The Outrageous Debutante (24 page)

So, clad in a loose-fitting silk-and-lace robe, Eleanor sat and waited for someone to come and entertain her. Sarah had said that she would call. She would bring patterns for furnishings. And news of any local events or interesting gossip. They would pass a pleasant hour or so.

But until then—a letter lay unopened in Eleanor’s lap. Her mother’s astringent comments were always guaranteed to entertain. Mrs Stamford was in London for a few weeks of the Season,
before going to Bath to drink the waters. She had been complaining of the rheumatics in her shoulders and hoped for a miracle at the fashionable spa. Eleanor opened the letter with pleasure at the number of closely written sheets and read for a short while.

A clatter on the stairs heralded an interruption. Eleanor smiled and folded the sheets away There would be no further quiet reading of a letter yet.

‘Mama!’ A sturdy child, tall for his age of almost four years, bounded into the room, with a small black dog of indeterminate origin at his heels, to slide to a halt before the day bed, the dog flopping beside him and panting loudly in the heat.

‘You must come and see, Mama. We have a new horse. Papa says he is for me. That I can feed and groom him—and ride him all by myself.’

Eleanor saw the Faringdon inheritance in her son and her heart turned over in her breast. Her own eyes sparkled out of the youthful face, to be sure. But the rest was pure Faringdon. Dark hair, dense and glossy as a crow’s wing. Straight nose, firm chin, the curves of babyhood beginning to disappear to reveal aristocratic cheekbones. Splendidly arched brows. And a remarkable curled lip, uncannily reminiscent of his father, at the silent reference to the despised leading rein. He was very like his father. All energy and determination, at present overflowing and uncontrolled in youth, but she had seen the adult version in her husband, combined with a certain self-assurance, arrogance even. Tom would ride the horse alone and would pester until allowed to do so. She could not help hoping that her imminent child would be a daughter with a little more of her own softer characteristics in evidence.

‘I will come,’ she assured her son. ‘A little later in the day when it is cooler. You can show me everything then.’ She stretched out her hand to touch his untidy hair, chuckling as he tossed his head with impatience. Another Faringdon trait.

‘He has a black mane and tail and has no name. Papa says I can choose.’

‘And so you shall. What have you been doing?’ His clothes were distinctly the worse for wear and his hair had a faint sheen of dust. ‘At breakfast, as I recall, you were very clean and tidy.’

‘Helping Nat in the warehouse.’

Mr Bridges, she considered, deserved a gold medallion for patience. Tom was at the stage where everything must be investigated and questioned.

‘You should call him Mr Bridges. Have you been a nuisance?’

‘He says to call him Nat. So I do. He does not mind if I help him. He says I talk a lot for someone my size. Are you sure you’ll not come now to see the new horse, Mama?’ Tom hopped from one foot to the other.

Before she could reply, more footsteps approached the room. Eleanor turned her face to the door, her eyes alight with joy.

Hal. Her adored Hal.

He stepped into the room. ‘I see that you are being propositioned.’ And smiled. Devastatingly. Causing the colour in Eleanor’s cheeks to deepen at the realisation that he was here and that he was hers.

‘Yes.’

‘Mama says that she will come later,’ Tom explained, hoping for a change of plan now that his father, who could achieve all things, was present.

‘I will bring her down to the stables when the temperature drops.’

‘Promise?’

‘Of course.’ He grinned in understanding of the boy’s enthusiasms. ‘Now, why don’t you go and look at the pony again—and think of a name before your mama sees him. There is a new bridle for you to use, as well.’

Tom opened his mouth as if to say more, but when Henry shook his head, his face broke into a replica grin before he clapped his hands over his mouth and giggled through his fingers.

‘I didn’t say, Papa. It’s a secret.’

‘I know. So go before you do.’

At that, boy and dog left at speed.

Which left them together.

‘What was all that about?’ Eleanor stretched out her hand in invitation.

‘Nothing for you to worry about.’ He removed his riding coat, casting it carelessly over a chairback, and covered the ground between them in easy strides.

‘You can keep a secret better than your son! He’ll tell me, you know.’ Her eyes told him all the secrets of her heart.

‘I know it. It will not matter.’ Henry bent to kiss her, gently, little more than a brush of lips, but with the low heat of passion that was always there. ‘Nell. You look wonderful.’

She sniffed. ‘You, my love, smell of wood and … spices?’

‘I have been in the warehouse. Do you object?’

‘No. Better than the stables! Come and sit with me.’

He sat beside her, easing her body so that she could lay back comfortably against his shoulder and side, his arms supporting her. ‘I am pleased to see that you are following orders.’

‘Have I any choice?’ She tilted her chin to look up at him, her lips in a little pout of mock displeasure. ‘You threatened to lock me in my bedchamber and to tie my ankle to the bed if I came down to see what you and Tom were doing once more.’

He laughed. ‘It will not be long.’ Was there perhaps a hint of anxiety in his reassurance? Eleanor thought there was and understood.

‘No. Not long.’ She lifted his hand and laid it on her belly where the child kicked.

‘Lively?’

‘Oh, yes!’ She could feel his smile against her hair.

‘You are more beautiful now than the day I met you.’

‘I shall be even more so when I have something resembling a waist again.’

He turned his face into her hair, kissing the elegant curve of her ear and then all the way to her temple, featherlight caresses where the curls lay damply.

‘I see that you have a letter from your dear mama.’ There was a dry edge to his voice. The relationship between Henry and Mrs Stamford had always had an edge. ‘Now, can I guess—gossip?
Who is wearing what? Who is speaking to whom? She wishes you were not so far away—and for preference not with me?’ He lifted the weight of pages. ‘How can anyone write so much about so little?’

‘As ever, my love—you have it in a nutshell. Although she has forgiven you, I think. She wishes that she could see the new baby, of course. It is understandable that she regrets the distance. By the by, did any news come from Nicholas in the business packet?’

‘No. Why? Were we expecting some?’

‘Aha! Then I have news for you, Hal. Nicholas is in London. The social thing. Probably encouraged by Beatrice.’

‘Summoned more like, knowing my aunt. Very noble of him. I doubt he’ll stay the pace long. Almack’s was never his scene.’

‘Nor yours, I remember! But he might surprise you. Mama says that he is dancing attendance on a very handsome débutante.’

Hal raised his brows. ‘Well, he has done that before. He is hardly immune to the fair sex.’

‘But this time he seems to be very taken. She is very handsome. With a fortune. Her father is one of our foreign ambassadors, so she is well connected. Although a trifle unconventional, according to my mama. Perhaps even a touch fast.’ Eleanor’s eyes twinkled at the prospect of such a lady engaging Nicholas’s affections.

‘That does not sound like Nicholas.’

‘Mama says that she
reads
. And dances the waltz even though it is her first Season. She rides a grey Arab in the Park with considerable dash and has been seen in a high-perch phaeton—driving
alone
without a groom or maid in attendance! She is quite sophisticated—has travelled somewhere in the deserts, although exactly where Mama is unsure. I do not think that she approves.’

‘Well, that is hardly surprising!’ Henry considered the news. ‘Apart from the grey Arab, it sounds even less like Nicholas. But perhaps he will marry at last. I wish him well if he has found a lady who can win his heart.’

‘Is that all you have to say?’

‘Nicholas has kissed the pretty fingers of any number of débutantes to my knowledge. Why should this one be any different?’

‘Well, as long as he does not marry Amelia Hawkes!’

‘Who?’

‘Sir William Hawkes’s daughter. Surely you recall—your neighbour’s daughter at Burford Hall. Although perhaps you don’t … Anyway, the poor girl has been sighing over Nicholas and his horses for as long as I can remember! And, in my opinion, without the least hope of success. I hope that I am not to be proved wrong.’

‘Perhaps you had better write and tell him so! But Nicholas will do just what he likes. As always.’

‘Just like you.’

‘Exactly. A Faringdon failing.’ He linked his fingers with hers, a symbol of unity. ‘I wanted you. And look what happened. Despite all the hurdles.’

‘And it took no persuasion on my part?’

‘A little,’ he had the grace to admit, remembering her determined occupation of his cabin on the
Sea Emerald
before he sailed back to America, her refusal to leave. Her sheer determination to ride roughshod over any principles he might have over the affair.

‘And look how grateful you are.’ Eleanor’s fingers tightened on his.

‘You do not know the half of it.’ Suddenly sober, he held her and their unborn child close, unbearably moved by the memory of how close they had come to losing each other and the possibility of a future together.

Where Sarah found them some half an hour later.

Life in New York suited Mrs Sarah Russell very well. Her restrained manner, her nervous pallor, which Eleanor and Henry remembered from those anxious days in London when she had been forced by her brother to pose against her will as nursemaid to her own child, had completely vanished. She was no longer permanently ridden by guilt and shame at the despicable actions of Sir Edward Baxendale, and also of herself by his manipulation of her. The unqualified love and acceptance from the Faringdons
had done much to help her heal and regain some small degree of self-respect. Now twenty-five years old, widowed and mother to an overwhelming five-year-old, she was brisk, confident and capable, enjoying an independent life, far from the powerful influence of her brother. She never mentioned him. His sins, as far as she was concerned, were too great. Likewise her sister-in-law Octavia, so weak that she would obey Edward’s commands to the letter. Whatever the ease of Sarah’s relationship with Henry and Eleanor Faringdon, it was not appropriate to remind anyone in this household that her own name by birth had been Baxendale.

She had left her son John with Tom and Nathaniel Bridges in the warehouse and climbed the stairs to the newly furnished boudoir, knowing that she would find Eleanor there, and set herself to entertain in these final trying days. The door on to the wide corridor was open, to catch any passing current of air, so she simply entered. She did not stand on ceremony in this house.

But the domestic scene, so relaxed and yet so intimate, made her hesitate and blush a little at her intrusion, until she saw and answered Eleanor’s smile of welcome and continued into the room.

‘You look comfortable.’

‘It is all relative,’ Eleanor muttered darkly.

‘And only until she shuffles and twitches again—in about ten seconds, I should imagine, on past experience.’ Henry winced a little and laughed as a sharp elbow found his ribs.

‘But I am so uncomfortable—the heat and the lack of air. When I carried Tom, it was England and in winter.’ Eleanor slanted a look up into Henry’s face. ‘I do not know why I am apologising to you, Hal! Some would say that it is all your fault!’

‘Then, my love, I must accept all the blame.’

‘Well, you
look
exceptionally content.’ Sarah took a seat and lowered the books of furnishings and patterns to the floor to hide the sharp stab of envy. The love between them was so tangible, so all-consuming, the glance between them exclusive, effectively shutting out all others. He might well have kissed her—as he was not averse to doing in public. As a sharp stab to her heart, it made
Sarah regret her own widowed state, long for strong arms to hold her against her fears when the nights were dark, someone as intense and passionate as Henry Faringdon. She took a deep breath. Better not, she told herself quickly. Better that she should rejoice in her freedom to make her own decisions, determine her own lifestyle. She had had enough of domineering men, however attractive they might be.

‘Here is someone who will appreciate Mama’s news.’ Eleanor shuffled into a cooler spot, a mischievous smile for Sarah.

‘What’s that?’ Sarah untied the ribbons of her bonnet, dropped it on the floor at her side with a sigh of relief.

‘Nicholas and a débutante.’

‘Ah. Some London gossip.’ Her eyes shone. ‘Do tell. Is it serious?’

‘So Mama thinks.’ Eleanor searched the pages in her hand for the name. ‘A Miss Wooton-Devereux, indeed,’ she finally announced. ‘Rich
and
beautiful. What more could he want to bring him solace as he runs the Burford acres with such fiendish efficiency?’

There was no corresponding humour in Sarah’s reply. ‘Oh … Oh, no.’ It was certainly not the response that Eleanor had expected. ‘What … what was the name again?’ Sarah had become quite still. Eleanor noticed that her hands had suddenly clenched into tight fists on the skirt of her gown.

‘Miss Wooton-Devereux,’ she repeated, a little frown between her brows. ‘Do you know of her?’

Sarah passed her tongue over dry lips, conscious that the air seemed to press down on her with a great weight so that she felt a little dizzy. ‘Do you … do you know the lady’s first name?’

‘Mama said that it was something out of the common way. Let me see … Ah, yes—Theodora. Why … what is it, Sarah? Are you unwell?’

Suddenly finding it difficult to breathe in the hot still air, the lady pressed her hands to her face. It seemed that the past, with all its burden of guilt and intrigue, had fallen once again at her feet, to harm and destroy. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she managed to say.
‘That a malicious fate should have brought her …’ Her words ended on something suspiciously like a sob.