The Westerby Inheritance

by M C Beaton

  Lord Charles made her a magnificent leg, his tricorne hat held at his breast with one hand and his cane at exactly the right angle with the other. He then turned and shut the door and turned the key in the lock.

  “Now, Lady Jane,” he said in a light, amused voice, “I would ask you your business here, had not your business been self-evident.”

  Jane stood up and dropped him a deep curtsy, and then said in as bold a tone as she could muster, “I have made a terrible mistake. I want to go home. You are not what I expected.”

  “Indeed?” he said dryly, raising one eyebrow and looking at her quizzically. “This grows interesting, i’ faith. Pray be seated.”

  With a swirl of satin skirts, he arranged himself in a chair on the other side of the fireplace from Jane, reached forward and unstoppered one of the decanters, and poured himself a glass of wine.

  Jane sank down in the seat opposite and stared at him helplessly. He was concentrating on pouring the wine and did not seem in the slightest troubled by her presence.

  He leaned forward and handed her a glass, then filled one for himself, and, leaning back in the chair, studied her for a few moments.

  Jane felt paralyzed.

  “Your business, Lady Jane?” came that soft, mocking drawl.

  “I want to go home,” said Jane, her voice rendered childish by fear.

  “After you have told me why you came. Now, drink your wine like a good girl. Your father is Westerby, I believe?”

  “Yes.” Very faintly came the reply, whispered in the shadowy room.

  “Your father is in town?”

  “No.”

  “My dear child, this is like pulling teeth. You may as well tell me, you know.”

  “You are not what I expected,” said Jane again in a low voice.

  “In what way?”

  Jane summoned up her small stock of courage. “You are not so old or—or animated as I had imagined,” she said, staring into the depths of her wineglass.

  “I’ faith, I can assure you I can be animated enough, given the occasion,” said Lord Charles. “But I am not in the way of entertaining schoolroom misses at this hour of the night.”

  “I am not a schoolroom miss,” said Jane defiantly. “I am seventeen years old.…”

  “A great age,” he said solemnly. “Well, Lady Jane, now that we have established that you are a grown woman of the world, could we now discover the purpose of your visit?”

  “It was a mad idea,” said Jane. “I heard you were a lucky gambler. Very lucky. My father lost his house and estates to his cousin, James Bentley, at the card tables. I wanted you to win those estates back for me.”

  “Really,” remarked his lordship, his face betraying only polite interest. “And should I succeed in this—er—plan, what would I get out of it, if it does not seem too vulgar a point to raise?”

  “Me.”

  Lord Charles put up his eyeglass again and surveyed the small figure, the small elfin face, the immature bosom rising from the neck of the fashionable gown, and then the trembling hands.

  Lady Jane endured his scrutiny for as long as she could, and then, with a flaming face and a flurry of silks, she rose quickly to her feet. “Forgive me,” she said breathlessly. “It was madness. I was desperate, you see. Please let me go, my lord.”

  He rose languidly to his feet and strolled across the room toward her. The wine he had drunk that evening must have risen to his brain, he decided. It was the only thing to account for this sudden, strange feeling of elation.

  He put his hands on her shoulders and looked down at her. “I will do this for you,” he said slowly, drawing her closer. She smelled faintly of lavender and soap, and he could see the faint shine of her hair under its covering of powder. “Strange,” he mused inwardly, “that cleanliness should be so seductive.”

  “But first I will deal with the first part of the bargain,” he teased. “Come, Lady Jane. Let’s to bed!”

  She jerked herself out of his hold and turned and wrenched at the doorhandle, forgetting in her panic that the door was locked.

  “No!” she cried wildly. “I have changed my mind!”

  “Very well,” he said carelessly. He dug into his pocket and produced the key. “You disappoint me. I would have thought you to have had more courage.”

  He pressed the key into her hand, returned to his chair, picked up his wine, and to all intents and purposes appeared to forget about her completely.

  Jane thrust the key into the lock and then stood irresolute. She turned. “I’m truly sorry,” she said shakily.

  My lord sipped his wine and paid her not the slightest heed whatsoever.

  “You must understand, my lord,” Jane pleaded, “I do not know the ways of the world very well. I am amazed at my presumption.”

  Silence.

  Jane bit her lip. The handsome figure in the armchair was so still that his diamonds shone and blazed without a single sparkle.

  “I had not thought I would have to fulfill my—my part of the bargain until—until you had fulfilled your part of the bargain,” Jane went on tremulously.

  Still Lord Charles did not move.

  Half of Jane’s mind screamed at her to leave, and the other half wanted Lord Charles to look at her, signify that he noticed her existence.

  Jane walked timidly toward his chair and stood looking down at him.

  He turned his head back up and looked into her worried eyes—a long, enigmatic look.

  “Then we will play the game your way,” he said. “I suppose you want a business contract drawn up?” his voice mocked.

  “Yes,” said Jane stoutly, “I would.”

  “You realize that if we are to keep this matter between ourselves, two of my servants must be the witnesses. I can vouch for their integrity.”

  He leaned back in his chair, watching the conflict of emotions on her expressive little face. The game amused him. One cold part of his brain, not affected by the amount of wine he had drunk, assured him he had no intention of making Lady Jane keep her part of the bargain. He was too old to seduce a child almost half his years. But her very youth and innocence were extremely seductive, he thought cynically, and if he did not pull himself together, he would be in danger of becoming an old lecher.

  He knew of Mr. Bentley and that gentleman’s penchant for fleecing young men—or old fools, like the Marquess of Westerby, who did not know how to hold their drink.

  Jane looked down at the handsome face below her and came to a decision. She would force herself to fall in love with him, and, that way, what she was doing would not be so terrible. He was probably kind and—and not so black as he had been painted.

  “I will trust you,” she said firmly. “But I do not wish anyone to know of my part of the bargain, in case I should wish to become married. I don’t suppose…” she went on hopefully.

  “No,” said Lord Charles in a flat voice. “If I have escaped marriage this long, I am not likely to fall into parson’s mousetrap now.”

  “Oh,” said Jane weakly. All in that instant, she had wildly hoped that he might offer to make a respectable woman of her. His face looked very hard and cynical, but she resolutely put that thought aside, determined to fall in love with him at all costs. While he rose and crossed to an escritoire in the corner, she bent her whole mind to this end.

  When the document had been drawn up by Lord Charles, read and approved by Lady Jane, and witnessed by two wooden-faced servants, dawn was beginning to streak the sky.

  “Now I will take you home,” said Lord Charles, picking up his hat and cane.

  Jane opened her mouth to refuse. All she wanted to do was flee away into the cold dawn, away from this terrifying stranger. But this was the man with whom she was going to—going to—well, going to do whatever one had to do with a man, an he should win the game. And she was madly in love with him—madly, she told herself severely. So she meekly allowed him to walk the short distance to Huggets Square with her while the chill dawn pearled the sky an
d the watchman on the corner dismally swung his rattle and informed the polite world that all was well.

  Number Ten was shuttered and quiet. Not a breath of air moved the sooty trees in the square.

  Their walk had been a silent one. Now he turned and looked down at her, taking her hand in his long fingers.

  “Then you shall hear from me as soon as I have won your game for you,” he said lightly. “But perhaps we shall meet before then—Ranelagh or the opera.”

  “Oh, no,” said Jane. “I never go anywhere, you see. I am a sort of companion to my godmother.”

  He felt an unaccustomed twinge of compassion. “We can still forget about the whole thing,” he said gently. “Look, I have our contract here. I shall tear it up—”

  “No!” cried Jane.

  His eyes glinted at her strangely in the morning light. “I am a very lucky gambler, my dear,” he said in that soft, mocking voice. “It is more than likely that your father shall have his estates and I shall have you.”

  “I shall not draw back, sir,” declared Jane, trying to look noble and courageous and failing miserably. “And furthermore,” she went on, “I am in love with you, my lord.”

  There! She had said it, so it must be so!

  He looked down at her determined, childish face with some amusement. He put a long finger under her chin and tilted her face up. He bent his head and kissed her gently on the lips, his mouth lingering on hers in an almost listening kind of way.

  At last he raised his head. “Alas!” he mocked. “I regret to tell you, you are not.”

  Jane looked at him in bewilderment. How could he tell that from a mere kiss?

  “Yes, I am,” she said stoutly. “I am not in the way of kissing strange gentlemen, that is all.”

  “Don’t become in the way of it,” he said, giving her nose a flick with his finger. “You are promised to me. I have enough experience for both of us.”

  “Oh,” she said miserably. “I was rather afraid that you might have. Good day, my lord.” And with that, she trailed off into Lady Comfrey’s, having had taken the precaution of leaving the front door unlocked.

  He watched her until the door closed behind her. “Poor child,” he murmured to himself. “I shall send her a note later in the day, telling her that the whole business is ridiculous—although I shall couch it in kinder terms. It was too bad of me to tease her by pretending to accept her proposal.”

  But as his heels tapped out of Huggets Square, punctuated by the lighter taps of his tall walking cane, a fugitive little voice in his brain was niggling and nagging that since the advent of Lady Jane he was no longer assailed by tedium—no longer plagued by that sick lethargy.

  Chapter Six

  When Jane awoke several hours later, a pale sun was shining down through the smoky haze of London, but the tremendous heat of August had gone. It was the first day of September and felt remarkably like it as she climbed from her bed and leaned from her window and felt a nip in the air.

  All at once, she remembered the events of the night before and blushed from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. She thought for one moment that it must surely have been a dream. But there was her best gown, lying thrown over a chair, and there were her shoes with their traces of mud.

  She put her hands up to her hot cheeks. All her ambition had fled. She had said she would not draw back from the contract. But surely she could be allowed to change her mind!

  It was a mercy she need never see him again. She did not go out in society. And surely such a sophisticated gentleman as Lord Charles would not hold a silly goose like herself to such an absurd contract. Lady Jane became determined to write to Lord Charles that very day, apologize, and demand her release from the mad bargain.

  It was as if she had grown up a little overnight. It was sad that Papa would never live in his beloved home again, but somehow the burning determination to restore his estates had suddenly left her. She felt very young and very weary and wanted to go home. To her surprise, Jane found herself missing Hetty. Hetty was her good humor and cheerful commonsense. She forgot about the other Hetty, who could be extremely noisy and wild and vulgar, particularly in her cups. Jane missed Philadelphia as well, distance lending enchantment to Philadelphia’s cold, calculating brand of affection.

  So, like Lord Charles, Lady Jane was determined to put an end to the business contract that very day.

  Then Mrs. Bentley and her eldest daughter, Fanny, called.

  Fanny’s face held a slight glimmer of jealousy as her eyes raked over Jane’s fine gown of shot taffeta. Mrs. Bentley tried unsuccessfully to talk to Lady Comfrey, but Lady Comfrey was in one of her strange moods and seemed to hear only the conversations in her head.

  Mrs. Bentley turned her curved smile on Jane. “We are having the Westerby town house decorated,” she said in her high drawl. “Faith, ’tis a musty old barn. I said to Mr. Bentley, ‘Now that it is no longer the Westerby town house but the Bentley town house, we should rid ourselves of those horrible paintings. You know, the Lovelace ancestors.’ And he said, ‘Quite right, my dear. We shall have our own portraits hung instead.’ I wanted to throw the dirty old things in the kennel, but Mr. Bentley said they might fetch a good price at auction.”

  “Really,” said Jane coldly, while her mind raced. There was no reason to become angry, no reason for the mad return of burning ambition. What were a few old paintings, anyway?

  Then Fanny tittered, and Fanny said, “Of course, Jane, your papa was monstrous upset. I thought he would swound from an apoplexy, that I did.” This was punctuated by another malicious titter. “We have only been in town this two days,” went on Fanny. “But no one has heard of Lady Jane Lovelace. One would think you went nowhere!”

  “I don’t,” said Jane baldly, too angry to say anything other than the truth.

  “Well, now, that’s all going to be changed,” said Lady Comfrey, startling everyone by breaking off a quiet, rambling monologue and plunging back into the present world with a bang.

  “I never thought you had much in the way of looks, Jane,” said Lady Comfrey, “until I saw you alongside of her. “She pointed her fan at Fanny. “Demme, I think I’ll take you out and about, Jane, if only to spite that malicious hussy.” The fan turned in Mrs. Bentley’s direction. “And do you know, Mrs. Fentley, or whatever your name is, I don’t like you and I don’t like your daughter, so take yourselves and your common manners out of my drawing room.”

  Mrs. Bentley rose to her feet, brushing down the silk panniers of her gown. “Come, Fanny,” she said. “I have nothing to say to you, Lady Comfrey, except that I am heartily sorry for Jane. It must be fatiguing to live with a madwoman.”

  “Mad, am I?” said Lady Comfrey with alarming vigor. “Then I’d rather be mad than be a silly, common hussy like you. Out! Out! Out! I don’t entertain the wives of cardsharps and ivory turners in my house.”

  Mrs. Bentley’s majestic aplomb looked in danger of cracking to pieces.

  “Oh, do go,” said Jane, giving Fanny a little shove. “See how upset she is? She might injure herself.”

  Lady Comfrey had by now risen to her feet and was hanging onto her tall cane and jumping up and down, shouting, “Out, out, out!” In her red gown, with her simian features, she looked for all the world like a performing monkey holding onto a hot penny.

  Mrs. Bentley cast a look of pure venom at Jane and swept out, pushing her daughter before her. Bella came rushing in, hard on the heels of their departure, carrying the hartshorn and water.

  “You will make yourself ill, my lady,” said Bella, bustling forward. “How could you let her ladyship get herself into such a pother?” she accused Jane.

  “I enjoyed that very much,” said Lady Comfrey in a wondering voice. “Very much indeed. I like shouting at people. I must do it more often. ’Fore George! I declare I believe it is good for the spleen. Now Bella, take that thing away and listen. I feel rejuvenated. I shall go out!”

  “Out where?” demanded Bella, h
er mouth open.

  “To Vauxhall. This very evening. I have not seen Vauxhall in this age. And I shall take Jane!”

  “That you won’t,” said Bella triumphantly. “Vauxhall closed yesterday. Always does at the end of August.”

  Vauxhall Gardens, located in Lambeth, to the south of the River Thames, consisted of a quadrangular grove of some twelve acres, closely planted with trees. In the clearings were Grecian columns, alcoves, theaters, temples, an orchestra, and an area for dancing. The gardens opened in May and closed, as Bella pointed out, at the end of August.

  “Then we shall go to Ranelagh,” said Lady Comfrey, undefeated. “I have never been to Ranelagh.”

  Ranelagh pleasure garden had been opened nine years before to rival Vauxhall. It was considered more aristocratic, but certainly duller. Situated in Chelsea, it consisted of a garden, a canal, a bridge, “Chinese” buildings, and a rotunda, the latter being a circular hall where visitors promenaded. Admission was half a crown, and this included tea or coffee.

  Jane’s eyes began to shine with excitement. She and Philadelphia had often longed to go to Ranelagh. With the mercurial optimism of youth, she pushed the thought of Lord Charles Welbourne to the back of her mind and focused entirely on the treat in store. But then a picture of his face kept creeping, unbidden, back into her mind. She remembered his mocking smile, the feel of his lips against her own.

  Of course, Jane thought in a sudden access of relief, I willed myself to fall in love with him, and that is why I keep thinking of him. Now I shall simply will myself to fall out of love with him.

  She accordingly set her brain to the task, remembering that he had tried to frighten her by locking the door, tried to frighten her by pretending he wanted her in his bed. She remembered his reputation as a rakehell, and how hard and cynical his face could look. And also, although he carried his wine well, he had undoubtedly been drinking heavily and perhaps might not remember anything about her at all!

  For a few moments after he awoke, Lord Charles Welbourne was well able to fulfill Lady Jane’s hope. His mouth was dry, and his head felt heavy. He twisted over on his back and stared sightlessly at the bed hangings. The now familiar feeling of tedium and lethargy assailed him. Another morning of feeling ill in a kind of disembodied way. His butler, Anderson, quietly opened the door and placed his lordship’s silver tray of chocolate and biscuits tenderly beside the bed. He looked at his master’s blank face and, like Lady Jane, fervently hoped he remembered nothing of the night before.