Page 24 of To Catch a Husband
‘I am looking forward to my lesson already, Miss Lound.’
‘You may not feel that way once I have told you off for making a mull of it, sir. I really doubt my patience as a teacher.’ She gave him her smile again, and he felt he would not care if she told him off if he also earned smiles like that.
‘If we go to the library, I think we will find my brother at least attempting to study, and then, if you would like, we might have tea served in the morning room.’
‘Oh, thank you, yes. Is your brother very studious?’
‘Not unless pressed,’ Sir Rowland laughed, ‘but he knows the value of being ready for Michaelmas term after the long vacation when one becomes “rusty”. A few days’ work will pay dividends later.’
They left the gunroom, and Miss Lound handed back the key, then went to the library, where Tom Kempsey was furrow-browed over a Greek text. He looked very relieved to have an excuse to abandon his books, at least temporarily, and the trio went to the128morning room, where Sir Rowland rang for tea. Miss Lound’s impression of Tom was confirmed. He was open, pleasant, and just a little ‘unformed’ as yet. She liked him. When she left, a half hour later, it was in an uplifted mood, and she was halfway across the park before it dawned on her that she really had not done anything to make Sir Rowland favour her. This just proved how little she knew about men.
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CHAPTER EIGHT
Lady Damerham did not know whether to be pleased or worried when her daughter returned from giving her tour of Tapley End. Having feared that she would be either melancholy or enraged at Fate, her ladyship was surprised to find Mary certainly preoccupied, but in no way low spirited. When asked about it, she was vague, saying that Sir Rowland had shown himself a man of sense, and that his brother was applying himself to his studies before returning to Oxford toward the end of the month. This struck Lady Damerham as decidedly odd, as was the way she blurted out during dinner, with a mixture of defiance and triumph, that she was going to teach Sir Rowland the art of fly fishing.
‘That will be nice, dearest,’ was all Lady Damerham could think of in reply, and then changed the subject to130what flowers from the garden might be best arranged for the dinner table the following evening. Mary was so caught up in her own thoughts about fishing and Sir Rowland that she even opened her mouth to ask why dinner would be in any way special, and only then did she recall the engagement. Other than being glad to have Harry present, she could not say that she regarded the evening as one of entertainment, but rather of study. It was vital that she learnt the feminine arts, or at least the rudiments, so that she could begin to put her plan of campaign into effect properly. As she had expected, Harry Penwood had been only too eager to come to dinner, but his mama preferred to remain at home and write her letters, despite his entreaties.
Whilst Mary dressed with some thought, the thought was not actually about her clothing, but rather whether Lady Roxton still decided what Madeleine should wear or whether she was being given an element of her own choice to prepare herself for the spring. Mary did not want to be seen as a dowd, however long in the tooth Madeleine felt her to be, and so had selected the most modish of her evening gowns, which was to say it was only two seasons old. Her ‘advanced years’ did mean that where Madeleine would almost certainly be wearing pearls, she could be rather more showy. Her grandmother had left her a demi-parure of emeralds, drop earrings and a rivière necklace, but that was too grand for a dinner. However, she also possessed a pretty citrine necklace131and citrine and pearl earrings, which would do very nicely with the gold vandyking on the cream silk gown. She let her mother’s maid dress her hair, since Jane, the housemaid who acted as her maid to unhook fastenings and put things away, was not really very artistic with comb and pins. The overall effect was of a young woman with style and poise.
‘You have youth and beauty, Miss Banham, such as I cannot match,’ remarked Mary, studying her image in the looking glass. ‘I will not even try, and tonight you will teach me new things.’
Harry Penwood arrived before the Roxton party, and Mary was privately a little glad, because if he was going to be drawn to Madeleine Banham, then at least until her arrival they could be as ‘brother and sisterly’ open with each other as normal. He looked, she told him, ‘fine as fivepence’, at which he demurred, though admitted it had taken him four attempts to get his cravat tied as he wished.
‘I am rather out of practice with the fancier sort after uniform,’ he admitted, ‘and I thought I ought to make an effort for … my first dinner engagement.’
‘Oh yes, very wise.’ Mary pursed her lips and looked suitably serious, though her eyes danced. He laughed.
‘You never pander to a chap’s ego.’ He shook his head in mock dejection.
‘Ah, but that is because I have always found the male ego, er, self-panders, and needs no help from me.’132
‘Minx.’
It was her turn to laugh, but then her expression hardened.
‘I met Lord Cradley when I went to deliver the invitation to Lady Roxton. He was paying a social call.’ She sniffed derisively. ‘Very fashionably attired, lots of polish, and as nasty a Risley as one could meet. If his predecessor was charmless, he is the opposite, but more dangerous. He thinks a lot of himself too.’
Even allowing for Mary’s bias, this did not sound good news.
‘Oh.’ Harry was thinking of the effect of such a man upon an innocent young lady like Miss Banham.
‘However, I can report that Sir Rowland Kempsey is not of the same ilk, although I initially mistook him. You will laugh at me, Harry, for I was convinced it was he who had splashed me upon the road because I saw the curricle leave ou—his gates, but it turns out that it was Cradley, who must have been paying a call. I went to fish in the lake as my revenge, only to be discovered by two gentlemen whom I thought visitors and turned out to be Sir Rowland and his young brother. I think you may rub along quite well with Sir Rowland.’
‘Praise indeed. You must have been impressed.’ Harry looked at her a little more closely than she would have liked. Well, he was her dearest friend, but she was not going to reveal her plan, for she felt he would not see it in the same light as she did herself, as one of dire necessity. It was, said a small but clear voice in her head,133very fortunate that dire necessity took such a pleasing form.
‘I was not unimpressed.’ She sounded unemotional.
‘And tell me about this splashing incident.’
‘Alas, you will mock my misfortune.’ Mary told the tale, and though he smiled at her narrative, he did not mock.
‘Bad form all round, I would say. First of all, he was thoughtless about a lady pedestrian, and then he made an offer that must put a decent young lady to the blush.’
‘Oh, I was too angered already to blush, Harry, I promise you. I cannot recall my exact words, but he drove on in no doubt as to what I thought about him.’
‘That would give him something to think about. You have a sharp tongue, madam.’
