Lady Jane's Ribbons

by Sandra Wilson

  ‘I recall your monstrous indiscretion!’

  ‘Look at me in that way, Jane, and you invite more than you realize,’ he replied, taking a step toward her.

  With a gasp, she stepped hastily back, turning to flee across the grass. His mocking laughter followed her.

  NINE

  The flush of humiliation remained on her cheeks as she rejoined Charles in the supper room, and it seemed that for a long time afterward she could still hear Lewis laughing at her. She’d made a fool of herself by allowing him to take such advantage; she must never let it happen again. Charles noticed the flush, but didn’t say anything, though he gave Lewis a dark look when next he saw him.

  News of Henry’s definite absence spread like wildfire, fueling speculation about the Duke of Dursley’s chances. Jane had endured enough whispering about her brother before the revelations about Brighton, but now it was ten times worse. She felt quite miserable, and wasn’t helped at all by seeing how Lewis still devoted his ardent attention to Alicia, whose unkindness toward Blanche had apparently not put her beyond the pale as far as he was concerned. They danced together for the remainder of the ball and he didn’t glance once toward his former fiancée. Alicia did though, and her green eyes were spitefully triumphant.

  As dawn began to lighten the eastern sky, Jane at last managed to escape, avoiding Charles and driving back across London with a tactfully silent Ellen. South Audley Street was unexpectedly and blessedly peaceful, because the queen had earlier removed herself to Portland Place, taking her army of yahoos with her.

  Jane lay awake in her silent bedroom, watching the dawn become brighter as she thought about what had happened at the ball. She wished with all her heart that she’d stayed away and thus denied Lewis the chance to hurt her all over again. Outside, the calls from the dairymaids leaving the dairy in nearby Queen Street began to ring out, but she was only dimly aware because sleep at last overtook her.

  She rose very late, coming down to learn that there still hadn’t been any word from her errant brother. She breakfasted alone, wondering if Lewis’s message would reach him when he deigned to return, or if by some dreadful mischance he wouldn’t receive it and would go straight to see Blanche without knowing what had been said on his behalf. She gazed at her cup of China tea. What point was there in worrying about it? Henry was his own master and would have to get himself out of any scrape. She leaned back in her chair, smoothing the rich folds of her cherry-and-white-checkered muslin morning dress. It was a bright, cheerful garment, making her appear much more carefree than she felt. The clock on the mantelpiece chimed, the sweet sound drifting over the quiet room. How good it was to be free at last of the constant racket from the street; it would have been very pleasant indeed had she not had so much on her mind.

  Melville brought Henry’s morning newspaper in and she began to browse through it. A theatrical review caught her attention. There was a new production at the Theater Royal, Drury Lane, and its first night had been a sensational success because of the appearance on stage of a well-known and very beautiful actress clad in very tight breeches. The lady concerned was the hitherto very proper Madame Vestris, and the play was entitled Don Giovanni in London, a burlesque on Mozart’s opera. Jane made a mental note to be sure to go and see it soon.

  She was about to set the newspaper aside when suddenly an advertisement caught her eye. As she read it, she became incensed.

  Stimulated by the base exertions of a determined opposition, the Earl of Felbridge, proprietor of the esteemed Iron Duke stagecoach, is prepared to meet the crisis with the weight of superior force and efficiency. Passengers are assured of traveling in the utmost safety, and are promised punctuality more precise than any coach has hitherto been capable of offering. The Iron Duke is peerless, the monarch of the Brighton road, and will never again allow the intervention of jealous, inferior rivals to succeed. If further proof of this superiority is required, doubters are invited to look forward to Midsummer Day, when the Iron Duke will see off its feeble and unworthy challenger in a fitting and decisive manner, and the Earl of Felbridge will emerge triumphant and with a much fatter purse with which to toast his victory.

  So, Henry Derwent had been too busy and preoccupied yesterday to be bothered to remember his fiancée’s birthday ball, but he’d managed to find time not only to see Lewis about horsing his beastly Iron Duke, but also to go to the newspaper to insert this provocative clarion call aimed at goading Chapman. The phrase ‘fatter purse’ revealed the advertisement to be yesterday’s work. Her fingers drummed angrily on the table as she considered her brother’s conduct. He needed teaching a lesson, and his increasingly wrathful sister was just the person to do it.

  She had just finished discussing the day’s meals with the cook, Mrs Beale, when she at last heard the sound of Henry’s phaeton in the street, the clatter of hooves carrying quite clearly now that the queen’s supporters had gone. A moment later, he entered the breakfast room, looking travel-worn and tired, and immediately on his guard when he saw his sister’s dark glance.

  He was on the defensive. ‘Before you say anything, I know I’ve covered myself with mud again, and I’ve already been to see Blanche to make my peace.’

  ‘I trust you received Lewis’s message.’

  ‘I did.’ He went to the sideboard, helping himself to an extremely large breakfast of bacon, eggs, kidneys, tomatoes, and sausage.

  She waited until he sat down. ‘You received his note, so what exactly did you say to Blanche? I must know if I’m to keep up the pretense on your behalf.’

  ‘I told her a suitable tale,’ he replied noncommittally, grinning a little.

  ‘You look inordinately pleased with yourself,’ she said suspiciously.

  He applied himself to his breakfast. ‘Don’t start fussing, Jane. Blanche accepts my excuses for not being there last night, so I think you should leave the subject alone, don’t you?’

  ‘Don’t be so insufferably conceited about getting away with it, Henry Derwent. You placed me in an invidious position last night, not knowing if your lamentable memory would save the day or not. How dare you sit there now looking so smug with yourself for slipping out from under! Your match with Blanche is only intact this morning because Lewis and I couldn’t bear to see her so upset and hurt!’

  ‘Oh, so it’s Lewis and I, is it?’ he said, attempting to deflect the conversation. ‘You’ve changed your tune where he’s concerned, have you?’

  ‘Don’t try to change the subject,’ she snapped, so angry that she could have tipped his plate over his impossible head. ‘I don’t think you’d be quite so full of yourself if you’d seen the Duke of Dursley dancing constant, extremely efficient attention upon Blanche last night! The whole of London is speculating about how long it will be before he wins her.’

  He speared a sausage with his fork. ‘The damned fellow was there again this morning, grinning all over his sly, painted face and being the dandy with his lace handkerchief, flicking it in all directions as if beset by a swarm of flies. He reeks of scent, you know – it’s like being in a room with a civet cat.’

  ‘Blanche doesn’t appear to find him that offensive.’

  ‘He irritates her; she told me so this morning.’

  ‘More fool her. I’d have left you wondering.’

  ‘You’re downright cold-hearted, sis dear. Anyway, I wasn’t wondering anything, because I’d very quickly wiped the grin off his scheming face. And off old Lyndon’s, for that matter.’ He smiled, looking more smug and self-satisfied than ever.

  She looked at him with misgiving. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, I demolished them both with my wit,’ he replied airily.

  Such airiness meant that he was loath to confess the truth, so she pressed him. ‘That’s no answer, and you know it.’

  ‘You’re like a dog with a bone sometimes, aren’t you?’

  ‘I know when you’re avoiding the crux of something, Henry Derwent.’

  ‘There are times wh
en I wish you’d stay permanently in Cheshire.’

  ‘I’m waiting, Henry.’

  He shrugged. ‘As you wish. It so happens that last night in Brighton there was a particularly bad fire. A warehouse went up like tinder and endangered a great many properties nearby. There was quite a to-do, I can tell you, with fire engines and crowds, and the flames were so high that I felt compelled to go and watch. Anyway, I didn’t think anything more about it until I reached the Fleece this morning and found Lewis’s note waiting. Then I had my inspiration and toddled off to Lyndon House to put paid to Dursley’s hopes by telling them that I’d been kept in Brighton because I’d helped fight the fire. I described my valor so vividly that I swear by the time I finished they could smell the smoke on my clothes.’ He grinned. ‘You should have seen Dursley’s fool jaw drop, I don’t know if with astonishment or fury, both probably. It was a sweet moment, Jane, I promise you.’

  Jane was staring disbelievingly at him. He’d behaved atrociously, he’d forgotten Blanche and her ball because of his obsession with coaching, and now he’d told monstrous fibs about heroism in order to get out of it. He even had the gall to sit there now virtually patting himself on the back for his cleverness! It was too much! ‘Henry Derwent,’ she breathed disgustedly, ‘you are without a doubt the most selfish, odious toad it has ever been my misfortune to know, and I wish with all my heart that you soon come the cropper you so richly merit!’

  ‘I say—’ he began in protest.

  ‘Don’t say anything more in your own defense, sir, because I’m ashamed that you’re my brother! How could you treat poor Blanche so shabbily and then have the effrontery to award yourself deceitful laurels! You’re despicable, and your wretched coaches are despicable too! I hope the Nonpareil trounces you on Midsummer Day, because after this you most certainly don’t deserve to win!’

  Stung, he rose angrily to his feet. ‘And what would you know about coaching, madam? Coaching is men’s business, and women would do better to confine themselves to embroidery and fripperies, which feeble items would seem more suited to their lesser intellects!’

  She eyed him with equal anger. ‘I notice you choose to forget my remarks concerning your conduct toward Blanche, and reply instead only on your coaching! You’re an insect, Henry Derwent. And as to coaching being men’s business, I wonder you can say that when there exist women like Mrs Mountain of the Saracen’s Head and Mrs Nelson of the Bull Inn. If my lesser female intellect is serving me correctly, they happen to be coach proprietors of considerable standing, their success being viewed with some envy by their male counterparts. Pour that unpalatable draft in your glass and drink it, sirrah!’

  He was so angry that words fought for a place on his lips, but then he flung down his napkin and strode from the room, slamming the door behind him. Jane picked up his plate, in half a mind to hurl it after him, but perhaps the breakfast room door didn’t warrant such punishment. She put the plate down again. Men! They were so arrogantly convinced they were superior! Oh, to bring him down a peg or two! She’d dearly like to teach him a lesson he’d never forget! But how, that was the problem.

  She’d calmed down a little, but was still deeply angry, when that afternoon she set off in her open landau with Blanche and their maids to attend the exhibition at the Hanover Square Rooms. Wearing an unbuttoned emerald green silk spencer over a white lawn gown, her little hat adorned with emerald green aigrettes, she showed commendable restraint as she listened to Blanche extolling Henry’s many nonexistent virtues. It was very difficult to bite back the truth about his jaunt to Brighton, but bite it back she did, since Blanche was so evidently still in love with him, Duke of Dursley or no Duke of Dursley.

  Blanche wore blue and cream, the poke brim of her dainty bonnet casting a shadow over her face. She was light-hearted and in excellent spirits, her choice of future husband having apparently been more than vindicated by the valor he’d shown risking his very life in the searing heat of the conflagration.

  Jane listened to it all without divulging a word of the real tale, but it was with an almost superhuman effort that she continued to remain silent when the landau passed a sandwich man hired by Henry to stroll around with an advertisement about the merits of the Iron Duke and the failings of the Nonpareil. Henry could so effortlessly find the time to attend to things like that, but he couldn’t stir himself to remember the annual grand ball which was the highlight of his poor fiancée’s social calendar!

  Hanover Square was the oldest of the Mayfair squares, with its center neatly laid out in a railed garden crossed by gravel paths, and there were lamps set at intervals along the railing so that at night the garden was prettily illuminated. The surrounding houses were mostly of a uniform red brick, all of them gracious and elegant, but there was one in particular which attracted Jane’s attention the moment the landau turned into the square. It occupied a prime position on the northern side, and was the town residence of Lewis, Lord Ardenley.

  It was a long, three-storied building, its roof surmounted by a handsome stone balustrade, and its main entrance was in the narrow lane alongside, connecting the square with busy Oxford Street beyond. The entrance boasted a splendid columned porch, large enough for carriages to halt beneath in order to set down passengers without exposing them to vagaries of the weather, and beside this porch there was an immense bow window of such magnificent design and proportions that it was much admired by all who saw it. As Jane looked, a dark red barouche entered the lane from Oxford Street, halting beneath the porch. It was Alicia’s carriage. Jane looked quickly away.

  The assembly rooms stood in the southeast corner of the square, and were a fashionable venue for concerts, lectures, exhibitions, and subscription balls. As the landau halted and Jane and Blanche alighted, leaving the maids seated where they were, Jane noticed a man pinning a bill to the board by the main door. Thinking it must be an announcement concerning forthcoming events at the rooms, she went to read it. But it wasn’t anything to do with the rooms, it was about the sale of a stagecoach business.

  To be sold, the very superior, old-established business of J. E. Wheddle & Co., being the hostelry known as the Feathers inn, Cheapside, the Swan Ticket Office, Castle Square, Brighton, and the coaches, horses, and other appurtenances which form the Swan daily coach, famous for its security, punctuality, and reliability. The proprietor is forced to this dire length by circumstances beyond his control. All interested inquiries to the Feathers, Cheapside.

  She’d heard of the Swan stagecoach, which had been running for a long time on the fashionable Brighton road, but which had never become the crack vehicle both the Iron Duke and Nonpareil could justifiably claim to be. She recalled that Henry had mentioned it recently, something about Chapman’s making a determined effort to run it off the road and thus reduce the competition. Was that what the notice meant by circumstances beyond the proprietor’s control?

  Blanche had been looking without interest at the notice, and now she grew impatient. ‘Shall we go in?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘I said, shall we go in?’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course.’

  ‘What on earth is so absorbing about a notice like that? You surely aren’t thinking of becoming a coachmistress?’ Blanche laughed at such a preposterous notion.

  Jane laughed too, but as they entered the rooms, she paused in the entrance to look back at the board. Her expression grew thoughtful.

  The exhibition was excellent, the finest gathering together of Dutch landscapes London had ever seen. The rooms were as a consequence very crowded as society came to view the delights, but as Jane wandered from painting to painting at Blanche’s side, her mind wasn’t on masterpieces at all, it was outside with the notice on the board. Blanche’s chance remark seemed to echo in her head. You surely aren’t thinking of becoming a coachmistress?

  ‘Jane?’ Blanche was speaking again.

  There wasn’t a reply.

  Blanche touched her arm, a little hurt now. ‘Jane?’


  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Did you say something?’

  ‘Yes, I was asking your opinion of this painting. Don’t you think it’s a remarkable performance? It’s so lifelike, one could almost step into all that snow, don’t you agree?’

  ‘Yes, it’s truly magnificent.’ Jane’s tone lacked true enthusiasm.

  ‘You haven’t been concentrating at all, have you? In fact, I’d say you were totally uninterested. Is something wrong? You were all right on the way here, but ever since we arrived….’ Blanche looked quickly at her. ‘I saw Alicia’s barouche arriving at Lewis’s house, are you low because of that? I haven’t said anything today about last night, but why were you alone in the garden with him? Were you making progress again? Is that why it upsets you to see her carriage at his door?’

  Jane colored and glanced quickly around in case someone had overheard, for the room was a considerable crush. ‘Hush, Blanche, someone may hear. You’re wrong anyway, it’s nothing to do with Lewis. As to my reason for being with him in the garden, it wasn’t what you think, I promise you.’

  ‘What was it then?’

  Jane hesitated, for she could hardly tell Blanche the truth. ‘Oh, it was just something and nothing. If you must know, we were discussing Henry’s chances in the race. After all, Lewis was a much-admired whip himself, if you recall.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose he was, in fact he still is. Oh dear, and there I was, hoping against hope that the two of you were getting together again.’

  At that moment, Jane’s heart sank, for she heard the unmistakable trill of Alicia’s laughter from the adjoining room. ‘Oh, no,’ she whispered, ‘I couldn’t face that wretched woman again.’ She turned quickly away, anxious to escape into another room, but as on the previous evening, events conspired against her, and the crush was so great with people coming into the room she was in that it was quite impossible to get out of it. Resignedly, she turned back again, trying to look as if she was engrossed in the study of the painting she and Blanche stood before, and hoping against hope that Alicia wouldn’t see her. But it was a faint hope, for Alicia’s feline eyes spied them immediately, and what was worse, she wasn’t alone – Lewis was with her.