Lisa looked from one sister to the other, and addressed both. “I do not understand. Someone from-from Blacklands has written to-to—me?”
Henriette rolled her eyes in exasperation, thinking Lisa not only socially but mentally unfit to leave her sister’s house, least of all rub shoulders with her betters. Perhaps mingling with the sickly poor had affected her brain?
“We were just as surprised as you,” Minette confessed, “that any girl would want to know you after you departed the school under such a dark cloud. But you only have yourself to blame for that outcome, do you not? And if you had but given up the name of the boy whom you allowed to take liberties with your person behind the Chelsea Bun House, the headmistress had been prepared to let you stay on—”
“Liberties?” Lisa burst out before she could stop herself, adding in a more subdued voice, “It was just a kiss. That was all it was. One kiss.”
“Just a kiss? Just a kiss? Have you no shame?” Henriette breathed indignantly. “That boy should never have put so much as a finger on you. As for kissing you… Your lips are for your future husband to kiss, and no one else.”
“It was one tiny kiss,” Lisa persisted, voice barely above a whisper and cheeks burning with shame. “And it was not on the lips, but on his cheek—”
“That kiss ended your schooling, and your chances of ever marrying a good and decent man,” Henriette argued.
“Blacklands was your only chance of making something of yourself,” Minette said with a heavy sigh. “What a pity you could not see that at the time. But you must see, now, that your shameful conduct at the bun shop was not only thoughtless but also selfish.”
“Yes. Yes. You are right,” Lisa replied, shoulders sagging. “It was thoughtless, and it was selfish.” Then she sat up and looked at one sister, and then the other, and said brightly, “But I have not lost hope that there is a gentleman out there who could love me for myself—”
“Love you for yourself? Don’t be absurd and-and naïve!” Henriette blustered and gave an unladylike snort of derision. “Even if such a man existed, and he did forgive your wicked behavior, what have you got to recommend you other than your youth? Face facts: You have no dowry. You are penniless and thus have nothing to offer a prospective husband.”
“But if this gentleman loved me for myself, surely my pecuniary situation would be of little consequence to him…?”
Minette and Henriette glanced at one another, pulled a face, and then Henriette burst into incredulous giggles at what she considered an outrageous expectation.
While they had been at liberty to choose their husbands, both sisters had done so with the hard-headed pragmatism that comes from making a match with a man who could offer first and foremost, financial security and a comfortable living; physical attraction and being in love were secondary considerations. And while both were pretty, they had dowries of two thousand pounds apiece, which meant they had easily found husbands. The thought that their impoverished cousin would find a man to marry who would not only provide her with a comfortable living but fall in love with her was ludicrous in the extreme. Hence Henriette’s fit of incredulous amusement.
“More fool you for thinking so,” Henriette announced when she was finally in control of herself. “But we are not here to listen to your daydreaming fantasies or to belabor your past thoughtless actions. What concerns us is your behavior now and in the future. To that end, you are to keep the unhappy consequences of that kiss in the forefront of your mind when you find yourself amongst persons so far above your station in life that they might as well be living on the moon, and you an unwelcome visitor!”
Lisa dared to smile at her cousin’s use of the word moon and how her analogy closely matched what Becky had said earlier about the owner of the catalog. And now she had seen him, she agreed with her. With such striking good looks, and dressed in clothing of exquisite finery, he was almost ethereal—one of the gods of Mount Olympus, a cloud dweller, or indeed a resident of the moon. He certainly did not belong amongst the earthy, rough-and-tumble residents of the city’s grimier streets. She wondered where he resided…
And as she pondered this she was distracted by a sensation in the pit of her stomach akin to nervousness. She was suddenly light-headed, and a pulse throbbed at her temple. Perhaps she was experiencing her first fever? As she had never been ill, to be suddenly overcome by such unfamiliar sensations was unsettling. Perhaps it was because she’d had more than her fair share of excitement for one day at Lord Westby’s residence, and then to return to Gerrard Street to an interrogation… She just wished to go to her room and lie down, and perhaps she would fall asleep dreaming of a dark-haired gentleman with the perfect kissable mouth… Oh dear, there she went again, thinking about kissing… Her cousins would certainly be furious with her, had they the ability to read her thoughts. So she dragged herself back to the present and said politely,
“You mentioned something about letters, Cousin Minette…?”
“Indeed we did, and you shall have them, against our better judgment,” Minette stated. “If it were up to the family, you would still be none the wiser to the existence of this correspondence, nor would you have known about the invitation that has been extended to you. An invitation that Mama dearly wanted to refuse on your behalf because we do not think it appropriate you attend such an illustrious occasion. But—”
“—Mama was prevailed upon—that is to say she was—ordered—by our noble patroness to give an assurance you would attend,” Henriette continued, interrupting Minette when she paused on a sigh. “And so Mama’s wishes were overruled and there is nothing we can do about it.”
“Prevailed upon? Ordered?” Lisa repeated, none the wiser as to the invitation or the noble personage, who, it seemed, from the awe in her cousin’s voice and the fact she could order her Aunt de Crespigny to do her bidding, was someone very important indeed.
“Are you that beetle-headed?!” Henriette snapped, exasperated, and such was her annoyance that she sat forward and glared at Lisa. “Have you never wanted to put a name to our noble patroness, she who kindly sponsored our admission to Blacklands? As the daughters of a merchant, we would never have been accepted into such an exclusive establishment without Her Grace’s blessing. She took it upon herself—such is the esteem in which the Duchess of Roxton and Kinross holds Mama—to recommend us to the school. And of course the school accepted us. Who would refuse Her Grace?”
Lisa’s eyes went wide with new knowledge. Why had she not connected the two? It made perfect sense. But as the family had always spoken the words “noble patroness” with quiet veneration and never put a name to the appellation, she had assumed her identity was something of a family secret. Now it seemed that secret was an open one, and she the only one in the family not to know it.
But what she did know was that her aunt adored the Duchess of Roxton and Kinross, to whom she had been chief lady-in-waiting for almost twenty years before her marriage to M’sieur de Crespigny. And with twenty years of service, she had an unlimited supply of anecdotes about her life in the service of the Duchess; though her aunt was careful never to breach the Duchess’s trust, and Lisa was certain there were twice as many stories left untold as the ones she shared with her family.
When Lisa had spent her Christmas holidays at the de Crespigny house, her favorite time was suppertime, with tea and cake around the fire in the drawing room, listening to her aunt’s stories of when she had lived in a palace full of servants and rooms lit with enough candles to turn night into day. Her aunt’s tales were full of magnificent mansions made of marble, carriages pulled by Arabian horses, and fragrant gardens dotted with fountains and follies. There were balls under brilliantly-lit chandeliers, routs in gilded drawing rooms, masquerades attended by hundreds, and picnics by a lake. And at the center of it all, a beautiful elfin queen—the Duchess—and right behind her, Lisa’s aunt, part of this fairy tale world inhabited by dukes and duchesses, kings and princes, noblemen and their ladies, and all of the
m dressed in sumptuous silks and glittering diamond finery.
Lisa did not doubt her aunt held a special place in the Duchess’s affections. Not only had she been with her for two decades, she had helped her through the births of her noble children, the last infant born just nine years ago, and well after her aunt had left the Duchess’s employ. She had been called back to be with Her Grace at the birth, to help in the nursery in those first few days, and had a privileged place at the christening. Lisa remembered this vividly because it happened around Christmastime, and her aunt was away from home for some weeks, the first Christmas the family had spent without her. But no one begrudged her attending on the Duchess; all saw it as a great honor. So Lisa understood why the Duchess would help her aunt if she asked for it, and sponsor the de Crespigny girls’ admittance to an exclusive boarding school for young ladies. She also knew her aunt would do whatever the Duchess wished of her, and, astonishingly to Lisa, it seemed what the Duchess wanted was for Lisa to be given letters and to accept an invitation. Why? And she wondered why her aunt was not happy about this outcome.
“I would never do anything to jeopardize my aunt’s place in the Duchess’s affections,” Lisa assured her cousins. “You must believe me, Minette, Henriette. I know how much your mother treasures her years in the Duchess’s service… What I do not understand is why you think I could—”
“If you dare say or-or do anything that might interfere or diminish the special bond between Mama and Her Grace, we will hate you for the rest of your days!” Henriette spat out. “Do you understand?”
Lisa nodded, taken aback by her cousin’s vitriol. She looked to Minette, wondering if she felt the same.
“If you do not behave yourself, if you cause Mama the slightest aggravation, or worse, if you do something that offends Her Grace or a member of her family, we will have no option but to disown you,” Minette lectured. “We do not want that to happen, or to cast you adrift, but we will. You were almost sent away after your expulsion from Blacklands, but we thought better of it, given your tender years. But Papa had no compunction about ostracizing your father. Toussaint de Crespigny was a thief and a drunk. He stole from his family, drank his inheritance away, and left you and your mother to rot in a poorhouse. The only commendable thing he ever did was change his name to Crisp.”
“Our parents saved you from a poorhouse. You owe it to them—and most particularly to Mama—not to disgrace yourself before the Duchess of Roxton and Kinross and her family.” Henriette adding in an enunciated hiss, “Do—you—understand?”
Lisa nodded again, more vigorously this time, sick to the pit of her stomach and trembling to be so reviled. She saw Henriette’s fury and Minette’s displeasure, but she could not understand why their anger was tinged with resentment and bitterness.
“I must—I must be thick-headed today because I-I still do not understand why you think—How you would think—I could cause your parents such-such distress… I have never met the Duchess, nor am I ever likely to. Please. I do not wish to-to upset anyone. Tell me—Tell me what I must do so I can—I can ease your distress.”
“You cannot ease it. It is out of our hands now,” Minette explained. “All we can do is what has been asked of us, then send you off. Of course we will pray each and every day you are away that you acquit yourself without incident. But you have this knack of getting yourself into trouble and thus noticed—But not this time, Lisa. Understand me?” Before Lisa could respond, Minette looked to her sister. “Give her the invitation and the letters, Henriette, and let’s be done with this.”
“But we won’t be done, will we?” Henriette argued, the bitterness still evident in her tone, and speaking in French. “We have been tasked with clothing her. I have a couple of cast-off gowns—ones I was going to give to my maid—for daywear. They can be altered easily enough; she has no breasts or hips, so there is ample material to be trimmed. I don’t have a servant girl I can spare to act as her maid. Perhaps you have—”
“Spare one of my girls? I think not.”
“At least you won’t need to employ a string of dancing masters or music teachers. She can sing and play the pianoforte, if requested. Blacklands taught us that much.”
“Yes. She does carry herself well, and is good at languages,” Minette responded, lying back against the cushions, a hand to her forehead. “All this has given me the headache, Henriette…”
“Thank God for small mercies. Imagine if she couldn’t speak French?” Henriette begrudgingly mused, ignoring her sister’s headache. “The shame of it. And if she remains in the background and doesn’t put herself forward, there won’t be any need for her to even open her mouth in any language.”
Minette roused herself one last time. “Remains in the background? And how, pray tell, is that to be achieved when the invitation is for a stay in the country for two weeks. Two weeks, Henriette. If it were only two days we might have some hope, but a fortnight…? That is asking for trouble. Do not tell Mama I said so. She is worried sick already… Now give Lisa the invitation and be done. Dear Dr. Warner and I have guests to dinner. I must rest my poor head before I change my gown.”
Henriette snatched up something off the table and waved it in Lisa’s face. It was a small packet of letters, atop of which was a gilt-edged card of invitation, and all tied up into a neat bundle with a black silk ribbon.
Lisa put out her hand but Henriette wasn’t ready to relinquish the bundle without revealing the nature of the invitation, and with it, one final scornful lecture.
“You have been invited to spend a fortnight at Treat. That sentence alone would send most girls—no! any other girl—into an ecstasy of excitement, but you haven’t the least notion of the great honor being bestowed upon you! You—”
“Oh, but I do know, Henriette,” Lisa assured her. “Treat is the ancestral home of the Dukes of Roxton. Aunt de Crespigny mentioned it many times. It is the largest privately-owned house in all of England, and has so many rooms, even those that live there can get lost if they take a wrong turn. And there is a lake, and acres and acres of white roses planted by the old Duke for—”
“Yes! Yes! We’ve all heard Mama’s stories,” Henriette interrupted dismissively. “Your task is to get through the fortnight without being noticed. A fortnight will pass like that,” she said with the snap of two fingers. “Your visit to Treat is fleeting. Nothing more than a heartbeat in time. And when it is over, you will have to take your head out of the clouds and return to your life here. Never forget, Lisa: You are poor. You have nowhere else to go, and we are the only family you have. Your life is here in Gerrard Street. The best you can hope for from life is to be of some use to the beggarly poor with your scribbles and helping in the dispensary. Do you understand?”
Lisa nodded obediently, gaze on the packet of letters that was being waved in front of her. She wanted to snatch it, run up to the privacy of her room, and there tug off the ribbon and read each letter quickly, and then again as slowly as possible. Though she had not been told the identity of her correspondent, or why she had received such a startling invitation, she had begun to have an inkling. Yet she dared not hope, because she did not want the inkling to prove false. But who else would invite her to Treat? Who else did she know who had any connection to such a magical place, other than her aunt’s connection to the Duchess?
And then Henriette enlightened her, confirming her inkling.
“Not all your school friends have forsaken you it seems. And the one that did not just happens to have great and powerful relatives. And they do not come any more powerful than the Duke of Roxton, who is Miss Cavendish’s uncle. Imagine that? How fortunate for you! You’ve been invited to her wedding, and Mama has accepted on your behalf. So you’ll be attending. Here’s the invitation,” she said, and tossed the packet into Lisa’s lap. “And there are a few letters she wrote you, too. Now go away and leave us in peace.”
“Teddy! Oh Teddy!” Lisa burst out breathlessly, and such was her overwhelming excitement that
she rushed out of the room without a curtsy, the packet pressed to her bosom.
Teddy had written to her.
Teddy was getting married.
Teddy had invited her to the wedding.
Teddy had not forsaken her after all.
Lisa burst into tears.
SIX
OVERWROUGHT TO THINK her best friend at Blacklands, Miss Theodora Charlotte Cavendish—known as Teddy to friends and family—had not forgotten her, Lisa was in her room, back up against the closed door, with no recollection of how she got there.
She took a moment to compose herself, to quickly wipe her cheeks dry with the back of a shaking hand, and to take a few deep breaths, packet of letters still pressed to her heaving chest. And then she could wait no longer.
Kicking off her slippers and picking up her petticoats, she scrambled up onto her bed. Here she sat, cross-legged, and with shaking fingers untied the black ribbon keeping the invitation and the collection of letters bundled together. With only a cursory glance at the invitation, she set it aside, eager to read the letters first. Seeing her name and her former address—Fournier Street, Spitalfields—written in her school friend’s sloping script she gave a watery chuckle, fingers lovingly caressing those inked letters in a wonderment of recognition, that the letters were indeed from Teddy. And with recognition came remembrances of days long past…
HOW MANY HOURS had they spent sitting side by side, practicing in their copybooks to write in the round hand cursive script of a Blacklands schoolgirl? How many formal letters had they copied out in this script, in English and in French, again all for practice, for when the day came when they were married ladies, and had the leisure to write letters to family and friends from their wallpapered boudoirs. Teddy grumbled good-naturedly at the wasting of time over such pointless penmanship, because when she married she wouldn’t be sitting in a drawing room letter-writing, but would be out riding up hill and down dale in the fresh air. Teddy’s script was made all the more laborious because she wrote with her left hand, which was an extraordinary sight in itself. All girls wrote with their right hands, and those who did not had their left hand tied behind their backs so that they did. Not Teddy. She had permission to use her left hand, as long as she could copy the script as it was written and did not trail her hand in the drying ink.
Satyr’s Son: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Family Saga Book 5) Page 7
