An Unconventional Duenna

“The truth is,” he said, “that my mother has been besieging me again about marriage. She is becoming so wearisome on the subject that I fear that I must give way and oblige her. She does have a point in that I am the last of the Kinlochs and when I pop off there will be no one left to assume the title if I don’t oblige. I intend to look over all the available heiresses who possess some sort of beauty. I couldn’t marry an ugly woman, however rich, because if I did I shouldn’t be able to oblige Mama over the business of offspring. My wife must be as attractive as my dear Kitty. A pity that I can’t marry her—no difficulty about offspring, then.”

“My dear Kitty’ was Adrian’s ladybird, whom he had set up in rooms in the fashionable end of Chelsea and to whom he was as loyal as though she were his wife. A great deal more loyal, in fact, than many members of the aristocracy were to their legitimate wives.

“Mmm,” said Nick gravely, suppressing a desire to laugh at this artless confession. “I do see your point. Very well, I will come with you and help you to make a list of all those young ladies whom you might consider eligible.”

“Excellent!” exclaimed Adrian. “I knew that you would be able to assist me if you put your mind to it.”

He rose. “Tallyho and taratantara! Let’s make a start, then. The sooner I find a wife the sooner Mama will cease to badger me.”

“I would point out,” offered Nick, slipping an arm through his cousin’s, “that the Season has barely started and all the new beauties who will be on offer have not yet arrived. I shouldn’t be too hasty, if I were you.”

“There is that,” agreed Adrian happily. “Besides, what about you, Nick? Shall you join me in this exercise? I know that your parents never badger you about providing Strathdene Castle with an heir, but you really should, you know. After all, it’s years since that wretched business with Flora Campbell—time to forget it. Perhaps I could badger you. It’s time I badgered you about something. You have had your own way with me for far too long.”

“Badger away,” said Nick easily, refusing to rise to Adrian’s comment about Flora. “I am quite happy to remain single. I’ve never yet met the woman I would care to live with—or whom I could trust—but who knows, this Season might be different.”

He didn’t really believe what he was saying. “That wretched business with Flora Campbell’ had inevitably, and permanently, coloured all his feelings about women of every class, but it would not do to tell Adrian that. What he would do was look after Adrian now that the inevitable fortune-hunters were circling round to secure him as a husband for their daughters.

All in all they were as unalike as two men could be. Nick was dark, dour, clever and cynical; Adrian was bright, fair, trusting and relatively simple-minded. Their only resemblance lay in their height: they were both tall. Adrian had once said in a rare fit of understanding, “If I were King, I’d appoint you Prime Minister, Nick. We’d make a rare team.”

So they would, Nick had thought. They were closer than brothers and nothing had yet come between them. Now, he slipped an arm through Adrian’s and they walked to the stables where Adrian’s new and splendid two-horse curricle was waiting.

Chapter One

“For goodness sake, Emma, do stand up straight,” hissed Mrs Tenison at her daughter. “Do not hang your head. Take Athene as your model. She at least is aware of the proper carriage of a gentlewoman.”

“I’ll try, Mama,” faltered Emma, “but you know how much I dislike crowds.”

“Enough of such whim-whams,” commanded Mrs Tenison severely. “Be ready to curtsey to your hostess when you reach the top of the stairs. And you, Athene, remember to stand a little to our rear and refrain from drawing attention to yourself.”

“Of course, Mrs Tenison,” said Athene submissively.

They were at Lady Leominster’s ball which, although it was always held in mid-April, was the first truly grand event of the Season when everyone who was anyone had finally arrived in London, and everyone who was anyone would be present at it. The Tenisons had previously attended, under the wing of Lady Dunlop, who accompanied them everywhere, several minor functions where they had met no one of any consequence and all of the young gentlemen present appeared to be already married.

Emma was looking modestly charming, but provincial, in her pale pink gauze dress, made in Northampton. She was wearing on her blonde curls a wreath of red silk rosebuds nestling amid their pale green leaves. Her jewellery was modest: a pearl necklace and two small pendant pearl earrings. Mrs Tenison possessed enough good sense to realise that the famous Tenison parure made up of large emeralds surrounded by diamonds would have appeared garish if worn by her delicate-looking daughter. The misery of it was that they would merely have served to enhance Athene’s looks had she been entitled to wear them.

She had also made sure that Athene would not diminish Emma by having her attired in a dark grey, high-necked silk dress of even more antique cut than Emma’s. Finally to extinguish her, as though she were an over-bright candle which needed snuffing, Athene had been made to wear a large linen and lace duenna’s cap which covered her beautiful dark hair and hid half of her face. As a final gesture to remind Athene of her subordinate position, her hair had been scraped so tightly back from her face, and bound so severely, that its deep waves had disappeared and would not have been seen even without the ugly cap.

Athene had borne all this with patience, since it was the only way in which she would ever be able to attend anything half so grand as the Leominsters’ ball. Her party was surrounded by all the greatest names in the land on their long and slow walk up the grand staircase. Mr and Mrs Tenison had already spoken to several cousins, including their most grand relative of all, the Marquis of Exford.

Athene liked Mr Tenison. Unlike his wife he always spoke to her kindly, and when he had found her reading in the library of his London house shortly after they had arrived in town he had been pleased to discover that, unlike Emma and Mrs Tenison, she had a genuine interest in its contents.

He had taken to advising her on what to read, and had provided her with a book-list of recommended texts. On those afternoons when Emma and her mother visited friends and relatives, leaving Athene behind, since her guardianship and support was not needed on these minor social occasions, he enjoyed listening to her opinion of her latest excursion into the world of learning. He had already discovered that she had a good grasp of Latin and had lamented to him that ladies were not supposed to learn Greek.

Today, when they had been alone together in the drawing-room before the Tenisons had set off for Leominster House in Piccadilly he had said, “Good gracious, my dear Miss Filmer. Is there really any need for you to wear anything quite so disfiguring as your present get-up?”

Athene had lowered her eyes. She had no wish to provoke the unnecessary battle which would follow any attempt at intervention on her behalf by Mr Tenison. More than that, she was already aware that he always lost such encounters. Worldly wisdom also told her that Mrs Tenison might become suspicious of her husband’s intentions towards her if he chose to become too openly friendly with the unconsidered Miss Filmer.

“It is important,” she said quietly, “that I do not attempt to outshine my dear little Emma in any way, nor lead any gentleman to imagine that I am present in London in order to look for a husband, since I have no dowry. My duty is to look after her and give her the courage to enjoy herself in a crowded room. You must know how distressed she becomes whenever she is in a crowd.”

He had nodded mournfully at her. “Yes, I am well aware of why my wife has asked you to accompany us, but I cannot say that I quite approve of you being made to look twice your age.”

“That is part of the bargain to which I agreed,” said Athene, astonished at her own duplicity and at her ability to play the humble servant so successfully. “I beg of you not to trouble yourself on my account.”

“So be it, if that is what you wish,” he had said, and his wife’s entrance, towing along a reluctant Emma who was suffering from a severe case of stage-fright at the prospect of being among so many famous people, had put an end to the conversation.

Now, looking around the huge ballroom, aglow with light from a myriad of chandeliers beneath which splendidly dressed men and women talked, walked and danced, Athene felt like the man in the old story who said that the most amazing thing about the room in which he found himself was that he was in it.

Stationed as she was, standing behind the Tenisons, who were of course, all seated, she wondered distractedly how she was to begin her own campaign. It was going to be much more difficult than she had imagined. No doubt in his early days Napoleon Bonaparte himself must have had such thoughts, but look where he had ended up—as Emperor of France!

Well, her ambition was not so grand as his, and she would be but a poor thing if she made no efforts to attain it. Perhaps in the end it would all be a matter of luck, and occasionally giving luck a helping hand. Yes, that was it.

One thing, though, was plain. Tonight there was no lack of young and handsome men, many of whom were giving young girls like Emma bold and assessing looks—doubtless wondering how large their dowry was and whether they were worth pursuing. Thinking about dowries made her more than ever conscious that not only did she not possess one, but she also had the disadvantage of ignoble birth to overcome—if anyone ever found that out that she was illegitimate, that was.

To drive away these dreary thoughts she peered around the room from beneath her disfiguring cap, trying to discover if there was anyone present whom she might find worth pursuing.

There were a large number of men of all ages in uniform—was that where she ought to look for a possible husband, or should she try for one of the many beaux present? Perhaps an old beau might be more of an opportunity for her than a young one? The very thought made her shudder.

Emma looked over her shoulder at her and said plaintively, “I wish that you were sitting beside me, Athene. I should not feel quite so sick.”

“Nonsense,” said Mrs Tenison robustly. “You ought to be on your highest ropes at being here at all. Besides, I think that you may already have been found a partner. Cousin Exford expressly told me that he would introduce us to some suitable young men and here he comes with two splendid-looking fellows.”

Emma gave a small moan at this news. Athene, however, turned her grey eyes on the approaching Marquis of Exford and his companions to discover whether Mrs Tenison’s description of them was at all apt.

Well, one of them, at least, was splendid. He was quite the most beautiful and well-dressed specimen of manhood she had ever seen, being blond, tall and of excellent address. The young man with him, however, could scarcely be described as splendid-looking in any way: formidable was a better word. He was tall, but he was built like a bruiser—as Athene had already learned boxers were called. He was as dark as his friend was fair, his face was strong and harsh, rather than Adonis-like, and his hair and eyes were as black as night.

Indeed, Athene found herself murmuring, “Night and day.”

Mr Tenison overheard her and, turning his head a little in her direction, remarked in a voice equally low, “Acute as ever, my dear—but which is which?”

This cryptic remark would have set Athene thinking if the Marquis had not already begun his introductions when the Tenison party stood up. Athene, already standing, wondered what piece of etiquette was demanded from her which would acknowledge the superior social standing of the Marquis and his guests. A small bob of the head might suffice, so she duly, and immediately, bobbed.

The slow dance of formalities began. It appeared that the fair young man was Adrian Drummond, Lord Kinloch, from Argyll, and that his companion was Mr Nicholas Cameron of Strathdene Castle in Sutherland. Emma blushed and stammered at them. The lowly companion was introduced as an afterthought. Nick and Adrian had spent the early part of the evening discreetly inspecting those young women present whom they had not seen before. As usual they had found little to please them. Nick indeed had gone so far as to mutter to Adrian, “I don’t think much of the current crop of beauties if this is the cream of it.”

Adrian had replied dolefully, “Lord, yes. Mother is going to be disappointed again. Not one of them is a patch on Kitty.”

His cousin could not but agree with him, and when their mutual relative, the Marquis of Exford, had come up to them saying enthusiastically, “There’s a pretty little filly here tonight that I think you two rogues ought to meet. That is, if you’re both determined to marry, which Kinloch here says that you are,” Nick had groaned, “Let him speak for himself—I’m in no great hurry to acquire a leg-shackle.”

Exford smiled mockingly. “They’re taking bets in the clubs that both of you will be hooked by the Season’s end. If you really meant what you said, Cameron, I’ll lay a few pounds on you not being reeled in. Let me know if you change your mind.”

Nick was not sure that he cared for being the subject of gossip and bets made by bored and light-minded men. Adrian, however, had smirked a little, much as he was now doing at Emma.

“Charmed to make your acquaintance,” he was saying, and he was not being completely untruthful. She was after all one of the best of the poor crop which he had so far encountered, being blonde and pretty if a touch pale. He thought that if he married her, providing himself with an heir was not going to be too difficult a task. Exford had also told him on the way over that she had a useful, if not a grand, portion.

Not of course, that that mattered overmuch. Owning half of Scotland—only the Duke of Sutherland was richer than Adrian—meant that he was able to indulge his fancy where a bride was concerned.

Athene realised from Emma’s flutterings that she was finding this gorgeous specimen overwhelming: he was so different from the callow young men whom she had met at Assembly dances at home. When he bent down from his great height and said softly, “I am already claimed for the first few dances, Miss Tenison, but I should be enchanted if you would stand up with me in the quadrille,” she went an unlovely scarlet, looked frantically first at Athene and then at her beaming mama, before saying, “You do me too great an honour, Lord Kinloch.”

“Not at all,” he swiftly, and gallantly, replied. “It is you who are doing me the honour, Miss Tenison.”