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Sweeping her skirts behind her, she walked back to where her parents sat. The door was flung open a moment later, and a wooden-faced lackey announced the other guests.
Sir Rendel went forward to meet his guests. A thin, sharp-featured lady in green was the first to enter, greeting him with a brief kiss, saying, ‘Dear brother, I hope your cook has provided more palatably tonight—I really could not sit down to half-raw mutton with any pretence of enjoyment. It is high time you married and left the management of your household to a woman.’
‘I have ordered fish for you, Dorothy,’ he drawled. ‘My cook is aware of your delicate stomach.’ He held out a hand to the man following on her heels, a broad, heavy figure in plum-coloured satin, whose vast periwig gave him added height.
‘Are you well, Jack?’
‘No,’ the other snapped querulously, ‘I am not well. My fool of a coachman drove us through the muddiest streets in town, finding out every pothole. I am dizzy with jolting.’
‘He has been complaining ever since we left home,’ said Dorothy. ‘He detests dining out, you know, Rendel.’
‘Why cannot Rendel come to us, I would like to know? A bachelor has no business to give dinners.’
Sir Rendel grinned at him and threw out a hand towards the Alderman and his family, making rapid introductions. ‘My brother-in-law, Lord Warburton, and his wife, my sister Dorothy.’
Alderman Brent rose hurriedly, bowing. Lord Warburton eyed him with incredulous disfavour, then looked reproachfully at Sir Rendel, but was merely given another mischievous smile in reply.
Cornelia flushed angrily. It was very clear that Sir Rendel’s family found it very odd that he should welcome a mere Alderman into his home. Her father, however, seemed unaware of the hostile atmosphere. He was bowing deeply to Sir Rendel’s sister. She, her plucked eyebrows quivering with distaste, frigidly responded.
The other two guests were more fashionably dressed. They arrived together; a slender young man called Sir George Lambeth and his wife, Lavinia, whose violet gown was cut so low that Mistress Brent grew stiff as a poker and averted her eyes, and who greeted Sir Rendel with cheerful familiarity, embracing him more fondly than had his sister, her arms clinging round his neck.
‘Dearest Rendel, was it really last week I saw you? It seems an age. How handsome you are tonight—but restrained.’ Her big blue eyes danced as she smiled up at him. ‘I am sorry we are late. George could not decide what to wear.’ She glanced round at her husband, half amused, half in contempt. ‘I vow, he takes twice as long to dress as I do.’
Sir Rendel disentangled himself from her embrace and kissed one of her hands. ‘Lavinia, my sweet,?
?? he murmured, ‘you will make George jealous if you dote upon me quite so obviously.’
Sir George gazed at them both out of his very pale blue eyes, lifting a lace handkerchief to his mouth languidly. ‘Oh, no, really, Rendel. Jealousy—most unfashionable. ‘
His wife regarded him blandly. Cornelia suddenly realised that the curling blonde locks were not natural. She could not help but stare. She had never seen anyone with dyed hair before.
‘George does not have the energy to be jealous, Rendel. I might flirt with every man I met and he would not mind.’
Sir George bowed, smiling. ‘I do recall promising to love and cherish, I fancy,’ he drawled, ‘but nothing was said in the marriage service about being jealous.’
Lord Warburton laughed heavily. ‘Damn, Rendel, the way society is going, a married man who allowed himself to be jealous would suffer the torments of the damned, by God.’ Lavinia looked at Rendel, her pink mouth cynical. ‘It seems that wives are not expected to be unfaithful, you see. Would you be jealous if your wife flirted with other men, Rendel?’
His face darkened. ‘I would take good care she did not,’ he snapped.*
Lavinia’s eyes watched him shrewdly. ‘What would you do? Lock her up at Stelling House?’
‘I would find a way,’ he said between his teeth.
His sister intervened dispassionately. ‘Aye, you were always a possessive creature, even as a boy. I remember how you used to pinch me if I sat upon Mama’s lap when we were small.’
‘You see, George?’ murmured Lavinia.
Her husband eyed her languidly. ‘You’re in a damned fanciful mood tonight, Lavinia. If you want me to pinch Rendel for kissing you, you will be disappointed, and I’m not calling him out, either. For one thing, he would carve me into fragments as easily as look at me, and for another, I know perfectly well that you and he were brought up like brother and sister, and I never yet knew of a brother and sister who fell in love.’
‘There is no romance left in the world,’ Lavinia sighed.
Rendel grinned at her teasingly. ‘What, Vinny? Would you have me spit poor George just for a whim of yours?’
‘Poor George might spit you,’ drawled Sir George without heat.
Rendel bowed with a flourish. ‘Aye, miracles do happen, but you were never a swordsman, George.’
‘Do we have to listen to this folly?’ demanded his sister. ‘You have fought too many duels, Rendel. One day you will find yourself facing someone who has more skill than you have—and it will be too late to regret your bravado then.’
