“Hmmm,” Ramsbury murmured with a little smirk. “Well, some days it is harder to get out of bed than others.”
“I imagine so in your current position as a besotted husband.”
Something softened in his old friend’s expression. “It will be the position I hold for the rest of my life.”
“Then I’m truly happy for you,” Roderick said. “You and the countess do seem well suited, so I suppose that what they say is true.”
“They?” Ramsbury put a few items on his plate. “What dotheysay?”
“Something about reformed rakes and the best husbands.”
Ramsbury laughed. “True only if one is in love with one’s wife. Which I am. And now I shall rejoin the lady, herself, and deliver sustenance to tempt her back to the party. But I hear there will be some lawn games before tea to get the blood pumping to prepare for the ball tonight. I look forward to trouncing you soundly at pall-mall.”
He gave a little salute and then swept from the room, apparently back to his waiting wife. Roderick’s smile fell. There was the proof, yet again, of true love out there in the world. Buthe’dnever even come close. Every one of his many lovers had been transactional, a pleasant way to purge a physical desire. He had never felt drawn enough to any woman that he would officially court her.
He shook his head. He was young still, with plenty of time to be struck by the lightning he knew would accompany meeting his future love. In the meantime, he would continue to enjoy his life. Starting with a spirited game of pall-mall.
Clarissa tried to school her expression as she stood to the side of the pall-mall court and watched the play, her mallet gripped in her hand. They had a large enough party that they had split into two groups, declaring that the winners amongst them would face each other in the end for the ultimate prize. Normally she would have enjoyed the match, her group was to go second and to display herself with chastened sportiveness was one of the required abilities ofThe Mirror of the Graces.
If she were honest, it was one she struggled with. How was she to display both playfulnessandrestraint? To be both quietandenthusiastic?It was one of the many parts of her handbook that she read over and over and tried to define for herself so that she wouldn’t fail.
Right now trying to display both was even harder because one of the gentlemen on the field of play was Lord Kirkwood. He was with Lord Ramsbury; Mr. Longford, who was a second son; Clarissa’s mother; and Lord Crossworth’s mother. Kirkwood was laughing loudly, drawing attention to himself. And he had stripped from his jacket and rolled his sleeves to the elbows in a shocking display of dishabille. Even his dark hair was a little mussed because between shots down the alley, he kept running his fingers through it.
It all felt entirely ungentlemanly and uncouth. Everyone was meant to pay attention to their grooming, to be modest in their attire. To do otherwise displayed a familiarity that couldn’t be born.
Not to mention, his forearms were distracting. Lined with lean muscle, peppered with light brown hair, there was just too much skin there. She could see others had noticed. Mr. Longford’s sister, Beatrice Vale, for example, couldn’t seem tostopstaring, despite being in her late thirties and a relatively recent widow. Surely she should have more decorum.
“Ah!” Kirkwood crowed, drawing her attention back as his ball rolled through the raised ring at the end of the alley in, she had to admit, an impressive shot. It had to be at least twenty-five feet from where he had started.
“I would accuse you of cheating, but I cannot determine how,” Ramsbury said with a chuckle as he reached out to shake Kirkwood’s hand. “But I’ll give Marianne as much advice as I can so that she will beat you after she wins the next round.”
“I’m terrible at pall-mall, dearest,” Lady Ramsbury declared as she slid her hand through Clarissa’s arm and they walked onto the alley together as the servants gathered up the balls to return them to the opposite end. “I fear I shall not redeem the honor of our title.”
The whole party was laughing now and Clarissa joined in. Somehow Ramsbury or Marianne being playful didn’t bother her asmuch as Kirkwood doing it. She stepped past him with only the slightest look, though she heard him give a little snort of laughter.
“Lady Ramsbury, I believe you have the rank and thus the first shot,” George said as the players aligned themselves.
Marianne lined up her shot and swung her mallet, but it turned out she was just as hopeless at the game as she had declared, for she hardly rolled the ball forward and also slid it to the very edge of the alley.
“You see,” she called back with a little smile for her husband.
He looked anything but annoyed by her failure and Clarissa found her smile falling. Ifshemissed her shot, she would hear no end of it from her father, who chose not to play, but was obviously judging all who did.
“Are you quite well, Miss Lockhart?” Lord Crossworth asked. “Your face is suddenly pinched.”
She almost gasped in horror that she had been seen as such. Showing such dark emotions was not done, certainly not in public. Rarely in private. “Oh, I apologize. I was just thinking about…” She glanced at Lord Kirkwood and found him watching her closely. “Thinking about my best strategy for a shot. Perhaps you could advise?”
She didn’t need the advice, of course. But this was what women did. They pretended to be less so that men could act like more. An annoyance, but also an expectation she was bound to uphold if she wanted to follow societal rules.
Lord Crossworth began to talk and she mostly blocked him out, just nodding and murmuring little sounds of affirmation. Instead, she was still distracted by Kirkwood. He arched a brow at her and then he had the audacity to wink. He winked at her! She, an unmarried miss. He a…a rogue…a scoundrel. A rake!
She took a long step away from the viscount, hardly realizing that he was still talking, and strode up to her ball. With a grunt she swung the mallet and hit the ball so hard that it soared upward as well as forward and landed with a thud far farther than anyone else’s had.
She wanted to shout with the achievement, but managed to keep her wits and her composure. As the rest of the crowd clapped she gave one last glare toward Kirkwood and made her way down the alley.
They continued the game that way, taking their turns one after the other. Poor Marianne never fully recovered from her bad first hit, but she laughed with real pleasure at the game each time. In the end, it came down to Clarissa and Lord Crossworth. He lined up for his shot, his face increasingly serious about the endeavor. When he swung the mallet, the ball rolled forward and then stopped just next to the ring. His lips pinched with obvious frustration before he turned toward Clarissa.
“Your shot, Miss Lockhart,” he said with an indulgent smile that only served to irritate her further. “May I advise you so that you get as close to the ring as possible?”
