only slightly slurred, ‘I have heard the most extraordinary rumour about one of our neighbours. Now surely you can tell me the truth of it… is it indeed the case that Lord Pool has embarked upon elk farming?’
But Lady Clarice was not to be deterred by such a weak ploy. She gave him a stern glance and returned to the fray. ‘You see, Draven,’ she trumpeted to the table at large, ‘it wouldn’t do to slight this sweet child by implying that anyone in the ton might compare her to Miss Pythian-Adams. We are not so unkind, not at all! We in the ton accept every gentleman or lady for what he or she is, and we do not judge on the opportunities he or she may not have had.’
‘That is very kind of you, Lady Clarice,’ Imogen said bravely, into the curdling moment of silence that followed.
Draven Maitland stood up with an abrupt scraping of his chair. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ he said through obviously clenched teeth, ‘I needs must garner a bit of culture before I grow a day older. Perhaps I can find myself an opera singer.’
And with that extraordinary bit of impudence, he smashed his way out of the room.
‘One might suppose that he meant that to be a cutting remark,’ Mr Felton said to Tess, imparting to this quite reasonable assessment a degree of disdain that would have made her curl up like a hedgehog had it been applied to her.
‘Perhaps Lord Maitland had an urgent appointment,’ she suggested with no conviction.
He threw her an amused glance. ‘As I understand it, his mother holds the purse strings and has selected a cultivated bride in an effort to overcome the influence of the turf. One can only assume after this display that he doesn’t agree with her tactics. Or,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘one might conclude that cultivation is wasted on the man.’
Lady Clarice was gently patting her mouth with a handkerchief. ‘My son,’ she said, in a clear, carrying voice, ‘has an artistic temperament. I’m afraid that sometimes his nerves get the better of him. But I expect that marriage to Miss Pythian-Adams will calm his tempestuous nature. She understands the artistic nature since she has one herself.’
Suddenly Rafe leaned in Tess’s direction, and said, ‘You four already know Maitland, don’t you? That’s right … you said – no, Imogen said …’ His voice trailed off as he looked down the table at Imogen. She was looking quietly at her plate, but there was a little smile playing around her mouth that said volumes.
Tess couldn’t think what to say.
Rafe blinked at her. ‘I gather that your sister Imogen was not competing with Annabel to become a duchess?’ Tess bit her lip.
‘Damnation, if this guardian business doesn’t look like more work than I anticipated!’ Rafe muttered.
‘Mr Felton, why are you visiting the depths of Hampshire?’ Lady Clarice asked. Her customary arch tone was a little strained — one must suppose that she felt the stress of her son’s departure – but she seemed determined to avoid comment on it.
Mr Felton put down his fork. ‘There is a race at Silchester in a few days. I intend to run two horses. I generally bring my horses down a week before a race and allow Rafe’s stable master to baby them.’
‘Rafe? Rafe?’ Lady Clarice said querulously. ‘OA. You mean His Grace. I am afraid that I simply cannot accustom myself to the easy manners of this generation.’
‘I’m afraid it is my idiosyncrasy rather than Lucius’s lack of manners,’ Rafe said. ‘I abhor being addressed by my title.’
‘Lucius? Ah, our dear Mr Felton,’ Lady Clarice said.
Tess watched, rather surprised. She had formed the impression that Lady Clarice would have nothing to do with those who were untitled.
Rafe bent his head close to hers. ‘Lucius is blessed with an income the size of the Prince Regent’s. There’s always the chance that she’ll be led astray by his estate and let go her dreams of being a duchess.’
‘Stop it!’ Tess whispered. ‘She might hear you!’
‘The excitement of being able to make sisterly confidences has likely gone to my head,’ Rafe told her, not even bothering to hush his voice.
‘That, or the brandy you’ve tucked away,’ Mr Felton put in.
So Rafe was drinking brandy! He had finished the glass given him when they sat down, and he was well near down in the next glass. But to Tess’s mind, the only sign that their guardian might be the slightest bit daffy was that his voice was even more growly than earlier, and he’d stopped flinging back the hair from his eyes. Instead, he just sat back, long legs spread before him, a lock of brown hair over his forehead, pushed back from the table in a most unducal fashion.
Lady Clarice leaned closer to him and smiled in a way that set Tess’s teeth on edge. ‘You poor man,’ she cooed. ‘You’re holding up under the strain of this invasion of females so well.’
‘Females never bother me,’ Rafe growled, ‘only ladies.’
Tess swallowed a grin.
‘Do you know your guardian well?’ came a voice from her left. ‘Not well,’ she said, turning reluctantly to Mr Felton. ‘I gather you have been friends for years.’ ‘Yes.’
Tess could see out of the corner of her eye that Rafe was waving his glass in the air, just a trifle unsteadily.
The butler, Brinkley, was making his way toward the top of the table with a decanter in hand and a disapproving expression on his face.
‘He handles his liquor well,’ Mr Felton said coolly, ‘but you might as well understand immediately, Miss Essex, that Rafe is not one to greet the evening without a copious draught of brandy.’
Tess’s eyes narrowed. Felton’s voice had the slight edge that she recognised; just so did the local nobility talk about her father’s ever-failing stables. It made her bristle all over. ‘I myself find abstemiousness remarkably tedious,’ she said, picking up her champagne and finishing the glass.
‘Your guardian will be euphoric to learn of your compatibility.’ Felton was obviously the sort of man who thought a sardonic expression was good enough for all occasions. He was overly large as well. Why, he must be all of fifteen stone and it looked to be pure muscle. He likely rode a stallion. Even his shoulders were a third again as wide as their guardian’s.
Thanks to being reared in a house cluttered by gear and periodically swept by groups of horse-mad gentlemen, Tess could spot a horseman at ten paces. When the dibs were in tune, and the horses were running sweet — well, then a horseman’s life was beautiful. But when a horse had to be put down, or the downs were too mired for galloping, or -
She shook off the memory of her father’s fits of despair. The shortest way to inoculate herself against this Adonis — nay, any man – was to ask him about his livestock. There was nothing more tedious than a man in the fit of equine adoration. ‘Do you have a large breeding programme, sir?’
‘Small but select. I fear I give my stables far too much importance in my life.’
Precisely. ‘I would adore to hear about your stables,’ she continued, giving him a dewy-eyed glance. Now he would launch into
