Courtship and Curses

by Marissa Doyle

  Because, said a calm voice in her mind. Parthenope just said it. Brussels is where all the English nobility in financial difficulties come.

  “What should we do?” she whispered to Parthenope. Should they cut him—pretend not to know him—or acknowledge the acquaintance? Oh, if only her magic worked, she could do a spell to make them look like someone else, or to keep him from noticing them.

  Parthenope’s eyes had taken on a devilishly mischievous glint that made Sophie nervous. “Why, wish him good day, of course! One should always greet a fellow countryman when in a foreign place, don’t you think?”

  “Not if he’s a scoundrel of the first water!”

  “Pooh. Anyway, the best way not to call attention to anything we know about him is to be polite. We’re bound to see him about—I’ll bet all the British in Brussels know each other—and if we go about cutting him dead, people will notice. Now, hush—I think he’s seen us.”

  Sophie looked up and saw that Mr. Underwood was looking directly at her. He was still smiling after his laughter, but his complexion had paled, and his eyes gone wide and wary. She tried to school her own face into polite indifference, but wasn’t convinced of her success.

  “Why, what a surprise!” Parthenope said loudly. “Isn’t that Mr. Underwood, Sophie? But how charming to see you in Brussels, sir!”

  As Parthenope spoke, Amélie and Aunt Molly joined them, looking inquiringly. Mr. Underwood’s pallor was suddenly replaced with a flush, but he released his companions’ arms and stepped forward. His bow was more correct than it had been in London, less affected and sweeping. Could it be he’d learned something since their last meeting?

  “Lady Parthenope—and, uh, Lady Sophie—what a pleasant surprise indeed!” he said. “Have you been in Brussels long?”

  “Just arrived yesterday,” Parthenope said. “We were just—”

  “Were you in Paris?” exclaimed his younger companion, stepping forward eagerly. “My stars, how frightening! Did you see Bonaparte? We were supposed to go there in a few weeks, but not now. Not now!” She placed one lilac-gloved hand on her breast, which heaved in agitation. “I fear for our safety even here. No one on the continent shall be able to find a moment’s peace while that monster is at liberty!”

  “Kitty,” murmured the older woman reprovingly.

  Mr. Underwood seemed suddenly to recall their presence. “Miss Barker, you know that you and your aunt are safe whilst I am here,” he said, turning slightly to smile at her. “I will have horses ready to bear you to Antwerp at a moment’s notice, if the need should arise.”

  “Mr. Underwood is nothing if not resourceful,” Parthenope agreed.

  He shot her a look, but she was smiling blandly at Miss Barker. That seemed to remind him of his duty. “Lady Parthenope, Lady Sophie, may I present Mrs. Barker and her niece Miss Barker? Mrs. Barker, Miss Barker, Lady Parthenope Hardcastle and Lady Sophie Rosier.”

  Miss Barker’s eyes widened as she made her curtsy, and stayed wide as Aunt Molly and Amélie were introduced as well. “My stars! You have a prodigious lot of important acquaintances, Mr. Underwood! But then you’re going to be a baronet yourself someday, aren’t you?”

  “Kitty,” Mrs. Barker said again, a little more sharply.

  The girl flushed. “I’m sorry. It’s just that we’ve met so many people of consequence since we came to Brussels—so many more than we knew at home in Russell Square. Haven’t we, Aunt?”

  Mr. Underwood smiled down at her. “You are a person of consequence to all who know you, Miss Barker.”

  She blushed prettily, peeping up at him through her lashes with guileless coquetry, and Sophie immediately understood. The Russell Square address, the handsome if slightly overfussy clothes, the artless manner—Mr. Underwood had found himself a new heiress, probably one with a fortune sprung from trade … one whom he might entangle more easily than, say, a duke’s daughter like Parthenope.

  At first Sophie was amused. Mr. Underwood wanted money, and Miss Barker (or her family) wanted a social step up, which they would get if she became Lady Underwood someday. But another look at the girl’s open, trusting countenance fizzled her amusement. A wave of protectiveness washed over her, and she heard herself say, “Miss Barker, I don’t know how consequential we are, but we should be delighted to call on you, if your aunt will permit it.”

  Mr. Underwood’s eyes widened again, then narrowed, but Miss Barker clasped her hands ecstatically. “Oh, would you? I am sure Aunt Barker will be honored”—she paused, took a breath, then continued, more restrainedly—“that is, most pleased to welcome you. Won’t you, Aunt?”

  Sophie felt Mrs. Barker’s regard and met her eyes. They were cool and appraising, and she guessed that while the niece was an unworldly innocent, the aunt was not.

  “Of course we would be honored if Lady Sophie called,” Mrs. Barker said. “We have taken rooms at the Hôtel d’Angleterre in the rue de la Madeleine. You are welcome at any time.”

  “Well, this is very jolly,” Mr. Underwood said, “but we mustn’t keep you from the calls you have to pay now by planning future ones.” He held out his arms to the Barkers with such a commanding air that they took them without demur. “Good day,” he said, nodding at them all, and firmly propelled his companions down the path.

  “Good day!” Miss Barker called back at them from over her shoulder. “I shall look forward to seeing you very soon!”

  “Well!” Parthenope said to Sophie in an undertone when they had resumed walking. “What was that all about? Call upon that infant?”

  “Oh, like you’re such an aged old beldame. Don’t you see? She’s Norris Underwood’s new quarry!”

  “I’m decades older than she is, in experience, anyway.” Parthenope tried to look world-weary and dissolute, and failed miserably. “Yes, I’d come to the conclusion that she’s his new object of pursuit too. So?”

  “He’d make her miserable! She thinks he’s Sir Galahad and Beau Brummell rolled into one, and when she finally realizes he isn’t, it’ll be too late.”

  “Twaddle. She’ll be so happy being addressed as ‘your ladyship’ that she won’t even notice. You don’t have to solve the entire world’s problems, Sophie. Besides, I’ll venture a guess her aunt knows just what he is.”

  “But—”

  “We’ll call on the chit, but I’m not doing any rescuing. I’ve got enough other problems to sort out.”

  “Like what?”

  For some reason, Parthenope blushed. “Never you mind what. All right, go ahead and save Miss Barker if you want to. Just don’t expect me to help.”

  Chapter

  16

  The problem soon became not if they would keep Sophie’s promise to call on the Barkers, but when. The calls they made that afternoon on the Richmonds and the Capels were soon reciprocated and redoubled, and invitations began to pour in. Both the Richmonds and Capels were large families with several sons and daughters close in age to Sophie and Parthenope, so the girls found themselves included in riding parties, picnics, impromptu concerts, and more, all liberally attended by young officers, among them the Hereditary Prince of Orange, heir to the new throne of the Netherlands. Brussels society suffered from that most delightful of problems: more gentlemen than ladies.

  One of those gentlemen, Lord March, the Richmonds’ eldest son, raised Parthenope’s ire by making clear that he found Sophie’s company very pleasant. As he had been seriously wounded in the Peninsula while serving as one of the Duke of Wellington’s aides, he often sat out the dancing at parties and soon sought Sophie’s company whenever sets began forming.

  “You’re going to get talked about, you know,” Parthenope said to Sophie severely one night after they returned from a small party at the Richmonds’ house in the rue de la Blanchisserie.

  “Me? Whyever should anyone talk about me?” Sophie sat down at their dressing table in her wrapper to unpin and comb out her hair. Before she could start, Parthenope took the hairbrush from her.

&
nbsp; “That March stripling. He spends far too much time with you. I’m sure everyone is starting to notice.” Parthenope set to brushing Sophie’s hair vigorously. Sophie gritted her teeth and held on to the edges of the stool.

  “He’s not a stripling, and if everyone in Brussels weren’t so dance-mad, he wouldn’t spend so much time sitting them out with me. And anyway, he spends no more time sitting with me than Lord Hay does dancing with you,” she countered. “It’s quite shocking, and I’m sure everyone is starting to notice.”

  “Lord Hay is a great hobbledehoy, as well as an old friend of my brothers’. We practically grew up together. And don’t try to distract me, you, because it isn’t working. You have to tell March to behave himself.”

  “He does behave himself. He’s perfectly pleasant and tells very entertaining stories about all the high jinks he and his friends got up to in Spain with Wellington. Besides”—she twisted on the seat to look up at Parthenope—“why shouldn’t I be allowed to enjoy his company? It isn’t as if I’m engaged to be married, am I?”

  “But—” Parthenope frowned and closed her mouth, then hesitated before replying, “Well, no, but I still don’t like it. It doesn’t feel right.”

  Sophie felt a lump rise in her throat. “Parthenope, I’m sorry that Pereg—that your cousin and I didn’t suit after all. I know you’d hoped … but I can’t wear the willow for him forever. I wish him happy.” At least happy in his work. She wasn’t quite sure she was generous enough to wish him happy with, say, a beautiful, amiable, wealthy young lady of impeccable family or anything like that. “But I have to wish myself happy too, now. If Lord March is kind enough to find my company pleasant since neither of us dance, is there any harm done?”

  “There might be,” Parthenope muttered darkly, resuming her brushing, and wouldn’t respond to any of Sophie’s entreaties to explain what she could possibly mean.

  * * *

  Parthenope was fortunately in a better mood the following morning when Sophie proposed that they finally pay their promised call on the Barkers. “It will quite likely put Norris Underwood’s nose out of joint if we do,” Parthenope said brightly as they set out in the carriage for the Hôtel d’Angleterre.

  Sophie considered this. “Is that necessarily a good idea?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s afraid of us. We know things about him that could discredit him with the Barkers, but he knows things that could discredit us—well, me.”

  Parthenope shrugged. “We’re at a stalemate, then. And I don’t think we need worry about him. He’s a coward at heart, really, and cowards don’t like to attack first.”

  “Cornered animals are the most dangerous, they say.”

  “Then we need to be careful not to make him feel cornered. Stop worrying, Sophie, and help me think of some polite things to say to these Barker people. You do appreciate the sacrifice I’m making by coming with you, don’t you?”

  “Is it my imagination, or have you become even more absurd lately?”

  “If it makes you smile more often, then I’ll be as absurd as I possibly can. Good heavens, we’re here. Brussels is small, isn’t it?”

  The Hôtel d’Angleterre was one of the more elegant hotels in the city and, just now, very full. As they crossed the crowded front salon and climbed the stairs to the Barkers’ rooms, following an officious maid, Sophie leaned close to Parthenope. “Behave yourself, if you please,” she said in a low voice.

  “What if I don’t?”

  “If you don’t, I’ll tell James Leland that you think he dances like a plow ox,” Sophie told her.

  Parthenope gasped. “You wouldn’t!”

  Sophie was saved from having to answer by someone’s throwing the door open while the maid was still knocking. The someone was Kitty Barker, who beamed at them.

  “Lady Sophie! And Lady Parthenope, too! Why, what a pleasant surprise! Do come in—thank yo—er, mare-see, Jeannette. That will be all.” She nodded to the maid, bustled Sophie and Parthenope inside, and shut the door, calling, “Aunt, do come—we have callers! You know,” she said to Sophie in a confiding tone as she ushered them across the comfortable-looking parlor, “it really isn’t a surprise. I was looking out the window and saw you drive up to the hotel and was so hopeful you were coming to call on us! Aunt will be along directly—I sent her to change her cap because she will wear one of her old ones sometimes, instead of the new lace ones we just bought. The lace here in Brussels is just heavenly, don’t you think? I should like to have a whole gown made of it, but Aunt says it isn’t appropriate for someone my age to wear all lace. I declare, I don’t know who makes up these silly rules about how old one must be to do things, do you?”

  Sophie stole a quick glance at Parthenope, who was looking bemused. Please don’t say anything cutting, she thought hard as Parthenope drew breath and opened her mouth.

  “I do know, as a matter of fact,” Parthenope said. “It’s a trio of elderly Scottish spinsters who’ve never left Aberdeen in their lives, but saved up enough to have bought the license from the Crown decades ago to decide who may wear what, and no one’s ever figured out how to get it away from them.”

  Miss Barker stared at her blankly for a moment, then burst into peals of laughter. “Oh, my stars, Lady Parthenope, you’re such a quizzer! For a moment, I thought you were— Wait till I tell Aunt! Aunt, where are you? I can’t imagine why she’s taking so long.… Won’t you please come and sit down?”

  “Aberdeen?” Sophie whispered to Parthenope as Miss Barker hurried to the sofas by the fireplace to plump up the cushions, then to rap smartly on a door at the far side of the room, still calling her aunt.

  “I don’t know. It’s what popped into my head.” Parthenope looked a little wild-eyed. “Good God, I can almost feel sorry for Norris Underwood. Does he have any idea what he’s letting himself in for?”

  “Probably not. Then again, he tried for you.”

  Parthenope wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out at Sophie, then quickly composed her face as Miss Barker came dancing back. “Lady Sophie, won’t you sit here? May I fetch you another cushion, or a footstool? No? Lady Parthenope, you must sit here by me and tell me more about these ladies of Aberdeen.”

  Sophie was about to nervously suggest that she herself sit by Miss Barker when Mrs. Barker emerged from her room, followed by a maid carrying a daintily arranged tea tray. She directed the maid to set it down on the table between the sofas, then murmured her greetings and seated herself next to Sophie.

  “Oh, Aunt, thank you!” Miss Barker said, clapping her hands. “I should never have remembered to order refreshments on my own. Shall I pour? Lady Parthenope, will you take a dish of tea?”

  Under cover of tea pouring and questions of did they prefer Chinese or Indian, Sophie had a chance to examine her hostesses more closely. Kitty Barker was aptly named, for she indeed resembled a kitten, with the same small features and wide-eyed interest in a world she was sure must love her. Right now she was chattering to Parthenope, leaving few enough gaps requiring response in the conversation that Sophie felt it was safe to turn her attention to Kitty’s aunt, who was dabbing the excess tea from her saucer where Kitty had mispoured.

  “Have you been traveling on the continent long?” she opened tentatively.

  “No, Brussels is our first stop. Friends assured us we should wait till spring was advanced before we thought about traveling any farther, if we didn’t wish to jar our carriage to pieces on the roads. I thought it might be wise to stop here and let my niece get a little more accustomed to going out in society.” She spoke matter-of-factly, but when she met Sophie’s eyes on her last sentence, there was a distinct twinkle in them.

  “Her manners are charming,” Sophie assured her. “Too many girls are so tongue-tied on first coming out because it is all so new and confusing. I know I was.”

  “A thread or two restraining her tongue might not come amiss, but then, she has always been as you see her. Her mother died young,
and she was indulged by my late husband’s brother until his death last year, right after my Ned went.”

  Ah, so she’d been right—Mrs. Barker was Kitty’s aunt by marriage. “How sad for both of you. But at least you have each other, and Miss Barker certainly seems fond of you.”

  “Fond enough, as I am of her. But it’s a husband she’s wanting, if you’ll pardon my plain speaking. Which is why we’re here.”

  “Are you looking for a foreign husband for her?” Sophie asked, startled.

  “Goodness, no!” Mrs. Barker chuckled. “Especially as Kitty’s French—what little there is of it—was learned from a schoolmistress who spoke it with a Yorkshire accent. No, I thought that she might acquire a little polish if we went abroad, and I myself have always had a hankering to see something of the world, which I couldn’t do till Bonaparte had his teeth drawn. Of course, he seems to have grown them back, so I expect our junketing about will come to an early end and we’ll have to go back to London.”

  She paused and looked at Sophie consideringly, as if deciding whether to say more. Sophie tried to look earnest and discreet, which seemed to work, for Mrs. Barker continued, in a lower voice, “I daresay you know exactly what we are and where we come from, Lady Sophie. We’re what you nobility like to call cits. I’m all right with that. I’m proud of the way my Ned and his brother worked to build the business and become successful, and now half of London uses Barker Brothers paper and ledger books. I only wish they could have lived longer to enjoy their money. But it means Kitty will find herself mixing in a different world from what she’s used to, because these days nobs are discovering that cits’ gold is just as shiny as anyone else’s. So, here we are, trying to polish Kitty up so she’s as shiny as the guineas in her marriage portion.”

  “Yes, I—I can understand that.” Sophie couldn’t help feeling a little taken aback at this rush of confidences. But she liked Mrs. Barker’s concern for her niece’s happiness. “Is—does Kitty—has she accepted that she might be sought out because she’s an heiress?”