Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

“ I cannot comprehend how she thought it sound to simply leave,” Oakley told Scarlett for what was likely the tenth time in their brief conversation. He was following his sister about her drawing room the next morning as she nipped and tucked at her brightly coloured floral arrangements.

It had been a severe disappointment to find Bess absent from Lady Carbrooke’s drawing room last night. Disappointment had turned to real concern, even disbelief, when it seemed no one present knew where she had gone, nor when. She had not taken her leave of his aunt, she had not told Scarlett she was leaving; even the footman at the door did not recollect her quitting the place, and he had surely not called a hack for her. It was as though she had melted into thin air.

“What of her safety? London is no place for a woman to be alone and unaccompanied—as should have been made plain to her when my aunt sent me to collect her before the party.”

Scarlett tilted her head to examine a wayward rose, but even so, Oakley could perceive the air of resigned patience in her. “Do not concern yourself. I had a note from her this morning, so I know she is well.”

Scarlett walked over to the other side of the room where a lopsided-looking fern resided, and Oakley trailed behind her. “Do you think she merely did not wish me to see her home?”

“Perhaps,” Scarlett acknowledged gently with a brief glance in his direction. “Perhaps she worried Beamish might be home and get a wrong idea about it.”

“I should think Beamish might have some concern that his wife was gadding about London alone at night!” A vehement thrust of his arm nearly sent the fern tumbling off its stand. “Forgive me.”

“You ought not to be so distressed. Bess is a grown woman,” Scarlett chided, fixing the position of her fern. “It is wholly possible that Beamish came to collect her himself.”

“He may have done,” Oakley agreed. “Except the footman at the door did not say so.”

“In any case,” Scarlett said brightly, “she is not your wife and therefore not your concern. Ah, Husband! There you are!”

Oakley turned to see that Worthe had entered the drawing room. He strode across the room to kiss his wife’s cheek and greet his brother-in-law. “Have you told him yet?” he asked his wife.

“Told me what?” Oakley asked suspiciously.

“I have not,” Scarlett replied to Worthe, lightly dusting off her hands. She gestured to the gentlemen to join her in taking a seat. “We have been discussing the manner in which Mrs Beamish quit the party last evening.”

Whereas Scarlett was subtle in her discouragement, Worthe was not. “Come, man. You must forget Mrs Beamish and her comings and goings. Concentrate on finding your own wife.”

“Or at least liking the ones we find for you,” Scarlett said. “I think you will genuinely admire Lady Emma Lovejoy.”

“Is that the next?” Oakley asked dispiritedly.

“In a manner of speaking,” Scarlett said. “’Tis not yet a done thing, but there is a walking party?—”

“A walking party?” Oakley slumped his shoulders dramatically. “Walking to where?”

“To nowhere,” Scarlett said cheerily. “We will all have a nice ramble through the park and see all the beautiful flowers in bloom and then return to her sister’s home for tea and cakes.”

“Why not ride? Or drive?” Oakley asked hopefully. “A nice curricle ride is fun for all.”

“Walking will not kill you,” Scarlett replied.

“It might,” Worthe said with an easy grin. “He does so little of it, we really cannot say how much will prove fatal. And then there is our dear Scarlett who once considered walking to London from St Albans—are we absolutely certain the pair of you are related?”

“I thought of walking only because I was desperate,” Scarlett said with a laugh. “Happily my knight in shining armour appeared to rescue me, so it remains to be known whether I am capable of such a distance on foot.”

“I think you are capable of anything you set your mind to, my darling,” said Worthe lovingly and got an equally loving look in reply.

His lovemaking finished, Worthe turned back to Oakley. “Only think of this: if you and Lady Emma Lovejoy do not get on, you can feign a leg cramp, or stumble over a rock, and return home.”

Scarlett rewarded that suggestion with a poke to her husband’s chest. “Pray do not give him ideas! But I think you will find much to admire in Lady Emma. She is a beauty, not excessively fond of reading?—”

“Good, good,” said Oakley.

“—is never one to thrust herself forward to play the pianoforte, and is perfectly useless on the harp?—”

“Even better,” Oakley said, already warming to the lady.

“—and she plays cricket! Better than most gentlemen, I am told.”

Oakley smiled, feeling the faint stirrings of interest. “Does she ride?”

“All the time,” Scarlett assured him. “I am told her seat is excellent.”

“Her seat on a horse? Or her own personal seat? Surely the matchmakers do not put about the state of a woman’s posterior in these discussions?” Worthe asked Scarlett with mock outrage.

“You are being terrible,” Scarlett informed her husband with another poke. In truth, Oakley appreciated it. This business of wife-hunting should be approached with levity if not outright hilarity.

“She enjoys games and being outdoors,” he concluded hopefully.

“She does. I hear she routinely wins archery competitions as well.”

A lady he could play games with. He had never before imagined himself on the lawn at Chiltern Court, playing lawn bowls against his wife, but it might be diverting. Long afternoons on horseback certainly sounded more appealing than a deadly dull afternoon in a parlour with a harp, or reading to one another—heaven forfend. He shuddered to imagine it.

“Where is she from?” he enquired.

“Near Luton, in fact,” said Worthe. “As it is, the evening that I met Scarlett, we had gone into Luton because Edward wished to meet her sister, Lady Edwina.”

“Lady Edwina never came that night,” Scarlett added, “because she had just got engaged to Lord Dalrymple. I have lately met the new Lady Dalrymple and told her she has done me much good without even knowing it.”

Scarlett smiled up at Worthe who gave her a tender look. They had been doing that a great deal of late, even more than was usual, and Oakley wondered if it meant a child was on the way.

“Dalrymple is a good family, a good connection to have,” he observed.

“Yes, it surely would be,” Scarlett said, rising from her seat. “Come, I arranged that we would meet her at Dalrymple’s house in Audley Street.”

“Now? But I am ill prepared?—”

“I know you are ill prepared, but that is how I thought might be best. A less portentous meeting, with less expectation will surely do you a world of good.”

He supposed she was correct in that and dutifully followed her from the room.

Lady Emma reminded Oakley of a daisy, a cheerful, sweet little daisy. She had a small round face and dark hair that curled fetchingly about her face; the jonquil-coloured walking gown she wore only added to the effect. They had a fine time in the drawing room discussing outdoor games and other getting-to-know-you sort of things; and then they, along with Scarlett and Worthe, and Lord and Lady Dalrymple, went to the park. Oakley offered Lady Emma his arm as soon as they arrived. Though it was not quite the fashionable hour, excellent weather had brought nearly everyone out, and the paths were thrumming with people both young and old.

Alas, it was the presence of all the people that brought out the less appealing side of his companion. As Oakley cheerily greeted anyone he had any claim to whatsoever, Lady Emma acquainted him with their more opprobrious proclivity. “Oh, you are friends with Miss Marianne Westbrook?” Lady Emma asked after they had greeted the lady. “You must know then that she refused her fourth suitor earlier this week?”

“No, in fact I had not heard that.”

“And her mother wants to send her to an institution.”

“In truth?” Oakley asked with amazement.

Lady Emma nodded authoritatively, her lips pursed. “Miss Westbrook says she has never met a man whom she takes pleasure in so much as she does a good novel.”

Oakley had to laugh at that. “I must know what it is she’s reading! It does seem rather a thin excuse to send a girl to an institution.”

“She would not be the first mama to do such a thing, I assure you. You have heard of what Lady Coleridge did with her daughter?”

When Oakley told her he had not, Lady Emma gasped theatrically and told him of Lady Aurelia Coleridge being sent off to an aunt in the country—who most suspected was not an aunt at all but rather an asylum of sorts—to be cured of her mad notions of living independently from her fortune.

“And Miss Jones-Reeve, you know, was also sent to an aunt—but a real one—for her wilfulness in refusing to entertain male callers. Stayed in her bedchamber and flatly refused to see Lord Upton when he called.”

“As it is, I know Upton very well and have often wished to run to my bedchamber rather than greet him myself.” Oakley grinned and asked her if she had ever visited the seaside. That she answered only very briefly before settling into more gossip.

Lady Emma was in possession of a superabundance of tales of all the ill that had befallen various people of her acquaintance in the last months. And Lady Emma indeed boasted a very large acquaintance.

She was an excellent storyteller, full of wit and causing Oakley to laugh until his cheeks ached from it, and yet, he also wondered if it was wholly proper that he should hear such things about persons he either did not know or did not know well.

When a pause came again, he tried, gently, to change the subject. “I saw a wonderful play at Drury Lane the other evening,” he began only to have Lady Emma say excitedly,

“Oh! You remind me of something I heard about Lord Eberly. Well, it is not merely that he keeps a mistress or that his mistress is an actress, but she is also—” Lady Emma glanced about. “—twenty-nine! Why, that is positively ancient!” She giggled. More soberly, she added, “His father has threatened to strip his title from him if he does not give her up.”

Oakley knew not how to reply to that and so only gave a half-hearted attempt at a laugh. Such a story reminded him too much of his own family difficulties these past months. For a man who had endured as much tattle as he had of late, to participate in gossip tweaked his conscience. He would hardly censure Lady Emma, for it was not his place to do so, and anyhow he had been laughing with her only moments prior. Lady Emma did not appear to notice he had sunk into his discomfort and continued to rattle away as they returned to the house. To his dismay, the others disappeared down a corridor with some vague comments of excuse and a promise to send a maid in to chaperone.

“We will have tea in the drawing room,” Lady Emma announced cheerily.

Discomfited, Oakley settled into a chair, smiling at the housekeeper when she brought the tea service in. No sooner had she left them than Lady Emma said, with hushed sympathy lining her countenance, “Of course, I am not someone who likes to hear tattle all the time, but I do feel I must tell you what I have heard of your uncle.”

“My uncle?”

“The not-so-honourable Mr Damian Richmond. I heard he has a by-blow who wishes to challenge your ascendance to the title. Is it true?”

Was it entirely proper for a lady to discuss by-blows? Oakley tugged at his collar and tried to smile. “A by-blow cannot inherit a title, as I am sure you know. I say, how do you like?—”

“Too true! How silly of me! Sugar?”

“Lots of sugar, if you will.”

The tea set was shiny and new, the silver appearing to have not known a day of tarnish in its life. The shine of it was entrancing to Oakley as he watched Lady Emma pour.

“This is my sister’s new set,” she told him once she noticed his observation. “Lovely, is it not? From Rundell Bridge and Rundell, but pray forgive me for mentioning that.”

He accepted the tea from her with a frown. “Why should I mind if you mention them?”

Rundell, Bridge and Rundell was one of the foremost jewellers, both for the ton and for royalty. Even now their shop was reportedly busy creating items for their new sovereign. He could not comprehend why she should think he did not want to hear about them.

“Well, many people think…” Lady Emma paused, shaking her head so that her curls bounced fetchingly around her temples. “Never mind. I would not wish to offend you.”

“Offend me?” Oakley drank deeply of the tea to conceal his growing puzzlement. “What could you have to say about a jewellers that might offend me?”

“There are some among the ton who think your uncle had a hand in that…that business a few years ago.” Her eyes flew wide then, and she placed a falsely sympathetic hand on his arm. “Not I! Of course not I! I daresay your uncle was likely very much misunderstood!”

“You are more certain of it than I am! No matter what Damian Richmond did, however, it is no indication of the honour of our family.” Oakley straightened himself. “Do you mean to say people think Damian had a hand in the robbery?”

Three years ago, the junior partner in Rundell, Bridge and Rundell, Mr Edmond Rundell, had been deceived by several men pretending to be emissaries of the king of Bavaria. The thieves had contrived to rob the firm of—it was said—jewels worth more than twenty-two thousand pounds. It had reputedly occurred through some system of empty boxes and paste jewellery, but Oakley understood little of it beyond that.

Lady Emma waved a hand. “People will say anything, will they not? I am sure it is all nonsense.”

And Oakley assured her it was, though he sounded more certain than he felt. A recollection of Lady Lenora’s report from the gaol, which had also connected Damian to jewel thievery, had arisen. Could it be true?

To his great relief, Worthe entered, telling him the carriage was being brought round. Oakley hastily laid his tea on the table in front of him and rose, eagerly anticipating the moment they were away from Lady Emma and her tales.