The Notorious Countess

by Liz Tyner

  She moved to rise.

  ‘Beatrice.’ His voice a low, cautioning growl. ‘Wait.’

  She tilted towards him. ‘I don’t give a rat’s claw what they say about me in the next publishing. I’m leaving. I am not pretending to be someone I’m not. I am not acting in this dreadful farce.’ Her chin jutted out.

  He put his arm at the back of her seat, moving in, fingertips burning just above the neck of her gown. His face leaned forward, blocking her view of everyone else.

  ‘I’ll pose for you if you’ll just sit. Pretend. Just this one night. I saw Agatha Crump look at you. Just do this to spite her.’

  Her face did not change. ‘I would very much like to leave.’

  ‘I was hoping to stay,’ he said. His breath brushed her ear. ‘You might drop your reticule again.’

  He leaned back in his chair, kept his eyes straight ahead, but concentrated on every movement in the seat beside him. He set his foot to tapping again,

  Her lashes fluttered. One or two of her feathers fluffed again and she looked at the light fixture. Her chin softened. ‘Do you know what the play is?’

  ‘No. Don’t care.’

  ‘Are we truly friends?’

  He blinked his gaze halfway towards her. ‘One cannot have too many friends and it would be an honour to have a friend such as you who can rise above difficulties and not just land on her feet, but manage it in a pair of unstable slippers.’

  She glanced down. ‘They were supposed to be comfortable.’ Raising her eyes, she said. ‘Do you like them?’

  ‘I would not be caught dead in them.’ He smiled at her.

  ‘Do you like anything at all about me?’ she asked. ‘Other than, well, the particular woman parts. I know you have no complaint of my curves,’ she said, moving just enough so that her chest quivered.

  ‘You seem boundless, limitless. You sparkle. Like a jewel. In the drawing, I thought the tufts on your ears endearing. I thought the beast looked—sweet. Rather like you.’

  She shrugged his words away, but her shoulders relaxed. ‘I suppose I can stay. If I left now I would be angry with myself later.’ She paused. ‘I did not realise it before, but often I do not like being unseen. But notoriety can get a little tiresome, though.’

  ‘Everything does.’

  ‘Even perfection?’

  He looked at her. ‘I would not know.’

  ‘I would not either.’ She took out her fan again and picked at it, pulling something from it he could not see. ‘After the mishap with Riverton I no longer wanted to be near my husband. I moved to my brother’s home. The maid Riverton attacked was the butler’s niece—though I doubt Riverton ever knew it.’

  She nodded almost to herself. ‘The servants changed in their regard for me after the attack. They were the same, but not at all the same. Arthur was the perfect butler until I took the scissors to Riverton, then he became different. I once said to him that he hopped so fast to my needs that I was reminded of a frog. He looked at me gravely and a sound whished from his lips that sounded exactly like a noise one might hear outside on a warm summer’s night. That was the first laugh I had had in a long time.’ She swallowed. ‘I think he and Mrs Standen would die for me and I for them. So I suppose I owe Riverton some thanks. He increased the size of my family. He decreased the size of my art collection, though. When he left the house after being injured, three of my favourite paintings had been slashed. So I started keeping some of my favourites in my studio in case he returned.’

  She looked sideways at Andrew, smiling. ‘I will never be the D word. Demure! It sounds like death to me.’

  He did not doubt that for one second.

  Her cheeks were still flushed. But she was bearing up well. He wanted to leave with her and hold her in his arms and tell her that this was foolishness. That all would be fine and not to concern herself with the Agatha Crumps of the world.

  But that would be a lie. The Agatha Crumps carried a lot of sway. He did not quite understand why, but he knew it was the truth. They would always be about. Armed to the hilt with their cruel tongues.

  She tapped the back of his hand with her fan. ‘In the past, I didn’t want the talk of my husband to reach my ears and I suppose I preferred that they talked of me rather than him. That, at least, I had some control over. And if my ways caused reports of him to fall by the wayside faster, all the better. Though really—’ She tightened her lips and did not continue her sentence.

  She spoke the truth. She could never be hidden. She would always need the eyes and notice of others. ‘Why don’t we try to turn you into Beatrice the Beloved?’

  ‘I think we have a better chance of sprouting wings.’

  ‘You are a better person than all the scandalmongers combined on their best day.’

  Wilson joined them and Andrew did not think Beatrice said another word the entire evening, but it did not mean she was quiet or still.

  She smiled and waved at every person who caught her eye, and her fan never stopped. He’d never be able to smell lavender again without feeling an imagined breeze against his skin and remembering a night at the theatre, and a longing to kiss that tiny freckle at the side of her eye.

  Agatha’s smirk rested on him and he met her gaze until she turned away. He really didn’t care what she said about him.

  He didn’t.

  He wasn’t his father, no matter how much he sounded like him or looked like him. And nothing would have made Andrew feel better than to have his father in the ducal box with them—the father he’d grown up with, the one who’d wanted to be at home with his family, or at least made the pretence quite well. Not the man his father had become in later years.

  Andrew would never be like his father. Ever. And yet, he knew, his father once had thought his family above all others. His father had told him so. Told him how it had changed. Said he wished to leave them and go to the Americas. It was just there was nothing for him there.

  Chapter Eight

  The frame for the addition to the carriage house stood completed and the rafters of the roof topped the structure. He’d hired men to assist with the roof supports, but now he and Fawsett could work alone.

  ‘You were awake early this morning,’ Fawsett said, pounding a nail in. ‘I did not wish to wake early—however, I was quite pleased to do so for you.’

  ‘You took your time getting ready.’ Andrew frowned. The scent of the wood didn’t ease into his senses and remove his cares as it usually did. He kept thinking of Beatrice’s discussion of her curves. And his imagination kept lengthening the discussion and he wasn’t thinking of sonnets.

  ‘I had to tell the maid goodbye.’ Fawsett’s hammer paused mid-air. His words became shrouded in a mist of his memories. ‘A delicate and tender goodbye. Well, not terribly delicate and she doesn’t like it tender.’

  At Fawsett’s words, the hammer slipped and Andrew hit his thumb. He threw the hammer, cursing.

  ‘That hurt?’ Fawsett asked.

  Andrew did not move, the pain throbbing through his finger and lancing his whole body. When he could finally speak, he looked at Fawsett. ‘Didn’t hurt at all.’

  ‘A man in love should feel no pain—at least until after the rope around the neck is tight. Enjoy your last precious moments of freedom before you are pulled into a whirlwind that grasps you and—’ he waved the hammer head ‘—and gobbles you into oblivion.’

  ‘I see that the maids of this household do not have to be impressed with wit.’ Andrew stood and nimbly stepped from beam to beam. Then, he moved down the ladder and picked up his hammer from the floorboards, before climbing back to the rafters. He could feel his blasted thumb with every heartbeat.

  ‘If I did not know better,’ Fawsett said, ‘I would assume you have not recently got your ashes properly hauled.’

  ‘Silence is required when your employer has a hammer in his hand.’ He began working again.

  Fawsett snorted. ‘You will not kill me or hurt me. I can saw a straight line. And, I have
yet to miss the head of a nail.’

  ‘But you cannot be quiet.’

  ‘No. Nor can the maids and they talk among themselves. They tell how the high-born ladies try to catch your attentions. You only have to crook a finger.’ He shrugged, then scratched the front of his waistcoat, having left his coat on a rafter. ‘I am the same.’ He yawned. ‘It is a delicate line we walk. Keeping the ladies happy and not overtiring ourselves.’ His lips pressed together for a moment. ‘You and I both could be finding other ways to amuse ourselves right now. Better ways.’

  A slowing rumble from the street caused all Andrew’s senses to lock on to the noise.

  They could see the top of the town coach easily from their perch. Andrew stared, his hammer stopping in mid-air.

  Muffled sounds reached his ears. The coachman calling out. The carriage creaking to a standstill. The door opening. Voices. Foxworthy. Blast. The duke. Damn. His mother...

  Andrew looked at Fawsett, his voice a direct but controlled question. ‘Did you happen to get the newspaper?’

  ‘There is no mention of anything to concern you in the last one. And they have not had time to mention the theatre yet, though it could be out soon. I have a man posted, waiting, for the print. You’ve seen all that pertains to you and many of the stories from the past that refer to the countess.’

  The voices disappeared into the house.

  ‘They did not see you working like a tradesman,’ Fawsett said. ‘That is in your favour.’

  Andrew put down his hammer, noting that his hand still pained him. He nodded and stood, motioning for Fawsett to follow him to the servants’ entrance. ‘I have been expecting a visit from the duke. And Mother. I just did not expect Fox as well.’

  * * *

  Andrew walked into the sitting room to be greeted by three pairs of eyes. One pair smiling with almost more mirth than they could contain. One pair with a clenched jaw close by. The last laced with concern.

  His mother sat in one of the large overstuffed chairs facing the window. The sunlight reflected in her tired eyes and softened the hues in her clothing—only nothing could help with the monstrous matching earrings. His mother—he never understood what she saw in the earrings, but they always matched her dress.

  She stared at the stone in her ring and adjusted the band. Then she twisted the rings on her other hand into place.

  She stood, reaching her arm out. Fox put newsprint in her outstretched fingers, his glance at Andrew laced with undisguised whimsy. The duke, standing at Fox’s side, tried to put a hundred words of censure into his stare.

  His mother’s grey curls were bobbing as she held out the print. ‘Foxworthy picked this up for us on the way here.’

  Foxworthy’s voice held the innocence of a well-practised liar. ‘A friend was at the theatre. I knew you would want your family to know before the paper was officially in print.’ He smiled. ‘You can count on me.’

  Andrew forced his lips into a smile. ‘You always are thinking of your cousin and you can be sure I will return the favour.’

  The duke’s voice boomed. ‘Have you read what is said?’

  Andrew stared at his older brother and remembered that their mother was present.

  ‘If it is about the performance at Drury Lane, I was there. I do not need to read a review of it.’

  His mother took another step, standing directly in front of Andrew. The scent of the same medicinal hair tonic she always used wafted to him.

  She pointed to the part she had folded open. ‘It says this woman spent the night fanning your face. That the two of you whispered and could not take your eyes from each other.’ She touched his shoulder, her eyes filling with worry. ‘Andrew, are you infatuated with this woman?’

  ‘No, Mother. This paper...’ he took it gently from her hands, and looked at the large engraving, not reacting ‘...is not reliable.’

  Beatrice was the central figure. He was hardly discernible, yet they certainly had his cravat drawn right.

  ‘But, Andrew,’ his mother continued, facing him, ‘you even saw to it she was invited to your brother’s soirée. The duke thought it because of your business with the architect. But it’s the woman, isn’t it?’

  Fox made an exaggerated movement of patting over his heart while looking off into the distance as if he imagined love.

  ‘Mother—I did take the countess to the theatre. We had a lovely but quiet evening of no note. You’ve said you wished I would work less and I have been.’ He glanced at Fox. Andrew held the paper with one hand so his mother could not see the gesture he made beside it which was directed at Fox.

  Fox widened his eyes, pretending shock. Then touched his chest, at the approximate place of Andrew’s scar, and snapped his teeth.

  ‘They always refer to her as the Beast,’ his mother said. ‘That cannot be good. And I seem to remember that she may have tried to kill her husband.’

  ‘I’m sure she did not, Mother. Sometimes her spirit isn’t understood.’ He grimaced. ‘It’s never understood in the papers.’

  ‘Oh,’ Fox inserted, his voice matching the blandness in his eyes. ‘Has Lady Riverton been in the scandal sheets before?’ He could have been at Drury Lane trying to prompt another actor.

  ‘Truly, Andrew,’ his mother said, ‘what is this woman like?’

  ‘Mother. She has a kind heart. The engraving is nonsensical. I am certain the person who created it was not there.’

  ‘A kind heart?’ His mother’s brows rose. ‘Andrew, are you absolutely sure you wish to be connected to this family?’

  ‘The architect is really a decent sort. Most days. Lady Riverton is quite entertaining. I have a fondness for her.’

  ‘I’m not so worried about him. I did not want to say this because it is idle talk, but Fox told us that she may have been seen not long ago with a man—’ she lowered her voice ‘—in her bedchamber.’

  ‘Well, I would certainly hope my cousin would pass no judgement on that, glass houses, as they say.’

  She moved her head so she could see Fox. ‘Well, we all realise Fox does need to be reprimanded on occasion.’ She turned to Andrew again. ‘But I know how some women, they get a hook in a man and pull him in slowly, and he is getting cooked in the marriage pot before he even knows the fire is lit.’

  ‘Lady Riverton has no wish to marry.’

  ‘Andrew.’ She raised her arm, the scent of her doeskin glove surrounding him as she tapped his cheek in the same way she had when he was a child. ‘Anyone can see what a caring husband you’d make. I always knew when my boys were growing up that they would be a treasure for the right woman.’ She shook her head. She smiled, reaching for the paper. ‘I will dispose of this trash. But you take care around this woman.’

  ‘I do.’

  The duke smiled—his mouth moving into the same upturn one wolf would have shown another before the pounce. ‘Foxworthy, why don’t you show Mother the magnificent work Andrew has been doing on the exterior of the house?’

  ‘Only if you are certain the two of you will not come to blows.’ She directed her gaze at her sons before she held out her hand to take Fox’s arm.

  The duke raised a brow. ‘Mother. That is a remark unbefitting of you.’

  ‘But perfectly befitting my sons,’ she said.

  ‘Those sheets are often incorrect, Aunt Ida.’ Fox tucked her hand over his arm. ‘I’ve been written about—’ he held up his fingers ‘three—no, four times, if you count being the unknown man who took Lord Baldwin from the hazard tables and being one of the seconds for Beany Beaumont. And the time I was mentioned with Lady Wilmont—’ He stood proud. ‘It was an untruth. Grossly exaggerated.’

  ‘I do not want Andrew linked with a woman who is not right for him.’

  ‘I agree with you that he must take care.’ His eyes met Andrew’s as he left and his voice became ominous. ‘Because no woman dares poach the Beast’s game.’

  His mother’s response was a mix between a gasp and a mewl. The duke’s stare darke
ned more.

  Taking her arm, Foxworthy led his aunt from the room.

  Before the duke could speak, Andrew turned to his brother. ‘I know what you’re going to say. You know I am not going to listen, so if you speak of it, I will know it is only for the chance to pontificate.’

  ‘Then should I wish you all the best?’ The duke moved to the unlit fireplace. ‘With this woman who once stabbed her husband?’

  ‘Lady Riverton is also a countess.’

  ‘An accident caused by marriage to a man who wished to spite his family.’ He paused. ‘And, Andrew, that clackety-clackety-clack...’ He tapped the mantel three times. ‘The way she walks perched on those shoes. Surely you cannot...?’

  ‘I find it endearing.’ Andrew stared at his brother. Truthfully, she had good balance and it was quite pleasant to watch her walk.

  ‘I do not care what you do, who you do it with, or how, as long as you are discreet. You must keep it out of the papers. Mother does not deserve any disgrace. Not again. We are a proud family. I understand that a man needs a woman’s charms. But do not embarrass us with this countess-carriage-thrashing woman.’

  Andrew took a step towards his brother. ‘She is a gentle sort at heart and does not deserve the refuse printed about her. Within the next few months, I assure you the papers will not be telling such tales about her.’

  ‘You cannot be certain of that. You are not yourself. This is not like you. I think you must have a serious fondness for her.’

  ‘I am fond of her.’

  ‘She is not right for you. She is not. You must have things planned out for your life and I do not think she is quite the same. You could not bear it if I did not march my toy soldiers correctly. You drew up battle plans. And we could not just fight a simple war.’

  Andrew grumbled, ‘You never quite understood the importance of supply lines either. A battle can be won or lost based on the ammunition and tools provided to soldiers. Not to mention food.’

  ‘Pardon me,’ his brother said. ‘I forgot. The supply lines. You had to plan those the night before.’