evening, Dorothea threw him a glance that she hoped conveyed her disapproval of his managing ways. She could hardly claim success, as he laughed and murmured in her ear that if she continued to cast such provocative looks at him he would be unable to resist the temptation to kiss her again. In the shadowy carriage drive he suited the action to the words, before helping a thoroughly flustered Dorothea into her grandmother’s coach.
Hazelmere was more perturbed by the mysterious note and the incident on the terrace than he had let Dorothea guess. Walking back to Cavendish Square in company with Fanshawe, he considered the possible explanations.
Young heiresses had been abducted and held for ransom-that was one possible reason. However, most of the previous targets had been very wealthy. Dorothea, although commonly held to be well dowered, was not immensely rich. So, if it was an abduction attempt, the far more likely intention would be to have a touch at the Hazelmere coffers. It had never occurred to him that by making his interest in her so public he would make her a target for such attacks.
He considered the figure by his side. All was not well with his friend and, presuming from his silence on the matter that the cause was the younger Miss Darent, he did not like to add any extra burden to a brow already overwrought.
The romance between Fanshawe and Cecily was not proceeding as his lordship had hoped. He had discovered his love had a definite mind of her own and having once taken an idea into her head could hold to it buckle and thong in the face of all reason. She had objected to what she termed his proprietorial attitude at the masquerade, leaving him feeling decidedly rejected. While she had relented later, allowing him to escort her to their carriage, she had remained coldly aloof.
The two friends continued on their way, sunk in abstracted silence. They parted at the corner of Cavendish Square to retire to their respective chambers, troubled, for quite different reasons, over what the future held.
Chapter Ten
The Friday, Saturday and Sunday following the masquerade saw Hazelmere dancing attendance on Dorothea in a way that, had anyone still been watching, would have made them wonder at the power of love. Lady Merion was moved to make a number of rude comments to him when no one else was by, regarding the inadvisability of over- indulgence. Hazelmere listened politely and let the shafts fly by. He was thankful that his mother had returned to Hazelmere on Friday morning, archly refusing her dutiful son’s offer of escort, saying she knew how many other things he had on his mind.
Keeping a watchful eye on Dorothea at the balls and parties in the evenings presented no great problem. He could with confidence leave her in the company of a great many friends, both his and her own. But from the time she returned from riding in the Park to the time she left Merion House for whichever of the evening’s entertainments she was to attend, her day was a mystery to him.
On Friday he solved this by inviting her to drive with him in the Park in the afternoon. He almost committed the blunder of asking her to come out with him again on Saturday but, catching a glimpse of her face, realised that she was already becoming suspicious. She was quite capable of linking his sudden attentiveness with the incident at the masquerade. He returned to Hazelmere House and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to devise a means of keeping watch over her without being overly conspicuous.
The only other person he would have consulted was Fanshawe, but he was still having troubles of his own. He had to have better information on Dorothea’s movements, but for some while the means of acquiring such intelligence did not present itself. It was only when a footman quietly entered to light the fire that the penny dropped.
Summoning his butler, he asked, ‘Mytton, is there any connection between my household and that of Merion House?’
Mytton, not sure what had occasioned this odd query, saw no reason to equivocate. ‘Young Charles, the footman, m’lord, is walking out with Miss Darent’s new maid.’
‘Is he, indeed?’ mused Hazelmere softly. He glanced up at his terribly correct and equally shrewd henchman. ‘Mytton, you may tell Charles that I wish him to find out for me, if he can, what Miss Darent’s plans are for the morrow. He may take whatever time he needs. But I must have the information before tomorrow. Do you think he could accomplish such a task?’
‘Young Charles, if I may say so, m’lord, is a most capable young man,’ responded Mytton gravely.
‘Very good,’ replied Hazelmere, repressing a grin.
On returning home in the early hours of Saturday morning, he found that Charles had been every bit as capable as Mytton believed. Armed with Dorothea’s plans for the next two days, he was able to confine his appearances to her usual morning rides in the Park, to a ball on Saturday night and to the party she attended on Sunday evening. At the party, he found himself again under suspicion.
‘Just what are you about now?’ Dorothea enquired as they glided around the room in the only waltz of the evening.
‘I’d rather thought it was the waltz,’ returned Hazelmere, all innocence. ‘I’m generally held to be reasonably good at it.’
Dorothea regarded him much as she would an errant child. ‘And I suppose it has always been your habit to attend such eminently boring parties as this?’
‘Ah, but you forget, my love! My heart is at your feet. Didn’t you know?’
While the words were what she longed to hear, the tone left Dorothea in no doubt of how she should treat them. She laughed. ‘Oh, no! You cannot distract me so easily. You’ll have to think up a far more plausible excuse for your presence here, of all places.’
‘Is my being here so distasteful to you?’ he asked, feigning seriousness.
Seeing the lurking twinkle at the back of the hazel eyes, she had no compunction in answering, ‘Why, no! I believe I would welcome even Lord Peterborough in such company as this!’
He laughed. ‘Very neat, my dear. But why, if this party is so boring, are you gracing it with your lovely presence?’
‘I’ve no idea why Grandmama insisted on coming,’ she admitted. ‘Even she is not enjoying it, because Herbert and Marjorie are here. Thank heavens they leave for Darent Hall tomorrow. And Cecily! She’s been going around as if the sky has fallen.’ Fixing him with a direct look, she continued, ‘Incidentally, if you have any interest in that matter, you could tell Lord Fanshawe to stop encouraging her to think herself up to all the rigs, because she’s not. He has, and now she’s annoyed because he won’t let her do precisely as she wants. If he’ll only tell her quite plainly he won’t have it, she’ll stop. She always responds to firm handling.’
‘Unlike her elder sister?’ murmured Hazelmere provocatively.
‘Precisely!’ answered Dorothea.
Hazelmere had the opportunity to deliver her message to Fanshawe the next day. Thanks to Charles’s continuing efforts on his behalf, he learned that Dorothea and Cecily were to attend a select picnic at the home of Lady Oswey, escorted by that pink of the ton, Ferdie Acheson-Smythe. Feeling he could safely leave Dorothea’s welfare in Ferdie’s capable hands for the day, he collected Fanshawe and they departed to watch a prize-fight on Clapham Common. As the sisters were going to the theatre that evening in company with Lord and Lady Eglemont, Hazelmere felt no need to attend this function either. It was the early hours of the next morning when their lordships, thoroughly pleased with their day away from the rigours of the Season and somewhat the worse for wear, returned to Cavendish Square and their beds.
Ferdie and Dorothea departed Merion House on the Monday morning, expecting to pass a pleasant day at the Osweys’ house by the Thames at Twickenham. Cecily was querulous and moody, labouring under the twin goads of feeling, on the one hand, that she had treated Lord Fanshawe unfairly and, on the other, of not wishing him to order her life for her.
Observing her elder sister, she wondered why Dorothea, much more independently minded than herself, acquiesced so readily to the Marquis’s suggestions. Noting the absentminded smile that hovered on her lips as she gazed unseeingly out of the carriage window, she concluded that her sister was obviously in love with Hazelmere.
