Trusting Miss Trentham

Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

November 16th, 1808

Whiteoaks, Wiltshire

Icarus accepted the invitation to dine at Whiteoaks before the ball, and when Matlock urged him to come riding beforehand, he found himself agreeing to that, too. Matlock seemed almost as determined to look after him as Miss Trentham was. Was he such a pathetic-looking creature, that everyone must need watch over him?

Icarus decided not to answer that question.

He rode over to Whiteoaks beneath a bright, pale sky. The big gray only tried to unseat him once.

He hacked around the park with Matlock and the Adonis, Miss Trentham, and a burly young baronet. They trotted through a bare bluebell dell, cantered under the great oaks, jumped a stream, and indulged in a brief gallop along a lane hedged with hawthorn. Icarus was conscious of both Matlock and Miss Trentham sending him occasional glances. Checking to make sure I’m not overtaxing myself, he thought sourly. And sure enough, at the end of the lane, Matlock suggested they turn back.

They looped around to the stream again and jumped it—whatever the gray’s faults, he had a powerful jump—and cantered leisurely beneath the oaks. Halfway along, the gray stopped dead. Icarus almost went over its head.

“Take care!” the Adonis said sharply, reaching out to grab the bridle.

The gray put his ears back, and looked as if he wanted to bite the man’s hand off.

“That’s a damned brute of a horse.”

“He shan’t throw me,” Icarus said, settling himself firmly into the saddle.

The Adonis released the bridle. “That’s how my sister died,” he said abruptly. “Came off a horse. Broke her neck.” For a moment his expression was unguarded and Icarus saw something raw and dark and painful in his eyes, and then the Adonis shook his golden head and smiled and said lightly, “But I imagine you’ve ridden worse beasts in your time, Major.”

Icarus nodded, at a loss for words.

Ahead, the others halted and looked back. “Everything all right?” Matlock called.

The Adonis waved them on, and nudged his horse into a trot.

Icarus followed, his gaze resting thoughtfully on the man’s back. There was more to the Adonis than appeared at first glance. Beneath that handsome, golden exterior, the man was hurting.

And then he mentally picked himself up by the scruff of his neck and gave himself a sharp shake. The man has a name. Use it.

He sipped tea and ate macaroons—a familiar ritual, now—and rode back to Marlborough. A wash, a change of clothes, and it was time to depart for Whiteoaks again. This time, he went by carriage.

Icarus had anticipated the evening with grim resignation—and even more so when he entered the dining room and discovered he was seated alongside his nursemaid, Miss Trentham—but the dinner and ball proved enjoyable. Bernard Trentham was irritating, with that way he had of looking down his nose and the condescension of his manner, but Matlock and Lucas Kemp were good company, and Miss Trentham didn’t press too much food on him, and the punch served in the ballroom was astonishingly good. Icarus leaned against the wall and sipped, trying to distinguish the different flavors. The base was an alcoholic cordial of some kind. Blackberry, he decided after another sip, with oranges, a tart hint of lemon, perhaps a dash of rum, and that tingle on his tongue was definitely champagne.

“Tasty, ain’t it?” said Matlock, propping up the wall alongside him.

“Extremely.” Icarus sipped again, and let his gaze drift over the crowded ballroom. The musicians were playing a lively Scottish reel and at least two dozen couples were dancing. Miss Trentham was on the dance floor. Icarus studied her face, trying to determine whether her partner was a suitor or not. Not, he decided; her manner wasn’t off-puttingly aloof.

“Who’s that dancing with Miss Trentham?”

Matlock scanned the ballroom and found her. “Arnold Kemp.”

“Another cousin?”

“Of Tish’s? Yes. As much as any of them are cousins of hers. Tish ain’t actually related to the Kemps.”

“Oh? I assumed . . .”

Matlock glanced at him. “You assumed Tish’s fortune and the Kemp fortune were connected? No.” He put his glass down on the ledge behind him, reached into his breast pocket, and drew out a small, slender book and a stub of a pencil.

“You bring a sketchbook to a ball?” Icarus said, putting up his eyebrows.

Matlock shrugged. “Never know when I’ll see something worth drawing.” He flicked to a blank page, drew a stick figure at the top of the page, and labeled it OMT. “Old Man Trentham had three children.” He drew three lines descending, with stick figures at the end of each. “An heir, a spare, and a daughter.” He labeled the first two new stick figures Heir and Spare, and drew a bonnet on the third. “The spare never married, so we can forget about him.” Matlock put a cross through the spare’s stick figure. “The daughter married William Kemp, the eldest son of a nabob. When the nabob turned up his toes, she and her husband inherited this place and became rich as Turks. Had eight children. Robert’s the oldest, Lucas and Julia were the youngest. Got it?”

Icarus nodded.

“Now the heir, he married a duke’s daughter. Old Man Trentham left him a modest fortune and a drafty old manor house. The heir had two children, Bernard and Caroline, and then his wife died.”

Icarus nodded.

“The heir didn’t mind being less wealthy than his sister, but Bernard and Caroline did mind. However, they had one thing their cousins didn’t have: their grandfather was a duke. You’ve met Bernard; Caroline’s even worse. Takes her pedigree very seriously. Exceptionally high in the instep.”

Icarus nodded again.

“Several years after his wife died, the heir met a widow with an enormous fortune and a young daughter. Fell in love. Married her, took her daughter as his own.” Matlock closed the sketchbook and tucked it back into his pocket. “Bernard and Caroline were not pleased. Especially when the heir let his new wife will her fortune solely to her daughter. Bernard hasn’t seen a penny of it. That’s one of the reasons he dislikes Tish so much.”

“The heir didn’t want the fortune?”

Matlock shrugged. “It was a love match. He wasn’t interested in her money. He even helped her set up several charities. A lying-in hospital, some foundling homes, a school. Don’t get Bernard started on those.”

“Huh,” Icarus said, and found Miss Trentham on the dance floor. Was that what she was searching for? A man like her stepfather, who cared nothing for her fortune?

“Bernard and Caroline were pretty beastly to Tish—Caroline was an absolute cat—Tish’s birth is respectable, her father was a gentleman, but from the way Caroline carries on he may as well have been a shopkeeper—and to make matters worse, the will was extremely odd. Tish wasn’t allowed to make her début until she was twenty-one. Her mother died when she was, oh, sixteen I think, and her stepfather c****d up his toes a couple of years later, so it fell to Bernard and his wife to bring her out. Bernard was not pleased.”

“Huh,” Icarus said again.

“Robert and Almeria helped, of course. The Kemps have always treated Tish well.”

“She seems very close to Lucas.”

“Lord, yes! Lu and Ju and Tish practically lived in each other’s pockets when they were growing up. And me,” he added reflectively. “The four of us were inseparable. Did everything together.”

The Scottish reel came to its end. There was a surge of movement from the dance floor. Icarus lost sight of Miss Trentham. He sipped his punch, savoring the flavors on his tongue. When the next dance was called—a contredanse—his gaze wandered down the lines of dancers until he found her again. He knew instantly that her partner was a suitor. Her manner was more aloof, her face plainer. “Who’s Miss Trentham dancing with now?”

Matlock shrugged. “Don’t know him. Another hopeful.” He glanced at Icarus, a gleam in his eyes. “Why, sir? You interested?”

“No,” Icarus said, in a quelling tone. “I have no need for a wife. Or a fortune.”

The gleam in Matlock’s eyes faded. “Shame. Tish could do with a good husband, and she’s not the sort men fall in love with. She’s not pretty, and she’s got all that money—and no one sees past those two things.” His gaze returned to the dance floor, where the dancers were now bowing to one another. “Got a style of her own, Tish has.”

“Tom, darling.” Almeria Kemp bustled up in a waft of French perfume. “Miss Ulverton needs a partner. Would you mind?”

Matlock met Icarus’s eyes ruefully, and allowed himself to be towed off.

Icarus stayed where he was, leaning against the wall, sipping his punch. He watched the dancers. Matlock was correct: Miss Trentham had a style of her own. Austere wasn’t the correct word for it, although it came close. Her gown was unembellished by frills or flounces or knots of ribbon. Her hair was dressed in an upswept coronet of braids, with not one single curl. She wore no jewelry other than a solitary strand of pearls at her throat and matching pearl eardrops—no brooches or bracelets, no diadem or jeweled combs. The girl next to her in the set was pretty, extremely pretty, but alongside Miss Trentham she looked overdressed, too many glittering trinkets, too many ruffles on her gown, too much lace, and far too many curls clustering around her face.

Icarus emptied his glass. Elegant. That was the word he’d been searching for. Miss Trentham looked austerely, coolly, and understatedly elegant. And, given her height and her angular, boyish figure, surprisingly graceful as well. A good dancer.

A footman with a tray halted in front of him. “Champagne, sir? Punch?”

Icarus chose more punch, and ran his gaze over the dancers again. Matlock was dancing with a pretty little blonde, and Lucas Kemp was partnered with a striking brunette. Overdressed, Icarus thought, taking in the profusion of lace decorating the blonde’s ball gown. Overdressed, glancing at the diamond tiara in the brunette’s hair.

His gaze drifted back to Letitia Trentham.

She wasn’t pretty or beautiful, but he’d been harsh to think her plain. Icarus turned words over in his head, rejected homely and ordinary, and decided on interesting. Miss Trentham had an interesting face. The face of an intelligent, strong-minded woman.

“Major Reid.” Almeria Kemp reappeared in a wave of perfume.

Icarus straightened away from the wall. “Mrs. Kemp.”

“Would you like to dance? I can introduce you to a charming young lady.”

“Ah . . . I might look into the card room.” He smiled and made his escape, glass in hand. But the card room was populated mainly by dowagers and elderly men, and he was no more in the mood for whist or loo than he was in the mood for dancing. Icarus drifted out to the ballroom again.

The next dance was called. Miss Trentham was partnered by her cousin, Lucas Kemp. In his company, there was nothing remotely aloof or standoffish about her. She smiled in a way that made her look quite eye-catching.

After that dance came supper. Miss Trentham and Matlock bore Icarus off to the supper room. “You must try the lobster patties!” Miss Trentham said.

Icarus ate a lobster patty.

“And one of these cherry tartlets.”

Icarus ate that, too. Slowly. He was beginning to feel uncomfortably full.

“I saved a cotillion for you,” Miss Trentham told him. “If you would like to dance? But don’t feel that you have to. Tom will partner me otherwise.”

Did she want to talk with him privately, or was it the disinterested offer it sounded like? Icarus studied her expression. It was extremely neutral. She didn’t seem to be trying to convey any message at all.

He chewed his last mouthful of cherry tartlet while he considered Miss Trentham’s suggestion. It did seem foolish to attend a ball and not dance at least once. “I should like that,” he said, and wondered how it had sounded to her ears. Truth, or lie? He wasn’t certain himself.

Miss Trentham nodded. “Another tartlet?”

“I can’t.”

That was definitely the truth, and Miss Trentham heard it. She didn’t press him to eat any more.

The cotillion came two dances later. To his surprise, Icarus found himself enjoying it. He and Miss Trentham were well-matched as dancers. Miss Trentham seemed to enjoy it, too. She wasn’t wearing her standoffish face, or even her polite face. She looked like she had when she’d danced with Lucas Kemp: friendly and approachable. This surprised Icarus so much that he almost missed his cue. Did she consider him her friend?

He recovered his concentration and danced the main figure with Miss Trentham. When they’d circled back to their places, standing side by side, he glanced obliquely at her. Not standoffish at all, or even aloof. And then Icarus realized why. It wasn’t that she thought of him as a friend; it was because she knew he didn’t want to marry her.

Miss Trentham caught his glance before he could look away. Her eyes were almost the same muted sea-green as her ball gown. “Come riding tomorrow, Mr. Reid. Two o’clock. We may be able to discuss Bristol.”

Icarus nodded.

“And even if we can’t talk privately, there’ll be macaroons afterwards.”

Despite himself, Icarus smiled.

Miss Trentham smiled back. When she smiled like that, with her whole face, a glint of humor in her eyes, she was actually very attractive.

Icarus almost missed his cue again.