Edmund poured himself a glass of Madeira and slumped with a groan into one of the deep leather chairs by the fireplace. For once the mere contemplation of his library brought no solace. Two stories high, with a gallery half way up, it was a handsome room large enough for a long table, a desk, and several comfortable chairs. Bookshelves reached from floor to ceiling, interrupted only by two tall windows at one end. A servant had already closed the crimson velvet curtains, shutting out the night and the accursed fog.
Sipping his wine, Edmund stared into the glowing coals in the grate. A fire always burned here in cold or damp weather, both to preserve the books and because this was his sanctuary, inherited from his uncle along with title, vast estates, and vaster responsibilities. On the infrequent occasions when he thought of his uncle, he pictured him poring over a medieval Herbal or a first edition of Chapman.
Whenever Edmund acquired a rare volume, he wished he had known the late earl better and could share with him his pleasure in expanding the superb collection. Now, however, all he wanted was something to distract him for half an hour. A traveller’s tale, perhaps...
The door opened. “You there, Ned?” enquired a cheerful voice. “Ah yes, there you are. I thought you’d have gone to earth in here among your precious books. What a hullaballoo!”
“Do come in, Fitz,” said Edmund ironically as his friend helped himself to Madeira and dropped into the opposite chair.
Not a whit disconcerted, Lord Fitzgerald raised his glass in salute. “Cheers. Her ladyship’s in high fidgets, I hear.”
“Come now, have you ever seen my aunt in high fidgets?”
“Well, no, but Miss Neville says she’s cross as a bear at a stake.”
“I might have known my cousin Neville would spread word of the deplorable influx.”
“I must say, I’d have thought you’d be glad of any additions to the company. Not that I’m complaining, mind you,” Fitz hastened to add. “Devilish good of you to put up with Lavinia and my poor Daphne.”
“Lady Fitzgerald must always be a welcome guest,” said Edmund with more politeness than truth, for he found the lady insipid. He did not go so far as to pronounce Lavinia welcome. “However, the new arrivals can scarcely be counted as assets to our company. I suppose they will dine in the servants’ hall, or in the housekeeper’s room.”
“Passengers on the Mail, weren’t they? Took the Mail myself once or twice, in my misspent youth.”
“You prove my point.” My Lord Winter grinned, a sight few had ever been privileged to witness. The grin was wiped from his face as the library door opened again.
“Fitz? Daphne asked me to tell you... Oh, my lord!” As the gentlemen rose to their feet, Lavinia abandoned her pretence of conveying a message from her sister. “I was prodigious shocked to hear of those dreadful people pushing their way into the Abbey. You are excessively charitable, I vow, to permit them to stay.”
“I had little choice, Miss Chatterton. The fog is... er...impenetrable.”
“Still, I think you are prodigious kind. Miss Neville said one of them is a disgracefully impertinent girl, a despicable creature.”
“Miss Brooke was certainly outspoken.” Perversely, Edmund found himself coming to the young woman’s defence. “She was concerned for a fellow-traveller, I believe, who was in some distress.”
“A ploy to gain your sympathy, no doubt,” Lavinia sniffed. “Such vulgar people are beneath one’s notice.”
“I daresay you will wish to take dinner on a tray in your chamber, then, Miss Chatterton. Certain of my unexpected guests will be dining with us.” He ignored Fitz’s raised eyebrows.
“You are hoaxing me, sir!”
“On the contrary, ma’am,” he said coldly. “I am not accustomed to hoax.”
Her eyes widened in alarm. “Of course, my lord, if you think it proper...” she gabbled. “Pray do not suppose that I mistrust your judgement.... Excuse me; I must go and see if Daphne needs me.”
“What was it Daphne sent you to tell me?” enquired her brother-in-law.
“To tell you? Oh, nothing important, Fitz. I have forgotten it. You had best ask her yourself. You cannot expect me to recall every trifling whim.” Miss Chatterton flounced from the room.
“Little minx,” said Lord Fitzgerald. “A transparent excuse, if ever I heard one. I’m sorry, Ned, I’ll have a word with her about pursuing you in here. I shouldn’t have brought her, but my mama-in-law, you know...”
“Few could withstand the combined forces of Lady Chatterton and my aunt.”
“You
could, I wager, and can, and will. Tell me about this Miss Brooke of yours. A beauty, is she?”
“No, passable but nothing beyond the ordinary.” Edmund remembered mocking blue eyes. “A saucy wench. And she is not
my
Miss Brooke.”
“I suppose she is fit to sit down at table with gently bred females?” Fitz asked. “You said at first they were to dine in the servants’ hall.”
“What, you don’t trust my judgement? She was, as I said, outspoken, but not vulgar. Miss Gracechurch, the older woman, had something of refinement in her air, I fancy.” He reached for the bell-pull and rang. “I shall leave it to Bradbury to sort the sheep from the goats.”
A footman appeared on the instant and was sent for the butler. Bradbury received his instructions in stolid silence, but Edmund recognized his deep disapproval. Was the servant yet higher in the instep than his master? No, for already Lord Wintringham regretted the impulse that had made him lower his standards for the sake of giving Lavinia a set-down.
Bradbury bowed and departed.
“So you really mean to go through with it,” marvelled Fitz. “Of all men, you’re the least likely...”
“Enough of my unbidden guests,” Edmund said impatiently. “Will you play backgammon?”
“Make it billiards and you’re on.”
Since Lord Fitzgerald regarded backgammon as an intellectual pursuit and had an oft-expressed aversion to all things intellectual, Edmund acquiesced. He left his sanctuary with considerable reluctance, praying that neither his whining brother-in-law nor his hearty cousin-in-law would be found in the billiard room.
Thus far he was in luck, but there his luck deserted him. After three games, Fitz went up to change for dinner fifteen guineas the richer.
Edmund repaired to his apartment. His valet, Alfred, awaited him in the dressing-room with hot water, freshly pressed evening clothes, and unabashed curiosity.
“Your lordship’s set the hen-house in a right flutter,” he observed, shaking out his master’s jacket.
“You are referring to a certain consternation in the servants’ quarters, I take it.”
“That I am. There’s them as can’t think what’s got into your lordship to invite them Mail coach people to sit down at table with you. Your razor, my lord.”
“Thank you.” Edmund smoothed his chin with the straight-edged blade, speaking out of the corner of his mouth. “It was a momentary whim, Alfred, to put Miss Chatterton in her place for considering them beneath her touch. It’s devilish difficult to find an excuse to snub Miss Chatterton when her sister is married to my friend, especially as her ladyship favours the girl.”
“So that’s the way of it.” The servant nodded wisely. “I reckoned summat of the sort.”
“You will not speak of it, however!”
“’Course not, my lord,” said Alfred, injured. “I don’t never gossip about our affairs.”
“I know it, man, though I cannot think why not, since you are an incorrigible gossipmonger.” Edmund washed the soap off his face and reached for the ready-warmed towel. “Tell me with whom I shall be dining tonight.”
“Well now, there’s Mr. Selwyn. A lawyer, he is, and a pleasant-spoken gentleman by all accounts. Then there’s a couple of young sprigs, Mr. Hancock and the Honourable Mr. Reid. Mr. Bradbury suspicions they’ve been sent down from the university. But the one what’s exercising Mr. Bradbury’s mind, as you might say, is a fella by name of Ramsbottom. Mr. Josiah Ramsbottom. Your shirt, my lord.”
“Ramsbottom?” Donning the snow-white, ruffled shirt, Edmund grimaced, wishing again that he had sternly repressed his whim, as was his custom.
“Collar too tight, my lord?”
“No, no. What’s wrong with this Ramsbottom?”
“Downright vulgar, not to mince words. But he won’t take no for an answer. Claims he was an inside passenger and if them young chaps as rode outside gets to dine with the nobs, he’s entitled.”
“Entitled!”
“Says he could buy up the rest of ’em ten times over and it’s honest merchants as makes this country great.”
Turning to the mirror to tie his neckcloth, Edmund caught his valet’s knowing eye and grinned. “It sounds as if Mr. Ramsbottom will enliven the conversation no end. Am I to entertain the coachman, also?”
“Lord, no! Nor the abigail, neither. She’s a likely lass, that one.”
“And her mistress?”
“Miss Gracechurch? She’s a lady, sure enough. Even Mr. Bradbury says so. Gentry fallen on hard times. Off to visit relatives, like as not.”
“There is a third female, is there not?”
“Miss Brooke. A bold hussy, Mr. Bradbury says. Going to Town to try for a governess or companion, most like, but she won’t get no respectable position if she don’t mend her ways—Mr. Bradbury says.”
Edmund gritted his teeth and tossed the ruined neckcloth on the floor, reaching for another. He suspected Alfred was teasing him but he could not tax him with it without confessing to an unwarranted interest in Miss Brooke. “And does Mr. Bradbury say whether this ‘bold hussy’ is to ‘dine with the nobs’?” he asked casually.
Alfred looked up at the ceiling for inspiration. “Let me see, now, what did he say? Ah, I have it. Being as how your lordship interduced Miss Brooke to her ladyship, he don’t feel like he has no choice in the matter. But he ain’t happy, my lord, he ain’t happy.”
Another neckcloth landed on the floor. “Believe me,” said My Lord Winter dryly, “nor am I.”
CHAPTER THREE
Jane gazed in dismay at her new blue merino travelling dress. “Why did the wretched man go and ask us to dine with himself and Lady Wintringham?” she moaned. “He must have guessed I don’t have an evening gown with me.”
Commiserating, Ella shook her head. “It’s a good job we kept your best by us so’s you’d be respectable arriving in St. James’s Place. Just think, it could be packed away in your trunk, back in Oxford.”
“I suppose so. It will have to do. After all, it scarcely matters since My Lord Winter and her ladyship already hold me in disdain.”
“There’s more than just them, my lady—Miss Jane, I should say. Quite a party, the housekeeper says.”
“Does that man wish to humiliate me before his friends?” Jane demanded indignantly, just as Miss Gracechurch came into the comfortable, though small and plainly furnished, chamber.
“If it is the earl you are referring to, Jane, he may be haughty, but I hesitate to believe him malicious.”
“Only because it was when I said your strength was failing that he relented and let us stay.”
“Oh dear, I cannot think what came over me, to aid and abet your taradiddles! If the marchioness ever hears of it, she will turn me away not only without a reference but without a character.”
“I shall say that you strenuously opposed my wilful behaviour. But Mama will never hear of it.”
“I wish I could be so sanguine. As long as it was only the coach passengers who knew you as Miss Brooke, there was little danger, but you will be moving in the same circles as the Wintringhams in London.”
“Perhaps they will not go to London. Ella, see if you can find out from the housekeeper.”
“Shouldn’t think so, miss. She’s near as high-and-mighty as the countess. But his lordship’s gentleman’s a friendly chap. I’ll try him.”
“Do. Of course, that still leaves all their guests to be met with in Town. I wish the wretched man had not invited us to dine with them. My first ever formal dinner is like to prove a disaster! Is it too late to refuse?”
“Too late, and the height of rudeness when his lordship has been so condescending,” said Miss Gracechurch firmly. “Hurry up and dress, Jane, or we shall be the last down.”
“There’s miles of corridors,” said Ella, slipping the despised blue gown over Jane’s head. “I’d best ring for a servant to show the way or you might get lost and miss your dinners.”
“That would never do. Luncheon in Oxford seems an age ago and we landed in the ditch just about teatime. But don’t worry, Gracie, I shall not put you to the blush by displaying an unladylike appetite.”
“My dear, since no one knows I am your governess, if you gobble your food you will put none but yourself to the blush.”
“True.” Jane laughed, then studied her face in the mirror as Ella tidied her hair. With the severe style dictated by its straightness, she looked more like a governess than Gracie did. Oh, for a curl or two!
A chambermaid led them through passages, round corners, up and down steps, to the top of the grand staircase descending to the great hall. As she laid her hand on the baluster rail, Jane became aware of another deficiency in her dress. No gloves. Gracie had taught her that gloves must be worn to a formal dinner, yet she could scarcely have appeared in the drawing-room in her fur-lined mittens.
A glance told her that her mentor’s hands were equally bare. Ah, well, there was no sense in repining. Her head held high, she started down the stairs with all the grace and dignity she could muster.
Her audience consisted of two ramrod-stiff footmen in grey livery piped with scarlet, and the supercilious butler. The latter stepped forward with a bow that was little more than a nod, nicely calculated to depress pretensions without being outright insolent.
“This way, if you please.’’
Taking her cue from Miss Gracechurch, Jane followed him without deigning to answer, her pretensions undepressed. The dozen pairs of eyes that turned to stare as Bradbury ushered them into the drawing room were more daunting.
“Miss Gracechurch, Miss Brooke,” he said woodenly, and departed.
For a moment no one moved. Jane wondered whether she ought to curtsy, then decided she had rather be thought presumptuous than meek. She looked with interest at the assembled company.