“Char,” he said, looking sidelong at her, “you are not matchmaking by any chance, are you? I warn you it is an impossibility.”

“Is it?” She gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look.

He had, in fact, just got exactly what he wanted without having to try very hard at all. Katherine Huxtable still had to accept the invitation, of course.

“Then I will have to play this game too,” he said with a sigh. “If the Misses Huxtable are to be invited, Char, then it would be quite ill-mannered not to invite Merton too.”

She turned her head sharply to face front again until the poke of her bonnet hid her flushed cheeks.

“Oh, would it?” she said. “But I daresay he has far more interesting things to do.”

“Probably,” he agreed. “Let’s find out, shall we?”

And to the devil with the fact that perhaps she really ought not even to be acquainted with Merton yet. What strange gothic notions some people had. Good Lord, Aunt Prunella and her ilk would probably have young girls locked in a high tower with their spinning wheels if they had their way.

9

JASPER’S visit to Lady Forester and Clarence the following morning proceeded much as he had expected. He was very careful to time his arrival so that he was knocking on their door at precisely four minutes after nine, and they kept him waiting in the visitors’ parlor for fifteen minutes.

Touche.

He was not invited to sit down when they did arrive.

There followed a tirade-delivered by the lady-in which Jasper was accused of every excess and vice known to man and a few unknown ones too and a demand that he relinquish control of Charlotte to her aunt before she was corrupted beyond hope of reform.

“If she is not already,” Clarence was unwise enough to add.

Jasper had deliberately armed himself with a quizzing glass for the occasion, an affectation with which he did not usually encumber himself since his eyesight was excellent. He raised it to his eye at that moment and directed it at Clarence, particularly his ostentatiously tied neckcloth. Good God, even a dandy would shudder.

“Perhaps it might be wise, Clarrie,” he said, “to allow your mama to do the talking for you. You would not particularly enjoy having me rearrange that knot at your neck, old chap, although it is in dire need of rearrangement, I must say.”

He lowered the glass before looking politely back at Lady Forester.

And she proceeded to tear apart the good name of Merton and his sisters, who might appear blameless in the eyes of the ton but who did not deceive her, the vulgar upstarts. They certainly did not know how to behave if they had all seen fit to be seen in public with him and-far worse!-in company with a young schoolgirl who had no business being seen in public at all until after she had made her curtsy to the queen.

“And for either one of the sisters to allow Charlotte to walk on the arm of the Earl of Merton was the outside of enough and merely confirms me in my conviction that they are brazen hussies,” she added. “I took quite a nasty turn at the realization that that very young girl in the park was my niece, my dear dead brother’s daughter. Did I not, Clarence? My maid was forced to burn feathers to revive me after we arrived home.”

“It is to be hoped that none of them were your best evening plumes, ma’am,” Jasper said, all concern.

“They are vulgar and quite long in the tooth,” Lady Forester said. “I suppose no real gentleman will have them. And the earl is doing himself no favor behaving as he does. And he is your friend, I understand.”

Jasper bowed and smiled.

“I really must be on my way,” he said. “This has been a delightful half hour, but I have other matters to attend to and so will not, alas, be able to sit down and take refreshments with you. No, no-you must not bother to offer them. Charlotte, by the way, will be remaining at my home and under my protection and her companion’s guidance. Good day to you both.”

He reached for his hat from the table where he had set it down since the servant who had opened the door and ushered him into the parlor had not offered to take it.

“She will not be there for long, Jasper,” Clarence said with spiteful relish. “I called upon Great-Uncle Seth yesterday afternoon after escorting Mama home.”

Jasper paused, his hand on his hat.

“Ah,” he said. “That must have been a pleasant experience for you both, Clarrie. Did he offer to kill the fatted calf in your honor?”

“I was able to apprise him of the truth concerning Charlotte,” Clarence said. “He agreed with me that something really must be done.”

“Clarence,” his mother said sharply, “there was no need to say a word about that visit to Jasper. It is none of his business. He has never shown any interest in Charlotte’s family, including Uncle Seth.”

“He ought to know, Mama,” Clarence said, “that his carelessness regarding my cousin will not be tolerated any longer, that soon she will be living here with us, where she will be properly prepared for her debut into society and for a respectable marriage.”

“You would be well advised, Clarrie,” Jasper said as he fixed his hat on his head and crossed the room to let himself out, “to listen to your mama and allow her to speak for you. Always. For she always knows best.”

A minute later he was striding down the street.

Another visit, it seemed, was in order, and he had Clarence of all people to thank for alerting him to the necessity of making it without further delay.

Poor Seth Wrayburn! Having two visitors descend upon him in as many days was going to be a severe trial to him.

But some things could not be helped.


When Miss Wrayburn and Miss Daniels called at Merton House later the same morning in the hope of finding the Misses Huxtable at home, they were admitted immediately and shown up to the drawing room, where they discovered not only those ladies but also the Duchess of Moreland, their sister, and her two young children. The duke was downstairs in the library with the Earl of Merton, whom he still considered his ward and his responsibility though he had loosened the leading strings considerably during the past year.

Margaret and Katherine had been telling Vanessa about Miss Wrayburn and how they liked her-and how upset they had been at the encounter with Lady Forester, her aunt.

“It had just not occurred to either of us, or Stephen, that perhaps there was something improper about inviting her to walk in the park with us, had it, Kate?” Margaret had said.

“That is because there was nothing improper about it, you silly goose,” Vanessa had assured her. “Good heavens, who is this Lady Forester? I have never heard of her, but she sounds remarkably silly. I must ask Elliott. He knows everyone.”

They had talked too-inevitably-about Baron Montford. Meg had given it as her opinion that he had a partiality for Kate, and Katherine had protested that he was a notorious libertine and had a partiality for any lady who was willing to spend a few minutes tete-a-tete with him.

“Now, Lord Montford I do know,” Vanessa had said, her eyes twinkling. “We sat together at supper during someone’s ball earlier this year and talked for all of ten minutes exclusively with each other. He did not show the smallest sign of partiality for me and so I must contradict you on that, Kate. I found him charming and amusing-and quite gloriously handsome.”

“And I walked all the way to the Serpentine with him yesterday,” Margaret had added, “while Kate was with Stephen and his sister. He was amiable and interesting and showed not the tiniest sign of partiality for me.”

Katherine was quite glad of the interruption.

Miss Daniels made her curtsy to them when Miss Wrayburn presented her and found a chair near the door when invited to be seated. Margaret introduced Vanessa, and Katherine watched Miss Wrayburn’s awed expression disappear within moments when Vanessa behaved in a very unduchesslike way and smiled and talked to her and explained that she must stand and rock like a boat in a stiff breeze in the hope that young Sam would soon lose his battle with sleep.

“He is very stubborn,” she said. “His papa insists that it is a trait he has inherited from me. I know that the opposite is true, of course.”

Miss Wrayburn tiptoed forward to peep into the baby’s face, and then she smiled at two-year-old Isabelle and sat beside her.

Margaret poured the tea, and they all conversed comfortably for several minutes until the gentlemen joined them and more introductions had to be made.

Sam was still fussing.

“I suppose it did not occur to you, Vanessa,” Elliott said, scooping the baby up out of her arms, “to summon his nurse from the housekeeper’s sitting room and instruct her to take him away somewhere else.”

“No, it did not,” she admitted, her eyes laughing into his as he crossed the room to stand close to the window, the baby’s head held to his shoulder with one hand.

Isabelle had jumped to her feet at the arrival of the men and was standing in front of Stephen, holding up her arms. He laughed and lifted her high onto his shoulder. She sat there chuckling and clinging to a fistful of his curls.

“I am delighted to meet you, Miss Daniels,” he said. “And I am delighted that you have come again, Miss Wrayburn.”

“I came for a very particular reason,” Miss Wrayburn said, flushing and moving forward to the edge of her seat. “I am going to be eighteen in August. Jasper has said I may have a house party for the occasion at Cedarhurst Park-it is in Dorsetshire. He has told me I may invite as many guests as I wish-for two whole weeks. Miss Daniels and I have made all sorts of plans for everyone’s entertainment-picnics and excursions and wilderness walks and croquet and dances and boat rides and riding and… and charades and cards and… Oh, and all sorts of things. It is going to be the most wonderful time I have ever had in my life.”