Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A s soon as Oakley arrived back at the Richmond townhouse, the butler informed him that Lord Tipton wished to see him. He sighed, shrugging off his greatcoat into the butler’s waiting hands. “Pray tell him I have a dreadful headache, but if he will give me an hour or two?—”

“It will not do, sir. He told me to brook no opposition and suffer no delay. It is a matter of utmost urgency.”

His head chose that precise moment to send a particularly vicious throb through his eyes. “Very well,” he replied resignedly.

Frederica had once told him how all the children in the orphanage, up to age fourteen, were required to lie down for a nap, or at least a bit of rest, in the afternoons. “You would not believe how much better behaved they are when they have taken a short respite during the day,” she had said, and he agreed wholly with the philosophy and thought that adults should follow suit. He wanted a nap, or a respite, or whatever anyone wanted to call it, not just for an hour or two but perhaps a week, maybe a month. Would not that be a delight? Go to sleep and wake when thoughts of Bess Leighton no longer have any power over me.

“You wished to see me, sir?” he said upon entering his father’s study. Lord Tipton appeared decidedly distressed, his thinning hair showing evidence of many instances of a hand raked through it. It was a gesture Oakley shared when upset.

“Lady Lenora called this morning,” he said, abruptly dropping into the nearest chair. A flick of his hand towards another suggested he wanted Oakley to sit as well, so he did, somewhat cautiously. “There is a man she…encountered through her charity calls to the gaol who claims he knew something of this Damian business.”

“The jewellery nonsense?” On Lord Tipton’s nod, Oakley said, “Allow me to guess…for a sum, he will tell you what he knows?”

Lord Tipton nodded. “Although I must observe that what he wishes for is modest.”

“What is it?”

“Twenty.”

“Twenty thousand pounds!” Oakley exclaimed.

“No, no, twenty pounds. Merely twenty, paid to the warden to broker his release.” Lord Tipton smiled. “Not nothing, to be sure, but he tells Lady Lenora he intends to return the sum.”

“That is a far sight better, although I still should not depend upon it. What is it about him that makes Lady Lenora think he is in earnest?”

“I do not know. All she would say was that she was happy to forward the money herself if only we would hear him.”

“If you think it sound, then I surely cannot object. I say we hear him,” Oakley said. “’Tis better to know, as a wise man I know once said. Do you wish to go immediately?”

Lord Tipton demurred as Oakley suspected he would. His lordship’s matters of urgency were frequently more related to the speed with which he wished his family to hear him, rather than urgency for the matter itself. “Lady Lenora has given me instructions on how to arrange it,” Lord Tipton explained. “I shall have my secretary attend to it.”

The next week was busy in the way that only the spring in London could be. There were parties every day: dinner parties, riding parties, driving parties, theatre parties, and balls galore. Oakley saw Lady Emma on several occasions and, if the situation warranted, asked her to dance with him, though he did not distinguish her beyond that. She could be amusing, he would grant her that much, but in some ways, it was almost as if she hid herself behind her tattle. In keeping his ears filled with the claptrap of the ton , the intimacy between them could not grow.

Even as he thought it, he scoffed at himself. What truly prohibited intimacy between himself and Lady Emma was not her tattle but his heart. Rather, it was the fact that his heart was no longer his to give to another; it remained with Bess.

As was his tendency when he was out of sorts, he longed for cream ices. Nothing, he felt, was nearly as satisfying as cream ices when one was feeling low. He stopped first at Worthe House to see whether they would wish to accompany him. Scarlett was sitting with her mother-in-law in the parlour. She looked a little pale, he noticed, and he hoped she was not ill.

After the usual polite civilities, he said, “Ladies, I was positively longing for cream ices this morning and I wondered—Scarlett?”

Scarlett had risen unsteadily, her handkerchief pressed to her mouth. “The notion of that…” Without a syllable more, she nearly ran from the room.

Such an action bewildered him, even if the dowager countess did not seem much concerned. “I believe her stomach is unsettled today,” said the older woman with a little smile in the direction of the door.

“Should someone go to her?” Oakley asked.

“I do not doubt her maid will tend to her. I daresay that she?—”

The sound of the door opening again stopped the elder Lady Worthe’s words. “Forgive me,” Scarlett said, re-entering the room. “You were saying, Oakley?”

“I am surely not going to say it again, not when the first utterance sent you dashing out of the room,” Oakley said. “What is it? Are you well?”

Scarlett nodded. “Do not worry, Brother, all is well.”

“I thought you liked Gunter’s?”

“I did. I do! I just…perhaps not today. You know who is simply mad for…Gunter’s, um, offerings? Penrith’s children. Perhaps you ought to call there and see whether you can take them with you.”

“A capital notion,” Lady Worthe agreed immediately. “No doubt they would be delighted for some of, um, the things at Gunter’s.”

The notion cheered Oakley considerably, and shortly after, he took his leave of the ladies and went to Penrith’s house.

He found Frederica and Penrith reading together in the saloon they used in the mornings. Oakley imagined most men might have purposed it for their own doings, but Penrith had allowed for the installation of light muslin curtains and furniture with flowered upholstery. There was a dainty escritoire for her and a more substantial desk for him, and a bottle of sherry sat next to the port. In all, Oakley thought he might like such a cosy domestic arrangement for himself, assuming he might be able to find a wife with whom he could be in such close quarters.

As I would have had with Bess. His ever-present bleakness seemed ever-ready to punch him in the gut with that sort of thing.

Determined not to show a gloomy face, he said, “You know I am quite determined to be seen as the fun-loving uncle, and I thought it might be diverting to gather the children and go to Gunter’s.”

His sister smiled warmly, while Penrith immediately laid aside his book. “Is it only the children you mean to invite? I like a cream ice as much as they do.”

“Then it seems we are a party.”

There was a brief delay then while Oakley begged leave to go to the nursery and surprise the children, which he did by first creeping in and hiding behind a conveniently-placed couch, then popping up with a shriek. Alas, the shriek only upset Mrs Coombs, their nanny; the children themselves were unperturbed.

“We must take Mrs Coombs with us,” he announced to Frederica as she came in behind him. “For I have nearly caused her to faint.”

“Take us where?” asked Lady Delphine, her small face alight with anticipation.

“Oh, you will not like it. ’Tis an excessively unpleasant place.” Oakley frowned and tried to look very dreary. “Filled with things no child ever liked.”

They were, by now, too much accustomed to him to fall for it. “Please, please take us?” Lord Ryde begged. “I promise I shall like it!” Beside him, little Felix echoed his exclamations.

“No, I am certain that you, most of all, will not like it,” Oakley replied lugubriously. “Oh never mind. You were right, Penrith, they will not want to go.”

The children were nearly mad to know by then, the boys hopping up and down and Lady Delphine begging and pleading with her father to allow them to go to this unknown wonder. With a laugh, Frederica urged Oakley to stop tormenting them and tell them.

“Gunter’s?” he asked, feigning dubiousness. “Cream ices? I know you thought the pistachio tasted like—oof!” He grunted the last as Felix hurled his small body at him and nearly knocked him over. He grabbed the boy and tossed him over one shoulder like a sack of grain, then grinned at his sister and Penrith. “Seems we are all off for cream ices!”

Penrith had lately acquired the most commodious landau that Oakley had ever seen, and as their party had grown large, it was in this conveyance that they travelled to Gunter’s. It required surprisingly little time until the seven of them were happily eating their treats. Unsurprisingly, the children finished first and begged to be permitted to run in the square. Mrs Coombs was quick to leap into duty, removing them from the landau and telling Frederica she meant to ‘run the wild animal spirits out of them’ in the square.

“I could eat these every day,” Frederica said. “I daresay this one is my new favourite flavour.”

“You say that every time, my dear,” Penrith said. He himself always ordered cherry.

“I have never had a flavour I did not like,” Oakley agreed. “But the noyau is my favourite as well.”

“Is that what I got?”

“It is,” Oakley confirmed for her.

There was a brief silence while those still in the landau scraped up the last bits of their treat out of the dishes, after which Oakley thought to tell them about Scarlett’s strange behaviour when he had invited her to come. Frederica and Penrith exchanged a look and a smile.

“See there, why does everyone seem so pleased that Scarlett nearly cast up her accounts on the spot?” Oakley asked. “Seems troubling to me that she never quite seems herself these days.”

“Oftentimes a lady in a certain state might experience unusual and sudden aversions to foods, milk and cream included,” Frederica told him.

“A certain state?” Oakley looked towards Penrith who was yet occupied with the remains of his cream ice.

“Increasing,” Frederica murmured with a little glance about them.

“Oh!” Oakley thought about that. It certainly explained why the dowager countess appeared so pleased by it. “How delightful! But is it certain?”

“No.” Frederica shook her head quickly. “I have heard nothing of any happy news, but I daresay we can all have our hopes for her. I know she is eager to hear the patter of small feet in her nursery.”

Unbidden, Oakley’s eyes went to the children, playing among the trees in the square. It was so very peaceful to rest one’s eyes on the antics of small children. He had not known it before, having no recollection of whatever time he had spent in the orphanage, and having been raised as an only child. Being around small children was something he enjoyed enormously, and he wondered, secretly, how it might be to have his own sons or daughters frisking about some day.

“How does Lady Emma?” Penrith asked, taking the empty dish from his wife’s hands, then signalling a servant to come and retrieve them. “Do you think there is anything there?”

“She is a fine friend but nothing more.” Oakley shrugged. “In truth, I do not perceive any danger of her falling in love with me, either.”

Frederica raised her eyes to Penrith’s, and some communication seemed to pass between them. “Perhaps you would not be averse, then, to meeting another lady?”

“The daughter of one of my cousins,” Penrith added. “Talbot. Miss Lillian Talbot.”

Frederica said, “She is a noted beauty?—”

“How is it,” Oakley said to Penrith, “that one never meets anyone without being told she is a noted beauty? Where are the average? The unremarkable?”

“Not in London,” Penrith told him. “They must go to the Continent to find husbands.”

Oakley chuckled at that. Penrith’s dry humour was rare but all the more amusing for it.

“In this case I have seen her myself and she is very beautiful. As beautiful as Adelaide and Scarlett, I should say,” Frederica added. “And then there is the connection to Penrith.”

“I am already connected to Penrith,” Oakley observed. “Short of marrying him myself, I do not think I could be more connected.”

“But in this case, you would be more connected.”

“Are there degrees of connectedness?”

“Oakley.” Frederica gave him her best chastising look.

He threw up his hands. “I am being difficult, yes, I know it.” But then it is difficult, trying to find myself a wife when my heart refuses to cease being in love with someone else’s! “Miss Lilly Talbot, then! May she bring me all the felicity a redoubled connection to His Grace may afford!”

In the square, Oakley noticed that Mrs Coombs had begun to gather up the children. They obeyed her quickly and began walking over to the carriage, Felix running ahead of them.

“Her mother is having a dinner party very soon. If you are agreeable to it, then we can all go,” Penrith said.

“Very well.” Oakley nodded his resignation to the scheme.