“What an idea,” Lord Cabot said, staring intently into his coffee. “Where did you hear it?”
“Whispered everywhere,” Giles said. “Females are near-swooning over the notion. The romance of it, you know.”
“Kindly stop it when you hear it discussed,” Lord Cabot said. “You were there and saw with your own eyes it was my groom who rode Bucephalus.”
Giles took that as rather a confirmation than not. He’d seensomebodyride the horse, though it would have been impossible to confirm who it was at such a distance. Then, Cabot’s groom had been ill afterward and carried away. Could his groom have been ill all along? That was the rumor, though he would drop the subject as he could see that his friend did not wish to discuss it.
“Talk of romantic rides to the finish aside,” Giles said, “how do you get on with married life? I know it would not be gentlemanly to admit that you’d have been better to put the whole thing off for a few years, but we have known each other most of our lives. I would know the truth.”
“Are you certain youwantthe truth?” Cabot asked.
Giles nodded and leaned forward. He was absolutely certain he wished to hear the truth. Just as certain as he was that all this talk of marital bliss from his recently married friends could not hold up long under scrutiny. Infatuation would fade and be replaced with he knew not what. He would hear the real case of it.
Cabot said, “I came very close to failing to win Lady Cabot, and if Ihadfailed I would have regretted it for all of my days. I can no more imagine being parted from her than I can being parted with my right arm.”
Cabot paused in the silence. “Recently, I have found myself at once wishing for a son, and not wishing for a child at all.” His voice dropped to a near whisper. “What if she dies in childbirth? You see, that is the thing that haunts me.”
Giles noted the hint of desperation in his friend’s voice. If he had hoped to hear a tale full of regret, he would not hear it from Cabot. The man was besotted.
“God’s will and all that, I suppose,” Giles said, stirring his coffee.
“God’s will can go to the devil,” Cabot said. “In any case, my wife says I worry too much and she’s as strong as a well-bred mare. I don’t know though, she cries at the most unaccountable things. She says I am not to worry over it, it is only her temperament. Did I tell you I had to write it into the marriage contract? If I make her cry too much I go to the road and proclaim myself a beast. I’ve already done it once.”
Giles had no wish to hear any details of the lady’s weeping or Cabot’s humiliation on the road. He said, “Lady Cabot compares herself to a well-bred mare? This is the result when you put two people who live for horses in the same house together. I can only imagine the metaphors of all things horse that must fly through your rooms.”
“Never mindmyhouse,” Cabot said. “How do you get on in Dalton’s house?”
“We are, for all intents and purposes, penniless. We can barely get things on credit anymore, as every tradesman in the world has heard of the pact. Dalton is as prickly as you might imagine over it. It is only his butler that does not seem to mind, as the wine cellar will last a few more years yet.”
“No lady has yet presented an allurement sufficient to tempt you out of that Eden?” Cabot said with a sly smile. “I suppose you are eyeing Miss Dell for one of your ridiculous flirtations—you trailed her like a fox on a scent when we stayed in Newmarket.”
“Miss Dell,” Giles said. “I just saw her as a matter of fact. She looks as charming as ever. More charming, possibly. I will have enormous fun flirting with her.”
“She does not strike me as a frivolous lady,” Cabot said.
“She certainly is not,” Giles said. “Miss Dell will be a contest, I do not delude myself on that score. At this moment, dusty books are more to her taste than anything I can offer, but what am I without a challenge?”
“Perhaps you might seek to accommodate the lady and actually read one of those dusty books,” Cabot said.
Both gentlemen roared with laughter over the idea. After they had settled, Lord Cabot said, “I believe your pursuit of Miss Dell will come to nothing, and I am glad of it. She is my wife’s particular friend and I would not wish to hear the recriminations after you have left a lady with disappointed hopes, as you always do. I would find myself standing on the road and shouting that I am a beast for even having known you.”
“Nonsense, my lack of scholarship cannot put a lady off entirely. And by the by, there is nothing at all wrong with a season’s flirtation. Not for myself, and not for the lady. It is all but expected for a first season, unless the lady is without sufficient means to return for a second round. It is the second season that is time for seriousness and by then I will have made my graceful exit.”
“You view the thing from the wrong angle,” Lord Cabot said. “It is not what Miss Dell thinks ofyouthat will unravel your scheme, it is what Miss Dell will think of Sir John Kullehamnd. Lady Cabot is determined to introduce them at Lady Bergram’s ball. She is certain it will be a match.”
Giles felt a strange sense of outrage over this communication. Who was this Kullehamnd? Why should Lady Cabot be so keen on foisting the rogue in front of Miss Dell?
“And what is so extraordinary about the fellow?” Giles asked curtly.
Cabot folded his arms. “He is twenty-eight, said to be of adequate means, and a fellow of the Royal Society. You see? He is eligible and he is a scholar. Lady Cabot says nothing else will do for Miss Dell.”
*
Kitty had beenwrangled into her dress for the Bergram’s ball as she read from a book, only having to switch it to another hand when Martha needed an arm for a sleeve. Her maid had chattered away about the evening and Kitty was certain Martha was more interested in it than she was. Kitty’s life, always demarcated by two different poles, seemed as starkly contrasted as ever. One part was all intellectual curiosity, the other was dresses and pretty steps on a ballroom floor. One was meat and the other a summer trifle.
As the carriage was now making its way swiftly to the Bergram’s door, she ought to be turning her attention to summer trifle, but how could she at such a moment? Only yesterday, she had gone to meet Mr. Lackington and had ended meeting Mrs. Herschel! Her thoughts had been so taken up with it.
The lady had been kind and had taken a real interest in her experiments on Cornish eyebright. It had been almost as if she debated with her father, though it was instead another lady.
