Chapter Four
The journey to Grosvenor Square was accomplished in four rather than three hours, due to Tansy’s refusal to budge one inch from the posting inn until her gnawing hunger was put at ease. But as the crier was just calling out the hour of ten (“All’s well and it’s comin’ on ta rain”) the weary party ascended the imposing flight of steps to Avanoll’s mansion.
Tansy could do little more than catch a glimpse of the imposing stucco exterior and delicate grille work lining the upper storeys before being almost shoved indoors, where her eyes were completely dazzled by the brilliant light emanating from the hundred candles that burned welcomingly in an immense crystal chandelier that seemed almost small in the huge foyer.
She roughly disengaged her elbow from the Duke’s vice-like grip. “Unhand me, sir. If you are in such a pelter about being discovered with so poor a specimen as I entering your abode, I could have as easily trotted round to the tradesman’s entrance. I have not been so roughly handled since the oldest son of my last employer sought to play slap-and-tickle in the herb garden.”
“I’m surprised he had the nerve,” his grace hissed. “And be still,” he added, painfully aware of Dunstan the butler, three assorted footmen, and a housemaid—who had no business using the front stairs—looking (and listening) with great interest to every word that was being said. “It is not you but Emily I wished out of the light of that veritable beacon in front of the house. You would think the house was lighting the way for the long-awaited return of the prodigal! Tongues wag often enough in this snoop-nosed town without some dowager witnessing Emily, who is not yet Out, stealing into the house after dusk.”
As Tansy opened her mouth to apologize—not an easy thing for her—he shut her off quickly by saying, “Let me get shed of these nosey-parkers, if I may, before we continue.”
She bowed to his wisdom, not meekly, but merely acknowledging his request with a curt nod.
His grace dealt with the assembled servants quickly. A quelling glance to the footmen sent them scattering on suddenly-recalled errands belowstairs. The housemaid, praying fervently for the anonymity of a servant most masters never bothered to penetrate, had already fled of her own accord back the way she had come, and was already tripping down the dark back stairs.
Having satisfactorily disposed of the lower staff, his grace turned to address his butler. “Dunny,” he commanded the stately grey-haired man, who had somehow come into the possession of three woolen capes—the last of which, being a particularly undistinguished brown article of indeterminate years, he held at arm’s-length and surveyed as if he were indeed clutching a particularly vile species of vermin, “Lady Emily desires a cold collation brought to her in her chambers. And have her maid sent to her immediately.”
At this preemptory dismissal, Lady Emily pouted and made as if to protest, but was struck down in mid-whine by a look much like the one that had sent the footmen scurrying. With a toss of her fair curls and a halfhearted stamp of one small foot, she turned and began ascending the staircase. Midway she turned for one last entreaty.
“Now, miss, if you please,” came a stern female voice, not to be denied. Lady Emily blinked, blushed, and knew herself bested by Tansy. She retired without another word.
“Well done,” congratulated his grace.
Tansy turned from the sight of a bit too much maidenly ankle, exposed as Lady Emily flounced her way abovestairs, and addressed his grace. “Thank you. I have always found it best to begin as you plan to go on. Our roles are becoming established nicely, don’t you think?”
“Quite,” returned Avanoll, happily amazed. “But be warned; that was just the opening skirmish in what may well prove an epic battle. My dear sibling may not be very astute, but she is inventive, and mischief is her middle name. Shall we adjourn to the drawing room and allow the footmen to resume their posts at the door? My undependable aunt is assuredly still out and about, regaling everyone she meets with the details of the debilitating disease that will probably keep her niece abed and secluded for several days.”
“Was that your brainchild or hers?”
“Mine, more’s the pity. She’ll probably lay it on so thick and rare only a ninny will fail to scent a scandal. But we—and if I haven’t thanked you I do so now—have shut the door on any rumor by fetching our fledgling home safe and dry. I suppose you think me cold-hearted or unbearably rude in not allowing you to retire along with my sister?” suggested his grace, as he motioned Tansy into a large room and directed her to a chair near the neat fire blazing in the hearth.
“On the contrary, sir. I find it entirely in character,” replied Tansy as she ignored the gesture to stand in front of the fire, holding her chilled hands toward the heat. His grace, having half-descended into a facing chair, hastily rose once more so that he fairly bumped heads with his cousin.
He could see her discomfort and fatigue and his conscience twinged as he remembered her protestations of hunger and bone-deep weariness. But he felt deeply the need to get a few things settled before his aunt, who headed the increasingly long list of banes upon his suddenly blighted life, burst in on them and opened her proverb-spouting, epigram-quoting mouth. Five minutes with Aunt Lucinda would be sufficient to make even the redoubtable Miss Tamerlane lope off to parts unknown.
So instead of dismissing his cousin—who was making only a cursory effort to hide several wide yawns—he launched into a detailed description of her duties as concerned his sister.
As these duties seemed all directed toward the same end. Tansy cut in rudely, “I believe you have made yourself abundantly clear and can say no more without repeating yourself. I am correct, I believe, in surmising from your words, dressed up in fine linen as they are, that you merely mean I am to keep Lady Emily on a stout and short leash while giving her the impression she has been given her own head. I am to be an ape leader without, thank goodness, having to teach sums, globe-reading, water color sketching, or fine needlepoint. I daresay it sounds no easy task you have set me, but it is head and shoulders better than slaving over Squire Lindley’s brats.” She rose as if to quit the room but hesitated as Avanoll spoke again.
“You are correct as far as it goes, cousin, but there is more to it than that. Emily must be chaperoned at all times, and that means you must be fitted out with, er,” his eyes flitted unflatteringly over her present attire, “what I mean to say is that you will need a complete new wardrobe.” As Tansy started to protest he cut into her objections with a stern voice. “Be sensible, Miss Tamerlane. As our cousin it is only right we assist you if the cost of the thing is what has put you on your high ropes. Besides, to be frank, if that gown is any indication of your wardrobe—any argument you make to appear in Society in more of the same would be ludicrous.”
Two high spots of color appeared on his cousin’s cheeks, but she swallowed hard and bowed to the intelligence of his reasoning. Indeed, what she stood up in was more than representative of her wardrobe, it was the best thing in it. Her firm (some would say stubborn) chin came up and she asked if she could now retire. Any minute her stomach would set up a loud grumble and destroy her last shreds of dignity.
“I will detain you no longer than necessary, but there are one or two more items—”
“Yes, yes, I know. Your sister is a very open and confiding person.” She held out her right hand and ticked off the items on her long, slim fingers as her cousin mentally added fine bone structure to the plus side of his list on the girl—a side heavily outweighed by the minus column. “One: your grandmother, the dowager Duchess. An intelligent old lady from what I could glean, who washed her hands of Lady Emily’s come-out after their first foray to Bond Street. Two, and here I am not as clear: your aunt, the woman responsible for your sister’s dislike of her wardrobe, and whose laxity, laziness, or gullibility is no more a deterrent to Emily’s high flights than a parlor table. Now may I please be excused, your grace?”
“If you would cease to interrupt me every time I open my mouth, we co
uld bring this interview to an end in short order. I too have had a trying day,” his grace pointed out uncharitably. “My grandmother, who as you say is a highly intelligent and rather sly old girl, resides for the moment in town, but has decided to return to Yorkshire by the end of the week. If you guard your manners and refrain from stable slang and boxing cant, we should scrape by with her with no problem. It is Aunt Lucinda, who I am forced to keep here for lack of any relative to ship her off to—none of my kin being so desperate for a live-in companion or so out of my favor as to have dear Lucinda foisted off on them—who presents the most delicate problem. She will be quite hipped to find herself replaced, you see.”
Tansy cocked one well-defined brow. “A real clunker?”
The Duke allowed a small smile. “Widow of my cousin, Jerome Benedict. Old Jerry turned up his toes some six months ago, about a week after losing his last groat at the gaming tables. It seemed logical at the time to have Lucinda companion Emily for the Season. She has been under my roof for the eternity of time that makes up the span since Jerry’s funeral. I should have realized a simple loss of fortune wouldn’t be enough to make my cousin cash it all in. Living with that widgeon, I’m surprised he lasted so long, but in the end I’m positive it was the enforced rustication with the woman that drove him to sticking his spoon in the wall. You see, she has this, let’s see, how can I put this? You see, Aunt Lucinda harbors a predilection to, er, that is, she, um—”
Whatever the uncomfortable Duke was about to say was forestalled by unmistakable sounds of arrival in the foyer, and both pairs of eyes went at once to the doorway. Out of the corner of her mouth Tansy suggested teasingly, “Drinks a bit, Aunt Lucinda, does she?”
The corner of Avanoll’s mouth lifted as he returned ruefully, “Would that she did. I’d keep her so well supplied she’d have no time left to pest me into following Jerry to my heavenly reward posthaste.”
Tansy’s visions of her cousin did not include a halo, but the image of him with horns, tail, and pitchfork caused her russet-brown eyes to dance in her head and a wicked grin to light her fine face with mischief.
So it was that the first sight Aunt Lucinda had of the young hoyden (or so was her first impression) she would later learn was to usurp her position as guardian to the innocent little lamb—just now regrettably misplaced—did not show the girl to advantage.
For the moment, however, the lady was not to be deterred from informing her honored relative and head of the family of her success at Lady Jersey’s soiree—strange females in the house or nay.
Watery blue eyes disengaged contact with startled brown ones, and not by even so much as a nod did the former recognize the necessity of being presented to the disgustingly high female who was in the act of leaning down a bit to get a better sight of the tiny woman in voluminous crepe draperies.
The eyes slid to regard Avanoll, and when she was sure she had his attention she raised one pudgy beringed hand (half-covered by dripping lace) to her blonde, ringlet-festooned brow, sighed deeply, and tottered—weary from fighting the good fight—to the chair nearest the hearth (there were several closer to the near-swooning female, but these were not nearly so well padded).
Once comfortably seated, her three-tiered, ruffled skirts arranged decorously about her ankles, she announced in the tones of one badly used: “‘It is easy to tell a lie, hard to tell but a lie.’ Thomas Fuller.”
Tansy sidled nearer the Duke and whispered, “I cannot doubt Emily and your aunt are not bosom beaus. Two tragedy queens in the same household? Insupportable! But tell me, who is this Fuller person?”
“A divine, from the seventeenth century, I believe,” Avanoll informed her absently, then added, “kindly hold your tongue while I endeavor to sort this out.”
With the air of one about to begin an oft-performed but never looked-for office, he approached his aunt, who was now fanning herself with a wisp of lace hankie.
“I take it, Aunt, that you did set it about tonight that Emily is unwell.” Although Avanoll was only bound to Lucinda as a cousin, he called her “Aunt” as a form of courtesy.
“‘A liar is a bravo towards God and a coward towards men.’ Lord Bacon,” his aunt answered, nodding.
The Duke was heard to sigh. “You have my bravos, too, for what they are worth, Aunt. I take it, I dearly hope, that you have succeeded in convincing the harpies that Emily is the victim of a temporary indisposition. I would hate to think a plague notice will be nailed to our door in the morning in answer to your fervor.”
Aunt Lucinda raised her eyes to the ceiling and bobbed her head, as if confirming with her Maker her belief that any blame to come out of this entire sordid affair would be placed firmly at her door—everyone forgetting the great strain on her nerves the Duke’s instructions to spread a falsehood abroad would be to one of her sensibilities. “‘Who spits against heaven,’” she warned the architect of the lie, “‘it falls in his face.’ Spanish Proverb.”
Throughout this interchange Tansy had remained silent—though dumbfounded might have been a better description. But this last was too much. That absurd little woman, dressed like a wedding cake and reciting words of wisdom in her high, childish voice on one hand, and the Duke of Avanoll, overwhelmingly masculine in this dainty room and undeniably holding his temper only by an impressive display of rigid self-control, swam before her mirthfully tearing eyes. Imagine, the Duke spitting up at heaven. Better still, imagine the inevitable result. Oh, her sides ached from trying to restrain chortles of laughter.
It was no use. She could not resist. Rising from her chair placed discreetly in the shadows she approached the adversaries—one glaring, the other simpering—to add her bit to the farce. She directed her words to the Duke: “‘Let not thine hand be stretched out to receive and shut when thou shouldst repay.’ Ecclesiasticus.”
Aunt Lucinda’s abused look vanished in a twinkling as she beamed up at her champion, who wasn’t after all, that very tall. For if one was in need of a savior, she should be of more impressive figure than anyone of just average height.
As Tansy candidly returned the funny little woman’s scrutiny, the Duke tried to make amends for insulting his aunt’s well-meant attempt at subterfuge only to be interrupted—quite thankfully, if the truth be known, for he dearly hated apologizing to anyone, least of all an irksome widgeon like his aunt—when said widgeon pronounced in suitably awestruck tones: “‘She appeared a true goddess in her wrath.’ Virgil.”
The unlikely goddess gave a slight curtsy and replied, “Not a goddess, I am sure, and I am at the moment anything but wrathful, but thank you for the compliment, dear lady.”
“Yes, well,” his grace interposed before this show of mutual admiration got out of hand, with questions still mainly unanswered. “Briefly, Aunt, briefly, succinctly, and to the point if you please, tell me if your mission tonight ended in success or failure. In short, is my sister’s reputation intact?”
His aunt bristled slightly but condescended to reiterate: “‘When I’m not thank’d enough, I’ve done my duty, and I’ve done no more.’ Fielding.”
As Tansy hid an appreciative smile at this sharp-as-a-saber-thrust retort, Avanoll strove for more clarification. “You kept it simple, I hope. And I will not have to explain away Emily’s amazing recovery from, say, cholera, in the next few days?”
The insulted lady sprang up from her comfortable chair, tipped back her becurled head the better to see this Doubting Thomas who refused to take her words (or a selection of other people’s words) as the truth. “‘It is not every question that deserves an answer.’ Publilius Syrus.” With that, she picked up her voluminous skirts with the delicate repugnance often shown when forced to step around a slimy puddle, and made to quit the room.
“If you would but wait a moment, dear Aunt, I would like to express my thanks for your kind action this evening,” the Duke cajoled.
The lady sniffed. ‘“In fine, nothing is said now that has not been said before.” Terence.”
> “But you will forgive me before you rush off?”
By this time his aunt had reached the doorway. “‘Pardon one offense and you encourage the commission of more.’ Syrus,” she said. Her stern visage and pudgy, waggling finger presented a grand imitation of a Prophet of Doom, forecasting dire consequences if she were to soften her attitude.
Avanoll bit out a short, pithy epithet before the peal of his cousin’s unleashed mirth brought him back to an awareness of his surroundings. “Aunt,” he called out, taking a step toward the door. “You have not been introduced to—oh, damn and blast, why do I bother?” he ended as the last row of flounce disappeared up the staircase.
He approached his cousin and opened his mouth for, unbelievably, yet another apology, but Tansy forestalled him by saying, “If it is of any consolation, your grace, you have my deepest sympathy. I’m astonished you haven’t forsworn your title and flown off to the wilds of India in search of some peace. However,” she continued, pausing to stifle yet another yawn, “if there are no more of our eccentric relations yet to climb out of the woodwork tonight, I would appreciate being shown to my bed.”
At that moment Dunstan, the Benedicts’ long-standing (and long-suffering) butler, knocked and entered at the Duke’s call. “The young lady’s chamber is ready, sir, and a small repast already by the fire.” Dunstan then bowed and left the room, Tansy in his wake.
“Wait, Miss Tamerlane. If you are to remain here there are some rules of common courtesy that must be adhered to, even if my theatrically inclined aunt chose to ignore them in order to enact a dramatic exit. I cannot countenance another such as she without slipping my wits entirely.” Avanoll locked his hands behind his back and paced importantly about the carpet, his cousin’s eyes boring into the back of his jacket. “As it is never too early or too late to learn, we shall now have lesson number one. I am a Duke, but you are not a Duchess. You do not dismiss me or leave a room I am inhabiting without first gaining my permission. You beg my pardon to retire.”
“Oh, bother,” his cousin groaned. “Wasn’t once enough? All right,” she decided after swallowing down hard on her rising temper, and dropped into a curtsy that would have been tolerable had she not caught her hem in her jean boot, necessitating the putting out of one hand to steady herself against a footstool. She rose awkwardly and began in a monotone. “I am mightily fatigued, your grace, and humbly beg your kind permission to...”
“Damme, Miss Tamerlane, don’t be impertinent or...”
“... retire to my bedchamber where I shall...” she persisted, singsong.
“Enough!”
“... immediately ring for hot water in which to soak my tired, aching feet. Standing on ceremony, I find, gives me a royal pain!” she finished doggedly before allowing a self-satisfied smirk—no amount of indulgence could term it a smile—and quitting the room.
The Duke sank into his chair, dumbfounded. Did he still harbor enough vitality to rant and rave, or should he take the coward’s route out and allow himself to be amused? He decided on the latter. Between smiles and frowns he thought back over the events since his acquaintance with his new cousin and their bizarre conversations. He chuckled and unwittingly repeated a few of her statements aloud. The chuckles grew into a halfhearted laugh, and the laugh into a near fit of hilarity which he would later attribute to his exhausted state.
A housemaid passing by overheard Avanoll’s laughter, peeked in to see her master the sole occupant of the room, and scurried off to the kitchens to wonder aloud that it was a rare treat to see his grace half-foxed and all silly-willy like plain folks.
Dunstan heard, sighed deeply, and ordered another decanter of port for the drawing room, sure to find the one he put there earlier sadly depleted, before coldly reminding the housemaid it was not her place to make sport of her betters.
The Duke’s valet, Farnley, who had sneaked down to the kitchens in the hopes of begging some bonemeal for a charm he was making to ward off warts, shrugged his shoulders and offered a silent plea he would not be called upon to undress his grace—a very huge man—in an unconscious state. Offering a further entreaty skyward that his grace would not slop wine on his waistcoat, he repaired to his master’s chambers to lay out some night clothes.
He was very surprised once there to meet a sober Duke, with not a sign of the drink that had supposedly sent him into a fit of the giggles while all alone in the drawing room. Farnley raised his eyes to the heavens, apologized that his prayers had been unnecessary, but thanked the gods anyway—just to keep them happy in case he ever had further need of them.
If that Miss Tamerlane Dunstan had told him about caused his grace’s strange behavior, and if it was true she was to be living with them all in London for the Season (such news travels fast belowstairs), Farnley felt he would be making many calls on the deities in the coming months.