Regency Gold (The Regency Intrigue Series Book 2)

by M C Beaton

  While Lady Frank scribbled off a note of acceptance, the party returned to discussions about the identity of Lady Sally’s attacker.

  “Probably one of these local young sprigs,” said Freddie. “Forgot they were all just out of short coats and gave them too much to drink.”

  “Perhaps,” said Lady Sally modestly, lowering her lashes. “Or could it be some unknown who is passionately in love with me and was jealous because my affections were engaged elsewhere.” She looked pointedly at the marquess, who suddenly became intensely interested in the portion of overcooked mutton on his plate.

  “What on earth is this, Muggles?” he demanded, poking the offending meat with his fork.

  “L’agneau a l’Écossaise,” said Muggles, improvising wildly.

  “This lamb, as you call it, lived a full, long and athletic life and obviously died quite naturally of old age. Take it away. Honestly, Freddie, all I ever manage to eat here is the sorbet between the courses!”

  “You’re too fussy by half,” grumbled Freddie. “If you were out in the Peninsula with those poor devils, you’d eat anything.”

  “But I’m not, am I?” remarked the marquess sweetly. “I am sure this would taste delightful after the field of battle but in the setting of an English manor, it’s demned disgusting.”

  The next course was brought in.

  “Charlie Roosh,” intoned Muggles. A faint rancid odor rose from the creamy confection and even Freddie gave up. The ladies retired to leave the gentlemen to their wine and sat silently in the drawing room, each with her own thoughts.

  Long after they heard the claret bell ringing, there seemed to be no signs of the gentlemen joining them. As sounds of louder masculine hilarity began to emerge from the dining room, the ladies began to be pleasant to each other, drawing together, united against the sounds of boorish masculinity from the next room.

  Lady Sally started to play the piano loudly and enthusiastically, Bess and Mary sang duets with their arms twined around each other’s waists, Lady Frank started an animated lecture on hunting to Miss Taylor and Jean sat absorbed in her thoughts.

  Obviously there was a lot about men she didn’t understand. The marquess, by the sound of it, seemed to be enjoying himself immensely and showed no sign of rushing to her side. She had been too cold toward him. Her mind searched through the pages of her favorite romances, looking for a solution.

  After much thought, she came to a grand decision. Somehow, she would need to sacrifice her virginity if she were to keep the marquess by her side. If he did not intend marriage, then she would become a Fallen Woman. Just what being a Fallen Woman involved, she had only a shadowy idea. It was surely just like being married without the ring. She would have an establishment of her own and find her friends among the demimonde. Perhaps she could start a salon. Writers, artists, people like that were surely not too high in the instep.

  The more Jean turned it over in her mind, the rosier the picture appeared. She was just laying the marquess’s slippers out to warm on the hearth of their sinful and unfashionable residence, when the gentleman in question entered the room.

  She blushed painfully and then blushed again as the marquess crossed to the pianoforte to join Lady Sally. Jean decided to think of a plan of action.

  So did two other members of the household. Hamish and Lord Ian remained at the dining table, passing the claret back and forth and discussing the visit to Sir Giles’s residence.

  “That’s where we’ll do it,” said Lord Ian, his sallow face flushed with wine. “And have done with it for once and for all.”

  “But how?” asked the reverend.

  “We’ll stay on here so as to have an alibi. During the night I’ll ride over with you, and while you keep watch I’ll stab the wench while she sleeps.”

  “Aye,” retorted Hamish. “But how will we know which is her bedchamber?”

  “Demme! Hadn’t thought of that. Tell you what, we’ll ride over during the day. It’s about ten miles distant and they’ve all elected to stay a couple of days because of the cooking being so awful here. We’ll pay a call and spy out the lay of the land and then we’ll know exactly where to go.

  “You tell Jean you want to see her on a private matter. She’ll take you up to her rooms and take good note of the situation while you’re there.”

  Hamish agreed and the two, feeling very pleased with each other, retired to bed to gain strength for the act of murder ahead.

  The morning dawned bright and sunny, a perfect early summer’s day. The Surrey woods were alive with birds and the hedgerows bright with flowers as the cheerful party made their way to the Mannering residence. Everything looked fresh and new and scrubbed clean by yesterday’s rain. A warm smell of growing things rose from the meadows and great, white fleecy clouds tugged each other across the sky.

  The Mannerings lived in a modern building called Oakley Manor, built in the severe classical style with two graceful wings springing out from the colonnaded central building. The rooms were spacious, sunny and pretty. Sir Giles was a thin, gray-haired man in his fifties and his wife, Lady Carol, a sprightly matron in her thirties. Both were obviously delighted to have company as their two sons were absent, one at Harrow and the other at Cambridge.

  Jean settled in happily, feeling that it was the first real home she had ever stayed in, and set her mind as to how to find out the modes and manners of a Fallen Woman.

  Like the dogs and horses at Blackstone Hall, she was quick to sense that under Lady Frank’s gruff exterior and outrageous manners lay a kindly disposition and a heart of gold.

  She accordingly headed for the stables as soon after luncheon as she could and, sure enough, there was Frank in her inevitable riding dress, chatting with the head groom. Jean waited impatiently as they discussed the bloodlines of various horses with all the enthusiasm of the patronesses of Almack’s discussing the latest debutante.

  At last Lady Frank moved off with her toward the house and Jean took the plunge. “Pray, tell me, Lady Frank, what know you of Fallen Women?”

  “Gawd! Why?” Lady Frank’s pale blue eyes were uncomfortably shrewd.

  “I just wondered,” said Jean. “I was thinking of writing a novel and it’s a subject I know little about.”

  Frank relaxed. “Oh, if that’s your reason, I’ll try to help but I only pick up little bits from the men.

  “Well, a lot of the high flyers look just like you and me. But the lower lot wear a lot of paint and coquelicot ribbons and dye their hair. They wear patches and I believe they…” Frank looked around to make sure nobody was listening, “rouge their nipples!”

  Jean gasped. “What on earth do they do that for?”

  “Beats me,” shrugged Frank. “The men seem to like it. Then they wear nothing under their dresses and damp down the muslin so pretty much everythin’ underneath shows.”

  “But how do they behave when gentlemen are present?”

  “Better ask Freddie. That’s the only sort of woman he has anythin’ to do with. Sometimes I think he don’t like women at all. Not that he likes men, if you know what I mean…”

  Jean obviously didn’t, so Lady Frank glossed over it and racked her brains for further tidbits.

  “Y’are askin’ me as if I was in the habit of trottin’ in and out brothels in Covent Garden. Anyway, they drink a lot and shriek and flirt and ogle. They sits themselves down on the gentlemen’s laps and gets them to drink champagne out of their slippers and things like that.”

  “Oh, dear,” sighed Jean. “It sounds like an awful lot of hard work.”

  “They get their reward,” said Frank dryly. “Anyways, what you worried about? Ain’t thinkin’ of bein’ a Fallen Woman, are you?”

  And slapping Jean heartily on the back and roaring with laughter, she went off into the house, leaving Miss Lindsay with a lot to think about.

  The domestic picture of warming the marquess’s slippers fled before the speculation of what it would be like to warm the marquess’s bed.
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br />   Her mind shied from the unknown and began instead to weave romantic pictures of them dancing together, laughing together and dining together. The marquess would smile across the dining table in Maida Vale or whatever London suburb was suitable for mistresses. “This meal, cooked by your fair hands, rivals that of the French chef at Carlton House,” the marquess would say, laughing gaily.

  “Quiet, my dear.” She would lay her fingers on his lips. “You will wake our little children.”

  “Yes, how are the little bastards?” inquired the dream marquess pleasantly.

  Jean pulled herself out of her dream. Reality kept creeping more and more into her fantasies these days. No children. Back to the dining table.

  “This wine is excellent, my love.”

  “I am glad the claret is to your liking,” said Jean.

  “Haven’t tried the claret today,” said a puzzled voice at her elbow as the real marquess made his appearance. “You ladies been down to the cellars on the sly?”

  Jean blushed in denial. The marquess was impeccably dressed as usual and seemed very formidable. She was going to require all her courage to make the first move and choose the correct time and place.

  That evening, Sir Giles had invited a trio of local musicians to entertain the party and when everyone seemed to be engaged in dancing or singing or chatting, Jean sat down next to Lord Freddie on a sofa in the corner.

  “I was speaking to your sister earlier about Fallen Women,” said Jean, under cover of the noise.

  Freddie was slightly foxed or “well to go,” as he would have put it, and at first did not think he had heard aright “Did you say Fallen Women?”

  Jean nodded.

  “Frank startin’ up a charity or what?”

  “No. I was thinking of writing a novel and I wanted some information.”

  “Nice gels don’t write novels,” said Freddie roundly.

  “Oh, yes they do,” said Jean earnestly. “Mrs. Edgeworth does, for example. And she is considered to be all that is respectable.”

  Not having read any of the works of Mrs. Edgeworth or even heard of the woman, Freddie eyed Jean doubtfully.

  “For example,” pursued Jean. “Do men drink champagne from their slippers?”

  “Dashed if I know,” said Freddie unhelpfully. “Sounds like a crack-brained thing to me. Got perfectly good things with holes in the top to drink out of, even in the lowest taverns, you know.”

  Jean’s face fell with disappointment. “Do you think you could drink some champagne from my slipper just to see what it feels like?”

  “What!” screamed Freddie, rolling his eyes around the room for help.

  “Oh, go on, Freddie,” begged Jean. “Nobody’s looking.”

  Freddie sighed. “I ain’t drinkin’ champagne. I’m drinkin’ claret.”

  “That will do just as well. Please.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Freddie huffily. “Hand it over.”

  Jean slipped off her white satin slipper and handed it to him. He looked at it doubtfully and picked up the decanter. “Well, here goes!”

  He poured the claret into the slipper and tried to lift it to his mouth. The wine soaked into the fabric like a sponge and poured down onto his impeccable buckskins.

  Freddie jumped to his feet with an oath and brought the attention of the whole room around to them.

  “You foxed, Freddie?” asked his sister.

  “I think the young gentleman was trying to drink his wine from the lady’s slipper,” said Sir Giles, with his eyes twinkling.

  “It’s not my fault,” said poor Freddie, hurriedly handing Jean her sopping slipper. “Miss Jean begged me to do it. Wanted to feel like a Fallen Woman. Should have asked you, John. You know more about the breed than any of us.”

  The marquess sighed. “Never has my misspent youth been cast up to me as much as it has been in these past few days. But yes, Miss Lindsay, I will be pleased to give you the benefit of my extensive knowledge of that subject.”

  The ladies laughed and Jean, feeling very young and stupid, picked up her ruined slipper and left the room to change.

  For the rest of the evening, Freddie darted away like a startled fawn when he saw her coming. Obviously that source of knowledge had dried up and Jean did not want to hear the marquess discussing any woman other than herself.

  The party agreed to drive to the nearest town of Barminster on the following day on a shopping expedition, so Jean determined to keep her eyes open for any Fallen Women at the wayside whom she could study.

  Barminster was a bustling market town, boasting some excellent shops, a cathedral dating back to Norman times, and an excellent hostelry to which the party repaired before going their various ways.

  The gentlemen went to look at the cattle market and the ladies, with the exception of Jean, departed to look at the cathedral. Jean got rid of her maid on some pretext and ventured into the shopping center to make some private purchases of her own.

  They had arranged to meet in the coffee room of the White Hart at five o’clock but Jean found she was half an hour early and decided to wait for them.

  There was a couple seated in the coffee room when Jean made her entrance, an elderly gentleman with his hair powdered and tied back with a black ribbon, a pepper and salt frock coat, knee breeches and gaiters. But it was his younger companion who drew Jean’s fascinated gaze.

  Her olive complexion showed that her blond hair owed all to art and nothing to nature. An enormous black patch representing a carriage and pair was placed at the side of a luridly painted mouth. The blacking on her eyelashes was so thick that they stuck out like a forest of spears and the décolletage of her purple-and-white-striped dress plunged to the point of indecency.

  She was shrieking with laughter and making great play with her fan. Could it be? But of course! This was the Fallen Woman Jean had been searching for.

  When the gentleman left the room for a moment, Jean moved forward and timidly introduced herself. The lady seemed to give her a somewhat haughty glare but Jean’s curiosity knew no bounds. In faltering sentences and blushing hotly, she whispered in the lady’s ear what she wanted to know.

  The dame looked at her as if she could hardly believe her ears, then threw back her head and screamed before going into convulsions. Her companion came running in accompanied by a younger man and the marquess and the rest of his party followed hard at their heels.

  After sal volatile had been administered to the distressed lady and she had ceased drumming her heels on the floor and hiccupping, she turned to her companion.

  “I have just been sore insulted, Silas,” she howled. “This chit has just called me a whore to my face.”

  “I’m sure it was an understandable mistake,” started the marquess and then could have bitten off his tongue. Before he had time to apologize, the younger man had taken off his glove and slapped the marquess hard across the face.

  “Name your seconds, sir! I demand satisfaction for the insult to my mother.”

  The marquess drew himself up to his haughtiest. “My name is Fleetwater and I do not duel with yokels.”

  The young man presented his card. “My name is Jack Cartwright, my lord. My father there, Sir Silas Cartwright, is mayor of this town and the lady you have just so crudely insulted is his wife, Lady Emma.”

  The marquess sighed. “Freddie, Harry… will you act for me?” The couple of young men nodded gloomily. “Then I shall escort the ladies home and leave you to make the arrangements.”

  Jean’s apologies and protestations were cut short as he dragged her from the room. The marquess was in the worst rage he had ever been in his life.

  On reaching Oakley Manor, Jean rushed to her rooms and cried and cried. She had often dreamed of being the cause of a duel but never in such a ridiculous way as this.

  Downstairs, the gentlemen were surly and depressed and the ladies, Bess, Mary and Sally, were in a state of suppressed glee. How that little Scotch upstart had ruined her chances! The marques
s would surely now have such a distaste of her that he would not even be able to look at her.

  In this, surprisingly, they were wrong. The marquess blamed himself as much as Jean. Had it not been for his ill-considered remark, the whole thing could have been explained away as a piece of young girl’s nonsense.

  He was not frightened for his own safety since he was an excellent swordsman but if word of the duel should get to the ears of the Runners, he would have to flee the country.

  He had fought duels twice before in his early youth, both over females of dazzling beauty, but never did he think he would be obliged to fight because he had besmirched the honor of a raddled tart.

  Freddie and Harry Fairchild had informed him that the duel was arranged for six in the morning in Barnes Field, just outside the outskirts of the town. Jean did not put in an appearance and they all retired early to bed.

  Miss Taylor, after several futile attempts to speak to Jean, retired to her own room to pen a letter to the Duchess of Glenrandall.

  Jean tossed and turned in agonies of remorse. What if Jack Cartwright were the finer swordsman? He was a younger man than the marquess.

  In one of Jean’s favorite romances, the heroine had stopped the duel by throwing herself on her lover’s adversary’s sword. Forgetting that the heroine had subsequently died and had taken three chapters to do it in, Jean sprang to her feet. She would save the marquess’s life if need be.

  At five in the morning, wrapped in a long cloak, Jean crept from the house by the servants’ entrance and started to walk the three miles to Barnes Field.

  She found a comfortable position in a dry ditch which ran around the edge of the field and settling herself down, she peered through a gap in the bushes and waited for the arrival of the duelists. The first rays of the sun struck through the tall poplars at the far end of the field, sending their long shadows over the grass. The buttercups turned their petals toward the warmth and in a short time, the field seemed to be a blaze of gold interspersed with the blood red of poppies.

  Blood! Jean forced her drooping eyelids open and stared wildly around.

  No one had arrived yet. The sun’s rays grew warmer and Jean battled ineffectually against the effects of a sleepless night.