Authors: Amanda Scott
“Takes a deal for granted, does she not?” Mollie muttered. Then, seeing Lady Bridget’s shocked expression, she smiled. “Don’t fret, ma’am, I shan’t deny her. I suppose you’d better bring her up, Ned, but first send a man to inform the master of her arrival.”
“I sent Michael up immediate, ma’am, thinking if you wasn’t wishful to, perhaps the master would handle matters.”
“Very well,” Mollie told him, slightly nettled that he had sent for Hawk before coming to her. But she controlled her irritation, recognizing it for what it was. She and her husband had continued in charity with each other for some days now. It was a state she enjoyed, and she had no wish to allow her own, admittedly often foolish little resentments to upset their good relationship.
“I dislike meeting Beatrix in all my dirt,” said Lady Bridget fretfully.
“Don’t bother your head about it, ma’am. It may prove to be a blessing in disguise. We can always tell her that, much as we enjoy her company, we simply must retire to refresh ourselves after so long and tiresome a journey. She detests traveling, you know, and so is very likely to believe us.”
Lady Bridget brightened considerably and was able to greet Lady Andrew’s sweeping entrance some moments later with all her natural graciousness. A tall woman, Lady Andrew Colporter carried herself with all the regal hauteur of a queen. Her salt-and-pepper hair was skillfully arranged in coils and twists atop her head, and her blue cambresine walking dress had been cut by a master hand. The dress was trimmed with sable, and she carried a large, matching muff over one hand. Her grande-dame attitude and the way she paused on the threshold when Lofting announced her almost brought Mollie to her feet as she had been trained to do as a child. Repressing the urge, not without a certain amount of pleasure, she greeted Hawk’s sharp-faced aunt with a nod as regal as the one returned to her and invited Lady Andrew to take a seat and join them in a dish of bohea. There were moments, she reflected as the older woman passed her to sit near Lady Bridget, when being a marchioness was truly stimulating.
It had been said of Lord Andrew Colporter’s wife by those who liked her least that marriage into the Colporter family had caused instant amnesia with regard to her antecedents. Lady Andrew never made mention of her own family, though Mollie knew she was a Wantage and therefore sprang from perfectly respectable roots. Nevertheless, Lady Andrew seemed to have put her family behind her, and when she spoke of “the family,” she referred, as everyone knew, to the Colporters. Indeed, Mollie believed that Lady Andrew was a good deal more conscious of what was due “the name” and Hawk’s position than Hawk was himself.
“Merciful heavens, Biddy!” Lady Andrew said as soon as the amenities were over and Lady Bridget had handed her a cup of tea, “I certainly hope you mean to furbish yourself up before you go into company. Your hair and that gown are sadly out of date!”
“Really, Beatrix,” Mollie said sweetly before Lady Bridget could gather her wits to reply to the stricture, “it is scarcely fair of you to descend upon us the moment we arrive and declare our appearances outdated. We have, as you well know, been on the road all day. And considering that neither of us has been cutting a dash for a good year or more, it is outside of enough to condemn our lack of à-la-modality.”
“I’m sure I never meant to criticize,” replied Lady Andrew, looking down her nose. “However, I for one do not consider mourning an excuse to fall into disrepair, Margaret. And I notice, moreover, that your hair is becomingly styled. Not, of course, that you will dare pretend a lack of social activity on your own part this past year. You have not behaved, as I have mentioned on several occasions, in a manner befitting a Colporter. One can only hope, my dear girl, now that Hawkstone is safely returned to us, he will see that you do nothing further to disgrace the family name.”
“Beatrix, you ought not to speak of things you can know nothing about,” Lady Bridget said, rallying with unaccustomed vigor to defend Mollie.
“I know a good deal more than you might suspect,” Lady Andrew told her ominously. Then, as the door opened, she looked up and smiled with something more nearly resembling warmth. “Hawkstone, how good to see you. We were just speaking of you, my lord.”
Dressed now in the dark-blue coat and cream-colored breeches that were normal daily attire for a London gentleman, Hawk strolled forward, lifting his eyeglass to peer first at his guest, then at his wife, whose cheeks were red with anger, and lastly at Lady Bridget, whose pale-blue eyes sparkled with indignation. Lowering the glass, he returned his gaze to Lady Andrew, a smile just touching his lips. “How do you do, Aunt Trixie? Been setting the cat among the pigeons already, have you?”
She set down her cup and pulled off her gloves. “I have merely been telling Mollie that it is too long since you have been among us, Hawkstone, that it is time and more you took up your proper role as head of the family.”
“Have you, indeed?” His tone was gentle.
“We must all be glad to have him home again, Beatrix,” Lady Bridget said pacifically, regaining her composure now that Hawk had come into the room.
“Yes, well, ’tis time and more that he gathered the reins, as I was only this very morning telling Andrew. As your aunt, Hawkstone, and one who cares for the good name of this family, I do not scruple to tell you that you have shirked your responsibilities most shockingly. I have no wish to say more on that head, however.”
“Do you not?” The gray eyes were chilly now.
“Indeed, it is of little use to poker up like that with me, young man,” she informed him. “Though I daresay you like hearing criticism as little as your misguided wife does—”
“Have a care, Aunt,” Hawk warned.
“Yes, well, I’m sure I mean no offense, Gavin, but I believe in plain speaking. No one has ever yet accused me of beating about the bush when there was something unpleasant to be said. However, I shall say nothing further about Margaret’s behavior, for no one is more certain than I that with you at home again, we shall have no further cause to blush for her. However, I take the liberty of hoping that you will take immediate steps, if you have not already done so, to find a sterner man to deal with Harry!”
“What has Harry got to do with anything?” Hawk asked, genuinely bewildered.
“Yes, well, I thought as much,” Lady Andrew stated, casting an accusatory look at Mollie. “I told Andrew precisely how it would be if he did not take it upon himself to write you an account of the whole. But he said there would be time and more to discuss little Harry upon your return. I daresay they’ve been filling your head with rubbishing nonsense about sending the boy to school!”
“I fail to see what concern that matter is of yours,” Hawk said, his lips thinning as his heavy brows drew together.
“’Tis simply that I knew no one else would tell you how abominably he behaves,” she said righteously. “They all cosset and spoil him to death, but I suppose I know my duty better than that. He’s no more business to be sent off to school, where his behavior will disgrace the family name, than…than…well, he oughtn’t to be, and that’s all I shall say,” she ended, faltering at last as the glint in Hawk’s eyes became undeniably glacial.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to tell me more, Aunt?” His tone was not in the least encouraging, and a small, leaden silence followed his invitation.
Then, with a self-conscious laugh, Lady Andrew said, “Well, to be sure, I never meant anyone to take offense.” She reached for her cup and took a small sip, then looked up brightly and said in a tone she might have used to comment upon the weather, “I daresay you have all heard by now about the dreadful attack on Queen Charlotte, have you not?”
As a diversionary tactic it was entirely successful. Lady Bridget uttered a cry of dismay. Mollie quite forgot her indignation, and even Hawk’s expression changed almost ludicrously to one of astonishment. He lifted his glass again and peered at his aunt.
“We certainly had not heard,” he said. “Where did you come by such a tale?”
“Why, ’tis all over town,” she insisted. “Surely, your servants know. I am surprised your man didn’t tell you, Hawkstone.”
“We don’t encourage our servants to gossip,” Hawk said repressively, then spoiled the effect entirely, eliciting a choke from his irrepressible wife, by adding, “Besides, like us, Mawson has only just arrived.”
Mollie stifled the bubble of mirth and returned her attention to Lady Andrew, for once finding herself interested in something the woman had to say. “Tell us,” she invited.
“Yes, well, it happened only yesterday. Her poor majesty was awakened out of a sound sleep at five o’clock in the morning by the assistant mistress of the robes, who was shrieking and screaming at her from just outside her bedchamber door about some imagined wrong or other.”
“How frightening,” Lady Bridget said.
“Whatever possessed the woman?” asked Mollie.
“No one knows for certain, though Miss Davenport—for such is the unfortunate young woman’s name—was born and raised in the queen’s palace. Her mother was rocker to the infant princesses, and in consequence, Miss Davenport became inordinately fond of the Princess Amelia. It is thought that her mind was unhinged by the princess’s death. They believed she had recovered, though she is still subject to fits of melancholy. Nevertheless, it was deemed safe for her to return to her old rooms in the tower above the queen’s bedchamber.”
“Clearly an error in judgment,” Hawk observed dryly.
“Yes, well, it took a page, two footmen, and a porter to subdue her,” said Lady Andrew, “and that only after she had smashed through the outer door to the queen’s chamber and was endeavoring to force the inner door. Then Dr. Willis, who was in attendance upon the king, was sent for, and Miss Davenport was got into a straightjacket!”
“Merciful heavens!” exclaimed Lady Bridget.
“Poor woman,” said Mollie sympathetically, but though she spoke of Miss Davenport, Lady Andrew assumed she meant the queen and replied accordingly.
“Yes, well, you may well say so. I have it on good authority that her majesty was so overcome by fright that she actually sent for the Regent!”
As Mollie, and indeed everyone else in England knew, there was no love lost between Queen Charlotte and her eldest son. If she had sent for him, clearly she had been frightened out of her wits.
“What became of poor Miss Davenport?” Mollie asked.
“Oh, they packed her off to a private lunatic asylum. I daresay she’ll be well enough cared for.” Lady Andrew dismissed Miss Davenport. “I only hope this don’t spoil the grand dinner his highness is giving at Carlton House tomorrow in her majesty’s honor. You mean to attend, do you not?”
Mollie opened her mouth to deny any such intention, but to her astonishment Hawk nodded. “We are. And if I know her majesty, she will recover her nerves quickly enough. There is nothing she delights in more than an entertainment devised solely to honor herself.”
Lady Andrew took her leave a short time later, and even Hawk breathed a sigh of relief.
“That woman!” Mollie muttered between her teeth. Then, realizing she had spoken aloud, she looked up at her husband guiltily. “I’m sorry, sir, but I cannot like your aunt.”
He winked. “You’ve no need to apologize for showing the good sense to dislike her. A thoroughly detestable woman in my opinion. What on earth did Harry do to set up her back?”
Mollie looked quickly at Lady Bridget, and when she saw the pale eyes begin to twinkle, she allowed herself a gurgle of laughter. “I’m afraid your abominable brother smeared honey in her best bonnet the last time she paid us a visit at Hawkstone. Lady Andrew had set it to one side in order to enjoy a dish of tea before they took their departure, and Harry—”
“Say no more,” Hawk said with a chuckle. “I’ll wager I can paint the full scene for myself. She didn’t chance to notice before she put on the bonnet, and when she did, all the furies of hell descended upon your heads.”
“Gavin!”
“Sorry, Aunt Biddy, but wasn’t that the way of it?”
“Indeed it was,” Mollie told him, grinning, “and what with Lady Andrew shrieking for her dresser and your uncle commanding in stentorian accents that Harry be brought to him at once for punishment, it was as good as a play.”
“Oh, Mollie,” wailed Lady Bridget, “how can you say so? It was dreadful.”
“Only at the moment, ma’am,” Mollie replied, patting her hand, “and it was soon over, for all that.”
“I take it Harry had the good sense to play least in sight?”
“Yes, and they couldn’t remain long enough to rout him out, because they had sent word ahead to Oatlands that they meant to arrive that night. As it was, they were delayed while Lady Andrew’s dresser washed the honey from her hair. It was a wonder her ladyship didn’t catch an ague, too, for her hair was still wet when they left.”
“Perhaps she hung her head out the window of the coach to dry it,” Hawk suggested, his expression showing clearly how much he enjoyed the vision thus brought to his mind’s eye.
Mollie chuckled.
“But it was a dreadful thing,” Lady Bridget observed. “Harry had no business to have done it and ought to have been punished.”
Hawk raised his eyebrows. “Do you mean to say he was not?” He looked at his wife, who returned his gaze defiantly.
“No, sir, he was not, because I took it upon myself to countermand your uncle’s orders to Mr. Bates. Lord Andrew had already thrashed Harry himself earlier in the week for the merest trifle, and the poor boy could never so much as show his face without either your uncle or Lady Andrew cross-questioning and criticizing him. Nothing satisfied them. If his nails were not dirty, his hair was not combed to her ladyship’s satisfaction. If he spoke to anyone, either his grammar was corrected or his tone was declared to be impertinent.”
“They said he must not call me Aunt Biddy,” said her ladyship in a puzzled tone. “I must say, Gavin, I thought it was going a little beyond what was necessary to insist that he call me ma’am when no one but dearest Mollie ever does so.”
“It was, indeed,” Hawk agreed, “but you ought not to have let him off scot-free after such a prank, Mollie, no matter what provoked it.”