Fair Fatality Read online

  Since he could not retreat without exciting comment, Lord Carlin allowed his steed to advance unchecked, and endured a presentation to the two females. Somehow he must speak privately with Jevon, must seek his advice. To this end, he embarked upon a discussion of a hunter he contemplated purchasing. In Lord Carlin’s experience, the gentler sex quickly lost interest in any conversation that did not revolve around feminine folderols and fripperies.

  Lord Carlin’s experience, however, included in it no such members of the gentler sex as Lady Easterling. No sooner did he make mention of the hunting field than Jaisy edged her own mount forward, neatly cutting out her brother, and beamed upon him. “I, too, am a great deal addicted to sport!” she confided, with an air of what his lordship considered very excessive bonhomie. “That is a devilish good-looking screw you have there, sir! Splendid shoulders! Forelegs nicely before him! Great hocks and rump! You look startled, sir. I’ll warrant you are wondering how I come to know so much about horseflesh.”

  In point of fact, Lord Carlin was wondering nothing of the sort, having been stricken nigh senseless by so bold a display of shockingly irregular conduct. “Indeed,” he murmured vaguely.

  “‘Twas my husband taught me about proper highbred ‘uns!” Lady Easterling cheerfully confessed. “Easterling was a regular out-and-outer, may he rest in peace! You will have gathered, sir, that Easterling is deceased.”

  This outspoken baggage was his friend Jevon’s sister, Lord Carlin sternly reminded himself. Only that relationship saved her from the sharp set-down that each additional word further convinced him was her just desert. “I am sorry to hear it,” he responded politely.

  “I don’t see why you should be,” Lady Easterling replied frankly, “unless you was acquainted? I thought not! Easterling didn’t move in the first circles, though I’m sure he might have, had he wished. He was very old, you see. But not so old that his faculties were affected! He was used to give me very nacky advice, such as it is never wise to bet against a dark horse, and that one should always try to get over heavy ground as light as one can.”

  In an effort to be fair to his friend’s younger sister — surely Lady Easterling must have some redeeming qualities! — Lord Carlin subjected that outspoken damsel to a keen scrutiny. That Jaisy was a beauty signified little to his lordship; Kit was very well accustomed to damsels of that stamp, and accustomed also to being admired by them, and the target of their lures. One of the earliest lessons taught Kit at his papa’s knee was that the Carruthers fortune exercised a powerful fascination.

  Jaisy, meantime, rattled on, under the highly erroneous impression that Lord Carlin was very much impressed with her good humor and her conversational expertise. She enlivened her account of a Derby Day that she’d attended in company with her husband with a full battery of arch looks and inviting glances, as befitted a lady well trained in the arts of coquetry. A regular country fair it had seemed, she professed, with fortune-telling gypsies, and booths where one could witness a melodrama, or dance, or try one’s luck at the roulette wheel or the thimble-rig. Upon an exclamation of horror as voiced by Miss Valentine, Lady Easterling quickly explained that she had not ventured within the booths where the menfolk engaged in sparring and hard drink, because Easterling had very solemnly warned her that it was not at all the thing. By Jove, they had been very merry, she concluded with a chuckle, even if the prodigious dust raised by carriage wheels and equine as well as human feet had given everyone the appearance of chimney sweeps!

  With the conclusion of this most enlightening dissertation, a brief silence descended upon the group. Lord Carlin struggled with a strong inclination to beat a hasty retreat from the presence of this vulgar chit who obviously sought to entangle him in her snares, while Lady Easterling congratulated herself that the dazed look in his lordship’s eye was a very hopeful sign; Jevon Rutherford wondered if perhaps, in indulging his own love of the ridiculous, he had done his friend Kit a grave disservice; Miss Valentine despaired of ever fashioning a silken purse out of this particular sow’s ear. Definitely, Lord Carlin was the highest of sticklers, as the dowager duchess had warned. He was also a man of no little influence. Unless Sara made a push to prevent it, Jaisy might be made to pay dearly for her outrageous conduct.

  “You will understand that Jaisy is accustomed to country ways, my lord, I hope,” she offered quietly, “and not hold it against her if she goes on in a way that appears unseemly. No offense was intended, I promise you.”

  As has hitherto been reported, one of Lord Carlin’s virtues was an unflagging kindness to his social inferiors; and this kindness he now displayed. Not only did he pity Miss Valentine the exigencies of her position as gooseberry, he was grateful to her for offering an unexceptionable avenue of exit. “No offense has been taken, Miss Valentine; and I beg you will accept my excuses, for I have a previous engagement and have already tarried too long. Your servant, Lady Easterling, Jevon!” With cordial haste, his lordship took his leave.

  Their voices followed him. “Deuce take it!” ejaculated her ladyship. “I must say I think very poorly of this interference! Just when things were going so well, too!”

  “Well?” echoed Miss Valentine, with a stupefaction shared by Kit. The remainder of the exchange he was not privileged to hear. With a haste his lordship applauded, Jevon ushered the ladies out of earshot.

  Perhaps, had his lordship been alloted sufficient time in which to recover from his annoyance at the volatile Lady Easterling, the matter might there have rested. But his lordship was not granted that respite. No sooner had he removed from the vicinity of Jevon Rutherford and party that Lord Carlin fell into company with several of his cronies, who quizzed him mercilessly about his prolonged conversation with the Heaven-Sent.

  This provocation numbered one more than even a perfect gentleman could bear. “The breath of life, is it?” inquired Lord Carlin, with a practiced sneer. “Clearly you have not had converse with the lady. Rather, I do assure you, she is better called Fair Fatality!”

  Six

  * * *

  “Fair Fatality!” uttered the dowager duchess, with an expression so disdainful that her aristocratic nostrils flared. “My patience is exhausted, Jaisy. I warned you against providing food for scandal. Now you must reap the consequence.”

  “Jupiter!” said Lady Easterling. “You are as bad as Sara, aunt. She tries to tell me Carlin was put off by my sporting talk, which is a great deal of nonsense! It was clear as noonday that Carlin was amazed to find me so knowledgeable. For my part, I found him a regular Trojan, bang-up to the nines!”

  Slender fingers clenched upon the scrolled arm of her massive chair, Georgiana observed — without the least evidence of any degree of approbation — her niece. The dowager duchess’s raddled face was every bit as savage as the sharp-beaked eagles’ heads carved on her chair arms. Lady Easterling might not have been the most perspicacious of beings, but she could not help but recognize the revulsion directed at herself.

  Why should Georgiana dislike her? Jaisy wondered, as she studied that mirrored hostile face. And, disliking her, why had Georgiana issued her an invitation to London and provided her a Season? Not so many years before, the dowager had bluntly refused to stand the nonsense. Yet here was Jaisy, pampered guest in Blackwood House.

  Perhaps Jaisy’s unconciliating manner had raised her aunt’s spleen. Generously, Jaisy set herself to make amends. To that end, she embarked upon an unexceptionable monologue upon the sights of London as revealed to her by Miss Valentine: the British Museum and its diverse treasures, ranging from stuffed giraffes and stag’s antlers to a bust of Hippocrates and the celebrated Portland vase; Mrs. Salmon’s Waxwork house in Fleet Street, and opposite it, the moving giants of St. Dunstan’s clock who struck the passing hours on a bell.

  Still the dowager duchess appeared to be on the fidgets. “I know what it is!” said Lady Easterling, abruptly abandoning all attempts at tact. “You’re miffed because I proved you wrong. Carlin ain’t above my touch, li
ke you claimed. I don’t understand you, aunt! I’d think you’d be pleased your own niece had attracted the attention of one of the highest-bred men in town.”

  Although the Dowager Duchess displayed a unique civility toward her scapegrace niece — a civility observed and remarked upon by every member of the Queen Anne Street household, all of whom considered this unprecedented forebearance an awful portent — this ill-judged utterance almost caused her composure to crack. With keen interest, Jaisy watched the Dowager struggle for self-control. “I would be pleased,” Lady Blackwood responded bitterly, “had you done so, miss! Explain to me how it is that you consider it a matter of some encouragement that a gentleman should brand you Fair Fatality.” She shuddered. “To think that a member of my family should be an object of vulgar tittle-tattle — it is not at all what I am accustomed to, my girl!”

  The magnitude of this understatement Lady Easterling failed to grasp; Jaisy minded not the least if she provided grist for the common mill, and would always prefer scandal to obscurity. Not that Lady Easterling intended to involve herself in outright scandal, for she realized that arrant misconduct could not add to her consequence. Toward a little notoriety, however, Jaisy had no objection. It pleased her to be so very famous that her name was on every tongue. Even if he wished to, Lady Easterling smugly mused, Lord Carlin would not long be able to banish her from mind.

  “There!” Triumphantly, Lady Blackwood broke into her niece’s thoughts. “You cannot answer me. Well, you have been very foolish, and exhibited a monstrous lack of address, but all is not yet lost. Put these air-dreams about Carlin out of your head and I fancy we may yet see you established creditably.”

  Did Georgiana dare infer that Jaisy could not marry where she wished, must settle for less than the most eligible? Such blatant lack of appreciation could only set up the back of a damsel accustomed to deem herself a nonpareil. Only consideration for Jevon and Miss Valentine, dependent upon Georgiana’s begrudging good will, enabled Lady Easterling to curb her tongue.

  “By Jove!” she uttered, nettled, depositing herself gracelessly in a straight-legged gilt chair, and on the floor her chocolate cup. “You are determined that I may not have Carlin. But I am equally determined that I shall! He is a bachelor of the first stare with everything prime about him — precisely the sort of gentleman I have hankered after — and I have decided that no one else will do!” Beneath her aunt’s acerbic gaze, Jaisy propped her elbow on the arm of her chair and dropped her chin into her hand. “Moreover, I’ll wager he’s a prime goer after hounds.”

  The dowager unclenched her slender fingers from her chair and pressed them to her brow. “You misunderstand,” she said in surprisingly calm tones. “I see nothing objectionable in the connection, providing you may bring it off, of which I have my doubts! Recall that I have known Carlin since he was in short pants. You aren’t the first chit who’s tried to bring him up to scratch. But mayhap you will succeed where the others failed. I wish you might. Now be about your business! I wish to discuss some trifling matters with Sir Phineas.”

  That gentleman did not look especially delighted with the prospect, decided Jaisy, as she obediently took her leave. Though startled by her aunt’s abrupt capitulation and even more abrupt dismissal, Jaisy did not consider either circumstance noteworthy. She was not an especially curious girl, her attention being primarily taken up with her own concerns.

  The matter of most concern to Lady Easterling, as she made her way up the stone staircase and along the hushed corridor to her bedroom, was not surprisingly a certain viscount. Despite the blithe rejoinders with which she turned aside adverse comments, Jaisy was not altogether certain that Lord Carlin had been struck by Cupid’s dart. It was unthinkable that he should not have been — and for what other reason than as way of subtle compliment could he have dubbed her Fair Fatality? Too, one could not expect a starched-up gentleman like Carlin to wear his heart upon his sleeve. Still, even the most proper of gentlemen should by this time have made some overture, at the very least have gratified his beloved with a morning-call. Instead, Carlin remained studiously aloof. A less-assured lady might have wondered if she was the object of deliberate avoidance.

  Lady Easterling, who was not accustomed to doubting her mortal effect upon every gentleman privileged to receive her dimpled, roguish grin, wondered no such thing. Handsomely, she conceded that Sara might have been partially correct in asserting that Carlin had been put off by Jaisy’s outspokenness — not that Jaisy believed for an instant that her conversation might have caused the viscount to take her in dislike. Long obeisance to the dowager duchess had warped Sara’s judgment. Or perhaps she was merely jealous.

  At all events, Jaisy was willing to concede that Lord Carlin might be shy. Perhaps he considered her above his touch, in which case she might find opportunity to intimate to him the opposite. Frowning, Lady Easterling entered her bedchamber, flopped down on the carved four-poster bedstead — an elegant piece of furniture swathed in silk and damask and lavishly embellished with carved Roman urns — and pondered alternate means by which to grant Cupid further occasion to loose his fatal dart.

  At that same moment, in Lady Blackwood’s morning room, Sir Phineas Fairfax experienced a sinking sensation in his midriff. No dart from an invisible arrow inspired this malaise, but the brooding attitude of the dowager duchess. Lady Easterling was not alone in noting Georgiana’s resemblance to the savage eagles carved on her chair. Sir Phineas, Georgiana’s man of business, knew that contemplative expression, which indicated that he would soon be called upon to make certain efforts in Lady Blackwood’s behalf. As always, anticipation of those efforts turned him liverish. With regret for its loss, Sir Phineas recalled his ebullient mood of a scant few hours past, when he had intended perambulating from his lodgings to his club, there to play a rubber or two of piquet, after which he might indulge in a light repast of pickled salmon and iced champagne. Then fate, in the guise of a summons from the dowager duchess, had intervened. How Georgiana invariably knew his whereabouts, Sir Phineas no longer wondered. The devious Lady Blackwood always knew those things which one would have preferred she did not.

  What task would she assign him? Did she mean to once more threaten to disinherit the charmingly scapegrace Jevon Rutherford, currently rumored to be dangling after a pretty little opera dancer? Or, as seemed more likely, would Sir Phineas be obliged to exert himself in regard to Jevon’s sister, who from all appearances was equally scapegrace? He had no enthusiasm for either prospect.

  Perhaps the dowager might be distracted from whatever nasty schemes she hatched. Sir Phineas held out bait, in the form of the most recent on-dits concerning the Prince Regent, whom Georgiana professed to detest. There was talk that the Prince would engage upon his most extravagant architectural project to date, restructuring the west end of his capital to include a fashionable new park and a sweeping avenue designed by Nash — this even though remodeling of the Marine Pavilion at Brighton had not progressed beyond the enlargement of the Chinese corridor. In addition, rumor claimed the Regent had been advised by his doctors, as a result of his recent illness, that he should leave off his stays and let his massive belly drop.

  Looking increasingly rancorous, the dowager heard out this account, all the while drumming her fingers on her knee. “Oh, do cease nattering, Phineas!” she snapped, when he paused to draw breath. “Now that you have met my niece, what do you think?”

  “Lady Easterling is a very lovely young woman. A trifle high-spirited, perhaps.” Sir Phineas strove for patient tact.

  “High-spirited? Hah!” Rather dreadfully, Lady Blackwood grimaced. “She’s as bold as a brass-faced monkey. Pushing! Impertinent! A thorough rag-mannered chit.”

  The dowager’s patent disapproval of a niece in residence beneath her roof did not startle Sir Phineas. It was his opinion that the dowager approved of no one, save possibly himself, and that because he made it his policy never to cross her will. Reminded by this reflection of the lady upon whose slend
er person Georgiana’s will was most often wreaked, he ventured a polite inquiry regarding Miss Valentine’s well-being and current whereabouts.

  Though mention of the Prince Regent had failed to divert the dowager duchess from her baleful thoughts, the introduction of Miss Valentine into the discussion earned Sir Phineas a sharp glance. “You are mighty interested in my companion,” she uttered spitefully. “Who, not that it’s any of your business, is at the moment exercising Confucious! I am not at all pleased with Sara, Phineas. She is not exercising the control over my niece that I should like. Moreover, the silly twit’s taken it into her head that she deserves a holiday!”

  In Sir Phineas’s opinion anyone who passed an hour in company with Lady Blackwood was deserving of a rest, but he was not so imprudent as to so remark. He had a great deal of fellow-feeling for the plight of Miss Valentine, and also a degree of guilt: Sir Phineas had been the instrument by which the orphaned Sara had been brought into Georgiana’s employ. Her existence in Blackwood House was not happy, he knew. He wished there was some manner in which he might make redress.

  “Oho!” The dowager’s keen eyes missed little. “Sits the wind in that quarter? There’s no fool like an old one! I will tell you what I told my niece: put those air-dreams out of your mind.”

  Georgiana thought he nourished warm sentiments toward Miss Valentine. Sir Phineas flushed. Certainly he liked Sara, appreciated her quiet and ladylike manner and the excellent tone of her mind; but the dowager maligned him by viewing his fondness for Miss Valentine in so mundane a light. “Fustian!” Sir Phineas retorted gruffly.