The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton (18 page)

Chapter 22

Dressing well is the best revenge.

“A
re you quite sure you can spare Chantal?” Celia asked.

“For the dozenth time, yes. You’ll be doing me a favor. She loves Mandeville and was quite disgusted when I didn’t marry Blakeney.” Diana patted her son’s back and he dribbled milk onto her shoulder. “Look at this. As long as Aldus emits a constant stream of drool there’s no hope for me. I look dreadful and I don’t care.”

“Hardly dreadful. Perhaps your hair is a little less perfect than usual.”

“You’ll get much more respect at Mandeville if you have your own maid. And she’ll make sure you look your best. The Duke and Duchess of Amesbury have dozens of guests every summer and these gatherings of the
ton
can be intimidating.”

Celia nodded. “I remember all too well from my brief London season.”

“I do too.” That the elegant Lady Iverley had ever been an awkward debutante was hard to fathom, but Diana assured her it was so. “Even later, when I was a wealthy widow, I received frequent snubs. Remember you are just as good as they are and never let them see you care about their scorn. Being beautifully dressed is the first line of defense.”

“I can’t thank you enough for all your help.”

“I’ve enjoyed it, and I’ll miss you. We all will. You’ll come back for the christening, of course.”

Celia reached into her pocket. “I have a present for Aldus. It’s not much, I’m afraid, but it’s all I have. It was my mother’s when she was a child and she passed it on to me.”

The cook had provided her with a rag and some silver whiting, a paste of tartar and water with a little wine spirit. She’d sat at the kitchen table and rubbed every scrap of tarnish off the battered rattle, polished it until it glowed. Alas, the cleaning revealed every flaw: scratches in the small handle, just the right size for a baby’s chubby fist; several dents and a crack in the side of the sphere containing the rattler.

“I’m afraid it’s rather the worse for all its travels. It doesn’t even make much of a noise.”

Diana took it and shook it near the face of her son who now lay quietly in a cradle next to her chair. He regarded it without apparent interest. “He’s too young but he’ll love it later. And I love it now. Old toys have so much character. Every blemish tells a story from a child’s past. Perhaps you cracked it fighting off a poisonous Indian snake.”

“You wouldn’t want your infant anywhere near a cobra. I don’t remember playing with it, any more than I remember my mother. I was too young.”

Diana touched her hand. “Are you quite sure you can spare it? I’ll understand if you prefer to keep it.”

Celia’s eyes welled up. “I want Aldus to have it as a small token of my gratitude. You’ve welcomed me like a family. Or at least as I imagine a family does.”

“You told me your mother died when you were four. Who brought you up? Was your father an attentive parent? Mine was, as you may imagine, but gentlemen aren’t always like that.”

The questions were too close to things never spoken of and better forgotten. “My father traveled on business a great deal. The rest of the time I lived with the native servants.” An answer repeated so often she almost believed it to be the whole truth.

“Did your father never think to remarry?”

“There were few English ladies available.” Another truth.

“You must have been lonely.”

“Sometimes.” It was impossible to explain the nature of her situation in her father’s household, though for once she was tempted to try. Mr. Twistleton and Lady Trumper were the last of a line of advisors who’d strongly cautioned against frankness. “I shall miss you all,” she said instead.

“Perhaps you will be a member of our family one day. Oh dear! I may start weeping.”

“Me too.”

The entrance of Lord Iverley put paid to the impulse to either confidence or lamentation. “The carriage is ready. Your luggage has been loaded and Tarquin is waiting.”

C
elia hadn’t imagined a house as large as Mandeville. The Palladian mansion with its massive central portico and two sprawling wings was as big as a town and the front door large enough to admit a carriage. As they passed through the hall into a huge oval receiving room, topped with a high dome, Tarquin’s presence was a comfort. She resisted the urge to clutch and crease his tailored arm.

The splendor of the surroundings appeared not to affect him. Why would it? He’d grown up in such a house, under the guardianship of the Duke of Amesbury. For all she knew that particular ducal home might dwarf this one.

Liveried servants brought their bags from the Montroses’ elderly carriage and led them up a grand staircase, the beginning of a long journey to their rooms. Celia tried to take note of the route, imagining herself lost in the endless maze of corridors. Much to her relief, she was told there would be a footman on duty all day in the guest wing, should she need assistance. They reached her room first.

“I’ll see you downstairs later,” Tarquin said and left her feeling small and lonely.

Luckily she had Chantal, who made no secret of her delight at being in a house worthy of her status as a first class dresser. The maid was less pleased when she saw the size of her room. “When I came with milady last year,” she complained, “we had one of the best rooms with a view of the
grande allée
. That was when I thought milady would wed Milord Blakeney. This is a closet.”

“I’m sorry, Chantal. I believe there are a great many people staying here so perhaps nothing better was available.”

“It doesn’t matter, but there is no dressing room or place for me. I shall have to sleep in the servants’ quarters.”

Though there’d been times in India when she enjoyed considerable luxury, in England Celia was accustomed to small bedchambers, first in Lady Trumper’s cramped Mayfair house and then as governess with a family of respectable but modest means. She found her Mandeville quarters more than adequate. The furnishings, including a washstand, wardrobe, chest of drawers, dressing table, and small escritoire, seemed lavish to her. The floor was carpeted and the bed and window curtained in chintz that had certainly been imported from India and made her feel quite at home.

After a carriage journey of three miles she was hardly travel-stained, but Chantal subjected every inch of her apparel to a minute inspection and tidied up her ever-unruly hair. The maid wouldn’t allow her to be seen in public until pronounced
impeccable
.

Half an hour later, when a footman led her downstairs, she was grateful. She might not be the prettiest or most elegant of the ladies, but at least she looked good enough not to embarrass anyone. If she’d had to see to her own toilette she’d have appeared the country bumpkin she was. The knowledge that her attire was in fashion and her grooming flawless gave her the confidence to face a palatial saloon filled with the rich, the powerful, and the beautiful. She had a fleeting fancy that Tarquin’s exquisite appearance was inspired by a similar need to face a critical world in full armor.

What nonsense. Tarquin Compton had no need of armor. He was born to this world and had never known a moment’s doubt in his pampered life.

T
arquin settled into his large and luxurious chamber with a sense of relief, delighted to be reunited with his valet and not to be sharing a room with Henry Montrose. It wasn’t London, but he was on home territory, a haunt of the beau monde. He stood at the tall double windows and looked out at the vista of Mandeville’s famous Grand Avenue, leading up a hill to a triumphal Roman arch. The grounds contained an artificial lake and half a dozen classical follies, set amidst carefully arranged plantations. If he had to be in the country, this was as it should be: nature tamed by art and subordinated to the service of mankind.

An excellent setting, come to think of it, for a dandy. Some fifteen years ago Lord Hugo had found him cowering beneath the steel slipper of the Duchess of Amesbury and introduced him to the art of the tailor. Hugo’s kindness had taught the unhappy schoolboy a lesson he never forgot: that being well dressed was the best defense.

Hard on that thought came another vision: the freedom of striding the hills barefoot and laughing at the open skies, the wild beauty of Yorkshire. Of home.

Ridiculous. He thrust it aside and descended to the
piano nobile
and the state rooms, symbols of the Duke of Hampton’s wealth and power and thrown open to impress a large gathering of the nation’s most influential subjects. He had a duty to see Celia comfortably settled.

He found her alone in the corner of a crowded drawing room, looking anxious, the fearless Amazon of the moors cribbed, cabined, and confined by society.

“Are you acquainted with anyone here?” he asked.

“Not a soul but you,” she said. “I suppose you know everyone.”

“Probably.” He looked around and didn’t find a single unfamiliar face.

“You are lucky to have so many friends.”

Friends? Were they friends? A few of them were better than acquaintances, people he liked: men he boxed and fenced and dined with; ladies who invited him to their parties and eagerly consulted him on matters of taste. But none of them was an intimate. Sebastian Iverley, the Marquis of Chase, and above all Hugo were the only people in the world worthy of that designation. In the loftiest circles of the English
ton
, where he was universally accepted and admired, few people were important to him.

He found the idea unsettling and unwelcome.

“Have you met your hostess?” he asked. “I’ll take you to her.”

Although he didn’t particularly mix with the political set, he of course knew the Duke and Duchess of Hampton. The latter, a clever woman whom even Tarquin found a little intimidating, received them without a great deal of interest, beyond inquiring after the health of the Iverleys, and her neighbors the Montroses.

“Where is the duke?” Celia whispered as they departed the regal presence.

“No doubt closeted with some gentlemen, deciding the fate of nations.”

“Wouldn’t Minerva love to be there!”

“She’d set them straight in no time.”

“Cousin!” Their conversation was interrupted by a fashionable couple, approaching him arm in arm. “What a surprise to see you!”

Bowing politely, he introduced them to Celia. He never could remember how this particular pair was related to him but the young matron with an unfortunate penchant for lavender and lace always claimed him enthusiastically. She wouldn’t, of course, dare to openly solicit his praise of her gown. But she preened and adjusted her gauze shawl, clearly angling for his opinion. She should count herself lucky he didn’t give it.

Her husband possessed less self-preservation. “What do you think of my waistcoat?” he asked as they exchanged greetings, gazing hopefully up at Tarquin from his eight-inch disadvantage.

Tarquin surveyed the offending garment, made prominent by too many good dinners settling in its wearer’s stomach. “I do believe it matches your wife’s gown,” he said with a polite bow toward the lady. “The pair of you could start a fashion. Please excuse me. I see someone I know.”

He wondered if they felt complimented and if so, whether they would persuade any of their friends that his-and-hers matching clothes were the new thing.

Celia, who had lost the pinched look she’d worn when he first joined her, regarded the departing couple with a mischievous smile. “So you think they will? Start a fashion, I mean.”

“Perhaps. Last year Sebastian set off a rage for peacock feathers in bonnets when he told someone I’d said they were the latest mode.”

“Good Lord. Just because
you
said so?”

“Just because
he said
I said so.”

“I don’t believe it!”

“I’m afraid it’s true.”

“I knew you were powerful but that is absurd.”

“Quite absurd,” he agreed. “It lasted two weeks before some intelligent lady realized it was all nonsense.”

“I should like to meet
her
.”

They laughed in cautious amity.

The peacock feather affair had been an amusing episode. Even more amusing had been the challenge of turning Iverley from a shabby bookworm into a man of fashion. But otherwise, Tarquin realized, in the last couple of years he’d found
ton
entertaients tended to get repetitious. Climbing the ladder to the pinnacle of fashionable power had been fun. Ruling from on high lacked variety and spice. Perhaps he needed a new challenge.

Celia looked about her, bright-eyed and smiling. He had never seen her bored, and he’d never been bored by her. Infuriated, certainly. Fascinated and entranced even, when he wasn’t in his right mind. The picture of her naked to the winds, her face transformed with bliss, swam into his brain. He beat it back.

That was not the new challenge he needed.

With relief he greeted the approach of half a dozen ladies and gentlemen. He presented Celia to the party, concluding with Lady Georgina Harville and her sister, a dim girl wearing over-trimmed yellow muslin and a hopeful smile.