by M C Beaton
“I am sorry I disturbed your meditations,” he said.
“I was about to leave, my lord.”
It was the first time he had heard her voice. It was calm and clear. He surprised himself by saying, “Stay with me a little. This is a pretty spot and the cool of the evening is welcome.”
“But we are not chaperoned, my lord.”
“Neither we are. But who is to know? And despite my wicked reputation, I am not about to attack you.”
Frederica suddenly smiled, a bewitching smile. “Are you really so bad, my lord?”
“Let us sit down and I will try to redeem my character.”
Frederica obediently sat down again, and he lowered himself onto the mossy knoll beside her.
“My bad reputation is based on the exploits of my youth.”
“Are you so old?”
“I am thirty-one years. You, I believe, are eighteen. I must seem very old to you.”
Frederica gave a little sigh. “Everyone seems very old to me.”
“Explain.”
“I think it is because I do not quite fit in anywhere, as if I am standing at the door to a ball to which I have not been invited.”
“So how do you pass your days in this strange and alien world?”
“I read a great deal; I go for walks. This is my favorite place. There is peace here.”
“But do you not help your mother and father with parish work?”
“Oh, yes, I sew for the poor and visit the sick, things like that. I think I must have a vulgar soul. I sometimes feel more at ease with the common villagers than with my own class, although being a rector’s daughter is rather like being neither fish nor fowl—too grand for the villagers and not grand enough for Townley Hall.”
“Are you usually so frank?”
“No, but the circumstance is unusual. Do tell me about your wicked youth. You fought a duel, did you not?”
“Yes.”
“Over a lady.”
“That was the case.”
“Tell me about it. Was the lady divinely fair?”
He looked at her, half in exasperation, half in amusement. “I do not want to sully your ears with my early amours. The lady was of the demimonde. Yes, she was quite beautiful.”
“And you were madly in love?”
“No, my chuck, I have never been madly in love with anyone. It was a matter of honor.”
Frederica looked at him doubtfully. “A lady of the demimonde whom you did not love? I do not see where honor enters into it.”
“She was unfaithful to me.”
“But that surely was her profession!”
“Not when she was in my keeping.”
“So you fought a duel with your rival in Hyde Park.”
“No, at Chalk Farm.”
“Swords?”
“Pistols.”
“Did you kill him?” asked Frederica in a low voice. A little breeze stirred her silvery hair and blew a strand of it across her face.
“I winged him, quite deliberately. Had I killed him, I would have had to flee the country.”
“And so you returned triumphantly to the arms of your lady?”
“I returned, yes, but to give her her marching orders.”
Frederica heaved a disappointed little sigh. “It is always thus. The stuff that is portrayed in novels always smacks of high romance, but in real life it is always low and sordid.”
“You have a sharp tongue, miss! I do not like being called low and sordid.”
“I am sorry.” Frederica blushed. “I am not usually so tactless. Put it down to the unusual circumstances of our meeting. Tell me about the lady who tried to commit suicide over you.”
“So that you may damn my antics as sordid?”
“It is a different world to anything I have known or am likely to know, my lord. I am living vicariously.”
“Oh, very well. The lady was a widow of the ton. She was flirtatious, light, and happy—frivolous. She led me to believe she had no interest in marriage or, indeed, in respectability. Am I shocking you?”
“No, I have heard that ladies in London take lovers and nobody minds just so long as they are not found out.”
“The liaison,” he went on, “began to degenerate. She began to flirt with other men to make me jealous. Then she began to throw things. She threw a scent bottle at my head. It missed me and struck the door and sent a cascade of Miss In Her Teens all over me. I stank like a civet cat. I detached myself. She had no intention of committing suicide, only in staging a suicide. I was supposed to feel guilty and rush back to her.”
“Which you did not?”
He shook his head.
“And after that? Did you take another mistress?”
“Miss Frederica! This conversation must end. You are a daughter of the rectory. Behave like one!”
“I am always being told to behave. Perhaps I had better go.”
“Tell me about yourself.”
“There is nothing to tell. I was brought up in this village. I went to school in this village. When my sisters are married, I shall stay on in this village until I die.”
“And why should you not get married?”
“I am not pretty.”
“Not in the common way, not in the fashionable way. But you have a rare beauty.”
She turned and looked full at him, her eyes shining. “Oh, my lord, if only I could believe you. That is the most wonderful thing anyone has ever said to me.”
He felt a tug at his heart.
Then her face fell. “But, of course, you are in the way of paying compliments.”
“I once was, but not anymore. If I praise a lady’s looks, I really mean it.”
“Thank you. I shall treasure your comments. Perhaps I shall not stay in the village all my life. I have a plan.” Frederica hugged her knees and stared into the black waters of the pool like a fortune teller looking into a crystal. “Perhaps when I am older, I shall advertise for a position as a governess.”
“That would be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, Miss Frederica. You say you are neither fish nor fowl here, but it would be the same in a large household, not on a par with your employers and not quite belonging among the servants either.”
“It is the boredom, you see,” said Frederica in a low voice. “It is a malaise.”
“I suffer from almost perpetual boredom myself, my sweeting, although not at this precise moment. Perhaps our boredom is caused by ingratitude.”
“I do not understand.”
“Take my situation, for example. I am titled, rich, and not ill-favored. Instead of being grateful for all this, I feel a weariness of the soul.”
“Papa tells me I am not in a state of grace.”
“Perhaps neither of us is.”
Frederica suddenly jumped to her feet. “I must go.”
“I would like to continue our conversation,” he said, rising as well. “Shall I call at the rectory?”
“Oh, no, my lord, such a call would be misinterpreted, and I would be put into my best gown and made to show you my watercolors, which are indifferent. And Sir Giles would be so angry that Papa might lose his living.”
She turned, poised for flight.
“At least let me accompany you as far as the rectory.”
“That would not answer, my lord. I have my reputation to consider.”
She curtsied and moved away from him.
“Stay! Meet me here, say, in three days’ time.”
Frederica hesitated. “I must ask you why.”
“Despite the difference in our ages, I feel we could be friends.”
That delightful smile of hers once more illumined her face.
“I should like that.”
“I shall be here at the same time.”
He stood and watched her as she flitted away through the trees, and with an amused shake of his head, he began to follow her out of the wood, keeping a discreet distance from her in case they should be seen together.
&n
bsp; Frederica made her way around the back of the rectory and let herself in by a little-used door. Because the Elizabethan building with its many staircases and sloping passages had originally been built for a very large family, she had the luxury of her own room. It was at the top of a staircase, not even used by the servants, and so she was able to slip quietly into her room. She sat on her bed. She, Frederica Hadley, had found a friend!
Lord Granton made his way slowly to the Hall. What an unusual little girl Frederica Hadley was. She amused him, and he could not quite remember when anyone had last done that.
He managed to reach his room without meeting anyone. He crossed to the window and looked out at the calm evening. He would meet Frederica one more time and then perhaps he would persuade the major that they had stayed at Townley Hall long enough. He knew that Annabelle’s parents hoped he would propose to their daughter.
He turned as the door behind him opened and Major Harry Delisle walked in. “How’s the headache?” asked Harry.
“I didn’t have one. I found the company tedious and went out for a walk.”
“Nothing will ever please you, will it?” demanded Harry crossly. “Here we are in this beautiful spot and during one of the best summers I can ever remember and all you do is gloom about the place.”
“I will endeavor to look more cheerful tomorrow. What have our hosts arranged for us?”
“We are to go to the Blackstones’. They have a ruin they want us to see.”
“Everyone has a ruin. Do they have a hermit as well?”
“Not that I know of. Rupert, you might make a push to be civil to Miss Crown. She is a sweet girl, and she plays the harp divinely.”
“My ideas of marriage have fled. What of you, Harry? If you want to propose to the Annabelle chit, you have my blessing.”
“She won’t look at me as long as you’re around.”
“Oh, she will soon tire of my lack of attention.”
“Tell you something I’ve noticed,” complained the major. “I’ve never ever seen you actually enjoy a conversation with any female.”
“There is one who amuses me,” said Lord Granton, half to himself.
“Who is she?”
“What? Oh, someone I once met.”
The following day Lord Granton gloomily surveyed the ruin of an Elizabethan watch tower. “Is it not romantic?” Annabelle asked breathily.
“It’s falling down,” pointed out the viscount.
“But do you not imagine what it was like in olden days?” cried Annabelle. “Can you not imagine a fair lady at the top watching her knight riding toward her?”
“There would be no reason for any maiden to be up on that tower,” retorted the viscount. “I see a few small, squat, burly archers with long bows.”
She rapped him playfully with her fan. “You are not romantic.” She turned toward Delisle. “Is he, Major?”
“Never was,” said the major. “Now I see you, Miss Annabelle, at the top of that tower with your hair streaming down your back and a rose in your hand.”
Annabelle looked at the chubby major as if seeing him for the first time. “Why, Major Delisle, you are a true romantic and your wicked friend is not!”
Lord Granton stifled a yawn. Why, on this scorching day, had he to endure wearing full morning dress of blue swallowtail coat, starched cravat, breeches, and Hessian boots? It was a day for lying in the cool grass under a tree and reading a good book.
The ruin was some distance across the Black-stone estate from the house, but Lord and Lady Blackstone were indefatigable walkers. Not only were they to admire the ruin at one boundary of the estate but a stream at the west boundary and a stand of ornamental trees at the east.
Lord Granton could feel his cravat wilting and his hair under his hat becoming damp with sweat.
His thoughts strayed to that cool wood and the pool where he had met Frederica. If Frederica had been of the company, he would have had someone to talk to. But then he could hardly talk about how boring he found everyone with his hosts listening. He wondered how long the visit was to last. They had not been asked to bring evening clothes, so he could hope for escape by the late afternoon.
“It is too bad,” complained Amy over the tea tray at the rectory. “None of us has had a chance to charm this Lord Granton. Bessie tells me her friend Maggie at the Hall says he is very handsome but quite haughty and cold and shows no interest in Annabelle whatsoever. Papa, you must get him to call.”
“You should not listen to servants’ gossip,” admonished Dr. Hadley. Bessie was their maid, and her friend, Maggie, was one of the maids at the Hall.
Harriet pouted. “How are we to know what goes on if we do not listen to servants’ gossip? If Lord Granton is as bored as he is said to be, he will soon take himself off and we will never get to know him. Do you not want good marriages for your daughters?”
“A viscount is a trifle too high for the daughters of the rectory,” said Dr. Hadley.
“Oh, come now, Dr. Hadley,” protested his wife. “Our girls have much more to offer than Annabelle Crown. Mary is more talented, and Amy and Harriet are far prettier.”
“I cannot be seen to be putting myself forward.”
“But surely,” his wife responded, “you might see his lordship when you are on your rounds and ask him if he would like some refreshment?”
“Perhaps,” said the rector. “But you have all, except Frederica, been wearing your best gowns since his arrival in the hope that he might call.”
Frederica smiled. “If you would forget about Lord Granton and wear your oldest gowns, that is bound to encourage his arrival at our doorstep.”
“What can you mean, you silly widgeon?” snapped Mary.
“It is rather like waiting for a kettle to boil,” said Frederica vaguely. “If you stand around and wait for it to boil, it seems to take ages, but if you go away and do something else, it seems to boil quite quickly.”
“Fool!” said Harriet. “I can just imagine your brand of conversation fascinating our handsome lord, Frederica.”
Frederica dreamily helped herself to another cake. Her sisters’ insults could no longer touch her. How furious they would be if they learned that not only had she talked to Lord Granton but he wanted to see her again.
Frederica found that the afternoon she was to meet him seemed ages away and the time dragged slowly along, and then as the time approached for her to slip out of the house, the minutes seemed to race by.
She wished she had a new gown to wear or at least a smart new bonnet. She sighed as she changed into a clean but worn muslin gown. It had been Amy’s. She took out her pin box and pinned it in a little so that it would fit her slender figure better. She really must begin to pay more attention to her clothes. It was time she began to properly alter her sisters’ gowns that had been handed down to her.
With a fast-beating heart, she crept down what she thought of as her secret staircase and made her way through the garden and then across the churchyard, threading her way between the old sloping tombstones, which cast long shadows on the grass under the setting sun.
On the road she heard the rumble of carriage wheels and drew back into the hedgerow. It was a local farmer going home with his wife. She waited until the cart was out of sight and then reemerged from the shelter of the hedge, fretfully plucking out twigs and leaves that had become caught in the fine muslin of her gown.
Walking around the edge of the field, she felt very exposed to view and prayed no one else would pass on the road and see her. With a feeling of relief, she walked into the cool shadow of the trees.
Somehow she had expected he would be waiting by the pool, but when she found the area deserted, she reminded herself severely that no exact time had been fixed and sat down to wait.
She waited and waited while the sun sank lower and lower. Then as long shadows stole through the woods, it was with dismay that she finally looked up through the trees and saw the first stars gleaming in the night sky.
&nb
sp; Of course he would not come. How silly she had been! He probably thought of her, if he thought of her at all, as a pert little schoolgirl who had briefly amused him.
Lord Granton sat in the drawing room and fretted as Annabelle kept on playing the harp. He felt he could not rise abruptly and leave the room. Would she never finish? The Blackstones were visiting for the evening. Lord Blackstone had fallen asleep and was snoring gently. Sir Giles and Lady Crown beamed at their indefatigable daughter as she played on and on and kept flashing little looks at Lord Granton to see how he was enjoying the performance.
