Authors: Strange Bedfellows
“I am so sorry!” Lady March indicated that Lord Parrington should be seated in one of the lavishly embroidered chairs. “Henrietta has a disposition to meddle, alas. It is the result of not having enough worthwhile things to occupy her time.” Nell paused, then her crooked smile flashed. “I will be frank! Formality would be foolish, when you have been pitchforked willy-nilly into our affairs. Henrietta takes every pleasure in setting people at loggerheads.”
This blunt disclosure, while not relieving his apprehensions, did prompt Lord Parrington to award his hostess a second, closer glance. She was a well-setup female, he discovered, though not so flamboyantly attractive as Lady Amabel. Mab currently not standing high in his favor, Fergus found much to admire in Eleanor’s muslin gown with elbow sleeves and pearl buttons, her paisley shawl with amber tones, even the classical coils in which she wore her chestnut hair. “These last months will have been difficult for you,” he remarked. “You will be glad that Lord March has come home.”
“Oh, yes!” Lady March’s expression, as she turned toward her spouse, was very fond—so fond that Fergus found it in himself to pity her because Lord March was intent on Lady Amabel. Lady March was too unworldly to realize that a blatant flirtation was being carried on right under her nose. Thought of such an innocent enduring the abuses of a gazetted philanderer—for no one but a philanderer would turn that irresistible charm upon any lady other than his wife—wrenched the baron’s heart. Or perhaps Lady March
did
realize her husband’s perfidy and chose to put a good face on it. Here was a female worthy of a gentleman’s highest regard—one, moreover, with troubles worse even than his own.
Unaware of the role assigned her by Lord Parrington, Nell could not imagine what caused that young man to stare. She decided he must be curious about Marriot’s reappearance, as who would not. “My husband has been in Cornwall—I fear his bailiff had absconded with some revenues—too, we had had a difference of opinion—” Lord Parrington’s sympathetic expression caused Nell a guilty pang, and her voice trailed off. How she loathed deception! But she would loathe it even more were Marriot taken as a thief. “But nothing to signify!”
Doubtless that difference of opinion had concerned a woman, thought Lord Parrington; perhaps even Mab. “Of course it does not signify. All that must matter to you now is your husband’s return.” Fergus frowned. “Then it was not true when Amabel hinted that enemy agents were concerned.”
“Enemy agents?” Lady March recalled Mab’s tale. “No, it was not. I am sorry to say so, but Mab’s fondness for adventure sometimes leads her to say things she should not. Doubtless Mab would have liked it very well had Marriot become involved with spies and smugglers, but I assure you Marriot would not have liked it at all!” Her expression was amused. “My husband is no corsair.”
Lord Parrington, watching Lady March’s husband attempt to teach Lady Amabel macao, suspected Lord March was a great deal more adventurous than his wife thought. Certainly Mab seemed to be enjoying her game very well; scarce a moment passed that she didn’t giggle or flutter her eyelashes or blush. “You must not hold Mab’s impulsiveness against her!” Lady March added. “She means no harm by it.”
Nor did a carrier of the plague mean harm, reflected Fergus, and lack of intention did not lessen the number of death carts. Not that he suspected Lady Amabel had dealt him a fatal blow. In the coolest of manners, Lord Parrington had decided it was time he fix his affections, and had settled upon Mab as a suitable wife. Now he began to wonder if his mama had been correct in claiming the hour was unripe.
Lady March could not help but be aware that her visitor labored under some strong emotion, though she could not guess at the considerations that exercised his mind. In point of fact, Lady March would have been surprised at those considerations, for Fergus did not give the appearance of a young man experiencing grave self-doubts. For the first time made aware that he possessed other than sterling qualities, young Lord Parrington was responding with near revulsion, and for his divergence from his usual unexceptionable behavior he unhesitantly blamed Mab. Fergus had never dreamed of ripping up at elderly ladies, or withholding things from his mama, before that young woman’s entrance into his life.
His impeccable manners had deserted him along with his usual good humor, Fergus realized; as result of his continued silence, Lady March was looking very puzzled. Fergus cast about in his mind for an innocuous topic of conversation, one that would involve neither profligate peers nor impulsive misses. “Even though your husband was not engaged with enemy agents, we may be sure others have been!”
Though the antics of the Corsican’s hirelings were not something with which Lady March usually concerned herself—Lady March had had much more immediate troubles these last several months—she gallantly tried for an appropriate response. “Mab thinks women should be permitted to join the militia!” Nell offered weakly. Retorted Lord Parrington in an ungallant manner, “Mab would!”
Lady March had become aware that young Lord Parrington had not the aspect of a young man very far gone in infatuation, as Nell had assumed must be the condition of any gentleman kissed by Mab. In fact, Lord Parrington had done no more than render the merest observances of civility—to Mab, at least—while in this room. Had they quarreled? wondered Nell. And then she wondered, somewhat indelicately, why Mab had wished to kiss the baron in the first place. Still, Mab
had
wished it, else she would not have done so. Perhaps there was something Nell could do to set her friend’s interrupted romance aright.
Enemy agents and the militia having served him poorly, Lord Parrington sought some alternate topic. It would not do for Mab to realize her perfidy had left him feeling like a leaden lump. Why was it he had never before realized Mab was a dreadful flirt? Just as his mama had claimed? She was so busy with Lord March that she had no thought to spare himself. Some marital bliss he might look forward to! A wife whose flirtatious glances were directed ever elsewhere. “What think you of Bonaparte’s coronation, ma’am?” he asked.
“Hmm?” Lady March was pondering the means by which she might best assist romance. “The coronation? I was not there. Oh! You mean, what do I think of what I’ve heard? I have heard very little about it, in truth. Henrietta has had a great deal to say on the subject, being an avid reader of the newssheets, but I have not paid her the heed I ought.”
“You have had other things with which to concern yourself.” Lord Parrington promptly set himself to remedy Lady March’s abysmal ignorance of the monumental events that had lately transpired in the world.
To Lord Parrington’s attempts at enlightenment, Eleanor paid scant heed, though at some other time she might have been very well entertained by his account of the five-hour long coronation procession, and the ceremony which took place in Notre Dame. When the baron’s voice trailed off, she roused. “You will think me a poor sort of hostess! Pray forgive my inattention. There is a great deal on my mind—not that it excuses my air-dreaming!”
“Do not regard it,” responded Fergus, ever kind.
Dared she ask outright if Lord Parrington and Mab had quarreled? Nell glanced at the baron’s godlike countenance, and in its marble immobility found very good reason why she should not. Yet one wished to do something to right whatever had gone amiss. Then there was the ever-present puzzle of how Marriot had spent his six-month absence. Eleanor sighed.
Lady March had good reason for preoccupation, decided Fergus, chiefly her husband’s blatant flirtation with a scheming little minx. Lord Parrington experienced another compassionate pang. “I must take my leave of you niw,” he murmured. “I will have to render my apologies to your cousin some other time.”
“You mean to apologize to Henrietta?” Eleanor looked startled. “Whatever for? Perhaps I should not say so, but it sounds to me like Henrietta should apologize to
you!”
“No, no!” Lord Parrington hoped he was gentleman enough to admit when he was wrong. “I spoke much more sharply to her than she deserved.”
In Eleanor’s opinion, no one could speak more sharply than Henrietta deserved. “As you wish,” she said doubtfully. “Henrietta will be sorry that she wasn’t here to receive you herself.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Few knew better than Fergus how elderly female minds worked. “Though the circumstances of our meeting have not been auspicious, I hope you will not hold it against me, Lady March. If you should not mind it, I would like to call on you again.”
Call on
her?
Eleanor was puzzled until she realized the baron sought an unexceptionable excuse to visit Mab. His mama must be quite a tartar, Nell decided. “We would be pleased,” she replied. Satisfied, for he had formed the noble intention of consoling Lady March for her husband’s neglect, as well as the ignoble intention of giving Mab a sorely deserved set down, Fergus took his leave.
Satisfied though Lord Parrington may have been with the outcome of his visit, others were a great deal less. No sooner had the door closed behind the baron than Lady Amabel cast herself upon Lady March’s breast and burst into noisy tears.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Due to these developments, as well as her ever-present concern for Marriot, Lady March’s spirits were not greatly improved the next day. Nor were the efforts of her companion directed toward that goal. Indeed, Henrietta might have expressly sought to do the opposite. “I do not stand on ceremony with you, Eleanor! “ she uttered. “You must perceive that to leave any gentleman alone with that young woman is to invite disgrace!”
Lady March scowled at her reflection in a plate glass shop window. “Henrietta,” she said untruthfully, “I have not the most distant guess what you are talking about!”
Why Eleanor was frowning in that dreadful fashion at her own image, Henrietta did not know. Had
she
been decked out in such a pretty conversation hat—a sarcenet confection lined with silk and crowned with flowers, which covered one ear and tied under the chin with blue ribbons—she would have been feeling quite top of the trees. And had she been privileged to wear a walking dress with a gathered flounce above the hem, and a military pelisse— Alas, poor relations possessed no such stylish things.
“I am talking about Lady Amabel.” Henrietta’s lack of material possessions was compensated for in part by her ability to spread discontent. “I most earnestly conjure you to keep a close eye on that girl. Your fondness blinds you to her faults, I think, else you would not have left her behind with Marriot.”
“Left her—” Lady March stared. “Have you windmills in your head, Henrietta? Marriot has known Mab from the cradle.”
“Tut!” Such staggering
naïveté
caused Henrietta to shake her head. “That makes it all the worse. You must not permit yourself to be blinded by affection, Eleanor, although it is to your credit that you don’t wish to think poorly of the chit.”
Lady March’s thoughts regarding her companion, on the other hand, did her no credit at all. Only this reflection enabled Nell to swallow Henrietta’s strictures with a semblance of good grace. “You are making a piece of work about nothing. I wish to hear no more of this.”
“But, Eleanor, you must!” Henrietta was in the habit of considering no wishes above her own. “Else you find yourself again left wondering when—if!—your husband will come home. Anyone must see how it is with you and Marriot, even if you do not choose to tell me exactly why you quarreled. Odd that we did not suspect earlier—but sometimes these tendencies do not become apparent until mid-life!”
Lady March had rapidly come to regret the generous impulse that had prompted her to ask Henrietta’s company on this foray into Oxford Street. She would much rather have remained in Marcham Towers, where Marriot and Mab had progressed from vingt-et-un to hazard and faro and other games of pure chance. Yet if she had stayed within doors, then Henrietta would have also, thereby cutting up everyone’s peace.
“What
tendencies do you accuse Marriot of belatedly displaying?” she inquired crossly. “I warn you, Henrietta, that I don’t care for this farrago of nonsense!”
“Of course you don’t!” Henrietta looked arch. “But I could never forgive myself if I did not drop a gentle hint. You are very unworldly, are you not, dear Eleanor? Not that I mean to suggest you should be any other thing! Those of us who have had to make our own way, as it were, learn very quickly to recognize a spade, and to call it by name! In short, I fear that Lady Amabel’s
scruples
are not what they should be.”
If only Mab could be persuaded to be conciliating, or Henrietta more forbearing—but Mab and Henrietta held each other in equally keen dislike. “Fudge!”
retorted Eleanor, who was more disposed to take Mab’s behalf. “I never heard anything half so absurd.”
“Absurd, you call me?” Henrietta’s plump cheeks turned pink. “When you discover Lady Amabel kissing Marriot you may change your mind!”
“When I discover—” The novelty of this suggestion caused Eleanor to pause mid-stride. “Henrietta,” she chuckled, “you are a goose! Mab and Marriot are friends. You must not suspect poor Mab of being a coquette just because you happened to see her kiss Lord Parrington. Most young ladies
would
like to kiss Parrington, I daresay. Mab was merely resourceful enough to do it! If behavior is to be censured, Henrietta, yours was worse than Mab’s. All she did was kiss a young man for whom she feels a deep affection.
You
were the one who carried tales.”
As is not unusual among those who ascribe to plain dealing, Henrietta did not like that practice applied to herself. “Well!” she gasped.
“No,
not
well!” Lady March abandoned herself to the ill humor attendant upon her cousin’s countless spiteful remarks. “In point of fact, it was very ill done. Mab does not deserve that you should seek to do her so poor a turn, nor I daresay does Parrington. He seemed a perfectly unexceptionable, amiable young man. Yet you must do your utmost to pose them difficulties. Henrietta, I wish you would not be so busy about other people’s affairs! But I did not mean to scold you. We will say no more of it.” She directed Henrietta’s attention to a shop window displaying silks and muslins and calico, then to a plumassier’s stock of fancy feathers and artificial flowers, and at last led her into the Pantheon Bazaar.