Ridiculous (12 page)

“Never say this change has your approval?” demanded Mrs. Fleming.

“It has, although, Beth will need to practice the degree of speech appropriate for the company she is in. Such informality as today is appropriate for dear, close, and trusted friends such as Mr. North, but not for common acquaintance.”

“I understand,” said Beth, calming, but flashing Millicent a sparkling look from beneath her lashes.

“I do not agree,” said Mrs. Fleming, “and Her Grace will not approve. Mr. North is exactly the type of encroaching person that she most dislikes. I shall write to her as soon as we arrive at the inn.”

“No, you will not,” said Shoffer. “My sister is currently in my care and if I approve her conduct there is no reason for you to communicate with my grandmother. In fact, I think I disapprove of the degree of familiarity between you and Her Grace. Are you not being presumptuous? Encroaching?”

The suggested hypocrisy set Mrs. Fleming to the blush.

“Her Grace has commissioned me to do so.”

“And, I, since I pay your salary, say you should not!”

There was a heavy silence in the carriage as Mrs. Fleming digested this announcement. Millicent wondered how much the duchess gave the chaperone for her to be a tattle tale upon her granddaughter.

“I wonder why it is your grandmother has permitted you out of her sight?” said Millicent, when the silence lingered too long.

“Oh, she has been unwell since the season,” said Lady Beth. “The London air is foul with smoke and she has retired to the countryside to recover.”

“She would have kept Beth with her,” added Shoffer, “but I suggested she come home with me. Her Grace's residence is too far from any company and I feared Beth would… Well, I wanted to encourage her to be more social and thought she could do so in my neighborhood. There are no people her own age near my grandmother's abode.”

“Lady Elizabeth,” repeated Mrs. Fleming.

“Are you suggesting that you may order me not to call
my
sister by an informal name?” asked Shoffer in chilling tones.

Mrs. Fleming faded from green to very white.

“Lady Elizabeth Rosemary Gertrude,” said Millicent. “I'm sorry, I have forgotten the rest. In your kindness, may I be permitted to call you Lady Beth?”

“You may
not
, you encroaching mushroom,” cried Mrs. Fleming.

“Yes, he may.” Lady Beth scowled at her chaperone. “Mr. North is my brother's
particular
friend and I regard him highly as well. I should like it very much if he would call me Beth.”

Mrs. Fleming retreated to the depths of her cloak to cope with her rage and nausea as best she could for the remainder of the journey.

“To stave off boredom, may I suggest we play Faro?” suggested Millicent.

“We will not be able to shuffle or lay out the cards the way the carriage bounces about,” protested Lady Beth.

“Ah, but there is a special way to play in these circumstances,” said Millicent. “You do not use cards at all.”

Shoffer stared at Millicent until she felt surely he must see through her disguise; then he laughed and shook his head.

“Very well, I yield. Tell me, how do you play cards without cards?”

“It all depends on how convincing you are.” Millicent's eyes were wide and innocent, for just an instant; then she grinned wickedly. “If you claim you have laid down the Queen of Hearts and I do not believe you, then, sir, you may not play that card. But if you can convince me you have it in your hand; then the card is played.”

“How do I convince you?”

“How well do you remember what cards look like?”

“I understand,” cried Beth, and indeed she proved most proficient at bluffing. By the time they reached Merthyr Tydfil she had bluffed and teased them both out of twenty pounds.

* * *

They spent three days in Merthyr Tydfil enjoying what few distractions and entertainments could be obtained in a market town during rain mixed with sleet. Beth located several maps of England and Wales in a local bookshop and the three amused themselves trying to locate the Shoffer family and North properties and planning out Millicent's summer journey. Shoffer's memory proved useful for Millicent, as he had traveled in the area before and could recall which were the best inns on any particular road; therefore, he could give sensible suggestions to Millicent upon her itinerary. On the third day, the Trolenfields’ second best coach arrived. The next day, since the weather was dry, for that instant, the decision was made for Shoffer and his sister to depart immediately. Beth demanded a promise that “Mr. North” should write to her. Shoffer granted his permission for the communication with the proviso that he be permitted to write as well. Laughing, Millicent gave those promises and waved them off, fully expecting never to see or hear from them, him, again.

Despite her best efforts to put Shoffer out of her mind, she cried herself to sleep that night. Worse, she requested the innkeeper move her from the room she had previously occupied into the one used by Shoffer for those three nights; and she slept, curled up on the same mattress, hugging the pillow that was briefly his.

Idiot, she told herself, and yet her grief was irresistible. She had met the perfect man, young, strong, handsome, and humorous, who had listened to her nonsense, had laughed with her and teased her.

And not for a moment had he realized her true gender.

Not that it was surprising. Her breasts were barely noticeable even naked. Her hips were slender and her hair, shaggy, unkempt. What sort of woman could she be under such circumstances? She must content herself to be a plain and inconsequential man.

Necessity demanded it.

It would have been best if she had never met him. Never known the pain of wanting. And yet, she gave thanks that she had met him and dreamed of him nightly.

* * *

A letter, redirected from the Pricharts’ farm, found her the next day and recalled her to her responsibilities. Felicity, distressed and anxious for news, demanded to know when Mr. North was returning to Bath.

Millicent pulled out her traveling writing desk and the bundle of letters Mr. Prichart had given her. On rereading, the late Mr. North's letter was no less disturbing. The ladies living in Bath could not be told by letter of this complication, especially since Millicent could not answer any questions bound to arise from the news.

Taking her courage in both hands, and simulating Anthony North's scrawl as best she could, Millicent crafted a letter to the late Mr. North's lawyer requesting, if he be so kind, a copy of the draft of the will.

Knowing lawyers, she enclosed a sovereign under the seal as payment for his labor.

* * *

The answer to her request came within a month, while she was visiting her partially flooded coal mine, and was as bad as she had expected.

According to the will of the late Christopher North, his son Anthony was forbidden from selling or gambling away any part of his inheritance. On Anthony's death the listed items he had received from his father were to be passed to his brother, Perceval, just as he had received them. No provision was made for such things as wives or children. None at all.

Millicent put her copy away and brooded.

The property of Mr. Anthony North was her responsibility even if she could not use it to provide for her sisters’ futures. For the moment the rents paid for their needs. She must continue as planned, visiting the tenants and collecting the rents. Dowries and annuities would wait for the future. With luck, inspiration might strike before Felicity was ready to marry off her remaining daughters.

* * *

The late afternoon sun beat down on the refuse scattered about the inn’s forecourt, raising a foul stench. Millicent ducked gratefully into the shade of the inn’s public room and permitted the maid who appeared from the shadows to take her valise. The innkeeper appeared almost immediately, filling the narrow hall with his bulk. Millicent hoped that boded well for the food in the place since the man was fully as wide as he was tall. The innkeeper bowed, running a hand over his red and sweaty bald head.

“Good evening,” said Millicent in her deepest voice. “I am Mr. Anthony North. I wrote ahead to reserve a room.”

This information was greeted with a broad smile.

“Mister North, indeed you did, sir. Welcome to the Hind and Fox. Jacob Fields, at your service. You are a prodigious popular gentleman, or so my wife informs me. We have several pieces of mail awaiting you. Two of them with fine and complicated crests on the seal. My wife has custody of them at the moment. I shall have them fetched up to your room with your baggage.”

Millicent smiled at that information, hoping that her recently acquired tan would cover any blushes. Complicated heraldic devices could only be Trolenfields. It was not as if she had any reason to blush. Shoffer thought of her as an acquaintance only. A fribble. A useful man to know when one wanted a shy sister to chat. That was all.

And the thought stabbed through Millicent's heart.

It was not as if, even if she had met him as a young lady, things would have been any better. Indeed, it would be worse. As the penniless daughter of a tutor, she would never have been granted the honor of an introduction. Shaking herself out of the dismals, Millicent concentrated on Mr. Fields.

“Indeed, that is good news,” said Millicent. “Please tell your good lady that if she waits until I have had a chance to wash off the dirt of the road and read my letters, I should be pleased to give her what gossip I have and I shall cut off the seals for her to keep. She will have to be content with on-dits from Bath, since I have no acquaintance in London.”

“Thank you, Mr. North. That will please her mightily.” Mr. Fields gestured the maid toward the narrow staircase. “Shall I send up a small beer or brandy with your wash water?”

“Tea will do,” said Millicent.

* * *

The maid who brought up the tea tray was young and buxom. She made a point of jiggling her breasts in Millicent's direction when she bobbed her curtsy and accepted her tip. Millicent sighed and shook her head, politely declining the proffered companionship, endeavoring to give the impression of fatigue rather than disgust. The maid took the rejection in good spirit, no doubt expecting to have other opportunities to seduce Mr. North.

Millicent dismissed the girl from her mind as well as from the room and made good use of the jug of hot water to wash herself before pouring a cup of tea and settling down beside the window to read the five letters the maid had carried up with the tea. One, very thick, was from Bath, and likely from both her sisters as well as her mother. Two were from tenants and one each were from Shoffer and his sister.

It took a great deal of her willpower not to tear open the letter from Shoffer first. Indeed, she sat with it in her hand for several moments before putting it to one side. It was as if she had not received a letter every month from the man since parting from him in Wales. As Shoffer had assisted her in plotting out her summer tour, he knew approximately when she would be at various towns. Despite the fact the letters were full of advice on negotiating with tenants and comments about farming such as would be shared between gentlemen of similar age, wealth, and interests, Millicent kept them in her valise and read them until she knew every line, as if they were missives of a love-struck admirer.

Sighing, Millicent set the package aside and took up her mother's letter. Distance, it seemed, reconciled Felicity to her daughter's odd life. The letter was much the same as she would have sent to her husband, or to a son – demanding, petulant, and gossipy. Since Millicent sent an express telling them that a previous innkeeper’s wife was in the habit of opening her guests’ mail, the letter contained no references to Millicent's true gender.

Bath, it seemed, was pleasant in the summer time, with frequent entertainments and more visitors from London and outlying counties as gentry, bored with their own homes, sought distraction. London, everyone swore, was pestilential in the summer. Bath was blessed with clearer air, softer breezes, and was therefore to be preferred.

The downside to the new visitors, Felicity informed her, was that she was gradually coming to realize that the people with whom her daughters had danced and flirted the past winter, were the
impoverished
members of the
ton
.

“I will not,” wrote Felicity, “permit the girls to marry into poverty. They are pretty girls, with good address and talent. I am certain they can do very well for themselves if we were to just put them before the proper people. Maude, particularly, has sufficient beauty for her to deserve to have ambition. Therefore, Mr. North, I implore you, this winter the girls must have a season in London.”

Millicent swore ripely – one of the advantages of being a man – and tossed the letter to one side. A London season? If Felicity imagined that the men of the
ton
in London were in better funds than those in Bath, she deluded herself. Likewise, how could she imagine that two girls with no dowry at all could attract even a highly placed country gentlemen, let alone a titled one?

Of course, Felicity probably expected that Millicent would bestow some part of Mr. North's estate upon her sisters. Millicent, coward that she was, had not written to her mother and sisters about the exact nature of the elder Mr. North's will. She planned to disclose that information in person, rather than commit it to paper, and because she could imagine the histrionics that particular revelation would inspire, she happily delayed her return to Bath.

Taking a sip of cooling tea to fortify her, Millicent returned to the letter. It seemed that Felicity was advised by one of the visiting matrons that rental houses in the fashionable areas of London went early. Therefore, Mr. North must act immediately to obtain the proper house for the family for the season.

And how did she imagine Millicent would know how to do that? With no experience of the capitol herself how would Millicent know the proper streets, the proper rents? When they had removed to Bath, Millicent had set the family up in a good hotel for three weeks while she had hiked all over Bath examining houses and exploring neighborhoods. Now she was expected to choose from a distance, or did Felicity imagine Millicent would go to London now to find a house?