The Chaperon Bride (Harlequin Historical)

by Nicola Cornick

  ‘I am sure that Lafoy would be delighted were you to do that to him,’ Adam rejoined drily. ‘Do leave that curtain twitching alone, my love. It is so bourgeois!’

  But Miss Mardyn was enjoying herself too much to obey him. ‘I do believe they must be your neighbours, Ashy. Oh, do come and look! The freakish cousin is with him. Have you ever seen anything so ugly as that bonnet?’

  Adam felt a rush of irritation that had nothing to do with Miss Mardyn’s constant chatter. Why he should feel so protective of Charles Lafoy’s cousin he had no notion, but protective he was. When he had first seen Annis Wycherley at the inn he had thought her a drab creature of that class that were instantly recognisable as governesses and schoolmistresses, frumpish, proper, and dull. Then, when their eyes had met and he had seen the decided twinkle in hers, he had realised his mistake. He had watched her during the conversation and seen her covert amusement at both Margot’s affectations and Lafoy’s discomfort. It argued a certain sophistication of mind that intrigued him, hidden as it was behind the chaperon’s dull exterior. Yet she had also seemed an innocent, so much so that she was not quite able to hide the fact that she was not indifferent to him. It had charmed him—and he had wanted to see her again.

  He could see her now, walking under the fruit trees at the bottom of the garden. The garden of his own house sloped down from the terrace to a narrow lane and the wall of the neighbouring garden backed on to it. Under normal circumstance it was not an arrangement that would have met with his approval. He was a man who guarded his privacy jealously, and the Harrogate town houses were too close together to suit him. He preferred his estate at Eynhallow—remote, unspoilt and not overlooked.

  Adam watched as Charles Lafoy gave his cousin his hand to help her back on to the path. He disliked Lafoy intensely for his part in helping Samuel Ingram fleece his brother-in-law. Whilst he was able to accept that the sinking of the Northern Prince was nothing more than devilish bad luck, Adam still bitterly resented that Ingram had persuaded Humphrey into a partnership in the first place. Humphrey Tilney had been a weak man, easily led by the thought of making a fortune. Instead he had ended up losing one and bequeathing to his wife the uncomfortable role of Ingram’s debtor.

  When Humphrey had died the previous year and Adam had discovered the extent of his debts, he had felt honour-bound to pay them off and rescue his sister from ignominy. It had been a humiliating and infuriating episode. Ingram made no secret of his amusement at the deal and Adam hated him for it.

  He could hardly blame Lady Wycherley for her cousin’s sins, however. Finding out that she was a neighbour leant a curious attraction to what would otherwise have been a dull stay in Harrogate. Adam had originally intended only a short visit to his nearby estate at Eynhallow, but now he thought he might stay a little longer and find out about Annis Wycherley as well. It might prove interesting.

  ‘Look!’ La Mardyn was pointing at Annis now. ‘What a shocking frump! I shudder, darling, positively shudder, to think that there are women like that in the world!’

  ‘You are such a cat, Margot,’ Adam said lazily. He smiled to himself as he saw that his fair companion was not sure whether to laugh or pout at his unflattering assessment of her character. Eventually she pouted.

  ‘And you are so cruel, Ashy. I do believe that you are the rudest man in London.’

  ‘Nonsense! There are plenty with manners far worse than mine. I merely speak as I find.’

  ‘Then pray do not speak at all.’ Miss Mardyn turned her shoulder. ‘Or, if you must, tell me what you truly think of Lady Wycherley and her ugly bonnet.’

  Adam sighed. He could see Annis walking slowly up the path and chatting to her cousin as she went. Certainly the black bombazine dress was unflattering, one might almost say disfiguring. It seemed to weigh her down and take the colour from her, leaving her drab and pale. On the other hand, he noticed that she had a slender figure that swayed with unconscious elegance as she walked. As for the offending bonnet, it was fit only for destruction.

  As he watched, Lady Wycherley loosened the ribbons of the bonnet and, with one impatient gesture, flung it away from her. It bowled across the grass and came to rest under one of the trees, and Annis Wycherley laughed. Adam heard her. The late afternoon sunlight fell on her face, upturned to that of her cousin. She looked young and free and happy.

  ‘Well, bless me,’ Miss Mardyn said, forgetting her accent for once and sounding both older and irredeemably English, ‘look at her hair!’

  Adam looked again. Then he stopped. And stared. Loose from the bonnet, Annis Wycherley’s long, blonde hair had come cascading down around her shoulders in a tumble of gold. It shone in the sun like a newly minted coin and framed a heart-shaped face that suddenly looked piquant and pretty.

  ‘I’ll be damned!’ Adam found that he was smiling. ‘What do you say now, Margot?’

  ‘Why, I think that she must be an even greater fool to hide such beauty,’ Miss Mardyn said acerbically. She had recovered her poise and now flounced away from the window. ‘Such a thing is incroyable! She would make a passable courtesan with hair like that and a good figure. Not as attractive as me, perhaps, but all the same…’

  ‘I rather think she disguises herself because she is a chaperon,’ Adam said. He had never met Annis Wycherley in London, but he remembered quite well that she had a reputation for being able to settle even the most unpromising of girls. Now he could see that she had quite a lot of promise herself. ‘No one is going to employ her as a companion if she outshines her charges!’

  Miss Mardyn looked uncomprehending. ‘Eh bien, why be a chaperon if one can be a cyprian? I do not understand that, me!’

  ‘No,’ Adam murmured. ‘I do not suppose that you do.’

  He watched Annis Wycherley for a moment, then strolled back to his chair and picked up the paper again as Tranter, the butler, came into the room, accompanied by a footman with the tea tray. There was an item about Samuel Ingram buying the lease to the local turnpike and building new tollhouses on the Skipton road. One of them would be near Eynhallow…

  ‘What do you think of the current state of the turnpike trusts, my dear?’ he asked Miss Mardyn, as the teacups were handed around.

  Miss Mardyn bent a charming smile on the dazzled butler, then turned back to her host. ‘I have no opinion on it, Ashy darling. You should know better than to ask me. Politics, economics…pah! The whole business bores me. I never read the papers.’ She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘If I had realised that you were turning into such a dead bore yourself, I should have agreed to play Cheltenham rather than Harrogate this summer. I hear the shops are better!’

  Adam smiled. ‘I do apologise for being such poor company, my dear. Perhaps you will find other gentlemen who please you more. Mr Lafoy, for example.’

  La Mardyn dismissed Charles Lafoy with a wave of one white hand. ‘Oh, the conquest would be fun, but after that is over…pouf…I expect he is as dull as ditchwater. Are there no other eligible gentlemen in Harrogate, Ashy? I must amuse myself.’

  ‘I see that the Earl and Countess of Glasgow are here to take the waters this season,’ Adam said, consulting the paper, ‘though I fear the Earl may be a little infirm for you, Margot, and not very plump in the pocket to compensate. There is Lord Boyles—Boyles by name and by nature, I believe, so again, a gloomy prospect. Ah! Sir Everard Doble. He is a young man, and not ill favoured, if memory serves me. He might be a possibility.’

  ‘Sir Everard Doble…’ Miss Mardyn repeated. ‘Well, we shall see, Ashy. And how will you amuse yourself?’

  Adam’s gaze fell on the paper again. ‘Oh, I have plenty to occupy me, Margot. Estate business will keep me quite busy, I fear…’

  From the garden came the sound of feminine laughter, spontaneous and infectious. Adam’s gaze narrowed. He resolved that he would definitely find out more about Annis Wycherley. She seemed a most uncommon chaperon.

  ‘That sounds lamentably boring, darling,’ Margot Mardyn said, yawning wi
dely.

  ‘On the contrary,’ Adam said, with a smile. ‘I have the feeling that my stay could be very interesting indeed.’

  Chapter Two

  Tickets for Miss Mardyn’s performance proved to be the most sought-after items in Harrogate, and it was a whole fortnight before Charles Lafoy could book a box at the Theatre Royal. Thus it was that, on a Thursday evening two weeks later, Annis sat in the theatre and reflected that acting as chaperon to two high-spirited girls at the same time was utterly exhausting. The Misses Crossley had taken to Harrogate society like ducks to water, and every day had been packed with outings and every evening with parties and entertainments. Indeed, a trip to the theatre was a rare luxury, for it allowed Annis to keep an eye on both girls at once and sit down at the same time. On this particular evening she was further blessed, for she had the pleasure of her family’s company as well. Charles, Sibella and Sibella’s husband David had all accompanied them to the theatre that night.

  ‘That was very…entertaining, was it not?’ she said, joining in the applause as Margot Mardyn executed her final spin and ran gracefully from the stage. ‘Miss Mardyn is really quite talented.’

  Annis caught her cousin Sibella’s gaze. Sibella was an indolent blonde who had been an accredited beauty in her youth and still had the fair Lafoy looks, blurring a little into comfortable plumpness now. Sibella glanced towards the men and rolled her eyes expressively.

  ‘I hear that dancing is the least of Miss Mardyn’s talents!’ she said.

  Annis laughed. The sight of the shapely Miss Mardyn in her gauzy finery had transfixed the male members of the audience. Miss Mardyn might not be a particularly skilful dancer or indeed an above average singer, but no one in the audience cared a whit for that, Annis thought. Harrogate had never seen anything quite like her and the whole auditorium was buzzing with excitement. Annis could not help wondering whether it had been a suitable entertainment for the Misses Crossley. Perhaps the more provocative of Miss Mardyn’s dance movements had passed them by. She hoped so.

  She consulted her theatre programme. ‘I see that there is an interval now. Would you care to stretch your legs, girls?’

  ‘No, thank you, Lady Wycherley,’ Fanny Crossley said pertly. ‘Lucy and I shall do very well where we are. We are…admiring these country fashions…’

  The two girls dissolved into giggles and Annis sighed inwardly. She knew perfectly well that the Crossley girls were hanging over the edge of the box so that they could assess all the young gentlemen in the audience and be admired in return. Miss Fanny, attired in a fussy dress of yellow silk that Annis privately thought much too old for her, was making waspish observations. Miss Lucy was agreeing eagerly. Miss Crossley and her echo, Annis thought. There was no malice in Lucy Crossley, for her elder sister had enough for two, but Lucy did so like to agree with everyone.

  ‘Look at that strange gentleman there, Luce—’ Miss Crossley was pointing with her fan into the pit. ‘Why, he is as scruffy as a scarecrow and I do believe the candle wax has dripped on his bald head! How absurd he looks!’ She stifled a giggle.

  ‘Quite absurd,’ Lucy echoed dutifully.

  ‘That is the Marquis of Midlothian,’ Annis said. ‘He is a most highly respected gentleman.’

  During the first two weeks of the Miss Crossleys’ visit, when Annis had been getting their measure, she had corrected Fanny’s bad manners and barbed remarks. Now, in the third week, she had realised that there was little point in trying to improve the elder Miss Crossley. Fanny was vulgar through and through, and, unlike her sister, was disinclined to accept guidance. Indeed, any attempt to improve Fanny’s behaviour often had the reverse effect, for she was like a wilful small child. As a result, Annis often held her tongue and concentrated instead on the large sum of money that Sir Robert Crossley was paying her to chaperon his tiresome niece. She simply hoped that she would not be tempted to strangle the goose that laid the golden eggs before the egg actually materialised.

  ‘A marquis!’ Fanny looked put out, then brightened. ‘Oh, but as it is an Irish title one cannot be surprised that he looks all to pieces. I hear the Irish aristocracy are a ramshackle bunch.’

  ‘They may well be,’ Annis said, ‘but Midlothian is a Scottish title.’

  Fanny turned her shoulder to Annis and leaned towards Lucy again. ‘Look at the shocking quiz in that purple feathered turban,’ she said, in a stage whisper. ‘I do declare she is the greatest frump in creation!’

  Since Annis herself was wearing dowager purple and a turban that night, it was easy to see at whom Fanny’s shaft was aimed. Lucy flushed an embarrassed pink, cast Annis an agonised look and muttered something unintelligible. Annis smiled at her reassuringly. It took more than a few malicious words from a slip of a girl to discompose her. Lucy was more upset than she was.

  Annis turned her attention to the crowds milling in the pit and aisles. Everybody who was anybody took a box, of course, but during the intervals they all went for a stroll and greeted their acquaintances. Some even went out onto the green in front of the theatre to get a breath of fresh air, for on a hot summer night the temperature inside could become stifling. The general scene in the auditorium was one of immense, cheerful disarray now. Gentlemen were leaning over the green rails of the gallery and accosting their friends below. Ladies preened and fluttered their fans. Annis, watching, felt a warm pleasure to be back home.

  ‘I see that the Ashwicks have taken a box tonight,’ Sibella said, leaning forward to speak in Annis’s ear. ‘It has been so awkward this year past, Annis, for although Lord Ashwick had mostly been in London, the rest of the family have stayed at Eynhallow and frequently come to Harrogate. I have scarcely known what to say to them, for it is such a small town one cannot avoid one’s acquaintance. Yet everyone knows of the difficulties between the Ashwicks and Mr Ingram, and I have felt so uncomfortable because of Charles’s involvement…’ Her voice trailed away and she looked unhappily at Charles, who was chatting in an undertone to David at the back of the box.

  Annis patted her hand comfortingly. Sibella, like Lucy Crossley, wished everyone to be happy, but sometimes it was simply not possible.

  ‘Charles has a job to do—’

  ‘I know.’ Sibella gripped her hand. ‘I know he does not have the funds to do anything but work for a living. Neither of us inherited anything from our father. Yet I do not like Charles’s job, Annis. Particularly when it obliges me to be polite to Samuel Ingram and his wife! Speaking of which, I do believe that they are coming this way…’

  Annis followed her gaze. It was many years since she had met Samuel Ingram, but he looked very much the same. He was a tall man, stout and with the prosperous air of consequence of the self-made merchant. His waistcoat was just a little too ornate with its gold embroidery and a large signet ring shone on his right hand. Beside him, Venetia Ingram glowed like a rare jewel. Annis watched as Ingram solicitously escorted his wife through the crowd, a hand in the small of her back. He shone with pride, like a preening turkey cock. There were those who said that Ingram’s only weakness was his young wife. When it came to the fair sex, Annis knew that there was no fool like an old fool, for she had taken advantage of that fact herself, when finding suitors for some of her charges.

  ‘Who is that lady over there, with the old man?’ Fanny Crossley said, and in her voice Annis heard all the cruelty and envy of youth. ‘She is so very beautiful…’

  ‘That is Mrs Ingram,’ Sibella said. She caught Annis’s eye and grimaced. ‘Mr Ingram is not so very old, Miss Crossley—’

  ‘I expect that he must be rich, to be married to such an incomparable,’ Lucy Crossley said wisely, and Annis sighed. She could not rebuke Lucy for so accurate an observation. Money marrying beauty was, after all, the way of the world in much the same way as money married a title.

  ‘Come along now, girls,’ Sibella said, with surprising firmness. ‘It will do you good to have a little exercise. Did you not know that if you sit still all the time you will
become fat and then what will the gentlemen think of you? We shall go down into the foyer for a few minutes. David, if you would be so good as to give me your arm, you may take Miss Lucy on your other side. Charles, I know you would be delighted to escort Miss Crossley.’

  Annis threw her a grateful look. Sibella was indolent to a fault, but she was kind-hearted and she was also sensitive. Sibella knew that Annis found the Crossley girls very tiresome at times, but she had put herself out to take the girls out shopping and introduce them to other young ladies and chaperons who might share the burden a little. Annis had been extremely touched by her cousin’s kindness for she knew that given a choice, neither Charles nor Sibella would have come near the Crossleys girls with a barge pole. Unfortunately, she herself could not be so choosy. Her livelihood depended on chaperoning the nieces, wards and daughters of cits and minor gentry and she counted herself fortunate that most of them, unlike Fanny Crossley, were pleasant company.

  ‘Luce, it is Lieutenant Greaves and Lieutenant Norwood!’ Fanny, having espied some red-coated gentlemen in the gallery, turned to grab her sister’s hand. ‘You remember—we met them yesterday at the Promenade Rooms!’ She frowned slightly. ‘I do hope they have not taken seats in the upper gallery. They only cost a shilling each!’

  ‘Lieutenant Norwood!’ Lucy’s face was suddenly poppy red. ‘Oh, let us go down. Quickly! We shall miss them else!’

  The two girls scampered out of the box like a couple of puppies and Sibella subsided into her seat again. ‘You shall never teach those girls how to go on, Annis,’ she said, watching as the Crossley sisters rushed out into the pit and waved energetically at the gentlemen in the gallery. ‘Miss Lucy has possibilities, but is led astray by that hoyden of a sister, and as for Miss Fanny, the best thing you can do is to promote the Doble match as quickly as possible and get rid of her. How does it progress?’

  ‘Quite well, I think,’ Annis said. She had been disappointed that Sir Everard Doble had not been able to join them at the theatre that night, for his courtship of Fanny was advancing, based on the need for a fortune on his part and the desire for a title on Fanny’s.