Just One Season in London Read online

  Lady Ryecroft frowned. “He hasn’t asked your permission to address her, has he?”

  “No, Mama—you wouldn’t have missed out on that, I am persuaded. That’s what worries me. If he would come out in the open, I could depress his intentions. But as long as he’s only running into her by chance in the village, or when she’s out riding, or when she stops by the vicar’s to deliver some of Mrs. Carstairs’s preserves…”

  “James Newstead happened to be visiting the vicar at the same moment Sophie was there?” Lady Ryecroft looked horrified.

  “To Sophie’s credit, she told me about the encounter herself.”

  “And you didn’t tell me? Rye…”

  “She swore it was an accident, and she said she came to me because you would ring a peal over her head even though it wasn’t her fault.”

  “As indeed I would have. As for it being her fault… do you think she planned to meet him?”

  Rye didn’t. Sophie was too transparent to be as cunning as that. And this was James Newstead after all—not someone she might seriously be interested in. But if it would distract his mother, he’d play along. “Now that I come to think of it, she must have known that her groom would report the incident to me.”

  “I should think he would if he values his employment. Do you suspect she only confided in you because she knew you’d find out anyway?” Lady Ryecroft didn’t wait for an answer. “Very well. I’ll take her with me.”

  She didn’t look particularly happy about it, Rye noticed. But he put the niggling thought aside and comforted himself with the notion that whatever was going on with his mother, at least it had kept her from asking uncomfortable questions about his trip to London.

  ***

  Under other circumstances, Sophie would have enjoyed the drive, for Lady Brindle’s carriage was well sprung and luxurious, and the countryside looked different from their usual surroundings at Ryecroft Manor. But it simply wasn’t fair that Rye was going to London while she was stuck accompanying Mama to Sussex of all places. She was going to be farther from the city than when she was at home, and Lady Brindle didn’t even live in the interesting part of the county.

  Worse, it was likely to be a dull week. They weren’t going to a house party, where she might at least meet new people. Not that Sophie had ever been to a house party—but she’d heard about them from her friend Emily. It wasn’t even an ordinary visit where one might go calling or shopping or be invited to a party or a dance. With Mama’s old friend lying upon her couch, they’d all be closed up together in Lady Brindle’s house for days on end.

  Sophie had only vague memories of a previous stay with Lady Brindle, when she’d been no more than a child. Of course, she’d been stuck in the nursery wing then, with Rye and with Lady Brindle’s oaf of a son, but she feared this visit would be little better. She flounced back on the velvet seat.

  “That is enough,” Lady Ryecroft said. “It won’t be as bad as all that.”

  “I didn’t even say anything, Mama.”

  “You didn’t have to, my dear. Your feelings are plain, and it’s unladylike to display them so openly. I hope you will have a care not to do so in front of my good friend.”

  “But it’s not fair! I’ve never been to London, and Rye’s gone dozens of times!”

  Lady Ryecroft’s eyebrows raised. “Dozens of times is overstating it; pray do not exaggerate, Sophronia. Besides, patronizing your brother’s tailor is not the sort of visit you have in mind, I’m certain, and you could hardly stay at Rye’s club.”

  Sophie bit her tongue. It was useless to discuss the matter with Mama, who was so far past her own London Season that she probably couldn’t even remember it.

  There was, after all, no real reason Rye couldn’t have taken Sophie along. There would be nothing wrong with her going to the city, even staying at an inn—something Sophie had also never done—if she were traveling with her brother.

  She suspected darkly that the truth was that Rye wasn’t planning to spend much time with his tailor. When she’d confronted him in his library and begged to be rescued from Lady Brindle’s sprained ankle, his expression had made her think he was up to something cagey.

  A woman, perhaps. Though heaven knew Rye didn’t have money for a highflier… whatever that really was. Sophie’s friend Emily had overheard the term from one of her brothers, but he’d outright refused to define it more precisely. In fact, Emily said, he had turned red in the face when she’d asked him to elaborate. So Sophie knew better than to ask her mother or Rye for an explanation.

  Still, it wasn’t hard to deduce that whatever sort of woman a highflier might be, she’d require more money than Rye was likely to have at hand.

  Sophie sighed as she caught the sympathetic eye of her mother’s maid, who was sitting in the opposite seat, with her back to the horses. Mary glanced from Sophie to Lady Ryecroft, and Sophie tried to turn her sigh into an expression of appreciation instead of annoyance. “This is a nice carriage, isn’t it, Mama?”

  “Very nice,” Lady Ryecroft agreed. “But I believe our journey is coming to an end.”

  “Truly?” Sophie pulled back the curtain just as the carriage turned into a long, sweeping driveway. At the end of it was the ugliest pile of dark brown brick she’d ever seen. She’d forgotten how frightful Brindle Park was—or perhaps on that years-ago visit she’d been too young to notice.

  Sophie’s heart sank. Their home might be battered by nearly two centuries of serving the family, followed by more than a decade when there hadn’t been much money for repairs, but at least Ryecroft Manor was full of light and air. Brindle Park looked as if it had been built by someone who didn’t understand the concept of a window.

  No wonder Lady Brindle had fallen down the stairs. It was probably so dark inside that she hadn’t been able to see her feet at all!

  “Pray, Sophie, do not hang out of the window to stare.”

  Sophie sank back against the velvet again. The carriage stopped, then rocked as a footman jumped down from his perch, and Sophie could hear the crunch of his steps as he came around to the door.

  Lady Ryecroft straightened her hat and took a deep breath. “Sophie—”

  A last-minute lecture on manners, no doubt. “Yes, Mama. I’ll be good.”

  The door opened, and the footman lowered the steps. Lady Ryecroft squared her shoulders—almost as if she was bracing herself for an ordeal, Sophie thought. But what would her mother need to gather her strength for?

  As soon as Lady Ryecroft had descended, elegantly leaning on the arm of the footman, Sophie gathered her skirt in one hand and followed.

  Just as she put her head out of the carriage, a horse snorted so loudly it seemed his nose was almost against her ear. Startled, Sophie raised her head, knocking her hat on the carriage door and tipping it forward over her eyes. Her foot slipped, and to save herself from falling, she leaped from the top step to the crushed shells of the carriage drive. She landed lightly, pretending not to hear Lady Ryecroft’s half-smothered sigh of exasperation—why, pray tell, could Mama sigh, when Sophie wasn’t allowed to?—and raised one small gloved hand to push her hat back into place.

  The horse snorted again, and she turned toward the sound and looked directly into the gaze of the rider.

  He was scowling down at her—dark-faced and fierce-browed. He was obviously a gentleman, judging by the cut of his coat, the carefully arranged neckcloth, and the high polish on his boots. A fairly young gentleman too—not a particularly handsome one, but with an air that said he was used to getting whatever he wanted.

  As Sophie watched, his eyes went wide and his jaw slack, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. With his rider’s attention wandering, the horse sidestepped, and the gentleman tugged the animal back into line. Then he swung down, tossed the reins to a groom who had come running, and tipped his hat to Lady Ryecroft. “My apologies, ladies. I regret that my horse caused you to suffer a fright.”

  Sophie wanted to snort. What kind of a li
ly-liver did he think she was, anyway? As if she’d fall into a swoon because a horse made a noise!

  The young man didn’t take his eyes off her as he came closer. “Surely this can’t be Sophie. My mother didn’t tell me that you were coming to visit too.”

  Lady Ryecroft cleared her throat. “Sophie, you remember my dear friend’s son, do you not? Lord Randall, Miss Ryecroft.” The emphasis on the last two words was gentle but distinct.

  Lord Randall looked abashed. “I beg pardon for the informality, ma’am. I was taken straight back to the days of your last visit, when Sophie—Miss Ryecroft, I mean, was—”

  “Nothing but a tomfool nuisance of a girl, I believe you called me.” Sophie tempered the words with a smile and a tiny curtsy. “But I shall not hold that against you, Lord Randall, if you promise in return to forget just how much of a tomfool nuisance I was back then.”

  He looked dazzled.

  Sophie hoped her mother was watching closely. If only Rye could have been there, she thought—for if he could see this performance, he would never again dare to say that her society manners needed polishing. “I hope we find you well, Lord Randall. And how is your mother?”

  “Very well indeed. She’s somewhere around here, awaiting your arrival.” He looked around vaguely. “Let me see you inside.”

  Lady Ryecroft said, “Don’t let us interrupt your ride.”

  “No, no, that’s not important at all now. I mean, I can hardly let our guests wait alone while the servants hunt down my mother.” He gestured toward the stairs leading up to the front door, where a butler waited majestically.

  “I shouldn’t think she’d be at all hard to find, lying on a sofa with her ankle propped up,” Sophie said.

  Lady Ryecroft winced.

  What? Sophie wanted to say. Was she not supposed to say the word ankle in front of a gentleman?

  “Oh, my mother’s never to be found on a sofa,” Lord Randall said. “Ten to one, she’s somewhere in the gardens. She’s been out there for days already because the weather’s been so pleasant this spring.”

  In the gardens?

  “But I thought—”

  “Sophie,” Lady Ryecroft said. “Not now.” She put her hand on Randall’s arm and let him lead her up the steps.

  Sophie dawdled for a moment, thinking. There really were only two possible explanations, she concluded. The first was that Lady Brindle’s son was so oblivious that he wasn’t aware his mother had suffered an accident—which seemed unlikely.

  But the second was that there was no sprained ankle at all, and Lady Ryecroft knew it. Judging by her lack of surprise just now, she must have known it even before they had left home.

  So why had Sophie’s mother dragged her across half of Surrey and the better part of Sussex in order to visit an injured old friend, if the old friend wasn’t injured after all?

  ***

  Grosvenor Square was lined with houses, and Rye had no idea which one might be Lady Stone’s. But no one else on the street seemed to know either. The costermonger selling pies at the corner goggled at him when he asked, and said he’d like to know how he was supposed to know who was whom in the quality—at least, Rye thought that was what he said; he’d had to disentangle the man’s Cockney accent. A flower girl walking along the pavement only giggled and offered to sell him a bunch of violets. He gave her a coin and tried in vain to refuse the flowers, but she pressed them into his hand anyway.

  So he was holding a tight little handful of blooms when he turned round from talking to the flower girl and almost ran down a lady who had just stepped from a carriage onto the pavement. The violets burst from his hand and sprayed over her, catching in her hair, in the basket she carried, in the dark braid that trimmed her deep blue cloak.

  She gave a gasp of annoyance and glared up at him.

  “I beg your pardon,” Rye said. His gaze swept over her. She was young, though hardly a schoolgirl—twenty perhaps, or even older. She was not dressed like a young lady either. Her hair was caught up in a neat, not-quite-schoolmarmish chignon, under a plain dark chip of a hat—not one of the elaborate creations the young ladies of the ton commonly wore. Her gloves were serviceable rather than elegant—tan leather, but not the finest-grained kid. As she brushed at the violets on her shoulder, he saw that the fingertips were worn. Her cloak was fastened with an ordinary frog, not buttoned with gold.

  Even more telltale was the fact that her face was not fashionably pale; this woman had been kissed by the sun. There were a couple of freckles on her nose, something that would likely have sent a society miss and her mother into strong hysterics the moment they were noticed.

  Rye thought they were charming.

  There was a violet caught in her lashes, right at the corner of her eye. She put up a hand to brush it away, and Rye found himself stepping forward. “Let me. It seems to be tangled, and if you pull at it, you might get pollen in your eye.”

  She stood still as he leaned closer yet. No wonder the flower had caught; he’d never seen lashes so long and full, so curly and so dark. They were a shade darker than her hair—which wasn’t simply brown, as he had thought, but a rich mixture of chestnut and honey, glinting in a sudden shaft of sunlight.

  For a moment the noises of the square faded away—no costermonger’s call, no rattle of carriage wheels—and he was caught up, surrounded by the scent of violets and the brush of his finger against her temple, where the skin was so soft that even through his glove he knew he had never touched anything so fine…

  The violet came loose, and he stood holding it and feeling foolish.

  “Have you finished?” she said coolly, and Rye realized he had grasped her arm, as if it had been necessary to hold her closely while he plucked at the flower with his other hand.

  “What’s this, Portia?” said a gravelly voice beside him.

  Rye felt as if he’d been drifting away on a slowly ebbing tide until the grating voice jolted him back to the square. Too late, he realized he was standing far too close to the unknown young woman—closer even than if they had been waltzing—and that she hadn’t been alone in the carriage after all.

  The woman who had followed her was short and spry, with a beady black gaze that rested on him with a familiar glint.

  “Lady Stone!” he said. “I… I was just…”

  The young woman pursed her lips as if she was anxious to hear his answer. Rye stumbled to a halt.

  “Accosting my companion?” Lady Stone said coolly.

  Companion. So she was not a friend or a relative, but an employee. It all made sense now. The young woman’s plain hat and cloak and the way her hair was styled so as not to draw attention to herself. Even the freckles—they were far more typical on the face of a woman who was expected to go and fetch her employer’s parasol rather than being free to twirl her own. A woman who would read aloud the books her employer wished to hear, not those of her own taste. Who would run her employer’s errands, not shop for herself.

  He let his hand drop to his side and stepped back from the young lady—quickly enough, he hoped, that Lady Stone wouldn’t begin to think her companion was at fault and blame the poor girl. Portia, Lady Stone had called her. It suited her somehow. But now was not the time to be thinking of that.

  Accosting my companion… Lady Stone had sounded almost angry. Was an accident with a bunch of violets about to cause him to lose his one real hope of bettering himself? Sacrificing the only source of help that had been offered to him? Better that, he supposed, than if the companion were to suffer because of his clumsiness. At least he would be no worse off because of their encounter, while her situation might be dire indeed.

  “I beg your pardon, Lady Stone,” he said. “I was calling to leave my card to let you know that I’ve arrived in town, when I… encountered… your companion.”

  “Encountered? Is that what you young bucks are calling it these days when you’re practically embracing a young woman on the pavement?”

  “I assure you, ma’am, I
was not—”

  “Lady Stone,” the companion said quietly. “Nothing happened. The… gentleman… moves very quickly.”

  It didn’t sound to Rye as if she meant it as a compliment.

  “Oh, very well. If you say nothing happened, then nothing happened. But be warned, I’m keeping an eye on you, girl.” The old woman’s gaze raked over Rye, from the hat he had belatedly touched in respect, to the toes of his well-polished Hessians. “I wondered if you’d actually turn up, Ryecroft. But here you are, and looking as impressive in daylight as you were at the assembly. Don’t you think so, Portia?”

  “Since I did not attend the assembly, ma’am, I am unable to make a comparison. But if you are asking me in the abstract whether the gentleman is attractive, I should have to agree that he makes a passable figure.”

  What a prim, smug, opinionated, conceited… Rye ran out of adjectives.

  “There’s a facer for you, Ryecroft.” Lady Stone made a vague gesture of introduction. “Viscount Ryecroft, Miss Langford.”

  Rye swept the companion a bow. “I am honored by your regard, Miss Langford.” He managed to let only a trace of sarcasm oil his words. But he knew she’d heard the edge in his voice, for she inclined her head and made no comment.

  Lady Stone said, “I’ll expect you to call tomorrow morning, Ryecroft. Be ready to tell me exactly what you’re looking for in a bride. There’s no sense in wasting time with girls who haven’t enough of a dowry to be acceptable to you. But I think as long as you’re not unreasonable, we can fit you up nicely. What do you think, Portia? Summersby’s eldest, perhaps?”

  “I am unaware of any assets that make Lord Ryecroft eligible—apart from his title. Therefore, I’m sure you are a far better judge of the matter than I could be, ma’am.” Miss Langford’s tone was almost colorless.

  Rye knew she was only doing what a companion did best—agreeing with her employer and deferring to her opinion. Besides, what she said was no more than the truth. How would Miss Langford know anything of his family, his character, his habits, his assets? Yet the words rankled.