Winslow, Miss Elizabeth. How was your walk?’
‘Very pleasant, thank you, my lord.’ What was Charlie about? He appeared to have positively propelled his guest into the hallway and now was making no effort to either call Bunting or show him out himself. Lord Mortenhoe was regarding her and she felt her colour rising; no doubt she was unbecomingly windswept from the excursion. ‘If you will excuse me...’
‘I’ve invited Mortenhoe to dinner tomorrow night,’ Charlie said abruptly.
‘Oh! I mean...how delightful.’ Charlie must be out of his mind! Aunt and Uncle Thredgold and Cousin Hugh were no sort of company to entertain an earl. Leaving aside Uncle Thredgold’s tendency to talk of nothing but his experiments in cattle breeding, Aunt’s deafness and Hugh’s almost perpetual fit of the sullens, the table would be unbalanced with too many men, and the menu, unless some drastic alterations were made, would be decidedly uninspiring, having been chosen with the Thredgolds’ bland preferences in mind.
‘I am sure it will be.’ The earl was accepting his gloves and hat from Bunting. ‘Until tomorrow evening, Miss Winslow.’
Charlie escaped back into his study before the front door had closed on Lord Mortenhoe, leaving his sisters regarding each other speculatively in the hall.
‘It is too bad of Charlie,’ Marina declared, pulling off her gloves. ‘Now who can we possibly ask at this late notice? For, fond as we are of the Thredgolds, I really do not think Lord Mortenhoe will be much entertained by them.’
‘They are dead bores,’ Lizzie retorted. ‘Thank goodness they have taken rooms and are not staying with us as they did last year.’
‘They are family,’ Marina said repressively, leading the way into the drawing room before Lizzie made any more unfortunate remarks in front of the servants. ‘It behoves us to be hospitable, and besides, it gives Mama much pleasure to be with Aunt.’ She cast off her bonnet and sat on the sofa, not troubling to remove her pelisse. ‘Now, who would not be offended by a late invitation? We need another lady and another couple at the very least to leaven the mix.’
‘I could come,’ Lizzie offered hopefully, then subsided at a look from her sister. ‘How about Mr and Mrs Philpott? They never stand on ceremony.’
Certainly their next-door neighbours were a sensible suggestion and, as they had just that morning returned from a visit to an ailing parent, such short notice could be explained away. ‘And I will ask Priscilla Hinton,’ Marina said with a flash of inspiration. ‘Her husband is out of town and we are good enough friends for me to explain the situation.’
‘Mrs Hinton is very pretty.’
‘Well, yes. What of it?’
‘You do not want Lord Mortenhoe to flirt with her, and he is sure to.’
‘I am sure the earl will do no such thing, and, even if he should, Priscilla is more than capable of dealing with it,’ Marina retorted, flustered. ‘Now, I must go and speak with Cook about the menu. I do wish Charlie would think things through sometimes.’
‘He is very good looking.’ Lizzie, the picture of innocence, was twirling the strings of her bonnet.
‘Charlie?’
‘No, silly, Lord Mortenhoe. I think he looks nice.’
‘And I think he looked angry,’ Marina said thoughtfully, recalling the flash of green in his eyes as they parted in the hall and the controlled tension in his long frame. ‘I do hope Charlie is not up to something.’
Marina gazed distractedly around the drawing room and prayed she would never have to live through another evening that threatened so much social embarrassment.
Mrs Hinton, the sprightly wife of a diplomat and an old friend of Marina’s, was giving an excellent impression of fascination with Uncle Thredgold’s lecture on the finer points of Devon Red cattle, Mrs Philpott was doing her best to communicate with Mrs Thredgold, who stubbornly refused to use her ear trumpet in company, and Lady Winslow was discussing the benefits of the Harrogate waters with Mr Philpott while anxiously watching her nephew Hugh.
With a sinking heart Marina saw the young man had abandoned his usual sullen slouch, adopting instead a brooding silence that he doubtless believed to be Byronic. From under thick brows he stared moodily at Mrs Hinton, who fortunately appeared unaware of his attention.
Charlie meanwhile was quite impervious to any awkwardness or lack of social sparkle. ‘What is Cook intending for dinner?’ he enquired with a glance at the mantel clock. ‘I’m devilish hungry.’
‘A loin of pork, lobster with a white wine sauce, Milanese escalopes, a timbale—’ Marina broke off the recital of the dishes she had persuaded Cook were the bare minimum to lay before an earl and regarded her brother with a frown. ‘Why are you looking at me like that, Charlie?’
‘Just thinking you look dashed pretty this evening. Why have you got that cap thing on, though?’
‘Because I am a twenty-six-year-old spinster and it is appropriate evening wear.’
‘Wish you’d take it off.’
‘Certainly not! Really, Charlie, since when have you taken the slightest interest in what I wear?’
‘Um...’ He looked uncomfortable. ‘Ah, there’s the knocker, must be Mortenhoe.’
Oh, good! What dreadful timing, Marina thought, flinching as Aunt Thredgold raised her voice in the apparent belief that Mrs Philpott was as deaf as she. ‘...disgusting behaviour! I said to the Vicar...’
‘Need sturdy hocks if they’re to be the slightest use at stud...’ That was Uncle Thredgold, well away now.
‘...unfortunate smell of rotten eggs, of course,’ Mr Philpott remarked just as Lord Mortenhoe entered the room.
Marina fixed a smile of welcome on her lips and wondered if it were possible that his lordship had missed any of this sophisticated conversation. His eyes met hers and he bowed gravely. There was just the hint of a twitch at the corner of his mouth as he straightened up and turned to his host. No, of course not, he had heard every word. At least he showed no sign of considering himself above his company; her apprehension ebbed a little.
‘Lord Mortenhoe.’ Mama sounded her usual placid self as she shook hands, blissfully impervious to the fact that one of the leading lights of society was facing an evening of the deepest boredom at her table. ‘May I introduce you to my sister Mrs Thredgold, her husband...’
She moved around the room, making the presentations, finishing with her daughter. Justin smiled. ‘But I already have the pleasure of Miss Winslow’s acquaintance. How are Master Giles and his hound?’
Lady Winslow drifted away, apparently content that her guest of honour’s entertainment was in safe hands. ‘In what can only be described as rude health, my lord, although Hector is in disgrace and has been confined to the stables for treeing Mrs Philpott’s cat in the Square and then growling at the gardener when he tried to rescue it.’
‘Deplorable,’ Lord Mortenhoe agreed. He was regarding her in a way that made her feel as though they were alone in the room—a most disconcerting sensation. Marina decided she had been living rather too quiet a life recently if the arrival of one tonnish gentleman for dinner was enough to put her out of countenance. It was a seductively pleasant experience, though, to be looked at in quite that manner.
‘Mrs Philpott has been very forgiving about it, although the gardener had to be placated with a gratuity. Do you still keep a pet dog, Mrs Hinton?’ She turned slightly to include her friend in the conversation and Hugh, who had been edging closer with his habitual gaucheness, lounged away again.
‘No, not since little Tottie died just after Christmas.’ Mrs Hinton, a slender honey blonde, looked up through her lashes at Lord Mortenhoe. ‘Doubtless you find me foolishly sentimental, my lord, but I could not bear to replace her.’