Читать книгу The Wedding Challenge - Candace Camp, Candace Camp - Страница 9

LADY ODELIA PENCULLY’S BIRTHDAY BALL was the event of the Season—even though the Season had not yet begun. Not to have been invited was a cause for deep social embarrassment. To have been invited and not attend was unthinkable.

Either by blood or by birth, Lady Pencully was related to half the most powerful and wealthy families in England. The daughter of a duke and a countess by marriage, she was a pillar of Society, and it was rare that anyone dared cross her. During her heyday, she had ruled over the ton as she did her family, with an acid tongue and an iron will, and even though she had, with age, remained more and more at her country estate, rarely coming to London even for the Season, she was still a force to be reckoned with. A prodigious correspondent, she kept up to date with the latest scandals and news, and was never averse to dashing off a note to anyone whom she felt needed the benefit of her advice.

So this year, when she announced that she would celebrate her eighty-fifth year of life with a grand ball, it immediately became the one event that no one of any social standing or pretenses thereof could risk missing, even if it was in London in January, the most unfashionable and difficult time of the year. Neither snow nor cold nor the difficulties of opening up a town house for a brief visit could hold back the ladies of the ton, who comforted themselves with the fact that at least it would not be true, as it usually was in January, that no one would be in town, since everyone who mattered would be coming to Lady Odelia’s party.

Among those who drove into London from their country estates was the Duke of Rochford, along with his sister, Lady Calandra, and their grandmother, the dowager Duchess of Rochford. The duke, one of the rare few who would have dared to refuse Lady Odelia, had been disinclined to do so. He was, after all, her great-nephew, and he was a man who believed in carrying out his family responsibilities. Besides, there was business he needed to attend to in London.

The dowager duchess had come because, while she had never really liked her late husband’s older sister, Lady Pencully was one of the few people left of their generation—though, the duchess was careful to point out, Lady Pencully was a number of years older than she—and was, moreover, one of the even fewer number of women whom the duchess considered of equal standing. Lady Odelia was, quite simply, one of the duchess’s set, despite Odelia’s sometimes rather shocking lack of manners.

Of the three in the carriage waiting in the long line of carriages creeping along Cavendish Crescent toward Lady Pencully’s door, only the youngest, Lady Calandra, was looking forward with eagerness to the evening.

At twenty-three years of age, Callie, as she was known to those close to her, had been out for five years, so a London ball, especially one given by an octogenarian relative, would not normally have been cause for excitement. However, she had just spent several long months at the Lilles family country estate, Marcastle, months made even longer and drearier by an inordinate number of drab rainy days and the constant presence of her grandmother.

In the usual way of things, her grandmother was accustomed to residing a good part of the year in her home in Bath, happily reigning over the slow and genteel social scene of that community, and only occasionally, particularly during the Season, coming up to London to make sure that her granddaughter was conducting herself properly.

However, at the end of the last Season, the dowager duchess had decided that it was well past time for Lady Calandra to be married, and she had taken it as her primary occupation to get the girl engaged—to the proper sort of gentleman, of course. To that end, she had sacrificed her usual winter course in Bath for the cold drafts of the historic family estate in Norfolk.

Callie, therefore, had spent the last few months cooped up by the inclement weather, listening to the old lady’s strictures on her behavior, admonitions of her duty to marry, and opinions regarding the suitability of the various peers of the realm.

As a result, the prospect of a real ball, with dancing, friends, gossip and music, set her stomach fluttering in anticipation. To make it even more interesting in Callie’s opinion, Lady Odelia’s party was a masquerade ball. This fact had not only allowed Callie the added fun of devising a costume, it also provided the evening with an intriguing air of mystery.

She had, after much careful consideration and consultation with her seamstress, settled on the guise of a woman of the reign of Henry VIII. Not only did the close-fitting Tudor cap look quite fetching on her, but the deep crimson color of the gown was a perfect foil for her black curls and fair skin—and a welcome change from the usual white to which an unmarried young woman such as herself was limited.

Callie glanced across the carriage at her brother. Rochford, naturally, had eschewed any disguise, wearing his usual elegant black evening suit and white shirt, with a crisp, perfectly tied white cravat, his only concession to the evening a black half mask worn across his eyes. With his dark good looks, of course, he still looked sufficiently romantic and faintly sinister enough to have most of the ladies at the ball gazing in his direction and sighing.

He caught Callie’s glance and smiled affectionately at her. “Happy at the thought of dancing again, Callie?”

She smiled back at him. Others might find her older brother a trifle distant and cool, even forbidding, but she knew that he was not at all cold. He was merely reserved and rather slow to warm to people. Callie understood his manner; she, too, had learned that when one was a duke, or even a duke’s sister, any number of people wanted to ingratiate themselves with one not for friendship, but for the social and monetary benefits they hoped to receive. She suspected that Sinclair had had even more bitter experience with this phenomenon than she, for he had come into his title and wealth at a young age, and had not had the protection and guidance of an older brother.

Their father had died when Callie was only five, and their mother, a sweet woman with a perpetual air of sadness, had gone to her grave nine years later, still mourning their father. Her brother was Callie’s only real family, except, of course, for her grandmother. Sinclair, fifteen years older than Callie, had assumed the role of guardian as well as brother, and as a result, he had been more like a young, indulgent father to her than a brother. She suspected that one of the reasons he had been willing to come to London for their great-aunt’s party had been because he knew how much she herself would enjoy it.

“Indeed, I am looking forward to it,” she answered him now. “I don’t believe that I have danced since Irene and Gideon’s wedding.”

It was well known among Lady Calandra’s family and friends that she was an active sort, preferring a ride or a brisk walk through the country to sitting with her needlework beside the fire, and even by the end of the Season, she never tired of dancing.

“There was Christmas,” the duke pointed out, a twinkle in his eye.

Callie rolled her eyes. “Dancing with one’s brother while Grandmother’s companion plays the piano does not count.”

“It has been a dull winter,” Rochford admitted. “We shall go to Dancy Park soon, I promise.”

Callie smiled. “It will be wonderful to see Constance and Dominic again. Her letters have been brimming over with happiness, now that she is in the family way.”

“Really, Calandra, that is hardly the sort of thing one mentions to a gentleman,” the duchess commented.

“It’s only Sinclair,” Callie pointed out mildly, suppressing a sigh. She was well-used to her grandmother’s strict views of appropriate behavior, and she did her best not to offend the woman, but after three months of the duchess’s lectures, Callie’s nerves were beginning to wear thin.

“Yes,” Rochford agreed with a grin for his sister. “It is only I, and I am well aware of Callie’s scapegrace ways.”

“It is all very well for you to laugh,” his grandmother retorted. “But a lady of Callie’s station must always act with the greatest discretion. Especially one who is not yet married. A gentleman does not choose a bride who does not conduct herself appropriately.”

Rochford’s face assumed that expression of cool hauteur that Callie referred to as his “duke’s face” as he said, “There is a gentleman who would dare to presume to call Calandra indiscreet?”

“Of course not,” the duchess replied quickly. “But when one is seeking a husband, one must be especially careful about everything one says or does.”

“Are you seeking a husband, Callie?” Rochford asked now, turning to his sister with a quizzical glance. “I was not aware.”

“No, I am not,” Callie told him flatly.

“Of course you are,” her grandmother contradicted. “An unmarried woman is always seeking a husband, whether she admits to it or not. You are no longer a young girl in her first Season, my dear. You are twenty-three, and nearly every girl who made her come-out the same season as you has gotten engaged—even that moon-faced daughter of Lord Thripp’s.”

“To an ‘Irish earl with more horses than prospects’?” Callie asked. “That is what you called him last week.”

“Of course I would expect a far better husband than that for you,” her grandmother retorted. “But it is vexing beyond belief that that chit should have become engaged before you.”

“Callie has plenty of time for finding a husband,” Rochford told his grandmother carelessly. “And I can assure you that there are any number of men who would ask me for her hand if they had the slightest encouragement.”

“Which, I might point out, you never give anyone,” the duchess put in tartly.

The duke’s eyebrows sailed upward. “Surely, Grandmother, you would not have me allow roués and fortune hunters to court Calandra.”

“Of course not. Pray do not act obtuse.” The dowager countess was one of the few who did not stand in awe of Rochford, and she rarely hesitated to give him her opinion. “I am merely saying that everyone knows that should they show an interest in your sister, they are likely to receive a visit from you. And very few men are eager to confront you.”

“I had not realized that I was so fearsome,” Rochford said mildly. “However that may be, I fail to see why Callie would be interested in any man who was not willing to face an interview with me in order to pay suit to her.” He turned to Callie. “Are you interested in any particular gentleman?”

Callie shook her head. “No. I am quite happy as I am.”

“You will not always remain the most sought-after young woman in London,” her grandmother warned.

“Then she should enjoy it now,” Rochford stated, effectively ending the conversation.

Grateful for her brother’s intervention, Callie turned her attention to the window, peeking past the curtain at the carriages disgorging passengers before them. It was not, however, quite as easy to ignore her grandmother’s words.

Callie had spoken the truth: she was largely content just as she was. She enjoyed the social whirl of London during the spring and summer months—the dancing, the plays, the opera—and during the rest of the year she could also keep herself well-occupied. She had friends she could visit. She had grown especially close, over the last few months, to Constance, the new wife of the Viscount Leighton, and when the duke was at Dancy Park, Callie spent a great deal of time with her, for Redfields, Dominic and Constance’s home, was only a few miles from Dancy Park. The duke had a number of other residences which he periodically visited, and Callie often went with him. She was rarely bored, for she enjoyed riding and long walks in the country, and she did not disdain the company of the local folk or the servants. She had been almost entirely in charge of the duke’s household since she was fifteen, so there were always things to do.

Still, she knew that her grandmother was right. The time was approaching when she would need to marry. In two more years she would be twenty-five, and most girls were wed by then. If she remained single after that, she would soon be regarded as a spinster, which was not, she knew, a particularly pleasant position to occupy.

It was not that Callie had anything against marriage. She was not like her friend Irene, who had always declared that she would never wed—a conviction that she had recently given up when she met Lord Radbourne. No, Callie expected to marry. She wanted a husband and children and a house of her own.

The problem was, she had never found anyone whom she wanted to marry. Oh, there had been a time or two when she had fallen into an infatuation, when a man’s smile had made her heart flutter, or a set of broad shoulders in a Hussar’s uniform had increased her pulse. But those had always been fleeting things, soon over, and she had yet to meet a man whom she thought she could be happy to see over the breakfast table every morning—let alone give herself up to in the vague, darkly fascinating and slightly frightening rites of the marital bed.

Callie had listened to other young women enthusing over this gentleman or that, and she had wondered what it must be like to tumble with such seeming ease into the deep chasm of love. She wondered if those girls had any idea of the opposite side of such love—the tears she had seen her mother shed, even years after her husband’s death, the soft sad ghost her mother had become long before she actually died. She wondered if it was because she was aware of the sorrows love could bring that she found it more difficult to fall in love…or was it simply something lacking within herself?

She pushed aside such gloomy thoughts as the ducal carriage pulled up to the front steps of the brightly lit house and a footman sprang forward to open their door. She was not about to allow anything, either her grandmother’s criticisms or her own doubts, to spoil her first evening out in London.

Reaching up, she made sure her dainty half mask was in place over her eyes; then she took the hand her brother offered and climbed down from the vehicle.

They were greeted inside the ballroom by Lady Francesca Haughston, easily recognizable despite the narrow blue satin mask she wore. Lady Francesca, a vision in cream and gold and blue, was masquerading as a shepherdess—not the actual sort, of course, but the romantic ideal. Her blond curls were caught up by blue ribbons that matched the wide ribbon wrapped around her white shepherd’s staff, just below its crook. She wore a blue satin overskirt, draped to reveal a froth of white flounces on the skirt beneath, each draping point pinned by a rosette. Her feet were shod in golden slippers.

“Bo Peep, I presume,” Rochford drawled, bowing over Lady Francesca’s hand, and she curtseyed to him.

“You, I can see, did not bother to don fancy dress,” she retorted. “I should have known. Well, you shall have to answer to Lady Odelia. She was quite set on the idea of a masquerade, you know.”

She gestured toward the woman who sat across the room. On a raised dais, Lady Odelia sat enthroned—there was no other word for it—in a high-backed chair padded in blue velvet. On top of her hair she wore an orange wig, and her face was painted white. A circle of gold was thrust into the mass of bright curls, and a high starched ruff rose up from her dress behind her head. Ropes of pearls hung from her neck down over her brocade stomacher and skirts, and rings bedecked her fingers.

“Ah, Good Queen Bess,” Rochford remarked, following Francesca’s gaze. “The aging one, I presume.”

“Don’t let her hear you say that,” Francesca replied. “She cannot stand for long to receive guests, so she decided to hold court instead. Rather appropriate, I think.”

Francesca turned toward Callie, holding out her hands and smiling with affection. “Callie, my dear. At least I can count on you. How lovely you look.”

Callie greeted the other woman with a smile. She had known Lady Haughston all her life, for Francesca was Viscount Leighton’s sister and had grown up at Redfields, not far from the duke’s own Dancy Park. Francesca was several years older than Callie, and Callie had regarded her with awe and affection when she was a child. Francesca had married Lord Haughston and moved from Redfields, but Callie had continued to see her now and again when Francesca came to visit her parents. Later, when Callie had had her own coming out, they had associated frequently, for Lady Francesca, a widow for the past five years, was one of the leading ladies of the ton. Her sense of style was impeccable, and even though she was now in her early thirties, she was still one of the most beautiful women in London.

“I am completely in your shadow, I assure you,” Callie told Francesca. “You look absolutely beautiful. But how did Aunt Odelia manage to trap you into receiving guests?”

“Oh, my dear, she did much more than that. She did not feel that she could put on a ball in her own honor, so that fell to her sister Lady Radbourne and, of course, the new Countess of Radbourne—you know Irene—” Francesca swiveled to include the woman standing beside her.

“Of course,” Callie answered. The ton was not a large group, and she had known Lady Irene superficially for some years. A few months earlier she had come to know her better when she had married Gideon, Lord Radbourne, who was in some collateral way related to Lady Calandra and the duke.

Irene smiled in her frank way and greeted her, “Hello, Callie. Good to see you. Is Francesca telling you how I imposed on her good nature?”

“Hardly an imposition,” Francesca demurred.

Irene laughed. She was a tall woman, with thick, curling blond hair, and she looked stunning dressed in the white drapery of an ancient Greek. Her odd golden eyes were lit with laughter. Marriage, Callie thought, agreed with Irene. She was more beautiful than ever.

“What Francesca means is that it was worse than that,” Irene explained, glancing at Francesca with affection. “You know how hopeless I am at parties. The entire thing fell to Francesca, so you must compliment her for the fact that it has come off so well. Or at all, frankly.”

Francesca smiled amiably and turned to greet the next partygoer as Callie moved down the receiving line to Irene and her husband, Lord Radbourne. Gideon, Lord Radbourne, had come to the party tonight dressed as a pirate, and it was, Callie reflected, a guise that suited his rather unconventional looks. With his dark, slightly shaggy hair and powerful build, he looked more like someone who might stop one’s ship and rob it than like a gentleman, and he did not seem at all uncomfortable to have a cutlass thrust through his wide sash.

“Lady Calandra,” Gideon greeted her, executing a brief but serviceable bow. “Thank you for coming.” A smile warmed his hard features for an instant. “It is good to see a familiar face.”

Callie smiled. It was common knowledge that Gideon was not at ease in the company of his peers—bizarre events in his childhood had caused him to be raised from childhood in poverty in London, and he had survived and even prospered solely by using his wits. When he was returned to his proper station as an adult, he had fit in poorly with the other members of the ton. He was not much given to talking, and he had so far managed to avoid most social occasions. But he had found a proper fit with Irene, whose blunt speech and disregard of other’s opinions were equal to his own. On the occasions when Callie had been around him, she had found him quite interesting.

“It is a pleasure to be here,” Callie assured him. “I fear that winter at Marcastle has grown quite monotonous. And, in any case, one could hardly not attend Aunt Odelia’s birthday ball.”

“That seems to be the case with half of England,” Gideon opined with a glance at the crowded ballroom.

“Let me take you over to visit the guest of honor,” Irene suggested, linking her arm through Callie’s.

“Traitor,” her husband said in a low voice, though the warmth of his smile as he looked at his wife belied his caustic word. “You are simply seizing the opportunity to get out of this damnable receiving line.”

Irene let out a laugh and cast a teasing smile at Lord Radbourne. “You are quite welcome to join us if you wish. I am sure that Francesca will be well able to handle the new arrivals.”

“Hmm.” Lord Radbourne adopted a considering pose. “Greeting guests or facing Aunt Odelia—a difficult choice indeed. Is there not a third, more attractive, alternative—perhaps dashing into a burning building?”

Gideon smiled at his wife in a way that was almost a caress and went on, “I had best stay here, else Aunt Odelia will no doubt take me to task again because I did not come as Sir Francis Drake as she suggested, a globe under my arm.”

“A globe?” Callie repeated sotto voce as she and Irene strolled away.

“Yes. For sailing all over the world, you see—though I’m not entirely sure that Sir Francis Drake actually circumnavigated the globe. But that would scarcely matter to Aunt Odelia.”

“Little wonder that Radbourne did not care to come in that costume.”

“No, but it was not the globe that put him off so much as those puffed short pants.”

Callie laughed. “I am surprised you were able to get him to come in costume at all. Sinclair would not consider it, beyond a mask.”

“Doubtless the duke has more dignity to lose,” Irene replied lightly. “Besides, I have found ’tis quite amazing the persuasive power a wife can exert on her husband.” Her eyes glittered behind her gold mask, and there was a soft, provocative curve to her mouth.

Callie could feel a faint blush rising in her cheeks at the implication of the other woman’s words, and she felt a not unfamiliar twinge of curiosity. Women were usually quick to cease any discussion of the marriage bed if an unmarried girl was around, so Callie had heard very little about what happened in the privacy of a couple’s bedchamber, although, as was usually the case in a girl who had been raised in the country, she had some degree of knowledge of the basics of the act, at least among horses and dogs.

Still, Callie could not help but wonder about the feelings—the emotions and the physical sensations—that were involved in that very private human act. To ask a direct question was, of course, unthinkable, so she had had to glean what she could from conversations she overheard and, sometimes, an inadvertent slip of the tongue. Irene’s comment tonight was, she thought, different from most that she had heard from married women. Though lightly humorous, there was a pleased tone to her voice—no, more than that, there was the almost purring sound of someone who thoroughly enjoyed participating in that wifely “persuasion” about which she spoke.

Callie cast a sideways glance at Irene. If there was anyone who would talk about such a thing to her, she thought, it would be Irene. She cast about for some way to keep the conversation going in the direction Irene had taken, but before she could think of anything to say, she glanced across the room, and every thought left her head.

A man stood leaning against one of the pillars that marched along either side of the room. He looked negligently at ease, his arms crossed, one shoulder to the pillar. He was dressed in the style of a Cavalier, his wide-brimmed hat pinned up on one side and with a sweeping plume on the other. Soft leather gloves with wide, long gauntlets encased his hands and lower arms. His fawn breeches were tucked into soft boots that were elegantly cuffed just below the knees, and slender golden spurs hung at the heels. Above his trousers he wore a matching slashed doublet, bare of any ornamentation, and over that was a short round cape, tied casually at the neck and caught on one side behind the elegant thin sword hanging at his waist.

He could have stepped from a painting of the nobles who had fought and died for their doomed king, Charles I—elegant, and whipcord lean and tough. The dark half mask that hid the upper portion of his face only added to the air of romance and mystery that hung about him. He was glancing about the room, his expression arrogant and faintly bored. Then his eyes met Callie’s and stopped.

He did not move nor change expression, yet somehow Callie knew that he had become instantly, intently alert. She gazed back at him, her steps faltering. A slow smile spread across the lower half of his face, and, sweeping off his hat, he bowed extravagantly.

Callie realized that she was staring, and, with a blush, she took two quick steps to catch up with Irene. “Do you know that man?” she asked in a hushed voice. “The Cavalier?”

Irene glanced around. “Where—oh. No, I don’t believe I do. Who is he?” She turned back to Callie.

“I do not think I have ever seen him before,” Callie replied. “He looks…intriguing.”

“No doubt it is the costume,” Irene told her cynically. “The most impossibly dull sort would look dashing in the clothes of a Royalist.”

“Perhaps,” Callie agreed, unconvinced. She was tempted to turn and look back at the man, but she resisted the urge.

“Calandra! There you are!” Lady Odelia exclaimed in her booming voice as they approached the dais upon which the old lady sat.

Callie smiled as she stepped up to greet her great-aunt. “May I offer you my felicitations, Aunt Odelia?”

Lady Odelia, a formidable-looking woman even when she was not dressed up in the manner of Queen Elizabeth, allowed a regal nod and gestured Callie forward with a gesture worthy of that monarch. “Come here, girl, and give me a kiss. Let me look at you.”

Callie obediently bent and kissed her great-aunt’s cheek. Aunt Odelia took both Callie’s hands in hers and stared up at her intently.

“Pretty as ever,” she announced in a satisfied voice. “Prettiest of the lot, I’ve always said. Of the Lilles, I mean,” she offered in an aside to Irene.

Irene nodded her understanding, smiling. She was one of the few women in the ton who held no fear of Lady Pencully; indeed, she rather enjoyed the old woman and her blunt ways. She had, in fact, engaged in a few lively discussions with Odelia that had sent everyone else scurrying out of the room and left the two women flushed, eyes snapping, and quite pleased with themselves and each other.

“Can’t imagine what is wrong with young men today,” Lady Odelia went on. “In my day a girl like you would have been snapped up her first year.”

“Perhaps Lady Calandra does not wish to be ‘snapped up,’” Irene offered.

“Now, don’t go putting your radical ideas into her head,” Lady Odelia warned. “Callie has no desire to be an ape-leader, do you, my dear?”

Callie suppressed a sigh. “No, Aunt.” Was she never to get away from this topic today?

“Of course not! What intelligent young girl would? ’Tis time you put your mind to it, Calandra. Ask that chit Francesca to help you. Always thought the girl had more hair than wit, but she managed to get this one to the altar.” Lady Odelia gestured toward Irene, who rolled her eyes comically at Callie. “I would not have taken odds on that happening.”

“Indeed, Aunt,” Irene put in. “To hear you and Lady Radbourne speak of it, one would assume that your grandson and I had nothing to do with the matter, only Lady Francesca.”

“Hah! If I had left it up to you two, we would still be waiting,” Lady Odelia tossed back, the twinkle in her eyes counteracting the bite of her words.

The two of them continued to bicker in a playful fashion, and Callie realized with a rush of gratitude that Irene had skillfully led the obstreperous old woman away from the subject of Calandra’s own unmarried state. She cast her friend a look of gratitude, and Irene responded with a smile.

Callie stood, idly listening as her companions strayed into an apparently endless and comfortably familiar list of items about which Irene and her husband’s great-aunt enjoyed crossing swords. She glanced up at Irene just as her words suddenly came to halt and saw that Irene was looking over Callie’s shoulder. Just as Callie started to turn around to see what had caused the sudden interest on Irene’s face, a masculine voice sounded behind her.

“Pardon me, Your Highness, but I come seeking the favor of this fair maiden’s hand for the next dance.”

Callie swung around, and her eyes widened as she found herself staring up into the masked visage of the Cavalier.