by M C Beaton
“Strange that Jane should manage to inform her parents about the school at the same time Freddie made her escape.”
“Exactly,” said Lady Rennenord without a blush. “And then, of course, when we arrived in the town, well, it was abuzz with all the news. I was fortunate to have arrived when I did.”
“There is really nothing you can do now,” said the earl curtly.
“Oh, but there is! I must apologize to Miss Armstrong. You must see that. Oh, do not look at me so. You are making me feel like a wicked and unfeeling woman, and… and it has all been a terrible mistake.”
Lady Rennenord turned away and began to cry.
“Don’t,” said the earl in a much softer voice. “I cannot bear to see you in such distress. It is my fault. I should have cared better for my poor ward. But I will make it up to her. I am taking her to London for the Season. She inherits a considerable fortune when she is twenty-one, and so she is by way of being an heiress. It will not be difficult to find suitors for her. It will be a question of finding the right suitor.”
“She will need some lady to present her,” said Clarissa Rennenord quickly, drying her eyes.
“As to that, I shall escort her myself, and Miss Manson has offered to stand as chaperone.”
“Miss Manson! Surely, Lord Berham, you can find someone more suitable.”
“I find Miss Manson very suitable,” he said quietly. “She had been extremely brave. Do you know the poor woman even went to the lengths of dressing up as a gypsy so that she could find out about Frederica? I am deeply indebted to her.”
Lady Rennenord bit her lip. A deeply indebted Lord Berham meant a generous Lord Berham. A Miss Manson with money meant a Miss Manson who would talk. She had not done so yet, obviously. The whole future seemed full of people who might gossip to Lord Berham.
“I am so miserable,” she said softly. “I feel that you are angry with me, that you do not trust me.”
She turned towards him, her whole body pliant and pleading, and the earl felt his senses quickening. How could he think badly of someone so fair and delicate?
“Of course I trust you,” he said. “You have been a victim of circumstances, that is all. Tell your brother to see me. He must tell me all he knows about Captain Cramble so that I may get him arrested as soon as possible. There is no need for you both to stay at Lamstowe. I will convey your apologies to Frederica. She has probably retired to bed. This was her first day on her feet. The blow to her head has healed miraculously, but she is still weak.”
I must see Miss Manson, thought Clarissa nervously.
“Perhaps we will stay a day or two,” she said. “It is a picturesque spot, and Harry and I are in need of fresh air. I will only spend a little time with Miss Armstrong, but I should sleep easier tonight if I knew she forgave me.”
She swayed slightly towards him, her eyes enormous in the gathering dusk. Her lips were trembling slightly, and her face was tilted up towards his own. He bent his head.
A loud scream came from the direction of the inn.
“Frederica!” cried the earl. “Excuse me.”
He ran full tilt towards the inn. Lady Rennenord hurried after him, muttering a very unladylike oath under her breath.
The earl took the stairs three at a time and crashed into Freddie’s bedroom.
She was sitting beside the window, looking very neat and composed. Miss Manson was knitting quietly in a corner.
“What on earth happened?” demanded the earl, looking about wildly as if expecting to see Captain Cramble lurking in one of the shadowy corners.
“I am sorry I startled you,” said Freddie sweetly. “I thought I saw a mouse.”
“It’s all right,” said the earl to his servants, who were crowding the doorway. “Miss Armstrong has come to no harm.”
He walked over and shut the door and then crossed to the window. It would afford a perfect view, he thought, of where he had been standing with Lady Rennenord.
“So you were frightened by a mouse, Frederica?” he said, pulling forward a chair and sitting down next to her. “You thought nothing of breaking up a cockfight, and yet you scream at the thought of a mouse! Come, Freddie, you can do better than that.”
“Indeed I did, my lord,” Freddie protested, not meeting his gaze.
He hitched his chair closer and said in a low voice which reached only her ears. “Hear this, Frederica Armstrong. I will brook no interference in my affairs.”
Freddie opened her mouth to reply when there came a gentle knocking at the door. “Come in!” she called, glad of the interruption. Lady Rennenord drifted in.
Lord Berham rose to his feet. “Miss Frederica thought she saw a mouse,” he said.
“I am terrified of mice myself.” Lady Rennenord smiled. Freddie turned her small head away and looked mulishly out the window.
Lady Rennenord fluttered forward and knelt at Freddie’s feet. “My dear Miss Armstrong,” she said huskily, “please forgive me. I am tortured with guilt. Had I known how dreadful the seminary was, then I should never have recommended it. Oh, please say you forgive me!”
Freddie looked down at her, her own face quite blank. What a beautiful picture Lady Rennenord made! And how well aware she was of it, thought Freddie nastily. But to refuse the apology would be to end up at odds with Lord Berham.
Freddie smiled sweetly and said, “Thank you for your apology, my lady. There is no need to kneel to me. I am sure you recommended the seminary simply because you were prompted by your usual… er… pure motives.”
Lady Rennenord smiled graciously upon her and rose to her feet. But the earl had caught the tinge of sarcasm in Freddie’s voice and scowled at her from the other side of the room.
“And now I had better find my brother,” said Lady Rennenord gaily, shaking out her skirts in such a way as to reveal tantalizing glimpses of ankle.
“Perhaps you will walk with me for a little,” she went on, looking in Miss Manson’s direction. “The air is still quite warm.”
Miss Manson hesitated, but Freddie was too upset and angry, and the earl seemed to find nothing amiss with the suggestion.
Miss Manson reluctantly nodded and picked up her bonnet. She knew exactly why Lady Rennenord wished to speak to her.
Oh, how Miss Manson longed to be free of the threat of poverty, to tell Lady Rennenord to go jump in the sea!
Miss Manson had once been employed briefly as companion to a very wealthy lady, a Mrs. Yarwood. She had endured Mrs. Yarwood’s bullying and temper tantrums simply because she had no other hope of employment, and despite the miserable pittance Mrs. Yarwood paid her, Mrs. Yarwood had promised to leave her a substantial amount in her will. But Mrs. Yarwood had died and had left everything to a nephew she hadn’t seen in years. Destitution again had stared Miss Manson in the face.
The job at the seminary in Berham had been like a lifeline. Again, the wages were small. When the seminary had closed, then had come the unexpected allowance from the trust of a long-forgotten relative and Mrs. Bellisle’s offer of the cottage at a nominal rent. Miss Manson was able to grow vegetables in her garden and keep a few chickens. Now she was employed again. But what if Frederica should marry during her first Season? Frederica was a darling, but she was young, and the young were heedless and knew nothing of the rigors of genteel poverty.
Miss Manson’s cottage was the first and only home she had ever known since the death of her parents, twenty years ago.
All these thoughts raced through her head as she walked out of the inn with Lady Rennenord.
“I gather you did not mention my little visit to Lord Berham,” Lady Rennenord began when they had walked some way from the inn.
“No, my lady, I did not think it was necessary.”
“Very sensible of you,” murmured Lady Rennenord. “I was in a terrible predicament, as you will well be able to understand. I innocently recommended the seminary in good faith. I did not want Lord Berham upset by your tales. You must forgive me, Miss Manson. I thought
you were exaggerating. I am truly grateful to you for your rescue of Miss Armstrong.”
“I did not really rescue her,” said Miss Manson gruffly. “She escaped herself. I was merely there to meet her.”
“But she is very dear to Lord Berham, is she not?”
Miss Manson took her cue. “He feels a great deal of responsibility for Miss Armstrong. It sometimes weighs heavily on him, I think.”
Lady Rennenord brightened perceptibly and took Miss Manson’s arm in a friendly grasp. “Why, then, the sooner she is married, the better. But you should have told me you planned to go to Lamstowe,” she chided gaily, although Miss Manson detected an underlying threat in the words.
“I felt you would think I was being silly,” Miss Manson replied mildly.
“But now you know that I have Miss Armstrong’s best interests at heart, I feel sure you will inform me in future of anything that troubles you.”
“Of course.”
Lady Rennenord squeezed her arm. “You will not find me ungenerous, Miss Manson. I will walk back with you.”
They turned about, heading back towards the inn, with Lady Rennenord feeling reassured and Miss Manson feeling small and grubby and cowardly. The earl was waiting for them outside the inn.
“I wish a word in private with Lady Rennenord,” he said to Miss Manson. “I think Frederica should be in bed. See if you can persuade her to go.”
When Miss Manson left, he turned to Lady Rennenord. “Did Mr. Struthers-Benton tell Captain Cramble that Frederica was a girl?”
“Oh, no, my lord,” she said, telling the lie with the ease of long practice.
“But you told your brother?”
“Yes, Lord Berham. Alas, I did tell him. In my great agitation of spirit over the matter of the seminary, I fear I did. But I swear I shall not tell a soul, and neither will Harry.”
“It is strange indeed that Cramble came here.”
“Well, he was bent on revenge, and if he had called at Berham Court or even in the town, it would have been easy to find out from one of your servants.”
“I have sworn them to secrecy,” said the earl, frowning, “and all are loyal to me.”
“I have never met a servant yet who would not gossip,” said Lady Rennenord with some asperity. “Of course, if you prefer to take the word of servants rather than the word of a gentleman…”
“I did not say that. I merely wish to make sure that no one ever finds out that Frederica spent any time under my roof without a chaperone. It is different here with Miss Manson and an innful of servants. Come now,” he teased, “you would not wish to see me forced to marry the girl.”
“I think it would break my heart,” said Clarissa Rennenord in a low voice. She put up her hands and removed her bonnet and then shook her curls so that they tumbled about her shoulders. The gesture was exquisitely feminine. A subtle perfume drifted from her clothes, a faint tantalizing mixture of rose water and musk.
The earl hesitated. Obviously the gentlemanly thing would be to return her sentiment with one equally strong.
Her neck gleamed white in the yellow light of the inn’s lamps. Her eyes were mysterious pools of darkness.
Something struck Lady Rennenord on the head and fell at her feet. They looked down. A book lay between them.
“I am so sorry,” came Freddie’s voice from the window above their heads. “It fell from my grasp. Could you please bring it up to me? Good night, my lady.”
The earl stooped to retrieve the book, and in that moment, as he bent down, Lady Rennenord looked up at Freddie. Their eyes locked in a mutual stare of hostility.
Harry Struthers-Benton came strolling up, demanding to know whether his sister was going to join him for supper at the other inn.
Lady Rennenord said good night to the earl, searching his face for any signs that he might wish to send Harry to the devil and spend some time alone with her. But his face wore a closed look as he looked at Harry, and he merely bowed in a formal way and made his way into the inn.
He thoughtfully walked into Freddie’s room and stood looking down at her. She was sitting up in bed, presenting a very angelic and virginal picture in a white lace nightgown and a jaunty lace cap.
Miss Manson was sitting by the fire, looking miserable.
The earl held up his hand. “Do not apologize, Frederica, for what was a quite deliberate action.”
“My lord, I…”
“No, do not protest. This is the last time I shall remind you. Do not interfere. If I wish to get married, then there is nothing you can do to stop it. If you had taken Lady Rennenord in dislike because of your unfortunate experience at the seminary, then I could well understand it. But you always disliked her, did you not? If we are to become friends, Frederica, then you must not interfere in my life.”
“Yes, sir,” mumbled Freddie.
He reminded himself she was still ill and said in a softer tone, “Since it appears you are not yet ready to sleep, may I suggest a game of chess?”
Freddie nodded eagerly, so he left the room, to return a few moments later with a chess set and a board, which he placed on the bed. He sat down on the edge of the bed next to Freddie, and the game commenced.
They played silently and amicably for a long time. Miss Manson watched them from time to time, thinking they made a handsome couple and wishing the earl would look at Frederica the same way he looked at Lady Rennenord.
“Checkmate,” said the earl at last.
“Oh, no,” scowled Freddie. “There must be some move I can make.”
She moved her legs under the bedclothes, and the board tilted, sending all the pieces scattering over the coverlet.
“Well, that’s finished that.” The earl laughed, stretching over her to pick up some pawns.
He lost his balance and fell across her. He laughingly pulled himself upright, looking down at her with a mocking, teasing expression on his face while Freddie laughed back at him, face flushed, eyes gleaming with mischief.
The earl took her hand in his and kissed it. “Bedtime for you, miss,” he said. Then, still holding her hand, he continued to look at her in a puzzled way.
Suddenly he let her hand drop and strode from the room with an abrupt “good night.”
Miss Manson smiled to herself and nodded wisely. But Freddie gazed after him, her face crumpling in disappointment.
“Do you think I angered him, Miss Manson?” she asked. “Do you think he is angry because I knocked over the chessmen?”
“No,” said Miss Manson, looking at her with affection. “On the contrary, I think he is well pleased with you.”
Miss Manson felt a sudden sharp stab of guilt. She must tell Freddie to beware of Lady Rennenord, must tell her of that visit.
But the gates of the workhouse seemed to loom before her eyes. She, too, rose abruptly. “Good night, my dear,” she said, and hurriedly left the room.
Everyone’s cross with me, thought Freddie dismally. What did I do?
Chapter Seven
It was a new fashionable court in this new nineteenth-century into which Miss Frederica Armstrong was about to make her debut.
The court circled not around the mad King George or around his son, the fat and florid Prince of Wales, but around that quintessence of dandyism, Mr. Beau Brummell.
At no other time in history could such a personage as Beau Brummell have risen to such heights. After the scares of the French Revolution and the revolt of the American colonies, the aristocrats were recovering from their fears and once again had decided that they were not in imminent danger of being strung up on the nearest lamppost.
Once again they desired to hammer home the barriers that placed them above the common herd, and Mr. Brummell was there to supply them with an exquisite and agonizing set of rules.
Brummell had only his wit and his arrogant superiority to elevate him to the top of the ranks. He had no coat of arms on his carriage; in fact, he didn’t even own a carriage. He had no ancestral portraits and no ancestral hall
s. He had no title other than Mr. Brummell, arbiter elegantiarum, or, according to the slang of his peers, “top of the male ton.”
To Brummell and his court, all reactions, passions, and enthusiasms were suitable for the vulgar but not for anyone aspiring to be a member of the ton.
Once, when an acquaintance was boring Brummell with his raptures about the Lake District and demanded to know which of the lakes the Beau most admired, Brummell sent for his butler, and demanded, “Robinson.”
“Sir?”
“Which of the lakes do I admire?”
“Windermere, sir.”
“Ah, yes, Windermere,” repeated Brummell languidly. “So it is, Windermere.”
Enthusiasm of any kind was suspect. It was no longer convenable for ladies or gentlemen to exert themselves in any way. The slightest chores must be performed by a servant. Ladies spent hours practicing the art of sitting down in a chair without glancing behind them. One must always assume a footman was at the ready to push a chair under the aristocratic backside, and this little sophistry caused quite a number of nasty falls in households where people had all the social pretensions but none of the footmen to encourage them.
A lady must be prepared to endure the rigors of the English summer dressed in a state of seminudity. Gentlemen must have their coats so exquisitely and tightly tailored that it required the exertions of two strong footmen to get the master into one of them.
Like young wine, the Beau’s witticisms did not travel well. To appreciate him saying to a gentleman, “Do you call that thing a coat?” one had to be there, in the presence, to see the shrug that accompanied the remark, hear the intonation, see the raised eyebrow. Brummell appealed to the desire of many of the ton to be humiliated, in the same way that they allowed their hairdressers to insult them.
It was a cruel world of gossip and slander. Heaven help the debutante who had lost her virginity before she set foot on the Marriage Mart. Somehow the gossip would out. Of course, if the girl had a very large dowry, no one would believe it. One believed the worst only of young misses possessed of indifferent fortunes.
