by Jane Ashford
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Copyright © 1980, 2017 by Jane LeCompte
Cover and internal design © 2017 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover art by Jim Griffin
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Originally published as Bluestocking in 1980 by Warner Books, Inc., New York.
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
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Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
A Sneak Peek of The Duke Knows Best
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
About the Author
Back Cover
One
Mr. Julius Tilling, a very sober and correct middle-aged gentleman conservatively attired in black worsted, had only just been admitted to Elham House in Berkeley Square when he perceived a teacup hurtling through the air immediately in front of him. He stepped back hastily, jostling the young footman who had opened the door to his knock and causing him to so far forget himself as to say, “’Ere now, hold hard.”
Ignoring this suggestion, Tilling watched the cup shatter on the drab wallpaper of the entrance hall. He looked less surprised than vexed at this unusual occurrence. “I take it that Mr. Elham has the gout?” he said to the footman.
“Yes, sir,” replied that harried-looking servitor, “took bad, he is.”
Through the open door of the library, whence the teacup had also come, a voice high and shrill with age could be heard crying, “Swill! A dying man, and I am given swill. Take it away, take it away. And send that damned fool Ames to me at once.” There was a rattling of crockery, and amid mutterings of “I shall teach him to send me gruel,” and “let a man but get old and the servants begin to bully him,” a frightened young maid hurried out of the room carrying a tray. Mr. Tilling surveyed her with raised eyebrows as he handed his hat to the anxious footman.
“Very bad it is today, sir,” added that servitor unnecessarily. “The doctor has been twice.”
The voice from the library continued irascibly. Apparently, Mr. Elham was talking to himself. “Where is that dratted solicitor? Graceless young jackanapes. Firm’s all to pieces since his father died. Can’t think why I keep ’em on. For what I pay, he might come when I summon him.” This gradually sank into a confused mumbling, accompanied by sounds of coughing and of a chair being hitched along the floor.
Mr. Tilling sighed, straightened his shoulders, and walked into the library, wishing yet again that his most difficult client did not always insist upon seeing him when he was laid up with the gout. “Good morning, Mr. Elham,” he said in a pleasant tone as he crossed the large room toward the fireplace. “I understand you’re feeling poorly today. I am sorry.”
Mr. Elham snorted. He was sitting in a large easy chair before the fire. One leg was swathed in bandages and propped on a hassock in front of him, and he was so bundled in blankets and shawls that his dressing gown of bottle-green brocade was scarcely visible. His head was completely bald, and this, combined with a hook nose and a high color, made him resemble an old vulture. He looked at his guest with a mixture of suspicion and contempt. “Ha!” he said. “No good trying to turn me up sweet, Tilling. I’m old and I’m ill, but I’m not senile quite yet.” He grimaced. “No, and not about to stick my spoon in the wall. You don’t like me, and I don’t like you, so let us get down to business and cut the gabble-mongering. Have you done what I asked?”
Mr. Tilling’s countenance was wooden and his accents cold. “Yes, sir.” He took some papers from his coat pocket. “I have located all three young people and ascertained their circumstances.”
Mr. Elham ignored the sheaf of documents being offered him and squinted up at the younger man. “What should I do with those blasted things?” he asked, blinking his watery blue eyes. “Put ’em there.” He waved impatiently toward the desk in the corner of the room. “And tell me about ’em. My heirs,” he cackled. His scratchy laugh turned quickly to a cough, and it was some time before he could control it.
Looking annoyed, Mr. Tilling walked slowly to the desk, put the papers on its littered surface, and returned to the fireplace. Elham, who was just regaining his breath, signaled peremptorily for him to speak. “Yes, sir,” responded Tilling, “your potential heirs.” He took a small note card from an inner pocket and referred to it. “Both your brother and your sister—”
“Don’t mention ’em,” screeched Mr. Elham, malevolently. “Sneaking, whining rascals; I swore twenty years ago I’d never hear them named again.”
The solicitor pressed his lips together in annoyance. “Pardon me,” he answered. “I should have said, your only remaining family consists of two nieces and a nephew.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “Miss Elham, the daughter of…ahem, Miss Brinmore, and her brother.”
“Yes, yes, I know that,” complained the old man. “Tell me about ’em. That’s what I asked you. Daresay they’re as addle-brained as their parents. Brinmore’s brats had the cheek to ask me for money about a year ago.”
Mr. Tilling nodded shortly. He had not been asked to sit down, and he was not used to such cavalier treatment from his clients, who unfailingly received the current head of the distinguished old firm of Tilling & Bates with marked politeness. In truth, he did not like Mr. Elham and kept up his connection with him only out of respect for his deceased father’s memory and Mr. Elham’s extremely large fortune. “That would be when their parents were killed,” he replied coldly. “In an accident on the Channel while returning from France, leaving the two children penniless.”
“Eh,” was the old man’s only response to this information. “Well, I told Sylvia when she married that she’d likely never have two coins to rub together. Ay, and be saddled with a pac
k of puling parson’s get as well. She knew she could expect no aid from me. A country churchman!” He expressed his disgust by an unpleasant hawking, pressing a handkerchief to his lips.
Tilling averted his eyes. “Mr. and Miss Brinmore are currently residing with the family of their paternal uncle,” he continued, in a voice kept carefully expressionless. “The senior Mr. Brinmore has a small estate in Bedfordshire and offered them a home there.”
“The more fool he,” sniffed Elham. “Is he plump in the pocket then?”
“His means are moderate. He has five children of his own.”
“He must be crack-brained.” The old man seemed to lose interest in Brinmore. “What about the other one, Eliot’s girl. She must be, what, twenty, by this time? What the devil is her name?”
“Miss Elisabeth Elham is four and twenty years of age,” answered Tilling repressively. “She is presently a teacher at Miss Creedy’s Select Seminary for Young Ladies at Bath, where she was a pupil until her fath—that is, until she was orphaned. As you may be aware, Miss Elham’s mother died when she was very young.”
Old Elham nodded. “Never knew her,” he said shortly. “So Eliot left nothing when he went off?”
The solicitor shook his head.
His auditor appeared pleased with this news. “As I always said,” he murmured. “At least she had the sense not to apply to me. Doing well for herself, is she?”
Tilling’s expression showed his doubt, but he said only, “She appears successful and well-liked at the school. In response to our discreet inquiries, Miss Creedy evinced complete satisfaction with her character and her work.” There was a pause. Elham was nodding to himself. “Mr. Anthony Brinmore is presently seventeen years of age,” added the solicitor without being asked, “and Miss Belinda Brinmore is eighteen.”
The old man seemed much struck. “Belinda!” he exclaimed, in strong accents of distaste. “Good God!”
Something almost like a smile animated Tilling’s features for a moment. “Her mother was reportedly fond of Mr. Pope’s poetry.”
“Very likely. A more hen-witted female I never met. But she must have been touched in her upper works to name the girl Belinda.” He grinned maliciously. “I suppose she called the boy after me in hopes of getting my money. Well, it won’t do.” The disapproving lines in Tilling’s face became even more pronounced. Looking up at him, Elham chuckled. “Yes, yes, I know you find my lack of family feeling quite shocking, Tilling. But then you never knew my family, did you? A ramshackle set of heedless wastrels, all of ’em. Eliot was a care-for-nobody from the time he was out of short coats. Never had a groat and did nothing but laugh in my face when I tried to advise him. And m’sister! An air dreamer and a watering pot, sir. Full of silly romantic fantasies and continually indulging in fits of the vapors. Pah!” He pulled his shawls closer with clawlike hands and shook his head. “In any case, I don’t care a straw what you think. I called you here because I am ready to make my will.”
Mr. Tilling exhibited astonishment. “Beg pardon, sir?” he said.
“My will, I said,” snapped the old man. “Are you deaf? Bring out your papers and all the other damned foolishness before I change my mind.”
Swallowing his surprise, the solicitor prepared to draw up a will. Mr. Elham gave instructions for more than an hour, taking no advice and listening to no suggestions. He had very clear ideas about the disposition of his substantial property, and he did not wish to have them modified or criticized. When he finished speaking, he looked quite knocked up; his face was a sickly white, his breathing harsh, and his hands trembling even more than usual. This did nothing to improve his temper, and he dismissed Tilling venomously, commanding him to produce the finished document for signing the following day. The solicitor left the house shaking his head, less at Elham’s rudeness, which it must be conceded he was accustomed to and expected, than at the amazing fact that he had disposed of his property at last. Old Elham had been refusing to make a will for nearly twenty years. Why he had chosen to do so now, Mr. Tilling couldn’t say, but he wondered at it very much indeed.
When the solicitor had gone, Elham rang the bell in the library, summoning his butler to the room. “Ames,” he said, when that worthy servitor appeared, “I want a brandy and soda. A large one, mind.”
Ames had served in Mr. Elham’s household for most of his life, a feat that demonstrated both his great skill at his tasks and his immense reserves of tact and patience. Hearing this order, he looked at once pained and resigned. “It’s only half past eleven, sir,” he ventured, “and the doctor did say…”
“Hang the doctor!” snapped the old man, as Ames had expected he would. “And blast you, Ames. Does the doctor pay your wages? I want a drink.” He smiled grotesquely. “I’ve made my will, Ames. I want to toast my heirs.” His pale eyes sparkled with an unholy glee. “I daresay they’d all given up hope, but I’ve done it at last. I’ll show ’em.” He looked sharply up, his eyes narrowing. “You think I don’t know society has set me down as short of a sheet and likely to leave my fortune in Chancery?” His amusement returned, and he cackled. “Well, I shan’t. There have been Elhams at Willowmere for five hundred years. By God, we refused a title twice. Most of ’em were as buffleheaded as my brother and sister, I expect, but no one shall accuse me of breaking the line. Now, bring me a drink!” He subsided into coughing as Ames left the room and had only just managed to stop when the butler returned with a tray upon which sat several bottles and a large brandy and soda. He took the latter gratefully and swallowed a major portion of it. It appeared to do him good, for he fell back in his chair with a sigh, but his temper remained uncertain. “Weak,” he told Ames, glaring at him from under lowered eyelids. “You always make ’em weak nowadays.” He held out the glass commandingly.
His look of resignation deepening, Ames took one of the bottles from the tray and added more brandy to the beverage. “You know, sir,” he said, “that I have only your health at heart.”
Elham snorted. “Indeed. That puts me in mind of something. Was it you ordered gruel for my breakfast?”
Ames nodded stiffly. “The doctor said, sir…”
“For God’s sake, leave off telling me what the doctor said or didn’t say. It’ll be you and that damned quack send me to my grave, not a touch of the bottle now and then.” He held out his now empty glass, and the butler refilled it reluctantly. Elham drank and sighed again. “That’s the dandy. Just give me what I’ve always had and liked. A man might as well cut his stick as eat gruel and such messes. D’you hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Ames stolidly.
The old man looked at his rigid figure and cackled. “Well, what are you hanging about for?” he added. “Get out, get out.”
When he was alone again, Mr. Elham looked into the fire with narrowed eyes and sipped his drink. Occasionally, he laughed softly. Whatever he was thinking seemed to afford him some amusement, and as he was a man who had received most pleasure in his life from thwarting and annoying his fellow human beings, this sight was ominous.
The next day, the will was duly signed and witnessed. The impressive appearance of the document seemed to delight Mr. Elham, who ran his fingers over the seals and ribbons. When all was complete and Tilling was preparing to go, the old man looked up suddenly and said, “Mind, I don’t want word of this to get out.”
“Of course not,” replied the solicitor, offended at this doubt of his integrity.
“I don’t even want it known I’ve made a will,” Elham went on. “Let ’em wonder.” Tilling said nothing, but continued to gather up his papers. “Put it in one of your metal boxes,” commanded the old man. “I fancy you won’t need it for years yet. Just keep it safe and keep it secret.”
“Of course,” answered Tilling.
Mr. Elham was rubbing his hands together gleefully. “How they’ll talk,” he cackled. “I shall miss that, but it can’t be helped.
They’ve forgotten Anthony Elham now, but I’ll show ’em they were dead wrong about him.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tilling expressionlessly. “And now if you’ll excuse me?”
“What? Go on, go on, I’m done with you. Just ring the bell as you leave.”
When Ames entered the room in response to this summons, the old man ordered a bottle of his special claret to celebrate the occasion. In spite of Ames’s protests and reminders of the previous day’s indulgences, he got it and drank not only that bottle but part of another. The next day he felt out of curl, in a week he was dangerously ill, and before a month had passed, he was dead.
Two
As a result of these events, Miss Elisabeth Elham found herself riding in a post chaise from Bath to London at the height of the summer heat. She was alone, though Miss Creedy had begged to be allowed to accompany her on her journey, and she stared out the window of the oppressively stuffy vehicle with an ironic smile. It was a characteristic expression. Miss Elham had inherited from her father a very unconventional attitude toward the world. His response to the succession of mishaps that had plagued his life had been laughing resignation, and his daughter to some extent emulated him. This was no substitute for the worldly goods she had not inherited, but it had stood her in good stead through several trying years when she’d been forced to make her own way and earn her own living.
She’d been employed at Miss Creedy’s for five years now, and if she was not precisely happy there, neither was she miserable. Thus, her receipt of a letter from Mr. Tilling informing her that she was her unknown uncle’s sole heir and requesting that she come up to London had made her laugh. Even the hundred-pound cheque he enclosed did not arouse her awe. She was very glad to have it, for she did not see how she could have gone to London else, but she was by no means overcome.
Miss Elham was a rather tall girl and not, most observers would agree, a beauty in the accepted mode. But her figure was slender and elegant and her carriage assured. And if her nose was a trifle too aquiline and her mouth a bit wide, her hair and eyes more than made up for these deficiencies. Her hair was of a color between brown and blond, which gave it a kind of glow that had reminded one appreciative gentleman of honey in the comb. Her eyes were a curious dark blue, almost violet, and very expressive, sparkling with amusement or anger and smoky in thought. Indeed, they were generally held to be her best feature. For the rest, she had an air of calm assurance out of keeping with her twenty-four years and perhaps due to her experience as a teacher of young girls for five of them. Her clothing was plain and a little worn, and at the present moment, she looked very hot.
