The Bridal Season (7 page)

“Obviously.”

She glanced sharply at him, thinking she’d heard laughter in
his voice, but he appeared quite sober.

“Thank you. And as a woman of the world, I find that those
things that most appeal to me are most often found amidst the bright lights of
civilization.”

“Yes?”

“Oh, I grant you, rustication is very peaceful and quaint and
I suppose if one were convalescing from an illness or suffering from a nervous
disorder, living in the country would be ... all right... but I am quite robust
and not given to nerves.”

“And here I thought all ladies, even women of the world, liked
to be thought appealingly fragile.”

Lady Fallontrue had always pleaded some malaise or another
when she’d wanted something from her husband. Letty had despised her for it. It
was one thing to manipulate gentlemen on a level playing field, but it was
quite another to victimize a man by making use of one of the few decent
qualities he might own.

“What,” she asked, stopping, “is ‘appealing’ about weakness?”

He studied her before answering. “You have a forthright way
with words, Lady Agatha. It is most refreshing.”

“Comes from owning my own business, I imagine,” she said.
“This wedding thingie, you know.”

She hesitated and then, encouraged by some misplaced desire to
draw Sir Elliot out, she said, “My experiences have led me to believe that
honesty in conversation, while not always strictly diplomatic, is the most
rewarding.” As soon as she said the words, she realized how hypocritical they
were. She blushed and was glad the night hid her heated cheeks.

“I shall endeavor to remember your good advice,” he said. He’d
withdrawn his hand from her arm when they’d stopped; she rather missed it.

“I must own, I
am
thought somewhat sage,” she said
modestly.

“Are you? By whom?” She shot a sharp sideways glance at him,
but his bland expression put to rest the dawning suspicion that he was teasing
her.

“Oh, all sorts of people,” she said airily. “Tradesmen,
servants, actresses, actors, singers, artists ... They come to me, tell me their
troubles, and ask my advice.”

An idea had begun to form in her imagination. She had no right
entertaining it, let alone acting on it, but that had never stopped her before
and it didn’t stop her now. He was simply too handsome to spend his life
mourning the loss of “Saint Catherine.”

“Yes. Why just the other day, Mrs. Dodgson—You do know Mrs.
Elmore Dodgson, do you not? No? Oh. You must endeavor to be introduced.
Charming woman.

“At any rate, the other day Mrs. Dodgson was lamenting the
fate of her son Charles.” She leaned closer to him. He smelled nice. Soapy and
male. “I tell you this in the strictest confidence, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Well, Charles had developed a tendresse for a young lady,
feelings he had every reason to believe were reciprocated and that he’d hoped
would end in...” She searched about the imaginary Charles’s ultimate goal.

“A wedding thingie?” Sir Elliot suggested helpfully.

“Exactly! But then, just as their relationship was popping
along smoothly, her father required that she go abroad for a long while. When
she returned, he discovered her feelings had changed.” She fixed him with a
telling stare. “Charles has been moping about ever since.”

“Poor fellow.”

Once more she stopped walking. Once more he followed suit. She
met his gaze squarely.

“Poor fellow, nothing,” she said. “Self-pitying fellow.
Foolish, self-indulgent fellow.
Uselessly-pining-after-a-floozy-who’d-proven-herself-both-shallow-and-immature
fellow.”

He strangled a sound in his throat. Ah. So, he’d not missed
her veiled reference, then.

“You don’t believe that po—pitiful Charles’s lengthy mourning
for his lost love indicates the, er, depth of his feelings?” he asked.

“Pining after what can never be for months—or years—doesn’t
testify to the depth of a man’s love, it testifies to his predisposition toward
melodrama. The stage already has enough cheap histrionics without amateurs
adding their voices. Believe me. And that is precisely what I told Mrs.
Dodgson.”

She’d been perhaps a trifle obvious in her little fiction and
prepared herself to meet stony silence in return for her charitable hints.
Instead, he burst out laughing. It was a deep, rich laugh, warm and full.

“My dear Lady Agatha,” he said, “I daresay no one ever accuses
you of rank sentimentality. Wherever did you learn to take such a hard view of
life?”

Hard?
He thought her
hard?
The idea hurt. She
considered herself practical, tough, a bit of an opportunist, but an optimistic
one. She’d never thought of herself as “hard.” Nick was hard.

She disliked the word applied to her. Immensely. And since she
disliked it, she answered without stopping to think.

“I’ve had to be,” she said, and then too late realized that
Lady Agatha had probably never “had” to do anything in her life. “I mean, in my
years of planning nuptial ceremonies I’ve seen many couples wed. They are
seldom fairy-tale unions. No matter how very much one wants them to be. Perhaps
if one sees disillusionment often enough, after a while one becomes inured to
it.”

He moved close to her, his brow furrowed. He gazed out into
the darkness and after a moment said, “You’ll do your best for Miss Angela’s
particular fairy tale though, won’t you?”

“Of course.” She began walking forward. His hand stayed her.
She turned. His hand dropped to his side. “Excuse me.”

But she’d seen the question in his eyes. “I promise I will do
everything in my power to make this wedding go as smoothly and uneventfully as
possible.”

And in her case, her best efforts meant vacating The Hollies
as soon as possible. But since she’d promised, she decided that when she
slipped off she’d leave the Bigglesworths a note advising them to find another
wedding planner. That should satisfy him. Certainly she’d be doing more than
the real Lady Agatha to assure the “smooth uneventfulness” of the Bigglesworth nuptials.
She hadn’t even written. Yet.

Sir Elliot offered her his arm and she took it, feeling
somehow that he’d won concessions from her she’d not intended to give. “You
must be in some way related to the Bigglesworths to be so concerned.”

“Not by blood, but certainly by association,” he said. “I grew
up on the estate between here and the Himplerumps. My mother died when I was
very young. The Bigglesworths more or less adopted my brother and me while my
father went through a rather rough period of adjustment.

“Anton was an excellent surrogate uncle and Eglantyne was
always motherly without ever presuming to take the place of my mother. Their
efforts were much appreciated,” he finished softly.

“And is your brother also appreciative?” Letty asked
curiously.

“While he lived,” Elliot said. “Terry died in Africa, during a
military campaign.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” he replied, robbing her of the uneasiness of
having stumbled unwittingly into private matters. “And you, Lady Agatha, your
family is quite large.”

His comment ambushed her. Was he speaking from certain
knowledge that Lady Agatha’s family was large or from an assumption?

“A large extended family,” she said carefully.

“I recall.”

Drat!
Why did he have to know
anything
about
Lady Agatha’s family? Because every muck-a-muck in Society knew every other
muck-a-muck, that’s why. They probably spent free evenings poring over Burke’s
Peerage. She should have realized it.

She smiled without replying.

“And I also recall that personal experience must give you sympathy
for uneven matrimonial matches,” he said earnestly.

What sort of personal experience? He must be speaking of some
particular incident. Had Lady Agatha nearly made a disastrous match? Is that
why she was still a spinster? Was there something unsavory in her past that
she’d had to overcome?

“Your grandmother’s own story was most illustrative.”

Lady Agatha’s grandmother! Letty thought in relief, but it was
short-lived. She didn’t know anything more about the old lady’s peccadillo than
she did Lady Agatha’s. He waited. Drat it all. She’d have to say something.

“I didn’t know anyone still talked about... that.”

She imbued her voice with frost. “It was a long time ago.”

He was immediately contrite. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to
discomfort you. I do not like to think of myself as a snob, nor would I like
you to think me one.”

Snob? Than Granny Whyte had done something scandalous.
Something that had caused her to lose her social standing. What had it been?
Child out of wedlock? Cheating at cards? Caught with a lover?

“Oh, not discomfort. I am just surprised that something so,”
she took a leap of faith based on his wording, “lurid should interest you.”

He shot her a quick glance. “I am afraid I have overstepped
myself and caused you unease. I am sorry.”

“Think nothing of it.” She breathed an inner sigh of relief.
However, just to circumvent any future problem, she should pry what Granny
Whyte’s sin had been out of the Bigglesworths.

What was she thinking of? She wouldn’t be around long enough
for it to matter. A day. Perhaps two.

But having successfully wriggled out of one difficulty filled
Letty with a feeling of omnipotence. She reminded herself of the warning she’d
given herself this very evening and promptly dismissed her earlier caution as a
case of the jitters.

The night was lovely, she was free of Nick Sparkle, Sir Elliot
was completely taken in by her, and she had a whole day in which to pretend to
be the witty, sophisticated, admired Lady Agatha. Perhaps, she thought,
glancing at Sir Elliot’s clean profile, two days.

He led her silently to the entrance by which she’d left the
house. At the door she turned to face him. She smiled. “Thank you for the walk,
Sir Elliot. I enjoyed it.”

“No more than I.”

“Will we see you tomorrow, then?”

“Most definitely,” he said, his low, intense voice sending a
delicious ripple up her spine.

He lifted her hand to his mouth and dipped down, brushing a
kiss against her hand. His lips were warm and soft, so warm and soft that she
failed to note the chill in his smile when he took his leave.

Give me a strong back

over a soft heart.

WHO WAS SHE, if she wasn't Lady Agatha Whyte? Why would
anyone want to impersonate her? He must be wrong. . ..

Elliot raked his fingers through his hair.

It had been such a long, long time since he’d been so
intensely aware of a woman. He flexed his hand, seeing the tanned outline of
his fingers imprinted on her lace gown. He could feel her waist beneath his
palms as he’d lifted her down from the wall. He could hear her laughter, see
the merry tilt of her lips, smell the fragrant warmth of her rising from her
skin ...

He shook his hand, as if in doing so he could shake off his
awareness of her. She couldn’t be an imposter, a filthy confidence trickster.

He scoured his mind for some other explanation for her
extraordinary behavior. Perhaps she’d come here on a wager. He remembered
enough of his days amongst the ton to know it wasn’t impossible that in their
boredom or mischievousness or both, one of her set had dared her to impersonate
Lady Agatha. Perhaps Lady Agatha herself.

Or maybe she was Lady Agatha and simply a confirmed eccentric.
Certainly the reports he’d heard of her suggested such. And that might account
for her occasional startling lapses into street argot. Though it couldn’t
account for her dress. Even the oddest lady he knew would rather die than
remain a moment longer than necessary in the gown in which she’d traveled.

And how to explain her youth? For not all the creams and
salves in the world could imbue the buoyancy in her step, the porcelain
whiteness to her eye, or the rich sheen to her hair.

And finally, tellingly, how did one account for the fact that
Lady Agatha Whyte did not know that her grandmother, the eighth daughter of an
inconsequential Irish landowner, had, through judicious console and blameless
reputation, become one of Queen Victoria’s ladies-in-waiting?

Clearly
this
Lady Agatha thought he’d been speaking of
some disgrace attached to her grandmother.

There was none.

He’d referred to the fact that even though she’d begun so
humbly—like Angela—Lady Agatha’s grandmother had risen to be not only accepted
but also feted by Society. No breath of scandal had ever touched her. Indeed,
she’d been famous for her virtue. Nothing in her history had ever been referred
to as ‘something so lurid.’

The woman had to be an impostor.

Didn’t she? Unless she’d been referring to her other
grandmother... About whom he knew nothing.

He moved away from the stables, heading for the house, his
face set. Tomorrow he’d telegraph London and begin making some discreet
inquiries. The answer, he knew, could be some time coming. In the meantime,
he’d stay very, very close to this lady.

Whoever she was.

Letty spread her arms wide and fell straight back, sinking
deep into the feather mattress. Fagin, bounced rudely awake, grumbled and
settled down again.

Letty glanced at the mantel clock. Two o’clock in the morning
and she’d just finished unpacking Lady Agatha’s things. She’d been too
wide-awake after her evening stroll with Sir Elliot to even think of sleeping.
She looked around with satisfaction.

Strewn over every surface in the room were dresses and
materials, some still in bolts of yardage and others in tissue-wrapped parcels:
Sheerest batiste, thick polished brocades, glimmering faille and shimmering
silk, dense lustrous satin, rippling crepe de chine, and gauzy muslin, tissues
and sarcenets, moirés and tulles. The variety was amazing. And the colors
endless!