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Nov. 25th, 2004 12:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
essayelThis is all entirely ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
metallumai's fault!! Well, her and casfic as well. Last week they got bitten by the romance bug and plotted a romantic extravaganza. I laughed a lot and admitted to having written something similar only in proper writing with paragraphs and a little bit of punctuation and everything. They said 'We'll post ours if you post yours" and I said "yeah, yeah" and promptly forgot about it.
Well now I have been reminded so here is chapter one. It is dreadful - it knows its dreadful - and it don't give a damn!!
The large room had once been a place of splendour, a suitable setting for the refined pursuits of elegant lords and ladies with powdered hair and paint and patches upon their faces. Now its few remaining beauties were obscured by the poor light and drifting clouds of blue smoke from the pipes and cigarillos of the players at the tables. It was hot, very hot, and the air was thick with fumes of wine, candle grease and harsh tobacco.
Sir Aubrey Stanton-Rivers, but a month past his twenty-first birthday and newly come both to his inheritance and its attendant responsibilities, crowed gleefully as he counted up his tricks.
“Waiter, another bottle,” he cried. “My luck’s turned at last. Stick with me, Cholmondeley, my boy, and I’ll make your fortune!”
The red-faced young subaltern opposite just grinned and continued to shuffle the deck.
“Another game?” Aubrey suggested. His coat was off, his neckcloth was on the floor and his blond curls were wildly dishevelled. With his wide-set blue eyes and ingenuous grin he looked like a youthful seraph that had strayed into an antechamber of Hell and found it much to his taste.
“Dammit, you’re too lucky for me,” one of his companions grumbled. “I’m not having you make Chum’s fortune at the expense of mine. I’m for the dice table. Coming, Charles?”
The other man grunted and drained his glass and they both disappeared into the howling throng at the other end of the room. Aubrey gave a crack of laughter.
“You’ll play. Won’t you, Chum?”
“Of course. Your luck never lasts,” Chum pointed out. “Besides, once the drink is in the sense is out and here comes our third bottle.” He grinned and placed the deck squarely upon the table between them.
“I’ll cut with you,” Aubrey offered. “Your grey hack against my chestnut.”
“Oh no,” Cholmondeley shook his head, “not that ewe-necked nag, Put up something worth having for pity’s sake.”
Aubrey laughed, Chum’s affection for his grey was well known. He scribbled a few words onto a piece of paper and passed it to his friend.
“There’s my stake,” he declared, “take it or leave it.”
Cholmondeley shouted with laughter.
“I’ll take it by all means. You go first …Oh, very good Aubrey…But not quite good enough. I’ll keep this,” he waved the piece of paper, “next to my heart.”
“Just see that you do, “ Aubrey warned. “I’m ready for some supper. Coming?”
“Later. I’m off the join Charles and Freddy at the dice.” Chum rose to his feet and placed a cigarillo between his teeth. “If I can beat you tonight, I should be able to beat anybody!”
Aubrey made his way a trifle unsteadily to the supper room where he sat, wolfing ham and mustard and eyeing the Olympian gods and goddesses who could still be discerned on the smoke-stained ceiling.
“I say, Charles,” he called as he spotted a friend making his way towards him, “that Venus is a bit of an armful.”
Charles glanced upwards, grimaced, and jerked a thumb towards the main salon.
“Freddy sent me,” he grunted. “Best come, Chum’s in a pickle.” Then he set off again towards the ham.
Aubrey stretched and sighed. It was wonderful to be young and rich and have a good head for claret. He would extricate Chum from his ‘pickle’, he promised himself, and then – well, the night was young, anything might happen.
*
The April sun was bright, but a chill wind with a hint of showers prompted Lady Cicely Stanton-Rivers to walk more briskly along the pavement and up the steps to her front door. As she set her neatly shod foot upon the top step, the door swung silently open and she swept regally through the porch and into the hall, her maid bustling at her heels.
“Did you enjoy your walk, my lady?” asked the elderly butler, a tray piled high with envelopes in his hands.
“Well enough, Tench,” Lady Cicely replied. “The weather is uncommonly fine for the season. Are all those for me?”
“Yes, my lady. Shall I have some tea carried up to the morning room?”
Cicely thanked him and began to sort through the envelopes and packets as she climbed the sweeping marble staircase. As she glanced at the last of them she gave a little sigh, then passed out of sight.
“If a lady as fine and kind as our Lady Cicely was hanging on my every word,” the younger of the two footmen commented wistfully to his fellow, “you’d not catch me running off with some fat draper’s widow, no matter how well-heeled she was.”
Tench turned upon him, brows raised loftily. “Thank you for that information, young Horace,” he said. “I’ll be sure to pass it on.” Then he departed for his domain below stairs leaving Horace in no way discomfited, for he had long since learned that Tench’s bark was far worse than his bite.
The morning room’s windows offered a fine view of the Park, but today Cicely had no eyes for the fashionable world walking, riding and driving below. Seated at her desk, her spectacles firmly upon her tip-tilted nose, she methodically sorted her correspondence into neat piles, commenting upon the contents of the envelopes to her maid.
“Two more invitations, Agnes. Lord and Lady Markham are making up a party for the theatre, that one may go on the “yes” pile, and the other is for Mrs Beauchamp’s ball, though I fear I shall be indisposed.”
“But, Milady,” Agnes protested, looking up from her stitching, “young Mister Julian is so fond of you and has such pretty manners.”
“He is a simpering milksop. I have no time for any man who would write an Ode to my eyebrows.” And the eyebrows, two elegant arcs several shades darker than her silver-gilt curls, rose derisively.
Agnes sighed and murmured a name under her breath that, most unfortunately, Cicely heard.
“How dare you speak that name in my presence,” she snapped. “If you cannot hold your tongue, get out.”
Agnes flushed but held her ground. “I’ll not hold my tongue, milady,” she declared. “If you’re not moping, you’re as cross as crabs and it has gone on long enough. Captain Munro was a thoroughgoing scoundrel and I was glad to see the back of him but now, honestly, milady, there’s times I could wish him back again.”
“Agnes!” Cicely was outraged. She rose to her feet to administer a sharp rebuke, then she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. I look, she told herself, like an ugly, bitter old maid, and I won’t be twenty-five until my next birthday! She dropped back into her chair and removed her spectacles.
“Forgive me,” she whispered. “Have I really been so unbearable?”
“Not unbearable,” Agnes replied, “just powerful hard to live with.”
Pink-cheeked, Cicely toyed with the papers on her desk. I was such a fool,” she said ruefully. “Rory was so exciting, such fun, so plausible. I could not believe that it was my fortune alone that counted with him.” She looked at Agnes, sheepishly. “I’ve learned my lesson now. In future, I will keep to my library; books are less fickle than men. I am so sorry for being so horrid.”
“We made allowances, never fret,” Agnes told her, cheerfully. “Are there any letters from your aunt?”
Thankfully, Cicely returned to her correspondence and they spent a quiet hour during which the tea arrived and was consumed and then Cicely settled down to read the lengthy reports sent monthly by the managers of her brother’s extensive estates in Buckinghamshire and her own near Oxford. However, although she should have been concentrating upon her manager’s request for instructions, or that of a tenant for a new roof, her mind kept straying back to ‘that man’. How could I have been so gullible, she asked herself, then, grimly, told herself why. The first time she had seen Captain Roderick Munro, so dashing and handsome in his uniform and whiskers, she had just attended he wedding of the very last of her schoolfellows to bite the nuptial bullet, serving as a bridesmaid for the second time. She had also just put off her mourning, though in her heart her father was still sorely missed. Rory had brought a novel sense of excitement, freedom and fun to a life that had begun to hold little in the way of a future apart from continuing the work halted by Sir Simon Stanton-Rivers death and restraining Aubrey from still worse excesses. Guiltily she admitted that she had had little success in either direction. Henceforth, she resolved, she would make up for lost time and aim to have her father’s series of essays on the medieval romances ready for publication in the new year.
The door opened, breaking her concentration still further, and to her surprise her brother entered, wincing in the watery sunlight.
“Aubrey,” she cried. “You’re up so early. It wants a full hour to noon.”
“Hush,” he pleaded, “and, for pity’s sake, help me to a chair.”
With a tolerant smile, Cicely quickly placed him in a seat, his slippered feet were propped upon a footstool and a handkerchief drenched in lavender water was draped across his aching brow.
“You look awful,” she said.
“I have no doubt but that I do,” he agreed, and then rolled a bloodshot blue eye in Agnes direction. “Agnes, I need to speak to my sister. I’m sure that there must be some crisis brewing in the servants hall with which Tench needs your expert assistance.”
Agnes collected her sewing and departed while Aubrey peered blearily at his sister and waved her back to her chair.
“You’d better sit down, Sissy,” he said bleakly. “I am afraid that I have done something terrible.”
“Terrible?” Cicely’s smile tried to be reassuring but her concern was clear. “How terrible? Have you been rude to somebody important? Or, oh Aubrey, you haven’t called anyone out!”
“No,” Aubrey moaned, “not as bad as that. Well, yes, come to think of it, worse even. You see last night Chum and Freddy and Charles and me were gambling and…”
“Oh, Aubrey,” Cicely sighed wearily. “Not again! How much did you lose?”
“Not “how much”, Sissy,” Aubrey whispered, eyes fixed firmly upon his slippers. “I lost you.”
“Me!” Cicely bounced to her feet. “You lost me? Good grief, Aubrey, you can’t go round losing people! This isn’t the colonies, you know.”
“I know, I’m sorry but …”
“Am I permitted to know to whom you lost me?” Cicely demanded.
“Chum Armstrong. He put up his grey, Mandrake, so I…”
“So I am worth approximately the same as a flea-bitten grey nag. Words fail me, Aubrey!”
“Chum loves that horse,” Aubrey protested, “and he wouldn’t accept a stake that means any the less to me.”
“Oh,” Cicely absorbed the implication for a moment or two. “I suppose, in that case, I should be flattered. Never mind. I’ll have a quiet word with young Mr Armstrong. He’s quite reasonable when he’s sober.”
“Chum’s not the problem,” Aubrey told her sheepishly. “You see, I gave him my note, as a joke, that was all, but the silly fool muddled it up with some of his own and then he lost it, too.”
Cicely swallowed and she shook her head. “I am finding this very hard to take in,” she said. “I think you had better tell me the whole story.”
Aubrey looked at his sister’s angelic face and his heart sank. Slowly, and with many pauses and digressions, he related the terrible events of the previous evening. He told the story very badly, unable to describe the anguished expression on Chum’s face as he gasped “I lost it, Aubrey, I lost it!” and his own strange breathlessness as he realised who was holding the vital slip of paper so carelessly between his fingers or his horror when that soft, mocking voice said “I appear to hold a note of yours, my boy. Do you want to settle up tonight or shall I collect her in the morning?”
“I thought I would have some time to sort things out,” he told his sister, “but he has moved too fast for me. I had hoped you would never have to know.”
“Who?” Cicely demanded in rising panic. “What has he done?”
“Look,” Aubrey said simply and handed he a folded sheet of newsprint.
Holding it at arms length, Cicely could just make out her own name set in bold type. Biting her lip, she groped for her spectacles and read:
“Sir Aubrey Stanton-Rivers, Bart., of Stanton Parva, Bucks., is pleased to announce the engagement of his only sister, Lady Cicely Caroline, to Lord Patrick FitzRoy, son of the Right Honourable Lord Gerald FitzRoy, 12th Earl of Innisidhe. An early wedding is anticipated.”
“I’m so sorry, Sissy,” Aubrey was saying as she crushed the paper between her hands. “I can only assume that it is intended as a joke.”
“Well, it isn’t very funny,” Cicely was close to tears. “I am going to be a laughing stock. Oh, Aubrey – I’m engaged to a man I’ve never even seen!” She stood up and went to her desk, fumbling for paper and a wafer. “I’ll write to him immediately and demand that he put a rebuttal in tomorrow’s paper along with a full apology.” Her hands were shaking so much that she almost dropped her pen.
“Truth to tell, Sis,” Aubrey said, wearily, “I should imagine that this will come as something of a surprise to him. I’ve never seen any man drink as much as he did last night and survive.”
“With any luck, he didn’t. That would solve all our problems.” Cicely sniffed and plied her hankie. “What is this FitzRoy like anyway?”
“Patrick FitzRoy? He’s Irish.”
“With a name like that,” Cicely snapped, “he’d hardly be Italian!”
“It could be worse,” Aubrey retorted. “What with Chum Armstrong and Rory Munro, we’ve had precious little luck with the Scots.”
They glared at one another for a moment or two then Aubrey continued.
“They call him Mad Pat, with good reason. I steer well clear of him and his set – Jerry Hawthorne, Corinthian Tom, you know – that lot. There are orders that he is to be shot on sight if he ever tries to enter Almack’s again. I believe that he did rather well at Cambridge but came down early, joined the Dragoon’s as a trooper, attacked an officer and was court-martialled. His family were able to prevent him from hanging but it so infuriated his father that he threw him out. You know the routine; a ticket on an Eastward bound ship and instructions to pick up his allowance from a bank in Bombay. So he went east to Indian and China and beyond. Lord knows what he did out there but it has left its mark. He’s older than us.”
“Well, he should know better then. What does he look like?”
“Black Irish, very brown from the sun with queer light eyes like a cat’s. He’s always smiling but it’s not always a very nice smile, if you know what I mean.”
“I can imagine,” Cicely said with a shudder. “He sounds awful!”
“He’s a handsome devil, though,” Aubrey admitted, “which makes him even more eligible despite his faults. There are going to be a lot of disappointed young ladies and furious mamas reading the paper this morning.”
Cicely gaped at him. “You mean to say that he’s a – a catch! Mad Pat FitzRoy?”
“Mad Pat FitzRoy has got more money than he knows what to do with. There’s many a girl, as you well know, who would give her eyeteeth to be a Countess with a fortune not dependent upon a few hundred acres in Derbyshire. They are going to be green with envy.” Aubrey suddenly grinned. “They’ll be cutting you dead in the streets.”
Cicely also saw the funny side and began to giggle. “Are you sure,” she demanded, “that he’ll be as upset about this as I am?”
“Mad Pat? With a wife? He’ll be frantic!”
“Good,” and now Cicely’s smile was not very nice. “Let’s teach him a lesson. I want you to write a letter to my betrothed, Aubrey. Let’s see if we can make the worm squirm before we let him off the hook.”
*
Just as Aubrey was seating himself at Cicely’s desk, her betrothed was groaning his way to consciousness while his valet attempted to repair the wreck of his room.
“I can’t understand it myself,” the man was saying. “I just can’t see where the attraction lies in going out and getting puking drunk three nights out of four. Mark my words, lad, you’ll end up like your cousin Kevin – screaming your nights away in a madhouse. The first time you wake me up to tell me your feet have been eaten off by funny green things out of the wall, that’s it, I’m off home to Sligo.”
“Shut up, Phelim,” muttered a hummock amongst the tangled debris of a four-poster bed. “Faith, I need a drink.”
“No you don’t,” Phelim snapped. “You need to get up and clean and dressed. A pint of coffee, a cut of beef and a canter in the Park’s what you need.”
“If you don’t shut up you’ll be needing a doctor.”
“And another thing! How can you expect any decent woman to live in this Bedlam? Half your servants speak Gaelic, the other half speak Pushtu and the cook’s Chinese. Honest to God, it’s like the Tower of Babel in the servant’s hall.”
The hummock erupted with a roar. “Phelim, do you want my boots down your throat? My God, I’ve still got them on! Couldn’t you at least have undressed me, you lazy bastard?”
“Undressed you? The state you were in nobody wanted to touch you. We paid the crossing sweeper you brought you home to carry you up the stairs – well, more drag really, he was only a little feller.”
Lord Patrick FitzRoy levered himself up into a sitting position. Far from being the handsome devil that Aubrey had described, he looked exactly as a man would who has been dragged home, dead drunk, by a crossing sweeper. He was still dressed in the tattered and stained remnants of evening dress, but his shirt had been partially torn from his body and a raw graze on one shoulder had bled freely. He looked down at himself in bewilderment.
“Disgusting, aren’t you?” Phelim commented. “Yacoub Khan is shocked to the core. You know how Mohammedans feel about drunkenness.”
“I’ve seen him high as a kite,” Pat muttered defensively.
“But that wasn’t alcohol, as you well know, shame to you.”
Pat growled then, as his eyes began to focus, he peered at the wreckage around him.
“Why is my room such a mess?”
“Because you, my lord and master, woke up and took a little walk earlier. We could hear you banging about but we could also hear what you were saying and what you were doing so we decided not to interfere.” Phelim winced as his master hiccupped. “Don’t start that again. Why don’t you go down to the stable yard and stand under the pump? Almost anyone would be pleased to work the handle for you. Honest to God, it’s more than a body can bear. It’ll all have to stop when you’re married!”
“What are you wittering on about, Phelim?”
“Ha! It doesn’t surprise me that you’ve forgotten. Read this. It’s the reason for all your celebrations.”
Lord Patrick picked up the newssheet that Phelim tossed onto his lap and his eyes opened fully for the first time. A moment later he was cursing and scrabbling through his pockets. He found Aubrey’s note of hand and cursed even louder.
“I’ll kill Poulson,” he raged. “He must have crawled out from under the table and straight round to his office. The Post is going to need a new editor. They’ll never hold me to it, you know. I’ll be damned before I marry some jumped up baronets sister.”
“And there was me thinking you’d done rather well for yourself,” said Phelim, shaking his head. Pat stopped in mid-snarl and glared at him.
“Why?” he demanded.
“Because she’s a beauty, that’s why, and an heiress. The Stanton-Riverses have no need of your ill-gotten cash. The only reason she hasn’t been snapped up long before is because she’s a bit of a blue-stocking but at least she’ll be able to occupy herself while you’re out throwing up in a gutter somewhere. Her father died the best part of two years ago and every fortune hunter in Town has been licking his chops and prowling around her. One almost won her a month or so back but she was too sharp for him.” Phelim considered his master for a moment then sighed. “You know, I always thought it would take someone special to tempt Lady Cicely down from her shelf and instead you’ve taken a broomstick and knocked her down. Look, before you do anything stupid, see the girl. I promise you, you’ll be pleasantly surprised, though what she will think is anybody’s guess.”
Pat re-read the announcement in the paper then gingerly rose from his bed. He was very tall with the build of a prizefighter, an impression accentuated by his slightly crooked nose and the scar tissue on his knuckles. He swayed as he walked towards the door.
“I’ll look her over,” he promised. “Pump in the stable yard, you said?”
Phelim watched him go with a grin. “I was only joking,” he said quietly to the closing door. “God help the poor lass if she takes him.”
*
Aubrey’s letter was placed in Pat’s hands that evening as he sat in the lonely magnificence of his dining room. He pushed aside the scant remains of an excellent beef and oyster pie and read the single, uncrossed sheet with a wry smile, then glanced up as the door opened and Yacoub Khan entered.
“Congratulations are in order, Yacoub,” he said. “It appears that I am to take a wife.”
“Indeed, sahib, you deserve congratulations if all I have heard is the truth,” Yacoub agreed, his respectful tone at odds with his derisive smile. “I am sure that that is why your cousin Gerald is here. I have put him in the library.”
Pat eyed his henchman apprehensively. “What the devil does he want? He is alone isn’t he?”
Yacoub inclined his immaculately turbaned head gracefully in assent.
“That’s a relief. He’s not worth running down the back stairs for but Euphemia, now! Thank you, Yacoub.”
Pat left the room, giving a low whistle and holding the door ajar. From beneath the table emerged four great, grey shadows that fell in at Pat’s heels like an honour guard and followed him silently across the hall and up the stairs to a dusty tapestry-hung corridor. Raised amid the medieval splendours of Innisidhe, Pat could not feel entirely at ease with the new Georgian modernity. Rejecting the Palladian in favour of the Gothick, he had rescued a crumbling Jacobean mansion, reputedly built for a Royal mistress, had done enough work on it to prevent it from collapsing about his ears and had furnished it in the appropriate style. Every battered inch of the blackened oak panelling soothed his senses and the wolfhounds, also installed in a sudden spasm of nostalgia, made good, if silent, companions.
Pat flung open the library door and ducked beneath the lintel. He stifled a laugh as the figure by the fire jumped and exclaimed at the four hounds advancing, hackles raised, towards him. Pat whistled them away and greeted his cousin.
“Stop looking at the pictures, Gerald,” he ordered, pausing at a side table to fill two glasses.
“Patrick, you devil.” Cheeks aflame, Gerald stared up from the heavy volume on his lap. He was also a big man but lacked an inch or so of Pat’s height and his splendid physique. His elegance of dress and deportment worked hard, and with moderate success, to conceal such deficiencies as a short neck and a slight paunch, but his exquisitely arranged neck cloth and artfully brushed hair could do little to improve his face with its heavy features and lines of temper.
“Where did you get this book?” he demanded, his sneer deepening.
“Put it back on the shelf if it disgusts you so much,” Pat suggested, dropping into a wing chair and extending his boots towards the fire. “It’s a religious work of great antiquity, though the binding is more recent and I took it in part exchange for a load of Brummagem tin ware. I still wonder who had the better on that deal.”
“There’s little doubt in my mind,” Gerald told him. “I obviously went to all the wrong places on my Grand Tour.”
“You wanted to go on yours,” Pat reminded him cheerfully, “I had no choice. Just a one way ticket on an east bound merchantman and a message from the old man to say he didn’t want to see me again until I’d made something of myself.”
“Well, you’ve certainly done that,” declared Gerald. “You have made the FitzRoy name a byword for outrageous behaviour. The Earl is not pleased.
“Pleasing Father is one of the least of my concerns,” said Pat, his jaw hardening momentarily. “Why? What’s the old rat-bag complaining about now?”
“Did you know that he is in London?”
“No, why should I?”
“So, he read the paper this morning. Patrick, he’s furious. Not even a FitzRoy can get away with putting an entry like that in the public press for a joke. The Stanton-Rivers will be after your blood!”
“They’ll have to join the queue, then.”
“But think of the scandal. What if they call you out? Or take you to court?”
Pat grinned and shrugged. Gerald sighed and laid the book aside. “Are you going to publish a rebuttal, then?” he asked.
“No.”
“I just don’t understand you!”
“Too many long words, is it, Gerald?” Pat laughed and tugged Aubrey’s letter out of his pocket with a flourish. “The Stanton-Rivers are well content. I am invited to take tea with them tomorrow. Tea at three, Gerald, not pistols at dawn, so the old man can rest easy and mind his own bloody business.”
“But it is his business,” Gerald protested. “He is anxious to make the best possible match for you and – may I speak frankly, Patrick?”
“Go ahead,” Patrick invited.
“There has always been a special relationship between our families,” Gerald said confidingly, leaning forward and placing a cousinly hand upon Patrick’s knee. “It was the fondest wish of both our fathers that the relationship should become closer still.”
“Christ, Gerry, are you proposing?”
Gerald persevered, though he did remove his hand.
“As I am sure you are aware, my sister Euphemia has always held you in very high regard. Even as a child she was desolate, inconsolable, when you left for the east. She would have followed you had I not, fortunately, got wind of her intentions and confined her to her rooms until your ship had sailed. Now a woman, she talks of you constantly. Quite simply, Pat, she loves you. I cannot tell you what a terrible blow it will be to her to read of this – inappropriate engagement.”
“Poor dear,” Pat’s tone was unsympathetic. “I would hate to be the cause of any heartache to her and the prospect of becoming your good-brother is a great temptation, but the announcement has gone in the Morning Post. Unless the young lady cries off I am, as they say, spoken for.”
“Spoken for!” Gerald scoffed. “I’ll believe it when I see it. The Stanton-Rivers are a proud family and I understand that Lady Cicely is an intelligent young lady of remarkable good sense.”
“Now, there is an implication that says little for the fair Euphemia,” Pat pointed out, “whose high regard for me is exceeded only by that in which she holds my fortune.”
The two men sat in silence for a moment or two, sharing the warmth of the fire, sipping their brandy and glaring at each other in civilised animosity.
“Well,” Gerald sighed and drained his glass. “If you are going to be unpleasant, I’ll be on my way. I’ll tell the Earl what you have said.”
“Do so, with my blessing,” Pat grinned at him and rose from his seat to tug a bell-pull. “Believe me, Gerald, you’re very welcome to my place in his affections – if not necessarily his Will!”
Gerald bit back a reply as the door opened and Yacoub Khan entered.
“Ah, Yacoub. Mr Gerald is just leaving. Please show him out, and then you can take the tray down. I have some accounts to look over and would prefer not to be disturbed.”
Gerald snorted. “So tonight will be the first for a month that you have gone to bed sober.”
“True enough, but if I am to impress the sensible Lady Cicely with my beaux yeux, they had better not be bloodshot.”
Gerald took his leave, silently seething, and Yacoub returned a few moments later, his aquiline face creased by a worried frown. Pat was seated at his desk, pen in hand.
“What’s wrong, bhai?” he asked. “I hope Gerald was civil.”
“Sahib,” Yacoub grumbled, “that man wishes you ill. You must kill him before he kills you. Cut him down like the dog he is.”
“May Allah bless you, my good friend,” Pat chuckled, “we are far from home and things are done differently here. He, damn him, is my heir and, besides, how would I go about it?
“Poison, my lord. Seduce his mistress and she will poison his food – or his snuff.”
Pat stared wide-eyed at his henchman. “Snuff,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Yacoub, you think of everything.”
*
One advantage attached to sobriety, Pat told himself quite early the next morning, is that it takes so much less effort to get out of bed and into the saddle. He whistled to his hounds, calling them from mysterious canine errands of their own, and joined the fashionable squadrons who posed and paraded daily in the Park. Astride his massive, raw-boned grey with the four wolfhounds trotting sedately to heel and followed at a respectful distance by Yacoub, resplendent in a blue silk coat and snowy puggaree, Pat was well aware that he was turning heads. However, he paid no more attention to the ladies who strove to catch his eye than to the urchins shrieking that the circus had come to town: he merely raised his hat impartially to both and trotted on.
He had almost completed one circuit of the Park before his rather sombre expression broke into a welcoming smile and he guided his horse across the ride to meet the couple that were riding slowly towards him.
“Pat, you sly dog,” the man was calling, “why didn’t you tell us you were hunting a wife? We could have helped you make your choice, couldn’t we Sarah?”
Sir Anthony Duberley, big, boisterous, and without a mean bone in his body, beamed fondly at his young wife and leaned across to wring Pat’s hand.
“Patrick could not have made a better choice, even with the benefit of your vast experience,” Sarah said quietly to her husband then she too took Patrick’s hand. “Cicely is a special friend of mine. She is a lovely girl, just what you need.”
“Lord, that sounds ominous,” Pat grinned as he straightened up from kissing her hand soundly. “You mean that she’ll make me stay in and read books of sermons instead of going ratting?” He liked Sarah, who was pretty and gentle with soft dark hair and eyes, and felt vaguely resentful that Anthony, excellent fellow that he was, had seen her first.
“That’s right, my boy,” Sir Anthony boomed, leaning over to administer a crippling clap on the shoulder. “She’ll have you walking to heel in a week, if she’s anything like my Sarah. I say,” he peered past Patrick, his breath suddenly heavy with emotion, “your groom has still got that chestnut. Do you think he might have changed his mind?”
Sarah and Patrick smiled at each other as Sir Anthony trotted off to pester Yacoub.
“He’ll be disappointed,” Patrick warned her. “Yacoub says that’s a good Muslim mare and he’s not about to sell her to any feringhee infidel. On the other hand, Anthony’s offer was not particularly generous.”
Sarah laughed and stooped from her saddle to scratch the head of one of Pat’s hounds, whose whiskery snout was nudging her stirrup.
“That Cicely is a sly one,” she commented. “I only saw her on Sunday and she didn’t even mention you. Does she like your dogs?”
“I don’t know,” Pat admitted. “We haven’t actually met.”
Sarah looked up sharply but before she could speak an interruption occurred that put paid to any further conversation.
A wolfhound, tail waving in greeting, had wandered towards a bath chair where an elderly, but very upright, lady attended by her maid and propelled by her footman, was enjoying the rather fitful sunshine. She smiled and clicked her tongue at the big dog so he approached, hoping for some attention, and quite without ill intent bent his great roman-nosed head to sniff curiously at the small bundle in her lap. The elderly pug awoke suddenly and, still half-asleep, sprang to its mistress’s defence, sinking its teeth into the monster’s ear. The hound tore free with an anguished yelp and bounded away, too mild mannered to retaliate. Unfortunately, Sarah’s horse was right in his path and he collided with its flank. Sarah was already off balance and had no chance to regain her seat when her pretty bay mare gave a squeal of panic and took off like a Derby favourite.
Galloping in the Park was strictly against the rules so Pat seized the opportunity with relish. He shouted to warn Sir Anthony and Yacoub and set off in pursuit, his grey needing scant encouragement. However, his grin faded as he saw how the bay mare, bit firmly between her teeth, tore along, ignoring horsemen and pedestrians alike. Sarah was swaying in the saddle, stirrup and reins flapping, and Pat realised that he had only a matter of moments before she suffered an extremely nasty fall. A glance over his shoulder assured him that Yacoub, his chestnut’s ears flat against her wicked head, was gaining rapidly, so he urged his stallion on. The big beast responded gallantly, his head passing the heaving bay rump of Sarah’s mount. Sarah, white-faced, cried his name as he drew level with such an expression of entreaty that he abandoned his original intention to bring the mare to a halt. Instead, he leaned across to scoop Sarah right out of her saddle and into his lap. Sarah, sobbing, buried her face in his coat.
“Patrick,” she moaned. “Oh, Patrick, I - I think I’m going to be ill.”
“Not on me, you’re not,” he responded, ungallantly, bringing his stallion sliding to a halt. He dismounted and knelt to prop Sarah’s drooping body against his knee.
“Deep breaths, now,” he urged but, with a sigh, Sarah went limp.
“May I be of assistance?” A musical voice floated opportunely over Pat’s shoulder and he looked up to see an angel hurrying across the wet grass towards him. She dropped to her knees, careless of her fine clothes, and took Sarah’s cold hands in her own.
“I saw what happened,” she gasped. “Poor, dear, Sarah. We mustn’t keep her on the wet grass like this. My house is just across the road. I will call for my footmen.”
Pat was staring, entranced by her rose-petal skin, golden curls, cornflower eyes, the delicious purity of her profile, which, his imagination insisted, would be best set off against black silk sheets. It was all he could do not to drop poor dear Sarah and try the fit of those delicate lips against his own then and there. With an effort, he regained control of his baser self and managed a smile that wasn’t a leer.
“Don’t trouble them, my lady,” he replied, raising Sarah up in his arms. “I’ll need no help to carry a little bit of a thing like Sarah across the way.”
His golden-headed helper blushed prettily as she returned his smile, then she glanced past him, her eyes widening.
“Is that your groom?” she asked. “Perhaps he could wait and tell Sir Anthony where we have gone?”
Yacoub was trotting back towards them, Sarah’s foam-flecked bay following docilely. He brought his mare to a halt, bowed deeply to the lady and grinned at Pat who, frowning, issued his orders. Yacoub bowed again, with counterfeit servility and dismounted to catch the stallion, which was already approaching the two mares, ears pricked.
“Lead the way, my lady,” Pat suggested, ignoring his henchman’s murmured comparison, and followed the angel towards the nearest gate.
*
From the moment that Cicely had looked up to see the grey stallion galloping towards her, she had been aware that her heart was behaving in a most peculiar manner, and when the stern-faced rider had plucked Sarah from deadly peril into the safety of his arms, it had almost leaped out of her bodice. She thought back to how she had felt upon first setting eyes upon Captain Roderick Munro but couldn’t remember this strange breathlessness. Neither had Rory’s smile, she told herself, made her feel as though she was blushing all over.
With Sarah tenderly laid upon the sofa in the morning room, Cicely was able to study the stranger unobserved. He rather dwarfed her bright little room. Even now, on one knee beside the sofa warming Sarah’s cold hands between his large brown ones, he was by far the largest object in it. He was also, she admitted he most intriguing man she had ever seen. His face, for instance, presently turned away from her but clearly etched upon her memory, was at once strong and sensitive, marked by past pains and past passions, yet these shadows would be dispelled in a moment when he unleashed that gay and boyish smile that made her heart bound.
“Lady,” he said, and his deep, vibrant voice sent a thrill through her, “I think she’s waking.”
Sarah’s eyelids were flickering and she moved restlessly. The stranger touched her cheek gently.
“Sarah, my dear. You’re safe. Wake up now.”
Hearing the caressing tone in his voice, Cicely suffered a sudden, and most unexpected, pang of jealousy, but then her friend’s eyes opened.
“Oh, oh, I feel awful,” she moaned. “Where am I?”
“In this nice lady’s house, on her sofa, and I’m sure she’d appreciate it if you didn’t ruin her carpet.”
Sarah looked up, saw Cicely and her jaw dropped. “But….” She started to say but the stranger interrupted her severely.
“I’m very annoyed with Anthony,” he said, glowering. “In fact, I may well call him out for allowing you to ride that flighty bay in your condition.” He paused while Sarah blushed, then continued more gently. “I have just the gelding for you, easy paces and the manners of an arch-bishop. If you blew a horn in his ear he wouldn’t twitch. The very thing, I promise you. I’ll ask Yacoub to bring him round and expect sincere thanks and an abject apology from Anthony for allowing you to scare me so badly.”
“He doesn’t know,” Sarah admitted. “I wanted to be really sure before I told him and then I waited for just the right moment.”
“For that kind of news, every moment is the right moment,” he laughed, “and, if I’m not mistaken, Anthony’s on his way, so now’s your chance.”
Feet were thudding up the stairs even as the stranger spoke and the door was flung open to admit Sir Anthony, scarlet-cheeked and frantic.
“Sarah,” he panted, “are you safe?” and he stooped over her protectively. His hat, which he had dropped, was badly dented and the cream buckskin of his breeches was disfigured by smears of mud and grass-stains. The stranger gave a gurgle of laughter.
“He fell off,” he pointed out to Cicely. “Anthony fell off. Yacoub will never let him buy Sayyide now. A feringhee infidel is one thing but one that falls off….”
“Your benighted dogs are to blame,” Anthony growled over his shoulder. “They overturned a butcher’s barrow and half the dogs in London arrived, spoiling for a fight. The donkey broke loose, my horse is probably in Surrey by now and when I left they were calling out the militia. You may well laugh! I gave the butcher’s boy your name and direction. You may expect a large bill.”
“Cheer up, Anthony,” the stranger rescued the fallen hat and placed it on the table. “Sarah has something to tell you.”
Cicely had already withdrawn to the far end of the room and looked up with a smile as the stranger approached. He returned it in full measure and took her hand.
“Never before have such shocking manners been exhibited in the face of such kindness,” he said and bowed formally over her fingers.
“We have all been somewhat preoccupied,” Cicely reminded him.
“That’s no excuse. The social amenities must be observed at all times lest we sink to the level of barbarians. I wonder if Sir Anthony is sufficiently assured of his Sarah’s well-being to perform the necessary introductions?”
“Need we bother him?” Cicely asked. “I am quite prepared to speak for myself. My name, sir, is Cicely Caroline, sister of Sir Aubrey Stanton-Rivers of the county of Buckinghamshire.” She swept him a curtsey and laughed at his startled expression. “Well, sir? Do you not think me unbecomingly forward?”
“I would be the last person to suggest such a thing,” Pat said. “In fact, I should be begging your forgiveness.”
“Why so, sir?” Cicely enquired, looking up into his face and meeting the level gaze of his cat-like eyes. Suddenly she seemed to hear Aubrey’s voice – “a handsome devil …queer light eyes like a cat’s…” and she gasped.
“Lord Patrick..” she whispered.
“FitzRoy,” he supplied. “Very much at your service.”
*
The bright skies of morning had soon become overcast in a series of squally April showers, and another such was spattering the windows of the morning room as the clock struck four and Cicely, entering, hurried across to peer down into the street. Blurred by the trickling raindrops, she could just discern the tall figure of Lord Patrick FitzRoy striding through the gates of the Park, taking a shortcut home.
“Mad Pat,” she whispered, noting that the sun had come out again and a rainbow hung above the trees flanking Lord Patrick’s homeward path. The sun shone, the rainbow brightened and the rain beat a little harder on the windowpane.
“Seldom,” thought Cicely, “has the state of the weather so accurately reflected my state of mind.”
Unable to settle, she moved from the window seat to her desk and from there to the bookcase where she hesitated for a moment before selecting a large calf-bound volume. She was engaged in turning the pages, obviously looking for something, when Aubrey put his head around the door.
“There you are,” he said. “Typical Sissy, with her head in a book. Most young females in your position would be over at the window, straining to get a last glimpse.” He flopped onto the sofa and grinned up at her.
“Well?” he asked. “Did you like him?”
Cicely took her time over answering, marking a page in her book and laying it carefully aside.
“He certainly seems to be a pleasant sort of man, quite unlike what I was led to expect. His reluctance to further our acquaintance this morning and his delicacy of manner this afternoon suggest a quite different character.”
“Yes, I’ll grant you that. Mad Pat can act the Earl if he needs to, but what else?”
“We have agreed that we should get to know one another rather better before we come to any decisions. For the time being, we shall be seen together and if anybody enquires shall say that our wedding plans have been postponed until Lord Patrick is out of mourning.”
“Mourning? I didn’t know he was in mourning. Who’s died?”
A suspicion of a smile touched Cicely’s lips and she looked demurely down at her hands, folded in her lap.
“Nobody,” she replied, “yet.”
“Who’s he going to kill, then?” Aubrey asked.
“Nobody,” Cicely’s smile broadened, “but he is expecting bad news imminently of a fairly distant cousin of whom nobody outside the immediate family will have heard. Lord Patrick feels that three months should be long enough for me to decide if we will suit.”
“And what do you feel?”
“I agree, of course. In the meantime, he is making up a party for the theatre next Thursday and will accompany me to the Hatherley’s ball.”
“Well, I take my hat of to you, Sissy,” Aubrey grinned. “Perhaps you are going to be a reforming influence. This afternoon was the longest time I have ever spent in Mad Pat’s company without somebody passing out, throwing a punch or shots being fired.” He laughed a little sheepishly. “As I was showing him out, he gave me a very swift account of his prospects and present circumstances. There’s no need to fear that he may be a fortune hunter, he’s better off than we are. Oh, and he has invited us to join him at a house on the coast near Brighton. Subject to your approval, I have accepted.”
Cicely gave her approval graciously and waited until Aubrey had left the room before retrieving her book. Carefully, she opened it at the marked page and remained gazing at the page, lighting touching it with her fingertips, for several minutes.
“Milady?” Agnes was in the room, her voice making Cicely start and gasp. “Sorry to disturb you, milady, but the new dresses you ordered have been sent round from “Lisette”. I think one of them may be suitable for this evening.”
“This evening? Good grief, yes, I must hurry.” Cicely hurried from the room, her mind already filled with frills and furbelows, but Agnes paused to replace Cicely’s book upon the shelf. The mark was still in place and Agnes hesitated, looking guiltily towards the door. The book opened readily as curiosity triumphed and Agnes gave an affectionate chuckle.
“Well, I never,” she said. “Who’d have thought it!”
The old woodcut was surprisingly detailed. The handsome man’s armour, the whipping mane of his charger and the flowing hair and robes of the fainting lady in his arms were particularly finely done. “Lancelot du Lac rescues Guinevere from the fire” read the caption in spiky Gothic script. Agnes sighed, closed the book and set it carefully back in its place. As she left the room she promised herself that if Mad Pat proved to be less than a “parfit, gentil knight” Agnes would provide him with some practical experience at dragon fighting in very short order indeed.
metallumai's fault!! Well, her and casfic as well. Last week they got bitten by the romance bug and plotted a romantic extravaganza. I laughed a lot and admitted to having written something similar only in proper writing with paragraphs and a little bit of punctuation and everything. They said 'We'll post ours if you post yours" and I said "yeah, yeah" and promptly forgot about it.Well now I have been reminded so here is chapter one. It is dreadful - it knows its dreadful - and it don't give a damn!!
The large room had once been a place of splendour, a suitable setting for the refined pursuits of elegant lords and ladies with powdered hair and paint and patches upon their faces. Now its few remaining beauties were obscured by the poor light and drifting clouds of blue smoke from the pipes and cigarillos of the players at the tables. It was hot, very hot, and the air was thick with fumes of wine, candle grease and harsh tobacco.
Sir Aubrey Stanton-Rivers, but a month past his twenty-first birthday and newly come both to his inheritance and its attendant responsibilities, crowed gleefully as he counted up his tricks.
“Waiter, another bottle,” he cried. “My luck’s turned at last. Stick with me, Cholmondeley, my boy, and I’ll make your fortune!”
The red-faced young subaltern opposite just grinned and continued to shuffle the deck.
“Another game?” Aubrey suggested. His coat was off, his neckcloth was on the floor and his blond curls were wildly dishevelled. With his wide-set blue eyes and ingenuous grin he looked like a youthful seraph that had strayed into an antechamber of Hell and found it much to his taste.
“Dammit, you’re too lucky for me,” one of his companions grumbled. “I’m not having you make Chum’s fortune at the expense of mine. I’m for the dice table. Coming, Charles?”
The other man grunted and drained his glass and they both disappeared into the howling throng at the other end of the room. Aubrey gave a crack of laughter.
“You’ll play. Won’t you, Chum?”
“Of course. Your luck never lasts,” Chum pointed out. “Besides, once the drink is in the sense is out and here comes our third bottle.” He grinned and placed the deck squarely upon the table between them.
“I’ll cut with you,” Aubrey offered. “Your grey hack against my chestnut.”
“Oh no,” Cholmondeley shook his head, “not that ewe-necked nag, Put up something worth having for pity’s sake.”
Aubrey laughed, Chum’s affection for his grey was well known. He scribbled a few words onto a piece of paper and passed it to his friend.
“There’s my stake,” he declared, “take it or leave it.”
Cholmondeley shouted with laughter.
“I’ll take it by all means. You go first …Oh, very good Aubrey…But not quite good enough. I’ll keep this,” he waved the piece of paper, “next to my heart.”
“Just see that you do, “ Aubrey warned. “I’m ready for some supper. Coming?”
“Later. I’m off the join Charles and Freddy at the dice.” Chum rose to his feet and placed a cigarillo between his teeth. “If I can beat you tonight, I should be able to beat anybody!”
Aubrey made his way a trifle unsteadily to the supper room where he sat, wolfing ham and mustard and eyeing the Olympian gods and goddesses who could still be discerned on the smoke-stained ceiling.
“I say, Charles,” he called as he spotted a friend making his way towards him, “that Venus is a bit of an armful.”
Charles glanced upwards, grimaced, and jerked a thumb towards the main salon.
“Freddy sent me,” he grunted. “Best come, Chum’s in a pickle.” Then he set off again towards the ham.
Aubrey stretched and sighed. It was wonderful to be young and rich and have a good head for claret. He would extricate Chum from his ‘pickle’, he promised himself, and then – well, the night was young, anything might happen.
*
The April sun was bright, but a chill wind with a hint of showers prompted Lady Cicely Stanton-Rivers to walk more briskly along the pavement and up the steps to her front door. As she set her neatly shod foot upon the top step, the door swung silently open and she swept regally through the porch and into the hall, her maid bustling at her heels.
“Did you enjoy your walk, my lady?” asked the elderly butler, a tray piled high with envelopes in his hands.
“Well enough, Tench,” Lady Cicely replied. “The weather is uncommonly fine for the season. Are all those for me?”
“Yes, my lady. Shall I have some tea carried up to the morning room?”
Cicely thanked him and began to sort through the envelopes and packets as she climbed the sweeping marble staircase. As she glanced at the last of them she gave a little sigh, then passed out of sight.
“If a lady as fine and kind as our Lady Cicely was hanging on my every word,” the younger of the two footmen commented wistfully to his fellow, “you’d not catch me running off with some fat draper’s widow, no matter how well-heeled she was.”
Tench turned upon him, brows raised loftily. “Thank you for that information, young Horace,” he said. “I’ll be sure to pass it on.” Then he departed for his domain below stairs leaving Horace in no way discomfited, for he had long since learned that Tench’s bark was far worse than his bite.
The morning room’s windows offered a fine view of the Park, but today Cicely had no eyes for the fashionable world walking, riding and driving below. Seated at her desk, her spectacles firmly upon her tip-tilted nose, she methodically sorted her correspondence into neat piles, commenting upon the contents of the envelopes to her maid.
“Two more invitations, Agnes. Lord and Lady Markham are making up a party for the theatre, that one may go on the “yes” pile, and the other is for Mrs Beauchamp’s ball, though I fear I shall be indisposed.”
“But, Milady,” Agnes protested, looking up from her stitching, “young Mister Julian is so fond of you and has such pretty manners.”
“He is a simpering milksop. I have no time for any man who would write an Ode to my eyebrows.” And the eyebrows, two elegant arcs several shades darker than her silver-gilt curls, rose derisively.
Agnes sighed and murmured a name under her breath that, most unfortunately, Cicely heard.
“How dare you speak that name in my presence,” she snapped. “If you cannot hold your tongue, get out.”
Agnes flushed but held her ground. “I’ll not hold my tongue, milady,” she declared. “If you’re not moping, you’re as cross as crabs and it has gone on long enough. Captain Munro was a thoroughgoing scoundrel and I was glad to see the back of him but now, honestly, milady, there’s times I could wish him back again.”
“Agnes!” Cicely was outraged. She rose to her feet to administer a sharp rebuke, then she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. I look, she told herself, like an ugly, bitter old maid, and I won’t be twenty-five until my next birthday! She dropped back into her chair and removed her spectacles.
“Forgive me,” she whispered. “Have I really been so unbearable?”
“Not unbearable,” Agnes replied, “just powerful hard to live with.”
Pink-cheeked, Cicely toyed with the papers on her desk. I was such a fool,” she said ruefully. “Rory was so exciting, such fun, so plausible. I could not believe that it was my fortune alone that counted with him.” She looked at Agnes, sheepishly. “I’ve learned my lesson now. In future, I will keep to my library; books are less fickle than men. I am so sorry for being so horrid.”
“We made allowances, never fret,” Agnes told her, cheerfully. “Are there any letters from your aunt?”
Thankfully, Cicely returned to her correspondence and they spent a quiet hour during which the tea arrived and was consumed and then Cicely settled down to read the lengthy reports sent monthly by the managers of her brother’s extensive estates in Buckinghamshire and her own near Oxford. However, although she should have been concentrating upon her manager’s request for instructions, or that of a tenant for a new roof, her mind kept straying back to ‘that man’. How could I have been so gullible, she asked herself, then, grimly, told herself why. The first time she had seen Captain Roderick Munro, so dashing and handsome in his uniform and whiskers, she had just attended he wedding of the very last of her schoolfellows to bite the nuptial bullet, serving as a bridesmaid for the second time. She had also just put off her mourning, though in her heart her father was still sorely missed. Rory had brought a novel sense of excitement, freedom and fun to a life that had begun to hold little in the way of a future apart from continuing the work halted by Sir Simon Stanton-Rivers death and restraining Aubrey from still worse excesses. Guiltily she admitted that she had had little success in either direction. Henceforth, she resolved, she would make up for lost time and aim to have her father’s series of essays on the medieval romances ready for publication in the new year.
The door opened, breaking her concentration still further, and to her surprise her brother entered, wincing in the watery sunlight.
“Aubrey,” she cried. “You’re up so early. It wants a full hour to noon.”
“Hush,” he pleaded, “and, for pity’s sake, help me to a chair.”
With a tolerant smile, Cicely quickly placed him in a seat, his slippered feet were propped upon a footstool and a handkerchief drenched in lavender water was draped across his aching brow.
“You look awful,” she said.
“I have no doubt but that I do,” he agreed, and then rolled a bloodshot blue eye in Agnes direction. “Agnes, I need to speak to my sister. I’m sure that there must be some crisis brewing in the servants hall with which Tench needs your expert assistance.”
Agnes collected her sewing and departed while Aubrey peered blearily at his sister and waved her back to her chair.
“You’d better sit down, Sissy,” he said bleakly. “I am afraid that I have done something terrible.”
“Terrible?” Cicely’s smile tried to be reassuring but her concern was clear. “How terrible? Have you been rude to somebody important? Or, oh Aubrey, you haven’t called anyone out!”
“No,” Aubrey moaned, “not as bad as that. Well, yes, come to think of it, worse even. You see last night Chum and Freddy and Charles and me were gambling and…”
“Oh, Aubrey,” Cicely sighed wearily. “Not again! How much did you lose?”
“Not “how much”, Sissy,” Aubrey whispered, eyes fixed firmly upon his slippers. “I lost you.”
“Me!” Cicely bounced to her feet. “You lost me? Good grief, Aubrey, you can’t go round losing people! This isn’t the colonies, you know.”
“I know, I’m sorry but …”
“Am I permitted to know to whom you lost me?” Cicely demanded.
“Chum Armstrong. He put up his grey, Mandrake, so I…”
“So I am worth approximately the same as a flea-bitten grey nag. Words fail me, Aubrey!”
“Chum loves that horse,” Aubrey protested, “and he wouldn’t accept a stake that means any the less to me.”
“Oh,” Cicely absorbed the implication for a moment or two. “I suppose, in that case, I should be flattered. Never mind. I’ll have a quiet word with young Mr Armstrong. He’s quite reasonable when he’s sober.”
“Chum’s not the problem,” Aubrey told her sheepishly. “You see, I gave him my note, as a joke, that was all, but the silly fool muddled it up with some of his own and then he lost it, too.”
Cicely swallowed and she shook her head. “I am finding this very hard to take in,” she said. “I think you had better tell me the whole story.”
Aubrey looked at his sister’s angelic face and his heart sank. Slowly, and with many pauses and digressions, he related the terrible events of the previous evening. He told the story very badly, unable to describe the anguished expression on Chum’s face as he gasped “I lost it, Aubrey, I lost it!” and his own strange breathlessness as he realised who was holding the vital slip of paper so carelessly between his fingers or his horror when that soft, mocking voice said “I appear to hold a note of yours, my boy. Do you want to settle up tonight or shall I collect her in the morning?”
“I thought I would have some time to sort things out,” he told his sister, “but he has moved too fast for me. I had hoped you would never have to know.”
“Who?” Cicely demanded in rising panic. “What has he done?”
“Look,” Aubrey said simply and handed he a folded sheet of newsprint.
Holding it at arms length, Cicely could just make out her own name set in bold type. Biting her lip, she groped for her spectacles and read:
“Sir Aubrey Stanton-Rivers, Bart., of Stanton Parva, Bucks., is pleased to announce the engagement of his only sister, Lady Cicely Caroline, to Lord Patrick FitzRoy, son of the Right Honourable Lord Gerald FitzRoy, 12th Earl of Innisidhe. An early wedding is anticipated.”
“I’m so sorry, Sissy,” Aubrey was saying as she crushed the paper between her hands. “I can only assume that it is intended as a joke.”
“Well, it isn’t very funny,” Cicely was close to tears. “I am going to be a laughing stock. Oh, Aubrey – I’m engaged to a man I’ve never even seen!” She stood up and went to her desk, fumbling for paper and a wafer. “I’ll write to him immediately and demand that he put a rebuttal in tomorrow’s paper along with a full apology.” Her hands were shaking so much that she almost dropped her pen.
“Truth to tell, Sis,” Aubrey said, wearily, “I should imagine that this will come as something of a surprise to him. I’ve never seen any man drink as much as he did last night and survive.”
“With any luck, he didn’t. That would solve all our problems.” Cicely sniffed and plied her hankie. “What is this FitzRoy like anyway?”
“Patrick FitzRoy? He’s Irish.”
“With a name like that,” Cicely snapped, “he’d hardly be Italian!”
“It could be worse,” Aubrey retorted. “What with Chum Armstrong and Rory Munro, we’ve had precious little luck with the Scots.”
They glared at one another for a moment or two then Aubrey continued.
“They call him Mad Pat, with good reason. I steer well clear of him and his set – Jerry Hawthorne, Corinthian Tom, you know – that lot. There are orders that he is to be shot on sight if he ever tries to enter Almack’s again. I believe that he did rather well at Cambridge but came down early, joined the Dragoon’s as a trooper, attacked an officer and was court-martialled. His family were able to prevent him from hanging but it so infuriated his father that he threw him out. You know the routine; a ticket on an Eastward bound ship and instructions to pick up his allowance from a bank in Bombay. So he went east to Indian and China and beyond. Lord knows what he did out there but it has left its mark. He’s older than us.”
“Well, he should know better then. What does he look like?”
“Black Irish, very brown from the sun with queer light eyes like a cat’s. He’s always smiling but it’s not always a very nice smile, if you know what I mean.”
“I can imagine,” Cicely said with a shudder. “He sounds awful!”
“He’s a handsome devil, though,” Aubrey admitted, “which makes him even more eligible despite his faults. There are going to be a lot of disappointed young ladies and furious mamas reading the paper this morning.”
Cicely gaped at him. “You mean to say that he’s a – a catch! Mad Pat FitzRoy?”
“Mad Pat FitzRoy has got more money than he knows what to do with. There’s many a girl, as you well know, who would give her eyeteeth to be a Countess with a fortune not dependent upon a few hundred acres in Derbyshire. They are going to be green with envy.” Aubrey suddenly grinned. “They’ll be cutting you dead in the streets.”
Cicely also saw the funny side and began to giggle. “Are you sure,” she demanded, “that he’ll be as upset about this as I am?”
“Mad Pat? With a wife? He’ll be frantic!”
“Good,” and now Cicely’s smile was not very nice. “Let’s teach him a lesson. I want you to write a letter to my betrothed, Aubrey. Let’s see if we can make the worm squirm before we let him off the hook.”
*
Just as Aubrey was seating himself at Cicely’s desk, her betrothed was groaning his way to consciousness while his valet attempted to repair the wreck of his room.
“I can’t understand it myself,” the man was saying. “I just can’t see where the attraction lies in going out and getting puking drunk three nights out of four. Mark my words, lad, you’ll end up like your cousin Kevin – screaming your nights away in a madhouse. The first time you wake me up to tell me your feet have been eaten off by funny green things out of the wall, that’s it, I’m off home to Sligo.”
“Shut up, Phelim,” muttered a hummock amongst the tangled debris of a four-poster bed. “Faith, I need a drink.”
“No you don’t,” Phelim snapped. “You need to get up and clean and dressed. A pint of coffee, a cut of beef and a canter in the Park’s what you need.”
“If you don’t shut up you’ll be needing a doctor.”
“And another thing! How can you expect any decent woman to live in this Bedlam? Half your servants speak Gaelic, the other half speak Pushtu and the cook’s Chinese. Honest to God, it’s like the Tower of Babel in the servant’s hall.”
The hummock erupted with a roar. “Phelim, do you want my boots down your throat? My God, I’ve still got them on! Couldn’t you at least have undressed me, you lazy bastard?”
“Undressed you? The state you were in nobody wanted to touch you. We paid the crossing sweeper you brought you home to carry you up the stairs – well, more drag really, he was only a little feller.”
Lord Patrick FitzRoy levered himself up into a sitting position. Far from being the handsome devil that Aubrey had described, he looked exactly as a man would who has been dragged home, dead drunk, by a crossing sweeper. He was still dressed in the tattered and stained remnants of evening dress, but his shirt had been partially torn from his body and a raw graze on one shoulder had bled freely. He looked down at himself in bewilderment.
“Disgusting, aren’t you?” Phelim commented. “Yacoub Khan is shocked to the core. You know how Mohammedans feel about drunkenness.”
“I’ve seen him high as a kite,” Pat muttered defensively.
“But that wasn’t alcohol, as you well know, shame to you.”
Pat growled then, as his eyes began to focus, he peered at the wreckage around him.
“Why is my room such a mess?”
“Because you, my lord and master, woke up and took a little walk earlier. We could hear you banging about but we could also hear what you were saying and what you were doing so we decided not to interfere.” Phelim winced as his master hiccupped. “Don’t start that again. Why don’t you go down to the stable yard and stand under the pump? Almost anyone would be pleased to work the handle for you. Honest to God, it’s more than a body can bear. It’ll all have to stop when you’re married!”
“What are you wittering on about, Phelim?”
“Ha! It doesn’t surprise me that you’ve forgotten. Read this. It’s the reason for all your celebrations.”
Lord Patrick picked up the newssheet that Phelim tossed onto his lap and his eyes opened fully for the first time. A moment later he was cursing and scrabbling through his pockets. He found Aubrey’s note of hand and cursed even louder.
“I’ll kill Poulson,” he raged. “He must have crawled out from under the table and straight round to his office. The Post is going to need a new editor. They’ll never hold me to it, you know. I’ll be damned before I marry some jumped up baronets sister.”
“And there was me thinking you’d done rather well for yourself,” said Phelim, shaking his head. Pat stopped in mid-snarl and glared at him.
“Why?” he demanded.
“Because she’s a beauty, that’s why, and an heiress. The Stanton-Riverses have no need of your ill-gotten cash. The only reason she hasn’t been snapped up long before is because she’s a bit of a blue-stocking but at least she’ll be able to occupy herself while you’re out throwing up in a gutter somewhere. Her father died the best part of two years ago and every fortune hunter in Town has been licking his chops and prowling around her. One almost won her a month or so back but she was too sharp for him.” Phelim considered his master for a moment then sighed. “You know, I always thought it would take someone special to tempt Lady Cicely down from her shelf and instead you’ve taken a broomstick and knocked her down. Look, before you do anything stupid, see the girl. I promise you, you’ll be pleasantly surprised, though what she will think is anybody’s guess.”
Pat re-read the announcement in the paper then gingerly rose from his bed. He was very tall with the build of a prizefighter, an impression accentuated by his slightly crooked nose and the scar tissue on his knuckles. He swayed as he walked towards the door.
“I’ll look her over,” he promised. “Pump in the stable yard, you said?”
Phelim watched him go with a grin. “I was only joking,” he said quietly to the closing door. “God help the poor lass if she takes him.”
*
Aubrey’s letter was placed in Pat’s hands that evening as he sat in the lonely magnificence of his dining room. He pushed aside the scant remains of an excellent beef and oyster pie and read the single, uncrossed sheet with a wry smile, then glanced up as the door opened and Yacoub Khan entered.
“Congratulations are in order, Yacoub,” he said. “It appears that I am to take a wife.”
“Indeed, sahib, you deserve congratulations if all I have heard is the truth,” Yacoub agreed, his respectful tone at odds with his derisive smile. “I am sure that that is why your cousin Gerald is here. I have put him in the library.”
Pat eyed his henchman apprehensively. “What the devil does he want? He is alone isn’t he?”
Yacoub inclined his immaculately turbaned head gracefully in assent.
“That’s a relief. He’s not worth running down the back stairs for but Euphemia, now! Thank you, Yacoub.”
Pat left the room, giving a low whistle and holding the door ajar. From beneath the table emerged four great, grey shadows that fell in at Pat’s heels like an honour guard and followed him silently across the hall and up the stairs to a dusty tapestry-hung corridor. Raised amid the medieval splendours of Innisidhe, Pat could not feel entirely at ease with the new Georgian modernity. Rejecting the Palladian in favour of the Gothick, he had rescued a crumbling Jacobean mansion, reputedly built for a Royal mistress, had done enough work on it to prevent it from collapsing about his ears and had furnished it in the appropriate style. Every battered inch of the blackened oak panelling soothed his senses and the wolfhounds, also installed in a sudden spasm of nostalgia, made good, if silent, companions.
Pat flung open the library door and ducked beneath the lintel. He stifled a laugh as the figure by the fire jumped and exclaimed at the four hounds advancing, hackles raised, towards him. Pat whistled them away and greeted his cousin.
“Stop looking at the pictures, Gerald,” he ordered, pausing at a side table to fill two glasses.
“Patrick, you devil.” Cheeks aflame, Gerald stared up from the heavy volume on his lap. He was also a big man but lacked an inch or so of Pat’s height and his splendid physique. His elegance of dress and deportment worked hard, and with moderate success, to conceal such deficiencies as a short neck and a slight paunch, but his exquisitely arranged neck cloth and artfully brushed hair could do little to improve his face with its heavy features and lines of temper.
“Where did you get this book?” he demanded, his sneer deepening.
“Put it back on the shelf if it disgusts you so much,” Pat suggested, dropping into a wing chair and extending his boots towards the fire. “It’s a religious work of great antiquity, though the binding is more recent and I took it in part exchange for a load of Brummagem tin ware. I still wonder who had the better on that deal.”
“There’s little doubt in my mind,” Gerald told him. “I obviously went to all the wrong places on my Grand Tour.”
“You wanted to go on yours,” Pat reminded him cheerfully, “I had no choice. Just a one way ticket on an east bound merchantman and a message from the old man to say he didn’t want to see me again until I’d made something of myself.”
“Well, you’ve certainly done that,” declared Gerald. “You have made the FitzRoy name a byword for outrageous behaviour. The Earl is not pleased.
“Pleasing Father is one of the least of my concerns,” said Pat, his jaw hardening momentarily. “Why? What’s the old rat-bag complaining about now?”
“Did you know that he is in London?”
“No, why should I?”
“So, he read the paper this morning. Patrick, he’s furious. Not even a FitzRoy can get away with putting an entry like that in the public press for a joke. The Stanton-Rivers will be after your blood!”
“They’ll have to join the queue, then.”
“But think of the scandal. What if they call you out? Or take you to court?”
Pat grinned and shrugged. Gerald sighed and laid the book aside. “Are you going to publish a rebuttal, then?” he asked.
“No.”
“I just don’t understand you!”
“Too many long words, is it, Gerald?” Pat laughed and tugged Aubrey’s letter out of his pocket with a flourish. “The Stanton-Rivers are well content. I am invited to take tea with them tomorrow. Tea at three, Gerald, not pistols at dawn, so the old man can rest easy and mind his own bloody business.”
“But it is his business,” Gerald protested. “He is anxious to make the best possible match for you and – may I speak frankly, Patrick?”
“Go ahead,” Patrick invited.
“There has always been a special relationship between our families,” Gerald said confidingly, leaning forward and placing a cousinly hand upon Patrick’s knee. “It was the fondest wish of both our fathers that the relationship should become closer still.”
“Christ, Gerry, are you proposing?”
Gerald persevered, though he did remove his hand.
“As I am sure you are aware, my sister Euphemia has always held you in very high regard. Even as a child she was desolate, inconsolable, when you left for the east. She would have followed you had I not, fortunately, got wind of her intentions and confined her to her rooms until your ship had sailed. Now a woman, she talks of you constantly. Quite simply, Pat, she loves you. I cannot tell you what a terrible blow it will be to her to read of this – inappropriate engagement.”
“Poor dear,” Pat’s tone was unsympathetic. “I would hate to be the cause of any heartache to her and the prospect of becoming your good-brother is a great temptation, but the announcement has gone in the Morning Post. Unless the young lady cries off I am, as they say, spoken for.”
“Spoken for!” Gerald scoffed. “I’ll believe it when I see it. The Stanton-Rivers are a proud family and I understand that Lady Cicely is an intelligent young lady of remarkable good sense.”
“Now, there is an implication that says little for the fair Euphemia,” Pat pointed out, “whose high regard for me is exceeded only by that in which she holds my fortune.”
The two men sat in silence for a moment or two, sharing the warmth of the fire, sipping their brandy and glaring at each other in civilised animosity.
“Well,” Gerald sighed and drained his glass. “If you are going to be unpleasant, I’ll be on my way. I’ll tell the Earl what you have said.”
“Do so, with my blessing,” Pat grinned at him and rose from his seat to tug a bell-pull. “Believe me, Gerald, you’re very welcome to my place in his affections – if not necessarily his Will!”
Gerald bit back a reply as the door opened and Yacoub Khan entered.
“Ah, Yacoub. Mr Gerald is just leaving. Please show him out, and then you can take the tray down. I have some accounts to look over and would prefer not to be disturbed.”
Gerald snorted. “So tonight will be the first for a month that you have gone to bed sober.”
“True enough, but if I am to impress the sensible Lady Cicely with my beaux yeux, they had better not be bloodshot.”
Gerald took his leave, silently seething, and Yacoub returned a few moments later, his aquiline face creased by a worried frown. Pat was seated at his desk, pen in hand.
“What’s wrong, bhai?” he asked. “I hope Gerald was civil.”
“Sahib,” Yacoub grumbled, “that man wishes you ill. You must kill him before he kills you. Cut him down like the dog he is.”
“May Allah bless you, my good friend,” Pat chuckled, “we are far from home and things are done differently here. He, damn him, is my heir and, besides, how would I go about it?
“Poison, my lord. Seduce his mistress and she will poison his food – or his snuff.”
Pat stared wide-eyed at his henchman. “Snuff,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Yacoub, you think of everything.”
*
One advantage attached to sobriety, Pat told himself quite early the next morning, is that it takes so much less effort to get out of bed and into the saddle. He whistled to his hounds, calling them from mysterious canine errands of their own, and joined the fashionable squadrons who posed and paraded daily in the Park. Astride his massive, raw-boned grey with the four wolfhounds trotting sedately to heel and followed at a respectful distance by Yacoub, resplendent in a blue silk coat and snowy puggaree, Pat was well aware that he was turning heads. However, he paid no more attention to the ladies who strove to catch his eye than to the urchins shrieking that the circus had come to town: he merely raised his hat impartially to both and trotted on.
He had almost completed one circuit of the Park before his rather sombre expression broke into a welcoming smile and he guided his horse across the ride to meet the couple that were riding slowly towards him.
“Pat, you sly dog,” the man was calling, “why didn’t you tell us you were hunting a wife? We could have helped you make your choice, couldn’t we Sarah?”
Sir Anthony Duberley, big, boisterous, and without a mean bone in his body, beamed fondly at his young wife and leaned across to wring Pat’s hand.
“Patrick could not have made a better choice, even with the benefit of your vast experience,” Sarah said quietly to her husband then she too took Patrick’s hand. “Cicely is a special friend of mine. She is a lovely girl, just what you need.”
“Lord, that sounds ominous,” Pat grinned as he straightened up from kissing her hand soundly. “You mean that she’ll make me stay in and read books of sermons instead of going ratting?” He liked Sarah, who was pretty and gentle with soft dark hair and eyes, and felt vaguely resentful that Anthony, excellent fellow that he was, had seen her first.
“That’s right, my boy,” Sir Anthony boomed, leaning over to administer a crippling clap on the shoulder. “She’ll have you walking to heel in a week, if she’s anything like my Sarah. I say,” he peered past Patrick, his breath suddenly heavy with emotion, “your groom has still got that chestnut. Do you think he might have changed his mind?”
Sarah and Patrick smiled at each other as Sir Anthony trotted off to pester Yacoub.
“He’ll be disappointed,” Patrick warned her. “Yacoub says that’s a good Muslim mare and he’s not about to sell her to any feringhee infidel. On the other hand, Anthony’s offer was not particularly generous.”
Sarah laughed and stooped from her saddle to scratch the head of one of Pat’s hounds, whose whiskery snout was nudging her stirrup.
“That Cicely is a sly one,” she commented. “I only saw her on Sunday and she didn’t even mention you. Does she like your dogs?”
“I don’t know,” Pat admitted. “We haven’t actually met.”
Sarah looked up sharply but before she could speak an interruption occurred that put paid to any further conversation.
A wolfhound, tail waving in greeting, had wandered towards a bath chair where an elderly, but very upright, lady attended by her maid and propelled by her footman, was enjoying the rather fitful sunshine. She smiled and clicked her tongue at the big dog so he approached, hoping for some attention, and quite without ill intent bent his great roman-nosed head to sniff curiously at the small bundle in her lap. The elderly pug awoke suddenly and, still half-asleep, sprang to its mistress’s defence, sinking its teeth into the monster’s ear. The hound tore free with an anguished yelp and bounded away, too mild mannered to retaliate. Unfortunately, Sarah’s horse was right in his path and he collided with its flank. Sarah was already off balance and had no chance to regain her seat when her pretty bay mare gave a squeal of panic and took off like a Derby favourite.
Galloping in the Park was strictly against the rules so Pat seized the opportunity with relish. He shouted to warn Sir Anthony and Yacoub and set off in pursuit, his grey needing scant encouragement. However, his grin faded as he saw how the bay mare, bit firmly between her teeth, tore along, ignoring horsemen and pedestrians alike. Sarah was swaying in the saddle, stirrup and reins flapping, and Pat realised that he had only a matter of moments before she suffered an extremely nasty fall. A glance over his shoulder assured him that Yacoub, his chestnut’s ears flat against her wicked head, was gaining rapidly, so he urged his stallion on. The big beast responded gallantly, his head passing the heaving bay rump of Sarah’s mount. Sarah, white-faced, cried his name as he drew level with such an expression of entreaty that he abandoned his original intention to bring the mare to a halt. Instead, he leaned across to scoop Sarah right out of her saddle and into his lap. Sarah, sobbing, buried her face in his coat.
“Patrick,” she moaned. “Oh, Patrick, I - I think I’m going to be ill.”
“Not on me, you’re not,” he responded, ungallantly, bringing his stallion sliding to a halt. He dismounted and knelt to prop Sarah’s drooping body against his knee.
“Deep breaths, now,” he urged but, with a sigh, Sarah went limp.
“May I be of assistance?” A musical voice floated opportunely over Pat’s shoulder and he looked up to see an angel hurrying across the wet grass towards him. She dropped to her knees, careless of her fine clothes, and took Sarah’s cold hands in her own.
“I saw what happened,” she gasped. “Poor, dear, Sarah. We mustn’t keep her on the wet grass like this. My house is just across the road. I will call for my footmen.”
Pat was staring, entranced by her rose-petal skin, golden curls, cornflower eyes, the delicious purity of her profile, which, his imagination insisted, would be best set off against black silk sheets. It was all he could do not to drop poor dear Sarah and try the fit of those delicate lips against his own then and there. With an effort, he regained control of his baser self and managed a smile that wasn’t a leer.
“Don’t trouble them, my lady,” he replied, raising Sarah up in his arms. “I’ll need no help to carry a little bit of a thing like Sarah across the way.”
His golden-headed helper blushed prettily as she returned his smile, then she glanced past him, her eyes widening.
“Is that your groom?” she asked. “Perhaps he could wait and tell Sir Anthony where we have gone?”
Yacoub was trotting back towards them, Sarah’s foam-flecked bay following docilely. He brought his mare to a halt, bowed deeply to the lady and grinned at Pat who, frowning, issued his orders. Yacoub bowed again, with counterfeit servility and dismounted to catch the stallion, which was already approaching the two mares, ears pricked.
“Lead the way, my lady,” Pat suggested, ignoring his henchman’s murmured comparison, and followed the angel towards the nearest gate.
*
From the moment that Cicely had looked up to see the grey stallion galloping towards her, she had been aware that her heart was behaving in a most peculiar manner, and when the stern-faced rider had plucked Sarah from deadly peril into the safety of his arms, it had almost leaped out of her bodice. She thought back to how she had felt upon first setting eyes upon Captain Roderick Munro but couldn’t remember this strange breathlessness. Neither had Rory’s smile, she told herself, made her feel as though she was blushing all over.
With Sarah tenderly laid upon the sofa in the morning room, Cicely was able to study the stranger unobserved. He rather dwarfed her bright little room. Even now, on one knee beside the sofa warming Sarah’s cold hands between his large brown ones, he was by far the largest object in it. He was also, she admitted he most intriguing man she had ever seen. His face, for instance, presently turned away from her but clearly etched upon her memory, was at once strong and sensitive, marked by past pains and past passions, yet these shadows would be dispelled in a moment when he unleashed that gay and boyish smile that made her heart bound.
“Lady,” he said, and his deep, vibrant voice sent a thrill through her, “I think she’s waking.”
Sarah’s eyelids were flickering and she moved restlessly. The stranger touched her cheek gently.
“Sarah, my dear. You’re safe. Wake up now.”
Hearing the caressing tone in his voice, Cicely suffered a sudden, and most unexpected, pang of jealousy, but then her friend’s eyes opened.
“Oh, oh, I feel awful,” she moaned. “Where am I?”
“In this nice lady’s house, on her sofa, and I’m sure she’d appreciate it if you didn’t ruin her carpet.”
Sarah looked up, saw Cicely and her jaw dropped. “But….” She started to say but the stranger interrupted her severely.
“I’m very annoyed with Anthony,” he said, glowering. “In fact, I may well call him out for allowing you to ride that flighty bay in your condition.” He paused while Sarah blushed, then continued more gently. “I have just the gelding for you, easy paces and the manners of an arch-bishop. If you blew a horn in his ear he wouldn’t twitch. The very thing, I promise you. I’ll ask Yacoub to bring him round and expect sincere thanks and an abject apology from Anthony for allowing you to scare me so badly.”
“He doesn’t know,” Sarah admitted. “I wanted to be really sure before I told him and then I waited for just the right moment.”
“For that kind of news, every moment is the right moment,” he laughed, “and, if I’m not mistaken, Anthony’s on his way, so now’s your chance.”
Feet were thudding up the stairs even as the stranger spoke and the door was flung open to admit Sir Anthony, scarlet-cheeked and frantic.
“Sarah,” he panted, “are you safe?” and he stooped over her protectively. His hat, which he had dropped, was badly dented and the cream buckskin of his breeches was disfigured by smears of mud and grass-stains. The stranger gave a gurgle of laughter.
“He fell off,” he pointed out to Cicely. “Anthony fell off. Yacoub will never let him buy Sayyide now. A feringhee infidel is one thing but one that falls off….”
“Your benighted dogs are to blame,” Anthony growled over his shoulder. “They overturned a butcher’s barrow and half the dogs in London arrived, spoiling for a fight. The donkey broke loose, my horse is probably in Surrey by now and when I left they were calling out the militia. You may well laugh! I gave the butcher’s boy your name and direction. You may expect a large bill.”
“Cheer up, Anthony,” the stranger rescued the fallen hat and placed it on the table. “Sarah has something to tell you.”
Cicely had already withdrawn to the far end of the room and looked up with a smile as the stranger approached. He returned it in full measure and took her hand.
“Never before have such shocking manners been exhibited in the face of such kindness,” he said and bowed formally over her fingers.
“We have all been somewhat preoccupied,” Cicely reminded him.
“That’s no excuse. The social amenities must be observed at all times lest we sink to the level of barbarians. I wonder if Sir Anthony is sufficiently assured of his Sarah’s well-being to perform the necessary introductions?”
“Need we bother him?” Cicely asked. “I am quite prepared to speak for myself. My name, sir, is Cicely Caroline, sister of Sir Aubrey Stanton-Rivers of the county of Buckinghamshire.” She swept him a curtsey and laughed at his startled expression. “Well, sir? Do you not think me unbecomingly forward?”
“I would be the last person to suggest such a thing,” Pat said. “In fact, I should be begging your forgiveness.”
“Why so, sir?” Cicely enquired, looking up into his face and meeting the level gaze of his cat-like eyes. Suddenly she seemed to hear Aubrey’s voice – “a handsome devil …queer light eyes like a cat’s…” and she gasped.
“Lord Patrick..” she whispered.
“FitzRoy,” he supplied. “Very much at your service.”
*
The bright skies of morning had soon become overcast in a series of squally April showers, and another such was spattering the windows of the morning room as the clock struck four and Cicely, entering, hurried across to peer down into the street. Blurred by the trickling raindrops, she could just discern the tall figure of Lord Patrick FitzRoy striding through the gates of the Park, taking a shortcut home.
“Mad Pat,” she whispered, noting that the sun had come out again and a rainbow hung above the trees flanking Lord Patrick’s homeward path. The sun shone, the rainbow brightened and the rain beat a little harder on the windowpane.
“Seldom,” thought Cicely, “has the state of the weather so accurately reflected my state of mind.”
Unable to settle, she moved from the window seat to her desk and from there to the bookcase where she hesitated for a moment before selecting a large calf-bound volume. She was engaged in turning the pages, obviously looking for something, when Aubrey put his head around the door.
“There you are,” he said. “Typical Sissy, with her head in a book. Most young females in your position would be over at the window, straining to get a last glimpse.” He flopped onto the sofa and grinned up at her.
“Well?” he asked. “Did you like him?”
Cicely took her time over answering, marking a page in her book and laying it carefully aside.
“He certainly seems to be a pleasant sort of man, quite unlike what I was led to expect. His reluctance to further our acquaintance this morning and his delicacy of manner this afternoon suggest a quite different character.”
“Yes, I’ll grant you that. Mad Pat can act the Earl if he needs to, but what else?”
“We have agreed that we should get to know one another rather better before we come to any decisions. For the time being, we shall be seen together and if anybody enquires shall say that our wedding plans have been postponed until Lord Patrick is out of mourning.”
“Mourning? I didn’t know he was in mourning. Who’s died?”
A suspicion of a smile touched Cicely’s lips and she looked demurely down at her hands, folded in her lap.
“Nobody,” she replied, “yet.”
“Who’s he going to kill, then?” Aubrey asked.
“Nobody,” Cicely’s smile broadened, “but he is expecting bad news imminently of a fairly distant cousin of whom nobody outside the immediate family will have heard. Lord Patrick feels that three months should be long enough for me to decide if we will suit.”
“And what do you feel?”
“I agree, of course. In the meantime, he is making up a party for the theatre next Thursday and will accompany me to the Hatherley’s ball.”
“Well, I take my hat of to you, Sissy,” Aubrey grinned. “Perhaps you are going to be a reforming influence. This afternoon was the longest time I have ever spent in Mad Pat’s company without somebody passing out, throwing a punch or shots being fired.” He laughed a little sheepishly. “As I was showing him out, he gave me a very swift account of his prospects and present circumstances. There’s no need to fear that he may be a fortune hunter, he’s better off than we are. Oh, and he has invited us to join him at a house on the coast near Brighton. Subject to your approval, I have accepted.”
Cicely gave her approval graciously and waited until Aubrey had left the room before retrieving her book. Carefully, she opened it at the marked page and remained gazing at the page, lighting touching it with her fingertips, for several minutes.
“Milady?” Agnes was in the room, her voice making Cicely start and gasp. “Sorry to disturb you, milady, but the new dresses you ordered have been sent round from “Lisette”. I think one of them may be suitable for this evening.”
“This evening? Good grief, yes, I must hurry.” Cicely hurried from the room, her mind already filled with frills and furbelows, but Agnes paused to replace Cicely’s book upon the shelf. The mark was still in place and Agnes hesitated, looking guiltily towards the door. The book opened readily as curiosity triumphed and Agnes gave an affectionate chuckle.
“Well, I never,” she said. “Who’d have thought it!”
The old woodcut was surprisingly detailed. The handsome man’s armour, the whipping mane of his charger and the flowing hair and robes of the fainting lady in his arms were particularly finely done. “Lancelot du Lac rescues Guinevere from the fire” read the caption in spiky Gothic script. Agnes sighed, closed the book and set it carefully back in its place. As she left the room she promised herself that if Mad Pat proved to be less than a “parfit, gentil knight” Agnes would provide him with some practical experience at dragon fighting in very short order indeed.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-25 03:25 am (UTC)'In Pursuit of a Wife'
Need ... icon *wheeze*
Date: 2004-11-25 07:05 am (UTC)This needs to be saved for prosperity though, I've been reading so much worse, and in German *cry*, the stuff my mother sends me ...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-25 11:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-25 07:22 pm (UTC)