Regency Rumours/A Scandalous Mistress/Dishonour And Desire (2 page)

‘Oh, yes, my lord. We’ve been there only five weeks and two days and there’s such a lot for us yet to see.’ And do, she thought. Again, her gaze turned hopefully in Lord Rayne’s direction, but noticed only the quizzical nature of his examination
of her over-frilled and beribboned day dress and braided spencer, her flower-bedecked bonnet and the lace gloves that she had believed were all the thing. Until now.

‘Oh, you’ll need several seasons to see all that London has to offer,’ Lord Elyot replied, ‘but shopping must come first. My brother and I called in to purchase a gift for our sister’s birthday, but we possess neither the flair nor the time to find exactly the right thing. I wonder, my lady …’ he returned his attention to Amelie ‘… if you and your niece could help us out. Your taste,’ he continued, glancing at the counter covered with pieces she had bought, ‘is obviously of the most sophisticated. Do you have any suggestions as to what would please a sister most?’

‘Without knowing her, sir, that would be difficult. Is she single or married? Young or … how old will she be?’

The two men exchanged blank stares until Lord Rayne offered some statistics he was reasonably sure of. ‘Well, she’s three years older than me, married with two bra … bairns … er, children.’

‘And she’s two … no, three years younger than me,’ said his brother. ‘Does that help?’

Amelie’s smile might have grown into a laugh but for her effort to contain it, and Caterina noted again the devastating effect this gentle bubbling had on the two men, for it was genuine yet controlled. ‘That is
some
help. Does she have a star sign?’ Amelie prompted, twinkling.

The blankness returned.

‘The beginning of September? Or the middle?’

‘The end,’ said Lord Rayne, warming to the theme.

‘No, somewhere near the middle,’ said Lord Elyot. ‘I think. Look, may we leave this with you, if you’d be so kind? Mr
Bowyer here will charge the cost to my account and send it to Richmond. We’re in a bit of a hurry.’

Smiling broadly, Mr Bowyer assented.

Amelie agreed, wondering at the same time why they had stopped to choose a gift if they were in so much of a hurry. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Miss Chester and I will surely find something appropriate in here.’

Lord Elyot bowed. ‘You are too kind,’ he said, formally. ‘I am in your debt, my lady. I hope we shall meet in Richmond.’

There was something about his eyelids, Amelie thought. He was a man of experience, and he knew how to look at a woman to make her feel as if she were the only person in the room to matter to him. He had spoken to Caterina like that too, and the child had noticed and wished the brother had done the same.

Bows and curtsies were exchanged once more and the meeting was curtailed as Caterina instantly began a search for something that would fritter away someone else’s money. The men made for the door, their voices carrying easily across the subdued interior.

‘I didn’t know we were in so much of a hurry, Nick.’

‘Well, we are. We need to return to Richmond tonight. A problem to sort out for Father. Rather urgent.’

‘What kind of a problem?’

Lord Elyot tucked his cane beneath one arm and picked up a silver snuff-box, turning it over to examine the base. ‘Oh, just some loose screw or other springing young nob-thatchers and bairns from the local workhouse,’ the deep voice drawled softly, distinctly bored. ‘Anybody who thinks that a bit o’skirt with a bun in the oven is worth rescuing must be an addle-pate, don’t you agree, young Rayne? But the Vestry want it stopped. It’s only a twenty-four-hour job, but we have
to make a start before we get a new plague of vagabonds. You can help, if you like.’ He replaced the snuff-box. ‘Come on. It won’t take all that long, then we can go and look at some new cattle, eh?’

‘Stupid do-gooders! Ought to be locked up themselves. If only they knew the trouble they cause.’

They passed out of the shop into the sudden clamour of Ludgate Hill, where the street-criers and rattle of wheels drowned the rest of their conversation, and Amelie was left doing what her niece had done earlier through salt-cellars and candlesticks. She watched them pause as her own barouche drew to a standstill outside the shop and the footman leapt down to hold the horses’ heads. Her heart hammered with sudden fear.

Loose screw … springing young nob-thatchers and bairns from the local workhouse … bit o’skirt with a bun in the oven … do-gooders …

It was not so much the vulgar cant that raised Amelie’s hackles, for the men were entitled to say what they wished when they were alone; it was the revelation that they had a particular problem to solve for their father, whoever he was, which was apparently upsetting both him and the Vestry. And without a shadow of a doubt they were, without knowing it, speaking of her, Lady Amelie Chester, for she was the ‘do-gooder’ in question whose deep commitment to the plight of unfortunate women would never be understood by toffs of their kind who didn’t know the date of their sister’s birthday, or even how old she was. She felt the surge of fury, resentment and disappointment like a pain as she heard their mocking voices again. She watched them linger outside to examine her new coffee-coloured barouche with its cream-and-brown
striped upholstery, its Italian lamps, the dapple-grey horses, the eight-caped coachman and liveried footman in brown and pale grey as neat as could be. They would not find any cattle to beat that showy pair, she thought, turning away with a frown. It had all ended on a very sour note, for she had liked their manner until then. She would find it even more difficult to fulfil her promise now she had seen the kind of men she had agreed to oblige. ‘Caterina dear, have you seen anything suitable?’ she said.

Wallowing almost knee-deep in expensive metalware, her niece had suddenly become animated and was eyeing a pair of very pretty silver chinoiserie cake-baskets that Amelie would not have minded owning.

‘Mm … m,’ Amelie said. ‘Pretty, but …’

‘Well, then, what about a large salver? They’re always useful. One cannot have too many salvers, can one?’

The catalyst was the word ‘useful’. If there was anything a woman disliked being given for her birthday, it came into the ‘useful’ category unless, of course, she had asked for it. Like a carriage and a pair of horses. Eagerly, she looked around for the largest, the most tasteless and most expensive ‘useful’ item on display, though it was Caterina who spotted it first, a massive silver and gilt tea urn with three busty sphinxes holding up the bowl on their wings and a tap that swung away like a cobra about to strike. Standing on an ugly triangular base, it was a monstrous reminder of Lord Nelson’s recent victory in Egypt.

‘What if she doesn’t drink tea, though?’ whispered Caterina, without knowing how she and her aunt were working at cross-purposes. ‘It looks
very
expensive.’

All the better.
‘Oh, she’s sure to, dear.’

‘Is it in good taste?’ Caterina queried, having doubts.

Amelie was careful here. ‘It will depend,’ she said, cautiously, ‘on what their sister’s preferences are, I suppose. If she has a growing family and plenty of visitors, then a large urn will be just the thing.’ And it would go some way, she thought, towards mollifying her resentment at the insensitive, not to say
inhuman
, attitude of the two brothers who, she hoped, would not follow up their introduction with anything more presumptuous.

But although the purchase of the vastly overpriced and vulgar gift had evened the score for Amelie in one direction, there was yet a more serious one to consider, calling for a return home at a faster pace than their earlier ride into London. There was now no time to lose. ‘Lise, go and tell the footman we’re ready to go home,’ she said.

The stares of admiration directed at the beautiful coffee-coloured barouche and the Dalmatian running behind were only vaguely heeded on the return journey to Richmond, for the event that concluded their shopping spree weighed heavily on Amelie’s mind, making her realise yet again that, however good it was to be an independent woman, she was still vulnerable without the comforting support of her husband.

Sir Josiah Chester had been taken from her with a frightening suddenness two years ago, a most unusual two years that left her with few relatives close enough to assist her through the worst months, the problems of inheritance and estate. The only one of their number whose help had been constant and ungrudging was Sir Josiah’s younger brother Stephen, himself a widower with a young family, of whom Caterina was the eldest.

It had been to thank Stephen for his generous support that
she had agreed to take Caterina with her when she moved down to Richmond. Had it not been for that debt which she owed him, for his plea, and for Caterina’s motherless state, she would have made the move alone, which had been her first intention. She had no wish to stay in the Derbyshire town of Buxton for, although she had been happy enough there for her first twenty-two years, the two years after that had pointed out with brutal reality who she could depend on for true friendship.

Caterina’s joy at being taken to live with her, though flattering, was not what Amelie had wanted, and the inevitable conflict of interests had not been satisfactorily resolved in their first few weeks. Caterina had expected to make a new set of friends and to be received almost instantly into high society. Amelie had not the heart to explain either to Caterina or to her grateful father, that the fickleness of high society was something she would rather have shunned than sought, and that the reason she had chosen Richmond was for its proximity to Kew Gardens, to Hampton Court Palace, to the famed Chelsea Physic Garden and to Royal Academy exhibitions. The day’s shopping in London, though necessary, had been more the result of a guilty conscience than for Amelie’s own pleasure, not having tried as hard as she might to make contact with the local leading families, as Caterina had expected her to. The young lady’s very inadequate wardrobe had dictated the pattern of their shopping, and now the maid Lise sat beside a mountain of brown paper parcels that threatened to topple and bury her at each bounce of the carriage. Fortunately, there had not been room for the controversial tea urn, or Lise might have been critically injured.

The reason for Amelie’s accelerated haste to reach home was neither asked nor explained, as the clouding September sky
was supposed by Caterina to be the cause. The truth, however, was more to do with Lord Elyot’s stated intention to attend directly to the problem of which the Vestry had complained.

Homeless mothers-to-be were often hustled over the boundary of one parish into the next, even during labour, to avoid the responsibility of more mouths to feed. Naturally, these women could not be let loose to give birth under hedges: untidy activities of that nature did not look well where refined citizens could be shocked by such sights. As a last resort, they had to be rounded up until it was all over, by which time the problem was often solved more permanently.

Sir Josiah Chester had not retained his vast wealth by giving it away to charitable causes, but by saving it; whether it was the powerful combination of childlessness, bereavement and wealth that gave rise to Amelie’s concern for waifs, strays and hopeless debtors, she had never tried to analyse, but the fact was that her acceptance of her new state had been smoothed by the help she had given to others less endowed and more distressed by far. She could be distressed in comfort, while they could not.

With a name as well known in Buxton as Sir Josiah’s, it had been relatively easy for Amelie, as a widow, to pay the debts of poor families threatened by imprisonment and worse and to find employment for petty criminals. She had given shelter and aid, sometimes in her own home, to pregnant homeless women and had found suitable places for them afterwards, had persuaded farmers’ wives to take in starving children and had poured money into improving the local workhouse facilities. The legacy she had received from her own wealthy parents had been exceptionally generous, and all that giving had made a greater difference to her sense of worth and general well-being than it had to her reserve of funds.

As long as she was actively helping the Vestry in Buxton to deal with their problems, no one had stood in her way, though nothing could stop the gossip of society women concerning the status of a young, wealthy and beautiful widow and the attentions of her brother-in-law, of supposed lovers and supposed rivals. The whisperings of scandal. It had been time for her to leave.

But in Richmond, the advantages associated with the name of Sir Josiah Chester had not opened the same doors as they had before, and all the help she had given so freely in Buxton now had to be done rather differently. In the dark. Anonymously. By bribery and deception and, if need be, by the useful burglary skills of a servant in her employ. It went without saying that she had far too many servants, most of them without references.

Last night, she had promised a distraught and heavily pregnant young woman, via the woman’s equally distressed companion, that she would help to release her from the workhouse where she was about to be taken. Amelie fully intended to go there that very night, and the last thing she needed was an extra guard on the gate put there by the interfering Lord Elyot. What on earth could have possessed her to agree to an introduction?

She heard the aristocratic drawl again, smoother than northern tones, more languid, deep and perfectly enunciated. His teeth were good too, and she recalled how something inside her had lurched a little at the way his eyes had held hers, gently but with devastating assurance. They had not raked over her as so many other men’s did, trespassing and too familiar. No, they had almost smiled, telling her that there were things to be shared, given the opportunity.

Well, my fine lord, she thought, grinding her teeth, there
will be no opportunity. I shall know how to steer well clear of you and any family who believe charity to be a waste of time. Hateful, arrogant people.

What colour were his eyes?

Pulling herself up sharply, she redirected her thoughts to the three over-endowed sphinxes and their hideous cobra companion, drawing the Kashmir shawl closer about her at the sudden chill.