Endearing Young Charms Series

by M. C. Beaton

  They made a merry, almost family party, on the journey to Chelsea. Sir Charles teased Fanny and said she was so beautiful his time would be taken up in fighting men off. Tommy told several very long jokes that he said had been told to him by a vicar, imitating the vicar’s slow, lugubrious voice. The jokes were not very funny, but Tommy’s delivery was. Miss Grimes laughed until the tears streamed down her face.

  But Miss Grimes became serious when their open carriage rolled to a stop in front of the Marsdens’ home. She turned to Sir Charles. “The Marsdens know some very fast people and Fanny is not used to such, so instead of romancing Miss Woodward and becoming spoony to the point of oblivion, you must watch over Fanny and see she does not get into bad company.”

  Sir Charles smiled indulgently. He was very proud of Fanny. She had a freshness, daintiness, and charm unusual in the more jaded and painted beauties of London. But on arrival, they were asked to take their seats at the long tables in the garden and Sir Charles promptly forgot about Fanny, and everything else, in the delight at finding he was sitting next to Miss Woodward.

  Captain Tommy was relieved to discover he was next to Miss Grimes. He was always conscious of the shabbiness of his clothes and his gaucherie in society. With Miss Grimes, he felt at ease and at home. He settled down to enjoy himself, making such an effort to keep her entertained that he succeeded for quite half the meal, until he saw Miss Grimes stiffen and her face grow set. “What is the matter?” he asked quickly.

  “Fanny,” said Miss Grimes. “Who is that handsome man who is making her blush and simper?”

  Tommy followed her gaze and his face darkened. “That is Bohun,” he said. “He was in our regiment and sold out just recently. An unsavory type.”

  “And see how Captain Hawkes stares at me,” Lord Bohun was saying. “And no doubt your cousin will be outraged when he discovers I am enchanted by you. Neither of them likes me.”

  “Why?” asked Fanny.

  Lord Bohun racked his brain for one of the least scandalous events in his life that had drawn the wrath of Sir Charles down on his head. “It was in Spain,” he said. “The time was boring, waiting for the French, and I was playing cards with two fellow officers and a Spaniard. I was winning, and the Spaniard suddenly upped and said I had been cheating. Deveney was called and examined the cards—and said in that cold way of his that the cards had been marked. Well, who do you think marked ‘em? The Spaniard of course. But would Deveney listen? I was nearly court-martialed. He said there would be a hearing in the morning, but the Spaniard left during the night and left a note confessing that he had marked the cards.”

  “So all was well?” ventured Fanny.

  “Not a bit of it. Deveney needs must make a fuss and say that it was deuced odd that a chap who had marked the cards himself should start shouting about cheating. He said that the note was in good English. He accused me of either threatening the Spaniard or paying him to go away … and forging the note myself.”

  “That does not sound at all like Charles,” said Fanny uneasily.

  “Oh, that’s very like Charles Deveney,” said Lord Bohun. “He persecuted me so much that I decided to sell out.”

  “It must all be a mistake,” said Fanny wretchedly. “Let me speak to him.”

  “No!” cried Lord Bohun. “He would simply tell you more stories to discredit me. I do not blame him. He has had a hard life. His parents are wastrels, I believe. He envied me and my wealth. Now he is rich himself, he should not, but jealousy dies hard.”

  The gentleman on Fanny’s other side claimed her attention. She listened to him, apparently attentively, while all the while her mind was racing. She wanted to believe Lord Bohun, but how could she believe such things of Charles? The sun was beating down on the garden and she felt suffocated and had a desire to get away by herself, if only for a few moments. She deliberately spilled a little wine on her gown and let out an exclamation, then rose to her feet. “How clumsy I am,” she said.

  She tripped off in the direction of the house. Lord Bohun caught Dolly Marsden’s eye and nodded briefly. She rose and followed Fanny into the house.

  Dolly had been primed by Lord Bohun about what to say to spike Sir Charles Deveney’s guns.

  “My dear!” said Dolly, catching up with Fanny. “Is anything the matter?”

  “I spilled a little wine on my gown,” said Fanny.

  “Hardly a mark,” said Dolly. “Fortunately it was white wine. Come to my boudoir and I will dab a little benzine on it for you.”

  Fanny followed her plump hostess. Had Dolly been in one of her more outrageous gowns, then Fanny would have been wary of her. But Dolly was wearing a pretty sprigged muslin over a silk slip and looked like a motherly woman.

  She fussed over Fanny and dabbed at the stain, finally saying, “There you are. Not a mark.”

  “You are very kind, Mrs. Marsden.”

  “Call me Dolly, and I shall call you Fanny.”

  Fanny had no town bronze and assumed that ladies calling each other by their first names after a few minutes’ chat was a London fashion. “Don’t go back yet,” Dolly went on. “So hot in the garden, is it not? We shall stay here for a few moments and be cool. I am glad to see you are getting along famously with Bohun. Such a fine man! The catch of the Season. He seems enchanted with you, my dear.”

  Fanny lowered her long eyelashes to hide her eyes and Dolly studied her shrewdly. “Of course, that cousin of yours will not be pleased.”

  “No?” said Fanny in a small voice.

  “Alas, his jealousy of Bohun is legendary. His only fault, my dear. Do not look so miserable. But relatives can be so cruel. You must not let your cousin’s jealousy stand in the way of your happiness.”

  “I cannot believe this of Charles,” exclaimed Fanny. “I know him. He is the kindest man in the world!”

  “I am sure he is, Fanny. I am sure he is! But all men have a weakness … and your cousin’s happens to be his jealousy of Lord Bohun. Now when Marsden was courting me, my brother tried everything to stop the marriage, and why? Because he thought no one good enough for me.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I refused to discuss Marsden with him. I followed my heart and have never known a day’s unhappiness since.”

  Fanny reflected naively that love must indeed be blind, for Mr. Marsden was an odd-looking fellow with a large head, and thick, wet lips, and a bulbous nose, but perhaps he had deteriorated rapidly in looks. Dolly saw her young guest was still not convinced and rose to her feet. “London is a sadly rackety place,” she said, “and full of oddish people. It is comforting to have a friend. If you ever want to call on me, I shall always be delighted to help and advise you.”

  “Thank you,” said Fanny, extremely touched.

  “Now, back we go, and do not listen to any nasty tales about Bohun … because I can assure you he is the best of men and I have known him this age.”

  So Fanny went back. She had been in the grip of a growing obsession about Lord Bohun ever since she had seen his portrait and was too inexperienced to tell the difference between love and obsession. As she approached him, she saw the sun striking down on his glossy black hair, and saw the strong, almost cruel lines of his face. He was tall and commanding, with broad shoulders and chest, a slim waist and hips. His very size, and his aura of strength, made her feel small and delicate and cherished.

  Lord Bohun stood up at her arrival and smiled down into her eyes in a way that made her feel weak. It cost him an effort to produce that smile because the day was hot and the buckram wadding, which gave the width to his chest and shoulders, and the tight corset, which slimmed his waist, were making him uncomfortable and itchy. He wanted to go home and take off all these appurtenances of fashion, lie down in a cool room, and have a good scratch. But as he took Fanny’s hand to assist her to her chair, he felt the way it trembled in his own and all his hunting instincts and desire for revenge of Sir Charles returned with such force that he forgot about his discomfort and
settled down to charm the bewildered and dazed Fanny.

  Miss Amanda Woodward fanned herself vigorously and with a little moue of irritation turned away from Sir Charles and began to talk to the man on her other side, an elderly gentleman who was quite startled to find himself the focus of the beauty’s attention. Miss Woodward had enjoyed the first part of the meal, when Sir Charles had gazed at her rapturously. She had begun to revise her first opinions of him. He had a slim acrobat’s body and very fine eyes. His thick, fair hair glinted in the sunlight. His hands were very fine, long and white, and well shaped. His voice was light and pleasing, with a slight husky note in it. And then his attention had suddenly become focused on his cousin and he had grown edgy and abstracted and had answered all her sallies mechanically.

  From the top of the table, Dolly’s shrewd eyes had noticed every little detail.

  When the meal was at last over and the guests rose to walk in the gardens by the river, Sir Charles immediately went off in search of his “cousin.” Miss Woodward stood for a few moments, irresolute. Sir Charles’s sudden and seeming indifference toward her was something she was not used to at all and which heightened his attraction.

  “Miss Woodward! Beautiful as ever.”

  She became aware that Dolly was looking up at her. “Forget your admirers for a moment and walk with me a little,” said Dolly. “There is a breeze from the river. Most refreshing. Such weather. The gods have smiled on my little breakfast. Sir Charles seems enormously taken with you, my dear.”

  “He was, until he suddenly seemed to see something about his cousin that alarmed him,” said Miss Woodward, stabbing holes in the grass with the end of her parasol.

  “Ah, well, she is an heiress and he is very possessive. The poor little thing is quite enchanted by Bohun—and Deveney hates Bohun—and men are so irrational, there is no talking to them. Deveney will try to stop his cousin from having anything to do with Bohun by filling her head with a lot of nasty army tales. Deveney is a fine man, a brave man, but he was always jealous of Bohun—regimental gossip, my dear—but if you wish to get that little cousin, Fanny, out of your hair, do, my dear, tell her not to listen to gossip about Bohun. I never gossip. So damaging. And if things were to go swimmingly with Miss Page and Bohun, then Sir Charles would be free to pay attention to more important things … like you.”

  “But Bohun has a bad reputation,” pointed out Miss Woodward.

  “La, the man was a rake, and weren’t they all in their youth? No harm in that. Only look, there goes Sir Charles, he has caught up with poor Miss Page. And there joining them is that spinster, Grimes, and that odd army captain. Do, I pray you, put in a good word for Bohun with Fanny or they will have her a spinster for the rest of her days. Besides, as I said, Deveney should be concentrating on you.”

  “You are my husband in name only,” Fanny was saying fiercely. “And you gave me your solemn promise not to stand in the way of my happiness.”

  “But the man is a cur,” said Tommy.

  “And such a reputation, my dear,” put in Miss Grimes.

  “I do not know what we are arguing about,” said Sir Charles. “Fanny, you will do what you are told. You are not to see Bohun again or have anything to do with him.”

  “Pooh! You are jealous of him.”

  “You silly widgeon,” said Sir Charles, misunderstanding her. “Why should I be jealous of Bohun when I am in love with Miss Woodward?”

  Tears stood out in Fanny’s eyes. “It is you who are deliberately misunderstanding me,” she said. “You all said you would help me to have a little fun, to enjoy myself, to find the man of my choice. To find the man of my choice, that’s what you said. If—if you go on like this … well, we may as well end this farce and leave London—and be miserable together for the rest of our lives, Charles. I tell you plain, if you do not allow me to see Bohun, then I will tell everyone we are married … and—and poor. So there!”

  “I could shake you!” Sir Charles glowered at her.

  “Think on’t,” said Fanny. She unfurled her parasol and walked off.

  “Think you should have talked to her quietly,” said Tommy miserably. “Little thing, Fanny, but lots of spirit. Hard to handle, but not a bolter or biter.”

  “Not a horse, either, for heaven’s sake,” snapped Sir Charles.

  “We are all becoming overheated about nothing much,” said Miss Grimes calmly, although she felt far from calm. “She has only just met the man. If he’s such a black character, she will soon find out for herself. But so long as we stand in her way, and lecture her as if she is a child, and order her around, she will cling to him the more. She will be well chaperoned by me, Charles. There is no way she will be allowed to see Bohun on her own. Allow her infatuation to run its course.”

  But if she does not find anyone decent, thought Charles, then I am indeed trapped in this marriage. But he sighed and said aloud, “Perhaps. I will not criticize Bohun to her again. In fact, I must quickly reestablish our closeness, for that way she will tell me what that scoundrel is up to.”

  So Fanny was left in peace to stroll with Lord Bohun in the gardens and to dance with him later, glad to see that Charles was once more engrossed with pretty Miss Woodward. Occasionally friends of the Marsdens would introduce themselves to Fanny and tell her what a fine man Lord Bohun was, how brave, how good, and Fanny would glow with pleasure.

  Then there was the beautiful Miss Woodward, who kindly added her bit of praise for Lord Bohun. Fanny was a little disappointed to find her beloved Charles had such petty feelings, for she had begun to think him a saint, but he was only human, she told herself, and felt very old and wise.

  Mr. and Mrs. Woodward invited Charles to their box at the opera the following evening, which he accepted, an acceptance that Dolly heard.

  “So how goes the romance with Miss Page?” she asked Bohun. He was standing watching the dancers. Fanny was dancing with Tommy Hawkes, his clumsiness accenting her grace.

  “Very well,” he said. “I shall now leave her to worry about me for a week, a week during which you, my heart, must see if you can find any weaknesses in her to indulge. I wonder if she gambles …?”

  “Most ladies play cards.” Dolly looked up at him thoughtfully. “I have one of my little parties tomorrow night,” she said, “parties” being a euphemism for private gambling club. “I overheard the Woodwards asking Deveney to the opera tomorrow night. I shall ask Fanny to come here and see if I can get her to agree to slip out without saying anything to the others. It might work both ways. I might be able to instil a love of the tables into her, and also relieve her of some of her fortune.”

  “Do that. And see she drinks a lot. She sips at her wine like a bird and leaves most of it in the glass. I don’t want to have a clearheaded heiress to pursue.”

  Sir Charles had just finished waltzing with Miss Woodward. She curtsied and he bowed, then bent over her hand and kissed it. She gave his hand a brief little squeeze, a tiny little pressure, but it made his heart turn over. He put Fanny to the back of his mind. He wanted to live for the moment and not let the thought he was married and quite poor spoil anything.

  Later, when he was to think about that evening, that beginning of all their troubles, he could only marvel at his own temporary insanity.

  The journey home was silent. Fanny had a qualm of doubt about having accepted Dolly’s invitation to meet “just a few friends” on the morrow and “no need to tell Deveney.”

  Fanny had pointed out that as she had no carriage of her own—and could hardly ask Aunt Martha for the use of hers without betraying where she was going—there was no way she could keep her visit a secret.

  Dolly had pooh-poohed that. She, Dolly, would send her own carriage, which would wait outside for Fanny at nine o’clock. Still, Fanny had been about to protest, but when Lord Bohun had smiled down at the lady with whom he was dancing, she had known raging jealousy for the first time in her life. And it was all Charles’s fault that she had to be so secretive. Dolly h
ad said Charles did not approve of her because she was a friend of Bohun’s. It was too bad of Charles.

  Sir Charles sat across from her and worried. Now that he was no longer in the magical presence of Miss Woodward, he was unable to live in the moment. He had overheard one of the ladies saying to another that Miss Page did not look at all like an heiress, as she had no jewelry to speak of.

  He decided to ask Rundell & Bridge to send him a selection of their best jewels on approval. Then he would tell Fanny to wear the finest of them on their next social engagement—but to say loudly that she had quite made up her mind jewels were vulgar. There should be no half measures in tricking society. Suddenly a smile curved his lips as he again, in his imagination, felt that slight pressure of Miss Woodward’s hand. She would forgive him all. She was all that was sweetness and beauty. He had learned her first name was Amanda, and he murmured it soundlessly, over and over again.

  Miss Grimes was wishing the pair of them at the devil. She and Tommy could have such a pleasant time if their days were not taken up in worrying what would happen when one or other of the young Deveneys decided to tell the truth. Why did I ever agree to all this? wondered Miss Grimes dismally. True, she would not have met Captain Tommy otherwise, but he would return to the wars and she would be left again, a lonely old spinster, and a spinster noted for being at the center of a scandal.

  Charles went to Fanny’s room that night, forgetting again Miss Grimes’s lectures that he was not to be seen anywhere near her bedroom. Fanny was sitting at the toilet table dressed in a nightgown and lacy wrapper. She was brushing her hair with brisk strokes so that it shone in the candlelight.

  “Oh, Charles,” she said bleakly, “do not read me a jaw-me-dead. I have had enough this evening.”

  The bench she was sitting on was long enough to accommodate two. He sat down beside her and stared at their reflections in the mirror, Fanny with her hair tumbled about her shoulders, he in a peacock blue silk banyan. The oval mirror framed their reflected faces—Fanny and Charles—like a portrait of a married couple, he thought. But then they were married. There was a faint light scent of perfumed soap from the warm body next to his own.