“Your introduction into society, of course. Your aunt will act as your chaperone.”
Prudence suppressed a groan. The last person in the world she would choose as a chaperone would be Aunt Edith. After her mother’s death, when she was fourteen, she had lived with her mother’s brother, his wife, and their two daughters. For three years she had been the illegitimate poor relation, the burden, the obligation, and being reminded of that by the women of her uncle’s household had made life so intolerable that she had moved to London to make her own way in the world.
“Can’t Mrs. Morris act as my chaperone?” Even as she said it, she knew how impossible a notion that was.
“My dear Miss Bosworth, with all due respect to your friend…” He paused to give a nod to the other woman. “…you must marry well, and to do that, you need introductions into a higher echelon of society than that to which you’ve been accustomed. Your uncle is a squire, and your aunt the cousin of a baronet. These connections provide you with the necessary entrée.”
Prudence knew that was probably true, but she still resisted, hoping for an alternative. “I should like to make a different choice.”
“Have you other suitable connections?”
She thought of her friend Emma, who had also lived in Mrs. Morris’s lodging house until her marriage one month earlier. Emma had wed her former employer, a viscount. “I am acquainted with Viscountess Marlowe. She is, in fact, a friend of mine.”
“You know Emma and Marlowe are in Italy for their honeymoon, dear,” Mrs. Morris reminded her. “They won’t be home until June.”
Prudence looked hopefully at Mr. Whitfield. “I don’t suppose I could wait until then to make my come-out?”
The attorney shook his head. “I should strongly advise against that course. The London season will be coming to an end, and you do have only one year in which to make a suitable match. Also, there is the matter of the newspapers. Journalists will learn of your situation very quickly. You cannot hope to keep it a secret. Within days you will be much talked of, your attentions sought by all manner of people, many of them not the right sort. Being a young lady, you are blissfully unaware of the more unsavory aspects of human nature. You need your relations to protect you.”
“I have been living out since I was seventeen. At twenty-eight, I hardly think I need protecting now.”
“Miss Bosworth, there is an enormous amount of money at stake, and money is a strange thing. It brings out the worst in people. In choosing your future spouse, you need people whose judgment you can trust, people upon whose advice and guidance you can rely.”
She had no intention of relying on Aunt Edith’s guidance about anything, especially about someone to marry. Still, to go into society, she did need a chaperone. And Uncle Stephen had always been kind to her. “I suppose you are right,” she said, resigning herself to the inevitable. “They are family, after all. Living with them is probably the best course. At least until Emma returns in June.”
“If you’re not married by then,” Mrs. Morris put in. “With your dowry, you won’t lack for suitors!”
Prudence’s spirits brightened at once. “That’s true. Why, the gentlemen will be queuing up outside my door now!”
“That is more true than you realize,” Mr. Whitfield said, and leaned forward on the settee. “Though I can appreciate your joy, I feel impelled to caution you, Miss Bosworth. Wealth can be an enormous burden.”
“Burden?” That notion was so absurd, Prudence couldn’t help laughing, despite the man’s grave countenance. “How can wealth be anything but a blessing? With money, one can do anything. Why, all my life I’ve wished I were rich!”
The solicitor studied her with a thoughtful expression. “The only thing more difficult to bear than an unfulfilled wish, my dear, is a wish come true.”
Prudence got her first inkling of Mr. Whitfield’s meaning the following day after church. Aunt Edith arrived.
She and Maria were in their flat, removing their gloves, cloaks, and hats in preparation to join the other ladies of the lodging house for Sunday-afternoon tea downstairs, when the news of Edith’s arrival was brought to them by Dorcas, the parlor maid.
“That didn’t take long,” Maria murmured after Dorcas had departed. “They must have taken an express train.”
Prudence made a face as she began pulling off her gloves. “My aunt has never been in that much of a hurry to see me.”
“Until now.”
There was an emphasis in Maria’s voice that caused Prudence to pause. She gave a sigh of acknowledgment. “Because of the money, I suppose.”
“Of course it’s the money!” Maria skewered her hat with her hat pin and tossed it onto her bed. “It isn’t out of concern for you.”
“No,” she agreed mildly as she resumed her task. “I know that.”
Maria bit her lip, looking contrite. “I’m sorry. I’m happy for you, of course I am. You’ll never have to work or scrape by or any of that again.”
“Only if I marry, and that’s by no means certain.”
“Oh, you’ll find someone. You’ll be leaving us behind, moving in high circles, meeting all sorts of gentlemen, and one of them’s bound to catch your fancy. Your life is going to be so different from now on, and everything is going to change—” Her voice broke and she turned away. “They’ll be waiting tea. Let’s go down.”
Maria took a step toward the door, but Prudence stopped her, putting a hand on her arm and turning her around. This was the first opportunity she’d had to discuss her new situation with her friend. Maria had served at another ball the previous night and was very late arriving home, too late for Prudence, who had tumbled into bed, still excited but also exhausted, at ten o’clock. She’d barely had time to tell her friend the news this morning on the way to church.
“Maria, everything’s going to change for the better. I’m not the only one who won’t have to work. If I do marry and inherit this money, I’m giving some of it to you. Yes, I am,” she added when her friend started to protest. “I want you to have a share.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“But I want you to have it. You can use it as a dowry for yourself or as a nest egg or—”
“I said I don’t want your money!” Maria spoke with such vehemence, Prudence was startled.
“But why not? There will be plenty to go around.”
“That’s not the point. Wealth is a curse. It…it does things to people.”
This statement was an almost exact echo of what Mr. Whitfield had said, but Prudence didn’t understand it any better now than she had yesterday. “How can you say that? Why, you and I are always buying sweeps tickets and dreaming of what we’d do if we had pots of money. And now we do.”
“No, we don’t. You do.”
“What’s mine is yours,” she said firmly. “You’re having some of it, and I won’t take no. And I want our other friends to have some, too. Lucy and Daisy and Miranda and Mrs. Morris—I want everyone here at Little Russell Street to have some of it. And I’ll give some to charities, too.”
“Oh, Pru.” Maria pulled free of her hand and sat down on the edge of her bed with a sigh. “You can’t just go around giving your money away to everyone who needs it. It’s not that simple. Don’t you see that?”
“Of course, I’ll only give it away to those who are deserving,” she began, and sat down opposite her friend on the edge of her own bed. “I’ve been thinking about it all morning, and I have some ideas. I want to give some for orphans, and illegitimate children, and—”
The sound of the front door opening interrupted this outline of her plans, and a high, arch voice floated through the open doorway from the parlor of the flat. “Prudence?”
She groaned under her breath, but when her aunt came bustling into the bedroom, she forced herself to smile as she stood up and turned to greet her.
“Prudence, there you are!” The older woman entered the small bedroom, her hands outstretched in greeting. “My de
ar.”
“Aunt Edith,” Prudence said as she accepted a kiss on the cheek. “This is quite a surprise.”
“I don’t know why. Mr. Whitfield was to have informed you to expect us in town.”
“He didn’t tell her you were taking the overnight express,” Maria said, her voice cheery.
Prudence started to laugh, but managed to transform it into a tactful little cough as she gestured to the woman standing nearby. “Aunt, you do remember Miss Martingale?”
Edith’s smile froze in place. “Of course,” she said. “I believe we met on my last visit.”
“What a wonderful memory you’ve got, Mrs. Feathergill,” Maria answered at once, “to remember something that happened so long ago.”
The rebuke was plain, and Aunt Edith began bristling. “Now see here, young woman, there are reasons I haven’t been to London for some years now, and I resent your implication—”
“Will you take tea with us, Aunt?” Prudence interrupted, compelled to jump into the breach before a quarrel could begin.
Edith recovered herself with an effort. “Tea? Oh, no, dear, not today. You and I are having tea with Sir Robert and his mother. You do remember Steven’s cousin, Sir Robert Ogilvie, and his mother Millicent? They stayed with us one summer when you were living with us.”
“Yes, of course,” she answered politely. She was lying, of course, for she barely remembered Robert and his mother, and she doubted they remembered her, for they hadn’t ever bothered to answer any of her letters when she first arrived in London eleven years earlier. “They’ve invited us to tea?”
“Yes. Sir Robert is a baronet now, you know. You didn’t seem much impressed with him when you were fifteen, but you might change your mind when you see him now. He’s turned into quite a handsome gentleman, and he is most eager to renew his acquaintance with you.”
“Of course he is,” Maria muttered, but at Prudence’s imploring look, she turned away. “They’ll be waiting tea, I expect, so I’d best go down. I’ll tell them you won’t be joining us today, Pru. If you’ll pardon me?” She bobbed a departing curtsy to Edith and practically ran out of the room. Prudence watched her escape with a hint of envy.
“Impertinent girl,” Edith pronounced the moment the door of the flat closed behind Maria. “Is it necessary for her to be so forthcoming with her opinions?”
Already Prudence was remembering all the reasons she’d left Sussex. “Maria is my friend. She has my best interests at heart.”
“As we all do, dearest. Though you didn’t particularly appreciate my guidance and advice when you were a girl. You were so rebellious then. So stubborn.”
Prudence remembered the three years she’d lived with her uncle’s family somewhat differently, but she knew there was no point in discussing the topic at this late date.
“Heavens, look at the time,” Edith exclaimed with a glance at her brooch watch. “We’d best get on with things. There is so much to do.”
“Is there?” she asked, happy to change the subject.
Ignoring the question, Edith gestured to the armoire against one wall. “Your gowns are in here, I suppose?” Without waiting for an answer, she crossed the room and opened the doors of the armoire to examine Prudence’s wardrobe. As she perused the garments within, she gave a heavy sigh. “Just as I thought. Not a thing here fit to wear.”
Prudence, who had made all the clothes in question, set her jaw, folded her arms and did not reply.
“My dear child,” Edith said as she continued rooting through Prudence’s clothes, “how have you been spending the two pound and six allowance your uncle sends you each quarter?”
Lodgings. Food. Minor things like that. She bit her lip.
Edith glanced over her. “The green wool you have on will do well enough for today, I suppose, but we simply must have you fitted with suitable gowns as soon as possible. It’s fortunate that even the most exclusive dressmakers keep a few ready-made dresses to hand. We ought to be able to find you something decent to wear for Tuesday evening.”
“Tuesday evening?”
“Yes, dear. We are attending the opera. Sir Robert has a box, and he has invited us to join him. We must find you a gown suitable to the occasion.” She pulled out a gray serge walking suit and looked it over, then put it back. “At least we won’t have to pack any of these. They can be bundled up and taken to charity.”
Prudence was a placid sort of person, not generally prone to fits of temper, but such high-handedness was too much to bear. “I have no intention of giving these to charity!”
The moment the words were out of her mouth, she felt silly and unreasonable, for she had already decided to give her old clothes away.
At her sharp reply, Edith turned, looking wounded. “Well, of course, dear, if you prefer to give your castoffs to your friends, by all means do so.”
Prudence intended all her friends to have their own new dresses as well, but she decided not to mention that. She hated rows, and she didn’t want to have one with Edith after only five minutes. Taking a deep breath, she reached for the gloves she’d cast aside a few minutes earlier. “You’re right, of course,” she said, striving to be gracious. “Donating them will be fine.”
Edith smiled in a conciliatory fashion as she tucked her arm through Prudence’s and began leading her out of the bedroom. “Your uncle is meeting with Mr. Whitfield to make the arrangements regarding your allowance from the trust. Oh, and he is seeking to purchase a brougham for us. In the interim, I have hired a carriage. We can make several calls on our way to tea.”
“Calls?”
“Yes, but there is no need to be alarmed.” She patted Prudence’s arm as they crossed the parlor toward the front door of the flat. “We are only calling on my daughters today.”
“That’s a relief,” Prudence murmured without enthusiasm as she lifted her reticule from a hook of the hat rack. Beryl and Pearl were as enjoyable as a Presbyterian funeral. “I was worried we’d be calling on horrid people.”
It was probably a good thing that sarcasm was wasted on Aunt Edith. “Moving in good society is always a bit nerve-wracking, but try to put your mind at ease. Your uncle and I shall take very good care of you, you know. The most fashionable address, the best entertainments, the finest company. I will ensure you are presented to the right sort of people, dearest. I intend to devote myself entirely to your needs from now on.”
“Lovely.” Suppressing a sigh, Prudence closed the front door of the flat behind them. June, she reflected as she shoved her latchkey into the lock, seemed a long way off.
“Your uncle will find a suitable house for us here in town,” Edith went on as they started down the stairs. “But until then, we are staying at the Savoy. I’ve arranged for your room to be right beside mine. Won’t that be nice?”
Prudence began to feel rather like a cornered animal. “I don’t wish to be any trouble,” she said in desperation. “I would much rather stay here for the time being.”
“Here?” Aunt Edith paused on the landing and looked askance around the dim stairwell. “Don’t be silly,” she remonstrated with a tinkling little laugh. “This is a lodging house.”
“A respectable one.”
“A most respectable one, I am sure, but Prudence, you are an heiress now of substantial means. You cannot stay here on your own. Why, without your uncle and I to watch over you, every fortune-hunting scoundrel in London would be on your heels!”
Rhys spent Monday reckoning up what little he had in ducal income, and Tuesday wading through the complicated mire of the De Winter family debts. After studying reports from various land agents, bankers, and attorneys, his spirits were nearly as low as his bank balance, and he had no choice but to dine Tuesday night at the Clarendon. He consoled himself with a superb beef fillet and a fine bottle of French Bordeaux, and by some clever timing he was able to duck out without paying the bill, a practice at which he’d become quite adept in the past few years.
“No peer should ever pay at
the Clarendon,” he explained to Lord Standish later that night at the opera. “Thank heaven for middle-class sensibilities.”
Standish, an old acquaintance from days at Oxford and his host for the evening, laughed. “What do middle-class sensibilities have to do with you caging meals at the Clarendon?”
“Everything,” he answered at once, turning to accept a glass of champagne from a footman. “The middle class won’t dine at any establishment unless peers frequent it. A fortunate thing for us they are able and willing to pay. Without them, restaurants would be forced to close, and we should never dine out again.”
Lord Weston, whose friendship with Rhys also went back to boyhood, flashed him a wry grin. “Only certain peers are able to get by with that in London nowadays, St. Cyres. Having a duke dine at your establishment still carries a certain cachet. I, however, am merely a baron, and can never get by with such things. I know this because whenever I try to evade the bill, they forward it to my residence.”
“All the more reason not to have a residence!” Rhys countered, making everyone laugh.
“But how does one live without a residence?” asked Standish, looking puzzled. But then, Standish had always been one of those upright, scrupulous sorts who wouldn’t dream of spending beyond his means and evading his bills.
“Travel, of course,” Rhys answered him. “It’s very simple. One goes abroad to escape one’s debts at home. One comes home to escape one’s debts abroad. In this way, a man can explore the entire globe for less than five hundred pounds.”
Everyone laughed, including Standish. “But where does a gentleman live while here in town?” the earl asked.
“Off his friends, of course!” Rhys clapped Weston on the back. “Have you a spare room, Wes, by the way? I can’t abide Milbray’s town house much longer. His butler’s far too courteous. Let my mother in a few days ago. It was ghastly.”
“Have you in my house?” Smiling, Weston shook his head. “Not a chance of it. I have my sister to think of.”
He grinned back at the other man. “Don’t you trust me?”
The Wicked Ways of a Duke Page 5
