A Marriage of Inconvenience (Endearing Young Charms Book 5)

by M C Beaton

  James found he was looking forward to the prospect of the treasure hunt. Lord Harry had once described his little sister as a hoyden, but the captain thought Lucy charming and never knew that Lady Lucy had been up at dawn, feverishly examining one gown after the other. For the first time, Lucy felt cross with her parents’ eccentricities. There should be at least one woman in the house to help her. She was therefore grateful and relieved when Isabella’s correct lady’s maid arrived early that morning to offer her services and brought with her some of Isabella’s old gowns—in Isabella’s case, last year’s, the riding dress being the only relic of her past—to pin and alter to fit Lucy’s smaller height.

  So when the party gathered at eleven o’clock in the morning room, Lucy surprised her parents and brother by appearing in a white morning gown with three flounces at the hem and fastened at the waist with a broad blue silk ribbon. Her frizzy hair had been teased into curls with the tongs and embellished with a blue silk bow to match her sash. Lucy in turn surveyed her brother. She was glad to notice his dress was more … sensible, but the white paint on his face had been applied with an inexpert hand, and one little circle of tanned skin was showing on the left cheekbone. Lucy pointed this out and Lord Harry let out a squawk and ran to the mirror and began to repair the damage with finicky fingers while Isabella looked down at her lap to hide the flash of contempt in her eyes.

  “If you have quite finished preening,” said the earl crossly to his son’s back, “perhaps you might care to look at these old plans of the castle.”

  “I didn’t know we had any,” said Lucy, pink with excitement as the earl spread them out on the table. They all sat at chairs round the table while Lord Harry, forgetting his act with the quizzing glass, bent over the plans. “I cannot see anything here,” he said at last, “that I did not know about before. No priest holes, no dungeons, no forgotten cellars.”

  “Oh, but there must be!” cried Lucy, and Captain James, who was sitting next to her, sympathetically turned the plans around so that they both could study them. Isabella stood up and leaned over their shoulders. She had tried to mess up her appearance and thought she had succeeded, being unaware that her simple hairstyle of loose curls and her plain gown made her look more beautiful than ever.

  “Perhaps in the grounds,” murmured Isabella. “It is not on these plans but there is that old folly on the eastern side of the castle.”

  “Capital place!” said Lucy, clapping her hands. “Let us start immediately.”

  “Too romantic a place for my father to think of,” protested the earl. “He was not a romantic man.”

  “He must have been romantic if he did not want Mama to have Grandmama’s jewels,” said Lucy. “He loved Grandmama so much that he thought no one else was worthy of them.”

  “A pleasant thought,” remarked the countess, “but the fact is the old horror hated me on sight. I was monstrous happy when he died, was I not, my precious?”

  The earl, thus appealed to, said, “You could have danced on his grave. Of course, he had gone decidedly odd in his cockloft. I think it was your very great beauty that upset him so, my dear.”

  The countess’s raddled face broke into a beatific smile, and she patted her dyed golden hair. “Yes, you always did say I was the only diamond you wanted, so a pox on the old man’s treasure.”

  “But don’t you see,” said Lucy, jumping up and down on her seat, “if we find all the jewels, then Harry won’t have to marry Isabella!”

  There was a shocked silence while Lucy blushed fiery red.

  “Show me where this folly is,” said James, taking pity on Lucy.

  “Yes, yes,” said Lucy hurriedly. “Come with me, Isabella.”

  The two girls walked ahead of the men out into the grounds.

  “Lucy, ladies never make remarks like that,” said Isabella severely.

  “I know. I know,” said Lucy wretchedly. “My wicked tongue. But it’s true, you know.”

  Isabella sighed. “It may as well be Lord Harry as anyone else, Lucy, for if I turn him down, my parents will find someone else. Your brother has made it quite plain he only wants me for my money and says that after we are married, I may lead my own life.”

  “How odd!” Lucy glanced back at her brother. “How Harry has changed! I mean, one would think battles and blood would coarsen a man but they seemed to have worked the other way in Harry’s case.”

  “Is it usual to take such a long leave?” asked Isabella.

  “Oh, yes.” Lucy nodded wisely. “I heard all about it from old Colonel Whitebeam who lives the other side of Dowlas. He says that it is very hard to get leave and so when a man does, he stays away as much as possible. Harry has been at the wars for years, and we could be fighting Napoleon for ages and ages, you know. If it is any consolation to you, Isabella, once Harry goes back, he could be away from you for years and years.”

  They walked on in silence. Isabella felt a lightening of her heart. It was to be a marriage in name only. She could have fared much worse. Her parents could have arranged a marriage with a lecherous brute. Isabella shuddered. There was nothing to fear from Lord Harry, but he was an irritating creature. He could have been extremely handsome, but his face was marred with white paint and his figure by a mincing walk and manner.

  The folly had been built about sixty years ago, a picturesque ruin. It had been very fashionable to have a ruin in the eighteenth century.

  It had lancet windows and broken columns and ivy growing about it. The path that led to it was overgrown and weedy, the verges thick with Queen Anne’s lace and buttercups. The sky above was cerulean blue and the air still and sultry. Beyond the folly, they could see the sea dotted with the brown sails of fishing boats. Lucy tried to open the mock medieval iron-studded oak door of the folly, but it was wedged shut with damp and disuse.

  “Now what are we to do?” asked Lucy. “Shall I go and get some of the servants to break it down?”

  Lord Harry forgot his role. “Stand back,” he ordered. He raised his booted foot and kicked the door hard. With a groaning, protesting noise the door swung open.

  Isabella eyed Lord Harry doubtfully. That had been a powerful kick. But he saw her watching him and immediately took a lace-edged handkerchief from his pocket and began to polish his boot carefully, examining the leather for the slightest scratch.

  “What an odd sort of place!” Lucy’s voice echoed from the dark inside. “Did we ever come here as children, Harry?”

  He finished polishing his boot and walked inside with Isabella and the captain.

  “I don’t think I ever did,” he said. “I don’t know about you.” Sunlight streamed in through the stained glass of a pointed window, turning him into a harlequin. “What a mess. Of course the roof is broken, or rather that is the way it was built, made to look broken, and so the rain has been pouring in here for years and years.”

  “Well, let’s start looking about,” said Lucy eagerly.

  “There’s just this one room,” said the captain. “Look at the brickwork. Nothing can be hidden in the walls. Nothing in the structure has been dislodged or moved since it was built.”

  “But there’s a fireplace,” pointed out Isabella. “Why a fireplace in a folly?”

  “If I remember rightly, Grandpapa employed one of the locals to act as hermit when he had guests,” said Lord Harry. “It was fashionable to have a hermit in your ruin. Look, there’s an old pewter plate down by the fire. One of the hermit’s dishes, no doubt. Come along. There’s nothing here.”

  “But the chimney,” protested Lucy. “People sometimes hide things up chimneys. I once hid a box of cigars up mine.” She looked at Captain James and colored. “Well, I was very young and wanted to see what smoking one of them was like.”

  “It is all dirty,” said Isabella sharply. “You will get soot on your gown, Lucy.”

  “Just a look.” Lucy approached the fireplace, which was a small version of a large medieval one with the Tremayne coat of arms carved on the sto
ne mantle and two griffins as caryatids. She bent down and peered up the chimney. “It’s all black,” mourned Lucy, “but there are iron rungs for a sweep’s climbing boy.” She stepped into the hearth, and her head vanished up the chimney.

  “Lucy,” screamed Isabella. “Your gown!”

  “But there’s a ledge a little bit up,” came Lucy’s hollow-sounding voice. “And … and the rest of you are too big to get in here.”

  So much for trying to turn Lucy into a lady, thought Isabella, as Lucy began to climb up inside the chimney.

  “Faugh! That child is a disgrace, stap me if she ain’t,” drawled Lord Harry.

  “She is a very human and very loveable girl,” said Isabella. “Not that I would expect such as you to notice such virtues.”

  “There’s something up here,” came Lucy’s voice, squeaky with excitement. “A box. A metal box. It’s very sooty. Oooooh!”

  Lucy fell down the chimney with a resounding crash, clutching a small metal box.

  Captain James rushed to help her to her feet. She had lost her hair ribbon, and her face and gown were smeared with soot. But her large eyes were shining. “I haven’t broken anything,” said Lucy. “Let us open this box. What are the jewels like again, Harry? There’s those diamonds Grandmama is wearing in the portrait.”

  “They were supposed to be all diamonds,” said Lord Harry, “and a great quantity of them. Unless they were prized from their settings, they would never all go in that small box.”

  “It’s locked,” said James. He took out a penknife and fiddled delicately with the lock. There was a satisfying click, and the box sprang open. “You are clever,” exclaimed Lucy. “You must teach me how to do that. Oh, dear.”

  There was nothing in the box but a folded piece of old paper.

  “Let’s read it anyway,” urged Isabella. “It must be something important, else why would someone have gone to the trouble to hide it up in the dirty chimney of this folly?”

  “Lucy should have the honor,” said Lord Harry. “Go on, pest, tell us what it says.”

  Lucy began to read it in her high, schoolgirlish voice. “ ‘Thought it was the Diamonds, did you not? They will Never be found by such an Unintelligent Whore as you. You are the Ruination of my Son and Bad Cess to you. Tremayne.’ ”

  Lucy’s face was pink. “That’s Grandpapa,” she said. “He really did hate Mama, did he not?”

  “But it shows the jewels exist,” said Isabella. “Lucy, he says they will never be found by such an unintelligent … erm … as you, which means the note was meant for your mother, but it also means he thinks he has been very clever in hiding them and that only a very clever person will discover their whereabouts.”

  “Oh, dear. I’m not very clever,” said Lucy.

  “But you must be. You found a clue,” said James, smiling down at her suddenly. Lucy looked up at him, her mouth a little open, and then she looked down at the ruin of that pretty gown.

  “We had better return to the castle so that Lucy may wash and change,” said Isabella. “Besides, we are to have a picnic.”

  “Does that mean bloody beef outside the castle instead of in?” asked Lord Harry.

  “No, the cooking has been done by the chef at Appleton House, and Mama and Papa are bringing it over. Are you going to show that letter to your mother, Lucy? It is very cruel, and I do not think it would do her any good to read it.”

  “Perhaps. But it does show Grandpapa had also thought of places where she might look. Perhaps there were other notes. Perhaps I shall tell her after all.”

  “But such coarseness,” protested Isabella.

  “Mama can be quite coarse herself. We shall see.”

  The picnic was postponed for half an hour so that Lucy should find time to clean and change.

  Captain James was amused at the contrast between the two families, the Chadburys and the Tremaynes. He was sure that had the earl and countess been organizing the picnic, they would all have ended up sprawled on the grass and eating quite dreadful food.

  But the Chadburys had brought their own servants, and a table had been set up on the shaggy lawn in front of the castle, spread with a white cloth, and then covered with every imaginable delicacy. There was even iced champagne, the Chadburys boasting an icehouse.

  Lucy was glad she had allowed Isabella and her lady’s maid to get to work on her. She was clean and scented with rose water and this time wearing a pale green muslin gown. For Captain James in a coat of Bath superfine with gold buttons and a white waistcoat looked very remote and elegant and no longer the sort of gentleman with whom she could feel at ease.

  “Tremayne and I have been making plans,” said the countess, easing her white stockinged feet out of her shoes, for the heat of the day had made her feet swell. “Mr. and Mrs. Chadbury have kindly suggested that Lucy should go with them to the Little Season to get used to London ways.”

  “Oh, that is very kind of you,” said Lucy punctiliously, although she felt scared at the prospect. All those rules and regulations of society still to be learned! What if she disgraced herself?

  “And,” went on the countess, waving her champagne glass so that some of the golden liquid splashed down onto a dish of ortolans, “Tremayne and I have decided to hold a ball, here, in the castle.”

  “Why?” asked Lord Harry.

  “To announce your engagement to the duchy, of course.”

  “I have tried to persuade Lady Tremayne to use Appleton House,” said Mrs. Chadbury.

  “Nonsense,” said the countess. “We shall have the ball in the great hall.”

  “Is it big enough?” asked James.

  “Vast,” said Lord Harry, “but you’d never guess it. It’s divided up with so many old dusty screens and set about with bits of rubbish. I suppose if it were cleaned out, it might do very well. When is this ball to be, Mama?”

  “A week’s time,” said the countess. “Impromptu. I like the impromptu. I am a famously good dancer, am I not, my love?”

  “Like a fairy,” said the earl sleepily. “But will anyone come at such short notice?”

  “Of course they will,” said the countess. “Curiosity will bring ‘em in droves. How did the treasure hunt go?”

  Lucy made up her mind. “We found a rude note from Grandpapa in the chimney of the folly.”

  “Oh, another note,” sighed the countess. “Still calling me the whore of Babylon, is he?”

  “Something like that,” said Lucy. “You mean there have been other notes?”

  “Well, yes, for we did search years ago. Let me see, there was a really nasty one inside a suit of armor in the hall, and a poisonous one in that china vase on the console table in the drawing room, and, um, let me see, one in a chamberpot in the Blue Room in the east wing, the bit that’s just fallen over the cliff, and some others but too tedious to relate.”

  “Don’t you see,” cried Isabella, “that the diamonds must be somewhere? The attics?”

  “No attic in a castle, Isabella. There are nasty little rooms all over the place, I grant you, but I am sure we searched them all. The servants can’t have found them, for if they had they would have left us long ago. I think the silly old fool—I am sorry to call your papa a silly old fool, my precious, but he was, very—probably threw them in the sea in a fit of choleric spite. The mermaids are probably swimming about bedecked with gems.”

  Isabella gave a gurgle of laughter. “What a lovely picture. Shining and glittering in the green depths of the sea. All those mermaids, combing their long hair with jeweled combs and holding up silver mirrors to admire the effect.”

  Lord Harry looked curiously at his betrothed. Her hazel eyes were sparkling, and the sun was glinting in the thick tresses of her chestnut hair. He felt a faint qualm of unease. What would it be like to be married to such a beauty and not touch her? Then he gave a mental shrug. She was a cold and selfish heartbreaker, and his parents needed the money.

  “Lucy, you should not be drinking champagne,” he realized his
mother was saying.

  “I am getting practice for my debut in London,” said Lucy. “Besides, it tastes like lemonade and, compared to the ale in the servants hall, is quite mild.”

  “You shouldn’t have been drinking the servants ale,” said the countess severely. “They don’t like us in their quarters.”

  “They never saw me. I stole it,” said Lucy.

  “Oh, that’s all right then.” The countess lost interest.

  “So do we abandon the treasure hunt?” asked James.

  “No.” Lucy looked decided. “Now that I know about those notes, I refuse to be defeated. After we have finished eating, I think we should look in the castle itself. A lot of the rooms have been locked up for years and never used. The trouble is, it’s not really a real castle or we would have torture chambers and interesting things like that. It was built in the seventeenth century, and so it is about as authentic as that folly.”