"The Slightest Provocation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenthal Pam)

Chapter Twelve

Upon her return from church, Elizabeth announced that she might add an inch of the Belgian lace I brought her to the neckline of the gown she’d be wearing to the Cauthorn assembly. It would be much more proper, didn’t Mama and Aunt Mary think so?

After Jessie and I have talked ourselves silly for a week, trying to convince her of precisely the same thing. But now it seems there’s a very proper gentleman next door, who might disapprove of anything too forward or Penley-ish-or so she’s convinced herself.

Provoking, but Jessica was pleased with the result-enough so to promise to preside over the cistern committee. Too bad I didn’t need anything else-with her son Fred due to arrive so soon, she’d have promised away a kingdom.

Still, once he did arrive, I could see why. How like Arthur he is-easy smile, comfortable manners, knack for making everyone seem likeable. Whereas his friend, the tall and polished Lord Ayres, is a bit of a walking cloak rack, though perhaps that’s just the effect of the startling number of capes his greatcoat boasts.

Handsome, in a rather killingly Byronic way, with large, damp violet eyes and enough carefully waved hair to make up for the smallish size of his head. Offered a low bow and a studiously deep gaze to each of us ladies, each gaze calibrated to a different vibration on the spectrum of sensibility.

Elizabeth standoffish with him, her imagination monopolized by our neighbor, I expect.

Wrote to Halsey: Confirm drilling the Militia, next week, June 4, Rowen’s fallow fields, north. [They could go over the details, at the Cauthorn assembly next week.]

More from Traynor (received this morning):

“The Leicester chaps are to retreat upon Nottingham, there to await the Yorkshire men, amp; when a junction is formed, they are to march to London. At stated places in the road the Lancashire and Derbyshire men are to join them. At London to contend for a change in the government.” [Whew. So there you had it.]

Fannie Grandin and Miss Kimball arrived after breakfast. Fannie’s a delightful-looking girl-rich auburn hair and knowing hazel eyes; Miss K. a nonentity whom Fannie’s mama was doubtless sick of having about her.

Jessie predicted they’d send Fannie to us, and I can see why. If I had a plain older daughter making her come-out, I’d pack this one off to the country too. Not so heart-stoppingly lovely as Elizabeth, but that’s as it should be. Fannie’s papa is a baronet; sometimes providence plays fair with its gifts. She received Lord Ayres’s attentions with good grace and much sense of entitlement, but was mostly happy to see Elizabeth. Lifelong friends, much hugging and squealing-giggling too, and whispering, some of it obviously about me. Which is to say, of course, about Kit… I overheard the words Rowen, divorce, Cauthorn, and so elegant.

I expect one could say that about him nowadays. Indeed, with the military bearing he’s picked up, he’ll do very well at Almack’s.

The young ladies and Miss K. called on our neighbors this afternoon, while Fred and Lord A. did some shooting. Lady Grandin would want her daughter to dance attendance upon the young marchioness. And if Lord Christopher happens to be there too, well, what of it?

Jessie and I stayed home to welcome an entirely different group of young people into our house-the village boys and girls who’ll be helping us prepare for the house party. A chance for us, of course, to reduce unemployment in the district, and fill some of their bellies as well. And a day’s work for us, the butler, and the housekeeper too, to get them settled in.

Though I did wonder about that striking-looking boy-Nicholas Merton-odd, he almost reminds me of Kit at around sixteen, but it’s probably the standoffish look. We were told during a charity visit that Nicholas’s father has disappeared, for fear of being arrested for sedition. So we could hardly refuse to hire the poor boy-it’s not his fault, after all, and he’s Cathy Williams’s nephew into the bargain; I’ll ask Peggy to look after him.

So much to do; Fannie and Elizabeth home much too soon from their calls. We could hardly attend to their girls’ mournful report that Lord Christopher was off somewhere on business.

Kit? Business? No, they must have got that wrong.

Rode to Nottingham. Rec’d handsomely by Benedict-luncheon, access to files, his informant’s reports. Notes:

Their local Reform Society met last Friday, great excitement, London delegate Hollis expected when next they convene-ah, that’ll be tonight; I must get a further report… discussion of pistols, places to be obtained; informant speculates a cache of pikes is buried.

Rising set for June 9.

B. to send me copies of tonight’s report.

Rode home through sunset… tomorrow bids fine… hermit’s hut.

[The last words had been crossed out, for he liked to keep his files-and his thoughts-rigidly divided between business and whatever other claptrap might be running through his head.]