Elisabeth Kidd (29 page)

He was shortly to be informed, when the lieutenant burst into the
room with little ceremony and no formal greeting. He sat down in
Byron’s chair and threw one leg over the side.

“I just met Alvanley in the hall, and he invited me to join his party for
macao tonight. Obligin’ of him, ain’t it?”

“I don’t remember your being a gamester.”

“Oh, I ain’t, generally. Too slow by half—much prefer a good mill-
but couldn’t turn Alvanley down. I collect the stakes are pretty high here?
I haven’t played much since I’ve been back. I’ve heard about a hell in
Pickering Place, though—do you know it?”

“I do. And since you have seen fit to abandon your native soil for six
years, I shall excuse your having mentioned it, on the condition that you do not do so again.”

“Oh—right! I ain’t to go there, then. Well, it don’t signify. I’ve got
more to do than time to do it in, anyway. Will you come with me to
Jackson’s Saloon next week?”

“Not I. Gentleman Jackson considers my fighting methods only half-
civilised at best. Recruit my secretary instead. How, by the way, is your
grave wound, received in the service of king and country?”

“Much improved, thank you. I shall be able to take the bandage off next week, and the stiffness will pass off quick enough with a little
exercise.”

Carey had discovered the brandy and, having refilled Kedrington’s
glass, consumed his own portion with a singular lack of finesse that
made the viscount wince.

“That isn’t
vino tinto
, you know.”

Carey laughed. “You talk like Antonia. She’s convinced they don’t use
forks in Spain and quotes my table manners as proof.”

“God grant her patience! I wouldn’t want you at my table night after
night.”

“Oh, Tonia don’t mind. The nabob, now, is another thing. You can
tell he’s itching to lecture me on my lack of social graces, but he don’t dare to do it in front of her.”

Kedrington had no doubt that the lieutenant referred to the estimable
Mr Charles Kenyon, and assumed an indifference he did not feel. “You
dine in Cavendish Square, then?”

“Lord, no! Been there, of course—
Dios!
You never saw such a museum.
I’m afraid to put down my hat. But he’s at our place three nights out of
four. I’ve no objection to Uncle Philip—he’s a good old sort—but Charlie treats the girls and the house like they’re his own, forever giving orders to
the servants and such.”

Carey glanced meaningfully at Kedrington, but there was no indica
tion on the viscount’s face of his feelings. Hard-put to keep all the secrets entrusted to him, Carey tried another tack. “In a way, I suppose it may be
a good thing that he’s practically living in Antonia’s pocket.”

“Indeed?”

“Well, she can’t really take him seriously, can she? I mean, the more I
see of him, the less I look forward to the next time! Tonia’s far more
intelligent than I am. It don’t make sense that she should like having him
around all the time.”

“Sense doesn’t have a great deal to do with it,” Kedrington said dryly.

“You mean, because she thinks she’s in love with him? Well, she’ll see
soon enough that she ain’t, and when she does, you can just step in and
waltz her away.”

“How elegantly you express yourself, Lieutenant. I shall do no such thing.”

Carey eyed his friend judiciously. “On the other hand, if she’s going to be stubborn about it, I might find somebody to kidnap her, and you’d have to rescue her. Charles hates a scandal —took him years to get over
the last one—and if I didn’t tell you about it beforehand, you could act
with a clean conscience!”

“Wherever do you get these hare-brained
notions?”

“What’s the matter with it?”

Kedrington got up and walked over to the window. Throwing it open,
he took a deep breath, relaxed slightly, and remarked that it looked like
showering in the night. Carey, who for once was not to be led from the
subject at hand, said bluntly, “Well, Lobo, you’re going to have to do
something!”

Kedrington turned to look at him. “What can I do?”

“You can start by telling her about Spain—about us and Neil and
...
all
that.”

Kedrington shook his head. “No. Neil’s story isn’t mine to tell yet. And if Antonia takes me, it will have to be on my present and future
merits. I’m no hero to her, however much I’d like to be, and I won’t try to
make myself out to be one by telling her tales out of the past.”

“Well, then,” Carey said, practically, “you’re just going to have to
out-Charles Charles.”

The viscount, whose attempts at circumspect behaviour had done less to raise him in Miss Fairfax’s esteem than to cause him a great deal of
personal frustration, now felt himself come to such a pass that the idea of
imitating Charles Kenyon was almost palatable. He had no intention of
“living in Antonia’s pocket,” as Carey had described Charles’s behaviour;
despite all evidence to the contrary, Kedrington could not believe that
such conduct would long meet with her favour. However, he thought
that he could, without appearing importunate, at least call more fre
quently in Mount Street than he had done in the last fortnight. And now
that the business of those weeks was on a fair way to resolving itself, he
might perhaps turn his efforts on a friend’s behalf to his own purpose.
Yes, he could do that. Neil would not object.

“Are you engaged for dinner?” he asked Carey.

“No. I was hoping you’d invite me. But if you’re concerned that I’ll
spill sauce on your table linen
...”

Kedrington stood up. “We’ll go to Stephen’s Hotel. They cater to the military manner there—which is to say, they are not overly fastidious.”

“Oh, right!”

The lieutenant, ever agreeable, got up and, having been reminded by
nothing in particular of a rabbit hunt he and Lobo had shared near
Badajoz, began to indulge in reminiscence, which lasted through five
courses of an excellent dinner and well into a bottle of port in the
comfort of Kedrington’s library. When Octavian Gary, intrigued by the
unusual noises emanating from the normally funereal nocturnal atmo
sphere of his employer’s library, came in to investigate, the talk became even more firmly rooted in the past. Mr Gary’s normally somber expression was alight with amusement at the tales of his brother Neil told by
his comrade-in-arms, and Carey was far from reluctant to provide him
with colourfully embroidered details of their adventures, on and off the field of combat.

Kedrington, a tolerant smile flickering behind his grey eyes and occa
sionally spreading to his lips, listened to Octavian’s attempts to inject a
few words into Carey’s monologue. The lieutenant barely finished with
one subject before sailing off on another, but Octavian, like everyone who crossed Carey’s path, seemed charmed into tolerance by his friendly, open
manner.

Kedrington had long ago observed that Carey had not the imagination to be devious or deceptive, but was blessed with a natural buoyancy of spirit. He rarely showed anger or strong feeling, merely liking some things or disliking others (Kedrington remembered his glowing descrip
tions of the country around Wyckham as well as his diatribes against
Spanish cooking). He had come home prepared to pick up where he had
left off, expecting to find everything the same—as indeed for him it was.
He had the kind of good looks that would still be boyish at forty, and the
sort of nature that would take whatever happened in stride. Kedrington
envied him his resilience.

The return to England at the end of June of the Duke of Wellington
set off a fresh burst of celebrations. Crowds of people from all over the
land came to gawk at all the “high mightinesses” visiting in London, who pretended to deplore the vulgar behaviour of the masses but made only
half-hearted attempts to escape their scrutiny. Tsar Alexander and King
Frederick of Prussia arrived in town on the same day—but by different
routes. At Ascot, Prince William of Orange let the champagne go to his head, and
the Princess Charlotte, seizing on the excuse, immediately informed him
and everyone else that their engagement was at an end. The very popular
Prussian, Marshal Prince von Blücher, gazed at the splendour around
him and remarked what a fine capital London would be to sack. At a
masque in Burlington House, Lord Byron scowled from within a monk’s
cowl at the antics of his feminine admirers.

His Grace of Wellington took the adulation showered on him more
calmly, riding about London in a plain blue coat and accompanied by a
single groom. He feigned deafness to the cheers and declined even to bow to the crowds at a military review held in Hyde Park on a particularly fine
day at the end of June. His duchess, Kitty, a pale figure in an inappropriately
girlish muslin gown, sat stiffly in her open carriage and stared straight
ahead of her, assuming an indifference as noble as her husband’s.

“The truth is,” Octavian Gary informed Isabel Fairfax when Kitty had
passed by them, “that she is extremely short-sighted and generally keeps
her nose in a book, lest she fail to recognise some acquaintance. She is
foolish, for no one could possibly mind if she wore her spectacles in
public, could one?”

The review was over, but many spectators had remained to watch the units make their way out of the park. The last notes of the band had died,
but the clop-clop of hooves and the jingle of accoutrements carried on
the melody. The sun glinted on the Life Guards’ new black-and-brass
cuirasses, which the Prince Regent had designed expressly to impress
the tsar. The colour guard went by, banners drooping a little in the heat,
but the barefooted children running alongside still had energy to spare.

Isabel looked after them with a smile, but at Octavian’s words, she
turned her head toward him suddenly, then blushed and turned away
again, her poke bonnet screening her face. She said, hesitantly, “Any lady
would do the same!” Then she laughed tremulously. “We are very vain,
you know, we females.”

“But you are not just any female, Isabel,” Octavian said, leaning closer
to whisper the words. Isabel turned her head away even more and began
to examine with great interest the bark of the tree beside which they
stood.  Octavian laughed. “You little goose! You can’t see it well enough
to tell if it’s a tree or the side of a house.”

Isabel looked up at him, tears that would have flowed freely at such
words from anyone else hovering in astonishment on her lashes.

“Lovely little goose,” Octavian said tenderly and put his hand under
her chin to prevent her turning away again. “Who knows that I love her
and would never do anything to make her cry—only to tease a smile from
her.”

Isabel nodded and, to be sure he did not mistake her meaning, whispered
as loudly as she dared, “I love you too.”

Octavian ran his finger along her forehead and tucked a loose strand of silvery hair back into her bonnet. “Then, as you will one day be obliged to honour and obey me as well, you may begin by wearing your spectacles
when you need them, instead of hiding them in your reticule or your
muff or your sewing basket whenever someone approaches you. Will you
do that, goose?”

Isabel nodded again, then giggled, and, plucking up her courage,
asked, “How did you know?” Octavian looked mysterious for a moment,
teasing her, then confessed, “Carey told me.”

“Oh! How wicked of him!” Isabel became suddenly indignant. “Isn’t
that just like him!”

“What have I done now?” demanded this reprobate, coming toward
them just at that moment. Not waiting for a catalogue of his sins,
however, he said, “I don’t know how you two contrive always to find a
corner to yourselves. Lord, I was near trampled over there! Did you see
the Guards? Didn’t they look fine? Kedrington’s here—saw him talking
to Duoro a minute ago. Thick as thieves, those two are. Listen, Octavian,
there’s to be fireworks tonight and a demonstration of Congreve’s rockets.
You won’t want to miss that. You, too, Isabel. It’s capital fun!”

“What, being deafened by a machine that’s as likely to throw rockets at
us as to hit the target?”

“Oh, you don’t want to believe everything you hear! Clory’s coming, and Oliver, too—I ain’t seen Harley yet. I don’t suppose Charles will
approve, though, so we’ll have to count Tonia out. No, wait; we’ll ask
Uncle Philip—he’ll talk her around! Let’s find him.”