One Forbidden Evening. Jo Goodman

      “What?” he asked, glaring at Ferrin. “What was that in aid of?”

      It was Restell who offered the explanation. “You were speaking such nonsense as to be perfectly objectionable.”

      “Was I?” He looked to his friend for confirmation.

      Ferrin’s mouth pulled slightly to one side, and he offered a nod reluctantly. “I’m afraid so.”

      “Oh, dear.” Wellsley sighed. “I am over the moon, then.”

      “I think that might be understating it,” Ferrin said dryly. He skirted his desk until he came to stand in front of it, then he leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. “Might we inquire as to the name of the female who has put you there?”

      The tips of Wellsley’s ears reddened. “I have not declared myself to her. You will understand, then, my reluctance to give you her name.”

      Restell chose a small embroidered pillow from the chaise and pitched it at Wellsley’s head. “He might understand, but I do not. Are you afraid we will let it about? That’s not very trusting of you. I know how to keep a secret.”

      “So do I,” Wellsley said, tossing the pillow back. “And that is by keeping it to myself. Is that not right, Ferrin?”

      “That’s right.” Ferrin was prepared to say more on the subject for Restell’s benefit, but a commotion in the adjoining drawing room put a period to the half-formed moral lesson. Restell might have preferred it, Ferrin thought, to what surely was coming. “It is Mother,” he said unnecessarily. Restell was abandoning his negligent posture on the chaise for something more like a military bearing, while Wellsley was already on his feet.

      Lady Gardner swept through the door thrown open to her by the butler and demanded, “Ferrin, is that rascal—. Never mind, I can see that he is.” Her eyes bored into her stepson.

      “Take heart, Restell,” Ferrin said. “Mother thinks you are a rascal.” Ignoring Restell’s unamused glance, Ferrin pushed away from his desk and stepped forward to greet his mother. He took both her hands and kissed her cheek. “You are looking in the very pink of health, Mother.”

      “Frankly, I am overset.”

      “But you are in fine color.”

      Lady Gardner removed her hands from Ferrin’s and patted her cheeks. “They are not too flushed?”

      “No.”

      “It is no thanks to Restell.”

      “I am sure it is not.”

      She looked around her son’s broad shoulders to dart a sharp glance at her stepson. He was standing stiffly beside the chaise. “He said he could not escort me to either Bond Street or the bookseller’s because he was calling upon Miss Martha Hopkins this afternoon. He knew I would approve of that. She is to have a dowry of six thousand pounds and shall come into a trust established by her late grandmother when she is twenty-five.”

      “I am sure you do not mean to be mercenary.”

      “Mercenary? Of course not. I mean to be practical. One must plan, you know, and I am credited with being able to see the long view. Restell’s prospects are not the same as yours, are they?”

      “He will not be an earl,” Ferrin said cautiously.

      She waved that aside. “That is the least of it. He will not have thirty thousand pounds a year. He will not have homes in town and in the country. He will not have lands in abundance nor tenants to work them. There will be no rents to collect or profits to be made from cattle and crops and investments.”

      Restell’s weight shifted. He cleared his throat and made what he hoped was an acceptable offer. “I shall put a bullet to my head at once.”

      Lady Gardner stepped around Ferrin and pointed a finger at Restell. “That is not at all amusing. Do you know with whom I spent the afternoon when you would not escort me?” She did not give him time to answer and neither Ferrin nor Wellsley—who thought himself well out of it—ventured a guess. “Lady Rivendale. I met her at Barkley’s and had tea with her. Mr. Nicholas Caldwell was her niece’s husband.” Restell’s blank look did not put him in her good graces. She speared Wellsley with her glance. “I suppose you do not know who that is, either?”

      “I believe Mr. Caldwell killed himself with a pistol ball to the head,” Wellsley said. “That was the on-dit at the time, though I have never speculated as to the truth or falseness of the rumor.”

      “You do not often impress me, Mr. Wellsley,” Lady Gardner said. “But it is excellent that you have done so now.” She smiled at him warmly, further evidence of her approbation. This evidence vanished when she returned her attention to Restell. “Mr. Wellsley is quite right not to engage in rumor. I know it from Lady Rivendale herself that what was alleged is true. I can assure you that no one in that family finds anything diverting about it. Mrs. Caldwell was at your sister’s masquerade. It was one of only a handful of public appearances that she’s made since her husband’s death. Imagine how she would have reacted to hearing you speak so cavalierly about putting a pistol to your head.”

      Ferrin watched Restell take his mother’s harangue on the chin. A lock of pale yellow hair fell over his brother’s brow, but except to shake it back, he did not move. The lecture was undeserved, but it was good of Restell not to try to defend himself. He had to realize that if he had provided an escort rather than shirking the responsibility, she would not be put out with him now.

      “In fairness to Restell,” Ferrin said, “the subject did not come up at the masque.”

      She rounded on him. “The subject did not come up now, either. He plucked it out of the air.” She touched her cheeks again. “I will have a drop of sherry, Ferrin, to calm my nerves.” Accepting Wellsley’s escort, Lady Gardner took the chair he had previously occupied and fanned herself lightly. “How would any of us know if we had said something untoward?” she asked. “Mrs. Caldwell is unknown to me even when she is not dressed as a Gainsborough shepherdess.”

      Ferrin paused in pouring his mother the drink she requested. “A shepherdess?” he asked with considerably more casualness than he felt. “That does not narrow it at all, does it? Pray, what color were the ribbons on her crook?”

      “Green,” Lady Gardner said. “I asked Lady Rivendale the very same question. I was assured they were green.”