Blossom Time Read online

  Chapter Two

  Rosalind’s heart gave a little leap when she was handed the post at breakfast the next morning. She recognized the spidery writing on her one letter. It was from Lord Sylvester. When she tore it open and read the note, her leaping heart plummeted.

  “Good God! He’s coming here!” she exclaimed.

  “Who? Uncle Ralph?” Dick asked, glancing up from his gammon and eggs. Dick and Rosalind were not usually taken for twins by strangers, but one could see at a glance they were related. They shared their late mama’s brown hair and tall build. In Dick, Mrs. Lovelace’s deep green eyes were faded to hazel, while his complexion was akin to a hazelnut from his outdoor activities. He was usually mistaken for Rosalind’s younger brother.

  “He’s due for his annual holiday,” he continued. “Put him in the yellow suite, send up a case of claret, and you’ll never know he’s here.”

  “Not Uncle Ralph! Lord Sylvester!”

  “Who the deuce is Lord Sylvester? Oh, that magazine fellow who’s printed your poems? Jolly good. It will be nice for you to meet him in person.”

  “No, it won’t, Dick. Have you forgotten he thinks I’m a man? You’ll have to pretend you’re Francis Lovelace. Will you do it?” She knew even as she spoke the words that Dick couldn’t fool a child, let alone a scholarly gentleman like Lord Sylvester. But who else was there to do it?

  “A man? How can he think that?”

  “I told you, I called myself Francis, with an i. You’ll have to be Francis—just for the visit. Don’t do much talking.”

  “Me pose as a poet?” he cried in horror. “A man scribbling verse. I couldn’t do it. I’d be the laughingstock of the parish if it ever got about.”

  “It won’t get about. And Lord Byron is hardly a laughingstock.”

  “Your verses, m’dear sis, ain’t Byron’s. He don’t write the sort of rubbish you do about love and flowers and moonlight. He writes about Corsairs and such exciting stuff. Besides, this Sylvester fellow has already published the verses. The magazine is out. He can’t take it back.”

  “He won’t publish any more if he knows I’m a lady.”

  “That don’t seem fair,” Dick said, frowning. “When is he coming?” he added, with a smirk. She knew from his expression that he was thinking what a good jest it would be to lead Lord Sylvester on, behaving like a mincing, capering dandy.

  “Today. This afternoon.”

  “How long is he staying?”

  “Only an hour or so, I should think. It is just a running visit. He mentions he is on his way home to Astonby to visit his family and will dart in to meet me. I shall ask him to tea.”

  “Pity Uncle Ralph ain’t here. He can prose on for hours about iambic pentameters and sonnets and ballads. I’ll do it, but mind I can’t waste much time. I have to see my man of business in town today. You’d best show me what you’ve written again. One of the verses was about my apple trees, I recall. That reminds me, the pippins must be sprayed. I saw greenflies in the orchard yesterday.”

  This speech was enough to tell Rosalind her brother wasn’t up to the job of fooling Lord Sylvester. “I wonder if I could fool him into thinking I’m a man if I wore trousers,” she said, frowning into her teacup.

  “Gudgeon!” Dick said bluntly. “He’s a man, you’re a lady. You might bat your lashes at him. What do you think they’re for? And wear a decent gown, show a bit of skin. Gents like that. Feed him some of Cook’s cream tarts. I’ll serve my best claret. We’ll have him eating out of your hand.”

  “I wonder if it would work,” she said. “He might be an elderly gentleman. He sounds very scholarly.”

  “Dash it, he ain’t blind or dead, is he? It’s worth a try at least.”

  As there was no one she could put forth as Francis Lovelace, she decided to do as Dick suggested, and try to flirt Lord Sylvester into accepting her as a female poet. She spoke to Cook about serving her finest tea, then darted abovestairs to refashion a gown that would give some suggestion of her female charms without making her blush. She also had her hair done up in papers and applied a strawberry mask to brighten her cheeks.

  Rosalind was quite an adept with her needle. She chose her green sprigged muslin and lowered the neckline two inches. She took luncheon in the nursery with Sukey, as she did not wish to appear at the table with her hair in papers.

  “Can I meet Sylvester?” Sukey asked, ladling a spoonful of mulligatawny into her mouth.

  “You may make a brief visit, but you mustn’t call him Sylvester, Sukey. Call him Lord Sylvester, or milord.”

  “I don’t call Harry Lord Harry.”

  “Harry is a good friend. Actually you should call him Lord Harwell.”

  Sukey paid no heed to this. “Can I have papers in my hair, Roz?”

  “You don’t need them. Your hair is almost too curly already.”

  “Harry didn’t bring my kitten,” Sukey said, slipping a slice of ham into her pinafore pocket for Sandy.

  “He will, eventually.”

  As soon as lunch was over, Rosalind bustled back to her bedchamber to fashion her toilette. At three o’clock she was sitting in state in the Green Saloon with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders to hide the daring top of her gown; her hair was artfully arranged in a loose knot of curls, with a rosebud stuck into it. She would remove the shawl if Lord Sylvester was younger than fifty, and if he seemed unhappy that she was a lady.

  At a quarter after three, Dick said he could no longer delay his trip to town and left. When he returned an hour later, Lord Sylvester still had not arrived. Rosalind’s expression was tinged with ennui. The rosebud in her hair had begun to wilt.

  “What, not here yet?” Dick asked. “He ain’t coming. Let us have our tea.”

  “No, let us wait until four-thirty,” Rosalind parried.

  Before the quarter hour was up, they heard a commotion out front, the pounding of hooves and rattle of wheels. Rosalind darted to the window for her first glimpse of Lord Sylvester. From his critique of her work, she expected to see an older, slightly dry scholar. The gentleman who stepped down from the crested carriage was a tall, slender young dandy with a posy attached to the top of his walking stick. The sun shone on blond curls that reminded her of Sukey. He looked to be nineteen or twenty years of age. He stood a moment, looking all around the park, examined the facade of the house, then threw out his arms and lifted his face to the sun.

  “That can’t be Lord Sylvester!” she exclaimed.

  Dick had gone to stand behind her. “There don’t seem to be anyone else stepping out of the rig,” he said. “He’s coming to the door. Must be him. Foppish-looking fellow, ain’t he?”

  “Do you think so?” she asked in surprise. “I thought he looked charming.”

  They rushed back to their seats and were apparently chatting unconcernedly when Lord Sylvester Staunton was announced. Dick spared a derisive glance at his mincing step, his tight-fitting jacket and cream buckskins. Nor did he much care to see a lady’s coiffure on a man, but the fellow was handsome enough and very gentlemanly.

  Rosalind, gazing at his blond curls, was not reminded of Sukey this time, but of a Renaissance painting. She thought his smile was very sweet, and when he opened his lips, his voice was like music. Even when he lifted a quizzing glass to his eye and turned it slowly from Dick to her, she was not put off. The elegant way he curved his wrist brought a whiff of London to the provincial saloon.

  “Madam,” he said, making a leg. Then he turned to Dick. “And you, sir, must be Francis Lovelace. May I say I am honored, deeply honored, to make your acquaintance.”

  Dick made a jerky bow and looked uncomfortable. “Mutual, I’m sure. Come in, Lord Sylvester. Have a seat. My sister Rosalind was just about to call for tea. Perhaps a glass of wine first. A dry business, driving.” He shouted to Rucker for the tea, then poured the wine and went to the sofa.

  Lord Sylvester glided like a zephyr across the saloon and perched daintily on the corner of the sofa nearest to D
ick. “Everyone is raving about your poetry, Mr. Lovelace. Such charming imagery, such lyric grace,” he said, accepting the claret. A sip told him it was an excellent vintage. “I feel quite like an explorer discovering a new continent. Like stout Cortez, silent upon his peak in Darien staring at the Pacific. Only it should have been Balboa, of course. Poor Keats. But then he is a product of the bluecoat school, you must know, not Eton or Harrow. I lay the blame in Leigh Hunt’s dish. He ought to have caught the error.”

  Dick stared at the man as if he had suddenly begun to spout Greek. He looked at Rosalind, frowned, and said to Lord Sylvester, “What error?”

  “I am referring to Keats’s poem in the Examiner last December. Why, it ought to have been Balboa. He discovered the Pacific Ocean.”

  “Serves him right for putting history into a poem. Not the place for it in my opinion. It’s bad enough in prose, but to lumber poetry with it!”

  Lord Staunton had come expecting to find a provincial with effete pretentions, and was surprised to discover what he immediately recognized as an unaffected country squire. He was delighted. The man was an original—the exterior of a rustic hiding a soul of pure artistry under an ill-cut jacket. And handsome besides, with shoulders like a barn door. London would be at his feet! The reputation of Camena would be made.

  “Not what a true poet like yourself would do, Mr. Lovelace,” Sylvester said, bowing.

  “Afraid there’s been a bit of a mix-up,” Dick said. “I ain’t Francis Lovelace. She is.” He tossed his head in Rosalind’s direction.

  Lord Sylvester was silent a moment as his dreams crashed and shattered around him. A lady! He had been conned by a provincial miss! He’d be the laughingstock of London. His nose pinched. “I see,” he said, then added with a cool smile to Rosalind, “How delightful.”

  “A misunderstanding,” Rosalind said. She decided it was time to unwrap herself from her shawl and let it fall around her waist. “My name is Frances, with an e. It must have been my handwriting— perhaps I inadvertently spotted the page above the e. I was thrilled when you accepted my poetry, Lord Sylvester.” Her eyelashes fluttered in double time. “Only a gentleman of your scholarly reputation would dare to praise a lady’s work, to place it on a par with gentlemen’s writing. But that is the sort of bold initiative we have come to expect from Camena.”

  This line of talk went down very well with Lord Sylvester, who had a taste for the butter boat. He began to think that he might make something of Miss Lovelace after all. She was rather pretty—that couldn’t hurt. He liked the notion that only he would be so daring as to puff up a lady. When the truth was revealed, he must let it be known that he had realized she was a lady from the beginning.

  “Camena. What does the word mean?” she asked. “I could not find it in any of my reference works.”

  “You are not the first to inquire, Miss Lovelace,” he said, in quite a civil way. “It is the Latin equivalent of Muse. Muse, of course, is Greek. The word is done to death. I had thought of using the word Erato, the Muse of poetry, but then it tends to be confused with errata and, of course, Eros, laying the name open to coarse jests. I would not want my magazine to be mistaken for some bawdy thing. In the end, I went with Camena.”

  “Roz is greatly interested in such things,” Dick said. “A regular bluestocking.”

  “Oh, hardly that!” she objected. “But I do feel I have learned a great deal from your critiques in Camena, milord. I was thrilled that a gentleman of your preeminence found my poems worth looking into.”

  The more she talked, the better he liked her. The tea tray arrived and she poured, making a great show of asking how he took his tea, and would he care to try Cook’s pastries.

  “Roz is up on all the latest writing,” Dick threw in, thinking to puff her off. “She’s not content with simple country pleasures. Quite the dasher is Roz.”

  Lord Sylvester listened with rising hopes. He saw that Miss Lovelace was no deb. She had been out and about for a few years. The word “dasher” raised his hopes for some serious flirtation, preferably away from her home parish. London, for choice. He was soon “confessing” that he had suspected a lady was behind the poems from the beginning.

  “Truth to tell,” he lied, “it is half the reason I came down to see you. I was hoping that you would have something we might put out in our autumn issue. After its publication in early September would be a good time to introduce you to the literati in London, when interest is at its peak.”

  “Oh, I should like it of all things, milord!” she cried. Her cheeks were flushed with pleasure and her green eyes glowed.

  Lord Sylvester drew out a cloisonné snuffbox, lifted a pinch between his thumb and forefinger, and applied it to his nose. He flickered his handkerchief over his nostrils to dispel any lingering residue but did not sneeze.

  “And London will adore you, Miss Lovelace,” he said, gazing flirtatiously into her eyes. “One item is not yet clear to me, however. With such a charming and redolent name as Rosalind, why did you sign your letter Frances? I notice Mr. Lovelace calls you Roz.”

  “Frances is my second name,” she said, racking her brain for a better excuse. “I thought it sounded more . . . er, serious than Rosalind.”

  Lord Sylvester studied her a moment, then his thin lips opened in a conspiratorial smile. “You don’t fool me, Miss Lovelace,” he charged. “You were playing Ganymede.”

  “Oh, indeed, I—” She stopped in confusion. What was Ganymede? It sounded vaguely familiar, but she could not recall where she had read it.

  “And who else but a Rosalind should pose as a gentleman to gain her end?” Sylvester continued. “I am referring, of course, to Shakespeare’s As You Like It, in which the fair Rosalind assumes the guise of a man, Ganymede. It is an excellent jest. Superb. I shall mention our clever stunt, using a gentleman’s name to coerce my readers into taking your work seriously. We shall be quite open and honest about it. It was a hoax. Nay, we shall be aggressive in our attack. Ladies’ talents have been overlooked for too long. They will be green with envy at the Edinburgh Review.”

  It did not seem the proper moment to mention that Miss Lovelace’s poems had been rejected by Camena, as well as other literary magazines. Rosalind noticed that her stunt had become our stunt, and as the visit continued, it became entirely Lord Sylvester’s stunt. She was so relieved he had accepted her that she just smiled her agreement with everything he said until the tea was consumed. She noticed that Lord Sylvester ate practically nothing, perhaps to allow his tongue freedom to wag.

  Rosalind enjoyed the visit. The corner of Kent where she lived was thin of literary folk. Lord Sylvester knew everyone famous and had amusing anecdotes about them to relate. He was also undeniably knowledgeable about literary matters. He was a great talker, but a fatiguing one, for he expected praise for his ideas, laughter for his slightest jest, and scorn to match his disparagement of any other literary review than Camena.

  He had been in the saloon for only forty-five minutes, but it seemed longer. When he mentioned leaving, Dick leapt from his chair like a grasshopper to accompany him to the door. Rosalind did not urge Lord Sylvester very strenuously to remain, although she had enjoyed his company.

  “Must you go so soon?” she said politely, assuming a positive answer.

  Before Lord Sylvester could reply, the door knocker sounded, and before Rucker, the butler, could get to the door, Lord Harwell’s hearty voice was heard. After one knock, he had let himself in. “It’s only me, Roz. I’ve brought Sukey’s kitten.”

  Of all the people who might have called, Harwell was the last one she wished to present to Lord Sylvester. At no point did their interests meet. Lord Sylvester’s only concerns appeared to be literary, while Harwell thought less of literature than of a spot of lint on his sleeve. It would be like struggling through a bramble bush to make conversation with the two of them at once. And on top of it, she did not want Harwell to know she had turned poet. She clenched her lips into a tight smile and wa
ited.

  Chapter Three

  The white kitten Lord Harwell held cradled in his arms was strangely at odds with his rakish appearance. “As if Zeus came calling with a rose in his hand in lieu of a thunderbolt” was Lord Sylvester’s first impression. Harwell’s opinion of Sylvester was equally unsettling. Surely this male milliner was not the gent who brought that glow to Roz Lovelace’s face? He was too young, too foppish, not up to her weight—though a very pretty fellow, to be sure. Rosalind’s obsequious behavior toward the young whelp left no doubt this was the man responsible for her new glow. Neither gentleman betrayed any of his feelings when Rosalind introduced them.

  “I believe we have rubbed shoulders at Brooke’s, milord,” Sylvester said, making an exquisite bow.

  “Very likely,” Harwell agreed. He switched the kitten to his left arm and pumped Sylvester’s hand. “You are Dunston’s younger son, if I am not mistaken?”

  “Just so. I believe my older brother, Lord Moffat, has the honor of your acquaintance.”

  “Indeed, I have known Moffat forever. We were at Eton together a hundred years ago. How is he? I haven’t seen him about London recently.”

  “He is married with two sons now, living at Astonby. He is gradually taking over management of the estate. Papa is poorly, you must know.”

  “I am sorry to hear it.”

  Rosalind was glad that Sylvester acquitted himself creditably in this exchange. She wished he would now rise and leave, before anything was said of the reason for his visit. What excuse could she give Harry for it? Lord Sylvester lost his way and stopped for directions was the best she could come up with. She was aware of Harwell’s dark eyes raking her. That frown growing between his eyes indicated curiosity.

  Harwell’s frown had less to do with Lord Sylvester than with Rosalind’s appearance. When had she begun sticking flowers in her hair and wearing low-cut gowns? Even at the local balls and assemblies she was always very modest in her toilette. In her new style, and with that simpering smile on her face, she reminded him of a light-skirt. It annoyed him to no small degree. It seemed inconceivable that this young popinjay had made her so far forget her sensible self.