by M C Beaton
Miss Worthy’s eyes flew open. The guards were riding off. What on earth did Miss Mortimer mean? And why had Lord Andrew begun to laugh?
She decided not to ask but sat with her back ramrod straight and her face set in a disapproving look.
It was just as well. For Lord Andrew would have been hard put to explain why he found it all so funny. But it had touched a chord of the ridiculous in him which he had not known he possessed. He had never laughed at anything silly before and did not know why he could barely control himself.
Somehow the day had become sharp and crystal-bright. Everything was new and green and fresh, and he felt more alive than he had ever done in his life before.
Although he soon had his outburst of laughter well under control, the strange elation remained with him, bubbling and chuckling inside like a brook running over the pebbles.
He then began to wonder what really went on inside Miss Mortimer’s beautiful head and lurked behind those vacant eyes. She could quote Horace, and she had made Miss Worthy’s artistic posturing quite ridiculous. He gazed down at her with a new awareness in his eyes, but Penelope only saw a blur of his face turned in her direction and dutifully smiled.
The breeze lifted a tendril of her silver-fair hair, and her wide eyes were as blue and innocent as the sky above. He felt a queer little tug at his heart as he looked at her. She did not belong in London society, and he felt, were she to remain much longer, she might become spoiled. She would soon learn not to indulge in saying exactly what she thought. He decided the best thing he could do would be to try to help her to get her wish by returning her to the country.
This thought preoccupied him on the road back. He drove Miss Worthy to her home and then returned to Park Street with Penelope. She did not say anything as they drove through the streets but contented herself with staring off into the distance. Lord Andrew did not know that Penelope, as her long sight was good, was contenting herself by looking at all she could see.
“I would like a word with you, Miss Mortimer,” he said as they entered the house.
“Another lecture,” sighed Penelope.
“No,” he said. “Perhaps I might be able to help you.”
The duchess, he learned from the butler, was still out on her calls, and the duke had gone to his club.
He led her into the drawing room and asked if she would like tea. Penelope said she would, so he waited until the tea tray had been brought in, said yes, he took sugar, and then watched in amazement as Penelope proceeded to pour tea into the sugar bowl.
“I do not like my tea very sweet,” he said.
“I have not yet given you any sugar, my lord.”
“On the contrary, you have just filled the sugar bowl with tea.”
“How silly of me,” said Penelope. “Now what shall I do?”
He rang the bell, ordered another bowl of sugar, and then, when it had arrived, busied himself with the tea things.
“You puzzle me,” he said. “How comes it that a lady who can quote Horace does quite mad things like filling up the sugar bowl with tea?”
Pride kept Penelope from telling the truth. Had not her parents always said that ladies who had to wear spectacles never attracted gentlemen and that it was best to conceal one’s defect until one was married? But you don’t want to get married! said a cross little voice in Penelope’s head, but she ignored it and said aloud, “I am absent-minded, I fear. What did you wish to talk to me about?”
“I am persuaded you would really be much happier in the country. To that end, I am prepared to talk to my mother again.”
Penelope took a delicate sip of tea. “All you will do is provoke the most dreadful scene. I am still a novelty, you know. Give it a few weeks and you will find Her Grace beginning to tire.”
The door of the drawing room opened, the duke poked his head around it, saw them, and muttered something about going to the library.
“You are very cynical,” said Lord Andrew. “Would you not like to wed? That is the whole purpose of a Season.”
“No, I would not,” said Penelope. “Your mother will have explained her lies away. Everyone will now know I have no money or any expectations of it. I cannot hope for a rich husband; therefore I should not have the comfort of being separated from him the way I would were I to command a large establishment. A rich husband is always on the hunting field, at his club, or in Parliament. One need not see much of him. A husband with modest means is always underfoot, or so I have observed. I am not prepared to spend the rest of my life with someone I do not like just for the sake of becoming married. Now, in your case, as you are, or so I learned, greatly interested in agriculture, Miss Worthy will not have to see much of you.”
“What on earth, my impertinent Miss Mortimer, gives you the impression that my fiancée does not dote on my company?”
“She is not in love with you, nor you with her.”
He sighed. “Those pernicious novels! I have seen respectable girls running off with footmen, and all for love. I have seen young men marrying portionless girls of little breeding, and all for love. Their marriages always end in disaster. Love is no basis for marriage. Equal breeding, similar tastes, and similar interests are the bedrock of any relationship.”
“Perhaps for such as you,” said Penelope. “But in my case, I shall marry for love or not at all, which probably means not at all. But I shall have my independence and hard work to keep me occupied. I have discovered a gift for gardening. I grow very fine vegetables, I assure you.”
“What kind of soil do you have?”
“Clay soil. Very heavy.”
“And what do you use?”
“Lime to break it down and sweeten it, and then I find that horse manure is a great fertilizer, and to be had for nothing. One simply goes out in the roads with a shovel.”
Lord Andrew blinked at the idea of this fairylike creature searching the country roads with a brush and shovel. “What an undignified picture you conjure up!” he exclaimed.
“Ah, but as my own mistress, I do not have to care about dignity or the lack of it. There seems to be a great deal of toing and froing downstairs. Perhaps you have callers.”
“Then no doubt someone will let me know if anyone wants to see me.”
“More tea?” asked Penelope, picking up the pot.
“Yes, I thank you.” Lord Andrew grabbed his cup and held it out in time to catch the stream of hot tea which had just been about to descend on his knee. “Are you longsighted by any chance, Miss Mortimer?”
“Not I,” said Penelope quickly.
He leaned back in his chair and studied her thoughtfully. They were to go to the opera that evening. He would study Penelope’s face as she watched the opera. He would ask her questions about the costume and the performers, for he was all at once sure she had difficulty in seeing.
The door burst open and the duchess came rushing in, her face mottled with excitement and every stay in her corsets creaking like the timbers of a four-master rounding Cape Horn.
“My dear!” she cried. “Such excitement. Mr. Barcourt is come to ask our leave to pay his addresses to Penelope. He called on Giles when I was out.” Giles was her husband, the duke. “I came just in time to add my permission. Such a triumph. Barcourt! Ten thousand a year. Very comfortable and all, just as it ought to be.”
“Barcourt cannot be serious,” said Lord Andrew testily after a quick look at Penelope’s stricken face. “He is always falling in love.”
“But he has never proposed to anyone before,” said the duchess. “Come quickly, Andrew.”
Lord Andrew looked helplessly at Penelope, but she was now sitting sedately in front of the tea tray with her eyes lowered.
“Come, Andrew,” repeated his mother in imperative tones.
He followed her reluctantly from the room.
Penelope waited until the door was closed behind them, opened her reticule, took our her ugly but efficient steel spectacles, and popped them on her nose. She took off her pretty bon
net, put it under her chair, and then combed her hair straight up on top of her head and wound it into a severe knot.
Then she folded her hands and waited.
The door opened and Mr. Barcourt walked in.
Chapter Five
Mr. Barcourt stopped short on the threshold. For one brief moment he hoped that the young lady facing him would prove to be Penelope’s elder sister. The sunlight winked on her thick-lensed spectacles, and her hair was scraped painfully straight up on the top of her head.
To know the character of women was not at all necessary to engender the exquisite pangs of love in Mr. Barcourt’s breast. Their looks and his vivid imagination did all that was necessary. He had, therefore, fallen in love with Penelope at the Dempseys’ ball. Her vague, dreaming expression combined with her ethereal beauty had prompted him to propose for the first time in his life.
Underneath all his romanticism, there was a practical streak in Mr. Barcourt’s nature which had held him back before popping the question. But the intelligence that the duchess was at death’s door and about to leave her fortune to this goddess had brought him up to the mark.
His first shock had come when the duke had pooh-poohed the idea of his wife’s imminent death. He said bluntly that Penelope was portionless. Mr. Barcourt might have then withdrawn his offer had not the duchess arrived on the scene to say that Penelope would have a dowry of three thousand pounds. It was not much, particularly in the inflationary days of the Regency, but to a man who had thought a moment before that he would have nothing at all, it seemed a splendid sum. He was accordingly given the ducal blessing and told he might have ten minutes alone with Penelope.
“Come in, Mr. Barcourt,” said Penelope, “and sit down.”
Her voice was rather harsh and had a distinct country burr.
He sat down opposite her. Her eyes seemed smaller than he had remembered behind those awful glasses, and they glittered with sharp intelligence.
He sat dumb, wishing this creature would go away to be replaced with the fairy-tale figure of the ball.
“Would you like tea, sir?” asked Penelope. She had pronounced the “sir” as “zurr,” just like the lowest peasant. Mr. Barcourt’s love received a death blow.
“Er, yes, Miss Mortimer,” he said. “Hot in here,” he added, running a finger round the inside of his starched collar.
“I’m sure I hadn’t noticed, zurr,” drawled Penelope with the dulcet tones of a corncrake. “You’ll be wantin’ milk and sugar, I s’pose?”
“Yes, I thank you. Do you know why I am come?”
“Oh, yus,” said Penelope. “You be wanting to marry me. I’d loik that. I’ve always wanted childer. Lots and lots. Mrs. Barnes, down in the village, now she got twenty-one, and all hale and hearty.”
“Twenty-one!” echoed Mr. Barcourt faintly. His hand holding the cup and saucer began to tremble.
“I was glad to find you had a place in the country,” went on Penelope. “For I don’t loik the town, and that’s a fact. Nothing loik good country air and plain country cooking and hard work in the fields, I always say.”
Mr. Barcourt, a perpetually absent landlord who loathed the country and did not even hunt, was terrified. Stark, raving fear animated his wits.
He put his cup and saucer carefully on the table and said in a dazed voice. “Where am I?”
“You’re about to propose marriage to me.”
“Who you?” demanded Mr. Barcourt in a thin, high voice.
“Me Penelope Mortimer,” said Penelope with a huge grin—a peasant grin, thought Mr. Barcourt, and his fastidious soul recoiled.
“I have lost my memory!” cried Mr. Barcourt, jumping to his feet. “’Sdeath! I do not know where I am or what I am doing. Beg pardon, whoever you are.” He scrambled for the door. “Good-bye. Forgive. Not myself. Servant, ma’am.” He tumbled out onto the landing and nearly collided with the duke and duchess, who had just approached the door.
“I do not know who I am,” wailed Mr. Barcourt. “I have lost my memory.”
Lord Andrew came up to join the group. “What is this nonsense, Barcourt?” he said. “You have just proposed marriage to Miss Penelope Mortimer.”
“No I haven’t,” screamed Mr. Barcourt. “Not I. Never propose to anyone. Who are you anyway?”
“We are the Duke and Duchess of Parkworth,” said the duchess awfully.
“I’m sick,” cried Mr. Barcourt. “I don’t know anyone. Don’t know what I am saying.”
He dived down the steps, and the ducal family stood looking at one another as the street door slammed.
They went into the drawing room. Penelope, her glasses tucked safely back in her reticule, her hat on her loosened curls, sat looking vaguely into the middle distance.
“What on earth happened?” screamed the duchess.
In her usual pleasant voice, free from any accent, Penelope said in a bewildered way, “I do not know. He talked so wildly. I think he is quite mad.”
“But did he propose?” shouted the duchess.
“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” said Penelope, wrinkling her brow. “Let me see; he asked for tea, and then he began to shake and said he did not know who he was. I am vastly cast down, Your Grace, and would like to retire.”
“You are not going anywhere, miss, until I get to the bottom of this,” howled the duchess. “Oh, to think how I planned to crow over Maria Blenkinsop at the opera tonight! Andrew, you must challenge Barcourt to a duel.”
Penelope gave a pathetic little sob.
“Let her go to her room,” said Lord Andrew angrily. “Do you not see she has had enough?”
“Very well,” said the duchess, suddenly subdued as the full force of her own disappointment hit her.
For half an hour after Penelope had retired, the Parkworth family chewed over the strange behavior of Mr. Barcourt. Lord Andrew urged his mother to set Penelope free and let her go home. But the duchess gradually brightened. “If she can attract such a one as Barcourt,” she said slowly, “even though he chose this unfortunate moment to have a brainstorm, then who knows who she might draw into the net.”
In vain did Lord Andrew argue the wisdom of letting Penelope go. He finally left his parents and went upstairs to change for dinner.
As he passed Penelope’s room, he heard stifled sounds coming from inside.
He was angry with his mother, and he was angry with Penelope for taking the rejection of such a one as Barcourt so hard. He walked a little way away and then went back, opened the door of her room, and walked inside.
She was lying facedown on the bed, her shoulders shaking.
He went over and sat on the edge of the bed and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Come now, Miss Mortimer,” he said. “Must I remind you that you said you did not want to marry except for love? And you cannot be in love with Barcourt. You barely know him.”
“But he has s-such n-nice legs,” came Penelope’s muffled voice.
He looked down at her in sudden suspicion, and his grip on her shoulder tightened. He pulled her over on her back.
“You’re laughing!” he exclaimed.
“Oh, it w-was s-so funny,” giggled Penelope. “All that where-am-I and who-am-I. I wish you could have seen him.”
He took her by the shoulders and gave her a shake. “Barcourt showed all the signs of a man about to propose. It was you—you did something to scare him.”
“I was myself, I assure you, a good country girl.” Penelope let out a snort of laughter.
Lord Andrew became aware of the warmth of the shoulders through the thin muslin of her gown as he held her down on the bed, of her pink lips trembling with laughter, of the tumbled disarray of her glorious hair, and of the wide blue depths of her eyes.
The Perfect Gentlemen leaned down and pressed firm lips against that laughing mouth.
They both stayed very still, pressed against each other, both shocked rigid by the skyrocketing emotions surging through their bodies.
He drew back
gently. Then he got to his feet and walked to the door. Penelope struggled up on one elbow and looked at him in a dazed way. She could see him perfectly, for he was just the right distance away.
She could clearly see that tall, athletic figure, the strong legs, the crisp curls of his black hair, and that firm mouth which so recently had been pressed against her own.
He ran a hand through his hair. “Miss Mortimer,” he said, “pray accept my deepest apologies,” and he walked from the room.
Penelope turned her face into the pillow. But this time, she began to cry.
“My lord,” said Pomfret, fussing about his master, “our cravat will not do!”
