“I do hope you’re not holding Lord Arthur up as a paragon of good sense. The man is as penetrating as a blade of grass.”
“If that, but he’s good fun. Did you invite him to Steeple Cross?”
“No, but there will be enough people milling about to keep you entertained.” Fortunately, Steeple Cross was more of a country estate than a gentleman’s hunting box, and could accommodate a large party.
Or was that unfortunate? He could no longer tell.
“What people?” Barnaby made a face. “Not those dullards from the Royal Society, I hope.”
“Everyone.” It wasn’t as much of an exaggeration as he wished, God help him. “Your old companions from Oxford. Lord and Lady Kimble and their three daughters, Lord Ambrose and his daughter, Lady Cecil and her nieces, and a few dozen others from that set.”
“Why so many daughters and nieces? We’ll be overrun with ladies!”
That was rather the point, but Barnaby would discover what was in store for him soon enough without Miles hurrying him along. “Lady Fosberry will be here, and Lady Drummond. You remember Lady Drummond and her daughter, Lady Cora?”
Barnaby and Lady Cora had grown up in the same neighborhood in Hereford. They were close in age, and had been friendly as children.
“Vaguely, yes.” Barnaby shrugged with an indifference that would not have endeared him to the young lady in question. “How does she do?”
“Very well, from what I understand.”
“You didn’t see her in London?”
“No, just Lady Drummond, but she tells me Lady Cora has grown into a lovely, elegant young lady.” Hopefully Lady Drummond hadn’t exaggerated her daughter’s appeal, as he had no patience for giggling schoolgirls.
Barnaby snorted. “Hermothersays so? Everyone knows you can’t believe what the mother says, Cross. I remember Lady Cora as a scrawny chit with yellow hair.”
A scrawny chit with yellow hair? Good Lord. That sounded like the sort of unkind, ruthlessly accurate comment Miles’s father might have made. Barnaby was the heart of amiability, but the Cross blood did rear its ugly head now and again. “I hope to God you have the sense not to repeat such a comment in Lady Cora’s hearing.”
Or in any young lady’s hearing, or this thing would be over before it began.
“Lady Cora must be… what? Eighteen or nineteen years old now? Why wasn’t she in London for the season with her mother?” Barnaby’s brows lowered, as if Lady Cora’s absence must be the result of some deep, dark secret. “Why didn’t she debut?”
“Lady Drummond’s father passed away just before Christmas last year, and she and Lady Cora are only recently out of mourning. Lady Drummond was in London to see to some business, not for the season.”
“I can’t imagine Lady Cora is keen on grouse hunting.” The wind tried to send Barnaby’s hat whirling into the tempest, but he snatched it back and jammed it down onto his head. “She used to be fond of flowers and smallish animals, if I recall. She was forever running off to the stables to play with the kittens.”
“Flowers and kittens? What a disagreeable sounding child.” Whatever she’d once been, Lady Cora was now an appropriate and eligible young lady, and that was enough to secure her an invitation to Steeple Cross.
“I hope you haven’t invited too many ladies, Cross. They’ll interfere with our sport. I don’t fancy hanging about the house all day, drinking tea.”
“Come, Barnaby. Have you ever heard of a hunting party without sport?”
But there would be tea as well, and dinners, and interminable hours spent in the drawing room listening to one young lady or other laboring over the pianoforte, and a number of other unpleasant things, because the Cross earldom must have an heir.
Alegitimateheir.
One needed a wife for that. So, Steeple Cross was to be overrun with a herd of young ladies for the next fortnight, all of them suitably marriageable.
Any one of them would do for Barnaby.
As for Lady Cora Drummond’s scrawniness and yellow hair, a few years could work wonders in a young lady’s appearance. There was every reason to hope her sharp angles had turned curvy, and her yellow hair had mellowed to a soft gold.
Barnaby was fond of gold, if one could judge by his waistcoat.
“I was surprised to hearyouwere in London for the season, Cross.” Barnaby cast him a sly look from the corner of his eye. “A bit out of character, isn’t it?”
Of course, his cousin had heard, because as dour and dull as Miles was, his name still found its way to every rumormonger’s lips sooner or later, and this season more than ever before. “The gossips in London are as busy as ever, I see.”
