Amberley Chronicles Boxset II (Amberley Chronicles Box Sets Book 2)

by May Burnett

  It sounded unlikely, given his recollections of Percy. Maybe he should have beaten him more often. Too late now.

  In the dining room Percy dragged him towards four young men lounging around a table for six in the back. “Look who’s come back from the wilderness – Charles Denham!” he triumphantly announced. Two of the diners looked up with blank expressions, but the others proved to be former schoolmates, and immediately made Charles welcome.

  “You must have an iron constitution, to come back from the West Indies looking so well,” Paul Merseyford said. “Not even a yellowish cast to your face. How was the diplomatic life?”

  “Rather boring most of the time. In a sleepy island that rarely sees a ship, time can drag very slowly.” Charles had helped to govern and administer the colony rather than engaging in diplomacy, but to these ignorant youngsters no doubt it was all the same.

  “I bet the pretty mulatto girls made the nights at least pass faster,” the Honourable Andrew Carsley leered. “I can just imagine it. Confess, Denham; their company must have been a consolation.”

  “If you go in for that sort of thing, I suppose it might have been.”

  “Ha-ha, you sound like my uncle the Bishop of Wells. Or have you discovered a taste for different pleasures?”

  Enough was enough. Charles fixed Carsley with his iciest stare, with which he had once faced down pirates on the east coast of St. Romain. “Just what are you insinuating?”

  Carsley’s eyes bulged a little. “Oh, nothing at all, Denham, nothing, believe me. No-nobody would take you for a man-milliner, I swear it. Just a stupid, thoughtless joke.”

  “I must have mislaid my sense of humour in the West Indies,” Charles said drily, allowing the matter to drop.

  “You have changed,” Percy commented, “you did not use to be so bloody-minded before, Denham. I don’t remember you ever sounding so menacing.”

  “Four years abroad can change anyone, I dare say.” He certainly must have changed a great deal, for he no longer felt at ease in the society of these wastrels. Had he ever been this callow? Yet there was only a small age difference between them. “I can recommend the experience.”

  “Not for me,” Merseyford said with a shudder, “England is good enough for me. You won’t catch me mixing with a bunch of heathens.”

  “Plenty of heathens right here in London, I should have thought,” Charles said. “Or have you fellows caught religion all of a sudden?”

  “Zeus forfend,” Carsley declared. “That is all mumbo-jumbo as far as I am concerned. But our familiar kind of mumbo-jumbo and not some alien African voodoo.”

  “Did you have any experience of heathen magic, by any chance?” Percy asked avidly. “I have heard it is prevalent among the slave populations of the West Indies.”

  “If so, they took care to keep it out of my way.” Charles was not minded to entertain them with stories of sacrificed cockerels and surprisingly effective curses.

  The waiter came at last to take his order. There was no escape, he would have to eat with these young louts, and make the best of the situation. To move the discussion away from his own situation he asked the obligatory questions about his fellow diners’ lives over the past four years. It emerged that Carsley, the most immature of the lot, was recently engaged to a wealthy young lady from Dorsetshire. Charles proffered felicitations, even as he felt a twinge of pity for the deluded girl. The young man might be good-looking, well-born and rich, but he suspected the future Mrs. Carsley would repent of her bargain before too long.

  Charity, tolerance, patience, he reminded himself. This dinner demonstrated that he had a long way to go. Judgemental habits of thought were not easily erased.

  He drank only sparingly, declined an invitation to play whist, and eventually made his way back to the Denham residence well before midnight.

  This was going to be harder than he had anticipated. But a Denham never shied away from a challenge, once he decided that it was the right course.

  Only, was it?

  Chapter 3

  Do not tie your heart to glittering baubles. They never fetch as much as they cost in the first place.

  Maxims for Young Gentlewomen, by A Lady, London 1823

  “Anthea,” Lady Desborough asked, “do you still have the pearl and amethyst bracelet I gave you two years ago? I am afraid I need it back.”

  Her daughter blinked in surprise. “Have we become poor all of a sudden? It is not worth all that much, I should think.”

  “No, of course we are not poor,” the Countess reassured her. “There is a particular reason why I need to take it with me, which you will learn in due course. Do not worry about it.”

  Lady Anthea Desborough fetched her jewel box and handed the bracelet to her parent. It was fashioned of white gold, with broad interlinking parts set with small violet stones and antique pearls in an old-fashioned design. She hardly minded the loss, as she still had her pearls and the aquamarine set, a present on her eighteenth birthday, and besides could borrow her mother’s far more valuable jewels at need.

  Looking into the jewel box, Lady Desborough said, “Oh, that sapphire ring - I forgot you had it. I will need that as well.” She took the jewel in question without further ado.

  “Now I really want an explanation. You gave that ring to me yourself.”

  “You will know soon enough,” her mother promised, and sighed a little. Whatever could be the problem? As the wife and eldest daughter of the seventh Earl Desborough, they had never had any financial problems as far as Anthea was aware. The value of these pretty trinkets was as nothing to the sums her father routinely handled.

  “You don’t want my engagement ring too, by any chance?”

  Lady Desborough contemplated the huge emerald glittering on her daughter’s hand. “Hardly. Your fiancé would make a fuss.”

  Anthea moved her fingers and admired the way the sunlight from the window reflected in the facets of the flawless green stone. It was part of the Goffroy family jewels, and would eventually go back to her oldest son and his wife, many years in the future.

  “We have more guests arriving tomorrow, Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Durwent,” her mother said. “I want you to be particularly friendly to them.”

  “Who are they?” Anthea had never heard the name before.

  “Durwent is a self-made man, in shipping, and very wealthy. His marriage is relatively recent.”

  “Hmm.” They definitely did not sound like their typical guests, especially now, when Lord and Lady Desborough had only invited close family connections. The months between Anthea’s engagement to Silas Goffroy, Lord Winstanton and her wedding in January were supposed to provide an occasion for the couple to familiarize themselves with each other, after the hectic and superficial London Season of the previous spring and summer.

  And had not Anthea listened more than once to her father’s unflattering views of self-made men, and all those who engaged in trade?

  Lady Desborough frowned slightly. “I brought you up too well to expect any lack of courtesy on your part,” she said after a moment, “but though your Father wants to tell you the particulars himself, it seems probable that Mrs. Durwent is a connection of ours. Treat them with every attention.”

  “Of course,” Anthea replied, her curiosity strongly aroused. “You can count on me, but maybe you should give the same warning to Peter and Silas.” Her older brother and her fiancé were no admirers of the commercial classes. Silas in particular rarely bothered to hide his contempt for those he considered his social inferiors.

  “Surely they will not go beyond the line of what is pleasing. I know Peter can be a bit brash, although I have tried my best to instil good manners in him since he was in petticoats, but he is still young and will learn better.”

  Anthea fleetingly wondered why she, over two years younger than Peter, was expected to be so much more polite and sensible than her brother. Her mother always overlooked faults in her beloved first-born son that she would never have tolerated in her
daughters.

  “As for Silas, you will just have to watch and distract him if necessary.”

  That was easier said than done, Anthea reflected as she silently relocked her jewel box. Silas could be very stubborn.

  Her mother mistook the reason for her long face. “You will soon get other jewels to make up for these. Better and prettier ones. There is a diamond set among the Winstanton family jewels that used to belong to Queen Anne.”

  Anthea nodded. A ring and a bracelet were hardly worth arguing over, but the reason for giving them up still exercised her imagination. Why on earth…?

  She went looking for her brother or Silas, to discover if they had any additional information on the mystery guests, but according to the butler the young men had gone out to shoot rabbits. Contrary to her parents’ expectations, Silas did not seem eager to spend time with Anthea. She rarely saw him except at meals.

  Her aunt Helen and the dowager Lady Amberley were having a coze in the lilac sitting room. Anthea joined them for a few minutes, but their subject – the latest on-dits as relayed by their mutual correspondents – was hardly to her taste, and her presence was crimping their style. So many salacious details were not supposed to be mentioned in the presence of an unmarried young lady. After January, overnight, she would become eligible to hear all.

  She went out to the gardens and greenhouse to cut flowers. Making up the arrangements was one of Anthea’s regular duties. The hardier rose bushes were still blooming outdoors, despite the cool autumn weather. She took special care with the flowers for the Durwents’ rooms.

  Before changing for dinner, she went to see her cousin Cecily, to ask if she had any idea what was going on.

  She could have spared her breath. As usual Cecily had her head in a book, and neither knew nor cared about the Durwents.

  Anthea regarded her cousin with fond exasperation. Cecily, a year older than she at nearly twenty, had not taken during her first and second season, but was not noticeably depressed or disappointed by this failure. She had told Anthea she did not understand what all the fuss was about. Cecily’s dowry was modest, but as the only heiress of her paternal grandparents in Edinburgh, she would eventually be a rich woman. “Why should I share my future independence with a man?” she had asked Anthea once, shocking her cousin. “I can see myself living very happily as a spinster.”

  It was an attitude Anthea could not understand at all. Her parents expected her to marry, and marry well; the engagement to Silas, towards the end of her first season, was the natural result of her efforts to please. Her birth, dowry and looks gave her advantages over many other debutantes, but she had observed other girls equally well-positioned languishing on the vine, or being generally ignored like poor Cecily. Life was a race; you had to run with the leaders, giving your utmost, or risk being left behind.

  When she had tried to explain this theory to Cecily, to persuade her to make more of an effort to attract eligible men, her cousin had only smiled. “What a dismal philosophy,” she had said. “If I can be perfectly happy without running, why bother?”

  Despite these differences, the cousins were fast friends. Anthea was determined to arrange a happy match for Cecily. In a year or two Cecily might tire of her books, and prove more amenable to some well-chosen suitor, who could see beyond her glasses and vagueness to the lovely woman underneath.

  “Mother hinted that Mrs Durwent was a possible family connection,” she told Cecily, “have you any idea in what way she could be related to us?”

  At this direct question, her cousin put down her book, and thoughtfully rubbed a soft cloth over her reading spectacles. “We have so many relations already. The most interesting part of the question is the word ‘possible’, implying doubt. Could she be somebody’s natural daughter? But in that case, would she be invited here to meet us?”

  “I very much doubt it.” Anthea had heard of natural children, but had no clear idea how they differed from other people. “We have never been allowed to meet any. I think they are not considered respectable enough to have as house guests.”

  “How old is Mrs Durwent, do you know?”

  “Mother didn’t say.”

  “Then we have very little to go on.” Cecily set the glasses back on her nose, and took the book up again. “No doubt we will learn all the details once she arrives. I wonder if she likes to read?”

  “Don’t get your hopes up. Nobody loves reading as much as you do.”

  “I know, but I would not mind meeting a few people with similar tastes, for more interesting exchanges than we have been having lately. All that talk of hunting and shooting and racing quite affects my appetite, and bores me to tears.”

  “Me too, most of the time,” Anthea confessed. “When we leave the gentlemen to their port, I feel relieved. Of course we get our revenge by subjecting them to our musical offerings later on.” She had no illusions about her degree of proficiency. Despite many years of tuition and practice, Cecily and Anthea were average performers at best. That had become painfully clear during her Season, where she had been exposed to real professionals and amateurs far more talented and passionate about music. Nonetheless at her mother’s and aunt’s insistence, both girls were expected to play every evening, and sometimes to sing. “Mrs Durwent may be musical, and put us quite in the shade with her skill.”

  Cecily smiled. “That would not require much effort. I hope she will.”

  “I wonder if she and her husband will enjoy all the hunting and racing talk. A shipping magnate may find himself out of his element.”

  “If he wants to talk of shipping and interest rates, on the other hand, we will not have much to contribute,” Cecily said. “I cannot remember your parents ever having a businessman here before. It is really quite extraordinary.”

  “Yes. Still, I believe some of them are quite gentlemanly, depending on their origins. Durwent must be, or Father would never have invited him.”

  “Mmmh.” Her cousin was already deep in her book again. With a tiny sigh, Anthea withdrew.

  Chapter 4

  Sometimes we have to swallow the bitter with the sweet.

  Maxims for Young Gentlewomen, by A Lady, London 1823

  Silas Goffroy, Lord Winstanton, ignored the reproachful look of the head groom as he easily dropped down from the bay. After a bruising ride cross-country the gelding was heaving, his flanks wet. Lord Desborough could hardly complain if Silas used his mounts roughly, since it was he who kept Silas kicking his heels here in Kent. In previous years Silas had spent October at his hunting box in Leicestershire, surrounded by other hunting enthusiasts, drinking and carousing all night. There had been buxom women too… Here in this mausoleum of dull respectability, Silas could not even tumble the pretty maid who had lit the fire in the grate on the first morning. The merest touch on her well-rounded buttocks had scared the girl stiff, and sent her scurrying off like a mouse. His room had subsequently been attended by a frightful middle-aged frump.

  Adding to his aggravation, his mother was present among the guests. She had already accepted his future in-laws’ invitation before he could head her off, and when he suggested that she develop a sudden touch of rheumatism, had turned uncharacteristically stubborn. Soon he would have two women in his house, a prospect he could not relish.

  For a sportsman like Silas, there was no congenial company at all at Desborough Hall. The closest in age was the Earl’s heir Peter, Lord Minton, a youth with whom Silas normally would not have bothered. But in the absence of other amusements, he was setting the boy against his parents’ stern lifestyle, and gradually detaching him from their control. It was almost too easy; the young man was eager for independence.

  The ostensible reason for his enforced stay at Desborough Hall was his betrothed, Lady Anthea, the Earl’s oldest daughter. Silas had no particular wish for a leg-shackle, and would rather have postponed the whole unpleasant business for another decade; but as his mother never ceased to point out, if he did not produce an heir the title and estate
would devolve on his deadly dull cousin Mervyn, from the junior branch of their family, with whom an irrevocable breach had occurred in his grandfather’s generation.

  If he had to marry, Lady Anthea, with her strawberry blond tresses and dowry of forty-five thousand pounds, was no worse than any other candidate. She was also delightfully naïve and conventional in her thinking, as easy to manipulate as he could have wished. The occasional flattery was quite enough to make her, and more importantly her mother, come to hand.

  Still, had he known when he proposed to Anthea in late June that he would have to sacrifice October to this visit at her parents’ home, so they ‘could better know each other’ before the winter wedding, he might have thought twice.

  It had not been so bad in London. Silas had attended a few balls and other entertainments selected by his mother and danced with the ladies she pointed out as eligible, zeroing in on Anthea within days. A dozen waltzes and meaningful glances, a number of carefully calibrated compliments, keeping her a little off balance about his intentions – it had been like a game, but winning had turned out laughably easy, and then there was no more sport in the thing.

  The hardest part had been the self-control required among all that perfumed young feminine flesh, arrayed in expensive clothes with bare bosoms and arms. Fashionable young ladies teased the imagination, but you were not allowed to touch except at the price of a leg-shackle, - and only one at that. Fortunately London offered all kinds of relief. Silas was not the only gentleman who regularly slipped away from Almack’s to ease his frustration in the arms of an expensive courtesan. Some fellows kept a steady mistress, but Silas had always preferred variety and hated commitment in any form. There had been that delectable redhead with a truly phenomenal technique … but what was the point of reminiscing over what he could not have for several more weeks?

  After the engagement was announced, the negotiations over settlements had begun. Unwilling to devote his time to tedious details, he had given firm instructions to his solicitors and set them to haggling with their colleagues, coming to an agreement in a mere eight weeks.