The Forthright Lady Gillian, The Fickle Fortune-Hunter

by Amanda Scott

  He found himself pondering its contents while he changed his clothes. He had thought he discerned quiet desperation in its tone, and despite the careful writing, one sentence stood out from the rest. She wrote that she was often at her wits’ end but assured her aunt that solutions to each of her problems generally presented themselves before she was tempted to seek solace in a bottle or a watery grave. Since such bits of the letter as he could make out seemed to enumerate trials and tribulations of a large and demanding family as well as the writer’s acceptance of responsibility for coping with all of them (the very thought of which appalled his lordship), the mention of a watery grave sent chills up his spine. He hoped she was being melodramatic or making a poor attempt at humor, but decided that, whatever her mood, the remark was a lapse by one unaccustomed to expressing her deeper feelings in her correspondence.

  Despite his interest in the well-dowered beauty, he found himself exerting more energy to try to imagine the correspondent than to imagine “dearest Theo” who was to have her portrait drawn once the family was settled in London. Theo was a ridiculous name for a young woman, Crawley thought. But then nowadays no one was called Felicity, for the modern—and in his opinion, much more appealing—form of the name was Felicia. Felicity sounded like something dreamed up by Roundheads for Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan daughter. But Theo was infinitely worse—mannish. He sighed, telling himself he ought not to be nitpicking when the fact—lowering though it was—was that he coveted that dowry.

  Crawley was not a deceptive man by nature and did not think he would be able to maintain any charade for long. Nor did he want to do so. But he did want to meet the heiress before she became the primary target of every fortune hunter in Town.

  He stared out the window at the vast land that was his. His friend Thorne had told him flatly that with a little proper management, his estates would pay for themselves and give him a tidy profit. Easy for Thorne to say. He was a marquess, the eldest son of the wealthy Duke of Langshire. Moreover, both Thorne and his new bride were tiresomely interested in modern planting methods such as those advocated by Mr. Coke of Norfolk. But what answered in Norfolk or in Ireland did not necessarily answer in Nottinghamshire, and Crawley did not aspire to be a farmer. His last two stewards had been rogues, too. Really, he thought, being a landowner meant a lot of work, which did not suit him. He much preferred spending time at his club in London, in the company of his friends. He liked to hunt in the ’Shires, to spend summer in Brighton with the rest of the beau monde, and to enjoy the round of winter house parties without concerning himself over difficulties at Longworth. Time enough for that later, when he was older and more settled in his ways.

  He supposed he was a pretty frippery fellow, but a man was what a man was. Moaning about it did no good. That he had not expected to inherit Longworth for many a year was beside the point, too. His friend Thorne had always wanted to have a finger in the Langshire pies, and the irascible duke had forbidden him to dabble in the running of their estates until shortly before Thorne’s marriage. But Crawley had always enjoyed spending the income from his father’s estates without being burdened with the bother of looking after them. The discovery, after his father’s untimely death, that the estates did not simply run themselves had come as an unwelcome shock. In the three years since that dreadful day, Longworth had declined from a profitable, well-run place to a landlord’s nightmare, but Crawley had neither the training nor the inclination to prevent it. Were it not for his mother’s money, carefully saved from her marriage settlements, his sister Belinda would be spending her second Season at home. It annoyed him to know that he could not afford to frank her himself, that, in fact, he frequently had to borrow from his friends merely to support himself in the style he liked; however, until he could devise a way to recover his losses without isolating himself in Nottinghamshire, that was how it would be.

  As if merely thinking her name had somehow conjured up her presence, his sister’s familiar knock sounded just then upon his door. “Come in, Bella.”

  She entered at once, a pretty young woman dressed in a simple white muslin frock, her elfin face wreathed in smiles, her turquoise eyes twinkling with mischief. “Art sober, Ned? I want to ask a favor, so if you still have a sore head I shall take myself off again, for I do not want mine bitten off.”

  “I would never bite off such a pretty head,” Crawley said. “I like the new way you are doing your hair, Bella.”

  Her glossy chestnut tresses had been cropped into a tumble of curls around her face, with the longer strands behind twisted into a knot atop her head. The style made her eyes look enormous, particularly now when she widened them in such a way as to warn him that she meant to ask a favor he would not like.

  “Ned, Mama said I cannot go to Mary Westfall’s birthday party if you do not lend me your escort. Mama has vowed not to set foot in Lady Westfall’s house, or to speak to her until she takes back what she said last week about having been prettier and more popular than Mama was when they were girls. Really, it is so silly. But will you take me? Rosa will be as angry with me as Mama is with Lady Westfall if I do not go.”

  Crawley grimaced. “Lady Westfall gives me a pain, Bella. And Rosa simpers so that I want to drown her in their fish pond.”

  “I know,” Belinda said, grinning at him, “but that is only because she has decided to adore you from afar.”

  “What?” Crawley felt a little sick.

  His sister’s grin widened. “Unrequited love, dear brother. The very most romantic kind. Rosa is a trifle unbalanced that way, no doubt from reading entirely too many silly romance novels. I am glad to say,” she added with a superior air, “that I am not addicted to such stuff. But will you take me, dearest Ned, kindest of brothers?”

  “I do have guests of my own, you know,” he said, throwing out the reminder without much hope of its doing him any good.

  Nor did it. “Bring them. Extra gentlemen are always welcome, and Lady Westfall will be thrilled to tell her friends she has entertained a duke’s nephew, not to mention the great Sir Richard Vyne. He will be rude to her, I expect, but no one ever minds his impudence, do they?”

  “No.”

  “It is very odd.” She tilted her head, regarding him quizzically. “Will you do it, Neddie? Please?”

  He reached out and tweaked a chestnut curl. “I will, but I do not mean to make a habit of indulging the likes of Lady Westfall, let alone the idiotic Rosa. When did I say we would depart for London, brat?”

  Her eyes widened again. “You did not say. Mama hoped she might persuade you to remove there before Easter, but she said she feared you might be difficult because of the added expense of living in Town.”

  “Can you be ready to depart within a fortnight?” he asked.

  Her eyes sparkled. “Oh, Ned, do you mean it? Of course I can. It will mean purchasing gowns in London rather than in Nottingham, but Mama will not mind that, I daresay. She says every penny she spends on me now is merely an investment in the future. I only hope I do not disappoint her.”

  “Well, just don’t go whistling another fortune down the wind as you seem to have done with Dacres,” Crawley said sternly. “Forty thousand a year and practically living in your pocket all last Season. I cannot think why you couldn’t manage to bring him up to scratch.”

  The smile faded from her face. “I know you are displeased, Ned. I am dreadfully sorry to have failed you.”

  “Don’t be foolish, brat. I am not displeased with you. In point of fact, I ought never to have brought Dacres up again, for he is now past history.” Shooting an oblique look at the letter on his dressing table, he added, “Perhaps, with any luck at all, we can both make our fortunes this Season.”

  2

  “AUNT FELICIA, HAVE YOU seen my small satchel?”

  “Felicia, which bedchamber is to be mine? I cannot abide street noises, and this wretched footman says I am to be in the front blue chamber. Tell him!”

  “Pardon me, Miss Felicia, but where did
his lordship say he wanted this large trunk?”

  “Miss Felicia, I must know how many mean to sit down to dinner. And what time shall I order it served, if you please?”

  “Aunt Felicia, Aunt Felicia! Freddy put a toad down my back. Oh, get it out! Get it out!”

  “Here, Felicity, where the devil has Foster got to? I want my coin collection, and I can’t find the dratted fellow.”

  “Felicity, what on earth is all this pandemonium in aid of, and why did you not write to warn me of your arrival?” demanded the slender, well-dressed lady of middle years and needle-sharp features who appeared just then in the open doorway of the tall narrow house at number twenty Park Lane, Mayfair. “Had I not chanced to pass by on my way to Devonshire House, I should not have known you were in Town at all.”

  The soberly attired young woman standing in the midst of the huge pile of baggage littering the hall paused long enough to remove a wriggling green frog from the bodice of the still-shrieking little girl before she turned and smiled at the newcomer. “Hello, Aunt Augusta,” she said calmly. “I did write to you. Hush, Sara Ann. A lady does not shriek. Go and tell Miss Ames to tidy your hair and to give you a fresh sash before you have your dinner. Come in out of the chill, Aunt. Here, Peters, take this poor frog out into the garden and set him free. Be careful now. Do not harm him.” Turning from the open-mouthed footman, she said, “Papa, your coin collection is in the library, and Foster has gone to see if your wine was delivered by Oakley and Campion this morning, as they assured you it would be. Mrs. Heath, we will dine at eight. The two younger children will have their supper in the schoolroom with Miss Ames at six. Tom may dine with us tonight, but I do not yet know how many we shall be. Usually we are six at table, but you had better make it a practice always to allow for several more. Heath, the large chest goes in Lord Adlam’s dressing room. And Theo, you may have the yellow bedchamber overlooking the garden. I will take the blue one. As for your satchel, Tom—”

  “Aunt Felicia, Aunt Felicia,” a sturdy, tow-headed little boy called from the second-floor landing, “Grandmama collapsed in a heap by her sitting-room door. I think she’s dead!”

  “Good God,” Lady Augusta exclaimed, looking up in horror.

  Felicia looked up at him, too, but said with her composure unaltered, “May heaven help you, Freddy Adlam, if this is another one of your horrid tricks.”

  “No, it ain’t, I promise. She’s dead! Come see for yourself.”

  With a sigh of resignation, Felicia smiled at her aunt and said, “The vapors again, I daresay. Will you come up to the drawing room, dear ma’am? It will be a good deal more peaceful there than it is here.”

  “Aunt Felicia!” The second boy, less fair and four years senior to his nine-year-old brother, sounded distraught.

  “Oh, Tom, do forgive me. Your satchel.” She thought for a moment. “I fear I do not know precisely where it is, but perhaps if you will remain here in the hall to assist Heath and the rest of the staff in disposing of all this debris, you will soon discover its whereabouts. You know which bags are yours and the children’s, so you can be a great help.”

  “Certainly, ma’am,” Tom said, smiling shyly at her. “And if you would like me to take Freddy in hand—”

  “Just you try it, Mr. Smart Top,” cried the urchin on the stairs. “I’ll soon give you pepper!”

  “Freddy,” Felicia said calmly, “please go at once to Grandmama’s bedchamber and tell Mrs. Harroby—her woman, you know—to bring Grandmama’s vinaigrette to her sitting room.”

  “Ain’t she dead then?”

  “No, of course not. Now, do as I bid you, please.”

  He ran back up the stairs, and as the two women moved to follow him, Lady Augusta said quietly behind Felicia, “Are you quite sure of that, my dear? I know my sister Selena suffers a great deal from her nerves, but the child might be right.”

  Turning into a corridor off the gallery, Felicia glanced over her shoulder with a smile. “I should be very much surprised if he is, ma’am, and a good deal less surprised to learn that he jumped out of a corner and startled Mama into a fit of the vapors. Here she is.”

  She knelt swiftly by her mother, a slender, fragile creature with wispy fair hair and pale skin. Touching her forehead and wrists and observing the pulse beating steadily beneath her right ear, Felicia said gently, “Mama, come, dearest, bestir yourself, for we must get you to your sitting room. Oh, good,” she added when Lady Adlam’s woman came swiftly toward them from the direction of the service stairs. “Harroby, give me her vinaigrette, if you please.”

  Lady Adlam moaned faintly when the vinaigrette was waved beneath her nose, and it was not long before she opened her eyes, looking rather startled. “Oh,” she said, “oh, my dear Felicia, such a fright! That dreadful boy!”

  Helping her to a sitting position, Felicia signed to the hovering Mrs. Harroby to assist them, and they soon had Lady Adlam in her sitting room tucked up on a sofa made comfortable with numerous cushions. “There, Mama, you will do very well now, I think. Harroby can bring you a nice pot of tea to settle your nerves. It was Freddy who startled you, I collect, which is no doubt why he seems to have taken himself off now.”

  “Such a dreadful little boy,” Lady Adlam said. “So odd when his papa was always such a joy to me—a perfect gentleman right from the cradle. Never a moment’s concern did Jack give me.”

  “And if he and Nancy were here instead of in India, ma’am, I am certain that Freddy would behave much better. But Papa did insist upon bringing the children to Town with us, you know, not trusting the servants at Bradstoke to look after them properly, so we must just make the best of it until the next term begins, when the boys, at least, can be sent to school.”

  Lady Adlam sighed, but she appeared to be relaxing, and with relief, Felicia turned to Lady Augusta. “We will leave her to rest now. Harroby knows just what to do for her.”

  Lady Augusta was clearly bursting to speak, but she contained herself until they reached the drawing room, a singularly attractive chamber decorated in apple green with white molding and green-and-white striped curtains. A floral carpet muffled her ladyship’s footsteps as she moved toward a pair of dark green leather wing chairs near the hearth. She held her tongue only until Felicia had shut the door behind her. Then, as if expelling pent up breath, she snapped, “Never a concern to her, indeed! As if she had not suffered a fit of vapors every time your brother Jack threw out a rash or was. half a minute late returning from an outing. And as for his being a pattern-card of virtue, I just wish I might have seen it, that’s all. That Freddy is a limb of Satan, but one need not look far to find the tree he was cut from, and that’s plain fact. What will you do with him?”

  “Send him to school, just as soon as they will take him.”

  “I mean now, Felicity. You cannot mean to overlook this disgraceful behavior. Spare the rod and spoil the child is what I say, and that young man wants a sound thrashing.”

  Felicia smiled. “Well, I hope you do not mean for me to thrash him, ma’am. I doubt I could catch him, for one thing, and if I could, I daresay I am not nearly strong enough to hold him.”

  “Pish tush. Do boldly what you do at all, I say, and do not forget that I have seen you manage more than one mettlesome horse. A child should be nothing, after that. Simply inform him of his fate and command him to assume the proper position.”

  “Goodness, you sound very fierce, Aunt, as if you had done the thing yourself any number of times. I had not thought you such a violent woman.”

  Lady Augusta smiled grimly. “Order me some tea, gel, before I forget I am a lady and you discover how violent I can become.”

  Chuckling, Felicia pulled the bell. “Freddy must have frightened himself thoroughly, for he cannot have expected poor Mama to collapse before his eyes. I daresay he will be a good boy for a time now. But do sit down and tell me all about what is happening in Town.”

  “Much you care, since you did not even bother to write to tell me you and
the others were coming,” Lady Augusta said, sitting down in one of the wing chairs.

  “But I did write,” Felicia protested, taking the opposite chair. “It was quite a long letter, too, ma’am, telling you all about the uproar caused by the children’s arrival and Papa’s reluctance to leave Longworth—even for his dearest Theo’s come-out—and about Mama’s failing health.”

  “I should have been much more interested to read that you looked forward to spending a Season in Town,” Lady Augusta said tartly, “or to a demand to know all the latest crim con stories. I hope you mean to rig yourself out properly,” she added with a disapproving look. “You look as neat as a pin, just as you always do, but that dress don’t become you in the least. Makes you look like a drab brown wren, and while fine feathers don’t make fine birds, gentlemen rarely look twice at a dowdy dove.”

  “No gentleman is likely to look twice at me anyway, whilst Theo is about,” Felicia said, smiling at her again but aware of a familiar tightening in her midsection at the mild criticism.

  Lady Augusta’s pale blue eyes narrowed. “Where the devil is your spunk, girl? Had anyone dared to call me a dowdy when I was your age, I’d have snatched her bald-headed! But there you sit, meek as a nun’s hen, accepting my words as if they were gospel.”

  Felicia shook her head. “I know perfectly well, ma’am, that I have little style and less spunk. You have certainly told me so often enough in the past twenty years, but I cannot think why you press me to behave in a manner that I am persuaded you would be the first to condemn. Goodness knows, you roundly condemn Theo whenever she speaks out of turn.”

  “Your sister, Theodosia, is another matter altogether,” Lady Augusta retorted. “The chit may be a beauty, but she has few manners and little elegance of mind. You’ve got too much of both. Why, I daresay you have never misbehaved in all your life, and whenever anyone else does anything out of the way, you are quick to make excuses for them or take the blame yourself. Always a perfect child, as I recall—and my memory is much more to be relied upon than Selena’s—and not so much as a breath of scandal the one year I prevailed upon you to come to Town for the Season. And as I remember,” she added shrewdly, “any number of nice, reliable young men made up to you then.”