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“Oh, Edgar wasn’t that bad,” drawled Sir Archie. “I won a few wagers against him.”
“Edgar was utterly bacon-brained. Do you remember how you gammoned him over that story you told him of your pointer, Benny, disappearing during a shoot and being discovered, turned to stone, in the woods a year later?”
Sir Archie sniggered. “Oh yes. I told him the story at my club and he demanded to see the evidence. Said he’d wager two hundred I was lying. It only cost me a couple of guineas to have a stone mason craft me a reputable copy of Benny, which we positioned by the river.” He grinned. “Well, he said he couldn’t refute the evidence when I took him to see it. Paid me on the spot, in fact.”
Stephen didn’t share in the hilarity at the expense of poor distant cousin Edgar. He was beginning to suspect he’d been set up the same way.
Lady Julia laughed. “A good thing for the whole family that poor Edgar took a bullet at Corunna. You must be awfully pleased too, Stephen. Otherwise you’d not be next in line for the title and chances are we’d never have had such a jolly time this evening.”
Her dancing green eyes searched his. In that moment her look seemed assessing, her pretty white teeth bared in a smile.
And Stephen did not respond with the rush of adrenaline to the groin he had earlier in the evening when she’d bestowed her attentions upon him.
Chapter Two
Sybil, Lady Partington, clasped her hands in her rabbit-fur muff as she watched the congregation file into their pews.
With her fortieth birthday looming, she felt old, as she watched proceedings through clouds of frosted breath. Particularly today. Old and superfluous. A failed wife. A failed mother.
Araminta had been dismissive of her well-meaning attempts to reassure her that the disgrace of her curtailed London season would not dash her chances of a good match. No, Araminta already had her mind up in that regard. She knew exactly who she was going to marry, and had done since she wa
s twelve.
There’d been an exchange of words before they’d walked to church. Or rather, Araminta had flounced off ahead while good-natured Hetty had stayed back to keep her mother company.
Sybil slanted a sideways look at the two girls now, neatly turned out in the family pew beside her. Araminta looked proud. Expectant. Sybil repressed a sigh. That’s all she’d been doing lately. But perhaps everything would all work out.
Beside her, Hetty smiled at several new arrivals. Nobody noticed her.
On her other side, her husband made a remark about the floral arrangement. Too flamboyant, he thought.
Sybil nodded distractedly. Nothing seemed to please Humphry unless he was with his beloved mistress, she thought bitterly, slanting a surreptitious glance across the aisle to see if Mrs. Hazlett and her family had arrived yet.
They had. She snapped her attention back to her neat rabbit-fur muff.
At least Humphry had pledged to play the dutiful host and mentor when Cousin Stephen arrived.
The heir apparent.
Not that young Mr. Stephen Cranbourne’s imminent arrival was anything to get excited over. It merely reinforced Sybil’s sense of superfluity through her failure to provide Humphry with an heir. Or rather, a spare, since the death of their darling boy, George, from the measles four years ago.
In those interim four years, Humphry’s nephew Edgar had been next in line. Humphry had refused to recognize him. Edgar was a clodpoll, he said, and the mere fact he was Humphry’s heir was incentive for Humphry to live to one hundred so he could outlive his cork-brained nephew.
Sybil supposed the bullet that had knocked poor Edgar out of the succession was rather fortunate for everyone, not least this unknown Mr. Cranbourne. But really, it changed nothing for her. She was still the unwanted wife and, as far as Araminta was concerned, the superfluous mother.
Thank goodness Hetty still needed and appreciated her.
A rustle went through the congregation. Sybil opened her hymn book and stared unseeingly at the lines designed to bolster her joy in God’s world. Once again she tried telling herself everything would work out. Humphry would take a liking to young Stephen, young Stephen would be the perfect match for Araminta, and wedding bells would ring out by the end of the year, a lusty son cementing the succession nine months later.
On painful joints, Reverend Bicklefield climbed the steps to the pulpit while old Mrs. Henshaw shuffled in on her handsome nephew’s arm. Sybil glanced up at the whiff of camphor and glimpsed the flare of interest Hetty sent the young man from beneath her lashes as she focused attention upon her hymn book. Poor Hetty, for it was Araminta, sitting beside her, who caught his eye.
Araminta. Sybil sighed. Araminta was, without doubt, the most arresting young woman in the district. She’d turn anyone’s head, however the man who won her would have a tussle on his hands from the outset. Araminta was only happy when she had her own way.
She wondered what kind of man Mr. Stephen Cranbourne was. She knew nothing of him and had had little time to prepare for his arrival.
Reverend Bicklefield cleared his throat and hymn book pages rustled. Glancing at her youngest daughter, Sybil did not miss the smile Hetty flashed at Thomas Hazlett in the pew almost directly across from them. He nodded briefly in acknowledgement before his stern young countenance refocused on his own hymn book.
As far as Sybil knew, the young people had never spoken, although they crossed paths each Sunday.
