James had come up for a wash after the late breakfast left out for the churchgoers. The servant the spectacled Miss Grenford had assigned to his care had done wonders with his meagre wardrobe, managing somehow to launder and dry his spare shirt overnight, and brush off and press everything else James had squeezed into his saddle bags, tightly rolled and firmly packed.
Having retied his cravat, James shrugged into his one waistcoat and then the coat that fitted him closely enough, if not as tightly as fashion dictated.
The knock on the door was likely to be the servant. James had expected him a while ago, but he had undoubtedly been waylaid by one of the other single gentlemen on this hallway. Not that it mattered. James was perfectly capable of looking after himself.
“Come!” James called.
The door opened to disclose not only the servant carrying a large leather bag, but Miss Cedrica Grenford herself, plus a gentleman James had not before seen.
“Lord Elfingham,” the lady began, “may I present Mr. Halévy. Mr. Halévy… I hope you do not mind, Lord Elfingham, but Her Grace thought… that is, we have so many guests, and the bedrooms…” She shrugged, a delicate lifting of the shoulders.
James held out a hand, and the other man grasped it, firmly. “So, you are to be company for me, Mr. Halévy? Welcome.”
“If you do not object, my lord,” Halévy said. His intonation and pronunciation were not English. French, perhaps? Something from the Continent, in any case, from the colour of his skin and hair.
“Not at all.” Though Halévy might, when he knew what was being said about James. Would the duchess have warned him?
“That is good, then.” Miss Grenford smiled. “I will leave you gentlemen to become acquainted.”
“I will just unpack your bag then, sir, shall I?” the servant asked.
“Thank you. I shall manage,” Halévy said. “If you could fetch me hot water for a shave, though, I would appreciate it.”
“I can do that, sir, but we being that short today, and you with no valet, it may be some time before I can return to shave you.”
“Not needed. I manage to shave myself daily.”
James quirked a smile as the footman withdrew. He and the footman had conducted a very similar conversation just this morning. “They do like to make us helpless, do they not?” he asked. “As if a man cannot see to his own needs.”
Halévy busied himself unpacking a few items. When he placed a Torah on the shared desk, he looked to see if James intended to comment. James was tempted pull his own Bible from under his pillow and place it beside the Torah, the Farsi titles more fluid and less angular than the Hebrew.
But Halévy would find out soon enough how scandalous a room-mate he had been given.
Sophia was escorted into Christmas dinner that evening by Lord Jonathan Grenford, who greeted her with delight.
“I don’t know half the people here, my lady, but I used to pull your hair when we were both in the nursery.”
She curtseyed. “Lord Jonathan. Have you been back in England long?”
“Call me Gren as you used to, and I shall call you Soph, and I shall feel I’m back in England in truth! I have been kicking my heels in London this past week, trying to decide whether to go to Margate to see my father or here to see Mama, but Aldridge collected me, and here I am.”
She had been betrothed to Gren’s friend Michael when last he was in England.
“I was so sorry to hear about Michael, Soph. If only I had been there.”
She had forgotten they’d joined up together, two younger sons eager to win glory and escape overbearing fathers. However, Gren’s father had bought him out, Gren had found another way to slip his leash, and Michael had died.
The piercing loss had long since faded to a regret for the future she and Michael might have had.
“Then you might be dead as well, Gren. Instead, here you are. How I envy you your travels! You have been to so many interesting places!” The duchess often read bits from Gren’s letters and displayed the presents he sent back from all kinds of out-of-the way corners.
Not for Gren the fashionable destinations, most of which had been closed by the war with Napoleon. Instead, he had travelled down the coast of Africa, back up to fabled India, and then across mountains and deserts until he eventually arrived in imperial Russia.
Sophia wondered if he had been in the Kopet Dag Mountains that Lord Elfingham had described so vividly. She shot a glance down the table and felt a jolt when he looked up from his conversation with Matilda Grenford and his dark eyes met hers.
“Who is that?” Gren asked. “The dark-haired man sitting with my sister? I don’t believe I know him.”
“That is the new Viscount Elfingham,” Aldridge answered from his place on the other side of his mother, who sat at the head of the table. “Lord Sutton’s son.”
“He’s here?” Gren took a harder look at Lord Elfingham and then bent forward so he could see down the table to Felicity. “Perhaps I wagered on the wrong…” He was taken by a fit of coughing.
Lady Ashbury spoke before he could recover himself. “It remains to be proven whether the man is Elfingham or just Sutton’s by-blow.” Her voice carried, and the table hushed, all eyes on Elfingham to see his response.
“In this household,” the duchess announced calmly, “we shall assume that the Earl of Sutton speaks the truth and will give Lord Elfingham the benefit of that assumption.”
Lady Ashbury arched an eyebrow. “With all at stake? Sutton lies, of course.”
The major, from his place further down the table, muttered, “Hear, hear.”
“One must allow a lady her opinion.” Lord Elfingham announced. Then he narrowed his eyes at the major. “It is a brave man or a rash one, that gives the Mountain King the lie direct. But his critics are safe enough, I suppose. The most famous warrior in seven kaganates would disdain to acknowledge the challenge of a tame house cat.”
Major Whitemann found something interesting about the corner of the room furthest from the viscount, and Lady Ashbury subsided with a disdainful sniff.
The duchess gave the signal for the first remove to be cleared and the next placed, and the guests surrendered their hope of a spectacle and began to whisper furiously to one another.
“What did you wager on, Gren?” Sophia asked, keeping her voice low.
“I should not have said anything,” Gren protested. “I beg your pardon, Soph.”
“Tell me.” It was about Felicity, of course, but Sophia wanted Gren to confirm that.
Gren capitulated, “In the clubs, they are saying that Elfingham wants to marry Felicity, but his grandfather wants him to marry Charlotte Winderfield, his cousin. I bet on the cousin, figuring Hythe wouldn’t—”
“Hythe will not,” Sophia said sharply. She took a mouthful of syllabub, and it was tasteless. From the other side of the table, the Marquis of Aldridge regarded her, thoughtfully.
“That’s good then,” Gren said with satisfaction.
Lady Ashbury’s next comment was in a more subdued tone, clearly not intended to be heard beyond those seated near. “I am astounded at the company that the duchess tolerates at her table, and as for that spectacle before dinner! I did not know where to look.” Lady Ashbury referred to the prayer that Aunt Eleanor had asked Mr. Halévy and Miss Baumann to say, this being the eve of their Sabbath.
The major was clearly encouraged by Lady Ashbury’s support. “Shameful, is it not? Hythe had better watch his sister. That’s what I say. These natives are not to be trusted.”
Sophia saw nothing, but some sort of signal must have passed between the duchess and Aldridge, for he stood suddenly. “Whitemann, whilst we await the Christmas pudding, may I beg a moment of your time? There is something my esteemed parent wishes me to share with you, if you will just step this way, sir.”
“It can wait, surely,” Major Whitemann said dismissively.
“No, Whitemann. Now, please.”
Whitemann’s eyes showed white as he threw his napkin on the table and followed the marquis.
“One is occasionally reminded that Aldridge will soon be a duke of the realm, one step behind royalty and two below God,” commented his irrepressible brother.
The duchess engaged her end of the table in a discussion of gardens, and Gren fell into a conversation with the lady on the other side of him.
Lady Ashbury and the major were wrong, of course. Elfingham was a gentleman to the core. But nonetheless, Sophia had to agree with Hythe. The viscount was the wrong man for Felicity. If the House Committee did not find in his favour, marrying him would be social suicide, and Felicity and her children deserved better. Even being courted by him might taint her. Sophia determined to do everything she could to keep Elfingham and Felicity apart.
It was the right thing to do, and had nothing to do with her own inappropriate feelings for the man. He was not the first man to pass her by for another woman. She would survive this as she had survived in the past.