by M C Beaton
“Oh, God! Is she dead?”
The earl looked up and found Miss Manson looking down at him, wringing her hands. She was dressed in man’s clothes.
The earl stopped and picked Freddie up. “Lead the way,” he said curtly to Miss Manson. “You have a great deal of explaining to do.”
Some hours later, when Freddie had recovered enough to speak, the earl was in possession of most of the facts, with one notable exception. Miss Manson had not told him of Lady Rennenord’s visit. For Miss Manson knew that great people might promise to stand by you, but they were apt to forget you as soon as you were out of sight. And so, fearing she would find herself without a home, Miss Manson kept silent on the subject of Lady Rennenord. But she did make the earl give his word he would not tell anyone in the town of Berham about her part in Freddie’s escape. Although the earl protested that he was deeply grateful to her and chided her for not coming to him in the first place, Miss Manson was adamant. All she wanted to do, she said, was return to her cottage and forget about the whole thing.
The earl carefully studied the documents Freddie had stolen from the seminary. Then he went to fetch the parish constable, the magistrate, and the local militia. They all headed up the cliffs to the seminary, where they found the eleven girls raiding the kitchen. The Misses Hope had fled along with their servants. Somehow they had learned of the earl’s arrival.
The girls, assured that their word would be believed, told the earl and the authorities their terrible tales of bullying and near starvation.
Arrangements were made for some of the local ladies to supervise their welfare until their parents arrived to take them away.
After an exhausting day, the earl returned to the inn, pushing his way into the yard through a thick crowd of sightseers. The news about the seminary had spread like wildfire, and Freddie was the heroine of the day, although her exploits were vastly exaggerated. That she had fought off three men with her bare hands and had chased the wicked sisters from town were just two of the tales that were circulating about her.
Miss Manson, dressed in her own clothes, was sitting and reading beside Freddie’s bed. Freddie was asleep, her face still looking thin and pinched. There was a great purple bruise on her forehead.
She was fast asleep.
“The physician says she will recover,” said Miss Manson softly. “He wished to bleed her, but I would not let him. She is so weak.”
“What was Cramble doing in Lamstowe, think you?” asked the earl, pulling up a chair to the other side of the bed.
“Looking for Miss Armstrong, I believe,” said Miss Manson. “It would be too much of a coincidence were he to be here by accident.”
“He’ll hang if I ever find him,” said the earl. “They tried to kill her. The coincidence that I happened to arrive at this inn at the right moment seems the only true one in the whole affair.” He fell silent, watching Freddie’s sleeping face.
Too many coincidences, the earl was thinking. Lady Rennenord’s brother had recommended Captain Cramble. Lady Rennenord had recommended the seminary.
“You were obviously very worried about my ward’s welfare,” said the earl at last. “Why did you come here without consulting me first, Miss Manson?”
“I did not like to trouble you, my lord,” Miss Manson answered hesitantly. “You see, I thought I might be imagining things and… and I thought it would do no harm to just check. I’m glad I came. They had her locked up in the coal cellar. They told her you had written saying you did not want her back for the Easter holidays, and after a while she did not believe them and demanded to see your letter. They… they beat her, and she broke the rod and threw it in Miss Mary’s face.”
“How did you find she was in the coal cellar? I am sure no one told you.”
So Miss Manson told him about dressing as a gypsy and waiting on the heath to waylay the girls.
The earl looked at Miss Manson’s long, rather sheeplike face and gave her a warm smile. “You will be amply rewarded, Miss Manson. I have neglected my young ward in a most shameful way. I think it would be best if I took her to town,” he said, half to himself. “A few balls and parties are what she will need to make her forget this nightmare.”
“Oh, that would be lovely,” said Miss Manson, clasping the book she was reading to her thin chest. “I can imagine it all. She will dazzle all the ton and marry a duke!”
The earl looked doubtfully at the book Miss Manson was clutching and wondered whether it was a novel.
“So long as she enjoys herself, there is no need for her to marry yet,” he said. “She is much too young to be thinking of marriage.”
“Nonsense… I mean, I beg your pardon, my lord, but Frederica is nearly nineteen.”
“So she is,” he mused. “I had forgot.”
Miss Manson looked at his handsome face bent with concern over Freddie’s sleeping one and said suddenly, “You would not consider marrying her yourself, my lord?”
He raised his thin eyebrows in haughty surprise. “I am on the point of proposing to another lady, Miss Manson. Furthermore, Miss Armstrong is much too young for me.”
Lady Rennenord, thought Miss Manson gloomily. How glad I am that I did not say anything! How foolish men are.
But the mere thought of Lady Rennenord brought a frown to the earl’s eyes. His beloved was going to have to answer a great number of questions.
Freddie stirred and opened her eyes. She smiled shyly at the earl and held out her hand. He enfolded it in his own and looked down at her, a strange expression in his eyes.
“You are not angry with me?” whispered Freddie. “I am a great deal of trouble to you.”
“Not in the slightest,” he said gently.
“And will you send me away again?”
He looked down into the pleading blue eyes and held her hand in a firmer clasp.
“Never,” he said.
“Are you affianced to Lady Rennenord?”
“No.”
“Do you intend to be?”
“What a lot of questions you and Miss Manson do ask. All you need to do is lie there and get strong and dream of all the balls and parties I am going to take you to. You are going to have a Season in London.”
“Oh, my lord, thank you.”
“I must find some female relative to chaperone you,” said the earl thoughtfully, turning over her small hand and looking at the palm like a fortuneteller.
Freddie’s eyes slid over to where Miss Manson was sitting. “Would not Miss Manson be suitable?” she ventured. “That is, if she would care for the post of chaperone. She is so brave, Lord Berham, and so very kind. I might have been dead had she not helped me.”
The earl looked at Miss Manson in surprise. She was shabby-genteel yet undoubtedly a lady. Freddie had suffered enough from strangers. Let her have someone she liked.
“Well, Miss Manson?” said the earl.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” said Miss Manson. “I would like it above all things. I—”
Her face fell, and her eyes filled with tears.
“What is the matter?” cried Freddie. “Don’t you want to come? Have you changed your mind?”
“It’s just that my wardrobe is so very skimpy and…”
“A new wardrobe will be supplied. As grand as you wish, Miss Manson,” said the earl. Miss Manson looked at him with a beatific smile on her face and then slowly slid from her chair in a dead faint.
“Women!” groaned the earl. “No, stay where you are, Freddie. I know exactly what to do. My life has been plagued with fainting women.”
While he ministered to Miss Manson, Freddie lay in a colored, joyful dream of entering a London ballroom on his arm.
But he had called her Freddie, a boy’s name.
Freddie all at once thought of Lady Rennenord and felt a shiver of apprehension run through her body.
Chapter Six
Lady Rennenord paced up and down the room in a greater state of agitation than her brother had ever seen her in before.
/> “And I had to pay that fool Cramble five hundred pounds!” raged Clarissa Rennenord. “I told him he had made a mull of the affair, and he said if I did not pay him, then he would go to Lord Berham and tell him the whole thing.”
“Well, you should have told him to do just that,” said Harry pettishly. “You told me he tried to drown the girl. The man wouldn’t dare show his face near Berham Court. And how are you to get out of this pickle, Clarissa? I find Cramble as a tutor, Cramble subsequently tries to kill Frederica. You, my sweeting, speak highly of this seminary, which turns out to be a prison for unwanted daughters.
“The whole matter has reached the London newspapers, and Berham has sworn vengeance on those two women. Cramble is a wanted man, and any day, unless you play your cards aright, you are going to be a wanted woman. That Manson female was there. Do you think she has told the dear earl of your visit?”
“Not if she knows what’s good for her,” said Lady Rennenord sourly. “If only Berham would propose. I would insist on an early marriage, and after that is achieved, anyone can tell him anything they like.”
She paced up and down, the silk of her train sweeping the floor.
“Can’t you sit down?” said Harry plaintively. “You’re making my head ache. Anyway, what do you want to marry Berham for? You’ve got pots and pots of money. Rennenord left you well off. You sold his mansion and all his racehorses, and now you only pay the Bellisle woman a pittance for your keep.”
“I want more,” said his sister, her eyes flashing. “Don’t you know Berham is one of the richest men in England? And he is a leader of the ton. I do not wish to stagnate in the country all my life! I need just a little more time.”
She continued her pacing while her brother watched her nervously. At last her face cleared, and she sat down.
“I think I have it,” she said slowly. “You must go to Lamstowe with a letter from me. Tell the earl you learned that Cramble had a spite against the girl after his dismissal. You met him in a coffeehouse and inadvertently told him that Frederick Armstrong was at Lamstowe. He must have come upon her by chance. That is what you must say. You must be abject. I will plead innocence. As long as he has not found that letter I wrote to Cassandra Hope, then I am safe. He cannot have found it or I am sure I should have heard from him by now. Wait! I will come with you. It is a risk to leave him sequestered in a country inn with that minx. I shall tell him Mrs. Haddington highly recommended the seminary.
“After all, she is all that is respectable, and all these parents are swearing blind they did not know what an awful place it was when of course they must be lying in their teeth. He must be made to believe me. Tell Mrs. Bellisle we are taking the traveling carriage. And hurry!”
Freddie was blissfully happy. It was her first day out of doors, and the earl was driving her in his curricle with Miss Manson sitting bodkin between them. The remaining rooms at the inn had been taken up by the arrival of several of the earl’s servants. There was a maid for Freddie and a valet for the earl. Four tall footmen had arrived to act as bodyguards.
The earl had mysteriously managed to conjure up new clothes for Freddie and Miss Manson. In vain did Miss Manson protest that she had her own clothes with her. The earl insisted that she must be dressed suitably for her new role of chaperone.
A generous salary had been agreed on. Miss Manson now wished heartily that she had told the earl of Lady Rennenord’s visit. But if she told him at this late date, he might think her a sly and untrustworthy person—and Miss Manson longed to go to London.
Like most shy people, her world was filled with hanging judges, all ready to condemn her for her sins, and so she still said never a word. She was also very much in awe of the aristocracy in general and the earl in particular. Although she admired him immensely, she still regarded him nervously as a sort of Greek god, bestowing favors which he might withdraw erratically at any moment.
They drove up over the cliffs and past the school. The earl asked Freddie if she would not like to visit her former companions, but the idea of even setting foot in the place made her turn quite white and begin to tremble. She did not relax until they had driven past and the mansion was lost to view.
Despite the sunshine, both ladies were warmly dressed in their new finery, for there was a chill wind sending clouds scudding across the sky and whipping up white horses on the dark blue water.
Freddie was wearing a brown pelisse edged with soft gray fur. A pale green silk bonnet sat jauntily on her shiny curls and was tied under her chin with a brown silk ribbon.
Miss Manson felt transformed in a bottle-green velvet coat over a white lawn gown. The coat was frogged. The maid had curled her hair in the latest fashion and had placed a velvet hat with curled ostrich plumes on top of her head. But Miss Manson could not help hoping that one day she would feel fashionable inside as well as out. She still felt like a retired schoolteacher masquerading as one of the quality.
“You are very kind to squire us like this,” she heard Freddie say, “but no doubt you wish you were back at Berham Court.”
“On the contrary.” The earl laughed. “I am very content. I have the company of a pretty young girl and a distinguished lady. What more could a man ask?”
Freddie looked up at him with laughing eyes, and he turned for a moment and looked down at her, his rather harsh face softened by tenderness.
Why, I believe he might fall in love with her! thought Miss Manson. And Frederica is beginning to flirt with him.
Freddie was saying, “Do you think you will find someone to marry me this Season, my lord?”
“No,” he said with a sudden frown. “You are much too young and too unused to the ways of the world.”
“But perhaps I might find an older man to guide me,” Freddie suggested, peeping up at him from under the shadow of her bonnet.
“We will see how you ‘take,’” he said with a laugh. “Red hair is not at all fashionable, you know. The duke of Wellington dislikes red hair so much that he went to the length of shaving his son’s eyebrows. Just think, Miss Frederica! He will rush upon you in Almack’s, brandishing his razor.”
“Oh,” said Freddie in a disappointed voice. “Perhaps I could dye my hair.”
“No, don’t do that,” he said seriously. “It is the most wonderful color of red. It burns like a flame above the whiteness of your skin and the sapphire of your eyes.”
“My lord!” said Freddie, blushing. “You are teasing me.”
“Perhaps,” he said lightly.
Freddie stole another look at him, but he was giving all his attention to his team.
She had never seen him in the slightest disheveled, thought Freddie. He must have looked a mess after he had pulled her out of the water, but all she could remember was opening her eyes and seeing the beloved stern lines of his face and knowing that she was safe.
Suddenly the whole idea that she was indeed safe at last, and cared for, warmed Freddie’s heart, and all the pain of loneliness and homelessness began to ebb away.
They were clattering down the cliff road which led to the edge of the town in which the Duke of Marlborough was situated. Freddie braced herself back against the seat as the horses negotiated the steep hill. Directly below she could see the long arm of the harbor jutting out into the sea. Down on the quay, fishermen were gathering in groups, preparatory to setting out for the night’s fishing. Smoke rose in the air from cottages. The wind had died down as it usually and mysteriously does at the turn of the tide, and everything was very still.
A lady and a gentleman were promenading by the harbor wall, the lady’s gown a bright splash of color against the gray of the old stone.
“I must be dreaming,” said Freddie aloud. “That looks remarkably like Lady Rennenord.”
“It is,” said the earl.
Freddie’s golden day shivered and broke into a thousand fragments.
“Go into the inn with Miss Manson,” said the earl shortly.
He helped both ladies to alight
and then strode over to where Lady Rennenord was standing with her brother.
She looked like a fashion plate, thought Freddie bitterly. Freddie had been feeling quite a lady of the world until she set eyes on Lady Rennenord, who was wearing a dark blue velvet redingote over a pink gown which fell in ruched flounces to her diminutive feet. Her pink felt hat was bound with dark blue satin ribbons, producing a sort of three-tier effect. The brim was small, and the hat was cut higher at the back, revealing a Grecian knot of glossy brown ringlets.
Her huge pansy-brown eyes looked enormous in her porcelain face. Her mouth was deliciously small. Freddie unconsciously primped up her own generous mouth, thinking sadly that everything that could be unfashionable was unfashionable about her own appearance. Her mouth was too wide, her hair was too red, and her bosom was too small.
The earl bent his dark head to kiss Lady Rennenord’s hand, and Miss Manson tugged urgently at Freddie’s sleeve and led her into the inn.
But Freddie could hardly wait to get upstairs so that she could look out and see what was happening and torture herself further. By the time she pushed open the casement window of her room, the three appeared to be engaged in heated conversation. Miss Manson had explained that the gentleman with Lady Rennenord was her brother. Freddie saw him passionately strike his breast, all his gestures exaggerated like those of an actor.
By contrast, Lady Rennenord was cool and poised. Then Harry turned and strode away, and the earl and Lady Rennenord walked slowly side by side, up and down beside the darkening sea.
“So you see, my dear Lord Berham,” Lady Rennenord was saying, “it has all been the most horrendous mistake. How was I to know that Haddington female was such a monster? I was appalled when the news reached me.”
“How did the news reach you?” asked the earl, stopping and turning to face her, his dark eyes raking her face.
She turned her limpid gaze up to his face. “Why, Mrs. Haddington wrote to me, of course,” she lied. “How else would I know? She told me she had no idea the seminary was such a dreadful place. They were by the way of stopping letters, you see. But her daughter, Jane, had managed to smuggle one out.”
