The Earl of Highmott Hall: A Regency Cinderella

by Nina Clare

  ‘It is Miss Asher, sir,’ said Celia coldly. ‘Excuse me.’

  ‘But you are not Miss Asher! Is this some ruse?’

  ‘Ruse?’ Celia glared at him. A surge of newly arrived guests pushed them back into the room, trapping them temporarily into a corner.

  ‘A ruse,’ he repeated. ‘Some swap of identity? You are not Miss Asher.’

  ‘I have been Miss Asher since the day I was born, Mr Neville,’ said Celia, still glaring at him. ‘Unlike some, I do not make a habit of pretending to be someone I am not.’

  ‘But, you are…were…Lady Asher’s servant. Were you not?’ He at least had the manners to lower his voice, so no one could overhear.

  ‘Lady Asher is my stepmother. If you thought me her servant, that is due to your own assumptions.’

  ‘But Lady Asher only has one daughter, and that young lady was not you.’

  ‘Lady Asher does have only one daughter – my stepsister, Lavinia. You recall Lavinia Asher, sir? The young lady you heartlessly led on. The young lady you courted almost daily. The young lady you deceived.’

  To his credit, his face fell, and he looked so struck with remorse that Celia’s anger was checked, but only a little. ‘You are right to upbraid me, madam,’ he acknowledged. He shook his head of tousled waves. ‘It was a tomfool of an idea.’

  ‘Yes it was,’ snapped Celia. ‘If Lavinia had a father or a brother, you, sir, would have been called out. But what is a fatherless girl and a widowed mother to the likes of the great earl and his friends? Perfectly good for their amusement.’

  ‘Oh, Miss Asher,’ said Mr Neville, his face draining of colour. ‘You make me heartily ashamed. And you are right. I do deserve to be called out.’

  Celia regarded the man before her, his head bowed, his shoulders slumped. He did look genuinely sorry. ‘Mr Neville,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Do you have a house?’

  ‘A house?’ he lifted his head, his brow wrinkled.

  ‘Do you have a house?’ she repeated impatiently. ‘An establishment?’

  ‘I am a bachelor, Miss Asher. I take rooms.’

  ‘Do you have the means to keep a house? Mr Neville, I shall speak bluntly – can you afford a wife?’

  He stared at her.

  ‘Answer me, sir. After all the mistruths you have told my family, the least you can do is give me an honest answer. Can you afford to keep a wife in comfortable circumstances? Keep a good table? A carriage? A season in town?’

  He continued staring at her as if she were half mad. She felt her impatience rising. This was the man who talked incessantly, brimful of anecdotes and jokes, and now he stood gaping at her like a witless creature.

  ‘Let me put it another way. What is your income, Mr Neville?’

  He blinked. ‘Six hundred. I am not very rich.’

  Celia considered what a fortune an annual six hundred would have been to her the past three years.

  She did some rapid calculations. Six hundred a year was not quite enough. But eight and a half would suffice.

  ‘Mr Neville, if Miss Lavinia Asher had a dowry of two hundred and fifty a year, would you think her a good choice of a wife?’

  He stared again. She could shake him.

  ‘Do you care for her at all, Mr Neville? Or were all your smiles and your kisses under the mistletoe – yes, she told me all about it – did they mean anything?’

  ‘I think I need a drink, Miss Asher. This is a most singular conversation.’

  The crowd had dispersed into the room, and Celia could make her escape. Furthermore, she could see Lavinia through the archway into the adjoining room. Lavinia had her back to her, which was a mercy. Celia could not predict how her stepsister would react if she were to see Mr Neville. But to make matters worse, over Mr Neville’s shoulder she could now see the tall figure of Lord Marbury. He was moving through the throng, looking to the left and right as though searching for someone. Likely he was searching for Mr Neville, and she did not want to be there when he spied him.

  ‘Berkeley Square, number twenty-two, Mr Neville,’ Celia said quickly and firmly. ‘That is where you will find Lavinia if you should choose to do the gentlemanly thing and propose.’

  ‘Propose? Heavens!’

  ‘If I were her brother, I would make my request at the point of a duelling pistol, sir,’ she said fiercely. ‘But I make this one concession – you are not to propose unless you have some genuine affection for her. I would far sooner see her marry a man worthier than you have proved yourself to be, but her heart has been awakened by you. She has not been the same since you left her.’

  ‘She hasn’t?’

  ‘We leave London in three days. If you do not call by Friday the offer of the two hundred and fifty a year is withdrawn.’

  She brushed past him, darting away, anxious not to be seen by Lord Marbury before she had snatched hold of Lavinia and made a swift exit.

  25

  Lord Marbury was not in the mood for Neville’s nonsense that morning. Last night had shaken him. But his manservant was so used to Mr Neville being a daily visitor to Lord Marbury’s apartment, that it did not occur to him not to let Neville in.

  ‘Morning, Marbury,’ said Neville, striding into the breakfast room and flinging himself into a chair.

  ‘Would sir care for the usual?’ enquired the servant.

  ‘Not today, Pope,’ said Neville wearily. ‘Just coffee.’

  ‘I shall make a fresh pot, sir.’

  ‘Are you ill?’ said Lord Marbury.

  ‘Does a man have to be ill just because he don’t want breakfast?’

  ‘I’ve never known you not to want breakfast.’

  Neville sighed. ‘Truth is, Marbury, I can’t stop thinking.’

  ‘Then you are ill.’

  ‘I’m serious.’

  ‘Then you’re mortally ill.’

  ‘You don’t look so good yourself.’ Neville looked at his cousin properly. ‘And I’m not the only one with no appetite.’ He nodded at the barely touched plate.

  Lord Marbury pushed his plate away, as though even the sight of it was distasteful. ‘It’s true.’ He sighed. ‘But thinking things that serve no purpose comes more naturally to me. What’s on your mind?’

  ‘Women,’ said Neville morosely.

  ‘Any particular woman?’

  ‘Lavinia Asher.’

  Lord Marbury’s whole frame stiffened. ‘Was she at the Worthy’s last night too?’

  Neville nodded. Pope came in with a silver coffee pot, and the cousins were silent until he had gone out again, closing the door behind him.

  ‘Here’s an odd thing,’ Neville said, leaning forward to stir his coffee. ‘I didn’t speak to Miss Lavinia, but I did speak to a Miss Celia Asher. And it seems it’s Celia Asher, not Lavinia Asher who’s the heir.’

  Lord Marbury stared across the table, his thoughts racing. He knew from his aunt’s lawyers that the estate he had forfeited had gone to Miss Asher of Roseleat, but he had assumed that it was Miss Lavinia Asher, the woman he had been ordered to marry. ‘You must be mistaken.’

  ‘I don’t think so. She told me she would give her stepsister Lavinia a marriage portion of two fifty a year.’

  ‘Stepsister! And why would she tell you that?’

  ‘As an encouragement for me to marry her. Seems the poor girl took it all to heart, and Miss Asher, Celia Asher, that is, thinks I ought to do the right thing by her.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean she is the heir,’ said Lord Marbury, still finding this new information too extraordinary. It had startled him to be introduced to Celia as Miss Asher last night, but he had often thought that Celia must be some relation to the family; perhaps an illegitimate daughter of the late Sir Asher. He ran both his hands through his hair. ‘I shall find out,’ he said, getting to his feet, pushing his chair back so abruptly it teetered on its back legs.

  ‘Where are you off to?’

  ‘To the lawyers. To find out if there has been some ridiculous error.’ He stopped, think
ing hard for a moment, then sank back down onto his chair. ‘What’s the point?’ he said gloomily. ‘If I was misled into believing Lavinia Asher was the woman I was to marry, and all the while it was Celia Asher, it would not make any difference to the outcome.’

  ‘I should think not,’ said Neville. ‘If you couldn’t take to a little angel like Miss Lavinia, you wouldn’t have taken to her wildcat of a sister.’ He took a sip of coffee. ‘Too feisty for my liking. You should have seen the way she looked at me last night, I thought she was going to come after me with barking irons and call me out. A man can be in love with that kind of fire from afar, but it wouldn’t make for a cosy home, now, would it?’

  ‘I thought you liked to live on the wild side,’ said Lord Marbury, holding his head in his hands, his elbows on the table, as his thoughts ran in painful new circles.

  ‘I like sport, and I like a feisty horse to train up, but when it comes to settling down, I want a sweet creature who thinks I’m adorable, not an Amazonian who would take a man out in a duel.’

  Lord Marbury was silent. His mind was passing over all his memories of Celia Asher: that morning in the field digging up rocks, the hours he had held her close to keep them from freezing in the storm. That near-kiss in the gallery. If he had known that she was the Miss Asher he was to pursue and propose to – how differently things might have been… ‘Blasted, useless lawyers,’ he growled, scrunching his hair so it stood on end. He got up and began pacing.

  Most likely she would not have wanted him even if he had asked her to marry him. But why had she hidden her identity? Why had Lady Asher put forward her own daughter as the only Miss Asher? Had they all colluded together to deceive him? But how could he even take offence if they had, after what he had done himself?

  He swung round to face his cousin. ‘I think you should propose to Lavinia Asher,’ he said. ’If she fell in love with you and believed your attentions were real, then you ought to do right by her. I cannot do anything to make amends to her, not if it is you she cares for.’

  He waited for Neville’s explosion of either laughter or repugnance at the idea. But to his surprise, Neville only frowned. Then he put his cup down with a clatter, jumped up and strode to the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Lord Marbury demanded, expecting Neville to say that he could not stay to listen to any more cant about marriage and Lavinia Asher.

  ‘To propose,’ said Neville, with a lopsided grin. ‘If I don’t do it now, I’ll lose my nerve.’ He hesitated with his hand on the door handle. ‘Will you come? Keep me from bolting at the last minute?’

  ‘Do you know where to find her?’

  ‘Berkeley Square. Number twenty, or was it twenty-two? Easy enough to find out when we get there.’

  Lord Marbury hesitated. Did he want to go? It had been a shock to see Celia Asher last night. He had wanted to speak to her, tell her he was sorry, but Caroline Castel had interfered, and once he had shaken off her unwanted attentions he had not been able to find Celia again, she had gone. Perhaps he would have the chance to apologise if he went with Neville. He could try. And if Neville wanted to put things right with Miss Lavinia, well, it was the least he could do to help him.

  ‘I’ll come,’ he said.

  Neville grinned, then looked at his cousin’s head. ‘Smarten yourself up, first,’ he advised. ‘The chimney-brush look is never going to take on, you know.’

  ‘What does it matter what I look like?’ said Lord Marbury, trying ineffectually to smooth his thatch of hair. ‘It won’t be me the lady is looking at. It never was.’

  ‘That’s true.’ Neville laughed, looking more like his usual self. ‘Well then, lend me a clean cravat, I’ve got a splash of coffee on mine. One of your pins, too.’

  ‘Why don’t you just help yourself to my wardrobe,’ said his cousin wryly.

  ‘Excellent idea!’ Neville yanked the door open and bounded away.

  Despite a restless night, Celia kept very busy the morning after Lady Worthy’s rout. Seeing Lord Marbury there was not going to take up one minute of her thoughts. Dreadful man. How dare he come sidling up behind her, looking like some fairy-tale prince in his swallow tail coat in that shade of tan that brought out the amber lights in his brown eyes? How dare he look at her as though he were captivated by the sight of her, making her heart leap for one long moment, for he had looked like a man in love. But even his expression was a lie. For he could not possibly love her, not when he had that overpainted, overdressed woman hanging off his arm. Miss Castile.

  ‘Celia, what are you scowling at?’ said Lavinia, coming into the morning room, where Celia was moving piles of correspondence from one side of the pier table back to the other.

  ‘I am not scowling,’ said Celia, standing up straight.

  ‘Well, what do you call that look, then?’ Lavinia pointed at the long pier glass on the wall above .

  Celia looked up to see her forehead drawn into a tight frown.

  ‘Your eyes are as green as Lady Violet’s portrait,’ Lavinia added. ‘Do you know they get greener when you are angry, and greyer, like your mother’s, when you are calm?’

  Celia sighed, and watched in the mirror as she released her shoulders from their tense, hunched up posture, and unclenched her back teeth. There were two high spots of colour in her cheeks, and there were shadows beneath her eyes from lack of sleep.

  Celia had not told Lavinia of her encounter with Lord Marbury nor her conversation with Mr Neville. She did not wish to revive Lavinia’s unhappiness by mentioning their names, or alerting her to the fact that the two men were abroad in London.

  ‘Four invitations have come so far this morning,’ said Lavinia, holding up a clutch of cards. ‘A card party at Mrs Flammery’s, a musical evening at Lady Clarence’s, tea with Viscountess Rich, or a private ball at Mrs Knightley’s. I favour the ball, though it might be very rude not to take tea with the viscountess. What do you think?’

  Celia closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead, trying to smooth her vexation away. ‘I do not think I am up to anything tonight, Lavinia.’

  ‘Oh dear. Do you have the headache? I shall get my maid to make up a lavender compress, that always works wonders for me.’

  ‘I am not ill,’ said Celia, moving to the nearest sofa to sit down. ‘Just tired. It has been a busy couple of weeks, has it not?’

  ‘Oh, dear me, yes! Who would have thought there would be so many people wanting to make our acquaintance? I am only sorry that we have to go home in three days.’ She sighed loudly. ‘Do we, Celia? Cannot we stay longer? The house is let for a month. In another week the season will really be in full flow.’

  Celia could not think of anything worse than a whole season of endless balls and dinners and trying to make sparkling conversation with people she had nothing in common with. She longed to be back among her plans and projects at home.

  She was spared from having to explain all this by the butler tapping on the door and announcing two gentlemen callers.

  ‘Who are they?’ Celia asked.

  ‘Oh, I’ll warrant it is those sweet Sinclair brothers,’ said Lavinia. ‘They promised to call. Do you not think their Scottish accents divine? Show them in, Whitby,’ she told the butler.

  ‘Not in here,’ protested Celia, but it was too late. Whitby had gone.

  The sound of men’s boots was heard marching down the tiled hall. ‘This way, sir,’ said Whitby as he ushered the callers in.

  Lavinia moved into the centre of the room, smiling happily as she prepared to meet her visitors. ‘Oh!’ she cried sharply. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Celia stood up and turned round to greet the guests, and stopped abruptly, checking herself from exclaiming the exact same words.

  Mr Neville and Lord Marbury seemed to fill the room with their presence. The chintz-covered sofas and the chenille carpets seemed a strong contrast of femininity and softness now that two tall gentlemen in morning suits and polished top boots stood amid them.

  The ge
ntlemen bowed. Mr Neville was saying something about intrusions and apologies, but Celia could barely attend to what he was saying. She was too busy trying to calm herself, feeling dismayed at the rise in her heartbeat and the quickening of her breath. She forced herself to maintain an outward composure. If Mr Neville was here, was it because he had decided to take up her offer?

  ‘Celia?’ It was Lavinia speaking now. Her voice tremulous and girlish.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You have not answered Mr Neville,’ Lavinia said breathlessly.

  ‘What was the question?’ Celia shook her head slightly, trying to clear it.

  ‘I asked, Miss Asher, if I might have the honour of a private interview with Miss Lavinia?’

  Celia looked questioningly at Lavinia, whose face was turning pink and pale by turns. ‘Do you care to hear what Mr Neville has to say?’ she asked quietly.

  Lavinia could only nod.

  ‘Very well.’ She gave Lavinia a wistful smile, suddenly feeling sad, though she could not say why. Mr Neville bowed his thanks as she passed him by. Lord Marbury was already at the door, holding it open for her. She said nothing to him, but hurried out into the hall. But now what was she to do?

  ‘Might I also speak a word in private with you, Miss Asher?’ said Lord Marbury.

  She did not reply or look at him, but stepped across the hall into the front drawing room and silently indicated that he might follow her.

  She took a seat, hoping he would not take the liberty of sitting beside her. He remained standing, making no attempt to come near her. Instead he stood at the window overlooking the street outside.

  ‘Well?’ she said coldly. ‘What do you wish to say?’

  He looked hurt by her tone, and she immediately regretted it. She spoke more lightly. ‘What did you wish to say to me, Lord Marbury?’

  ‘I wanted to apologise. For my unforgivable behaviour in deceiving you as to my identity.’