Chapter 18
Lord Stoughton was bored. It had been all very well to be elevated to his father’s former title on the death of his great-uncle, he confided to his friends Lord Poole and Mr. Moreton. He had been able to cut quite a dash in London for a few weeks, despite the fact that he had been in mourning. But there were certain restrictions imposed by rank that he was finding somewhat tedious. Did not his titled friend agree with him?
Before his father achieved the dizzying heights of an earldom, Adam Seyton had not had a great deal of money. But who needed it? He was not addicted to gambling as a form of amusement and he did not crave expensive women. A comfortable tavern wench was quite as much to his liking. Clothes were perhaps his only indulgence, but who needed ready blunt in order to have a fashionable wardrobe? Any tailor worth his salt would think a fellow queer in his attic for settling an account before the fourth or fifth reminder at the soonest.
Before he had become Lord Stoughton he had been able to dream pleasantly of an interesting future. Adventuring to America or Canada to seek his fortune had been his favorite fantasy. Now that he was a viscount and heir to an earldom and a vast fortune to boot, there was no chance that that dream would ever be more than fantasy.
And the obligations of rank! Here he had been obliged to put in an appearance at Barton Abbey, an impressive-enough seat if one did not mind its being situated in the back of beyond. The house party had been a good idea, and he was quite content to have the company of such splendid fellows for a few weeks. Some of the girls were pretty too, but how could one flirt with any of them without arousing expectations that one had no intention of honoring for many more years yet? On the whole, he was not at all sure that he had not been more contented as plain Adam Seyton. Even then he had had the distinction of being able to put “the Honorable” before his name.
Well, he announced to his friends after they had slowed from a mad gallop through wide meadows far to the west of the house, he had persuaded his papa to invite half the county to a dinner and ball the following week. At least they would see some new faces, perhaps a few more pretty female ones. It was safe to flirt with a girl one knew one did not have to see again.
Had either of them noticed the little upstairs maid with the reddish hair and the bosom? That damned Uppington had her nights monopolized. She even emerged flushed from his room during the day on occasion. Lucky dog! After the house party, of course, he could have her to himself, but still it did not seem quite fair to have to wait second in line in one’s father’s own house.
Interest perked in many of the other guests when it became known that there was to be a ball at the house during the following week, a few days before they had appointed to return to London or their own estates. Lady Toucher immediately volunteered to help Thelma organize the dinner and the decorations for the state dining room and the ballroom on the floor above. Lady Lacey and Mrs. Carstairs offered their services to help.
Thelma sought Kate out as soon as she was able. She found her in the library, working now on a middle shelf.
“I could kill Adam!” she said feelingly. “Why did he have to think of having a ball?”
Kate looked up in surprise from the book she was dusting. “Do you not welcome the idea of the entertainment?” she asked. “The ballroom is such a grand apartment, and scarcely ever entered. Will it not be lovely to see it filled with flowers and with bright gowns and coats?”
“No, it will not!” Thelma threw herself into the chair behind the desk. “Papa has come up with a most brilliant idea to make the evening even more memorable. He thinks it will be the perfect occasion for the announcement of my betrothal.”
“Oh,” Kate said. She replaced the book on its shelf and climbed down the few steps of the staircase that had elevated her to the middle shelf. “Have you agreed to marry Lord Uppington, then?”
“No, I have not,” Thelma said. “But you see how it is, Kate. I am really not being given a choice. Papa assumes that my answer will be yes, and so does Lord Uppington. He took me for a turn on the terrace a short while ago and told me that he looked forward to my answer some day before the ball, and to the public announcement during it. What am I to do?”
Kate had grown fond of Thelma. There was a great deal of sweetness in the girl and very little malice. But there were times when Kate would have dearly liked to shake her. She looked gravely at her employer and spoke gently. “You must tell them both quite firmly that you decline the honor,” she said. “And you must refuse to change your mind or even agree to think about the matter for a while longer. You must say it now so that the news does not spread that this is to be a betrothal celebration.”
“Oh, but how can I?” the girl wailed. “Papa will be so very cross. And I could not possibly face the marquess with a refusal.”
“Then you must marry him,” Kate said mercilessly.
“I would rather die,” Thelma said. “I shall see what Sidney has to say. Perhaps he will have an idea. But I know what it will be. He will want me to run away with him. I believe I will have to do that, Kate. There is no other way.”
“There is another way,” Kate persisted. “Your father can hardly disown you for refusing to marry the man of his choice. Perhaps he will be angry, but he will get over that. He cannot force you to marry the marquess.”
“No,” Thelma said, “but he can refuse to let me marry Sidney.”
“Until you are of age, yes,” Kate agreed. “After that you may please yourself. You would have fewer than three years to wait.”
“Three years!” Thelma cried, leaping to her feet. “I shall be old by then. I cannot possibly wait that long, and it would not be fair to ask Sidney to wait.”
The argument continued, while Kate tried to point out all the terrible impropriety of an elopement when there was a much simpler way of handling the problem. But there was no instilling courage into Lady Thelma. Running away to Gretna Green with the man she loved and facing social ostracism afterward seemed to her far easier than facing two men and saying the word “no” to each.
By the time Kate was left alone again, she had been reminded that she had agreed to go with her employer if she decided to run away. And she would honor that promise. She might have no more than one week left in this house, then. But it should be long enough. If only Josh had brought back a favorable answer. He had been gone for two days. There had been a possibility that he would be back the night before, but he still had not arrived when Kate stole away to the lodge after dinner. She was containing her impatience with difficulty now. She could not decently leave the house until after luncheon. Then she should be free if Lady Thelma held to her plan to interview the gardener with Lady Toucher in order to plan the flowers for the ball.
What would the answer be? she wondered. It was agonizing to wait. What if there was nothing, no new information? Then she would have to admit defeat. She did not know why she would care about having to do so. What was Nicholas Seyton to her now? Merely an attractive adventurer who had taken advantage of her. A man who did not even have enough faith in his own cause to stay and continue searching for answers. But it was not for him that she wanted to succeed, Kate told herself. There was the sheer challenge of discovering the almost impossible. She would hate to have to leave the Abbey the following week with the puzzle unsolved.
Several ladies and gentlemen set out that afternoon to walk from the house up into the wooded hills to the east. They had been told that the top of the hill afforded a magnificent view out across the ocean and over miles of land in the other three directions. Some of the ladies had remained behind to busy themselves on plans for the dinner and ball the following week, and Lord Toucher had excused himself on the grounds that such exercise would trouble his rheumaticks, but the group of walkers was large enough.
Sir Harry Tate had a giggling and talkative Miss Barr-Smythe on his arm. He had chosen her deliberately as a partner. He had made the fascinating discovery over the past days that one did not have to pay anything but the merest fraction of one’s attention to the girl. The occasional profound comment on what she said, such as “Really?” or “You amaze me, ma’am,” or a dozen other such phrases was quite sufficient to launch her on the next phase of her monologue. An infrequent sidelong look down at her through half-closed eyelids would have her blushing and giggling every time, especially if one let one’s gaze stray to her lips for the merest moment. Such distraction would prompt her to lose her train of thought and begin a new line of conversation that kept her busy talking for another indefinite period of time.
While she babbled on at his side, Nicholas found that he could give almost the whole of his attention to the two men he had set himself to watch. This afternoon, of course, the task was somewhat relaxed. There was little chance that Lord Barton would suddenly break into a run and head for France while in the middle of conducting his house guests on a walk. And it was unlikely that Uppington would find a chance to molest Katherine while he walked with Lady Lacey away from the Abbey and Katherine was at the house with the ladies who were planning next week’s entertainment. However, watch he must. It was safer thus than it would be to relax when one thought all was safe. It was just at such times that there was often most danger.
The whole party stopped just before they reached the hill and the well-spaced trees on its slopes. Lord Barton’s bailiff was returning home from a difficult meeting with a disaffected tenant and paused to give his lordship a brief account of his visit. But as often happens on such occasions, a brief account lengthened into a sustained conversation, until Lady Lacey laughingly declared that she would have taken to her bed for a beauty sleep after luncheon if she had known that they were to stand for half an hour in open sunshine listening to talk about sheep and corn.
“The rest of us will walk on, Clive,” she said. “We will meet you at the top, where at least we may entertain ourselves with a view. Ah, Sir Harry. You have two sturdy arms, my dear sir. Allow me to share you with Miss Barr-Smythe. Indeed, you are altogether too handsome a man to be monopolized by one lady.” She smiled at the pair.
