Tuesday's Child (Heroines Born on Each Day of the Week Book 3) (25 page)

“Say!” Harriet exclaimed, aware that her cheeks burned in response to the implication.

“My lady,” Katherine’s husband intervened, before Harriet could say another word. “Your words are ill-chosen,” he scolded his wife. “How do-you-do, Arthur.” It seemed he did not notice the rush of colour into Katherine’s cheeks for he continued. “Has anyone told you how much you look like your father?”

“Yes, sir, my mamma and grandfather have.”

Katherine shook her head. “I cannot see the resemblance.”

Jack put a gentle hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “Aunt, I can only imagine your eyesight is not what it once was.”

“My lords, ladies and gentlemen,” the butler announced, “dinner is served.”

Harriet ruffled Arthur’s curls. “Make your bow and say goodnight.”

Her son looked up at Jack. “Will you be here when I wake in the morning?”

“Yes.” Jack hoisted Arthur up onto his shoulders. “To the land of bed, young sir.”

Conscious of many interested glances at the cousins, Harriet spoke. “His nurse should be waiting for him in the hall.”

Before Jack could leave the drawing room, Mister Markham and Lady Gwenifer entered. At the sight of the rector, a flood of desire, which shocked Harriet, caught her by surprise. Faint with suppressed passion, Harriet was almost tempted to ask Lady Isabel for the loan of her smelling salts. At that moment, Mister Markham looked across the room. He walked quickly toward her, his smile conveying his pleasure at the sight of her.

“Please accept my apology for arriving so late. A parishioner in urgent need of help detained me. I look forward to dancing with you, Lady Castleton.” His eyes seemed to burn an invisible path into hers.

When she tried to slip her fan off her wrist, with the intention of applying it to cool her cheeks, she dropped it. Simultaneously they stooped to pick it up. Face to face, her lips parted. His eyes widened with unmistakable passion. Confound her stays for making her breathless.

“Lady Castleton!” Pennington exclaimed. “Instead of either attempting to retrieve your fan, or of imposing on Mister Markham’s good nature, you should have asked a footman to pick it up.”

Dominic stood. “My lord, I am only too pleased to have offered my assistance to her ladyship.”

“You and your sister are welcome to the ball.”

The earl spoke with such unusual warmth that Harriet eyed him suspiciously.

The rector held out his arm. “Lady Castleton, may I escort you to the door where the squire’s daughter is waiting for me to take her to the dining room?”

“I prefer to call it the refectory as the monks did before King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries,” her father-in-law corrected Mister Markham.

Somewhat self-conscious, Harriet followed the earl towards the double doors with Mister Markham, who claimed Emily Clifford, at the precise moment at which Jack returned.

“Humbugged by my cousin,” Jack announced ruefully, tucking Harriet’s hand into the crook of his arm.

Harriet chuckled. “How?”

“Arthur asked me if I would do something for him. ‘Yes,’ I said ‘I will do anything in my power’.”

“Unwise of you,” she commented.

“Indeed! Having been tricked by Francis’s wiles, I should have known better. Arthur asked me to ride with him and grandfather tomorrow morning. So, no matter how late I go to bed, I must present myself to them early in the morning, dressed in my riding habit. As I said, I have been humbugged.”

Harriet laughed. “My apologies, I am sorry Arthur manipulated you.”

“I don’t mind; it proves his intelligence. Now, come to the dining room or, as my esteemed grandfather insists on calling it, the refectory.” He held out his arm towards her.

Startled, she remembered, that apart from his grandfather, Jack ranked higher than any other gentleman present, therefore, he would escort her and sit on her right at the foot of the dining table.

Followed by the other guests, her gloved hand on his arm, Harriet and Jack followed her father-in-law, and Lady Gwenifer, through the cloisters.

Jack gazed down at her. “Aunt Castleton, can you visualise Cistercian monks walking to the refectory across the flagstones beneath our feet?”

“Although I am not imaginative, I presume they took measured footsteps and walked with dignity.”

Jack studied her face. “Do you approve of Papists?”

“Perhaps I do,” she mused. “I met monks and nuns in the Peninsula, who nursed the wounded regardless of their religion. I daresay those who lived here in times gone by did much good.”

Jack patted her hand. “Perhaps you are right, but surely you admit one can imagine dark deeds being performed here. I would not care to go to the cellars at night.”

Harriet shivered. “You said you have no imagination, but you do.”

“Perhaps, you are right. But it does not equal my sister’s. Contrary to poplar opinion, Gothicism, if there is such a word, is not romantic. I thought my sister would swoon while she read The Mysteries of Udolfo. After Sophia finished it, the silly girl’s imagination was so overworked that she had nightmares, and woke the household with her screams.”

“The poor child,” Harriet murmured.

“Not a child! Sofia is only eleven months younger than I am. She should have known better than to become so overwrought. ‘Pon my honor, I am glad she did not accompany me and Mamma, for she would imagine horrid crimes taking place in Grandfather’s gothic fantasy, and I daresay that you can also do so.”

Although uneasy, Harriet laughed before she spoke. “No, I cannot, I told you I have no imagination.”

Jack looked down at her, . “I suppose it is because you saw so many horrors during the war against France.”

She nodded, appreciative of his unexpected understanding, which made him seem older than eighteen.

“When I was sixteen, I wanted to enlist. Mamma and my guardians refused to give me permission and sent me to Oxford.”

“A better fate than the reality of bloody stained ground.”

Jack sighed. “University could not compare with the glory of fighting for our king and country.”

“There is little glory, and few words of comfort when a man falls and dies in agony with his guts spilled out,

Jack stared at her his young face creased with palpable astonishment. “Aunt Castleton. I never expected to hear a lady speak of…of-”

“Actuality? War is terrible. I pray to God neither you nor my son will ever fight in one.”

Footmen opened the doors to the refectory.

Without saying another word, Jack guided her to take her place on the carved oak chair at the foot of the table.

Chapter Twenty

By half past seven, more guests began to arrive at Clarencieux Abbey in their carriages and coaches. Without a thought of the monks, who once worshipped there, Harriet stood at her father-in-law’s right to one side of the ancient door outside the ballroom.

After welcoming many ladies and gentlemen, Harriet  greeted three officers from The Glory Boys, her late husband and father’s regiment, with particular pleasure.. In their splendid black dress uniforms ablaze with gold buttons, braid and epaulettes, with a hint of the red silk, lining their jackets, and their fur lined pelisses, the Glory Boys always attracted feminine admiration.

The earl looked down his Roman nose as he regarded Colonel Leigh. “Coxcomb,” he muttered, after the officer moved forward.

“Not so,” Harriet murmured, not too low for her father-in-law to overhear, “the colonel and the other two officers present this evening are courageous men, who wear their uniforms with pride.”

“If you say so.” Pennington drawled. “Doubtless the young ladies will dote on them.

By half past eight, unless some stragglers arrived later, she and the earl had received all the guests. The musicians tuned their instruments. Harriet entered the ballroom.

For a moment, she lingered to admire a scattering of officers from various regiments, civilians with white muslin cravats tied in intricate folds, and ladies in elegant muslin, silk or satin gowns in a myriad of colours, all of whom sat or stood beneath the mediaeval vaulted ceiling. Harriet stepped forward, conscious of the fragrance of massed flowers, beeswax candles and the guests’ perfumes, which sweetened the air.

For a moment, while the sound of animated conversations continued and no-one paid attention to her, unanticipated shyness nearly overwhelmed her Almost unable to believe her father-in-law arranged the ball to introduce her to society, before she made her debut during the London Season.

“Lady Castleton,” a familiar voice banished her  bashfulness, “may I say how much I look forward to dancing with you.”

“And I with you, Jack,” she admitted, smiling at him, before he bowed and held out his hand.

With remarkable composure for such a young gentleman, her nephew by marriage led her to the top of the long line of couples, already formed for the country dance.

When  the music began, Harriet’s love of dancing banished her shyness.

“You are so graceful and light on your feet, Aunt Castleton, that I am fortunate to be your partner,” Jack remarked, when the movement of the dance brought them together again.

“Thank you for the compliment.”

Jack looked towards the area, which had once been the chancel, furnished with card tables and chairs set up behind screens for those gentlemen, who preferred to neglect their duty to dance. “Later, do you think I people will criticise me if I play a few hands of vingt-et-un?

“Without doubt you would be disapproved of. Tell me why you want to leave the ballroom? Do you not enjoy dancing?”

“Y…yes.”

Harriet laughed. “You seem unsure.”

“I like to dance, but  don’t enjoy being eyed by ambitious mothers anxious to catch the greatest prizes for their daughters. I am too young to think of matrimony.”

A shiver made its way down Harriet’s spine. Jack was not too young to go to war; and, she realised, in spite of his youth, he was old enough to take his seat in the House of Lords.

Jack exaggerated a sigh. “There is no hope of escape from speculation for either of us.” He gesticulated towards his mother, deep in conversation with chaperones and other older ladies, seated between two stone pillars that soared to the roof.

She raised her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“The gossips are also wondering who you will marry.”

“I beg your pardon.”

He gazed at her from beneath heavy-lidded eyes. “My dear aunt, surely you know that by dancing you have declared your intention to re-marry.”

Harriet cursed herself for a fool, using one of Edgar’s most colourful swearwords, ones which no lady would ever admit to knowing, let alone giving voice to aloud.

Before she could comment on Jack’s startling explanation, it was time to dance with the next two couples down the line. Like an automaton, Harriet rose onto the points of her toes, hopped, leapt and performed jetes jumped, clapped and curtseyed when the dance demanded it. Breathless, she completed her part with great enjoyment, after which she took her place opposite Jack, who looked at her curiously.

“Please don’t think I am impertinent, Aunt Castleton, because, like the rest of the family, I merely want to know more about you. Who are your parents?”

“They are dead,” she answered, her voice flat.

“I apologise for questioning you. I asked because Grandfather has been secretive. So, who are your relatives?”

“I have never met them. My parents’ families disapproved of their marriage.”

“How uncomfortable for you,” he commented, with swift understanding remarkable in one so young.

The next movement of the dance brought her face-to-face with Mister Markham. When their hands touched, flames seemed to trace a path up her arm. His eyes burned into hers.

Deep in thought throughout the rest of the dance, Harriet wondered how she could make it known she did not intend to re-marry. Yet female vanity did not prevent her from asking herself why the rector did not propose marriage to her, and also asking herself if he might. Her cheeks warmed, not only because the ballroom was so hot. A little voice whispered in her ear, What would she say if Mister Markham asked her to marry him? After all, there was no reason other than her loyalty to Edgar to prevent her from becoming Mister Markham’s wife.

When the dance ended, still preoccupied with the charismatic Mister Markham, and glad of the opportunity to drink a glass of oregeat before the cotillion, Harriet watched Colonel Leigh make his way to her through the throng.

“Mrs…I beg your pardon, I should say Lady Castleton. Gad, like me you have risen in the ranks,” the colonel remarked, a look of honest pleasure on his face.

“I congratulate you on your promotion. You deserve it.”

“Thank you, Lady Castleton, now please tell me where you disappeared to after your father’s death.”

“I returned to England where I met my father-in-law.”

The colonel frowned. “If you will forgive me for saying so, your husband’s close friends knew he was not on good terms with his father. So although we wanted to help you, we could find no trace of you and little George.”