Sherry Thomas - His At Night

“Well,” said Lord Vere, finally exasperated enough to return his gaze to her face. “What is it you do around here then, Miss Edgerton?”

She sent him a smile that should have damaged his vision. “I look after my aunt, sir.”

“That is exceedingly admirable, but unbearably tedious, is it not, with no amusements nearby whatsoever?”

She managed to sustain her smile but not without putting some effort into it. How he irked her, like a rock in her shoe.

“Tedium does not enter into it at a—”

She stopped. The dreaded sound: a carriage arriving. “Excuse me,” she said, rising.

“Are you expecting someone?” Lord Vere followed her to the window.

She said nothing, wordless with relief. It was not her uncle. She did not recognize the carriage. She also did not recognize the middle-aged, sharp-featured woman in a blue traveling dress who exited the carriage.

“Is that not Lady Avery, Freddie?” said Lord Vere.

Lord Frederick came swiftly to the window. Lord Vere yielded his place.

“What is she doing here?” Lord Frederick growled. He swore under his breath, then remembered himself and turned to Elissande. “I beg your pardon, Miss Edgerton. I did not mean to speak so rudely of your caller.”

What a perfect gentleman he was. “You may speak as rudely of her as you wish, sir. I assure you I have never met this particular caller.”

“Oh, look. She has brought luggage,” said Lord Vere, unperturbed. “Think she’s come to stay?”

Lord Frederick smacked his palm against the windowsill, then again begged Elissande’s pardon.

“It’s quite all right,” said Elissande. “But who is she?”

Lady Avery was a Gossip.

Elissande was not entirely unfamiliar with the idea of a gossip: Mrs. Webster in the village had been one, carrying on about the butcher’s wife or the vicar’s new gardener. But Lady Avery regarded herself quite above such provincial rumormongers as Mrs. Webster: She was a woman of the world with entrée to the very best Society.

With her arrival, Lord Frederick promptly disappeared. To Elissande’s mounting despair.

To be sure, she had begun to despair even before Lady Avery’s unannounced arrival: Lord Frederick was in no rush to appropriate her hand, while her time, already as limited as Lord Vere’s intelligence, shrank second by rapid second.

Lady Avery did not help matters by immediately setting out to grill Elissande on the provenance of the Douglases, and refusing to believe that Elissande in truth knew nothing of her uncle’s origins and only a little more of her aunt’s.

“The West Cheshire Douglases?” Lady Avery asked. “Surely you must be related to the West Cheshire Douglases.”

Was Lady Avery a student of Lord Vere’s particular school of genealogical exploration?

“No, ma’am. I’ve never heard of them.”

Lady Avery harrumphed. “Most irregular. Who are your family then? The Edgertons of Derbyshire?”

Well, at least this she did know. “The Edgertons of Cumberland, ma’am.”

Lady Avery’s brows knitted. “The Edgertons of Cumberland. The Edgertons of Cumberland,” she mumbled. Then, triumphantly, she cried, “You are the late Sir Cecil Edgerton’s granddaughter, aren’t you? By his youngest son?”

Elissande stared at her in shock. She’d believed Lady Avery’s expertise in gossip to be about as valid as Lord Vere’s knowledge of animal husbandry. “Sir Cecil was my grandfather, yes.”

“Ah, I thought so,” said Lady Avery, satisfied. “Quite the scandal when your father ran off with your mother. And such an unhappy end, both of them dead within three years.”

Lady Kingsley, Miss Kingsley, and Miss Beauchamp entered the drawing room. Elissande was suddenly as alarmed as Lord Frederick must have been. Her parents’ story had not only been tragic, but also not fit for polite company, as her uncle had repeatedly impressed upon her. What if Lady Avery decided to disclose the less savory details to everyone present?

“Lord Vere says you frightened his brother away, Lady Avery,” Miss Kingsley called out cheerfully.

“Nonsense. I’ve already extracted everything out of Lord Frederick during the Season. He has nothing to fear from me at the present.”

Miss Beauchamp sat down next to Lady Avery. “Oh, do tell, dear lady. What did you extract from Lord Frederick?”

“Well…” Lady Avery drew out that syllable for a good three seconds, obviously relishing her role as the dispenser of juicy tidbits. “He did see her in June, when she was in town to marry off that American heiress, Miss Van der Waals. And you would not believe this, but they have also met in Paris, in Nice, and in New York.”

Everyone looked shocked, including, Elissande imagined, herself. Who was this “she”?

“They have?” Lady Kingsley exclaimed. “What does Lord Tremaine think of it?”

“Well, apparently he approves. The two men have dined together.”

Lady Kingsley shook her head. “My goodness, will wonders never cease?”

“No indeed. I asked Lord Frederick if she looked well and he asked me when had she ever not looked well.”

“Oh, my!” Miss Beauchamp squealed.

Please let it not be. “Does Lord Frederick have an understanding with someone?” Elissande ventured to ask.

“My apologies, I forgot you do not know, Miss Edgerton. Lord Frederick did have an understanding with the Marchioness of Tremaine. And in the spring of ’ninety-three, she was prepared to divorce her husband for him. It was going to be quite the scandal, but the divorce never took place. She reconciled with her husband and withdrew her petition.”

“Poor Lord Frederick.” Miss Kingsley sighed.

“No, lucky Lord Frederick,” Lady Avery corrected her. “Now he can marry a nice young lady like Miss Edgerton here, instead of someone who would forever be referred to as ‘that divorced woman.’ Don’t you agree, Miss Edgerton?”

“I don’t think Lord Frederick has any plans to marry me,” Elissande answered with, alas, no false modesty whatsoever. “But I do, on the whole, believe that it is more…convenient not to have a divorce in one’s spouse’s past.”

“Excellent,” said Lady Avery. “My dear Miss Edgerton, you understand the essence of the issue. One must not be a romantic in this life. Look at the cynics; they were all once romantics.”

“Is—is Lord Frederick now a cynic?”

“No, bless him, he is still a romantic, would you believe it. I suppose not every disappointed romantic turns into a cynic.”

Such a good man, Lord Frederick. If only Elissande could entice him to ask for her hand, she’d love him so much better than that faithless Lady Tremaine.

In fact, she would be the best wife in the history of matrimony.

Vere needed to be at the house. But when Freddie came to him, wanting some company, he could not refuse. They walked for miles in the country, rowed on one of the meres that dotted the very northern tip of Shropshire, and took their luncheon at the village inn.

“I’m going back,” Vere said at the end of the luncheon, rising from the table and yawning. He must know what instructions Holbrook had sent and coordinate with Lady Kingsley on getting Nye into and out of the house. “I need a nap. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Nightmares?” Freddie rose too and fell in step beside Vere.

“No, I don’t get them so often anymore.” In his last year at Eton, Freddie had to come into Vere’s room almost every night to shake him awake. “Anyway, you stay here if you’d like. I’ll hire the inn’s carriage to take me back.”

“I’ll come with you,” Freddie said quietly.

Vere experienced another stab of guilt. Freddie no doubt wished to stay away for the rest of the day—Lady Tremaine was ancient history, yet Lady Avery still pounced upon him as if he’d freshly waltzed with Scandal. But Freddie had also made it a point always to accompany Vere whenever they were out somewhere unfamiliar.

Vere briefly clasped his hand on Freddie’s shoulder. “Come along then.”

Back at the house, Vere found Lady Kingsley waiting impatiently for him. Nye would be arriving shortly before the start of dinner. They agreed that Vere would let him in through the doors that led from the library to a terrace on the east side of the house—the side away from the kitchen, and therefore less likely to be seen by the servants.

“And what do we do after I must relinquish Miss Edgerton at night, if Nye is still not finished?” asked Lady Kingsley.

“I’ll think of something.”

“Make sure it’s not something you’ll regret,” said Lady Kingsley.

Twenty-four hours had yet to pass since he first laid eyes on Miss Edgerton. Little wonder then the memory of his infatuation was fresh in Lady Kingsley’s mind. Yet it already seemed impossibly distant to Vere, a time of long-ago innocence.

“I’ll be mindful,” he said coolly.

Knowing Miss Edgerton’s aim, as soon as he concluded his tête-à-tête with Lady Kingsley, he looked for his brother. He found Freddie—and Miss Edgerton—in the otherwise empty dining room, Freddie gazing into his No. 4 Kodak camera, Miss Edgerton, in a most becoming day dress of pale apricot, gazing adoringly at Freddie.

The ardor in her eyes cooled considerably as she noted Vere’s presence. “Lord Vere.”

Vere ignored the caustic sensation in his heart. “Miss Edgerton. Freddie.”

Freddie pulled up the brass button on top of the box camera to cock the shutter. “Hullo, Penny. How was your nap? It’s only been”—he glanced at the clock—“three quarters of an hour.”