Euphemia and the Unexpected Enchantment
The Fentons, Book 3
Alicia Cameron
Dedication
To Alan,
the personal assistant who doesn’t get paid.
©Alicia Cameron, 2019 The author’s rights have been asserted. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real events is coincidental
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Prologue
Lady Aurora Fenton was in her bed, involved in taking little snippets from her breakfast tray, whilst reading some letters that had arrived for her. She was a beauty of indeterminate age, swathed in a frothy lace concoction (surely from Paris) and known as one of the most fashionable ladies in London. Her days as the keeper of a house of cards had accustomed her to late hours, and she found it hard to dress before 11 of the clock. Her husband, a trim elegant figure, in a fashionable dark suit but with an added gold silk waistcoat, which might have belonged to another age, re-entered her chamber, and perched on the bed to steal from her coffee cup and breakfast dainties. Since he had left her chamber a mere hour ago, she had, of course, made some subtle changes to her appearance. Her hair, though still falling on her shoulders in the same torrent that he had so recently let fall through his fingers, had been dressed at the front, her lace peignoir assumed over her delicate shoulders, and perhaps the merest touch of colour applied to the cheeks. She looked, as usual, the most desirable woman in the world, and Mr Wilbert Fenton, so long a rake, could never stop giving thanks for his luck in marrying her.
‘Oh, Wilbert, Miss Fleet has written to say she has quit the London house to travel to Durant at last!’
‘Felicity home! No doubt,’ he drawled, ‘you have arranged for us to go to Durant at the earliest possibility.’
‘Well, of course! And you need not pretend that you are not just as eager to see our dear girl as I am.’
‘I hope Miss Fleet is not embarrassed by the newlyweds.’ Fenton said, nibbling on a slice of apple. ‘If like us, they are apt not to want interruption.’
‘She lived very happily with them in London. Felicity told me she was discretion itself.’
‘I’m sure she was, poor little soul. And she’ll be happier with Felicity than with the dreadful Lady Ellingham.’ Mr Fenton now nibbled his wife’s fingers, which that lady regarded with indulgence.
‘She could hardly,’ Lady Aurora said, reminiscently, ‘be less.’
Chapter 1
A loud and booming voice shouted ‘Pollock!’ and an unnaturally tall and imposing figure entered the inn taproom, dipping his head to enter, then blocking the light from the entire doorframe.
‘Oh!’ cried a timid little lady, dropping her chocolate over the bodice of her best, if rather dull, grey poplin gown. The giant stopped and regarded both her and the large stain that was spreading over the front of her dress. She was a very small, slight lady of perhaps forty years, with a thin face that was given light by the enormous brown eyes that filled most of it. For the rest, her lips were a trifle thin, her nose of no particular interest, her hair an undistinguished brown pulled back into a simple knot and adorned by the plainest of muslin caps, with only some pin-tucks to give it shape.
‘Where’s Pollock?’ he demanded, his eyes firing at her from beneath beetle brows. He was around fifty years, if she was any judge, and it was a striking rather than handsome face. A shock of wiry hair around his dark features. Deep set dark eyes dominated his strong square face, making him look like the villain from one of her favourite Gothic novels. His large frame and barrel chest was further exaggerated by the many-caped driving coat he wore. His cravat was carelessly knotted, his boots dusty. He was like a once fashionable man gone to seed.
Urged to speak, the lady seemed embarrassed not to be able to help him. ‘Is — is that the name of the proprietor? I’m afraid, sir, that I do not know.’ Distractedly, she dabbed at her dress with her napkin, with little effect.
The massive man looked down at her pursuit. ‘What happened to your dress?’
‘It … it is nothing, sir.’
‘Did I make you jump? My niece is forever saying I should lower my voice.’ He looked down at the stain once more. ‘You should change your dress.’ This was issued in the same commanding tone, which made her jump again.
‘I cannot. But mayhap I can dab away…’
‘No other dress?’
She wished he would not shout so. ‘No,’ she excused herself. ‘You see, I am travelling to my friend’s house with only my night things, for my trunk has been sent ahead.’
‘You cannot travel in that—’ he indicated her dress, to her intense mortification, saying so at a volume that she was surprised did not raise the house. But the tap boy seemed to have disappeared, and the inn, at this early hour, was remarkably deserted. They were quite alone. ‘Come with me!’
‘I … I—’
He had turned and reached the double doors to the taproom, which were left open, then turned back to her. ‘Come!’ he ordered.
The lady automatically jumped to her feet, and followed meekly, picking up her cloak and bonnet as she did so. Very few steps took her to his side and he looked down at her appraisingly. ‘As I thought, your shoulders at my waist…’ She thought she saw a tear in his eye, but he began to walk again, and she ran after him, taking three steps for the giant’s every one. She put on her bonnet as they left the inn, and flew her cloak over her shoulders as they walked. A high-perch phaeton stood in the yard and when he had reached it, the giant turned and made a bow. ‘The name is Balfour. May I know yours?’
‘I am Miss Fleet.’ And so saying, the little lady made a curtsy.
‘Now that we are introduced,’ he said, grasping her by the waist, and lifting her into the phaeton. She gasped and shook even more, holding onto the side of the carriage. ‘Never been in a high-perch number, eh?’ he said, in a booming voice she supposed was meant to be heartening. ‘Hold on and it won’t kill you.’ He jumped in beside her (his weight causing her to bounce on the seat) and released the reins.
Miss Fleet, adjusting her grey bonnet with dignity, said quietly but firmly, ‘I have been a passenger in the Viscount Durant’s high-perch phaeton on many occasions.’ Her bravery overtook her, and she trembled once more.
‘Ho! So you know Sebastian?’ said the man called Balfour, manoeuvring the horses through the tall inn-yard gates.
‘I am travelling to his home.’
The man was kept occupied by a cart coming out precipitately from a farm road. Once they had gotten around it and no wheels had ended in a ditch, Miss Fleet made a shy enquiry.
‘Excuse me sir, but where are you taking me, and for what reason?’
The man gave a shout of laughter. ‘You should ask that before you get into a carriage with a fellow, not after.’
‘I did not precisely get into the carriage—’ she protested. Then she seemed to tremble again. ‘I beg your pardon.’
He took a second to look down at her, and the big harsh face seemed to be laughing. ‘For what, pray?’
‘I … I—’ she could not think of precisely why. ‘For my impertinence,’ she ventured.
He laughed uproariously. ‘Oh, mighty impertinent you are.’ He wiped a hand over streaming eyes. ‘You should strive to rein in your impertinence at all costs.’ He slapped his knee at his own good joke, and then he made a turn with the phaeton and began to make his way to a tidy manor house a half-mile in the distance.
Miss Fleet clutched at her reticule, glancing sideways at the edifice. The
man, not the manor house.
A groom ran forward to grasp the reins as they reached the house, and the tall front door was already open, a liveried servant in attendance. Her companion jumped down and while Miss Fleet was deciding how she might make an attempt with dignity, he was at her side reaching for her waist again, and she had the heady feeling of being swung down without her volition once more. He looked down at her.
‘A little pocket Venus!’ he whispered.
Miss Fleet looked up at him with her very large eyes, hardly believing her ears, but trembling never the less.
‘Oh, not you!’ he muttered and let her go, walking up the steps to his manor, and greeting the dogs who ran to his side.
Miss Fleet followed, at a pace, but with a wary eye on the dogs.
As she caught up with him, she heard him say to the footman. ‘Send for Evans! And bring some refreshments to the blue room.’
‘The blue room sir?’
‘Yes!’ he fairly shouted. ‘The blue room.’
‘Your Lordship!’ The footman bowed in an apologetic fashion.
The room whose door he opened was indeed blue, with pale blue silk on the walls, and on the upholstery of the delicately wrought furniture set about the room. In her enchantment, Miss Fleet stopped on the threshold, quite forgetting to be terrified. It was a lady’s sitting room, she thought, but quite the prettiest she had ever seen. It was of a modest size, a little larger than merely cosy, with one big window of perhaps sixty panes taking up the middle of a wall, and the most heavenly curtains at the windows: on a blue ground, humming birds of every possible hue flew around. The furniture was trimmed in gilt, two elegant chairs, one considerably larger than the other, sat on each side of a charming fireplace, an escritoire was on one wall near the window, with everything a lady might want to write with, and to add to the perfection, a white-painted and gilded harpsichord was on the other side of the room. The ceiling was high, of course, and some cherubs held up each corner, and clustered around the ceiling rose.
‘How lovely!’ she sighed, despite herself.
She noted then that he had stopped, seemingly stranded in the middle of the Chinese carpet, and he looked around saying, ‘Well. Well! Yes, well, well!’ as though he did not know quite what to say. He too seemed to be looking around the room, and he put his hand to his chest as though in pain.
Miss Fleet ran forward, touching his arm and guiding him to the larger of the two chairs by the empty fireplace. ‘Sit, sir!’ she said, ‘Please, you are not well.’
‘Nonsense!’ he barked. ‘I am very well.’ But he sat nevertheless, dropping precariously onto the chair, which no longer looked large.
‘May I ring for some water? Is there perhaps some medicine …?’
‘You are eye to eye with me now …’ he seemed to look at her from a great distance, ‘and your voice is as soft as mine is loud …’
It was like the moment when he had said those strange words to her outside. He was not really speaking to her.
‘You sent for me, sir?’ said a stentorian voice, and Miss Fleet turned quickly, jumping at the tone. It reminded her, in tone if not in accent, of the terrible Lady Ellingham, to whom she had been a companion until very lately. So swiftly did she turn that she almost fell over, but a large steadying hand righted her. She had been touched by male hand more in the last hour than in any time since the death of her papa.
The maid, because thus she undoubtedly was, stood very tall in the doorway with her hands crossed before her.
‘Take this lady, Miss … eh… Fleet, to Her Ladyship’s room and give her the blue muslin.’
‘Her Ladyship’s gowns are packed, my lord,’ said the tall maid with a sour look.
His Lordship stood up. ‘Then unpack them, Evans, and help the lady change. Then see to her dress.’
‘Very well, sir,’ said the maid and turned saying, ‘this way, miss!’
Miss Fleet followed her, since she could not for the moment think what else to do. His Lordship’s burst of anger seemed to have brought him back to himself, so she had no qualms in leaving him. She wished to protest that it was not at all necessary, but she did not wish to disagree with him in front of his servant.
The maid led the way up a broad staircase, emanating displeasure. Miss Fleet was almost overpowered by it, but tried to straighten her back. If her dear Felicity could face such outright aggression as she had in the last year before her engagement to Viscount Durant, when the dreadful, untrue rumours had been spread, then so would she. She was no longer Lady Ellingham’s unpaid companion, she was a friend and (albeit distant) relation to a viscountess and possessed an exorbitant sum of money in her reticule given to her by the viscount before he left upon his wedding trip. It was given to allow her to make any purchases she might want and to order a chaise-and-four, as she was to join them (after the two months of the trip) on their country estate. But a chaise-and-four was hardly necessary, she had felt. She was used to the stage, and she could not think of anything she needed to buy beyond some toiletries for the journey. She had been left in their London house in the interim, with servants to see to her every comfort – most especially enjoined so to do by the new viscountess. This gentle treatment had, she supposed, beefed up her spirits a little, for she resolved not to be beaten by a sour face. She had seen a great many sour faces in her previous existence, and no doubt she could cope.
She thought, too, about the dresses being packed up. Was Lady Balfour to go on a trip? But no, Miss Fleet believed, by some little things that she had observed, that perhaps Lady Balfour had recently died.
Evans opened the door to a bedchamber quite as charming as the sitting room. She went directly to a carved wooden box, searched through the tissue paper layers, and found a blue muslin gown, which she shook out.
‘I cannot wear that!’ said Miss Fleet. ‘It is too lovely…’ She had considered the looking for a dress rather doomed as she had climbed the stairs. Unless there was a full paper of pins to be used, her height made it quite impossible for the lending of dresses that her dear Felicity had suggested. (‘Never mind, Euphemia,’ as the viscountess now called her, ‘we’ll have some made up when we reach home.’) But as she looked at the dress before her, a figured muslin in the same blue as the sitting room, over a satin slip, Miss Fleet felt it beyond her position entirely. The detailed embroidery on the bodice, the sleeves and around the hem made it a very expensive, but still simple gown.
‘She did look lovely in it.’
There was a wistfulness in the maid’s tone that made Miss Fleet ask, ‘Her Ladyship is dead?’
‘The baroness died these two years since.’
She did not speak again, but her demeanour as she untied Miss Fleet’s laced back and removed her stained but sturdy poplin, causing the heavenly blue to fall over her head, let Miss Fleet know how undeserving of the dress she was. But she was astonished to see herself in the mirror when she wore it. She looked … different. Not a poor relation anymore. She had not let her dear Felicity buy her clothes, though Mrs Aurora Fenton, acting as Felicity’s guardian, had insisted on having her outfitted for the wedding, at least. That dress, though lovely, Miss Fleet had insisted be quite plain, like herself. This dress was made for a Lady of the Manor.
And what is more, beyond the need for a pin or two at the side of her bodice, (for she knew herself to be preternaturally thin) it fitted her precisely. Her serviceable but now very plain-looking boots poked beneath the hemline just the right amount.
The maid looked down too. ‘The boots are stained, too, miss. You’d best give them to me. She moved to another coffer where she lifted some cream satin slippers. ‘These might do, miss.’ While these would complete the outfit, the tone was still hostile. Miss Fleet wondered ghoulishly if there were poisoned needles inside and the maid was in a plot to kidnap her. But she was no young girl to be kidnapped for either money or beauty. She took them therefore, just because the pearls sewn above the toes needed to be caressed. ‘They will not
do for travelling,’ she said, with as straight a back as she could muster, ‘so I must not wear them. How beautiful they are.’
‘Her Ladyship herself stitched the tops, and I simply put them together.’
‘But the stitching is very fine, Evans. Very fine.’
‘I’ll get your boots and dress in an hour, miss,’ said Evans, in a rather gentler voice. ‘Just you put these on.’
But Miss Fleet’s feet were rather smaller than the mistress’s, and Evans had to stuff the toes with cotton, which made it just possible to keep them on. ‘I could attach a ribbon, miss, er,’
‘Fleet. I am Miss Fleet.’
‘Miss Fleet. If you thought you was — were — going to fall in them.’
‘No. I don’t suppose I shall. It seems a shame to spoil them with a ribbon.’
Evans stood, brushing at her apron. ‘As to that, Miss Fleet. It is nice to see them worn again.’ Her voice caught. ‘From the back, you could almost be—’
‘Thank you Evans. I’m sorry I — thank you.’ And Miss Fleet made her way to the blue salon once more, walking carefully in the too-large slippers.
She hesitated before she entered. She had left the maid with tears in her eyes — what might she do to the husband? But a mirror next to the door saved her, for reflected in it was a portrait that hung behind her, glimpsed through the doors of a grander salon. Miss Fleet turned, and glided towards the portrait. It was of a young woman wearing the fashions of thirty years ago. In a sylvan setting, wearing a frothy muslin gown, much fuller than those of today, the young beauty sat in an enormous brimmed straw hat with broad yellow ribbons caught under her chin in a charming bow. She had startling, naughty blue eyes, and her blond curls were wide beneath her bonnet, then coaxed into a ringlet over one shoulder. Her gaze was both challenging and merry, her stature diminutive, and one tiny, lazy hand played with a pup’s ear as others gambolled around her. A pocket Venus indeed. Euphemia Fleet felt a tug of sorrow for the man who now awaited her in the blue salon, at losing not just such a beauty, but such a force of life. She stopped worrying that she would conjure up his beloved too well. Yes, the inhabited dress might cause him pause, but she was no beauty. She turned away, back towards the blue room. As she raised her hand to tap at the door before she entered, she glanced in the mirror once more. It was as if Her Ladyship was urging her on.
Euphemia and the Unexpected Enchantment: The Fentons Book 3 Page 1
