‘That would be perfectly acceptable, my lord.’
‘Oh, and before that, I intend inviting Mr Thwaite the curate to dine in three days’ time. I hope you will feel more comfortable with him in the house?’
‘Yes, very much more so, thank you.’ For a bachelor party she would not be expected to appear, so she was quite safe from recognition by Mr Thwaite who knew her well. Where on earth has Lord Northam encountered the Curate? Somewhere on his muddy travels, presumably. ‘I will ring for Pitkin, my lord, so he can remove your boots in the hall.’
He looked down and then back up with a grin that did dreadful things to her insides. ‘I am justly reproved – and do not look the innocent, Mrs Albright, I know a tactful scolding when I hear one.’
And I know a charmer when I see one, Laura thought grimly. She should feel perfectly safe with him – his manners, and manner, were impeccable, but the threat was from her own foolish fancies and that smile that was so hard to resist. He’s a viscount, my girl, and spoken for, and don’t you forget it. You are just an East India Company man’s daughter with a tidy inheritance. Gentry certainly – trade, almost – and currently in the devil of a pickle. He was delicious for a youthful romantic tendresse, he is positively dangerous to your heart now.
Sir Walter and Lady Swinburn clearly enjoyed entertaining Theo decided as he followed the butler into the crowded drawing room. Or perhaps, he guessed, it would be more accurate to say they enjoyed the social cachet of entertaining. The flower arrangements were imposing, dozens of candles blazed and the footmen were elaborately formal.
‘Lord Northam, my lady.’
‘Delighted you could make it, Northam.’ Sir Walter bore down on him, his handsome wife at his side. ‘Lady Swinburn, Lord Northam. You’ve already met our boys, of course.’
Giles removed his gaze from the neckline of a young lady’s gown, looked across from where he stood by the fireplace and raised a hand in a gesture that was almost mocking.
‘Charles,’ Lady Swinburn said, with some emphasis. Theo revised his opinion of her looks. Close-to he could see how an air of steely determination had hardened the fine lines of her face and primmed up her lips.
‘Oh. Ah, yes, Mama. Lord Northam, good evening.’ Charles Swinburn got up from his seat on a sofa where he had been staring blankly in front of him and ignoring the middle-aged lady at his side.
‘Good evening.’ Theo produced a social smile and concentrated on names as his hostess began to guide him around the room, beginning with the lady on the sofa. She was tall and heavily-built, not through fat but because, he suspected, she had always been so. Her frame must have been a trial for a young girl forced into pastels and frills, but she dressed for it now, tailored and corseted into a statuesque elegance that was positively chic.
‘My sister-in-law, Mrs Finch, Sir Walter’s half-sister and wife to our dear Rector.’
Mrs Finch had escaped her brother’s beak of a nose, he observed. Intelligent brown eyes surveyed him shrewdly from an unremarkable face set off by the exquisitely fine lace of her fichu.
‘Mrs Finch.’ He bowed. ‘Surely that is Alençon work? Exquisite.’
‘Very close, my lord. You know your lace,’ she said with a smile. ‘It is Valenciennes.’ Her accent was precise, he had clearly found an enthusiast.
‘Only enough to know high quality work when I see it. I understand it is difficult to obtain now and that the manufacture of both types is in decline since the Revolution.’
Her smile thinned. ‘I was fortunate in a bequest.’
Lady Swinburn swept him on. ‘And my brother-in-law and our Rector, the Reverend Aldous Finch.’
They shook hands and Theo found he could envisage Mr Finch in a bishop’s mitre. It would suit him, he had a far more distinguished face than Mrs Finch, but the cold, assessing eyes were off-putting. The Rector was also somewhat younger than his wife, unless Theo was much mistaken. He recalled Will Thwaite, thin, shabby, overworked, doing this man’s duty and had no difficulty in responding with merely formal politeness.
‘Have you held this living long, Reverend?’
‘Eight years. I had a Norwich parish previously.’
Time to be climbing on up the ladder of preferment, Theo thought. Perhaps this was an easy post and the man had few aspirations, although he rather doubted Mrs Finch was without ambition.
They moved to the Jenners: Mr Jenner the red-faced squire of the parish of Saltings just along the coast and almost a caricature of the beef-eating English country gentleman, his wife who was unable to hide her delight at dining with a viscount and their two daughters who helped balance the sexes, possibly the only reason the family had been invited, he thought, judging by the lack of warmth with which Lady Swinburn introduced them.
Theo revised his opinion by the time they had completed their circuit of the room: no-one appeared to spark warmth from his hostess except her younger son, Giles. A plump lady in black was introduced as, ‘Mrs Gilpin, widow of our late Rector,’ and the handsome man in his forties she had been conversing with as, ‘Mr Hogget. Mrs Hogget does not accompany him,’ she added, with no further explanation.
Deciding to be awkward, Theo resisted the onward movement of Lady Swinburn and stuck to Mrs Gilpin and her companion who looked to him like the most amiable people in the room. Besides, he disliked the way they had almost been snubbed.
‘You both live in Fellingham?’ He broke the ice with the tale of his muddle over the dates and was pleased to hear them speak warmly of his friend Perry.
‘You have not visited here before then, Lord Northam?’ Mrs Gilpin asked. She seemed to have the knack most clergy wives acquired of making amiable conversation.
‘Not for two years and I have to confess that in those days we were a harum-scarum pair, Manners and I, more interested in wildfowling, hunting and sampling the contents of his cellars than enjoying the civilised company of his neighbours.’
‘You have become a staid gentleman in the intervening period then?’ Hogget asked with a sly smile.