Fair Fatality Read online

  Soda water? queried Jevon silently. Deuced odd, he thought, that a hardened reprobate like Byron should quaff so innocuous a substance. Port wine or claret, sherry or Madeira, rum from the West Indies or brandy from France, a bowl of punch or Biship, even Blue Ruin — indulgence in one or any combination of the preceding would not have prompted a single flutter of Jevon’s eyelid. Soda water, on the other hand, convinced him even further that only complete and abysmal debasement awaited those rash young bloods who did not mend their profligate ways. Lest he be reduced to such ignoble straits, it behooved him to reform, and with all possible haste.

  As Jevon pondered his own personal salvation and the sole means by which it might be achieved, to wit through the tender ministrations of Miss Sara Valentine, ministrations which Mr. Rutherford had not the least solid reason to suppose he would ever experience, his somewhat somber gaze alit upon a familiar figure. From the opposite side of the vestibule, Lord Carlin approached. Jevon recalled his decision that his sister’s affaires must be tidied up before he embarked upon his own, and there was no time like the present. “You are looking devilish Friday-faced, Kit!” he remarked.

  So might Mr. Rutherford have looked, had he fallen under decree to in the near future wed, and this Lord Carlin tried to explain. Due to his position in the world, he must choose a wife from among a bevy of young ladies for whom he didn’t care three straws. It was the most damnable of dilemmas, and one with which Jevon must sympathize, himself being a gentleman devoted to flitting unattached from flower to flower.

  “You must not think I presume to comment upon your way of life!” Lord Carlin added hastily, as Mr. Rutherford quirked a sardonic golden brow. “Nothing of the sort! But I could hardly do better than seek the advice of a gentleman after whom all the ladies run mad — oh, dash it, Jevon! You know what I’m trying to say.”

  On that topic, Mr. Rutherford was a great deal less clear than his lordship thought. Unaccustomed to frank discussion of personal matters, too proud to easily admit himself at point nonplus, Lord Carlin had quite frankly made a rare muddle of the thing. So obscure had been his language, so harried was his manner, that Jevon was led to highly erroneous conclusions concerning the manner of female that his friend sought. “The devil!” he said cheerfully. “I never thought I’d see the day when Kit Carruthers started chasing the petticoats! Still, you need only crook your finger to earn a place in every heart. You are Carlin, remember? There’s no need to make a piece of work of it.”

  An odd way to describe a man’s search for a bride, surely? Admittedly, Lord Carlin had little prior experience with such things. Though he could not quibble with Jevon’s greater knowledge, he thought his friend might have evidenced a little more compassion for his plight.

  “I don’t know what you expect me to do for you!” Mr. Rutherford responded, when acquainted with this viewpoint. “I have my own difficulties. Self-improvement, I must tell you, Kit, is deuced uncomfortable. If you take my advice, you’ll have nothing to do with it!”

  Self-improvement? Lord Carlin fairly goggled, not at the notion his own character might be bettered, a notion which never crossed his mind, but at the suggestion that the indolent Jevon was embarked upon so bizarre a pursuit. “Why?” he asked.

  “Byron,” Mr. Rutherford responded simply, obviously considering this sufficient reply. For the informed reader it will serve as such; the reader is already aware that Mr. Rutherford had derived from the poet’s débâcle a very salutory lesson indeed. Lord Carlin, alas, was not similarly privileged. Therefore, he stared.

  Jevon was only vaguely aware of his friend’s bewilderment. He was not thinking of Lord Carlin but of Miss Valentine, relegated by her lowly status as paid companion to missing this and many another evening’s entertainment. Doubtless she was at that very moment engaged in some odiously menial pursuit, such as brushing the misbegotten Confucious, or ruining her gray eyes mending lace, both tasks which Jevon had countless times seen Sara perform. That would change, Jevon vowed grimly, once these plaguesome matters were cleared away and the topic of trysts subtly reintroduced. But he must apply his thoughts to the plaguesome matters at hand if ever they were to be cleared away, and not waste time with roseate visions of leading his Sara up the garden path.

  “The surest way to attract a young lady’s interest,” he offered generously to his puzzled friend, “is to display interest in another young lady. They no sooner see they can’t have something that they want it, you know.” It occurred to Jevon that this good advice might work with his Sara, and he fell silent as he contemplated how best to rouse jealousy in the breast of a lady long acquainted with his progress amid ladybirds of every imaginable description and degree.

  Jevon, decided Lord Carlin, was acting dashed queer. “I don’t want to attract anyone’s attention!” he responded irritably.

  “That’s not what you said just moments past.” Jevon decided that the tactics he had utilized in the past to such good advantage could not in all conscience be applied to Miss Valentine. She must surrender herself up to him wholly of her own volition, and then — “As I recollect, you asked me to drop a hint or two regarding the exact opposite! It isn’t like you to be vacillating like this, Kit! If it was anyone else, I’d say you had a tendresse.”

  “No, no!” Clearly, decided Lord Carlin, his friend was preoccupied. He would have to express himself more simply. “I must get married, Jevon!”

  “Married?” A bemused smile spread across Mr. Rutherford’s handsome face. “The deuce! Georgiana would probably go off in an apoplexy.”

  Lord Carlin could not imagine what the Dowager Duchess of Blackwood had to say about his marriage, nor why his marriage should inspire the dowager with an apoplexy. Unless Jevon thought he wished to marry the outrageous Easterling? “I don’t wish to become leg-shackled to your sister!” the viscount protested, anxious to nip misapprehension in the bud.

  “Jaisy! I should think not. ‘Twould be most unsuitable!” In an exuberance of good feeling, Jevon grasped and shook his friend’s hand. “Marriage, the very ticket! You shall dance at my wedding, I swear it — if ever I bring the thing off! Meanwhile it will be our secret!”

  Lord Carlin could imagine no circumstances under which he would be tempted to divulge a secret the nature of which he could not even guess. Perhaps his friend had overindulged in the grape? Jevon’s sudden enthusiasm for parson’s mousetrap struck Kit as only marginally less queer than Jevon’s uncertainty as to whether his mysterious ladylove would have him. What female alive would say no to Jevon Rutherford? Jevon must of a certainty have overindulged, decided Lord Carlin, as he watched his friend depart the vestibule.

  Even so, some of his advice had made excellent good sense, especially that bit about whetting a lady’s interest. Kit had scant need for such advice, being the target of a great deal of feminine interest already, all of which he could have done without; but he accepted the advice in the spirit it had been meant. If only Jevon had not been so abstracted! And what could that abstraction portend?

  Abruptly, Lord Carlin thought he understood. Jevon could not fail to know that Kit had bestowed upon Lady Easterling the sobriquet “Fair Fatality” by which she had speedily become known, and could not help but experience a degree of resentment on her behalf. Kit had not meant to make a byword of Lady Easterling, and suspected that even without his efforts she would have achieved the same end; yet the fact remained that if he had not so aptly dubbed her, the greater portion of the population of London would not be aware of the lady’s existence. Yet he had so dubbed her and the nickname had not only stuck, but also had caught the imagination of Fleet Street and the readers of the more sensational variety of news sheet. No wonder Jevon was a trifle out of charity with him. Were the viscount to secure that expert’s advice on the most pressing of his problems — which, it may be recalled, was the selection of the future Countess Carlin from amid a bevy of beauties for whom he didn’t care three straws — Kit must somehow atone.

  How to do
so? How to bestow the accolade of his approval upon Lady Easterling without encouraging her to dangle after him even more outrageously? As already amply demonstrated, the chit was oblivious to set-downs. Try as he might to put her off, she pursued him relentlessly. It had galled Lord Carlin no little bit to discover that bets were being laid on the outcome of her efforts, the odds generally considered to be in the lady’s favor. It was a dashed embarrassing situation. Jevon would have known how to deal with it; since the lady involved was his own sister, one hesitated to ask.

  Well, then, in lieu of direct advice, perhaps one might guess what that advice might have been. Pondering, Lord Carlin strolled from the vestibule. If one did wish to attract the attention of one young lady, one paid one’s addresses to another, so that the first young lady would be bitten by the green-eyed monster, jealousy. The ladies, according to Jevon Rutherford, acknowledged authority on the subject, always wanted what they could not have, and having something, held it cheap. It seemed reasonable to conclude that a young lady need only receive marked attentions from a gentleman to lose interest in him.

  If there was a flaw in this excellent reasoning, Lord Carlin could not discover it, perhaps because with it he had given himself a raging headache. Anxious to put his theory to the test, as well as to reinstate himself in good standing with the knowledgeable Jevon, Lord Carlin made his way to the dowager duchess’s box. Jevon was not present, but Lady Blackwood made Lord Carlin very welcome, deigning to discourse with him upon the tempermental Catalini who — until she grew so expensive that the King’s Theater could no longer afford to bid for her — had enlivened the premises stage. The Marquis of Buckingham had once had Mme. Catalini to dinner, the dowager recalled, after which she had regaled her fellow guests with a great many songs, entertainment for which the marquis was delivered a bill of £1700 on the following day. Other visitors entered the box, then, and the dowager abandoned Lord Carlin to speak with them. With great reluctance, the viscount turned his head and met the triumphant glance of Lady Easterling. Perfect gentleman that he was, Kit could not take abruptly to his heels, and certainly not under the interested gaze of such boxholders as the Duchesses of Richmond and Argyle, Ladies Jersey and Melbourne, the royal Dukes of Gloucester and Cumberland, the Prince Regent. Screwing up his courage and masking his repugnance, Lord Carlin approached Lady Easterling.

  She looked very lovely in an evening dress of white gauze stripe4d with blue, a satin Austrian cap perched atop her golden curls; but in the viscount’s opinion her ornate sapphires were more suited to a lady of the dowager’s years, and her attitude was much too complacent. As for the manner in which she looked him over, took in every detail of his appearance from silken stockings to high shirt points, for all the world as if she were a prospective buyer and he a horse — well!

  That Lord Carlin embarked upon conversation with Lady Easterling in a spirit of great reluctance was obvious to none of the interested spectators. The dowager duchess may have had some inkling, having an excellent vantage point from which to observe his lordship’s clenched jaw, but she made no effort at interference. Lady Easterling herself appeared unaware of his discomfort, and chattered away to him in her cheerful, friendly way.

  The lady’s self-assurance raised her no higher in Lord Carlin’s estimation; though he wished to delude her into thinking she had made a conquest, and thereby to lose interest, at the same time he thought her very selfish to have failed to suspect he paid her his devoirs only under duress. Never had Kit known a lady who affected him so adversely.

  Though his lordship failed to realize it, never either had he known a lady so little affected by his own opinions, or one so little inclined to submerge her own personality in response to his innate autocracy, or one who simultaneously cast him melting glances while voicing utterances that were distinctly commonplace. For example: “There! We are getting on quite famously, are we not?” inquired Lady Easterling ingenuously. “Easterling was right in saying one should always try to get over heavy ground as light as one can, because the next thing you know the pace is too good to inquire!”

  Already Lord Carlin had begun to doubt the wisdom of his course. “If you do not mind, we will not embark upon a further discussion of horseflesh.”

  “By Jove!” Unaccustomed to being told what she might and might not discuss, Lady Easterling narrowed her fine eyes. Having decided that further conversation with London’s most eligible bachelor was worthy of some small sacrifice, she looked at him in a very speaking way. “Do you think it is improper in me? Georgiana says so, but I don’t care for that. Georgiana never has approved of me. But I daresay she’ll change her mind when I have acquired enough town-bronze that I am properly up to snuff!” Again the blue eyes narrowed. “You look as if something is paining you, sir!”

  Dared he frankly inform her ladyship of the futility of making at him a dead-set? Announce that it would accomplish her nothing to treat him to her caressing ways, and a fine display of sheep’s eyes? Proclaim that she was impertinent, forward, regrettably commonplace? If only she were not sister to the one man in the world qualified to offer the viscount some sorely needed advice. In rather harsh tones, Kit admitted to a headache.

  “Jupiter!” Lady Easterling was rather surprised that London’s most eligible bachelor should fall prey to so mundane an affliction. His lordship’s expression, she now noted, was pained. Perhaps he thought his admission had lowered him in her opinion. In a kindly manner, she added: “You must not feel badly about it; I daresay the entertainment is at fault, and that that female with the high and piercing voice has in effect napped you a rum ‘un. That is very often the case, have you noticed? Just when one is expecting it the least, Fate comes along and plants one a facer. You look startled, Lord Carlin. I suppose ladies shouldn’t know about wisty cantors, either.”

  Lord Carlin supposed he should not be surprised to learn that the abominable Lady Easterling, so well versed in racetrack and stable, was also a follower of the Fancy. She dared ask him if it were improper for a gentlewoman to exhibit knowledge of the manly art of fisticuffs. “Exactly so!” said he.

  “If that don’t beat all!” marveled Lady Easterling. “Still, I reckoned it would be, because it’s all of a piece! I begin to think I didn’t appreciate Easterling half well enough: not only was he a proper man with his fists, he did not at all mind talking about it! He told me how he once cleared a lane of men with his morleys, though they all wished to mill him down — a bit of cross-and-jostle work it took, with a muzzler to finish it! And he told me too of contests between milling coves that he’d witnessed — because being a female I was prohibited from attending.” A stifled exclamation from her companion caused her to regard him curiously, her pretty head tilted to one side. “Perhaps I should not mention it, but your mouth has fallen open. Is there something you wish to say?”

  Any number of harsh rejoinders struggled to escape Lord Carlin’s lips, none of them tempered by the fact that his lordship was among those devotees of the noble art of self-defense. Indeed, so many censurious remarks did his lordship wish to utter that he could not decide which merited first place. “Lady Easterling,” he managed, “you astonish me!”

  “Capital!” responded Jaisy, no adherent of false modesty. “I knew we should get along famously! I daresay my manner ain’t what you’re accustomed to — Easterling was used to say I ain’t in the common way — but you’ll get used to it. And,” she added, in a discreetly lowered tone, “I shall truly enjoy seeing Georgiana forced to admit she was wrong, because she said you was deuced high in the instep!”

  High in the instep, was he? By leaps and bounds, Lord Carlin’s sense of grievance grew. “Upon my word!” he said indignantly.

  “Oh, you mustn’t mind Georgiana!” Lady Easterling made haste to reassure him, clutching his arm for emphasis. “She don’t do the civil, that’s all. And she was trying to persuade me you was above my touch.” Lord Carlin was treated to a mischievous grin. “Which was a great piece of nonsense, if I ma
y say so as shouldn’t!”

  In the planning out of strategy, Lord Carlin decided, he had somewhere erred. “You shouldn’t, and it wasn’t!” he gasped, then wrenched his arm away from the lady’s clutching fingers, and fled.

  Nine

  * * *

  “It is entirely the fault of those wretched Tories!” the dowager duchess announced. “Look at the Corn Laws!”

  Obediently, Miss Valentine reviewed her knowledge of that subject. In the previous year, the Corn Laws — long used by landlords as a weapon against foreign competition — had been revived to prevent the importation of grain from abroad until the price on the domestic market rose to ten shillings the bushel.

  “As if that were not folly enough,” the dowager continued, “what must Weston do but introduce further resolutions? He would like to exclude foreign rapeseed, linseed, tallow and cheese, thank you! I am not the least surprised that the Luddites have again taken to smashing machinery in the Midlands! Next we shall have the mob rioting in London and wearing the tricolor — and you know what that led to in France!”

  Silently, Sara folded away the news sheet that had inspired the dowager’s tirade, as the wretched condition of the country must inspire contempt for the ruling Tories in the relict of any staunch Whig. “As well as the stupid weather!” added the dowager, glaring in a belligerent manner at the window. “If we are not plagued by mists and fogs, we must endure snow and hail!”

  Miss Valentine also observed the window, and through it a day that was dark and overcast. Wistfully, she recalled the relatively clement weather of the previous week. Sara loathed snow and hail and fog, which kept her prisoner in Blackwood House and prevented her venturing even briefly away from Georgiana’s ill-tempered presence. The dowager duchess, antagonistic enough on the sunniest of days, was rendered utterly virulent by damp and chilly weather. Truly hers was a cat-and-dog existence, reflected Sara, as without enthusiasm she brushed Confucious, who was sprawled across her lap.