Pulling it out, she opened it.
As she scanned Charlotte’s rounded words, she chuckled.
Well fancy that, she thought as she refolded it and shoved it down the front of her bodice.
***
Frances Palmer sat in her lavender silk negligee and peered into the mirror on her dressing table. It was just after nine and Masters would be bringing her breakfast in a short while.
She frowned.
What rotten luck that Josiah Martyn was lying mortally sick in hospital. Why couldn’t he have waited another week before collapsing at the bottom of the shaft? At least then she would have had the enjoyment of his strong body between her thighs and the hard contents of his trousers pleasuring her.
Turning her head towards the morning light as it streamed thought the window, Frances scooped a dollop of tinted cream from her cosmetic pot and dabbed it around her mouth then dusted it with her powder puff. Satisfied with the results, she smiled at her reflection.
There was a knock on the door.
She checked herself in the mirror again and called ‘enter’. Masters entered but, instead of carrying a laden tray, he ushered in the Hatton’s cook.
Frances raised an eyebrow.
‘Mrs Norris,’ she said, turning from the bow-shaped dressing table.
The cook curtsied. ‘Mrs Palmer, I am on my way to the market but thought to stop by with some information I thought you might like to know.’
‘I hope it’s not about the new maid and the next door’s footman again,’ Frances told her. ‘I’m not paying you a shilling a week for servants’ tittle-tattles.’
‘This information is about Miss Hatton,’ Mrs Norris said with more than a hint of a smirk.
‘Well what about Miss Hatton?’ Mrs Palmer asked.
‘It seems that the young lady has got herself into trouble,’ the cook replied.
‘Trouble?’ asked Francis, still studying the mirror. ‘What sort of trouble?’
The smirk on Mrs Norris’s face widened. ‘The sort of trouble that has a young lady dashing for the privy first thing in the morning to retch.’
Frances shrugged. ‘So Nicolas finally discovered what the extra bits of flesh in his trousers are for. About time, but it’s hardly a scandal, they’re getting wed in a month.’
‘It would be a scandal if the baby Miss Hatton has tucked under her petticoats wasn’t Captain Paget’s,’ Mrs Norris replied.
Frances’ jaw dropped. ‘If it’s not Paget’s, then whose?’
Mrs Norris delved into her coat pocket and pulled out an envelope.
Frances went to take it but the cook snatched it away. ‘A crown.’
‘What?’
‘You ’eard,’ said Mrs Norris. ‘A crown or it goes back in Miss Hatton’s writing desk.’
Biting back a stinging retort, Frances opened the top drawer in her dressing table and took out a small purse.
‘In shillings, if you please,’ said the insolent cook. ‘So no one wonders how I’ve come by it.’
Frances fished out five shillings and dropped them into the other women’s hand. ‘It had better be worth it.’
Mrs Norris’s chubby fingers closed around the coins and grinned. ‘It will be, don’t you worry.’
Frances took the letter and unfolded the single sheet of paper.
The words on the page danced in her vision as she read Charlotte’s letter to her father.
‘See, didn’t I tell you?’ said Mrs Norris, slipping the money into her pocket.
With the blood hammering in her ears Frances waved her away, pushing the door shut behind the departing woman.
Frances stared blindly ahead as images of Josiah Martyn, naked and rampantly thrusting into Charlotte while she writhed with pleasure under him, flashed through her mind.
She felt pain and looked down to see her hands tightly clenched and her nails digging into her palms.
Her eyes shifted to the delicate bone-china vanity tray on her dressing table. She studied her expensive pots of creams, exclusive tubs of French rouge and special packets of tinted powder for a moment then, scooping it up in her hand, hurled it across the room.
It smashed into the wall, scattering jagged splinters of porcelain and cosmetic onto the India rug.
Watching a globule of cold cream slide down the wall, Frances’ mouth pulled into an ugly line.
‘Masters!’ she screamed.
He appeared within a second.
‘Ma’am,’ he said, his eyes fixed on her rather than the debris on the floor.
‘Fetch me quill and paper,’ she screamed, ‘and be quick about it!’
***
Nicolas sat with her hand folded in front of him as Harman made his daily stroll across the room. Since Mother had died, the old boy had crumpled to such an effect that, from behind, it looked as if the septuagenarian had no head. Despite this, the butler insisted he needed no help and still served the breakfast each morning, if only just managing to keep the contents on the tray for the journey.
Harman set the tray down with a clatter. The milk jug looked about to tipple over but then thought better of it.
‘Thank you, Harman,’ Nicolas said, as he took the post from the butler.
The butler bowed and then looked mournfully at the empty chair opposite Nicolas. ‘It don’t seem right without Miss Fanny.’
Mother hadn’t been called Miss Fanny by anyone else since before the old mad king took the throne, but Harman always referred to her as such.
‘No, but she’s gone to a better place,’ Nicolas said, wondering how the Almighty was faring with Mother. He was sure she would have already found several things about Heaven that weren’t to her liking.
‘Very good, Master Nicolas,’ the old man said, scooping up Nicolas’s porridge bowl.
Nicolas pressed his lips together. ‘Sir!’
Harman stopped and drips of porridge from the tilted bowl plopped onto the table. He blinked at Nicolas.
‘Sir,’ Nicolas repeated for the umpteenth time.
‘Your pardon, sir,’ Harman replied. ‘Will you be having scrambled egg as usual?’
Nicolas eyed the tureen of fluffy yellow clouds. ‘A little.’
Harman cast around to get his bearings and started on his long trek to the sideboard.
As Nicolas had at least five minutes until the aged butler returned with the hot portion of his breakfast, he glanced at the letters. He picked up the small white letter and flipped the seal open. He glanced down the tightly packed writing and put it to one side. He would eat a full breakfast before attempting to decipher Aunt Sissy’s scribbled writing. He recognised the seal of Hoares bank on the letter beneath it so he picked up that instead, snapped the wax and opened letter.
His eyes flickered down the right-hand column of figures and a smile spread across his face.
A tidy sum indeed, he thought.
As Harman manoeuvred the egg onto the plate, Nicolas let his mind drift away to Charlotte and his smile widened. Just two weeks to the wedding and then all her pretty loveliness would be his, at last.
In a moment of impulse he had thought to take her to Paris and allow her free range on their fashion houses for their honeymoon but, thankfully, he hadn’t mentioned it. On reflection, he’d decided it wasn’t a good idea. Why pay for some dandified Frog dressmaker to fuss around her then ratchet up the bill? He’d decided instead to engage a local seamstress, the one Mrs Palmer used, and let her kit Charlotte out in the latest mode. That way he could keep an eye on the bills and still have himself a pretty wife on his arm for considerably less expense.
And she was pretty, very pretty.
Others saw it too and that gave him enormous pleasure. Nicolas’s brows drew together. That low fellow Josiah had been one of them. His frown lifted. Well, he didn’t have to worry about him any more.
It was a sad thing, of course, a young man like Martyn laid low by the gases of the tunnel. And God grant him peace, but it did mean Nicolas didn’t have to s
tand guard over Charlotte any longer to keep the upstart away.
Harman was undertaking the tricky manoeuvre of turning away from the sideboard without tangling his feet in the rug before shuffling back to the breakfast table.
Nicolas cast his eyes around the room. He would change it, of course, but Mother had been in her grave exactly three months yesterday, the 1st September, so there was no rush. In fact, the familiar objects somehow managed to keep the old lady’s presence in the room.
Charlotte, as the new mistress of the house, would order her home as she felt fit and he had no quarrel with that but he would make sure she knew which items his mother was particularly fond of, so she would leave them be.
Harman set the plate before him and Nicolas picked up his knife and fork. ‘Thank you. Tell Cook I’ll be out for lunch, if you would, and that will be all, Harman.’
The old butler inclined his head. ‘Very good, Master Nicolas.’
Nicolas pressed his lips together and studied the crooked figure of Harman as he shuffled across the room.
The door closed and Nicolas started on his breakfast. As he chewed his way through his first mouthful, his eyes rested on the third letter beside his plate. It was a larger than the bank letter and bulky too. He picked it up and turned it over. He didn’t recognise the handwriting at all.
Scooping another mouthful of toast and egg into his mouth, Nicolas broke the seal. Another letter fell out, narrowly missing his plate. He put it to one side and scanned down the letter.
The words danced in front of his eyes and his jaw dropped.
What the devil!
Dear Captain Paget,
It pains me to be the bearer of sorrowful tidings but I believe, as Miss Hatton’s fiancé, you have a right to kow the truth.
He scanned down the page and an icy shiver ran through him.
He stared ahead for a few moments, then re-read the first two paragraphs.
Far from being the model of chaste womanhood you believe her to be she has, for the last year or so, been carrying on an illicit affair with Josiah Martyn.
They have been meeting each other in secret, behind yours and the rector’s backs. It also pains me to tell you that I have reason to believe that Miss Hatton may be with child.
Nicolas’s vision jumped about as he read the letter again.
A strange laugh started in his chest.
Preposterous, utterly prepoterous, he thought. He read the last section.
I know that you will find it difficult to believe such a thing of a young lady who purports to be the model of Christian virtu, but I would draw your attention to the letter written in Miss Hatton’s own hand which I have enclosed to support these most shocking revelations.
Yours sincerely,
A well-wisher
His gaze rested on the small letter that had been enclosed with the first. To Father was written across the surface in the nealy rounded script that he knew to be Charlotte’s hand.
He reached out and picked up the letter with a shaking hand. He opened it and read Charlotte’s letter to her father.
Nicolas’s hand shook as he read its contents and disbelief gave way to fury.
Jumping to his feet he stared ahead blindly for a moment then his gaze rested on the empty chair opposite. For a split second he saw a vague image of his mother.
She was dressed as she had been on that last morning in her grey gown and with the lace cap over her scant hair. Her watery blue eyes looked up at him with the same contemptuous look that had made him squirm since he was a boy.
Only the steady tick of the clock on the mantelshelf cut through the silence but Nicolas heard his mother’s voice as clearly as if she were still across the table from him.
‘You stupid boy!’
***
With the warmth from his study fire playing on his lower legs, Mr Hatton pushed his spectacles back up to the bridge of his nose and turned the page of his newspaper. In truth, at this time of the morning he should be in church conducting morning prayers, but when he’d glimpsed the iron-grey sky through his bedroom curtain, he’d decided to give it a miss.
Autumn had fled a week ago so better to stay in the warm than risk taking a chill for a handful of grubby hoi polloi.
Of course, as usual Charlotte had already gone out on some errand of mercy or another by the time he’d dressed and made his downstairs, so there was no steaming tureen of haddock or coddled eggs ready for him on the sideboard.
However Mrs Norris had brought him a bun and some hot chocolate to tide him over and promised him a full breakfast would be waiting for him if he returned to the dining room at nine.
Irritation started in his chest. Where was Charlotte? She should be here, not flitting about the parish, especially as she had totally ignored his clear instructions and continued pandering to the riff-raff and their grubby offspring instead of carrying out her God-given duty of caring for him.
A carriage rattled over the cobbles and ground to a halt outside the house.
The door knocker sounded along the hall and Mr Hatton heard muffled voices and sobbing, then the parlour door across from his study shut.
He peered up from his studies and checked the time. Eight-thirty? Who could possibly be visiting at such a time?
Putting aside his newspaper he called enter and the new maid, whose name totally escaped him, appeared.
‘Who on earth—’
‘Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but it’s Captain Paget,’ the maid interrupted and bobbed a curtsy.
He re-checked the clock. ‘At this hour?’
‘He insists on seeing you.’
‘Well I suppose you’d better show him in,’ said Mr Hatton, with a sigh.
She disappeared back into the hallway.
Setting aside his newspaper, Mr Hatton had just risen to his feet when the door opened again.
‘I must say, Paget,’ the rector started. ‘This is a bit early for a....good God, man, what on earth has happened?’
Nicolas Paget, who usually looked a cool as a cucumber, was positively puce and instead of being dressed in his usual flamboyant brocades and buckles, was dressed in mismatched breeches and jacket with what looked like a moth-eaten coachman’s greatcoat over them. He’d clearly rushed out of the house in a hurry as his curls, which were usually fixed around his forehead with Macassar oil, were shooting up from his head like a feather duster, making him look very like his dead mother.
‘What’s happened?’ yelled Nicolas. ‘What’s happened? I’ll tell you what’s happened, sir! This!’ He thrust a letter he had screwed tightly in his hand at Mr Hatton. ‘This is what’s happened.’
Mr Hatton took it from him and, adjusting his spectacles again, tilted the sheet towards the window.
As he skimmed down, fury rose in his chest.
‘Who wrote this?’ he demanded, glaring at Nicolas.
‘I have no idea,’ Nicolas replied. ‘It was shoved under the front door this morning. Have you any knowledge of this affair?’
Now it was the rector’s turn to go red in the face.
‘How dare you, sir,’ he shouted. ‘How dare you suggest that my daughter, a Lincolnshire Hatton with noble blood coursing through her veins, would allow such liberties of any man let alone a grubby engineer whose father can’t write his own name. If you were any sort of a man, you’d be seeking out this villain and then get your seconds to call on him instead of bursting in on me at my morning leisure with this...this...’ He tossed the letter at Nicolas’s feet. ‘Filth.’ He sneered. ‘Really, Nicolas, I fear you are becoming unhinged if you actually believe such lies.’
‘Lies, are they?’ snapped Nicolas. ‘Perhaps I would have dismissed them as such had it not been for the fact of this.’ He extracted a smaller pale-pink sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to Mr Hatton. ‘This was tucked inside.’
Recognising his name written in Charlotte’s hand, a vice-like sensation crushed Mr Hatton’s chest.
The rector unfolded the no
te.
As he read the first paragraph his heart lurched so hard he feared for a second it would give out but then it thundered again sending the blood pounding through his ears as he saw his good name evaporating like mist in the morning.
‘As you can see, the letter to you telling of her flight with this low Martyn fellow is written in her own hand,’ said Nicolas, as the words on the page danced before his eyes. ‘And is dated two weeks ago.’
Black spots were dancing at the edge of the rector’s vision and he could feel the vein on his head throbbing.
Mr Hatton looked puzzled. 'But she’s still here so must have changed her mind.’
‘No, she’s still here,’ said Nicolas. ‘Because the man she betrayed me with is lying in St Thomas’s hospital on the brink of death.’ He covered his eyes with his hand. ‘To think. The woman I’ve cherished so long in my heart could betray me so. Mother was right.’
Mr Hatton frowned. ‘Might I suggest, Nicolas, if you’d stopped cherishing her and actually got around to marrying her, this would never have happened.’
Nicolas’s head snapped up.
‘Don’t try and blame this disaster on me,’ shouted Nicolas, jabbing a long finger at him. ‘I’m not the one who dishonoured your daughter.’
An image of his spotless reputation and the family name being ground into the dirt flashed through the rector’s mind.
‘But who’s to know?’ he asked.
Nicolas looked confused. ‘I beg your pardon.’
‘You’re to be married in two weeks and if a child should follow soon after, who would query it,’ explained Mr Hatton.
Nicolas’s feeble chin dropped.
‘Charlotte could hardly object and you might consider the advantage her eternal gratitude for saving her from disgrace would give you in bringing her to wifely obedience,’ the rector continued.
The Rector's Daughter Page 27
