Frederick climbed to the seat, flicked the reins, and set the bays trotting.
Stacie sat beside Frederick, and as they rattled along the cobbles toward the park, which lay beyond the end of the street, she complimented him on his horses and the comfort of the carriage, which even she recognized as being of the latest design.
“I do like good horses and carriages,” he admitted with a half smile.
She’d noted that little, private smile before; it was oddly endearing, imparting a hint of wistfulness to a face otherwise reminiscent of chiseled stone.
They turned in to Park Lane and entered the park via the Grosvenor Gate.
If she’d had a choice, she would have happily hidden away for the rest of the Season until summer rolled around and they could end their sham engagement, but he’d been right; they had to be seen doing the expected things, and if he could make the sacrifice, then she could do no less. It was, after all, her reputation he was seeking to protect with the fiction of their engagement.
He set his horses trotting along the avenue and glanced her way. “I thought the evening went well. Our three protégés performed brilliantly—my peers were even more impressed than I had hoped they would be. I believe Protheroe will find himself dealing with inquiries of all sorts in the coming weeks.”
Amid all the personal drama, the musical side of the evening had all but slipped from her mind. She recalled Felicia’s report and told Frederick about Rand and his investors intending to offer musical scholarships via the school.
He nodded. “An excellent idea. I’ll speak to Rand when next I see him.”
A hail reached them. A group of ladies and several gentlemen were standing by the verge; one of the gentlemen flagged them down.
“And so it begins,” Frederick murmured and angled his horses to halt beside the group.
Unsurprisingly, they were the principal cynosure of attention in the park that afternoon. They remained in the carriage, which Frederick moved along every now and then, and consequently, the crowd ebbed and flowed around them, with older ladies drawing up alongside in their landaus and barouches, while the younger crowd walked up to stand on the verge and chat.
Having been born and raised within the ton, Stacie had no real difficulty dealing with the congratulations, comments—even the arch ones—and the many leading inquiries, primarily as to when the wedding would take place. To her relief, she realized that, despite what she’d interpreted as his liking for country solitude, Frederick, too, could hold his own in this sphere; she didn’t need to monitor his conversations with a view to rescuing him from some grande dame’s inquisition.
What surprised her far more was that, after the predictable questions relating to their unexpected engagement, many—young, old, male, and female—moved on to comment on the musical aspect of the evening. Indeed, although many had not been present, their names not having been on the highly select guest list, with their eagerness to engage on the subject, they blatantly signaled a wish that they might be invited to attend her next musical evening.
Despite the distraction of their shock engagement—or perhaps because of it—her musical evening had raised awareness of the existence of highly talented local musicians far more effectively than she’d thought possible.
When Frederick steered his horses on to the next knot of well-wishers, she mused, “Given the many angling for invitations to my next musical evening, I might have to stage it at Raventhorne House—the reception rooms are much larger there.”
Or you could hold it at Albury House, which has the best and largest music room in Mayfair. Frederick bit back the words; for her to stage an event in his house…even given her age and their now established partnership, even given their engagement, that could only happen if she was formally his hostess—ergo, his wife.
As he drew the curricle up to the verge, he couldn’t resist asking, “Is the Raventhorne House music room up to scratch?”
“Hmm. For most, I would say yes, but you…? You’ll have to play the piano there and see.”
Another bevy of well-wishers converged on the carriage, and with appropriately bright smiles on their faces, he and she gave themselves over to accepting the breathless or hearty congratulations—he’d noticed congratulations seemed to come primarily in those two styles—and answering the usual questions.
Because he was seated on the avenue side of the curricle, conversing with the older ladies who drew up alongside in their open carriages largely fell to him.
Of course, many of those ladies, after grilling him, insisted on commanding Stacie’s attention as well. Several of those exchanges, conducted across him, contained what he now recognized as repeating refrains—of how much like her mother Stacie was, how her mother would have crowed at her success, how her mother must surely be spinning in her grave over not being present to exploit such a triumph.
As the triumph referred to was Stacie having successfully—in ton terms—snared him, and the comments were, of necessity, exchanged across him, when he and Stacie allowed their eyes to meet, they were hard-pressed not to laugh.
After one such blithely delivered comment, Frederick was forced to look down to hide his desperately compressed lips; he disguised the movement by drawing out his fob watch and checking the time.
When Lady Foster finally instructed her coachman to drive on, Frederick met Stacie’s laughing eyes. “This outing has gone far better than I’d hoped, and we’ve been here for forty minutes—I suggest we cut and run while we’re ahead.”
Her smile reached her lips and curved them, and she nodded. “Yes. Let’s call this a success, too, and leave.”
He flicked the reins and steered the curricle on and out of the fashionable stretch.
His compulsion to learn what lay behind her resistance to marriage grew stronger with every hour he spent in her company. He waited until they’d reached the straight section
of carriageway running parallel to the Oxford road, then, with his gaze on his horses’ heads, quietly asked, “Purely for my edification, is it marriage in general or specifically marriage to me that you’re so adamantly set against?”
He’d intended the query to be light, almost flippant, yet even to his ears, a hint of uncertainty—a vulnerability he hadn’t until that moment known he possessed—shone through.