Lady Reluctant

by Maggie Osborne

  “God’s bloody green balls! Ye’d starve yer own flesh?”

  Pleased at finding the upper hand and discovering it settled her mind, Katherine opened her desk and removed a sheet of parchment. She entered two ticks on the page. “One incident of swearing. One lapse into island jargon. Two items shall vanish from your supper plate.”

  “Bloody hell!”

  “Three items. I shall enlist the aid of each servant, each member of my household. I see you are not wearing your corset. Four items.”

  “Christ on a splintered plank!”

  “Five items.” Katherine raised her head and narrowed her gaze. “Cecile’s fiancé shall call on us early next week. I can delay him no longer. By that time you will have a skilled and decent maid, and I shall expect you to look and act your best. Cecile shall decide if His Grace is to be told you are my niece or if she wishes to confide the truth. We shall rely on Cecile’s discretion and trust in her judgment on this issue.”

  Blu’s lip lifted. “Perhaps you should confine me to my scurvy room. Then no one need be anxious on my account.”

  “Six items.”

  “What—’scurvy?’ ‘Scurvy’ is a swear word?” Blu shouted a protest.

  “The word is unacceptable.”

  “As you seem to think I am! Well, we shall see. We shall just see about that!”

  Katherine watched Blusette slam out the door, then she shook her head and returned to the window. She suspected they waged a contest neither of them fully understood. But at least they shared a common goal. They each wished to see Blusette sail home to Morgan’s Mound.

  Cowardly and hypocritical. Though it should not have mattered—the judgment stung.

  11

  “Do not hunch forward over your plate. Do not wipe your fingers on the tablecloth. Do not, for heaven’s sake, drag your bosom in your food!”

  “I have no food! Only three stalks of bloody asparagus. I’m starving!”

  Lady Katherine nodded briskly to Cecile, who entered a mark on the page waiting at the ready near her wine glass.

  “I didn’t mean to say. `bloody,’” Blu wailed. “It just slipped out!”

  Cecile extended Blu a sympathetic glance, but she recorded the mark.

  “You said you loved me,” Blu accused, her face dark. The others dined on mutton, venison pastries, and cream pancakes. The combined scents brought a rush of water into her mouth. A series of rumbling protests issued from her stomach.

  “I do love you, dear Blusette. This is for your own good.”

  “I’ll believe starvation is for my own good when hens piss holy water!”

  Lady Katherine nodded and another black mark appeared on Cecile’s page. Despairing, Blu covered her eyes and groaned.

  “There, there, dear. Cecile is quite right.” Aunt Tremble touched a linen to her rouged lips. “We’ll discuss something else to take your mind off eating. I received a Marlowe play in yesterday’s post. Shall we read it after supper instead of playing cards? There is a marvelous part for an endearing old lady, which I have been practicing.”

  “I am bloody sick of reading plays! And I’m sick of Loo and Pharoah too!”

  Lady Katherine nodded to Aunt Tremble and Aunt Tremble clicked her tongue then placed a black mark on the page she withdrew from her sleeve.”

  “Oh Blusette. You were doing so well,” Cecile murmured.

  “Well? I’m doing well? I have not eaten a full meal in days! For the first time I can breathe while I’m wearing my corset. I swear I am melting away to bones!”

  “Hmmm.” Aunt Tremble, Lady Katherine, and Cecile exchanged uncertain glances. “Does that constitute a mark or not?”

  “Saying ‘I swear’ is not the same as actually swearing,” Cecile suggested, trying to help.

  “Agreed,” Katherine decided finally. “But no lady would mention her undergarments at table. I think the statement merits a mark.” Reluctantly, Cecile and Tremble nodded agreement, looking at Blu.

  “Bloody hell! I can count me ribs!”

  “Another mark, Cecile,” Lady Katherine said crisply. “If you please.”

  ~ ~ ~

  “I am not barefoot!”

  Katherine lifted Blu’s hem and peered with distaste at the boots beneath her petticoats. “Give her a mark, Tremble.”

  Aunt Tremble reached up her sleeve, withdrew her page, and entered a tick.

  “You said I could not go about barefoot! You did not say I could not wear by bloo... my boots!”

  “I feel confident you understood my meaning. Where is your fan?”

  “As I didn’t need a fan, I left it in my—”

  “Tremble—a mark if you please.”

  “For not carrying a fan? Dammit, that is not fair!”

  “Another mark. Now where is Cecile?”

  Blu’s teeth savaged her lower lip. “Mouton took her to the garden for some air,” she said sullenly. Her gaze narrowed to two dark slits. “It stinks in here, I can tell you!”

  “Where do we stand, Tremble?”

  Aunt Tremble raised the page to her nose. “The morning draught and morning meal are forfeit. The noon meal is nearly gone.” She gave Blu a pleased look. “You are improving nicely, my dear, We’re all quite proud of you.”

  “God’s... blessing upon you, Aunt Tremble,” Blu said between her teeth, hastily effecting the needed amendment in time to avoid another mark. She was so hungry she felt faint. “Oh, I miss Isabelle!”

  Aunt Tremble’s hand felt like ancient velvet on her arm. “But your hair and grooming have improved a hundredfold. From a distance, my dear, you could be mistaken for a lady of quality. I would not have believed it.”

  ~ ~ ~

  “What is going on here?”

  Mouton and Blusette halted behind Cecile’s chair. All three looked at Lady Katherine with exaggerated innocence.

  “You have been racing Cecile in her chair again. I will not have it! Cecile, why do you allow this? I can’t think what has come over you or what to do with you!”

  “Please excuse us, Madame,” Blu murmured. “Unless I am mistaken, my dancing master awaits us.”

  Katherine narrowed her eyes. “You don’t deceive me.”

  “Monsieur is waiting in your chamber, Mama. He wishes your advice as to what he should wear for Edward’s call.” Cecile’s bright eyes twinkled. Her cheeks were becomingly flushed.

  “Before Madame Truffoux departed, she asked that I convey her respects to you,” Blu added, triumphant in the knowledge her remarks gave no cause for offense. “She assures us the ball gowns will be delivered within the week.”

  Katherine glared at her. “Do not keep Master Bellamy waiting.”

  They had moved out of sight when she heard Blusette crow: “Not a single bloody damned mark!”

  Spinning on her heel, Katherine moved to the gallery banister and grimly pulled a page from the folds of her fan. “I heard that,” she said coldly, placing a bold black mark on the page.

  ~ ~ ~

  “I think my hair looks fine.”

  “I don’t.” Katherine examined Blu over the rim of her morning cup of chocolate. For the past two days Blusette had joined Cecile and Tremble at her bedside for their morning draught. As Blu had forfeited her draught, she sat with her hands clasped in her lap, inhaling the fragrant steam from Cecile’s cup. “I shall speak to your maid.”

  Blusette sighed and rolled a look of irritation toward the ceiling. “Even my maid can do nothing right.”

  Katherine reclined against her pillows and made no response. The scent of tuberose and orange water rose pleasantly from their morning gowns. Tremble wore a white lace cap, but the young ladies wore their hair becomingly dressed in a loose at-home style. Katherine examined them without appearing to do so. Blu, so beautifully dark and vivid; Cecile, so fair and delicately lovely. She decided only the most discerning eye would remark a resemblance. The high sculpted cheekbones and full curving lips could be attributed to a family similarity, but few if any would reco
gnize them as sisters.

  “Are you eager to see Edward again?” Blu asked Cecile.

  Katherine sighed. She could not relax her vigilance even for a moment. “You are not to refer to the Duke of Dewbury as Edward. You will refer to him as His Grace.”

  “Even here? Among family?”

  Katherine suppressed a wince. “Of course.”

  “I am always pleased to receive Edward,” Cecile interjected hastily before an argument could ensue. “I’m eager for you to meet him, dear Blu.”

  “You will not spit in his presence,” Katherine warned.

  “Nor pass wind, dear,” Aunt Tremble added. Her eyes twinkled with pleasure at having said something somewhat daring.

  “Blusette will do nothing to embarrass us, Mama.”

  Katherine released another sigh. Blusette and Cecile, though opposites, had taken to one another like rouge to powder. Their loyalty was proving unshakable. She could only hope Cecile’s influence on Blusette would outweigh Blusette’s influence on Cecile.

  “Ah, I wonder... may I ask a question about an issue troubling to Cecile and myself?”

  “As you wish,” Katherine said, leaning against her pillows. Perhaps it was too soon to congratulate herself on how smoothly events were proceeding, but she did notice an hour had elapsed without Blusette receiving a mark. Though she would never have confessed it, she privately admitted a twinge of sympathy. Madame Truffoux had grumbled the waists of Blusette’s gowns no longer fit perfectly as Blusette had lost so much weight.

  “Well...” Blu tightened her face into an expression of concentration, clearly seeking to phrase the question properly. “We were wondering if the doctors have mentioned anything about rogering. Can Cecile do it?”

  “Rogering?” Aunt Tremble frowned. “Have I missed a new fashion? What on earth is rogering? Katherine, I told you the times would pass us by if we shut ourselves up in here all summer. Now that Blusette is nearly presentable, we must go into society again.”

  “Rogering is the same as—what was the other word?—boffing. To roger is to boff, Aunt.” Cecile leaned forward earnestly. “You know, the act husbands and wives perform to produce children!” Her face flamed.

  “Oh. Oh dear.” A blur of fanning sent the flaps of Aunt Tremble’s cap flying. “Boffing. Oh dear.” Her eyes rolled up and her head collapsed backward against the chair.

  Blu leaned forward. “She’s gone again. Why does she do that?”

  “In her day it was fashionable to possess delicate sensibilities,” Cecile answered, pushing her chair forward to hold salts beneath Aunt Tremble’s nose, but then thinking better of it. Perhaps it was wiser to let Aunt Tremble rest until the present conversation had concluded. “Poor old thing. It’s such a nuisance. She says herself that she hates to miss everything interesting.”

  Finally Katherine recovered herself enough to speak. “You wish to know if Cecile can... can...” She could not speak without sputtering, her shock was so great.

  “Roger. We wish to know if Cecile and His Grace can boff. And if the pleasure will be all His Grace’s, or if Cecile can enjoy the rogering too. We wish to discourse on the state of Cecile’s privates.”

  Katherine’s cup and saucer spilled across the counterpane. A dark color infused her face. “One never—never!—discusses these matters! Not ever!” For the first time in her life she envied Tremble’s ability to faint at the first hint of unpleasantness.

  Blu frowned. “Why ever not? We discuss eating. We have discussed pissing. Every day Aunt Tremble discusses the state of her bowels and whether she will take a physic, and no one objects. Rogering is merely another aspect of living. Why should it be treated differently?”

  “Because it is! That is why.”

  Cecile’s face burned the color of a deep brilliant sunset. “If the doctors have said anything, Mama, I beg to know.” If possible, the color deepened on her cheeks. “Edward will expect an heir. If I am unable to provide an heir—”

  “Enough! I will not hear another word of this!” And she had been tempted to congratulate herself on civilizing a savage. Katherine pressed a shaking hand to her forehead. “Out. Leave me at once, the two of you. This is five marks,” she added, her voice shrill. “For you both!”

  “That is not fair! Cecile did nothing amiss. She should have the right to know the state of her own privates, I should think!”

  “Mouton? Mouton, I need you!” He appeared in the doorway at once. “Take them away.”

  Mouton’s large hands moved in eloquent gestures and after a moment, her face stormy and reluctant, Blu nodded and followed Cecile’s chair to the door. She waited until Mouton had pushed Cecile into the corridor, then she turned to her mother’s bed.

  “If Cecile cannot roger or produce an heir—it is wrong of you to insist on this marriage.”

  “How dare you judge matters of which you know nothing! Cecile loves Edward.”

  “Aye. And she longs for babes. But mark me, if she cannot have the babes, she would prefer not to have Edward either. She believes such a match would be unfair to him. And she is correct. Can she conceive?”

  “Cecile is confined to a chair. If she does not marry His Grace, she will not marry at all. What suitor seeks a crippled wife? That should be obvious.”

  “Can she catch a babe?”

  “I will not discuss this!”

  Tilting her head, Blu studied Lady Katherine with a thoughtful expression. “So. She cannot.”

  “I did not say that! The doctors are hopeful Cecile will walk again.”

  “A hope is not a certainty. Without rogering, without an heir, the marriage becomes merely a business transaction.”

  “And what do you think marriage is, miss, if not a business transaction?”

  “That is wrong.”

  “That is how it is and has always been. The marriage will proceed as planned.”

  For a long moment Blusette stared at her mother. Before she shut the door behind her, she licked her thumb and spit on the floor, the gesture one of supreme contempt.

  “Would you condemn Cecile to spinsterhood?” Katherine shouted at the closed door. She hurled her cup and saucer at the wall, then covered her face in her hands.

  ~ ~ ~

  Monsieur came to Blu’s chamber to inspect her before they descended to the drawing room to await the arrival of the Duke of Dewbury.

  Holding his goggles high on his thin nose, Monsieur circled her slowly, moving his wigged head up and down. “Excellent,” he pronounced with a sigh of relief. “Her Ladyship will discover no flaw.”

  Blu stood before the glass, staring at herself, wondering where herself had gone. She could discern no trace of the blowsy who had arrived on Lady Katherine’s doorstep. The young woman peering back at her was a creature from a different universe.

  The new maid, Moll, had curled and coiled her glossy dark hair into a high spill of long curls caught in place at the crown. The coils dropping to her bare shoulders reminded her of shining dark water. The gown Lady Katherine had chosen for her was fashioned of delicately draped emerald silk adorned with seed pearls and tiny silk roses as pink as her lips. Although her skin would never be as fashionably pale as Cecile’s, with the help of the almond paste, her tan had faded to a golden glow. A skillful application of French cerise enhanced her natural coloring.

  “Curtsy, don’t bow,” Monsieur reminded her, mopping his forehead with a lace handkerchief. “Remember to address His Grace correctly. Do not speak unless he speaks. Are your lacings loose enough to breathe comfortably? You should not gasp or gag for air in the Duke’s presence.”

  “I can breathe. I hardly notice the corset anymore.” There was something sad and to be regretted in that statement. It meant she had changed. “You have changed too,” she observed softly, inspecting Monsieur in the mirror.

  Today Monsieur wore a freshly groomed bobtail wig suitable to his diminutive size. A bone-white stock meticulously draped his throat, contrasting pleasingly with a solidly dark coat an
d matching breeches. Gone were the gaudy jeweled buckles, the shimmering brocades and satins. Gone the flamboyant colors and outlandish combinations. Gone were the cracked spectacles and the fruity perfumes. Of a sudden Blu longed for the Monsieur of old.

  A lump rose from her innards and lodged in her throat. “Oh Monsieur. What is happening to us?”

  Isabelle was gone. Mouton might as well be. He had expanded his harem duties to include Cecile, and Cecile’s needs were admittedly greater than Blu’s. Cecile would allow no one to push her chair but Mouton. He continued to sleep in the hallway, but now he slept midpoint between Blu’s chamber and Cecile’s. He wore clothing similar to Monsieur’s, especially tailored for him by Herr Kaunitz, who had been Lord Paget’s favorite scissors. He no longer seemed as extraordinary or as wonderfully menacing.

  “We are becoming what we can be, my dear Blusette.”

  “We are losing ourselves.” She stared at the young woman in the mirror, seeing but a ghost of the girl she had been. “My papa could pass me in the street and not recognize me.”

  Monsieur touched her shoulder gently. “Nothing would please him more.”

  “I don’t want this,” she whispered, suddenly afraid. “I don’t want to lose any more of myself.”

  Trembling fingertips pressed her chin. It troubled her to discover one could learn things but one could not unlearn them. Now that she knew how to apply rouge properly, it became impossible to apply it rudely. Once a curtsy was mastered, one’s pride prevented future error. Having discovered the convenience of a fork at table, she could no longer manage without. She had made the experiment. She also knew she could never again comfortably piss in a bush. A chamber pot had become indispensable. She could not unlearn its use. Even points of etiquette could not be unlearned. Once one grasped the proper way of this and that, one could not abandon the rules without suffering shame and discomfort.

  Whirling, she grasped Monsieur’s hands and gripped them painfully. “Please, I beg you. Let us escape before we are entirely consumed! Please, Monsieur. I cannot agree to this any longer. I beg you to save me while there is still a me to save!”