Barbara Metzger (4 page)

The penmanship wasn't her finest. Hours away from the Hereafter, what else was to be expected? If that sneering Stanford had to squint to read her letter, maybe he'd understand how low she'd had to grovel to regain her position at the school. Her knees must still have scars. Only she hadn't regained her position at all. Another teacher had already been hired. Miss Merrihew reported with a smirk, and had been given Rosellen's bed in the room she'd shared with the French instructor. Of course there was the attic cubby, and Miss Merrihew supposed she could use a penmanship teacher for the younger girls, at less pay, naturally.

Rosellen had had no choice. Her father was gone; another family had moved into the vicarage. Her uncle refused to have a fallen woman under his roof, and her dreams had driven away in a crested carriage. She crawled, all the way up to the attic room, cursing the vainglorious viscount with every step.

If not for him, she wrote, she wouldn't have been garreted in a freezing closet, where she'd gotten a chill, which had left her susceptible to the influenza epidemic that was now claiming her life. Could he forgive himself for killing an innocent woman in her prime? Rosellen couldn't. Let her death be a burden to him forever, she told him, a weighted reminder that power corrupts.
Noblesse oblige be damned,
she wrote, leaving a small blot on the page.
Vive la revolution.

The ink ran out before Rosellen's strength, thank goodness. She managed to push the lap desk off her knees and gather the letters into a pile on the nightstand before collapsing back onto the pillows. There, she had accomplished something. Now all she had to do was hang on till morning, which couldn't be all that far away. Rosellen didn't think she could do it. Her eyes drifted shut.

How sad, she wasn't going to last long enough to see her letters posted, for shining through her closed lids came the light she'd always heard about, come to lead her upward.

"Here, miss, I've pulled the curtains for you so's you can see what a pretty day it is. Sunshine'll make you feel more the thing."

Strange, Rosellen had always imagined dying at night or in the rain or at least on a gray, gloomy day. She could manage only a grunt, which seemed enough for Fanny.

"I looked in twice durin’ the night, but you was so busy with your scribblin’ you never noticed. Th’ doctor was too busy to ask iffen you'd had your laudanum, so I guess it didn't matter none. Didn't do no harm, that I can see."

"Any,” Rosellen corrected, schoolteacher to the end. She found that she could talk more easily, once she'd sipped at the lukewarm tea the maid had brought. “I need to ask a favor of you, Fanny."

"Oh, I don't know, miss, we're still at sixes and sevens after last night. Miss Merrihew is like to sleep in this morning, thank goodness, else I don't know how we'd get everything done before she's up and giving the staff more orders. I don't have no spare time to be bringin’ you bathwater or nothin'."

It would be lovely to greet her parents with clean hair and a fresh nightgown, Rosellen thought, her mind wandering. “No, that's not what I want. I just wish you to see that my letters get posted."

Fanny wrinkled her forehead. “I couldn't do that, Miss Lockharte. You know as how Miss Merrihew has to look over all the young ladies’ mail."

"But I'm not a young lady, Fanny. That is, I'm not one of the students. Besides, half of the letters stay right here. You could get the egg man to take the one for Lord Vance."

"Lord Vance what leases mistress the property for her school? Lud, what truck do you have with the likes of him, Miss Lockharte?"

"Nothing that concerns you. You simply need to ask one of the delivery boys to carry my letter along with him. And take the others to the posting house. Most go to London except Lady Comfrey's. Do you remember Vivian Baldour who married that old man? I believe she is in Bath, where her gout-ridden spouse is taking the waters."

"I hear he's worth an abbey."

Rosellen wasn't interested in the latest gossip. “All that matters is that Vivian will be able to pay for the post. Uncle Townsend and Lord Stanford can well stand the expense, too."

Fanny was scratching her head. “I'm sorry, Miss Lockharte, but it'd mean my job, was th’ mistress to hear of such goings-on. Writin’ to Lord Stanford, by all that's holy."

"There is nothing holy about that dreadful man, Fanny."

"Lud, don't I just know it. I only saw him but once or twice, when he escorted his sister comin’ or goin'. But I swear his eyes alone could lead a girl down the primrose path."

"His eyes were hard and cold, and I don't have time to argue."

"What, are you going somewhere?” Fanny laughed at her own joke.

Rosellen didn't think it all that funny. “The viscount's is the most important letter of all. I cannot go in peace till I know he'll get it."

"I knew you should have had the drops. You've gone and taken the fever again, haven't you?"

Rosellen couldn't tell and didn't care. What did it matter anyway? “I'll take the laudanum now, Fanny, if you'll just see that the letters get posted. I have a few coins to pay the delivery boy and the driver. If any is left, you can keep it for your own.” Rosellen wouldn't be needing her paltry life savings. “And remember, I promised you my red cloak. Take it and go now before Miss Merrihew comes to breakfast, so you'll be warm on the way to the posting house. She'll never know, and I'll rest easy."

The maid had visions of walking to church on Sunday in that lovely wool cape. Sam, the butcher's boy, couldn't ignore her then, not by half. “I'll do it, miss, iffen you're sure that's how you want to spend your blunt."

"I've never been more certain. Here, I'll mark the outsides so that you can tell which go where. See, these two have black marks. They're for Miss Merrihew and her brother. The one with the smudged address is Lord Vance's. The rest go to the receiving office."

"An’ you'll take the laudanum so's no one can say you went without?"

"Yes, I'm ready now.” And she was, drained of her anger, drained of her strength to hold back the tides of fate. She swallowed the bitter dose and watched Fanny put her precious letters in her apron pocket, along with Rosellen's thin purse. Then she watched the sun rise in the sky until her vision blurred and there were two bright lights instead of one. Her eyes drifted shut. Now the lights danced behind her lids, in the waltz she'd never had.

Rosellen took a deep breath. This was not a bad way to die, if one had to die.

To Wynn Alton, Viscount Stanford, Stanford House, Grosvenor Square, London,
he read.
Sir, I am dying and I never had a dog.
What in the blazes? Wynn thought, his eyes glancing through another sentence or two, then traveling down the page to the signature on the bottom. Bloody hell, just what he needed, more misplaced melodrama. Miss Loveharte? Lostheart? He couldn't tell, from the blots on the page. Miss Lonely Heart, he surmised, a female past her last prayers trying to gain his attention. She'd catch cold at that game, Wynn swore. Better women than this upstart had tried to snabble themselves an eligible peer.

Devil take it, he didn't even know the blasted female. For sure he didn't know any woman who would label one of London's premier bachelors an insect. It was a novel approach, he had to admit, tossing the letter onto the trash pile. If there was one thing he didn't need, however, it was another hysterical female. This one sounded like an old biddy with nothing to do except complain about her health and try to make him responsible for every hangnail and headache. He was already responsible for enough high-strung females without taking on strangers, by George.

Sometimes Wynn felt like Atlas, with the weight of the world on his shoulders. He could manage the weight, he thought, if he weren't standing in quicksand. He brushed back his dark hair in a gesture that was more habit than necessity. He was up to his neck in nuisances, and it wasn't even lunchtime.

First there'd been Maude, his mistress. Except that he didn't want a mistress anymore. That is, his mother had brought home to him how his licentiousness was a bad influence on his sister. He was one of the most discreet, fastidious men he knew, so how his mother was even aware of Maude's existence was a mystery to him. Further, Wynn couldn't see how the actions of an unencumbered gentleman of mature years affected the behavior of a silly chit attending debutante balls, but he did not argue with his mother. An upset Lady Stanford suffered paroxysms. After thirty years, Wynn still had no idea what, precisely, a paroxysm consisted of, but his father had lived in dread of them.

Besides, the dowager informed him, she never closed her eyes until he was home at night, so his tomcatting was sure to be the death of her. No matter that his chambers were on the opposite end of the house from the dowager's, nor that she usually resided in Bath or at the family seat in Bedford, she swore she knew when her firstborn wasn't tucked safely in his bed. Wynn was not deceived for a moment into thinking his mother lost a minute's sleep over his whereabouts. She wanted to see him wed and would go to any extremes to further her cause, right down to having one of her attacks. Since Lady Stanford was already confined to a wheel-chair, how could a dutiful son cause his mother more agony? Especially when he was tiring of the opera dancer anyway?

Maude hadn't quite understood. Either that or she preferred rubies to diamonds as a parting gift. Perhaps he should have made his announcement before enjoying her favors, he acknowledged now. Something about diamonds and damp sheets did not fit. Maude had thrown a fit when he announced he wouldn't be coming back to the little house in Kensington. Then she'd thrown a vase, a perfume bottle, and a chair. By the time he reached Stanford House, he smelled like a bordello and looked like a prizefighter—the one who hadn't won the prize.

And there was his mother, sitting in the parlor in her Bath chair with her eternal embroidery, waiting up for him. Since Cousin Lenore, the butler, two footmen, and her lady's maid had to attend the dowager, Wynn received nothing but reproachful looks. Since he was paying all of their inflated salaries, he thought he should have gotten a little sympathy. Slim chance.

Life had certainly been easier before his mother came to Town. The viscount had been his own man then, coming and going at his own whims, not tripping over aged matrons and their more ancient escorts or giggling schoolgirls and their spotted swains. That was another thing. Mother was there to fire off his sister. Why was the blasted process taking two bloody years? Lady Stanford was constantly nattering at him about starting his nursery; Susan should have had hers half filled by now.

Zeus, she'd been a pretty little thing, all pink and white and golden curls, Wynn thought fondly. She was still a devilishly attractive gel, he admitted, only now she wasn't to be comforted with a licorice drop or a ride on his pony. No, now she wanted to attend a masquerade at Vauxhall Gardens in the company of one of London's worst rakes. So what if Tully Hadfield was a boon companion of Wynn's? The blighter wasn't fit to touch Susan's skirts. In fact, if the loose screw tried to touch the chit's anything, Wynn would call him out. So he told him the night before when the rum go had had the gall to ask for Susan's hand, and so he told his sister this morning at breakfast.

He should have worn his burgundy waistcoat. It would have matched the raspberry jam better. After the broken crockery came the tears, which were worse. Hell and tarnation, why couldn't the widgeon toss her handkerchief at the friends he
wanted
her to like? Wasn't he dragging Jack Deforrest and Tripp Hayes over to Stanford House every chance he got? They were steady and reliable, neither drinking nor gambling to excess. Either one of them would make Susan a good husband, but did she make any effort to attach their interest? No, she let Cousin Lenore make polite conversation.

What the deuce was Susan looking for? She could bring either of the chaps up to scratch with the flutter of her long eyelashes. Then she'd be off setting up housekeeping. Mother would return to Bath with Lenore, her embroidery, and her insomnia, and Wynn could get his life back in order.

Women were the very devil, he thought, not for the first time, rubbing his bruised jaw. They were good for only one thing, and that in small doses so they didn't think they owned a fellow. No, he had to admit, they had another use. Mother was right; he needed an heir. The quicksand was rising or he was sinking.

And all he wanted to do was play with his toy soldiers.

They weren't toys, of course, and he didn't play. He painted them, from intricate lead castings he commissioned from his own clay models. No taller than his hand's width, they were painstakingly authentic, down to the gold braid and the ribbons on their chests and the swords at their sides. He used drawings from the War Office, or actual captured uniforms when possible, to guarantee the accuracy of his miniature French troops. That way the British soldiers knew precisely where to aim.

Wynn didn't like to think of his work being used as models for decoys, spying being in ill odor and not quite the gentlemanly pursuit. Then again, painting toy soldiers wasn't the usual pastime for a peer of the realm.

Wynn had been painting the little figures since he was a boy and confined to bed with a broken leg. He'd been unhappy with the faces of his lead soldiers, so he'd begged his tutor for paints and brushes. Relieved to find something to occupy the restless youngster, the tutor had complied, and seen that an art instructor was hired besides, to further lighten his own load. Wynn proved an excellent pupil, although he refused to graduate from Lilliputian warriors to life-size portraits or landscapes. He just wanted to paint toy soldiers. He was good at it, too.

Years later, when the heir to the Stanford succession was denied permission to enter the army and fight his country's battles, Wynn had found another way to be useful. His soldiers were sent to Wellesley and Moore and Graham, whose godsons were reputed to be fond of waging mock battles. Wynn didn't know if any of the generals so much as had a godson. His miniature Marmont and Soult had other uses.