Not the gold, then. “If you were about to ask for Charlotte Windham’s hand in marriage, which waistcoat would you wear?”
Turnbull returned both the silver and the gold to the wardrobe and stood with his back to Sherbourne while surveying the other possibilities. A Scottish marquess with military inclinations had come across Turnbull on a Caribbean island, bought his freedom, and taken him home to the Highlands. Either Turnbull had grown weary of the northern cold or life as valet to the Scottish marquess had given him an appetite for challenges.
Turnbull’s wages were exorbitant, his knowledge of etiquette and fashion beyond price.
“This one,” Turnbull said, laying a rather dull choice across the bed. “She’ll be intrigued by the uncharacteristic subtlety.”
And his scolds were exquisite.
“The embroidery has neither gold nor silver threads,” Sherbourne said. “It’s boring.”
“On a burgundy velvet waistcoat lined with black silk, I see purple, red, green, and white embroidery with teasing dashes of yellow and orange. By your standards, it’s a bouquet of gentlemanly understatement, and there’s not another like it in all of London.”
The pattern was a paisley intertwining of flowers, vines, and leaves, a bouquet in truth. “You say there’s not another like it in all of London?”
“If the Deity is merciful, there isn’t another like it in all the world.”
Turnbull would not allow Sherbourne to go abroad in anything other than the first stare of fashion, despite his commentary on the occasional waistcoat.
“Fine, then, subtlety for the suitor. I’ll likely have to toss back the congratulatory tot with old Moreland, and he wouldn’t know a splendid waistcoat if his duchess modeled it for him.”
That thought brought to mind Charlotte Windham wearing the gold waistcoat and nothing else. Thank heavens she wasn’t inclined to a tedious courtship.
“You are assured of the lady’s acceptance?” Turnbull held out a hand for Sherbourne’s dressing gown.
“As assured as any man can be where the ladies are concerned. She likes me but not too much. I respect her and will provide for her as lavishly as her good taste allows. She’ll bring connections and polish to the union, and I’ll give her children. I think a ruby for today’s cravat pin. The biblical connotations are quite the clever association, if I do say so myself.”
She is more precious than rubies, and all the things thou canst desire cannot be compared unto her.
“No jewels when calling during daylight hours, sir. Will you make the young lady happy?”
“I’ve promised her I’d try,” Sherbourne said, passing over the dressing gown, “but that’s about as much of a swain as I can honestly be. Charlotte deals only in honesty, for which I’ll doubtless worship her before our first anniversary.”
When Sherbourne had been dressed from top hat to toes, he had to admit that Turnbull’s suggestion, as always, had been perfect.
“I look like a sober London gent until one takes a closer look. The waistcoat is subtle, you were right.”
“Thank you, sir, and what flowers will have the honor of accompanying you on this most important call?”
The call was a formality, a gesture to Charlotte Windham’s pride, though a gesture Sherbourne was pleased to make. Demanding that he wait three days for an answer was her prerogative, one of few a lady could claim. Polite society loved its little rituals, and Sherbourne loved the idea of marrying a duke’s niece.
He was also—this did not sit entirely well with him—fond of Charlotte, and more than fond of the fire she brought to even a brief kiss.
“I had hoped,” Sherbourne said, shifting the angle of his top hat, “that you, as the most competent valet in all of creation, would have the matter of flowers well in hand.”
“If I were choosing the bouquet, I’d equip you with saffron,” Turnbull said, holding out a pair of white kid gloves. “The message it symbolizes is ‘beware of excess.’”
“Symbolism is involved? I have no patience with symbolism, Turnbull. I’m not philosopher, I’m a suitor.”
“Snapdragons, then. Very colorful.”
And likely very expensive, given the time of year. Sherbourne pulled on his gloves. “What do they symbolize?”
Turnbull closed the doors to the wardrobe with priestly solemnity. “Presumption.”
Turnbull was never wrong.
With a single word, he’d given Sherbourne pause. Charlotte Windham was closely connected to three dukes. A brief review of her family tree also revealed a marquess, a marquess’s heir, four earls, and a smattering of courtesy lords.
And Sherbourne expected Charlotte to settle for a Welsh commoner? “I do like the woman—rather a lot—and I’ll be faithful and considerate. She’ll never want for anything, and Charlotte’s the managing type. She won’t be bored with me.”
Turnbull sighed like a weary, disappointed godmother.
“I’ll do my best, Turnbull.”
“A bouquet of snowdrops, speedwell, and jasmine awaits you in the foyer. Good luck, sir.”
Coming from Turnbull, the good wishes were ominous. Sherbourne straightened the angle of his hat and prepared to become an engaged man.
*
“Esther, refresh my memory. What does speedwell signify?”
Her Grace joined Percival at the window overlooking the front walkway. “Fidelity. The snowdrops are for hope, and jasmine—if that’s what Sherbourne is carrying—is for grace and dignity, presumably Charlotte’s grace and dignity, and her suitor’s fidelity and hope. A tasteful combination.”
Love’s handsome delight stood on the front steps, back to the doorway, as if taking a moment to rehearse a speech or a proposal.
“Young people today are so precipitous.”
Esther kissed the duke’s cheek. “Says the man who couldn’t make it through a house party without offering for me. I hope Charlotte accepts him.”
“If he’s here to propose, then he’s jolly well courting my wrath. I’ve heard not a word from Mr. Sherbourne about paying his addresses, esteeming Charlotte greatly, and all that other folderol. Even I asked your papa’s permission.”
Esther gave him an amused look.
Well, yes. He’d asked her father’s permission after gaining Esther’s notice, to put matters delicately. Her intimate notice.
“I was an idiot,” Percival said. “Charlotte is a sensible girl.”
“Charlotte is not a girl, my dear. She’s done it again.”
Percival wasn’t sure what it was, but he didn’t care for the worry in his wife’s eyes. He drew her down beside him on their cuddling couch.
“Done what? Cut her hair? I don’t favor the mannish styles, but hair grows back.”
“Percival, she’s taken on another poor soul. I saw the whole business from my parlor window yesterday afternoon. I’d tooled away for a round of gossip in the park but had forgotten my reticule, so I stopped out front and came back up here to remedy my error. A more bedraggled creature never set foot in our garden, and within the hour Charlotte’s maid was off to return a book to the lending library.”
Oh, damn the luck. “By way of a pawn shop?”
“Precisely. Another pair of earbobs, a bracelet, perhaps even a locket, sacrificed to buy coach fare for a complete stranger.”
A complete stranger who was doubtless with child and without husband. “Charlotte’s charitable impulses are nothing to be ashamed of.”
The duchess rose and Percival remained sitting. Her Grace needed the whole of the parlor for pacing purposes when she was in a passion, and nothing confounded her more thoroughly than her sole remaining unmarried niece.
“Charlotte doesn’t merely purchase them coach fare to whatever village they came from,” Esther said. “She decks them out in widow’s weeds, buys them a ring, manufactures letters from their supposed deceased spouses…I suspect the bulk of her spending money is cast upon the same waters, ensuring the same women have funds to raise their children. I’d commend her thoroughness, except that her scheme strays perilously far from traditional concepts of charity.”