Rakes And Radishes Part 10

"Lord Kesseley, you must be faster, for these London ladies are light-footed." He laughed at his witticism and whisked Lady Sara away.

Killing Edward would never achieve his purposes. It would only cause Edward a few minutes of distress. Kesseley marveled that Edward could even be a poet. His soul had no substance, knew no hards.h.i.+p. And the world showed no inclination to give him any.

Lord Kesseley led his freckled dancing partner onto the floor. They both stood, hands clasped, waiting on the orchestra. He looked over Edward's back at Lady Sara. A shy, expectant smile waited on her lips. Edward inclined his head, whispering into her ear She giggled, flas.h.i.+ng a quick peek at Kesseley as the music started.

Kesseley stepped forward, crunching down on Miss Barten's instep. She shrieked in pain, reaching for her poor foot.

"Are you well?" he cried. He bent to a.s.sist her, but instead slammed his head into hers. She wailed again.

Everyone was staring. Other twirling dancers b.u.mped into them, sending them tumbling together. He tried pulling her to safety, but she pushed him away and limped back to the wall, sobbing. He followed, repeating his apologies and inquiring if he could carry her, take her arm, get a refreshment, find a physician. Several young ladies came forward, taking their wounded sister into their arms and circling her like a protective herd against a predator.

Kesseley felt the sweat pouring under his cravat amid the whispers and discreetly pointing fingers.

Again he inquired if he could help Miss Barten.

"Haven't you done enough?" called an anonymous female voice from the crowd lining the wall.

Kesseley bowed, then bowed again and again before slinking out of the ballroom. Stupid, big, stupid Ajax. No wonder Edward gets all your women. Stupid, big, stupid Ajax. No wonder Edward gets all your women.

He poked his head into different parlors, not seeing his mother anywhere. Finally, he found a large, spreading fern near a refreshment table by the servant pa.s.sage and hid himself behind its long palms.

He remained there, coming out only to look for his mother in the open parlors, packed with perspiring people fleeing the ballroom in search of cool air and audible conversation. He could see their elbows nudging each other, as if to say look, look, that's him. look, look, that's him. So he retreated back to his palm tree, feeling like a dolt as he watched the clock hands tick around the numbers. So he retreated back to his palm tree, feeling like a dolt as he watched the clock hands tick around the numbers.

To h.e.l.l with this! He was going home. He was going home.

Tinkling female laughter trickled in from beyond the opened door. Instinctively, Kesseley withdrew to his palm and hid.

Leaning on Lady Sara, Miss Barten limped into the room. Pain crumpled her freckled features. Around her moved the crowd of young ladies, murmuring comfort.

Shame burned his ears as he watched poor Miss Barten struggle. He wanted to run from the hideout behind his plant, get down on his knees and apologize again. But somehow he felt he wasn't wanted as the ladies' eyes surveyed the room, making sure they were alone. When satisfied that no one was within earshot, their shoulders lowered and slumped, their sweet uplifted mouths relaxing to their normal, flat states.

Kesseley was trapped. He crouched lower under the leaves.

Lady Sara spoke first, her sweet voice noticeably sharper, harder than Kesseley remembered. "Do you think your foot shall heal in time for your ball?"

Miss Barten glowered at her friend. "It will swell and turn purple, and I won't be able to dance with Sir Charles. And it's all your fault! You made me dance with him!"

"It's not my fault. I would never step on your toe, dearest," Lady Sara a.s.sured her friend.

"It was that horrid, overgrown country b.u.mpkin!" She looked at the other ladies to make sure they were all in accord with her a.s.sessment of Kesseley. They obligingly stated their solidarity. Horrid. Clumsy Ajax. Clabberfooted. Unhandsome. Horrid. Clumsy Ajax. Clabberfooted. Unhandsome.

"He will ruin my entire Season! My life!" Miss Barten wailed, burying her head in Lady Sara's shoulder.

"Hardly, dear. Sir Charles must come and comfort your poor swollen foot," Lady Sara said tartly, smiling in appreciation of her own naughtiness as the others giggled into their hands, their faces pink with pleasure, even as they admonished their friend for saying something so fast.

"Tell her what Mr. Watson compared your ankles to," one young lady begged Lady Sara.

Kesseley could hear Lady Sara whisper, and the ladies let out squeals of delight.

"Mr. Watson is so romantic. He is just like Lord Blackraven!" one lady said, jumping on her toes and clasping her hands at her heart.

"If Mr. Watson is Lord Blackraven, Lord Kesseley is more like-like Lord Blackraven's steward or groom," Miss Barten spat.

"Certainly not his valet," Lady Sara quipped.

"We shouldn't speak that way," said a lone cautious female voice.

"You're right, of course, for my father says he is England's authority on pigs," Lady Sara said.

Wasn't she the clever girl?

"I have Mr. Watson to save me," she continued, "but you all must take care to avoid Lord Kesseley, or you may end up a pig farmer's wife."

"We can't avoid him forever. He is an earl. One of us will have to marry him," the cautious one speculated.

"Let us hope for some witless merchant's daughter to think he is a prize and save us," Lady Sara said.

The conversation ended abruptly as the music resumed, and the young men came looking for their partners. The ladies straightened their posture and met their gentlemen with angelic smiles.

Kesseley remained hidden, quiet. All his life, he'd tried to be kind to others, to listen to their lives, their complaints, their pains. He rebuilt their homes, paved their roads, redesigned their ca.n.a.ls, dug wells, fed their families. The plundered estate he inherited prospered as it never had before. His tenants were better off than most of England. All he wanted was for someone to love him as he could love her. So he wasn't the best dresser, perhaps he hadn't the finest manners and, yes, he did think pigs were a very intelligent, gentle species. Did this hold no value to a lady? He felt like a squashed spider, stepped on merely for the sin of being ugly and humble.

"Tommie, are you in here?" his mother called. He stepped out from behind his palm and let his mama come and wrap him in her arms.

"Let's leave," she whispered. He gently kissed her head. The musky scent of another man filled his nose.

Chapter Ten.

On her last night in London, Henrietta lay on the sofa in the parlor, her hand dangling down, scratching Samuel's stomach. Quiet. Just the clomp and rattle of carriages pa.s.sing on the street and the occasional strings of music drifting from a nearby party. She felt numb, as if her heart had closed up shop.

If only her mind would do the same. It churned and churned. Edward, Lady Sara, Mr. Van Heerlen, Kesseley. Finally, she picked a spiral in the cornice and mentally divided and counted the arcs with the Fibonacci number sequence, anything to occupy her mind.

1, 1...

She wished Kesseley wasn't mad at her. That, for once, she could please him.

2, 3...

Edward must think she was chasing him about like some mad chit.

5, 8...

What would she say to Mr. Van Heerlen? She could hardly deny him now.

13, 21...

Maybe love could grow over time? Like a slow leaking spring, dripping little by little until the emptiness filled. So slow as to be imperceptible. Then one day she would look across the table as her husband was putting strawberry preserves on his toast and think, how could I have ever loved Edward?

21, 34...

She hated Lady Sara. And hated herself for hating her. How kind Lady Sara had been to her in the park. It would have been easier if Lady Sara had just one flaw, one thing Henrietta could hold against her.

55, 89...

She wished she could talk to Kesseley. He made everything right with his low, calming voice. But she had ruined their friends.h.i.+p.

144, 233...

Like she ruined everything.

377, 600, 977...

The door knocker banged. Both Henrietta and Samuel sat up, ears p.r.i.c.ked, listening as Boxly opened the door.

"Boxly, darling," a lady's luxurious, breathless voice echoed from the hall. Curious, Henrietta and the hound followed the voice, finding Lady Winslow and the princess shucking off their pelisses and furs, tossing them into Boxly's outstretched arms. Their sweet lily perfume filled the room.

The ladies were stunning in their evening attire. Lady Winslow wore a gold silk dress with red tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, very oriental and very revealing. Princess Wilhelmina's blond hair fell in bouncy ringlets about a tiara. Her gown of soft pink tulle over satin accented her fair complexion.

The ladies looked about, as if they were expecting someone or something.

"Lord and Lady Kesseley are attending a ball this evening," Boxly informed them.

Lady Winslow's eyes shot up in alarm and then fell as some understanding crossed her features. "Wilhelmina, hand me the invitation!"

The princess dug around in her beaded reticule, producing a badly mangled invitation, smeared with black soot and pink beeswax. Lady Winslow swiped it from her fingers and read it. "This is an invitation to Lady Beasley's! Willie, you've done it again! I told you Ellie would have said something."

The princess took the invitation and held it to the tip of her nose, scrunching her eyes. "It looks like Kesseley."

"Well it ain't! How embarra.s.sing." Lady Winslow swept past Henrietta into the parlor and called over her shoulder, "Boxly, make that drink, the plum thing. I need to concentrate."

As the princess sauntered after her friend, her hips swung in natural sensual circles. "Nous allons a Lady Beasley?" Lady Beasley?"

Lady Winslow took Henrietta's place on the sofa. "Good Lord, no! She has the worst art collection in London! It would be an a.s.sault to my delicate artistic sensibilities to suffer through an evening at her home."

"Lady Bertram's party, then?"

"At this early hour? No one goes there until at least midnight. We must content ourselves here." Lady Winslow's eyes scanned the room for something to while away the time. Finding nothing, she lit on Henrietta who sat on a rosewood chair with her hands clasped, feet touching, as if in church. Samuel curled under her feet.

"You are a quiet thing," Lady Winslow said. "And not homely. Have you no husband? Why are you Ellie's companion?"

Henrietta tilted her head, pausing to think of a gracious reply to an ungracious remark. "I live near Lady Kesseley in Norfolk. She thought I could be of some a.s.sistance here in London."

A sly smile spread across Lady Winslow's face. "Hoping to catch a London husband on her hem, eh? Well, I suggest the shops. You would make a nice mousy wife to a draper or such."

Henrietta swallowed her anger before it rose out of her throat and formed regretful words. "Thank you," she choked out.

What vile star or planet had drifted into her astrological chart, setting everything asunder?

Boxly returned with a tray holding a decanter of deep amber liquid, three gla.s.ses and an open tin of bonbons. He poured each lady a gla.s.s, then retreated to the hall. Waiting.

Henrietta took a tentative sip, then another and another. It flowed through her like the heated waters of a Roman bath, slowing those spinning gears in her head. Relief. She tilted the gla.s.s back and drained it. Lady Winslow looked at her disapprovingly from under her raised thin eyebrows. What did Henrietta care? Today couldn't get any worse, and she was leaving tomorrow.

Princess Wilhelmina popped a bonbon in her mouth.

"I certainly hope the modiste's measuring string is long enough to go around your waist," Lady Winslow warned.

Princess Wilhelmina smiled, bonbon still pouched in her cheek. "It makes my bosom grands. grands. My waist My waist pet.i.te. pet.i.te." She cupped heavy b.r.e.a.s.t.s, then glanced at Lady Winslow's smaller charms. "Perhaps tu manges du bonbons. tu manges du bonbons."

Henrietta giggled. She couldn't help it.

"Well, I certainly don't think Ellie chose you for your enlightening conversation," Lady Winslow said.

More giggles.

Lady Winslow blew out a sigh of disgust. "Let us play whist to warm up for Lady Bertram's. Boxly! Bring cards. You will be this silly child's partner."

Boxly appeared instantly with cards, as if he had been antic.i.p.ating the ladies. He removed the bust from the marble table, set it on the floor, then moved chairs about the table for Lady Winslow and the princess. Henrietta slid her own chair over, Samuel followed at her heels, head down, tentative, as if he were scared.

The princess removed her bracelets and gloves, stacking them beside her. She deftly dealt the cards, turning the last one. A heart.

Henrietta had a nice run of hearts with a jack and an ace, a three of spades, a king and ten of diamonds, and a single of clubs. She yawned, suddenly drowsy, seeing the game play out before it even began. She would lose some tricks to weed out the singles, then win strong in the end, riding on her trumps.

"Your lead, child," Lady Winslow prompted. Henrietta laid down an eight of clubs that was quickly beaten by Lady Winslow's jack. Then Lady Winslow made the mistake of leading clubs again, allowing Henrietta to take control of the game, systematically relieving everyone of their trumps. Lady Winslow and the princess were far easier to beat than her father's mathematician friends, who calculated the statistical probability of every potential play.

When the outcome of the game was a.s.sured, Henrietta tossed her last four cards, bored with her card partners. "The rest are mine."

"That's not possible. You see, I have a ten of diamonds. It would have bested your six," Lady Winslow cried.

"I would have played the six last, long after I had relieved you of your ten."

"How do you know? You can't guess my motives."

Henrietta sighed and recounted the entire game, revealing their hands from the cards they played or didn't play. As she listened to her words, she knew why her mother and father were astronomers. There was a comfort and dependability in numbers. Anything was explainable. It was all in finding the patterns. Nothing beyond all comprehension such as how to mend her heart or if she would ever learn to love another man.

Lady Winslow rose and went to the bureau desk, reached into a cubbyhole and pulled out a small, brown cheroot. She put the foul stick in her mouth and lit it on the wall sconce.

Henrietta's jaw flapped open.

Lady Winslow blew out a haze of smoke, then ran her tongue under her teeth, as if she were contemplating a bargain at market. "Rubber is best of five."

"I-I feel rather tired and-and I've had a horrid day and-and I'm going home tomorrow. So I need to sleep."

"Boxly, it is your deal," Lady Winslow said, unmoved.