by M. C. Beaton
“I assure you, that is not the case with Miss Mortimer.”
“I know what is best for her,” said the duchess. “She must be guided by me. Just wait until Maria Blenkinsop sees my charge! She is bringing out a plain little antidote who she has the gall to say will take the town by storm. When she sees my Penelope, she will change her tune.”
“You leave me no alternative,” said Lord Andrew. “It appears I must make arrangements myself to send Miss Mortimer back to the country.”
The duchess’s pale gray eyes hardened. “You may have forgot, my dear boy, that we own that village in which she resides. She has to sell her father, the squire’s, house, and plans to buy that little cottage at the end of Glebe Street near the parsonage ground. She has hopes of securing a lease. But I am sure there are others who would be equally interested in that cottage. Quite a sound building, and in good repair.”
Her son looked at her in horror. “Are you saying you would punish Miss Mortimer were she to return?”
“No, I did not say that,” lied his mother. “What is all this to you, Andrew? You are engaged to exactly the sort of female I would expect you to propose to….”
“Meaning?”
“Never mind. But this is not your house, and Miss Mortimer has nothing to do with you. Why do you not go about your own business and stop meddling in mine? I am sure your fiancée will be desirous of a visit from you.”
“Miss Worthy is engaged elsewhere this afternoon.”
“Splendid!” said the duchess. “You shall take Miss Mortimer on a drive. She cannot appear anywhere tonish until I have ordered her wardrobe.”
“I shall do no such thing.”
Lord Andrew had never crossed swords with his mother before. He had dealt with the matter of the footman-turned-captain without telling her about it. He had never before realized that her passion for her lame ducks was so very strong. He was horrified to see tears start to the duchess’s eyes. Her whole massive body shook with sobs, and her small face above it pouted like a pug’s.
“You never cared for me,” hiccuped the duchess. “Never. You always were an unnatural and unfeeling boy. Oh! When I am on my deathbed, then you will wish you had tried to please me. Angels come and take me! My son spurns me. Ah, what is left?”
“I’ll take the brat out,” shouted Lord Andrew. “Where is she?”
“In the drawing room,” said the duchess from behind the cover of her handkerchief.
Lord Andrew stormed out.
The morning room had two doors, one leading from the landing and another from the backstairs. The duke entered by the one from the backstairs, holding a cup of chocolate in one hand and a pile of letters in the other.
“What was all that screaming about?” he asked.
“Nothing, my dear,” said the duchess placidly. “I was just having a little talk to Andrew.”
Penelope looked up in surprise as the door of the drawing room crashed open. She had only a bare second in which to whip off her spectacles before Lord Andrew, still in his riding dress, marched into the room.
“You are coming driving with me,” he said abruptly. “Get your bonnet.”
“There is no need to shout,” said Miss Penelope Mortimer primly. “I did warn you she would not be moved on the matter.”
“What are you talking about?” roared Lord Andrew.
“I’ll get my bonnet,” said Penelope, scrambling from the room.
Lord Andrew looked down at his riding dress. He wondered whether to change and then reflected he could not be bothered going to the effort to please such as Miss Mortimer.
That was the first crack in his perfection, for Lord Andrew had hitherto always worn the correct dress for the occasion.
Penelope selected a gypsy straw bonnet embellished on the crown with marguerites, and tied it firmly under her chin by its gold silk ribbons. She put on her one, good pelisse, her last present from her father. It was of gold-embroidered silk and lined with fur. She had a longing to see what Lord Andrew really looked like, and so when she returned to the drawing room, she opened the door very quietly, raised her quizzing glass which was hanging round her neck, and studied him as he stood by the window looking out over the park.
Lord Andrew sprang into focus. He had thick, glossy black hair cut in the Windswept. He had a high-profiled, handsome face and a firm, uncompromising mouth. His black riding coat was tailored by the hand of a master. His white cravat was intricately pleated and folded. He was wearing breeches and top boots.
She dropped the glass quickly before he turned around, and was idiotically glad he had changed back into a comfortable blur instead of the disturbingly arrogant and handsome man she had seen through the quizzing glass.
“I am driving an open carriage,” he said. “It is being brought round from the mews. It is quite correct for you to go out with me without a chaperone.”
“I am glad you are at liberty, sir,” said Penelope. “I would have thought your time would have been occupied in squiring Miss Worthy.”
“Has my mother told you already of my engagement?”
“I did not know you were engaged,” said Penelope. “Her Grace remarked on the journey to London that you were courting a Miss Ann Worthy and would no doubt propose to her. May I offer my congratulations?”
“Thank you.” He walked across the room and held open the door. They went down the stairs together and out into Park Street.
He helped her into a smart phaeton, seated himself beside her, and nodded to the groom to stand away from the horses’ heads.
Soon they were bowling through the park. It was a sunny, brisk day, and the young leaves were just coming out on the trees. Penelope could see things at a distance quite well, and so she settled back to enjoy the prospect. It was only when she realized they were going round the ring for the second time that she ventured to say shyly, “I do not know London at all well. Would it inconvenience you too much to take me somewhere else?”
“Where would you like to go?”
“I would like to see the wild beasts at the Tower.”
He was about to refuse, for he could not think of a more vulgar or tedious way of passing the afternoon, but his tutor had always instructed him to be gallant to the ladies. She was his mother’s guest, and her wishes must come first.
“Then we shall go to the Tower,” he said in a colorless voice.
He began to be amused as they drove along Oxford Street by Penelope’s exclamations of delight at the goods in the shop windows. As the shop windows were just about the right distance from the carriage for her to make out things with her faulty vision, Penelope hung on to the side of the phaeton and watched everything and everyone.
“I wonder if the duchess will let me actually shop for a few things,” she said wistfully. “I am a good needle-woman, and it is so much more economical, you know, to make one’s own things. I have become used to being busy.”
“You must ask her, for I cannot be the judge of what goes on in my mother’s mind,” he said stiffly.
“So she did say she would be displeased if I left—to the point of making life awkward for me?” said Penelope.
“That, too, you must find out for yourself.”
“You do not appear to be well acquainted with your mother,” remarked Penelope.
There was a trace of amusement in her voice, and he looked at her sharply, but her face under the pretty bonnet was demure.
“No, not very well,” he agreed after a pause. “Naturally, I spent my youth with first my nurse and then my tutor. When I grew up, I was away a great deal. My father gave me Baxley Manor and estates in Shropshire, and it is there I made my home. This will be my second Season in London since returning from the wars. My parents are somewhat strangers to me.”
“But even in a great household, the children are brought down in the evenings to join the family; is it not so?”
“Not always. Not in my case. Do not look so sad, Miss Mortimer; I had every comfort and a good upbringi
ng. It is those novels you read which lead you to sentimental thoughts of a mother’s love.”
“It is mine own inclination, sir,” said Penelope tartly, “which leads me to ideas of motherly love. I am convinced I should be quite a doting mother. But as I am not likely to put it to the test, I shall be unable to offer you any proof.”
“Miss Mortimer, with your face and figure, not to mention my mother’s patronage, you will be married before the end of the Season.”
“Not I,” she said calmly. “My mind is quite made up. Her Grace wishes to produce me at the Season because she considers my looks of a high order. She wishes to compete with her friends.”
“You are too harsh,” said Lord Andrew. “You are not the first young miss my parent has sponsored. Certainly the prettiest, but by no means the first. She enjoys helping people in trouble.”
“Highly commendable. Did Her Grace have a protégé last Season?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about her. Was she a success? Did she marry and live happily ever after?”
Again he looked at her sharply, for there had been, he was sure, a definite hint of mockery in her voice, but she turned her beautiful vague eyes to his and gave him a sweet smile.
“No,” he said. “She was a Miss Thornton, a cousin of mine four times removed. Very little dowry and previously accustomed to a modest style of life. She was plain and rather silly. She did not ‘take.’”
“Oh, poor Miss Thornton.”
“I would not pity her. She had a great many airs and graces before the Season was over and bullied the Park Street servants quite dreadfully. Mother sent her packing.”
“At the end of the Season?”
“No, before then. I do not wish to discuss the matter any further.”
Lord Andrew remembered the obnoxious Miss Thornton, whose silly head had been quite turned by the duchess’s favors. She was allowed to do as she pleased, to eat chocolates and read novels most of the day, and to go to balls and parties for most of the night. But the unlovely creature had been an object of pity on the day the duchess became tired of her. He wondered how long it would be before his mother tired of Miss Mortimer.
It took longer to get to the Tower of London than he had expected, for no sooner had Miss Mortimer seen the bulk of St. Paul’s than she demanded to be taken inside. He himself had privately long considered the famous cathedral a depressing barn of a place, but Miss Mortimer dutifully went over it all.
When they left, he suggested they should return home and see the Tower on another day, but Penelope apologized so prettily for having wasted so much time and said that the Tower was so very close that he finally capitulated.
The menagerie was as smelly and depressing as he remembered it to be. He walked away a little and left Penelope to examine the cages.
The cages were not very big, and so Penelope could only dimly make out the animal shapes inside. She was wildly disappointed. She had left her spectacles at home, but even if she had brought them, the stern social laws would have prevented her from putting them on. Then she remembered the quizzing glass the duchess had given her. She put it to one eye, and a lion sprang into view.
A careless keeper who had just fed the animals had left the door of the lion’s cage open. Penelope walked closer and closer, assuming that the closeness of the animal was due to the strong magnification of the glass.
The lion opened its cavernous mouth and let out a warning rumble. But Penelope, with one eye screwed shut and the glass at the other, did not realize she had walked into the cage, and thought herself still on the safe side of the bars.
And that was the interesting scene which met Lord Andrew’s horrified gaze when he turned around.
There was dainty little Miss Mortimer standing over a large lion, holding a quizzing glass, and calmly looking down its throat.
The day had become hazy and golden. The little tableau looked unreal. But he hesitated only a moment.
He was frightened to make a sudden movement for fear of startling the animal, and frightened to call for the keeper, knowing the resultant shouts and screams might make the lion spring.
He walked slowly into the cage, inching toward Penelope.
“Miss Mortimer,” he said in a quiet voice, “do not move suddenly or scream, no matter what happens.”
The lion gave a full-throated roar. Penelope dropped her quizzing glass in fright and realized the lion was right at her feet, for that animal blur of hair and teeth must be the lion.
Lord Andrew put a strong arm around her waist, lifted her up in his arms, and began to back away. The lion, made sleepy by food, began to follow them slowly.
“Good God,” muttered Lord Andrew. “The beast is going to follow us across London.”
A startled cry from the keeper at the other end of the row of cages nearly made him drop Penelope. He darted backwards to safety and slammed the door of the cage shut.
“What were you doin’ of?” demanded the red-faced keeper, coming up to them. “Them hanimals ain’t for playin’ with. You Peep-o-Day boys is all the same.”
“It is your own cursed carelessness in leaving the cage door open which has brought about this folly,” said Lord Andrew.
He turned and marched away with Penelope still in his arms.
“You can put me down now,” said Penelope.
He set her on her feet and glared down at her. “How could you be so stupid?” he raged. “What possessed you? Why walk straight into the lion’s cage?”
It somehow did not dawn on him that Penelope was longsighted. Practically every member of the ton carried a quizzing glass. The use of it was an art in itself. Many of them were made of plain glass.
Penelope opened her mouth to confess to her longsightedness. But her mother and father had considered it a terrible defect in a lady and had trained her to conceal it on all occasions and never to be seen with spectacles on. She had not troubled to keep up their standards after her father died, but all the stories she had heard of gentlemen taking an acute dislike to longsighted ladies came back into her mind. Normally sensible, Penelope was made silly by a sudden desire not to appear ugly in Lord Andrew’s eyes.
“I am sorry,” she said, hanging her head. “I have never seen a lion before, and I was so fascinated, I just kept walking closer and closer.”
“If you ladies would stop playing around with those silly quizzing glasses, you might see where you are going,” said Lord Andrew, glaring at the top of her bent head.
“I have apologized,” said Penelope huffily. “The least you can do is accept the apology.”
“Very well,” he said. “Now may I take you home before you get up to any more mischief?”
Penelope tried to start up a conversation on the road back, but Lord Andrew only replied in monosyllables, and at last she fell silent. Lord Andrew was rapidly coming to the conclusion that Miss Mortimer was a trifle simple. He wondered whether she was a result of inbreeding. The fright he had received on seeing her peering down the lion’s throat was still with him, and he blamed her bitterly for that fright.
When they arrived in Park Street, he made Penelope a stiff bow and went in search of his mother. She was in the drawing room, studying fashion plates and swatches of cloth.
“Oh, Andrew, you are back,” said the duchess amiably. “Tell me what you think of this pink muslin for Miss Mortimer. White is so insipid.”
“Mama,” he said patiently, “do not concern yourself further with choosing a wardrobe for Miss Mortimer. She is leaving.” He crisply outlined the events of the afternoon. The duchess had deliberately put Penelope’s longsightedness out of her mind. There should be no flaw in her latest interest.
“I am sure you exaggerate,” she said mildly, and fell to studying the pages of the fashion magazine on her lap.
He took the magazine away from her and sat down opposite. “You must be guided by me,” he said seriously. “I agree that Miss Mortimer is vastly pretty. But she is not of our rank. She is only the
daughter of a country squire and cannot hope to marry above her station. She is alarmingly lacking in wit.”
The duchess’s well-corseted bosom swelled dangerously. “She is not going anywhere,” she said harshly. “Go away, and do not trouble me on this matter again.”
“Mama…”
“You don’t love me,” cried the duchess. “You never have! You never have had the least spark of feeling. You do not stay here out of any filial warmth but because it suits your pocket not to have an establishment of your own. Ah, your indifference strikes sharp knives into my maternal bosom!”
Lord Andrew turned red. “There has never been any closeness between us,” he said. “I barely know my parents, and it is not of my doing.”
The duchess held a vinaigrette to her nose and took a noisy sniff at its contents.
“It was all your own doing, not mine, Andrew. All your love was for that tutor of yours, Blackwell.”
“May I point out that when Mr. Blackwell wrote to you from Oxford University and suggested I spend a year at home before going on the Grand Tour, you wrote in reply you could not be troubled.”
“That’s right, it’s all my fault!” screamed the duchess. “You unnatural and unfeeling child. Oh, my heart.” She slapped her hand somewhere in the region of her heart, and her corsets let out a creak of protest. She swayed in her chair. “Water,” she whispered.
Thoroughly alarmed, Lord Andrew rang the bell, and when Perkins, the maid, promptly answered it, he told her to see to her mistress.
“Tell him to go away,” moaned the duchess faintly. Perkins looked helplessly at Lord Andrew, who hesitated only a moment before leaving the room.
When the door closed behind him, the duchess straightened up and said briskly, “Do not fuss, Perkins. Go and fetch Miss Mortimer. I wish to show her this vastly fetching creation of pink muslin with gold frogs.”
Chapter 3
The sad fact was that Miss Ann Worthy was in the same state as a schoolboy who, having strained every brain cell to pass a difficult exam, and having succeeded, abandons all further academic effort.
