He grimaced lightly. He had to grant her that. Had their positions been reversed…
He focused on the gathering inside the brightly lit room. The chandeliers blazed. Even heard through the window, the rowdy chatter was loud, yet with so many speaking at once, it was difficult to make out specific words, much less follow any conversation.
But the card tables scattered about the room required little explanation.
“It seems to be mostly vingt-un,” Ellen murmured. “At least at the tables I can see.”
“Hmm.” He hadn’t watched for long enough to be sure but suspected she was right.
She ducked a fraction closer to the window—peering at something—and put up a hand to brush back the fall of the feathers on her hat, only to have a knot of ribbon adorning the end of her sleeve tangle with the feathers. She hissed, straightened, and tugged to free her arm.
“Here—let me.” It took him a second to free the feathers.
“Stupid things!” She thrust back the offending feathers.
He blinked, then ventured, “Why do you wear them, then?”
“Not by choice!” Her tone suggested he was a fool for even thinking such a thing.
“Why, then?” He was far too fascinated to let the subject slide.
She sighed. “It’s Aunt Emma’s idea of how I should look.” She flipped a hand at her face, her figure. “You have eyes—you can see. Emma was widowed young. She never had children. She came to live with Mama and Papa, and when I was little, Emma and my mother took great delight in dressing me in ribbons and lace and frills. Just like the doll I looked like. You can imagine it, I’m sure.” Her tone was decidedly dry.
After a second, she went on, “As it happens, I really don’t care all that much what I look like. I seem to have misplaced that ladylike trait. So if dressing me in ribbons and lace made Mama and Aunt Emma happy, that was all right with me. Sadly, as I grew older, even when Mama became less fixated on the latest style of frippery, Emma remained set on ribbons and lace—and feathers and frills and all such adornments. You should see some of my evening gowns. Sequins everywhere!”
She fell silent, and he waited, then quietly prompted, “And now?”
“And now that Mama is gone, overseeing and adding to my wardrobe remains one of Aunt Emma’s favorite pastimes. It’s an activity she shared with my mother—her sister—and…I think it’s something she clings to. A task that, at least in her eyes, makes her feel she’s still doing her best for me.”
Christopher didn’t break the ensuing silence. Although they both kept their gazes glued to the scene beyond the glass, tracking the young men who wandered back and forth and the frenetic activity around those card tables they could see, for his part, his mind was elsewhere.
In fact, his mind slid back to a moment in May, when he’d stood at the side of the ballroom in Glengarah Castle and, commenting on the relationship between his cousin Pru and her new husband, had somewhat waspishly observed: It must be nice to be the recipient of that degree of devotion.
Never again would he view the ribbons and frills on Ellen’s dresses in the dismissively censorious way he had.
She knew perfectly well that they made her look silly—a grown woman dressed like a doll—but she bore with them for another reason. A deeper, entirely laudable purpose.
Out of devotion to an old lady who had cared for her for all of her life.
Without warning, Ellen jabbed her elbow into his ribs. “There!” She pointed across the room. “That’s Mrs. Kirkpatrick. She must have given up on further arrivals and come to mingle.”
He refocused and saw a lady of about his own age, with dark hair and a voluptuous figure, gowned in what his educated eyes identified as a creation from one of the ton’s foremost modistes. The lady appeared gay and carefree and was plainly set on dazzling her young guests.
After a moment, Ellen snorted softly. “She’s not truly set on seducing them, is she?”
“Not in the usual sense of the word.” Of that, he was quite sure.
Ellen threw him a glance over her shoulder, but apparently decided not to inquire how he knew.
Her look prodded his more-reckless self, and he lowered his head and whispered, “Trust me—she’s not looking to lure any of these aspiring rakes to her bed. However, she is looking to ensure they return here again and again.”
After watching Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s performance for several more minutes, Ellen conceded, “I see what you mean. She’s feeding their egos—making them feel important and older than they are.”
Cynically, he remarked, “Young gentlemen are sadly suggestive and very easily led. Very easily duped.”
A second later, he heard the frown in her voice as she asked, “But what is she duping them about?”
He was forced to admit, “As to that, I’m not entirely sure.”
Half a minute later, Ellen’s elbow came into play again, and he looked where she pointed. “That’s Tilly Fontenay,” Ellen whispered, “Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s young cousin.”
He watched a very young lady with coppery curls, who had appeared from somewhere to their left, pause by Mrs. Kirkpatrick and murmur something in her ear.
Christopher noted a hard glint in the older woman’s eyes as she nodded. Then, with her expression softening once more, she turned back to the bevy of eager young gentlemen she’d been entertaining. She spoke, and in short order, several of the young men obediently trailed off in the same direction—to Christopher’s and Ellen’s left—in which the girl, Tilly, had retreated. The young men’s eager expressions and their attempts to mimic a more adult sangfroid only underscored how immature and easily influenced they were—putty in Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s hands.
“That man there”—Ellen pointed across the room again—“the one with the gray silk cravat, is Nigel Fontenay, Tilly’s brother.”
Christopher eyed the young man assessingly; he appeared a hail-fellow-well-met sort, but shifty characters usually wore a disguise. “Presumably, he’s another of Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s helpers.”
“So it seems.” After a moment, Ellen asked, “Other than Robbie, do you recognize any of the young men?”
He hadn’t been taking note of identities. Now, he looked anew and was rather shocked by what he saw. “I can see young Huntly and the Entwhistles’ son and also Henry Dalton. They’re all local, from estates within easy reach.” Theirs weren’t the faces that bothered him. After a moment, he murmured, “There are several others who hail from London and even farther afield.” Young men of good families…what the devil were they doing deep in rural Kent at this time of year?
Nigel Fontenay had taken up dealing at a card table across the room. Christopher mentally shook his head at the visors several of the players had donned, as if that somehow signaled they were experienced gamblers.
Trapped in front of Christopher, Ellen shifted restlessly. She’d had enough of feeling the heat of his large body seeping through the layers of her clothes. Let alone the moments when he bent his head to whisper by her ear; the waft of his breath over her sensitive skin… She couldn’t bear it any longer.
She eased out from between him and the curtained window; to her relief, he stepped back to let her pass. In reply to his plainly questioning look, she whispered, “I’m going to see what I can glimpse from around the corner. There should be a window on that side. Robbie went that way, following Tilly—I want to see what she’s about.”