Mistress in the Regency Ballroom

‘I was being uncivil, on purpose. It was not meant—’

‘Oh, spare me!’ she snapped. ‘I’m so looking forward to hearing some good acting, aren’t you? See,’ she said, turning, ‘the coats and capes are being brought in. Mr Waverley…Bart…where are you? If you will take three of the ladies in with you, and perhaps Lord and Lady Elyot will take…’ She bustled away, managing and marshalling four people into each of the three coaches until, quite by accident, she was the only woman left with one male guest. ‘Lord…er…Rayne?’ she whispered. ‘Oh!’

Leaning against the hall table with feet wide apart, he was quietly laughing. ‘Managed yourself into a corner, Mother Hen?’ he said. ‘Come on, then. You and I are going to walk it. It’s not far.’

‘I know how far it is,’ she growled. ‘It’s not that.’

He did not move. ‘You want me to carry you there?’

‘Tch!’ She sighed, wondering how she could possibly have done something as foolish as this. She would rather have walked with Mr Chatterton in his high-heeled shoes than with Rayne, whose arrogance both excited and annoyed her.

The footman bowed and withdrew, leaving them alone in the hall with a mountain of misunderstandings to keep them apart.

He waited, then reached her in two strides, backing her into the hard edge of the opposite table. She gripped it, leaning away from him, seeing for the first time the crisp detail of his neckcloth, the white waistcoat and its silver buttons, undone at the top. Again, she breathed the faint aroma given off by his warm skin, but now there was to be no making of mental notes for her writing when he was so frighteningly close, no time to express how she was affected, or the sensation of her heart thudding into her throat.

He placed a large knuckle beneath her chin, lifting it. ‘Yes, my beauty, I know. This is not what you planned, is it?’

‘Don’t call me that! I’m not your beauty, nor am I—’

‘And you can glare at me all you want, but this evening you will do as I say without argument and without biting my hand off. Do you hear me?’

‘I shall—’

‘Do you hear me? Without argument. Just for once, if you please.’

She nodded, looking at his mouth, then at the faint bluish shadow around his jaw, then back to his eyes that had noted every detour. his thighs pressed against hers, and she understood that, suddenly, he was struggling to suppress an urge to do what he had done once before. She must prevent it. ‘Let me go,’ she whispered.

He did not move. ‘Where are your spectacles? Have you another pair? Do you have them with you?’

‘In my reticule. Let me go, please.’

‘You will take my arm,’ he commanded, ‘and you will be civil.’

‘Yes, I will be civil.’

‘I have your word on it?’

‘Yes…now please…let me go.’ She took hold of his wrist, expecting it to move but, when she looked again at his eyes to find the cause of his delay, she saw how his gaze rested upon the staircase as if to measure its length. Panic stole upwards, fluttering inside her bodice. Her fingers tightened over the soft fabric of his coat-cuff. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t…please don’t.’She saw the reflection of the two wall-lamps in his eyes, heavy-lidded with desire.

‘I could,’ he said, ‘but I suppose they will not delay the performance of Shakespeare for us, so we’d better go. Come, my beauty, adjust your shawl. There, now take my arm, and try to remember what you have agreed.’

Speechless and shaken, she did as she was told. Arm in arm they went out into the cool evening, pulling the heavy door closed behind them.

Earlier that afternoon she had formed a clear plan of where everyone would sit, herself being nowhere near Lord Rayne. However, arriving at the theatre only a few minutes later, Letitia found her plans already displaced by the earlier arrival of the day girls, their parents and friends. Although Miss Sapphire Melborough clearly hoped that Lord Rayne would join her parents in their box, he merely bowed politely, held a few words of conversation with her mother, then rejoined Letitia, taking the two seats left over after the others had taken theirs. It was not at all what Letitia had intended, and Rayne knew it as he quelled her budding protest with a stern glance, positioning her chair next to his at the back of the box and almost herding her into it with one uncompromising word. ‘There,’ he said.

She delayed for as long as she dared but, in the end, there was nothing for it but to accept the situation when the musicians in the pit ceased playing and the curtain glided upwards. The scene of merchants and their clients against a background of Venetian waterways would normally have riveted her attention. But this time she was sitting close to Lord Rayne against the high back of the box with a partition on one side of her, and her usually obedient concentration was distracted by the sensation that, for all her determination to deny him any sign of encouragement, he had won that round with ease.

He had another way of putting it, in a whisper, when she turned slightly to glance at him. Catching her angry expression, his unsmiling eyes made his advice all the more telling. ‘Stop fighting me, my beauty. I intend to win.’

Turning her attention to her reticule, she drew out a pair of pocket spectacles that swung inside a mother-of-pearl cover, holding them to her eyes as if his words meant nothing. But the spectacles trembled, and she knew he had seen before she transferred them to her other hand.

That evening at Richmond’s Theatre Royal was to be remembered for many reasons, the chief of which was the way in which Lord Rayne attended to her needs as they had not been since her father died, not even by Mr Waverley. Independent to a fault, she had intended to take charge of the event, putting herself last, as usual, in spite of there being enough adults to watch over the three boarders. But if she had thought they would prefer her to the others, she was wrong. They did not need her, and she had no other role to play except to stay by Rayne’s side, where he wanted her.

‘Miss Melborough is hoping you will visit her,’ she said.

‘Then she will be disappointed. This evening, Miss Boyce, I am with no one but you, and you will not get rid of me.’

‘Hasn’t this gone on long enough, my lord?’ she said, demurely, opening and closing her spectacle-cover. ‘You’ve made your point, I think. You’ve had your fun and enjoyed the stares. But these girls are my pupils, and you place me in a very awkward position by paying me this attention one evening and then, as you are sure to do, paying the same kind of attention to someone else next time they see you. They all know you and my sisters are seen in each other’s company. They know that Sapphire’s parents are keen on an alliance. I am not unused to being talked about in one way or another, but this evening will not be easy for me to live down, my lord. Perhaps you think you’re doing me some kind of favour, but I assure you, you’re not. Surely you can see that?’

Handing her a glass of negus, he took the spectacles from her and popped them into the opening of the reticule that hung on her arm. ‘It’s a great pity, in a way,’ he said, ‘that you overheard what you did, for now it will be harder than ever for me to convince you that I am not simply flirting with you.’

‘You are mistaken in the matter, Lord Rayne. I was convinced you were doing exactly that at our first meeting. I’m afraid I cannot be unconvinced, nor would any woman be, in the same circumstances.’

‘That would not have happened to any woman, Miss Boyce.’

‘No, of course not. How often does one encounter a shortsighted, lost schoolmistress? Not one of your greatest challenges, I would have thought.’

He sighed. ‘Miss Boyce, will you try to dredge from the depths of your deep intellect something we agreed on before we set out? Something you gave me your word on, if you need a clue?’

‘Yes, my lord, but—’

‘Good. Then keep it, will you?’

‘But you haven’t answered my question.’

‘Oh? I thought I had. I wish you would listen as well as you talk.’

‘Odious man!’ she muttered.

Mr Waverley was amused by the new partnership. ‘What’s happened, Lettie? The fellow’s sticking to you like glue. I think he’s smitten.’

‘Fudge!’ she said. ‘Bart, rescue me. Walk home with me. Don’t leave me alone with him. He’s only trying to show Miss Melborough that she has some competition, that’s all. I know the kind of tactics such men use.’

‘Maybe, but Sir Francis doesn’t look too pleased about it, either, does he? He’s been sending you the oddest looks. What’s that all about?’

She did not explain. She had noticed the crowded Melborough box during the interval but, without peering through her lenses, had not been able to see who the visitors were. Nevertheless, she was receiving the distinct impression that Sir Francis, who would normally have been amongst the first to ingratiate himself with her, was keeping well out of her way.

Undeterred by her watchful escort, she managed to speak to many of her friends, her pupils’ parents and their friends, too, and had thought that, as they began to seat themselves for the second half, she might be invited to join their ranks. But Lord Rayne was having none of it and, disregarding the interest and envy of her pupils, he steered her back to the same chair with the utmost propriety, giving them little to gossip about except that their guardian was once again being claimed by him.

And indeed there was nothing to which she could object except his closeness; no touching, no arm across the back of her chair, no flirtatious remarks, no compliments except in his eyes. It was, she thought, as if his aim was to familiarise her with his nearness as he would with an unbroken young horse. Which, after all, would have been the way of any suitor except this one, for whom conventional methods were usually too slow.

Years of watching her vivacious sisters take centre stage, however, had caused her to develop an unhealthy cynicism, enabling her to see through and partly to despise the ploys men used, the foolish games they played. And in view of her previous encounters with this particular buck, she was unlikely to let go of her conviction that she was being used as some kind of instrument in one of his games in full view of the pert and eager Miss Melborough, not to mention her ambitious parents. While she could not help but absorb the exciting vibrations from the man at her side as she had never done before with anyone, it was her steely common sense that pulled her emotions back from taking precedence over her writing, which needed information of this kind more than her starving sensitive heart did. If it was common sense, then it must be right, for what else did a woman like her have to rely on?

Agog with curiosity to see whether Lord Rayne would walk back to Paradise Road with Miss Boyce, her pupils were almost as excited to hear him call farewell to his relatives and to see him take one of the carriages with Letitia and Mr Waverley, which seemed to them a little odd when Mr Waverley lived almost next door to the theatre. Mr Chatterton and Mr Thomas had only yards to go. What the pupils did not discover is that, by tacit consent, Mr Waverley, Lord Rayne, Miss Gaddestone and Miss Boyce stayed up until past midnight in the drawing room, drinking red wine from sparkling cut glasses through which the candlelight danced and winked. Talking like old friends, not one waspish word was heard between them. Then the two men left, Lord Rayne having accepted a lift back to Sheen Court in Mr Waverley’s phaeton.

It was usual, at the end of each day, however late, for Letitia to enter notes into her book before they suffered from distortion or, worse, amnesia. This night, the notebook stayed locked in her drawer while she lay against the pillows to watch the shadows move over the bed-curtains, not because she was too tired to write, but because her thoughts were torn by conflict, her heart entering a period of slow ache in anticipation of the pain that was sure to come unless she armoured herself against it. Of course he was teasing her. Her sisters said he was a tease. This was nothing but a game to him. Nothing but a game.

For the next two weeks it began to look as if Letitia’s reading of events was accurate, the only communication from Lord Rayne being a formal note of thanks for an enjoyable evening, then a brief visit in person to return her mended spectacles. But since she was out with her pupils at the time, they did not meet. In a way, she was relieved to have missed him, for she had nothing to say except to offer him her thanks.

She was even more certain of her ground when, only two days later, she took her pupils to London to the Royal Academy Annual Exhibition at Somerset House where she found her sisters and mother in Lord Rayne’s company. By chance, Miss Melborough was not one of the party, having twisted her ankle the day before and, in some discomfort, had been left to work on her watercolour until their return.

Letitia’s sisters, as always, were glad to see her and to unload on her their latest experiences, shopping trips and parties, their mama’s dinner party and the men who had caught their attention most. Lady Boyce greeted her eldest daughter more formally with a stand-off embrace and a showy kiss past each cheek that could hardly have been called motherly. After relating to Letitia what she had missed by not being at home, her remarks centred around the attention being shown to Garnet, especially by Lord Rayne. ‘There’ll be an announcement soon, Letitia,’ she said, waving her fan to friends Letitia could not quite identify. ‘Mark my words. I’m never wrong about these matters. I can always tell when a man is about to declare himself. Well, heaven knows, it happened to me often enough before your dear papa snared me. Lord Rayne is very keen, you know.’

‘Yes, Mama.’

‘So these are your gels, are they?’she said, glancing round. ‘They look respectable enough. Isn’t that Sir Mortimer Derwent’s daughter?’

‘Maura. Yes. They live in Farnham. She boards with us.’

‘Your papa used to hunt with them. And there’s your Mr Waverley. Still faithful, is he? Who are the other two?’

‘That’s Mr Dimmock, our watercolour teacher, and Mr Ainsley, our drawing master. Rosie has stayed at home with one of the girls, but the lady over there in brown is Mrs Quayle, our next-door neighbour. Would you allow me to introduce her to you? She’d be so thrilled.’

‘Another time, dear. Nice to see you. Keeping well, are you?’

It was pointless for Letitia to reply when the orange turban had already turned towards other faces and, since that exchange appeared to be the sum total of her mother’s interest, she adjusted her spectacles and moved away to the walls lined with pictures.

Softly, Lord Rayne’s voice spoke into her ear. ‘You’re using them I see, Miss Boyce?’

She turned to face the dark serious eyes and immaculate form of the one man she had hoped not to see. ‘Yes, my lord. Thank you for returning them to me. They’re quite perfect. I cannot tell where the mend is.’

‘Ayscough on Ludgate Street,’ he said, gravely. ‘My mother gets hers there. He recognised them.’

‘He should. That is where they were bought. But please don’t let me keep you from your obligation to my sisters. I had not expected to see them here, nor my mother. They don’t usually show much interest in this kind of event.’

‘I did not come with them, Miss Boyce. I came with Lord Alvanley and George Brummell. Over there…see? They’re helping me to find something suitable for my study.’

‘Oh…I thought…’

‘Yes, I can see you did. I believe that’s what you were meant to think.’ His quick glance in Lady Boyce’s direction qualified his remark. ‘If I may offer you a word of advice, it would be not to—’

‘No, please don’t offer me any advice, my lord,’ she said, quickly cutting him off. ‘It’s no concern of mine what my sisters do or don’t do. All I wish for is their happiness, not to interfere in it. Have you seen a painting you like?’

He paused, obviously not content to be diverted. ‘I’ve seen one prime article in particular I like the look of, Miss Boyce,’ he said. ‘I wish it was as easy to purchase as a painting.’

‘For your study wall?’

‘For my study, certainly. For my wall, no.’

‘Good day, my lord,’ she whispered, trying to hide her flushed cheeks behind the panel of her bonnet. ‘I shall leave you to make your choice.’

‘And you don’t wish to give me the benefit of your advice?’

‘I don’t wish to incur any more of my mother’s disapproval than I have already, my lord.’

‘By talking to me? Surely not.’

‘She would misunderstand, and so would my sisters. Need I say more than that?’

‘Usually you say too much, Miss Boyce, but on this occasion you have said too little. I thought you had become independent of Lady Boyce’s management.’

‘I have taken a very big step, my lord, but I have hopes that she will visit me, one day, not cut me out altogether. I am already well outside her plans.’

‘But not her influence, apparently. Time you were, then. So, if I am not allowed to advise you, I shall tell you this. Lady Boyce may be allowed to keep a finger in your pie, for the time being, but, by God, she won’t put a finger near mine unless she wants it snapped off. When I want a woman, I shall not be asking her permission.’

‘Not even when the woman is her daughter, my lord?’

‘Not the eldest one, no. Good day to you, Miss Boyce.’

Her cheeks were still very pink when Mr Dimmock joined her to discuss some of the paintings with her and found, to his dismay, that she had so far seen very few of them.

Chapter Six

Leaving William Lake’s lending-library in Leadenhall Street, London, Lord Seton Rayne tossed a pile of books on to the seat of his curricle and climbed up beside them, having accomplished what he had promised to do for his mother, the Marchioness of Sheen, who had been unable to find extra copies for her friends anywhere. He was about to call to his tiger to loose the horses’ heads when he noticed the tall hurrying figure of the Honourable Bart Waverley leap down the steps of the library and dash across to the other side of the street carrying a leather briefcase under his arm. This was singular, Rayne thought, because there had been no sign of Bart inside the library.

Watching the striding figure disappear round the corner, he then looked up at the windows above the library where the gold-printed words read, Mercury Press, Est. 1790. Publisher W. Lake, Esq. Did Bart know William Lake personally? Was there some business between them? Not being one to poke his nose into other people’s affairs, Rayne let the matter rest beside a strange feeling that a connection was escaping him.

Later that afternoon, he made a detour through the winding corridors of Hampton Court Palace on his way from the barrack block and stables to his own apartments bordering the Outer Green Court, his home during weekdays. Pausing for a moment outside the dingy little room where he and Miss Letitia Boyce had exchanged kisses—oh, yes, she had exchanged kisses, he was convinced of that—he smiled and closed the door, continuing his walk round to the gardens on the sunny south side of the palace’s grace-and-favour apartments.

Residents and their elderly guests strolled along the overgrown pathways and sat on benches in the shade, snoozing, reading, or watching the boats on the distant river. One erect resident, lace-draped, white-haired and bespectacled, held a book up high as if she were singing from it. She looked up as Rayne approached, lowering the book with a smile. ‘Lord Rayne,’ she said. ‘Finished for the day?’

‘I have indeed, Lady Waverley,’ he said with a bow. ‘And you?’

Her smile softened as she removed her eyeglasses. She was still a lovely woman, arched brows, cheekbones firmly covered. ‘No, not me,’ she said. ‘I have some way to go yet.’ She indicated the book and the pages yet to be read. ‘It’s the newest one Bart lent me. I’ve been so looking forward to it, you know. Of course, he must be allowed to read it first, dear boy. Come and sit with me a while.’ She drew in a heap of soft shawl and lace, moving up to make room for him.

Rayne sat, removed his helmet, and ran a hand through his hair.

‘Are you not supposed to powder your hair?’ she said, watching the gesture. ‘I thought the Prince’s Own had to wear powder and a pigtail.’

‘We do on parade, my lady. Makes too much mess for everyday wear.’ He looked at the book on her lap. ‘Did you say Bart lent it to you? My lady mother is on Hatchett’s subscription list, but she wants extra copies to give to her friends. They’re very scarce. Where does Bart get his from?’

‘From Lake the publisher. He’s almost sold out of the first edition, apparently, but we’ve known him for years.’

‘Ah! That explains it.’

‘Explains what?’

‘Why I saw Bart leaving the Mercury Press this morning.’

‘Oh, did you? Well, he brought me this yesterday.’ She tapped the book. ‘It’s his own copy, given him by the author. Perhaps he was there on some business for her.’

‘He knows the author? So it is a woman, then?’

‘Oh, yes, he knows her well. He meets Lake on her behalf. A young lady cannot go there on her own, can she? Bart’s done all her business transactions with Lake from the very first book. He gets to read it, then he passes it on to me. Am I not fortunate? I doubt I could wait any longer.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Oh, I’ve pestered him for ages to hurry up and—’

‘No, I meant about the author being a young lady. Does she live in Richmond, near Bart?’

‘It may be that she does, but I’m not too familiar with who lives there, so I don’t really know, and he refuses to tell me any more except that she’s earning quite an income from these.’ Again, she tapped Volume One, leather-bound and gold-tooled. ‘Mind you,’ she continued, ‘I have no doubt that Lake is doing very nicely out of it. He’s unlikely to be offering her the kind of deal he’d offer a man, even if she is more popular.’

‘But isn’t that why the author has Bart to act for her?’

She smiled her indulgent, motherly smile. ‘Of course. But you know what dear Bart’s like, don’t you? He was never the forceful kind, was he?’

‘No, my lady.’

The sounds of the late afternoon passed them by with a shower of dandelion clocks, as they thought about Mr Waverley’s many fine qualities, of which forcefulness was not one. ‘Will he ever marry, do you think?’ said Rayne, gently.

The shake of Lady Waverley’s head would easily have been missed, had Rayne not been watching for it. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Shouldn’t think so, Seton. Marriage is not for Bart’s kind, is it?’

‘It’s not unknown, my lady.’

‘But it rarely works. Best to stay single. He’s happy enough.’

‘He’d make a wonderful father.’

Lady Waverley took that as the compliment it was meant to be, and said no more on the delicate subject. Rayne, however, returned to the young lady author. ‘A Lady of Quality, I believe she calls herself,’ he said, smoothing a hand over his helmet’s glossy fur. ‘So I suppose I must not ask if you know the identity of this mysterious wealthy young woman.’

‘Only Bart himself knows that, and he’d not dream of breaking a confidence, not even to his mother. Mr Lake knows her only as a certain Miss Lydia Barlowe, but that must be a nom de plume. No lady of quality ever had such a common name.’

Rayne bellowed with laughter. ‘Lady Waverley, I do believe you’re a snob,’ he teased.

She agreed, smiling at the notion. ‘Yes, dear, I believe I am. It’s one of the few allowances left to a woman of my age. That, and being able to sit and talk to a man like you, alone, without being suspected of flirting.’

‘And if I were not so afraid of being called out by your son, I would indulge in some serious flirting with you, my lady.’