The Outrageous Debutante (30 page)

Edward watched the uncertainties flit across his sister’s face and worked to preserve a bland appearance. So far, so good.

‘Listen.’ He stood and stretched out a hand to bring Thea to her feet. ‘That will be Octavia. Now you can meet her—my very dear wife.’

So Theodora met the lady in question. A fair lady, slender almost to the point of thinness, with pale eyes that seemed reluctant to rest for long. Pretty enough, but the fine lines in the delicate skin of her face suggested a life touched with grief, perhaps nervous strain. Yet she responded to her husband with real affection and made Theodora welcome.

Thea did not stay long. She soon discovered that Octavia had little to say beyond a comment on the weather or the state of her rose arbours. Thea could well believe Octavia having been a victim. She was as insubstantial as a sunbeam on a winter’s day. Yet her situation demanded sympathy. Her loss and her rejection by one whom she thought had loved her—a Faringdon—must have been hard indeed.

Thea made her farewells and felt the similarity of rejection with bitter pain.

‘It would please me if you would keep in touch with us here in the country,’ Sir Edward invited as Thea stood in the hall, preparing to depart. ‘We do not go into society. Times are hard with us.’ He hoped a slick of guilt would attack the lady’s conscience. ‘I congratulate you on your good fortune. Life has blessed you, with Sir Hector and Lady Drusilla.’

‘It has. I must be grateful.’ The comparisons between their lifestyles touched her with discomfort. As intended.

‘Octavia would much enjoy your visits. To hear of events in London. We have few acquaintance who stay in town.’ Sir Edward smiled again, the perfect host, the deadliest of enemies.

Thea made a non-committal reply as she curtsied her farewell. Edward kissed her hand and her cheek.

‘Well?’ Agnes Drew enquired as they were once more embarked on their journey and Thea showed little inclination to break the silence.

The lady sighed and turned her head. ‘I do not know! I simply don’t know.’

‘Was it what you had hoped for?’

‘No. It was worse than I could possibly have imagined.’

‘Hmm. But can you trust Sir Edward? You do not know him.’

‘I do not know that either.’

‘And Lord Nicholas? After all, you
do
know him, Miss Thea.’

Yes. I thought I loved him. I still do. But is he a man worthy of my love? Sir Edward has cast all into doubt
.

Life at Burford Hall and Aymestry Manor followed inexorably the demands of the changing seasons. Enough to occupy Nicholas, enough to fill his mind with the day-to-day affairs of running two estates and planning for the future. Enough to distract his thoughts from a blighted love affair, the final ending of which should have been a matter for rejoicing. But when he rode beneath the dripping beeches in a heavy shower, he sensed her beside him. When he rose from a troubled sleep at early light or took himself to bed—alone!—with dreams that teased and haunted him. Nicholas cursed and informed himself that Theodora WootonDevereux no longer had a niche in his life. Unfortunately he discovered, long forgotten in a coat pocket, a little diamond-and-sapphire brooch, which forced him to remember how he had removed it in the soft twilight of the stable and kissed its owner into shocked delight. For a moment he watched it catch the light with rare brilliance, then pushed it out of sight, too painful a talisman. There was no need for him to spend one second in a day in thinking of her. It would all get better with time.

It did not.

The most urgent business to confront him was the matter of the Maidens. Some days after Thea’s departure, he rode into Leominster to meet with his fellow JPs at the Talbot, to discover with no surprise that the rural unrest was to be the main subject of discussion. The Maidens, with their skirts and scarves, their vociferous complaints, were extending their demands and their range of operation. Lewis Bates was still recognised as the leading voice, but the name of Samuel Dyer came often to the fore, particularly when the event involved more violence or threats of retribution than had emerged in the past. Almost every JP had some tale to tell of their activity. More old ricks had been burnt—not a great matter in itself, but a symptom of the disruption that they all understood. Two of the gentlemen making inroads into the port at the Talbot had received threatening letters, badly written but clear in their intent if the landlords did not answer their demands. Sir Thomas Clifford over towards Kingsland had suffered an actual attack on his house, forcing him to barricade his doors and windows to safeguard his wife and young family, until his neighbour could arrive and help drive the mob of drunken, swaggering labourers from their entrenched positions.

The demands were simple and clear, exacerbated by the poor harvest in the previous year and the cool spring, but there was no immediate remedy for the hunger sweeping the countryside beyond the setting up of soup kitchens, which most landlords were prepared to do. As for the desired lower rents and higher wages, it was an individual matter for each landlord. Lord Westbourne, as might have been expected, had no intention of giving in to the rabble at his doors. Nicholas winced at his lordship’s forthright condemnation of his estate workers. Any attempts to ease the local suffering would receive no aid in that quarter. For himself, Nicholas arranged a meeting with his agent to see what could be done for those Faringdon tenants hardest hit. Meanwhile, the gentlemen of Herefordshire discussed the wisdom of calling out the local militia if news of further riots reached them.

For a short time, it gave considerable direction to Nicholas’s thoughts.

‘Well, Theodora. Sir Hector and I thought that you had abandoned us for good. I had no idea that you would find Cousin Jennifer’s company so entertaining or Tenbury Wells so attractive.’ Lady Drusilla regarded her daughter with close and critical attention on her eventual and belated return to Upper Brook Street.

‘Cousin Jennifer liked to reminisce,’ Thea informed her mother as she took a seat in that lady’s boudoir and steeled herself to withstand the probing questions in the inevitable cross-examination. She had been dispatched to Herefordshire for a few days—which had mysteriously and inexplicably transformed themselves into weeks.

‘She must have done. Apparently you were captivated.’

Thea ignored the dry comment, kept her lips curved into some semblance of pleasure and merely folding her hands in her lap expectantly. She must keep her wits sharp if her mother were to remain in ignorance.

‘And The Zephyr. I understand that she is not with you. Why did you not bring her home?’

‘A minor sprain. Some of the roads and tracks in the area of Tenbury Wells were very uneven. She will be sent on when fit again.’

‘Did you enjoy the visit?’

‘Yes.’

‘Country life?’

‘Very … ah, relaxing.’

So why do you give the impression that you are neither sleeping nor eating well? And avoiding my questions!

‘And the scenery?’

‘Very pretty.’

‘Hmm.’ Lady Drusilla clasped a chain of sapphires around her neck, watching her daughter through the mirror with narrowed eyes. ‘What did you find to do in all this pretty scenery that gave you so much enjoyment?’

‘What one does in the English countryside at this time of year, I expect—walk, ride, read a little on wet days, converse with Cousin Jennifer.’ Thea studied her fingernails in rapt concentration.

‘It sounds fascinating.’

‘Yes.’

‘I see.’ Lady Drusilla tapped her fingers on the dressing table. Thea was as tight-lipped as an oyster, but something had occurred. Something momentous. She looked well enough, perhaps a little distracted. Tense also, by the evidence of her fingers, which she had now clenched into admirable fists as she tried to keep her mama at bay. In good health—although Thea was rarely otherwise—but with no bloom, no sparkle. And not sleeping well. The lady frowned at her daughter’s image. Lady Drusilla would try again.

‘Agnes had a fall, I understand.’

‘Indeed. A broken bone in her wrist.’ For the first time a little anxiety touched Thea’s carefully bland expression. ‘But it was set with great skill and now Agnes says that she suffers no pain, although it is still stiff, of course. She insisted that she was fit to travel and seems to have no lasting ill effects.’

‘And the bruise to her temple? Was that acquired on the same occasion?’

‘Yes.’

‘So how did poor Agnes come by these unfortunate injuries?’

The reply came with the swiftness of truth—or a carefully-thought-out plan of evasion. Lady Drusilla had no doubt which of the two ‘The paving stones in Cousin Jennifer’s garden were uneven and slippery after a shower of rain. It was a most unexpected accident. Cousin Jennifer was quite anxious.’

I imagine!
‘I see.’ Lady Drusilla gave up on her daughter, but determined to have a detailed conversation with Agnes Drew.

But Agnes with an eye to her mistress’s fine-drawn features, and her knowledge of the sleepless nights that caused Thea to prowl her bedchamber in the early hours, kept her own council. No point in worrying Lady Drusilla and drawing Thea into that lady’s line of fire. And of course Agnes could say with all honesty that she herself had never been to Burford Hall in her life.

So Thea entered once more into the round of pleasure offered by the London Season with apparent enthusiasm and carefree enjoyment.
She was soon seen riding in Hyde Park, early in the morning and also at the hour of the fashionable promenade, although not on her usual grey mare. Sometimes she could be met when tooling her mother along the open carriageways in a smart tilbury with a fine highstepping bay gelding between the shafts. The deluge of invitations for the returned débutante ensured that she graced any number of parties, soirées and drums. The Exhibition at the Royal Academy found her in attendance with Lady Beatrice Faringdon and the Countess of Painscastle, who had welcomed her back with easy affection and a deep concern. She danced until dawn and waltzed at Almack’s with the Earl of Moreton, that particular gentleman both flattered and entranced by the return of the lady who had engaged his affections—Thea soon found herself the unwelcome recipient of flowers, books, a fine pair of gloves.

And could not but be overcome by a sharp guilt that she should be encouraging so honest a gentleman when her heart was in the keeping of another.

Lady Drusilla saw events moving in the exact direction that she had hoped and prayed for. Lord Nicholas Faringdon was fortunately no longer the object of Theodora’s affections. He had not been seen in town for some time and there was no suggestion that he would return. Meanwhile Theodora’s mama would wager any money that the Earl would declare himself within the month—in excellent time for them to arrange a most fashionable marriage before she and Sir Hector went on to St Petersburg. Thea would be well settled at last. Thus she informed Sir Hector of the delightful prospect, waving aside any objections when he expressed his undoubted satisfaction, but hoped that his wife would be kind enough to consider the state of his purse strings.

And Thea resigned herself. She liked the Earl well enough. Without doubt he would prove to be a most attractive and generous husband to satisfy the demands of all but the most exacting of young ladies. But the Earl’s face was not the face that troubled her dreams and robbed her of her appetite. His voice was not the one to shiver over her skin when she remembered
his words of love and desire. The sight of his distant figure in a ballroom or at a reception did not bring an instant flush of warm colour to her cheeks. And his presence was not the one to steal her breath—or reduce her to burning indignation against all self-opinionated, arrogant and impossible members of the male sex.

If the interested household at Aymestry Manor considered Lord Nicholas to be a man in torment, they would not have been in any way surprised to discover that
that
was exactly the opinion formed by the Countess of Painscastle when she met Nicholas later in the month in Grosvenor Square. Judith eyed him speculatively as he descended the steps of the Faringdon town house and approached where she stood on her own doorstep, having returned from a visit to Lady Beatrice. She sent her nursemaid on into the house with the baby and waited. Judith had not thought that Nicholas was back in town. Although no one could have faulted his bow or his general address when he halted before her, he did not look entranced by the prospect of a few days in London society—or the pleasure of her own company, for that matter. Indeed, his lips were set in an uncompromising line and his eyes did not smile. After a few weeks of Thea’s brittle companionship, Judith believed that she knew the reason why.

What on earth is wrong with you two?

Since she knew that she would get a short answer if she asked the question of either of them, she decided to try a little cousinly manoeuvring.

‘Nicholas. I did not know you were in town.’ She gave him her kid-gloved hand to kiss and beamed at him, ignoring his lack of response. ‘Does Mama know?’

‘No. This is not a social visit.’

‘Oh, business!’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I am entertaining next week. Will you come?’

‘No.’

‘So what has happened to ruffle your feathers, Nick?’

‘Nothing other than a trivial misunderstanding.’

‘Oh.’
A trivial misunderstanding, indeed!
Judith was not getting far here. She would try another tack.

‘Why are you here? What has dragged you away from Burford?’ She tapped his arm before he could respond. ‘Do try for more than a yes or no this time, dear Nicholas!’

At last he smiled. ‘Forgive me, Judith. I am ill humoured, but you should not have to suffer the consequences. I have been to Tattersalls. Horses for sale, you understand.’

‘Ah.’
Perfect!
‘Then you must come and talk to Simon. I believe he will part with his winning mare at last if the price is right.’

‘I may just do that.’

‘He’s over at Painscastle at present’—and Nicholas was not to know that the Earl was probably sitting in the library here in Grosvenor Square with his feet comfortably propped on a footstool and a glass of burgundy in his hand—’but will be here tomorrow. Come in the afternoon. We will have tea and you can tell me what makes you such dismal company.’