Miss Lacey's Last Fling (A Regency Romance) (2 page)

Aunt Fanny, otherwise known as Lady Parkhurst, had visited Wycombe Hall two or three times over the years—brief stops on her way to some infamous house party or other. She would sweep in with her French gowns and stylish hats and haughty manner, oblivious to the fact that she was never invited and not made especially welcome by her brother. His obvious disapproval made no difference to Aunt Fanny. As children, they had all been wide-eyed with fascination each time their aunt made an appearance. As they got older and better understood the stories about her, most of them found her behavior shocking and wanted nothing to do with her.

Though she still felt a trifle skittish at the prospect of meeting Aunt Fanny again, Rosie secretly admired her, not so much for any of the wild things she was rumored to have done, but for having the courage to live her life exactly as she pleased.

And now Rosie, too, wanted to do as she pleased. Oh, nothing as shocking or improper as Aunt Fanny's escapades. Rosie's desires were simpler, not so daring. Even so, she needed to gain courage to do them, and who better to teach her such courage than Aunt Fanny? Assuming her resolution remained firm and she did not crumple at the formidable woman's feet.

But Rosie had no fear of losing her resolve. It was now or never.

"We are doomed," Ursula repeated. "If Rosie goes about with Aunt Fanny, heaven only knows what sort of scrape she may fall into."

"I am not a child, Ursula."

Ursula gave her a condescending look. "Not in years, certainly. But I am a married woman and know more about these things. You are an innocent, Rosie, and may easily be led into all sorts of folly. Your reputation may be ruined completely. Oh, Papa! How could you countenance such a thing? The woman may be your sister, but you know what she is. Dear Lord, we shall none of us be able to show our faces in town again."

Rosie laughed. "I don't think it is as bad as that."

"Yes, it is," Ursula said. "Aunt Fanny, for God's sake. We are doomed."

*          *          *

"And now we embark upon yet another Season." Maxwell Davenant sank back languidly against the soft cushions of the settee and expelled a sigh of pure ennui. "What a bore."

"An uninspiring prospect, indeed," his hostess said. "All those balls and routs and card parties and such. Nothing of the least interest to keep a person occupied."

Max slanted a glance toward Frances, Lady Parkhurst, to find a smug grin on her face. "You mock me, madam."

"How can I not, when you insist on making such foolish remarks? Boredom, indeed!"

But Max was, in fact, bored. He was thirty-six and this would be his eighteenth Season—half his life spent doing the same thing year after year. This year would be no different from the year before or the year before that. Or from the next year.

If there was a next year.

His hand crept up to his waistcoat pocket and fingered the edge of parchment tucked within. Freddie had known what Max meant. Freddie had been bored, had said precisely that in his suicide note. Throughout the year since his friend's death, Max had come to the conclusion that Freddie Moresby had had the right of it: make an exit at his own time, before ennui and age slowly sucked the life out of him.

"Surely you do not find the same old rounds thrilling from year to year, Fanny. After all, you're—" He paused before he said something he should not.

"I'm what? So old I can remember more Seasons than Methuselah? Well, so I can, but I do not recall ever being bored. Since Basil died, of course, nothing has been quite as enjoyable to me as it once was." She sighed dramatically and placed a hand upon her cheek. "But I go on."

"You do, indeed," Max said, unaffected by her feigned melancholy. Though only a scant year or two in front of seventy, Fanny Parkhurst was still a vibrant and attractive woman. She'd been his father's mistress and he a callow youth when they'd first met, and they had remained friends ever since. He spent many an evening in her drawing room, which was often filled with a diverse and lively assortment of wits and beaux. During the afternoons, however, she was at home to no one but himself and a few others.

"I trust Lord Eldridge," he said, referring to Fanny's latest cicisbeo, "does not bore you, my dear?"

"He does not, you impudent puppy, as if it were any of your business. Nevertheless, I suspect I shall indeed find this Season horribly pedestrian. Did I not tell you that my niece is coming to town?"

"Your niece? Good Lord, Fanny, do not tell me you are to be the girl's chaperone?"

"Apparently so."

Max gave a crack of laughter. "Oh, surely not, Fanny. No one could seriously imagine you in the role of duenna. Ha! It is too ridiculous." He laughed at her look of mock outrage, but soon enough, her own laughter joined his. Fanny, better than anyone, would appreciate the sheer absurdity of Lady Parkhurst as chaperone to any respectable young lady.

"Stop laughing, you horrid boy," she said. "It is not a source of amusement for me, I assure you. I certainly have no wish to play chaperone to anyone, but most especially not to this young woman."

"Oh?" Max's interest was piqued. "And why not? Who is she?"

"Rosalind Lacey, the eldest daughter of my younger brother, Edmund."

"Sir Edmund Lacey? The one you always called the driest limb on the family tree?"

"The very one," Fanny said. "A duller, more tedious man I have seldom met. And yet somehow that dry old stick managed to sprout several new twigs. Six children! Three girls, three boys. Why is it that all the dull ones manage to procreate so easily?"

Max did not comment. Fanny had had only one child of her own—he discounted the old rumors of a by-blow from an earlier alliance, or even a half-sibling from her many years with his own father— and that child had contracted influenza during his last term at Oxford and died shortly afterward. How it must gall Fanny to know that her own wit and liveliness would not live on in another, while her tiresome brother had managed to produce six insipid offspring.

"Of course," she said, "his poor wife died many years back, leaving him alone with all those children." She shuddered visibly.

"And so now Sir Edmund will start sending his wretched motherless girls to you so that you may launch them into Society?"

"Well now, that is one of the curious things about this whole business," she said. "The two younger girls have already been fired off and married. Came to town in their own time and avoided me like the pox, for which, frankly, I was quite thankful. Led about by some Devonshire neighbor, the respectable Lady Something-or-other. But now it's the eldest girl, the most irksome of the lot, who is coming to stay. And Edmund did not ask me to take her in. Goodness, he hasn't written three words to me in years. No, it was Rosalind herself who wrote, asking if she might visit."

"And charitable soul that you are, you found it difficult to refuse such a direct request, no doubt."

"Well, what was I to do?" Fanny gave a decidedly Gallic shrug. "The troublesome creature appealed to my worst instincts. She actually said she wanted to, and I quote, 'experience all that London has to offer.' She could think of no better guide to the most amusing entertainments than her dear Aunt Fanny."

"Clever girl."

"On the contrary, my boy. Rosalind is a priggish, docile little creature so totally lacking in spirit that even to picture her at one the entertainments you and I might enjoy is simply beyond imagining. Of all Edmund's brood, this one always seemed meek as a governess—quietly managing the lives of her siblings after their mother's death while keeping herself in the background."

"She sounds a veritable mouse."

"And so she is. Good heavens, Max, what am I to do with such an odious girl?"

He put up his hands in a defensive gesture. "Don't cast your eyes in my direction, Fanny. Leave me out of it, I beg you. I have no taste for the prim governess type, as you well know. "

"But darling, you must not desert me in my time of need. If I am to parade this chit about town, all my other friends will surely abandon me. I am counting on your support."

Max leaned forward in his chair, tapping his quizzing glass against his knee. "If you expect me to squire the mouse around and dance with her at balls, then you are out, Fanny, for I won't do it."

Fanny brushed aside his concern with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I would never ask such a frightful thing of you, Max. Besides, my objective is to attach the girl to some dull, unsuspecting swain as soon as possible and get her off my hands. I have no doubt she is coming to town in search of one of those stolid, respectable husbands one hears so much about but seldom meets. Good Lord, how am I to find such a paragon?"

Max arched an eyebrow. "Not to put too fine a point on it, my dear, but aren't you afraid your own notorious career along with my scandalous presence might have the effect of scaring off the very sort you wish to attract?"

"What a horrid boy you are, Max. But have no fear. I don't expect you to court the poor creature. I merely hoped to count on your company from time to time when I must take her about town with me. And perhaps to restrain me from flinging her into the Thames when she becomes particularly tiresome."

"What a bore."

"Indeed."

Chapter 2

"Oh, miss, what be that awful smell?"

Rosie tore her gaze from the sights outside the carriage window to look at her maid, who sat on the opposite bench, nose twitching like a bunny. "I believe it is just the smell of the city, Violet. See how the air is slightly smoky? We're not in the country anymore."

"Lord help us," Violet muttered.

The maid's misgivings were not unwarranted. They had entered London some miles back and so far it was not quite what Rosie had expected. The Metropolis was big and crowded, as she had known it would be. But neither of her sisters—both of whom had been rapturous about their Seasons in town—had mentioned anything like the areas of squalor they were now passing through. Old, ramshackle buildings with grime-darkened windows, or no windows at all, lined the narrow, dark alleys and courts that led off the main street. Dingy doorways teemed with filthy urchins, dour laborers, exhausted slatterns, and sprawling drunkards.

"Are you sure 'bout this, Miss Lacey? Coachman'll turn right back 'round to Wycombe Hall, if'n ye asked."

Rosie smiled at the young girl's look of disgust. "Yes, Violet, I am quite sure of what I'm doing."

She became even more confident as the scenery abruptly changed to broad streets lined with large, new, fine-looking buildings. Tidy, bow-windowed shop fronts faced the street, which was flanked on each side by elevated pavements of clean, bright flagstone crowded with fashionably dressed men and women. Boys swept the pavement with rush brooms and were offered coins by gentlemen strollers. Street corners were the territories of hawkers shouting the day's news and ballad singers singing their tales. Three-Penny Postmen darted through the crowds, ringing their bells as they passed.

Suddenly, it all seemed very exciting.

"You see, Violet?" Rosie said. "It is not so bad as you thought."

The maid wrinkled her nose. "I still say it smells funny."

"One comes to London for the Society and the art and the culture, not the fresh air and scenery," Rosie said. "We can have that back in Devon."

"Ay, and ye'll be missin' it soon enough, I declare."

"It will all be there when we return. But I cannot see the opera in Devon. Nor visit art galleries, nor watch a play in a real theater, nor see the menagerie at the Tower, nor attend grand balls, nor all sorts of other things I've come to London to do."

Violet gave an indiscreet snort. "Whatever ye says, miss."

Amused by Violet's rustic apprehensions, Rosie had no intention of allowing her own niggling fears to interfere with her plans.

When the headaches had first begun, she had been afraid she may have contracted the same mysterious illness that had killed her mother. After the diagnosis had been confirmed—by an Exeter physician she had secretly consulted—she had been almost paralyzed with fear. But then she took stock of her life and uncovered an enormous ache in her soul for all she did not know and would never know, for all she had not done and would never do.

Rosie had succumbed to overwhelming waves of self-pity at first, lamenting the waste of so many years looking after others, allowing her own life to pass by in uneventful routine. But it was not too late, not yet, to take back her life before disease incapacitated her.

She had no doubt that London and Aunt Fanny would be the best medicine of all.

"Lord, bless me, what is that place, miss?"

Rosie looked out the carriage window to see an odd-looking building, its ornate Egyptian facade a sharp contrast to the simple buildings on either side. A small crowd of people were queued up outside the entrance. "Oh, that must be the Egyptian Hall," she said. "I read about it in one of the guide books. Mr. Bullock offers exhibits of all sorts of things. In fact, I believe he recently exhibited Napoleon's carriage. Perhaps it is still on display."

"Ooh, do ye think so, miss?"