“Indeed I have,” she replied with a smile.
“Easter will be upon us in no time, and with it the official start of the season. I hope I may prevail upon your daughter and your niece to do me the honour of standing up with me at the very first ball,” Lord Hastings said.
Upon receiving a smiling assent from Miss Albright and a sober murmur to that effect from Miss Marsh, the baron rose and took a polite leave of the family, following the footman Mrs. Marsh had summoned to see him out.
The door had barely closed behind their caller when Miss Albright whirled on her cousin, demanding in a stage whisper, “Laura, why did you never tell me you were acquainted with a buck of the first head?”
“A what? I am not!”
“My dear Sophie,” Mrs. Marsh protested laughingly, “I will allow that fashions in speech may have altered in the twenty years since I have been in London, but I am perfectly certain that such a vulgar phrase would never escape a well-bred young lady’s lips in company!”
“I stand corrected, dearest aunt,” Sophia said, her pursed mouth belied by dancing dark eyes. “Shall I call him instead a Town Tulip, a Bond Street Beau … or a Corinthian, perhaps?”
“You do not know enough about Lord Hastings to pin a label on him,” Mrs. Marsh said serenely.
“Especially ‘Corinthian’,” Laura objected, proving that she was not entirely unfamiliar with popular terms of reference. “I suspect a true Corinthian would not have overturned his curricle even in a storm.”
“Shame on both of you,” Mrs. Marsh declared. “Accidents will happen, especially in bad weather, and Lord Hastings looked every inch the proper gentleman — just like your father, Sophie.”
“His shirt points were higher than Papa’s,” Aubrey put in from his position at the tea table, where he was polishing off the last of the refreshments. “And Papa doesn’t wear striped waistcoats either.”
“They were very discreet stripes,” his aunt pointed out, “scarcely different from the background colour. And his air andaddress were such as must make him acceptable in the most discriminating company.”
“I see what it is, Aunt Annabelle,” said Sophia with an air of discovery. “You are determined to find Lord Hastings a pattern card of perfection because of his handsome face.”
Mrs. Marsh remained unruffled in the face of Sophia’s teasing. “Would you call him handsome, my dear? I would rather say he is a well-set-up young man with an attractive countenance and pleasing manners.”
“Only ‘attractive’? Why, he is a veritable Adonis, would you not agree, Laura? And his eyes are such an intensely bright blue. I vow I have never seen their like.”
“I’d say they are no bluer than Aubrey’s,” Laura replied, grinning at the boy, who was not at all flattered by the comparison. “That reminds me, Mama. Young Henry, the boy who was hurt, was so loath to let us go today that I promised we’d call to see how he did.”
“In Jermyn Street, did you say?’ I am afraid ladies do not frequent St. James’s, my love, and we know nothing of the boy’s background.”
“I have forgotten his surname but his father is Lord Exton, who is quite busy with government affairs, I gather. His mother is dead. He seems a lonely child, without a tutor at present, and the two boys looked like becoming friends right from the start.”
“I will mention the incident to Oswald,” Mrs. Marsh replied, smiling at her hopeful nephew. “If he has no objection, perhaps you might leave a card at Henry’s residence. That will leave it up to his father whether to continue the acquaintance.”
“Thank you, Aunt Annabelle,” Aubrey said. “I’d like to have a friend in town, and Henry is in a worse case than me. He has no one but servants to talk to all day now that his tutor is away.”
“The poor child,” Mrs. Marsh said with ready sympathy. “You may be sure I’ll do my best to put the matter before your father in the most advantageous light.”
Having eaten all the food and enlisted a strong ally in his cause, Aubrey took himself off to the nursery quarters, leaving the ladies to make plans for the next day.
Outside the Albright house Lord Hastings settled his stylish beaver at the proper angle on his head and descended to the pavement. There was a spring in his step and a general air of satisfaction about his person as he strolled away.
He had not been mistaken. The tantalising image of a lovely face that had kept him company for the past fortnight had not been the distorted product of concussion or fever. Actually, his memory had failed to do Laura Marsh justice. In the same way a portrait even by a skilled artist cannot capture the life spirit of the sitter, his memory picture had not reproduced the mobility of her expression or the changeable nature of her eyes, appearing blue one moment and green the next. None of this had been apparent on the night of his accident. Then she had displayed an almost maternal efficiency and authority. Her gentle touch and assured presence had penetrated the fog of pain and soothed his spirit.
Today she had entered the room quietly in her exuberant young cousin’s wake. He’d been drinking in the charming picture she presented in a soft green costume when her cool civility had dissolved into spontaneous mischief on recognising him. To his disappointment, embarrassment at her temerity had then rendered her nearly speechless thereafter, though he suspected her nature was more reticent than either of her cousin’s in any case. The exceedingly pretty Miss Albright, with her wide-eyed interest in his every utterance, was a more familiar style of young lady one met with during the season. Ifhe were any judge of feminine attractions — and he flattered himself that he was — the cousins, apparent foils for each other in looks and style, each equally appealing in her own way, were about to create a minor sensation in the ballrooms of London this spring. And his call just now had placed him in the enviable role of family friend before these most attractive young ladies made their initial bows to society.
“And what is giving you that ‘cat that swallowed the canary’ look, eh, Hastings?”
The booming voice that shattered his smug reverie belonged to one of his father’s old friends, who had stopped dead in front of him on the pavement.
“Just reflecting that spring may be here at last, Colonel,” he replied, making a quick recovery and offering his hand to the tall, heavy-set figure regarding him with an avuncular gaze from under bushy grey brows.
“Wouldn’t count on it in this blasted climate,” the older man declared, “but what say you join me in a snug dinner at the club? You can tell me how your mother goes on.”
“Thank you, sir, I’d like that,” Jack said, concealing mild regret at missing out on some vague plans to meet friends for dinner. He’d catch them up later at Cribbs’. The colonel had felt his father’s death keenly, and was also a long-time admirer of his mother. “Have you been in town long, sir?” he asked, suiting his steps to the other’s military stride.
