by M C Beaton
***
Mrs. Ricketts quietly entered the drawing room. Felicity was seated at a chair by the window, watching the square.
“She isn’t coming back, Miss Felicity,” said Mrs. Ricketts.
“Mrs. Waverley will return,” said Felicity, not turning around. “She has only gone off in a pet. She will be back. She is simply trying to test our affection.”
Mrs. Ricketts walked forward, holding out the morning newspaper. “Read that, Miss Felicity.”
Felicity took the newspaper and read the announcement of Frederica’s wedding. Her face flamed. “Oh,” she said miserably. “So he did mean to marry her after all!”
“Look at the other announcements,” said Mrs. Ricketts grimly.
Felicity slowly read the other announcements and then let out a gasp. “It cannot be true. After all her teaching, after all she said.”
“She’s a woman like every other woman—only more selfish than most,” said Mrs. Ricketts.
Felicity looked wildly around. “I am alone,” she said. “What will become of me?”
Mrs. Ricketts folded her work-worn hands over her apron. “You’ve got me, miss. You’ve got all them jewels. She did right by you. She didn’t take a one, nor did Miss Frederica.”
“I don’t want them,” said Felicity passionately. “I’ll earn my own money.”
“How?”
“I’ve written a book. I shall go out and sell it.”
“Mercy!” Mrs. Ricketts clutched at her cap in despair. “Will you never grow up? I’ll sell them jewels as we need. Then you’d best see about hiring yourself a companion.”
“Never!” said Felicity. “I will never trust anyone again.”
“There, now. It’s only Mrs. Waverley what’s let you down. Drop this silly book idea, do.”
“I am mistress of this house now, Mrs. Ricketts,” said Felicity, getting to her feet. “So remember your place in future.” And with that, she flung herself into the housekeeper’s arms and cried her eyes out.
***
The bookseller, Mr. Harvey, was giving one of his little literary parties two afternoons later. His guests were the poet, Mr. Southey; the actor, Mr. Keane; two aspiring poets, Mr. Jessop and Sir Francis Broome; and the marquess of Darkwater. Of the little party, it was the marquess who looked the most like a Byronic hero. He had thick, raven black hair and piercing gray eyes. He was tall and tanned, with a broad-shouldered athlete’s body. He had just returned from the West Indies where he owned sugar plantations. He had been accused of being a Jacobite by the other landowners, for the marquess had freed his slaves, and this emancipation had meant his free and now-salaried workers cut more sugarcane than the slaves on the other plantations, which did not surprise the marquess in the slightest but had infuriated all the landowners who had prophesied doom and disaster. He was in his thirties and had been married for only a short time, his young bride surviving the West Indian climate for only a few short months after their wedding. He had come back to the London Season to find himself a bride, and now with the Season nearly over, had not seen one young lady he considered had enough strength of character to bear life in the West Indies, let alone the long journey there.
He was just thinking of making his escape, for one of the aspiring poets was about to read his latest work, when Mr. Harvey’s servant appeared and murmured there was a young lady out in the shop with a manuscript to sell.
Mr. Harvey groaned and put an eye to the keyhole in the door, which gave him a view of the bookshop beyond.
He saw a very fashionably dressed and very beautiful girl, standing by the counter, clutching a sheaf of manuscript.
He turned away and sighed. “Tell miss I am otherwise engaged and will not be publishing any new novels until next year.”
“Wait a bit,” said the marquess, amused. “How do you know that is not another Miss Austen you have out there?”
“Take a look at her, my lord,” said Mr. Harvey.
The marquess put his eye to the peephole.
“Now, where has that one been hiding?” he murmured. He turned back. “I still do not see why her obvious youth and beauty should put you off.”
“The beautiful ones can’t write and can’t spell but are convinced they can.”
“She has intelligent eyes,” said the marquess. “Do me a favor, Harvey, and cast an eye over her magnum opus.”
“Oh, very well.”
The bookseller went into the shop. While the others gossiped and drank, the marquess put his eye to the peephole again.
He could see the bookseller’s bored face bent over the manuscript. Then Mr. Harvey’s face brightened and he pulled out his quizzing glass, leaned his elbows on the counter, and began to read in earnest. Then he began to ask questions. The marquess saw the girl answer calmly.
He stepped back as the door opened and Mr. Harvey said breathlessly, “A find, gentlemen. Amuse yourselves. I shall not be too long.”
“You do realize, Mr. Harvey,” said Felicity, “that no one must ever guess the identity of the author.”
“Of course, Miss Waverley. Perhaps if you will allow me until tomorrow to read it, we can come to terms.”
Felicity looked longingly at her precious manuscript. “Very well,” she said. “Can you give me an idea how much you will pay me?”
“I will have a better idea when I have read it, of course,” said Mr. Harvey. “It is a first novel, and highly unusual, and I don’t know—”
“One hundred pounds,” said Felicity firmly. “At least that or I shall take it away and try Mr. Murray.” She reached for the manuscript.
“No, no! I agree,” said Mr. Harvey, holding firmly on to it.
Felicity gave him a sudden, blinding smile. “Until tomorrow then,” she said.
Mr. Harvey carried the manuscript back into his study. “Good day,” said the marquess hurriedly. He looked up and down Bond Street when he got outside and then set off in pursuit of Felicity. He followed her to Hanover Square and stood watching as she entered the door of a handsome, brick-fronted house.
He stopped a liveried servant who was passing and said, “Who lives in that house yonder?”
“A Mrs. Waverley did live there, but she’s gone orf and got married again,” said the servant. “One of her girls goes orf at the same time and marries Lord Harry Danger. There’s a chit of a thing left on her own, people say.”
The marquess tossed him a coin and turned back in the direction of Bond Street. He was determined to see Miss Waverley’s manuscript. After all, Harvey need never know he had found out who she was.
Felicity sat in an armchair in the drawing room and kicked off her shoes and threw her bonnet in the corner. She rang the bell, and when Mrs. Ricketts answered, she said, “I would like champagne and strawberry ice cream from Gunter’s. Have some champagne yourself. In fact, serve champagne to all the staff.”
“Those jewels will never last long if you’re going to squander money like that,” grumbled Mrs. Ricketts.
“Jewels!” Felicity laughed. “Who needs jewels? Congratulate me, Mrs. Ricketts. I have sold that book and have need of no man or woman to protect me.”
“A woman always needs a man to protect her,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “There’s always danger about.”
“Pooh!” said Miss Felicity Waverley. “I have money and my freedom, and I can do exactly what I want.”
Mr. Harvey sat in his bookshop that evening, reading Felicity’s manuscript and passing each page to the Marquess of Darkwater as he finished it.
“Goodness,” said the marquess. “Such sensuality and such experience in one so young!”
“She’s got the morals of a tart,” said the bookseller, “but, by George, she can write. This will set the ton by the ears.”
“I would like to meet her,” said the marquess.
“You’re a dangerous devil, my lord, and I am sure my young miss might be a match for you. But you’ll never find out her name so you have no hope there!”
The
marquess smiled, a slow and dangerous smile.
“We’ll see, Harvey,” he said. “We’ll see.”
The Love Match
M.C. Beaton
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter One
The large house in Hanover Square had a lost and abandoned look, as if no one lived there anymore. And yet servants could be seen going about their duties, and very occasionally a beautiful young lady would emerge and take the air accompanied by her maid.
The rooms seemed haunted by the voices of the bluestockings Mrs. Waverley had invited to her soirees. But Mrs. Waverley, that champion of rights for women, had betrayed her sex. She had married a colonel, now Baron Meldon, and had fled London. Society gossiped furiously after the announcement of the marriage and then forgot about her. They also forgot about her three adopted daughters, Fanny, Frederica, and Felicity. Fanny had married the Earl of Tredair; Frederica, Lord Harry Danger; and surely that third one had married as well.
But the third one, Felicity, was all alone. Mrs. Waverley had gone, leaving her the house and a treasure in jewelry, enough to keep Felicity in comfort until the end of her days. But Felicity was an independent lady. She had sold her first novel and was already hard at work on another. The servants were all women, Mrs. Waverley having never employed menservants, and the housekeeper, Mrs. Ricketts, was always at hand to accompany Felicity should she care to go out. Felicity had recovered from the blow of Mrs. Waverley’s desertion of her, from the feeling of aching loss at being abandoned by her “sisters.” But she had quarreled with Fanny and had tried to break up Frederica’s marriage—sure Lord Harry did not mean to marry her—so they could hardly be expected to want to see her again.
In fact, she would have considered herself content had it not been for that ongoing nagging curiosity about her birth. Mrs. Waverley had adopted the three girls from an orphanage. Both Fanny and Frederica and their then suitors had tried to find out why Mrs. Waverley had chosen them, why they had initially been kept at an orphanage that demanded high fees from the relatives of the orphaned, yet in their case there did not seem to be any relatives, and why Mrs. Waverley turned faint every time she saw the Prince Regent: Each time the girls had come up against a blank wall.
Of the three girls, Felicity had been the one who had most rigidly followed Mrs. Waverley’s training. Women were little better than slaves, and marriage was a way of selling themselves into bondage. But now that Felicity was independently wealthy and had a profession, she found her nights plagued by romantic dreams. The Season was beginning again. The air was full of excitement as if throbbing with all the hopes and dreams of the young misses arriving by the carriageload to look for husbands.
She was not vain, but her looking glass told her she was beautiful. She had masses of chestnut hair, an elegant figure, a sweet face, and large hazel eyes. Fanny was still abroad, Frederica was also on the Continent, and there were occasionally reports in the papers of their happiness and beauty. Although Felicity did not yet know it, her determination to remain a spinster was already crumbling.
Yet still she often toyed with the idea of taking up the reforming process where the treacherous Mrs. Waverley had left off—at finding women who needed to be trained to educational independence. But women, thought Felicity bitterly, were all fickle. A man had only to smile on them and they forgot all their principles.
Mr. Harvey, the bookseller who was publishing Felicity’s book, had cleverly spread gossip about it through society before publication. It was called The Love Match by a Lady of Quality. The heroine was a rake who broke men’s hearts and left them weeping. Mr. Harvey was sure of its success.
So good was his promotion that by the end of the first day of publication every copy had sold out.
Felicity was sitting in her drawing room one day, admiring the handsome volume for the hundredth time, when Lady Artemis Verity was announced.
She put down the book and rose reluctantly to greet this unwelcome caller. Lady Artemis lived on the other side of Hanover Square and had recently returned from Italy. She was a dashing widow who had been engaged to a Mr. Fordyce but had broken the engagement and run away from him. Her fine eyes were snapping with curiosity as she came into the room.
“I could not believe my ears, dear Miss Waverley,” she cried, “when I learned Mrs. Waverley had become married.” Lady Artemis giggled. “So much for all her theorizing and prosing on about the independence of women. And Frederica! Now Lady Harry Danger, I believe. Tra la. You bluestockings seem to know how to snatch the best husbands from the marriage mart. So how do you go on? Never say you are living here alone.”
“No,” lied Felicity, although she did not know quite why she lied. “My aunt is chaperoning me. A Miss Callow.”
“Indeed! I should like to make her acquaintance.”
“She is very old and frail and is lying down at the moment.”
“You must bring her to tea.” Her eye fell on Felicity’s book. “I see you have been reading The Love Match. A sad sham.”
“How so?” demanded Felicity angrily.
“Oh, everyone is tut-tutting over it and saying what a monstrous rake the authoress must be herself, but, my dear, I could swear it was all the imaginings of a virgin.”
“I found it highly convincing,” said Felicity stiffly.
“Well, you would, would you not?” Lady Artemis laughed. “But to any woman of the world … la, the ravings of an innocent. Men do not fall in love with such a philanderer. If she is still in prime condition, they get their lawyers to offer her a sum for her favors. If she is past it, then a shilling and a glass of rum is the usual fee.”
“It is selling very well,” pointed out Felicity.
“A novelty. But society will soon become wise to her, and her next book will be left on the shelves. I have not seen you about. Are you determined to keep to Mrs. Waverley’s teachings and stay hidden from the world of men?”
“I have been busy of late,” said Felicity. “But we shall no doubt meet soon.”
“I look forward to meeting your aunt. Miss Callow, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“Strange. I did not think you had any relatives … er … that you knew of.”
“Well, I have,” snapped Felicity.
She was still smoldering when Lady Artemis left. She picked up her book and scanned the pages. A blush mounted to her cheeks. Was it so naive? Was Lady Artemis being malicious? But, then, Lady Artemis could not know that she, Felicity, had written that book. Felicity bit her lip. Perhaps it was naive. How could she enlarge her experience? She could not attend balls and parties unchaperoned. She rang the bell.
Mrs. Ricketts, a tall, powerful woman, came in and stood with her hands folded.
“I have been thinking, Mrs. Ricketts,” said Felicity, “that it is time I made my debut.”
“You cannot do that on your own, miss,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “Perhaps you had best advertise for some genteel lady to chaperon you.”
“I don’t want a stranger in my house interfering with my ways and my independence,” said Felicity. “Why do not we dress you up finely, Mrs. Ricketts, and you can come with me?”
The housekeeper recoiled in horror. “I couldn’t do it, miss, and that’s a fact, me with my plain speech and plain ways. Me sit with them dowagers? Your social standing would be in ruins. Besides, you don’t get no invitations, and you won’t get none neither, not without some older lady to nurse the ground.”
“Drat!” Felicity chewed her fingernails. “Never mind, Mrs. Ricketts, I shall hit on something.”
To her surprise, she had another caller that day, the famous actress Caroline James. Caroline had entered the Waverley household the year before in the guise of Lord Harry Danger’s sister
, Lord Harry having employed her to befriend Frederica and so further his suit. Caroline had, furthermore, been engaged to be married to Colonel James Bridie, now Baron Meldon, he who had run off with Mrs. Waverley. The famous actress was a handsome woman and had conceived an admiration for the strong-willed Felicity.
“I put off coming to see you,” said Caroline, “for actresses are not at all respectable, but a rumor reached me that you had been left alone, and I was anxious to reassure myself the world went well with you.”
“Yes,” said Felicity. “I am truly independent now. Mrs. Waverley left me this house and all the jewelry.”
“Then you are indeed fortunate,” said Caroline. The Waverley jewels were famous.
Felicity looked uneasily at her book, then said impulsively, “I wish to confide in you, Miss James. Have you read The Love Match?”
“Not yet,” said Caroline, “but all London is talking about it.”
“I wrote it,” said Felicity, coloring slightly.
“How clever of you!” exclaimed Caroline.
“I felt until today it was indeed clever of me,” said Felicity. “But a certain Lady Artemis called on me. She is a widow and very mondaine. She does not know I wrote it, of course, but she sneered and said it was obviously written by a virgin, that it was naive. The heroine in my book is a rake, or rakess, if there is such a thing. I wish to enlarge my horizons and go about in society. I told Lady Artemis I was chaperoned by an aunt, a Miss Callow, but Miss Callow does not exist.”
“Then you must advertise for someone to take you about,” said Caroline, unconsciously echoing Mrs. Ricketts.
“I don’t want that,” said Felicity fiercely. “I do not want to be under anyone’s thumb again. Could you, my dear Miss James, not pretend to be Miss Callow?”
Caroline shook her head. “I have too many performances, too many rehearsals.”
Felicity fell silent, and Caroline’s blue eyes watched her sympathetically.
“Could you not,” said Felicity, raising her eyes, “make me up to look like an elderly lady?”
