“
You
were never short of that, Larry,” he declared. “Remember what Papa
used to call you?”
“
Hush,
you little beast,” Larinda burst out. She appealed to her uncle.
“If there ever was a more plaguey brother, I do not know of it. And
don’t call me that awful name.”
Brother and sister
glared at each other across the table. Lady Smeath cleared her
throat and rested her hand gently, delicately, on her forehead.
Larinda broke off her angry stare and looked at her aunt in
consternation. Lady Smeath only shook her head sadly.
“
Remember what happens when I am distressed,” was all she said,
and Larinda stared down at her plate.
Captain Summers watched
the whole tableau with his lips pressed tight together. He opened
his mouth to speak, but thought better of it.
“
Larinda does remind me, brother dear,” Lady Smeath began. “How
is it that we can get Mrs. McVinnie past the patronesses? I am
certain she does not have a voucher, and considering—well, let us
not pull hairs—considering her anonymity in our circle, I do not
see how she can possibly procure a voucher. They do have rules,
William dear, and they do keep out the scaff and raff.” Lady Smeath
looked at Jeannie, her eyes wide. “Of course, I am not referring to
you, Mrs. McVinnie.”
“
Of
course you are not, Lady Taneystone.”
Summers took another
bite of his sirloin roast and smiled back at his sister and Larinda
in turn. In her own acute embarrassment, Jeannie couldn’t help but
observe that predatory look in his eyes.
“
I was
a busy sailor boy today,” he said, to neither of them in
particular. “Do you know that Lord Smeath was only too happy to
promise that he would approach Lady Jersey this very afternoon and
procure the voucher we need? I need only ask for it when we arrive
in the assembly rooms.”
“
My
brother-in-law did that?” Lady Taneystone asked, her voice rising
in surprise. “Why, he would not even do that for me!”
Captain Summers spent a
long moment studying the plate of meat in front of him. He speared
another slice and transferred it to his plate. “G—gracious, but
this is excellent after a year of salt beef from a keg. Yes, my
dear Agatha, your very brother-in-law. How kind he was to me, his
deus ex machina
.” He glanced at Larinda, who was frowning.
“Don’t strain yourself, niece,” he said blandly. “I am his god from
the machine, his savior upon Mount Zion, his Isaac on the
altar.”
Agatha stared at her
brother. “William! I never knew any of our family to allude to
Scripture. How droll!”
He nodded in her
direction, only the slightest quiver of his lips betraying any
emotion to Jeannie. “Dear sister, I give a sermon from the
quarterdeck every Sunday morning. As it is always followed by a
recitation of the Articles of War, I do try to make it improving.
Sacrifice is invariably my theme.”
Jeannie coughed into
her napkin and studied the oil painting on the far wall while
Edward’s eyes darted from her to his uncle, an expression of real
delight on his face.
“
But
as I began to say, dear sister,” Summers continued after he
finished eating, “there are no lengths to which your brother-in-law
will not go to avoid having to abandon his rack punch and fireside
for the perils of Almack’s. I am his to be commanded in all things,
apparently.”
Even Larinda had to
smile. Jeannie watched her. Such a pretty girl, she thought as she
tucked in one more bite of dinner. Oh, please, let us be
friends.
Lady Smeath changed her
mind several times as they stood in the hall waiting for the
carriage to be brought around, but she decided at the last moment
to accompany her niece and brother.
“
Are
you sure the evening will not put any undue strain on your heart?”
Captain Summers asked as Pringle swirled his boat cloak around his
shoulders.
Lady Smeath smiled
bravely. “Surely I owe this one evening to my niece, whom I have
raised all these years, with, I might add, no help from you. It is,
after all, her first visit to Almack’s.” Again her delicate hand
just brushed against her forehead. “If I am faint, Sally Jersey
will find me a couch. I feel sure of it.”
They endured a silent
ride to Almack’s. The streets were wet and shone slick and smooth
under the soft light from the streetlamps.
I wonder if it is
raining in Scotland, Jeannie thought, and then sighed with the
sudden sharpness of homesickness.
She sat next to Captain
Summers. When she sighed, he reached out and clasped her hand
firmly, twining her fingers in his and giving them the briefest
squeeze before releasing her. He stared continually ahead the
entire time, and Jeannie could only wonder if she had imagined the
moment. She remembered Tom’s warning about sailors and smiled. Have
no fear, my dear, she thought, I am a surely proof against
seamen.
Almack’s was a
glittering jewel in an unpretentious setting. Jeannie looked about
her with interest. She had read in the ladies’ magazines about the
place, but had never entertained the notion that she would someday
be giving over her cloak to the porter and preparing to enter the
famous assembly rooms. It was something that happened to others not
of her acquaintance.
Larinda stood beside
her, biting her lips and fidgeting with her dress. Jeannie turned
to her, touching a curl in Larinda’s hair and then another, and
then giving a final pat to her necklace.
“
My
dear, you will do very well,” she said. “Primrose becomes
you.”
Larinda turned anxious
eyes on her. “Oh, are you sure? I so want ….” And then she
remembered herself. “You’re only saying that.”
The words were hateful,
and Jeannie flinched in spite of herself. An uncertain look wavered
in Larinda’s eyes. If it was momentary shame, Jeannie did not know
or care. Her own anger rose and fell as quickly as it had come.
“
Larinda, I never say what is not true,” she said, low-voiced
and even. “I do not deal in Spanish coin.” She turned on her heel
and followed Captain Summers into the assembly room.
Lord Smeath had been
true to his word. The vouchers were there, and in the hands of Lady
Jersey herself, who restlessly fanned herself with them and then
smiled up at Captain Summers. She extended her other hand and he
bowed over it.
“
La,
Sir William, how seldom we see you men of the blockade in our
assembly rooms. One would think that you prefer it that way, I
own.”
He kissed her hand, but
did not release it. Jeannie smiled and knew that Lady Jersey would
be his first victim that evening.
“
My
dear Lady Jersey,” he was saying, “it is the will of king and
country, but not of the heart. How grateful I am to be here this
evening. Let me make you known to my niece, Larinda Summers. And I
am sure you are already acquainted with my sister, Lady
Smeath.”
He released her hand
after another bow, and Lady Jersey held out both hands to Larinda
and Lady Smeath. “Agatha, it has been too, too long since you have
been to our London,” she scolded, her voice soft and breathless,
the words hanging like little stars in the overheated air.
“
And
let me introduce another of our party,” continued the captain.
“Mrs. Jeannie McVinnie, who has come all the way from Scotland as a
companion to Larinda.”
Lady Jersey smiled and
nodded. Her eyes flitted over Jeannie’s face in a restless motion.
“Captain, what can you and your sister have been thinking? Mrs.
McVinnie is but a babe herself. My dear, such a lovely dress! Your
taste is exquisite.” She tapped Jeannie’s hand with her fan. “There
is one coming later tonight, provided the naughty boy is not shut
out at eleven, who will be happy to admire that precise tone of
blue.”
“
Thank
you, Lady Jersey,” Jeannie said.
“
And
you will make redheads the rage this Season, I vow,” the patroness
continued, even as her eyes began to rove the room and she returned
the vouchers to Summers. With a wave of the hand, she was
gone.
“
An
odd creature,” Jeannie murmured.
“
But
so important to our consequences, or so Agatha will tell me. We
will see any number of odd creatures this evening, I daresay,” said
the captain under his breath. “Come, ladies, and allow me to do my
duty. It has been a prodigious while since I have danced.
Sister?”
Lady Smeath gathered up
her train and let Captain Summers lead her onto the dancing floor.
Larinda immediately left Jeannie’s side and joined a small group of
young people her own age. Jeannie looked about her, found a chair,
and sat in it, folding her hands in her lap.
That Captain Summers
was an able dancer should have surprised her, but it did not.
Gracefully he worked his way down the set of the country dance with
all the agility of a man accustomed to the dancing floor. Jeannie
laughed to herself. And he does not count out loud, she thought, as
Tom used to do. There is not that look of a sheep at the
knackerman’s knife, and he does not clutch at his collar and
declare himself wonderfully ill-used if he must be compelled to
dance again. Tom, I would happily sit out any number of country
dances if you were only here again.
The tears were ready to
fall, and she was mortified. Quickly Jeannie rose to her feet and
found a door partly open beside a tall window. It opened onto a
small balcony. Gratefully she clasped the railing and took several
deep breaths, willing herself not to think of Tom.
The dance had finished
when she returned to the assembly room. Larinda stood once again
with her friends. As Jeannie watched, Larinda looked her way and
then turned back to her friends again. Their heads came together
and there was laughter, and other glances darted her way.
And now I am being made
a fool, she thought.
“
Mrs.
McVinnie, you look as though you have discovered your well is full
of water and you are drifting upon a lee shore.”
Captain Summers stood
beside her again. For the smallest moment she wished he would take
her hand again and hold it. She shook away the thought and did not
speak until she had command of her voice.
“
I
would wager a plum, Captain Summers, that Larinda is telling her
friends about her Scottish nanny who speaks so funny and is a
perfect quiz.”
“
You
are no quiz,” he said immediately. “And I have noticed any number
of young tulips giving you the rake-down.”
“
Absurd,” she declared. “You were dancing. How could you
tell?”
“
I,
madam, have eyes in the back of my head,” he replied. “It comes
from years of impressing felons and pretending they are seamen.
Close observation, ma’am, close observation, is the key to survival
on the water.” He looked about him and shook his head. “And perhaps
in the ballroom.”
“
I
still say you are wrong,” Jeannie persisted. “This is not my
come-out. Why should anyone stare at me?”
“
Perhaps because you are a damned pretty woman,” he said
frankly.
Before Jeannie could
think of anything rallying in reply, the captain put his hands
behind his back and scrutinized his niece. “My, she has a wagging
tongue! And she is probably animadverting on her uncle, who feeds
her weevily biscuit and has her flogged around the fleet for the
slightest infraction. Oh, Lord.” He nudged her. “Were you ever
seventeen, Mrs. McVinnie?”
She twinkled her eyes
at him. “I distinctly remember it. Although, truth to tell, I would
never want to be seventeen again. Once was enough.”
“
I was
never seventeen,” he said, his eyes on his niece as she tittered
and giggled behind her hands and looked his way and then laughed
some more.
At Jeannie’s look of
interest, he motioned to a sofa and sat her down, ranging himself
beside her. “When I was seventeen I was laid up in Kingston with as
bad a case of ship’s fever as you could dream of. I did not care
whether I lived or died.” He shook his head at the memory, an odd
smile playing around his lips. “But it was better than eighteen,
when I was a prisoner of the Spanish. No, Mrs. McVinnie, I was
never seventeen.”
She looked at him
curiously. There was nothing in his voice of self-pity. “Are all
men like you so hard?” she asked, without even thinking how rude
the question.
If he thought her
question strange, out of place in a ballroom, he did not betray it.
“We are, madam. It is what keeps us alive on the blockade.”
She touched his arm
impulsively, but said nothing, only wondered why she felt so close
to tears again. It was foolish to think that a man like Captain Sir
William Summers wanted her sympathy.
The captain laughed
softly. “We are not precisely given to small talk, are we, Mrs.
McVinnie? Did no one ever teach either of us proper ballroom
manners? Shouldn’t we laugh and joke and say things we don’t mean?”
He held out his hand to her. “Dance with me now, Mrs.
McVinnie.”
She shook her head.
“No, indeed, sir,” she declared, determined to lighten the curious
mood that had settled on them. “What kind of a chaperone would I
be, then?”
He looked down at her
feet. “The kind who cannot keep from tapping out a rhythm.”
She followed his gaze
and tucked her shoes under her ballgown. “No, I will not,” she said
again. “But I think that you should invite Larinda to dance.”
He sighed and rose to
his feet. “You are right, of course. I can shoulder my way over
there and observe at close range the fribbles and fortune-hunters
who have surrounded her. And if I use my very best quarterdeck
scowl, I can certainly put some to flight.” He rubbed his hands
together. “This promises to be more fun than butlers.”