Lady Valor looked alarmed to hear it. “I see,” she said softly.
He thought it might be well to change the subject of the conversation. “You mentioned collections—do you collect anything?”
She shook her head. “I have my dog,” she said. “He’s a pug and really is tremendous. His name is Sir Galahad and I’ve been told he has exceptional form by a Sardinian count who seems to know the breed.”
Weston was mystified. “I see, so you have been to Sardinia? I suppose it was long ago, as it is impossible to safely travel there just now.”
“Oh no, I’ve never been. Count di Compressio is here in England. We met him on the road, at an inn, where he generously gave over his private dining room. He stays with Lady Tallifer in Town.”
A Sardinian count? What was he doing in England? One might have thought he’d be either in Napoleon’s custody or hiding from him. Perhaps he’d decided to hide in England? The other explanation was that Napoleon was using the count for his own purposes.
That was probably unlikely though. He did not know Lady Tallifer, but it seemed a stretch to believe an English noblewoman would be involved in any sort of espionage.
“What do you suppose brings him here?” Weston asked.
“The count? He has an estate in Hertfordshire. He’s thinking of settling there as he likes the peace and quiet of it. He’s a very gentle individual and it would suit him.”
A gentle individual? Weston supposed he was a dandy down to his shoes, waving a handkerchief and requiring a vinaigrette at the slightest upset. Or if not that, perhaps he just posed as one. Nobody would expect a dandy to get up to anything, good or bad.
A Sardinian count that suddenly turns up and claims he would like to emigrate and live in Hertfordshire? He supposed it was possible,considering the state of the count’s own homeland at this moment.
Weston realized that all his chasing the French around had made him far more suspicious than might be right. He did not suppose he would discover the truth from Lady Valor. And he must admit, her seeming admiration of this Sardinian dandy rankled him a bit. He would put his wondering on a shelf for the time being, he was bound to encounter the fellow somewhere and would make his judgments then.
“How else do you occupy your time?” he asked.
“I keep my dear papa company and act as his hostess at home. We have a terrific time. Sometimes we invent things to say to the vicar that will send him into a fit.”
Weston laughed. He could not say he minded anybody harassing a vicar. Their own neighborhood was in possession of a very sour individual who disapproved of everybody who did not fawn over him. Or attend him every Sunday, which he and Lord Ledderbey were often remiss about. The fellow did not dare scold them over it, so he relied on his frown to send the message.
“I hope you will tell me some of what you’ve said to your vicar,” Weston said, “as I have my own vicar to tease. I had not thought of it, but I think I’d be happy to do it.”
“Oh well if that is the case, the easiest thing in the world is to claim the Ten Commandments are too strict. I have made the case that sometimes stealing is necessary and have never bothered to clarify that I spoke of biscuits from the kitchens. Every time I am anywhere near the altar he looks nervous and keeps checking that he’s still got everything on it. It’s very amusing.”
And so they went on, speculating on what could be said to drive a vicar mad. She was so animated and pretty. There was nothing stiff about her. He would have assumed a duke’s daughter would be circumspect regarding her vicar but that clearly was not the case. It seemed she’d also accused that vicar of being involved in a plot tomurder women in the middle of the night, even though she now knew those screams she sometimes heard at night were from a fox. He was further enlightened that the duke had a white domino with painted flames on the bottom of it that appeared to be a vicar going to the devil that they all found terribly amusing.
However eccentric this family might be, they were not stiff. Weston did not know what he expected, but Lady Valor had not been it.
*
Valor did notknow precisely what she had expected of Lord Tramondeley, but she’d not conjured the reality of him. He was a regular confluence of contradictions.
On the one hand, he was the most handsome gentleman she’d ever laid eyes on. He was tall and seemed muscular under his coat. His hair was a marvelous caramel color and his eyes a deep blue. He had the sort of features that were perfectly balanced, not too sharp and not too round. He was also easy to talk to, she certainly had not imagined that. He was not stern and reserved and thought her harassment of the vicar was amusing. He was not as delicate as Count di Compressio, not at all. And yet, there was a calm assurance about him, as if not much ruffled his feathers.
But on the other hand, it could not be ignored that his mode of living was positively bizarre. He took a sloop out to sea at night to chase French boats? With his valet? Was he mad?
If he’d come to Town to find a wife, he’d better give up the habit at once. How on earth was a lady to sit alone at night, shivering from the fox’s screams out of doors and wondering if her husband was drowning at that very moment? The poor lady would be a wreck. What a life.
And yet, she thought he would probably convince somebody to put up with it. He was very hard to look away from. Somebodysturdier than herself would take the chance.
It really was too bad, as in every other respect she liked him very much. Yes, she really did. However, he was not exactly her picture of a retiring baron who collected rare books or coins. He did not even collect shells though he must be surrounded by them. He was not a collecting sort of person. She was not either, but it seemed to be the most likely way to judge how a man lived. Count di Compressio was far closer to that type of man—he liked the peace of Hertfordshire and collected art.
“Has anybody told him yet?” her father said from the other end of the table.
Of course, Valor knew very well that the duke spoke of Fact or Fib. Though, they usually trotted out that game when there was a budding romance in the offing. She suspected her father just wished to put Lord Tramondeley on the back foot. Her papa was rather adoring of putting people on the back foot.
Lord Tramondeley looked round the table to see her sisters’ smiling faces interspersed with her brothers-in-laws’ rather downcast expressions.
“The game is on,” the duke said.
