Lady Ernestine shrugged. ‘Continue on, Wrexham, all our dirty linen has been washed before you, after all.’
‘I do not see why you are all talking about me as if I were a prob—’ said Sophy petulantly.
Wrexham ignored her. ‘What I think might be helpful is to go along with her nature,’ the general barked an objection, but Wrexham held up his hand. ‘Not her wilfulness, but her love of new experience. You might do what your papa did with you when you were a young buck, sir, anxious to stretch your legs.’
‘The Grand Tour? But she is a lady.’
Wrexham forbore to question this description of Miss Ludgate, but it cost him something. ‘Yes, but just as wild as you were, perhaps. My generation were not able to enjoy such an experience as The Grand Tour, and my own visit to Europe,’ he said dryly, talking of his time in the Peninsular War, ‘was less than felicitous. But my father regretted that I did not have that experience.’
‘It made a man of me!’ agreed the general gruffly, ‘but not for a lady, I say!’
‘Well,’ Lady Ernestine said, considering, ‘since the monster has been tamed, I have been wishing to visit certain bookshops in Italy, and another in Amsterdam, that I hear have many treasures I have been looking for,’ Lady Ernestine said, considering.
Sophy whirled and hugged her, ‘Oh, Lady Ernestine, do you mean it? To travel and see Europe! It has always been my dream. I was determined, when once I inherited, to go with a companion to Europe. But I hardly knew if I could wait until my majority. Six years!’
‘On your own, with only another lady?’ gasped Miss Wilhelmina.
‘Oh no, I should have chosen two tall strong footmen, perhaps, and a groom and a coachman, and I would buy a pistol, you know, in case of bandits.’
‘Foolhardy to the last,’ said Miss Fosdyke, disgusted.
Sophy turned to Beth, and ran to her arms. ‘It is all your doing, Beth. You explained it all as I could not. I am sorry I was foul to you, but you did betray me.’
Beth looked and he saw exasperation and affection in her eyes, in equal measure.
‘I have not said it will be so, miss,’ said the general.
‘But we all know sir that Lady Ernestine’s word is law,’ replied Beth in a teasing tone, using her charming eyes to good effect.
The old man sighed heavily. ‘Well, if Miss Fosdyke and her sister will accompany us ...’
‘Europe, sister!’ said Miss Wilhelmina, with a hand to her bosom.
Miss Fosdyke looked unmoved.
‘Between all of us, we shall stop you running off with some swarthy Italian artist,’ said the general, defeated.
‘That’s all settled,’ said Emmi, suddenly entering the fray. ‘And now — Wrexham?’
With Beth so near, and trembling at his proximity, it was suddenly blindingly clear to him. He turned to her, and tilted her face towards his. ‘May I have the very great pleasure of asking you to be my wife?’ he said, simply.
The general, who had been accepting the ecstatic hugs of his ward, turned and said, shocked, ‘Who, Sophy?’
‘No,’ said Wrexham, eyes still on Beth. ‘Miss Culpepper.’
‘The maid?
‘Yes,’ he replied calmly.
‘You must have taken leave of your senses, my boy. Think what you owe to your name…’
Beth ran from the room, and Wrexham followed her determinedly.
Chapter 15
He caught her arm before she had time to cross the old hall, and Beth cried out.
‘In here,’ ordered Wrexham shortly, opening a door.
She held her tears back and straightened, she would be obedient, of course. It was her place. She thrust away the thing he had said in the other room, knew it must be some dreadful jest, knew she must take refuge in her position. ‘Yes, my lord.’ And she walked through the library door, past him, very much in the manner of an obedient maid. She got to the centre of the room before she felt him turn her around, and in a second, she was in his arms, the hard kiss a punishment and a promise. Two seconds later, her arms were wrapped around his neck, and she was pulling him closer in a desperate attempt to have what she had longed for so long. It was as though they melded together, as though, she thought, they moved to a higher place, somewhere where it was permitted, even natural, to be his. She felt him give himself to her and she offered herself to him as the kiss became more desperate, for what she did not know. It lasted too long and it was too explosive and she wrenched herself away.
‘No, oh no!’ she said in a whisper, standing back from him and turning her head.
The marquis stood back too, she had just glimpsed the fire still in his eyes, looking at her determinedly. ‘Yes,’ he answered simply, and then he pulled her to him again, so that she fell into his arms, accepting the hot kisses on her neck and face, trying to pull some part of her away from him, but merging with him instead. They must not. She pulled away again. Gesturing to him to stay away, bright tears in her eyes, threatening to fall.
He stood back, and once he had controlled his breathing, he said, ‘I hardly know what I feel about today, about the huge deception you perpetrated. You let me get close to you, you must have known—’
‘How could I think you would care for me?’ She looked at him, desperately apologetic. ‘I only wanted to escape at first, but then the Horescombes were to return — and well, I hoped it would give me a way to explain about what I had already done — but I never thought I could cause you pain. Anger, yes, but not pain.’
‘Oh, I am angry, I am furious with you, and shocked and questioning how I could ever have let this happen, but as I stood in there, watching you, I could not change one thing. I want you, Beth.’
Beth’s tears fell, as she looked at him in penitence.
‘And I love you,’ she said simply. Her eyes filled, obscuring his face. ‘I could not deny it if I would. You know it now.’ He took a step forward, but she halted him with a gesture. ‘But now you are doing to me what I have feared since I was turned off.’ She looked at him piteously. ‘Please do not, Wrexham, for I cannot resist you. Whatever style you set me up in, whatever jewels and carriages you give me, it will be the start of my slide downward. When you are finished with me there will be another man, not so rich, and then I shall either end my life in poverty, or on the streets.’ He was silent, but she thought he remembered some women he had treated thus, perhaps not really facing the truth since he was the first or second keeper, who sent her off with coin, and who had not had to consider her eventual fate. Some women might retire to the country, she thought, but not all, and she thought she saw that knowledge in his eyes in a split second. ‘Perhaps you would pension me off, but I would have lost my honour, and I could hardly live with how far I had fallen from the will of God.’ She paced the room, to be further from him. ‘All I ever wanted was to be a respectable girl, to do my best in my position, and rise, perhaps. And to stay away from such temptations as this.’
Wrexham, who had held his tongue in check with difficulty, now spoke, frustrated. ‘Beth, I asked you to become my wife, my marchioness, not to be my mistress.’
She turned on him, impassioned. ‘Do you think I could love you and ever let you do that?’
‘My will, my choice Beth.’ She shook her head dismissively. Now it was his turn to pace, then he stopped, turning to her. ‘Do you know that in Wrexham Lodge there is a picture of my great-great-grandmother in milkmaid’s dress? Shall I tell you why?’
‘It was a fashion of the time to paint ladies in pastoral scenes. There was a portrait in Foster Hall of a previous Lady Foster in costume herding goats.’ Beth was confused by this deviation, and answered vaguely.
‘No. It was because she was a milkmaid. My great-great-grandfather fell in love with her and took her to wife. And when my father told me the tale he said,’ Wrexham adopted a rough baritone voice, that she assumed must be his father’s, ‘Every few generations, we’re in wont of new blood. Only that’s no excuse to marry an opera dancer.’
Beth laughed at this a little. ‘Not nowadays, Wrexham, the ton would never accept me, and they would blame you for my presence. And Emmi, too — we cannot hurt her so! No, Wrexham, you have been overturned, as I have, by a few days dalliance, and you will recover.’ Her voice broke as she said it.
He didn’t drop his eye. ‘I have never met a woman like you, Beth, and I never will again. I cannot give you up, whatever the cost.’
‘Then you will ask me to be your mistress, and I will say yes. But I beg you, for the sake of my honour, not to do so. I need you to be stronger than me, Wrexham. I am just a maid, who tricked a marquis. You do not think so now, but you will forget me.’
The air was still and Wrexham sought for an answer.
The door opened and the princess entered at this time, before Wrexham had time to move. Emmi looked from one to the other, and came to Beth, saying. ‘All I could think when I heard the truth is that I may have turned you out if you had spoken more plainly that first night.’
‘I should not have—’
‘I don’t know how to feel about that, still.’
‘I am so sorry…’
‘But I do know that if I had, I should have missed having the best friend of my life.’
‘Your Royal Highness,’ Beth curtsied, ‘I hardly know what to say—’ but the princess had thrown herself around Beth’s neck, before she completed the curtsy, and Beth held her, crying on her shoulder.
The princess withdrew for a moment. ‘Beth, do you say your name is Culpepper?’
‘Yes,’ said Beth, a trifle dully, nursing the ache in her heart. It was so like Emmi to forgive her, and she did not deserve it. And, she thought insanely, her nose must be red-tipped by now. Soon all her dignity would be gone. She must leave soon.
‘It is an old name,’ Wrexham said, and Emmi turned to him directly.
‘Yes, that’s what I thought, Toby. Kent is full of old Culpepper estates, of one branch or another.’ She turned back to Beth who was feeling dazed and hardly paying attention to this, her head and heart warring over the things he’d said to her. The joy of him loving her, enough to ruin his life, was fighting with her agony of the inevitable parting. The princess said something to her, and she missed it, and she excused herself. ‘I said, do you know the present Lord Culpepper?’
‘No, ‘said Beth answering automatically, ‘I have never met him, but according to my father and the family bible, he shared a great-grandfather with my father.’ Beth looked embarrassed. ‘Before my father died, when he was — intoxicated — he often talked about how if it wasn’t for primy-jenchoor we would live on a big estate.’
‘Primogeniture,’ said the marquis. Beth looked a question. ‘The eldest son inherits.’
‘My great-great-grandfather was a second son who was cast off by his family — probably for being a wastrel by all accounts — with only enough to buy a farm. He wasn’t fit for it, and ran it into the ground. His son sold it and then rented it back and became a tenant-farmer. In due course, my father took it on, but I fear he was no better farmer than his father or grandfather before him. But his connection to the aristocracy meant that he allowed my mother to teach us our letters. She had been a lady’s maid in a fine house, you know, so she could read and write well. He always said, though we never heeded him, that if enough people died, we might inherit again.’ The others were looking at her closely. ‘But you must understand that my late father, though it is disrespectful to say so, was a ranting fool at some times.’
‘That’s it, Toby!’
‘Culpepper must be made to recognise her as his relative.’
Beth interrupted. ‘Lord Culpepper rejected my father many years ago,’ said Beth, hardly understanding what they were about. Emmi and Wrexham were fully concentrated on each other now, not minding her at all.
‘His lordship is a stiff-rumped old ox — how will you manage it, Toby?’
‘I will manage it, have no fear,’ the marquis said dangerously.
‘And then you could have met Beth at Culpepper’s estate—‘ Emmi frowned. ‘Though who would believe you would ever go there?’
‘Booth goes shooting there, I accompanied him.’
‘That might work. And then Beth was visiting, as a family member, and you met her and fell in love. It is perfect!’
The sister and brother looked at each other, pleased with themselves. Beth was exasperated.
‘You are forgetting that I have a family. Do you expect me just to abandon them because they might be an embarrassment?’
Emmi turned, with a bright smile on her face, and a careless shrug. ‘Oh, that is quite easy, Beth. Toby will buy them some large farming estate and they can oversee the workers. There are any number of gentleman farmers in town, you know. And if your family are a little lax in their manners, your mother may change that, now that she has the leisure. I expect that she has an excellent grasp of manners and so on from her former position.’ She grasped Beth’s hands. ‘How large is your family, Beth? How many brothers and sisters do you have?’
‘Three brothers and two sisters.’ Beth answered distractedly. What did this mean?
‘You must tell me all about them later. They can visit town in a year or so, once they have become accustomed to their new status.’
Beth’s head was reeling, but she saw so many things at once that it was hard to keep up. Her sister Nessie didn’t have to go into service, her mother respectable and comfortable, the children reared to a better life. She knew Jem might resist gentrification, but he would go along for his mother’s comfort, and he would welcome the scope of a larger farm. Emmi and Wrexham were continuing with plans that made her breathless.
‘But what will Beth do until the wedding?’ Emmi said, turning to Wrexham again. ‘It might not be politic to take her home with us, much as I’d like to. No need to stir gossip. She will be enough of a surprise to the polite world.’
‘I will get a special licence and marry her within the week. I just need her mother’s signature.’
Beth squeaked.
Emmi grew thoughtful, ‘No, that won’t do Toby, there must be no hint of the irregular. I am sure the general would permit her to remain here, on another footing, of course.’
‘I—‘ Beth interjected. They ignored her.
‘In a house where she was once a maid? It would be most uncomfortable for her. No, I may require her to live at Culpepper’s address.’
‘Beth live with that sour old stick? I won’t allow it!’ Emmi declared. Dear Emmi, how could she still care for her? But they were both being—
‘What else—?’ Wrexham replied frowning, and neither of them were looking at Beth. She was beginning to be amused.
‘I have it!’ said Emmi after a moment. ‘A Culpepper cousin! Miss Daphne Culpepper, who did not take in town, now lives with the old man in perfect misery, says Lady Austen. She told me to be especially kind to her if we meet at the subscription library, or in the park, and so I am!’ said Emmi in a saintly tone. ‘What is more natural in that a young lady visit the home of her fiancé accompanied by family?’
‘Yes, and the general and Lady Ernestine will recognise her, I’m sure. And I shall stay Tennant’s mouth about the first time we met.’ He turned to Beth, ‘You see Beth? What you feared would hurt me, will not do so at all. Now you must marry me.’
Beth smiled at them both, but looked at him sadly.
‘I cannot.’
Emmi looked aghast, and Wrexham grim. The princess moved to Beth and kissed her. ‘I need my friend about me, Beth.’ Beth smiled weakly, ‘And now I will leave you, and trust to Toby’s fabled powers of persuasion.’ She turned and left the room, with a last look at her brother.
He strode to her. ‘Why? Do you not wish to be my wife?’
‘Not your marchioness, I am not fit. Even if the Culpeppers are persuaded to recognise me, I am still a maid. I pretended otherwise for a few days, but it will not do.’
He took her tiny hand and kissed it, and led her t
o an ancient settle, taking up her other hand, too. She was breathing heavily. ‘I do not understand, Beth. You will have to explain to me,’ he said gently. But she thought he looked dangerous a little, determined.
She took a deeper breath. ‘As a maid, I was content and proud of my position, and of my work. I never dwelt on the inequalities, the world was that way, and I knew myself to be fortunate.’ His eyes were on hers, fully attentive. ‘But from the first of being mistaken for a lady, I experienced a different sensibility. I saw and felt every casual slight to the maids made, every problem in the household, and I was wounded and stirred to feel the injustice of it. How can I be a marchioness, and rule over the staff, and treat others as I would not wish to be treated — I could not.’
‘Do you want me to cast off all my servants, Beth?’ Wrexham asked. ‘To do my own laundry?’
She laughed. ‘I should like to see you try,’ she said, thinking of laundry day at Foster Hall. ‘Of course I do not — and leave so many without a position? No, but I cannot join you in this.’
He looked at her face, and took another tack. ‘What is it you wanted, Beth, as a servant?’
‘A stable household. Being fed and sheltered and to have some money to send to my mother. And I had all that. But there were the slights, or the impossible demands —’
‘Impossible?’
‘Make this dress by tomorrow; have dinner sent up in ten minutes, those kind of things. But it was part of my position and I grew to cope with it. My failure was in coping with Miss Sophy.’
‘You failed to keep yourself safe, while you aided her, though she could never be brought to acknowledge it.’ He smiled at her in a way that weakened her resolve. She saw those blue, enticing eyes and she almost pulled away in desperation. But he became serious, still holding her hands in a way that thrilled, but kept her captive. ‘But now, I beg you. Help me be a better master, Beth. Help me know what my household needs, and how I can change things, as you already started. Tell me when I am cruel or unthinking to those beneath me. I assure you, my father raised me to be respectful of my dependants. If I fall short, I will have you at my side to change me.’
Beth and the Mistaken Identity Page 15