The Daring Debutantes Bundle

by M C Beaton

  Annabelle paused, irresolute, in the doorway.

  “You must join me,” said Lady Emmeline, still in that eerie whisper. “We must prepare our souls for the afterlife.”

  “I shall leave you to the privacy of your devotions, Emmeline,” said Annabelle, backing away and trying to make her own voice sound as normal as possible.

  “I insist,” said Lady Emmeline. “Come here, child.”

  So Annabelle wearily joined her. Lady Emmeline knelt at the prayer stool, and Annabelle knelt on the rug on the floor beside her. Lady Emmeline prayed for her immortal soul and poor Annabelle prayed for a normal life.

  THE Honorable Caroline Dempsey looked down from her bedroom window and saw in the far distance Lord Varleigh emerging from the woods with his gun and his dogs. Caroline decided to wait for him in the hall and waylay him.

  Despite her horsy appearance Caroline was more sensitive than her two rivals. She had been aware of a certain warmth of affection between Lord Varleigh and the pretty Annabelle and guessed that Annabelle was more of a force to be reckoned with than Lady Jane.

  She paced up and down the hall, praying that her two rivals might not descend and steal a march on her with almost the same fervor that Lady Emmeline abovestairs was praying for her immortal soul. Caroline heard Mrs. O’Harold’s laugh echoing along the corridor at the top of the stairs and the rapid sound of approaching footsteps. In the same moment she saw Annabelle’s bonnet and pelisse lying over the chair. She quickly put them on and swung open the great door of the hall.

  Powdery snow came swirling into the hall, but Caroline could still make out the figure of Lord Varleigh with his dogs at his side, still some distance away.

  The approaching sound of Mrs. O’Harold’s chattering voice spurred her to action.

  Heedless of the damage to her thin silk slippers, Caroline plunged into the snow and ran towards Lord Varleigh.

  There was a sudden report, awful to hear in all that white stillness.

  The Honorable Caroline Dempsey stopped abruptly in her tracks and then dropped like a stone.

  * * *

  THE house party was at an end. Caroline’s body had been removed for burial by her weeping parents, and searchers had combed the estate without success for signs of the marksman. It was at last decided by the local magistrate, who was tired of travelling in the wintry weather, that Caroline’s death had been the unfortunate result of a stray bullet fired by a poacher. Only Annabelle wondered if the shot had been meant for herself.

  She did not know who to confide in or who to trust. Perhaps Lord Varleigh’s handsome face masked the brain of a madman. Perhaps one of her fellow guests was a murderer. The well-bred faces and high fluting voices began to seem sinister.

  TWO days after Caroline’s funeral Annabelle was seated in the library, trying to read. Captain MacDonald came bustling in, suddenly seeming to Annabelle to appear comfortably normal with his fresh, handsome face and military side-whiskers.

  “This place is giving me the Blues,” he said robustly, placing one booted foot on the high fender and staring at Annabelle with a worried look on his face. “I don’t like that ‘accident.’ I think there was something funny about it.”

  “I am feeling blue-devilled myself,” said Annabelle. Her face was white, and she had large shadows under her eyes. She had a sudden longing to confide in somebody.

  “Jimmy,” she said. “Do sit down. I am in need of help.”

  The large Captain promptly sat down opposite her with his hands on his knees and stared at her with the affectionate expression of a large and devoted dog. “I’m the person to tell about it, Annabelle,” he said.

  Faltering at first and then with her voice growing stronger, she told the Captain of Mad Meg’s warning, of her fears that the fire in the pimping shed had been deliberately set and that Caroline had been wearing her, Annabelle’s, pelisse and bonnet when she had been shot.

  “Odd,” muttered the Captain, “Demned odd. Tell you what, Annabelle. I think it might just be coincidence, but why stay here, shaking in your shoes?”

  “Emmeline is determined to stay,” said Annabelle.

  “Oh, no she won’t. Not if I talk to her,” said Captain MacDonald. “You go up to your rooms and tell your maid to pack your things, and I’ll have us out of here in an hour. Get back to London, heh! Think of the theaters and the plays and you could come on some more drives with me if the weather ain’t too bad. What a monster you must think me, Annabelle. After my terrible behavior at Chiswick. Don’t really know why I did that. Must have been mad. Now come along…smile, that’s a girl. Jimmy will look after you!”

  Annabelle gave him a watery smile. She gratefully took his arm as he ushered her out into the hall.

  “I say,” said the Captain, “there ain’t any hope of you and me tying the knot, is there? I mean to say,” he added gruffly, shuffling his boots, “look after you, and all that. Very fond of you.”

  “I’m sorry. I just don’t know,” said Annabelle, looking searchingly up into his face. “I’m so frightened and everything seems so strange. Give me more time.”

  “All the time you want,” said the Captain enthusiastically. “Be a good girl and give me a kiss and go off and see to your packing.”

  Annabelle shyly raised herself on tiptoe and kissed Captain Jimmy MacDonald on the cheek and scurried off upstairs.

  Lord Varleigh slowly closed the study door on this touching scene. He could not understand why he felt so unhappy.

  EVERYONE seemed to revive in the sooty London air. Lady Emmeline seemed to have become her old self again, grotesquely dressed it is true, but no longer rambling and murmuring and praying for her soul. Annabelle flirted and danced with a great number of young men and felt that she was getting over that dangerous illness of being hopelessly in love with Lord Varleigh. If ever she found herself thinking about him, she resolutely concentrated on his inhuman “marriage mart” at Varleigh Court and the suspicious death of poor Caroline.

  The Captain had not touched any liquor at all since his return, and his friends gloomily declared him to be a changed man and cast resentful glances at Annabelle.

  As party and ridotto followed ball and breakfast, and the elegant figure of Lord Varleigh did not appear, Annabelle found the memory of him growing mercifully fainter. Her godmother had written to the rector praising the Captain in no uncertain terms, and the rector had written a pleading letter to Annabelle urging her not to throw over the love of a good man for some girlish romantic nonsense.

  Annabelle became convinced that her own idea of love was wrong. Hurting and painful passion was no basis for a happy marriage, and what did one do when passion had fled? Mutual esteem and mutual interests were what mattered. And, indeed, the Captain did try. He even read books to please her and went so far as to remark that Miss Austen was a demned fine writer and Annabelle, who had caught him studying Pride and Prejudice forebore to point out that she had noticed the latest copy of the Sporting Magazine tucked between its gilt-edged pages.

  One day Captain MacDonald turned up to take Annabelle out walking, wearing his full uniform. His fur cap was black with a red bag and a white bag over red plumes and gold cap lines ending in tassels and flounders. The jacket, dark blue with scarlet collar and cuffs, had silver cords on the front. The pelisse, dark blue like the jacket, was laced with silver in the same way with a black fur edging. White breeches and black Hessian boots edged with silver braid with silver tassels in front; a sword belt made of crimson leather and ornamented with silver embroidery completed the ensemble. Annabelle thought he looked magnificent and told him so, and the large Captain smiled at her almost shyly and twiddled his side-whiskers with one large hand.

  As they walked along Piccadilly, Annabelle was pleasurably aware of the admiring glances cast in their direction, but she had almost bumped full into Lady Jane Cherle before she noticed her.

  Lady Jane was all that was gracious. She greeted Annabelle like an old friend. Lady Jane explained she wa
s sending out cards for a dinner party and Annabelle must come. Annabelle was about to give a polite-refusal when, to her dismay, she heard the Captain accepting the invitation for both of them.

  “How could you, Jimmy?” demanded Annabelle when Lady Jane had left them. “Lady Jane is a cat.”

  “Oh, she’s all right,” said the Captain amiably. “Bit fast I admit, but quite the thing for all that.”

  For the umpteenth time Annabelle pondered over the vagaries of society. If she, Annabelle, had behaved even a tiny little bit as scandalously as Lady Jane, then all the doors of the top houses would be slammed in her face. But for some reason Lady Jane was accepted everywhere. “Almost as if society felt in need of a resident whore,” thought Annabelle and then blushed painfully as she realised she had voiced her thought aloud.

  “Here! I say!” said the Captain in alarm. “Shouldn’t talk like that, you know. Not the thing!”

  Annabelle fell silent. She could only hope Lady Emmeline would forbid her to go.

  But her godmother was depressingly enthusiastic. “If you were strictly a debutante, I wouldn’t let you,” explained the old lady. “But you’re going with Jimmy, and Jane’s careful of her reputation at her dinners. You’ll meet only the top people there.”

  It certainly seemed a sedate enough gathering. Admittedly the Captain’s admirers were present in the shape of Major Timothy Wilks and George Louch, but apart from teasing the Captain over his sobriety, which was the talk of London, they seemed more subdued than usual.

  Lady Jane’s house in Manchester Square was in the first style of elegance with Egyptian rooms and Etruscan rooms and powdered, liveried footmen.

  Her fortune had been gathered from two late husbands who had had the good taste to die shortly after their marriages. It was rumored that although Lady Jane had more than enough money of her own, she greedily collected what she could from her current lovers. Society had watched with bated breath for the replacement to Lord Varleigh, but so far it seemed as if Lady Jane intended to remain heart free.

  Annabelle was reluctantly forced to admit that Lady Jane was a good hostess. Her chef was excellent and her vintages of the best. She said she had heard Captain Jimmy was as sober as a judge these days and instructed a footman to serve him with lemonade.

  Annabelle eyed the handsome Captain approvingly. He had certainly been a model escort of late. He was a…well, a comfortable kind of man. He seemed to be relishing his lemonade as if it were the best vintage Burgundy.

  “By Jove, this is good,” he said. “You chaps ought to try it. Not in the common way, you know. Faint taste of liquorice or something. Gives it a fresh taste.”

  And Lady Jane, who had spiked the Captain’s lemonade with arrack, gave him her beautiful smile and relaxed in her high carved chair at the end of the table while she waited for the inevitable results.

  Mr. Louch began to describe the expertise of a juggler he had seen at Vauxhall Gardens the previous summer. “Didn’t throw balls or clubs or anything like that in the air,” he said. “But everything else. Champagne bottles, knives, forks. He kept them all up in the air at the same time. The man’s a wizard! I thought you were good at that regimental dinner, Jimmy, but you ain’t a patch on this fellow.”

  “Bet you I am,” said the Captain wrathfully, taking a long pull at his lemonade goblet. “Bet you anything you like!”

  “Bet you a monkey,” tittered Mr. Louch.

  “Done!” cried the Captain, shaking off Annabelle’s little hand from his sleeve.

  “Can’t you do something,” cried Annabelle to her hostess as the Captain began to gather an assortment of objects in front of him.

  Lady Jane said nothing, but she lay back in her chair and smiled like a cat.

  Annabelle turned back wildly to the Captain. “Please, Jimmy,” she begged. “Don’t make a fool of yourself.”

  “Leave me alone,” said Captain MacDonald huffily. “We ain’t married yet.”

  Annabelle flushed crimson with mortification as he got to his feet. In his large hands he held a champagne bottle, a knife, a silver salt cellar, and a wine glass.

  He began to throw them up in the air, deftly catching them and recirculating them as the guests cheered and laughed.

  “Here, catch!” called Lady Jane—and threw an orange down the table in the direction of the Captain.

  He saw it coming and took his eyes off the juggling objects for a split second in order to try and catch it. The champagne bottle crashed onto the silver epergne in the middle of the table and was followed by the wine glass. Both splintered into fragments. The silver salt cellar hurtled into the plate of syllabub in front of Annabelle and splashed the contents of the dessert over her dress, and the knife fell down and gashed the Captain on the cheek.

  “That wasn’t playing fair,” howled the enraged Captain. “Bet’s off!”

  Annabelle reached forward and slowly picked up the Captain’s lemonade glass.

  She took a sip of its contents and put it down. She rose to her feet.

  She turned and faced Lady Jane who sat laughing at the end of the table.

  “You have put arrack in the Captain’s lemonade, Lady Jane.”

  In a louder voice Annabelle repeated, “You put arrack in Captain MacDonald’s lemonade. A shabby trick.”

  A silence fell on the rest of the guests and only the drunken Captain who was trying to balance a knife on his nose seemed unconcerned.

  Now Lady Jane could flaunt her amours over half of London and still be good ton. But to spike a man’s drink was like cheating at cards.

  “Don’t all look at me like that,” shrilled Lady Jane. “’Twas a joke, no more.”

  Annabelle rose from the table and left without a backward glance. She was shortly followed by most of the guests. The Captain remained at his place with a silly smile on his face. “’Strordinarily good champagne, Lady Jane,” he said dreamily.

  “Go to hell,” said Lady Jane, throwing a glass at him which missed and struck the opposite wall.

  “Very well, ma’am,” said the Captain with awful dignity.

  He tottered out into the hall and called for his carriage. He was politely informed that he had arrived with Miss Quennell in Lady Emmeline’s carriage and that Miss Quennell had already departed in it.

  His good temper rapidly evaporating, the Captain hailed a hack and directed it to Berkeley Square. He was already seething in its evil-smelling interior by the time he arrived at Lady Emmeline’s house. He had every intention of giving Miss Annabelle Quennell a piece of his mind. She would have to learn to take a joke or he would take his riding crop to her—after they were married of course.

  He strode heavily into the hall to see Annabelle mounting the stairs. He unceremoniously dragged her down again and gave her a shake.

  “It’s time you learned what’s what, my girl,” he grated. “Do you think it fair to me that you prim up like a Methodist any time I’m having fun. Be demned to you, miss.” With that he dragged her into his arms and ruthlessly kissed her. He smelled overpoweringly of arrack and cigars and his lips were hot and wet.

  Annabelle pushed him away. She was trembling with rage. “You make me sick,” she said in a shaking voice, and turning on her heel, she mounted the steps, again trying not to run.

  “I do, do I?” yelled the Captain. “Well, you’ll be sorry you said that, Miss Annabelle Quennell. You’ll be sorry.…”

  Chapter Eleven

  Annabelle Quennell was going home—just as soon as spring came and the roads were fit for travel.

  Lady Emmeline had ranted and raved, but for once Annabelle remained unmoved. Annabelle felt she had disgraced herself completely. Lady Emmeline had accused her of “leading Jimmy on,” and Annabelle with her cheeks aflame had had to admit the truth of the accusation.

  The Captain himself had heaped coals of fire on her head by calling the next morning to apologise most humbly for his behavior and to accept her final and most definite rejection of his suit with forg
iving good humor.

  Despite all Annabelle’s hopes for a speedy departure, winter kept its grip on England, and by the beginning of March London was experiencing the coldest and hardest frosts in living memory. The great families were slowly returning to Town to start elaborate preparations for yet another Season, and once again, the flambeaux blazed outside the Mayfair mansions and carriages jammed the Ring in Hyde Park on a Sunday afternoon.

  Only the bravest dared to venture out in the new Spring muslins, and one young hopeful contracted rheumatic fever by damping her skirts when the temperatures were below zero.

  Annabelle attended a few routs and parties in the company of Lady Emmeline. The Captain was often present and often unsnubbable. Annabelle no longer felt at ease in his company after his onslaught in the hall. Lady Emmeline could pooh-pooh for all she was worth and call Annabelle missish, but as far as Miss Annabelle Quennell was concerned, she would now rather die a spinster than be wed to the Captain.

  He had an endearing boyish charm when he was sober, but Annabelle noticed that since Lady Jane’s party, he only managed to stay sober during the day. Lady Emmeline might point out acidly that in this year of 1815, that in itself was a great achievement. But the other bucks and bloods held their wine better—in the company of ladies at least—and did not seem disposed to dance on the ledge of their box at the opera or to juggle with the silverware at dinner.

  But Annabelle had found a new interest which effectively took her mind off the Captain’s erratic behavior.

  Skating was the rage this winter, and everyone who was anyone was giving a skating party. Annabelle loved them. They were gay and exciting and much more exhilarating than parties held in overcrowded and overheated rooms.

  One day, when Annabelle was upstairs in her rooms adding the finishing touches to a dashing skating costume to be worn at the Egremonts’ party that evening, the Captain called on Lady Emmeline and demanded a few words with her in private.

  More grotesquely painted and gowned than ever, Lady Emmeline received him in the drawing room.