“Papa is never willing to employ anyone but the best,” she said, inclining her head in gracious acceptance of his compliments.
“I overheard Miss Lacey the other evening saying that she plays the harp,” Charles Dalrymple said, smiling at that quiet young lady. “Do you think you can persuade her to share her talent with us, Clive?”
Angela Lacey blushed and protested, but her mother assured her that yes, indeed, she was good enough to perform in such an informal setting. The girl seated herself at the instrument, positioned it against her shoulder, rested her hands against the strings, and glanced anxiously at her mother for reassurance. But none of her nervousness showed when she began to play. Her audience was soon listening in delight to a medley of folk songs, both English and Welsh. Lady Emma seated herself beside Lord Barton and proceeded to fan herself languidly.
The earl’s mind wandered again. It really had not been totally wrong to take the title by somewhat shady means. Nicholas Seyton, after all, was a young man quite capable of making his own fortune. He had no ties, no responsibilities. Lord Barton, on the other hand, had a son and a daughter to establish in life. And what a difference his new position had made already to Thelma’s prospects. Even a father’s fondness could not blind him to his daughter’s lack of good looks and charm. Yet he had received two offers for her that very evening. It was most gratifying.
The second, of course, could be dismissed as quite unimportant. Indeed, he did not know quite how Moreton could have had the effrontery to come to him with his request to pay his addresses to Thelma. Did he seriously believe that the Earl of Barton, one of the wealthiest men in the land, owner of one of the most splendid properties in England, would give his only daughter to a nobody? The earl had dismissed the young man on short order, though of course he had had to treat him with civility, since Moreton was a guest in his house. Even so, it was gratifying to be able to deny the suit of a young man on the grounds that he was beneath the notice of the Earl of Barton.
The first offer had come before dinner. The earl had not been surprised by it. There had already been something of an understanding between the Duke of Oakleigh and himself that an alliance between their children would be a desirable event. And Uppington himself had appeared from the start of his visit to have accepted his father’s wish. He was a thoroughly good catch for Thelma. He was ten years older than she, a good age difference, distinguished in appearance and bearing, well-bred, moderately wealthy, though not as much so as Barton himself. Thelma’s wealth in exchange for Uppington’s title and future prospects was quite an acceptable state of affairs. An autumn wedding—in London, of course—had been agreed upon in the very satisfactory interview before dinner.
Yes, Lord Barton thought, the pangs of guilt that he could still not quite quell were worth the discomfort. Life as a wealthy earl was far superior to life as a viscount of only moderate means. And he would not even have been a viscount if he had not made the great sacrifice of his conscience a quarter of a century before. A mere untitled gentleman he would have been, with his father’s competence his only source of income and respect.
The marquess had not spoken to Thelma. The girl did not yet know what great honor was in store for her. A duchess in the not-too-distant future, in all probability. Oakleigh must be close to sixty at least.
Lord Barton joined the applause for Angela’s harp recital and nodded his head graciously in her direction. He did not rise to his feet. Charles had done that and was leading the dear girl back to her seat.
Sir Harry Tate kept a languid eye on the proceedings around him. He had decided that he probably did not enjoy music, though Nicholas Seyton assuredly did. The folk music produced by Miss Lacey on the harp was particularly haunting, but Sir Harry allowed himself one discreet yawn behind his hand in the middle of the recital. It happened when he felt Kate’s eyes on him and it would appear ill-mannered to yawn outright. She look suitably contemptuous, he noted with satisfaction.
Nicholas Seyton’s mind was busy sifting through the events of the day. He was not nearly as certain as he had been earlier that it was the best thing for his peace of mind to have sent himself into Shropshire on the stage. Katherine Mannering was looking damnably pretty in the soft dove-gray silk dress she had worn on the first evening. Her hair was severely drawn back as usual, of course, but she had a face that would appear perfectly lovely even if she were quite bald. And even the unflattering hairstyle could not disguise the glorious silver blond of her hair.
The trouble was, he thought, shifting his position in some discomfort and heaving a languid but silent sigh, he now knew what she looked like beneath that dress and what her hair was like loosened from that knot. And even more bothersome was the fact that he knew what she felt like: her skin warm and petal-smooth, her mouth soft and inviting. Think no further, he told himself sternly as Miss Lacey resumed her seat next to her mother—he must remember, by the way, to tease Dalrymple on his preference for the girl today—and Lord Stoughton proceeded to tune his violin. Sir Harry toyed with the ribbon of his quizzing glass and finally raised the glass to his eye the better to view the face of Miss Barr-Smythe, who accompanied the viscount on the pianoforte.
His affair with Katherine was far better at an end. And he deserved the discomfort of his own frustrations. If he had not lost his sense and his control the night before, he would not now have to suffer the memories of her eager and warm beneath him on the sand of their smugglers’ cave. Damnation! And he had doomed Sir Harry to the task of arousing her hatred. He was succeeding admirably. And he could not blame her at all. He would be sorely tempted to draw the cork of any other man who rode so roughshod over her feelings.
Teasing her at the start had been somewhat amusing. It had not been amusing that afternoon to make such contemptuous insinuations about her intentions toward Uppington when he knew that she must be suffering distress. From her appearance it had seemed obvious that Uppington was trying to force himself on her. Had he and Lady Emma not arrived when they had, perhaps Katherine would not have been able to fight him off. And then Nicholas would have been forced to kill Uppington, Sir Harry or no Sir Harry.
He risked a glance at Katherine now. She sat quietly, her hands in her lap, her eyes on Lord Stoughton. She looked quite self-possessed. He had to admire the lady. Most females would have taken to their beds with migraines and handkerchiefs, hartshorn and laudanum if they had had to endure one-half of what she had suffered this day. But not Katherine Mannering. There was no outer sign whatsoever that she was not simply a placid, rather dull lady’s companion. He wanted to kiss away that placid look.
Nicholas shook himself mentally. Sir Harry yawned as she turned her eyes toward him again.
She had cried. Not in the delicate, wilting way that one expected of a lady, it was true. She had sobbed and sniffed and used her hands to cover her face instead of a lace handkerchief. And she had been thoroughly cross with her own weakness. But his heart had ached for her. He guessed that it took a great deal of provocation to squeeze a tear out of Katherine Mannering. And he had been quite unable to take her in his arms or to kiss away the tears. Sir Harry Tate would never allow such danger to threaten the starch of his shirt collar. Sir Harry would not encourage such female sniveling. And he had stranded himself in the person of Sir Harry when he sent Nicholas Seyton on his way to Shropshire earlier in the day.
All he had been able to do for her was lend her his handkerchief. Sir Harry would approve of that action. He would prefer to sacrifice a freshly laundered linen handkerchief than to suffer the sight of streaming eyes and running nose and the sound of wet sniffing.
He had managed talks with two of the servants during the day. His talk with the cook, which Katherine’s arrival in the kitchen had interrupted, had not produced a great deal. In addition to what the butler had mentioned, she recalled that the wet nurse had been “uppity” because she had been to Paris on more than one occasion. Fortunately the woman had not been able to lord it over them a great deal because only one of the footmen understood French. But she remembered the boasting about Paris.
A wet nurse was not likely to be a woman of vast means, Nicholas decided. The fact that she had been to Paris more than once perhaps denoted that she lived fairly close to that city. It was a very small detail, and only a guess at that, but it was something for a man who had almost nothing else to go on. At least if he did have to fall back on that mad notion of going to France to search for an Annette, he could focus his search on a thirty-mile radius around Paris. Small comfort!
Another detail the cook recalled was that the wet nurse had offered it as her opinion that the child she nursed would be better off in a home with men than in the one with “those two women.” His mother and his grandmother, the cook had understood the two women to be. Again, the information apparently told Nicholas almost nothing. But there was something there. If his mother had lived with her mother and there were apparently no men with them, was it likely that she was the dancer or whore that his cousin the earl had suggested she was? The head gardener, Dobson, had not been able to add anything to the very scanty knowledge that Nicholas already had. He had been a very junior assistant five-and-twenty years before, a lad very much in awe of his superiors. He remembered how very close the present earl and Nicholas’ father had been, always together and as often as not trailed by Josh Pickering, who fairly worshiped Viscount Stoughton. The head gardener at that time had not liked the two cousins a great deal because they had been forever in trouble when they were younger and more than once involved his daughter in their wild schemes.
Dobson knew nothing about the Frenchwoman who had nursed him or about any letter or other papers. He never had spent much of his time in the kitchen, where he was likely to pick up such gossip. He did recall his present lordship wandering and riding all over the gardens and park for weeks after his cousin’s death. Poor gentleman. He had taken the death hard.
Altogether, Nicholas thought, he knew very little more now than he had known from his grandfather’s words during his final illness. And what he had learned since then did not lead him any closer to finding his mother or disclosing the mystery of his birth. And until a few months before, he had not even realized that there was any such mystery.
As for the papers, he might as well forget about them, though he was quite convinced that they existed or had existed. How could anything be hidden at Barton Abbey when he had spent a boyhood of remarkable freedom there, free to search and explore every corner of the house and estate except the private apartments of his grandfather and the servants? When he was living in Evans’ cottage, he had felt somehow that if only he were at the Abbey he would be able to find some answers. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
There was still his new idea, of course. He had already started to put that into effect with the letters Parkin was to send back from Shropshire. But there were several days to wait yet. And there was no knowing how successful the plan would be.
The music appeared to be at an end for the time being. Conversation was replacing it. Uppington was on his feet before Lady Thelma, holding out a hand for hers as if he were soliciting her for a dance. Nicholas was close enough to hear the words “the garden.” He rose languidly to his feet, brushing at an invisible speck of lint on the sleeve of his brocaded evening coat. If Lady Thelma was to be taken walking in the garden, Katherine would be expected to accompany her. And Uppington had proved only that afternoon his expertise in manipulating such situations.
“Mrs. Mannering,” he said on a sigh. “I perceive that Uppington has the good sense to favor a walk in the garden when the air indoors is decidedly stuffy. Your presence will doubtless be required. Do allow me to escort you.”
Kate looked up in some surprise—and gratitude. She too had realized that Lord Uppington was taking Lady Thelma outside and that therefore she must go too. There seemed no way that the marquess could then rid himself of his charge of her employer, but Kate had learned well not to trust the man. She would not have thought there was a way to become stranded with him that afternoon either. Her confidence in herself must be at a low ebb, she thought as she rose to her feet, if she was feeling gratitude to such an unfeeling cynic as Sir Harry Tate.
She realized when it was too late to refuse his escort that on this particular occasion she probably had nothing to fear. The earl drew her to one side as she was leaving the room to fetch shawls for herself and Thelma.
“Mrs. Mannering,” he said, “your accompanying Lady Thelma into the garden is very proper. However, you would do well to leave her alone with Lord Uppington for perhaps five or ten minutes. Not entirely alone, of course. But out of earshot, shall we say?”
