A Desirable Husband. Mary Nichols

brown and they were laughing, not at her, she was sure of that, but in a kind of amused empathy, as if he understood her curiosity and was not in the least put off by it. His hair, beneath a brown beaver hat, was a little darker than gold and curled into his neck. His hands, holding his notepad and pencil, were lean like the rest of him, the fingers tapered. An artist, she decided. He smiled at her, put his finger to the brim of his hat and tilted it towards her. Her answering smile lit her face as if she had suddenly met someone she had known long ago and hadn’t seen for a while.

      ‘Esme, who is that?’ Rosemary had said goodbye to her friends and turned to see her sister apparently on nodding terms with a young man.

      ‘I’ve no idea. I’ve never seen him before, but he’s handsome, isn’t he?’

      ‘Esme, how could you?’

      ‘Could I what?’

      ‘Smile in that familiar way at a man to whom you have not been introduced.’

      ‘But he smiled first and—’

      ‘Then he cannot be a real gentleman. It is the lady’s prerogative to acknowledge a gentleman when she is out and until she does so, it behoves a gentleman to show no sign of recognition. You should have ignored him.’

      ‘Would that not have been impolite?’

      ‘Not at all. Now come away before he decides to approach us, for I should feel mortified to have to speak to him.’ She took Esme’s arm and almost dragged her away.

      Esme looked back over her shoulder and discovered the young man was staring after them, which made her giggle.

      ‘Esme!’ Rosemary reprimanded her. ‘I see I shall have to take you to task about what is and what is not acceptable behaviour. You do not smile at strange men. Goodness, it is asking for them to take liberties.’

      ‘What liberties?’ Esme asked. ‘Do you mean kissing me?’

      ‘Good heavens, I hope not. I mean speaking to you without an introduction.’

      ‘Oh, that.’ Esme was dismissive.

      Rosemary’s reply to that was a decided sniff.

      Felix watched them go, wanting to laugh aloud. The young lady, who was very lovely with her rosebud complexion and neat figure, was evidently being given a scolding, but it did not seem to be subduing her. He wondered who she was. Was she one of those young ladies who came to London for a Season with the express purpose of snaring a husband? It was early in the year for that and she seemed a little young to be tying herself down to marriage.

      His mother might not agree; she had been urging him ever since he returned from France without Juliette to find himself a bride. ‘Someone young and malleable,’ she had said. ‘Then you can mould her to your way of doing things. Besides, a young bride is more likely to produce healthy offspring.’ He smiled to himself; this particular young lady did not look as if she were especially malleable, not that he would want a wife who dare not say boo to a goose. He pulled himself up short. How could the sight of a pretty girl make his thoughts suddenly turn to marriage. He wasn’t ready for that yet; time, the healer, had yet to do its work.

      He was not a hermit by any means. To please his mother, he had attended tea parties and dances in the assembly rooms in his home town of Birmingham, taken tea with the matrons and danced with their daughters, making superficial conversation, even flirting a little, but, as his mother was quick to point out, that could hardly be called a serious pursuit of a bride. He supposed he would have to marry one day, but he never felt less like falling in love again and it would be unfair on any young lady to use her simply to beget an heir and have an elegant companion, if she were expecting a husband to love her. It would be better to choose someone more mature than the young miss with the friendly smile, someone worldly wise who wouldn’t expect declarations of eternal love, but would be content with wealth and position.

      He smiled ruefully to himself; whatever had set his thoughts on marriage had better be stifled. If this idea of a great exhibition came about, he would be too busy to think of anything else. He looked down at the pad in his hand. There was a series of measurements and a rough sketch of the elm trees, which were going to be a stumbling block to any good design. The Exhibition building committee were working on a design but he thought it was ugly, and it took no account of the trees, assuming they would have to be felled. Even the committee was dissatisfied with it and an idea was being mooted for a competition to design the building and he thought he might enter it.

      His pencil moved over the pad, roughing out the plan of a building with an open central courtyard to accommodate the elms and then for no reason that he could fathom, added people to his drawing: the urchin bowling a hoop, a man on a horse, a carriage on the drive, the cake-and-fruit stall beside the water and the two ladies he had just seen. He laughed at himself for his fancifulness. Pulling his watch from waistcoat pocket, he was startled to discover it was already four-thirty; his valet would be dancing up and down in impatience. He hurried to where he had tethered his horse and cantered off in the direction of Hyde Park Corner and his house in Bruton Street.

      ‘Rosie, could we not go and see the guests arriving for the banquet?’ Esme asked when they were on their way home in the carriage after Lady Aviemore’s tea party. Esme had expected the company to be mixed, but they had all been ladies, some young, some older, who spent the time between sipping tea and nibbling wafer-thin sandwiches, in exchanging gossip, some of it shockingly malicious, but the outcome was several invitations to soirées and musical evenings and little dances.

      ‘It is too early in the year for balls,’ her ladyship had said. ‘But I intend to hold one as soon as the town begins to fill up. Lord Aviemore is on the committee dedicated to raising funds for the Exhibition and we thought a subscription ball would be just the thing. Very exclusive, of course. You will come, dear Lady Trent, won’t you, and bring your delightful sister?’

      Rosemary declared she would be delighted, which surprised Esme, considering Rowan’s implacable opposition to the project, but a look from her sister stopped her making any comment.

      ‘Lord Aviemore is to attend tonight’s banquet,’ her ladyship continued. ‘It is being held to encourage the towns in the provinces to raise funds. After all, it is a countrywide endeavour, not just for the capital.’

      ‘I thought it was an international project involving the whole world,’ Esme put in.

      Lady Aviemore looked sharply at her as if surprised to hear her daring to take part in the conversation. ‘Indeed it is,’ she said. ‘But it is the idea of our own dear Prince and it is this country which will organise and build it.’

      ‘I believe the banquet is to be a very grand affair,’ one of the other ladies put in. ‘I intend to go past the Mansion House on my way home to see the guests arrive.’

      It was that which had prompted Esme’s question. Ever since she had returned from her walk in the park, she had felt unsettled, as if she were waiting for something extraordinary to happen, though she had no idea what it might be. The tea party had done nothing to dispel it. They had no engagement for the evening and, as both Rowan and Myles were to be out and they only had themselves to please, she could not see that a little diversion would do any harm. Myles was off to the banquet at the Mansion House and Rowan was going to have dinner with Lord Brougham, a former Lord Chancellor, who was one of the prominent figures working to scotch the idea of an exhibition. She smiled to herself in the darkening interior of the carriage, wondering if Myles and Rowan had encountered each other on their way out and, if they had, what they had said.

      ‘Whatever for?’ Rosemary demanded.

      ‘It will be such fun to see all the coaches and carriages arriving and the guests dressed in their finery. I should like to be able to tell Mama and Papa I had seen Prince Albert. Oh, do tell the coachman to take us that way.’

      Esme could see she was tempted to see the spectacle herself, though she still hesitated. ‘What Rowan would say I cannot think.’

      ‘Why should he say anything?