Contrary Cousins Read online

  AN AMERICAN INVASION

  When Lady Pendleton introduced Antonia and Serena Powell to London society, the two American beauties were an instant success. Complete opposites—Antonia, small, vivacious, and an accomplished flirt; Serena, tall, willowy, and provocatively shy—they swiftly captured a crowd of adoring admirers. But the cousins’ ideas about finding suitable mates were far different from Lady Pendleton’s. So while the fashionable Freddy Howard swore to make Antonia his, she, in turn, seemed stubbornly bent on linking her future with the notoriously rakish Lord Blandford. And though Serena was immediately attracted to Alexander Lytton-Smythe, the handsome, dreamy-eyed duke soon found his way blocked by Freddy’s insufferable older brother.

  What, indeed, could Lady Pendleton do about these outrageous trios of mismatched lovers? It would be maddening to have all of London society look on in scandalous delight as Antonia and Serena outmatched her in the tactics of love. . . .

  Contrary Cousins

  Contrary

  Cousins

  A Regency Romance

  by

  Judith Harkness

  Copyright © 1981 by Judith Harkness

  Cover Design by Nick Richardson

  Two Young Ladies Taking the Air in a Phaeton and Two courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library.

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or part in any form. For information, address Sanford J. Greenburger Associates, 55 Fifth Avenue, 15th Floor, New York, New York 10003.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Print ISBN: 978-0-7867-5513-4

  eISBN: 978-0-7867-5514-1

  Distributed by Argo Navis Author Services

  For Will, with my love

  Contents

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Chapter XXVII

  Chapter XXVIII

  Afterward

  About the Author

  Chapter I

  It is well known that a young man, when he is lovelorn or out of pocket, or when the world for some other reason strikes him as a general absurdity, or when he is merely bored, will make straightaway for the nearest Ministering Angel. In novels, these creatures are breathtakingly lovely, endowed with youth, warm hearts, and more often than not a certain disdain for virtue. They may or may not have hands as soft and small as kittens’ paws, may be fair or dark-complexioned, brunette or blond, witty or tender, they may be fashionable or not: but they are always young and beautiful.

  The Honorable Frederick John Wilmington Howard, known to his friends at Boodles and in the stalls at Covent Garden as “Freddy,” was in the dankest of spirits. Being by no means an uncomely young man, and well versed in the ways of the world, one might have supposed that his way led, one singularly dreary afternoon in autumn, toward the abode of just such an angel. Moving at a snail’s crawl, as befits a young man spurned by his beloved and his banker both, eyeing the pavement as if he hated every cobblestone, but refusing to look elsewhere, his figure limped toward Mayfair. The very folds of his damask neckcloth drooped, the lines of his fawn-colored waistcoat, beneath the immaculately tailored coat and the several layers of his cape, were pulled out of place by the hunch of his shoulders. Only a ray of determination in his eye, and about the lines of his mouth, hinted at any purpose whatever in his solitary progress from St. James Street. Yet even the most casual peruser of fiction will guess at once that Freddy was bound in the direction of a Ministering Angel.

  Such angels are known to reside throughout the city, for they are not, by the practice of their profession, limited to certain districts, though some may be preferred. Few, however, are known to live in Cadogan Place, an address much favored by mothers and uncles, but not by heavenly bodies. As addresses go, it is as stodgy as possible, being full of mansions, and these of the older sort. Save for one of these, put up for auction some years before the time of our story by an impoverished peer, none had changed hands in nearly a century. It was difficult, well nigh impossible, for Ministering Angels to find rooms here.

  And yet into this stuffy cul de sac did Freddy turn, whether out of confusion or a desire to prolong his walk, it is hard to say. Pausing momentarily, as if too downcast to put one foot in front of the other, he watched a groom unharness a pair of very fine dapple grays from a phaeton and lead them away. Such was his general gloom that his eyes did not even light up at the sight of the neat little equipage, fitted down to every detail with the latest that science and fashion could provide. The groom disappeared, and an elderly gentleman, known to Freddy by sight, passed by and doffed his hat. Freddy nodded absently, touched his own, and continued down the street. At the last house but one he stopped, and, not at all in the manner of a man who has lost his senses, commenced deliberately to mount the steps. Arrived at the top, he raised the knocker and let it fall. His moment to flee had come and gone, for in a moment the door was opened by a liveried footman, who seemed to know him.

  “Mr. Howard, sir!”

  “Hullo, James. Where’s Bentley?”

  “Gone on an errand of mercy, sir. Lady Pendleton is in the small drawing room. Shall I announce you, sir?”

  “Never mind. I shall just pop in for a mo’.”

  “Sir,” said the footman, as if for good measure, stepping back, and receiving the cape and hat of the young man.

  Freddy trod gingerly across the rose-colored marble hallway, avoided gazing at the trumpet-blowing cupids painted thereon, and winced at the yellow silk Chinese wall hangings. His hand upon the door handle, he paused, as if to brace himself, and then, with a deep breath, turned the handle and walked in.

  A most peculiar sight greeted his eyes. Before a high screen of Italian fern were placed a row of straight gilt chairs, wedged between the regular furnishings of the room, which were so many, and so varied, that the salon had taken on the appearance of a cluttered shop. In front of this row of chairs was a large heap of puce satin, out of which stretched what appeared to be two shortish legs, at unnatural angles, covered in clocked stockings, and ending in two small satin slippers. The slippers were jerking slightly, and from beneath the heap issued a soft moaning sound.

  Freddy stared, struck by the singularity of the scene. For a moment he made no move toward it, and uttered no sound, only gaping in a rather stupid way.

  “Aunt Winifred?” said he at last, dubiously.

  “Eh! Eh!” said the heap.

  “Aunt Winifred!” cried Freddy, suddenly rising out of his stupor. “Good God, what’s happened?” And rushing to the heap, he contrived, by various shakings and pullings, to rearrange it. After a little, something very like a head emerged from the puce satin and blinked at him. It was a very large head for such a small heap, made larger still by what had certainly once been an exceedingly complicated coiffure. But its distinctive feature was a set of periwinkle blue eyes, almost the exact replica of Freddy’s own, which were now glaring at him
as if petrified. The tiny pink mouth formed itself into a small circle and said, “Ulp.”

  “What have you been doing, Auntie?” demanded Freddy in a stern voice.

  “Bowin’ ” replied the heap, as if it were a truth too obvious to dwell upon.

  “Bowing!” cried Freddy.

  “Must be too old to bow,” conjectured the heap mournfully.

  A small pink hand unraveled itself from the satin folds, and restored a ringlet to its proper place.

  “Don’t just crouch there, young man!” suddenly exclaimed the heap, indignantly. “Help me up!”

  Freddy gave a small start and obeyed. In a moment it was evident that the heap was in fact a small female creature of advanced years, wearing a puce satin gown and possessing two hands, two feet, and a largish head surmounted by a number of silver ringlets. Lady Pendleton heaved a sigh and glared at Freddy.

  “Now!” she said, “that’s better. Never practice bowin’, Freddy, after you are fifty. Oops! Mustn’t say so. Ooh la, la! Help me to that chair, Freddy, there’s a dear boy. Hahh! Much better. Now, what have you come about?”

  “Not till you tell me who you were bowing for.”

  “The Prince,” replied Lady Pendleton quite solemnly.

  Freddy seemed confused. He glanced about the room, but saw they were alone.

  “Come now, Auntie, you cannot mean—”

  “Don’t patronize me, Freddy! I said the Prince, and I always mean what I say! No, don’t ogle me, boy! Irritatin’! Why does no one believe you when you pass fif——” Lady Pendleton stopped short, and pressed her lips together. “Oh, what’s the bother! The Prince, Freddy. I’ve been invited to dine with the Prince. Don’t know why, but he seems to want me. Thursday next, which is a bore, as I shall have those young ladies here. Never mind. ’Tisn’t every day one is invited to dine at Carlton House, and I mean to go. Only I haven’t had reason to bow in some years, not since they locked up the poor old King. Don’t much like the Prince, but I shall go. Rude not to, of course.”

  “Of course,” agreed Freddy amiably, taking a seat near his aunt. “Even if it is a bore.”

  “Not the done thing,” muttered Lady Pendleton, sitting very straight and seeming to sniff at the air. Her sharp eyes fastened themselves upon her brother’s younger son.

  “What’s wrong, Freddy? You look all in a brown study. Black, rather. Odious color!”

  Freddy, who had brightened considerably since coming into the room, looked suddenly glum.

  “Nothing, Auntie, I swear.”

  Lady Pendleton sat studying him for a moment.

  “Mustn’t, you know.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Mustn’t swear. Never can predict the future. Fatal, my dear.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Freddy, who didn’t.

  “Perfectly. I never could have guessed, for instance, that I should meet your uncle, when I was your age. How old are you, bye the bye?”

  “Eight-and-twenty.”

  “Hmm,” said Aunt Winifred, as if that were worse than she had supposed. “Well, I was not so old as you, of course. Nineteen. Still, you are a man.”

  “I hope so!” said Freddy.

  “Yes,” continued Lady Pendleton, ignoring him. “When I was twenty-eight I had been married for nine years. When are you going to marry?”

  Freddy opened his mouth to protest this summary leap, but was cut off. His aunt heaved a sigh of fatigue, and muttered.

  “Borin’!”

  “Eh?” said Freddy, whose wits were slightly impaired by misery, and the painful after-effects of the previous evening, during which he had steadfastly endeavored to drown out his existence in wine.

  “All these matches. Seem to crop up out of the very carpet. Elizabeth Waverly was in this mornin’, boasting about her dear Lucinda, or Lydia, or whatever. Plain child, poor thing. Don’t wonder Elizabeth was cocked so high. Still, borin’, listenin’ to all these old ducks quackin’ about their offspring. Well nigh impossible to go out anymore, there’s no other topic of conversation. Still, Freddy, don’t.”

  “Don’t what, Auntie?” demanded Freddy, growing slightly irritable. His head was pounding fearfully.

  “Marry an old duck, and have plain babies. That reminds me,” said Lady Pendleton, rising out of her chair with surprisingly little difficulty and smoothing down the puce satin beneath her ample bosom, “fetch me my writin’ case, Freddy dear.”

  Wondering why he had supposed he might seek solace in the company of his Aunt Winifred, Freddy limped off to fetch the required implements from her ladyship’s study. Still, he thought, grimacing at a particularly vile example of her ladyship’s taste in Oriental art, it’s quite impossible to bemoan one’s fate overlong in her company. Not a moment to spare between sentences—or whatever they are.

  He returned to find his aunt gazing out of the window absently, and drumming her tiny pink fingers, well encrusted with jewels, against her round little chin.

  “Who shall I have, Freddy?” demanded the Marchioness, without turning round.

  Freddy sighed, laying down the writing case. “Have to what, Auntie?”

  “Why to my card party, of course. For my American ladies.”

  “What American ladies, Auntie, if I may be so bold? Have you adopted some?”

  His aunt turned upon him a look of withering contempt. “How can you be so forgettin’? Why, my Misses Powell, of course.”

  Freddy returned her look with dumb amazement. “By Jupiter, Auntie, you haven’t!”

  Lady Pendleton looked defiant. “Well, what if I have!” There was a moment of silence while young Frederick, dumbfounded, dropped into a chair. Then he put back his head and howled with mirth: a very poor idea, as he discovered almost instantly, clutching his temples. When he was recovered, he gaped at his aunt and gurgled,

  “Really, Auntie, there’s nothing to top you! Rushing off to Philadelphia in defiance of the whole family, and now—and now—!”

  The balance of Freddy’s amazement was lost in a fresh burst of guffaws. He slapped his thigh once or twice, and gave in to the full enjoyment of the idea. Lady Pendleton, meanwhile, regarded him with a combination of defiance and disapproval.

  “Nothin’ amusin’ about it, Frederick! Who else should have gone? Not your papa, of course, nor St. John. Your uncle might have gone, had he been alive, poor dear. None of the family, in fact, save me! Now hush, you’re hurtin’ my ears.”

  The pain in his aunt’s ears was nothing, Freddy was positive, to that in his own temples, and yet he found it impossible to cease the hearty expression of his mirth for a moment or two longer. At last, gasping deeply, he pressed a hand against his chest, and drew a deep breath.

  “Huuhhh, huh!” gasped he. “Huuhh!” And then his blue eyes grew suddenly very round, and he stared.

  “But how are you to bring it off, Auntie? Surely you cannot mean to hide them?”

  “Hide ’em!” snorted his aunt, tapping her diminutive foot. “No such thing! I mean to parade ’em about as much as possible. And why not?”

  “We-ell,” murmured Freddy dubiously, “then how are you to keep Papa from knowing? He’s at Widcomb at present, but it cannot last forever. He’s bound to come to town as soon as the hunting is over, and even if he don’t, the gossip might reach him—”

  “And what if it does? Your papa may rule your conduct, Freddy, but he don’t rule mine. Only let him try! Tush!”

  Not for the first time in his life, Freddy was struck by his aunt’s pluck. His mind’s eye made a quick review of the last occasion upon which he had been unlucky enough to witness his father’s ire. The Earl was many things, but even-tempered was not one of them.

  “Besides,” his aunt continued, “I don’t mean to keep ’em here at all. I shall take them up to Edgeworth as soon as they have had a good look round. Not much doin’ at this time of year, in any case. Too wet and cold.”

  “Edgeworth!” cried Freddy, “but you can’t mean that! It is not twenty miles from
Widcomb!”

  “Exactly, Freddy.” His aunt was wearing that defiant look again, and swaying slightly on her feet.

  “But—but what if he should see ’em? What shall you say?”

  “Exactly what I shall say to everyone else. That they are my relations, as well as his, and if he do choose to snub ’em, I do not!”

  As if exhausted by her own defiance, Lady Pendleton collapsed into one of the row of gilt chairs.

  “Well,” said Freddy, after a moment. “I shall back you as much as possible. Only father mustn’t hear—I’m in rather a queer position with him at the mo’, and he might take it into his head to cut me off altogether. But you are a duck, Auntie, and I shall stick by you as much as I can.”

  “Well,” said Lady Pendleton, in rather a dampening way, after the pluck with which this last was uttered, “I don’t see what good you’ll be. Still, you are a man, and one can always use a man.”

  “Good of you to say so, Auntie.”

  “If I had known you intended droppin’ by, I should have sent you to fetch ’em, instead of Bentley. Rather a stern creature, Bentley, til you get accustomed. I hope he don’t frighten ’em off!”

  “Oh, well,” said Freddy, settling back and commencing to enjoy himself for the first time in several days, “if they are Americans, no doubt they shall be perfectly fearless. One is always hearing about their disregard for danger.”

  “Hmm,” responded Aunt Winifred a bit dubiously, “one of ’em is. Quite fearless.”

  This last was said with a certain emphasis, which caused Freddy to look at her sharply.

  “What do you mean, Auntie? She don’t go about with a musket, I hope? I have heard they are fond of going about with muskets—to keep the natives off, I suppose. And quite right, too, in their own country. Still, I can’t help shuddering to think of how it might go down at Almack’s!”

  Lady Pendleton, deep in her own thoughts, disregarded this little speech. Suddenly she looked sharply at her nephew and gave him a bright smile. The effect of this was to set Freddy instantly upon his guard.