TEN
It was some time later that Cordelia paced up and down the sparsely furnished morning chamber. A brisk ride in the autumn sunshine had proven a welcome diversion for her rather sombre reflections. She was to become Lady Winthrop and the sooner she accustomed herself to the idea the better.
One last time that morning, she dutifully endeavoured to shut away the ubiquitous memory of his grace's scorching glance upon her back and his soft, infinitely tender smile as he'd regarded her lips. Oh, how she wished . . . She cancelled the thought with determination. If the noble duke was destined for her sister, there was nothing more to be said or thought.
“Good day, Miss Camfrey! I have the most
quizzing
of news!”
Cordelia whirled around to find herself facing her future spouse. Her tousled hair had fallen from their pins and she felt a crimson flush rise up to her cheeks. “Lord Winthrop! I was not expecting you!”
“No, indeed! I should think not, since it was not long since that I escorted you to the park. You must think me a
very
overzealous fellow!”
Cordelia refrained from tartly replying that she felt nothing of the kind, for Lord Winthrop's idea of an outing to the park was simply one where he stopped the curricle under the shade of a handy tree and took the time to comment, in tones ranging from revulsion to envy, on all the horseflesh that passed before his critical eyes.
Miss Camfrey was convinced that if she wore a chequered spencer, her shift and nothing more than a parasol, my lord would not notice. Not, that is, unless, like Lady Godiva, she was mounted on a noteworthy stallion and felt the need to try her paces at a dash rather than the requisite sedate trot.
Still, my lord was good-hearted and that counted for something. Especially as he was looking at her now, with animation lighting his eyes and an indefinable eagerness etched across his features. Miss Camfrey scolded herself for wishing that he might take a sharp blade and trim some of the wilder excesses of his bushy red beard.
Even in so admonishing herself, she sighed. It was no use. Lord Winthrop could shave until his skin was as pink as a baby'sâit would not make him any more personable. She cursed Rhaz again and again, for making her think shameful thoughts and draw comparisons where they were neither fair nor warranted. In a sudden, guilty desire to please Lord Henry, she smiled and bade him sit.
He looked dubious for a moment, as if unexpectedly trapped. Social visits were anathema to him, and though he did his duty by his affianced, additional burdens seemed the outside of enough. Still, he gingerly edged himself into one of the few quality seats Cordelia had not had the heart to sell.
She rang the bell for some fresh lemonade and raspberry cordial, which seemed to cheer him somewhat.
“Have you a little of that spiced orange Madeira cake over? I found it rather soothing on the palate.”
“I shall ask Mrs. Stevens. At all events, if it is to your taste, I shall send the receipt on to your housekeeper.”
“Old Fuss Bellows?” His Lordship snorted. “Like as not, she'd burn it to a cinder. She is a dab hand with a mutton broth or a buttered lobster, but sweets are beyond her, I'm afraid!”
Cordelia wondered fleetingly why his lordship referred to his servant as “Fuss Bellows.” Too tired to ponder the matter over long, she nodded.
Before she could introduce a topic more dear to her heart, however, Lord Henry continued. “I am delighted you are so talented, Miss Camfrey! I look forward to your housekeeping skills with pleasure. Rutherford has too long been a bachelor establishment at the mercy ofâ”
“Old Fuss Bellows!” Rather in spite of herself, Cordelia's humour rose to the fore.
It was quite lost on Lord Henry, however, who nodded vigorously and murmured, “Quite!” in tones of heartfelt meaning.
A stillness fell on the room and Cordelia had the uneasy sensation that she ought to say something. “Lord . . .”
“Miss Camfrey . . .”
A collision of words. Cordelia smiled ruefully and suggested that Lord Winthrop speak first. He nodded as if that was his due, but rather benignly indicated that since his news was of some great moment, she, in this instance, might like to discourse first.
Cordelia schooled her features not to protest at this pompous presumption of self-importance. Instead, she thanked him mildly and then fell silent, staring at the Kidderminster carpet as if it might give her some inspiration. The orange Madeira cake materialised, and with it came some clarity to Cordelia's thoughts. Henry's mouth was full when the words came spilling out, slowly at first, then all in a tumble.
“Lord Henry, I wish you to know that I am very sensible of the offer you have made me and extremely, extremely grateful for yourâ”
“Tush, my dear! It is nothing. You will make a fine substitute for Old Fuss Bellows, though I trust you will leave her be in the matter of catsups, snipes and quails.” He looked an interrogative, and if Cordelia did not feel so wretched, she would have been hard-pressed not to laugh. Lord Henry's stomach was second only to his horses.
“I am perfectly certain she needs no intervention whatsoever, Lord Henry, but we stray from the point!”
He nodded, though he muttered something to himself about half-baked plum pies, poorly soaked trifles and execrable sillabubs.
Wisely, Cordelia ignored these grumbles and allowed her words to take on a life of their own. “I have to be perfectly honest with you, your lordship. I accepted your suit for material reasons only. I think you know that, but I am not perfectly certain thatâ”
“Material reasons?” He looked bewildered; then light seemed to dawn. “Oh! You mean, I collect, that you were interested in my wealth! Perfectly proper I should say for any female circumstanced as you are!”
“Then you do not mind thatâ”
“Mind? Why should I mind? You are a pretty enough female”âhe looked at her doubtfullyâ“though I daresay you could put on a pound or two.” He waggled his finger in the air. “But it is not as if you cannot ride or would be taken for a flat.”
Cordelia was not precisely sure what this meant, but she understood the drift of the rather unflattering series of compliments that followed. It seemed that since she was not likely to either convert his stables into a ballroom or to serve up burnt perigord pieâa matter he had
dreaded
in taking a wifeâshe was, in his eyes, perfectly acceptable. The matter of love simply did not seem to enter into his thinking. Taking up the delicate subjectâCordelia wanted to marry him in perfect honesty if nothing elseâshe coloured deeply and inquired what his lordship expected of her.
At first, he did not seem to understand the direction of her thoughts. When he did, he cleared his throat rather doubtfully, hemmed and hawed for perhaps some secondsâit seemed like aeonsâand muttered something about an heir.
Cordelia nodded intently, though for the first time she seriously began contemplating what this process might entail. The thought of Lord Henry . . . She subdued a faint shiver. Henry Winthrop was a kind man, if not blessed overmuch with wit or joie de vivre. He seemed to find the subject equally embarrassing, for he glossed over it quickly and murmured that naturally after their first two children . . .
Cordelia looked at him in puzzlement. “Yes?” She prompted. He coughed and looked rather as though he wished himself safely back at his stables or Tattersall's at least.
Finally, he kicked the tassels of the poor, beleaguered Kidderminster and plunged headlong into the sentence that so eluded him. “Naturally if you wish a separate establishment and further marital freedomsâ”
Gradually it dawned on Cordelia that he must mean “extramarital.” She blushed again, but fortunately Henry was so caught up in his
own
tangle that he remained quite oblivious. When he'd finished, the room was pregnant with silence. Cordelia was bereft of words, satisfied that she was not marrying Lord Winthrop under false pretences. He did not seem to have even the remotest need for the love, companionship and passion that, up until now, Cordelia had thought the natural adjuncts to wedded state.
This lack of sensibility on Henry's part should have relieved her mind most frightfully. Her ready acceptance of his suit had been weighing on her conscience for some time. Now, however, just when she was free to make the connection without guilt, she baulked at the notion and, ironically, at Henry's complete lack of romance.
Silly nonsense!
she chided herself and settled down to hear what Lord Winthrop was so anxious to impart.
Strange to say, it had no bearing on what had just occurredâor indeed, insofar as Cordelia could see, on anything much to the purpose at all. Before she knew what she was about, he began a long, hideously monotonous monologue regarding, if Cordelia understood it rightâand she was not perfectly certain that she didâthe ancestry of his finest mares and the vindication of their bloodlines.
About fifteen minutes through the speechâminutely interspersed with descriptions of fetlocks and height and hocks and pacesâCordelia's eyes were drawn to the clock on the mantel. She wondered if anyone was likely to rescue herâSeraphina perhapsâbut she thought not.
Just as she was focusing her thoughts once more on Lord Henry's sudden and strange animation, she felt a choking at her throat and the same heart-stopping sensation she'd first experienced when Rhaz, Lord Carlisle and the fifth Duke of Doncaster, first cast his burning dark eyes upon her. Those self-same eyes were now fixed upon her as Pendletonâ
completely
in his elementâannounced the gentleman who very properly stood two paces behind him.
Cordelia was too surprised to do anything more than stand up shakily. Lord Henry, however, became unaccountably and overwhelmingly gushing, ushering his grace in with a great sweep of his hand and many utterances and gesticulations that no oneâleast of all the nobleman in questionâcould make any sense of.
Light dawned in his grace's eyes when Winthrop pronounced him a positive rum one and came dangerously close to slapping his back. His lordship, it appeared, had received his grace's very kind invitation to review the stables at Huntingdon.
What, he asked with candour, were the stallions like at stud? Cordelia was caught between cringing and laughing outright. She chose neither, for the duke caught her eye and the laughter came out as something between a gasp and a choke. Evidently he shared her badly stifled amusement, for his mouth twitched treacherously and his eyes seemed to twinkle as they glanced a certain young lady's way.
His answer was suitably serious, however, as he turned to Cordelia's betrothed and set his mind to being charming. Poor Henry did not have a hope, for at the expiration of a mere thirty seconds he found himself quite in the duke's thrall, stuttering with excitement at the thought of possibly coupling his bloodstock with those of the famous Carlisle Arabians. From this, Cordelia inferred they were talking horses.
Her heart still beating wildly, she helped herself to a piece of preserved ginger from the Madeira cake tray, indicated to Rhaz to do the same and settled herself down once more. I use the term “settled” in the broadest of senses, for the pulses that raced through her temples could hardly be so described. From time to time, she felt Rhaz's deep, dark eyes upon her. When she trusted herself to look up, they smiled almost into her soul. The interview was agony, for she did not know why he had come nor yet how she could let him leave.
It struck her how remiss it was of Pendleton to have admitted him, for there was no sign of Ancilla, and Seraphina, too, was nowhere at hand. It had been a stretch to admit Winthrop, but then, she was his affiancedâsome degree of license could pertain and the door had always remained firmly three inches ajar. With Rhaz, however, it was unaccountably different. Pendleton must have been so overawed at his presence that mere considerations of nicety must have completely flown out of his head.
Still, one could hardly suppose Rhaz to pose any threat to her virtue, not with Lord Henry standing between them, raving on and on about . . . What the devil
was
he raving on about?
“Aramiss and Drixon!” He finished his sentence with a triumphant nod and turned towards Cordelia. “Isn't that famous news, my dear?”
Miss Camfrey had not the faintest idea what he was talking about, so she nodded her head emphatically and agreed. After all, Lord Henry might be slow upon certain subjects, but when it came to horses, whatever he said was bound to be correct.
To her surprise, his grace stepped forward and took her hand in his. Turning to Lord Henry, he inquired whether he minded, and finding that he did not, he led her hand up to his lips and scorched it with the mark of his mouth. Cordelia felt herself reeling from the dizzying sensations that played havoc with her mind.
All traces of laughter left his grace the duke's eyes as he held her hand a fraction longer than was strictly appropriate. A moment later, he had dropped her hand, but still it felt warm, as though encased in the strong, masculine fingers of his own.