Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

L ord Worthe extended his arm, and with some surprise, Scarlett realised he meant to claim the first set. "Forgive me," she said. "I shall have to offer you a later dance. I am engaged for the first with Mr Leighton."

"Forgive me ," he said smoothly. "I ought not to have presumed. All the most beautiful ladies have their cards filled early, do they not?"

Her upbringing made it vastly disconcerting to accept compliments; thus, the last minutes had been nothing short of torture. As such, she could not immediately think of any reply to his lordship.

In the brief pause, Lord Worthe turned to Leighton. "Sir, it would be exceedingly obliging of you to permit me the honour?"

Looking not at all perturbed—and perhaps a little relieved to have some means to smooth over his most recent error—Leighton replied genially, "If the lady has no objection, then neither do I, my lord. "

It took Scarlett a moment to understand what was happening. Lord Worthe then turned his eyes on her, and she stammered out, "I have no objection."

"Good man." He patted Leighton lightly on the back, then said, "Call me Worthe."

A wash of relief coursed through her. Far from being offended by having his dance stolen, Leighton had received his lordship's favour; by the look on his face, he was well-pleased by that, probably more than the dance itself would have pleased him.

It was an unfamiliar, breathless feeling to put her hand onto the comfortingly warm, strong arm of a young man, and to have him lead her with absolute confidence to the head of the forming set. People stopped their conversations and looked, some discreetly and some not, at the noble gentleman and the unknown lady on his arm. There were whispers, though thankfully Scarlett could not understand most of them.

Lord Worthe nodded at many people they passed but did not stop to talk in favour of speaking to Scarlett. "Do you often attend the assemblies in Luton?"

Scarlett glanced up and shook her head slightly with a little smile on her lips. "This is my first." She did not explain her life entombed in a parsonage where she was allowed to do nothing but distribute alms and study Fordyce.

"I daresay it is up to me, then, to be sure that you have a splendid time. Unless Mr Leighton is responsible for seeing to your happiness?"

"Not at all, I assure you. I have been raised side by side with Mr Leighton and his sister Bess. He is like a brother to me."

"Well…good." A little grin played at the edge of his lips for a moment as if her reply had pleased him but he did not wish to show her how much.

Calm yourself. Do not make too much out of any of this. She hoped she was sensible enough to not make a cake of herself, falling in love with the first man to ever ask her to dance!

Scarlett was relieved to hear a dance called that she knew well. It was also one that afforded ample opportunity to talk. That notion first gave her some anxiety. What could she possibly have to say to be of interest to an earl for an entire half an hour! Happily, those fears were soon dismissed. Lord Worthe was all ease and friendliness and, true to his word, did everything he could to see to her delight.

"Your first assembly in Luton, hm?" Lord Worthe smiled down at her as they began to move through the patterns of the dance. "Are you much acquainted with the principal families here?"

She shook her head. "I am afraid I am not. Not only is it my first assembly here, it is the first time that I have ever been to Luton for any reason."

"Then I suppose you must not know that gentleman dancing over there?"

Scarlett glanced to where he indicated a young gentleman who was nearly as fair as Scarlett herself was. "I know him by name only," she said. "Mr Ellercamp."

"I am going to tell you three things about him," said Lord Worthe. "See if you can guess which one of them is untrue. He is a descendant of Sir Walter Raleigh, he was born with an extra finger on one hand, and he cannot read because he has some difficulty with his eyes."

Scarlett gave a half gasp of laughter. "Well for his sake, I hope only that the untruth is either the finger or the inability to read!"

"Alas…no. The bit about Sir Walter Raleigh in fact belongs to that gentleman over there." Lord Worthe gestured towards a pinch-faced man who Scarlett thought looked like every picture of the famed explorer that she had ever seen.

"Poor Mr Ellercamp," she said.

"Ah, he does well enough. His man reads for him, and the finger was removed at an early age. Nothing but a pale white scar and a good story at parties now." Lord Worthe smiled. "Ask him to take his finger off sometime—he has a little trick he does."

Scarlett laughed again, marvelling that she could feel so much at ease, and so quickly.

"Now the true descendant of Sir Walter also has some peculiarities," Lord Worthe continued after they had circled one another. "He keeps a parrot in his bedchamber that curses incessantly, makes his own ale that he flavours with scrapings from his beard, and is an expert fencer."

The exertion of dancing and laughing and trying not to be too inelegant in her mirth was almost overwhelming, but Scarlett did, at length, manage to say, "I hope for the sake of his guests that it is the bit about the ale that is a lie."

"Alas, Mr Raleigh is an absolutely dreadful fencer. I do not doubt for a moment that you could best him, Miss Margrave. But the truly unfortunate are those who have imbibed his ale without knowing what went into it."

"Oh, dear!" She giggled. "May I hope that you were not one of the unfortunate ones?"

His cheerful grimace told her all she needed to know. It went on for some time, these little stories, until at last Scarlett begged for reprieve. She was not accustomed to unbridled mirth, and her stomach and cheeks ached from the unfamiliar activity demanded of them. "You have entertained me very well," she said when the pattern required them to stand still for a little while. "But you have told me very little of yourself. All truths now, if you please." The last was said very lightly, but she nevertheless found herself dearly wanting to hear what he would say.

"Me? I am just your average sort of nobleman," he said. "I like to fish and hunt and fence, I have a curricle that I likely drive too fast—or so my mother thinks—and I enjoy reading, though not poetry. I loathe poetry."

"I cannot say I much enjoy it myself," she admitted. "Do you have any brothers or sisters? Besides the one I met, of course."

He nodded. "One sister, younger than I am, who is married. I…I had another sister, an older sister, who died with my father in a carriage accident."

"Oh, I am so sorry," Scarlett said feelingly.

"It was some time ago," he admitted. "I daresay I shall always feel the loss of her, though. We were only a little over a year apart in age and played together until my mother absolutely forced her to leave the nursery. "

"How sweet that sounds! I should have liked to have a brother. Or a sister." She smiled up at him to show there was no true regret there. "Being an only daughter can be lonely sometimes. I was fortunate to have the Leightons, else it would have been intolerable."

"Do you wish to have a large family yourself, then?"

"I-I suppose I never really thought about it."

Lord Worthe smiled down at her. "How charming you are, Miss Margrave. Most ladies I meet seem to have their futures all decided and want only for an eligible man to insert into the role of husband."

Scarlett laughed, hoping he did not think her an absolute ninny for her incessant giggles. "Those sorts of tactics seem exceedingly unwise to me. I think you ought to meet the right person first and then decide together what sort of family you will have."

A slow smile spread across his face; she perceived she had pleased him, though she hardly knew how.

"Were your father and mother happy in their marriage?" he asked. "I hope I am not too impudent in asking."

She shook her head. "After all, I have learnt you drank ale full of beard scrapings—what harm could there be in telling you about my parents?"

That made him roar with laughter, loudly enough that their nearest fellow dancers looked over curiously.

"I believe my mother and the reverend were…content. They did not seem excessively unhappy, I do know that much."

He looked at her with his brow furrowed, clearly wishing her to explain more .

"Neither my mother nor my father are the sort to overflow with mirth, so whether or not they enjoyed each other's company, I really cannot say," Scarlett explained. She was suddenly struck by how odd it must sound, their only daughter having no idea whether they were happy in marriage. "My father is a very serious person and my mother was as well, albeit in a softer way."

"I see," Lord Worthe said, although he did not seem like he really understood.

"My mother died when I was only twelve, so I was full young to really comprehend such things," Scarlett added, hoping it sounded more usual when placed within the eyes of a child.

"My condolences to you," he said with real sympathy in his eyes. "And your father?"

"Alive and well." If he sensed any bitterness in her tone, he was gentleman enough to say nothing about it.

"And no brothers or sisters? What about cousins?"

"If I have any, I have never met any of them." She was well aware that her entire demeanour had changed just by the mention of her father. She forced herself to smile and speak lightly as she said, "Perhaps this lady you know in London is some long-lost cousin of mine."

"Next you are in London, you simply must meet her," he replied.

Next you are in London. It was difficult not to scoff openly at the very notion of the reverend allowing her to go to London, of all places. The City of Sin, he called it.

Almost as if he had read her mind, Lord Worthe asked, "Will you be in London for the Season?"

She shook her head. "The reverend does not permit me to go," she said, swallowing hard. Bess had invited her to go along with them. The Leightons had taken a house in Mayfair for all of May and some of June, and Lady Leighton had promised faithfully to care for Scarlett as she would her own child. The reverend had scarcely considered the scheme for a minute before refusing, telling Lady Leighton that Scarlett was needed at home. Again that frustrated feeling, the sense of being imprisoned in someone else's life, threatened to overtake her.

"Perhaps he thinks it unnecessary," said Lord Worthe, suddenly looking quite serious. "He might have in mind, already, a worthy gentleman to someday become your husband."

"No one that I am aware of. In truth, he does not much approve of the goings-on in London. He thinks it all quite…"

"Dissolute?" His lordship's laugh rang out again causing Scarlett to think of how much she enjoyed the sound. She wondered how it might be to be often around a person who was so much given to merriness. But he is surely no simpleton. He speaks just as easily on serious matters, too. Clever and good-humoured; she was sure she had never known such a man.

"He is not entirely wrong, although I would posit that good and evil are not dependent on location alone. But surely you must wish to go? Or do you prefer the country?"

"I have always been in the country, so I cannot speak to my preferences. I would like to go—it seems a shame to live relatively near and not ever see a place. Alas, my father is quite determined to keep me away from it." And it away from me. The reverend thought as ill of the people who inhabited the capital as he did of the place itself.

Lord Worthe said nothing to this. Scarlett fancied he looked a little disappointed but swiftly reminded herself not to be silly. His lordship was amiable and his sportiveness might have been interpreted by some as romantic, but she was not a fool. She was pretty enough, she knew, but it took more than mere prettiness to win the heart of these great men of society.

Thankfully, the dance ended then. She liked Lord Worthe, likely too well. She had never imagined herself so much as speaking to an earl, much less laughing and chatting with one like they were old friends.

It was an enormous relief that he had not asked further questions about her, for her answers would have painted a dull picture indeed. She sewed and she visited the poor. She read Fordyce and Wesley, and had always been told poetry was the tool of the Devil. She knew no card games and would not even know the dances but for clandestine lessons in Bess's former nursery. In years gone by, she had not overly chafed at the reverend's strictures—for it was the life she was born to, was it not? What use were frivolous accomplishments to parsonage daughters who were destined to become spinsters?