‘You must know that I at least will believe no evil of such an innocent as Miss Oldfield.’
‘Of course not! I have reason to know how rumour can spread like wildfire, destroying a girl’s reputation! And Jenny told me a little of her tale — she has no family in town except old Lady Ellingham. She reminds me a little of my sister Serena, whose ability to get into scrapes was legendary. I dreaded her first season and what damage her impulsiveness could land her in, but fortunately she was engaged to Rowley Allison by then and his reputation saved hers.’
‘I met your sister once, she rejected a royal duke for a dance, saying she had just accepted me.’
‘That sounds like her. A faradiddle?’
‘Yes, we were only chatting before a supper table. And that dance was a cotillion which I had already promised to Miss Timponey. She has cut me dead ever since.’
‘I acquit Miss Oldfield of Serena’s manipulative powers.’
‘Yes, but I can quite see that her open nature could get her into some scrapes. Our dancing set on the balcony with the Sparkles and Markles was not quite the thing. It was only made decent in that Lady Sumner was chaperon.’
‘Isn’t that ridiculous?’ said Benedict. ‘As ridiculous as the cap to make her look older.’
‘Miss Oldfield said it was to keep her hair neat.’
Benedict smiled reminiscently. ‘Her hair does have a mind of its own. It even ejects her bonnets sometimes when she rides. The number of times I have had to ride back in search of a bonnet—’
Lt Sloane was surprised to see his friend smile quite genuinely. For a long time now, Benedict’s bright smile had been gone with those they had lost on the battlefield. He smiled in politeness of course, but it was not the smile of the merry new officer Sloane had once known. He, Sloane, might have the obvious wound in his leg, but Benedict’s scars ran just as deep.
‘But Sam, whatever happens, we must not abandon Miss Oldfield to her fate at the hands of those two spiteful cats tonight.’
‘If there is anything to be done, we shall do it.’
‘We’ll take direction from my Uncle Wilbert, once all is known — and we can trust Lady Aurora to get the tale from the girl. And my uncle is a knowing ‘un. He’ll know what to do.’
Lieutenant Sloane and the young Captain Fenton talked of this most serious situation into the night. Benedict Fenton had the happy idea of summoning his mother to town, as part of an attempt to give Miss Oldfield some countenance, but that lady was coping with a break out of influenza amongst the youngest children and could not well leave them. It had been a good idea, though, said Sloane, for perhaps if enough well-placed members of society could be seen to befriend and support Miss Oldfield, the rumour mill might be turned on someone else. It could never erase the shadow of a stain, of course, but it would ease the situation.
Benedict asked if Sloane’s mother might be enlisted but he said no, his mother was one of the highest sticklers in the ton, intimate of crotchety old Viscountess Swanson, and would be more likely to tar and feather any young lady who even granted a third dance to a suitor never mind supporting a girl she did not know who had been accused of such indiscretion. ‘Even if she were in town at present, which she is not.’
Sloane suggested a list of friends and intimates who could be depended on for support. But it was tricky. It may spread the story even further, and young men raising the idea of saving a young lady’s reputation could be suggestive of itself.
‘Damn rumours. It upset everyone. Did you see Lady Sumner’s face? I know she somehow blames herself for the occurrence. I would not see her so hurt for the world.’
Sloane thought this a strange diversion from the point, but as the port was finished and nothing more sensible was likely to come from either of them tonight, they agreed to sleep.
‘For we will know more in the morning. I would not ask Miss Oldfield, of course, but she will have told my uncle all by morning. Then we will know better what we deal with.’
‘If it is as it sounds, I might pay a visit to Lord Durant,’ said Benedict fiercely.
‘And get yourself killed in a duel?’ Sloane protested. ‘I have seen him shoot.’
‘It is strange, is it not, that we only just met Miss Oldfield hours ago, and yet it seems like a long time.’
‘Yes, but she and Lady Sumner are such game girls, are they not?’
‘They are. Let’s sleep on it.’
But Lt Sloane did not sleep right away. Perhaps there was a way to help the nicest young lady he had met in a twelvemonth. He could not tell Benedict, for fear of being dissuaded, but he would leave a note explaining himself in the morning.
In another coach, with a handsome crest on the side, Sebastian Durant was looking at the beautiful profile of his cousin, the curled plume on her coiffure dancing with the motion of the coach. She was affecting superior indifference, but beneath it, Durant could see the fear. This worried him as an accustomed grand sulk could not. He had removed her from the ballroom by whispering in her ear that he would drag her from it.
‘What have you done?’
‘I do not know—’ she said, in an assumed tone of outrage, still turned from him.
‘Yes you do Letitia, and if you do not tell me, I swear I will do what I should have done sooner and take my crop to your rear.’
‘If you are going to use such cant expressions—’
‘I can see that you have awakened from whatever evil self-interest has led you to do, I can see that you might even regret it.’
Letitia’s eyes dropped and she rung her hands.
‘I have nothing to regret—’
‘I’m warning you—’
She cringed. ‘Well, I was so shocked to see that girl tonight — the Hans Place girl that you, you, Durant, assured me I would never see again — and at the Duchess of Telford’s Ball of all places, that I may have been surprised into letting slip something—’
‘What?’
‘—something injurious to her good character.’ She met his eye for a terrible moment while his jaw worked grimly. ‘She may have made me look ridiculous, if she were to tell the tale of that day — I could not allow—’
‘Stop. What did you say?’
‘I found her clasping the hand of some young gentlemen on the terrace,’ Durant frowned, ‘and I said — I said—’
‘What?’
‘I said that such behaviour was consistent with what I knew about her. That the last time I saw her she drove away with — with you on her own.’
There was a dreadful pause. Durant’s face of stunned fury could not be endured, so Letitia looked away.
‘So, because she might — might I say — make you look ridiculous for a moment or two, you destroy her.’
Lady Letitia took recourse in tears. ‘It was true after all, I uttered no falsehood.’
Durant leaned forward and pulled her hands from her face brusquely. The tears stopped abruptly.
‘And you repeated this slur—’ Letitia started at the word, ‘in the ballroom?’
‘I did not. Only on the terrace.’ She tipped her chin. ‘Miss Oldfield is beneath my notice.’
‘On the terrace. Who was present?’
‘I have no idea…,’ she began. Durant’s eyes drove her forward. ‘Not many people. There were three others with her.’
‘Knowing you, you would not have had the courage to speak whilst she was with friends if you were not also accompanied by someone.’
She rouged, and made a small sound, but ended by saying only, ‘My friend, Miss Jane Friel.’
‘I am not acquainted with her, but if she is an intimate of yours that speaks volumes.’
His usual contempt was replaced by an acidic disgust that started silent tears in her eyes.
‘Who else?’
‘I believe the lady in the cap was Lord Sumner’s widow.’
‘So Miss Oldfield was, in fact, chaperoned? You even told me a tale of hand-clasping to blight that young lady’s name.
’
‘I did not lie. I saw it.’
‘Who else?’
‘Two young gentlemen. I believe Lady Sumner named one Sloane and the other, Miss Friel informed me, is a nephew of Mr Fenton.’
The coach stopped, but Durant waved away the groom who came to open the door. ‘They at least will not talk. No one else?’
‘No. At least, Lady Aurora Fenton arrived before I left the terrace.’ She blushed, and Durant noticed, but put it aside until later. He was focused on the story of Miss Oldfield. ‘When Miss Oldfield left the ball, did anyone remark it to you?’
‘Yes, but I said nothing.’
‘Of course, and I can imagine your manner as you did so, only fuelling the fire.’
‘You following her was not my fault.’
‘I would not, if I had any notion I was making things worse.’ Durant looked at her with such contempt that she could hardly meet his gaze. ‘You left your friend to spread your evil.’
‘Bastian!’ she cried, using her childhood name for him and weeping once more.
‘Stop. I am uninterested in either your grief or remorse, if you have any beyond your shamming ways. I am only interested in you doing your level best to end this dreadful wrong you have done a girl with no family to protect her. You will write to your — friend — Miss Friel and instruct her to close her mouth on the subject of Miss Oldfield. You will let her know that if she does not do so, she will be made very sorry. By me. You will explain to her that your words gave the wrong impression of an innocent event and that you deeply regret them. And henceforth, if anyone should quiz you on the subject of Miss Oldfield, you will comment on how charming she is how much you wish to be her friend. I had determined to keep you in the house—’
‘You could not! You have no right!’
‘Rights or not, you must know I could. But now, I have a better notion. You will do everything to give lie to the rumours of what you said.’
‘I cannot! Jane would look a fool—’
‘I am quite able to sacrifice your friend. Indeed I relish it.’
‘—and anyway, it would not work.’
‘Because?’
‘Because of what else I said,’ she wept.
Durant jumped from the coach and dragged his cousin unceremoniously behind him. ‘I cannot listen to more without the fortification of brandy. Get inside. And don’t squeak or I may murder you.’
Chapter 7
The Aftermath
In Grosvenor Square, Lady Aurora would have sent Felicity to bed with a sleeping draught, so shaken and distressed was she, but Mr Fenton stopped her. ‘I’m sorry my dear, but things are apt to go so quickly that we must find out what happened.’
‘Let her go, do,’ said Lady Sumner, drawing off her gloves. ‘I can let you know what vile words were spoken, Felicity is too exhausted.’
‘Yes, Genevieve, you can talk to tonight’s scandal, but not of what is behind it.’ He moved forward to take Felicity’s shoulders in his hands. ‘My dear, we must act swiftly if we are to quell this thing.’
She looked at him, ‘I’m afraid there is no quelling. Even I know it is too late.’
Wilbert Fenton, took a step nearer still. He put a finger beneath Felicity’s chin and raised it again, ‘Genevieve will relate Lady Letitia’s part but I wish you to stay and to tell me — you know what.’
‘The first abduction sir? I suppose there is no dishonour in telling you now.’
It was swiftly done and further enraged Lady Sumner. ‘If that isn’t just like a man, using a young girl with no thought of her reputation, only for a purpose of his own.’
‘At least we can acquit him of the worst of purposes,’ said Mr Wilbert Fenton cynically.
‘Oh yes!’ said Felicity, not pretending to misunderstand, ‘I don’t suppose he looked at me at all. I was surprised that he remembered me this evening, though he did not know my name, even.’
‘What made you admit to it? Why not stay silent?’ said Genevieve, bemused.
‘I wanted to be fair to Lady Letitia; she was not lying, after all.’
Lady Aurora had tears in her eyes. ‘You did not wish to be unfair to her…’
‘We should get her to bed,’ said Genevieve, ‘she is near to falling down.’
‘Administer her a draught, will you? She may otherwise awake in the night.’
The two younger ladies left the room, Lady Sumner supporting her friend.
Aurora went into her husband’s open arms, her face hidden in his coat. If his valet, Pierre, could see the ladies’ ill-usage of the cloth this evening, he would curse in French for a week.
‘We must help her, but how?’ she said, ‘First she must go back to her aunt’s.’
‘Why on earth—?’
‘Lady Letitia used my past too, it only serves to make my dear girl’s reputation even shadier to be staying with me.’
‘What did that young witch say to you, my love?’
‘It is all one. It was true. I cannot add to Felicity’s respectability at this time. I must lose her for her own good.’
‘To make any changes can only give validation to the nonsense. We must carry on as near to normal as is possible. Chin up, my one love, it is not like you to give way to bullies.’
‘I know. It means nothing to me. But, oh Wilbert, I did so want to do the girl good, and now I am part of her problem.’
He clasped her to him, thinking that if Lady Letitia Fortescue were here at the moment, he would shake her until she begged his wonderful wife’s forgiveness. On her knees. He took his lady’s arm and led her upstairs. When they had reached almost to the top she said, ‘The Prince! Surely you, who know him so well, could get the Regent to ride with Felicity in the park or dance with her—? Royal approval—’
‘If Felicity is seen riding in the park with Prinny, we seal her fate. If anyone can destroy a woman’s reputation in an instant, it is our future king.’
She laughed a little at her own absurdity, and let him lead her to bed.
Felicity’s tears were copious, but as silent as she could manage. She tried hard to be practical. This horrendous evening was at an end, of course. Everything had changed drastically, there was nothing to be done about that, though she knew her kind Lady Aurora and Mr Fenton would be hard at work trying. Lady Sumner, too. How lucky she was to have had such friends, who had never once questioned her morality even though she had admitted that Lady Letitia did not lie. This had been such a wonderful time and she would have done anything to stop any distress or shame that had come the way of the Fentons through her.
She could hardly have accepted such generosity if she had not known that she gave pleasure too. Lady Aurora had most definitely enjoyed extending her genius for style to the wardrobes of her and Lady Sumner. And Felicity knew that the bills at least fell to her aunt. Beneath the ancient bonnet and the dismissive manner, her Aunt Ellingham hid generosity which Felicity was truly grateful for, even while her aunt ignored her. It allowed her to stay here and be spoilt by the loveliest couple in the world who she was undutiful to wish really had been her parents.
She thought of the concern that Lord Durant had shown for her, and could not even blame him for this. She could and should have resisted him at the inn, though it was difficult to have seen how at the time. But there was in her that spirit of adventure that had precluded her from shouting for the landlord and re-joining the stagecoach. She could have, and another girl such as Amity or Charity, for example, would have. She was weak, and she prayed for forgiveness. As a regular of balls and dancing parties now, where she’d had to escape a gentleman’s desire for a hidden nook, or a too firm hand at her waist in the waltz, besides having the frank discourse of the Misses Althorpe and Carter-Phipps, she had a fair idea of what might have happened by driving off with a man alone. Perhaps she had even been attracted to Durant, and that had weakened her sense of right and wrong. He was certainly the best specimen of manliness she had ever met. And remained so. She even admired his resou
rcefulness in achieving his desire to buy the house and outwit his spoilt cousin.
He’d had no thought of her reputation, it was true, but he could have had no idea he would meet her again in the exalted circles he himself inhabited. When she thought of her old hat and pelisse, in comparison to her new wardrobe, then if he’d thought she was a serving wench travelling to a new position, Felicity would not have been surprised. But no, he had expected her to assume the air of Lady Letitia, and he could not have expected that of a maidservant. Indeed, he’d guessed her as a governess — no one his cousin or he were likely to be troubled with again.
And yet, when he had unexpectedly encountered her in distress, he was gentleman enough to recognise her, to want to help her. That this helped his cousin’s insinuations, he could not know. He’d looked more handsome in his evening dress, and he had regarded her so kindly with his dark eyes, that she had been moved.
Durant should not be what she thought of now, but her friends. She would simply get dressed and leave, seeking her fortune elsewhere. But of course she could not. Lady Aurora would suffer not to know where she was, and Mr Fenton, too, perhaps. She would not be so ungrateful.
She supposed that the hideous falling feeling in the pit of her stomach would end along with the hot fire of humiliation. But she had the advantage of the others in this house. They had expected a result from this season, but she never had. They wanted a happy marriage for her, but she had never aimed so high. This season was but an idyll before reality. A reality that many a young gentlewoman shared with her, like poor Miss Fleet. She must earn her way. She swallowed hard to realise that she could not now hope for a position in London, by referral from Lady Aurora, as had been her best outcome. No one would employ a governess whose reputation was not stainless. And however ill-qualified she was for that, there was no other occupation available to a women of her class. But she had to find something. She knew Lady Aurora’s large spirit too well to suppose she could support the thought of Felicity hungry and afraid, at loose in the world. So strange to think that her own sisters would hardly spare her a thought in a similar situation. So she must think and plan and find work — in a distant school for middle class young ladies perhaps, somewhere that the rumour of her disgrace had not reached.
Felicity and the Damaged Reputation: A witty, sweet Regency Romance Page 10
