by Amy Lake
Helène stretched cramped legs and looked around her in the gloom, remembering Lady Detweiler’s comment about the Brigsby home. “Noble Oaks, my aunt Fanny,” Amanda had remarked. And indeed, what she could see of the place in the dark–a square brick building overgrown with ivy–was far from reassuring. She started to climb out of the rack.
“Malcolm!”
The squire’s wife had appeared on the front steps. “Malcolm!” she screeched again, “what do you think you are doing with her?”
James carried the unconscious Lady Detweiler to her rooms; Lady Pamela hurried alongside, torn between her worries for Amanda and Miss Phillips. Celia had disappeared along with Beatrice Harkins. It was a small favor, as Pam was not sure what she trusted herself to say to her sister-in-law.
A stolen necklace, indeed! Lady Pam hadn’t believed the marchioness’s story for a moment; nor, she knew, had Amanda. She must send a groom to Tavelstoke with a message for her brother, but the first priority was to call for the doctor.
“James,” she began, but the footman was already out the door and on his way to the stables. At the moment there was nothing more to be done, and Pam turned her attention to Lady Detweiler.
Amanda’s right eye was swollen shut and her left cheek horribly bruised, the skin broken in one spot and seeping blood. Lady Pamela fought down a moment’s panic at the sight. “Amanda?” she whispered.
“Where’s the bleedin’ brandy?” was the faint reply.
* * * *
Helène stood on the front steps of Noble Oaks Manor, waiting in the cold as Lady Brigsby berated her husband.
“I won’t have her in the house!” declared the squire’s wife.
“Come now, Edith,” said Sir Malcolm, “’twas the marchioness’s express direction. The girl stole a necklace, and I am the magistrate–”
“Pah!” said Lady Brigsby.
What were they planning to do with her? wondered Helène. She remembered a fragment of conversation from her father–
“There are no true gaols in the countryside,” Mr. Phillips had said. “The nobs take their turn plaguing the likes of us.”
So. It seemed that Sir Malcolm Brigsby was the local magistrate, and she would be held in his home on the charge of theft. Helène felt somewhat reassured. Lady Pamela would surely inquire after her, and the house could hardly be as bad as what she had heard of London prisons.
“She’ll be put in the cellar room, like the rest of them,” Sir Malcolm was saying.
The cellar?
“Well... I suppose–” said his wife.
“Don’t worry, my love,” said Sir Malcolm. “I’ll send her on to town straightaway.”
* * * *
Lady Sinclair allowed Aggie to help her out of her gown and then sent the girl off with a curt word. The evening’s arrangements had dissolved into fiasco, and Celia was sure someone else must be to blame.
Her head ached so abominably she could hardly think–
How dare that upstart Sir Malcolm bring such men into Luton Court! Celia realized that she had thought nothing about how Miss Phillips was to be arrested; only that Beatrice Harkins hear of it. And why did they take the girl away? Surely the marchioness could not have expected anyone to take her complaint so seriously. ’Twas only a necklace, after all, nothing more than a trifle.
And how could she have known that either Pamela or Lady Detweiler would put themselves to real trouble on Helène’s behalf, let alone stand up to those thugs! The girl was a governess, for heaven’s sake. Little more than a servant.
But now there had been a fuss, and Amanda Detweiler–Lady Amanda Detweiler, of the Clairveax-Detweiler clan–had been injured. Even badly injured, perhaps, and this was scandal-broth of a far different flavor. Her own name, Celia knew, would not fare well when stacked against that of Amanda and Lady Pamela Sinclair. Eyebrows would be raised, and although Miss Phillips would assuredly still be ruined, the marchioness’s reputation would suffer as well.
Jonathan will be furious, thought Celia. Tears came once again, and she sat on the floor at the foot of her bed, burying her head in her hands. Oh, Jonathan, what have I done? She could not bear to think of it, didn’t wish to think of anything at all–
More sherry. She must have another drink or there would be no sleep at all this night.
* * * *
Charles and Jonathan, both staggering slightly from the combined effects of exhaustion and drink, found their beds sometime after midnight. There had been no more talk of governesses or marriage, and Lord Quentin was beginning to think that he might be able to find an approximation of contentment in the next weeks at Tavelstoke.
Women, thought Charles fuzzily, as sleep claimed him, were only a pleasant divertissement in the life of a true gentleman. Really, how could one think otherwise? Apart for the need of an heir, females were hardly a necessity. Now, as to the more important things in life . . .
Despite his fatigue Lord Quentin tossed restlessly through much of the night, dreaming of Miss Helène Phillips as he had first seen her; dirty, ragged, desperate with hunger and the cold. There was nothing in his mind’s figure of her that suggested a lady. Nothing at all.
* * * *
The doctor arrived within the hour, and clucked at the sight of Lady Detweiler’s eye and the broken skin of her cheek. Amanda showed signs of a fever; Doctor Howorth cleaned the wound and prescribed a dose of willow-bark powders, promising to return first thing the next morning.
It was now the middle of the night and, worried as she was about Helène, Lady Pamela would not ask a groom to attempt the journey to Tavelstoke before morning. She spent the wakeful hours at Amanda’s bedside, composing one message after another to the marquess and discarding each one as unlikely to provoke her brother to the needed haste. Celia’s involvement complicated matters, as Pam could see no tactful way of informing Jonathan that his wife was the author of the trumped-up charge of theft. Lady Pamela would have preferred that Charles Quentin hear nothing about a stolen necklace, or discover that Helène had been arrested, but in the end she decided that there was no help for it.
My dearest brother, wrote Pam -
Miss Phillips has been arrested by Malcolm Brigsby–
and taken to his house–after being falsely charged
as a thief. Please return at once.
–P.
Shortly before dawn Lady Pamela pulled on a woolen cloak and walked to the stables, treading quietly as she passed Celia’s door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A governess in disgrace expects no help from her betters.
“I’ll send her on to town straightaway.”
Hearing this, Helène thought for one frantic moment of simply turning around and running. Sent off to a London gaol, with no one having any idea where to find her, even if they cared enough to help–
Of course Lady Pamela and Lady Detweiler care, she told herself. Of course they don’t think I stole the necklace. Lady Pam will write the marquess.
But what if Lord Sinclair did not believe her? The impulse to flight grew stronger, tempered only by cold reason. At night, unable to find her bearings, floundering helplessly through the snow–
Patience would serve her better, decided Helène, and she did not protest as the squire led her to a back staircase, and then down to a dusty, foul-smelling room.
“In there,” said the squire curtly, unlocking the door with a large iron key. He seemed embarrassed to meet her eyes.
The room was filthy. Helène once again fought the impulse to flee–what if Petrus and Torvin Emory were her gaolers?–and decided she would not make the situation any easier for Sir Malcolm.
“Lord Sinclair will not be pleased with my treatment,” she told the squire, nose in the air and waving one hand in front of her face at the smell.
“Get in,” was the only reply. The squire locked the door behind her and, from the sound of his footsteps, left the cellar nearly at a run.
Helène examined her new surrounding
s. A small window high up on one wall provided ventilation and a faint shaft of moonlight. A cot was pushed against the opposite wall; next to it was a small table boasting the stub of a tallow candle, but no way to light it. The floor was covered with rush matting, which was a fortunate circumstance, as the stone would otherwise have been intolerably cold. London bred, Helène noted the quantity of rat droppings underfoot with a practiced eye. Her current lodgings apparently boasted a vermin population of considerable size.
The cot was equipped with a tattered wool blanket, and she hoped that it, at least, was free of droppings.
She was both cold and very thirsty, but could see no likely vessel for water. A slop-bucket was partially hidden under the table. It was empty, noted Helène with thanks.
The silence of the place was eerie, and she wondered if anyone would answer should she cry out. Would they leave her down here to starve? She felt tendrils of panic slipping around her heart. Stop playing the dainty miss, Helène told herself sternly. Fine airs ’twill not unlock that door.
The moonlight was growing fainter as the night wore on. Helène looked up at the small window, judging it both impossible to reach and too small to use as an exit in any case. Panic threatened again, but even her brief exposure to city poverty now proved its worth, for the last months with her father had given Helène an appreciation for the practical and the necessary. She could stand here and bemoan her fate, or she could save her energy and get some sleep.
Resolutely ignoring the look and smell of the cot, she curled up on it and covered herself with the blanket. She was very thirsty.
* * * *
“I’m going to marry Miss Phillips.”
Jonathan barely looked up at Lord Quentin’s entrance into the breakfast salon, his attention concentrated on an enormous plate of roast beef.
“Well, yes,” said the marquess finally, between mouthfuls. “I should think so.”
I should think so? “Did you hear me,” asked Charles. “I said–”
“–that you were going to marry Alice and Peter’s governess. Yes, I heard. Come have some of your cook’s boeuf miroton. It’s delicious.”
* * * *
Lady Detweiler’s fever improved somewhat upon a second dose of willow powders and, although her eye was still swollen shut, and her bruises an interesting mix of purple and green, the next morning found her strong enough sit up in bed.
A groom had been dispatched to Tavelstoke at early dawn; Amanda and Lady Pamela were now contriving how Miss Phillips might be released from the custody of Sir Malcolm and his wife even before Jonathan’s return.
“Bribe her,” said Amanda, who was aware of Lady Brigsby’s penny-pinching ways. “I’ll wager a monkey that ten pounds would do the trick.”
“Mmm,” said Pam. “What if Celia has bribed her first?”
“ ’Tis possible,” admitted Lady Detweiler. She paused, then added, “Have you told the children anything?”
“I said that Miss Helène has gone to see some acquaintances for a visit and will return within a few days. Unless Celia speaks to them I don’t think they need ever know more.”
“Celia keep her mouth shut? ’Twill be the first time,” said Amanda. “And between our dear marchioness and Beatrice Harkins spreading tales, I think Helène’s chances of a good marriage may be greatly harmed.”
Lady Pamela sighed. “I know.” She shrugged. “I think it’s time to pay a visit to Noble Oaks Manor. Squire Stupidity may not agree to release Helène, but perhaps his wife can be persuaded to treat the Marquess of Luton’s governess with particular care.”
* * * *
Sir Malcolm enjoyed his small sphere of authority as a magistrate. Not that this authority was widely appreciated in the shire. Local villagers had never accorded the squire near the consideration they paid Lord Sinclair, and it rankled. He might not be a marquess, but he was gentry, fair and square. They ought to show him proper respect. And as a magistrate, oh, then he could make ’em hop. Rousting drunks on the new year’s, thrashing the cobbler’s son for stealing a bit of candy– It had all been quite satisfying.
Until today. The squire now wished he had never heard of that benighted emerald necklace. He had meant to ingratiate himself with the marchioness, but a quarrel with the marquess’s sister had never been part of the bargain.
And here she was sitting in his own parlour, cutting up nasty and making all kinds of threats–
“My dear Lady Pamela,” he began, risking a glance sideways to where his wife sat smiling fixedly at their visitor. “I can assure you–”
“Don’t bother,” said the woman. Then, to Lady Brigsby–“Here is a ten pound note.”
His wife sat up a fraction straighter.
“Ah, yes?” she said to Lady Pamela.
“I assume it will more than cover any expenses involved in moving Miss Phillips to decent accommodations on one of the upper floors.”
“Well... you see–”
“And I have another thirty pounds–”
Lady Brigsby stifled a gasp.
“–which I will put into the hands of Miss Phillips. Should there be any... misunderstanding about the new arrangements, Miss Phillips will no doubt be inclined to keep this money to herself.”
“Oh, but–”
“Now, please show me to the... cellar. I wish to have a word with my friend.”
* * * *
He was going to marry Miss Helène Phillips.
Lord Quentin was torn between spending the next weeks at Tavelstoke with the marquess, as they had planned, or returning at once to Luton Court. He was going to marry Miss Phillips! He wanted to be with her this very minute. And yet . . .
What would his father–the earl–say? wondered Charles. Not to mention the rest of the family; his stepmother, and the various aunts, uncles, and cousins that were regular visitors to the earl’s townhome. What would they think? Perhaps he should send a message to his bride-to-be, informing her of her happy fate, and then journey to London, to speak with his father.
“Are you completely daft?” was Jonathan’s reaction to this idea. “Offer for the girl in a letter?”
“Well, it’s not as if the outcome is in any doubt,” said Charles. He truly wanted to see Miss Phillips again, but he was also aware of his responsibilities as the earl’s son. The road might be smoother for Helène if his family had some chance to adjust to the thought of a governess as the newest Tavelstoke bride.
Jonathan was adamant. “It simply isn’t done,” he told Lord Quentin. “Besides, you must ask permission from–ah, from someone, I’m sure.”
“She has no family,” said Charles.
“Nonsense,” said the marquess. “Everyone has family.”
* * * *
No one had been down to the cellar since Sir Malcolm had locked her into the room last night, and Helène was beginning to consider screaming for help. At least the noise might keep the rats at bay. If she stood the cot on end, perhaps she could reach the window–
Footsteps sounded in the hall and, to Helène’s relief, she heard the rattle of the key in the door lock–and Lady Pamela’s voice.
“Good heavens,” said Lady Pam, holding up her skirts, “what a disgusting room.”
“Ah. Ah, yes,” stammered the squire.
“And you say you actually keep criminals in this? I should think even sots would turn their noses up at the smell.”
Helène hid a smile.
“Yes, well, you see–” began Sir Malcolm
“Miss Phillips would surely die of some ghastly fever within the fortnight if she stayed down here,” Pam continued, “although you, my dear squire, might expire much sooner.”
“I beg your pardon?” The man sounded startled.
“I have already sent a groom for the marquess. If he had found his children’s governess being held in this squalid pest-hole, I should imagine he would have been most displeased. And if Miss Phillips should happen to take ill... ”
“Surely, you can’t exp
ect–”
“But, as you say, you are the magistrate. And Lord Sinclair hasn’t fought a duel in years. Perhaps he will not start with you.”
“Oh, Lady Pamela–but–”
“Now, get her out of here.”
* * * *
Sir Malcolm sat in the library and downed another glass of port. Emerald necklaces–fah! Damn Lady Sinclair, and damn the marquess’s interfering, butter-won’t-melt-in-her-mouth sister. Miss Helène Phillips, a low-class nobody and accused thief, was now residing in one of the squire’s guest rooms, and it vexed him no end.
He’d be the laughingstock of the shire, thought Sir Malcolm, once it came out that he’d arrested Lord Sinclair’s governess, only to have Lady Pamela sitting at his doorstep the very next day. Not to mention–and here, the squire shifted uneasily in his chair–what the marquess himself might have to say about matters.
Lady Brigsby had made her thoughts on the subject exceedingly clear. “You were a fool,” she told Sir Malcolm, “to cross Pamela Sinclair.”
“But Celia Sinclair is the marquess’s wife!” Sir Malcolm had protested.
“That she is,” said Lady Brigsby, “and he may love her, for all I can fathom. But he don’t take her word over that of his sister, and he won’t be thanking you for it, neither.”
“Oh!” moaned the squire, “what are we to do?”
“Send her back to Luton,” his wife rejoined. “First thing on the morrow.”
“But my dearest–the marchioness–”
“A pox on the marchioness. Tell her I’ve taken ill with the grippe and cannot bear any more commotion. Tell her anything. Just get rid of that girl.”
So he had been left with no choice, and the pretty little miss would be on her way tomorrow, right enough. The squire poured another glass of port, and smiled sourly. Not that she knew it, of course. Let her stew another night. If he had to release Miss Helène Phillips, at least he could scare her a bit first.
