was the fashionable hour of the afternoon, and the main carriageway was packed with vehicles of all descriptions, most of them open so that the occupants could more readily take the air and look about at all the activity around them and converse with the occupants of other carriages and with pedestrians. There were crowds of the latter too on the footpath. And there were many riders on horseback. Stephen and Constantine were two of them as they wove their way skillfully among the carriages.
It was a lovely early summer day with just enough fluffy white clouds to offer the occasional welcome shade and prevent the sun from being too scorching.
Stephen did not mind the crowds. One did not come here in order to get anywhere in a hurry. One came to socialize, and he always enjoyed doing that. He was a gregarious, good-natured young man.
'Are you going to Meg's ball tomorrow night?' he asked Constantine.
Meg was his eldest sister, Margaret Pennethorne, Countess of Sheringford. She and Sherry had come to town this spring after missing the past two, despite the fact that they had had newborn Alexander to bring with them this year as well as two-year-old Sarah and seven-year-old Toby. They had decided at last to face down the old scandal dating from the time when Sherry had eloped with a married lady and lived with her until her death. There were still those who thought Toby was his son and Mrs. Turner's – and both Sherry and Meg were content to let that sleeping dog lie.
Meg had backbone – Stephen had always admired that about her. She would never choose to cower indefinitely in the relative safety of the country rather than confront her demons. Sherry himself had never had much difficulty engaging demons in a staring contest and being the last to blink. And now, because all the fashionable world had been unable to resist attending the curiosity of their wedding three years ago, that same fashionable world was effectively obliged to attend their ball tomorrow evening.
Not that many would have missed it anyway, curiosity being a somewhat stronger motivating factor than disapproval. The /ton/ would be curious to discover how the marriage was prospering, or /not/ prospering, after three years.
'But of course. I would not miss it for worlds,' Constantine said, touching his whip to the brim of his hat as they passed a barouche containing four ladies.
Stephen did the same thing, and all four smiled and nodded in return.
'There is no /of course/ about it,' he said. 'You did not attend Nessie's ball the week before last.'
Nessie – Vanessa Wallace, Duchess of Moreland – was the middle of Stephen's three sisters. The duke also happened to be Constantine's first cousin.
Their mothers had been sisters and had passed on their dark Greek good looks to their sons, who looked more like brothers than cousins. Almost like twins, in fact.
Constantine had not attended Vanessa and Elliott's ball, even though he had been in town.
'I was not invited,' he said, looking across at Stephen with lazy, somewhat amused eyes. 'And I would not have gone if I had been.'
Stephen looked apologetic. He /had/ just been on something of a fishing expedition, as Con seemed to realize. Stephen knew that Elliott and Constantine scarcely talked to each other – even though they had grown up only a few miles apart and had been close friends as boys and young men.
And because Elliott did not talk to his cousin, neither did Vanessa.
Stephen had always wondered about it, but he had never asked. Perhaps it was time he did. Family feuds were almost always foolish things and went on long after everyone ought to have kissed and made up.
'What /is/ it – ' he began.
But Cecil Avery had stopped his curricle beside them, and Lady Christobel Foley, his passenger, was risking life and limb by leaning slightly forward in her flimsy seat in order to smile brightly at them while she twirled a lacy confection of a parasol above her head.
'Mr. Huxtable, Lord Merton,' she said, her eyes passing over Con before coming fully to rest upon Stephen, 'is it not a /lovely/ day?'
They spent a few minutes agreeing that indeed it was and soliciting her hand for a set apiece at tomorrow evening's ball, since her mama had only just decided that they would go there rather than dine with the Dexters as originally planned, but she had already told simply /everyone/ that she was not going and consequently was positively /terrified/ she would have no dancing partners except dear Cecil, of course, who had been her neighbor in the country /forever/ and therefore had little choice, poor man, but to be gallant and dance with her so that she would not be an /utter/ wallflower.
Lady Christobel rarely divided her verbal communications into sentences.
One had to concentrate hard if one wished to follow everything she said.
Usually it was not necessary to do so but merely to listen to a word here and a phrase there. But she was an eager, pretty little thing and Stephen liked her.
He had to be careful about showing his liking too openly, however. She was the eldest daughter of the very wealthy and influential Marquess and Marchioness of Blythesdale, and she was eighteen years old and had just this year made her come-out. She was very marriageable indeed and very eager to achieve marital success during her first Season, preferably before any of her peers. She was likely to succeed too. If ever one wished to find her at any large entertainment, one had merely to find the densest throng of gentlemen, and she was sure to be in their midst.
But she had her sights set upon Stephen, as did her mama. He was well aware of it. Indeed, he was well aware that he was one of the most eligible bachelors in England and that the females of the race had decided this year more than in any previous one that the time had come for him to settle down and take a bride and set up his nursery and otherwise face his responsibilities as a peer of the realm. He was twenty-five years old and was, apparently, expected to have crossed some invisible threshold at his last birthday from irresponsible, wild-oat- sowing youth to steady, dutiful manhood.
Lady Christobel was not the only young lady who was courting him, and her mother was not the only mother who was determinedly attempting to reel him in.
Stephen liked most ladies of his acquaintance. He liked talking with them and dancing with them and escorting them to the theater and taking them for drives or walks in the park. He did not avoid them, as many of his peers did, for fear of stepping all unawares into a matrimonial trap. But he was not ready to marry.
Not nearly.
He believed in love – in romantic love as well as every other kind. He doubted he would ever marry unless he could feel a deep affection for his prospective bride and could be assured that she felt the like for him. But his title and wealth stood firmly in the way of such a seemingly modest dream. So – though it seemed conceited to think so – did his looks. He was aware that women found him both handsome and attractive. How could any woman see past all those barriers to know and understand /him/? To /love/ him?
But love /was/ possible, even perhaps for a wealthy earl. His sisters – all three of them – had found it, though all three marriages had admittedly made shaky beginnings.
Perhaps somewhere, somehow, sometime, there would be love for him too.
In the meanwhile, he was enjoying life – and avoiding the matrimonial traps that were becoming all too numerous and familiar to him.
'I believe,' Constantine said as they rode onward, 'the lady would have been happy to tumble right out of that seat, Stephen, if she could have been quite sure you were close enough to catch her.'
Stephen chuckled.
'I was about to ask you,' he said, 'what it is between you and Elliott – and Nessie. Your quarrel has been going on for as long as I have known you. What caused it?'
He had known Con for eight years. It was Elliott, as executor of the recently deceased Earl of Merton's will, who had come to inform Stephen that the title, along with everything that went with it, was now his.
Stephen had been living with his sisters in a small cottage in the village of Throckbridge in Shropshire at the time. Elliott, Viscount Lyngate then, though he was Duke of Moreland now, had been Stephen's official guardian for four years until he reached his majority. Elliott had spent time with them at Warren Hall, Stephen's principal seat in Hampshire. Con had been there too for a while – it was his home. He was the elder brother of the earl who had just died at the age of sixteen.
He was the eldest son of the earl who had preceded his brother, though he could not succeed to the title himself because he had been born two days before his parents married and was therefore legally illegitimate.
