Rose Lerner - In for a Penny

“ Nev!” Percy gasped behind him.

Nev nearly dropped the plate on Miss Brown’s skirts. “What is it, Percy?”

“Retreat, man, retreat! Your mother’s got Thirkell!”

Nev started, and turned. Sure enough, Lady Bedlow had poor Thirkell at bay, her gilded curls bobbing indignantly as she shook her vinaigrette at him. Thirkell was sending Nev pleading stares in a manner that would soon betray his location. Then would follow recriminations, accusations of heartlessness, and probably some pointed jabs at poor Percy, who, Lady Bedlow was convinced, was Low Company and also Leading Her Precious Boy Astray.

“Where did she spring from?” Nev railed inwardly against the unfairness of the universe. Turning to Miss Brown, he shoved the plate at her. “Terribly sorry, I must be off.” He met Thirkell’s eyes and jerked his head at the door.

Thirkell took off for the exit, Percy and Nev close on his heels. At the door, Nev glanced back once. He caught a glimpse of Miss Brown loading some lobster salad onto her plate and shrugging ruefully across the room at her mother. Then he was out the door and under the stars, running down South Audley Street with his friends.

“Shhhh!” Nev hissed. “I’m trying to listen!”

Thirkell cheerily ignored him-and the soprano singing her heart out across the clearing. “Pass the ham.”

“Oh, yes, will you serve me some too?” Amy asked.

“If I buy you rapacious eaters another ham, will you hush?” Nev speared a few slices of paper-thin Vauxhall ham as the plate went by.

“I should very much doubt it,” Percy said. “Hand of piquet, Thirkell?”

“Not bloody likely. Not after watching how masterfully you fleeced Salksbury last night.”

Percy smiled. “I’m wounded. You know I never fleece my friends.”

“What are the stakes, then?” Thirkell asked.

“No stakes; I play for practice. My sister’s sweet on the apothecary and if I’m to dower her before the Season ends and all my partners remove to the country, I need to be at the top of my game.”

“Well, that’s no fun. Penny points?”

“Oh, do be quiet and listen to the concert.” Amy gave Thirkell a friendly shove. “You know how fond Nev is of Arne.”

Nev raised his head to thank her, and his attention was wrenched away from Arne’s aria by the sight of a slender, dark-haired girl in the box opposite, clearly shushing her companions. She looked across at the same moment, and their eyes met. The champagne seemed to go to Nev ’s head all at once.

“I say, who’s Nev staring at?”

As if she could hear Thirkell, Miss Brown turned her attention firmly back to the orchestra.

Percy glanced across the lawn. “It’s that girl he was talking to at the Ambersleighs’ last week.”

“Miss Brown,” Nev supplied. “She likes music.”

Amy leaned out to peer across. The movement knocked a yellow curl out from behind her ear to fall distractingly over her cheek. “She’s pretty. Just your type too.”

Nev felt a rush of affection for Amy. She really was a great gun, and never jealous. He tucked the lock back behind her ear. “Mmm. Too bad she’s respectable.”

She swatted his arm. “She’s a deal more than respectable, you nodcock! She’s rich as the Golden Ball!”

“What?” Nev glanced back at the box opposite. Miss Brown, her eyes closed, looked to be entirely focused on Arne; but somehow his fingertips burned where they still touched Amy’s shoulder.

“Her dowry’s a hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds.” Amy was always better informed about these sorts of things than he was. “If you think she’s taken a fancy to you, you’d best snap her up before someone gets in ahead of you.”

“You don’t say,” Percy said. “What’s her father do?”

“He’s a brewer. Mrs. Brown used to be a friend of my mother’s, back when they were girls.” Amy sounded wistful, suddenly. “Wouldn’t me mum have liked to lord it in a fine house in Russell Square!”

Nev put an arm around her waist. “But then we would all be deprived of your note-perfect performance in Twelfth Night.”

Amy laughed, but she nestled closer. “Oh, you just like seeing me in breeches!”

“We all like seeing you in breeches,” Percy said, “but I think Nev here actually listens to the words.”

“You only listen to the words when no one else can understand them,” Thirkell grumbled. “Remember when he dragged us to Reading Hall for that ancient Greek stuff? It was bizarre.”

“It was authentic,” Percy said. “My trick, Thirkell.”

“It’s always your trick.”

Miss Brown was forgotten; Nev called for another bottle of champagne and another ham; and what with one thing and another, it was six in the morning before they left Vauxhall and stumbled back to Amy’s, singing a naughty ballad that had been popular during their school days at Trinity.

One of his mother’s footmen was waiting on the steps. Nev took one look at his face and had an abrupt, chilling suspicion that he was far too drunk to deal with whatever was about to happen. “What is it, Tom?”

“It’s James, my lord,” the footman corrected distractedly. “I’ve been waiting-I’ve got bad news-I’m that sorry, your lordship-”

“For God’s sake, out with it before you scare him to death!” Amy snapped.

James looked as if he would rather be anywhere than where he was. Nev felt pretty much the same.

“It’s your father, my lord. He’s dead.”

It was past noon before Nev, feeling as though an entire orchestra was pounding out a discordant symphony in his skull, left Amy’s house for Berkeley Square. He remembered little of the previous night-or rather, earlier that morning-after James’s dreadful announcement, aside from confused impressions of vomiting in Amy’s roses and, to his surprise, sobbing drunkenly in Amy’s arms.

His eyes were dry now. He had loved his father, of course. As a little boy he had even idolized him, but that idolatry was long dead. Lord Bedlow had had a great deal of charm and been carelessly generous with his affection, yet he could never quite remember how old his children were or that strawberries made Louisa sick or that he had promised to take them to the fair that summer.

Nev would miss him, and he supposed he would have to spend more time with his family now that he was the head of it. And there was sitting in Parliament and talking to the steward and a good deal of bother like that, but really it seemed that in a month or two things would be almost back to normal.

Amy had seen him out and was standing on her porch wearing nothing but one of his own silk dressing gowns. It was too large for her and had already slipped half off one shoulder. Her eyes were shadowed. “I know you’ll have a lot on your mind for the next while. You’ve got your people to look after now. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be here when you want me.”

“I want you now. Or I would, if I didn’t have such a cursed head.” Her curls were tumbling over her freckled shoulders, and he reached out and wrapped one around his finger. “Thanks, Amy. You’re a Trojan.”

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. “Don’t forget it.”

“Are you all right for money?”

She smiled. “Yes, you’re all paid up. I told you, don’t worry about me. I’m sorry about your father.”

He tugged on her yellow curl. “I’ll be back before you know it, I promise.”

When he was shown into his mother’s presence, he saw that it would be longer than a month or two before things were back to normal. Lady Bedlow was pale and red-eyed; two furious spots of color burned in her cheeks; and, worst of all, her blonde hair was a bird’s nest.