Bath Scandal Page 6

  She was too young to be past temptations of the flesh. Did she indulge in discreet amours, taking care that the proprieties were maintained? In Bath the proprieties would be of great concern. At least she would not do anything outrageous with Gillie around. Was that why she had suggested they remain at home tomorrow morning when Gillie was out? Good lord! Surely she wasn’t planning to have an affair with him!

  He had sensed some incipient seduction in her green eyes. It was no more than flirtation really. Very likely that was all she had in mind. Well, he had nothing against flirtation. He used to be a bit of a dasher himself in his salad days, before he suddenly had the care of Elmdale and his three half sisters thrust on him. And before Deborah. Naturally an engaged man did not flirt with other ladies—not in front of his fiancée in any case.

  Soon he would be married. This might be his last chance for a flirtation. He could think of no one more delightful than Mrs. Searle for a partner. He must take care it did not go beyond flirtation.

  Chapter Six

  Lord Southam’s valet was surprised, the next morning, to receive a scolding for not having packed his lordship’s new jacket.

  “You only wear it to church on Sunday,” Scrumm objected.

  “Just what did you pack?” Southam demanded.

  “The jacket you’re wearing and your monkey suit.”

  “Only knee breeches and silk hose for evening?”

  “Miss Swann said that was what was required for the assemblies in Bath.”

  “No one is wearing knee breeches to private parties. Damme, I’ll look like an antique. When did Miss Swann speak to you?”

  “She sent me up a note the last day she was at Elmdale.” Scrumm’s eyes glinted. “Miss Swann didn’t think there’d be any private parties. I tossed in your black pantaloons and evening jacket, just in case,” he said.

  “Thank God for that! Help me with this cravat, Scrumm. I want something different from that hard ball of a knot I usually wear. I noticed a gent at breakfast with a sort of folded, softer look.”

  “The Oriental,” Scrumm nodded. “I learned it off Stuyvesant’s man. Tried to get you to try it a month ago,” he mentioned.

  “So you did.”

  “You said it looked like a nun’s wimple.”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Southam said with a glassy stare.

  Scrumm performed this sartorial miracle and stood back to admire his handiwork. “The Oriental requires a wider linen, but that’s the general style of it. It’d look more stylish with shorter hair. The Brutus-do that Stuyvesant sports—that’d suit your lordship.” Scrumm waited for some scalding put-down, and was surprised to see instead a contemplative expression. His efforts to smarten up his lordship seldom met with success. A pity to see such a fine-looking young lad turn out so rusty.

  Southam was tempted. He glanced at his watch. “It is nearly eleven. I haven’t time. You might see if you can find some of those wider cravats, however, while I’m gone.”

  “I’ll do that.” Made brave by this small success, Scrumm ventured further.

  “There’s a man comes to the inn here to do gents’ hair. You could slip in before you dress for dinner this evening. You need an appointment.”

  Southam examined himself in the mirror. Yes, his hair was an inch longer than the men in Bath were wearing it. Even Mr. Reynolds, who looked every day of forty-five, was wearing the Brutus-do. “Set me up for six-thirty,” he said.

  Scrumm’s head jerked in pleasure. There was life in the master yet. “When I’m buying the wide cravats, would you like me to pick up a spotted Belcher kerchief for you? You see them everywhere nowadays—except in Alderton.”

  Southam gave him a killing stare. “I think not, Scrumm. I am not a dancing master after all.” He picked up his curled beaver and gloves. The gloves, he noticed, were discolored at the ends of the fingers. “You might see if you can find me a new pair of York tan gloves. You know my size.”

  A newly tied cravat was not sufficient change to make Southam uncomfortable when he was admitted to Mrs. Searle’s saloon. He entered with an easy smile. Mrs. Searle sat alone in her morning parlor, glancing through the journals. She looked entirely enticing in a green sarcenet gown a shade darker than her eyes. An elegant paisley shawl lay beside her on the sofa. Above the gown her ivory skin seemed almost luminous. A lovely complexion she had.

  “Good morning, Cousin. Did you get our girl off with the duke?” he asked, making a brief and rather graceless bow.

  “Indeed I did.” Her flashing eyes just skimmed over the cravat. “Very handsome,” she said. “Come and sit down.” She patted the sofa seat beside her, but there was no air of flirtation in her manner. Just so would she have spoken to Gillie. “Why do you call me Cousin? I thought we had agreed there was no impropriety in your calling me Beatrice.”

  Why had he? Was it to dilute the guilty feeling he had when he was with her? To create some informality without suggesting intimacy? “You are my cousin Leonard’s widow. It seems appropriate,” he parried, trying to give an impression it had slipped out by chance.

  She nodded indifferently. “I fear I have some bad news for you. The duke is leaving for Bournemouth tomorrow! Is that not wretched luck?”

  “How long is he staying?” he asked, taking up the proffered seat.

  “A week. And soon he will be going to Newmarket. I fear he may forget all about Gillie amid such stiff competition.”

  “There won’t be many ladies there before the races.”

  “Ladies? Don’t be absurd. I mean fillies. Really there is not a single whiff of April or May between the pair of them, Southam. The only odor is horseflesh. Tannie was jawing at her for being two minutes late, and she hadn’t the wits to let her lower lip tremble. She shot back, sharp as a barking dog, that she’d often had to wait longer for him. I fear this is a lost cause.” She shook her head and felt the coffeepot. It was cold.

  “We must do something to waken her up.”

  They sat, thinking. “Would you like some coffee?” she asked. “Perhaps it will sharpen our wits.”

  “Coffee is not good for you,” he said automatically. Deborah was vehemently against the indiscriminate serving of coffee. She permitted one cup in the morning. “It keeps you awake.”

  Beatrice blinked in surprise. “I hope you were not planning to fall asleep on me at eleven o’clock in the morning! You make me wonder what you did when you left here, Southam. Did you have a very late night? Slipped the leash, did you? One last prowl before you are caught in parson’s mousetrap?”

  “I went straight home to bed!” he exclaimed, shocked at her racy ideas.

  She disliked that Puritan face and decided to tease him. “That is where one usually goes with a lightskirt, is it not?”

  “Upon my word! You have a fine idea of my character.”

  She tilted her head and laughed at him. “I was joking, Southam. Now before you feel constrained to deliver me a lecture, let me assure you I do not talk so broad in front of your little sister. Between us enlightened adults, however, there is nothing amiss in a joke, I hope.”

  He lifted his brows and gazed at her. “Nothing amiss in such jokes to Leonard’s cousin,” he agreed. “I fear certain gentlemen might misread you.”

  “Very likely, but I do not associate with rakes or rattles of that sort. Now—no, before we begin, I shall have coffee. Would you like some tea?”

  “I’ll have coffee if that’s what you’re having.”

  Over coffee they racked their brains for some means of advancing Gillie’s romance at top speed. “A little jealousy might help,” Bea said. She sat with her chin in her hands, staring at her lap.

  Even in that mundane pose, Southam found some charm in her. He looked at her long lashes, curling over her lids. Sunlight from the window painted her raven hair in hues of indigo and amber, with flashes of crimson. Odd that jet black hair should hold so many shades.

  She looked up as the silence stretched and found him gazing at her.
“You mean, another beau for competition?” he asked.

  “No, stoopid! Tannie is already half in love with her. I mean, another girl to make Gillie look lively. All the mamas are after him like foxes after a hare. They recognize a prime parti when they see him, if their foolish daughters do not. The difficulty is that Tannie never looks at them unless they are riding. And then he only looks to see how they sit their mount.”

  “Then we should enlarge the riding parties.”

  “Except that he is leaving for Bournemouth tomorrow.”

  Southam rubbed his chin with his fist and took his decision. “We’ll just have to follow him.”

  Her head lifted, and her eyes were like smiling emeralds. “Go to Bournemouth, you mean?” she asked.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s fifty miles away! It would take a day to get there. And what is there to do, other than looking at the hurdle races?”

  “We need not attend all the races. We’ll take Miss Pittfield with us. She can play propriety. Why, it is a famous watering place. There must be many facilities for tourists. There is the New Forest for drives....”

  “We? Did you mean for me to go with you?” she asked, startled. “I thought you meant you and Gillie.”

  Southam gave a conscious look. In his mind it was a holiday with Beatrice he was envisaging. Gillie and Tannie had fallen to the bottom of his mind. “Yes. I would like to repay you in some manner for having Gillie. It will be a short holiday, at my expense.”

  Bea drew her brows together in consideration. “Holidaying with a gentleman at his expense sounds a trifle—irregular,” she said. “I don’t know what my friends would think.”

  “Why, they would think you are moving heaven and bending earth to land the duke for your charge and commend you for your efforts. If it is the proprieties that deter you, let me remind you Miss Pittfield would be along.”

  “Yes, it is the proprieties,” she admitted. “I would love to go. Naturally I did not mean your intentions were evil, Southam. You are engaged to Deborah.” Her frown deepened. “She might not like it,” she warned, and looked for his reaction.

  “I’ll handle Deborah,” he said airily. His tone said, “If she don’t like it, then she can lump it.” But in his mind he knew she would dislike it very much, and he had no intention of telling her.

  “I suppose there is no harm in it,” she said pensively. “Yes, why not? It might be the very thing to seal the romance. I doubt the place will be crowded in March, but perhaps we ought to send a request for rooms today. I have a book of travel here somewhere that will tell us what is for hire.”

  She called her servant to fetch the book. She and Southam pored over it while they had their coffee. When Beatrice lifted the pot to pour herself another cup, Southam held his cup out without thinking.

  “The Royal Bath on the east cliff has fine views of the sea,” she read. “The prices are a little stiff.”

  “We’ll want a view of the sea. We’ll take it. I shall make the arrangements.”

  A holiday mood already prevailed in the parlor. Beatrice had never been to Bournemouth, and a holiday at this fashionable resort town, without expense, put her in a good mood. She chattered idly, really thinking out loud. “It might be considered a trifle fast, but then, Miss Pittfield will be along. It was not as though we were going alone, Southam, just you and I with Gillie. Your having a title and a fiancée will lessen the odium of it as well.”

  “If you are truly worried ...”

  She shook away the wisps of concern. “No. Why should I be? After all, I went to Brighton with Sir Harold Whitehead.”

  A loud exclamation rent the air. “What!”

  “Sir Harold and his mama and a large party. Quite unexceptionable, but Harold and I did stay at the same hotel, so he cannot cut up stiff over this.”

  “Is he in a position to question your actions?” he inquired testily.

  “We are not engaged, if that is your meaning. It is only that gentlemen do seem to feel they have the right to question their lady friends’ actions.”

  “If he has anything to say, let him say it to me,” Southam declared with a kindling eye.

  “That won’t be necessary. I manage my own life. You won’t forget to send a note off about the rooms?”

  “I’ll do it this instant.”

  Beatrice led him to her study, and while he was composing his note, Gillie and Tannie returned home from their ride. Southam, hearing the racket, came out and dispatched the note with his groom.

  The young couple wore no traces of dalliance. “You demmed near drove that dung cart off the road. I told you to ease over farther to the right,” Tannie was saying.

  Gillie gave him a blighting stare and replied, “There was a ditch. Did you want me to drive us into the ditch?”

  “We missed that cart wheel by inches. No, by an inch.”

  “We missed it. That’s the important thing.”

  Southam and Beatrice exchanged a forlorn look. “Can you stay to lunch, Tannie?” she said, hoping for a better mood to prevail under her managing hand.

  “I’m meeting Duncan McIvor for lunch. He’s hiring a nag for his sister this afternoon. We’re going over to the stable to look over the cattle.”

  No thanks for her offer. Nothing. The boy was hopeless, and Gillie looked as if she couldn’t care less.

  “Shall we see you this evening, then?” Bea persisted.

  “The McIvor’s have invited me for dinner. Thank you anyway,” he added, to impress Southam.

  “And tomorrow you’re going to Bournemouth,” Gillie added. “Will you ride with me in the morning, Aunt Bea?”

  “Mrs. Searle won’t be here,” Southam announced. Gillie looked aghast. Before she could object, he added, “She will be going to Bournemouth with us, Gillie.”

  “To Bournemouth! Rawl, you’re taking me! Oh, thank you.” She pelted forward and threw her arms around his neck.

  “Very glad to hear it,” Tannie said, smiling vaguely. “Where will you be staying? We might get together. McIvor and I are putting up at the Lansdown. His pockets are pretty well to let,” he added.

  “We shall be at the Royal Bath,” Beatrice told him.

  Tannie drew out his watch and said, “I’d best be going. No saying what tired old dray horse McIvor will hire if I ain’t there to advise him. Not that I would like to see his sister astride a decent bit o’blood. She lamed his Lancer, trying to follow him over a fence at Uncle Horatio’s place. Gudgeon.”

  On this remark he rammed his hat on his head, made a bow even less graceful than Southam’s, and took his leave. “I look forward to seeing you at Bournemouth, Mrs. Searle, Southam.” He forgot to include Gillie in this wish.

  She neither noticed nor cared. She was too excited at the pending adventure. “I have never seen hurdle races. I bet Penny could beat them all. I wonder if they have betting. Tannie told me his uncle Horatio made a monkey last year, then blew the lot on the last race. Gudgeon.”

  It seemed the only change in her demeanor due to her association with the duke was an increase in unladylike cant terms.

  “You should not use such language about your elders, Gillie,” Bea said.

  “I have heard Tannie call him worse names.”

  Gillie went to toss her bonnet and pelisse at the butler, and during her short absence, Bea whispered, “Jealousy” to Southam. When Gillie returned, Bea gave him a wink and said to Gillie, “This Duncan McIvor, he would be Miss Althea McIvor’s brother, would he not?”

  “I believe so. Duncan has three sisters.”

  “The elder is married, and the younger is not out. It would be Althea that Tannie is interested in, I daresay.”

  Gillie looked at her with a sapient eye. “Not likely. She sits her mare like a bag of oats, jiggling all over.”

  Southam took over. “That may be of interest if he meant to hire Miss Althea as a jockey. I take it your meaning is that he has a tendre for her, Cousin?”

  “I expect so,”
Bea said offhandedly. “She is monstrously pretty, with her blond curls and blue eyes. And so ladylike, don’t you think, Gillie?”

  “She is pretty enough,” Gillie said grudgingly.

  “I notice Tannie always stands up with her first at the waltzing parties.”

  “He asks me first,” Gillie shot back. “He’s an awful dancer.”

  “Such fripperies are important in a lady, but less so in a gentleman,” Southam said. “Naturally a gentleman wants his bride to appear to have all the social graces. Especially when he is so eligible as the duke. I daresay all the ladies are tossing their bonnets at him, eh Cousin?”

  “It is all the mothers talk of,” she agreed. “What a prime catch for some fortunate lady. Three vast estates, a large fortune, and, of course, one of the finest stables in the country.” She peered at Gillie as she named this last advantage.

  “I never heard Tannie complain of the girls bothering him,” Gillie objected.

  “Complain!” Bea laughed.

  Gillie saw nothing amiss in her choice of word, “I don’t think he is interested in Althea at all,” she said.

  “It would be gauche of him to praise another lady to you, Gillie,” Bea pointed out. “You tend to forget it, but you are a lady yourself. You won’t hear a whisper of the romance till Miss Althea comes flashing the diamond under your nose, crowing of her catch.”

  Gillie frowned and took up Southam’s cup without thinking. “I wonder if she is going to Bournemouth,” she said, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

  The two conspirators exchanged a triumphant glance. At least she recognized that competition was out there. Gillie sipped and put the cup down. “Are you drinking coffee in the middle of the morning, Rawl? You know Deborah doesn’t let you.”

  A slight flush colored his cheeks. “I do as I please,” he said.

  “Yes, when Deborah is not here to keep a sharp eye on you.” Gillie laughed. “Did you write her that you shan’t be home by Monday?”