said Juliet, rather disloyally, Cary thought. “You’ve neglected it shamefully for years.”
“And it will take me years to set it right. But I find I don’t miss London as much as I thought I would,” he said, now lying through his teeth. “I find country life very peaceful. The people are simple and kind. The young ladies of Hertfordshire are not so artful and designing as the London variety.”
“You can’t be talking about the Mickleby girls,” Juliet scoffed. “They’re practically cannibals when it comes to you.”
“I find them charmingly transparent,” Cary replied. “It’s the London opacity I can’t tolerate. Miss Mickleby and her sisters harbor no secrets. They would all very much like to marry me, if they can’t get anyone better.”
Serena could not remain insensible to the hostility of her former admirer. “I beg your pardon, Juliet, but I fear I’ve stayed too long,” she said, pulling on the sky-blue gloves that exactly matched the immense plumes nodding on her bonnet. “I do have appointments. Would you be so kind as to ring for my maid?”
“Allow me, my lady,” said Cary, all but leaping across the room to pull the bell rope.
“Wait, Serena,” Juliet pleaded. “I haven’t told Cary the best part yet. Cary, you’re going to be Sebastian, Viola’s brother. It’s a very small part, hardly fifty lines. Say you will,” she quickly begged him. “Who better to play the part of my brother than my actual brother, after all? And, don’t forget, in the end, Sebastian and Olivia fall in love. You can play that part, surely, if Serena plays hers.”
Cary looked at Serena with hard gray eyes. “I believe we have already played those parts, Juliet, and I, for one, don’t care to repeat the performance.”
“Please do excuse me,” Serena breathed, jumping to her feet. Her ivory pallor had been replaced by a scarlet blush that decidedly did not match her blue ensemble.
Juliet ran after her friend. Supremely unconcerned, Cary closed the door behind the two women and flung himself down into the nearest chair. The Duke of Auckland sat down too, but did not speak, for which Cary was deeply grateful.
“Look here, old man,” Cary said after a moment. “Might I ask a favor of you?”
Geoffrey Ambler looked a little hunted. Over the past few months, a great many favors had been asked of the new Duke of Auckland. Then he reminded himself that Cary was Juliet’s brother; he, at least, had some right to ask. “Of course,” he said, with some of his old generosity of spirit. “Up to half my kingdom, or, rather my dukedom. Ask away.”
Cary spoke carefully. “I should like to stress that I’ve not yet come to the point where it’s necessary, but I want to ask you to buy the chestnuts, if it comes to it. I know you have your grays, but Julie ought to have a good driving team of her own. I couldn’t possibly sell them to anyone else, and you know what they’re worth.”
The Duke sat up straight. “Sell your chestnuts? You can’t possibly be serious. Why, Cary Wayborn without his chestnuts is rather like…like…” His grace tried to find a suitable simile for this unprecedented occurrence, but he was no Shakespeare.
Neither was Cary. “Rather like Cary Wayborn without his testicles, I should imagine. Look, I’m hoping it won’t come to it, but if it does, may I depend on you to buy them?”
“If you need money, old man—”
“Do please refrain from finishing that sentence,” Cary interrupted. “No, it’s kind of you to offer, but I couldn’t possibly accept. The estate is on the dunghill because of my neglect, and who should suffer for it but myself? Anyway, I don’t think it will come to it. I’m sure it won’t. But may I depend on you if it does?”
“Yes,” said the Duke seriously. “Yes, of course.”
“Juliet is not to know I’ve asked you,” Cary warned. “She’d only start throwing humpbacked heiresses in my way. I’ve no intention of marrying a bank account.”
Having concluded this embarrassing business, Cary went upstairs to pay his respects to his aunt Lady Elkins. When he returned to the salon after a game of piquet with the old lady, he found his sister pouring out the tea. Her mood was that of an avenging angel.
“How could you be so beastly cruel to Serena?” she demanded. “I can remember a time when you wanted to marry her.”
Cary reddened. “And I can remember a time when you counseled me against it! Now you seem to live in her pocket. I would not have come to my aunt’s house had I known she was here. I didn’t see her carriage in the street.”
“No, she walked here with her maid,” Juliet explained. “I wish you would forgive her, Cary. If you only knew what Horatio had put her through, you’d pity her. Seven years of a secret engagement, and then he spurned her! I call that infamous.”
“Whatever he put her through, it wasn’t enough,” Cary replied. “She knew I was utterly infatuated with her beauty, and she let me go on like a fool, dangling after her, when all the while she was engaged to my cousin. I have no pity for her.”
“But Horatio is more at fault,” Juliet argued. “He drove Serena mad with his coldness and his contempt, until she had no choice but to relieve him of his obligation to her. Only yesterday, he was walking towards her in Bond Street, and, when he saw her, he crossed to the other side and pretended not to see her. You would not punish her like that, surely.”
“No,” Cary admitted.
“Horatio is an ass,” said the Duke, with the air of one giving the last word. “Just because the Prince Regent gave him that ruddy snuffbox doesn’t mean everyone in London has got to see it three times a day. Somebody ought to take it away from him and throw it in the Thames.”
“Ginger’s right,” said Juliet. “That snuffbox is the only thing in the world he really loves. Horatio without his snuffbox…Why, that’s rather like Cary without his chestnuts.”
“What do you mean?” cried the Duke, startled by her clairvoyance. “Why should you say such a damn fool thing? Cary without his chestnuts! I never heard such nonsense!”
“You can’t blame Horatio for everything,” Cary said quickly. “Pompous ass he may be, but he didn’t force her ladyship to flirt with me while she was secretly engaged to another. When I think of how she led me on, I could throw her in the Thames. Why don’t you ask Cousin Horatio to play Sebastian to her Olivia?”
“Horatio does not deserve her,” Juliet protested.
“Well, monkey, at the risk of sounding conceited, Serena don’t deserve me.”
“You men!” she said scathingly. “You love as no man has ever loved before—that is, until the first real test of your devotion, and then it all goes out the window with the bathwater.”
“‘Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,’” said the Duke of Auckland, unexpectedly entering the argument, “‘or bends with the remover to remove…’”
Juliet took her lord’s hand and recited the sonnet with him, “‘Oh, no! It is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken. It is the star to every wandering bark…’”
“Woof, woof,” said Cary, irritated by his sister’s treacly tone.
The Duke looked at him seriously. “No, no, it’s not that sort of bark, old man. Julie explained it to me. In this case, ‘bark’ means ‘ship.’ As in ‘disembark,’ you know.”
“Ginger’s really been studying his Shakespeare,” Juliet chimed, glowing with pride and temporarily forgetting that she was very cross with her brother.
“Self-defense,” the Duke explained. “She’s forever quoting him at me.”
“And now you’re graduating to private theatricals,” Cary remarked.