The Waltzing Widow/Smith Read online

  “Fernbank,” she said, supplying the name for him.

  “I hope you don’t object to my asking?”

  “Not at all. My father sold the estate when Alexander died. We two ladies were ill prepared to run a large estate, you must know. He felt cash would be less troublesome for us.” This came perilously close to admitting that Lucy was an heiress, and she spoke on to dilute the notion. “It was expensive to keep up, of course, and mortgaged, too.”

  Avedon was more confused than ever. The lady’s story had the ring of truth, and if so, they had all been doing Mrs. Percy an injustice. The only possible explanation left was that the captain had married miserably beneath him. He said, “Mrs. Percy was also from Dorset, I expect? An old friend of the family?”

  Her aunt quickly moved her next door and changed her into Alex’s sweetheart. “Yes, she was a Walcott before marriage. Another old Dorset family. We have known them for years.”

  He was stymied. Had he painted a perfectly respectable lady into a scheming monster on no grounds but prejudice? Made her into another Lacey, from overrated fears for Tony’s safety?

  Miss Percy served him a glass of lemonade and gingerbread, which somehow confirmed in him the idea that they were both perfectly respectable, honest country people. He apologized for the inconvenience of the road being dug up and pointed out that it would soon be repaired.

  “And after all your work, you did not get your tiles laid,” she commented with more sorrow than anger. ‘The Canterbury crew had to leave, I take it?”

  Avedon blushed for his mendacity. “A large contractor reneged on a deal, but at the last minute it was salvaged, so my work is put off till next year.” And who is the lying scoundrel in this case? he asked himself silently.

  Miss Percy accepted it without a word of censure, and before long Avedon was on his way, reviewing what he had heard. He was much inclined to think he had been overly zealous in protecting Tony. Morton, who knew about such things, said the widow had no interest in him. Her refusing an invitation to Milhaven substantiated it. He had behaved abominably to her and was eager to set the matter to rights. He particularly regretted having set Morton on her. At least his cousin realized she was a lady and not someone with whom he could take liberties.

  When he reached Chenely, Tony was there waiting for him with a face a mile long. “Morton is cutting you out, is he?” Avedon asked. His tone was more kindly than usual.

  “She doesn’t like him!” Tony answered, fire in his eye. “She would have driven out with me if Morton hadn’t got up at the crack of dawn and beat me to Rose Cottage. Her chaperon told me she only went with him because he knew someone who knew her husband, and she wanted to talk about that.”

  “Morton knows something about her husband! I am happy we have discovered someone who does.”

  “Well he don’t, if you want the truth. It is all a hum to catch her interest.”

  Another liar in the family, Avedon noted, and felt a degree worse. “Where were they going?”

  “He’s taking Lucy over to Plimpton’s farm to get her a puppy.”

  “Why does she want a dog? Have the men digging up the road been giving her trouble?” he asked, ready to assume more guilt.

  “No, it’s only a pet. A little spaniel pup.”

  “We have a whole litter here. She could have had one of ours if we knew she wanted a dog.” Avedon felt offended that she had not asked.

  “She’d not be apt to ask you for anything.” Tony sulked. “You snapping at her and lashing your tail every time you hear her name.”

  Adrian just frowned and walked away. Tony was an idiot, but even idiots occasionally speak the truth. Later Avedon discussed his visit to Rose Cottage with his sister, and told her he believed he had done the girl an injustice.

  Sally gave a disparaging look. “Why, only because they say they are the Dorset Percys? It is a good, safe distance away. We are not likely to be able to check up easily. If Mr. Percy sold his estate, why did Mrs. Percy not go to her own home? You said she was a neighbor, did you not?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Avedon admitted. It was a good point, and enough to cast some doubt on the tale Miss Percy had told him. Avedon was in a vacillating frame of mind, sorry at times he had treated the widow so ill, and angry to the point of fury at others at her goings on.

  He called twice at the cottage over the next few days, but did not manage to catch Mrs. Percy at home. She was always out with either Tony or Morton. His visits to the village increased, and he twice saw her, once in Tony’s curricle, and the second time in Morton’s tilbury. When she cast a triumphant smile at him, he felt a pronounced desire to pull her down and shake her.

  Mrs. Percy was less discussed at Chenely than formerly. Lady Sara was easy in her mind that Tony had been saved for Prissy, for of the widow’s two suitors, Morton now clearly had the upper hand. Morton was by no means to be traded off for Tony; his fortune, too, must be kept in the family, preferably by his remaining single and leaving his money to some of her numerous progeny. As well as Prissy Lady Sara had three strapping boys to be provided for. But Morton was a man of the world. A gentleman of mature years who had evaded the snares of such persistent wooers as Lady Beatrice was felt to be in no danger of succumbing to a captain’s widow.

  Avedon was less certain of Morton’s safety. His visit to Milhaven had been for the purpose of delivering Lady Bigelow home. He would normally have left within a day or two. He gave no sign of leaving and made no pretense that his reason for clinging on was anything but Mrs. Percy. He had developed an oddly uncharacteristic way of acting and dressing—consciously youthful. On the few occasions when Adrian or Sally saw him, they teased him about his new Brutus do and brighter waistcoats, but he was unfazed.

  “I ain’t over the hill yet, Sal,” he said, laughing. “Don’t count on my bankroll. I am thinking of setting up my own nursery.”

  “Oh, Morton, at your age,” she scoffed.

  “I am only in my thirties, like young Adrian here.”

  “A slip of a boy of thirty-nine, with a birthday in October,” she reminded him.

  “A groom of forty would look foolish,” he said. A smile lifted his lips at Sally’s nodding agreement. “I must get cracking and do the thing up before October.” This was said in a joking spirit, yet the assiduity with which he was courting Mrs. Percy raised doubts in Avedon’s bosom.

  These doubts reached a new height when Morton casually mentioned attending an assembly in Ashford. He hadn’t bothered with the local assemblies for a decade.

  “You can’t mean you are going to that!” Adrian exclaimed in amazement.

  “Mrs. Percy wishes to attend, and I have offered to escort her.”

  “Oh, Morton, my dear,” Sally chided. “You will look an utter quiz, dancing at your age. The whole village is already tittering at this strange way you drag your hair forward. I cannot think it necessary. You are not that bald.”

  “I am not bald at all, just graying a little.”

  Lady Sara gave another of her rueful smiles at such self-delusion. “The whole town will be in whoops, to see a man your age up jigging with a young girl.”

  Morton flicked a mote of dust from his sleeve. “I’m not quite ready for the urn yet. Was it not Mrs. Percy’s advanced years that were used as one of the many excuses for her ineligibility when it was Tony who had the inside track?” he asked.

  “There was no need for excuses!” Sally fired back. “There are good and sufficient reasons for finding her entirely ineligible.”

  “I don’t find an attractive young widow from a good family so ineligible as you do. But you may stop worrying about Tony. She won’t marry him.”

  “She won’t marry you, either,” Avedon said angrily.

  “Tut, tut, Cousin. I ain’t a cawker under your heavy thumb. It was you who set me onto her, so don’t cry craven on me now.” He drew out his watch and glanced at it. “This has been delightful, but I have an engagement with Mrs. Percy, and I wou
ld not like to keep her waiting.” He rose and sauntered from the room, leaving his angry cousins behind.

  Chapter Nine

  Lady Sara was thrown into alarm by these ominous signs of Morton’s fortune escaping the fold. “I think we must attend this wretched assembly ourselves, Adrian,” she said.

  “I plan to attend.”

  She looked startled. “Why, you never go unless you have company visiting, and even then you complain like the devil.”

  “I’ll be at this one,” he said grimly.

  “Good, and if Morton is making too much headway with the widow, you must cut him out.”

  Avedon adjusted his cravat and said with arrogant nonchalance, “That had occurred to me as one solution.”

  “For, of course, you would never be vulnerable to such a creature,” Sally said with a steely, commanding look.

  On this occasion it was Avedon who was eager to turn to the other topic of conversation. “Was Morton any help in nudging John’s promotion along?”

  “The obstinate creature says he doesn’t know the archbishop. I’m sure he does, but he will never stir a finger to help anyone.”

  Mrs. Percy received a letter from Bishop Norris announcing that he would be stopping at Canterbury on his way home from the conference at Lambeth Palace and suggesting that she and Lucy meet him there. Unaware of how well the ladies were entertained, he thought he was giving them a treat. He promised to give them a tour of the famous cathedral, a project that had often been discussed in the past. He would also stay with them a few days at Rose Cottage before continuing to St. Giles.

  “What shall we do about Lady Sara?” Mrs. Percy asked Lucy. “She will recognize him in an instant. Her husband is at St. Giles. She has no fondness for the bishop.”

  “She hasn’t called on us in an age,” Lucy pointed out.

  “But if she does—I cannot like to ask a bishop to lie.”

  “No lies are necessary,” Lucy said. “There is no reason we cannot be related to a bishop. He knows I am posing as Mrs. Percy and won’t say anything to give us away. You bother yourself for nothing, Auntie. It will be lovely to see Uncle Norris again.”

  “Well, I daresay he will be fagged to death and only means to rusticate a day or two in the quiet of the country. Shall I tell him we’ll meet him at Canterbury?”

  “Yes, why not? It will be a little change—or do you dread the trip?”

  Mrs. Percy hid her dread as much as she could and said she would write a note arranging the rendezvous at Canterbury. The visit was temporarily forgotten in the excitement of the Ashford assembly.

  The inhabitants of Ashford were agreeably surprised to see both the noble families of the neighborhood turn out in force for their little assembly. The entire ménage of both Milhaven and Chenely were there. Of equal interest were the newcomers from Rose Cottage. They attended with the Milhaven party, and Lucy caused a great sensation when she arrived in such elevated company, wearing a sea-green froth of chiffon, with diamonds sparkling at her throat and ears.

  “Diamonds,” Lady Sara said in a dismissing voice to her brother. They had arrived five minutes before the Milhaven party and were watching the door eagerly. “I wonder who she got them from. They look dreadfully out of place at a simple country assembly. I shall slip her the hint she is overdressed. A common mistake amongst parvenues.”

  “Lady Beatrice is wearing hers,” Avedon mentioned.

  “Ah, is dear Beatrice here? How did I miss her?”

  “You cannot have been looking very hard. She takes up the pair of chairs right across from us.”

  She slapped her brother’s wrist playfully. “Don’t make fun of your own partner, Adrian. You and Beatrice will be leading off. She looks charming. I’m amazed she can still squeeze into that old peacock-blue gown. I swear it came off the ark.”

  He glanced glumly across the hall to where Lady Beatrice was just rising. She was an unappetizing vision in blue, with her jet-black hair piled into a mountain on top of her head. She looked about as lively as an oyster on the half shell. His eyes moved again to Mrs. Percy. He had seen her in motion, and knew her trim and fashionable figure would move gracefully on the dance floor. With a heavy heart Avedon strode across the room to Lady Beatrice.

  It was uncharitably said of Lady Beatrice that she would marry if she had to have the village idiot. This was not entirely accurate, but her escorts were drawn from a wide spectrum of society. She was delighted to have a gentleman worthy of her for once at a local assembly.

  “Avedon, we are greatly honored this evening,” she smiled. Her teeth seemed to get longer by the year. “I see the Milhaven party is enlarged by two. I am shocked at Isabel dragging that girl along with her.”

  “I expect it was the gentlemen who did the dragging,” he replied dampingly.

  “More likely the widow. The on dit is that she has switched her attack from Tony to Morton. Well, she was aiming a little high to try for a title.”

  “Do you think so, Beatrice? I think she might aim as high as she likes,” he answered blightingly and took her pudgy arm to lead her to the floor.

  Morton was not far behind them, accompanied by Mrs. Percy. Tony turned to a group of chattering young ladies just returned from the seminary and spotted a Miss Evans with limpid blue eyes and blond curls. The girl had improved vastly over the past ten months, and he honored her with his arm. As soon as the set was over, he was after Lucy.

  She was happy to stand up with him, but when he continued pestering her at the set’s end, she looked about for help. The only three gentlemen with whom she was acquainted were Morton, Tony, and Avedon. The locals hung back, as she had acquired a vicarious air of nobility due to her company. Across the hall Avedon noticed her problem and used it as an excuse to approach her.

  “Is the whelp bothering you?” he asked ungraciously, when he saw Tony’s downcast expression. Tony turned and stalked off in a huff.

  Lucy felt an excited churning in her breast and readied herself for verbal battle. “How can you say so, milord? You must know it is always I who bother Bigelow,” she replied pertly.

  Avedon was unaware that he was smiling. It softened the harshness of his features and even lent him an air of flirtation. “Now you are bothering Morton, so we have forgiven you,” he said, and took her hand. He had forgotten to ask her if she would stand up with him.

  “You have decided Morton is expendable, have you?” she asked.

  “Not entirely, but at his age he is capable of defending himself.” He put a proprietary hand on her elbow and began walking onto the floor.

  Lucy decided Avedon was being just a trifle high in the instep and decided to roast him. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “I thought you would like to dance,” he said. No fear of possible refusal disturbed his thoughts. He was Lord Avedon. In the entire course of his life, no lady had ever refused his attentions.

  “You have misread my likes before, Lord Avedon.” He stopped and looked a question at her. “If you had bothered to ask me, I could have saved you the embarrassment of leaving you stranded alone in the middle of the floor,” she said, and removed her hand from his arm.

  “But why did you come if you don’t want to dance?”

  “I do want to dance, but a lady has the prerogative of declining any partner who does not please her,” she said demurely.

  He saw the mischief glinting in her smile. “Would it please you if I humbly requested the pleasure of standing up with you, Mrs. Percy?”

  “The ‘humbly’ pleases me,” she bantered. “Even if you don’t mean it. Since I know so few gentlemen here this evening, it is either dancing with you or warming a chair by the wall.”

  He bowed with mock seriousness. “I am flattered that you prefer my company to that of a block of wood. Has your road been repaired satisfactorily? I told my steward to see to it.”

  “Yes, and it is a great pity that no tiles were laid, after such a deal of trouble.”

  “It was no troubl
e.”

  “It was for me,” she objected. “Had you ever any intention of laying tiles at all?”

  “I mean to do it one day.”

  His offhand answer was as good as an admission that he had only dug up the road to annoy her. “It was an underhanded trick, sir. I wonder that you thought to get rid of us by such a paltry device.”

  “It was only the first step. I was going to pour salt in your well next, but my steward was afraid it would bleed back into my own water,” he admitted with no sign of shame.

  “Well, upon my word!”

  When he stopped and looked down at her, Lucy saw the laughter lurking in his eyes and didn’t know whether she was angry or amused. “I have apologized to Miss Percy for my error, and now I apologize to you. I am very sorry I inconvenienced you with my underhanded, paltry trick.”

  Lucy tossed her curls. “So you should be.”

  “It goes sadly against the pluck for me to apologize, Mrs. Percy. The least you could do is accept it with generosity.”

  With the taste of victory sweet in her mouth, Lucy accepted it. “You are forgiven, then,” she said.

  “Thank you. Now let us begin our acquaintance anew and see if we cannot rub along like two civilized adults this time. You look very charming this evening, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, milord. You look quite decent yourself, when I see your face without a scowl for the first time in my life.”

  His smile stretched to a grin, for Avedon was delighted to finally achieve a friendly footing with the most charming lady in the room. “Have I really been that ferocious?” he asked, inclining his head toward her.

  “You remind me of the wild animals at the Exchange.”

  Avedon cocked his head aside and frowned. “Surely not all of them! Which one did you have in mind?”

  “The bear,” she replied instantly.

  He patted her fingers in a familiar way. “Try honey,” he suggested. “That always turns a bear up sweet.”

  Lucy felt a flush suffuse her cheeks at his manner. “I am not trying to make a tame pet of you, sir! A little civility is all I want.”