by May Burnett
“Now, my lady, you know I cannot tell one client what I advised another client.” He hesitated a moment. “But having met Miss Conway, I must say that her uncle’s description, as relayed by the Marquis, does not sound at all biased to me. She is an admirable young lady, far more mature than the average girl of her tender years.”
Minerva wondered in momentary pique if the solicitor would describe her in similarly flattering terms. Probably not.
“I know what we can do,” Charlotte said impulsively. “Let’s invite the girl here, together with the uncle. Conway will hardly have the effrontery to invade our home after all he has done.”
“I don’t know,” James began dubiously, but was forestalled by his sister’s impassioned response.
“How can you even suggest it, Charlotte? From what you have told me, the logical course is to keep the greatest possible distance from this man and all his family, to lessen the chance of harmful gossip. That girl, no matter how admirable or mature,” her voice sounded the slightest bit sarcastic, “is the daughter of a thoroughly bad lot. Think of the children!”
There was a moment’s silence. “Do you know, Minerva,” James said at last, “this is the first time you sounded just like Mother.”
“Sir Mortimer, and no doubt his great-niece too, are perfectly decent people,” Alphonse said. “There was a time when I might have shared your opinion, Lady Minerva, but I have come to see that every individual must be judged on his or her own merits.”
“I am myself the daughter of a man who could be described as a ‘bad lot’, Charlotte said quietly. “I cannot help it, any more than Miss Conway can help her parentage. In fact I feel great sympathy for her as a fellow victim.”
Beecham did not say anything, but Minerva could tell that he agreed with the majority. “Oh, do what you like, then,” she said, discomfited by the feeling that she was not appearing to advantage in this discussion. “It is nothing to do with me. If they come, I shall be polite, and pretend to know nothing at all about her background.”
“Very well, I’ll write tomorrow,” Charlotte concluded. “Is there anything else we need to discuss, before I go check on the children?”
“There is one other thing that might affect your family,” Beecham said. “I was going to write to you, but might as well tell you now. I have learned that Mr. Clive Protheroe, the incumbent of one of your brother Amberley’s three seats in the Commons, is seriously ill and not expected to last out the autumn. That means a by-election, insofar as you can even call it an election in the tiny borough he represents. When you next write to your brother, please mention it to him, though I imagine Protheroe himself or the party secretary may already have done so. A new candidate needs to be selected.”
“George wanted you to take one of those seats before the last election, two years ago,” Minerva recalled, looking at James. “There you have another chance at a political career thrown into your lap.”
“I will think on it,” James said, exchanging a swift glance with Charlotte. “There are arguments in favour and against.”
“If you do decide to take it on, it becomes even more important not to have a nasty scandal about your family,” Minerva warned.
“That will be fully considered,” James said, firmly shutting the subject. “Any more port for you, Alphonse, Henry?”
Charlotte smilingly bade the men good night, and left to pay a last visit to the nursery. Minerva, still faintly upset, went with her.
“You are doing the right thing, James,” Alphonse said. “I hope Miss Conway and her uncle come for a visit; please have Charlotte add my own entreaties to her invitation.”
Beecham nodded. “Indeed. By the way, during the dinner your sister quizzed me about my attitude towards slavery. Is she unaware that your brother-in-law Potts’ fortune is to a great extent based on that abhorrent business?”
“It is?” James regarded Beecham with dismay. “I was not aware of it myself. Are you sure of your facts?”
“Quite. Jonathan could tell you more details.”
“How unpleasant,” Alphonse commented with a grimace of distaste. “If Minerva knew that, maybe she would not have taken such a critical attitude towards Miss Conway. And you were saying that your sister Jennifer was coming to visit, presumably with her husband?”
“If he does come with her and the children, I’ll have to have a frank talk with them.” James groaned. “This summer is bringing one complication after another.”
“Count your blessings,” Alphonse advised dryly, moving the port towards his friend. “At least it should not be boring.”
Chapter 7
Lord Molyneux ensconced himself and his valet at Minnover Hall with ridiculous ease, just as he had expected. In the late afternoon, only hours after his arrival in the area, he rode one of his host’s high-strung hunters in the direction of the Ellsworthy residence, to pay a call on Lady Minerva.
He knew her brother James from Eton, though not well, as James had been two years before him and in a different House. He also vaguely recalled exchanging small talk with James’s blonde wife at some forgotten ball. All he remembered, apart from her vivid beauty, was that she claimed to prefer the country to town.
The Hall was of modest but pleasing proportions, and the hedges and gardens looked well-kept. He passed a coppice with mares and foals contentedly grazing; though not up to his stud’s exacting standards, the horses looked good enough. Upon arrival in the courtyard he swung down, handed the horse’s reins to a groom and gained immediate entrance to the front hall though a wide-open door. There were no servants in sight. A ramshackle household – anyone could have just walked in.
Before he could be properly announced, he was accosted by a small brown-haired child in a blue dress. “Are you a visitor?” she asked, eying Rook with interest. “Why do you have those funny hairs on your face?”
“It is called a moustache,” Rook said stiffly. “Have we been presented?”
The child laughed indulgently. “I am four years old. I don’t need to be presented yet, Nanny says.”
Rook looked around in growing irritation, wondering where this derelict Nanny was hiding. “I have come to visit Lady Minerva,” he said. “Don’t you have a butler here, to tell her about my call?”
“He is busy in the attics,” the child confided. “If you like, I can take you to Aunt Minerva.”
“That would hardly be correct,” he objected, visions of the lady at some intimate task – such as, in a bathtub – floating before his eyes. “I will wait here until I can be announced in the usual fashion. Are you a daughter of this house?”
“I am Lady Verena Belinda Mary Minerva Ellsworthy,” the child replied with enormous dignity.
Rook bowed ironically. “Honoured to make your acquaintance, milady. I am Lord Molyneux, at your service.”
“Verena!” a familiar voice called, and presently his quarry herself, charmingly dressed in yellow cambric, came into view. “Oh, there you are. I vow it is worse than a flea circus, keeping an eye on all three of you.”
“This gentleman has come to call on you,” Verena told her aunt.
“Oh – hello, Rook. My lord Molyneux.” She curtseyed correctly. “I was not expecting you.”
“Weren’t you? I am surprised. I thought you knew me better than that.”
“Or at least not right now, when I am very busy with these naughty children.” Minerva winked at Verena. “Weren’t we supposed to play hide and seek in the shrubbery?”
“But I found this gentleman standing all by himself in the hall, and Jenkins is busy,” Verena pointed out. “I could not just go by and leave him there, could I?”
“No, of course not. Well done, Verena.” Minerva lightly touched her hand to the little girl’s head. Rook was surprised at the easy familiarity between the young aunt and niece, but decided it boded well for her future role as mother. Verena had to be Amberley’s only child, of course.
“Now that I am here to talk to our guest,” Minerv
a told Verena, ”please tell Aunt Charlotte, and then Cook. She might send tea and refreshments to the morning room.”
The child skipped away on her errand. Minerva looked after her with a fond smile before turning to Rook. “You’d better come in here. Sorry about having to wait, the household is at sixes and sevens today.”
“For any particular reason?” Rook asked, following her into a medium-sized room with blue-green wallpaper and gold-coloured velvet curtains.
“Nothing to concern you, my lord.” She looked at him with a thoughtful air. “I am sorry to say that I have been kept so busy over the last week, that I have not found much time to think about your flattering proposal. But since you are here, if you want an answer right away, I fear it must be no.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” He caught himself. “I beg your pardon. Forgive me if I am a little puzzled; I thought I was given encouragement, and wonder if it was anything in my person or behaviour that caused you to change your mind.”
“I don’t think excessive frankness is a good idea on such occasions.”
“Humour me, if you please, Lady Minerva.”
“It’s difficult to put into words.” Minerva tilted her head, studying him as though he were a Greek statue at the British Museum. “You are perfect in so many ways – but your flaw is that you are too conscious of it. I am beginning to think that an ordinary mortal would suit me better.”
Rook was speechless.
“That has surprised you, I suppose? Let me guess – you never seriously contemplated that any lady might not be overjoyed and honoured at your choosing her. And yet I would bet that you don’t love me, or planned to ever do so.”
“Now you are becoming melodramatic,” he said between stiff lips. “I am sorry I insisted on a frank answer.”
“Yes, I thought you would be,” she retorted, not visibly abashed. “I am glad you came, Rook. The uncertainty was weighing on me, and probably on you too. Now we can both go forth and look for the person who really suits us in every respect.” She fell silent again, contemplating his creased brows. “It feels right. I am sorry.”
“In that case, there is nothing more to say. I will relieve you of my presence, Ma’am.”
She laughed. “Now who is being melodramatic? You will live to thank me for this, and before too long, I suspect. Let me accompany you out; I don’t suppose you feel like waiting for the tea I ordered.”
Mutely shaking his head at her levity, Rook followed in her wake, and took his leave with excruciating correctness.
Well! He was stunned as he retrieved his horse and swung into the saddle with the ease of lifelong practice.
He, the Marquis Molyneux, future Duke of Ottway, baldly rejected by a chestnut-haired jade, who thought him too – arrogant, was it? Or conceited? A mixture of both? Not that it mattered. Who did she think she was, to have the right to such an opinion?
He was well rid of her, of course, now that he had a better understanding of Lady Minerva’s character. But how could he have given her the occasion to reject him, when it should have been his own decision that she was unsuitable? Somehow he had blundered, though for the life of him he could not pinpoint exactly how or when.
Unable to wrap his mind around this humiliating setback, he cantered towards a tavern he had noticed earlier, on his way to this disastrous interview. There, for the first time since his undergraduate days, Rook proceeded to drink heavily. Not even reckoning the common clientele and the indifferent quality of the liquor, eventually he managed obliterate the last few hours from his mind.
+++
Lady Minerva and Alphonse were driving around the neighbourhood in the barouche, having volunteered to personally deliver invitations for the ball to be held at the Hall three weeks hence.
“I understand that your suitor paid a very short visit to the house before we set out?” Alphonse asked. “Verena liked him, she told me, apart from that silly moustache. Do I have to wish you happy?”
“How tactless to bring it up,” Minerva said in mock indignation.
“Curiosity has long been one of my besetting sins. I surmise that you sent him on his way, as strange as it would seem to most people.” His own mother, for instance, and certainly hers. The dowager Lady Amberley was a force in the family, and Alphonse could only wonder at her poor judgement, absenting herself at such a time.
“I set him free,” she admitted. “My brain said one thing, but my instincts were strongly warning me against the match. It is not as though I will not find someone else, of more modest rank, but just as pleasant.”
“Based on my own experience, I congratulate you on heeding that inner voice, which is usually wiser than the brain. I have regretted it later, whenever I acted against it.” Minerva wondered if that was an oblique reference to his short-lived marriage.
After a moment Alphonse went on, changing the subject. “If – when – Miss Conway comes to visit, I would beg you to be kind to her. You are established here in the bosom of a loving family, while she is an orphan with only two old people left to protect her, apart from her horrible father. And of all of us here, you are closest to her in age.”
“Of course I will be perfectly courteous, and polite.”
“That was not what I said, Minerva.”
She tossed her head. “Since coming here to Sussex I am constantly treated as though I was a shrew. I do not like it, Alphonse. Do give me some credit, please.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“You have become stuffy and moral, not at all like you used to be.”
“I can only beg your pardon once again.”
“How silly we must sound,” she said with a light laugh. “I must confess that by now I also hope that the Conways will come here, including the evil father, to be thrown in the horse pond and beaten to a pulp by your manly fists. The whole thing strongly resembles a farce.”
“Let us hope your imagined ending comes to pass. It certainly seems fitting.”
“I liked that young solicitor, Mr. Beecham,” she said. “James treats him more than a friend than an employee. Do you know him well?”
“Not well. He was recommended to James by Jonathan Durwent, a friend from our mutual university days. Jonathan works in the city, very successfully, and he sent Beecham to James when your brother had a tricky legal problem on his hands. From the way they act towards each other, I deduce that they have an ongoing business relationship based on trust, which has gradually turned into friendship.”
“Durwent must be the friend that mother disapproves of so strongly,” Minerva said. “I have heard her tell James several times that a cit is not a proper friend for a gentleman of his station. Not lately, though, as James no longer listens to her harangues.”
“That explains why he never introduced Jonathan to you. Your mother is misled by her prejudice, however. Durwent comes from a perfectly respectable family. I understand his father was a vicar somewhere in the north. By now he could buy and sell most aristocrats. Why would Lady Amberley reject Jonathan, after allowing your oldest sister to marry that Bristol shipping magnate? Between the two, Durwent is far preferable.”
“Yes, well, Mother is not always entirely reasonable in her judgements. And I suppose your friend was not always so rich. If she took a dislike to the friendship when he was just starting out on his career, she would not later change her mind just because he was successful, if she even took notice of it.”
“No need to say any more – remember that I know your whole family of old.”
Both were silent for a few minutes, lost in thought. “That is Mallow House just across the bridge, where we can hand over the next batch of invitations. Everyone will be all agog to see that they were brought by a genuine French Marquis.”
“I have only been a Marquis for the last two years of my life,” Alphonse said. “In fact, we were quite poor during my childhood. To send me to Eton, mother had to sell the heirloom sapphires she had smuggled out of France in her bodice.”
“
She must love you greatly, to have made such a sacrifice.” Minerva tugged on the obedient mare’s rein to make the sharp turn towards Mallow House. “I hope you gave her other sapphires once you could afford them?”
“According to Mother, these were irreplaceable, of a quality never seen before or since. But I thank you for putting the thought in my mind; perhaps I can find and recover them for her. Though they could be anywhere in London, or beyond, of course.”
“Mr. Beecham could help you trace them,” she suggested as she brought the horse to a standstill and waited for him to help her out of the conveyance. “He strikes me as a man who would be adept at that sort of thing.”
“Good idea. Thank you again, Minerva.”
Chapter 8
From what Celia could tell, Sir Mortimer had not taken Mr. Beecham’s warning very seriously. She was thus astonished when two days later, over lunch, he charged her to pack for an extended stay in the country, and not to take her gossip-loving maid along, nor tell anybody their destination.
“I cannot tell them, as I don’t know it myself,” Celia pointed out. “Just where are we going?”
“We will be staying with friends of a friend,” he said mysteriously, “The distance is not too great. I will explain all once we are gone from here.”
“I must tell grandmother where to direct her letters, Uncle.” Celia’s grandparents had frantically searched for her during several years of her childhood. She was not willing to subject her grandmother to another such episode.
“Just tell her that you are visiting friends. We will send a groom with your news, and to pick up any letters, sometime next week. She will understand that we must think of your safety first.”
“Of course she will.” Her grandmother, a simple woman, doted on Celia. “I don’t want to stay away from her long.”
“You can pay her a surprise visit, if this journey should take longer than I anticipate. Make sure to pack your most becoming clothes, Celia, our hosts are fashionable people.”
