Elisabeth Kidd (7 page)

She was wearing a gown of a deep rose muslin, and her hair was tied
simply with a velvet ribbon of the same shade. She came toward her
guests with her hands outstretched, a smile on her lips, and a marked twinkle in her eyes.

“Uncle Philip!” she said, passing smoothly over the bemused viscount.
“How prodigious elegant you look this evening.”

Uncle Philip received a hug and a kiss that made him the envy of his companions, and introduced Mr Gary, who bowed and politely thanked
his hostess for allowing him to intrude on the party. Antonia blithely
assured him that his presence made the numbers just right and, intrigued
by this quiet young man with the gentle eyes, would have gone on to draw
him out a bit more, had not Lord Kedrington just at that moment
coughed loudly. She looked to him, her brows in alt.

“Why, Lord Kedrington, is it not?” she said sweetly. “How obliging of
you to come, sir.”

“Obliging of you to ask me, Miss Fairfax,” he responded with com
mendable calm.

She had to laugh at that. “I regret that my sister-in-law is indisposed
and will not be joining us,” she said, putting one hand into Mr Kenyon’s and laying the other lightly on Mr Gary’s arm. “But will you come in and meet my niece?”

Lord Kedrington followed meekly behind as she led the two gentlemen
into the parlour. Miss Fairfax began to put a question to Mr Gary, but
just at that moment Mr Gary forgot his manners and started involuntar
ily forward, becoming oblivious to his hostess the instant he set eyes on
Isabel, who was seated on a sofa with Mrs Curtiz, a piece of needlepoint she had been working on her lap. She had left off her spectacles, which
gave her face even more of an open, ingenuous look than it usually wore,
and her hair was worked into an intricate knot on the top of her head.
Her simple gown was nearly new—it having until now been relegated to
a trunk as too frivolous for daily wear—and its pale blue colour emphasised
her large, luminous eyes. When she raised them and caught Mr Gary’s
stare, she blushed in confusion—thus completing Octavian’s fall from
grace.

Antonia, fascinated by this rent in Isabel’s normally unruffled composure,
glanced from the young lady to the young gentleman and back again
consideringly.

“Fickle!” said Kedrington, shaking his head and moving up to take the place next to Antonia which had been vacated by Octavian. Antonia
disregarded this manoeuvre and, rapidly thinking how to make use of the
unexpected Mr Gary, made Mrs Curtiz and her niece known to Lord Kedrington; said she believed they were too well acquainted with Mr
Kenyon to need to be reminded of it; and, at last, presented Isabel and Mr
Gary to each other in the most offhand way possible, upon which Mr
Gary snapped out of his trance and made a civil bow. Isabel, however,
returned only a stiff nod before turning back to her godfather. Antonia
felt a distinct itch to box her ears. Apparently, Isabel was losing no time in her scheme to marry a fortune, and a mere secretary—no matter how
handsome or personable he might be—had no part in it. Antonia wondered
if the foolish child would attempt to insinuate herself with the viscount
instead!

But Mrs Curtiz, dressed in a reassuringly orthodox gown of green watered silk, had claimed the viscount’s attention, holding her hand out
to him and saying briskly, “We must treat one another as old friends, you
know! I was acquainted with your father when you were still a schoolboy.”

Kedrington gave her an understanding look. “Indeed! I trust we may
become better friends because of it.” She took his meaning, accepted his
smile, and went on to enquire more easily after the rest of his family.

It was only a few minutes before dinner was announced—Antonia
explaining that at Wyckham guests were welcome to linger afterward,
but that they were never kept waiting for their dinner—and they were
soon sitting down to an excellent meal consisting of two full courses and
numerous side dishes and featuring a roast duckling stuffed with spiced
apples. Mrs Driscoll was in her element catering to a dinner party such
as had not been held at Wyckham for years, and Mr Kenyon gratified her
further by declaring to Antonia—who passed the compliment along
later—that the dinner was comparable to the finest he had ever eaten.

“Every bit as good as White’s, eh, Kedrington?”

“My dear sir, to compare this repast to the boiled fowl and oyster sauce
that White’s persists in inflicting on its members is not only doing it an
injustice, but insulting Miss Fairfax’s excellent cook as well. One may as
well dine in an army mess as patronize White’s kitchens.”

Antonia smiled. “You need not come so vehemently to our defence,
my lord. Mr Kenyon’s tastes are well known to be deplorable.”

“Unfair!” protested her Uncle Philip. “Erratic, perhaps—but deplorable?”

As this merry dispute threatened to develop into a war, the viscount
intervened to invite Mr Kenyon to dine with him at Watier’s when he
was next in town.

“Have you been to London, Miss Isabel?” Mr Gary enquired softly,
leaning a little toward her.

Isabel leaned a little in the other direction, but was obliged to reply. “I
am not out yet, sir. But I believe that this spring ... that is, if Mr Kenyon
wishes it
...”

She glanced appealingly at her godfather, who exclaimed, “Most assuredly
I do! Never think, my dear, that because I do not spend so much time
here with you as I would like, that I cease to be your loving godfather! We
will all of us have a delightful time of it in London this season, I assure
you.”

“All?” murmured the viscount. Antonia, however, was intent on
dissecting a raspberry tartlet.

Aloud, Kedrington said to Isabel that he was happy she would be in
town to enliven his own debut.

“You see, I have been away from England for some years—first in
Jamaica and then in Spain, where, as you may imagine, Society is not precisely as we know it here. But when my mother died last year, it fell
upon my unlucky aunts to present me to the ton this season. I fear they are in for a trying time of it.”

Isabel stared at him. “I beg your pardon, sir, but I never imagined that
gentlemen were obliged to go through ... that is
...”

“Yes, it is a trial,” the viscount said with a sigh, adding slyly, “which is
why it is particularly helpful to have the support of one’s friends—and one’s aunts.”

“Oh, yes, that will make everything so much easier! Antonia has been
to London and will be able to tell me how to go on, and Imogen is
acquainted with absolutely everyone we shall wish to meet.”

Fortunately for Antonia, who wondered if Lord Kedrington would ever
prove to be as useful an acquaintance as he was already an exasperating
one, Mrs Curtiz intervened to say that it did not matter whom she knew,
for it was plain that Isabel had only to show herself in the Metropolis and
all the ton would be clamouring to make her acquaintance. Mr Gary was
swift to agree to this, upon which Isabel blushed and moved the conversa
tion away from herself by asking the viscount how he would choose amongst the various dinner parties, routs, and balls offered to him, for
she had been given to understand that having to attend some event every night—even several in the same night—could lead to one’s being pros
trated with fatigue long before the season ended.

The solicitous tone with which Isabel asked the question caused
Antonia to realise with a shock why Isabel had not, in fact, attempted to
“insinuate herself” in the viscount’s favour. It seemed that in Isabel’s
seventeen-year-old eyes, Kedrington was far too stricken in years—incapable,
indeed, of doddering along to more than one modest evening entertainment at a time!—even to be considered as a prospective suitor. Antonia
was torn between relief that Isabel did have some principles and a
renewed awareness of the width of the eight-year gap between herself and
her niece. But mainly she was amused at the notion of the obviously
virile Kedrington in a grandfatherly role.

This last seemed to have occurred to his lordship as well, for an
incipient smile played over his harsh features, giving Antonia a fleeting
picture of what he must have looked like at Isabel’s age. But he was twice that now, and while Antonia had to be grateful that Isabel had recognised
the fact, even if her aunt had not, she had an impulse to take her to task
for her unintended discourtesy.

But Kedrington caught Antonia’s eye
just then, and smiled, so that she knew he was more amused than
offended, and he answered Isabel’s question by saying that no sensible
person would wish to be seen
everywhere
, for then people might come to
expect to see them
anywhere
, which did no one’s credit any good.

Presently the company repaired to the drawing room, Antonia saying that the second principle of hospitality at Wyckham was that ladies and gentlemen were not separated merely to allow the former to enjoy a
comfortable prose and the latter their cigars and port. Anthony Fairfax
had never seen any reason that a sufficiently large drawing room should
not accommodate both interests, and the elder Miss Fairfax poured wine
for the gentlemen in expert fashion.

She then recommended to Mrs Curtiz that she give the viscount a tour of the portrait gallery; carefully placed Isabel within Mr Gary’s line of
vision; and drew Isabel’s doting godfather off to inspect a marble mantel
piece recently unearthed from a storage shed and added to the decor.

However, Imogen promptly upset this little manoeuvre by beginning the
tour with a portrait of Maria Fairfax in her wedding gown, which hung
over the mantel in question, causing Kedrington to turn his eyes in that direction. With a change in the conversation, the rest of him followed.
He pursued Antonia steadily around the room and toward the windows,
where, she having exhausted her schemes to avoid a tête-à-tête with him,
he caught her behind a large bowl of hothouse flowers and well out of earshot of the others.

“Why, Lord Kedrington,” she said, assuming the offensive, “how persistent you are! I thought we had quite worn you down.”

“If either you or your niece makes any further reference to my advanced
state of decrepitude, Miss Fairfax, I shall expire on your carpet and leave
you the unenviable task of removing my emaciated remains to the
churchyard.”

He made this remark in so absurdly petulant a tone that Antonia gave
way to a smile. “I do beg your pardon, my lord, but I assure you,
Isabel’s ... ah, reference ... was as much a shock to me as it was to you!”

“Pray do not mention it to her,” he said, dropping his affronted pose.
“She never meant it in any but the most innocent way and would only be
mortified to have any ulterior motive ascribed to her.”

“You are very perceptive,” she remarked, a little surprised to find him
so.

But he gracefully forestalled any gratitude she might have expressed by
saying, “I am sorry not to meet your sister-in-law this evening. I trust her
indisposition is not a serious one?”

“It is serious in the sense of chronic, but the indisposition is mainly for
effect,” Antonia told him. When he looked puzzled, she explained, “Maria has chosen to make herself more interesting by pretending to be
an invalid. We have found it kinder to allow her this little eccentricity
than to attempt to dissuade her from it.”

She hoped that her voice did not reflect her reluctance to mention Maria at all, but Kedrington appeared to find nothing amiss, merely
noting by the way that he had an elderly relation who was much the
same.

“She will not accompany you to London, then?” he enquired.

“Good heavens, no! She will be delighted to have the run of the
house—figuratively speaking, of course—and no one to censure her behaviour or screen her guests when we are away.”

“Do you do so?”

“Not at all. But it pleases Maria to believe I do.”

There was a pause before he said, “How is it that your younger brother
did not sell out at the time of your elder brother’s death?”

“There was no immediate need for him to do so. Anthony had named me to the temporary charge of Wyckham, with power of attorney. I
expect he was taking into account Carey’s great eagerness to join up. He
knew that he would not come back if it could be prevented.”

“Army-mad.”

“Yes.” She laughed ruefully, saying, “Oh, dear, what a set of irrespon
sible characters you must think us! I suppose it is too much to expect of
you to believe that, despite our overrated charm, we Fairfaxes also enjoy a
wide reputation for loyalty and kind intentions?”