Page 50 of The Rake's Daughter
Chapter Seven
The excursion to Astley’s Amphitheatre was one Izzy would never forget. She was still talking about it the next day. “Can you imagine how much training it must have taken to teach those horses to move all together like that, moving as one, so that man could ride three horses at once?”
“While standing upright on their backs and performing acrobatic tricks,” Clarissa added. “I was breathless with anxiety the whole time. I also enjoyed the mock battle, and didn’t you love those funny clownish acts?”
“Yes, it was all marvelous. But the horses were the best.”
“I liked Lord Randall’s cousin and her husband, too, didn’t you?”
“Yes, they were very nice,” Izzy agreed.
“And with the cousin to play chaperone, Lady Scattergood could rest easy about letting us go with only Betty to accompany us,” Clarissa said.
Izzy flopped back in her chair. “Oh, I could happily go again tonight and watch it all over again.” The wholeevening had been enthralling. They’d gasped, marveled, laughed and gasped again, and then, once the show was over, Lord Randall took them all out to a place he knew where they sat outside in the open air—for the pleasure and novelty of it as much as for propriety—and ate a delicious supper.
Clarissa laughed. “It would be exhausting. I’d rather wait and then have it all happen again as something of a surprise. Perhaps Lord Salcott would take us. It is very good of Lord Randall to escort us, standing in for his friend. Not to mention taking us riding so often.”
Izzy lifted her head and gave Clarissa a direct look. “He isn’t just standing in for the Grumpy Guardian, ’Riss. He likes you, you know.Likeslikes.”
“Who? Lord Randall?” Clarissa’s cheeks pinkened, but she dismissed the comment with a decisive shake of her head. “He’s very charming, of course, but he’s like that with everyone—every female.”
“Perhaps, but I also think he is quite interested in you.”
“I can’t imagine why you’d think so. He’s famous for escorting—and that, I presume is a euphemism—stunning beauties. In addition, he’s reputed to be very rich, so he doesn’t need my fortune. And as for the rest, well, what sort of a rake would he be if he didn’t try to have every woman eating out of his hand?”
Izzy could see that Clarissa had given the matter some thought. And that faint blush had to mean something. “That’s rather harsh isn’t it?” she said. “He might actually just like you—as in enjoy your company.”
Lord Randall flirted lightheartedly with Izzy, but she knew it meant nothing. He didn’t flirt at all with Clarissa—obviously he’d noted she wasn’t comfortable with flirting—but there was a kind of quiet solicitude in his attitude toward her. Which Izzy thoroughly approved of. Too many men ignored Clarissa because they considered her not worth noticing.
Clarissa shrugged. “He could have any woman he wanted. Why would he even look at me?”
“Why wouldn’t he?” Izzy said. “Don’t belittle yourself, ’Riss. You’re—”
She broke off as Lady Scattergood’s butler, Treadwell, entered the room. “Letter for you, Miss Studley.” He presented Clarissa with a letter on a silver salver.
“Thank you, Treadwell.” The minute the butler closed the door behind him, Clarissa continued, “Lord Randall is not interested in me, Izzy, he’s just being polite. Besides, you know I could never be interested in a rake—have you forgotten so quickly the damage Papa’s rakish ways caused? So get that thought right out of your mind. Now, let’s see who this is from. Oh, it’s from Nanny Best.”
She broke the seal and carefully read through the letter, which was crossed and recrossed with Nanny’s small spidery writing, and looked up at Izzy with a puzzled expression. “She’s writing to thank me.”
“What for?”
“The cottage and the pension.”
“What cottage and pension?”
“The one my mother and I supposedly gave her.” She handed Izzy the letter. “See for yourself.”
Izzy read it. “A cottage on Lord Salcott’s estate? He took her there himself in his carriage? And made sure she was settled comfortably and had everything she needed? It doesn’t sound like the Grumpy Guardian at all.”
Clarissa gave her a troubled look. “We’d better stop calling him that, if he’s gone to all that trouble for Nanny Best. He didn’t even know her. And it was Papa’s responsibility to look after her after all her years of service, not his.”
“Might he have arranged it with your trustees?”
Clarissa raised a skeptical brow. “A cottage on his own estate? Settling her in himself? My trustees might approve a pension, though I doubt it, but the rest is pure kindness.”
Izzy had to concede her sister’s point. For no reason shecould think of, Lord Salcott had given Nanny Best a home and security for the rest of her life. And not only had he seen to the old woman’s comfort personally rather than assigning a servant, reading between the lines, it sounded like he’d done it in a very sensitive manner, respecting Nanny’s dignity. And ascribing the kindness to Nanny’s beloved Clarissa and her mother, rather than making the old woman feel like a charity case.
It was very good of him. It was also a little irritating. Just when she’d decided he was an annoying, bossy, arrogant, interfering nuisance, he did something kind and thoughtful, like this.
