‘I declare it the best thing that could happen to you. Then, perhaps, you could show an honest face to the world instead of a shifty one, and even find a young lady willing to be a sweet wife to you.’
‘Marriage, marm, marriage?’ he said in alarm.
‘Do you know any young lady you might like to embrace as a wife?’ asked Caroline, eyes dropping to her book.
‘Good God,’ said the captain.
‘You may sit down, Captain Burnside, while we discuss your possible reformation and the advantages of seeing you married,’ she said, and there was the light of life and the animation of new dialogue gleaming in her hidden eyes.
‘You ain’t serious, marm?’ he said, seating himself.
‘It is absurd, sir, your wasteful addiction to dubious adventurism, to the unkind fleecing of trusting young ladies and to consorting with trollops when you have the gifts to become a useful, hard-working husband and a respectable citizen of this beautiful country. Have you no idea, sir, of just how beautiful your country is, and how very satisfying it would be to become worthy of it?’
‘Faith, marm, I’m speechless.’
She lifted her eyes. They were bright with laughter. ‘You are not speechless, Captain Burnside, you are wriggling. I vow it clearly visible. I have offered to lend you money so that you might go into a business of your own choosing. Since you’ve shown little enthusiasm for that, I shall offer you honest work on my Sussex estate, on your promise, of course, that you will sincerely embrace both the honesty and the work.’
‘God help me, marm, would you ask me to plough your fields?’
‘That, sir, would be very honest and healthy work. But no, I should ask you to be assistant to my steward, to look after the books.’
‘Books, marm? Clerking books?’ Captain Burnside looked aghast.
‘And to collect rents from my tenants,’ said Caroline, utterly enraptured by the state she was putting him in. Never had she seen him show such consternation.
‘I thought, marm, our relationship was to be friendly,’ he said, ‘but damned if you ain’t plotting my downfall.’
‘Sir?’
‘Beg your forgiveness for my language, marm, but you’ve struck cruel blows,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I dare swear that if I drop my guard again, you’ll turn me into a country bumpkin.’
‘Bumpkin?’ said Caroline, and her drawn-out American vowels became energized, so that they took on a hint of English crispness. ‘Bumpkin? Yes, I’ve heard that is what you English call folk who live and work on the land. Well, sir, let me tell you such people are the backbone of our United States and the salt of the English earth. If, by a miracle of reformation, you became part of that salt, then you would be among England’s worthiest citizens and deserving of a rosy-cheeked Sussex wife. There are no country girls more rosy-cheeked than those of Sussex. They are homespun jewels in their many virtues, Captain Burnside; they shine with true, healthy brightness, and own far more lovable qualities than your town trollops.’
Captain Burnside looked as if he had been dealt a mortal blow. ‘God’s life,’ he said faintly, ‘you’d turn me into a country rent collector, marm? A bumpkin? With a rosy-cheeked pudding of a wife?’
‘And rosy-cheeked children, who would make you a happy father and give you a sense of caring responsibility,’ said Caroline, vastly entertained by the fascinating dialogue.
‘Heaven forgive you, marm, for your unsparing tongue,’ said the captain, visibly alarmed. ‘If you’ll give me leave to retire, I’ll totter up to my room and my bed, though I doubt I’ll catch a wink of sleep.’
‘Why, Captain Burnside, how ridiculous you are,’ said Caroline, containing her laughter only with an effort. ‘Not a wink of sleep indeed, when you are being offered a chance to become an honest man, a contented husband and a happy father. I declare, sir, I surely do, your alarm is an absurdity.’
‘I ain’t precisely my best self at the moment, I agree,’ said the captain, ‘but there it is, d’you see, never did I think a woman of such warm beauty could be so merciless.’
‘Merciless? Why, sir, am I not doing all I can to save you from Tyburn Tree? Even though you have deceived me outrageously? No, I shall not give you leave to retire, but insist you wait for Annabelle to return. She will be disappointed if you aren’t here to greet her.’ Caroline cast him an enquiring look.
‘Well, though I’m playing my part with Annabelle,’ he said, ‘I can’t deny she’s sweet enough to make it enjoyable. Ah, if only she were an heiress, I’d make no pretence of my affections and set about winning her.’
Caroline felt shock. ‘You have come to care for her?’ she said.
‘I feel an affection that prompts me to—’
‘Do you, sir? Do you indeed? My sister is not for your devious arms. Don’t you dare attempt in any way to lay your hands on her, do you hear?’
‘But when I’m reformed, marm, you’ll not mind then, if the notion took me?’
Caroline rushed to her feet and pointed to the door. ‘You may retire, after all, Captain Burnside. Yes, you may totter up to your room and your bed.’
‘If I’ve—’
‘Go, please.’
‘Very well. Goodnight, marm.’ He walked to the door, strangely quiet in his manner, and she experienced an impulse to call him back. But her pride would not let her. The door closed behind him, and the elegant drawing room suddenly seemed an empty and cheerless place.
What was happening to her that she intensely disliked the possibility he had come to care for her sister?
Chapter Fifteen
Betsy, sprightly, bobbed in her dancing, hurrying walk. It was her free hour, the only time she was free in each long day. She was always up before six and not off duty until she retired to bed, which was never before ten each night. But she had one Sunday off a month, and the precious hour each day.
Outside Collins Coffee House, her generous and personable gentleman was waiting for her, looking a regular bang-up nob in his fine clothes.
‘Ah, there you are, pretty puss,’ he said.
‘Oh, I be in pleasure to see you, sir,’ she said. ‘I got your note last night. But I be shaking as well as pleased, in case I’m to do what makes me quake terrible.’
‘I ain’t inclined to make you do that, Betsy. Come along now.’
A minute later they were comfortably ensconced in the cosiness of a private room. There was coffee for Betsy, and confectionery, and she began to consume the latter blissfully.
‘Make me do what, sir? You didn’t say.’
‘Whatever it is that makes you quake terribly.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind kissing, sir. Kissing be fair after all them golden guineas. And fondling, though I be given to embarrassing blushing, sir.’
‘Come, come, business first, Betsy, embarrassment later.’
‘Oh, lord,’ said Betsy. ‘What business, sir?’
‘Be in cheerful heart, Betsy. The Lord Chancellor has faith in you, and so have I. We require only a small service of you. Which is to have you let me into the house on the day of the twenty-ninth of July.’
‘During the day, sir?’ Betsy gulped and swallowed half-chewed confectionery. ‘Oh, I can’t, sir, I daresn’t, not during the day.’
‘Alas, you must, rosy cheeks. The Lord Chancellor insists. Faith, it’ll be tricky for both of us, I’ll not deny, but we don’t want to end up losing our heads and having ’em spiked on the city gates.’
Betsy gulped again. Hot coffee swam untidily into her throat and she gasped, gurgled and choked. In kindly fashion, Captain Burnside patted her back.
Her shaking hand set down the large mug. ‘Don’t talk like that, sir,’ she begged, ‘it fair gives me the shivers.’
‘Upon my soul,’ said the captain. He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face, looking into luminous eyes. ‘Is this the brave Betsy who has shared perils with me as my confederate? Quakings and shiverings before we’ve scarcely begun to discuss our next endeavour?’<
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‘But, sir,’ said Betsy through trembling lips, ‘you be so flummoxing with your talk of embarrassments and heads on spikes, and saying I must let you in by day.’
‘Oh, I’m as much flummoxed as you are by all we’re required to do for the sake of the duke, but it ain’t for us to question it, pretty puss. There.’ He gave her a comforting kiss. Her trembling lips sprang into eager life. With so fascinating and exciting a gentleman, kissing was delicious. ‘Now, courage, Betsy,’ he said, and caressed her soft chin.
‘Oh, some kisses be almost better than guineas, sir,’ she said.
‘You shall have a guinea or two more, and a kiss or two more. Yes, why not, since you own such warm lips?’
‘Nor I won’t say no to being fondled, sir, only can’t I let you in at night and not day? By day, sir, the house be full of comings and goings.’
‘The side door is always locked, Betsy?’
‘Bolted, sir, and opened only for people coming with goods and eatables and suchlike.’
‘Well, Betsy, contrive to draw the bolts as near to noon on the twenty-ninth of July as you can. You need not wait. Merely slip the bolts, then make yourself scarce, though with such a sweet shape as you have your noticeability ain’t ever going to reduce you to invisibility. A small point, but a delicious one.’
‘Oh, maybe I could do that, sir. Maybe I could draw the bolts as quiet as a mouse. Just that, sir. I daresn’t linger, I always be so busy. It be different of an evening, when I’m not so busy and can say there’s a gentleman friend coming to see me.’
‘There, that’s capital. I’ll be delivering a cheese, Betsy.’
‘A cheese?’ Betsy looked visibly flummoxed.
‘Or a small cask of wine. So that if I’m seen I’ve an excuse, d’you see, and also an apology ready for being at the wrong address.’
‘Oh, you be a rare thinking gentleman, sir. And all for the good of His Highness, who be a stern and fearful duke and not afraid of the devil hisself. Sir, what will you be up to in the house?’
‘Looking out for the devil, puss. As our Lord Chancellor says, the devil appears in various guises. Have no fears, my quaking partridge, you have no more to do than draw the bolts. You shall meet with no unhappy fate on the gibbet or the block. Unless you blow the gaff. So, not a word, as before.’
‘Lord, no, sir, not a whisper. Oh, you be a kind and caring gentleman, looking after me not being hanged and pleasuring me with guineas. There be one or two coming to me now?’
‘For now, some silver shillings, puss.’ Captain Burnside slipped several into her receptive hand. She glowed, swivelled in her chair, drew up her servant’s gown and slipped the coins into a pocket of her white linen pantaloons. ‘H’m,’ said the captain, ‘I ain’t sure the Lord Chancellor would approve that. He ain’t a gentleman given to allowing sauciness in young ladies.’
‘Oh, I be in shameful forgetfulness of where I be,’ said Betsy, trying to blush. She regarded her pantaloons accusingly. She glanced to see if her gentleman was looking. Her gentleman gave her a kind and forgiving smile. ‘Well, ’tisn’t as if I be wearing them I keep for my Sundays off, sir. They be rare pretty things, not the kind to be forgetful about.’
‘Very well. We’ll excuse these. Now, finish your coffee, saucy kitten, and then you and I will go.’
‘But there’s been no kissing,’ protested Betsy, ‘and it aren’t right I shouldn’t let you, though it always puts me in a rare tizzy. Still, seeing you’re such a kind and giving gentleman, sir, kissing’s only fair, and I won’t scream the place down.’
‘I’m relieved to hear it,’ said Captain Burnside, and gave her a kind kiss. Betsy closed her eyes and parted her lips. Her pink tongue flicked and foraged. She took his hands and placed them on her bodice. Kindly, in his professionalism, he caressed her. Betsy gave a sighing moan and buried her face in his shoulder. ‘Come, come, minx, you’ll not be feeling this is a fate worse than death, will you?’ he suggested.
‘Oh, I be feeling terrible shy and embarrassed, sir.’
‘Then I shan’t press my attentions, Betsy, for it won’t do to have you shy and embarrassed. That’s a poor reward for the brave service you’ve given me.’
‘Oh, I aren’t saying this kind of embarrassment aren’t bearable, sir, nor that I won’t let you unlace me …’
‘Unlace you? Heavens, puss, unlacing a loyal accomplice is most strictly forbidden.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t breathe a word, that I wouldn’t,’ said Betsy.
‘No, no, there are the rules, Betsy, as well as your blushes. Come, it’s time we left.’
Betsy sighed. On the way back to her duties, her gentleman escorting her part of the way, she suggested he might be wishful to set her up. At which he drew her hastily into the shelter of a columned portico.
‘Damn me,’ he whispered, ‘if that ain’t my dearly beloved wife.’ Betsy saw a lady daintily tripping along on the other side of the street. ‘There, d’you see how the quirks of fate can catch one out? If I hadn’t clapped my peepers on her first, she’d have spotted us. Dear as she is to me, one look at you and your prettiness, and I’d have been hard put to explain you away. Praise the Lord, she’s gone now, out of sight, but no more talk of setting you up, my tempting puss.’
‘Oh, I be downright disappointed,’ sighed Betsy, ‘for I’m gone on you something cruel. Yet it’s sweet knowing you’re wishful to be true to her. That be nice. Still,’ she added hopefully, ‘there’s always kissing, which aren’t as unfaithful as setting me up. Sir, if something happens and I be unable to draw them bolts that day, for I’m sometimes sent out on errands and suchlike, where can I send a message to you?’
He mused. Betsy had perception. She had seen ahead, in a thinking way.
‘Well, let’s pray something like that won’t happen, but if it does, you can send the message. You’ve a boy in the household you can trust?’
‘Yes, there be Isaac the bootboy, sir. I be a favourite with Isaac.’
‘Good.’ He gave her Lady Caroline’s address, without mentioning his hostess, and he merely gave his own name as Mr Burnside.
He took tea later that afternoon with Caroline and Annabelle. Caroline had paid him out a little during the morning. She had insisted he go shopping with her and Annabelle, and in the coolest and most audacious fashion had made him carry all the parcels. Annabelle had had fits of giggles, for of all joyous things Caroline had purchased silk stockings and garters under his waiting eyes, and then planted the daintily wrapped box in his arms, where rested other packages. The captain had gazed fixedly at the shop ceiling. And then Caroline had said, ‘Come, there are other things, Captain, so please don’t dawdle.’
How, Annabelle wondered, could her sister be so deliciously wicked to him?
Over tea, Caroline was a little more mellow. And the captain’s conversation was engaging. He had been out to call on a friend, he had said, and his outing seemed to have left him pleased with himself. Caroline, when asked if she would permit him to make his call, replied out of earshot of her sister that it was wholly gratifying to be asked, and that he could go providing the friend in question was not one of his more dubious acquaintances. He assured her his friend was a worthy citizen.
Watching him now, as he exchanged quips with her sister, Caroline thought the two of them extraordinarily compatible. Annabelle was entirely alive, her laughter quick to come, her blue eyes dancing. Was she falling in love with him? Or, wait, was her vivacious mood due to the fact that Cumberland would be present this evening? She had confessed it was indeed true that Captain Burnside had driven her to the duke’s residence, but that she went only to talk to him, to try to discover if his intentions were serious. She frankly confessed that she left in a distressed state because she felt it so unfair that he should be in love with her, yet give her only upsetting and unsatisfactory answers. In her distress she left her parasol behind. Caroline told her she was making a grievous mistake if she thought Cumberland was actually in love with
her. He was in love with no one. He was capable of only loving himself. Annabelle said that was being very hard on him.
Either she was still infatuated with him and in animated anticipation of seeing him this evening, or she was falling in love with Captain Burnside, which was what had been planned and which the captain had said would be accomplished. Dear heaven, thought Caroline, how could I have considered this ploy acceptable? It was an outrageous thing from the beginning, a desperately amoral alternative to Annabelle’s dangerous relationship with Cumberland. In pushing her sister into the arms of a professional blackguard, she was no less reprehensible than he was.
Annabelle laughed and leaned, and Caroline saw her lay a light, playful hand on the captain’s knee.
‘Fie, Charles,’ she said, ‘I declare that remark out of all order.’
‘I remarked only, in so many words, that eventually the gentleman of your romantic choice would find a tease on his hands,’ smiled the captain.
‘To the eventual gentleman of my choice, I shall be as sweet as he could wish,’ said Annabelle. ‘That is, as long as he is sweet to me.’
‘Such a gentleman will be a fellow countryman, young lady?’
Annabelle fluttered her lashes and looked at him demurely. ‘But, Charles,’ she said, ‘like Caroline, I have become devoted to the gentlemen of England.’
‘I am alarmed,’ said Captain Burnside, ‘for I see in that the dire prospect of you and Caroline becoming a tease to all of us, and we will be wrecked.’
‘I am sure, Captain Burnside, that in knowing me for as long as you have, you are aware I do not indulge in teasing men,’ said Caroline.
‘Ah, but your warm beauty, that is teasing enough,’ said the captain with a smile, ‘and in your younger days, as a newly arrived magnolia bloom, your eyes held the most bewitching tease. Along with other gentlemen, I groaned in acute suffering when you chose Lord Percival for husband.’
Delightedly, Annabelle clapped her hands. ‘Caroline, there, Charles has declared he had a passion for you,’ she cried.
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