Now she looked Cathy up and down. “Are we attending a dinner party or a funeral?”
Cathy gave her a look of reproach. “A dinner party for Papa’s guest. You helped me choose the menu.”
Frances glared and took a sip of her port. She always drank port before dinner, claiming it settled her stomach. Bianca thought it did more to loosen her tongue. “The London rogue.”
A strangled squeak escaped Cathy. She bent her head and fussed with one of the bows on her gown.
“Why do you say so, Aunt?” Bianca was deliberately prodding a hungry bear. Frances hadn’t had anyone to exercise her temper on in weeks. Samuel had been in Liverpool for almost a month and only returned recently, and Cousin Ned, the factory office manager, had learned to avoid her. In Samuel’s absence there had been no guests. Frances considered it beneath her to browbeat servants, and despite her crotchety manner, she cared for both Bianca and Cathy. Mr. St. James was fresh meat, as it were; prime prey.
Now their great-aunt raised her brows. “What other sort is there? London is the font of all vice, my father used to say.” She sipped her port. “I recognized his sort when he was here last. Very sure of himself. Not as clever as he thinks he is. Too handsome by half. I wonder he left London at all, to consort with the ordinary people of Staffordshire.”
“Not ordinary at all,” said a voice from the doorway. They all three turned to see Mr. St. James, blinding in green satin with glittering gold embroidering. He wore his hair neatly queued tonight, and made a very elegant bow. “There are quite extraordinary people here in Staffordshire, judging by the inhabitants of this room alone,” he added gallantly.
Aunt Frances’s shoulders went back and her chin came up—all the better to peer down her nose at him. “What effrontery to say such a thing. We’re hardly acquainted well enough for you to know.”
He smiled. “I could honestly say it based solely on appearances. Mr. Tate did not warn me there would be three lovely ladies at dinner tonight.”
Frances stared at him a moment, gave another sniff for good measure, and turned her back on him. “Have us a touch more, dear.” She held out her glass, and Bianca obediently poured more port. “So why have you come all this way, if you were not eagerly anticipating our company?”
Mr. St. James smiled. He had a deep dimple in one cheek, a very masculine slash that hardly deserved the delicate term dimple. “A man always hopes, madam.”
“More fool you,” muttered Frances. Bianca smiled happily.
“Welcome to Perusia, Mr. St. James.” Pale but poised, Cathy went to greet him. “Won’t you come in? I hope you remember my father’s aunt, Mrs. Bentley, and my sister, Miss Bianca Tate. We are very informal here, with only family tonight.”
“Thank you, Miss Tate.” He bowed beautifully over Cathy’s hand. Bianca grudgingly admitted his manners were perfect. “If you are informal tonight, I vow I would swoon away at the mere sight of your formality. You would outshine any lady in London or Paris.”
“Trevor darling, don’t piddle on our guest’s shoe,” drawled Frances, turning Bianca’s private disgust into glee once more. Mr. St. James looked down with a startled expression at the grumpy bulldog inspecting his shoe, and sidled a step away.
But then he went down on one knee and let Trevor sniff his hand, and—to the astonishment of everyone else in the room—the bulldog sank down and pushed his head up into Mr. St. James’s hand.
“That’s a good boy,” said the man in a deep, rough voice, stroking hard down the dog’s head and back. Trevor’s tongue lolled out of his mouth until he lay down flat and gave a guttural moan of happiness.
Turncoat, thought Bianca in pique. After she’d smuggled him cheese, no less.
Papa came in then, looking quite pleased with himself. “My apologies, St. James. Cathy my dear, have you welcomed our guest?”
“Yes, Papa.”
“That’s my girl,” he said in approval, before complimenting her dress and hair. Cathy blushed scarlet at this unexpected flattery, Cathy who was so beautiful she looked lovely in a coarse linen smock and who never expected to be told so.
Bianca rolled her eyes at this blatant fawning. Her father loved them both, but he wasn’t the type to lavish praise on anyone—least of all on his daughters. In the workshop, she and her father were notorious for arguing furiously over new designs and technique, and Papa treated Cathy’s attentions as he’d treated Mama’s: his due, and nothing out of the ordinary.
To her chagrin, she happened to glance Mr. St. James’s way. Papa was exclaiming over Cathy’s hair combs, which had been their mother’s, and the cursed man who wanted to marry her was watching Bianca instead.
For a brief moment their eyes met—his dark and assessing, hers probably shocked and hostile. That was how she felt, at any rate, and Bianca made a point of tearing her gaze off him and pretending great interest in the clasp of her bracelet. Such an impertinent rogue.
They went in to dinner, Aunt Frances on Papa’s arm, Cathy with Mr. St. James. Bianca trailed silently behind, plotting how best to achieve her ends.
She had schemed to invite a large party of people, including Mr. Mayne the curate, all the better to contrast him with Mr. St. James, but Papa had put his foot down. “Family,” he’d barked at her, “and no one else.”
That meant it was up to Aunt Frances. And fortunately, the older woman seemed spoiling for the chance.
“Who, pray, are your people, sir?” she asked him over the fish course. “I have forgotten.”
He smiled. “Have you? I’m sure I never mentioned them at all.”
Frances bared her teeth at him. “That explains it! My memory is usually faultless. Do tell us, that we may all know.”
“My father,” he said easily, “was, as you know, a St. James, a relation of the Duke of Carlyle.”
“How distant?” asked Bianca innocently. “My goodness, sir, were you raised amidst the splendor of Carlyle Castle?”
Cathy gave her a reproachful look and Papa growled under his breath. Bianca only batted her eyes at their guest, who sat smiling back with the self-possession of a panther, biding his time.
“No, Miss Tate,” he replied. “I am only a distant cousin, and had not the privilege of visiting the castle often.”
“Oh,” she said. “Only on visiting days, I suppose?” Visiting days, when any strangers passing by would be permitted to stroll the castle grounds and see the house.
He continued smiling at her as if he knew exactly what she was up to. “Not even then, I’m afraid. I have resided in London for some time. Much too far away to drop in for a cup of tea, or even a visiting day.”
Bianca’s mouth flattened. Thankfully Frances rushed into the breach.
“Yes, yes, Carlyle.” She dropped a bite of turbot on the carpet, and Trevor noisily slurped it up. “Who are your mother’s people?”
“I doubt you will know them, ma’am. My grandparents came from Hanover.”
“German,” said Frances with a whiff of disdain.
Mr. St. James only bowed his head in acknowledgement. “Their parents were retainers of His Majesty George the First, when he came from Hanover.”