The Adventuress: A Novel of Regency England - Being the Fifth Volume of A House for the Season

by M. C. Beaton

  She wondered whether to take the book to Mr. Goodenough, and then decided against it. She must bear the burden of this worry alone. Mr. Goodenough was not strong. Since his apoplexy, he tired easily.

  Then the mocking eyes of the Earl of Fleetwood seemed to look back at her. The gentlemen who called on her were whole-hearted in their adoration. Only the earl had looked at her as if there were something about her that amused him.

  And he had not called!

  All at once, Emily wanted to see him again, to reassure herself that there was no one in London who had pierced her mask, and that a book about an ex-chambermaid fobbing herself off on London society as a lady was a coincidence.

  But how to see him again? Of course if she continued to attend the many society functions to which she had been invited, then she was bound to run into him, but anxious Emily felt she could not wait.

  The earl had given an impromptu rout. Then she, Emily, would give an impromptu dinner. She pulled forward a sheet of paper, sharpened a quill, and started to make out a list of names, including that of the Earl of Fleetwood.

  “Our new beauty seems very confident of her power,” said Lord Fleetwood the next day as Fitz strolled into his drawing room. “I am summoned to an impromptu dinner tomorrow evening.”

  “And I,” said Fitz. “I shall most certainly attend. What about you?”

  “Yes, I think it might be amusing. Good heavens, Fitz. You are clean!”

  “I am usually clean,” said Fitz, very stiffly on his stiffs.

  “But, my dear chap, not a trace of paint! And the shoulders of your coat are of a normal height.”

  Fitz gave a rueful grin. “Dressing up as that princess cured me of the extravagances of fashion. My valet now boasts the highest collars and the most padded coats in London.”

  “You look quite human. It will take me some time to get accustomed to the new Fitz.”

  “It was partly because you chose to mock me in your book. I recognized myself in Lord Fopworthy.”

  “I would never dream of ridiculing you! Alas! Everyone recognises himself or herself in my book. But I assure you, all the characters came out of my imagination and are not based on any individual I know.”

  “But no one believes that! And all are speculating as to the identity of the maid, Emilia.”

  “They will have something else to speculate about very shortly.”

  “And what are you going to do to celebrate your earnings from your work of fiction? Give a party?”

  “Not I. I have sent the initial money to the workhouse at Tothill Fields with instructions it is to be used to improve the diet of the inmates.”

  “You are naïve. The money will disappear into the pockets of the board.”

  “They would not dare. They know I have a nasty habit of making surprise visits. I have even had to go in disguise, for when I sent them the proceeds of my first book, they posted a small boy at the corner of the street to warn the workhouse of my coming, and the inmates were given good food only for the length of my visit. Fortunately, a man in the workhouse proved to be literate and contrived to send me a letter telling me of what was taking place. He is now one of my grooms, although I confess I left him in the workhouse for a certain length of time until I found my instructions were being followed.”

  “I did not know you were a philanthropist,” said Fitz awkwardly. “I mean, it is all very worthy of you, but not very realistic. These people choose to be poor, and too much meat puts revolutionary ideas into their heads. Had it not been for the well-fed bourgeoisie of France, there never would have been a revolution. The peasants were too hungry to think of anything but their next meal.”

  “Fitz, you are talking fustian.”

  “Not I,” said Fitz stubbornly. “People are put in their appointed stations the day they are born. You are quarrelling with the Almighty. After all, in your book you held that chambermaid up to ridicule. It was an example to everyone of what can happen to someone of the common lot who tries to climb.”

  “You know, Fitz, you have perhaps persuaded me of a fact I knew all along—I have written a thoroughly silly book. I am not a writer. I am a sort of literary dilettante, nothing more. I had great fun writing it and it all seemed amusing at the time, but I confess when I reread it the other day, I felt I was reading one of those embarrassingly trivial works written by some member of society with more vanity than talent.”

  “But it was monstrous amusing! All London is already talking of your satire of Byron.”

  “There you go again! I did not even think of Byron. Never mind my stupid book. I would rather think of Miss Goodenough.”

  “You all but proposed to her in front of Prinny.”

  “I do not know why I said that,” remarked the earl ruefully. “I was somewhat overset and she appeared very … lovable.”

  “But you would not be satisfied with mere beauty. Say you married her. You could never bear her vulgarisms.”

  “I think she has a good heart.”

  “Have you heard from your brother Harry?”

  “What on earth has my brother to do with Miss Goodenough?”

  “I suddenly thought of him. He was always desperately in love with some female or another.”

  “No, I have not heard from him. As far as I know, he is still a captain in the Eighty-seventh Dragoons, and no doubt preparing to fall in love with every Spanish señorita he encounters in the Peninsula.”

  “I am meeting some fellows for a rubber at White’s. Do you care to come?”

  “Not I. The excitement of dinner with Miss Goodenough will be enough for one day,” said the earl.

  Fitz took his leave, only to have his place taken shortly afterwards by the earl’s sister, Mrs. Otterley. The earl heartily wished he had escaped with Fitz before her arrival.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” asked the earl, thinking for the umpteenth time how nasty and bad-tempered his sister always looked.

  “Scandal,” said Mrs. Otterley, plumping her heavy bulk in a Sheraton chair. “I hear you proposed marriage to an Unknown.”

  “I gave a rout, I made a joke, that was all that happened.”

  “Not the way I heard it,” sniffed Mrs. Otterley. “Some female called Goodenough was the recipient of your attentions. Pray remember what is due to your name before you throw yourself away on a Nobody. No one has ever heard of this creature before this Season.”

  “Should I marry again, then I will consult only myself, Mary. If that’s what you had come to say, and now you have said it, please go away.”

  “She cannot have much money, this Miss Goodenough,” went on Mrs. Otterley, who had a hide like a rhinoceros. “Else why would she have taken that unlucky house in Clarges Street? It is well known the only way it can ever be let is by charging a ridiculously low rent.”

  “I am not interested in money. I have enough.”

  “Too much for your own good,” said his sister sharply.

  Some imp of malice prompted the earl to say, “You know, Mary, Miss Goodenough is out of the common way. I could do worse than marry her. And I would need my home in Grosvenor Square back. You can always live here.”

  “But this is not nearly such a fashionable address!”

  “Nonsense. We are come up in the world. Park Lane is all that is respectable. If you are so concerned about appearances, why do you not use your title?”

  “You know very well that Mr. Otterley prefers me to carry his name.”

  “And my dear brother-in-law is so very rich, you needs must obey. And yet his pride does not stop him from living on my property. I grow stubborn, Mary. Your visit has only served to remind me that I should not be obliged to rent a house for the Season when I have a very good one of my own. I am sure Miss Goodenough will share your views. She would infinitely prefer Grosvenor Square to Park Lane.”

  “You are funning. All this marriage business is a joke. You are only trying to irritate me!”

  “And succeeding very well …
I hope,” said her brother. “Do please leave, Mary, or I shall have a spasm.”

  But it was Mrs. Otterley who seemed more likely to have a spasm as she stormed out into Park Street—nothing would induce her to set foot in Park Lane, which she considered a very parvenu sort of thoroughfare.

  She told her driver to proceed to Clarges Street.

  Soon Rainbird was announcing the arrival of Lady Mary Powell. This was one occasion on which Mrs. Otterley was determined to use her title.

  Emily was arranging spring flowers in the drawing-room when Mrs. Otterley was ushered in. She asked her pugnacious visitor to be seated. Mrs. Otterley waited impatiently until Rainbird had served her with a glass of cordial and had withdrawn before she launched into the attack.

  “I have just heard, Miss Goodenough,” she said, “that my brother is intent on proposing marriage to you.”

  “Your brother …?”

  “Fleetwood.”

  “He made some remark at his rout,” said Emily, “but I assure you it was in jest and I have not seen him since.”

  Mrs. Otterley drained her cordial in one noisy gulp, clutched her enormous reticule on her lap, and glared at Emily with a hard, penetrating stare, as if she hoped some of the power of her look would wither a little of the girl’s startling beauty.

  “I hope you are right,” she said. “For your sake, for your life, I hope you are right.”

  Emily had taken a hearty dislike to the lady. “Are you threatening me?” she asked.

  “Good heavens, no!” Mrs. Otterley tried to force out a jolly laugh, but it sounded as happy as the noise of a rusty gate creaking in a high wind on a winter’s night. “My brother is a very jealous man and has a dangerously unstable temper. Alas, poor Clarissa!”

  Emily compressed her soft lips into a firm line and refused to ask who this Clarissa was.

  “Fleetwood’s wife,” said Mrs. Otterley, just as if she had asked. “Found beaten to death. Fleetwood was lucky he did not hang.”

  “Are you telling me that Lord Fleetwood, your own brother, is a murderer?”

  “Now, I did not say that,” said Mrs. Otterley. “I am here to tell you what other people are saying.”

  But Emily’s servant background had made her less gullible than the young lady in whom Lord Fleetwood had shown an interest in the previous Season.

  As a chambermaid, and while her master still was well enough to entertain, she had heard much malicious gossip, most of it untrue, concocted by ladies and gentlemen who appeared to think a servant was deaf. She decided she did not like the earl’s sister one little bit.

  Emily cast a dazzling smile on her. “My dear Lady Mary,” she said with a rippling laugh, “I was afraid you were about to tell me your brother’s wife was still alive! What a relief. Now I can accept his proposal with an easy heart.”

  “But you said he had no interest in you!”

  Emily took a deep breath. In the space of a few seconds she decided she would never be frightened of any member of society again. She was weary of being frightened. They were just people, some pleasant, and some, like Mrs. Otterley, nasty.

  “I was joking,” said Emily. She rang the bell. “Good day to you, my lady. I doubt if we shall meet again … unless, of course, Fleetwood wishes you to attend the wedding.”

  Mrs. Otterley opened and shut her mouth like a landed carp.

  This young woman, who had looked so guileless, and, yes, timid when Mrs. Otterley had entered the room, now looked as contemptuously amused as Fleetwood at his worst.

  Rainbird appeared in the doorway. “My lady is leaving,” said Emily. “Show her out.”

  Mrs. Otterley hated to leave a scene without having the last word. She was determined not to leave this one. She huffed and puffed, her figure swelled, her eyes bulged as she summoned up all her energies to deliver a set-down.

  But Mrs. Otterley’s parsimony was her downfall. Like many of the aristocracy, she had her little meannesses. Some would not give a coin to a crossing sweeper and would rather soil their shoes in the mud, others watered the wine, still more kept their lady’s maids working day and night turning last year’s fashions into this year’s creations. Mrs. Otterley was mean about corsets. The whalebone monster, which had encased her girth—unchanged, like the corset, since her wedding day—at first creaked ominously under the strain. Then one whalebone stay sprang from its threadbare moorings and stabbed straight into Mrs. Otter-ley’s left-hand, floppy, saggy bosom.

  Her face turned puce and then white. The only way she could alleviate the dreadful pain was by taking the pierced bosom and pushing it up with both hands. She tried to speak, but the indignity she was suffering was too great. Holding her great breast in both hands as if she were holding a pudding, Mrs. Otterley rushed out.

  “Is that an insult, Rainbird?” Emily asked the butler after he had closed the street door behind Mrs. Otterley and returned.

  “An insult, miss?”

  “Well, like cocking a snook—putting your fingers to your nose. She clutched her … em … in both hands, turning an awful colour, and glaring as she did so.”

  “No, miss. She was probably suffering from a spasm. A great many ladies have trouble with their spleen. I remember …”

  “Never mind her,” said Emily quickly, wishing to forget Mrs. Otterley’s visit as soon as possible. “I must consult you, Mrs. Middleton, and MacGregor. I am giving an impromptu dinner tomorrow night.”

  “Certainly,” said Rainbird. “I will fetch them now.”

  Soon Mrs. Middleton, Rainbird, and Angus MacGregor were busily discussing menus. At first MacGregor was quite animated about the whole thing, for he enjoyed every chance to show off his genius as a chef. But when Rainbird and Emily were deciding it would be best if Mrs. Middleton continued in her role of chaperone for the dinner party, Angus fell quiet.

  Emily finished her discussion with Rainbird and turned back to the cook. He looked red all over, reflected Emily, bright red hair poking out under his white skull-cap, bright red face …

  “Angus!” she realised Rainbird was saying in alarm. “Are you all right?”

  “I feel verra hot,” said Angus, putting a hand to his brow. “It came over me, sudden-like.”

  “Perhaps you had better go and lie down,” said Emily anxiously. “We must have you well for tomorrow.”

  “Aye,” said Angus. He rose to his feet and stood there, swaying.

  Rainbird caught him round the waist and supported him to the door. Soon, both men could be heard mounting the stairs.

  “Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Middleton. “I do hope Angus will not be ill tomorrow. There is his book of recipes and I think I could contrive to cook the dinner myself, Miss Goodenough, but it is not the same. I mean … a she-cook!”

  “Yes,” said Emily gloomily. That much she had learned in her servant days. No one who was anyone kept a she-cook.

  Upstairs, Rainbird put Angus to bed, promising to bring him up some powders to reduce the fever, which appeared to be increasing its grip on the cook. He then made his way down. On the first landing stood Mr. Goodenough, straightening his cravat in the old mirror that was hung there on the wall.

  The glass was very bad and had the effect of making people’s reflections look as twisted as poor Mr. Goodenough’s face actually was. The butler glanced over Mr. Goodenough’s shoulder and stiffened.

  For the butler’s face in the glass was twisted, but the old mirror had the opposite effect on Mr. Goodenough’s features. They were strangely straightened out and he looked as he had before the apoplexy.

  And that was how Rainbird remembered where he had seen Mr. Goodenough before. When Rainbird had been a footman some years ago in Lord Trumpington’s household, his master had stopped on the road north at the home of a certain Sir Harry Jackson. Spinks, Sir Harry’s butler, had been very kind to the green young footman, John Rainbird. What on earth was Spinks doing masquerading as a gentleman? And who was this niece?

  “Is anything the matter, Rainbird?�
�� asked Mr. Goodenough, turning around.

  “No, sir,” said Rainbird quietly. “Nothing at all.”

  Chapter

  Eight

  Dear to my soul art thou, May Fair!

  There greatness breathes her native air;

  There Fashion in her glory sits;

  Sole spot still unprofaned by Cits.

  We fix your bounds, ye rich and silly,

  Along the road by Piccadilly.

  —Anon

  What a day!

  Emily looked down the dining-table and could not believe she had finally achieved it. The guests were seated and the food was superb.

  Apart from herself and Mrs. Middleton and Mr. Goodenough, the earl and Mr. Fitzgerald, there were Lord and Lady Jammers, Lord Agnesby, and two slightly ageing debutantes, Miss Harriet Giles-Denton and Miss Bessie Plumtree. Lord and Lady Jammers had been kind and easy to talk to when Emily had met them at various social functions, Lord Agnesby, she considered harmless, and Miss Plumtree and Miss Giles-Denton had been selected from the ranks of the débutantes because Emily felt she ought to have some young ladies present, and she would not for a minute admit to herself she had chosen them because she privately considered them to be small competition to herself. Miss Giles-Denton was a soft, pale, shapeless blonde, and Miss Plumtree was an angry-looking little brunette whose appearance had grown angrier as each unsuccessful Season came and went.

  The day had been hectic. A doctor had had to be summoned for Angus MacGregor. Angus had been bled, which had reduced his fever but had left him as weak as a kitten. He had been carried downstairs and placed on a makeshift bed on the kitchen floor where he had, in a feeble voice, given the frantic staff instructions as to how to prepare the dishes. Mrs. Middleton had discovered a rare talent in herself for the higher arts of cuisine. Although frightened, flustered, and rushed off her feet, the timid housekeeper had never felt so important before. Just before the guests arrived, Rainbird sent her upstairs to change her gown and to take her place with the guests as Emily’s chaperone.