Chapter 5

It had not previously occurred to Georgie that it would be so, but the dinner table at Northriding Castle that evening presented a rather odd appearance. There was nothing amiss with the napery, the silver or the china, and the wood was polished till it shone. The two dozen or so persons seated in the grand green dining room were, for the most part, fashionably dressed and suitably bejewelled. They seemed in no way unfit to take their places under the painted gazes of Van Dyck's huge canvas of Mauleverer ancestors, who looked down on them with those distinctive silver eyes from gilded frames in all their glory of armour, silk and lace. But it was customary in society for hostesses to attempt to balance their guests nicely by sex. Given the circumstances of this house party, that must always have been a challenge for Lady Blanche, but the arrival of the three Pendlebury ladies, unaccompanied by so much as a brother or an elderly uncle, had disordered matters further. Some of the other ladies had brought their papas, one had brought a brother too, but still there was a decided shortage of persons of the male sex at the table. The hostess had done what she could, and brought in the Duke's estate manager and the incumbent of the local church. Yet there were far more ladies than gentlemen none the less, and the table placement must have given Lady Blanche the headache, although nobody present was ill-bred enough to refer to it; or at least, not in earshot of their hosts. They all knew why they were there, after all.

Using the already unconventional circumstances as an excuse, and contrary to all rules of precedence – although perhaps the daughter and sister of a duke did not need an excuse, reflected Georgie, but could afford to defy convention in such matters – Lady Blanche had chosen to place Miss Spry at her own left hand. Perhaps she had done this to compensate herself for having Mary Debenham's father at her right; he appeared to be a gentleman not the least interested in conversing with ladies, and very interested in eating his dinner, which he proceeded to do with intense concentration and in a silence more flattering to the cook than to his hostess. The Duke had Louisa at his right, and Lady Debenham at his left, and Georgie, who was determined not to stare at him and even more determined that he did not observe her staring at him, could not help but notice that he and her aunt were keeping each other very well amused. Lady Debenham's face was a picture; she was plainly of a naturally sour disposition, much like her daughter, and, it seemed, thoroughly disapproved of His Grace, of Lady Louisa, and of the tenor of their somewhat flirtatious conversation, which she must be able to hear with perfect clarity. But Selina Debenham was here because she cherished ambitions to see her daughter as this man's duchess, no matter the reputation or the conduct of her prospective mate, and so she must paste on a smile, and present a complaisant face. The dinner itself was excellent, well-chosen and beautifully cooked, but Georgie did not think that Lady Debenham, unlike her husband, was enjoying it to any marked degree.

She herself was better placed, though it did not seem so at first. Convention would have set her close to the Duke, as one of the highest-ranking ladies present, but Lady Blanche had instead positioned her not far from her own end of the table, with the rector, Mr Summerson, on one hand, and Mr FitzHenry on the other. Georgie hoped Lady Blanche was not matchmaking for her son. The young gentleman was both handsome and amiable, and showed a continuing disposition to flirt with her if given the least encouragement, which she was not in the mood to indulge just now, but he was little more than a boy, after all. When she did not appear responsive to him, he turned without any appearance of chagrin to the young lady on his other hand and tried his luck there. They were soon laughing together as if they had known each other for years.

Mr Summerson was a surprise, though – he was a middle-aged, cherubic man with grey curls and a benevolent expression, and far more entertaining than any gentleman in holy orders she had ever encountered before. ‘Now you are thinking,' he had said with a twinkle and a soft Irish brogue, ‘what have I, a young lady of beauty, rank and fashion, done to deserve being placed next to a prosy old clergyman?'

She had choked a little, and then laughed despite herself, and they had found themselves excellently suited from then on and well able to keep each other amused; perhaps, she thought, one needed to be a very special kind of cleric to minister to a patron such as the notorious Duke of Northriding. She thought the gentleman would not mind if she asked if his living was in the gift of the Mauleverers. As they were apparently the largest landowners for miles around, she thought it must be so. ‘Indeed it is,' he replied easily. ‘I owe my comfortable situation entirely to the Duke. It is a shocking and entirely unjustifiable system of patronage, and aren't I a terrible hypocrite for saying so? Lady Blanche's late husband was a distant cousin and a good friend of mine, and thus I came to His Grace's attention, and he was so good as to give me the place here when it came free ten years ago. It would not,' he said thoughtfully, ‘suit a fellow who was any holier and more unworldly than he need be, nor of too timid a disposition. He'd have sleepless nights, so he would.'

Once again, Georgie was unable to conceal her surprise, and he smiled at her as he saw it. ‘I'm not saying anything the Duke would not say himself, my dear. He has a certain reputation for all manner of wickedness not fit for your ears, it would be idle to deny it, and I dare say some of it was earned and some of it was not, as is the way of the world. But he's an intelligent man, you know, and fearsomely well-read. Not lacking in deeper feeling, too, though he tries hard to conceal it. He keeps me on my toes, for sure, though the rest of my days are as easy as they could be.' He saw she did not immediately understand him, and added, ‘The Mauleverers look after their people; it is something of a proverb in their part of Yorkshire. You'll not find shocking hunger, want and ignorance such as you see elsewhere, not in these lands. Even in difficult times like the present, you will not see Northriding people suffering.'

‘I am glad to hear it, sir,' she said fervently. And then on impulse she added, ‘What do you, think, then, of this party and the reason for which it was assembled?'

‘Now there's an interesting and rather indiscreet question from a young lady,' he said. He did not seem offended in the least, but she noticed he had not, in point of fact, answered her question. ‘No, I do not mean to reprove you, Lady Georgiana. Frankness is a rare quality.'

‘I do sometimes struggle to control my unruly tongue, and too often say what I should not,' she admitted ruefully. ‘But it occurs to me as it did not before, talking to you, that the Duke is not only choosing a bride for himself. My sister-in-law has a great many responsibilities as Countess of Irlam, and the chatelaine's duties must be even more numerous here, I should think. His Grace must strive to choose a lady who can fulfil that role too. Not necessarily an easy task, I should think.'

‘Yes, my dear, you are quite right, of course, and the Castle has been without a mistress for too long since his mother died. It is four years since the late Duchess left us, good and gentle lady that she was, and her shoes will not be so easy to fill, as you have divined. Quite setting aside her son's own preferences in the matter, of course.'

‘My own mother died eight years ago,' she said softly. ‘We still miss her every day. Everyone who was at all acquainted with her does. I know my sister-in-law experienced a degree of trepidation upon taking her place.'

‘Any woman of sensibility would feel so,' he said with a sympathetic smile. ‘The ones who wouldn't, they're the ones you have to watch.' It might be her imagination, but Georgie thought that he was regarding Miss Debenham as he made this last remark. She supposed she could take that as a sort of answer to her earlier question if she chose. But she could not be so impolite as to ask him to elucidate further, and so she turned the conversation into less dangerous channels.

When the ladies withdrew and left the gentlemen to their port, she found herself at Louisa's side, as the other ladies clustered around the piano in heated discussion. ‘I see the Duke kept you well entertained,' she teased her aunt in the moment's privacy. She was not, of course, in the least jealous of the attention, for that would be absurd on several counts.

‘He did,' her aunt conceded. ‘He made me laugh – set out to do so, I am sure. I have no idea why he should trouble to make up to me; perhaps he cannot help himself. He has a degree of charm that is rarely to be met with, he is as clever as a cartload of monkeys, and I would not trust him an inch. Not half an inch. And I am not a young lady with her reputation to worry about. So you bear my warning in mind, my girl. I wonder if I was wrong in bringing you here?'

Georgie feared she flushed. ‘Louisa! Hush!'

‘No, I do not mean to insult you, so do not put your back up. It's merely that I have met any number of rakes before, and found them exceedingly tedious creatures – the sort of men who can look at a woman, any woman, in only one way. You must know the type of villain by now: a man who sees the mere existence of a woman upon the earth as an invitation, one who would attempt to kiss a girl he met unprotected in the road, or walking in the countryside, or force himself upon an inn servant.'

‘Horrid,' said Georgie with a shiver. She greatly feared, though she had not fully understood it until their last meeting, when she had been forced to fight off his advances, that her former suitor Captain Hart had been of such a stamp.

‘Yes,' agreed Louisa. ‘Horrid, and highly dangerous in the sense that they will molest any woman they encounter without the least compunction if ever they see an opportunity. They should be put in the pillory and pelted with refuse until they undertake to change their ways. Or as a sex we should take up guns, so that we can simply shoot them all and rid ourselves of them for ever.' She spoke calmly and appeared to be entirely serious, and Georgie smiled appreciatively in response; she could not disagree. ‘But as long as you do not find yourself in their power in any way, they are easy enough to resist for a woman of sense, and merely nuisances. I do not believe that the Duke is like that, though. I think him far more of a threat. I think…' She hesitated, as if choosing her words carefully.

Her niece regarded her with misgiving. ‘You think…?'

‘I think he is the sort of man who could make an impulsive young lady like you throw her cap over the windmill and never regret it until it was far, far too late. I'd wager he could seduce a woman and make her believe it was all her own idea. And I say this to you, never having so much as looked at a man seriously in my life. So have a care, Georgie!'