A Lady's Choice

by Donna Lea Simpson

  “She gave me the strength to go on,” Lady Haven said, squeezing her eyes shut. “She knew just what to say, as she had been through it herself more than once. I have been thinking of that a lot these last few days. I have been thinking of all those times I had forgotten, when she was there when no one else was.”

  Rachel had no answer and did not think one was required. She left her mother alone, head bowed, at the table and went to her grandmother’s room with a renewed sense that life was a mystery. Her mother had always been a closed book to her, distant, difficult, abrasive. But the fear on her face as she acknowledged that losing her mother-in-law would be a sad day made Rachel realize that no person or emotional attachment could be categorized or easily explained. She would never be able to express it, she knew, but she felt a tenderness toward her mother, seeing a vulnerable side to a hard and difficult woman.

  The dowager was pale and her breathing was shallow, though she was sleeping deeply. Rachel told the maid who was sitting with the woman to go and have her breakfast, or rather, luncheon, more likely.

  Rachel sat down in the bedside chair and covered her grandmother’s hand on the coverlet with one of her own, examining the contrast between the knobby white blue-veined hand and her own smooth and young one. “I will miss you too, when you do decide to go. But I don’t believe you will go this time. I still need you, Grand, and so does Mother.” She squeezed the hand that lay so still, and closed her eyes, saying a little prayer.

  Silence fell in the dim room. It was the only bedroom on the ground level of the ugly Haven town house, and so the sounds of the house could be heard beyond the door, the bustling of servants, a knock at the front door, voices. But in the dowager’s room it was muffled.

  “What should I be doing with my life now, Grandmother?” Her voice echoed strangely. “You told me to just enjoy my time, but I don’t think I know how. I’m so accustomed to having a purpose to form my days. Shall I become a spinster like Andromeda? I don’t think so, since I do not believe I have even her inner resources. I shall dwindle into a pettish, unhappy old woman.” She sighed, and then frowned at the self-pity she heard in her own voice. “How idiotic! I will do no such thing, and I know you will be there so I do not.”

  A tap at the door, and Andromeda Varens slipped in quietly. “How is your grandmother?” she said, approaching the bed.

  “Sleeping.”

  “Best thing for her. I brought a jar of calf’s foot jelly; good for what ails her. So nutritious and yet palatable even for an invalid. Lady Haven said she would make sure she had some at luncheon.”

  Rachel heard tension in the woman’s voice and thought perhaps something was wrong, but she would wait until they were away from her grandmother’s bedside. “That is very kind of you.”

  Andromeda looked the woman over with an expert eye. “Hmm, I think she will recover from this,” she said.

  “Do you think so?” Rachel asked. “How do you know?”

  “Her breathing. I have attended many bedsides of those who are passing on, and have noted a similarity of wind; impossible to explain, really.”

  Rachel examined the older woman curiously as she bent over the sleeping dowager, listening and watching, her sharp, dark eyes knowledgeably sliding over the invalid. As a child, she had been grateful for Andromeda Varens’s care, especially during that two-month period when Pamela was sick and Rachel was banished to Corleigh, the Varens estate.

  So how had she gone from that state of respect and affection to the almost-enmity that had existed between them these last years? She knew she had changed when her father died. It had felt like going into a long, dark tunnel, and when she came out the other end she was not the same person. She felt frozen and distant from life, separated even from those she loved. And yet she had no one to talk to about it, no one to tell how she missed her father, and how lonely she felt.

  It was an awful time at Haven Court. Her grandmother had just lost her only child, and her mother had lost her husband. They were wholly consumed with arrangements and services and finances. Visitors streamed to the estate and there were letters of sympathy to answer. Her brother was adjusting to the importance and duties of his new title; Pamela was so very young, just a child who didn’t wholly understand. Rachel had felt alone in her overwhelming grief for the one family member who had adored her above everyone else.

  Perhaps if she had turned to Andromeda, things would have been different. Instead she withdrew from everyone. Then a few years later Colin had begun to court her. Flattered at first, and willing to practice her flirting on him, she had not turned him away resolutely. Seeing it fresh from Andromeda’s view she must have seemed like a jade, to lead him to think there was a possibility that she would marry him, only to finally say no when he offered, and then to repeatedly and with increasing sharpness turn him away. A sister’s partiality would find no reason for her rejection of him.

  Andromeda finally took a seat, sighing. “Yes, I really do think your grandmother will come out of this. I fear she will be weak for a long time, though. The best thing for her would be fresh air, but there is precious little to be had in London, I am afraid.”

  “Should we take her back to Yorkshire immediately?”

  “She won’t be ready to make such an arduous journey for some time, I think. At least a month or so.”

  “Oh. Where is Belinda?”

  “With Lady Haven.”

  Rachel’s eyes widened, but Andromeda, seeing that, said, “I warned Belinda that your mother can be . . . difficult, and told her to be on her best behavior.”

  “That will not even help, not in her present mood. I am afraid my broken engagement following upon my brother’s elopement has affected her in an adverse manner.”

  “It seems to me—pardon, Miss Neville, for my bluntness—that your mother can be just as difficult in a fine mood as she can be in a troublesome one.”

  They both saw the dowager’s lips curve up in a smile. Rachel wondered if she was awake and listening, or if it was just a random occurrence indicating that she was dreaming.

  Andromeda merely smiled and turned back to Rachel. “Before we go this afternoon to the poetry reading, I wished to speak to you alone, Miss Neville—Rachel—about a matter of some importance to me.”

  “Speak on . . . uh, Andromeda,” Rachel said, trying to not sound awkward. They had been on first-name terms many years before, but had gotten out of the habit. Surely now, as adults and neighbors, and now as friends, they should be able to return to that friendly footing.

  Andromeda shifted uneasily on her chair. She fiddled with her gown and folded the material between her gloved fingers. “You know how concerned I am about Colin’s new pastime, boxing. Sir Parnell has been training him and now they have scheduled a match. Try as I might I can persuade neither of them to stop this foolishness and find some safer way to spend their days.”

  Rachel shrugged. “Men will be men. If they want to spend their time battering each other senseless, what are women to do?”

  “If it were anyone else but my brother, I would concur. Men are unfathomable a great deal of the time; the things they think are important, the joy they take in senseless activities! However, I fear for Colin’s safety, and cannot hold my tongue in this instance.” She took a deep breath and met Rachel’s gaze. “You are perhaps too young to remember, or your mother kept the information from you, but several years ago a fellow died boxing in Lesleydale.”

  “Died?”

  “Yes. He, from what I heard, seemed to be just fine after a fight in which he took several blows to the head, but then later he began to complain of a headache, and then he fell down in a fit and passed away.”

  Shocked, Rachel remained silent, watching Andromeda’s gloved hands twisting around and around each other.

  Finally, Andromeda spoke again, urgently, leaning forward, her words tumbling over each other like fretful acrobats. “I cannot just sit idly by while my brother pursues a course that I feel will end in disaster.
”

  “But what can you do?” Rachel asked, feeling helpless. “He is a man, and will do what he wants.”

  “I don’t know. But I do know that the first rule of engagement is that one must study the enemy, learn all one can about that which one must combat.” She seemed unaware of the irony inherent in her combative words, in relation to her distaste for fighting.

  “And what does that mean in this instance?”

  “It means I must ask a favor. I feel that even though there have been . . . incidences between Colin and yourself, that you do care for him as a friend. Am I right about that?”

  Rachel felt the flush rise in her cheeks. Andromeda’s eyes were shrewd. Many people did not see beyond her romanticism and her resolute chase after Lord Haven for so many years and thought she was just an eccentric spinster. But when she was passionate about a subject, she was fiercely committed; it would be a mistake to underestimate her intelligence.

  “Of course you’re right. Colin and I have cried friends now that he has gotten over his ridiculous infatuation.” It was said stiffly, and Rachel hoped Andromeda did not take offense.

  “Then help me stop this; help me find out the truth about these boxing matches,” Andromeda urged. “Sir Parnell has Colin in a match two nights from tonight, his first. Let’s see for ourselves what brutality men inflict on one another.”

  “You mean—”

  “I mean we should dress as gentlemen and see the match.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The club dedicated to the promotion of pugilistic arts—an adjunct of the Apollonian Club and jokingly referred to as the Olympian—was a nondescript house on a nondescript street in the heart of a decent neighborhood. Nothing distinguished it from the other houses on the block, except for the carriages arriving and disbursing gentlemen only. Inside it was much the same. The front rooms were dedicated to normal club business: smoking, drinking, and gambling. It was only once one got past these rooms that one became aware of a difference.

  Three rooms had been thrown together to create a large open area, with chandeliers giving considerable light. A ring was chalked on a low stage in the center of the room, and men were crowded around, money changing hands, muttered discussions taking place, and ribald jokes passing from one to another. On evenings with a fight scheduled, rather than the impromptu bouts that often took place, the doors were open to anyone who wished to attend and gamble.

  Tonight’s match had not caused much talk until it was known that Sir Parnell Waterford had trained and was backing the untried fighter. He was boxing against the current favorite, Sussex Sam, a young fellow who had once been a footman, and who stood a strapping six foot tall, a veritable giant among the general populace of men.

  Men whispered back and forth. Who was this young fellow Sir Parnell was backing? The knight had a reputation for taking no one on who did not show great natural potential. So, should the odds be better for the fellow, rumored to be a baronet, though no one was quite sure? Surely Sam would trounce him? But p’raps a few pounds on the other fellow, just to cut their losses in case Cutthroat Colin turned out to be a good ’un.

  Three young gentlemen, one clearly some years older than the other two, sidled into the backroom and strolled arm in arm, nonchalantly sizing up the crowd. One murmured to the other, and they made sure to keep the youngest, a mere cub, close at hand in the densely smoky den. The ring was set, the square in the middle chalked for the combatants to step up to, and the crowd took on an air of hushed expectancy, last-minute wagers fiercely whispered. The bout was to start any minute.

  Rachel, dressed in an ill-fitting suit of clothes, felt sure that any moment someone would denounce her for the fraud she was and they would be rudely manhandled . . . or worse! What had she been thinking to let Andromeda talk her into such a monumentally idiotic undertaking? They would be ruined forever if their ruse was discovered. And what was the woman doing bringing Belinda?

  “I feel sure we should not have brought Belinda,” she whispered to her taller companion, who looked like a very proper—if a little too smooth-skinned—gentleman.

  “She swore she would not stay at home while we were out ‘having larks,’” Andromeda muttered, leaning down to speak to Rachel. “I reasoned that better she should be here under our guardianship than sneaking in alone. She is quite capable of it, you know.”

  Remembering shocking stories of Belinda’s past escapades in the year since her parents’ tragic death in a carriage accident, Rachel had to agree that given the situation, Andromeda had judged best.

  Given the situation. Given that two adult ladies of good breeding were dressed in gentlemen’s togs and attending a boxing match. Ridiculous. The situation was ridiculous and they were in imminent danger of becoming ridiculous by their actions. It had sounded well enough in theory. Andromeda had been persuasive, and Rachel willing to be persuaded. Her little sister, Pamela, had always been the one to have larks; well, now Rachel would have stories to tell her now-married younger sister about her own adventures.

  But Andromeda had been serious about her quest to learn all she could about boxing so she could dissuade or otherwise stop Colin from participating in the matches. When questioned closely, the woman did not really have a plan in mind, but just to observe and learn. Rachel could not imagine what they would learn that would give Andromeda the ammunition to convince Colin to abandon something he so clearly enjoyed, but now that they were there, she decided she might as well do what they had come for.

  Belinda was bright-eyed and enjoying the experience. She tugged on Rachel’s sleeve after a moment and whispered something that Rachel could not hear for the din. She leaned closer to the girl, and Belinda repeated her words.

  “Over there . . . there is Miss Pamela’s friend Dexter!”

  “Oh, wonderful,” Rachel groaned. “Someone who knows us! As if it is not bad enough that we need conceal ourselves in this hideous fashion! How do men wear these things?” Breeches chafed on the tender skin between the thighs, she found, when one was not accustomed to them. Or perhaps it was just that these fit ill, binding in all the wrong places and loose where they should not be. It made her pink to even think of her unmentionable limbs, but the constant chafing would let her think of little else. And the tight binding across her chest left her breathless.

  This was going to be a disaster. She felt it in her bones. If she thought she had a chance of telling her friend that, though, she knew she was mistaken. For Andromeda, her dark eyes sparkling with an odd excitement—given that she was there to condemn and disapprove—was oblivious. A man stepped into the ring and announced the fight between Sussex Sam and Cutthroat Colin was about to begin.

  Cutthroat Colin? Rachel would have giggled if such a feminine sound would not give her away.

  And then a giant stepped up. She had no more urge to giggle. He was a big man, over six foot and bulky. His shoulders were broad and his forearms the size of hams. This was Colin’s opponent? Sam’s “second,” a squat older man, chattered at him and the giant listened intently, nodding. His eyes swept the crowd and for one instant rested on Rachel. She shrank back, sure this was the moment that she would be denounced, but the man merely gazed at her for a moment and then let his gaze travel over the rest of the throng.

  Then Sir Parnell stepped into the ring, followed by Colin. Shorter than his opponent by at least four inches, Colin at least matched him in breadth, for although he was slim at the waist, he sharply broadened at the shoulders. Rachel could not take her eyes from her old friend. It was as though she had been wearing blinkers for all these years, and now they were off. The admiration of the girls at the ball three evenings before had started the work, she supposed, and this finished it, seeing the deadly seriousness on his lantern-jawed face, his dark eyes staring out from pale skin sheened already with sweat.

  This was not the mild, almost meek suitor who for years had agreed with every silly phrase she uttered and who proposed every spring and autumn, as regular as the vernal a
nd hibernal equinoxes. This was a dark-eyed stranger, a man not to be dallied with. The slow steady thud of her heart quickened.

  Sir Parnell helped him off with his shirt and Rachel felt an odd gurgle in the pit of her stomach, spellbound by the first sight of a shirtless Colin, sinewy, corded muscles standing out like taut ropes under his skin. Even his stomach was muscled with sleek bulges, and an arrow of dark hair narrowed and disappeared in the tight waistband of breeches that clung to his sturdy limbs. An odd buzzing in her ears drowned out the sound around her. Andromeda grasped her arm and hauled her closer through the tight gathering of men, and Rachel stumbled along behind her companion, her breath coming in strange little gasps.

  She had thought they were to wear mufflers, a kind of glove that protected the hands from abuse and the face and body from bare-knuckled hits. Awakened from her stupor by Andromeda’s rough treatment, she whispered as much to Andromeda, who shrugged.

  “That is what I was told they did, but perhaps that is just for practice. I did not think to ask if they also wore them in the actual bout.” Her voice was tight with anxiety.

  Tension in the room was building. The buzzing of voices intensified, and more money exchanged hands now that both combatants had been seen.

  Belinda, oblivious to the her companions’ distress, was hopping up and down, trying to see the ring. A gentleman in front of them said, “Hey, young lad, want to see better? Take the spot in front of me.”

  Before Rachel could protest, the girl had done it. She was still in view though, so Andromeda shrugged and whispered that she supposed it would be all right.

  A fellow dressed in a snuff-stained jacket in an improbable shade of green stepped up and waved his arms around. The crowd fell silent. He announced the bout and said that everyone must stop crowding the stage and step off immediately, as the bout was to begin without further delay. He ordered Sir Parnell and the other fellow with Sussex Sam off the stage, too. The fight began with a shouted order from the announcer.