Lady Lavinia's Match. Mary Nichols

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      ‘No, but I do not doubt word will soon go round and I will be besieged. Tell me what is planned and where you will be going, then I shall know whom to accept.’

      ‘Lady Graham is holding a ball…’

      ‘Don’t tell me Constance is not off her hands yet. This must be the third year she has tried to fire her off.’

      ‘James, I wish you would not be so vulgar,’ Frances said. ‘Poor Constance cannot help being plain, but I am sure some young man will recognise her worth before long.’

      ‘Well, it will not be me, so you may put that idea from your mind. But if I am invited, then I shall go, if only to dance with you.’

      ‘And me,’ Lavinia put in.

      He inclined his head towards her. ‘That goes without saying, my dear. Now, what else is there?’

      Although the Season was half over, the Duchess reeled off a catalogue of events, from musical soirées and routs to balls and picnics, not to mention a visit to the opera and another to Vauxhall Gardens. ‘That is, if this wretched business with the Queen doesn’t upset everyone’s plans.’

      ‘Then I shall look forward to seeing much more of you both.’

      Lavinia began to laugh and they both turned to her in puzzlement. ‘What have I said that is so comical?’ he asked.

      ‘You have just said the same thing as Lord Wincote and in him you condemned it as bold and desperate. Are you desperate, my lord?’

      ‘Certainly not.’ Unwilling to enter into a discussion on the topic, he stood up. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, I must leave you both.’

      Lavinia sprang to her feet. ‘I will come to see you off, James.’

      He smiled, took his leave of his stepmother, then left the room, followed by Lavinia. At the outer door, she took his hat and gloves from the footman and handed them to him. Her eyes were alight with mischief. ‘I shall see you tomorrow at seven round the corner in the mews,’ she whispered. ‘We do not want to wake the household, do we?’

      ‘Vinny, I do not think—’

      Before he could go on, she had pushed him towards the door. ‘Good afternoon, my lord.’ He suddenly found himself on the step and the door firmly closed behind him. It was a situation he would never have put up with from anyone else; any other young lady treating him in that cavalier fashion would have been dropped immediately. But Lavinia was different. Lavinia was Lavinia, self-willed, to be sure, but there wasn’t an ounce of malice in her body; she had not meant it as a put-down, simply a way of preventing him from arguing.

      He clamped his hat on his head, strode to the phaeton, climbed in and drove off, smiling to himself at the prospect of teaching her to drive it.

      ‘Vinny, what was all that about?’ Frances asked when Lavinia rejoined her. ‘Have you quarrelled with James?’

      ‘No, Mama.’ And Vinny, who did not see the need to hide it, told her about the encounter with Lord Wincote and James’s reaction.

      ‘He was only trying to protect you,’ her ladyship said. ‘You know he is very fond of you.’

      ‘That does not mean he may act as a substitute father. I am not such a ninnyhammer as to fall under the spell of the first man who pays me attention.’

      The Duchess laughed. ‘No, for you demonstrated that very clearly when you had your come-out. Your dear papa thought you were being too particular.’

      ‘But you did not, did you? You know how important it is to feel comfortable and at ease with one’s choice.’

      ‘Of course. But there are other things to consider.’

      Lavinia laughed. ‘Oh, I know. Good looks and mutual interests and money. I have heard it all before. But I want to be in love. You and Papa were in love, weren’t you?’

      ‘Yes, of course. We still are.’

      ‘Then you will understand.’

      ‘Yes, but you have only just met Lord Wincote. You surely do not think you are in love with him?’

      ‘No, how could I be? I have barely exchanged half a dozen words with him. I simply wanted to tease James.’ What she did not say was that Edmund Wincote had the most mesmeric eyes she had ever come across. They seemed to have the power to turn her usually iron will to jelly. She wanted to see him again to be sure she had not dreamed it. And if she had not, to explore where the feeling would take her, James’s disapproval notwithstanding.

      ‘Teasing people,’ Frances said slowly. ‘has been known to rebound on the one doing the teasing.’

      ‘I know, but James asks for it. He is so…so…stiff sometimes.’

      The Duchess laughed. ‘That is the last word I would use to describe him. What is it you do to him to make him behave so out of character?’ The question was a rhetorical one; Lady Loscoe had a very good idea, but it was not for her to point it out. She decided to change the subject. ‘When I left the house this morning, you were intent on doing some painting. How did it go?’

      Lavinia scrambled to her feet, her eyes alight with enthusiasm, James and Lord Wincote both forgotten. ‘Come with me and I will show you.’

      She led the way down to the ground floor ballroom and flung open the door. ‘There! What do you think of it?’

      Frances stood and surveyed the great canvas in surprise for a full minute, then she said, ‘Lavinia, why is it so big?’

      ‘It is a backcloth to a play.’

      ‘Oh. Have you been commissioned to paint it?’ Frances herself took commissions for all sorts of subjects, most of them family portraits, pets, horses and vistas of people’s estates, the proceeds for which she donated to the orphanage fund. Not surprisingly, she had never been asked to make scenery.

      ‘No, I just did it. It is meant for A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’

      ‘Yes, I can see it would do very well for that, but that doesn’t explain why you decided to do it.’

      ‘Mama, you remember the Thespian Players coming to Risley earlier this year?’

      ‘Yes. The Duke allowed them to put a tent up in one of the meadows, I recall.’

      ‘It gave me an idea. I should like to put on a play for our friends and acquaintances and donate the entrance money to the orphanage fund.’

      ‘Oh, I see. It is very commendable, Vinny dear, but have you thought about all the work involved? Where would you find a tent, for a start, and where could you pitch it, considering we are in London, quite apart from providing costumes and seating and finding people to act in it?’

      ‘They are not insurmountable problems. And I did not think we should need a tent, we could use this ballroom…’

      ‘Vinny, I am not at all sure your father would allow that.’

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