Читать книгу Rules For Being A Mistress - Tamara Lejeune - Страница 10

Wednesday passed with nothing more interesting to report than a stroll in the Sydney Gardens, but Benedict began Thursday with a feeling of complacency. If tonight’s ball concluded on a note of accord between himself and Lady Serena, he saw no reason why he could not propose to her on Friday. It was a little soon, perhaps, but not, he thought, too soon for propriety’s sake. After all, he had known Serena before he ever set foot in Bath.

Most of the morning was taken up in grooming. Benedict sat in his black dressing gown wanting a cheroot as his hair was cut and his sideburns were trimmed. His fingernails were trimmed and buffed to a high sheen, and, even though no one but Pickering was going to see them, so were his toenails. Usually Benedict paid little attention to Pickering as he fussed about, but today he watched him like a hawk.

He startled Pickering by suddenly demanding, “What is that foul concoction?”

Pickering had been humming a cheerful little tune as he applied the special nourishing hair tonic to the roots of his master’s luxuriant black hair. It died now. Sir Benedict had never questioned him before. It was disconcerting to hear the special nourishing hair tonic described as a “foul concoction.”

“Foul concoction?” Pickering echoed tremulously.

“You’re dyeing my hair!” Benedict roared the accusation. “Pickering, how could you?”

Pickering clutched the black bottle to his breast protectively. “Now, Sir Benedict,” he said soothingly. “Everyone does it.”

“How long have you been doing this to me?” Benedict demanded furiously.

“I don’t recall the particulars—”

“Damn the particulars! How long?”

Pickering’s memory improved. “It was about the time that Master Cary disobeyed you, and enlisted in the Army as a private, Sir Benedict. You began to go gray at the temples—quite prematurely, of course.”

“Good God!” said Benedict. “I wasn’t even thirty when my brother went to Spain. That was nearly ten years ago! You have been dyeing my hair black for ten years?”

“Master Cary would give anyone gray hairs.”

“You will stop dyeing my hair at once, Pickering,” Benedict commanded, getting up from his chair. “Only fops and old women dye their hair. I am neither, I trust.”

Pickering was apologetic but firm. “It would be most unwise to stop now, Sir Benedict. Your roots are already beginning to show,” he gently explained. “It will be so very noticeable when you bow to the ladies. Not at all the thing when one is looking for a wife. One never gets a second chance to make a first impression, you know.”

“Pickering, I could kill you!”

“You will thank me for this when you are married, Sir Benedict. Ladies always say nay to Mr. Gray. Mr. Gray, go away, they say. Come back, Mr. Black.”

“Oh, shut up!”

Pickering shut up.

Unable to watch the rest of the demoralizing operation, Benedict leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “I’m too old for this,” he muttered. “I should have lived in the Middle Ages. I could have traded a few cows for my neighbor’s daughter.”

“You are not too old for Lady Serena,” Pickering assured him. “Why, she’s thirty, if she’s a day, and clinging to it like a burr. And if that black hair is her own, then I’m the King of France! I’ve seen her maid in the apothecary’s shop.”

“Are you saying that Lady Serena dyes her hair?”

“Not only that, sir, but I have seen her maid buying white lead and belladonna drops.”

“But those are poisons, surely.”

“They are only poisonous if one ingests them, sir,” Pickering said confidently. “Ladies—and some gentlemen—routinely paint their faces with white lead. It’s perfectly safe. As for the belladonna, a few drops in the eye enlarge the pupil, for a more speaking glance.”

Benedict shook his head in amazement. “What else do women do for the sake of beauty? Clean their teeth with bluing?”

“Certainly. And they bleach their skins, too.”

Benedict looked at himself in the mirror. “You haven’t been bleaching me, have you?”

“No, indeed, Sir Benedict,” Pickering assured him. “Fortunately, you are naturally pale, like all true English gentlemen. No one would ever mistake you for a laborer.”

“Heaven forbid,” said Benedict.

The ballroom presided over by Mr. King was one hundred feet in length, supported by Corinthian columns and decorated with neoclassical friezes. Five enormous glass chandeliers hung from gilded compartments in the ceiling, the brilliance of their white candles reflected and magnified by the enormous mirrors at either end of the room.

The right sleeve of his dress coat had been neatly pinned back, and he disdained to wear a glove on his remaining hand, but other than that, he was in correct evening dress. The musicians had already assembled in the gallery when Benedict arrived, but Mr. King had not yet given the signal to begin.

“You will dance with Sir Benedict if he asks you, Millicent,” Lady Dalrymple hissed.

Miss Carteret’s headdress of saffron-colored plumes towered over her mother, and, indeed, over her brother. She had worn her canary yellow satin gown specifically to seduce Lord Ludham. She had no intention of wasting it on the amputee. “Sir Benedict makes one queasy, Mama,” she protested. “That nasty stump! I’ll be sick, I know it.”

“Hush! He will hear you.”

Benedict had excellent hearing, but he gave no sign that he had heard this exchange.

“Here he is, Millie,” cried Lady Dalrymple, seizing him by the arm as he tried to slip past. “She is longing to dance with you, Sir Benedict. My son Frederick you know. Freddie holds the seat for Little Wicking, of course, in Cumberland. Why, you must see one another all the time in Parliament.”

Freddie Carteret, who spent as little time in the House of Commons as possible, and even less than that with his constituents in Cumberland, bowed. Lady Dalrymple’s youngest son was good-looking in a harmless, silly way. He was blind as a mole, but too vain to wear spectacles. He bumped into people constantly, especially buxom young women.

“Ah! The famous Sir Benedict Wayborn, champion of the common man,” he said, baring his yellow teeth in an ironic smile. “I have heard you described as the New Cicero…but you have never yet won an argument over me, sir!”

“Arguing with you would be a complete waste of my time,” Benedict agreed.

These pleasantries had scarcely been exchanged, and, what with this and that, Sir Benedict had not yet been prevailed upon to ask Miss Carteret to dance when Mr. King and Lord Ludham came bustling up to them. “Lady Dalrymple, his lordship has expressed a desire to be acquainted with your amiable daughter. May I present the Earl of Ludham to you?”

Miss Carteret’s moment had come at last, and she made the most of it, throwing her shoulders back and smiling as well as she could without revealing her less than perfect teeth.

Benedict recognized Serena’s cousin as the gentleman in the blue coat from the Pump Room. As before, Lord Ludham seemed to be in search of an elusive someone, and, even as he said everything a gentleman ought to say to the viscountess and her daughter, his blue eyes scanned the crowd eagerly.

“Do you dance, my lord?” Millicent asked him breathlessly, not willing to leave the matter entirely to chance. The question came perilously close to soliciting the gentleman, but it was still within the bounds of propriety—just.

“I do dance, Miss Carteret,” his lordship replied. Miss Carteret’s lips puckered in a smile, but her delight was soon replaced by less agreeable feelings, as his lordship continued, “And, if Miss Vaughn will be attending tonight’s ball, I shall ask her for the honor, for she is the most beautiful creature I ever saw! I understand she is a great friend of yours, Miss Carteret. How fortunate you are in your acquaintance! I intend to ask her for the first dance. I would dance them both with her, but, I understand, that is not at all the thing.”

Lady Dalrymple pretended to misunderstand his lordship’s meaning. She was all smiles. “Of course, my lord. Millicent will be delighted to give you the first dance.”

“Indeed, my lord,” cried Millicent, blinking rapidly.

“I’d ask you, Miss Carteret,” Ludham replied, “but I must keep myself free, in case Miss Vaughn arrives late. Indeed, I came here tonight with no other purpose but to dance with your good friend. Is she coming, do you know?”

Lady Dalrymple glared at Mr. King.

Mr. King said hastily, “I did try to tell his lordship that your ladyship and Miss Carteret are not acquainted with Miss Vaughn. However—”

Ludham laughed. “Of course they are acquainted, King,” he scoffed. “I have seen Miss Carteret and Miss Vaughn walking together, in Milsom Street, arm and arm.”

“Oh, Miss Vaughn!” cried Lady Dalrymple. “I thought you said Miss Fawn! Miss Vaughn, of course, is Millicent’s dearest friend. They have been knowing one another forever. We stayed with the Vaughns in Ireland for two months last summer. Such delightful people! The mother is English, of course, which helps. The girls became friends at once, but then, Millicent has such a sweet and generous nature. She makes friends wherever she goes. Why, they were Christian-naming one another within three days.”

“What is her Christian name?” Lord Ludham asked.

Lady Dalrymple batted her eyes. “Why, Millicent, of course. We call her Millie.”

“What an extraordinary coincidence!” exclaimed Ludham. “Miss Vaughn and your daughter having the same name.”

“Oh, was it Miss Vaughn you meant?” Lady Dalrymple sniffed. “She has a very silly name, I’m afraid. Cosima. It’s too ridiculous for words. Poor Miss Vaughn! She has never been presented, you know, and I daresay she never will be. Not our sort, really. But we quite charitably took her under our wing.”

Benedict made no comment; after all, it was a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. Lady Dalrymple was well within her rights to deny this Miss Vaughn one day and claim her the next. It was no concern of his.

“Cosima,” Lord Ludham said, pleased. “I’ve never met a Cosima in the whole course of my life. It’s Italian, isn’t it?”

“Such pretentious people, I know,” said Lady Dalrymple. She placed her fan on Ludham’s arm. “But I do pity them. The mother, Lady Agatha, as she calls herself, is ill, which prevents poor Miss Vaughn from going anywhere much. The father, Colonel Vaughn, has deserted them completely. Gambling debts, I’m afraid. Miss Vaughn and her sister are as good as portionless, and all they have to live on is Lady Agatha’s tiny little annuity. They have lost everything.”

Lord Ludham did not seem to find anything disagreeable with this picture. “Oh, she has a sister, has she?” he said eagerly.

“A mere child,” Lady Dalrymple sniffed. “Wilful and wild. Lady Agatha can do nothing with her, and there is no money for a governess. I daresay Miss Vaughn will make someone an adequate governess herself, when the mother goes, and she is forced to earn her bread. When the time comes, I shall be more than happy to find her a place in some respectable household.”

“I am glad to hear that the Vaughns are not without friends,” Benedict said dryly.

Lady Dalrymple had forgotten that Sir Benedict had been present in the Pump Room when she had denied knowing the Vaughns. She remembered now, horribly, but there was nothing she could do about it. “I consider it my Christian duty to help the Miss Vaughns of the world,” she said sweepingly. “It is especially hard on the pretty ones, I think. Their vanity leads them so quickly down the wrong path, if they have no money.”

Millicent could no longer contain her spite. “They are so poor, my lord, that they have no credit in any of the shops in town. Miss Vaughn is obliged to pay in cash wherever she goes! You mentioned Milsom Street, my lord. Well, it was very shocking for me to see Miss Vaughn actually pay for her ribbons. I have not seen her since; I daresay she is too ashamed to see me.”

“I don’t care if a girl has twenty thousand pounds or twenty,” said Ludham. “I’m a simple man. I like Miss Vaughn, and I want to dance with her. I am not mercenary.”

“No!” cried Lady Dalrymple. “Nor am I! What I cannot bear is being deceived!”

A slight frown appeared in Ludham’s eyes. He was not the cleverest of men, and, this being the case, he had been deceived often enough to know that he disliked it as much as Lady Dalrymple did. “Deceived, madam? In what way were you deceived?”

“The Heiress of Castle Argent, they called her in Dublin!” Lady Dalrymple complained bitterly. “Anyone would think she was fabulously wealthy the way they talk about her over there. Anyone would think she was the Queen of Ireland.”

Ludham was instantly diverted. “Does she really live in a castle?” he cried.

“Castle? A farmhouse with battlements!” Lady Dalrymple squawked. “When I think of how I suffered there—! Such cramped quarters! Such indifferent servants! Such noise from that enormous hell-hound of a dog! And, then, when my ankle healed at last, what should happen, but I should fall on the stairs and hurt myself again! I thought we would never leave!”

“A sentiment shared, no doubt, by the Vaughns,” Benedict murmured.

“What?” Lady Dalrymple snapped.

“It must have cost the Vaughns a great deal of money to entertain you for over two months,” Benedict pointed out.

“That is quite their own fault,” the viscountess returned frostily, “for pretending to be rich! I was never so deceived in my life!”

“What about me?” cried Mr. Carteret. “I asked the girl to marry me! I’d be in the basket now if she’d said yes.”

“Good God, so would I!” exclaimed Ludham.

“Depend on it, my lord: Miss Vaughn is a fortune hunter!” cried Lady Dalrymple, abandoning the subtle approach completely.

“How fortunate then that she refused to marry your son, madam,” said Benedict.

“Yes,” Lord Ludham agreed. “If she is a fortune hunter, she ought to marry someone with—well, with a fortune, you know. Will you tell her, Miss Carteret—since you are such good friends—that my income is ten thousand a year? Well, strictly speaking—I don’t want to deceive anyone—it is nine thousand, seven hundred-odd, you know.” He shrugged helplessly. “My man can get the exact figure.”

Benedict looked at him incredulously. Serena was right to worry about her cousin, he reflected. The young man seemed to have learned nothing from the fiasco with his opera dancer.

“She has the face of an angel,” Ludham sighed blissfully.

“Yes, indeed,” Lady Dalrymple agreed warmly. “Millicent is admired wherever she goes, and, of course, she has twenty thousand pounds…or so my Lord Dalrymple tells me,” she hastily added. “I never concern myself with money, you understand. Nor does Millie, not like some young ladies who must scrape as they can, and calculate as they go. I am but a bird-witted female, my lord, and I don’t pretend to be otherwise.”

“Excuse me,” said Benedict, abruptly, unable to bear any more machinations that were, at least to him, transparent. “I must pay my respects to Lady Serena.”

“What a rude man he is!” cried Lady Dalrymple as he strode off. “He did not even ask Millicent to dance.”

Lord Ludham mumbled some excuse about paying his respects to Lady Serena as well, and scampered off. Lady Dalrymple sighed. Sometimes, even though one did all one can do, things did not turn out as one had hoped. “It will have to be Fitzwilliam, after all,” she said, raising her lorgnette.

“I do not like the Church,” said Millicent. “And he smells bad. I want to be a countess.”

“If Lord Matlock and his two sons should die, you will be,” said her mama. “One never knows. Ah, Mr. Fitzwilliam! Poor Millicent has been longing to see you this age!”

“I daresay Lady Dalrymple thought I was talking about her daughter,” Ludham said when he had caught up with Benedict. “But, really, I was talking of Miss Vaughn.”

“I had guessed as much,” Benedict said politely. “From what I can tell, your lordship speaks of nothing and no one else.”

Ludham took this for an invitation to expand on his favorite subject. “The first time I ever saw Miss Vaughn was in the rain. Naturally, I offered her my umbrella. I told her she was like Venus washed ashore, but I daresay she did not understand me. She told me to go away.”

As Lady Serena regally inclined her head to him, Benedict could not help but notice how black her hair was, the same improbable black as his own. Her beautiful face was painted, too. Her maid was such an artist that it was only detectable in the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth, but, now that he was looking for it, he noticed it. As ever, she was elegantly and simply dressed, neither addicted to the latest fashions nor aloof to them. While the other unmarried women seemed to be coming out of their clothes, Serena’s neckline showed only a modest hint of bosom.

“I see you have met my foolish cousin, Sir Benedict,” Serena said. “Now, Felix, you must not rattle on about the beautiful Miss Vaughn. You will give the unfortunate young lady a reputation before she ever enters society. Ah, Lady Matlock!”

“Serena!” Lady Matlock sailed through the crowd, which parted around her and her daughter like the Red Sea in deference to her exalted rank. The ladies kissed the air around each other’s faces. “You remember Rose, of course.”

Rose was trying to hide behind her mother, but the countess pushed her forward. Obviously uncomfortable in her low-cut gown of dampened muslin, she tried to cover herself with her lace fan, but her mama snatched it away, and all she could do was toy nervously with the pearls at her throat.

Benedict suppressed his burning desire to take off his coat and wrap the half-naked child up in it. He had once been the guardian of a much younger sister. Not in a hundred years would he have permitted Miss Juliet Wayborn to make such a spectacle of herself. Lady Matlock would be fortunate if her daughter did not contract pneumonia, rather than a husband.

Lady Matlock herself was dressed warmly in a garnet-colored velvet gown and a massive brown wig. Numerous chains of gold hung from the precipice of her bosom, twisted together in a hopeless tangle. “Do you dance, Ludham?” she demanded, attacking that gentleman first, by order of precedence.

“I do dance, Lady Matlock,” he answered. “And if I could ever be introduced to Miss Vaughn, what’s more, I would dance!”

“Miss Vaughn?” cried Rose eagerly. “Is she here, my lord? I would so like to meet her! Indeed, I have heard so much about her from Lord Westlands that I feel I know her already.”

“Does this Lord Westlands know Miss Vaughn?” Lord Ludham demanded jealously.

“He is her cousin,” replied Rose. “They have known each other all their lives.”

“Is he here? Can he not introduce me?”

“He is back in London now, I believe,” replied Rose. “But we need not apply to him. Here is another of the lady’s cousins. Surely, Sir Benedict can introduce us.”

“I, Lady Rose?” Benedict protested. “I never heard of the Vaughns.”

Rose looked scandalized. “You deny them because they are Irish? That is very bad of you, Sir Benedict! In any case, Lady Agatha Vaughn is not Irish. She is Lord Wayborn’s elder sister, and your cousin.”

“I’ve never been introduced to Lady Agatha,” said Benedict. “The Derbyshire Wayborns have little to do with humble Surrey Wayborns like myself. I assure you, I had no idea of these ladies being related to me in any way.”

Serena laughed behind her fan. “I should have thought that all the Wayborns, both Derbyshire and Surrey, were in St. George’s Church when Miss Juliet Wayborn married the Duke of Auckland.”

Benedict smiled. “Lord Wayborn even disputed my right to walk my sister down the aisle. He wished to do it himself. There were no Vaughns in evidence, however.”

“There was a rift between brother and sister some years ago,” said Rose. “Westlands did not know all the particulars, but he said that Lady Agatha and her daughters must suffer for it all their lives. His father’s resentment, once aroused, is implacable. It’s up to you to help them, Sir Benedict.”

Benedict lifted his brows. “I?”

“Yes! You are her nearest male relative, so you must help her. And, as Lady Agatha is too sick to come to you, you must go to her. It is not fair that Miss Vaughn can never go anywhere simply because her mother is ill.”

“Lady Rose is perfectly right,” said Ludham. “You must bring her to balls, Sir Benedict, so that I can dance with her.”

“They live at Number Nine, Upper Camden Place,” Rose said eagerly. “I wanted to visit them myself, but Mama said I may not.”

“That is right across the park from me,” Benedict remarked in surprise.

“Then you have no excuse not to visit!” said Rose.

Lady Matlock changed the subject abruptly. “It was so very kind of you, Sir Benedict, to rescue my daughter when she was stranded. Sir Benedict happened to be passing by when Rose’s carriage got stuck in the mud,” she explained to Serena, who showed an expression of polite inquiry. “It was fate, I am persuaded. I have been urging Rose to dance. Everyone has asked her, but she says she will only dance with you, Sir Benedict. You are her hero.”

The gentleman did not seize the hint, but Lady Matlock persevered. “It would be very strange indeed if my daughter did not fancy herself in love with you, Sir Benedict. You are her knight in shining armor. Pray, for the sake of my nerves, take her away and dance with her. She will sulk all night if you do not ask her.”

“Thank you, my lady,” he said, “but I have hopes of soliciting Lady Serena for the first cotillion, and I am engaged to Miss Carteret for the second.”

Serena declined to rescue him, however.

“Thank you, Sir Benedict, but I do not mean to dance,” she said firmly. “As you can see, my skirts are too long.”

“I can pin up your demi-train for you, Lady Serena,” Rose said quickly.

Lady Serena demurred. “Pins in my lavender crepe? I think not. No; dancing is an amusement for young ladies, I think.”

“You are still young, my lady,” cried Rose. “Indeed, you look much younger than you are! No one would ever guess you were thirty!”

“Thank you, child,” Serena said coldly. “What a pretty compliment.”

“The set is forming, Sir Benedict,” Lady Matlock said threateningly.

“Lady Serena is not dancing,” said Benedict. “I am pledged to keep her company.”

“I will sit with Serena for the first dance,” Ludham said generously. “What’s more, I will dance the second with Lady Rose, if I may.”

“Certainly, my lord!” cried Lady Matlock in triumph. “Hurry! The set is forming.”

“Mother, please!” cried Rose, clearly horrified by the prospect of standing up with the baronet. “He’s old enough to be my father, for heaven’s sake.”

Lady Matlock stabbed her daughter in the back with the sticks of her fan. “Thank the gentleman for asking you,” she insisted, quite forgetting that Benedict had done no such thing.

“I thank you, sir,” said Lady Rose, regarding Benedict with revulsion.

“Indeed, I am in your debt, Lady Rose,” he replied.

“Hurry, my dears. The set is formed! The musicians are tuning up!”

Exhausted, Lady Matlock sat down to fan herself. “Thank heavens there are only two cotillions performed in an evening,” she confided to Serena. “If this new waltzing catches on, there will be so many partners to get.”

“I don’t like this Sir Benedict sniffing around you, Serena,” Ludham said darkly.

Serena lit up. “Felix! Are you jealous?”

His face turned red. “Don’t be daft! He’s probably a fortune hunter, that’s all. We’re cousins, and we have to look out for one another.”

“Are you implying that a man can’t find me attractive?” she snapped.

“No, of course not,” he said. “Just be careful, that’s all.”

“I’m not the one who needs to be careful,” she said, still angry.

Rose Fitzwilliam did not believe in mincing her words. “I am not in love with you, sir,” she told Benedict, on the very first occasion when the dance brought them close enough for such an intimate disclosure.

“How very kind of you to put me on my guard,” he answered as they parted.

“If you ask me to marry you, I shall kill myself,” was her next tragic communication.

“You mean to flatter me, I see.”

“You are old enough to be my father!” she snapped, nettled by his cool reply.

“Fortunately, however, I am no such thing,” he said pleasantly.

“I wish you were my father! Then you could not ask me to marry you!”

“No,” he agreed, “but I could take away your pin money, and you wouldn’t like that.”

Tears pricked her eyes. “I think you are hateful and odious,” she declared. “I wish you had left me in the mud! I was happier then!”

At the end of this delightful exercise, Benedict conducted his partner back to her mama, and the tea interval was announced. Lady Matlock claimed the right to leave the ballroom first, before the crush of the crowd, but Lady Dalrymple and her daughter were not far behind her to the first table.

Lord Ludham had gone to the card room. Lady Dalrymple took advantage of the earl’s absence to warn Serena that Miss Vaughn had designs on him.

“I do not believe she is a fortune hunter!” Rose hotly declared. “She may be poor, and she may wish to marry, but that does not make her a fortune hunter.”

Lady Dalrymple had not expected to find Miss Vaughn so well defended. “How innocent you are, my dear,” she murmured. “You will understand when you are older.”

“But not everyone can afford to marry for love,” Benedict pointed out, annoyed by the woman’s self-righteousness. “In our society, a poor woman can only better herself through marriage. What would you have poor women do, Lady Dalrymple? Starve?”

Lady Dalrymple glared at him. “In our society, Sir Benedict? You make us sound like savages! Is there anything you like about England? Is there anything you would not change?”

Benedict saw that he had spoken too seriously for his company. He smiled ruefully. “The weather, my lady. I would not change good English weather for the world.”

Puzzled silence. No one seemed to realize the gentleman was making a joke.

Nothing could prevail on Benedict to stand up with anyone else for the second cotillion, and he spent the last half hour of the ball pleasantly engaged in conversation with Lady Serena while Ludham danced with Lady Rose.

“Now that would be an equal match,” said Benedict.

“She is absurdly young,” said Serena. “But, I daresay, so is Miss Vaughn!”

“You should encourage him to return to London,” Benedict suggested. “He would soon forget Miss Vaughn in London, I am persuaded.”

Serena sighed. “He cannot go to London, Sir Benedict. They have published the letters! The entire body of criminal correspondence between that wretched Pamela and her Frenchman! I have not seen it, of course, but I understand it is perfectly unexpurgated.”

“Ah,” said Benedict.

“So embarrassing for poor Felix. Besides which, London is full of opera dancers! At least I can keep my eye on him here in Bath. In London…!”

“Quite,” said Benedict.

“It would be just like Felix to rush headlong into another disastrous marriage. He is so susceptible to a pretty face, and so blind to everything else. I don’t wish Miss Vaughn ill, of course, but…” She shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “It would be as much a mistake for her as for him.”

“Someone should explain to Miss Vaughn the evils of an unequal marriage.”

“I say! That’s a good idea. As her cousin, Sir Benedict, you must be able to exert some influence over her. You can see I have no influence over my cousin,” she added ruefully, “but he is a man. Any assistance you can offer me in this matter would be most gratefully received,” she added persuasively.

“I will call on Lady Agatha tomorrow,” he promised. “And then, I would like to call on you, if I may, Serena. Would one o’clock be convenient for a private interview?”

“A private interview to discuss Felix and Miss Vaughn?”

“You must know I am going to make you an offer of marriage,” he said impatiently.

She smiled. “I believe you just did, Sir Benedict!”

The ball ended punctually at eleven o’clock, and the doors of the ballroom were thrown open to admit the chairmen, who strode right into the ballroom with their sedan chairs. Owing to the steepness of Bath’s streets, carriages were rarely used.

Benedict commandeered a chair for Lady Serena, bade her good night, then walked alone up to Beechen Cliff. He sat down on the damp ground, took out his cheroot case, and lit up.