by P. N. Elrod
Rolling on my side, I noticed a fold of paper on the table by the bed. Written on it was the simple message, “Ring when you are awake.” Next to the paper was a silver bell. I did as instructed and presently a large and terribly dignified butler appeared and asked how he could be of service to me.
“Where is Miss Jones?”
“Gone for the day, sir, but she left a message for you.” I sat up with interest. “Yes?”
“She will try to meet with you again tonight, but if she is unable, she will certainly see you in Cambridge within the week.”
My disappointment fell on my heart like a great stone. I’d hoped for more. A lengthy love letter would have been nice. A week? That was an eternity. “Where has she gone?”
“She did not confide that information to me, sir.”
“What about Mrs. Poole? Would she know?”
“Mrs. Poole left early to go visiting, sir. I do not think she will be able to help you, either.”
“Damn.”
“Would you care for a bath and shave, sir?”
“Really?” Considering all the trouble Warburton’s servants had been to yesterday, this was an unexpected boon. I accepted the offered luxury and while things were being prepared for me in another room, sat at the table and composed a note to Nora.
Like my first kisses, it was more enthusiastic than polished, but sincere. Some parts were doubtless overdone, but love can forgive anything, including bad writing. When I came to a point where I could either go on for several more pages or stop, I chose to stop. It struck me that the whole thing was highly indiscreet, and Nora had specifically asked for my discretion. Virtuously, I recopied it, but changed the salutation to read “My Dearest Darling,” rather than “My Dearest Nora.” I signed it with a simple “J” and threw the first draft into the fire. That was as discreet as I cared to be for the moment.
Her servants saw to my every comfort and made sure I was groomed, fed, and dressed in clothes that had been magically aired and brushed anew. I was—as Nora predicted—a little wobbly, but that was hardly comparable to the twinges in a number of my muscles and joints unaccustomed to certain horizontal activities. I also found it necessary to tread carefully in order to spare myself from another kind of unexpected discomfort, for there was a decided tenderness between my legs due to last night’s many goings-on. Perhaps a few days of rest would not be so bad for me, after all.
A coach was engaged to take me to Warburton’s. It was early afternoon by now, but I had no great concern about my tardy return—not until Nora’s coach stopped at the front steps and Oliver burst out the door.
“My God! Where on earth have you been?”
“I told Warburton—”
“Yes, yes, and so you went off for the night. Well-a-day, man, you could have at least given him a hint on where you’d be so I could find you.”
“Is there some trouble?”
“Only that we’re supposed to be on our way to Fonteyn House to meet Mother by now.”
Oh dear. With that pronouncement of doom hanging in the air like a curse, he hustled me inside.
Warburton greeted me with a grin and a wink and I had the decency to blush to his face. Courtiers to Nora we might be, but I wasn’t yet ready to talk about it with him now. If ever.
“You’re white as a ghost, but seem well enough,” he said. “Poor Oliver thought you’d fallen in with a press gang or worse.”
I regarded his own pale skin with new eyes. “Yes. I do beg everyone’s pardon. It was wrong of me to go off so suddenly. I didn’t think that I would be so long.”
“One never does,” he purred. “Come in and sit and tell us all about her.”
“Absolutely not!” Oliver howled from the stairs he was taking two at a time. “As soon as they bring down your baggage, we are leaving.”
Warburton shrugged expressively. “Another day, then. She must have been extraordinary, though, eh?”
I had to remember that he was still under the impression I’d been with some servant girl. “She was, indeed. That is the only word that could possibly describe her.”
His eyed widened with inner laughter. “Heavens, you’ve fallen in love, and after but one night. Do you plan to see her again?”
“Yes, I’m sure I will. At least I hope so.”
“Then you’ll have to lay in a supply of eel-skins. No offense against your lady, but you don’t want to pick up a case of the clap or pox while you’re with her. They’ll also keep you from fathering a brat, y’know.”
“Uh. . .”
“No arguments. There’s not a doctor in the land who won’t agree with me. Oliver would tell you the same, only I’m sure he’s too shy, but once you’re up at Cambridge, ask him straight out, and he’ll tell you where you can get some. Or me, if you can wait that long. I won’t be leaving for another week or so.”
He was different from the preoccupied man I’d left last night, and very different from the high-spirited suitor I’d first met: genial and interested in things outside of himself. I again wondered what Nora had said to him. I knew just how persuasive she could be but this taxed all understanding.
Oliver returned, followed by several footmen wrestling with my trunk and other things. He had asked the coach that brought me to wait and now supervised its loading. Finished, he rushed back and wrung Warburton’s hand.
“Sorry to have to hare off, but you know how Mother is.”
“It’s all right, my dear fellow. I’ll see you at the same rooms later this month?”
“Certainly! Come on, Jonathan. I’m not Joshua, I can’t make the sun stand still, though God knows it would be damned convenient to do so right now.” He seized my arm and pulled me out. I waved once at Warburton, who grinned again, then we tumbled down the steps and into the coach. Oliver’s fine horse was tethered behind, its saddle and tack littering the coach’s floor and tripping me as I charged inside. By a lucky twist, I managed to land my backside on a seat.
Oliver collapsed opposite me with a weary sigh. “Damn good fortune you picked this instead of a chair or wagon. When we’re clear of the town traffic, we should make good time.”
Once more I apologized to him.
“You needn’t worry about my feelings, it’s Mother who may take things badly. Some of her friends were at that party last night and it could get back to her that we were out having a good time instead of hurrying home to introduce you to her. She has to have things her way or it’s the devil to pay otherwise.”
That sounded uncomfortably familiar. Ah, well, if his mother and mine were so alike, I would only have to endure her for a short while. Cambridge had suddenly become highly appealing to me, and if I was anxious to get there and take up my studies, then she could hardly object to such an attitude. All I need do was keep silent on the source of its inspiration.
“Has Warburton spoken much about Miss Jones?” I asked.
“Eh? No, I don’t think so. He got a bit drunk last night, but that’s all I can recall. I suppose his proposal was a failure, but usually when a girl turns him down he sulks in bed for a week. He seemed in good spirits today.”
“Why do you think it was a failure?”
“Had he succeeded, he would have told us.”
“You seem rather incurious.”
“It’s hardly my business.” His expression changed from indifference to interest. “Oh-oh, are you thinking of—”
“Of what?”
“If the beauteous Miss Jones has turned him down, it would smooth the path for you, wouldn’t it, dear Coz? Only I’m not sure what Tony would make of that. He has the devil’s own temper at times.”
“The jealous sort, is he?”
Oliver shrugged.
That could be another reason why Nora refused his offer. “Jealous or not, it is the lady who should have the last word on whom she chooses to spend h
er time with.”
“Yes, I’ve always thought that way myself. So much the better if she chooses to spend it with you.”
I lost my power of speech for a few moments.
“Don’t look so surprised, Coz. I saw you following the girl’s aunt into the maze. From the look on your face I knew it wasn’t to have a quiet talk with her. You needn’t worry; I’m not one to tell tales. I’ve found that it’s healthier to keep removed from any romantic intrigues that are of no direct concern to me. All I ask is that if you have a question, come on out with it. This hedging around for information is bad for my liver.”
So. Dear Cousin Oliver wasn’t as simple as he pretended. Perhaps it was the Fonteyn blood. I chuckled. “All right. You’ve my word on it. I’ll even drop the subject. It’s bad manners to talk about a man when he’s not present, anyway.”
“Heavens,” he said, returning to his normal careless manner. “Then what shall we talk about?”
“There’s one thing that comes to mind. It’s what Warburton was saying to me in the hall before we left.”
“What’s that?”
“He said you’d help.”
“If I can. Help about what?”
“I’m not exactly sure. Could you please tell me . . . What’s an eel-skin?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
My initial meeting with the family’s reigning grand matriarch, Elizabeth Therese Fonteyn Marling, left me with the kind of lingering impression that months afterward could still raise a shiver between my shoulders. She had lived up—or perhaps down—to my worst expectations and more. She and my mother were eerily alike, physically and mentally, though my aunt was of a more thought-filled and colder nature, which, considering Mother, was really saying something in her favor. After that, it was about all I could say in her favor.
Her husband had died years ago—Oliver had only a faint memory of him—and since then she was the uncontested head of both the Fonteyn and Marling clans. She held her place over the others, including the men, by the force of her personality and the wealth she’d inherited from her father. As my father had done, her husband had signed an agreement forswearing all rights to her money before he was granted permission to marry her. Whether it had been a match based on love or property I was never to find out.
Fonteyn house was nearly as great in size as the Bolyn place, but with much larger grounds and so many more trees pressing close on its flanks that one could mistake the lands for primeval forest. Our coach passed through wide iron gates with spikes topping the bars, and though it was still light, I fancied a decided gloom settling upon us. That, I thought, came from Oliver, who by turns either babbled about nonsensical things or dropped into profound silence. He seemed distinctly uncomfortable, but when I asked him what was amiss, he would only shrug.
“She’s a bad-tempered lioness,” he said, meaning his mother. “Just agree with everything she says and you should be able to escape with only claw marks rather than a full mauling.”
After dealing with my own mad matriarch, I thought myself braced and ready for what lay ahead.
The coach rolled up to the front and huge doors opened from within. As we got out, a handful of young footmen rushed from the darkness of the house to see to the unloading of my baggage. They hurried as though their lives depended on it.
Oliver stayed one of them and murmured to him. The lad nodded several times, put down his burden, and hared off into the house.
“He’s announcing our arrival to Mother,” Oliver explained. “She’s usually in her drawing room this time of day, but it’s best to be sure.”
“Perhaps I should change first.” Except for some boots I’d pulled on for the journey in case we had to do any walking, I was still in the somber clothes I’d worn to the party. Thanks to the attentions of Nora’s servants they were still presentable, but I thought perhaps a different coat would be more suitable to the occasion.
“No, no, you’re fine. In fact I think she’ll approve of your apparent sobriety. She detests anything smacking of the frivolous.”
Before I could offer further objections Oliver took my elbow and guided me into the ancestral stronghold. I needed his help, for it only then struck me just how much wealth it had taken to build such a pile. There is a great difference in knowing the family to be rich and seeing the evidence of the fact. Grandfather Fonteyn had done very well for himself, it seemed, when he began buying land out from under his neighbors and using the revenues from the acreage to purchase more. Of course, it had taken him decades to build up his fortune and an exceptionally prudent fist to hold onto it, but by and large the family—that is, the Fonteyns and Marlings—lived well.
Though not in anywise a castle—it was much too modern—Fonteyn House exuded an oppressive atmosphere reminiscent of the Medieval dungeons described in Rapelji’s beloved history books. Though this structure boasted as many windows as Warburton’s, these were shrouded with thick curtains, blocking light and warmth from entry. The halls on either hand stretched into a chill gloom so thick I could not see their far end. The main staircase led up into darkness.
“This way,” he said, indicating the left-hand wing. Our boot heels sounded loud as we trod over the black and white marble floor. For a moment I had an absurd impression of being a chess piece on an impossibly large board, perhaps a knight about to be sacrificed to the opponent’s queen.
Oliver paused before a set of doors. Closed fast, they looked to be sturdy enough to fend off a real siege. “In here. You’re on your own, I’m afraid.”
“You’re not coming in?”
“I’ll be behind you, but will have to be silent for the most part. She’ll dismiss me early on, so you’ll be alone and unsupported.”
At this point I actually wavered.
He saw it. “I’m really sorry, Coz, but she has her ways. It’s all to a purpose. She wants to see you sweat. She’s a fiend toward those she wants under her thumb, and this is how she begins the bullying.”
“Oh, indeed?” Father had taught me how to deal with bullies of all types.
Oliver saw that as well. “For God’s sake, don’t take it as a challenge. There’s nothing she likes better, and she knows far more than both of us together how to put down what she sees as defiance. Trust me, your interview will be much shorter and less scathing if you play the obedient and humble sheep.”
I could see he was absolutely serious. In light of the things he’d already told me and what I’d gleaned from Father before my departure, it seemed sensible to take his advice. “All right. I’ll tread carefully.”
He looked relieved. “Excellent. We’ll have some good brandy afterward. Lots. You’ll want it.”
He knocked twice on one of the doors, then opened it like a well-trained footman, standing out of sight of whoever lurked inside.
With a dry mouth, I straightened my spine and went in. The room was long, with a low ceiling and but one window. Candles burned in the corners, but were hard-pressed to push back the gloom. A fireplace was at its mid-point, dormant now. Above it hung a full-length portrait of old Grandfather Fonteyn himself, painted during his prime to judge by his apparent youth and antique clothing. A strangely unremarkable face. Either the artist was an inferior talent, or he’d been careful not to reveal the truth about his subject. He’d painted a likeness, but nothing of the soul as some were able to do. He had done something with the eyes, though, for they seemed to look right at me from their height.
I refused to let a bit of paint and canvas perturb me. The old man was dead and gone, and I had his living descendent to worry about.
Next to the fireplace, between two large candelabra . . . a throne.
Or so it seemed to me. I gathered the impression of a large and richly carved chair and velvet cushions. Its proportions were such that they might dwarf an ordinary occupant, but the women seated there seemed to fill the whole of its space and be
yond. She was of a normal height to match my mother, but possessed a quality in her bearing that made her seem much taller than me.
As I crossed the length of her drawing room, there came to me the creeping sensation that I’d not left home after all, for she looked uncannily like Mother, right down to an identical ivory scratching stick clutched in one hand. Dear God. I barely heard Oliver trailing ghostlike behind me.
Elizabeth Marling raked me over with her hard gaze, her thin mouth growing thinner as it pulled back into an easy sneer. The surrounding lines in the heavily painted skin had been incised there by many years of repetition. I could expect no mercy or understanding from this woman, nor even the pretense of familial affection.
Oliver, using a quiet, flat voice that seemed to not be his own, made introductions, formal as a lord chamberlain.
My aunt snorted at me. “Marie said that you were a devil and you’ve the looks for it, boy, but if you’ve any ideas of devilry while you’re under my watch you can put ’em out of your head this instant.”
Such were her first words of welcome to her only nephew, delivered before I’d completed my bow to her. “Yes, Aunt Therese,” I mumbled meekly.
“You will address me as ‘Aunt Fonteyn,’ ” she snapped.
“Yes, Aunt Fonteyn,” I immediately responded.
“It’s a good name and better than you deserve. If you didn’t have a half share of my father’s blood I wouldn’t waste my time on you, but for his sake and the sake of my dear sister Marie, I’ll do what I can to civilize you.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.” Civilize? What did she think I’d do, use the soup tureen for a chamber pot in the middle of supper with the local curate?
Tempting thought.
“Something amusing you, Jonathan Fonteyn?”
“No, ma’am.” I managed to hide the inevitable wince my middle name inspired.
“How is my sister?”
“Well, ma’am, when I left her.”
