‘So what makes you happy, Charles? Not just cheerful for the moment, but happy.’
Charles pondered while he smoothed out a shirt. ‘Having a good place, like this, where they’re fair and there’s opportunities. And being with my girl.’ He shot Lucian a sideways glance, obviously assessing his views of staff ‘walking out’. ‘If I make second footman then we could get married, because she’s head dairymaid now and I reckon her ladyship will let us have one of the little sets of rooms over the dairy. Anyway, I’m happy when I’m with Miriam. And going home to see my old mum and her being proud of me, like she is. Plain black silk stockings, my lord? Or the ones with the stripe in them?’
‘Oh, striped, I think. Let us be frivolous today, Charles.’
*
Sara was in the drawing room before dinner, in the midst of a group of the younger guests, when Lucian came down looking immaculate and not at all like a man who had been pitched into a muddy lake. He took a chair opposite her and smiled when the other men chaffed him about his misadventure.
‘Most inelegant, I know. The word will get around town and I’ll be cut by all the swells,’ he said easily. ‘I trust you not to spread the word, gentlemen, or I’ll be lampooned in the press as the Marquess of Duckweed.’
‘You’re a good sport to take it like that, Cannock,’ Lord Tothill remarked. ‘Me, I would have been contemplating putting an end to my existence.’
‘Oh, I was utterly cast down for a while,’ Lucian agreed. ‘Actually fingering the edge of my razor. But then I had a most uplifting conversation about happiness with my temporary valet, a young man named Charles, and now I am positively cheerful about the whole thing. After all, I have the satisfaction of making you gentlemen all feel superior, of entertaining the ladies and of having the opportunity of holding Lady Sara in my arms for minutes on end.’
‘That, naturally, is worth any amount of pondweed,’ Philip Greaves agreed, with a gallant bow to Sara.
When the laughter died down she studied Lucian, trying to decide what was different about him this evening. He seemed far more relaxed, she realised, which was strange considering he had proposed and been turned down and had ended up in the lake.
‘What did Charles say about happiness?’ she asked.
‘That for him it is being in a position where he feels he can do well and advance, he is making his old mum proud of him and he has a young woman he hopes to marry. It made me think and it seems to me that is not a bad definition—be doing something we enjoy to the best of our ability, make those whose opinion we value proud of us and have the prospect of a happy marriage before us.’
‘I think that is truly inspiring, Lord Cannock,’ Miss Eversleigh, the most sensible of the young ladies, said. ‘I shall write that in my commonplace book so I do not forget it.’
‘Sounds a bit serious to me.’ Johnny, her brother, pulled a face. ‘What about fun, I’d like to know?’
‘Nothing wrong with adding champagne, race horses, a good hand of cards and a dance with a pretty girl to the recipe,’ Lucian said and the other men laughed.
‘Are you looking for that special young lady yourself, Lord Cannock?’ Miss Hopely, definitely not one of the more sensible girls, enquired with a flutter of long lashes.
‘What single gentleman with any sense is not, Miss Hopely?’ Lucian countered.
‘And what young lady is not looking for a handsome gentleman with some sense?’ Marguerite came up and perched on the arm of Lucian’s chair. ‘It works both ways, brother dear. And I am come to scold you for overworking poor Mr Farnsworth. You must remember he has only one eye now. I have been helping him sort those dreadfully dull estate papers you have heaped on him.’
‘That is very thoughtful of you,’ Lucian said absently. Sara thought she caught just the flicker of an eyelid in her direction. ‘But there is a great deal I need him to do.’
Marguerite pouted in a most convincing manner and Sara got up and went to find Porrett, the butler. ‘Can you place Mr Farnsworth next to Lady Marguerite tonight please, Porrett?’
‘That is just as her ladyship made out the seating plan, Lady Sara. It did not appear to accord with precedence, but her ladyship said that she would like to create an informal atmosphere.’
‘Excellent.’ The plan was working out perfectly. By the end of the week Gregory and Marguerite would appear inseparable, Lucian, in this strangely mellow new mood, would bow to the force of young love and all would be well.
But what on earth was the matter with him? First he proposed to her, out of the blue, now he was talking about happiness and marriage in a way far removed from the starchy man she had first met. Very strange. This Lucian she could almost…
Mata was already working her way around the drawing room, chatting
to the guests and pairing people up for dinner. ‘Lord Cannock, will you take Sara in, please?’ she said. ‘Mr Eversleigh, Miss Hopely. Lord Brendon? Now, where has he got to…?’
Gradually everyone sorted themselves out and began the walk to the dining room. ‘It is going well with Marguerite and Gregory, I think,’ Sara murmured as she laid her white-gloved hand on his sleeve. ‘We must draw him out a little, make sure the more influential ladies have an opportunity to discover what a nice young man he is.’
‘Yes.’ Lucian sounded vague, although Sara had the distinct impression that he was anything but, this evening. ‘I would like to talk to you later.’
‘That might be as well,’ she agreed, evenly. ‘We need to clear the air, I think. I promise not to get you soaking wet this time.’
‘You think I had a brainstorm this afternoon, don’t you?’ He held her chair and then pushed it in as she sat and began to remove her gloves.
‘Didn’t you?’ She did wish he would stop alluding to that proposal. Even thinking about it made her feel confused and flustered and she hated feeling like that—had not felt that way for an age, not since Michael had kissed her in the bookshop and she’d realised—