But he merely shook a finger at me and laughed again, too delighted with his plan of marriage for money and mayhem on the side for his pleasures.
It is, he assures me, quite how things are done.
* * * *
Excerpt from “His Lordship's Trousers” (censored)
Printed in The Gentleman's Weekly, July 1817
This morning's attire: Kerseymere pantaloons cut to hug the leg. And a slapped scarlet face.
Dear reader, much has occurred since last I wrote. It would seem the young lady about to be "finished" by an academy here in town, accidentally came upon her beloved betrothed— my master— in a state of flagrante delicto with his favored inflictor of pain, Lady Loose Garters.
This unhappy circumstance did not go well for his lordship, as one might imagine. It proceeded downhill at a rapid pace, when Lady Loose Garters learned from this "innocent" miss that his lordship is soon to be wed.
It seems neither lady was so willing to share as his lordship had planned.
Now, at the center of this debate, he did not know which way to turn and thus received a prolonged and well-deserved slapping from all directions. With his arms bound in their usual fashion by his liveliest paramour, my master was powerless to fight back.
Although he claims he called out for me— in some urgency— I did not hear anything other than a shriek from some drunkard I presumed to be stumbling by in the street below. By the time I had put my book aside and left the comfort of my fire to seek out the cause of the ruckus, both ladies were leaving and I discovered his lordship still bound to his bed, utterly bereft of hair again. All of it, this time.
Lady Loose Garters had put her hot wax to liberal use, aided, I suspect by the young lady to whom my master was engaged.
So my master is now as bald as a babe and just as wrathful as one whose teeth have yet to emerge from its smarting gums.
You will know him if you should see him.
Will he make amends first to his lover, or to his betrothed? How shall this be resolved?
One thing is certain, his lordship will require a cooling compress and a loose pair of galligaskins for quite some time.
* * * *
Harry looked up from the paper. "It would seem, Miss Hathaway, as if your father has decided to publish and be damned."
"Henry!" his aunt admonished, "Language!"
He laughed. "My dear Aunt, it is a very good thing you will never have cause to venture onto the deck of a ship."
"But I should soon have the crew in good order and the decks polished."
"Swabbed, madam. The decks are swabbed. That is the term. If they were polished we'd all be swept overboard at the first rough seas."
"You knew very well what I meant, Henry."
While they argued, Georgiana jumped out of her chair and ran around to read over his shoulder. Thank goodness her father had not succumbed to the Viscount's threats— had there been any. Where Lady Bramley had come by her rumor was anybody's guess and she could not seem to remember the origins of it herself.
But later that same day they had a surprise visitor at Woodbyne Abbey. And she came to see Georgiana.
* * * *
Mrs. Lightbody stood in the drawing room in her best hat and coat, her face twitching with anger before she even spoke. Her flushed demeanor suggested she had bolstered her spirits with gin prior to arrival.
"I hope you're happy now, Miss Sharp-Mouth Hathaway. I've had to drag myself all this way to see to this business."
"Business, madam?" Her first thought was that that headmistress had come to check on her progress with Lady Bramley. This, however, was not the case.
"I want that book back." Mrs. Lightbody held out her gloved hand. "At once, if you please."
"Book? I do not understand, madam."
"Oh yes, you do. I might have known it was you that took it. Didn't know it was missing for quite a while and then I thought I must just have mislaid it. But now I know what became of it. You've been creating mischief with it, haven't you? Using your father's paper. Who else would be behind that newspaper column."
"I'm sorry, madam. I am still—"
"Viscount Fairbanks brought it to my attention when he first read the piece. Certain details made him suspicious. He accused me of taking his secrets to the paper, but it was you who stole that book out of my parlor, was it not? Oh, I put it all together when I realized whose paper it all came out in. Now hand it over, or the Viscount can make things very difficult for your father. And for you."
Georgiana folded her hands together calmly. "Mrs. Lightbody, nothing in that column is meant to identify any particular person. It is a satire. I know this, because I know the author."
"Of course you do, brat. It's you, isn't it? I'm not slow in the brain, whatever you think."
"If Viscount Fairbanks sees himself in some way within that story, perhaps it is his own guilty conscience."
"Don't think you can get away with this, Missy. I've known him a long time, and he's a very powerful man."
"So I keep hearing. If that is true why is he so bothered by one little newspaper story?"
"He told me you're already on his bad side. Do you really want to make it worse?"
"I won't be threatened, madam. If there is nothing else, you must excuse me as I am busy packing my trunk to go home."
"Sick of you here already, are they? I thought it wouldn't take long for her fine and fancy ladyship to give up. That meddling old cow should have listened to me. Ever since she wheedled her way onto the school board she's been looking over my shoulder at every turn."
Georgiana spun around, heading for the door, but the other woman shouted at her,
"Don't you show your back to me, Miss Hathaway. We can ruin you and any prospect you might have for the future. We can bankrupt your father."
"We?"
"That's right." The woman looked smug. "The Viscount and me are very old, very dear friends, like I said. If you don't give me that book back, be aware that you defy not only me, but him too."
"But it's not your book, is it?" She knew it was not written in Mrs. Lightbody's hand.
"It happened to come into my possession years ago when the owner died suddenly. It's certainly not yours, girl."
"If the Viscount sent you here to get that book back, how did he know about it?"
"That's none of your concern. Hand it over, you wretched little bitch, or I'll—"
A low growl stopped them both.
"Mrs. Lightbody!" Lady Bramley stood in the open doorway that led out to the terrace, her dog under one arm. Neither Georgiana nor her accuser had heard steps approaching, but she had been there long enough to hear plenty. "What can be the meaning of this? How dare you speak in such a manner to this young lady?"
The headmistress was apparently at the end of her tether, too far out by now to reel her temper back in. "Young lady, indeed. She's a rotten apple, a troublemaker, a wicked creature who cannot be trusted. And a thief, what's more!"
"And I, according to you, am a meddling old cow, who wheedled my way onto the school board." Her dog bared his teeth and growled again.
Mrs. Lightbody had nothing to say in her defense, of course. The words had been said and heard. Her eyes turned black with fury, her lips trembling.
Lady Bramley came into the room. "It seems my predecessor on the school board hired you under some false impression of your suitability, but I have lately come to realize that changes are overdue."
"Changes? What changes?"
"I suggest, Mrs. Lightbody, that you go back to the school, pack your things and leave the premises immediately. I entrusted you to manage those students, and I see now that I should have been more vigilant."
"You wouldn't dare cast me off."
"Oh, but I would. And I shall. Good day to you, Mrs. Lightbody. Your services are no longer required, by this meddling old cow."
"That school will be ruined without me to run it. And you cannot send me off without the rest of the board's agre
ement."
"I can assure you they will not want to keep you when I have spoken to them. Viscount Fairbanks is not the only soul with power in Mayfair. Good day, Mrs. Lightbody."
Grumbling wildly, the woman marched out, shoving past Georgiana with another curse.
Through the open door into the hall, they watched as the former headmistress encountered Mrs. Swanley, who happened to be on her way to the drawing room. Both women stopped sharply. The raging color drained from Mrs. Lightbody's face. The other lady feigned shock.
"Fancy seeing you here, Salome. I thought you were dead. Or in the Fleet."
The visitor said nothing, but held her head up, her hat slipping part way off her head, and quickened her exit without looking back.
* * * *
Georgiana said her own goodbyes the next day. She left early, when only Harry and his aunt were up to see her off.
"You must write, my dear," said Lady Bramley, "and let me know how you get on at home."
"I shall, your ladyship," she replied, scratching the little dog behind its ears. "Take care, Horatio, and do not chase any more geese. Or lady's ankles."
Then there was only Harry left.
With her heart in her throat she thanked him and said she hoped her presence had not been too great a nuisance.
"Not too great," he agreed solemnly.
He said nothing about her writing to him.
"Good luck with your automated woman, sir. I wished I could have seen her working."
"Alas, she is being very difficult to put together. I cannot seem to get her parts in order. I fear that she will always be contrary and defy me. As you warned me once."
"I did not say that. I said she might turn out to be less than perfect. Like a real woman, she might disappoint you. It does not mean she seeks deliberately to defy you."
"Hmm." He looked down at her, his eyes warm, questioning. "I'll survive the disappointment, somehow. Make the best of it."
"We Hathaways don't believe in only making the best of things. We don't believe in settling. We are a restless bunch and always want more than that to which some think we are entitled."
He slowly took her hand to his lips and kissed it. "Yes. So I see. I wish you every good fortune in your adventures, Georgiana."
As she stepped into the carriage and he closed the door for her, his eyes narrowed and he murmured very softly, so that only she would hear, "I suppose, just as I tried to create a female to my specifications, you created a man to yours."
"How so?"
"I had my woman I could control as I required, and you have your strangely charismatic lord rake and his many trousers."
Georgiana bit her lip and winced. "You make it sound as if I am fond of him. He is a dreadful scoundrel without morals of any kind."
"Yet you control his every move with your pen." He smirked. "And you enjoy his wickedness tremendously."
There was one last look and then the carriage jolted forward.
One hand gripping the edge of the sash window she leaned out a little, his name poised on her lips.
But he already walked away with his long stride, his back to her and his boots crunching on the gravel as the horses pulled her carriage away from the steps of Woodbyne Abbey. What would she have said anyway?
She was going home.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Allerton Square
August 1817
Her stepmother spent most of the day in her bed, although she was still five months away from birthing her child. Apparently taking care of her other children and running the household was too much for her delicate health, and so she reclined in that sort of graceful disarray that some women managed to perfection. Mr. Hathaway fussed over her as if she was a china doll, although there was nothing fragile about his wife other than her nerves and her tolerance for noise. Which was a pity since she'd married a man with so many children already.
Meanwhile the twin daughters of their union, Cassie and Isabella, just two years of age, gave Georgiana plenty to keep her busy. Surely she was never so naughty a child, she complained to her father, who merely shook his head and briefly looked at her over his spectacles to assure her she was doing an excellent job.
Her younger brothers had all grown up in the time she'd spent away. Thomas and Jonathan were merely boys when she was sent off to school, but in the two years and three quarters since, they had become young men. Little Nicholas, now eight, was still a child, however. She would always think of him as the baby of the family, no matter how many children their stepmother produced. Nicholas had ruddy cheeks, golden curls and the wide, blue eyes of an angel— although that was deceptive. Perhaps it was because he was so young when their mother died, but Georgiana had always treated him as if he was her child.
She feared that during her time away he would have forgotten her, but he did not. As soon as she arrived home and before she could remove her coat, he ran to her legs and clung to them, much to the disgust of his brothers.
Soon she was caught up again in the life of her family. It was apparent that she had been missed, more so than she could have expected. Everybody had something they needed from her or had desperately to tell her about. There was little time to think about her days at Woodbyne, except at night, when she lay in her narrow bed and listened to her brothers quarrelling in the next room, or her little stepsisters squealing for attention across the hall.
The maid told her one morning that her father had received a letter from Viscount Fairbanks, and that he took it directly to his library. If he was worried about anything the letter contained, he gave no sign when she saw him later, but then her father had always been a stoic gentleman.
Georgiana sought him out in his library after the children were put to bed that evening, and confessed that she was the author of His Lordship's Trousers. May as well get it over with, she thought.
For a long moment he simply stared at her, but when she, thinking he might not have heard, began to repeat her statement, he held up his hand for silence.
"My daughter has penned this story of scandal?"
"Yes, papa. I wanted to show you that I can write."
He dropped to his chair. "And where...might I ask...do you come by your dreadful ideas?"
"Mostly from my imagination, although I have had some inspiration for the character of Lady Loose Garters, from this book." She showed him the slender volume she'd found behind Mrs. Lightbody's bookcase. "It seems to be a series of brief notes taken by a courtesan. Notations about her various lovers...likes and dislikes, their...attributes and measurements and such." She cleared her throat as he took it from her and leafed through it, his eyes gradually widening in horror. "When I first discovered it, I did not think they were real people. I suppose I should have realized, but I kept my own details general enough so that nobody might be identified. As you see, the author of the book uses no names herself, only what may be initials."
"Where did you find this book?"
She told him and then explained that Mrs. Lightbody had come to find her at Woodbyne, demanding the return of it.
"You should never have taken it, Georgiana," he said sternly. "This does not belong to you.
"But, papa, I have reason to believe that Mrs. Lightbody has been using the notes in this book for blackmail."
"Blackmail? That is a heavy accusation, daughter."
"There is no reason why that school, under her leadership, should continue to receive new pupils, when anybody leaving the place would never want to send their daughters there."
"Georgiana, just because your experience at the school was not—"
"I recently learned that her true background is nothing like the one she pretends to have known, and I believe she knows the identity of some of these men whose fancies and foibles are described in that book. She is exactly the sort of woman who would use that information to her advantage and hold it over their heads."
But her father took off his spectacles to polish them— an old gesture she remembered as
one which meant she was about to be dismissed from his library.
"How is it that you learned about her school, papa? Who recommended it to you?" she demanded.
He squinted up at her. "Why, my wife suggested a school for you."
"Yes, but who came up with Mrs. Lightbody's establishment?"
After a pause, he muttered, "Viscount Fairbanks. When I told him of my intention to send you away, he suggested that place."
"Of course." She was triumphant, but her father still refused to see the connection. He put his glasses back on and prepared to stand, which would mean their conversation was over.
In desperation, she cried, "I also believe she arranged forced marriages for some of her pupils. I know of at least two girls my age— girls who had inherited large dowries— who were seduced while they were still in her ‘care’. Now they are married to men who were in gambling debt, or needed a fortune to restore their family homes."
His dismissed that concern easily. "But that sort of arrangement happens all the time."
"Without the girl's parents approving of a courtship, until her ruined state is known to them and Mrs. Lightbody threatens to expose the poor girl's condition and cast her out of school?"
Her father now looked at the little books again, turning it over in his hands. He sank back to his seat, her dismissal postponed for now. "But how do you know this was her doing? That she arranged it?"
"If you knew her, papa, you would see how she is capable of any method to secure her own comforts. She has no interest in her pupils, other than their monetary worth, and she wants very badly to move herself up in society. The information in that book has given her access to the secrets of many gentleman of the upper crust. It has made a bitter woman privy to the intimate details of a social class to which she yearns to belong. Can you imagine what such a person would do with that power?"
"Yes, you have a great imagination, daughter, but this is all conjecture. One cannot make such an accusation without certain proof."
Her frustration mounted, but she kept her temper. "She boasted to me of her long relationship with Viscount Fairbanks and eluded to the fact that he sent her to get the book back from me. Why would it be so important if it was all nothing? This book is their lightning rod, papa. It is the root of all their evil power."
The Trouble with His Lordship’s Trousers Page 26
