A Scandalous Deception

by Lynn Messina

  It was the most outré thing a Hyde-Clare had ever done, and her family did not renounce her.

  Her actions were not entirely without consequences, of course, for in the months since the house party she had been forced to endure one interminable lecture after another on how a proper young lady comported herself, including what she should do when confronted with a dead body (apologize for intruding, leave quietly and find a servant to handle the matter more fully), as if that abnormal occurrence were likely to happen on a regular basis. The rambling sessions were long, severe and tedious, but for a girl who had expected to be cast out for making a single wrong move, there was something comforting in her aunt’s steadfast determination to lecture her into submission. Indeed, it was a more convincing display of her affection than the hug she had given her in the Skeffingtons’ field after Bea had fought her way out of a dilapidated shed in which she had been trapped.

  That her relatives seemed to hold some genuine affection for her was a revelation to Bea, and she did not know if being freed from the shackles of fear would alter her behavior in any significant way in London. She rather thought it would not, for, despite the newfound sense of security, she was still the same dowdy nonentity she had always been. Marked by features so unassuming her uncle once described them as apologetic—apologetic chin, apologetic nose, apologetic lips that pressed tightly together when something made her uncomfortable—she had never failed to blend into any setting. With her brown eyes, narrow brows and limp hair of an indeterminate color, she was as inconspicuous in the drawing room as in the ballroom, a circumstance that drove her aunt to distraction, as she’d hoped to unload the girl onto another family before it was time to launch her daughter into society.

  If history was any indication, Beatrice Hyde-Clare would meet the coming season with the same sort of baffled disinterest with which she had met the previous six.

  And yet there was still her interaction with the Duke of Kesgrave to consider, for it demonstrated the other side of the coin: An intelligent woman who didn’t hesitate to look a challenger in the eye and question his decisions and tweak his ego when the opportunity presented itself.

  Poor Aunt Vera!

  The older woman was not equipped to contend with uncertainty, for she liked everything to be in its place, especially inconveniently orphaned nieces. That was why, Bea believed, she would not easily give up on her hope of leg-shackling her to the first law clerk with an interesting blemish to cross their path. Indeed, the young man—and, to be fair, he didn’t have to be young, per se—could be from any profession so long as he had the resources to maintain a wife and family.

  Or perhaps just a wife.

  Really, all he needed was a cottage to bring her home to.

  And of course a hovel would do in a pinch, as there was no reason to be too fine in one’s notions.

  Bea didn’t doubt that her aunt would cheerfully marry her off to an impoverished villager if it would free her relations from their obligation.

  No, she thought in amusement, Aunt Vera and Uncle Horace would never consign her to the scullery. But they were happy to let her husband do it.

  Although she understood her aunt’s concerns about her behavior, Bea felt they were a little overblown, for they failed to take into account the very great peculiarity of the circumstance in which she’d found herself at Lakeview Hall. In general, one did not stumble over the murdered corpse of one’s fellow guest at a house party, and one certainly did not often find oneself forced to stand silently by while a constable ruled the obviously irregular death a suicide at the Duke of Kesgrave’s urging. Those two events were highly unusual, and if she had not stared across the slain body of Mr. Otley at Kesgrave, she doubted she would have ever said a word to him at all. Rather than hurling insults at him directly, she would have contended herself with fantasizing about tossing selections from the various evening meals—fish patties with olive paste, stuffed tomatoes, veal cutlets, poached eggs, fillets of salmon, meringues with preserves—at his condescending head.

  Bea reminded herself of this fact daily, for some part of her could not wait for the moment when she met Kesgrave again and challenged him on some new frontier. It was an absurd expectation, of course, for the circumspection of the drawing room bore little resemblance to the audacity of the murder scene. Restored to the milieu where she felt most uncomfortable, she would no doubt lapse into her usual silence.

  Likewise, Kesgrave would not be the same. At Lakeview Hall, the society had been limited to the Skeffingtons’ guests, a small assortment that in no way represented the usual company the Duke of Kesgrave kept. If he had favored Bea with his interest, it was only because they shared a single purpose and there were few distractions to claim his attention. In London, however, a man like Kesgrave, who had every advantage of wealth, status and disposition, did not lack for offers or diversions. Unlike her aunt, who worried that he might actually pay them a call, Bea knew the duke had already forgotten his promise, which had been issued only out of a sense of politeness, and doubted he would even recall her name if they happened to meet in the park or at a party.

  Although she prided herself on being a pragmatic young lady, Bea found this thought to be upsetting in a way she couldn’t properly articulate. It was not, she firmly believed, because she had formed a tendre for the duke. Without question, there was much about him to set even the most withered spinster’s heart to flutter, but she was far too sensible to develop a hopeless passion for someone quite so above her touch. If he were a little less extravagant in his perfection—if, for example, his nose encompassed more of his face or his rank dropped a few notches to earl—she might have been susceptible to his charms.

  No, the problem cut deeper than mere infatuation with an unattainable lord, a situation, she was convinced, she could have handled with equanimity and grace, for she was far too sensible to allow herself to succumb to any sort of romantic despair. Rather, she feared her distress had its roots in the unexpected amiability of the enterprise, the sense of camaraderie that had sprung up between them as they sat quietly by the fire in her room discussing suspects in Mr. Otley’s murder. In those moments, she’d felt known by the duke in a way she hadn’t been by anyone else, and it made her sad and unsettled to realize how quickly he would cease to know her.

  Annoyed with the gloomy turn her thoughts had taken, Bea sat up straighter in her chair and decided she needed a distraction. She was thinking of Kesgrave now only because they would be attending the first ball of the season in a few days and her anxiety about it had increased in equal measure with her excitement.

  “Flora could make a drawing of him,” her aunt said as Dawson removed her empty plate from the table.

  Bea’s cousin paused as she lifted her cup of chocolate and furrowed her brow with curiosity at her mother. “I could?”

  Aunt Vera nodded vigorously. “You’re a skilled artist.”

  “Thank you, Mama,” Flora said. “I feel that I’ve improved greatly in the past couple of months, and I’m grateful to you and Papa for hiring such an excellent tutor.”

  “I say, Flora, cut line,” Russell insisted with a disgusted look at his sister. “You don’t have to polish the apple so assiduously.”

  Offended by the implication that her words were intended to curry her parents’ favor, Flora insisted she wasn’t polishing anything. “I’m merely expressing appreciation for my drawing instruction just as you would for your boxing lessons.”

  Russell’s plump lips tightened as he was reminded of a sore point, as his parents refused to condone his interest in pugilism. “I don’t have boxing lessons.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Flora said with a wide smile.

  Russell seethed silently.

  “You could make a drawing of Mr. Davies,” Aunt Vera explained, ignoring now, as she always did, her children’s bickering. “It would be based on Bea’s description of him.”

  “Oh, no,” Bea said, so startled by the idea she spoke the words aloud.


  Flora’s eyes lit up at the suggestion. “I could do that,” she said before turning to her cousin and offering her assurance. “Truly, all you’d have to do is tell me the shape of things. His chin, for example, is it sharp or round? Then I could sketch something and you tell me how close I am to the original.”

  Beatrice could not imagine anything more horrible. “I really don’t think—”

  “Capital notion, Vera,” Uncle Horace said as he looked at his wife over the newspaper. “I don’t know why we didn’t think of it sooner.”

  Her aunt preened under the compliment and turned to her niece. “There’s no reason to be anxious, my dear. I’m sure you’ll be able to reproduce his appearance down to the very last hair on his head. You’re very good with details,” she added with an accusatory note in her tone.

  Aunt Vera had not quite been able to forgive her niece for having such a fine grasp on the particulars that she figured out the precise circumstance of Mr. Otley’s death. If Bea were a little more scatterbrained like a proper female, then Vera would still be friends with her old classmates from Mrs. Crawford’s School for Girls and her daughter might be engaged to the son of a baron.

  In seeking justice for the spice trader, Bea had served her aunt a great unfairness.

  “We can start after breakfast,” Flora said. “Let’s use the front parlor, as the light is better in there.”

  Bea smiled weakly as she tried to produce a picture of Mr. Theodore Davies in her head. All she saw was an angry red scar running across his face and cutting his right eye in half. It was the only thing she could visualize because it was the only feature she could recall bestowing on him. Other than the disfiguring mark, the Teddy of her memory was a jumble of vague character traits: funny, kind, intelligent.

  Obviously, she could make up anything she wanted, as there was no standard against which her description would be compared. But it felt oddly terrifying to have no constraints at all. What if she wound up describing a monster?

  Or, worse, someone they all knew?

  As apprehensive as the drawing session made her, it was nothing compared with her agitation over how the picture would be used. Would Uncle Horace bring it down to a printshop and request copies that he could include in his letters of inquiry? Would he post it in barrister offices in Chancery Lane? Would he print it in the dailies?

  Bea felt her cheeks turn unbearably hot as she contemplated the advertisement her aunt would run seeking information about the law clerk. To see his name in the newspaper under the picture that she described would be utterly—

  The newspaper!

  Bea bobbled the teacup in her hand as she realized the newspaper offered a way out of the contretemps she’d unwittingly created. Of course it did! All she had to do was place a death notice in the London Daily Gazette. Uncle Horace, who made a proper perusal of the paper every morning, would read it and share the unfortunate discovery with his wife. Aunt Vera would be desperately disappointed for a couple of days, then rally when she realized there was nothing to be done. Death came for us all in the end.

  Encouraged considerably by her plan, Bea agreed cheerfully to meet Flora in the front parlor in a half hour and excused herself from the table. She had scarcely eaten anything, but she was too eager to compose the notice to linger over kippers. She did, however, refill her teacup and carry it with her back to her room.

  Although she had little experience writing obituaries, she knew to keep the notice brief and to the point. “On Monday the 27th, in this city, Mr. Theodore Davies, youngest son of Mr. Harold Davies and devoted husband. His manners were most gentle, his affections ardent, his thoughtfulness was not to be surpassed, and he lived and died as became a humble Christian.”

  She read it through three times, confirmed the punctuation and spelling, and slid it into an envelope to mail to the newspaper. Just as she was about to seal the envelope, she realized some sort of remuneration would also have to be included, for the newspaper would not run the paragraph for free.

  How much did it cost to report the fabricated death of a fictional law clerk?

  Bea had no idea and realized the only way she could find out was to deliver the notice herself. Doing so meant going out alone in London, something she had never done, and she felt a momentary twinge of fear at the possible outcomes of such a bold adventure. The metropolis had always felt like a welcoming place to her, but she had never been abroad without the protection of her family or the company of her maid.

  Lone females, she had been meant to understand from Aunt Vera, did not fare as well.

  Although she knew her aunt was not a fount of considered opinions, Bea felt some wariness was appropriate, even in the bright light of day, and she inspected her wardrobe for the least interesting item she owned. Given the drabness of her options, it was surprisingly difficult to make the decision and, after some thought, she settled on the gray walking dress she had worn in mourning for her maternal grandfather five years before. It was an unadorned and unremarkable garment, practical in its purpose, much like herself, and she felt confident it would draw little, if any, attention.

  With the notice written and her outfit selected, she could see no further reason to put off the inevitable and returned to the ground floor. Flora was waiting for her in the parlor, her charcoals and sketch pad laid out on the end table. She looked up eagerly when her cousin entered, seeming to relish the assignment—either for the challenge of capturing the appearance of an unknown stranger or finding out more about him from a firsthand source. All the information the family had gathered was courtesy of Miss Otley, as Bea had refused to discuss the matter personally with any of them, including her aunt. She claimed it was too painful.

  “Let’s begin,” Flora said, asking first about the shape of Mr. Davies’s face. Was it round, oval or square or was it more interestingly complex like a heart?

  Bea closed her eyes, thought a moment and decided he had a heart-shaped face because it seemed the most challenging one to draw.

  Delighted, Flora nodded and moved onto the law clerk’s nose.

  “It had a long bridge,” Bea said, examining the bust of one of their relatives on the pedestal next to the window, with his aquiline appendage.

  “Good,” Flora said in encouragement. “Now tell me about the width of the bridge. Is it very narrow? Does it have any bumps or dips?”

  Bea thought for a moment and identified its width as medium narrow, which sounded nonsensical to her, but Flora nodded in comprehension. “And there was a bump about halfway down.”

  After an hour, Flora sighed as she dropped her charcoal onto the table and announced they’d had a very good first session. She held up the sketch to reveal a firm-lipped gentleman with kind eyes, a pointy chin and an almost featherlike scar skirting his features. He looked nothing like the image in her head and yet he seemed disconcertingly familiar.

  Taking her silence as approval, Flora announced that they would refine the details tomorrow. “We are close. I can tell from the look on your face.”

  Uncertain what her expression actually revealed, Bea nodded and thanked her cousin for making the drawing. “Your mother is right. You’re a skilled artist,” she observed—not only because it was true but also because she felt horrible about wasting her cousin’s time. The story of her thwarted love for Mr. Davies was the first and only coldly calculated lie she had ever told in her life, and it had spiraled so wildly out of control, she wouldn’t be surprised if Prinny strode into the front parlor to ask for a description of him.

  It was, she thought, a salutary lesson in the destructive uncertainty of falsehoods. All you knew about a lie was where it would start, never where it would end. That kind of insecurity was not for her.

  Having determined never to lie again, Bea immediately defied her own resolution by feigning light-headedness and excusing herself to go rest until she felt more the thing.

  “Oh, you poor dear,” Flora said with a sympathetic moue. “This must be so trying for you. To
be entirely honest, I’m not sure why Mama is so focused on Mr. Davies. Her theory that we can learn more about you from the man you loved than from twenty years of living with you strikes me as somewhat flawed. To be fair, however, none of us suspected you were conducting a secret love affair with an unsuitable young man for months, so it’s possible she is right and we don’t know you at all.”

  This observation was at once thoroughly accurate and widely off the mark, and Bea could come up with no clever response that didn’t make her feel even more ridiculous. Rather than say anything at all, she dipped her head in acknowledgment and left the room. Returning to her bedchamber, she immediately changed into the gray walking dress. Then she selected a poke bonnet in an equally subdued color, and tying the ribbons under her chin, confirmed that it hid her face almost entirely from every angle except directly head on. Next she considered how much funds she would need to cover the cost of transportation and the obituary. Having no idea how much either would be, she took four shillings, closed her reticule and immediately opened it again to add one more coin.

  Cautiously, she stepped out of the room into the empty hallway, proceeded to the staircase and lightly skipped down the steps. Pausing briefly to confirm she was still alone, she considered the relative benefits of scurrying quickly or walking sedately. She settled on the latter and tensed sharply a few feet from the front door when Dawn suddenly stepped out of the drawing room, fully expecting to be exposed. The footman, however, brushed past her as if she were not there and disappeared into the dining room.

  Once outside, Bea felt another wave of uncertainty, for she had been so consumed with the goal of exiting the house, she had not considered what to do after she’d attained it. Waving down a hack directly in front of her house would be the height of folly, she thought, and walked to the north end of the square to the busier thoroughfare. There, she hailed a cab and directed the driver to the offices of the London Daily Gazette. Traffic was thick in the early afternoon and seemed to grow heavier as they drew closer to the Strand, but she arrived without incident and alighted onto the crowded sidewalk in front of the office. One thirty-two was a tall brick building, narrow and simple, with grid windows, and as she stepped inside, she was taken aback by the pervasive calm that filled the room. Given the competitiveness of the newspaper business and the hyperbolic headlines used by broadsheets to grab readers’ attention, she’d expected a frenzied environment, with editors yelling at reporters and reporters yelling at typesetters and typesetters yelling at printing presses and printing presses grinding loudly as their gears turned. Instead, she encountered a dozen industriously minded men working quietly at their desks in a low-ceilinged room.