All three rose. After seeing them out, Hazelmere went upstairs to find Murgatroyd already awaiting him. As Tony had said, it had become a lot more complicated than anticipated.
Over the light meal they sat down to before the Richmond House ball, Dorothea, prompted by Hazelmere’s comments in the Park, drew out Lady Merion on the relationship between the Marquis, Lord Fanshawe and Ferdie Acheson-Smythe.
Lady Merion, thinking this a sensible question in the circumstances, was happy to describe the situation as fully as she could. ‘Well, the principal seats of the Hazelmere and Eglemont peerages, held by the Henry and Fanshawe families respectively, lie in Surrey and adjoin each other. The families have always been close allies and friends. Hazelmere and Fanshawe were born only a few weeks apart; Hazelmere is the elder. Both have two older sisters and Hazelmere has a younger sister, too, but neither has any brothers. Consequently it was only natural that the boys grew up together. They went to Eton and Oxford together and have been on the town for…oh, over ten years now. The bond between them is very strong-stronger than if they had in fact been brothers, I suspect.’
‘What about Ferdie?’ asked Cecily.
‘Ferdie is the son of Hazelmere’s mother’s sister, and so a first cousin to Hazelmere. He is about five years younger than Marc, but he was sent to spend most of his childhood summers at Hazelmere. I don’t quite understand why, for in temperament they seem very dissimilar, and there’s the age difference too, but Ferdie and Hazelmere and Tony Fanshawe are very firm friends indeed. They always help each other out and used to cover up for each other when they were younger and got into scrapes. Ferdie is very sincerely attached to the Marquis and Lord Fanshawe, and they always seem very protective and tolerant of him.’
By this time they had finished their meal and Lady Merion, glancing at the clock, shooed them off to put the finishing touches to their
Lady Merion was quite correct in telling her granddaughters that the bond between Ferdie and their lordships ran deep. It dated from Ferdie’s first visit to Hazelmere, when, on his first morning there, the shy eleven-year-old had seen his magnificent sixteen-year-old cousin and his friend leave the stableyard for an early-morning ride. He had been in his bedchamber at the time, and had hurriedly dressed and gone down to the stables, thinking to get a horse and catch up with them. Instead, he had fallen victim to two young stable-lads, who, for a joke, had set him on a half-broken Arab stallion. The horse, very fresh, had broken away, Ferdie clinging for dear life to its back. Luckily it had headed in the direction taken by the older boys. In the ensuing chase, Marc and Tony Fanshawe had worked with Ferdie to save both him and the stallion. Sheer good luck and a deal of courage from them all had pulled it off. From that day onwards the three were, as far as their disparate ages and interests allowed, inseparable. Whenever other children had tried to bully Ferdie, they had very quickly learned they had to answer to either Tony or the even more formidable Marc.
Habits formed in childhood ran deep, and when Ferdie had got into trouble in the petticoat line at Oxford, it was to Marc, rather than to his own scholarly and eccentric father, that he had turned. And Marc had very efficiently sorted the problem out. On his coming on the town, those who belonged to the better of the gentlemen’s clubs had quickly realised that if Ferdie Acheson-Smythe was threatened then Lord Fanshawe and the Marquis of Hazelmere had a habit of materialising behind him. When Ferdie got involved in controversy over another gentleman’s efforts at fuzzing the cards and was challenged to a duel, illegal though that practice then was, it was Hazelmere who stepped in and ruthlessly put a stop to it.
In return, it must be said, their lordships had found that Ferdie possessed a rare talent: he was so very trustworthy that women tended to pour all their secrets into his ear. Thus Ferdie had proved more than useful to them over the past five years. However, as Hazelmere had truthfully told Dorothea, it was quite impossible for Ferdie to view either himself or Tony Fanshawe askance.
The Dowager Marchioness of Hazelmere descended the stairs of Hazelmere House, thinking how pleasant it would be to have a new Lady Hazelmere to make use of its beautifully proportioned salons. She had come up from Surrey, as was her custom, but this year she had much higher expectations of the Season.
At just over fifty, she was still a striking woman, tall and willowy, her abundant chestnut hair still retaining much of its glory, and the years had not robbed her face of its piquancy. She had contracted a bronchial complaint some years before and, as this was exacerbated by the fumes of the city, she usually spent only a week or so in London. Her expectations had been fuelled by the extraordinary intelligence conveyed to her by her London correspondents. As well as the carefully worded missive from Hermione Merion, detailing the history of her son’s involvement with Dorothea Darent, she had received no less than six letters from other close friends, all comprehensively describing Hazelmere’s infatuation with Miss Darent. Of these, the most informative had been the most recent, from the Countess of Eglemont. Tony’s parents had returned to London a week earlier and Amelia Fanshawe had dutifully reported how things stood between both her son and Cecily Darent and Hazelmere and Miss Darent. More than anyone else, she would trust Amelia to correctly interpret Marc’s behaviour. And what Amelia had written had been intriguing. Consequently she had been amused rather than surprised to find that her usually cool son had moved dinner forward so he could arrive at the ball ahead of his inamorata.
Entering the drawing-room, she was taken aback to find Tony Fanshawe and Ferdie in attendance. As her elegant son strolled across the room to plant an affectionate kiss on her cheek her eyes openly quizzed him. He was as immaculate as ever, in a perfectly cut black coat that looked as if it had been moulded to his broad shoulders, skin-tight knee-breeches encasing his powerful thighs. Diamonds winked amid the snowy folds of his cravat.
‘Welcome to town, Mama! As always, you look quite ravishing.’
His eyes returned her regard with a bland and innocent air, which deceived her not at all. While Tony and Ferdie made their bows Mytton entered to announce dinner.
Throughout the meal Hazelmere, ably seconded by her nephew and Tony Fanshawe, kept her entertained, describing all that had occurred thus far in the Season, with two notable omissions. Amused by their strategy, she was even more entertained than they intended.
After the servants withdrew she seized the initiative. She fixed both her son and Fanshawe with a look that from long experience they knew meant that she intended to get to the bottom of whatever had excited her attention. ‘Yes, that’s all very well,’ she said, breaking into yet another of Ferdie’s anecdotes, ‘but what I really want to know is why none of you has yet seen fit to mention Hermione Merion’s granddaughters. From everything I hear, you have all been somewhat preoccupied with them, have you not?’
She found herself looking into her son’s hazel eyes as he gently explained, ‘But, Mama, you already know all about them, and more, from all the letters you’ve been sent. We didn’t want to bore you.’
With the ground cut so masterfully from under her feet, she could think of nothing to say. Instead she raised her glass in mock salute. ‘I trust they will be present tonight?’
‘Most assuredly. Ferdie is to escort them there.’
‘Then you must both promise to introduce them to me and I’ll promise to be silent on the subject all the way there.’
‘And back?’ asked Fanshawe, used to the Hazelmere conversations.
She laughed. ‘All right.
‘Under those conditions, I promise,’ answered Hazelmere with a grin.
‘And I,’ echoed Fanshawe.
‘Good heavens!’ ejaculated Ferdie, surprising them all. ‘I’ll have to dash or I’ll be late. Never do to keep them waiting!’
Amid laughter, he departed for the other side of Cavendish Square, urging them to make haste if they wanted to get to Richmond first.
Arriving on the doorstep of Merion House as the Merion carriage rounded the corner, Ferdie had the forethought to ask Mellow not to announce it until the Hazelmere carriage, already standing outside Hazelmere House and clearly visible across the square, had departed. Mellow, accepting the golden
Inside the drawing-room, Ferdie caught his breath at the visions of loveliness that met his eyes. Even he had started to wonder for how much longer the Darent sisters could dazzle in elegant gowns that were quite unique.
Dorothea, standing by the marble mantel, was a stunning picture in ivory satin, overlaid with lace around the neckline and in a broad sweep down one side of the skirt. The pearls at her throat shone warmly in the firelight, and her hair appeared burnished by the flames. The simplicity of the gown was breathtaking. Thinking of the effect this
