by Nina Clare
‘We are rich,’ whispered Celia.
Lady Asher crossed the room and plucked the letter from Celia’s hand.
‘Dearest Celia,
It is my wish to give you Highmott and all its estate. I know you will employ good managers and carry out all the improvements needed. You will expand it by joining it to Roseleat, and I wish you and your descendants great prosperity and happiness. I leave my fortune of half a million pounds to you. My nephew will retain the title, which is his by birth right and the money I have left him. But I exercise the right to leave my money and estate to my heir of choice, now that he has made his.
Raise a glass to me on occasion,
Yours affectionately,
Wilhelmina, Countess of Marburyshire.’
‘Half a million pounds!’ gasped Lavinia, looking as though she were about to swoon again.
‘Two estates,’ said Lady Asher faintly. ‘Oh, my dear. What a triumph.’
Celia ignored her, she gripped Agnes’ work-rough hands. ‘Agnes,’ she said in a clear voice, ‘I have one last request of you.’
‘What is that?’ said Agnes, sounding dazed. She had dropped to her knees beside Celia’s chair when the letter had been read out.
‘You are to pack your bags.’ Agnes’ eyes welled up. ‘And you are to send Robin to Highmott for the carriage. You will get into the carriage—’
‘Oh, Miss Celia, I never thought you’d send your old nurse away—’
‘And you will look round the bedrooms at Highmott and pick out the one you would like.’
‘Bedrooms?’
‘We shall move to Highmott while Roseleat is being repaired and refurnished. And you are never to do laundry, cooking, ironing, or any such thing again, do you hear?’
Agnes was weeping silently. ‘I must do something useful, Miss Celia.’
‘You can be my chief of staff,’ said Celia, knowing that her old nurse had to keep busy with something. ‘You will answer to no one.’
‘Yes, Miss Celia.’
Celia hugged her.
‘You’ll have to help me up, though,’ said Agnes, her voice muffled both by her tears and by Celia’s fierce bear hug. ‘Once I kneel down, I can’t get up again.’ Celia tugged her to her feet, and Mr Finch hurried to help.
‘I trust I can take possession of Highmott today?’ Celia asked the lawyer, a sudden doubt assailing her lest she had spoken presumptuously.
‘As soon as you sign here, ma’am,’ said the lawyer cheerfully, pulling a sheaf of papers from his green bag.
Celia signed with a quick, firm flourish, and glanced again at the portrait of Lady Violet. She could have sworn Lady Violet smiled.
23
A whirlwind of change swept through Celia’s life. All through the remainder of the winter she kept too busy to have time for thinking about how she felt.
She re-ordered the servants at Highmott with Agnes as her Chief of Staff. Lady’s maids were hired, one for each of the ladies of the family. A coachman was hired to drive the new carriage, and the village cook regained her position as head of the kitchen when the new Chef announced he had taken up a position in the kitchen of Sir William of Harleigh Court. Sir William had attended the masque ball as Peter the Great, and had been entranced with the jellied quails, and adored the sturgeon soup. Chef had been grieved to find that his songbird terrine with truffled sweetbreads, his best dish, was not appreciated by the new mistress any more than it had been by the departed earl, thus he packed up his knives and terrine moulds and left.
Lady Asher suppressed her mortification at an old nursemaid getting the first pick of the rooms at Highmott, a privilege that ought to have been hers, but she could not afford to offend Celia, so she retained a stony silence on the matter, and was somewhat mollified when Agnes requested a modest bedroom and parlour to be made for her on the first floor, for she found the stairs hard on her rheumatic hips. Carpenters were sent for and the musty gaming room was transformed, Celia choosing that particular room because it had a pleasant view of the rear gardens. Robin had a room of his own next door to his grandmother, and a pleasant girl from the village was employed as chambermaid-cum-lady’s maid to Agnes. ‘Lady’s maid indeed!’ scoffed Agnes.
‘We’ll call her your abigail then, ‘ said Celia, ‘or assistant, if you don’t like the title of lady’s maid.’ Robin was very taken by the pretty new maid, he was too shy to speak to her, but he insisted on calling her Abigail whenever he mentioned her, and he mentioned her a good deal.
Lady Asher made full use of her license to redecorate her own rooms as she saw fit. Celia frowned over the accounts and offended her stepmother by querying whether so much Chinese silk was needed for only three modest-sized windows. ‘The walls must match the curtains, Celia,’ was the frosty reply.
‘Imported silk on the walls,’ muttered Celia, as she sat at her study desk, ticking off the accounts book for the week. She employed an accountant, but liked to keep a close eye on things. She determined that from now on she would set a strict budget for any project of her stepmother’s. She was surprised that Lavinia had not proved to have the same luxurious habits of her mother. Very surprised.
Lavinia, she thought, closing the account book and leaning against the deep back of the chair. Lavinia had not been the same since the Christmas Eve ball. She had moments of her usual gaiety, had ordered a good many new gowns and shoes, but she also had long periods of withdrawal. She would sit staring out of windows or wander aimlessly around the great hall. She had lost her appetite and was growing pale and thin. She also seemed to dislike her mother, barely speaking to her at mealtimes, and avoiding her throughout the day.
Celia had been so busy with estate matters that she had not had many chances to speak to Lavinia. But she had to do something about her; the girl was pining away before her eyes.
She left the study, made her way to the other side of the house, and peeped into the smaller of the two parlours, which Lady Asher now called ‘the little salon’. Lavinia was there, curled up on the new backless sofa, with red eyes.
‘May I come in?’ Celia asked.
Lavinia lifted her head a few inches. ‘I am not very good company,’ she said.
Celia stepped inside, closing the door behind her. She perched on the sofa, by Lavinia’s slippered feet.
‘I know you have been crying again,’ Celia said. ‘It might help to talk about it. Perhaps I can help.’
‘I am just cross, is all. Mama changed a painting on my bedroom wall, and we had a fearsome row over it. I wish she would leave my things alone. I wish she would leave me alone.’
Lavinia had picked out her own bedroom, going against her mother’s counsel. Her mother had wanted her to have the green room, with a better view and a much larger dressing room, but Lavinia was adamant that it had to be the little lilac room.
‘Your bedroom is the room you occupied when you fell ill at the ball, was it not?’ It hurt to even mention the night of the ball. But Celia was sure there was some key in it to be found that would unlock Lavinia’s sad state.
‘Yes,’ said Lavinia in a small voice.
Celia racked her mind to think what the connection was between Lavinia’s peculiar attachment to the room and the night she had spent there. It was puzzling to say the least.
‘I should have thought you would want to forget that night.’ Celia certainly wished to forget that dreadful night. She had never stepped foot in the gallery since.
A moment of revelation hit her. ‘Mr Neville was very attentive to you while you were ill, was he not?’
‘Yes,’ whispered Lavinia.
‘Oh, Lavinia,’ said Celia softly, wondering how she could have been so blind. How obvious it suddenly was.
‘You liked him very much.’
‘Yes,’ whispered Lavinia. ‘And I thought he liked me.’ She looked like a wounded child, and Celia felt a fresh surge of anger at that deceiving, scheming pair!
‘Lavinia, what did he say to you that night?’
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br /> ‘He was very kind. I think he was sorry, Celia. He looked as though he was. And you know how he was always so jolly and charming, he liked to laugh and tell funny stories…’ she broke off to fish for a handkerchief.
‘Oh, Lavinia,’ groaned Celia, feeling a pang from her own disappointed heart. ‘They behaved abominably. They had no right to toy with our hearts.’
‘Our hearts?’
‘Did I say our?’ Celia shook her head, irritated at her slip of the tongue. ‘I mean to say that they deceived us all. They brought trouble to our family.’
‘Not to you,’ said Lavinia innocently.
Celia did not answer.
‘The worst of it is,’ continued Lavinia, ‘is that I think he really did like me. And if Mama had not gotten all bossy and threatened to sue for breach of promise and publish it abroad if Lord Marbury did not act like a gentleman and marry me, why, I think he might have still thought of me. She drove him away.’
‘I am sure she thought she was defending your honour,’ said Celia, wondering why she was bothering to try and defend her reprehensible stepmother – the woman who had blackmailed her into staying away from Lord Marbury that Lavinia might catch him; the woman who had raised Lavinia’s expectations far more than Mr Neville had done. The woman who had just spent more money on Chinese silk than Sweeting earned in a year.
She looked on as Lavinia blew her nose, and wondered what she could do to cheer her up.
‘I have to go to London on business in a few weeks, as soon as the weather turns and the roads are better,’ Celia said.
Lavinia looked balefully at her over her handkerchief.
‘I think you should come. Just you and me. We will take a house for a couple of weeks. We’ll go to the theatre, and the parks. What do you think?’
Lavinia’s eyes widened. ‘Can we go to the warehouses? I hear they have acres and acres of every kind of fabric imaginable.’
‘I suppose we can,’ conceded Celia.
‘And can we take a house in Chelsea, or Belgravia, or Eaton?’
‘Wherever,’ said Celia. ‘You can choose.’
‘Oh! —can we eat ice at Gunter’s and watch plays at the Haymarket and drive up and down Rotten Row?’
‘As long as it is not all in one day.’ Celia had a niggle that she might regret this scheme, but she shook it off. This was for Lavinia’s benefit. ‘We shall pretend to be very fashionable and as dissipated as any lady of the ton.’
‘Oh, Celia!’ Lavinia’s face lit up, and then it fell. ‘Mama will insist on coming.’
‘I am the mistress of Highmott and Roseleat,’ said Celia firmly. ‘If I wish to take my sister to town with me, I will do so. Your mother will stay here and supervise her wallpapering.’
‘Oh, Celia.’
‘Now what are you crying for? I thought this would cheer you.’
‘Oh, it does, it does! I am crying because you called me your sister, and because you have been so kind to me, and to Mama, and I know Mama has not always been kind to you, and I am sorry I could not help dig potatoes, and I wanted you to sell Roseleat too, and it was not fair that you had to hide away when Lord Marbury and Mr Neville called, and you did not get to go to the ball.’
‘Leave the past where it belongs,’ said Celia. ‘I will not pretend that I care for your mother, but she was my father’s wife, and I will ensure she is comfortable and has all she needs. You only did what you were persuaded to do. I will not hold any grudges, holding grudges brings a curse, and I have had enough of curses.’
‘So you will forgive Mr Neville and Lord Marbury?’ Lavinia asked innocently. ‘You will not hold a grudge against them?’
Celia squirmed inwardly. She wanted to stay angry at Lord Marbury. And she did not want to ask herself why she wanted to stay angry. She sighed deeply. If she was not angry with Lord Marbury, then she could not blot out all the other feelings she had when she thought about him.
‘Let us only look to the future,’ she said resignedly. ‘We will do our best to forget past wrongs. And I have so many plans, there is so much I want to do, and I only ask one thing of you.’
‘What is that?’
‘That we have a delightful time in London and forget all about a certain pair of men.’
24
London was another world, and not one Celia much liked. Lavinia loved it.
‘Such delightful parks,’ said Lavinia.
‘Such dirty streets,’ said Celia.
‘So busy and full of life!’
‘So crowded. So much rushing around for very little purpose.’
‘I adore the assemblies! And I never get tired of looking at the beau-monde.’
‘I have never seen so many peacocks in my life.’
‘I could live in London forever.’
‘I shall be glad to get home.’
But Celia was glad to see Lavinia’s spirits reanimated, and so she endured the warehouses and the carriage drives in Hyde Park and the public balls and private supper parties. She was surprised at how much attention she had garnered; it seemed that word quickly spread that she was rich and unmarried, and cards and invitations made a daily mound of correspondence, and yet the season had barely started.
She let Lavinia choose which invitations to accept, all the while counting down the days until she could tie up her business and return to Highmott and Roseleat and begin her plans of renovation.
All was going well, until the night they attended a rout at Lady Worthy’s. It was the usual crush, was Celia’s first thought as they squeezed through the guests to find and greet their host. Lavinia was very pleased with her new white satin gown, in the antique style, trimmed with copious amounts of Brussels lace, and Celia had to admit that her stepsister looked charming. Lavinia returned the compliment, congratulating herself on picking out the perfect shade of blue for Celia’s gown. ‘I can never wear such strong tones,’ sighed Lavinia, ‘but you look divine in jewel colours.’
Lady Worthy’s drawing room was vast to Celia’s mind, and dazzlingly bright with mirrors and candles and crystal chandeliers. There was so much sparkle and scent that she quickly felt a headache brewing and wished she had not come.
There were many familiar faces, people she had met over the past fortnight, and she greeted them politely. A certain Captain Cavendish, whom she had danced with two nights ago, was particularly attentive. Lavinia had already teased her about the dashing captain, claiming he could not take his eyes off Celia all night. Celia allowed him to detain her, finding his manners pleasing, but wondering what it was about his chin, of all things, that made her like looking at him. Lavinia had pealed with laughter when Celia had replied to her query as to how she like the handsome captain, that she thought he had a good chin.
She found her eyes drifting once again from his eyes to his chin, and thought perhaps all the smoggy air of London was addling her brain. And then she realised what it was that appealed to her regarding this one facial feature – it was because his chin was square with a slight cleft – very like that of—
‘Marbury!’ Captain Cavendish raised a hand of greeting to someone directly behind Celia. She froze, clutching her fan so hard that she heard a small crack in the sticks. It could not be. It could not be the same Marbury.
‘Allow me to introduce Miss Asher to you. Miss Asher, this is an old friend of mine, Tobias Marbury, I should say Lord Marbury, he has come into a title of late. We were at Cambridge together. Have not seen you for months, Marbury. Where have you been hiding?’
Celia forced herself to turn her head.
‘Miss Asher?’ said Lord Marbury, a note of questioning in his voice and a look of surprise in his eyes before he bowed formally.
Captain Cavendish was speaking, but Celia did not hear one word of what he was saying. She was only very aware that Lord Marbury stood only a foot away from her, the press of the crowd forcing everyone into closer proximity than might or might not be desired. His fine cambric shirt and fashionably tied cravat did not look
overdressed in this setting as it had done at home. His tan coat, and waistcoat with a fine silver stripe, was understated and elegant among so many gaudy colours in the room. He wore a single diamond pin in his cravat, and his hair was neatly arranged. But he looked different. What was it? It was his eyes. He looked a little shocked. But she felt a little shocked herself.
‘Marbury, darling, there you are. I’ve been looking all over for you.’ A young woman in a dazzling gown of wine-coloured satin emerged from the crowd. Celia felt a tightening of her chest as the woman took Lord Marbury’s arm in a possessive manner.
‘Miss Castel,’ said Captain Cavendish, bowing to the new arrival.
‘Cavendish, you old rake,’ said the lady teasingly. ‘I hope you’ve been behaving yourself.’ She looked at Celia, taking in her measure with one sweeping glance.
‘Miss Asher, allow me to introduce Miss Castel,’ said the gallant captain.
Celia returned Miss Castel’s half curtsey and also returned Miss Castel’s bold gaze. She was not going to let herself be stared down by a forward young madam. How dare she hold his arm in both hands as though he belonged to her? But perhaps he did! Another tight pang in her chest. She glanced at Lord Marbury, he did not look as though he were encouraging Miss Castel, but neither was he discouraging her familiarity. But what was it to her? What did it matter if he had half a dozen beauties hanging from his arms? He was nothing to her, and yet she could not stand there a minute longer.
‘Excuse me, Captain, ‘ she said, ‘but it is too crowded here, I must—’ she did not say what it was she must do, for she could not think clearly enough to find the words, she merely hurried away.
‘Do you know her, Marbury?’ she heard Miss Castel’s silky voice asking. ‘You both looked very surprised to see one another.’
Celia pushed through the crowd, wondering where Lavinia was. She had to find her. They must leave immediately. A man in a brightly patterned waistcoat stepped into her path, almost colliding with her. ‘My apologies, ma’am,’ cried the man, and she looked up to see another familiar face. ‘Is that you?’ he said in amazement. ‘Miss Celia, is it not? From Roseleat? Can it be?’