The Wicked Godmother: A Novel of Regency England - Being the Third Volume of A House for the Season

by M. C. Beaton

  Beauty stirred in his basket at the foot of Harriet’s bed, and she remembered that the Marquess of Huntingdon was to call.

  She took great trouble with her appearance as a courtesy to this elderly gentleman who had been kind enough to show concern for her dog. The twins never rose before two in the afternoon, having adapted to fashionable London hours even before their first social engagement.

  Harriet put on one of her new gowns. It was of pale-blue India muslin and tied under her bust with two blue silk ribbons. She twisted her thick, fluffy hair into a knot on top of her head, but mischievous little tendrils escaped and formed a sort of sunny halo about her face.

  She was sitting in the front parlour at eleven in the morning, with Beauty at her feet, when Rainbird announced that not only the Marquess of Huntingdon but Lord Vere as well had called to see her.

  Two gentlemen entered the room and stood on the threshold. Harriet’s blue eyes had all the clear candour of a child’s as she looked at them. Her first thought was that both men were very presentable, and she regretted not having roused the twins so that they might be introduced.

  In their turn, the marquess and Lord Vere studied Harriet Metcalf. Their first sight of her was one that they were both to remember always. She was sitting in a chintz-covered armchair with Beauty at her feet. The sun, shining through the open window behind her, lit up the aureole of her golden hair. She looked dainty, fresh, and very feminine.

  The marquess was, Harriet estimated, in his thirties. He had thick, curling chestnut hair, hazel eyes, a high-bridged nose, and a humorous mouth. His waist was slim, and his legs had been called “the finest in England”—after all, no one ever mentioned a lady’s legs in an age when it was not polite to admit such female appendages existed. He was dressed in a blue morning-coat with gold-plated buttons, buff breeches, and hessian boots. His biscuit-coloured waistcoat was buttoned high up under the snowy folds of his intricately tied cravat.

  Making a magnificent leg, the marquess said, “We called to see Miss Metcalf.”

  “I am Miss Metcalf.”

  Lord Vere looked around the room as if searching for a chaperone. He was slightly shorter than the marquess and had black hair and black eyes. He affected the Byronic style of dress, a fashion described sometimes unkindly as highly expensive sloppiness.

  “Are your parents at home, Miss Metcalf?” he asked.

  Harriet’s blue eyes clouded. “They are both dead,” she said. Then her eyes cleared. “Oh, of course you do not know why I am in London. I am godmother to two very beautiful ladies, the Misses Hayner, who are to make their debut at the Season.”

  “You look much too young to have goddaughters old enough to make their come-out,” said the marquess.

  “The late Sir Benjamin Hayner,” said Harriet, “made me the girls’ godmother. I am some years older than they and should really be wearing caps.”

  Beauty stirred and rolled a bloodshot eye in the direction of the marquess.

  “So this is my patient,” said the marquess. He fished in his coat pocket and brought out a small phial and a wad of cotton wool and then bent over Beauty.

  “Do be careful,” said Harriet. “He is inclined to be a little bit bad-tempered with strangers.”

  But Beauty barely stirred as the marquess gently washed out first one ear and then the other with the solution.

  “Now, Miss Metcalf,” said the marquess, throwing the soiled cotton wool on the fire and handing Harriet the phial, “treat his ears twice a day for a week, and he will soon be well again.”

  “You are both very kind,” said Harriet, and the marquess looked down into those beautiful blue eyes and felt a twinge of pique that Lord Vere should be included in Miss Metcalf’s thanks.

  “Pray be seated,” added Harriet, ringing the bell. Rainbird, who had been waiting in the hall, answered its summons. Harriet ordered wine and cakes.

  The marquess sat down opposite her, but Lord Vere startled Harriet by sitting down on the carpet and, leaning back gracefully, propped himself up on one elbow with one white hand resting negligently on his knee. Harriet had not yet come across the London craze for “lounging.”

  “We have not seen you at the opera or at any of the functions we have attended this month, Miss Metcalf,” said Lord Vere.

  “I and the Misses Hayner shall be attending the Phillips’ ball this evening,” said Harriet with simple pride, for she was pleased that her efforts had produced such a pleasant invitation for herself and the girls.

  Both gentlemen remembered that they had refused the invitation to the ball, deciding to play cards at White’s instead.

  “Shall I see you there?” asked Harriet, nodding to Rainbird to pour the gentlemen glasses of wine.

  “Yes, definitely,” said the marquess blandly, avoiding a startled look from Lord Vere.

  “Sarah and Annabelle Hayner are both charming young ladies,” said Harriet. “They are twins.”

  “Indeed,” said Lord Vere with a marked lack of interest.

  “You had better sit up, Gilbert,” said the marquess with some amusement. “You will slop wine on the carpet if you continue to try to lounge with wine in the one hand and cake in the other.”

  Lord Gilbert Vere moved up onto a chair and turned again to Harriet. “Are you not afraid to live here, Miss Metcalf?” he asked eagerly.

  “No,” replied Harriet, puzzled. “Should I be?”

  “Don’t you know this house has a curse on it?”

  “Mr. Gladstone, the lawyer who found it for us, said nothing about a curse.”

  “Aha! A terrible fate is about to befall you, my pretty,” said Lord Vere with a stage leer.

  Harriet turned to the marquess. “Are you both funning?” she pleaded. “What is all this about a curse?”

  But it was Lord Vere who gleefully related the sinister happenings that had taken place at Number 67 Clarges Street.

  Harriet listened, wide-eyed. When Lord Vere had finished, she said, “But many houses older than this have seen brutal and sinister happenings. I do not believe they ever affect anyone who lives in the building afterwards unless they themselves are brutal and sinister or have extremely bad luck.”

  “There you are, Gilbert,” said the marquess with a sweet smile. “My views exactly.”

  “And you do not believe such things either, Lord Vere,” said Harriet with a laugh.

  “Oh, yes he does,” said the marquess maliciously. “He is a hardened gambler, and all gamblers look for signs and omens.”

  Lord Vere sent the marquess a smouldering look. “Would you care to go driving with me on the morrow, Miss Metcalf?” he asked.

  “Thank you,” replied Harriet with a sunny smile. “We should like it above all things.”

  Lord Vere eyed Beauty nervously. “Forgive me, ma’am, but is that animal used to carriage rides?”

  “I did not mean Beauty, of course,” laughed Harriet. “I know you meant your invitation to include my goddaughters.”

  “No, as a matter of fact I did not,” said Lord Vere, tugging miserably at his cravat and aware that his friend’s sardonic eye was fastened on him. “I have a phaeton and it really seats only two comfortably and so—”

  “And so Miss Metcalf will need to endure my company,” said the marquess. “I have a barouche which will hold us all very comfortably.”

  “I could hire a barouche,” said Lord Vere sulkily.

  “There is no need to go to such expense,” said Harriet. “We shall accept Lord Huntingdon’s invitation on this occasion, and perhaps one of the Misses Hayner will go out driving with you on another.”

  “I have not even met the Misses Hayner,” said Lord Vere with some acerbity.

  Harriet looked puzzled. The marquess realised with some amusement that she was totally unaware of her own looks and thought the attraction must be her two charges. He thought then with some regret that Harriet’s brain must be as soft as her appearance, for how could she possibly imagine that two gentlemen would be comp
eting to take out two misses they had not even seen? In this, he did Harriet an injustice. It had been drilled into Harriet’s mind from an early age that one’s attractions depended entirely on the amount of money one possessed as a dowry. She thought the marquess and Lord Vere must have learned of the Hayners’ wealth and were therefore acting in very much the way she would have expected two fashionable gentlemen to behave.

  “Never mind,” said the marquess gently. “If the weather holds fine, we should have a tolerable drive.” He rose to his feet. “Good day, Miss Metcalf. I look forward to seeing you at the ball this evening.”

  Harriet rose and curtsied.

  “May I hope to have the honour of dancing with you?” asked Lord Vere, flashing an angry look at his friend.

  Harriet blushed. “I had not thought of dancing myself,” she said. “I shall be sitting with the chaperones.”

  Lord Vere began to protest hotly that one so fair should be condemned to blush unseen, but the marquess said smoothly, “Miss Metcalf will not find herself neglected, Gilbert. I shall be happy to sit with her.”

  Harriet curtsied low. Rainbird, who had been standing beyond the open door in the hall, leapt to hold the street door open for the gentlemen.

  Both men stood on the step, drawing on their gloves.

  “Did you need to cut me out so savagely?” said Lord Vere hotly. “You are a philanderer and womaniser, and I want you to leave this one alone.”

  “Yes, I did behave badly,” agreed the marquess equably. “Pray accept my apology. I was near an ame’s ace of falling in love with her. Such tenderness, such dewy beauty. But much too simple-minded for my decadent tastes. I shall take Miss Metcalf and her charges driving tomorrow as I promised and then leave the field to you.”

  Harriet crossed to the window to watch them walk by. She heaved a little sigh. The marquess was so very handsome. But so very practised. He had made his friend look a fool, and that had diminished him in her eyes. But he did look so very like a hero out of a romance, and it was so lowering to reflect that she must never think of herself, but only concentrate on suitable beaux for the twins.

  The marquess turned and smiled and looked full at her. It was just as if he expected her to be watching from the window like a … like a moonstruck calf, thought Harriet, turning away. It was important that she quickly become fast friends with some of the other chaperones at the ball. It appeared the handsome marquess was a rake. Not Suitable, said her mother’s voice in her ear. Not Suitable At All!

  Chapter

  Four

  These sort of boobies think that people come to balls to do nothing but dance; whereas everyone knows that the real business of a ball is either to look out for a wife, to look after a wife, or to look after somebody else’s wife.

  —Surtees

  Spring had affected the West End of London with a sort of hectic, anticipatory fever. It was like the first night of the Season, instead of merely the beginnings of the preparation for it.

  Before the lamplighters had started on their rounds, one could see candles moving like fireflies from room to room of town houses as misses and their maids searched for that all important ribbon, feather, or fan. The smell of hot hair being wound around hundreds of curling tongs scented the air. Liveried footmen darted along the streets conveying messages from Lord this and Miss that. Lambeth Mews, at the end of Clarges Street, was bustling with activity as grooms cleaned out carriages and polished varnish.

  Harriet had hired a carriage for the Season, prudently settling on a closed one. The twins had pouted, longing to display their charms in an open carriage to the public, but Harriet had been unexpectedly firm. The English weather was treacherous; she did not want to waste the Hayners’ money on the extravagance of two carriages, nor did she wish her charges to arrive at their destination soaked to the skin.

  But after only a few protests, the twins had gracefully given in, as they had to Harriet’s very few other strictures. As Harriet took out her gown for the ball, however, she was plagued by a nagging feeling of unease. She had not drawn any closer to Sarah and Annabelle. They were charming to her and always correct, but sometimes she caught them exchanging sideways glances, and it was borne in on her that she did not know what they really thought of her. Then she gave herself a mental shake. They should have been in mourning. Their father had died only a short time ago. It was only natural they should draw together against the world. Harriet had been somewhat shocked when she had first learned that Sir Benjamin did not expect his daughters to wear the willow for him and that he had left strict instructions that they were not even to appear in half mourning.

  Harriet had decided to wear something subdued for her first public appearance, as befitted her role of chaperone. She had had a gown of silver-grey tabinet—a watered poplin, half silk, half wool—made up for her. The fashionable dressmaker had nonetheless made it appear, to Harriet’s country eyes, too modish an affair, as it was cut low on the bosom, was high-waisted, and ended in three deep flounces.

  She wondered whether to ring for Emily, the lady’s maid, to help her with her tapes, but decided she would rather dress herself, since there was something about Emily she did not quite like—an uncomfortable feeling for Harriet, who was not in the way of disliking anyone.

  She put the curling tongs on the little spirit stove to heat and wondered about the previous tenants of Number 67. What other young ladies had used this room and had prepared for a ball among the rented furniture? Harriet had taken the bedroom next to the dining room on the first floor. Sarah and Annabelle had the front and back bedrooms on the floor above. Harriet’s room was dominated by a great double bed and a large William and Mary wardrobe. Although the curtains at the window and the bed hangings were of red silk and the furniture was highly polished, it had the atmosphere of a rented room. There were no pictures or ornaments or any of the cosy clutter one would find in a home.

  She shivered slightly in her scanty chemise and bent to put some more coal on the fire. High fashion had not reached the sedate confines of Upper Marcham, and Harriet had been shocked to discover the scantiness of clothing one was expected to wear in London. The Times had only recently commented acidly, “The fashion of false bosoms has at least this utility, that it compels our fashionable fair to wear something. “ Harriet had absolutely refused to wear drawers, a recent innovation she considered highly indecent. Drawers had always been a purely masculine garment. Harriet had settled for a chemise or scanty petticoat—the old term shift was now considered vulgar—which was the only undergarment that most young ladies wore. The chemise was knee length. The neck opening—very low to accommodate the latest fashions—was square and edged with a gathered muslin frill.

  She pulled on a pair of pink silk stockings, slid on her garters, and then turned with a sigh to try to do something with her fluffy hair before putting on her ballgown.

  She had picked up the first tress and was winding it around the tongs when the Marquess of Huntingdon’s face rose before her eyes. She saw his mocking hazel eyes and humorous mouth; she heard that caressing husky note in his voice and started in alarm as her hair, held overlong in the tongs, began to crackle. Harriet sat down on the little needlepoint stool in front of the toilet table, feeling shaken, feeling haunted.

  For that one moment, she had felt his presence so strongly, it was as if he had walked into the room and stood over her.

  She pressed her soft lips into a determined line. She had done very well so far in preparing to launch Sarah and Annabelle. Miss Spencer would have been amazed at how well she had handled things. She was not going to be thrown off her stride by the seductive wiles of a rake. And Harriet was sure he was a rake. From trusting everybody in the whole wide world, Harriet was gradually becoming wary, like a very young animal lost in a savage jungle. There was something wrong about the marquess, something that threatened her quiet life and security.

  She seized the tongs and surprised herself by finally achieving quite the prettiest hairstyle sh
e had ever managed to create. She threaded a long silver-grey ribbon among her soft curls to achieve the Grecian effect which was so popular with the ladies of the ton. Firmly keeping her mind focused on the preparations for the ball, she was soon able to banish even the slightest thought about the Marquess of Huntingdon.

  England was going through a brief phase of pseudo-democracy, which is why the Marquess of Huntingdon’s evening coat did not allow even a glimpse of shirt cuff to be shown. That thin white line that cut the community in two, separating the gentleman of leisure from the manual worker, was thought to be undemocratic. It was a fashion that had come into being seventeen years before, and gentlemen like the marquess had obviously forgotten the reason for it—for there was a splendid sapphire pin waiting on his dresser to be buried among the snowy folds of his starched cravat. Brummell, that famous dandy, had brought starch into fashion. This innovation earned him amention in the press. “When he first appeared in this stiffened cravat, the sensation was prodigious; dandies were struck dumb with envy and washerwomen miscarried.”

  Next to Brummell’s, the marquess’s cravats were the envy of the ton, and, unlike Beau Brummell, the marquess usually had very little difficulty in pleating the starched material into sculptured folds. But for some reason, the magic had left his fingers. He blamed Harriet Metcalf. He could not get her out of his mind. It must be a sign of increasing age, he thought bitterly as he threw another ruined cravat on the floor. He had a clever, witty, and competent mistress; his fortune allowed him to travel; he had worked hard in America and had long dreamed of the frivolity of the London Season; and he was surely experienced enough not to be taken in by an innocent from the country with fair hair and large blue eyes. Harriet Metcalf, he was sure, was that rarest of creatures—a thoroughly good woman—and surely nothing was more boring than that. But he kept remembering her softness, her femininity, and the swell of her bosom. Even her gentle voice sounded in his ears.