Chapter 16
Beth was assiduous in helping her friends, including newer friends like Cressida, who was so hard to get to know. Consequently, she spent much time dancing with, and chatting to, Mr Chetwode, boosting his confidence.
“She asked me if I could support a wife, is she having a laugh at my expense?” asked Mr Chetwode, anxiously.
“Not at all,” said Beth. “A girl who has been economising in the hopes of marriage to someone who can support her in some style is going to want to know if there will be enough in the house to eat, and better yet, a servant to cook it. I’m sure Cressida is more than capable of cooking and doing housework, but I have no doubt that it might put a strain on love for her to have to do so unaided.”
“I’m a nabob,” said Mr Chetwode.
“Yes, I know that, because I can see the quality of the cloth of your clothes, and that they are cut for comfort not fashion, and the violin you play is a Stradivarius, I think. But not all people are so perspicacious, and as you do not throw your blunt around, they assume you to be fairly impecunious and buying as good clothes as you can get as an economy.”
“And wonderful Cressida thinks that? And would still marry me? I could scarcely dare believe it!” said Mr Chetwode.
“She was wondering how to confess to her parents that she wanted to marry a poor man,” said Beth, “Which is why I told her to elope with you. It might still serve. Her father might not listen to explanations once Society has made up its stupid mind about you.”
Mr Chetwode chuckled.
“And I have to say I shouldn’t be so deucedly awkward or likely to fall over myself in a quiet wedding over the anvil as I might if I had to have a big society wedding as befits an earl’s daughter,” he said. “If you don’t mind being my go-between to Cressida, I’ll go ahead and arrange it.”
“Good man,” said Beth. “Let me know of the arrangements, and I’ll tell her where and when to meet you, and persuade her to stick to no more than two band boxes.”
“Do you think she’d be likely to bring more?” said Mr Chetwode in lively horror.
“There’s no telling what girls raised to expecting silver spoons might do, as her parents are very conscious of what’s due to her consequence,” said Beth, dryly. “I have no doubt her mother would be likely to pack all the family silver and a couple of footmen to polish it, but Cressida does seem to have a practical turn of mind. She learned to cook when they were between cooks.”
“What a wonderful girl she is!” sighed Mr Chetwode, looking quite, thought Beth, like a moonling in his throes of adoration.
She left him contemplating his adoration to dance with Edward.
“What revolting faces that fellow was pulling!” he said.
“He’s in love,” said Beth, “as well as being a musician. I suspect it takes artistic people more violently than it does ordinary beings like you and me.”
“Good G-d! are you in love then?” demanded Edward, conscious of feeling guilty that he had possibly gazed on Amelia in such a rapt fashion.
Beth blushed and lowered her eyes.
“Beth!” Edward was suddenly furious with Mr Chetwode. “He ain’t worthy of you!”
“I beg your pardon?” said Beth, looking as confused as she felt.
“That Chetwode fellow you’re in love with!” said Edward forcibly.
“Whatever gave you the idea I’m in love with another woman’s man?” said Beth, indignantly. “Don’t you dare go spreading that around, or poor Cressida will be quite cast down and fear that I’m going to wreck her chances with the daft creature!”
Edward stared.
“You mean… you’re not in love with him? But you blushed when I asked!” he accused.
“You asked if I was in love, which was a slightly indelicate question, but you never mentioned Mr Chetwode, who is a pleasant companion, but not someone I should ever be in love with. I expect I might even have to tell him which inns to stay at on the Great North Road when he elopes with Cressida, he is singularly hopeless at detail,” said Beth.
“You will not. I’ll advise him,” said Edward. “Not that I know the road any further than York, but I’m sure he can improvise for the rest of the way.”
“Oh thank you, Edward, how kind you are, and how nice of you not to make a fuss about me advising them to elope!” said Beth.
“Oh, I daresay it’s the only way to unfreeze Lady Cressida,” said Edward. “And a couple of days on the road with a dreamy type like Chetwode will either show her how she has to manage him, or will send her fleeing for home to accept any choice her parents make for her.”
“I doubt she’s likely to flee,” said Beth. “It’s his brains and his music she’s interested in; I daresay she can manage to procure a hack in the rain for herself if he can’t, which is one of my criteria for a marriageable gentleman.”
“Well, it’s not hard,” said Edward.
Beth laughed.
“It’s not hard for the sort of gentleman who can also catch a waiter’s eye to be served, and who never is at a loss how to deal with a situation where a lady is in need.”
“Suppose I had not been the sort of man to manage such things?” said Edward.
“I should not have accepted your proposal,” said Beth.
“But how could you know?”
“Partly from my own observation, and partly from Aunt Letty’s stories for you, after allowing for some degree of partiality,” said Beth.
“What a dear girl you are!” said Edward.
Edward was not the only person to assume that Mr Chetwode was enamoured of Beth; for Amelia also noted this earnest conversation, and made plans accordingly, and smiled encouragingly at Mr Chetwode. As the young man was trying hard not to make a spectacle of Cressida, he cheerfully asked for an introduction to this smiling young woman, so he might dance with someone else, and hope she would not mind his clumsiness.
Amelia was not looking forward to the unhandy nature of Mr Chetwode’s dancing, but it was something to have to put up with for her plan to work.
“Oh, Mr Chetwode,” she cooed, “I could not help noticing you speaking with my friend Beth Renfield!”
“Ah?” said Mr Chetwode, hoping that his plans had not been overheard and that this female, pleasant as she seemed, did not hope to make him reconsider.
“Indeed! And seeing how much in love with her you are, I am certain that Beth is quite as much in love with you, but of course she does like a man to prove that he may be masterful you know. And your best way to win her is to wait outside her house for the ball on Friday, and hustle her into your carriage and drive straight to Gretna with her!”
Mr Chetwode made a strangled noise of mixed irritation and incomprehension. Amelia misunderstood.
“Oh, you poor man, I know, you have not the funds to undertake such an operation!” she said, with her tinkling laugh, “but I will readily give… or loan if you prefer… whatever you need, for Beth will be able to pay me back when she comes into her inheritance.”
Mr Chetwode found his voice.
“I think, Miss Hazelgrove, you are labouring under several false apprehensions,” he said. “Miss Renfield is a dear young lady who has been like a sister to me, helping me to gain the courage to ask the woman of my dreams to be mine. But I do not love her, and she does not love me, which is just as well, for her playing on the pianoforte is bearable but only just, and only if one does not have to listen to her doing more than accompaniment of equally inept people.”
Amelia stared.
“But… but I thought… your expression… when you were speaking to her…”
“Oh, but we were speaking of the incomparable… of the most beautiful and accomplished woman in the world,” said Mr Chetwode.
Amelia tittered.
“Do you make a habit of praising this female when in the company of other women?” she asked.
“Oh! No, but you asked,” said Mr Chetwode. “I do not need to discuss her, usually, for phrases of music in my head whisper about her, and then I do not have to listen or talk to any other female who is present.”
Amelia promptly left him before they reached the top of the line to dance.
“What did I say?” said Mr Chetwode to thin air, then shrugged and left the line. If this silly creature did not want to dance after all, he did not have to. He hesitated over whether he should go and sit the rest of it out with her, and decided it would be more convivial to go and find his hostess’ music room and play the music that he was writing for Cressida.
Amelia stormed off in a rage, because he had not even pretended to be attracted to her, and because he was of no use to her after all.
Well, if there was nobody she could persuade to elope with Beth Renfield, she must see which of the idiots lost too much at cards, and offer one of them a way to earn his way out of his debts.
Edward was busy puzzling over who Beth might be in love with, and whether there was a problem, that she had not asked to be released from their secret betrothal. How dare someone make Beth look so wistful as she had when she had blushed! Some idiot had not realised that Beth loved him, and was not returning her regard! It made Edward want to grind his teeth, and long to plant a facer on someone who was upsetting his Beth!
Edward suddenly realised that he was jealous, and wondered guiltily if his own behaviour had driven away a suitor before he might properly appreciate Beth.
He must speak to Letty about it.
Amelia racked her brains for who might be rakish enough to consider abducting a girl for money whom she actually knew. Her first choice fell upon Sir Leomer Byesby, who was said to gamble very deeply and to be a dangerous man. Accordingly she used her smile, and her fan to let him know that she wanted to dance with him, and managed adroitly to meet him on the dance floor before her mother might expostulate. Amelia’s mother gave her a great deal of leeway, but she would be likely to protest over so gazetted a rake as Byesby dancing with her daughter.
“What did you want of me, Miss Hazelgrove?” asked Byesby.
“La! Can it be that I wanted anything but the pleasure of a dance with you?” said Amelia, plying her fan.
“Unlikely. Why not come to the point and then we may enjoy the rest of the dance?” said Byesby.
Amelia nearly left him standing partnerless at that point, but decided to pass it off with her tinkling little laugh, that had taken her so long to achieve.
“Why, My Lord, you are blunt indeed!” she said. “Very well; you have a problem of debt, and I have a problem of a stupid girl who has somehow ensnared into betrothal the man I intend to marry. I pay you to compromise her by abducting her, and we both have no more problem. Her guardian is rich, and she is likely the sole heir.”
“What a poisonous little snake you are, to be sure,” said Byesby, his lips curling slightly in a sneer. “And which poor girl are you planning to so betray to a bridegroom most definitely not of her choosing?”
Amelia flushed.
“Are you saying you won’t do it? I can pay you all you ask!” she said.
“Mercenary as a cit, too,” said Byesby, managing to combine boredom with scornful amusement in his voice. “I am not to be bought; no gentleman would ever accept such an infamous suggestion, even if it were his last chance to stay out of the Marshalsea. You are a thoroughly unprincipled girl to even consider such a thing. Which poor girl are you hoping to enact this wickedness on?”
“I shan’t tell you, so there!” said Amelia. “How dare you call me a cit, and poisonous?”
“Because you are,” said Byesby. “Though I fancy it’s more a case of being too thoroughly spoilt to realise how wicked you are; you should have been well spanked as a child. It’s probably too late now.”
For the second time of the evening, Amelia flounced off the dance floor; and those who had been inclined to censure the behaviour of Mr Chetwode for driving her from him changed their minds to argue that a girl who left two dance partners must surely be the one at fault, since there was nothing wrong with Byesby save a fatal attraction to gambling and a fatal attraction for women.
Byesby laughed, and took himself out of the measure to find the nearest waiter with a drink, whereupon he sat and watched Amelia Hazelgrove quite narrowly, to see if she would be likely to reveal who was so unfortunate as to be the object of her designs.
Amelia was in receipt of a scolding from her mother for behaving badly in two dances.
“To leave a known rake like Byesby is one thing – and you should never have accepted an offer to dance from him in the first place – but to do that after leaving an inoffensive creature like Mr Chetwode, that is too bad!” said Mrs Hazelgrove.
“He is not inoffensive, he is more interested in his stupid music than he is in me,” said Amelia, who wanted to defend herself but did not dare speak of her real reasons for having felt slighted by Mr Chetwode.
“Now that is quite childish of you, my darling,” said Mrs Hazelgrove. “For I have heard it said that he is a very fine musician, and musicians are all just a little bit mad about their music! There, I had to give my precious girl a bit of a hint, you know, before any of the old cats decide to bar you from any more balls, for being missish! I think we should go home, now, and I will drop a hint that it is that time for you, which is making you so badly behaved, for that will make it quite understandable to any hostess or would-be hostess!”
Amelia sulked. Being hustled off, and rumours of her indisposition spread widely meant that she had no time to approach any other debt-ridden rakes. She must suffer herself to be taken home early, and to stay at home for several days to lend credence to her mother’s way of rescuing her from possible social ruin. Amelia did not see why it should mean social ruin to a girl, if she left an unconvivial partner looking stupid, but apparently her mother felt that it did.
Well, in the meantime she might wrack her brains and make lists of appropriate men to ruin that horrid Beth Renfield.
Chapter 17
Edward managed to get Letty alone while he escorted the ladies shopping for ribbons in Bond Street.
“Aunt Letty, I managed to upset Beth, I fear,” he said.
“She said nothing of it to me,” said Letty.
“Well, she might not have done so for embarrassment,” said Edward. “You see, I thought for a while she was in love with that clunch, Chetwode, and made a cake of myself, and I asked her if she was in love, and she blushed, and she told me it was an indelicate question.”
“Edward, sometimes you are a complete fool,” said Letty, crisply. “Perhaps you should ask yourself for whom might Beth have a partiality, when there is one gentleman whom she admires mightily, who is kind, and able to make sure that a lady is always comfortable, who has been assiduous in his attentions and escorting us, and who is even good-looking into the bargain.”
“Why, he sounds a very paragon, but he must have been escorting you when I have been away in Suffolk, for I cannot bring to mind anyone of that nature,” said Edward.
“Then you’re a clunch even more so than Mr Chetwode, and you deserve to lose Beth if you don’t make a push to display your feelings for her. You do have feelings for her, don’t you? More at least than as a convenient adjunct to your life for being restful, and kinder than the Hazelgrove female?”
“I…I believe I am in love with Beth,” said Edward.
“Well, perhaps showing her that might be a good idea,” said Letty, tartly. “You cannot expect a woman to make the running in a courtship; you need to court her properly so she knows she is doing the right thing in marrying you.”
“But if she is in love with this other man, this paragon….” Said Edward.
Letty threw up her arms in frustration.
“Edward, who escorts us shopping? Who gets waiters to serve one? Who has aspirations to aid the indigent?”
“Well, I don’t know anybody else who does so,” said Edward. “Kept himself secret from me, hasn’t he?” he added truculently.
“On the contrary. You have been acquainted with him for twenty-seven years, four months and seventeen days,” said Letty.
Edward counted on his fingers.
“That would be from my birth,” he said. “Aunt Letty! Is Uncle Adam courting Beth?”
“Are you really that stupid, or did my sister merely drop you on your head when you were a baby?” demanded Letty
Edward stared.
“You…. Do you mean that the darling girl loves me?” he gasped.
“And I’m not sure why when you are such a nodcock,” said Letty with some asperity.
“I could not dare to hope,” said Edward.
“Well hope, and for goodness sake, be lover-like towards her, instead of treating her like a colleague you hope to back you in the House of Lords!”
“I don’t!” he was hurt. “Do I?”
Letty sighed.
“Only a little,” she said. “Here she comes, now offer her your arm do and admire her purchases.”
Beth tripped over, smiling with pleasure.
“Now I may make over the gown someone spilled red wine onto, that I did not see until it had been washed,” she said. “Molly was so tearful about it, and I showed her how to soak it in white wine, which brought out most of it, but there is the faintest of pinkness still near the hem. I thought to trim it with flounces of the same muslin, as they still have some in the haberdashery here, vandyked and caught at the top of the points with ribbon knots. And I know that is of no interest to you, Edward, but I was so pleased that they had not sold out. The only other thing we might have tried was to soak the whole in red wine and hope to achieve an all over pinkish tinge that at least could be worn over pink. White is sometimes a difficult colour to match, like black!”
“That sounds illogical,” said Edward.
“Oh, it may sound illogical, but if you consider, the fibres may be from different places, as are the fibres from different sheep, and though they bleach it in the sun I believe, it does not always achieve quite the same shade, sometimes being creamier in colour than others,” said Beth. “As for black, the dye may take differently, and some manufacturers achieve a good black by different means than others.”
“By Jove, you are right!” said Edward. “One of my school coats washed corbeau-coloured the first time it was laundered, and rifle green the second, and I had to have the laundress swear it had gone to her black to avoid a whipping for gaudiness. Mama was most put out at such shoddy fabric.”
“Yes, I should think so!” said Beth. “Is that why you eschew green coats?”
“By Jove, I should think it probably is, though I had not thought of it for many years!” said Edward. “How the other fellows teased me!”
“The dark blue superfine you generally wear brings out the blue of your eyes, in any case,” said Beth.
“And your eyes are like the sea, ever changing, and always beautiful,” said Edward.
“Oh Edward! Did you just pay me a compliment?” said Beth, looking pleased.
“Only said it because it’s true,” said Edward, looking flustered. “You’re a very fine looking woman, Beth, and stap me, if I don’t prefer golden brown hair by a long chalk to theatrical brunette. It ain’t so actressy.”
Beth smiled up at him, and Edward almost kissed her. However it was not appropriate behaviour to kiss a girl in the middle of Bond Street! At least, not unless one was deucedly loose in the haft!
Beth was happy. Why Edward had looked at her so kindly, and for a moment she had wondered whether he was going to kiss her! It would be wildly improper to do so here, but Beth knew that however improper it was, she would permit Edward to kiss her anywhere!
Edward schooled himself, and was all that was proper, seeing the ladies home, and Beth hoped that he was not regretting such a display of emotion.
“Dear Aunt, Edward was notdrunk was he, that he gave me compliments?” she asked Letty, once Edward had taken his leave of them.
“Drunk, fiddlesticks, come to his senses to recognise what a pretty girl you are,” said Letty. “You ain’t a beauty, but then handsome is as handsome does, and you look very pleasant indeed. He’s just turned embarrassed because he said what he was thinking. It always takes him that way.”
“Oh Aunt Letty! Do you think that he is beginning to feel some affection for me that is more romantic than familial?” asked Beth.
“I think he’s realising how loveable you are, and how he might have nearly lost you to some other cub on the town,” said Letty. “After all, hasn’t he growled at all your suitors?”
Beth giggled.
“You make him sound like a dancing bear, tormented by horrid little boys,” she said.
“Well, my dear, I’m sure he would enter into the feelings of such a bear, feeling tormented by thoughts that those little boys might carry off what he wants most, which in the case of a bear might be his food, but in Edward’s case is his bride, you.”
“Ooooh…” said Beth.
“About time he started treating you more like a woman and less like someone to harangue with his political beliefs,” said Letty, “though it’s a compliment that he expects you to understand them and argue if you disagree.”
“I like to listen and to make suggestions,” said Beth. “He is hoping to set up some kind of manufactory for wounded soldiers, where they may make things for sale, to give them dignity, with a place to stay as well and regular meals. He wrote to me from his farm that perhaps some of the woodland that needs thinning might be given over to timber for the manufacture of simple furniture that they might make, or decorative boxes for keeping gloves, or jewellery, or paperwork in.”
“Edward may not be the sharpest stick in the bundle, but he is very good at seeing what needs to be done and doing it,” agreed Letty. “Of course it never occurred to him that it was improper to write to you, a young unattached woman, without sending such a missive via your guardian.”
“Well, we are betrothed,” said Beth. “And what do you mean about him not being the sharpest stick in the bundle? Edward is very knowledgeable!”
“Yes, that is true,” said Letty. “And I grant you he has taken the effort to be well-informed, but sometimes he fails to see the simplest of things… well, well, my dear, do not let it trouble you. Edward may not be as clever as some, but he has a wisdom that is more endearing.”
“You do speak in riddles sometimes, Aunt!” laughed Beth.
Amelia’s cogitations had meanwhile brought her to the decision that she knew the perfect person to abduct and ruin Beth. And she got her ideas from the newspapers.
The ongoing Crim.Con. case in the paper, regarding the foisting of a discarded and pregnant mistress onto Adam, Baron Darsham, was unfolding in some detail, since Tiffany’s maid had decided to sell her story to the highest bidding newspaper, having very little understanding of such things as the concept of contempt of court, let alone the decency to preserve any of her mistress’ reputation. Indeed, had she known, she might even have been pleased to take away Tiffany’s name, since the erstwhile Baroness, divorced already according to the Church, had dismissed her maid in a fit of pique that the girl had backed the story after being told that she might do so. Tiffany was finding that it was not so simple as divorcing Adam and going back to being a free woman, since she was barred from most of society for her deception and prenuptial adultery. It was unfair that society did not equally bar the man who had seduced and left her, and Evelyn, Marquis Finchbury, was still received, if not permitted near to many unwed ladies.
Amelia considered that Finchbury would be the ideal candidate to abduct Beth. He was unscrupulous, and his pockets were always to let. That this was an attack on Edward’s whole family never occurred to her. Contacting him was, of course, the most difficult matter. Amelia thought long and hard, and decided that the only thing to be done was to send him a letter and arrange to meet somewhere like Vauxhall Gardens, now that they were open for the Spring and Summer. A vastly improper thing to do, however, and would give the Marquis a possible hold over her. Amelia was practical enough about her own safety. However, she had a sudden idea; the illuminations in honour of the defeat of Napoleon would afford the opportunity of dark corners where the lights left pools of shadow, and yet in a more public space than, say, the dark walks at Vauxhall, one might feel safer.
Amelia began a campaign of nagging of her parents to be permitted to view the illuminations, fairly certain that neither of them wished to go, and so would be likely to permit her to go under the care of a footman and her maid. She would be able to do that, even if supposedly under the curse of a female indisposition, as she would not be likely to be seen by many, if she was careful.
Accordingly, once given permission, Amelia wrote a note to the Marquis of Finchbury, directing him to meet her that evening to learn something to his advantage, at the illuminations in South Audley Street, where the display by the Duke of Cambridge, the Portuguese Ambassador and Monsieur might be seen. Amelia planned to drive through the streets to see the other displays, at Horse Guards, the Mansion House, Manchester Square and elsewhere, but picked this venue almost at random, but she knew that she might step into Grosvenor Chapel, and even someone who was as hardened a rake as Finchbury would never abduct a lady from a church. That her own business was most unholy did not occur to her. She added the porch of the chapel as a venue to meet, and sent her favourite footman off with the message. He would doubtless be accompanying her in the evening and would do anything for her, especially with a good vail.
As it happened, Edward was also taking Letty and Beth to see the illuminations; he chose to take them to Somerset House, where the decorations were quite sumptuous, and some took the part of lit inscriptions, with the Latin tag along the front,
Europa Instaurata, Auspice Britanniae;
Tyrannide subversa, Vindice Liberatis.
“I may have small Latin, but even I can puzzle that out,” said Beth. “Europe restored, under the protection of Britain, tyranny overthrown, the vindication of liberty.”
“Near enough,” said Edward. “Europe set up under the protection of Britain, Tyranny overthrown, the champion freed, as I make it.”
“I like the pictures better,” said Beth, pointing to another building that displayed an illuminated painted transparency cartoon of Bonaparte, tumbling from the mount of Republicanism into the arms of a demon. “Why does it say ‘To Hell-bay’?”
“No idea,” said Edward, “unless it’s a forced pun on the name of the island he is to be exiled to, Elba.”
“It’s not a good pun if so,” said Beth, disapprovingly. “But an amusing idea to have him tumble from hubris.”
They wandered the streets, exclaiming at the ingenuity of some of the illuminations, expressions of loyalty to the King and Regent, as well as praising Wellington, expressions of support to the House of Bourbon, and a myriad of coloured lamps as well as transparencies.
Edward was insistent that the ladies should repair with him to Fleet Street.
“The Knight’s Gas Company have a most ingenious display,” he told them.
Beth gasped as she saw what the gas company had managed, a tree made of laurel leaves and festooned with blossoms made with gas lights, and throwing all other illuminations into the shade with the unparalleled brightness of the burning gas.
“Magnificent!” breathed Beth.
“Thought you’d like that,” said Edward. “One day, all London’s streets will be illumined with gas lighting, and it will be a much safer place to be.”
“Indeed, yes!” said Beth. “Why, I am sometimes afraid at night of turning my foot betwixt door and carriage, without having to stop to consider the possibility of footpads taking advantage of the confusion as people seek their carriages outside a house where a ball has been held, for once outside the pool of the lights at the entrance, the darkness appears the more Stygian by contrast. I cannot help wondering whether one of the reasons to continue a ball until dawn is to permit safer passage home for the guests, once the crepuscular gloom as the sun rises has given way to morning.”
“I wouldn’t say you were wrong at that,” said Edward. “Worth braving the cold of the evening?”
“Eminently so,” said Beth, determining to wrap up warmly as she saw Cressida on her way to her elopement after the ball they were both to attend. Who knew how long they might have to wait for Mr Chetwode! She would strongly urge Cressida to dress warmly too, and tell her maid to do so; and Beth determined that she would loan Molly, who was to wait with her, her second best cloak, so that she might not get chilled.
However, this excitement was several days away, and the weather might even improve.
Not that Beth was very sanguine on this point, as the chill seemed to be set in for the foreseeable future, and the barometer held no promise of change.
She was glad to return to the fireside in Red Lion Square, where Edward was regaled with tea, and London crumpets, which were made with yeast, and had holes in for the butter to melt into. Beth thought them much preferable to the normal, flat crumpets, which were probably the same griddle cakes that King Alfred had burned, and happily consumed three, licking her fingers.
“Oh Beth, you are so sweet,” said Edward. “I do love to see you enjoying yourself, whether with the illuminations or just enjoying something so simple as tea and cakes or crumpets.”
“I’ll be fat by the time I’m forty, you know,” said Beth, seriously. “I love my food too much not to be.”
“Oh, I have no doubt I shall be a trifle corpulent by then as well,” said Edward, “and I love the way you accept that one ages and changes. Though I fancy you may carry it off better than I; you have the type of figure that is unchanged, no matter what you eat.”
“More to the point, I go for brisk walks in the mornings,” said Beth. “Because I do have my vanity.”
Edward laughed.
“We shall walk together when we are married,” he said, stretching out a hand to her.
“I should like that very much,” said Beth, taking his hand, shyly.
Letty heaved a sigh of relief. They would manage to declare their love before long.
Chapter 18
Amelia had meanwhile had a curt note back with five words on it: “this had better be good” which she had shivered over when reading. She stuffed her reticule with paper money, and hoped that she had enough to pay off the Marquis to do the job. It seemed likely that Beth was also Letty’s heir, reasoned Amelia, who was still not entirely convinced that Beth was not Letty’s natural daughter.
It was with some trepidation that Amelia approached the chapel. A dark figure lurked by the door.
“Well?” he snapped.
“I have a business proposition for you,” said Amelia. “Shall we step into the chapel out of the wind?”
He gave a bark of sardonic laughter.
“Well, you ain’t weighed down with devotion,” he sneered.
“What do you mean? I am a regular church-goer!” said Amelia.
“But ready to transact trade in the temple… I presume it is not yourself that you are selling?”
She flushed.
“Certainly not! But I offer both funds to cover any immediate embarrassments you might have, and a bride who will have a good fortune when her aunt, if the woman is not her mother, dies, should you care to marry the wretched woman, not just ravish her.”
“Very well. You interest me; keep talking,” said the Marquis, ushering Amelia into the church. He shut the door in the face of her maid.
“I am unchaperoned!” cried Amelia, with sudden panic, looking up into the dark, sardonic face, half afraid he might ravish any female, and half wondering what it might be like to be possessed by someone wild and untameable, not safe and conventional like Edward.
“So you are,” said the Marquis. “I ain’t got any desire to kiss you though; I prefer blondes with lips that ain’t big enough to be likely to slobber. I don’t want any witnesses.”
“Very well,” said Amelia, torn between eagerness to get it over with, relief that he did not demand kisses as additional payment, and outrage over his evident lack of interest in her, though he had swept her trim figure with an insolent look that almost seemed to undress her! “There’s a girl called Beth Renfield, who is the ward of a Letty Grey. I want Beth abducted and ruined. You can marry her then if you will; Mr Grey left his wife very wealthy as I understand. AWP!”
Finchbury seized Amelia by the throat, and regarded her thoughtfully.
“And would this be any kind of trap, set up by Edward Brandon, by any chance?” he asked.
“He knows nothing of it! I want to marry him, but that stupid little dab of a woman has her hooks into him somehow! And I want her out of the way!” said Amelia.
He let go of her throat as suddenly as he had seized it.
“You ain’t clever enough to dissemble,” he said. “Well, well! I might have suspected Edward Brandon of setting a trap for me, as he’s very hot as regards family. And it pleases me well enough to do the whole family a bad turn, and sweet indeed if a bride from the same stable pays any damages Adam, Lord Darsham demands from me. Especially as I never told that stupid creature Tiffany Pelham to wed someone who would be likely to cut up rough when she was stupid enough to break an ankle from our fun together. Hmm, yes, and Tiff shall see that she cannot come running to me.”
“I didn’t know she had broken her ankle,” said Amelia. “It must be hard, missing out on dancing.”
He laughed again, mockingly.
“The euphemism for getting with child, little fool,” he said. “She was so eager and not careful. Hardly my fault, but I am the one accused of criminal conversation. She was not even betrothed to Adam Brandon at the time. Yes, decidedly I will do the family an ill turn, but if you let Edward Brandon know before it’s a fait accompli so help me, I’ll wring your pretty neck if I survive that intemperate young man. He has already threatened my person over his ridiculous aunt by marriage. You will have to let me know her itinerary, and when it is best to snatch her – as well as giving me enough ready to make it worth my while, and to hire a coach, and horses on the way North.”
“I have a roll of soft, almost three thousand pounds. Will that do?” asked Amelia. “It was all I could secrete from my parents.”
He laughed again, and shivers ran up Amelia’s spine.
“Brought it with you, did you, little fool? And only my upbringing as a gentleman preventing me from taking it from you by force! Yes, that will do. It will see to all the arrangements and keep my more pressing creditors out of the way. I need a ball she will attend to try to abduct her in the dark.”
Amelia pulled the banknotes out of her reticule as he held out his hand for them, and watched in horrified fascination at the expert way he fanned and counted them.
“We all attend a big ball at Arvendish House on Friday next, the twenty-second,” she told him. “Beth is bound to be there. So too is Edward, so you must be careful.”
Finchbury nodded.
“My thanks for the warning,” he said. “I shall endeavour to avoid him. And I wish you joy of the unpleasant fellow. He is like a march of ants, one attack negligible, but able to make a real nuisance of himself by his persistence, and cannot be diverted once started on a march. You had better get away before anyone notices you are without a chaperone. The rest is up to me – apart from you marrying that brainless oaf. I really do not see what you see in him; they say that he is exerting his philanthropy to help those soldiers who have been invalided out, now.”
“He will not waste his time or fortune on such things when we are married, I assure you,” said Amelia. “I shall leave the church first; give me time to ret out quickly and make myself into just one more person seeing the sights.”
He nodded, and Amelia slipped out.
She scarcely took in the expressions of fervid support for the Bourbon restoration that were the major part of the display of Cambridge House, nor such patriotism equally in evidence on the houses of the Portuguese ambassador, and Monsieur, the brother of the supposed Louis XVIII. With her maid and her footman in attendance she just wanted to get as far away from Finchbury as possible, and obtain safety. She could almost swear she heard a mocking laugh pursue her as she walked as fast as she might, without running. What a loathsome man! And yet Beth Renfield deserved someone like that, for attempting to steal Edward!
It seemed an age before Amelia gained the safety of the coach, and bid the coachman to drive by other illuminations. She must study some of them, for her mother would want to know about them, even if she had not wanted to go. Amelia swallowed hard. She felt sick with all she had been through, and the cries of street vendors with food, taking advantage of this nocturnal excursion made her want to heave. But it was over now! And she should have Edward, and commiserate with him that his wanton cousin had married a ne’er do well.
Evelyn, Marquis Finchbury was thinking furiously, and was well pleased with the bargain he had been offered. This scheming little minx was probably dangerous, as much because her malice was quite ingenuous and naïve. She was likely to gloat, as soon as the deed was done, and bring Edward Brandon down on him. One did not have to be a coward to wish to avoid being beaten by the ham-like hands of a glorified farmer, who just happened too to have taken lessons from Gentleman Jackson. Not because he wished to cut a dash as a Corinthian, or for any normal such reason, but just so he could keep fit, and so he could go into the roughest Rookeries to help his lame ducks! It was said he was quite a shot too, and probably had learned that for the same reason, beyond the normal urges to hunt, and it was also said that Brandon carried a sword-stick. Heaven preserve any honest rogue from a philanthropist who knew how to take care of himself!
Finchbury decided that heading out on the Great North Road was probably the last thing any sensible seducer should attempt, and decided instead to make for Wales, where a licence sufficed, as it did in England, being under the same laws, and where nobody was likely to look for him. The bride should be resigned by then to marriage, as it was still a long journey, and he should have impressed upon her by then his skill as a lover. Finchbury had every faith in his own skill to make any woman adore him, and scorned rape as the resort of weaklings. He had every expectation of making this Renfield girl a willing adjunct to her own ruin. And if she was an heiress, he might even remain moderately faithful to the girl, if she was amusing enough. Whether a girl who suited Edward Brandon was likely to be amusing was another matter; she was probably a little puritan. Well, that should be a most amusing and challenging seduction, to find out whether there was any fire behind what was doubtless a rather priggish exterior.
And as for this other girl, the one who was paying him, if she caused any trouble he would make her fall in love with him, and then laugh at her.
Amelia managed to describe the illuminations to her parents with reasonable enthusiasm. They had been spectacular enough for her to bring them to mind when she concentrated, though she was pale enough for her mother to ask sharply what was wrong.
“Oh, it is just the contrast of the illuminations and the darkness of the night,” said Amelia. “Some of the wicks of the oil lanterns lighting up the display were poorly trimmed, and I have a touch of the megrim.”
It was a believable lie, and Amelia might escape to her bed, with a hot brick for her feet, with a dose of the Family Pills of Grulingius, despite her protests regarding the latter.
“Now then, my darling,” said her mother, “It is good for you. Why, we know ‘it has been found of excellent use in Lethargies, Caras, Vertigoes, old Head Aches, Megrims, Epilepsies, Apoplexies, and other cold and moist diseases of the Brain’, for it says so here on the packet. And in this cold and moist weather, it must be most efficacious.”
Amelia’s contemplations on her preferred fate for Dr Grulingius would not have been considered ladylike. However, it was nice to snuggle down into a warm bed, for she had become chilled by her outing, and she drifted off to sleep to dream roseate dreams of being a baroness, and only awoke sweating from a nightmare to recall that Beth Renfield would be a Marchioness if Finchbury did marry her, and would outrank her! How could she have made such a miscalculation!
But Beth Renfield would have to put up with being ruined first, and would be too much of a prude to show herself in Town, whereas she, Amelia, would make sure that Edward spent as much time in Town as possible. Finchbury would be happy to leave Beth in his country seat, wherever that was, and come to town for his amours since one could hardly expect him to wish to spend time with anyone so boring as Beth. Amelia had set her heart on Edward, so long as he had a title ahead of him, and she had no desire to have anything more to do with Finchbury!
It did, however, take Amelia quite a long time to get back to sleep again, though it was not her conscience that kept her awake, but the disturbing image of a dark, sardonic face.
Beth also had a slight headache from the effects of the illuminations, or, as she confessed cheerfully, too much butter on her crumpets, but unlike Mrs Hazelgrove, Letty preferred country herbs over patent medicines, and dosed her with a tea of dried willow bark and lemon balm, sweetened with honey and flavoured with cinnamon to mask the bitterness of the dose.
“I cannot say that the honey takes much of the bitterness,” said Beth, with a grimace, as she swallowed the dose down.
“No, my dear, but it is worse without it,” said Letty.
“As I prefer not to imagine,” said Beth. “Oh, but how pretty the lights were, and it was definitely worth a slight indisposition!”
“I agree,” said Letty. “Edward showed us the best spectacles, I do believe. And what a pretty way to celebrate the end of hostilities! I do declate, I cannot readily recall when we have not been at war with France, save that brief Peace of Amiens. Why, we must have been at war more than a quarter of a century! For I was just a young girl in the schoolroom, you know!”
“It will seem strange, that one might just visit France now, if one pleases,” said Beth.
“Would you like to do so?” asked Letty.
“It might be nice,” said Beth. “Only think, to be able to say to my grandchildren, ‘I was in France soon after the Monster was defeated’, assuming I have any grandchildren of course.”
“Oh, I’m sure you will,” said Letty. “Now go to sleep!”
Beth drifted off happily, and dreamed of Edward holding her hand while gas lights danced just for them.
And a very merry Christmas to all
Beth was assiduous in helping her friends, including newer friends like Cressida, who was so hard to get to know. Consequently, she spent much time dancing with, and chatting to, Mr Chetwode, boosting his confidence.
“She asked me if I could support a wife, is she having a laugh at my expense?” asked Mr Chetwode, anxiously.
“Not at all,” said Beth. “A girl who has been economising in the hopes of marriage to someone who can support her in some style is going to want to know if there will be enough in the house to eat, and better yet, a servant to cook it. I’m sure Cressida is more than capable of cooking and doing housework, but I have no doubt that it might put a strain on love for her to have to do so unaided.”
“I’m a nabob,” said Mr Chetwode.
“Yes, I know that, because I can see the quality of the cloth of your clothes, and that they are cut for comfort not fashion, and the violin you play is a Stradivarius, I think. But not all people are so perspicacious, and as you do not throw your blunt around, they assume you to be fairly impecunious and buying as good clothes as you can get as an economy.”
“And wonderful Cressida thinks that? And would still marry me? I could scarcely dare believe it!” said Mr Chetwode.
“She was wondering how to confess to her parents that she wanted to marry a poor man,” said Beth, “Which is why I told her to elope with you. It might still serve. Her father might not listen to explanations once Society has made up its stupid mind about you.”
Mr Chetwode chuckled.
“And I have to say I shouldn’t be so deucedly awkward or likely to fall over myself in a quiet wedding over the anvil as I might if I had to have a big society wedding as befits an earl’s daughter,” he said. “If you don’t mind being my go-between to Cressida, I’ll go ahead and arrange it.”
“Good man,” said Beth. “Let me know of the arrangements, and I’ll tell her where and when to meet you, and persuade her to stick to no more than two band boxes.”
“Do you think she’d be likely to bring more?” said Mr Chetwode in lively horror.
“There’s no telling what girls raised to expecting silver spoons might do, as her parents are very conscious of what’s due to her consequence,” said Beth, dryly. “I have no doubt her mother would be likely to pack all the family silver and a couple of footmen to polish it, but Cressida does seem to have a practical turn of mind. She learned to cook when they were between cooks.”
“What a wonderful girl she is!” sighed Mr Chetwode, looking quite, thought Beth, like a moonling in his throes of adoration.
She left him contemplating his adoration to dance with Edward.
“What revolting faces that fellow was pulling!” he said.
“He’s in love,” said Beth, “as well as being a musician. I suspect it takes artistic people more violently than it does ordinary beings like you and me.”
“Good G-d! are you in love then?” demanded Edward, conscious of feeling guilty that he had possibly gazed on Amelia in such a rapt fashion.
Beth blushed and lowered her eyes.
“Beth!” Edward was suddenly furious with Mr Chetwode. “He ain’t worthy of you!”
“I beg your pardon?” said Beth, looking as confused as she felt.
“That Chetwode fellow you’re in love with!” said Edward forcibly.
“Whatever gave you the idea I’m in love with another woman’s man?” said Beth, indignantly. “Don’t you dare go spreading that around, or poor Cressida will be quite cast down and fear that I’m going to wreck her chances with the daft creature!”
Edward stared.
“You mean… you’re not in love with him? But you blushed when I asked!” he accused.
“You asked if I was in love, which was a slightly indelicate question, but you never mentioned Mr Chetwode, who is a pleasant companion, but not someone I should ever be in love with. I expect I might even have to tell him which inns to stay at on the Great North Road when he elopes with Cressida, he is singularly hopeless at detail,” said Beth.
“You will not. I’ll advise him,” said Edward. “Not that I know the road any further than York, but I’m sure he can improvise for the rest of the way.”
“Oh thank you, Edward, how kind you are, and how nice of you not to make a fuss about me advising them to elope!” said Beth.
“Oh, I daresay it’s the only way to unfreeze Lady Cressida,” said Edward. “And a couple of days on the road with a dreamy type like Chetwode will either show her how she has to manage him, or will send her fleeing for home to accept any choice her parents make for her.”
“I doubt she’s likely to flee,” said Beth. “It’s his brains and his music she’s interested in; I daresay she can manage to procure a hack in the rain for herself if he can’t, which is one of my criteria for a marriageable gentleman.”
“Well, it’s not hard,” said Edward.
Beth laughed.
“It’s not hard for the sort of gentleman who can also catch a waiter’s eye to be served, and who never is at a loss how to deal with a situation where a lady is in need.”
“Suppose I had not been the sort of man to manage such things?” said Edward.
“I should not have accepted your proposal,” said Beth.
“But how could you know?”
“Partly from my own observation, and partly from Aunt Letty’s stories for you, after allowing for some degree of partiality,” said Beth.
“What a dear girl you are!” said Edward.
Edward was not the only person to assume that Mr Chetwode was enamoured of Beth; for Amelia also noted this earnest conversation, and made plans accordingly, and smiled encouragingly at Mr Chetwode. As the young man was trying hard not to make a spectacle of Cressida, he cheerfully asked for an introduction to this smiling young woman, so he might dance with someone else, and hope she would not mind his clumsiness.
Amelia was not looking forward to the unhandy nature of Mr Chetwode’s dancing, but it was something to have to put up with for her plan to work.
“Oh, Mr Chetwode,” she cooed, “I could not help noticing you speaking with my friend Beth Renfield!”
“Ah?” said Mr Chetwode, hoping that his plans had not been overheard and that this female, pleasant as she seemed, did not hope to make him reconsider.
“Indeed! And seeing how much in love with her you are, I am certain that Beth is quite as much in love with you, but of course she does like a man to prove that he may be masterful you know. And your best way to win her is to wait outside her house for the ball on Friday, and hustle her into your carriage and drive straight to Gretna with her!”
Mr Chetwode made a strangled noise of mixed irritation and incomprehension. Amelia misunderstood.
“Oh, you poor man, I know, you have not the funds to undertake such an operation!” she said, with her tinkling laugh, “but I will readily give… or loan if you prefer… whatever you need, for Beth will be able to pay me back when she comes into her inheritance.”
Mr Chetwode found his voice.
“I think, Miss Hazelgrove, you are labouring under several false apprehensions,” he said. “Miss Renfield is a dear young lady who has been like a sister to me, helping me to gain the courage to ask the woman of my dreams to be mine. But I do not love her, and she does not love me, which is just as well, for her playing on the pianoforte is bearable but only just, and only if one does not have to listen to her doing more than accompaniment of equally inept people.”
Amelia stared.
“But… but I thought… your expression… when you were speaking to her…”
“Oh, but we were speaking of the incomparable… of the most beautiful and accomplished woman in the world,” said Mr Chetwode.
Amelia tittered.
“Do you make a habit of praising this female when in the company of other women?” she asked.
“Oh! No, but you asked,” said Mr Chetwode. “I do not need to discuss her, usually, for phrases of music in my head whisper about her, and then I do not have to listen or talk to any other female who is present.”
Amelia promptly left him before they reached the top of the line to dance.
“What did I say?” said Mr Chetwode to thin air, then shrugged and left the line. If this silly creature did not want to dance after all, he did not have to. He hesitated over whether he should go and sit the rest of it out with her, and decided it would be more convivial to go and find his hostess’ music room and play the music that he was writing for Cressida.
Amelia stormed off in a rage, because he had not even pretended to be attracted to her, and because he was of no use to her after all.
Well, if there was nobody she could persuade to elope with Beth Renfield, she must see which of the idiots lost too much at cards, and offer one of them a way to earn his way out of his debts.
Edward was busy puzzling over who Beth might be in love with, and whether there was a problem, that she had not asked to be released from their secret betrothal. How dare someone make Beth look so wistful as she had when she had blushed! Some idiot had not realised that Beth loved him, and was not returning her regard! It made Edward want to grind his teeth, and long to plant a facer on someone who was upsetting his Beth!
Edward suddenly realised that he was jealous, and wondered guiltily if his own behaviour had driven away a suitor before he might properly appreciate Beth.
He must speak to Letty about it.
Amelia racked her brains for who might be rakish enough to consider abducting a girl for money whom she actually knew. Her first choice fell upon Sir Leomer Byesby, who was said to gamble very deeply and to be a dangerous man. Accordingly she used her smile, and her fan to let him know that she wanted to dance with him, and managed adroitly to meet him on the dance floor before her mother might expostulate. Amelia’s mother gave her a great deal of leeway, but she would be likely to protest over so gazetted a rake as Byesby dancing with her daughter.
“What did you want of me, Miss Hazelgrove?” asked Byesby.
“La! Can it be that I wanted anything but the pleasure of a dance with you?” said Amelia, plying her fan.
“Unlikely. Why not come to the point and then we may enjoy the rest of the dance?” said Byesby.
Amelia nearly left him standing partnerless at that point, but decided to pass it off with her tinkling little laugh, that had taken her so long to achieve.
“Why, My Lord, you are blunt indeed!” she said. “Very well; you have a problem of debt, and I have a problem of a stupid girl who has somehow ensnared into betrothal the man I intend to marry. I pay you to compromise her by abducting her, and we both have no more problem. Her guardian is rich, and she is likely the sole heir.”
“What a poisonous little snake you are, to be sure,” said Byesby, his lips curling slightly in a sneer. “And which poor girl are you planning to so betray to a bridegroom most definitely not of her choosing?”
Amelia flushed.
“Are you saying you won’t do it? I can pay you all you ask!” she said.
“Mercenary as a cit, too,” said Byesby, managing to combine boredom with scornful amusement in his voice. “I am not to be bought; no gentleman would ever accept such an infamous suggestion, even if it were his last chance to stay out of the Marshalsea. You are a thoroughly unprincipled girl to even consider such a thing. Which poor girl are you hoping to enact this wickedness on?”
“I shan’t tell you, so there!” said Amelia. “How dare you call me a cit, and poisonous?”
“Because you are,” said Byesby. “Though I fancy it’s more a case of being too thoroughly spoilt to realise how wicked you are; you should have been well spanked as a child. It’s probably too late now.”
For the second time of the evening, Amelia flounced off the dance floor; and those who had been inclined to censure the behaviour of Mr Chetwode for driving her from him changed their minds to argue that a girl who left two dance partners must surely be the one at fault, since there was nothing wrong with Byesby save a fatal attraction to gambling and a fatal attraction for women.
Byesby laughed, and took himself out of the measure to find the nearest waiter with a drink, whereupon he sat and watched Amelia Hazelgrove quite narrowly, to see if she would be likely to reveal who was so unfortunate as to be the object of her designs.
Amelia was in receipt of a scolding from her mother for behaving badly in two dances.
“To leave a known rake like Byesby is one thing – and you should never have accepted an offer to dance from him in the first place – but to do that after leaving an inoffensive creature like Mr Chetwode, that is too bad!” said Mrs Hazelgrove.
“He is not inoffensive, he is more interested in his stupid music than he is in me,” said Amelia, who wanted to defend herself but did not dare speak of her real reasons for having felt slighted by Mr Chetwode.
“Now that is quite childish of you, my darling,” said Mrs Hazelgrove. “For I have heard it said that he is a very fine musician, and musicians are all just a little bit mad about their music! There, I had to give my precious girl a bit of a hint, you know, before any of the old cats decide to bar you from any more balls, for being missish! I think we should go home, now, and I will drop a hint that it is that time for you, which is making you so badly behaved, for that will make it quite understandable to any hostess or would-be hostess!”
Amelia sulked. Being hustled off, and rumours of her indisposition spread widely meant that she had no time to approach any other debt-ridden rakes. She must suffer herself to be taken home early, and to stay at home for several days to lend credence to her mother’s way of rescuing her from possible social ruin. Amelia did not see why it should mean social ruin to a girl, if she left an unconvivial partner looking stupid, but apparently her mother felt that it did.
Well, in the meantime she might wrack her brains and make lists of appropriate men to ruin that horrid Beth Renfield.
Chapter 17
Edward managed to get Letty alone while he escorted the ladies shopping for ribbons in Bond Street.
“Aunt Letty, I managed to upset Beth, I fear,” he said.
“She said nothing of it to me,” said Letty.
“Well, she might not have done so for embarrassment,” said Edward. “You see, I thought for a while she was in love with that clunch, Chetwode, and made a cake of myself, and I asked her if she was in love, and she blushed, and she told me it was an indelicate question.”
“Edward, sometimes you are a complete fool,” said Letty, crisply. “Perhaps you should ask yourself for whom might Beth have a partiality, when there is one gentleman whom she admires mightily, who is kind, and able to make sure that a lady is always comfortable, who has been assiduous in his attentions and escorting us, and who is even good-looking into the bargain.”
“Why, he sounds a very paragon, but he must have been escorting you when I have been away in Suffolk, for I cannot bring to mind anyone of that nature,” said Edward.
“Then you’re a clunch even more so than Mr Chetwode, and you deserve to lose Beth if you don’t make a push to display your feelings for her. You do have feelings for her, don’t you? More at least than as a convenient adjunct to your life for being restful, and kinder than the Hazelgrove female?”
“I…I believe I am in love with Beth,” said Edward.
“Well, perhaps showing her that might be a good idea,” said Letty, tartly. “You cannot expect a woman to make the running in a courtship; you need to court her properly so she knows she is doing the right thing in marrying you.”
“But if she is in love with this other man, this paragon….” Said Edward.
Letty threw up her arms in frustration.
“Edward, who escorts us shopping? Who gets waiters to serve one? Who has aspirations to aid the indigent?”
“Well, I don’t know anybody else who does so,” said Edward. “Kept himself secret from me, hasn’t he?” he added truculently.
“On the contrary. You have been acquainted with him for twenty-seven years, four months and seventeen days,” said Letty.
Edward counted on his fingers.
“That would be from my birth,” he said. “Aunt Letty! Is Uncle Adam courting Beth?”
“Are you really that stupid, or did my sister merely drop you on your head when you were a baby?” demanded Letty
Edward stared.
“You…. Do you mean that the darling girl loves me?” he gasped.
“And I’m not sure why when you are such a nodcock,” said Letty with some asperity.
“I could not dare to hope,” said Edward.
“Well hope, and for goodness sake, be lover-like towards her, instead of treating her like a colleague you hope to back you in the House of Lords!”
“I don’t!” he was hurt. “Do I?”
Letty sighed.
“Only a little,” she said. “Here she comes, now offer her your arm do and admire her purchases.”
Beth tripped over, smiling with pleasure.
“Now I may make over the gown someone spilled red wine onto, that I did not see until it had been washed,” she said. “Molly was so tearful about it, and I showed her how to soak it in white wine, which brought out most of it, but there is the faintest of pinkness still near the hem. I thought to trim it with flounces of the same muslin, as they still have some in the haberdashery here, vandyked and caught at the top of the points with ribbon knots. And I know that is of no interest to you, Edward, but I was so pleased that they had not sold out. The only other thing we might have tried was to soak the whole in red wine and hope to achieve an all over pinkish tinge that at least could be worn over pink. White is sometimes a difficult colour to match, like black!”
“That sounds illogical,” said Edward.
“Oh, it may sound illogical, but if you consider, the fibres may be from different places, as are the fibres from different sheep, and though they bleach it in the sun I believe, it does not always achieve quite the same shade, sometimes being creamier in colour than others,” said Beth. “As for black, the dye may take differently, and some manufacturers achieve a good black by different means than others.”
“By Jove, you are right!” said Edward. “One of my school coats washed corbeau-coloured the first time it was laundered, and rifle green the second, and I had to have the laundress swear it had gone to her black to avoid a whipping for gaudiness. Mama was most put out at such shoddy fabric.”
“Yes, I should think so!” said Beth. “Is that why you eschew green coats?”
“By Jove, I should think it probably is, though I had not thought of it for many years!” said Edward. “How the other fellows teased me!”
“The dark blue superfine you generally wear brings out the blue of your eyes, in any case,” said Beth.
“And your eyes are like the sea, ever changing, and always beautiful,” said Edward.
“Oh Edward! Did you just pay me a compliment?” said Beth, looking pleased.
“Only said it because it’s true,” said Edward, looking flustered. “You’re a very fine looking woman, Beth, and stap me, if I don’t prefer golden brown hair by a long chalk to theatrical brunette. It ain’t so actressy.”
Beth smiled up at him, and Edward almost kissed her. However it was not appropriate behaviour to kiss a girl in the middle of Bond Street! At least, not unless one was deucedly loose in the haft!
Beth was happy. Why Edward had looked at her so kindly, and for a moment she had wondered whether he was going to kiss her! It would be wildly improper to do so here, but Beth knew that however improper it was, she would permit Edward to kiss her anywhere!
Edward schooled himself, and was all that was proper, seeing the ladies home, and Beth hoped that he was not regretting such a display of emotion.
“Dear Aunt, Edward was notdrunk was he, that he gave me compliments?” she asked Letty, once Edward had taken his leave of them.
“Drunk, fiddlesticks, come to his senses to recognise what a pretty girl you are,” said Letty. “You ain’t a beauty, but then handsome is as handsome does, and you look very pleasant indeed. He’s just turned embarrassed because he said what he was thinking. It always takes him that way.”
“Oh Aunt Letty! Do you think that he is beginning to feel some affection for me that is more romantic than familial?” asked Beth.
“I think he’s realising how loveable you are, and how he might have nearly lost you to some other cub on the town,” said Letty. “After all, hasn’t he growled at all your suitors?”
Beth giggled.
“You make him sound like a dancing bear, tormented by horrid little boys,” she said.
“Well, my dear, I’m sure he would enter into the feelings of such a bear, feeling tormented by thoughts that those little boys might carry off what he wants most, which in the case of a bear might be his food, but in Edward’s case is his bride, you.”
“Ooooh…” said Beth.
“About time he started treating you more like a woman and less like someone to harangue with his political beliefs,” said Letty, “though it’s a compliment that he expects you to understand them and argue if you disagree.”
“I like to listen and to make suggestions,” said Beth. “He is hoping to set up some kind of manufactory for wounded soldiers, where they may make things for sale, to give them dignity, with a place to stay as well and regular meals. He wrote to me from his farm that perhaps some of the woodland that needs thinning might be given over to timber for the manufacture of simple furniture that they might make, or decorative boxes for keeping gloves, or jewellery, or paperwork in.”
“Edward may not be the sharpest stick in the bundle, but he is very good at seeing what needs to be done and doing it,” agreed Letty. “Of course it never occurred to him that it was improper to write to you, a young unattached woman, without sending such a missive via your guardian.”
“Well, we are betrothed,” said Beth. “And what do you mean about him not being the sharpest stick in the bundle? Edward is very knowledgeable!”
“Yes, that is true,” said Letty. “And I grant you he has taken the effort to be well-informed, but sometimes he fails to see the simplest of things… well, well, my dear, do not let it trouble you. Edward may not be as clever as some, but he has a wisdom that is more endearing.”
“You do speak in riddles sometimes, Aunt!” laughed Beth.
Amelia’s cogitations had meanwhile brought her to the decision that she knew the perfect person to abduct and ruin Beth. And she got her ideas from the newspapers.
The ongoing Crim.Con. case in the paper, regarding the foisting of a discarded and pregnant mistress onto Adam, Baron Darsham, was unfolding in some detail, since Tiffany’s maid had decided to sell her story to the highest bidding newspaper, having very little understanding of such things as the concept of contempt of court, let alone the decency to preserve any of her mistress’ reputation. Indeed, had she known, she might even have been pleased to take away Tiffany’s name, since the erstwhile Baroness, divorced already according to the Church, had dismissed her maid in a fit of pique that the girl had backed the story after being told that she might do so. Tiffany was finding that it was not so simple as divorcing Adam and going back to being a free woman, since she was barred from most of society for her deception and prenuptial adultery. It was unfair that society did not equally bar the man who had seduced and left her, and Evelyn, Marquis Finchbury, was still received, if not permitted near to many unwed ladies.
Amelia considered that Finchbury would be the ideal candidate to abduct Beth. He was unscrupulous, and his pockets were always to let. That this was an attack on Edward’s whole family never occurred to her. Contacting him was, of course, the most difficult matter. Amelia thought long and hard, and decided that the only thing to be done was to send him a letter and arrange to meet somewhere like Vauxhall Gardens, now that they were open for the Spring and Summer. A vastly improper thing to do, however, and would give the Marquis a possible hold over her. Amelia was practical enough about her own safety. However, she had a sudden idea; the illuminations in honour of the defeat of Napoleon would afford the opportunity of dark corners where the lights left pools of shadow, and yet in a more public space than, say, the dark walks at Vauxhall, one might feel safer.
Amelia began a campaign of nagging of her parents to be permitted to view the illuminations, fairly certain that neither of them wished to go, and so would be likely to permit her to go under the care of a footman and her maid. She would be able to do that, even if supposedly under the curse of a female indisposition, as she would not be likely to be seen by many, if she was careful.
Accordingly, once given permission, Amelia wrote a note to the Marquis of Finchbury, directing him to meet her that evening to learn something to his advantage, at the illuminations in South Audley Street, where the display by the Duke of Cambridge, the Portuguese Ambassador and Monsieur might be seen. Amelia planned to drive through the streets to see the other displays, at Horse Guards, the Mansion House, Manchester Square and elsewhere, but picked this venue almost at random, but she knew that she might step into Grosvenor Chapel, and even someone who was as hardened a rake as Finchbury would never abduct a lady from a church. That her own business was most unholy did not occur to her. She added the porch of the chapel as a venue to meet, and sent her favourite footman off with the message. He would doubtless be accompanying her in the evening and would do anything for her, especially with a good vail.
As it happened, Edward was also taking Letty and Beth to see the illuminations; he chose to take them to Somerset House, where the decorations were quite sumptuous, and some took the part of lit inscriptions, with the Latin tag along the front,
Europa Instaurata, Auspice Britanniae;
Tyrannide subversa, Vindice Liberatis.
“I may have small Latin, but even I can puzzle that out,” said Beth. “Europe restored, under the protection of Britain, tyranny overthrown, the vindication of liberty.”
“Near enough,” said Edward. “Europe set up under the protection of Britain, Tyranny overthrown, the champion freed, as I make it.”
“I like the pictures better,” said Beth, pointing to another building that displayed an illuminated painted transparency cartoon of Bonaparte, tumbling from the mount of Republicanism into the arms of a demon. “Why does it say ‘To Hell-bay’?”
“No idea,” said Edward, “unless it’s a forced pun on the name of the island he is to be exiled to, Elba.”
“It’s not a good pun if so,” said Beth, disapprovingly. “But an amusing idea to have him tumble from hubris.”
They wandered the streets, exclaiming at the ingenuity of some of the illuminations, expressions of loyalty to the King and Regent, as well as praising Wellington, expressions of support to the House of Bourbon, and a myriad of coloured lamps as well as transparencies.
Edward was insistent that the ladies should repair with him to Fleet Street.
“The Knight’s Gas Company have a most ingenious display,” he told them.
Beth gasped as she saw what the gas company had managed, a tree made of laurel leaves and festooned with blossoms made with gas lights, and throwing all other illuminations into the shade with the unparalleled brightness of the burning gas.
“Magnificent!” breathed Beth.
“Thought you’d like that,” said Edward. “One day, all London’s streets will be illumined with gas lighting, and it will be a much safer place to be.”
“Indeed, yes!” said Beth. “Why, I am sometimes afraid at night of turning my foot betwixt door and carriage, without having to stop to consider the possibility of footpads taking advantage of the confusion as people seek their carriages outside a house where a ball has been held, for once outside the pool of the lights at the entrance, the darkness appears the more Stygian by contrast. I cannot help wondering whether one of the reasons to continue a ball until dawn is to permit safer passage home for the guests, once the crepuscular gloom as the sun rises has given way to morning.”
“I wouldn’t say you were wrong at that,” said Edward. “Worth braving the cold of the evening?”
“Eminently so,” said Beth, determining to wrap up warmly as she saw Cressida on her way to her elopement after the ball they were both to attend. Who knew how long they might have to wait for Mr Chetwode! She would strongly urge Cressida to dress warmly too, and tell her maid to do so; and Beth determined that she would loan Molly, who was to wait with her, her second best cloak, so that she might not get chilled.
However, this excitement was several days away, and the weather might even improve.
Not that Beth was very sanguine on this point, as the chill seemed to be set in for the foreseeable future, and the barometer held no promise of change.
She was glad to return to the fireside in Red Lion Square, where Edward was regaled with tea, and London crumpets, which were made with yeast, and had holes in for the butter to melt into. Beth thought them much preferable to the normal, flat crumpets, which were probably the same griddle cakes that King Alfred had burned, and happily consumed three, licking her fingers.
“Oh Beth, you are so sweet,” said Edward. “I do love to see you enjoying yourself, whether with the illuminations or just enjoying something so simple as tea and cakes or crumpets.”
“I’ll be fat by the time I’m forty, you know,” said Beth, seriously. “I love my food too much not to be.”
“Oh, I have no doubt I shall be a trifle corpulent by then as well,” said Edward, “and I love the way you accept that one ages and changes. Though I fancy you may carry it off better than I; you have the type of figure that is unchanged, no matter what you eat.”
“More to the point, I go for brisk walks in the mornings,” said Beth. “Because I do have my vanity.”
Edward laughed.
“We shall walk together when we are married,” he said, stretching out a hand to her.
“I should like that very much,” said Beth, taking his hand, shyly.
Letty heaved a sigh of relief. They would manage to declare their love before long.
Chapter 18
Amelia had meanwhile had a curt note back with five words on it: “this had better be good” which she had shivered over when reading. She stuffed her reticule with paper money, and hoped that she had enough to pay off the Marquis to do the job. It seemed likely that Beth was also Letty’s heir, reasoned Amelia, who was still not entirely convinced that Beth was not Letty’s natural daughter.
It was with some trepidation that Amelia approached the chapel. A dark figure lurked by the door.
“Well?” he snapped.
“I have a business proposition for you,” said Amelia. “Shall we step into the chapel out of the wind?”
He gave a bark of sardonic laughter.
“Well, you ain’t weighed down with devotion,” he sneered.
“What do you mean? I am a regular church-goer!” said Amelia.
“But ready to transact trade in the temple… I presume it is not yourself that you are selling?”
She flushed.
“Certainly not! But I offer both funds to cover any immediate embarrassments you might have, and a bride who will have a good fortune when her aunt, if the woman is not her mother, dies, should you care to marry the wretched woman, not just ravish her.”
“Very well. You interest me; keep talking,” said the Marquis, ushering Amelia into the church. He shut the door in the face of her maid.
“I am unchaperoned!” cried Amelia, with sudden panic, looking up into the dark, sardonic face, half afraid he might ravish any female, and half wondering what it might be like to be possessed by someone wild and untameable, not safe and conventional like Edward.
“So you are,” said the Marquis. “I ain’t got any desire to kiss you though; I prefer blondes with lips that ain’t big enough to be likely to slobber. I don’t want any witnesses.”
“Very well,” said Amelia, torn between eagerness to get it over with, relief that he did not demand kisses as additional payment, and outrage over his evident lack of interest in her, though he had swept her trim figure with an insolent look that almost seemed to undress her! “There’s a girl called Beth Renfield, who is the ward of a Letty Grey. I want Beth abducted and ruined. You can marry her then if you will; Mr Grey left his wife very wealthy as I understand. AWP!”
Finchbury seized Amelia by the throat, and regarded her thoughtfully.
“And would this be any kind of trap, set up by Edward Brandon, by any chance?” he asked.
“He knows nothing of it! I want to marry him, but that stupid little dab of a woman has her hooks into him somehow! And I want her out of the way!” said Amelia.
He let go of her throat as suddenly as he had seized it.
“You ain’t clever enough to dissemble,” he said. “Well, well! I might have suspected Edward Brandon of setting a trap for me, as he’s very hot as regards family. And it pleases me well enough to do the whole family a bad turn, and sweet indeed if a bride from the same stable pays any damages Adam, Lord Darsham demands from me. Especially as I never told that stupid creature Tiffany Pelham to wed someone who would be likely to cut up rough when she was stupid enough to break an ankle from our fun together. Hmm, yes, and Tiff shall see that she cannot come running to me.”
“I didn’t know she had broken her ankle,” said Amelia. “It must be hard, missing out on dancing.”
He laughed again, mockingly.
“The euphemism for getting with child, little fool,” he said. “She was so eager and not careful. Hardly my fault, but I am the one accused of criminal conversation. She was not even betrothed to Adam Brandon at the time. Yes, decidedly I will do the family an ill turn, but if you let Edward Brandon know before it’s a fait accompli so help me, I’ll wring your pretty neck if I survive that intemperate young man. He has already threatened my person over his ridiculous aunt by marriage. You will have to let me know her itinerary, and when it is best to snatch her – as well as giving me enough ready to make it worth my while, and to hire a coach, and horses on the way North.”
“I have a roll of soft, almost three thousand pounds. Will that do?” asked Amelia. “It was all I could secrete from my parents.”
He laughed again, and shivers ran up Amelia’s spine.
“Brought it with you, did you, little fool? And only my upbringing as a gentleman preventing me from taking it from you by force! Yes, that will do. It will see to all the arrangements and keep my more pressing creditors out of the way. I need a ball she will attend to try to abduct her in the dark.”
Amelia pulled the banknotes out of her reticule as he held out his hand for them, and watched in horrified fascination at the expert way he fanned and counted them.
“We all attend a big ball at Arvendish House on Friday next, the twenty-second,” she told him. “Beth is bound to be there. So too is Edward, so you must be careful.”
Finchbury nodded.
“My thanks for the warning,” he said. “I shall endeavour to avoid him. And I wish you joy of the unpleasant fellow. He is like a march of ants, one attack negligible, but able to make a real nuisance of himself by his persistence, and cannot be diverted once started on a march. You had better get away before anyone notices you are without a chaperone. The rest is up to me – apart from you marrying that brainless oaf. I really do not see what you see in him; they say that he is exerting his philanthropy to help those soldiers who have been invalided out, now.”
“He will not waste his time or fortune on such things when we are married, I assure you,” said Amelia. “I shall leave the church first; give me time to ret out quickly and make myself into just one more person seeing the sights.”
He nodded, and Amelia slipped out.
She scarcely took in the expressions of fervid support for the Bourbon restoration that were the major part of the display of Cambridge House, nor such patriotism equally in evidence on the houses of the Portuguese ambassador, and Monsieur, the brother of the supposed Louis XVIII. With her maid and her footman in attendance she just wanted to get as far away from Finchbury as possible, and obtain safety. She could almost swear she heard a mocking laugh pursue her as she walked as fast as she might, without running. What a loathsome man! And yet Beth Renfield deserved someone like that, for attempting to steal Edward!
It seemed an age before Amelia gained the safety of the coach, and bid the coachman to drive by other illuminations. She must study some of them, for her mother would want to know about them, even if she had not wanted to go. Amelia swallowed hard. She felt sick with all she had been through, and the cries of street vendors with food, taking advantage of this nocturnal excursion made her want to heave. But it was over now! And she should have Edward, and commiserate with him that his wanton cousin had married a ne’er do well.
Evelyn, Marquis Finchbury was thinking furiously, and was well pleased with the bargain he had been offered. This scheming little minx was probably dangerous, as much because her malice was quite ingenuous and naïve. She was likely to gloat, as soon as the deed was done, and bring Edward Brandon down on him. One did not have to be a coward to wish to avoid being beaten by the ham-like hands of a glorified farmer, who just happened too to have taken lessons from Gentleman Jackson. Not because he wished to cut a dash as a Corinthian, or for any normal such reason, but just so he could keep fit, and so he could go into the roughest Rookeries to help his lame ducks! It was said he was quite a shot too, and probably had learned that for the same reason, beyond the normal urges to hunt, and it was also said that Brandon carried a sword-stick. Heaven preserve any honest rogue from a philanthropist who knew how to take care of himself!
Finchbury decided that heading out on the Great North Road was probably the last thing any sensible seducer should attempt, and decided instead to make for Wales, where a licence sufficed, as it did in England, being under the same laws, and where nobody was likely to look for him. The bride should be resigned by then to marriage, as it was still a long journey, and he should have impressed upon her by then his skill as a lover. Finchbury had every faith in his own skill to make any woman adore him, and scorned rape as the resort of weaklings. He had every expectation of making this Renfield girl a willing adjunct to her own ruin. And if she was an heiress, he might even remain moderately faithful to the girl, if she was amusing enough. Whether a girl who suited Edward Brandon was likely to be amusing was another matter; she was probably a little puritan. Well, that should be a most amusing and challenging seduction, to find out whether there was any fire behind what was doubtless a rather priggish exterior.
And as for this other girl, the one who was paying him, if she caused any trouble he would make her fall in love with him, and then laugh at her.
Amelia managed to describe the illuminations to her parents with reasonable enthusiasm. They had been spectacular enough for her to bring them to mind when she concentrated, though she was pale enough for her mother to ask sharply what was wrong.
“Oh, it is just the contrast of the illuminations and the darkness of the night,” said Amelia. “Some of the wicks of the oil lanterns lighting up the display were poorly trimmed, and I have a touch of the megrim.”
It was a believable lie, and Amelia might escape to her bed, with a hot brick for her feet, with a dose of the Family Pills of Grulingius, despite her protests regarding the latter.
“Now then, my darling,” said her mother, “It is good for you. Why, we know ‘it has been found of excellent use in Lethargies, Caras, Vertigoes, old Head Aches, Megrims, Epilepsies, Apoplexies, and other cold and moist diseases of the Brain’, for it says so here on the packet. And in this cold and moist weather, it must be most efficacious.”
Amelia’s contemplations on her preferred fate for Dr Grulingius would not have been considered ladylike. However, it was nice to snuggle down into a warm bed, for she had become chilled by her outing, and she drifted off to sleep to dream roseate dreams of being a baroness, and only awoke sweating from a nightmare to recall that Beth Renfield would be a Marchioness if Finchbury did marry her, and would outrank her! How could she have made such a miscalculation!
But Beth Renfield would have to put up with being ruined first, and would be too much of a prude to show herself in Town, whereas she, Amelia, would make sure that Edward spent as much time in Town as possible. Finchbury would be happy to leave Beth in his country seat, wherever that was, and come to town for his amours since one could hardly expect him to wish to spend time with anyone so boring as Beth. Amelia had set her heart on Edward, so long as he had a title ahead of him, and she had no desire to have anything more to do with Finchbury!
It did, however, take Amelia quite a long time to get back to sleep again, though it was not her conscience that kept her awake, but the disturbing image of a dark, sardonic face.
Beth also had a slight headache from the effects of the illuminations, or, as she confessed cheerfully, too much butter on her crumpets, but unlike Mrs Hazelgrove, Letty preferred country herbs over patent medicines, and dosed her with a tea of dried willow bark and lemon balm, sweetened with honey and flavoured with cinnamon to mask the bitterness of the dose.
“I cannot say that the honey takes much of the bitterness,” said Beth, with a grimace, as she swallowed the dose down.
“No, my dear, but it is worse without it,” said Letty.
“As I prefer not to imagine,” said Beth. “Oh, but how pretty the lights were, and it was definitely worth a slight indisposition!”
“I agree,” said Letty. “Edward showed us the best spectacles, I do believe. And what a pretty way to celebrate the end of hostilities! I do declate, I cannot readily recall when we have not been at war with France, save that brief Peace of Amiens. Why, we must have been at war more than a quarter of a century! For I was just a young girl in the schoolroom, you know!”
“It will seem strange, that one might just visit France now, if one pleases,” said Beth.
“Would you like to do so?” asked Letty.
“It might be nice,” said Beth. “Only think, to be able to say to my grandchildren, ‘I was in France soon after the Monster was defeated’, assuming I have any grandchildren of course.”
“Oh, I’m sure you will,” said Letty. “Now go to sleep!”
Beth drifted off happily, and dreamed of Edward holding her hand while gas lights danced just for them.
And a very merry Christmas to all