Page 45 of Miss Desirable
“I recall the first time I heard you referred to as Miss Dubious,” her ladyship said. “You were dancing with that dreadful Fortescue Armbruster. He wasn’t staring at your bodice, wasn’t trying to charm you. That struck me as most odd behavior for him.”
“That was my pity dance,” Catherine said. “We’d come across his lordship a couple years earlier in Italy, and he could not ignore me.” The waltz had been more painful than if Armbruster had offered her the cut sublime. The last vestige of Catherine’s innocence had died in that Mayfair ballroom, not when Armbruster had danced with her, but later, when she’d seen his friends condoling him on the ordeal of having to dance with the Diplomat’s Dubious Daughter.
“Armbruster is the one deserving of pity,” Lady Della said. “Not a groat to spare, and the hostesses invite him only to make up the numbers. Ash says his lordship greeted you cordially in the park when you rode out with Fournier.”
Catherine poured herself a cup of tea and decided that with Lady Della, she would begin as she meant to go on.
“Diplomatic service is much like having a large family, my lady. One is always observed. We didn’t all admit to being spies, but we all noticed details and guarded our privacy in equal measure. If the Dornings are to mob me, I am up to that honor.”
“I told Ash you would be. He likes Fournier, by the way. Says Monsieur knows more of melancholia than appearances would suggest. Ash is a melancholic, though we’re learning how to keep the beast on a leash. I am prone to panics, episodes of extreme, irrational dread. You will hear it from the others, so you might as well hear it from me.”
“I’m… sorry.” Catherine was also not about to reward Lady Della’s bold disclosures with reciprocal gestures of trust. Not yet, probably not ever. “Mama suffered the occasional bout of melancholia. She was better when she and Papa were together.”
Her ladyship finished her tea and set the cup on the tray. “Interesting. I am much better when Ash is on hand. You’ll join us at Richmond on Wednesday, then? We’ll make a day of it, and I will introduce you around. Have Fournier escort you. He’s good company, and he and Jeanette get to arguing in French, and we are all left quite in the dust, save for Colonel Goddard. It’s marvelous.”
The day would be overwhelming, but it would be only a day, and these people were Catherine’sfamily.She had longed for their notice, for the loan of their consequence, and now that she was to have it… She would beg for Fournier’s escort if she had to.
“Was this gathering your idea, my lady?”
Lady Della pulled on her gloves. “No.”
“But inviting me to join you was your idea.”
“Ash’s idea, actually, though I wish I’d thought of it. He said that you, too, know more of melancholia than appearances suggest. My husband is never wrong in these matters. If he says somebody has a gambling problem or a guilty conscience, they do. He suspects Lord Fortescue has both, but extra spares tend in those directions.”
“Melancholia nearly killed me at one point.” Oh God, where had that come from?
“But here you are, all healthy, wealthy, and wise instead. Well done of you. You and Ash can compare notes about how to keep the beast on its leash or, better still, out of the garden altogether. You must bring Caesar with you to Richmond.”
Her ladyship rose, while Catherine needed a minute to gather her wits before she got to her feet. “How is it you know the name of my guest dog?”
Della hugged her. A thoroughly presuming, wonderfully casual hug. “Jonathan Tresham is my half-brother, the Duke of Quimbey is his uncle, and Caesar belongs to Uncle. I know the dog at sight, but Fournier was the one who had the sense to bring him to you. Willow will approve, and Willow does not give his good opinion of any two-legged person lightly.”
Her ladyship left without bothering to curtsey her farewell, and Catherine returned to the tea tray, this time taking Mama’s wing chair.
She sipped her cooling tea, probably feeling somewhat like Franny at the end of a vigorous canter. Winded, a little befuddled to once again be out and about, but pleased.
Very pleased, and happy, but also a little like crying.
CHAPTERTEN
“You were smart to come peaceably to the inspection,” Worth Kettering said, falling in step beside Fournier uninvited. “If you ignore the Dorning family summons, they just start paying calls on you. There are a deuced lot of them to clutter up one’s calendar, particularly when they feel no compunction to decamp after a polite fifteen minutes. Best to simply brave them en masse.”
“I am but a humble escort. Miss Fairchild is the one braving the masses.” And how was she faring among the ladies who’d swept her off tocatch up over the teapot?
Kettering was big, dark-haired, and usually as restless of body as he was of mind. He was an informal investment advisor to the Crown—a dicey proposition when the Regent was afflicted with a compulsion to spend money. At Fournier’s request, Kettering had discreetly arranged business loans for a few émigrés. His terms were more than fair and his advice invariably sound.
Kettering was also married to the oldest Dorning daughter, and he was brother to a northern earl. Not a man to be trifled with.
Fournier had sold Kettering a quantity of wine over the years, including some interesting rosés. Here in Sycamore Dorning’s walled garden, Kettering exuded none of his usual brisk restlessness. He ambled instead of charged. He stopped to sniff a pot of hyacinths instead of spouting off about promising ventures or shaky banks.
Marriage clearly agreed with him.
“Miss Fairchild,” he said, “has been a thorn in the collective Dorning conscience for years. I was married with a child on the way before Jacaranda told me that she had at least one other sister that she knew of. The Dorning eyes don’t lie.”
“More’s the pity, when one is an illegitimate young woman facing the London tabbies.”
“Now those tabbies must face Miss Fairchild, and they will do so knowing she stands among allies. The family is of one mind in that regard.”
