Endearing Young Charms Series

by M. C. Beaton

  “I suppose I could do that….”

  “And if it is a really horrible situation,” Mr. Trump urged, “why, you can tell the lawyers to let Toad Basil have the lot. Serve him right.”

  A smile of relief lit up Lord Hunterdon’s handsome features. “What a clever lot you are, and you shall have your reward. Champagne, by the bucket!”

  A week later—a week of roistering, drinking deep, and gambling hard later—Viscount Hunterdon traveled in the direction of Trelawney Castle. Despite the fact that the hedges were thick and heavy with the leaves and flowers of summer—scarlet poppies, pink and white wild roses, purple and yellow vetch—he felt an odd sense of foreboding which after some thought he put down to indigestion.

  The hedges gradually fell back, and he found himself riding across wild heathland. He was driving his own traveling carriage laden down with all the comforts he considered might be necessary to smooth his short stay at the castle. The blue sky above became milky and then darkened to gray, and finally as he came in sight of Trelawney Castle, a threatening black lit with flashes of lightning.

  His coachman, who was sitting beside him on the box, crossed himself and said, “Looks like the lair of the devil himself.”

  And Trelawney Castle did look grim. It was not that it was a castle with battlements and turrets, although there must have been such a building there at one time to give it the name. Rather, it was a Gothic fright built during the eighteenth-century Gothic revival. It had spires and lancet windows and flying buttresses and gargoyles and was, the viscount decided, an architectural mess capable of inflicting damage on the aesthetic soul. He drove past an untenanted lodge through rusty iron gates and up a long, weedy drive bordered on either side by an unkempt jungle of undergrowth.

  As he swept the carriage around to stand in front of the main door, he noticed gloomily that all the windows were of stained glass and that the walls were covered in ivy. A flash of lightning struck down, and the horses plunged and reared and then came a tremendous clap of thunder. His servants, the coachman, two grooms, and his valet were all whimpering with terror.

  It was like a scene out of a Gothic romance, thought the viscount dismally. He wondered whether there were headless ghosts.

  “I hate this place already,” he said. “Don’t stand there squawking and shaking. It’s only a thunderstorm. Announce me!”

  A groom approached the door. There was a large brass knocker in the shape of a devil’s head. Another flash of lightning, which flickered over the brass door knocker and seemed to make it come to life, followed by another hellish peal of thunder, sent the terrified servant reeling back. The viscount had just climbed down from his carriage in time to receive the frantic embrace of his groom, who was babbling that the door knocker had grinned at him.

  “Now, Jiggs,” the viscount said, easing off his servant’s clutching hands. “You are overset. I will announce myself. Find the kitchens and have some warm ale. Nothing like warm ale for restoring the nerves.”

  He seized the door knocker and began to bang it heartily.

  The door creaked slowly open and a fat, white-faced butler stood there. He was completely bald.

  “Welcome home, master,” he said in a low, sepulchral voice.

  While his servants still crouched behind him, Lord Hunterdon strolled into the hall and looked around. It was fake baronial and in the worst of taste. He began to laugh, a merry, infectious laugh. He turned to his servants. “We have walked straight into the stage of the Haymarket Theatre, have we not, my boys? Enter ghost, stage right.”

  His servants began to laugh as well while the butler stood by, his fat features showing neither interest nor displeasure.

  “Welcome, my lord,” the butler said. “My name is Dredwort.” The viscount snickered. The butler went to the fireplace and tugged on a massive bell rope beside it. “The staff will wish to pay their respects, my lord.”

  The staff came filing into the gloomy hall and formed a line before the viscount. He walked down the line which started with the housekeeper and ended with the lamp boy. It was, however, not a large enough staff of servants for such a place, thought the viscount. The men’s livery was old-fashioned and threadbare and the women’s gowns were worn and darned.

  The viscount correctly judged from the poor livery and the state of the grounds that the late Mr. Courtney had been something of a miser.

  “And where are the Misses Amanda and Clarissa?” he asked.

  “They have retired for the night,” Dredwort said, “and beg to be excused.”

  “Well, I want to meet them,” the viscount snapped. “It ain’t that late. Fetch them here. May as well get it over with. Show me to some comfortable room and bring me brandy.”

  “Mr. Courtney always used the library in the evenings, and I have had a fire lit there.”

  “Hey, Dredwort, you ain’t going to turn out to be one of those pesky retainers who want everything to remain the same, I hope. Show the way.”

  The library was a gloomy place, the furniture heavy and Jacobean. A small fire burned in a cavernous fireplace big enough to roast an ox. “Not short of wood, are we?” the viscount demanded. “Throw a few trees in here, bring the brandy, and let me get my introduction to the girls over and done with.”

  The butler inclined his head and withdrew. The viscount paced up and down. He did not like Trelawney Castle, he did not like the gloomy atmosphere, and above all, he did not like this new feeling of responsibility.

  The door opened and he turned about. “Miss Amanda and Miss Clarissa,” Dredwort announced.

  The viscount looked at the twins, and the twins, holding hands, stared back. “Got a governess?” he asked.

  “No, my lord,” they chorused.

  The viscount crossed to a writing desk in the far corner. “Well, you’re getting one now.”

  Two days later, in an uncomfortable house situated at the end of a damp little village called Gunshott, sat Miss Jean Morrison, enjoying a moment’s peace from the hectoring sound of her aunt’s voice.

  Jean felt her young life had been governed by a succession of bullies. Her mother had died when Jean was very young. Her father, a colonel in a Scottish regiment, had sold out and returned to his mountain home to oversee the bringing up of his daughter. To that end he had hired a formidable governess and had given her free rein. The governess, Miss Tiggs, an Englishwoman, had bullied Jean unmercifully. When the colonel died a year before, Jean had sacked the governess with great pleasure, and, because she had hardly any money, had gone to live with an aunt in Edinburgh, in the hope that the aunt would bring her out at the Edinburgh assemblies and find her a husband. But the aunt, Mrs. Macleod, had wanted Jean only as a companion, and an overworked one at that. Finding she had jumped out of the frying pan into the fire, Jean had written to another aunt, Mrs. Delmar-Richardson in Dorset and begged asylum.

  To her delight, she received a courteous letter assuring her of a welcome. With some of the little money she had left, she had taken the long road south, dreaming of happiness. But Mrs. Delmar-Richardson was another bully of the chilly grandedame kind. Jean quickly realized she was expected to wait on the lady hand and foot, to read to her, to walk behind her, carrying her shawl, to play the piano for her, and any number of tiresome tasks that kept her anchored to Mrs. Delmar-Richardson’s side.

  Besides, Mrs. Delmar-Richardson was ugly, and Jean’s one weakness was a craving for beauty. She herself had long given up any hope of growing into beauty. At the age of twenty, she had dark red hair, a terrible thing for any lady to have, green eyes, pale, almost translucent skin, and a neat figure.

  Her aunt had mercifully drunk too much during the afternoon and had retired to her bed. Jean, who knew there were no novels allowed in the house, settled down instead to read the local papers. That was how she came across the viscount’s advertisement. She read it several times. A governess of distinction was wanted to train two young misses in the social arts. Jean herself had been trained in the social
arts in the remote Highlands of Scotland just as if she were about to make her debut at Almack’s Assembly Rooms in London. Her heart began to beat hard, and hope, dormant for some time, sprang anew. One side of Jean’s mind was down-to-earth and practical, but the other side dreamed of romance. The advertisement stated clearly that all applicants were to apply in writing. Jean quickly decided that if she went there in person, she might secure the job. She put on her bonnet and cloak, went down into the village, asked the road to Trelawney Castle, and learned it was only ten miles away.

  Without saying a word to her aunt, she rose early the following morning, carrying only a small trunk, optimistically planning to send the viscount’s servants to collect the rest of her belongings which she had left packed in her bedroom. If she did not get the position—well, that did not even bear thinking of. Her hopes high, she set out on foot under a gray and lowering sky. Trelawney Castle, she had learned, was on the coast. Lord Hunterdon had recently inherited it. He was unmarried.

  Dreams about an unmarried viscount and a castle happily engaged Jean’s thoughts. He would be Byronic and brooding, tortured and miserable, pacing the battlements with a black cloak wrapped around his manly shoulders. He would soften under her influence until one day he would seize her in his arms and cry, “Be mine, Jean Morrison!”

  Jean finally reached the deserted lodge and rusty gates. It was all very depressing. She had heard Mr. Courtney was rich, and surely a viscount was rich. Jean had been brought up on the lines of a penny saved is a penny earned, and she had been looking forward to luxurious surroundings.

  When she came in sight of the house, her heart sank. This was no romantic castle. Instead, it was a Gothic monstrosity, dark and sinister.

  All sorts of doubts rushed into her head. She did not have any references. The impertinence of her action took her breath away. But then, behind her was her aunt. Better at least try.

  She seized the knocker and gave it a good bang, wondering what sort of household put a brass devil’s head on its main door as a knocker.

  The door creaked opened and Dredwort stared down at her.

  Jean tremulously presented one of her cards which had the Highland address scored out and then the Edinburgh address scored out and the Gunshott address penciled in.

  “I am come,” she said in a shaky voice, “in answer to Lord Hunterdon’s advertisement.”

  Dredwort frowned. He knew of no advertisement. Then he remembered a footman had been sent to deliver a letter to the local newspaper offices. His eyes ranged from her plain bonnet to her buckled shoes. All were of good quality.

  “Advertisement for what, miss?”

  “Governess, to be sure,” Jean said tartly. “It is beginning to rain. Pray allow me to step inside.”

  “I will inform his lordship,” Dredwort said coldly. “Wait here.”

  So Jean waited with her battered trunk at her feet in the great hall, looking in amazement at the fake medieval flags, the suits of armor, the general air of damp and neglect.

  The great mansion was very quiet. Jean could not understand it. She opened her cloak and squinted down at the watch pinned to her bosom. Ten o’clock. The servants should have been in evidence, working about. Perhaps they rose very early indeed to complete their duties.

  After half an hour Dredwort came slowly down the dim wooden staircase. “Follow me,” he said in a hollow voice.

  Jean left her trunk in the hall and walked up the stairs after the butler. Various old paintings, so dark and dirty that it was almost impossible to make out what they were supposed to be, hung on the walls. The staircase was uncarpeted and not very clean.

  “The drawing room,” Dredwort intoned, throwing open a pair of double doors. “Wait here for his lordship.”

  Jean felt a lump rising to her throat. Here was neither elegance nor comfort. The room was cold. The furniture was musty and dusty, as were the curtains. An old game bag lay in one corner and a pile of fishing rods in another.

  She began to wonder again about this future employer. He could not be either handsome or Byronic. No one with the slightest sensitivity could live in a place like this. He was probably the sort of man who enjoyed cockfights and never washed.

  A tear rolled down her cheek, followed by another, and she fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief.

  “Take mine,” said a masculine voice, and Jean looked up at the viscount through a blur of tears.

  “Thank you.” She firmly wiped her eyes and stood up and curtsied, and then looked up into the face of the most handsome man she had ever seen. Even in this gloomy room his hair shone like gold, his eyes were as blue as the summer sea, and his lightly tanned skin without a single flaw. He was wrapped in a glorious Oriental dressing gown, and he smelled faintly of lavender water and soap.

  “Why are you crying?” His voice was light and pleasant.

  “I was not really crying,” Jean lied. “Something must have got in my eye.”

  “Probably the horrors surrounding you,” the viscount said sympathetically. “Coffee is what you need. Strong coffee with a dash of something in it.” He tugged the dusty bell rope, which came away in his hand. “Tcha!” he said in disgust. He opened the door and found himself face-to-face with Dredwort.

  “Get coffee, brandy, biscuits,” the viscount snapped. “At the double.”

  He returned to the drawing room and sat down. “So this is the drawing room,” he said, looking about him. “Dear me. Sit down, Miss …?”

  “Morrison. Jean Morrison.”

  “And you are come in answer to my advertisement, in which I clearly stated applications had to be made in writing?”

  “Yes, my lord. I live quite nearby and I thought it easier to call in person.”

  He held out a white hand. “References.”

  “I have not any.”

  “Then why should I employ you? Good heavens, the magnitude of the task demands experience.”

  Jean looked at him resolutely. She did not have much hope, but she would fight to stay with this god. “I am very well schooled, my lord, in all the social arts.” She talked about her upbringing and why she was so eager to escape from her aunt.

  He looked at her sympathetically. “Had a rotten life,” he commented. “Here is the coffee. Put it down on that table next to Miss Morrison, Dredwort, and leave us.”

  When the door had closed behind the butler, the viscount said easily, “Now, before you pour that coffee, take off your cloak and bonnet and make yourself comfortable.”

  He intended to send her on her way as soon as she had drunk something. He had no intention of hiring a young and inexperienced girl.

  Jean Morrison obediently swung her cloak from her shoulders and removed her bonnet. The viscount bit back an exclamation. Her hair was red, bright shining red, that darkish Highland color that often seems to have purple lights in it.

  Jean saw him staring at it and flushed miserably. Neither aunt had let her cut it, and it was now tumbling down her back. “I am willing to dye it, my lord.”

  “No, sacrilege,” he said faintly, looking in a bemused way at all the waves and curls.

  He got up, poured a cup of coffee, and added a strong measure of brandy to it. Jean took it doubtfully. “I have never drunk spirits before, my lord.” She suddenly smiled, a warm, blinding smile. “But I am willing to try.”

  The viscount looked around the bleak room and then back to the glowing little figure of this would-be governess. She’d brighten up the place, he thought. Seemed sensible enough. Still …

  “There’s a piano over there,” he said. “Do you play?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Then play me something.”

  The brandy had gone to Jean’s head, and she felt elated and not at all like her usual dull self. She went confidently to the piano and began to play a Haydn sonata, her fingers rippling competently over the keys while the viscount leaned back in his chair. Odd, how a woman at the piano could suddenly make this miserable heap seem like a
home, he thought.

  When she had finished, he quizzed her about her education and learned to his surprise that she could read Latin and Greek and had a thorough knowledge of what was referred to as the “masculine sciences,” namely mathematics, physics, and chemistry. She then went on to explain that she also knew how to behave in the ballroom, at the dinner table, how to accept or repulse compliments, how to cut people dead, and how to make calls.

  He made up his mind. “I see no reason why you should not be put on trial. But before you make up your mind, you had best meet your charges.”

  He went to the door. As he expected, Dredwort was standing outside, where he had been listening to every word. “Fetch the young ladies here,” he ordered, “and bring me the account books.” The viscount did not know how much to pay this governess, but he had learned that the twins had had governesses in the past and so that should give him some indication of what to pay Miss Morrison.

  Jean waited nervously to meet her new charges. They would, she thought, be very aristocratic, perhaps beautiful. But they were not so very far from her own age and perhaps they could all be friends.

  She drank her coffee and brandy in silence while the account books were brought in and the viscount went through them.

  “This is ridiculous. Come here, Miss Morrison.” Jean went and stood behind him as he ran a long finger down the page. “Have you ever seen such miserable wages? No wonder the servants are not efficient. Dredwort! I know you are listening outside. Come in!”

  He handed the account books to the butler. “Double all the wages of the staff immediately and order new livery for the men and dresses for the women.”

  A smile dawned on the butler’s fat white face. It creased up until his whole face glowed. “Oh, yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord.”

  “But everything has to sparkle, mind you. Rotten summer. Fires in all the rooms.”

  “Why is there no one in the lodge?” Jean asked, emboldened by brandy and success.

  “Mr. Courtney turned them out. Mr. Hannay and his family.”