by Amanda Elyot
“His Dogberry in Bristol was well received,” piped up another passerby. “Shame his own family didn’t catch him in that role. He was never as good before or since.”
Constable Mawl, who prided himself on having ears, as well as eyes, affixed to the back of his head, addressed the crowd. “So you’ve heard of the stinkin’ bloke, ’ave you?” He waved his enormous hand in front of his face as if to fumigate the atmosphere. “If ’e’s as well known as you say he is, and being a marquess and all, I’m willing to release him upon his own re-cogni-zance, providing ’e’s got somewhere to lodge in Bath. But if I catch you acting like the town drunkard again, your lordship, it’s the jailhouse for you. Now go home, Maude,” he told the incensed dairymaid, as though she had encouraged the marquess’s drunken advances.
Albert Tobias, Lord Manwaring, was in need of a fortifying pint or two before setting off to visit his sister in the Royal Crescent. By the time he reached her doorstep, he practically fell over his own gouty foot, cursing a stone riser for surprising him.
“Here you go, lass,” he burped, thrusting a fistful of colorful ribbons at a stunned Mary Sykes, who had opened the door to admit him. The gift to the young serving girl, who he decided at first glance was rather pretty, though a bit too thin for his taste, was only the first of the extravagant tributes he had brought to grease the wheels of his sister’s generosity. By the time Collins had shown him to Lady Dalrymple’s front drawing room, the marquess-cum-actor, who had given the luggage boy outside the post office a paltry shilling, had bestowed a fistful of crowns upon her ladyship’s butler, and was about to present his sister with a bouquet of pastel-colored Belgian linen handkerchiefs, edged in lace tatted by the residents of the Beguinage in Bruges.
Lady Dalrymple was taking tea with Lady Oliver when Collins interrupted their light repast to inform her ladyship that the Marquess of Manwaring desired an audience with her. Euphoria’s fury at Lady Oliver’s attempt to insinuate a godchild into her nephew’s affections in place of Miss Welles had ultimately given way to a desire to confront her formidable opponent. At present, the rift between the two former bosom friends appeared irreparable, with Lady Dalrymple accusing her old girlhood playmate of betrayal, appealing to her own comprehension of such disloyalty by deigning to dredge up Lady Oliver’s unspeakable past. As Augusta’s own unhappy history was not above reproach, how dare she condemn Miss Welles for having a scandal in her family!
But Lady Oliver, who was not yet prepared to reveal her hand by disclosing the raft of intelligence she had been receiving from her diligent and vigilant spy, Saunders, simply held fast to the unsuitability of a match between the Earl of Darlington and Lady Dalrymple’s impoverished soi-disant niece, “Miss Welles.”
“The girl has neither fortune nor reputation to recommend her. You cannot, other than in your extravagant flights of fancy, overlook the inadvisability of my nephew’s forging an alliance with a young woman who has had neither a proper upbringing and education nor introduction and exposure to society.”
“It is to my niece’s credit that she is not a pale, overweaned weakling who knows naught but needlework and natters on about bonnets,” the countess argued. Seeing that she was making little headway in her suit, Lady Dalrymple elected to aim for her guest’s jugular vein. “Rest assured, Cassandra will not make the sort of wife that a man of the earl’s breeding and intelligence soon tires of, compelling him to seek happiness in more fascinating pastures.”
The countess could have been alluding to any number of arranged marriages among the aristocracy of the era; however, owing to her own lurid and unhappy past, Lady Oliver was keenly aware that Lady Dalrymple’s reference was deliberately targeted at her. Drawing herself up to her full height, she glowered at her hostess. “Please call for my carriage, Lady Dalrymple. There is nothing further to be said between us. Convey my compliments to your cook for an exemplary afternoon tea.” Lady Oliver nearly collided with Lady Dalrymple’s brother in her haste to leave the drawing room.
A theatrically practiced voice boomed, “The influence of women is only successful when it is indirect. So long as they confine themselves to country houses, the dining room table, the boudoir, and the bedroom, I make no objection. The better a woman speaks, the more embarrassing I always find it. It makes me feel quite uncomfortable.”
“Then you did not have to listen at the keyhole,” the marquess’s sister said tartly, her expression as sour as the lemon juice she was straining into her tea. “Charming words for a man who, in his profession as an actor, spends a good deal of time in the company of the fairer—and soberer—sex. What brings you to Bath, Albert?”
The marquess-turned-thespian assumed a classical pose and declaimed:
“Of all the gay Places the World can afford,
By Gentle and Simple for Pastime ador’d,
Fine Balls and Fine Concerts, fine Building and Springs,
Fine Walks, and fine Views, and a Thousand fine Things,
Not to mention the sweet Situation and Air,
What Place, my dear Sister, with Bath can compare?”
“I preferred the panegyric when Anstey penned it,” Lady Dalrymple said, calling her brother’s bluff. “And Christopher Anstey wrote ‘mother,’ not ‘sister.’ ”
Manwaring puckered his lips and gave his sister a jovial look. “Can’t even win for trying.” When he bestowed a sloppy kiss on the countess’s rouged cheek, she could smell the gin on his breath.
“Actually, I’m in a bit of a spot, Euphie,” the marquess hiccuped, helping himself to a cup of tea. He produced a silver flask from the pocket of his coat and enhanced the brew with the addition of a dram of whisky covertly acquired from a friend at the newly opened Chivas distillery.
In no mood to spar with her sponging brother, particularly after her argument with Augusta Oliver, the countess deftly removed a savory biscuit from her brother’s hand and fed it to an appreciative Newton. “No good. ’E’s up to no good,” warned the prescient parrot.
“Thank you, Newton.” Lady Dalrymple slid open the door of the gilded cage and reached in, so her pet could hop onto her jeweled finger. “When that quack surgeon Dr. Cleland recommended nearly twenty-five years ago that you take up gambling as a distraction from the gout, he neglected to inform you that such a ‘cure’ might become addictive. Your last episode at the gaming tables has reached the ears of everyone in Bath,” the countess remarked to her brother. “A man named Newman, I believe.”
“If he had not been cheating at faro, he would not have gone and hanged himself,” Albert remarked laconically. “I was not the one who was contriving to win by dishonest means.”
“No, not this time,” Lady Dalrymple replied. “Nevertheless, Mr. Newman’s untimely demise has created quite a scandal, regardless of the circumstances. Your role in his sudden departure from this earth has been widely speculated upon. Once again, your behavior has sorely tested your family, which is beholden by both blood and duty to defend your actions.”
The marquess tippled directly from his flask and wiped his mouth with one of his sister’s yellow damask serviettes. “I believed the man was cheating at cards. I merely pinned his hand to the table with a serving fork and remarked quite pointedly, ‘Sir, if you have not a card hidden under that hand, I apologize.’ I believe the unfortunate result quite decided the question.”
Ordinarily, Lady Dalrymple was not the judgmental sort. But Lady Oliver’s objection to the marquess as a potential new father-in-law for Lord Darlington enforced Euphoria’s resolve to remove all impediments to her “niece’s” nuptials. She, more than anyone, would have been quick to acknowledge Manwaring’s unsuitability to mix in polite society, but Albert was her brother, and therefore bore defending.
The Marquess of Manwaring rested his head in his hands. “I’m sunk, Euphie,” he admitted, then began to sob uncontrollably. “It’s not the liquor talking. My debts . . . I can no longer manage ’em. The creditors have been beating down m’door.” He pointed a s
tubby finger at his unfashionable green coat. “Even me tailors. I may have to decamp to the Continent to escape ’em.” Albert was about to reach once more for his silver flask when he caught his sister’s disapproving eye and slid it back into his pocket. “I thought by touring the provinces, I would be away from London long enough for them to forget. But they won’t have me anymore.”
“Who won’t, Albert?”
“Bristol. Newcastle. York. Leeds. Not until I sober myself up, they say. So I’ve got no income, you see.”
“Then perhaps you could take up some more lucrative pursuit in order to discharge your debts,” the countess counseled. “Three years ago Rowlandson found himself in similar straits when his commissions for portraiture fell off, so he took up caricature. It’s one and the same, if you ask me. His watercolor series on The Comforts of Bath have made him rather more than comfortable. I have a set of prints myself. They’re quite amusing if one’s sense of humor is as colorful as his illustrations.”
Albert looked at the rug and shuffled his feet. Lady Dalrymple noticed the shabby condition of his brown leather shoes.
Her ladyship released an exasperated sigh. “Do you expect me to discharge your debts for you? Portly and I rescued you for years, and never once have you shown an ounce of gratitude. You are everything that is wrong with the aristocracy, Bertie: you’re an advantage taker. You take and take and expect that everything you receive is your due.”
“Well, I’m choking on that silver spoon now, Euphie.”
“I can’t say as you don’t deserve to.”
“I’ll make it up to you this time,” Albert begged, blowing his nose phlegmatically into one of the linen tea towels. “If you could see your way to lending me a few thousand . . . I’ll do anything you ask.”
The countess gave her brother a long, hard look. A project was formulating in her mind that she was not yet ready to give voice to. So she gave a little “harrumph” instead, then installed herself at her escritoire and wrote out a draft for a modest amount, blotting the ink dry before handing the check to her brother. “This will see you set up at one of the better hotels in Bath,” she told him. “Try the White Hart Inn near the Abbey first. You will be so good as to stay there until you hear from me again.”
The marquess gave his sister a sloppy, grateful kiss on her rouged cheek. “You won’t regret it, Euphie.”
Lady Dalrymple touched her handkerchief to her face with the same motion she had used to blot the check. “I shall see what can be done about putting your thespian talents to use once more,” she said. “Good afternoon, Bertie.”
Book the Fourth
Chapter Twenty-Three
In which our heroine attends her second Assembly Ball; a shocking announcement is followed by one more devastating, accompanied by a display of extremely provocative behavior; and an extraordinary demand is made of our reluctant hero.
I AM SORRY, MISS WELLES. There has been no reply,” a rather irritated Collins informed Lady Dalrymple’s niece. After learning of Lord Darlington’s purported arrangement with the Digbys, C.J. had sent no fewer than four letters to him requesting an interview. Every time the house bell rang, C.J. raced down the stairs in anticipation of a response from his lordship to her increasingly urgent missives; yet on each occasion, she was cruelly disappointed. Her news, her need to learn where the earl’s affections truly lay, her agitation and anxiety, and the life growing inside her all felt as though they were increasing with alarming—and exponential—rapidity.
Lady Dalrymple, who quite fancied a change of venue and claimed that her health had become markedly improved, thanks to Cassandra’s “exemplary care”—a cryptic reference to her “niece’s” magic tablets—proposed that they attend the evening’s Assembly Ball, suggesting that they would no doubt encounter his lordship in the Upper Rooms that evening. C.J. eagerly accepted, and they planned to arrive early in the evening so as not to miss the earl should he decide to put in but the briefest of appearances.
C.J. enjoyed dancing, to be sure; and Mr. King, the highly respected Master of Ceremonies, had made it a point at the last assembly to address Lady Dalrymple and offer his compliments to her on the introduction of her niece to the ton. Nevertheless, as she dressed for the ball like a vestal virgin in another filmy white gown, which Madame Delacroix had assured her was cut in the daring French fashion and was sure to turn heads, C.J. felt like a fraud. Her hormones were zinging around like electrons and her hot blood and even hotter temper were sooner or later going to get the better of her in some public place.
Now more inured to the habits of the haute ton, everything C.J. had read about the cutthroat marriage mart paled in comparison to the actuality. Impeccably turned-out mothers, still attractive and viable themselves, to C.J.’s way of thinking, promenaded their nubile, well-heeled daughters like sirens in a seraglio. Although these young virgins were all demurely gowned in shades of white or soft pastels, the irony of it all was that these dresses were often so daringly cut that some of the better-endowed girls seemed in very real danger of causing a commotion by overflowing their décolletages, especially during some of the more energetic country dances.
And C.J. had never seen such an array of plumage. The ladies’ headgear at previous assemblies had been modest by comparison to tonight’s display. To be certain, there had been several fashionable silk turbans and short “Brutus” ringlets alongside the linen and lace lappets favored by the elderly dowagers. C.J. wondered if there had been a sudden run on ostrich plumes, for many of the women wore their panaches sprouting from their foreheads, whether on bands or affixed to turbans with ostentatious—and shockingly large—brooches crafted from precious and semiprecious stones. Half the treasure of the South African gem mines must have been amassed in the ballroom that evening.
The dancing commenced at seven o’clock. Having never arrived this early to the Upper Rooms, C.J. did not know what to expect. At her previous ball, her own party had arrived fashionably late, some two hours after the festivities had begun and just before the country dances were about to start. And even then, the gathering had been sparse, to say the least. Tonight there was an aura of the extraordinary, a palpable difference between this assembly and the last.
The Master of Ceremonies opened the ball, and the orchestra struck up the requisite minuet.
“Ever since Beau Nash formalized the rules of conduct at the Bath public assemblies, they have begun with the minuet,” Lady Dalrymple whispered to C.J. “I was but a child at the end of the Beau’s days. Confidentially,” she added, as she raised her eyes above her fan, “—and this does not bear repeating—he was a bit of a dissipate, back then, a mere shadow of his former glory, my mother used to say.”
Amid several murmurs, Mr. King led out the Earl of Darlington to the center of the floor.
Lady Dalrymple continued to educate her “niece” on the unfamiliar customs. “At the very beginning of each ball, the Master of Ceremonies leads out two persons of the highest distinction present. The gentleman selected by the Master of Ceremonies dances with the lady whom the Master of Ceremonies chooses, and when the minuet ends, she will be returned to her seat, whereupon the master will lead out a second young lady of rank to dance with the gentleman. And this ceremony will be observed with each gentleman, who will be obliged to dance with two ladies.”
A mixer, thought C.J., amused. Her good humor was immediately put to the test. Mr. King offered his arm to Lady Charlotte Digby and presented her to the earl, who stiffly stood all alone in the center of the spacious ballroom.
Lord Digby followed his daughter’s dainty footsteps, joining the couple on the dance floor once they were brought together by Mr. King. “Your lordships, ladyships, if I may crave your indulgence . . .”
The movement of fans, quite necessary in the warm early summer evening, fluttered to a halt.
“It gives me the greatest pleasure to share with you the announcement of the betrothal of my only daughter, Lady Charlotte Digby, to his lordship,
Owen Percival, Earl of Darlington. We hope that this evening, you will join in their happiness.”
C.J. felt as though her throat and intestines alike had been gripped in a vise and were being held fast. Before she felt her equilibrium betray her, causing her to sink to the floor in a dead faint, she glimpsed the ostensibly happy couple in the center of the room and had the surprising presence of mind to note that they were anything but contented. Darlington looked uncomfortable and extremely embarrassed; nevertheless, his stately carriage did not betray any signs of turbulence. Poor Charlotte, who was rather lovely, in a dewy English-rose way, was looking at her intended with an expression more ambivalent than amatory: an innocent, pink-eyed, fluffy-tailed rabbit being led to the sacrifice.
For Miss Welles, her current medical condition notwithstanding, marriage to the earl was a consummation devoutly to be wished. For Lady Charlotte, it appeared to be little more than a daughter’s duty.
C.J. thought she saw Darlington glance in her direction when the commotion created by her sudden, though graceful, descent to the floor drew his attention away from Lady Charlotte. Had she imagined that such a delicate flower as her young ladyship detected the look of extreme concern that clouded the earl’s handsome countenance and then had firmly pressed a gloved hand onto Darlington’s sleeve, preventing him from attending to the fallen woman near the perimeter of the room?
Restored to equanimity by a few Samaritans and a glass of punch, C.J. rested on a chair, surprised to see the minuet still in progress. For the remainder of this interminable formal dance, C.J. found herself biting her lower lip until it bled and she required a handkerchief to blot it. Her distress was not lost on her “aunt,” who caught the eye of the Master of Ceremonies just as the center couple was concluding the minuet.
