Wicked Godmother (19 page)

‘A word with you, madam,’ he said.

Harriet said nothing, merely trailed into the drawing room, leaving the door open. He followed her in and waited while she lit the candles.

‘I do not know what happened this evening. I could not bear it any longer,’ sobbed Harriet. ‘Those eyes and whispers and everyone cutting me dead.’

‘They do not care for harlots,’ he said in a cold voice.

She put a hand up to her cheek as if he had struck her. ‘What are they saying?’ she asked, bewildered. ‘What have I done?’

‘Your sins have found you out. The world now knows you were the mistress of Sir Benjamin Hayner and took away the love he owed his daughters. So clever were you he left his estates and fortune to you . . .’

‘Only the management of them until the girls are twenty-one,’ said Harriet, aghast. ‘And I am innocent, my lord. Sir Benjamin was like a father to me after my parents’ death.’

Perhaps if he had not wanted her so much, had not felt this desperate craving for her, he might have listened to reason. If his wife had not betrayed him, he would not have been so hot-headed.

‘And to think I did not even dare to steal a kiss,’ he marvelled. He came towards her. Harriet backed away. He jerked her forward into his arms. He was going to jeer at her, punish her, but the feel of her body against his, the fear in the large eyes which gazed up into his own, filled him with a sort of aching tenderness. The glare left his eyes and the hard lines of his face softened. ‘Harriet,’ he said. ‘My very dear Harriet.’

And the the world seemed to explode about them. Not with passion . . .

Beauty had found the kitchen cat.

He had been lurking around the backstairs all day, watching as a cat watches a mouse hole, for an opportunity to get through the green baize door.

The opportunity was provided by Alice. Alice did everything so slowly that she took an age to open and shut a door. She had been clearing away the tea things for some time after the ladies had left for Almack’s and, with the tray on one hip, she had nudged the door open with the other, with her usual lazy, languorous movements that Rainbird said were like watching someone walk under water.

Beauty saw his chance and took it. He leapt joyfully down the stairs and erupted into the servants’ hall just as they were about to sit down for their evening meal.

He saw the Moocher, and his little bearlike eyes glowed red. With a snarl, he pounced . . . and then let out a yelp of pain. For the Moocher had stood his ground and slashed him across the nose.

Had Rainbird been there, order might have been restored more quickly, but Rainbird was at The Running Footman with Mr Blenkinsop, the butler from next door.

MacGregor seized the rolling pin and ran at Beauty; Beauty feinted and bit Joseph on the leg. Joseph screeched like a parrot getting its tail feathers removed. Jenny jumped on the table, and Dave seized the Moocher and ran upstairs with Beauty, Mrs Middleton, Lizzie, and Angus MacGregor in hot pursuit. Alice flattened herself against the wall as they all went roaring past.

Into the sanctuary of the drawing room ran the now terrified Beauty, forgetting about Dave, who was hiding in a corner of the hall with the cat.

Beauty stared at the sight of his mistress being held in the arms of some large and powerful human.

With a roar he took off and sank his teeth into the Marquess of Huntingdon’s bottom.

The marquess swung around and lashed out at Beauty with his foot. Lizzie fell on Beauty’s neck, crying, ‘Good dog. Be good. You
can
be good, Beauty,’ and other incoherent nonsense that had the amazing effect of calming the maddened animal.

The Marquess of Huntingdon looked on, appalled. He appeared as if he had been suddenly frozen to the spot. He could not believe what was happening to him. He, the arbiter of fashion, the Don Juan of the
ton
, the adored, the feted and petted, was standing before a pack of goggling servants with a throbbing bum. Had it not been for the timely dog bite, then he might have been in danger of behaving very badly.

The attack from the wretched mongrel had cleared his brain wonderfully. He wondered if there might be insanity in his family. For he knew, deep down, that the gossip about Harriet Metcalf was a scurrilous lie. He wanted her as he had never wanted any woman before, and he began to think the longing was addling his brain.

A stillness fell on the servants. They looked at Harriet’s anguished face and wondered whether they would have to throw this noble lord out of doors. Lizzie prayed for Rainbird’s return.

And then all at once the butler was there, his face a correct blank. His eyes darted from one to the other and then he said politely, ‘I understand you are just leaving, my lord.’

‘Yes,’ said the marquess. He turned to Harriet. There was so much he wanted to say and yet the slow dawning fright and disgust on her face as she recovered from the stunning shock of his words drove it all from his mind.

‘Your servant, Miss Metcalf,’ he said. ‘I shall call on you tomorrow to see how you go on.’

And then he walked from the room as stiffly as a tom-cat giving up the fight.

Rainbird saw the tears spilling over onto Harriet’s cheeks and jerked his head at the other servants. ‘Out!’ he said.

They retreated and closed the door.

‘I am only a servant, ma’am,’ said Rainbird, ‘but there is no one else here, and I cannot help you unless I know what troubles you.’

In an instant, the class barriers were down. Harriet threw herself against his chest and sobbed her heart out.

Beauty threw back his head and began to howl, and the sound of her pet’s distress had the effect of forcing Harriet to pull herself together. She stood back and surveyed the butler with sorrowful eyes. ‘I am being destroyed by malicious gossip, Mr Rainbird.’

‘I know,’ said Rainbird gravely, ‘and I know who has been gossiping.’

Harriet sat down abruptly and stared at him.

‘It’s that lady’s maid, Emily. She told all to Luke and then swore him to silence. But he told his butler, Blenkinsop, as I am sure she must have known he would do. Blenkinsop loves a gossip and tattled to the upper servants at The Running Footman. I will say one thing for Luke,’ said Rainbird, studying his bruised knuckles, ‘he was very loyal to Emily and I had to . . . er . . . drag the source of his information out of him.’

‘But I have never done her any harm!’ cried Harriet.

‘I think you will find, Miss Metcalf,’ said Rainbird, studying the cornice, ‘that she was instructed to spread malice by the Misses Hayner.’

‘That I shall never believe,’ said Harriet.

Rainbird cocked his head to one side and listened as a carriage came to a stop outside.

‘Prove us all wrong then, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Come with me and hide outside Miss Sarah’s room when they have gone in, and listen.’

‘No!’

‘If they are innocent, you have nothing to fear.’ Harriet took a deep breath. ‘Very well.’

Rainbird bowed. ‘I shall tell them you have retired to bed and are not to be disturbed.’

He went out and closed the door. Harriet twisted her handkerchief in her hands and listened to the murmur of voices coming from the hall. Then she heard the girls mounting the stairs.

Rainbird slipped back into the front parlour. ‘Now, Miss Metcalf,’ he said.

Harriet followed him noiselessly upstairs. He signalled to her to press her ear against Sarah’s door.

‘Well, what a to-do!’ came Sarah’s voice. ‘I cannot understand it.’

‘It must be Emily,’ said Annabelle. ‘Or some of that gossip we had spread about Upper Marcham has finally come to Town.’

‘I wish you would not persist in calling it gossip,’ said Sarah testily. ‘We only spoke the truth and it was only our way of letting people
know
the truth.’

Harriet shrank back from the door. ‘I have had a bad shock,’ she whispered. ‘I shall retire.’

‘Not yet,’ said Rainbird. ‘You did not listen long enough.’

With a sick heart, Harriet put her ear to the door again.

‘I thought you had come to like her,’ Annabelle was saying.

‘I did . . . almost . . . when I thought she had our interests at heart. Then I did think she might be sincere. But on calm reflection, I once more think she is a scheming jade. I hope she is so badly disgraced that no one will look at her again. Faugh! Harriet and her milkmaid manners and her lack of
ton
. She must be a schemer or the gentlemen would not look at her twice with us around. I do not like her one little bit. I never liked her. I never even liked her when we were children and before Papa showed any doting preference for her . . .’

‘Enough,’ said Harriet, backing away from the door.

‘You must come to the servants’ hall,’ said Rainbird gravely. ‘There is much work to be done.’

Fair virgins blushed upon him; wedded dames

Bloomed also in less transitory hues;

For both commodities dwelt by the Thames,

The painting and the painted; youth, ceruse,

Against his heart preferred their usual claims,

Such as no gentleman can quite refuse;

Daughters admired his dress, and pious mothers

Inquired his income, and if he had brothers.

LORD BRYON

Too shocked and dazed to do other than obey the butler, Harriet followed him down the backstairs and into the servants’ hall.

The illogical thought did cross her mind that her poor mother would have been shocked could she have seen her daughter confiding in servants. And yet, for all her faults, for all her snobbery, the late Mrs Metcalf had maintained that only upstarts and counter jumpers treated their servants uncivilly.

Lizzie was sitting at the far end of the table, teaching Dave the little she had already learned from Harriet. Mrs Middleton was nodding over a piece of sewing by the fire. Jenny and Alice had workbaskets full of linen to mend. Angus MacGregor was standing on one foot, studying a much battered book of recipes; the book was held well out in front of him, for his eyes were bad and only vanity stopped him from buying a pair of spectacles. Joseph was manicuring his nails, and the Moocher was curled up on his knee. Candlelight shed a golden glow over the group around the table, shadowing the stained walls and making it look like an idealized painting of a country kitchen at the end of the day.

All rose to their feet as they saw Harriet behind Rainbird. Rainbird pulled out a chair at the head of the table and begged Harriet to sit down, and then nodded to the others to resume their places.

Mrs Middleton was fully awake now, her mild eyes darting this way and that with a frightened look, for Mrs Middleton, in her heart of hearts, really believed there was a curse on the house and wondered if Miss Metcalf had descended to these unfashionable lower regions to tell them of murder or rape.

Succinctly, Rainbird outlined the scurrilous gossip about Harriet that was spreading throughout the West End. He told them he now believed the twins had tricked Miss Metcalf into going into The Rookery. When all the exclamations of shock and dismay had died down, he turned to Harriet.

Harriet wanted to cry out that she did not believe the twins could have done such a thing, but Rainbird was asking her a question.

‘Tell me, Miss Metcalf,’ said Rainbird, ‘I understand that Lord Vere and Lord Huntingdon both called on you some time ago and both gentlemen left looking distressed. Could it be that both proposed marriage to you?’

‘Yes,’ said Harriet miserably. ‘I believed, you see, that Lord Vere wished to propose to Annabelle, and Sarah would receive a proposal from Lord Huntingdon. But they asked me instead.’

‘And you refused, obviously,’ cried Rainbird. ‘Did not Lord Vere talk of joining his old regiment because of a broken heart? But he never named the lady, and speculation was rife. And Huntingdon. Ah, there’s a prize! Before he went to America, every society family wanted him for one of their daughters, and there were many married ladies who threw themselves at his head as well. But he never played any respectable lady false for all his reputation.’

‘Belinda Romney is his mistress,’ said Harriet. ‘’Tis said she needed money badly after the death of her husband. He must have taken advantage of her.’