Rake's Progress: A Novel of Regency England - Being the Fourth Volume of A House for the Season

by M. C. Beaton

  “Yes,” said Esther, “and a most embarrassing time I had of it. You would never believe people could be so unfeeling. I appealed to some of the gentlemen for help, and they treated me … most rudely. I was obliged to slap two of them and kick a third. Fortunately, I always carry a great deal of money with me. It cost me one hundred guineas for that poor girl. Can you imagine? Just a little more than I paid for that mare. That horrible woman who was trying to corrupt her had the gall to ask for double. I told her I would take her to court.”

  Mr. Roger looked wonderingly round at the boxes near him, which were full of shocked and disapproving faces. “Were you interested in making your début in society, Miss Jones?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Esther. “I have Come Out.”

  “I really think, ma’am, you’re back in,” said Mr. Roger. “They’ll never forgive you.”

  “What! For rescuing that poor child!”

  “A lady,” said Lord Guy, “is not supposed to be aware of the existence of prostitutes. I think it politic to take our leave now.”

  “No,” said Esther firmly. “I have done my duty. I intend to stay until the end and go to the ball and supper afterwards.”

  “As you please,” said Lord Guy. “But I doubt if they’ll let you in. Do you intend to take your new maid to the ball with you?”

  “Of course.”

  Lord Guy swivelled round and studied Charlotte. She was gazing at Esther with adoring eyes.

  “Talk sense to her, Carlton,” cried Miss Fipps, but he shook his head and murmured, “Be quiet. This might serve very well.”

  Esther grimly faced the stage and appeared to pay intent interest to the rest of the opera. She fought down a nagging fear she had indeed disgraced herself. But it could not be true! She had behaved well. No one with any heart or feelings could see such as Charlotte in distress.

  The opera finally dragged to an end.

  Esther rose to leave.

  “Wait but a little, Miss Jones,” pleaded Miss Fipps. “Wait until those rough gentlemen you spoke of have made their exit.”

  “Very well,” said Esther reluctantly. “Perhaps you could lend Charlotte your stole, Miss Fipps. The scantiness of her gown is causing her acute embarrassment.”

  Miss Fipps handed her silk stole to Charlotte, who shyly murmured thanks and wrapped it tightly about the low neckline of her gown. The girl was amazingly contented now, thought Lord Guy. Her trust in Esther appeared to be absolute.

  Mr. Roger opened his mouth to protest, to make a last stand against the humiliation he was sure awaited Esther, but before he could get the words out, Lord Guy stamped on his foot, and he gave a yelp of pain instead.

  Esther, head held high, walked out of the box on Lord Guy’s arm. Mr. Roger offered one arm to Miss Fipps, and, after some hesitation, the other to Charlotte.

  As they approached the open double doors leading to the ballroom, Lord Guy grimly noticed all eyes were turned to those doors, waiting.

  Esther made to enter the ballroom. A liveried official placed his long gold-topped staff across the door, barring the way.

  “What is the meaning of this?” demanded Esther haughtily.

  On the other side of the barrier created by the staff appeared two members of the opera committee, Lord Fremand and the Countess of Weighton.

  “You have disgraced yourself, Miss Jones,” said the countess. “You must leave.”

  “I was helping a child in distress.”

  “You created a vulgar brawl over a prostitute,” said the countess icily. “Is that not so, Fremand?”

  But the elderly Lord Fremand bowed his head and did not reply. He was afraid Lord Guy might call him out.

  “You disgust me! All of you!” cried Esther, her eyes flashing. “You can keep your ball and your opera box and your shoddy moral standards. You are the disgrace, not I. Come, Lord Guy.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly.

  Two Fops were standing at the top of the grand staircase. As Esther passed, one of them jeered, “So that’s how you make your money, you abbess. Let us know when you’ve set a price on the little beauty there.”

  Lord Guy smiled pleasantly before he drove his fist into one of the Fops’ noses. Mr. Roger, with a growl like a bear, proceeded to demolish the other.

  Esther’s lip began to tremble. Amy and Peter, she thought wildly. I have ruined their futures.

  She walked on down the stairs. Miss Fipps was sobbing into her handkerchief. Esther felt dreadful.

  A final crash and yell from behind her rounded off the end of the fight. Lord Guy and Mr. Roger caught up with her.

  Outside the theatre, Esther turned to Lord Guy and held out her hand. “Thank you for your championship, my lord,” she said. “I do not expect to see you again.”

  Before Lord Guy could reply, a watchman came creaking up. “Careful how you go,” he said. “The mob’s out.”

  “What is it this time?” asked Mr. Roger.

  “Sir Francis Burdett,” said the watchman, and proceeded to explain. Sir Francis, a popular reformer, had put forward the theory that the House of Commons had no right to imprison people. It appeared the House had just proved him wrong by shutting him up in the Tower of London. The London mob was on the rampage and crying for blood.

  Lord Guy thought quickly. “We had better all go in my carriage,” he said to Esther. “We may not get very far.”

  Esther was by now too demoralised to make any protest. Manuel and an ostler brought Lord Guy’s carriage around. He sent Manuel off on foot to Clarges Street, telling him to make sure the shutters were up on all the windows.

  After retrieving a brace of horse pistols, he ushered the ladies inside and climbed up on the box, with Mr. Roger beside him.

  He handed a pistol to Mr. Roger and took one himself.

  “Why didn’t you stop her!” marvelled Mr. Roger.

  “Because, Tommy, she is more likely to fall off her pedestal into my arms. I know how to restore her reputation, but before that, I want her as my wife.”

  “Hope I never get one of these grand passions,” said Mr. Roger. “Too exhausting.”

  “Never mind,” said Lord Guy with a grin. “It has its compensations. Hold tight, Tommy. I’ll keep to the back streets.”

  At first they thought they were going to be lucky and that the mob might be confining its activities around Westminster, or over at the Tower, but as they drove into Berkeley Square, they were surrounded on all sides by a roaring and dangerous crowd.

  “I’ll fire over their heads,” shouted Mr. Roger.

  “No,” said Lord Guy. “I have a better idea.”

  He stopped the coach and stood up on the box. He raised his arms and cried, “Make way, my friends, I have a cholera victim.”

  Cholera. That dreadful word spread out throughout the mob. The ringleaders backed away from the coach, stumbling over the people behind them in their haste to escape.

  “They’ll come to their senses shortly and realise that grandly dressed ladies returning from the opera are not cholera victims,” said Lord Guy. “But we may be able to get Esther home safely.”

  Outside Esther’s home, he called to the ladies to get out quickly. “Go into the house with them and stay there,” he said to Mr. Roger. “I will try to return as soon as possible.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I am going to the mews. I am not leaving these good animals to be mauled and terrified and tortured by the mob.”

  “Hurry, then,” cried Mr. Roger, jumping down. “I think I hear them coming back.”

  Chapter

  Ten

  Confess, ye volunteers,

  Lieutenant and Ensign,

  And Captain of the line,

  As bold as Roman—

  Confess, ye grenadiers,

  However strong and tall,

  The Conqueror of you all

  Is Woman, Woman!

  —THACKERAY

  Esther had much to keep her occupied for the first
hour. Her housekeeper, Mrs. Troubridge, was told that Charlotte had just arrived unexpectedly from the country. She was to be given a room in the servants’ quarters, supplied with a print gown, and was to enter into her duties on the following day. No mention was made of Charlotte’s near recruitment into the Cyprians.

  Then Mr. Roger was pressed to stay the night. Although a room was prepared for him, he elected to stay awake and armed in case the mob should try to break in.

  Amy and Peter were almost too excited to go to sleep. They had watched the arrival from the nursery window and Lord Guy was even more of a hero in their eyes. Esther did not have the heart to tell them of her great disgrace—a disgrace that would surely terminate her engagement to Lord Guy. The tables had turned with a vengeance. Now it was Miss Esther Jones who was not fit to be the bride of Lord Guy Carlton.

  She changed out of her opera gown into a blue muslin gown and then went downstairs to the gloomy saloon to wait and wonder if Lord Guy had escaped unscathed from the mob, and if he would return that evening.

  Mr. Roger, sitting by the fire with his pistol on his lap, made desultory conversation. After a while his eyelids began to droop and his head to nod.

  A thundering knocking at the outside door made him jerk awake.

  “No,” he said as Esther rose to her feet, “I’d better answer it.”

  He went into the hall and pushed aside the butler, Graves, who was grey with fright.

  “Who is there?” called Mr. Roger.

  “It is I, Carlton,” came Lord Guy’s voice.

  Mr. Roger unlocked and unbolted the door. Lord Guy strode in. He had changed out of his evening dress into riding dress—buff coat, leather breeches, and top-boots.

  “I say, Tommy,” he said, “has Miss Jones gone to bed yet?”

  “No, she is in the saloon.”

  “I think it would be wise if you made, your way to Clarges Street while there is a temporary lull in the rioting. Someone needs to be there to help them guard the place. Try, if you can, to find out why Manuel tried to stop me going to the opera. I cannot think he got rid of all my cravats out of sheer stupidity. Where is Miss Fipps?”

  “She has retired. The evening was a bit of strain. She feels she has let Miss Jones down by not preventing her from making a fool of herself.”

  “I do not think Miss Jones made a fool of herself at all. We can turn the tables when the rioting dies down. In the meantime, leave the field to me, if you take my meaning, and be prepared to act as bride’s man at a moment’s notice.”

  Mr. Roger winked and let himself out into the night.

  Lord Guy turned to the hovering butler. “I feel sure we shall not need your services this night, Graves,” he said. “But sleep in your clothes and ask the other manservants to do the same in case we are attacked.”

  “Very good, my lord,” said Graves.

  Lord Guy strode into the saloon and stood looking at Esther.

  “Oh, my love,” he said. “What have you done to your hair?”

  “How like you, my lord,” said Esther with a faint smile. “The whole of London is in peril and yet all you can notice is a lady’s hair.”

  “The most important thing in the world,” he said softly. “Well, my sweeting, that was the briefest and most dramatic coming-out I am ever likely to witness.”

  “Do not mock me,” said Esther. “At least I can now release you from our engagement with an easy conscience.”

  “No, that you cannot,” he said severely. “Only think of poor Amy and Peter.”

  “They are young and will soon forget.”

  “But society will never forget,” said Lord Guy, mentally sending up a prayer for forgiveness, as he was sure the terror of the mob would have already driven Esther’s scandal from the minds of the ton. The fear of a revolutiontaking place in Britain, like the one that had rocked France, was never far from their minds. “You had better marry me,” he said. “We will go abroad, and when we return, everything will be forgotten.”

  “I thought you said society would never forget,” said Esther sharply.

  “Did I? I meant for some time. Faith, the night is chilly and you so charmingly attired in thin muslin.”

  He walked over to the fireplace, and, crouching down in front of it, began to pile it high with logs and coal. Then he sat back on his heels and looked at her, noticing for the first time the strain in her eyes.

  They were oddly beautiful eyes, he thought. Because of her dress, they looked blue. They seemed to pick up the colour of whatever she was wearing. He was very near her as she sat by the fire, and his face was almost on a level with her own.

  From outside in the square came a muffled roar and the sound of shots. Esther shivered.

  He leaned forward and gently drew her face to his own.

  “No,” whispered Esther.

  He stroked her face with his long fingers. “If you loved me,” he said quietly, “then that lot out there could burn London and you would not care. There is another kind of scorching and burning, my sweet Esther. Come, let me teach you.”

  “I would learn none of your wanton tricks,” said Esther in a voice that trembled.

  “And I would teach you none,” he said huskily. “I would teach you to love me.” Kneeling in front of her, he held her by the shoulders and kissed her lips. She made a murmur of protest. A shot rattled just then against the shutters, and with an alarmed cry, she fell forward into his arms.

  He drew her down onto the hearthrug and pressed his lips to hers. Esther felt her senses beginning to swim. She looked up dizzily over his shoulder, and the stern face of the reformer over the fireplace stared back.

  Another shot struck the shutters. “The children!” cried Esther, pulling away.

  “They will do very well,” he said. “Children can sleep through anything. Oh, kiss me again, my stern Miss Jones. Your mouth is sweet, and I would lose myself in it.”

  Esther moaned a protest as his clever hands and experienced mouth took control of her senses. He kissed and kissed until Esther went down before wave after wave of passion. He seemed to be wearing a great deal of clothes compared to her own flimsy covering, which was no protection from roving hands and searching, questing mouth. He shifted her body a little away from the fire as the flames blazed higher. He sat up and removed his cravat and jacket and then tossed his waistcoat in the corner.

  “No, you must not… you cannot,” said Esther, trying to fight against the drugged feeling in her body.

  He laughed down at her dazed eyes as he stripped off his shirt.

  “Murder them! Burn them!” screamed a voice outside.

  “Stop!” whispered Esther. “Please stop.”

  But his hands had found the tapes that held her dress. The material whispered down her shoulders to bare her breasts. She put up her arms to try to cover them, but he smiled at her gently, and said, “I will hide them for you.”

  He jerked her back into his arms and pressed her naked breasts against his bare chest.

  The effect on Esther’s senses was devastating. Something seemed to give inside her, and she began to kiss him back with ferocity and passion.

  A volley of shots sounded in the square outside as the militia moved in to quell the mob. There were screams and howls, but Miss Esther Jones lay in Lord Guy Carlton’s arms deaf and blind to the outside world. For Lord Guy, no horrible scenes of battle disturbed his mind. She was moaning in abject surrender as he kissed one perfect breast when all at once his lovemaking ceased. He gave her a little shake.

  “Don’t stop,” pleaded Esther.

  “Marry me tomorrow.”

  “Oh, Carlton …”

  “My name is Guy. Marry me tomorrow. I will have all of you in the wedding bed and nowhere else. Marry me!”

  “Yes,” said Esther. “Oh, yes.”

  “We will be married here, a quiet wedding, and when London returns to normal, we will be married in church.”

  “You, in church?” said Esther. “Do you not know, m
y lord, it is deemed monstrous unfashionable to be married in church?”

  “I’ll have you, Esther Jones, before man and God. Now, kiss me again and send me on my way. I shall return tomorrow with the preacher. I dare not stay here because I would not be able to keep my hands off you.”

  The sounds in the square outside were dying away. He dressed, gave Esther a hard kiss on the lips, and took his leave.

  Ten minutes later, Lord Guy roused the staff and Mr. Roger at Number 67 Clarges Street to tell them of his forthcoming wedding. They all cheered. Rainbird ran down the stairs to fetch champagne. Only Manuel stood grim and silent. He could see all his hopes and dreams fading away. After the celebrations were over, after he had heard Mr. Roger teasing Lord Guy over breaking the conventions by staying alone with his bride-to-be before the wedding night, and staff and masters had at last gone happily to bed, Manuel stayed behind in the front parlour beside the dying fire and made his plans.

  Graves, hollow-cheeked and white of face, opened the door to Manuel the following morning and wearily heard the Spanish servant say he had an urgent message for Miss Jones from Lord Guy Carlton. In vain did Mr. Graves protest it was too early in the day; Manuel was adamant. Miss Jones would be most incensed if she did not receive my lord’s message.

  When Esther finally came downstairs in her undress, Manuel, eyeing Graves, said he preferred to speak to her in private.

  “Very well,” said Esther, surveying the servant with dislike. Could she persuade Guy to get rid of him once they were married?

  At first she could not quite take in what Manuel was trying to tell her. She shook her head in confusion and asked him, “I am sorry. I am so tired. What are you saying?”

  “I am saying that my lord is leaving for Portugal today,” said Manuel.

  “But we are to be married today!”

  Manuel shook his head sadly. “A great joke of it he made last night, did my lord. ‘She thinks I am to wed her,’ he say, and he laugh, and all the servants laugh and drink champagne. My lord, he say he give anything to see your face when you find him gone.”

  “I do not believe you,” said Esther, white-lipped.