Blossom Time Read Free Page B

coming. Let us have our tea.”
    “No, let us wait until four-thirty,” Rosalind parried.
    Before the quarter hour was up, they heard a commotion out front, the pounding of hooves and rattle of wheels. Rosalind darted to the window for her first glimpse of Lord Sylvester. From his critique of her work, she expected to see an older, slightly dry scholar. The gentleman who stepped down from the crested carriage was a tall, slender young dandy with a posy attached to the top of his walking stick. The sun shone on blond curls that reminded her of Sukey. He looked to be nineteen or twenty years of age. He stood a moment, looking all around the park, examined the facade of the house, then threw out his arms and lifted his face to the sun.
    “That can’t be Lord Sylvester!” she exclaimed.
    Dick had gone to stand behind her. “There don’t seem to be anyone else stepping out of the rig,” he said. “He’s coming to the door. Must be him. Foppish-looking fellow, ain’t he?”
    “Do you think so?” she asked in surprise. “I thought he looked charming.”
    They rushed back to their seats and were apparently chatting unconcernedly when Lord Sylvester Staunton was announced. Dick spared a derisive glance at his mincing step, his tight-fitting jacket and cream buckskins. Nor did he much care to see a lady’s coiffure on a man, but the fellow was handsome enough and very gentlemanly.
    Rosalind, gazing at his blond curls, was not reminded of Sukey this time, but of a Renaissance painting. She thought his smile was very sweet, and when he opened his lips, his voice was like music. Even when he lifted a quizzing glass to his eye and turned it slowly from Dick to her, she was not put off. The elegant way he curved his wrist brought a whiff of London to the provincial saloon.
    “Madam,” he said, making a leg. Then he turned to Dick. “And you, sir, must be Francis Lovelace. May I say I am honored, deeply honored, to make your acquaintance.”
    Dick made a jerky bow and looked uncomfortable. “Mutual, I’m sure. Come in, Lord Sylvester. Have a seat. My sister Rosalind was just about to call for tea. Perhaps a glass of wine first. A dry business, driving.” He shouted to Rucker for the tea, then poured the wine and went to the sofa.
    Lord Sylvester glided like a zephyr across the saloon and perched daintily on the corner of the sofa nearest to Dick. “Everyone is raving about your poetry, Mr. Lovelace. Such charming imagery, such lyric grace,” he said, accepting the claret. A sip told him it was an excellent vintage. “I feel quite like an explorer discovering a new continent. Like stout Cortez, silent upon his peak in Darien staring at the Pacific. Only it should have been Balboa, of course. Poor Keats. But then he is a product of the bluecoat school, you must know, not Eton or Harrow. I lay the blame in Leigh Hunt’s dish. He ought to have caught the error.”
    Dick stared at the man as if he had suddenly begun to spout Greek. He looked at Rosalind, frowned, and said to Lord Sylvester, “What error?”
    “I am referring to Keats’s poem in the Examiner last December. Why, it ought to have been Balboa. He discovered the Pacific Ocean.”
    “Serves him right for putting history into a poem. Not the place for it in my opinion. It’s bad enough in prose, but to lumber poetry with it!”
    Lord Staunton had come expecting to find a provincial with effete pretentions, and was surprised to discover what he immediately recognized as an unaffected country squire. He was delighted. The man was an original—the exterior of a rustic hiding a soul of pure artistry under an ill-cut jacket. And handsome besides, with shoulders like a barn door. London would be at his feet! The reputation of Camena would be made.
    “Not what a true poet like yourself would do, Mr. Lovelace,” Sylvester said, bowing.
    “Afraid there’s been a bit of a mix-up,” Dick said. “I ain’t Francis Lovelace. She is.” He tossed his head in