Elisabeth Kidd by A Hero for Antonia Page A

only a few minutes before dinner was announced—Antonia explaining that at Wyckham guests were welcome to linger afterward, but that they were never kept waiting for their dinner—and they were soon sitting down to an excellent meal consisting of two full courses and numerous side dishes and featuring a roast duckling stuffed with spiced apples. Mrs Driscoll was in her element catering to a dinner party such as had not been held at Wyckham for years, and Mr Kenyon gratified her further by declaring to Antonia—who passed the compliment along later—that the dinner was comparable to the finest he had ever eaten.
    “Every bit as good as White’s, eh, Kedrington?”
    “My dear sir, to compare this repast to the boiled fowl and oyster sauce that White’s persists in inflicting on its members is not only doing it an injustice, but insulting Miss Fairfax’s excellent cook as well. One may as well dine in an army mess as patronize White’s kitchens.”
    Antonia smiled. “You need not come so vehemently to our defence, my lord. Mr Kenyon’s tastes are well known to be deplorable.”
    “Unfair!” protested her Uncle Philip. “Erratic, perhaps—but deplorable?”
    As this merry dispute threatened to develop into a war, the viscount intervened to invite Mr Kenyon to dine with him at Watier’s when he was next in town.
    “Have you been to London, Miss Isabel?” Mr Gary enquired softly, leaning a little toward her.
    Isabel leaned a little in the other direction, but was obliged to reply. “I am not out yet, sir. But I believe that this spring ... that is, if Mr Kenyon wishes it ...”
    She glanced appealingly at her godfather, who exclaimed, “Most assuredly I do! Never think, my dear, that because I do not spend so much time here with you as I would like, that I cease to be your loving godfather! We will all of us have a delightful time of it in London this season, I assure you.”
    “All?” murmured the viscount. Antonia, however, was intent on dissecting a raspberry tartlet.
    Aloud, Kedrington said to Isabel that he was happy she would be in town to enliven his own debut.
    “You see, I have been away from England for some years—first in Jamaica and then in Spain, where, as you may imagine, Society is not precisely as we know it here. But when my mother died last year, it fell upon my unlucky aunts to present me to the ton this season. I fear they are in for a trying time of it.”
    Isabel stared at him. “I beg your pardon, sir, but I never imagined that gentlemen were obliged to go through ... that is ...”
    “Yes, it is a trial,” the viscount said with a sigh, adding slyly, “which is why it is particularly helpful to have the support of one’s friends—and one’s aunts.”
    “Oh, yes, that will make everything so much easier! Antonia has been to London and will be able to tell me how to go on, and Imogen is acquainted with absolutely everyone we shall wish to meet.”
    Fortunately for Antonia, who wondered if Lord Kedrington would ever prove to be as useful an acquaintance as he was already an exasperating one, Mrs Curtiz intervened to say that it did not matter whom she knew, for it was plain that Isabel had only to show herself in the Metropolis and all the ton would be clamouring to make her acquaintance. Mr Gary was swift to agree to this, upon which Isabel blushed and moved the conversa tion away from herself by asking the viscount how he would choose amongst the various dinner parties, routs, and balls offered to him, for she had been given to understand that having to attend some event every night—even several in the same night—could lead to one’s being pros trated with fatigue long before the season ended.
    The solicitous tone with which Isabel asked the question caused Antonia to realise with a shock why Isabel had not, in fact, attempted to “insinuate herself” in the viscount’s favour. It seemed that in Isabel’s seventeen-year-old eyes, Kedrington was far too stricken in