Jane Feather

by Engagement at Beaufort Hall

  They remained that way until it was time to get into the ornate black and gold funeral carriages that would take them back to their home in Mayfair for the reception. Behind the carriages stood a line of motorcars; most of the wealthy guests had long given up their carriages for the convenience and speed of automobiles. The Earl himself had several, and Sir Philip’s sleek Eton-blue Belsize sat idle in the carriage house, but the Earl insisted on traditional horse-drawn carriages.

  “Miss Tate will ride in the staff carriage.” The Earl’s voice brooked no opposition and his square jaw firmed. Prudence knew that look. Rowena’s pretty face held the same expression when she got all stubborn about something.

  Victoria’s eyes widened. “Prudence rides with us.”

  “Nonsense. The Duke of Plymouth wishes to join us and there isn’t enough room.”

  Prudence placed her hands on Victoria’s shoulders. Tension vibrated through the young girl’s slender body and Prudence’s stomach knotted, sure that Victoria was going to throw a fit, the kind she used to throw when the family still called her baby and she wanted the biggest sweet in the shop. Even at eighteen, Victoria wasn’t above a tantrum or two if she thought the situation warranted it. But her waiflike face suddenly fell and her lower lip trembled.

  “It’ll be all right,” Prudence whispered. “I’ll go back with the staff and meet you at home.”

  But upon arriving at the house, Prudence found herself so busy helping Hodgekins, their butler, and Mrs. Tannin, their housekeeper, that she barely got to see Rowena and Victoria, who were stuck in some kind of morbid receiving line in the marbled foyer. After the guests offered their hushed condolences, they went either into the pale green and white sitting room on the right, or to the formal dining room on the left to gobble up indelicate amounts of food.

  Prudence slipped adroitly through the crowd, making sure there was enough port, brandy, and mulled wine. Carl, their footman, served oyster patties and croquettes, while the sideboard held silver platters of ginger biscuits from Biarritz and fine Belgian chocolates.

  The hothouse flowers had been delivered and arranged earlier in the day. Black beribboned vases of lilies stood on every table and the enormous silver bowls on the dining room table overflowed with white chrysanthemums. The scent made Prudence’s stomach churn and she wondered whether she would ever again enjoy the smell of flowers.

  As she busied herself with mundane tasks, Prudence noticed that except for a few of Sir Philip’s closest friends, who offered her their heartfelt condolences, the guests looked through her as if she didn’t exist. When one pinched-faced woman wearing a black velvet turban handed her an empty glass, Prudence realized why she was invisible.

  The Earl’s friends considered her staff.

  She stood in the middle of the wide marbled hall, holding a Waterford wineglass, tears pricking at the backs of her eyes. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  Prudence set the glass down on the nearest table and slipped away from the crowd into a small alcove near the curving mahogany staircase. She placed her hands on her heated cheeks and drew in several deep breaths.

  “I know the daughters, of course,” a female voice said, quite close to where Prudence was secreted. “They attended a house party at Stanton last summer with the Earl’s family, but I don’t know the girl who sat with them at the service.”

  “That was the governess’s daughter,” said a second woman. “Sir Philip raised her like one of his own and kept her on even after her mother died several years ago. Can you believe it? He had such liberal ideas. The girls practically ran wild in London.”

  The voices drew nearer and Prudence shrank farther back into the alcove.

  “How bizarre. They seemed like very nice girls.”

  “Oh, they’re nice enough. But I’ve heard the eldest is a member of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, and the youngest says the most startling things. She has the tendency to bring up in conversation bizarre subjects young girls shouldn’t even think about—strange talk of plants and herbs and such. And she’s delicate, you know.”

  “I’ve never seen the girl at Summerset or at any balls during the season.”

  The second woman tittered. “Well, of course not. You don’t think Sir Philip would push the Earl that far, do you?”

  The voices moved away and Prudence leaned her back against the wall, almost upsetting a small occasional table with a marble statue of Circe on top. She reached out and steadied it with one hand, her cheeks burning. What did the woman mean about Sir Philip not wanting to push the Earl? Prudence wished she could hide away forever, but it wasn’t fair to leave Hodgekins and Miss Tannin with all the work. They were grieving, too.

  Pushing the conversation from her mind, Prudence hurried to the larder and pulled two extra bottles of port from the shelf, where they’d been sitting upright, ready for the occasion. She dusted them off and took them to the butler’s pantry for Hodgekins to decant.

  That done, she decided enough was enough. She may not be a daughter of the house, but she was a part of the family and she desperately needed Victoria and Rowena’s comforting presence to erase the hurtful words still ringing in her ears. She turned the corner and stopped just short of running into a man putting on a black serge overcoat.

  “I’m so sorry.” She was about to step around him when she realized it was the same man who’d stared at her during the service. Her breath caught as she stared up into the obsidian darkness of his eyes.

  “No, I’m sorry. I thought I could just leave through the back.” He looked down at her and colored when he realized who it was. “I’m sorry. I only meant that I didn’t want to trouble the family further. I didn’t know Sir Philip very well.”

  “Then why are you here?” Her cheeks heated at her rudeness. Why did she say that? She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe with him so close. She took a step back.

  “My mother is ill and she wanted me to pay our respects. My parents know the Earl well and I’m good friends with Colin, the Earl’s son.”

  “Oh.” She risked a glance up at his face. Burnished brown curls fell over a high forehead and he regarded her steadily beneath quizzical brows. They stared at each other for a long moment and she wondered whether he felt as dazed as she did. Her heart sped up as the moment lengthened. She finally broke eye contact. “Thank you.”

  She moved to go past him and he caught her by her elbow. “Wait,” he said, his voice almost urgent. “I don’t even know your name.”

  “Prudence,” she said, before pulling her arm away and moving down the hall.

  “But who are you?” he called after her.

  She couldn’t tell him, for at that moment she didn’t know.

  Prudence found the girls still standing in the marble foyer, greeting guests. Alarm spread through her as she spied Victoria on the other side of a potted palm. She hurried to the Earl, who was speaking to a gaunt gentleman in a top hat.

  “Excuse me, sir,” she whispered.

  He continued talking, though she’d seen him glance her way.

  Pressing her lips together, she tugged on his arm. “Lord Summerset, I must speak with you.”

  He turned to her, irritation written all over his face. “What?” he snapped.

  “It’s Victoria. I think she should be excused from the receiving line. She doesn’t look well.”

  “I’m sure she’s fine.” He turned his head to where Victoria stood and his jaw tightened. Victoria’s skin had paled to muslin white and she swayed on her feet. He sighed.

  “Take her upstairs and sit with her. Rowena can do the receiving by herself.”

  She hurried to Victoria’s side without the courtesy of a reply.

  Slipping her arm around Victoria’s waist, she whispered, “Come with me. You’re done for the evening.”

  Victoria, always on guard against being coddled, stiffened in annoyance. There was nothing she hated more than being babied for her breathing affliction, but Prudence could fe
el tremors running up and down her slim body.

  “I’m perfectly fine,” she started to say, and then gave Prudence a wry smile as her legs trembled. “I guess I could use a break.” She leaned against Prudence and let herself be led away.

  “I’m just so sad and that’s what makes me tired,” Victoria said, as they slowly climbed the stairs to her bedroom.

  Prudence kissed her cheek. “You’ll feel better after some sleep.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  Prudence hesitated, her very bones aching with sadness. “Not really. But what else can we do?”

  Rowena watched them go, Prudence’s dark head leaning against Victoria’s blonde one, and wished she could join them. But someone had to play hostess and it was a duty she’d been taking on more and more as she got older, though rarely at occasions as formal as this. Her father had never stood much on formality. He could trot out the pomp and ceremony when he needed to, but his taste ran more to last-minute late suppers with friends, or hearty sandwiches in the sitting room with a couple of bottles of good wine. The kind of guests they usually entertained appreciated the generous simplicity of her father’s hospitality.

  She turned quickly to the stout woman in front of her as the tears locked behind her eyes threatened to spill over. If she began crying, she might never stop, and she still had hours until this ghastly reception was over. “Thank you so much for coming . . .” Her mind blanked as she desperately tried to come up with a name.

  “Your father was a good man, dear.” The still nameless woman patted her hand and moved on.

  When the tide of mourners coming through the door waned, she was finally able to leave the foyer. Snatching up a glass of brandy, she gulped it down, ignoring her uncle’s frown from across the room. She needed something to help her get through the rest of the evening.

  That done, she wandered from room to room, looking above people’s heads so she wouldn’t have to make the obligatory society chitchat. Her father had been contemptuous of that sort of empty nattering and Rowena shared the sentiment. Aristocratic prattle made her contrary and apt to say things like “Beastly weather, isn’t it?” even if there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

  So she avoided it, plumping the pillows on the winged-back sofa and wiping away a water ring on a Chinese bamboo side table. Before her parents had moved into the stuffy old Victorian home, her father had gutted it, making the rooms larger, adding a glass dome above the staircase to let in more light and plastering the walls in a creamy white. From the sash windows in the front to the gleaming mahogany floors dotted with Oriental rugs, everything about her house was beloved. Her mother had decorated it for comfort rather than show and had ended up creating a spacious, airy home that was both supremely comfortable and pleasing to the eye.

  Her uncle came to her side. “As soon as the crowd thins out a bit, I need you to meet me in the study. Your father’s solicitor wishes to discuss the details of your father’s will with us.”

  “Will?” she asked stupidly. Perhaps the brandy hadn’t been a good idea.

  “Of course. You didn’t think he would leave you and Victoria without means, did you?”

  Without means? She turned the phrase over in her mind. Well, no. She had never thought about money at all. Her father took care of household expenses. She suddenly realized that he wouldn’t be able to do that anymore. Her throat tightened. Wouldn’t the solicitor take care of that? Or the bank?

  Her uncle continued. “We need to discuss your future. He never spoke about any of this with you?”

  She shook her head, bewildered, and her uncle awkwardly patted her shoulder. “Never mind, dear. We will talk about it with Mr. Barry.”

  He moved away, leaving her to ponder his words. Her future? The thought of her future had always filled her with a certain anxiety. Her girlfriends or their parents always had so many plans regarding their futures, while hers remained a frustrating blank. She just couldn’t seem to make up her mind as to what she wanted to do, despite her efforts to fill the void. One summer, on the advice of a friend, she had thrown herself into sports until she could play lawn tennis with a vengeance and golf as well as any man, but once she realized the void was still there, her racquet and clubs were relegated to the attic. Finally, at her father’s gentle nudging, she’d dedicated herself to the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. Because she wanted to please her father, she remained involved long after she would have drifted away on her own. The women there made her uncomfortable. Confident and self-reliant, they were all charting their own paths, while her own remained a mystery. She supposed that someday she would marry, but it wasn’t really a priority and she had yet to meet a young man who interested her. Most of the girls she’d grown up with thought marriage was the epitome of their life ambitions, while many of the women at the suffrage meetings decried marriage as a form of slavery. Though her father never agreed with that sentiment, he wasn’t keen on the idea of her marrying young either. “Plenty of time for that,” her father always said. So Rowena had drifted, strangely apathetic about her own future.

  How quickly things changed. Her father had been in excellent health until he had caught cold several weeks ago. The cold rapidly turned into pneumonia, and then he was beyond talking to her about her future or anything else.

  Rowena took another brandy for good measure and made her way through the throng of people to the upstairs library.

  Once inside she stopped, the scent of worn leather, pipe tobacco, and dried foliage triggering thousands of memories. No room in the house was more her father’s than this one. Part study, part library; she, Victoria, and Prudence had spent many hours reading or playing quietly while her father worked, categorizing and recategorizing the dozens of plant specimens he collected or grew in the conservatory. A noted botanist, he never grew tired of discussing his work, and she often asked questions just to hear the warmth and excitement of his voice as he answered.

  Swallowing, she avoided the captain’s chair behind the polished wooden desk and sat in a comfortable chenille chair facing one of the four dormer windows lining the wall.

  She sipped her brandy, letting the warmth slowly course through her body, calming her nerves.

  “I’m sorry your wife couldn’t accompany you,” a voice said behind her. Rowena recognized it as her father’s solicitor.

  “She was feeling poorly and I thought it prudent that she remain at home. London in the fall is rife with illness,” her uncle said.

  “Very wise.”

  Rowena leaned forward to announce her presence, but her uncle continued.

  “Besides, she always disapproved of the way our nieces were raised. Poor Philip was a bit of an individualist, I’m afraid. It’s a wonder both girls aren’t raging suffragists.”

  She’d best put a stop to this immediately. She coughed discreetly and stood, facing her uncle.

  Both men startled. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I must have dozed off.”

  “And it’s no wonder,” Mr. Barry put in quickly. “It’s been a trying day for all of us. My deepest condolences, Miss Buxton.”

  “Thank you.” She turned to her uncle. “Have the guests left?”

  “The last of them are leaving now. The servants are taking care of it. Shall we be seated?”

  She liked Mr. Barry, who wore his thin, hawked nose like a badge of honor, a contrast to the untidy tufts of white hair now freed from his hat. He went to her father’s desk and opened a valise. As he sat at her father’s chair, Rowena looked away and took one of the seats in front of the desk. Her uncle sat at the other.

  Mr. Barry cleared his throat. “There are really no surprises here. Your father not only had the allowance from the family estate, but he received a good sum of money when he was knighted. He invested well, and you and Victoria are the only beneficiaries.”

  She nodded. Who else would there be? As the youngest son, her father had no precious title to bestow on a male heir.

  “However, he did
appoint your uncle as guardian of your financial trust until you reach the age of twenty-five or marry an appropriate man, whichever comes first.”

  She frowned, drumming her fingers on the arm of her chair. “What does that mean, exactly?”

  “It means that your uncle or his solicitor will pay all of your expenses and oversee your investments until you are old enough to inherit. It was your father’s way of protecting you and Victoria from common fortune-seekers.”

  On the surface, it seemed reasonable, but underneath, the first stirrings of unease niggled. Did that mean her uncle would be in charge of her life for the next three years? Or that he had to approve of her choice of husband before she could marry? Not that marriage was imminent, but the thought of having to consult with her uncle on expenditures . . .

  “So really, nothing will change, correct? Our household expenses and bills will simply be sent to my uncle instead of my”—she choked slightly on the word—“father?”

  Mr. Barry nodded. “Exactly.”

  Her uncle cleared his throat. “Your aunt and I discussed the matter and we feel it best if you spend the winter at Summerset.”

  She chose her words carefully. “Thank you for your offer, Uncle, but I think it would be beneficial for Victoria if we did not make too many changes all at once. We should stick as closely as possible to our regular routine . . .” Her voice trailed off, knowing how impossible that would be with her father’s absence.

  “Would you please leave us, Mr. Barry? This is family business now,” Uncle Conrad said.

  The solicitor nodded. “Again, my condolences, Miss Rowena. Your father was a good man and a good friend.”

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  When Mr. Barry had gone, her uncle turned to her, his eyes kinder than she had ever seen them. The family resemblance to her father took her breath away. They had the same firm jaw and aquiline nose and the same green eyes. No, not the same, she decided. Her father’s eyes were warm and humorous, whereas her uncle’s were somber, no doubt from years of carrying the responsibility of the family estate and title.