The seventeen-year-old Miss Susanne invariably appeared mortified by her mother’s conduct, remarking once to C.J. how unfair it seemed that the behavior of her mother—and her elder sister as well, who took too much after the Fairfax matriarch by vociferously flaunting her ignorance in public gatherings—should reflect upon her father and herself, who surely didn’t merit such censure.
Mrs. Fairfax waved to C.J. and Lady Dalrymple, indicating that she and her brood had intentions of joining the countess’s party.
“Are you quite up to her company this afternoon, Aunt?” C.J. asked solicitously.
“Heavens!” Lady Dalrymple responded. “The way the woman taxes one’s nerves on occasion is a great stimulation to my constitution. Without a proper argument now and again, I feel my brain becoming addled from lack of use. You must look upon it as sport, child. And despite the occasional vulgarity of her manner, one must remember that she is a well-intentioned woman and a devoted mother.”
The Miss Fairfaxes were in the midst of an animated discussion of a highly inappropriate nature for public consumption—and of which their mother most emphatically disapproved—when their party approached C.J. and the countess.
“Well, it is a good thing Lord Digby apparently shares my sentiment on the ill effects of education on young women,” the matron said, drawing herself up.
“Whatever do you mean, Mrs. Fairfax?” asked C.J., already feeling a lump rise in her throat at the mention of Lord Digby.
“Oh, goodness, I thought everyone had heard the news, especially you, Lady Dalrymple, as you are so thick with Lady Oliver.”
This time it was the countess who raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Augusta Oliver, whatever her faults, does not traffic in idle gossip,” Lady Dalrymple replied smoothly, masking an anxiety that rivaled her “niece’s.”
“Well,” burbled Mrs. Fairfax, “I have it on the best authority that Lord Darlington’s estate is overmortgaged and in absolute ruins, and the only way that Delamere can possibly be salvaged is through a highly advantageous match between his lordship and an eligible young heiress. By all accounts, Lady Oliver is quite settled on her godchild, Charlotte Digby.”
C.J. felt her heart plummet to the marble floor and shatter at her feet. “But they barely know one another!”
“Quite true. Quite true,” Mrs. Fairfax acknowledged, oblivious to Miss Welles’s consternation. The matron was beside herself with pleasure at being able to provide intelligence to her social betters. “The Digbys are from Dorsetshire. Their son, Lady Charlotte’s elder brother, is Henry Digby, better known as the Silver Captain for the store of gold coins he seized from the Spanish treasure ship Santa Brigada in 1799.”
“Then why is he called the Silver Captain if he recovered gold coins?” asked the astute Miss Susanne, not one to readily believe her mother’s tales.
“Because, my pet, the Royal Navy gave him a share of forty thousand pounds sterling.”
Quickly doing the math, C.J. multiplied the figure by a factor of fifty to achieve a rough idea of the sum in third-millennium American dollars. Two million. She made the error of whistling in most unladylike amazement and tried to appear as though the sound had been produced by someone else.
“The late Robert Digby, Henry and Charlotte’s uncle, owned Minterne, in Dorset, which he purchased from the Churchill family in 1768. In his will, he left the estate to his considerably younger brother, the present Lord Digby. Henry is quite devoted to his sister and has no reservations about adding to Lady Charlotte’s dowry portion with some of his own funds.” A beaming Mrs. Fairfax congratulated herself on her awareness of such vitally important matters.
Lady Dalrymple and her “niece” exchanged concerned glances. C.J. found no words with which to reply, stunned to her very core by Mrs. Fairfax’s revelation. Could it possibly be true—that Lady Oliver was brokering a match between her nephew and her godchild? And assuming there was any truth to the rumors being spread by the Fairfax matron, was Darlington aware of his aunt’s machinations?
And if his lordship had full knowledge of Lady Oliver’s matchmaking, why had he entered into an understanding with C.J.? They had entered into an understanding, hadn’t they? Their afternoon of lovemaking had been the most passionate, tender, trusting, and truly beautiful experience she had ever had. And not only had he willingly given her a lock of his hair, but he had made her a gift of the locket in which to protect the keepsake—a pendant that had belonged to his own mother. After such an intimate gesture, C.J. had every reason to believe herself secure in the earl’s affections. Surely, she had never been given cause to doubt them. C.J. blinked away tears and turned away from the little party lest her emotions be detected, for in such a case they were sure to become a topic for immediate dissection.
“I would not be so hasty to share that which you are not entirely sure of, madam,” Lady Dalrymple replied somewhat tensely. She too would feel like a dupe if rumors of an impending betrothal between Lady Charlotte Digby and Lord Darlington were genuine and undistorted.
Mrs. Fairfax raised herself to her full height of approximately five feet one and gripped each of her daughters by the wrist. She did not like to have her veracity doubted. “We have much to do today and precious little time remaining to dawdle. Come, girls. Your ladyship, it is a great pleasure to see you in such restored health.” She nodded civilly to C.J. “Good day to you, Miss Welles.”
Miss Fairfax trotted dutifully beside her mother, although C.J. did not fail to miss the touch of the young blonde’s fan to her lips as they passed Captain Keats, who honored his inamorata with a subtle inclination of his head and the trace of a smile. Miss Susanne turned back to regard C.J. with a look of sympathetic concern as her mother towed her away.
“Heavens, Cassandra!” Lady Dalrymple looked as though she were about to
