An Unsuitable Match (5 page)

Clarice came downstairs late the following morning, not so much due to the hour at which she had finally fallen asleep, but as a ploy to avoid her father.

As soon as she entered the breakfast room, she knew her plans had been for naught.

Seated at the head of the breakfast table sat her father, Henry, Sixth Earl of Langham. He was a man renowned within the
ton
for his uncanny ability to make vast sums of money out of nothing. Those foolish enough to cross Lord Langham quickly discovered he also possessed a fearsome temper.

The one person who seemed able to avoid the full wrath of Lord Langham was his only child, Clarice.

‘Good morning, Clarice,' the earl said as he snapped the spine of his newspaper and turned a page over.

‘You are breakfasting late,' she replied.

‘I went for an early ride in Hyde Park and then decided to wait for you,' he replied, continuing to look at the paper.

She sat down and watched silently as a footman poured her a cup of coffee. Unlike many of her social peers, Clarice couldn't stand the taste of tea. The footman brought over a plate laden with eggs, bacon and roast potato. With the memory of her near-death experience still fresh in her mind, she left the potato well alone.

Silence reigned for several minutes, broken only by her father dismissing the servants.

She swallowed a piece of well-chewed bacon and waited.

‘So what are your plans for today? Will you be walking in the park with Lady Susan and her cousins this afternoon?' he asked.

She looked at her father. Was there any doubt as to what she would be doing today? The same as every other day during the season. Hiding at home until late afternoon and then going out with Susan and the Winchester sisters for their daily ramble in Hyde Park.

She began to count slowly from one to ten. Was today the day she got past three?

‘You should go out and do a spot of shopping with them this morning. I'm sure you could find some new things to buy,' her father added.

Two.

She gave her father a smile as she stabbed another piece of bacon with her fork. Every morning came with the same questions. And every morning she gave him the same answer.

‘Yes, Papa. I shall see if I feel up to it.'

He held her gaze for a moment. And as with every other day, Clarice thought her father was going to say something more. That he was going to plead with her to come out of mourning. But every day he would simply look at her, and then give a resigned nod of his head.

Once, when rumours of a possible betrothal between Clarice and the Marquess of Brooke had been circulating, her father had risen from his chair and come to her side. With a hand placed gently on her shoulder, he had mentioned that Wilding and Kent was having a sale and that he had arranged a new account with them.

She'd agreed to visit the shop, but had not actually managed to set foot inside it yet.

‘I might go and spend some time at the drapers; I understand they have some lovely new fabrics,' she said.

Clarice picked up a piece of toast and crushed some orange marmalade on to it. With any luck, that answer would placate her father. The earl stood and walked over to her chair. He handed her a note, which she read briefly.

It was from Lady Alice, her paternal grandmother. When she got to the part where the dowager Countess Langham announced her intention to arrive in London within a matter of days, Clarice gritted her teeth. Her life was complicated enough at present; the prospect of Lady Alice joining them for the rest of the season only added to her list of woes.

‘Perhaps you could wait a day or two before you go shopping, and take your grandmother with you. I am sure she will have an opinion on the type of cloth you should purchase.'

Clarice folded up the paper and handed it back to her father.

‘Yes, of course.'

Lady Alice Langham had an opinion on every subject.

‘Good,' he replied before placing a fatherly kiss on her forehead.

As he turned and headed toward the door, Clarice let out the breath she had been holding. Her father stopped just before his hand reached the door handle.

‘My diary is rather full, and since your grandmother is due to arrive sometime soon I shall ask her to chaperone you to most social events for the rest of the season. I hope that meets with your approval. She will keep a careful watch over you.'

‘Yes, Papa.'

He closed the door behind him.

She picked up the rapidly cooling piece of toast and licked the marmalade off the top before putting it back on the plate. The mixture of sweet and tangy citrus sat in the middle of her tongue as she sucked it to the roof of her mouth.

With no-one to correct her manners, she leaned forward and placed her elbows on the table, cupping her chin in her hands.

‘I just need sleep,' she murmured.

Tired from the late night, she had hoped to drift off as soon as she went to bed. But last night, as with most others, she lay awake in the dark. When sleep finally arrived, it gave her little rest.

Somewhere in the hour just after dawn, she had woken, chilled by the damp sweat on her skin. Sitting up in bed, she wiped away the dream-induced tears.

It was always the same dream. Her mother falling and Clarice racing to catch her before she hit the ground. Every time, she would get her fingertips to her mother's outstretched hand, and every time, she failed to save her. The punishment for her crime, it would seem, was for her to relive that moment over and over again each night.

She yawned and, putting her fingers to her face, felt the puffy bags under her eyes.

‘Another good reason to stay indoors today.'

She sat back in the chair and surveyed the table. Since it was now only the two of them at home, she and her father used the breakfast room for all their meals at Langham House.

The earl had not held a dinner party in the house since his wife's death. With his mother resident in the country for most of the year and Clarice still effectively in half-mourning, he lacked the services of a society hostess.

‘And no-one in their right mind would think me a suitable alternative,' she muttered to the empty room. Susan's unkind words still echoed in her mind.

She winced, recalling the single time her grandmother had dared suggest her son remarry. The blistering row had continued unabated for hours, at the end of which Lady Alice summoned her travel coach and left for the family estate in Norfolk. Mother and son had spent the best part of a year barely speaking to one another. Christmas 1816 was not a happy one for the Langham family.

‘Perhaps this year will be different; who knows?' she said and rose from her chair.

She opened the door and her heart gave a start when she discovered someone was on the other side.

‘What are you doing here?'

Lady Susan Kirk gave Clarice her customary tired, put-upon look and sighed. She waved her hand, languidly pointing further down the hallway. Clarice stepped into the hallway and saw the reason for her friend's expression. Susan's two cousins were there, staring at a large oil painting of a horse.

The Winchester sisters. To say they were a little dim would be kind. Nature had blessed Heather Winchester with startling beauty, but the contents of her brain consisted mainly of lace and frippery. Having been promised since birth to a much older but titled man didn't seem to faze her the least. She would be married by the end of the season, and her intended husband would simply be a new source of money.

The other Winchester sister, or ‘Screech' as Susan called her behind her back, was the most untalented of budding violin players in the whole of London.

‘I didn't realise we had arranged to go out this morning,' Clarice said.

Susan shook her head. ‘We hadn't, but if I had to stay and listen to Daisy strangle one more cat, I would have committed murder. Sorry, Clarice, but you were the only person I could count on being out of bed at this hour of the day. Besides, it gives you an opportunity to make things up to me after last night.'

Clarice was in two minds. Should she take offence at being used as an excuse to escape Daisy's violin practice, or be glad that Susan had thought to repair their friendship?

Heather Winchester pointed toward the painting and whispered hurriedly in her sister's ear. They both put a hand over their mouths and giggled.

‘Oh Lord; they have seen the male part of the horse's anatomy; we shall never get out of here now,' Susan moaned.

Clarice stifled a chuckle. ‘So do you have plans for the four of us today, or are we just going to leave those two to their own devices and slip out through the rear mews?' she asked.

Susan clicked her fingers and when the Winchester sisters turned their heads, she pointed to a spot on the hall carpet a foot or so in front of her. Heather and Daisy exchanged one last insipid giggle before making their way toward her.

‘It really is like having two small children with me at times. We don't need a footman to chaperone us, we need a nursemaid,' Susan said.

She turned and looked at Clarice, her gaze taking in her pallid complexion. ‘Another bad night?'

Clarice nodded. ‘Overtired again and then couldn't get to sleep. Papa decided to stay to the bitter end.'

The surface reasons for her insomnia were simple enough. Since her mother's death, Clarice's nerves had been on edge and she found it difficult to sleep. Knowing that whatever confidences she shared with Susan would find their way back to her father, she kept to this socially acceptable story. The truth of her constant, guilt-ridden nightmares was hers alone.

‘So where are we off to?' the Winchester sisters asked in unison. They looked at one another before dissolving into another fit of giggles.

‘Tattersall's! We can go and see the horses!' Heather exclaimed. She clapped her hands together in appreciation of her own cleverness.

‘Would you please go and get your things, Clarice?' Susan said through gritted teeth.

Clarice groaned.

It was going to be a long day.

After so many hours spent with Susan and the Winchester sisters, Clarice decided they would test the patience of all the saints.

Endless hours in the gloves section of several different shops in Cranbourn Alley, during which Daisy tried on no fewer than twenty pairs of almost identical white gloves, and Clarice was ready to help Susan murder the sisters and hide the bodies. In the last shop, Daisy and Heather finally both chose matching pairs of kidskin leather gloves and headed to the counter to pay for their purchases.

‘You do realise that apart from the tiny blue button on the wrist they are
exactly
the same gloves as they are both already wearing,' she murmured to Susan.

‘Don't mention it; otherwise I think I shall scream,' Susan replied.

Clarice bought a pair of plain white gloves. With several weeks still left in the season, she was bound to lose a pair at some point. Susan, for her part, kept her reticule tightly closed.

The thought of offering to buy her a new pair as a peace offering crossed Clarice's mind, but knowing Susan, there was every chance the gesture would be misconstrued and cause another tiff. By the time the party returned to Langham House, after spending nearly two hours in Hyde Park, Clarice was nursing a dull headache that throbbed behind her left eye. Susan finally lost her temper with the Winchester sisters as they headed back up Park Lane, and both Heather and Daisy departed from Langham House in floods of tears.

A note from her father informing her of his expected late arrival home was the perfect excuse for Clarice to take supper in her room and retire early. Bella prepared a strong tonic for Clarice's headache and laid out a clean nightgown behind the dressing screen.

‘Are you all right, milady? Did you wish me to draw you a hot bath?' Bella asked.

Clarice attempted to shake her head, but quickly thought better of it.

‘Thank you, Bella, but no. I shall try and get some sleep, or at least lie down so that my head stops spinning.'

Bella opened the small paper and string package from the shopping trip and put the new gloves inside the drawer along with the others. Clarice pretended not to hear her maid's disappointed sigh when she took out the single pair of plain white gloves. Shopping had never been one of Clarice's favourite pastimes. The endless hours spent going from shop to shop, tagging behind her mother while Lady Elizabeth searched for the perfect pearl button, had left a lasting impression on her.

‘Did you go near Wilding and Kent today? One of the housemaids told me they have a sign in their window announcing a brand-new shipment of fabric just arrived from Paris. The latest exotic prints,' Bella said, quietly closing the drawer.

‘No,' Clarice replied, knowing that her father would be disappointed. Behind the dressing screen she removed her bindings and hid them under a cushion. She slipped the nightgown over her head.

She crossed the floor and slowly climbed the bed steps. Bella pulled back the bedclothes and removed the warming pan. Clarice slid under the blankets and lay down. She loved feeling the heat on the sheets just after the pan had been taken away.

‘Warm enough for you, Milady?' Bella said as she pulled the covers up.

‘Yes, thank you,' Clarice murmured. The tonic began to work its wonder; and before she had a chance to fight it, sleep overcame her and she slipped into a deep, drug-induced slumber.

Clarice hid in her room for most of the following day, only coming down for luncheon. If Lady Alice had stuck to her usual travel route and overnighted at Harlow, then she would likely be in London within a day. Then the questions would begin.

It was not that Clarice disliked her grandmother, but rather that in the years since her mother's death, Lady Alice had made it her personal mission to take Lady Elizabeth's place as Clarice's mother figure.

With guilt her constant companion, her bright and jovial grandmother made Clarice decidedly uncomfortable.