Devil-May-Dare

‘Why not?’ She was so stung by his attitude, she forgot her attempt at hauteur. ‘I’ll have you know I’m considered to have a sound pair of hands on the ribbons.’

‘That I do not doubt,’ he said, appraising her with one eyebrow lifted higher than the other, which made her think he was laughing at her. ‘But have you considered your aunt’s feelings? She will have to accompany you when you go out and I hardly think someone of her years would find it to her liking.’ He did not add that he thought the worthy matron would find it extremely difficult even to climb into its seat without an undignified push from behind, nor what the gossips would say if Lydia were seen driving it.

‘And I’ll wager the truth is that you are determined to have the vehicle for yourself in order to cut a dash in Hyde Park,’ she said, knowing he was right about her aunt and annoyed that he should have the effrontery to point it out to her. ‘Let us not disappoint you. I dare say we can manage with a barouche.’

‘Why not a park phaeton?’ he suggested, without denying her accusation. ‘It is light enough for you to drive, if that is what you have in mind, and not too dangerous if handled sensibly. If you wish, I’ll undertake to teach you to drive it.’

If this was an effort to placate her, it had the opposite effect; she could drive as well as most men and not even Tom would presume to suggest she needed lessons. ‘I am sure your lordship has more pressing business,’ she murmured, stifling her inclination to tell him so. ‘We would not wish to impose on you.’

Anyone but the Marquis of Longham, she told herself, would have recognised the put-down for what it was, but he simply smiled and said, ‘Not at all.’ Then, deciding he would get nowhere with her, he turned to Tom. ‘How say you, Wenthorpe; will you consider this one? It is wide enough to seat three at a pinch and low enough slung not to turn over in a tight corner.’

Tom accepted the offer of help with alacrity and the two men began a long discussion about the merits of the carriage in question and the colours in which it should be finished, and, the deal being done, arrangements were made to collect it two days later.

‘In the meantime,’ his lordship said, ‘may I offer to convey you home?’

Tom agreed at once without consulting Lydia, who had been silently watching the Marquis’s handling of the transaction and secretly admitting to herself that Tom, left alone, would not have done half so well. Not until they were once more on the street did she realise that the conveyance was the self-same coach which had brought them to London. She had already been ungracious and could not compound that by refusing to get into it, and thus they arrived at Wenthorpe House in the same ramshackle way they had the day before.

The arrival of Tom and Lydia with the Marquis in attendance had not gone unnoticed the first time it had happened. It seemed incomprehensible to the ladies of Society that Miss Wenthorpe, who was so obviously in London looking for a husband, should turn up in that skimble-skamble state and should have for an escort a man whom no one knew. That he was handsome and dressed in the pink of fashion none disputed, but his mount! Did one ever see such a broken-backed mule? And as for the carriage, it was twenty years old if it was a day. Surely Wenthorpe was not that pinched in the pocket? If he was, the tattlers did not see how his daughter could be safely brought out. And to compound everything by driving about town in that self-same vehicle was enough to set the neighbourhood tongues wagging even more furiously.

Servants, tradesmen, not to mention candlestick-makers and chimney-sweeps, were sent far and wide to find out what they could. They returned with the intelligence that the horses had been hired and the carriage belonged to the Marquis of Longham, the only surviving son of the Duke of Sutton, who, like their present monarch, was as mad as a hatter. As for Lord Wenthorpe, as far as could be ascertained, there was nothing wrong with his credit and Miss Wenthorpe stood to come into a considerable portion on her marriage.

‘That, of course, would account for Longham dancing attendance on her,’ they said over the teacups, having heard accounts of the profligate ways of the Duke of Sutton and his elder son and assuming the younger was cast in the same mould. It was their duty to rescue her from this mountebank. And if their informants should be wrong and the Marquis was not a spongeing toadeater but a man of consequence, then all the more reason to detach him from Miss Wenthorpe and speedily attach him to their own daughters. They were prepared to expend any amount of time and energy on the project. And thus it was that so many invitations poured into Wenthorpe House, Lydia and her aunt were hard put to it to decide which to accept.

In spite of this, Mrs Wenthorpe held to her original view that Lydia ought to try her wings at small functions and not come out in a blaze of glory at a high-stepping affair, where one false move, one little slip could ruin all their plans. ‘Besides,’ she said, with a twinkle in her eye, ‘keep ’em waiting, that’s what I say. Make ’em dangle a little.’

Her aunt’s choice of phrase did nothing to make Lydia feel any better about coldly setting out to catch a husband, but if she had to, then she would take her time. Accordingly, they accepted invitations to quiet little suppers and tea parties, drove in the park in the new phaeton, drawn by a pair of greys which, though not up to the Marquis’s bays, were creditable enough to win admiring glances, made up a party to visit Vauxhall Gardens with Tom and Frank Burford as escorts, were seen at the theatre and the opera, were almost squeezed to death in the more popular routs and generally conducted themselves with genteel reserve. In the course of three weeks they had made the superficial acquaintance of almost everyone who was anyone, but no young man had been singled out, so that it became a kind of game to be noticed by the nubile Miss Wenthorpe.

Occasionally the Marquis of Longham was seen in Lydia’s company, but always within a party, and his behaviour gave the tongue-waggers no cause to think he was making any progress with her if that was his intention. Indeed, Lydia herself was inclined to think him too high in the instep by far and, though always polite, she would not go out of her way to show him any favouritism. When he chose to unbend and make himself agreeable, then so might she, but until then she would keep him at a distance.

It was the only thing on which she and her aunt disagreed, for Mrs Wenthorpe had, on closer acquaintance, taken a shine to the young man and enjoyed his company, especially as he did not appear to think her dress anything out of the ordinary. In fact he had, on one occasion, complimented her on her looks. ‘And he was not funning me,’ she asserted over nuncheon one day. ‘He is the very embodiment of good taste and sensitivity.’

‘He’s bought a bang-up rig — prime cattle and a spanking new curricle,’ Tom said enthusiastically. ‘He let me take the ribbons the other day and felicitated me on my handling of them.’

‘You mean he did not go back and buy the high-perch phaeton after all?’ Lydia asked, choosing to ignore the fact that the Marquis had not actually said he intended to buy it.

‘Apparently not,’

‘Then I was right. He pretended to want it only to prevent us from having it.’

‘And glad I am he did,’ Agatha put in with a twinkle in her myopic eyes. ‘Can you imagine me riding as high as the house-tops in one of those?’

‘Do you know his circumstances, Aunt?’ Tom asked. He saw in the Marquis an entry to the ton and invitations to places that young ladies like his sister had no idea existed, or, if they did, spoke of them behind their fans with bated breath and a sense of daring. He liked the cut of Longham’s jib, his self-assurance, his air of command and he had every intention of modelling himself on this aristocrat with the long nose and the haughty bearing. ‘Has he taken you into his confidence?’

Mrs Wenthorpe smiled enigmatically. ‘If he had, I would not break it to satisfy your curiosity, young man. All I know is that he is a soldier, or he was, and highly thought of by Wellington, so I suppose he must have been a good one, but since the peace he has been little seen in Society. His father, the Duke, is a buffle-head without a feather to fly with and his brother was a dissolute rake and he will have his work cut out to bring everything to rights.’

‘Well, I take no note of the gabble-grinders,’ Tom informed them cheerfully. ‘He ain’t one to shout the odds about his affairs, plays his cards close to his chest, but that don’t mean he’s dished up. But if he offered for Lydia…’

‘That would be an entirely different matter,’ his aunt said. ‘Then it would be my duty to make enquiries…’

‘But as he has made no such offer,’ Lydia put in with some asperity, ‘and I would not accept him if he did, we need not trouble ourselves about him.’

Her aunt sighed. ‘He is not likely to offer when you give him so little encouragement.’

‘I am not going to lick boots to find a husband, Aunt Aggie, and I am sure Papa would not expect me to.’

Mrs Wenthorpe smiled. ‘No, but he might hope that you would make just a little push, my dear.’ She smiled suddenly and her blue eyes lit with mischief. ‘No matter, it is still early in the Season.’ She paused to pick up a gilt-edged invitation card to a ball to be held at Thornton House, Park Lane on the following Friday week. ‘Let us see what this brings forth, for everyone who is anyone will be there.’ She tapped the card against her chin, pretending to think. ‘Now, who shall be your escort? I think Longham, don’t you?’

‘Frank Burford has already asked me,’ Lydia put in quickly.

‘Frank?’ Tom repeated. ‘You haven’t been such a ninny as to agree?’

‘Why not?’

‘Oh, Frank is a capital fellow, I’ll allow,’ he said. ‘But you may as well have stayed at home and saved Papa a deal of blunt if you are going back to Raventrees on his arm. You’ve known him since he was in short coats.’

‘I’m comfortable with him and, as he has been so good as to ask, I have accepted.’

‘I hope you have not held out any false hopes, Lydia,’ her aunt said, rising from the table. ‘It would be most unfair of you.’

‘Not in the least,’ she said cheerfully, putting down her napkin and following her aunt from the room. ‘I know he has a penchant for little Miss Thornton, but so far she has not deigned to notice him.’

‘Miss Thornton!’ exclaimed Tom, deciding that as there were no other men with whom to smoke and drink he might as well join his sister and their aunt in the withdrawing room, where they settled themselves to await the arrival of the tea tray. ‘She’s a little above his touch, don’t you think? I cannot see her mama agreeing to that match.’

Lydia was inclined to agree with her brother when, ten days later, they took their turn in the long line of guests waiting to be received by Lord and Lady Thornton, and realised what a lavish affair it was. And all in the cause of marrying off their daughter.

The ballroom was filled to capacity and noisy enough to have been a battlefield. The orchestra which was tuning up on a dais at the far end of the room could hardly be heard above the din of people greeting acquaintances, being introduced and exchanging the latest on-dit. The heat from the gas lamps was already intense and ladies’ fans were much in evidence, not only for cooling purposes, but for whispering behind.

‘What a squeeze!’ said Frank, resplendent in a yellow brocade coat and matching satin knee-breeches, tied above his white silk stockings with ribbon bows. He looked a little ridiculous, Lydia thought, but not for a minute would she have hurt him by letting him know her thoughts, any more than she would have wounded her aunt by commenting on her lavish rose satin décolleté ballgown with its wide panniers, a fashion at least a generation out of date.

Tom pushed his way through the crush and found a seat for his aunt before wandering off to find himself a partner for the cotillion which was then forming, and Frank led Lydia on to the floor. She was engaged for every dance after that by a multitude of young men, to all of whom she was charming, laughing and thoroughly at ease, aware that she looked her best in the cream silk gown Mrs Davies had helped her to choose. The very simplicity of its high waist and softly falling skirt displayed her slim figure to perfection and its not too low neckline and puffed sleeves set off pale shoulders and a throat encircled with nothing but a rope of beautifully matched pearls. Her hair was drawn back in a Grecian style with a top-knot and ringlets woven with more pearls. Nothing could have been a greater contrast to most of the other gaudily attired young ladies with their beads and feathers, rubies and emeralds.

It was late in the evening when she spied the Marquis of Longham, standing by himself just inside the door as if he had only then arrived. His pose was nonchalant, and Lydia, who was dancing a Chaîne Anglais with the Honourable Douglas Fincham, youngest son of the Earl of Boreton, was forced to admit to herself that his figure was made for tight jackets and close-fitting pantaloons. Not long before, these would not have been allowed at a ball, knee-breeches being the accepted dress, but now only Almack’s stuck to the old ways, and here was a man for whom the new fashions must have been made. His long-tailed black evening coat was exquisitely cut to his broad shoulders and narrow waist, while his black pantaloons served to outline muscular thighs that drew a sigh of admiration from many a débutante. Lydia told herself severely, but not very honestly, that she was immune.

‘For someone who don’t have a feather to fly with, he’s in prime twig,’ commented her partner, who considered himself no end of a fine fellow. He was very young and extremely chubby, like a round young puppy. His shoulders were padded and his waist corseted and his collar points scratched his cheeks whenever he moved his head. His enormous cravat was tied into an intricate pattern of loops and folds, while across his pink and yellow striped waistcoat hung a multitide of chains and fobs. Beside the elegantly clad Marquis, he looked a veritable macaroni. ‘But it don’t signify,’ he added. ‘Everyone knows his father is batty and has lost his fortune.’

‘Where did you hear that?’ Lydia asked, forgetting her determination never to listen to gossip.

‘It is common knowledge,’ he said airily. ‘His creditors will be hammering on his door before the Season is out, unless he can find himself an heiress.’

‘And I think you would be wise to refrain from such scandal,’ she said sharply, making him redden from the wilting points of his collar to the roots of his fair hair. ‘He might call you out for it.’

‘Why, I set no store by Canterbury tales,’ he said, speedily recovering from this rebuke, having little imagination and an extraordinary idea of his own worth. If a young lady gave him a put-down, it only meant that he should try the harder to engage her attention.

Correctly judging his character, she set about teasing him so that by the time the dance ended and he returned her to her aunt he did not know whether to be elated or resentful. Aunt Aggie was in lively conversation with one of the dowagers who sat in regal splendour along the side of ballroom, making sweeping and quite scandalous statements about all and sundry, but she was attentive enough to look up at her niece with a humorous quirk of her brow and a flutter of her fan behind which she was heard to murmur, ‘A veritable pea-goose, my dear. Do send him about his business or he will cling like a leech.’

Lydia stifled a giggle but she was saved having to take her aunt’s advice because Douglas drifted off, and she joined Tom and Frank who stood near by waiting to claim their partners for the next dance. Frank had already stepped forward to stand before Miss Thornton, when Lady Thornton pushed herself between them and drew the Marquis towards her daughter.

‘Well, of all the put-downs!’ Lydia exclaimed, feeling very sorry for the dejected Frank, as he turned away to seek solace in the card-room while Amelia Thornton, pink of face, set off with the Marquis. ‘Lady Thornton is making a fool of herself with her daughter besides, throwing her at every unmarried man in the room from old Lord Winters who is sixty if he is a day to Douglas Fincham who was only yesterday taken out of short coats; the only thing they have in common is a title — or the expectation of one — and a fortune. As for the Marquis of Longham, I thought he had more sense than to be used in that fashion.’

‘He could hardly snub the poor girl by refusing,’ Tom said, reasonably. ‘That would have made matters worse.’

‘I feel sorry for poor Miss Thornton, for she will not be allowed to make up her own mind,’ Lydia went on, her own sense of justice making her admit Tom was right. ‘I’ll wager if I were to present myself as an eligible man, Lady Thornton would have me stand up with her.’

Tom turned to stare at her. ‘I say, Lydia, you wouldn’t dare,’ he said, then added, as he saw the gleam in his sister’s eye, ‘You wouldn’t, would you?’

‘Why not?’ The sight of the Marquis of Longham dancing a quadrille with Amelia Thornton and showing every sign of enjoying it made Lydia feel as if it was she and not Frank who had been snubbed, and filled her with an illogical desire to do something entirely reckless.

‘You’d never pull it off,’ he said. ‘Lady Thornton will see through you and then you will be sent home to Raventrees in disgrace, and what will Papa do with you then? No, no, you cannot.’

‘Cannot?’ she queried, raising one arched brow. Ever since they had left the cradle, Tom only had to say she would not dare to do something than she needs must do it. ‘Will you take a small wager that I cannot, Thomas? Shall we say twenty pounds?’

He stared at her for a moment and then laughed. ‘You’re on! Twenty pounds say you cannot hoodwink Lady Thornton into accepting you as a man and allowing you to dance with her daughter.’ He paused. ‘You’ll have to gull Miss Thornton as well or she will kick up a fuss before you have taken half a turn about the room.’

‘Naturally, everyone must believe it. I shall let Miss Thornton into the secret when the dance is ended.’ She smiled, her boredom vanishing in this new challenge to her acting ability. ‘I’ll need a title and a name which is credible but not too easily discounted. It had better be French; their nobility is in such a tangle since the Revolution, no one will suspect.’ She paused, then laughed. ‘I know, we will use Mama’s name. How does Comte Maurice de Clancy sound to you? I am the only son of a French émigré who came to England to escape the Terror when I was but a babe, which accounts for my being able to speak both languages perfectly. Oh, how glad I am that Mama insisted on speaking French to us! And if I assume an accent, it may help to disguise the fact that my voice is somewhat high.’ She sighed. ‘I am very much afraid I shall have to be a very effete suitor.’

‘But you need a fortune, and how is that to be contrived? You can be sure Lady Thornton will want to know about that before her daughter is allowed to stand up with you.’

Lydia thought for a moment. ‘Jewels smuggled out by my parents during the Revolution, caskets of the stuff, gold too, and none of it trusted to a bank. Given that piece of nonsense, the tattlers will do my work for me, then it will be enough if I give the appearance of being well-breeched. Her ladyship will never be able to disprove it before my wager is won.’

‘When is this deception to take place?’ her brother demanded. ‘It must be done publicly, you know, and I must see it with my own eyes.’

She laughed, realising the occasion had to be right; she could not expect to deceive her aunt, however short-sighted she was, or Frank Burford, who had already seen her dressed as a man. ‘I will tell you when I am ready.’

They were interrupted by the Marquis who, having returned Miss Thornton to her mama, was now bowing in front of Lydia and claiming the waltz. She smiled a mischievous little smile which both intrigued and alarmed him and allowed herself to be led on to the floor.

She had spent hours in the schoolroom learning the steps of the waltz with her brother and such friends who lived in the neighbourhood of Raventrees, though she had never danced it on a crowded ballroom floor, but she need not have worried, for her partner was expert and was so tall that he made her feel small and feminine, an unusual sensation for her. They moved as if moulded together and she hardly noticed that he was holding her closer than the regulation twelve inches.

‘It is a refreshing change to dance with someone without being tickled under the chin by a feather head-dress,’ he said, referring to the fact that her head was on a level with his shoulder and not the middle button of his waistcoat.

‘And I to find I am not looking over my partner’s head,’ she responded quickly. ‘You know, one of Papa’s criteria for a husband for me is that he should be tall.’

He was slightly taken aback that she should be so outspoken about it but recovered himself quickly. ‘What other requirements would a suitor need before he could approach the eligible Miss Wenthorpe?’ he asked. ‘A title, perhaps? And a fortune?’

She laughed, knowing he was bamming, but she was her brother’s sister and if she had allowed a teasing to bother her she would have had a very unhappy childhood. ‘Plain Mr is a title of sorts and a guinea might be a fortune to some poor beggar, so I suppose I could reasonably say yes to that.’

‘And handsome?’

‘Handsome is as handsome does.’

‘And should he be head over heels in love with you?’

‘Oh, that above everything,’ she said, turning her head to laugh up into his face. He was regarding her with a slightly lop-sided smile and a light dancing in his eyes which disturbed her. It was as if he had thought of some jest but was unsure whether to share it with her. ‘You do not agree with that, I see.’

‘On the contrary,’ he said. ‘I concur whole heartedly. Do you think you will find such a one here?’

‘Probably not,’ she said. If her wager were to succeed it would have to be done when his lordship was absent, for he would, she was certain, see right through any disguise; he seemed to be able to look right into her heart and make it beat so fast she could hardly breathe. She was beginning to regret the impulse which had made her throw out such a challenge. It was madness. She smiled to herself. Mad and bad and heaven help her if she failed!

‘A penny for your thoughts,’ he offered, as they whirled round the floor in perfect unison, with his hand comfortably about her waist.

‘Oh, no, my lord,’ she said, colouring. ‘Not even for a golden guinea.’

He laughed, so that the dowagers closest to them looked up with startled expressions and then began to whisper among themselves that Miss Wenthorpe was far too forward and it would be her just deserts if no one offered for her except that scapegrace Longham, who would undoubtedly make her miserable. ‘Then I must remain in ignorance, for I have no intention of bidding any higher.’

‘I perceive, my lord, that you always consider carefully before you lay out your money.’

‘Now, I wonder what you can mean by that observation?’

‘I collect you were going to purchase a high-perch phaeton.’

‘Was I? Then I changed my mind. It was an unnecessary extravagance.’ He was enjoying the exchange, teasing her and titillating her curiosity. If she passed on what he had said to others, the town would soon believe he was mean-spirited as well as down on his uppers. Serve ’em right, he thought. He would not have his bride chosen for him by gossips or avaricious mamas, and if Ernest Grimshaw were to hear that he was without the blunt to pursue his case, then so much the better. ‘Would you join me for a drive in the park one afternoon?’

‘But how can I do that if you did not buy the phaeton?’ she queried, lifting her eyebrows at him and proving that she, too, could tease. ‘Surely you do not intend to drive me in that old coach of yours? I am still black and blue from my last outing in it.’