The Chaperone's Secret

by Donna Lea Simpson

  He took her arm

  The night air was cool so early in the season. It was only March and Pierson began immediately to regret acquiescing to the lady’s request. After all, her gown was saturated with wine and there was a breeze outside. He guided her to a protected area where there was yet light from the supper room, and eyed the sky uneasily as a low rumble vibrated through the night air. Still, this was his chance, an opportunity to show her how much she meant to him, how absolutely enchanting he found her to be. In fact, she seemed to be waiting for just such an overture.

  “My lady,” he said, holding her arm close to his body and trying to impart some of his warmth. “You are radiant tonight. I have never seen such a . . . such absolute divinity.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” Slyly she gazed up at him through her lush lashes. “Tell me, my lord, do my looks compare with the attractions of the ladies I have heard tell of, ladies who frequent certain establishments of low repute?”

  Shocked and speechless, Pierson gazed at her in confusion. What exactly was she asking him? And how could he possibly answer? “I don’t think it would do you justice to make such an inadequate comparison.”

  “But do I? I have heard it whispered that there is one girl whom they call Mademoiselle Divine. Is she beautiful?”

  Pierson took in a deep and shaking breath. Mademoiselle Divine was an opera dancer of spectacular beauty and no morals at all. She was running through the younger portion of the peerage register at such a rate that she would soon need to expand her net to those of more years or lower title. However, as indiscriminate as she was in imparting her favors, she had her methods for benefiting and gave away nothing without a gift in exchange. He knew that well, for he had been the giver of a spectacular sapphire ring he could ill afford. But that was last Season, before his life had changed in one glance at a passing carriage.

  His mind worried at the problem, though; how had a young lady heard of Mademoiselle Divine, and what could he answer? “My lady, may we not speak of another subject?”

  “Why, my lord?” she replied, her tone arch. “Is my beauty not a fit subject?”

  Pierson gazed down at her. “Of course it is, but that of the woman in question is not. Your beauty stands apart from one such as her, as you must know. You are radiant and lovely and innocent, the picture of health and comeliness. Girls of her ilk—”

  “Are very attractive to gentlemen such as yourself, are they not? Are you not a rake, then? I have heard stories that you are. Will you not confess?”

  “My lady, let’s speak of something else. How are you enjoying the Season so far?”

  The lady stared at him and shrugged elegantly. “You will not answer,” she pouted. With an enormous sigh and dainty yawn, she made plain her displeasure. “The Season is just as usual, I suppose. Until I met you, my lord. You have not generally been in the way of coming to the balls. What has changed for you?”

  Pierson hesitated, but then said, “You, my lady. I was stunned by your beauty and could not stay away if I wanted to.”

  She looked pleased, her eyes sparkling in the light from the supper room. “Really? How gallant!”

  “It is not mere gallantry,” he said, gazing at her. “Sometimes a gentleman will be touched by beauty, and all he can do is follow and hope that that beauty radiates from the inside as well; it is evident to anyone with eyes that you are as lovely clear down to your soul as your external shell would seem to promise.” He reached out and caressed one silvery ringlet, the glow from it like moonlight. “You are pure and sweet and as gentle as a lamb.”

  A smile still turned her lips up, but it appeared to have frozen in place. Had he said something wrong?

  “I rather thought,” she said slowly, “that a gentleman such as you would be attracted to a different kind of lady.”

  Puzzled, he said, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, why is it that—”

  Just then the sky, which had been clouding over, the moon disappearing finally, opened up and a deluge of icy rain sluiced down as if the rain gutters had burst. Pierson hurried to shepherd Lady Rowena toward the doors into the supper room, and at the door they were met by Bainbridge and Miss Corbett, who carried a shawl for Lady Rowena.

  Damnable timing, Pierson thought, cursing the rain. He watched the chaperone tuck her charge in, pulling the shawl around the young lady’s damp shoulders as he pushed the sodden hair out of his eyes. Just at that moment he met Miss Corbett’s eyes and the most extraordinary thing happened. She stared at him, really stared; her blue-gray eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open.

  “My lord, you are soaked through,” she gasped. “You are . . . your hair is . . .” She fell silent and her cheeks bleached of all color. “Lady Rowena and I must depart. Her gown is stained beyond help and she is soaked through. We must go.”

  Bainbridge, who had followed her, said, “I agree, Miss Corbett, that you must get your charge home. She has had a very wet evening.”

  Pierson glanced at Bain with suspicion. It had never been clear who had jogged Lady Rowena’s elbow, though there had been several people squeezing past their table just then. And yet it was unlikely that Bainbridge should be so clumsy. “I will escort you to your carriage,” Pierson said, guiding the ladies through the second set of double doors from the supper room into the great hall.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Miss Corbett said hastily, still staring at Pierson, her eyes large and luminous. “I have ordered the carriage and his Grace is awaiting us. Good evening, gentlemen.”

  Lady Rowena, her skin dewy from the rain, curtseyed and gave Pierson a melting look. He stuttered into speech.

  “My lady, Miss Corbett, would you consider a carriage ride tomorrow, or—”

  “Pierson,” Bainbridge said, “I was thinking that the ladies might like to engage in a spot of sport, perhaps an afternoon of archery. I have a friend with an archery court set up. Could we interest you?”

  Miss Corbett, her expression grim, said, “I think, sirs, that I must engage us for nothing at the moment. I . . . well, you heard the duke earlier. He wishes to see me, and I’m afraid I cannot be sanguine about the future of my tenure as Lady Rowena’s chaperone.”

  He had forgotten all about her position, Pierson realized, stricken. How could he have been so cavalier? He frowned down at his shoes and said, “Miss Corbett, I feel responsible—”

  “Please don’t,” she said softly, touching his sleeve. “I would not take back that dance, not even for my position.”

  Lady Rowena’s gaze was sluicing back and forth between them, her eyes narrowed to squinty slits and her lips pursed in a frown.

  Pierson examined Miss Corbett’s face and she was smiling, though it was tremulous and there was trepidation there too. It was a gallant lie, he thought, and well done. She would not suffer for his sake, he vowed, no matter what he had to do.

  “Good evening then, ladies,” he said and bowed.

  Arm in arm they left, gliding through the great hall and to the steps down toward the front door.

  Sixteen

  The drive home was accomplished in silence. Rowena was brooding about something and the duke was in one of his resentful silences. Amy should have been trying to ameliorate his mood and stave off his certain dismissal of her, but the quiet was blissful. It gave her a few moments to examine her emotions.

  For she had made a discovery, and she was not sure how it changed or affected her experiences of the evening. When Lord Pierson had come into the supper room from being drenched by the downpour, Amy had known suddenly why he had seemed familiar to her from the very first moment of meeting him. He was soaked and his dark curls hung in his eyes, even as he tried ineffectually to swipe them away. In that moment she had realized with a bone-deep certainty that he was the man their carriage had splashed as he knelt in the gutter. He was the poor fellow she had been worrying about for a week.

  Was it coincidence only that he now frequented every venue where Lady Rowena was to be found
? Was the meeting on the steps of the dressmaker a coincidence? Or had he seen her that night and in the most romantic of fairy tales, fallen in love at first sight and sought a meeting?

  She would need to ask him. As Rowena’s chaperone it was her duty.

  If she still was Rowena’s chaperone come morning, that was.

  When they arrived home the duke summarily dismissed his daughter preparatory, Amy was sure, to giving her a complete dressing-down and a dismissal from the ducal manse, but Rowena did not leave them alone without one last parting word.

  “Father, I know your moods and I know when you are angry,” she said as she mounted the great curved staircase that spiraled up to the gallery overhead. “Despite her poor judgment in waltzing with Lord Pierson, I will not have you disrupt my Season by letting Amy go. Just think of all the fuss and bother of finding another chaperone at this late date. And remember last year’s chaperone, the one who drank. And the one before that who was caught in bed with the first footman, that lanky fellow you had to dismiss as well. It is fatiguing to find good help.”

  Amy bit her lip, chagrined and yet, despite the gravity of the moment, entertained by such a unique bit of arm twisting. Who would have expected her fractious charge to be her white knight? Rowena went upstairs to bed, and in the end, though the duke gave her a lecture on the impropriety of a chaperone waltzing at a ball, he harumphed a great deal and let it go with what he termed a stiff warning, after extracting from her a promise never to do such a thing again.

  And so all her worry and anxiety had come to naught. And that night, instead of worrying about her position for the time being, she could dream that she was again on the dance floor in Lord Pierson’s arms. Though in the dream his hair was in his eyes and he had the unfortunate whiff of the gutter to him.

  • • •

  Pierson spent a troubled night, not able to sleep for worry that he had done irreparable damage to the young chaperone’s position. As morning light poked fingers of brightness through a gap in the draperies and into his gloomy bedchamber, he sat on the edge of his bed and contemplated possible solutions, but he could come to no conclusion. He could not go to the duke and plead her case, for he would certainly only make matters worse. If he had learned anything, it was that he must rein in his impulsive whims or risk hurting others besides himself. It was a salutary lesson and came not a moment too soon.

  But he was troubled by the notion that he was helpless to ameliorate her calamity; his hands were tied. Why he suddenly felt so solicitous toward Miss Corbett he could not fathom. He only knew that the new start he had made of his life did not include getting harmless young women in trouble for things they had no control over.

  He had been swept up in the mood of the moment when he waltzed so wildly with her, and though he was delighted by the look of surprised rapture on her face, he wished he had been more circumspect. Bainbridge would never have made that error in judgment. And therein lay the reason he was perpetually offending society with his wild antics while his friend always knew the absolute correct moment to pull back from the brink of disaster.

  His valet entered the room and started to find his master already awake.

  “Don’t look so appalled, Rupert,” he said wearily. “You aren’t late; I’m up early.”

  Rupert put his tray down beside Pierson and moved to draw the curtains open. “It is a beautiful day, sir, just right for archery.”

  “I’m not so sure of that, old man. Whether we do that or not depends largely on a certain chaperone and her continuing employment with Lady Rowena.”

  “Yes, well, Lord Bainbridge sent you a note, so perhaps it will clear up the mystery, my lord.” The valet indicated a note on the tray.

  Pierson grabbed it. Bain’s note read, The invaluable Staynes has it from a fellow gentleman’s gentleman in the duke’s employ that Miss Corbett has retained her position. This, apparently, is a relief to the duke’s staff in general, though my valet’s source will not elaborate on why that is so.

  “Thank God,” Pierson sighed, refolding the note. With a more cheery outlook, he glanced up at Rupert, who was pulling out linens from the wardrobe. “You already knew what it said, you fraud. Reading my mail! I should sack you on the spot.”

  “It is my duty to know these things, my lord. And I needed no letter, for Staynes told me.”

  Pierson chuckled. “You say it is good weather, Rupert? Then dress me appropriately, for I go a-wooing with a bow and arrow, appropriately enough!”

  • • •

  “Are you out of your mind, Bain? Bringing that froggy-faced wet cloth with us?” Pierson’s mount shied at his vehement tension. They were on a quiet road toward a private estate on the outskirts of London, the whole party headed for an afternoon of archery in the brilliant sun of an early spring day.

  “Wasn’t my fault. I merely invited my sister,” Bainbridge said with a shrug, indicating Lady Harriet, “and said she might bring a guest. Thought it would add variety to the party. How was I to know she would bring along Newton-Shrewsbury?”

  “What was she thinking? She said herself he is nothing to her.” Pierson gloomily watched his competitor for Lady Rowena’s hand as that fellow rode alongside the ladies’ carriage, bending over and monopolizing the most beautiful occupant’s time.

  “You can’t possibly be worried,” Bainbridge said. He pulled his black gelding into step with his friend’s bay. “Newton-Shrewsbury has nothing on you; not for looks or dash. Said yourself the fellow’s a wet blanket. Look how he disappeared after that disaster on the ballroom floor last night! You would never do that.”

  “Thank you for your confidence. No, I’m not worried about his charm. But the fellow does have a tendency to be there always and he has the advantage with the duke, having worked for him during the war. He is a more acceptable beau for a young lady like Lady Rowena than myself, damnably steady and responsible. You saw how her father favored him at the ball last night.”

  “Lady Rowena is a strong-minded enough maiden that she will make her own choice of future husbands.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Relief that the little chaperone was not sacked, eh?”

  “Yes,” Pierson said, letting out a gusty sigh. “I cannot tell you how that worried me all night. I did not sleep for thinking of it.”

  “I have never seen you take any responsibility so to heart,” Bainbridge said with an interested look. “Why so concerned, besides the obvious inconvenience to Lady Rowena?”

  Pierson grimaced at him. “Thank you for pointing out how lax I have always been.” He brooded for a moment, trying to answer his friend’s question. “I don’t know. It was yet another example of how my precipitate actions led to misfortune for someone else. I don’t mind when I am the one who suffers for my own idiocy, but for that young lady to, when she has done nothing but be kind to me . . . it was beyond bearing. I would have done anything for her rather than see that happen.”

  “Yes, I rather think you would have,” Bainbridge said.

  • • •

  Amy glanced back at the gentlemen on horseback following their open carriage. It was an invigorating spring day, and now that they were out of London proper the sky seemed bluer, the breeze fresher, and the birdsong clear and trilling. How magnificent Lord Pierson and Lord Bainbridge looked side by side, quite the handsomest men in London in her estimation, and she had had the opportunity lately to view those who were considered the best-looking beaux among the ton.

  She resettled herself, aware that it would not do to be thought craning her neck for a look at the men. Examining her companions in the carriage, she wondered why she felt a hint of tension between Lady Harriet and Rowena. Was it just that Lady Rowena insisted on flirting with Lord Newton-Shrewsbury? But surely if the older lady was interested in him, knowing who would be with her that day she would not have invited the viscount. No, the tension seemed to have another source, one Amy could not put her finger on.

  She was about to introduce som
e subject of talk—any subject!—when Lord Bainbridge shouted out, “Here we are!”

  From there the afternoon proceeded with the sport at hand. The estate was a pretty Tudor manse with an extensive system of gardens: herb, vegetable, rose and the obligatory Elizabethan knot garden. It was too early in the year for much show of color beyond tulips and primrose, but the delight Amy most felt was in the long sward of green grass that swept down to a stream. For the first time in a while she felt that she could breathe away from the limitations of the duke’s stiff presence and the confines of London.

  As she was not partaking in the sport herself, she was free to wander and indulged herself for a time, before remembering her duties and rejoining the party on the archery green. They had made it into a competition, and it seemed that either Lord Pierson was not very good at archery or his mind was not on it, because he was the first to lose and be ejected from the match. Amy joined him where he stood and watched the others.

  “Lady Rowena is a fierce competitor,” Amy said to Pierson.

  The lady in question was crowing about her victory over Lord Newton-Shrewsbury, and that gentleman was taking it in very good stride. Against all Amy’s intuitive beliefs, it appeared that he was a very good loser.

  “She does seem to succeed at whatever she tries,” he replied. He turned his gaze from the competition to his companion. “May I say, Miss Corbett, how happy I am that you have retained your position. I was in horrors all night that my precipitate actions may have cost you your employment.”

  She was touched by his concern and laid her hand on his arm, squeezing briefly before letting go. But she would be honest with him. “And so it might have, had not Lady Rowena made it clear to her father that I was not to be let go.”

  He gazed back at the lady and sighed. “A steadfast friend. I admire that.”