Lady Violet Attends a Wedding, page 4
I was intent upon those objectives as I made my way to the library, but I wasn’t watching where I was going. I rounded the landing on the side stairs and was nearly plowed over by the most strikingly handsome man I had ever beheld.
Chapter Three
Byron would have looked like a bumpkin compared to the young man who gently gripped me by the arms. Angels would envy this fellow his limpid brown eyes, the perfection of his mouth, the nobility of his brow. His dark auburn hair was curled into an exquisite approximation of stylish disarray. His cravat was the definition of quiet elegance in linen and lace.
He was not as tall as Sebastian or St. Sevier, but tall enough to make a woman feel diminutive. His height came with broad shoulders, and his smile offered warmth, concern, and a hint of whispered confidences.
“I do apologize,” he said. “I was admiring the portraits when I ought to have been watching where I was going. You must be Lady Violet. I have been looking forward to meeting you, and now you will think me a perfect donkey’s backside.”
I thought him perfectly enchanting. “Mr. Engle, I presume?” I again caught the roses-and-nutmeg scent I’d detected once before. This close, middle notes of apple and clove stole forth, the fragrance as pleasant to the nose as the man’s appearance was to the eyes.
He bowed over my hand. “Cantrell Engle, at your service. I had hoped Felix might introduce us. How are you feeling? I understand you had quite a mishap at the foot of the drive.”
The concern in his gaze eclipsed anything I’d seen from my own brothers, much less St. Sevier, and even though I knew I was being charmed, I enjoyed Cantrell’s attention. We lingered on the stairway for some time, it being the only space large enough for some of the older portraits. The third and fifth earls had commissioned life-size paintings, and they’d both been colorful fellows.
“The fifth earl was prone to marrying wealth,” I said as we eventually descended. “He outlived four wives, each one leaving him better off than the one before.”
“He must have been an impressively charming man,” Cantrell said, “to attach the affection of not one but four wives.”
I turned left at the foot of the stairs, in the direction of the library, and Cantrell accompanied me.
“The ladies must have had formidable courage to marry a man with such a tendency to put his wives in the grave,” I countered.
Mr. Engle opened the library door for me. “Katie told me you are a widow. I’m sorry to tread slipshod over sensitive ground. Say you’ll forgive me?”
“You have committed no transgression, Mr. Engle.” Though he had mis-stepped with me, assuming women would marry a peer not because of his integrity or standing, but solely because of his charm. “Will you help me choose a book?”
“I have not familiarized myself with the earl’s library. Perhaps we can both choose books.”
Papa had a good selection, a little bit of everything, though the topics tended toward masculine interests, which was to be expected when females were historically outnumbered in the family.
“What are you in the mood for?” I asked.
He let the question hang in the air such that innuendo sprouted. Then he smiled just merrily enough to turn the moment to humor rather than naughtiness.
“Something not too improving,” he said. “Not too weighty. A nuptial gathering is joyous, and happier literary fare seems appropriate.”
I could not picture Cantrell with serious literature, no matter the occasion, but he was helping me forget that I would return to London with a scarred countenance.
“What about something French?” I passed him a bound French version of Molière’s The School for Husbands. “That one’s quite humorous.” Also slyly critical of pompous old men.
“Excellent choice, but what will we find to amuse you, my lady?”
Cantrell amused me. Particularly after spending the last three days shut up in my rooms, I was willing to tolerate a little flirtation, and he was trying hard enough to make a good impression that he did not deserve a set-down for his forwardness.
“I would like a novel,” I said, crossing the room to peruse Papa’s collection. Satires called to me, but I denied myself that indulgence. Nothing was less attractive than a bitter widow, and what had I to be bitter about?
“Mrs. Burney writes a fine tale, I’m told,” Cantrell observed.
I had read them all during first mourning and reread them in the last year. How many women were hobbling through those dreary, interminable months reading of the fair Evelina as I had?
“Right now, I would like to read of far-off lands and distant people,” I said. “A well-written travelogue would suit me.” Not that I would ever leave England, of course. The thought of crossing even the Channel had never appealed to me, and in my present convalescence, frankly terrified me.
Mr. Engle stepped closer, affecting a serious mien though his eyes danced. “I could regale you with tales of Shropshire. We have the most beautiful sheep in the realm. Truly, we do.”
I scooted past him. “I will take your word for that. Tell me about your sister. How did Felix and Katie meet?”
“Some obliging hostess introduced them. Katie pronounced herself unfashionably smitten on the spot, and Felix’s fate was sealed.” He followed me along the bookshelf. “I envy him. I envy them both.”
I did and I didn’t. “You’ve never been smitten?” I pulled the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage from the shelf.
Cantrell glanced at the open library door, and I realized I should have guarded my words. All humor left his gaze, replaced by what looked like sadness.
“What is the point of being smitten when it can come to nothing if the lady is not similarly inclined?”
A movement by the fireplace caught my eye.
“Now there is a question for the ages.” Sebastian, Marquess of Dunkeld, emerged from the reading nook to the right of the hearth. His lordship looked amused at my expense—again.
“My lord.” I curtseyed. “I’m sure you know Mr. Engle.”
Sebastian bowed. “You enjoy Molière, Mr. Engle?”
“Comedy,” he said, gesturing with the play. “Who doesn’t enjoy a quick wit?”
“The School for Wives should make anybody laugh,” Sebastian replied. “It’s one of my favorites.”
Molière had written such a play, but that wasn’t the one I’d chosen for Mr. Engle.
“Mine too,” he replied, gesturing again with the monograph. “Lady Violet, a pleasure to have met you at last.” He bowed to me and withdrew at a smart pace.
Sebastian took Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage from me. “Mr. Engle either can’t read French or didn’t bother to so much as glance at the book in his hand. When you read Byron, you are feeling contrary.”
“You chase off a houseguest, and I’m the one feeling contrary.” I snatched my book back. “Not well done of you, sir. You should have made your presence known.”
“I was enjoying a fine nap when you and Mr. Engle intruded. Had I known you wanted a puppy, Violet, you could have chosen one from my kennels.”
“Don’t be curmudgeonly.”
He leaned close. “Perthshire has the most beautiful sheep in the realm. Truly, we do.” He batted his eyelashes. “And the winters would be so long and cold without them. I do miss my dear, woolly Mailie.”
“You’ve been reading Burns.”
He straightened, placing a hand dramatically over his heart. “Guilty as charged. Do you really find Mr. Engle so charming, Violet?”
I considered the question, and considered what had passed for conversation with Cantrell. “No, but neither is he offensive.” Freddie had been charming. I had learned my lesson where charming men were concerned. “Have you been reading Burns for the last two days?”
“Did you miss me?”
I had, not that I would admit it. “St. Sevier says the lacerations will heal, but I do look a fright.”
“Which is why I left you in peace. Some people would want distraction from their injuries. You are like a cat. You do better if allowed privacy to heal your wounds. Where are you and Byron off to?”
“The conservatory.” I’d have privacy there, and quiet.
“I’ll walk with you,” Sebastian said. “How are you feeling?”
Restless, but as he’d said, I would have found my rooms more of a refuge if I hadn’t been deluged with well-meaning visitors. Why should Sebastian, whom I’d seen little of for years, notice that about me when my own family had never realized it?
“If you hadn’t emerged from your lair today,” Sebastian said, “I would have goaded you into it.”
“Gentlemen goad ladies now?” I asked as we crossed the main foyer.
“This gentleman goads this lady. I realize now why the head of a family has a designated suite of rooms, such that the heir leaves behind his boyhood quarters and takes over the more impressive apartment on the titleholder’s passing. A room carries memories, it conjures moods. A boy’s memories and moods are not what a man needs around him when he’s taking on the responsibilities of a title.”
The comment was perceptive, but then, Sebastian was no fool.
“If I’d asked to be housed in a guest bedroom,” I said, “my family would have taken it amiss.” Though the next time I came here, I would insist on that courtesy.
“Have your room redecorated. The earl would indulge you in any reasonable request.”
We processed down the corridor that led past the first formal guest parlor, the music room, the estate office, and the maids’ stairs, finally reaching the conservatory.
“The earl is not in my good books at the moment,” I said as Sebastian bowed me through the door. “He and St. Sevier decided to rob me of sight for more than a day because they wanted me bedridden and passive.” Or because they’d thought me unequal to the sight of a few healing injuries.
Ridiculous men.
The conservatory was not as full of greenery as it would be by the time winter arrived, though the trees, ferns, shrubs, and flowers were sufficiently abundant to make the air close and humid. The urge to return to my room nearly had me bolting back through the door, which was beyond ridiculous.
Sebastian offered his arm again, as if he knew I needed fortification. “You resent that your physician and your father made a decision intended to speed your recovery?”
That Sebastian would defend the earl, for whom he had little use, surprised me. Perhaps my escort’s agenda was to pick a fight, which was good of him.
I apparently needed a fight.
“Had they done the same to you, Sebastian, removed from you the use of a faculty when you were injured and vulnerable, would you thank them for it?”
“I might,” he said, leading me to a bench near the windows. Condensation ran down the glass, dampening the wooden frames and letting in slivers of sunshine. “After a battle, too many wounded soldiers want nothing more than to return to their fellows as quickly as possible. Their motivation is not only to avoid being invalided out of regular pay, but also something more primal. A soldier cannot abide knowing his comrades face danger while he lies idle in bed.”
“Is my father’s house a battleground, then,” I asked, setting my book on the bench, “that my medically expert friend and my father, under whose roof I have not dwelled for years, can treat me like an overeager recruit who must be restrained in his cot by medical subterfuge?”
Sebastian peered down at me. “What, exactly, has aroused your temper, Violet?”
A fair question, asked by a fair man.
As adolescents, Sebastian and I had talked for hours at a time. We’d pretended to fish or to hunt for butterflies, but both of us had been content to read beneath some shady tree, to wander the riverbanks, and to generally avoid the plans adults made for us.
To talk with him again as friends, to vent my ire and know he would not judge me for it, was a sort of safety I’d never find in solitude. My husband and I had become allies to a minor degree in the same sense, and I wondered now if I’d been trying to re-create with Freddie a version of the closeness I’d once taken for granted with Sebastian.
A question for another time and place.
“Why am I in a temper?” I took out a handkerchief and began to wipe the fog and dampness from the windowpanes before the bench. “Papa sent you to war without consulting me regarding your request to embark on a courtship. He instead gave me in marriage to a man who could no more pass a bordello than you can ignore the sight of bloodstock prancing in a field. Freddie wasn’t a bad man, but he wasn’t an easy husband for the very young woman he married. Papa approved Freddie’s suit because of a damned water meadow.”
My handkerchief, a little linen confection embroidered with roses, was all but soaked, and still I kept scrubbing.
“You are the daughter of an earl,” Sebastian said gently. “I was a Scottish upstart without prospects. I had no business offering for you.”
“Your uncle was a wealthy marquess, your character is far above reproach. We got along well.” Abruptly, my throat ached. “You truly cared for me.” And Sebastian would not have left his wedding breakfast to wish his mistress farewell before undertaking the wedding journey.
Sebastian plucked the handkerchief from my hand and draped it over the bench’s armrest. “I still do care for you, you daft little besom, which is why I cannot abide to see you on a tear over ancient history.”
His arms came around me, and I sank into his embrace. He had been an affectionate boy, and I rejoiced to have this evidence that he could be affectionate still.
“I’m not a daft little besom,” I muttered, resenting the hat and veil that prevented me from snuggling as close as I wished to. “I am furious that my father kept me in the dark, then and now. I was not a foolish girl, and I am not a foolish woman.”
“St. Sevier says you stopped breathing, Violet. I suspect that occasioned some worry from the physician-who-is-also-your-friend and from the papa who has no other daughters, hmm? The news terrified me nigh witless, and I’m sure it gave you pause as well.”
He made sense, damn him, and from Sebastian I could accept the arguments that from others had merely added to my ire.
“They should have consulted me about the bandages. I will adjust to having a few scars.” Had I adjusted to the scars left by my marriage and widowhood? Apparently not as thoroughly as I’d thought.
Sebastian stepped back and passed me his monogrammed handkerchief. “So tell the earl he’s blundered, extract an apology from him, and let the matter drop. I can guarantee you no woman has dared hold him accountable for high-handedness to even that extent.”
Sebastian wrestled with the mechanism that held the windows closed and then opened a set of four panes that turned on a vertical axis. The result was fresh air and sunshine, also proof that I’d soaked my handkerchief for nothing.
“I could have done that,” I said, though in truth even traversing the house seemed to have sapped my energy. I sank to the bench and found I was no longer interested in reading. I was interested in finding Papa and having a stern word with him.
“Who is that?” Sebastian murmured, gaze on the garden beyond the window.
The estate had formal gardens that spread from the back terrace in geometric precision, but the area immediately beyond the conservatory had not been subjected to such ruthless control. Flower beds gone blowsy lined uneven brick walkways. A rose arbor much in need of pruning arched along one path. Potted lemon trees lined another.
Two men stood at the foot of the lemon alley, their voices raised in the manner of people who are trying not to shout, though they long to.
“That is Papa.” Papa in a rare temper. “He and Miss Engle’s dear groom are having a vehement disagreement.”
“I’ll escort you to the library,” Sebastian said, taking up my book and my sodden, wrinkled handkerchief.
I moved closer to the window, the better to hear what was being said. “You will do no such thing. Please hush. This sounds serious.”
Papa’s looks were distinguished. His deportment did not always live up to the promise of his white hair, stately bearing, and Oxford vocabulary. With four sons, and uncles and male cousins in abundance, plus the two aunties frequently underfoot, decorum had seldom been in evidence in his household as I’d grown up.
And yet, he did believe in dignity, in expressing himself well enough that he need not resort to shouting or profanity to make his point.
“His lordship is cursing,” I marveled, for the words damnation, boy and what the hell had sounded clearly enough.
“Violet,” Sebastian muttered, “come away. Eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves.”
“Then hold your ears.”
What topic could put the Earl of Derwent in such a passion? Papa gestured with an outflung arm toward the house. Felix waved his hand at the stables.
“Eavesdropping is poor manners, Violet.”
“Arguing in the garden is abysmal manners. They are both quite overwrought.” That Papa would raise his voice and curse wasn’t at all unprecedented, but Felix, my sweetest, most agreeable brother, was giving as good as he got.
Papa jabbed his finger into Felix’s chest, and I caught a few more phrases. “…can’t raise a family on dreams and poetry… Why do you never think?”
“Violet.” Sebastian had me by the arm. “Felix is my friend, and I will not be made to listen to any more of this.”
I shook free. “Then go. The eve of a wedding is no time for a discussion like this. Something is seriously wrong.”
“Something that does not concern you.”
I spared him a glower, though through my veil the effect was probably lost. “You have no idea what they are arguing about. This could well concern me. His lordship thought I wasn’t fit to make decisions regarding my own health. His judgment is not to be trusted.”
More to the point, Papa hadn’t told me I had had another suitor when he’d given my hand in marriage to a philandering bon vivant who could bring the earldom its blasted water meadow.
