Love by the Letters: A Regency Novella Trilogy

by Kelly Bowen

  She was propelled on a sea of smiles, muslin, and silk into the sitting room where she’d surrendered her reticule and her dignity. Lord John occupied a loveseat, rising when the ladies entered the room.

  “And what,” he asked, looking quite severe, “have you done with my dear Miss Ada? I yield her into your care, wait for days, and now you return without my friend.” He bent as if to turn a quizzing glass on Ada. “Though who is this lovely creature? I vow I have never seen her before.”

  “Isn’t Miss Ada magnificent?” Lady Thalia said. “Truly exquisite.”

  Ada let the cooing and fussing go on, because she was not sure who was jesting and who was in earnest. That familiar confusion was more than half the reason why taking Lord John along on these begging calls was prudent.

  “We forgot the slippers!” Lady Polly said. “Johnnie, you must wait another eternity while we decide on slippers for this outfit.”

  He subsided onto the loveseat with a dramatic groan. “Not the slippers! Purgatory was invented by men waiting for their sisters to choose a pair of slippers.”

  Jesting, then. Ada was almost certain he was jesting.

  “Dante left slipper-hell off of his list,” Lady Clio said. “Even he quailed at the thought of describing such a chamber of terrors.”

  “You read Dante?” Ada asked.

  Lady Clio left off fluffing Ada’s hems. “Doesn’t everybody?”

  Ada understood that smile, understood it to be proof that she and Lady Clio shared membership in at least one exclusive club.

  “All ladies of refined intellect enjoy the Divine Comedy,” Ada replied.

  “We must discuss it over tea,” Lady Clio said, rising. “I’ve done some of my own translations and—”

  Lady Polly fluttered back into the sitting room. “Let’s try these first.” She held up a pair of slippers that might as well have been a bouquet of flowers, so richly were they embroidered. “They have one-inch heels, and they are only slightly worn. You will not suffer blisters, though your ladylike toes, peeping from beneath your hems, will attract the best kind of notice.”

  “I did not hear that,” Lord John murmured, looking vastly amused. “Selective hearing is the first duty of any loving brother.”

  The heels were three-quarters of an inch, probably the best Ada would do. “I will try them on. If they don’t fit, I get my boots back.”

  “Now, Miss Ada,” Lady Thalia chided—smilingly, of course. “We have others you should try on, and in fact you will need more than one pair of slippers if you are to be au courant.”

  I do not want to be au courant. I want to be home, measuring the heat of my compost heaps, trying to recall if I’ve had my luncheon.

  Ada was about to make that announcement when Lord John caught her eye. His gaze held understanding, and a promise of some sort. Tolerate this, he silently asked, because my sisters are trying to be helpful.

  He rose from the love seat. “Allow me.”

  “John, you are awful,” Lady Polly said. “You make everything into a parlor play.”

  “Which is why the children love him,” Lady Clio added, as John led Ada to the love seat.

  “If you’d please be seated, miss?”

  Ada had no idea what he was up to, but he was the most familiar element in this whirlwind of gracious commanders. Ada even remembered to smooth her skirts as she sank to the cushion, her hand in Lord John’s.

  He dropped to one knee before her, and before she could recoil in protest, he was unlacing her boots. He didn’t precisely reach beneath her hems to perform that office, but Ada was more mortified than if he had.

  “Please don’t trouble yourself, my lord.” Please just let me disappear between the seat cushions.

  “Do you know how many shoes I lace and unlace in the course of a day?” he asked. “I teach an entire demonstration to the five-year-olds on how to tie shoes, because when a child is raised without footwear, that skill is a mystery.” He set aside her first boot without even looking at it, a small mercy. “I can tie shoes faster and more tightly than any nanny, and untie them with one hand.”

  The second boot followed, and amid all the finery and porcelain of this airy parlor, Ada’s comfy boots looked worn and homely. Like me.

  “Johnnie taught us all how to tie our shoes,” Lady Thalia said. “He is the best of big brothers.”

  “He showed us how to use a bow and arrow too,” Lady Polly said, passing Lord John the flowery slippers. “And if you need a dance partner whose toes have been smashed by three sisters and four cousins, John is your man.”

  His lordship appeared embarrassed by this praise. Either that or, he was fascinated with the lacey ties on the ridiculous slippers.

  “Left foot,” he said, holding up a slipper.

  Ada cautiously extended the requested appendage, and John eased her foot into the slipper. The moment should have been awkward—the entire afternoon had been awkward—but instead Ada was put in mind of a children’s tale, about a handsome prince who’d lost his dearest love and had only a glass slipper with which to find her.

  To have a man kneeling before her, taking on the mundane business of assisting with her shoes was personal. Touching, humbling in a way.

  “John also checked under our beds for dragons when we were too frightened to bother our nanny,” Lady Clio said.

  “Some of our nannies were quite formidable,” Lady Thalia added, as Lord John tied the bow on the first slipper.

  “Some of your nannies,” Lord John muttered, “were worse than anything a child could imagine lurking beneath any bed. Other foot.”

  Ada complied, and felt as if she were not only allowing Lord John to assist her with her slippers, but also walking, for a few hours, surrounded by the caring and goodwill of his sisters. He’d grown up with these young women, loved by them and loving them. No wonder the children at St. Jerome’s thrived in his care, for he’d seen that business about love one another first hand.

  “I’m sure Lord John was the very best, bravest, and most noble of brothers,” Ada said, as John tied the bow on the second slipper.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Lady Clio said. “Though we weren’t exactly exemplary sisters on a few occasions.”

  John rose and extended a hand to Ada. “I will refrain from comment, because I am, as Miss Ada so perceptively notes, the best of brothers. Ladies, we thank you.”

  “I had a thought,” Lady Clio said. “If your objective is to raise money for the orphanage, and Miss Ada is familiar with Dante’s work, you really ought to call on Uncle Bascomb.”

  “He’s wealthy,” Lady Thalia noted, oh so casually.

  “He and Papa don’t get on,” Lady Polly added, gaze on Ada’s old boots. “He’s quite the curmudgeon.”

  “Uncle Bascomb is an expert on hell,” Lord John said. “He can discourse about the literary qualities of the Pit until you have the fullest flavor of the experience while sitting in his parlor. I offer this by way of warning, Miss Ada.”

  Lord John was not keen on visiting his uncle, clearly. Optimistic, cheerful, forthright Lord John, did not want to call on Uncle Bascomb.

  “I deal well with curmudgeons,” Ada said. “Let’s add Uncle Bascomb to the list, my lord.”

  Lord John’s gaze held no humor. “You’re certain? He can be vexatious and spiteful. Polly is absolutely right that he and Papa don’t get on.”

  Ah, so Lord John’s entire family was not cut from the cloth of merriment and goodwill. “I’m quite certain,” Ada said.

  She was certain of something else: Lord John’s touch on the silk stockings covering her feet, had felt in every way respectful, but not—she was quite sure of this—at all brotherly.

  John took the coach’s backward facing seat out of habit, also the better to behold Miss Ada on the opposite bench. His sisters had peeled away more than frumpy attire when they’d taken her wardrobe in hand the previous day.

  Her gaze was still boldly direct. Her movements were still purposeful,
and she still spoke either with authority or not at all—witness the silence in the coach—but something else had been revealed that eluded simple description.

  Curves. Not the coltish immaturity of the newly fledged, but rather, a petite woman full of energy and intellect, and well blessed with feminine endowments, too.

  “I should not have worn this bonnet,” Lady Ada muttered. “I can accept all the noisy frills and whatnot, but millinery that restricts my very vision is inexcusable. Men are never subjected to such an impediment to their safety.”

  As bonnets went, her hat was fairly simple—a straw scoop with a few silk violets adorning the brim and blue ribbons tied in an off-center bow.

  “The bonnet affords you privacy,” John said. “It allows you to shield your expression from nearly anybody.”

  “My house affords me privacy. This,”—she waved a hand clad in a blue crocheted glove—“merely obstructs my vision.”

  The coach, a loan from John’s sisters, slowed to take a corner.

  “If it’s any consolation,” he said, “I dread our call on Uncle Bascomb. He and my father barely speak.”

  “Consider that a blessing, my lord. My esteemed uncle speaks only to ask when I’ll marry and have a few babies, as if that dangerous prospect should loom as my dearest ambition.”

  “Perhaps he doesn’t know what else to say? My own father has been known to put similar queries to my sisters.”

  That earned John a pensive perusal. Miss Ada wore a blue dress with a lavender spencer today. Her eyes looked less gray and more the color of forget-me-nots.

  “That your family has a curmudgeonly Uncle Bascomb, and a papa who occasionally says the wrong thing is a relief,” she observed. “I would have liked to have had sisters like yours, though. They were quite kind.”

  She turned to gaze out the window, which left John unable to see, much less decipher, her expression.

  Time to change the topic. “Lady Barstow is a decent sort. She was a good choice for our first call. She might refuse to aid us, but she’ll be gracious about it.”

  Miss Ada speared him with an expression far from sanguine. “We won’t be refused. We’ll be promised funds that are either never remitted, or are so modest as to afford little progress toward our goal.”

  John’s father would have arrived at those conclusions. “Shall we give up then, Miss Ada? Shall we say my orphans aren’t worth even a day’s effort?”

  The questions bordered on rude, but they had the curious effect of making Miss Ada smile. “I do not give up on a goal once I set it, sir. You are doomed to be dragged about Mayfair for the next month, and there’s nothing you can say to it.”

  The coach came to a halt. John nearly informed his companion that a month of touring Mayfair’s guest parlors with her would be no hardship at all, but Miss Ada had snatched up her reticule and her parasol and scooted to the edge of her seat.

  “This is not a battle we’re charging into,” Johns said gently. “We’re merely making a social call.”

  “There are battles,” Miss Ada replied, “and battles.” She pushed open the door as if she intended to storm Lady Barstow’s citadel at a dead gallop, but a liveried footman stood in her way, his gloved hand extended.

  She allowed him to assist her from the coach, and before she could march off, John climbed out and winged his arm at her.

  “Nobody intent on victory rides into battle alone,” he said.

  Her chin rose, she took a firm grasp of his arm, and then John was rapping Lady Bartow’s knocker against an imposing front door.

  “I will trip,” Miss Ada said. “I will trip and fall on my face.”

  “I will catch you.”

  Her grip on his arm tightened. “I will spill my tea.”

  “You needn’t drink any.”

  “I will spill your tea.”

  “Do you know how many noisome substances have been spilled on my person? Never underestimate the impact a three-year-old can have on a man’s laundry.”

  Ah, he’d made her smile, and that was fortunate, because the door opened at that moment, and a tall, white-haired fellow was ushering them into a soaring, oak-paneled foyer.

  “My lord, miss.” The butler bowed with the particular grace and gravity of one well suited to his lofty office. “If I might have your bonnet, miss? Her ladyship said to take you upstairs straight away.”

  Miss Ada untied her bonnet ribbons and grasped her millinery by the brim. She’d apparently forgotten the pin that secured her hat to her hair, because as she raised the hat, a lock of dark hair behind her left ear uncoiled from her chignon.

  “Oh, drat the luck,” she muttered, the hat held half-off.

  “Allow me,” John said, slipping the pin free of her hair.

  She passed over the bonnet, and sent John an I-told-you-so glance that also hinted of misery.

  “Hold still, miss.” John removed his gloves and hooked a finger through the drooping curl, easing it free of the bun at her nape. “There. You are fashionable. Have a look.”

  He turned her to face the mirror, so she could admire the dark, silky locks that now rested fetchingly against her shoulder. Her hair was thick and fine, and the style John had effected suited her well.

  “Very becoming,” the butler said, “if I might say so. This way, or my lady will chastise me for making her guests tarry at the door.”

  He led them up the grand staircase, and by the time they reached the top, Miss Ada’s grip on John’s arm had become desperate.

  The butler showed them to a parlor done up in shades of rose, green, and gold. The carpet alone would have brought a sum equal to St. Jerome’s rental arrearages, and the silk on the walls would have paid the coal man for twice as long.

  “Miss Beauvais.” Her ladyship crossed the room, arms outstretched. “How wonderful to see you. How very, exceedingly wonderful.” She enveloped Miss Ada in a hug, then burst into tears.

  Ada did not know what to do when people hugged her. She generally held her breath, looked past the person into whose embrace she had stumbled, and silently counted in Latin, but Lady Barstow’s grasp was too tight to allow those devices.

  “I should have written to you, I know,” her ladyship said, finally stepping back. “You were all that made Henderson’s Hell bearable, but I hadn’t your direction once we left school, and you appeared so seldom in society. I assumed you were anxious to put the whole experience behind you, as I was. Lord John, you will think my wits have gone begging.”

  While Ada reminded herself to breathe, Lord John bowed over the countess’s hand, as if sniffling women were of no moment.

  “To reunite with old friends is a dear pleasure, isn’t it?” he said. “Even if the memories shared aren’t all that happy.”

  The countess drew Ada by the hand to a sofa done up in cabbage roses. “Henderson’s wasn’t awful, not for most people, but I am mortally shy. I dread public occasions, and don’t even like to leave my house. Without Miss Beauvais, I might well have succumbed to the dramatics for which young women are infamous. Shall I ring for tea?”

  “Tea would be lovely,” Lord John said, just as Ada murmured, “We wouldn’t want to trouble you.”

  Her ladyship overlooked this contradiction and beamed at Ada as if they were indeed, long-lost friends—and that made no sense whatsoever.

  “Tell me more about Henderson’s,” Lord John said. “The school is in the Midlands, I take it?”

  “Oxfordshire,” Lady Barstow said, tugging a bell pull. “Just far enough away that my family could forget me. I was desperately lonely. I was the oldest girl in my family, and for the first year at Henderson’s, I hadn’t even a sibling to share the experience with. Then Miss Beauvais arrived, and all of that changed.”

  Ada felt increasingly as if she’d walked into a drama, but nobody had apprised her of the plot. “My lady, I confess I don’t recall that we were more than cordial.”

  The countess patted her hand. “Nobody was great friends there. It took me y
ears to see that. We were all managing as best we could, pretending happiness, friendship, and dutiful interest in our studies. You were the genuine article, however.”

  Lord John took a wingchair and looked on as if her ladyship’s prattling was the most fascinating recitation ever to grace his ears.

  “Genuine in what way?” Ada asked.

  “You challenged the teachers who weren’t in thorough command of their subjects. We went through three Latin instructors after your arrival, and no less than four French tutors. The maths professor didn’t last a fortnight after you came, but the best part of all was that you sat with me.”

  “I sat with you.”

  “At luncheon and at breakfast. We had assigned seats at dinner, but at other meals, at least half the time, you took the chair next to me. You’d start the conversation with some observation about pickled cabbage and scurvy, and then the other girls started chattering and changing the subject—that was your strategy: Say something to get the others gabbling. I never needed to say anything. It was marvelous.”

  Don’t cry, my lady. If you cry about cabbage and catty females…

  Her ladyship dabbed at her eyes with a silk handkerchief. “You will forgive me. My condition has made me a watering pot. I have thought of you so often, Miss Beauvais. You had such fortitude, and once you arrived, the nasty older girls turned their sights on you, but you never seemed to mind.”

  I minded. Ada thought back to the frogs put in her bed—poor fellows; the time she’d woken up to find the last foot of her braid had been cut off; the mud smeared inside her shoes when Aunt Kitty had sent her a new pair of white silk stockings.

  “Bullies thrive on knowing their prey is intimidated,” Ada said. “Are you well, my lady?”

  The countess put a hand over her middle. “I am in excellent health, but his lordship and I are anticipating a miraculous event.”

  She blushed as she poured the tea, she grew weepy again as she served the cakes, she blotted her tears as she sipped from delicate porcelain and inquired regarding John’s sisters.