by M C Beaton
“I do not think so,” said the colonel desperately. “Look here, he’s in debt and he wants to market his daughter; he wants to sell her to this Lord Bewley.”
Lady Fortescue’s voice was like ice. “And what happens, pray, if this scheme works? Do we tell that trusting young girl that we were only using her to get money and hand her back to be married to a man she fears?”
The colonel, who had been standing by the fireplace, suddenly sat down and buried his head in his hands.
“I have thought of something,” said Miss Tonks suddenly.
“Hoist the flags, light the lamps, and declare a holiday,” sneered Sir Philip. “The widgeon has finally had a thought.”
Miss Tonks ignored him. “We could go ahead with the colonel’s plan. The Runners cannot do anything to us. I doubt very much whether Sir Randolph will call them in, for Frederica told me she had left a letter explaining she was running away and why. When Sir Randolph calls with the money, we will tell him that there is a further condition: that Frederica is to have nothing to do with Lord Bewley.”
“And he will stand there and meekly obey our commands?” said Sir Philip.
“We could arrange to meet him, say, in Hyde Park at two in the morning,” said the colonel, taking heart from Miss Tonks’s encouragement. “There are enough of us to spy out the land. At the first sight of a Redbreast, we call the whole thing off. And if the worst comes to the worst, do you think Sir Randolph wants to appear in the newspapers as someone who drove normally honest hotel proprietors to such straits because he did not pay his bill?”
Sir Philip would have gone on opposing the plan if Lady Fortescue had not said, “There is no answer to our problems but hard work and to keep the hotel for much longer than we had intended.”
The old man stiffened. He was weary of being in trade. The only way to get freedom and get back into polite society was to get Lady Fortescue to sell. It was a mad scheme of the colonel’s, but they had done madder things and pulled them off.
“May as well try it,” he said, startling the others with his about-face.
“Has everyone run mad?” asked Lady Fortescue.
Sir Philip gave a horrible sort of conciliatory leer. “A monster like that deserves to be punished. Hey, I’ll even write the letter.”
The colonel looked more relieved by the minute. After all, Sir Philip was used to skulduggery.
“Oh, if you are set on this folly,” exclaimed Lady Fortescue, “then I must let you all go ahead with it. But do remember that the trusting Miss Frederica must not know of this.”
***
Frederica had placed her small stock of belongings away in the large press in the corner of the room which she was to share with Miss Tonks. She sat on the narrow window-seat and gazed out at the buildings on the other side of Bond Street. She had actually done it! She had escaped and here she was in a safe refuge with these kind hoteliers who only had her best interests at heart. She would work for them as hard as she could. She heaved a little sigh. She had put herself beyond the pale. There could no longer be any dreams of love and marriage. Certainly such dreams had been shattered by her parents’ insistence that she marry Lord Bewley, but before that particular axe had fallen, she had often passed the time by imagining the perfect man.
The door opened and Miss Tonks came in, carrying a bolt of print cloth. “Are you handy with a needle?” asked Miss Tonks.
“I can do plain stitching,” said Frederica doubtfully, “but I am still not very well versed in ladylike accomplishments.”
“Then I will help you. So much more pleasant in our sitting-room next door. The others have gone about their duties.”
An hour later, the gown was cut out and Frederica was stitching busily. She reflected that had she had any friend or sympathetic relative to run to, she would have been plagued by guilt over what she had done. But the surroundings of the hotel were so strange to her, so different from anything she had known, that she could only try to concentrate on the day and forget about the wrath of her father. She was sure he would find her. Until then, she meant to try to enjoy the company of these odd hoteliers as much as possible.
Miss Tonks, working on a sleeve, thought as usual about the actor, Mr. Davy. How she longed to go backstage and see him again. He had called twice at the hotel and taken tea and on both occasions she happened to be absent, shopping over at the milliner’s on Ludgate Hill. After hearing of his second visit, she had been frightened to leave the hotel, but he had not called again. But from time to time her thoughts strayed away from Mr. Davy and towards Frederica. The girl was so young, so very pretty, so vulnerable, and so trusting in their goodwill. Miss Tonks shuddered to think how Frederica would react if she learned that she was really being held for ransom.
***
Lord Bewley strode up and down the Green Saloon in Frederica’s home a week later. “What the deuce were you about, to try forcing the girl into marriage, hey?” he barked. “I don’t want an unwilling bride. Now you say some fiends are holding her to ransom. Let me see that letter again.”
Sir Randolph handed over a piece of parchment. In it Sir Philip had stated bluntly that if Sir Randolph wished to see his daughter again, he must pay eight thousand pounds ransom and deliver it personally to the third oak tree near the west gate at Hyde Park at two in the morning on Friday, the fourteenth of September. If Sir Randolph informed the authorities, his daughter would be killed.
He had not, of course, signed the letter.
“Odd sum,” said Lord Bewley with a scowl. He was a squat, thickset man dressed in plain clothes and top-boots. “I mean, eight thousand pounds! Why not twenty? They’re not to know you are in dun territory.”
“I’m going, and I’m going armed, and I’ll shoot whoever turns up,” growled Sir Randolph, “and I’ll give that daughter of mine a whipping when I get her back.”
“So if you shoot whoever,” sneered Lord Bewley, “how will that get you Frederica back? Why did you not introduce me properly to the girl? One look at me would have put all her fears to rest.” He strode up to the looking-glass and straightened his rather grubby cravat and looked at himself with satisfaction.
“How could I? You’ve been away in foreign parts.”
“How’s Lady Randolph taking it?” asked Lord Bewley.
Sir Randolph looked surprised. A female’s feelings were of no account. “She leaves things to me,” he said.
“As you will leave this business to me,” said Lord Bewley. “I will go to meet this person or people in Hyde Park. You will pay up, or rather, I will pay the money and add it to the sum you already owe me. As security, I will hold the deeds to your house and estate.”
“What if I cannot pay you?” asked Sir Randolph.
Lord Bewley looked at him in contempt, thinking that, for all his sporting pursuits, Sir Randolph with his padded shoulders and padded calves was a poor figure of a man.
“You’ll pay,” he said brutally, “or you’ll lose your house and land. Now what does Frederica look like? Got a miniature?”
But Sir Randolph had not had a miniature taken and shook his head.
“I learn from the county she’s a shiner. Yaller hair, big eyes, right?” Sir Randolph nodded his head dumbly and burst into tears. Lord Bewley was unaffected. It was an age when men wept openly and he shrewdly judged that Sir Randolph was weeping over the money he now owed.
“Don’t worry,” said Lord Bewley. “The minute I have your Frederica safe, those villains will wish they had never been born.”
Chapter Two
My valour is certainly going!—it is sneaking off! I feel it oozing out as it were at the palms of my hands!
—SHERIDAN
Sir Philip was in trouble again, trouble which he felt was so unfair considering he had taken over the role of blackmailer. There was an unwritten understanding that Lady Fortescue interviewed and hired female staff and Sir Philip or Colonel Sandhurst hired the male servants. So Lady Fortescue was incensed to learn that Si
r Philip had hired a most unsuitable housemaid, one Mary Jones from Shoreditch. It was not that she was bad at her work or that she lacked good references, it was because she was too blonde and buxom, like a milkmaid in a bawdy farce. Her hair was golden and her figure rounded and she appeared just the sort of maid to inflame the passions of the gentlemen guests.
“You know we usually only hire plain chambermaids,” said Lady Fortescue crossly. “That one means trouble, and the only reason you hired her, you old fool, is because you have a roving eye.”
“Brightens up the place,” said Sir Philip defiantly. “We’ve enough antidotes as it is.” He flashed a glance at Miss Tonks. Frederica looked up from her sewing. The gown was nearly finished and she was due to start on her duties the following day. “Besides,” went on Sir Philip, “we’ve got Miss Frederica here, and no one in their right mind could call her plain.”
“Miss Frederica is protected by her gentility,” said Lady Fortescue. “Mary has none.”
“She is a good worker and clean,” pointed out Miss Tonks. “Perhaps the best thing would be to give her a trial.”
“By the end of which time she might be with child,” said Lady Fortescue roundly. “Now to this other business.”
The colonel flashed her a warning look. “Frederica,” said Miss Tonks quickly, “would you be so kind as to go next door and fetch my work-basket? One gown will not suffice, and we had best start cutting out another.”
Frederica obediently left the room.
“Now,” said Lady Fortescue, “time has passed very quickly, and tomorrow night is when we meet Sir Randolph in Hyde Park. I suggest that Sir Philip and Colonel Sandhurst go and take Jack, the footman, with them.”
The colonel shook his head. “It won’t answer. Jack might gossip. Can’t have a servant with us. We’ll need to go alone.”
Miss Tonks struck an attitude. “I think we should all go. Sir Randolph might be violent, and the presence of ladies may stay his hand.”
“You’ve been at the playhouse again,” sneered Sir Philip.
“Miss Tonks might have a good point there,” said the colonel, who had been feeling increasingly worried about the whole affair. “Although I am relieved to see no scandal, no mention in the newspapers of the missing Frederica. But Sir Randolph might simply shoot us. Have you thought of that?”
Miss Tonks emitted a squeak of dismay. Then she said, “Perhaps we should get in touch with Mr. Davy. Another man…”
“You may as well take out an advertisement and tell the whole of London what we are about,” said Sir Philip. “Let’s keep it in the family. We should not expose the ladies to danger.” He chewed his lip. “On the other hand, they might add an air of respectability to this mad scheme. Their presence might stop Sir Randolph from resorting to violence.”
“He might feel very violent if, once we have the money, if we get the money, we then begin to plead Frederica’s case,” said Lady Fortescue. “And if he insists on taking Frederica home, how do we then explain to the girl how we have betrayed her?”
“I think we will need to cope with all that when the time comes,” said Sir Philip, who felt he did not really care whether Frederica suffered or not. “We will approach the oak tree cautiously and spy out the land, just in case Sir Philip has brought armed men with him.” He saw the way Miss Tonks’s thin hand flew up to her mouth to hide the sudden trembling of her lips and added hurriedly, “Perhaps it would be best to leave the ladies behind, hey, Colonel?”
But Lady Fortescue said with a little sigh, “At my age, I am not frightened of death. Miss Tonks may wait here for us.”
“No, if you are going, then I will go, too,” said Miss Tonks with a bravery she did not feel. “Hush, I think I hear Frederica returning.”
Frederica came in, her cheeks pink and her eyes shining. But she did not say anything, merely picking up her sewing and bending her head over it. Frederica had no intention of telling her new friends that she had met Romance slap-bang in the middle of Bond Street.
***
She had flown out of the hotel and had collided with a tall gentleman. “Steady, miss,” he had said in an amused voice. “You will do us both an injury running about like that.”
Confused, Frederica had backed off and dropped a curtsy and then looked up into his face.
He had swept off his hat and made a low bow. “Captain Peter Manners of the Guards, at your service,” he said.
He was very tall, with black curly hair and wicked blue eyes, a strong chin and a tanned face.
“I am Miss Frederica… er… Black,” said Frederica, “and I am most sorry I stumbled into you, sir.”
“My pleasure, I assure you,” he said in a pleasant light drawl. His eyes took in her simple but expensive gown. “You should not be unescorted in Bond Street, Miss… er… Black.”
“I am only going next door where I have a room,” said Frederica. “I… work at the hotel.”
She bobbed another curtsy and ran off up a narrow dark stair next to the hotel.
He stood stock-still for a few moments. She was too well-gowned and too well-spoken to be a servant. Perhaps she was a lady’s-maid to one of the guests. But then she would have said so. Then the Poor Relation was famous for being staffed by members of the quality. He himself was staying at Limmer’s, enjoying his leave from the army. He should have been staying with his widowed mother in Berkeley Square but he had pleaded with her that as he would be entertaining many army friends, it was better he should be at Limmer’s Hotel, home of the Corinthian set, rather than cluttering up her drawing-room with noisy bucks. The fact that his fiancée and her mother were residing with Lady Manners, his mother, was a thought he refused to acknowledge. He had proposed to Belinda Devenham on his last leave because she had been presented to him as a suitable bride, because he thought he would never fall in love, because war had made him anxious for a certain stability in his otherwise rackety life. But at the end of his last leave it had been borne in on him that the fair Belinda disapproved of him and meant to reshape him in her own image, which was of all that was the most respectable. He had thought of her often while he had been away and each thought had made him uneasy. The fact that his mother had written to him shortly before his arrival in London to inform him that Mrs. Devenham and her daughter were staying with her had made him realize the wisdom of staying at Limmer’s Hotel, although he would not admit the real reason to himself.
He strolled along to Limmer’s and went into the coffee room. His friend, another captain, Jack Warren, hailed him.
“How goes the world?”
Captain Manners sat down and smiled at his friend. “Surprising well. I collided with the most beautiful creature I have ever seen outside the Poor Relation.”
“You’re engaged to be married,” said Jack. “Take me along and introduce me.”
“She said she was a servant,” said Captain Manners, half to himself. “She said her name was Miss Frederica… er… Black. I noted the ‘er.’ I do not think her name is really Black. She was too well-dressed and well-spoken to be a servant.”
“The same could be said for any of that terrifying lot who run the hotel,” said Jack with feeling. “Went there for dinner one night and felt I had strayed into a ton party to which I had not been invited. Devilish steep prices, too. Perhaps I might take a stroll along to their coffee room and see if I can see your fair charmer.”
Jack Warren was a tall, thin Irishman of no particular looks but a great deal of charm. Captain Manners felt a sudden stab of irritation. He looked up to find a footman holding out a note. The footman was wearing the Mannerses’ livery.
He scanned the note. His mother, reminding him that he was expected to call.
He got to his feet. “I must go,” he said. “I think that the beautiful miss does not work at that hotel. I think she was lying. No point in wasting your time at such an expensive place looking for her.”
He walked moodily to Berkeley Square. Gunter’s, the confectioner’s at the
corner of the square, was doing good business. Two young men were leaving. They looked happy. They were probably not engaged to be married, he thought sourly and then flinched at that first disloyal thought, or the first disloyal thought that he had allowed to formulate clearly in his mind.
He walked up the shallow steps to his mother’s door. It was a sunny day. The plane trees in Berkeley Square, planted the same year as the French Revolution, were turning colour, and there was an invigorating nip of early-autumn cold in the air. The butler opened the door to him. Captain Manners walked into the dark hall. He heard the door close behind him and he felt he had entered prison.
“My lady is in the drawing-room with Mrs. and Miss Devenham,” said the butler.
The captain reluctantly surrendered his hat, gloves, and stick and walked slowly up the stairs.
He paused in the doorway of the drawing-room as the butler announced him. Then he walked forward and kissed his mother on her powdery cheek before turning to the other two ladies. He felt a sensation of relief when he saw Belinda. She was graceful, with thick reddish-brown hair piled up on her head exposing her long white neck. Her eyes were very full and liquid, and only the most carping critic might have remarked that they were a trifle protruding. She was twenty-two years old but the captain was thirty-one, and had been assured that Belinda’s unwed state was because her fastidious mind had not allowed her to accept any of the many proposals of marriage she had already received. He thought she looked very well in a pretty white muslin gown with many flounces and little puffed sleeves. She had an excellent bosom and was flattered by the current high-waisted styles, for she was a trifle thick about the real waistline, which the latest fashions disguised. She did not smile at him, being well brought up and knowing that any excess of emotion was unladylike. She held out her hand and he kissed the air somewhere above it. “We are pleased to see you,” she remarked calmly. Her mother, a small squat toad of a woman, said, “Where have you been?”
