling doubt returned.

Fanny had refused as many suitors as had Lady Sophia, or more, according to Lieutenant Barnstaple. Of course, none of them had been heir to an earldom, but he doubted she set any store by that. On the other hand, all had been soldiers. He recalled with delight the fiery vehemence of her declaration: “I shall never marry a soldier!”

For the first time in ten years, Felix was absolutely and without qualification content to have been unable to buy a pair of colours.

That gave him a fighting chance, but by no means guaranteed that she would accept him. Ruefully he acknowledged that he was not a perceptive man, and he had no notion if her feelings for him went any deeper than sincere friendship. He wanted her love, yet he knew he’d marry her without it and hope to win it. What he did not know was whether he was prepared to take a bride who would marry him just to provide security for her brother and the child.

She was too honest not to tell him if that were the case, too proud to accept his help if she chose to refuse him. All he could do was wait and see.

He caught up with Isaac in the village and rode beside the phaeton to the house. They found Fanny and Miriam on the terrace, seated on a bench with the baby. Frank had been helped out to lie on a chaise longue in the sun; on the steps down to the garden, the children were absorbed in some game with sticks and stones.

Fanny looked up with a smile as Isaac stepped through the French doors. He looked even graver than usual but before she could ask if aught was amiss, Felix followed him. She stared at him, incredulous, possibilities racing through her mind: Lady Sophia was in Paris and he was going after her; she had rejected him; she had accepted him and he had rushed to Nettledene to inform his friends of his success.

An air of suppressed elation about him suggested to Fanny that she was going to have to congratulate him.

Then Miriam turned and caught sight of her husband’s face and at once demanded, “What is wrong?”

Isaac went to take her hand. “Your father, my love. He has suffered some kind of seizure.”

“Oh, poor Papa.” Her voice shook. “I must go at once. Can we leave this evening, Isaac?”

“Of course, if you can be ready. I’ll send to the inn for fresh horses.”

“Yes. There are a hundred things to be done before we can go.” Absently, she handed Leah to Fanny and stood up.

“I’d be happy to take care of the children for you,” Fanny offered, disentangling her hair from Leah’s fist. Felix’s news would have to wait, as he obviously realized.

Miriam turned to her. “Thank you, Fanny dear, but I shall take them with me. I cannot tell how long I shall be gone.” She glanced at Isaac, who nodded. “Fanny, Frank, we had not meant to speak so soon, but Isaac and I have decided we should very much like to adopt Anita.”