Elisabeth Kidd (12 page)

“I do not think he can be looking to me for a fortune,” Sydney said. “It must be known that I have none of my own.”

Prudence looked a little uncomfortable as she recommended to Sydney that, since this was not in fact a well-known thing, it would not hurt anyone to think for a little while at least that Lyle would settle a generous sum on his ward were she to marry with his approval. After all, it was not as if they were deliberately trying to deceive anyone.

Sydney, whose conscience had by now been lulled into a comfortable stupor by wine punch and compliments, saw no fault in this reasoning, especially if it furthered her own ambitions. She settled back contentedly into the soft squabs of the carriage and smiled to herself. Well, she had not yet met any artists or publishers—or even any dukes—but it seemed to her that tonight’s entertainment had definitely set her on the right path, serving the more practical purpose of establishing a reputation for her as one of the belles of the season—one of those inviolate creatures who could do what they pleased and have it become instantly the mode. Her greater destiny would then take care of itself.

All the same, she wished Lyle had been there to see her triumph.

Miss Archer’s soon became a familiar figure in Hyde Park on sunny afternoons. When Cedric Maitland took her driving there the day after the de Lamartines’ party, Sydney kept a sharp eye out for Miss Forsythe, although for several turns around Rotten Row it seemed that everyone
but
Miss Forsythe was abroad that day. Furthermore, Cedric complained, fully three-quarters of these promenaders stopped to greet Sydney. This made the horses decidedly restive, and Cedric not much less so.

“Don’t like to criticize,” he finally told Sydney, “but you ought to know it ain’t necessary to stop and chat with every halfling and his uncle. I mean, you met most of them for the first time only last night.’’

“But am I not to become better acquainted with the most eligible bachelors?” Sydney enquired, innocently seeking enlightenment.

Cedric winced at this plain speaking. “You will first become acquainted with their mothers and sisters, and then you may—er, proceed from there. Meanwhile, don’t look so eager. And pull your bonnet forward an inch—it looks far too saucy.’’

Sydney smiled and adjusted her headgear. She knew Cedric well enough now to realize that the more peevish he became, the better satisfied he was with her; she also knew that except for the set of her bonnet she must be looking especially well in Miss Moore’s blue-and-white muslin gown, which Cedric had insisted she wear while new ones were being made for her by another modiste in Bruton Street.

Cedric had taken her there that same morning, and even Sydney, unfamiliar as she was with the geography of London, was immediately impressed with the more fashionable location—and doubtless higher prices—of Madame Louise’s establishment over that to which Prudence had taken her earlier. Sydney did not like to enquire, but she suspected there had been a dust-up over the matter between Cedric and Prudence, whom he described as a “nip-farthing.”

In any case, Sydney now began to see herself cutting a dash in the fine feathers Cedric had chosen for her. The offending bonnet had been her own choice, but even Cedric agreed the blue straw flowers on it exactly matched her gown. She nodded her head demurely at Mrs. Drummond-Burrell, who sailed past just at that moment in an old-fashioned landaulet.

“That’s better,” Cedric said. “You may even get Almack’s vouchers for it, as she is one of the patronesses.’’

“Why, Mr. Maitland, I made sure my merely being seen in your company would assure the entrée!” Sydney replied in her most top-lofty manner.

Cedric glanced at her, but she only smiled sweetly and opened her blue eyes wide at him.

“Dashed if I don’t think I’ve overplayed my hand with you, Sydney!” he said. It was the first time he had addressed her by her name, a circumstance that did not go unnoticed. It meant that Cedric considered her education to be officially completed.

Unfortunately, Sydney suffered a severe lapse only a few moments later. Mr. Edward Kingsley, looking especially dashing in a gold-trimmed waistcoat, and Sir Gavin Thiers, both on horseback, had approached the curricle and were riding alongside as they engaged the occupants in a verbal reconstruction of the previous evening’s festivities, when Sydney suddenly loosed an uncharacteristic squeal and exclaimed, “Oh, Cedric, do stop! There is someone I particularly wish to speak to. Carl! Robin! I’m over here!’’

She waved her hand and jumped up and down on her seat until Cedric, having been dealt a violent jolt to his sensibilities, was forced to bring the curricle to a halt to discover what had caused Sydney to cut up such a caper—and to stop her before anyone noticed that she had quite lost her senses.

“Miss Archer! Pray control yourself!’’

“Oh, but it’s my cousins! You see, here they come!”

And there came two young men, one blond and soberly dressed, the other darker and decorated with a remarkable array of fobs and chains, but both wearing wide grins as they returned Sydney’s wave and braved the icy stares of her three escorts to approach the curricle. Sydney reached out to hug each one in turn and there was a good deal of laughter and confused greetings and more hugs before Sydney remembered her labouriously acquired manners.

“Oh, Cedric—I mean, Mr. Maitland—I should like to present my cousins, Mr. Carlton Wendt and Mr. Robert Wendt—Carl, this is Mr. Cedric Maitland, Mr. Edward Kingsley, and Sir Gavin Thiers.’’

Carl, who had paid closer attention to his betters during his years at Cambridge than Robin was doing during his present term there—or indeed than Sydney had been doing of late—picked out the social solecism in Sydney’s haphazard introduction and put it right by declaring himself pleased to make Sir Gavin’s acquaintance, after which he bowed to Cedric and Mr. Kingsley. Less formally taking his brother’s lead, Robin then shook hands all around.

“By Jove, Syd!” Robin blurted out then. “Ain’t you looking all the crack! Lyle buy you that bonnet? Must have cost a basket of guineas!’’

“Don’t be vulgar, Robin,” Sydney adjured him. “You will give Mr. Maitland quite the wrong idea. But tell me—when did you arrive in Town? Where are you stopping? Why did you not tell me you were coming?”

“We wanted to surprise you,” Robin said, pleased that they had evidently succeeded in this object. “We’re stopping in Gower Street—Nicky’s got a house there, you know, though they’re not using it now because Amelia’s breeding again and she likes to be in the country those times. Lord knows, Bloomsbury’s far enough from civilization to suit even Melly, but I’m not complaining.”

“Yes, you are,” Carl pointed out. “What is more, you have been complaining since we arrived. Do call a halt now, will you, or our cousin’s friends will think even worse of you than they must do already. Mr. Maitland, we will ride alongside, if we may. I know you do not wish the horses to stand very much longer.’’

Cedric moved the curricle forward again, but with no great hopes of making a noticeable progress. In this skepticism he was fully justified, for not much later he observed Mrs. de Lamartine’s barouche bearing down on them. Besides her daughter, there were two other young ladies in the barouche with her, and Cedric knew it would not escape the notice of any of them that there were four extra gentlemen hanging about Cedric’s vehicle and four ladies seated in Mrs. de Lamartine’s. The conclusion was obvious.

To make matters worse, Cedric also observed, as the de Lamartine party came closer, that one of the females in it was the infamous Janet Adderley who, having recently been suffering from a chill on the lungs, had repaired to her grandfather’s home near Leamington, and its warming waters, to recover, and was only just returned to the metropolis.

Miss Adderley was, contrary to her reputation, not a bad-looking girl, but she was myopic and seemed not to be able to see herself in the mirror, for everything about her appeared slightly askew, from her tentative, lopsided smile to her brown hair which continually came loose from its moorings. Her chief attraction was that, being an orphan, she had inherited both her mother’s modest fortune and her father’s more considerable estate, and was moreover a favourite of her elderly—and wealthy—grandfather. Cedric muttered something under his breath and wondered if he was being sufficiently recompensed by Lyle for the trials he was being put to.

“Did you say something, Cedric?” Sydney asked him.

“Me? Certainly not! Nothing to say to anything.’’

“Oh, it’s Janine at last!” Sydney exclaimed, overlooking Cedric’s petulance. She refrained from jumping out of her seat this time, but she was no less eager to greet these new friends and introduce them to her cousins. Despite his preoccupation, Cedric was able to note approvingly that Sydney was as agreeable to ladies as she was to gentlemen and had no selfish scruples about introducing the one to the other. Miss Forsythe, he further noted, looked very fetching in a satin-striped amber gown with blond lace trim. Miss Adderley was encased in orange ruffles.

The fourth lady in the party was Susan Whitlatch, which might have tried Cedric’s patience yet further, except that Mrs. de Lamartine had made her own mental matches as greetings were being exchanged, and somehow Robin found himself having to make conversation with a very young lady who had none of her own, while Janine was less subtly directed to thank Mr. Maitland for his pretty compliment about her costume.

Janine’s mother appropriated Sir Gavin to herself, leaving Mr. Kingsley grateful to ride alongside Sydney, and Carl to do his best to converse with Miss Adderley from a somewhat awkward position between the two vehicles. He was able, however, thus to admire Miss Forsythe, who sat in the barouche facing him. Janine was indeed looking particularly pretty, and was aware of it. There was a rosy glow in her cheeks and her eager eyes sparkled. When they caught Carl’s intent gaze, he raised his hat to her; Janine smiled warmly back at him.

Mr. Kingsley meanwhile exerted himself to be charming to Miss Archer, who found him amusing but in no way dangerous. Because she caught Cedric’s censorious eye on them, however, she encouraged him unscrupulously and, when the party broke up some little way farther on, allowed him to kiss her hand in farewell. Sydney’s cousins escorted her back to Hyde Park Gate, and she invited them both to dine in Grosvenor Square that evening.

In fact, Carl and Robin soon came to spend a part of every day in their cousin’s parlour, a circumstance that Prudence could not but accept. The personable young Wendts, although both far from plump in the pocket, and destined for professions, were at least not in trade and—more to the immediate point—they caused a noticeable increase in the flow of other, more eligible, gentlemen callers, to the point of a veritable flood over the next few weeks.

Torn between delight at this success and despair at ever being able to cope with it, Prue hired two more footmen and a new kitchen maid, then threw up her plump hands and refused to budge from her sofa, from which she received Sydney’s many callers. She made them all sit beside her for five minutes when they arrived, so that she might extract from them as much information as she could about their antecedents, their circumstances, and their prospects, after which she passed them on to Sydney, satisfied she had done her duty. Even Lyle could not say she had failed in this.

Prudence was assisted in her duty by Sylvie de Lamartine, who made it her business to call nearly every day to observe the other ladies who called—a group that soon came to include the influential Mrs. Drummond-Burrell, several honourables, and at least two countesses—and also to make note of which young gentlemen paid particular attention to which young ladies.

All this she then reported to her friend, Lady Romney, in regular letters to Chiswick. It distressed her somewhat to be obliged to report that Sydney was “taking” very well indeed, but she still had hopes that, inexperienced as Sydney was, she would sooner or later commit some
faux pas
certain to give everyone a disgust of her. Meanwhile, Sydney could encourage Edward Kingsley as much as she liked—
that
connection had no future, but it served to keep Sydney out of the way of a more eligible suitor for Janine’s hand, which was naturally her mother’s first concern.

“Your Susan is in fine looks nowadays,” Sylvie remarked to Prudence. Her critical eye was fixed, however, on Sydney, who was looking very pretty that day in yellow mulled muslin with a wide, darker yellow sash and matching pearl buttons down the front—which had obviously
not
come from the unfashionable modiste Sylvie had been inspired to recommend to Prudence as one way of modifying Sydney’s impact on the Ton. She had not succeeded in that tactic, it seemed, but there were other, more subtle courses to pursue.

“Do you really think so?” Prue enquired anxiously, seeking clarification of Mrs. de Lamartine’s insincere remark. What Sylvie believed was that Susan’s looks would never improve to better than passable, but at the moment the girl was gazing adoringly at Cedric Maitland, causing a faint colour to suffuse her pale face, and the lie was less flagrant than usual.

Sylvie was not concerned that Cedric was in any danger of succumbing to Susan’s invisible charms, but he was considerate enough to speak to her now and then, and this took time and conversation away from Janine. Cedric was, in Mrs. de Lamartine’s opinion, a buffoon, but he was a rich one, and he never failed to look and act gentlemanly. At the moment he was, she further judged, Janine’s best opportunity for a good match. The mutual attraction between her daughter and Carlton Wendt had, for the moment at least, escaped her, since she considered him to be entirely ineligible and expected Janine to see him so as well.

“How old is dear Susan now?” she asked Prudence, avoiding further discussion of that damsel’s looks.

“She will be seventeen next month.’’

“Miss Archer’s cousin—Robert, I believe is his name—must be nineteen or twenty,” Sylvie pointed out, considering a Wendt connection perfectly good enough for a Whitlatch. “Susan would not do for a much older man, I think. She would be overwhelmed, poor dear.’’