by M C Beaton
“If you will not take something from me, then I cannot bring myself to let you make my gown,” said Cressida firmly, “and so I will have to go to Mrs. Horton in the village, who will persuade Papa that I must wear white and I will look like… like a dog’s dinner.”
Annabelle laughed and capitulated. “Very well,” she said. She looked at the bolts of cloth. “There is a plain white muslin there…”
“Oh, no,” said Cressida quickly. “You have chosen for me and so I must choose for you. This rose pink silk and some of this gold. You could make a gold slip and have a pink overdress. I can just see it.”
Annabelle tried to protest, but Cressida’s enthusiasm was infectious and in no time at all, she found herself seated in the vicarage trap being driven back home by Cressida.
She invited Cressida into the Manor hoping the girl would refuse, but to her dismay, Cressida accepted.
Guy Carruthers was sprawled in an armchair in the yellow saloon, a decanter of brandy at his elbow. He was not wearing a cravat, and his shirt was covered with stains of snuff and last night’s wine.
He looked up as the ladies entered and said viciously, “Get out of here. Demme, I don’t want a cluster of chattering Friday-faced females about me. Shoo! Be off with you.” His eyes glittered in his white face and he looked half-mad.
Cressida drew a breath of pure excitement. What a villain!
“Are you sure you have sent invitations to all the village?” asked the Earl of Darkwood.
“Yes,” replied his sister, letting her embroidery frame lie in her lap. “I do not know why you must entertain peasants, Charles. I could have made up a genteel group from the local county.”
“I am a stickler for tradition,” said her brother with a grin. “Father always asked everyone, you know that. Besides, it will give me great pleasure to see you tread a measure with the local butcher.”
“Faugh! I trust these people will know their place.”
“It is not Almack’s, you know. I am afraid you are going to have to dance with any gentleman who asks you. Did you invite the Carrutherses from the Manor?”
Lady Trompington picked up her embroidery again and set a neat stitch. “Of course,” she said in a colorless voice.
“Good. Are you inflicting anyone on us for dinner?”
“Only Mr. Knight.”
“Ah, the good vicar. He has a daughter, I believe.”
“Yes, but such as we do not invite the relatives of the clergy.”
“How on earth have you become so hoity-toity? I blame Trompington. May I remind you that I can damned well ask anyone I feel like asking to this barn of a place?”
“Language, Charles! This is our family home and a home to be proud of,” said his sister repressively.
The earl looked about him with a jaundiced eye. The late earl had left a vast fortune because he had spent little of it on his country seat. Although from the outside it seemed a fairly modern building with its fine portico, it was merely a sort of shell of an exterior to hide the old interior, which was a mixture of Elizabethan and Jacobean. The rooms were drafty and dim and were joined together by long galleries and corridors. There were low doorways and little stairs to trip the unwary. There were old suits of armor in the hall under tattered battle flags. The kitchens were a long way away from the dining room and so the food served at the table was often only lukewarm. The longest of the galleries had been chosen as the setting for the ball. Instead of paintings, mirrors had been hung along one side of it, the old earl having once gone on a visit to Versailles had had a fleeting ambition to emulate the grandeur of the French court. The cost of the mirrors had shocked him so much that his ideas had stopped there, but the present earl had judged that the gallery once it was lit by hundreds of candles would present a suitably festive air.
At dinner that afternoon, for his sister kept country hours and had ordered dinner to be served at four, the earl interrupted the gentle vicar’s usual scholarly discourse to demand, “Tell me about the Carrutherses.”
He was aware, although he did not turn his head, of the sudden stiffening of his sister’s body.
“Ah, yes, yes,” said the vicar. “Most unfortunate. Poor lady.”
“Yes, very poor,” commented Lady Trompington acidly. “We met her in the mercers this day, and her gown was shockingly shabby, and she had not even enough small change in her reticule to pay for some paltry silks.”
The butler and footmen removed the cloth and placed bowls of nuts and fruit on the polished wood of the dining table along with one of those quaint miniature silver wagons on wheels containing port, sherry, burgundy, and canary.
The earl lifted out the port decanter and threw his sister a quizzical look. She rose reluctantly to her feet. “I shall leave you gentlemen to your wine,” she said and rustled out of the room, the stiff taffeta skirts of her dinner gown trailing across the polished wood of the floor.
“The Carrutherses,” prompted the earl gently.
“Well, my lord, I do not care for gossip…”
“But you do care for the welfare of those in your parish,” interrupted the earl. “So feel free to tell me why Mrs. Carruthers wears shabby gowns and cannot pay her bills.”
“Quite frankly, her husband is a wastrel. He drinks and gambles and now that he no longer has funds to gamble with the gentry, he drinks and gambles with the peasants at the local fairs.”
“And what has Mrs. Carruthers to say to this?”
The vicar spread his hands in a deprecating gesture. “My lord, when does any woman have a say in what her husband says or does?”
“Any children?”
“No, and a good thing, too. I called on them once and Mr. Carruthers threw the decanter at my head. But my daughter, Cressida, has just befriended Mrs. Carruthers. I gather Mrs. Carruthers was humiliated by your lordship’s generous offer to pay her debt at the mercers.”
“Yes, I should not have done that,” said the earl, studying the wine in his glass. “But I shall see the Carrutherses at the ball and make my amends.”
“If I could make so bold as to advise you,” said Mr. Knight, “I would suggest you do not. Mr. Carruthers has a very fiery temper. I am sure his wife told him nothing of the incident. But you have not invited them to your ball.”
“On the contrary. Lady Trompington assures me that an invitation has been sent to them.”
“Perhaps it was mislaid. In any case, Mrs. Carruthers herself told Cressida she had not been invited.”
The earl rang the bell and asked a footman to fetch paper and ink. He wrote quickly and then sealed the letter and gave it to the waiting footman. “Take that directly to the Manor,” he ordered. He turned to the vicar and smiled. “There. I have remedied matters. The Carrutherses have been invited. There is no need to tell my sister. She has been forgetful of late and I do not like to upset her by pointing out her shortcomings.”
Annabelle would have refused the invitation, but her husband was spending one of his rare evenings at home. Also, he was comparatively sober, having slept in an armchair since Cressida’s visit.
“Capital!” he said, scrawling an acceptance. “There will be cards, no doubt.”
“No doubt,” echoed Annabelle miserably.
Chapter Two
“Is your master at home, girl?”
Having no butler, Annabelle had answered the door herself. She had only two maids apart from the daily cleaning woman to help her and she had been instructing the girls in the making of rose water in the still room. She was wearing a mobcap and an apron over her gown.
“I am Mrs. Carruthers,” she said with as much hauteur as she could muster. “And you, sir?”
He took off his hat and swept her a low bow that had a look of mockery about it. “Beg pardon, ma’am. I am Temple, Mr. Jonathan Temple at your service.”
He handed her a card turned down at one corner to show he had called in person.
Annabelle took it. “I shall see if my husband is available,” she said
. “Pray enter.” She left him standing in the hall and mounted the stairs to the library, hoping that her husband was sober enough to receive this visitor and hoping at the same time that Guy did not owe this Mr. Temple any money.
She found her husband in the library. He was wrapped in a banyan and with a turban on his head, but he was drinking coffee and glaring at the newspapers as if he hated every printed word.
“There is a Mr. Temple called to see you,” said Annabelle.
“Who the deuce is he? Some dun?”
“No-o. He looks like a gentleman. Very fashionably dressed, almost foppish. He has fair hair and a rather weak face.”
“You’ll be telling me next what he has for breakfast. Show the cully up. Might be worth some sport.”
Annabelle returned to the hall and asked Mr. Temple to follow her. “On your uppers, hey?” he said, looking about him as he walked up the stairs. “Good do with a mort of blunt, this place. Downright shabby I call it.”
Annabelle folded her lips in a thin line but did not deign to reply. There was a rattling of carriage wheels on the drive outside, and her heart lifted. Cressida had called to take her to the vicarage for their now daily sewing session. The gowns were coming along famously and would be ready in good time for the ball in a week’s time. Annabelle bit back a sigh. When she was with Cressida, she felt young and carefree and could imagine herself single again.
She pushed open the door of the library, said, “Here is Mr. Temple,” and quickly walked away before Guy could start ordering her around like a servant to bring wine and cakes.
Guy Carruthers did not rise but remained slumped in his chair. “Well, well,” he remarked, studying Mr. Temple lazily. “Who are you? I don’t know you, do I?”
“No,” replied Mr. Temple, dropping elegantly into a chair facing Guy. “But I hope we will become good friends.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes, very good friends,” said Mr. Temple silkily.
Guy surveyed his visitor’s rather effeminate face and foppish dress, and his face darkened. “Hey, you ain’t a backgammon player, are you?”
Mr. Temple drew a pistol from his pocket and pointed it at Guy. “Imply once more that I am of that breed who prefer amors with their own sex and I shall blow your head off,” he said levelly.
“Oh, the deuce. Put that toy away,” said Guy. “But what am I to think if you go on smirking and talking about being friends?”
Mr. Temple put the pistol down on the table between them. “Very well,” he said. “To put it bluntly, you could still be of service to us.”
“Who’s us? I left the military this age.”
“You once helped my friends who are anxious to see Napoleon escape to freedom. You still have friends among the high-ranking military. There are certain things you could find out for us.”
“I am no traitor,” said Guy hotly.
“But you once took a sum of money to help your wife’s friend, Emma, Comtesse Saint Juste, be abducted, did you not? A few hints in the right quarter and you would find yourself in the Tower.”
“You have no proof.”
“We have powerful friends close to the throne who would be happy to supply that proof. In return for your services, you would, of course, be paid a great deal of money, a certain proportion of it to be paid in advance.”
Guy bit his thumb and studied Mr. Temple warily.
“How much?”
“Five hundred pounds in advance.”
Guy’s eyes gleamed. He then lay back in the chair and closed his eyes while he thought quickly. He was desperately in need of money. With five hundred pounds he stood a chance of making a fortune at the card tables at the earl’s ball. Besides, all he had to do was then turn this silly nincompoop over to the authorities and keep the money.
He opened his eyes. “Do you have the money with you?”
“I will have it for you in a week’s time. Then you will be expected to take up residence in London. There you will receive your instructions. Does your wife know of your previous… er… perfidy?”
“What, Annabelle? No. Never tell women anything. Gabbers all. All right, my friend. You come here with the money, say, next Tuesday, but come before nightfall because I have a mind to go to Darkwood’s ball.
Mr. Temple smiled. He knew Guy’s reputation and knew he would probably gamble away most of it at the ball, but then he would be desperate to earn more. “I agree,” he said. “I don’t suppose you are going to offer me any refreshment?”
“You suppose right,” said Guy. “I expect you next Tuesday.”
Annabelle stitched diligently at the ice-blue silk of Cressida’s ballgown. She did so hope that Mr. Temple would not start Guy gambling again. Not that Guy had ever really stopped, but they had so little money that he could only afford to throw dice at the country fairs. She glanced around the comfortable parlor of the vicarage. The weather was still sunny. There were daffodils on the shaggy lawn beyond the open windows under the elm trees; bird song, peace, and tranquility. So easy to pretend she was single again and dreaming of some handsome gentleman who would fall in love with her at the ball.
“Of what are you thinking?” asked Cressida. “You had such a faraway look.”
Annabelle smiled. “I was thinking of the ball,” she said, and bent her head over her sewing again.
“Lord Darkwood is very handsome, is he not?” asked Cressida.
“Yes, very handsome, but such a reputation, my dear.”
“All he needs is the love of a good woman,” said Cressida piously.
“Now, surely you must know that rakes never reform,” sighed Annabelle.
She is thinking of that husband of hers, thought Cressida. Aloud, she said, “I wonder if Lord Darkwood will dance with you, Annabelle.” The new friendship was now on first name terms.
“I see no reason why he should,” said Annabelle candidly. “He has a humorous glint in his eye and will no doubt dance with a few of the lowest of the village to irritate his sister. She struck me as being very high in the instep, although I only saw her for a few moments. Where is Lord Trompington?”
“On his estates. He travels to join his wife at the ball. There is a stranger in the village staying at the Crown, a Mr. Temple.”
“Yes, he called to see my husband.”
“An old friend?”
“No, Guy did not seem to know him.”
“How very odd,” said Cressida. “What was the reason for his call?”
“I did not stay to find out.”
“Most odd. A mysterious stranger. Is he handsome?”
“I thought his figure too foppish and his manner too insolent,” said Annabelle. “He is not known to anyone else locally.”
“All I can say is,” said Lady Trompington to her brother, “that the one benefit of this ball is that I shall never have to see any of these low people again on a social footing for some time.”
“I would not be too sure of that,” said her brother. His voice held a tinge of malice. “Our good vicar’s sister is Lady Kitson.”
Lady Trompington had been arranging flowers. She paused with a daffodil in one hand, her mouth hanging foolishly open. “Why did you not tell me?”
“Didn’t see what difference it could possibly have made.”
“But this is dreadful. Lady Kitson. Widow. Twenty thousand a year. Oh, dear, dear. I should have asked the vicar’s daughter to tea. What will he think of me?”
“You are become quite incoherent, Sis. Do not exercise yourself so much. It appears Miss Cressida Knight, the daughter you have socially snubbed, has befriended Mrs. Carruthers.”
“Well, of course she would!” Lady Trompington stabbed the daffodil down into the vase. “There is no other genteel company. I shall pay her particular attention at the ball.”
“And yet,” murmured the earl lazily, “if you do not pay her friend any attention whatsoever, our Christian vicar and his daughter will be most offended.”
“Charles, I swear you are
bamming. Should I pay this Miss Knight any attention, she will no doubt be too flattered to bother about what her dowdy friend thinks!”
The earl surveyed her with admiration. “There are times when you leave me breathless,” he said.
“I know,” said his sister complacently. “You always did underrate my intelligence.”
But when her brother had left the room, Lady Trompington became aware of the nagging little worry that had been plaguing her for the past week. Mrs. Carruthers. She remembered how Charles had settled that mercer’s bill. Also, her brother had obviously made it his business to ask around the village about Mrs. Carruthers or how else would he have found out about the friendship with Miss Knight? Perhaps, of course, the vicar had told him, but she doubted that. The vicar usually confined his conversation to scholarly matters or to raising money for the common poor of Upper Chipping.
The time had definitely come to pay a call on the vicarage. With any luck, she would find Mrs. Carruthers there. Not that Mrs. Carruthers, being a married lady, was any danger to the great name of Darkwood, but still, if Charles should become sentimental over the chit, the Carrutherses might become on calling terms and Lady Trompington’s pride could not bear that. She hoped the vicar would not be at home. Mr. Knight always made her feel uncomfortable. Lady Trompington would never admit to herself that the discomfort was because the vicar made her feel pretentious.
She was lucky. The vicar was locked in his study preparing a sermon, and Miss Knight and Mrs. Carruthers were taking tea in the parlor.
Cressida was quite intimidated by Lady Trompington. The magnificence of that lady’s gown, the splendor of her bonnet from which two huge ostrich feathers curled, the haughty magnified eye that surveyed her through the quizzing glass made Cressida blush and stammer. Her timid suggestion that she fetch her father was brushed aside.
“We shall have a comfortable coze, us ladies,” said Lady Trompington. “It is pleasant to relax with members of one’s own sex.”
With that, she sank down onto the very edge of a chair, her back ramrod straight, one gloved hand resting on the tall ivory handle of a parasol and prepared to do battle. Of course there was no danger of this Mrs. Carruthers appearing at the ball. Charles did not know that she had made sure no invitation had reached her.
