A Most Rebellious Debutante

by Karen Abbott

  ‘Are you sure this is what you want to do, my dear?’ Lady Montcliffe asked. ‘I will defend your action to your sister. Without your distraction, I am sure Piers would have killed my dear Theo. His men’ – she gestured around at the small band of men now standing around awaiting their orders what to do next – ‘were as helpless to do anything to save me as he was as they were at the other side. I am eternally grateful to you, my dear.’

  But Lucy was adamant. The consternation that would be brought on by Lady Montcliffe arriving unannounced on the doorstep of Glenbury Lodge in such circumstances was more than she could bear to contemplate. ‘Yes,’ she said firmly, covering her head with the hood of her cloak. ‘This is best.’

  Theo took hold of her hand and bowed over it. ‘I will call tomorrow, as soon as I am able,’ he said softly, raising her hand to his lips. His glance seemed to hold a hint of promise and Lucy felt her heart quicken. It was enough.

  She bobbed a tiny curtsy and then, with an air of more confidence than she truly felt, she turned away and, with one of Theo’s men loping along at her side, she hurried down the hill to Glenbury Lodge. Slivers of light shone through the gaps in the curtains at the downstairs windows. She hoped it meant only that the servants had everything ready for their mistress’s return. All she needed to do was to get upstairs without being seen.

  Her heart thumped uncomfortably as she approached the side door through which she had left the house just over an hour earlier. Would it still be unlocked? She tested the handle and breathed a sigh of relief. It was just as she had left it. Silently signalling to the man who had accompanied her that his duty was now over, she gently pushed open the door and slipped inside. She closed the door quietly behind her and momentarily leaned back against it. Her heart was racing but she mustn’t linger. In complete darkness, she softly made her way along the short corridor to another door that led into a carpeted hallway. Once there, she felt sure she would be able to detect if anyone were in the vicinity though, hopefully, all would be quiet.

  It was not to be. It was a swing door and, as she tentatively pushed it forward, it was whisked from her hand and she stumbled forward into the well-lit hallway. Her brother-in-law, Rupert, faced her angrily.

  ‘So, you are back! There had better be a good explanation for this, my girl!’

  ‘Yes, Rupert, I’m—’

  But, without giving Lucy a chance to start explaining, he grasped her arm and marched her into the main part of the house. Ignoring the shocked faces of the few servants they passed, he hurried her down the main hallway and flung open the drawing-room door, thrusting her into the room before him.

  ‘Here she is!’ he snapped. ‘And look at the state of her!’

  Marissa had obviously been pacing up and down the room in a state of agitation. Now, she halted and whirled around to stare at her sister, aghast at what she saw. Her hand flew from clutching the necklace at the base of her throat to cover her mouth, her eyes wide with consternation. But, as Lucy lifted her chin to face her, a mixture of dismay, regret and defiance in her expression, she realized that Marissa wasn’t the only person in the room. Rising from their seats by the fire were Lord and Lady Templeton, their faces equally shocked and angry.

  ‘Mama! Papa!’ She felt what remained of her spirit plummet. Oh, dear! This was going to be far worse than she could have ever imagined.

  Marissa strode forward and pulled Lucy further into the room. ‘Lucy, how could you? Where have you been? Just look at her, Mama! She’ll be the ruin of us! And the servants! I hope the servants haven’t seen her!’ Marissa’s voice rose into a wail.

  Lucy tried to tug her arm free of her sister’s grasp, but her mama’s, ‘Oh, Lucy!’ brought her resistance to a standstill. The reproach in her voice tore at her heart.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t mean you to see me like this. I hoped to be back before anyone missed me. You weren’t meant to arrive until tomorrow.’ It wasn’t what she had meant to say but the shock of seeing her parents here had robbed her brain of reason.

  ‘Then it’s as well we came a day early, isn’t it?’

  Her mama’s face hardened and she glared at Lucy’s state of dishevelment. ‘Just look at you! I can’t believe that a daughter of mine can bear to be seen in such disarray. Your dress is filthy and torn! Your hair is all over the place and your face is flushed! I don’t know if I even want to hear what you have been up to.’

  ‘I had to go,’ Lucy cried. ‘I had to warn him … to try to save him … and I did! It was his cousin, you see.’ Her words were coming out all wrong but Lucy couldn’t help it. ‘He’d already tried—’

  Marissa latched on to one word. ‘Him? Him? You have been with a man? Who is he? Nurse Harvey has said all along that you have been a bad influence on the children, and now Arabella tells me you have befriended a pirate in the wood and have been visiting him! And taking the children with you! Tell me, if you can, that it wasn’t he whom you have been with tonight.’

  ‘Well, yes, but it’s not—’

  ‘Ohh! I knew it! You wicked girl! Did you hear that, Rupert? She has led my innocent children astray and I will never forgive her, Mama. I’ve tried to do my best for her, but I’ve failed!’ Marissa flung herself weeping into her husband’s arms.

  ‘No, listen, Marissa. You don’t understand. He’s not a pirate, he’s—’

  ‘Silence, Lucy!’ her father thundered. ‘I will not have any more of your wilful excuses. I determined to listen to you, to hear what you had to say for yourself, as I have always done in the past, but this is the final indignity you will heap upon us. No, don’t interrupt! I will have my say! Neither your mama nor I will put up with it any longer! Now, go to your room and do not emerge from it until you are bidden. We will discuss what is to be done with you tomorrow.’

  ‘But—!’ Lucy tried to speak again.

  ‘Go!’ he thundered again, his arm dramatically pointing towards the door.

  Lucy knew better than to continue to defend herself. It would only make her papa more angry. Near to tears, her whole body trembling, she summoned enough strength to hold her head high. Her face drained of all colour, she reached out her hand in an impassioned plea towards her mother but she just stared at her coldly. With a broken sob, Lucy turned away and fled to her bedroom. Nora was no longer there. Lucy could only presume that her maid’s part in her deception had been discovered and that she also would be facing punishment.

  The following day, a silent maid brought a breakfast tray into Lucy’s bedroom. Lucy didn’t know her and the maid made it clear that she was not to speak to her nor answer any questions.

  Lucy drank the milk but the bread stuck in her throat and she was barely able to swallow it. She rehearsed in her mind all that she needed to say to her parents, to explain how she met Lord Rockhaven in the gamekeeper’s cottage and how she had inadvertently become involved in the attempt made on his life there, and how she had once again, quite accidentally, seen his cousin Piers at The Red Fox and overheard him trying to hire men to aid him in killing Lord Rockhaven. Surely they would then understand why she had acted as she did, especially after Piers Potterill had sabotaged her carriage and could have caused the death of any of its three occupants.

  It was late morning when she was summoned to present herself in the drawing room. Both her parents were there and Marissa and Rupert. Only her papa was standing. Her mama and Marissa were seated on a sofa, their faces strained with anxiety; Rupert was sitting on an upright chair, trying to appear nonchalant and relaxed, but appeared to Lucy to be poised ready to spring forward at any given moment. The tension in his face revealed how severely he regarded the misdemeanours that had taken place under the shelter of his guardianship, under his roof, undermining his respectability – she could almost hear the words in his mind. Yet she didn’t altogether blame him. Without knowing the circumstances, what had happened must seem a bit bizarre and unwarranted.

  ‘You may sit down, Lucy,’ her papa invited, indicating another
upright chair, appropriately placed in front of the others. Lucy seated herself on its edge, feeling as if she were a prisoner on trial, facing the jury.

  ‘So, I trust you have had time to reflect upon your actions, Lucy. What have you to say for yourself? Give us some reason that might enable us to comprehend how a young woman of your class and upbringing can feel free to flout all that has been instilled into you about what is acceptable behaviour and what is not, for, try as I might, I cannot, at this moment, think of any mitigating circumstances.’

  Lucy haltingly began, recounting that first day when Wellington had bounded off, following the scent of rabbit stew, with Bertie hot on his heels, how she and Arabella had followed, hoping to catch up with them before they left the confines of the wood.

  ‘Don’t you dare blame my children, Lucy!’ Marissa cried. ‘They were innocents in your care.’

  ‘I’m not blaming them. I’m trying to explain,’ Lucy defended herself. ‘It wasn’t planned, it just happened! Only Bertie was at the gamekeeper’s cottage before we caught up with them and then Lord Rockhaven came round the corner in a chair of wheels and the chair toppled over, tipping him out on to the cobbles. He couldn’t get up and—’

  ‘Lord Rockhaven?’ her mama squealed. ‘You have been consorting with Lord Rockhaven in the woods … on his land? Theodore Montcliffe? He of renown as a rake and wild libertine? A reputed coward, drummed out of his regiment for desertion of duty? Oh, it gets worse and worse! My salts! Where are my salts, Marissa?’

  ‘I wasn’t consorting with him, Mama! I felt it was our fault … my fault,’ Lucy amended at a further cry from Marissa, ‘that his chair overturned and so I felt compelled to try to help him get up. Only I couldn’t, so I wrapped his coat around him and waited until his servant returned.’

  ‘And Lord Rockhaven let you? He was so careless of your reputation that he lay there and allowed you to minister to him, unchaperoned?’ Lord Templeton queried with incredulity in his voice.

  ‘Well, he didn’t exactly want me to,’ Lucy remembered. ‘But, what else could I do? It was our fault it had happened. I couldn’t just leave him, could I?’

  ‘You shouldn’t even have been there,’ Rupert reminded her coldly.

  ‘Well, no, but we were, so I had to make the best of it.’

  ‘Or the worst,’ Marissa accused. ‘You have always managed to find yourself in the midst of a scrape.’

  ‘This is worse than a scrape!’ Rupert reminded her. ‘This is social suicide. And it will rebound on us and our children’s future. Mud sticks, as you well know.’

  Lord Templeton made an impatient gesture at Rupert’s dire warnings and turned back to Lucy. ‘So Lord Rockhaven is the pirate that Bertie confessed to knowing. Didn’t you think it odd that an earl should be living in disguise and skulking in his gamekeeper’s cottage on his own land, instead of residing in comfort up at the Hall? Didn’t that tell you that this was a man not to be trusted? A man who might even have to find a way of silencing you and the children?’

  Lucy almost laughed. ‘He wasn’t skulking in disguise. His patch covers his damaged eye. He was badly injured on the Peninsular. He has a scar on his face and he couldn’t walk. He was trying to recover his strength before his cousin found him – the same cousin who had already killed Conrad and shot Theo in the back!’

  ‘Theo, is it?’ Rupert again interrupted patting his wife’s hand as she let out a wail of horror as Lucy described the earl’s injuries. ‘How far have things gone between you? I never got closer than calling him Rockhaven.’

  Lord Templeton waved a hand at him impatiently. He preferred to concentrate on the other details in his daughter’s attempt to rationalize her actions. ‘Lord Rockhaven was shot in the back as he deserted the battlefield,’ he contradicted her, ‘He used his brother as a shield and Conrad was fatally wounded. Even his mother couldn’t face the shame of it all and has been living in obscurity in their London house.’

  ‘No!’ Lucy cried. ‘He didn’t! His cousin had already shot Conrad and Theo was trying to save him! And Lady Montcliffe wasn’t ashamed of him, she came—’

  ‘Psh! This is getting us nowhere,’ Lord Templeton interrupted. ‘From what you are saying, you must have made other trysts in the wood with him … and last night? What was that all about? Daytime assignations are bad enough, but it is beyond the pale to go out alone to meet him in the near dark.’

  ‘I didn’t go to meet him. I told you, I went to try to warn him. I knew his cousin was back in the area, trying to recruit men to help him in his attempt to get rid of Theo. I asked Higgins to listen to what he was saying.’

  ‘And that’s another thing, involving my servants in your meddling schemes!’ Marissa complained. ‘Well, they’ve been dismissed as an example to the others!’

  ‘What?’ cried Lucy. ‘You can’t! They were trying to help me!’

  ‘Higgins single-handedly wrecked our barouche, almost killing all three of you, and Nora tried to conceal your duplicity! They would have helped you better by refusing to go along with your meddling schemes!’

  ‘But that’s not fair! I think Lieutenant Potterill somehow sabotaged the barouche. He caused the accident, not Higgins. Higgins did nothing wrong.’

  ‘Quiet, Lucy!’ her papa bade her. ‘You must accept, that, by involving them, you implicated them and encouraged them to be disloyal to their true employers. Out of misplaced loyalty to you, they didn’t report your behaviour. Rupert had to make an example of them. Their dismissal is a burden you will have to bear and maybe the memory of it will encourage you to modify your behaviour in future.’

  ‘I can’t believe you are doing this, Papa! Higgins only did as I asked; he didn’t know that I intended to go up to Montcliffe Hall.’

  ‘But Nora did! And she aided and abetted you! I can’t believe, Lucy, that you think so little of your reputation … and that of your family … that you have deliberately flaunted yourself with this known degenerate reprobate and believed his cock-and-bull story about his cousin trying to kill him. It is far more likely that this cousin was trying to restore some honour to the family name.’

  ‘You are wrong, Papa,’ Lucy’s voice was quiet as she faced her papa, determined to make him understand. ‘Lieutenant Potterill did try to kill Lord Rockhaven and Lady Montcliffe, but it was he who ended up being killed. He was shot.’

  Lady Templeton’s face blanched and a sound like the moan of an animal in distress sounded in her throat. ‘You saw a man killed? Last night? Lord Rockhaven killed his cousin? And you were a party to it? Oh, Lucy, what have you done?’ She reached out a hand beseechingly towards her younger daughter, but her strength failed her and she sank back against the sofa. ‘Oh, Edmund! What are we to do?’

  ‘Do?’ repeated Lord Templeton. ‘We will do the only thing left for us to do! We will return to our home immediately and send word to Herbert Murchison that we accept his offer of marriage to our daughter. If we can get the announcement in the Gazette before news of all this scandal breaks, it will go some way to calm the waves.’

  ‘No, Papa!’ Lucy cried. ‘You can’t do that! I won’t marry Herbert Murchison! He’s old! You can’t make me! Besides, I … I love Lord Rockhaven … and I believe he loves me. He said he will come to see you as soon as he is able. He will come, I know he will!’

  ‘That man will not be allowed over my threshold,’ Rupert declared. ‘He is a disgrace to the peerage.’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘Have you not listened to a word I have been saying? Lord Rockhaven is an honourable man. He does not deserve your censure.’

  Lady Templeton smiled sadly. ‘It is now late morning and, although it is early for social calls, if he were as eager to stand by your side as you say he is – and ready to face our wrath – he would be here by now. But, he is not. I think it is safe to say that gentlemen do not marry young ladies who romp with them in the wood – not even if their own reputation hangs by a thread, as does the Earl of Montcliffe’s.’

  Even
Marissa looked appalled by her father’s decision. ‘Oh, Papa, Herbert Murchison is over forty. He has bandy legs and has lost most of his hair. You can’t make Lucy marry him!’

  ‘I can and I will. He is a sincere young man of thirty-eight years and is the second son of a baronet. He is of very sound character and he is the only man who has made an offer since Lucy was compelled to cut short her Season.’

  Lord Templeton glared at each one in turn, as if daring any to voice further opposition. ‘In the light of all this, I am not risking a second Season ending up as disastrously as her first. My mind is made up. I am sorry to spoil your Christmas, Marissa, but we must leave immediately and get the betrothal announced before news of this scandal breaks. The servants will have packed our things by now. All that is needed is for us to change into our travelling clothes.’

  Lucy was shocked. ‘I won’t go! And I won’t marry him! I would rather enter a convent!’ she declared passionately.

  Lord Templeton eyed her coolly. ‘If I were you, young lady, I would be careful what alternatives you offer, for it may turn out to be the only course left to you!’

  Fifteen

  IT WAS LATE morning when Theo awakened. His back had been in an agony of pain for hours and it was well into the early hours of the morning before he fell into an exhausted sleep.

  His restless hours had not been total agony, however. He smiled as he recalled the various times he had had the pleasure of the delightful and somewhat unconventional Miss Templeton’s company. Not that every meeting had been an episode of sweetness and delight, however. He frowned when he thought of how morose he had been at their first meeting. Would she hold that against him? Did she find him a boorish man? He hoped not. He hadn’t been at his best at that first meeting, but he felt he had improved since. What a strange hand of fate it was that his tumble from his wheelchair had released a trapped nerve and allowed movement to return to his legs.