“Who are you marrying, Wentwell?” the Earl asked turning to Neville.
Neville hesitated but a moment. “Your daughter with your permission, and hers,” Neville said.
“Why of course, Wentwell,” the Earl replied with a laugh. “A wife and daughter? How drunk do you gentlemen think I am?”
“We need to get him home before anyone else sees him out of sorts.” Neville gave him a push. “Let’s go, Shalace.”
“No one is going to think anything but that he is in his cups.” Samuel said. “He shall not be the only gentleman who spent the afternoon at the musicale imbibing.”
The Earl balked at getting into the carriage. The gentlemen could have picked him up bodily and put him inside, but they paused to hear his protestations. “I don’t know you,” he said pointing a finger at Samuel. “Wentwell who are these men?”
“How it is that he recognizes you,” Reginald said, but Neville shook his head. “I think he is mistaking me for my father.”
“Oh,” Reg said realizing that Neville’s father had died when Neville was a boy. This must be a strange experience indeed.
“Of course you know us,” Neville said.
“Oh, I think you have your work cut out for you, Wentwell,” Samuel said.
“Shut it, Beresford.”
Samuel chuckled and they managed the situation of getting the old man into the carriage without further incident. Since the Earl did not believe that he was married, they finally convinced him that he should go to speak with his lady and offer for her on the spot.
“I am not sure I am putting forth my best foot,” the Earl said uncertainly. He suddenly discovered that he did not have shoes nor stockings on his feet and it was with much ado the gentlemen managed to get both onto his now rather dirty appendages. Nothing could be done about his sodden trousers, but with a few more swigs from Samuel’s flask he was convinced that his “Sweet Emmeline” would have him wet and bedraggled as he was.
“Sweet?” Samuel mouthed behind the Earl’s head.
Neville shrugged, he doubted any called the Lady Shalace sweet, but the Earl continued, “Sweet and voluptuous. Miss Lovell loves me, you see, and I love her and no bloody conventions are going to keep us apart.”
“I am sure Miss Lovell will be delighted to accept your suit,” Neville encouraged the Earl.
“If she doesn’t,” he said. “I told you before Wentwell, I shall just kiss her senseless. If she is mussed enough there will be no question of our marriage. She will have me or no one, and the Ton can kiss my arse.”
Neville choked at the man’s cavalier attitude. “But surely, only if she truly wants you,” he said.
“Of course, but I am aware Miss Lovell has only the barest connection to the gentry, but you must agree Wentwell, there are ways around the constrictors put upon us by our standing; that is if the lady wants to be caught.”
The men in the carriage were stunned to silence at his raffish language.
After a moment, Neville cleared his throat. “You forget yourself, Shalace,” he said softly, but the unguarded comment made him think that all those years ago, regardless of rumor, it was not Miss Lovell who caught the Earl, but he who had caught her and made her his countess, The Lady Shalace.
The rest of the carriage ride was made in silence and Neville could not help but compare Lady Charity to her mother , The Lady Shalace and not unfavorably. The lady was not the man catcher his mother and indeed the rest of the Ton thought her. It was clear that Lord Shalace loved her, and was still in love with her after all these years. He didn’t just pick a young pretty bride and she did not trap him for a title. Neville smiled. If love could exist between the cantankerous Lady Shalace and her failing earl, at their age, then love was possible anywhere. It gave him a warm feeling inside and hope for his own lady.
He felt strangely closer to his own father after speaking with The Earl of Shalace, no matter that he was not completely lucid. It was clear that the two men, his own father and the Earl of Shalace were friends. The families had not remained friendly after his father’s death, and no wonder. The wives were not. His own mother thought Lady Shalace was a social climber, but he now knew that was not true. He wondered if Lady Charity had much of her father’s brusque honesty. It was the polar opposite to all he had thought of Lady Shalace, and in turn her daughter. He had misjudged Lady Charity, to his embarrassment.
“If you have this under control, Wentwell,” Samuel said, “Drop us back at the park so we can pick up our carriages.”
“We can follow you if you think you may need our help,” Reg offered, but by then The Earl of Shalace was nearly snoring his head lolling onto Neville’s shoulder.
“I think I can manage the man,” Neville said.
“Ah, but can you manage his daughter?” Samuel asked.
Neville grinned in the darkened carriage. “I think so,” he said.
“Well. Good luck, old man,” Reg said giving him a clap on the shoulder. “Don’t let her get away,” he whispered.
~.~
Chapter Eighteen
Lady Charity was still waiting by the window when a carriage pulled to a stop in front of their gate.
“It must be Lord Wentwell!” Charity cried. It had to be. Anyone else would mean something terrible had happened. She sent a cry to the heavens that the carriage belonged to the gentleman and he would have her father inside.
The carriage door opened and Charity’s guess was confirmed as the first pair of fine boots that descended the steps belonged to the lanky body of Lord Wentwell. He unfolded himself from the interior and then turned back around to help the other rider down the stair.
“Father!” Charity cried. The window had been flung open and her father looked up in confusion at her word.
“Emmeline?” Lord Shalace replied as if he thought Charity were her mother. “My dear, I have come to beg your hand.” Lord Shalace grinned. “Wentwell here has encouraged me to come state my intent. I have come to do so before it is too late. You see, there are many a dashing fellow wandering around that might turn your head, and I love you to distraction and if you will have me, I shall make you my wife.”
At this point Charity, who had rushed from the parlor to the front door, was standing on the top step staring down at her father in all of his delusion. “Father,” she repeated. She has never been so happy to see him, although he did look a bit bedraggled.
Her father’s eyebrows drew together and his head tilted to the side as if he were confused by her reply.
“Miss Lovell,” Lord Wentwell said with a pointed tone. “Perhaps you would like to invite us inside?”
“Yes. Yes. Of course,” Charity said, realizing that her father was still lost in the past and they could not converse on the step.
Charity could see that she must do so. She cleared her throat and swung her arm wide to offer entry into the townhouse. The pair of gentlemen strode by her as if nothing were out of the ordinary. She realized that her father’s trousers were quite wet from the knees down, and he was nearly dripping on the foyer floor. Aside from that, he smelled of whiskey.
Lady Charity had sent for the doctor as soon as she had returned home from the park. Due to that preemptive measure, the physician was currently taking his leisure in her father’s rooms. Charity sent a servant to retrieve the man immediately that he might inspect her father’s condition. She invited the gentlemen to sit in the parlor.
Once her father had taken his seat upon the couch, his weariness began to take hold. As his brain struggled to continue the delusion, he grew more and more confused. Eventually, his eyes drifted closed and his head fell back to the seat as he fell into dreaming.
“Doctor Porter,” Charity approached the physician with concern, “will he be alright?”
“I believe so,” Doctor Porter replied. “What he needs now is rest. He has had a trying and confusing day.”
Charity nodded and directed the servants to put the Earl to bed. She could not help but think that
she was incredibly lucky that her father had been found and returned unharmed, and she owed that luck to Lord Wentwell, who had found him and brought him home. No matter what she thought of him, Lord Wentwell had gone out of his way to help her and she was grateful.
“No more excursions without proper help,” the doctor added before he made his exit.
Charity nodded, suddenly exhausted from the day’s events. She sank back on the coach and asked, “Where was he?”
Lord Wentwell explained how he had found her father. “He had removed his shoes,” Lord Wentwell confided. “I believe he may have chosen to bathe in the fountain if I had not found him.”
“Lud!” Charity rubbed her forehead. She had the beginnings of a headache.
“In any case, he is home now,” Lord Wentwell said.
How her Father had gotten to that fountain, such a distance from the park, Charity might never know. She was thankful that Lord Wentwell had been able to convince Lord Shalace to trust and follow him, and that he had returned her father to her. She was about to express her gratitude when the door to the hall burst open without warning and Lady Shalace stormed in to glare at the pair of youngsters sitting proud as you please alone in the parlor.
Wentwell stood immediately, but the damage was done.
“What is the meaning of this?” Lady Shalace cried. “I came back as soon as I heard. Mrs. Thompson warned me, Lord Wentwell had reduced another lady to tears at the concert, and then, she saw you with my husband; my husband, was seen off gallivanting with this… this…” she did not seem to have the proper word to describe Lord Wentwell; for any word that she chose would be an insult, and Charity’s mother knew well enough to keep her tongue around a Peer even when she was enraged.
Instead of continuing the tirade, she turned on her daughter. “I wondered where on earth you had gone to, Charity, and now!” She turned towards Wentwell. “How dare you enter my home uninvited, and sit with my daughter unchaperoned. Next your mother will have disparaging words for my daughter, saying she wished to catch an earl. Well, I can tell you right now, that is not so. You will not ruin my daughter, Wentwell. You will not.”
“Mother please,” Charity began, but Lady Shalace waved her off.
She was fully the Countess now, and there was no stopping her. She turned briefly to Charity. “I thought you should have know better,” she snapped. “Go to your room at once.”
Charity had no intention of leaving until the matter was settled. “It is not what you think,” Charity said, but her mother would not be contained.
“Mother!” Charity began. She stepped forward, ready to defend Lord Wentwell, but she felt his touch at her elbow. When she turned her head, a slight shake told her that he did not wish her mother to know the truth of his heroism. Charity was confused by this. The truth would do wonders for his reputation but he seemed to want the opposite.
Lady Shalace lifted a finger and shook it under The Earl of Wentwell’s nose as if he were a boy instead of an earl. “You may be an earl, but you are also but a fledgling in the ways of the Ton,” she said. “I know their collusions, and my husband is an earl, more advanced and prominent than you are. Do not think you can best me. You cannot. If you think to breathe a word of this, a single word, you will not be able to dig your way out of the scandal I will pour upon your head. Earl or no.”
“Lady Shalace,” Lord Wentwell began in an all too convincing tone, “I have come to apologize for my gallivanting, as you call it. You see, the concert was quite a bore, and I, as is my nature, longed for a small adventure. I met with the Earl, and am afraid your husband does not hold his liquor as well as he might have once done.”
“Liquor!” Lady Shalace threw a look at Charity who gave her the briefest of nods. She watched her mother’s countenance relax if only slightly. Her mother believed that Wentwell only thought her husband was drunk. Things were not as bad as she thought. Charity knew drinking was not the best pastime, but it was also not something which would keep her father from his earldom. It was an obsequious and virile endeavor which abounded among the gentlemen of the Ton. Her father would not be looked down upon for imbibing.
Lord Wentwell looked shamed faced. “I did bring the Earl home, but he is quite in his cups, as I am sure you heard.”
“Oh,” her mother said, the wind taken from her sails. She shot another look at Charity, as if to say, how much does he know? Does he truly think your father was drunk?
“I was only informing the Lady Charity of the incident,” Lord Wentwell continued. “I am afraid we took flight without notifying Lady Charity. In fact, I did not know she was left alone, unescorted. I assure you, she has spared me no lash of her tongue.”
“I should hope not!” Lady Shalace spat! “To leave my daughter like that. The shame! On her own as well! You have removed a lady’s chaperone from her care! If she had not been wise enough to return to our home she might have been ruined!”
“But I am not,” Charity said.
“That remains to be seen, young lady,” her mother snapped. Charity knew, now that Lord Wentwell had explained he only saw The Earl of Shalace drunk, and not in any way indisposed, she supposed that her mother would soon vent her spleen upon her for losing him. “Good day, Lord Wentwell,” her mother said haughtily, effectively dismissing the man.
“I will take my leave now,” Lord Wentwell agreed.
“That is right,” Lady Shalace said. “Take your leave and do not darken my door again. You bring nothing but trouble and rumor in your wake.”
He bowed to them both. “Lady Shalace. Lady Charity,” he said and then he was gone. Charity did not even get the chance to thank him properly and her mother had insulted him, when he had been nothing but helpful.
As soon as Lord Wentwell was out of the door, her mother turned on her. Leaning against the door as if the structure could hold her upright, she said, “I thought you had this under control.”
“I did, Mother, I only left Father for a moment.”
“A moment! You should not have left him at all. This could have been a disaster, and even as it is, there were rumors of that rake accosting a young lady at the concert, and then he was seen with your father.”
“Accosting a lady?” Charity repeated. The word sent a tremor through her. “Who?” Her heart sank as she realized that she might now be the subject of rumor. Had someone seen her?
“I do not know,” her mother said. “Apparently she was hidden by her fan. She had more sense than you, Charity. Her face was not seen with that wastrel.”
“Yes, Mother,” Charity said. She had no intention of telling her mother that the lady in tears was her, but it pained her to think that she was the root of yet another rumor surrounding Lord Wentwell. This one, was certainly not his fault.
“Who saw you home?” her mother asked tardily. Her eyes widened in horror. “Surely you did not take a hired hackney?”
“No, Mother,” Charity said. “Patience was at the concert with Lord Barton.” Let Mother think what she will of that. It was not exactly a lie.
“Good. Good,” her mother said calming down somewhat. “At least they will be able to shield you from rumor. Lady Beresford and her brother are both pillars, and scandal would not touch them.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“You could learn from Lady Beresford, you know,” her mother said, and with that, Mother went to check on Father.
~.~
Charity spent much of the later hours convincing her mother to keep quiet about the whole situation. It was too easy for her mother to let something slip to Mrs. Thompson or Mrs. Sullivan. Charity’s only defense was in protection of her own reputation, which of course her mother would defend to the end. Charity knew that her mother wished she could spin the tale for all so that her daughter was the victim of Wentwell’s rakish ways, but she could not. The scandal might bring her daughter much pity, but with the pity would come ruin, so Lord Wentwell would have to be spared her ire.
Charity reminded her mother th
at it was best to not speak of the matter at all. If word got out, Father would be looked down upon for his infirmity, and anyway, Lord Wentwell had brought Father home with no more than a thought that the man had drunk more than his fill, and so it was decided that they would speak no more of it.
Several days later she tried to speak with her father of what had occurred but he had no recollection of it. He only recalled their conversation in the park. Charity supposed it was a blessing that he might have a happy memory to look back upon. She kissed his forehead and wished him sweet dreams. She and Lord Wentwell alone knew the truth of the situation and the burden seemed unbearable.
She needed to speak to Lord Wentwell, to thank him for his aid and to apologize for her mother’s words, but there seemed no way to manage it, with her mother watching her every move. In the end, Lady Charity penned a letter of thanks to him, and apology for her mother’s actions against him. She asked Jean to post it for her. She expected him to find a way to answer.
~.~
~ Part 4 ~
Honesty
Chapter Nineteen
A week passed and Charity found herself escorted to more than one event by Michael and James Poppy. She received no response from Lord Wentwell. She began to think Lord Wentwell was still angry about the horrible things she has said of him at the ball. She had accused him of being a libertine. She did not know what had actually happened with Miss Danbury, or even Miss Macrum for that matter. True, he had been a gentleman and helped her with her father, but she had been a lady in distress, and he, as a gentleman would be honor bound to help her. But he would not be honor bound to answer her letter or indeed have anything to do with her, especially since she had insulted him. And then her mother had essentially thrown him out of their house. Charity sighed. Mother had been hasty in her judgement, as was she, Charity realized. She had judged Lord Wentwell too quickly.
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