A Person of No Consequence
Alison Stuart
Oportet Publishing
Copyright © October 2017, Alison Stuart
This edition: Oportet Publishing October 2017
(Previously published in TALES FROM THE SERGEANT’S PACK)
Cover Design: Alison Stuart
Cover photograph: Purchased with Licence from www.canva.com
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Created with Vellum
A Person of No Consequence
by Alison Stuart
February 1815: Fabien, Comte de Mont Clair, once a highly decorated officer of the exiled Napoleon, cuts a dashing swathe through a London society ball, his eyes only for the glittering ladies of the 'ton'. His heart jolts at the sight of a woman sitting in a shadowed corner. Not just any woman, but one he would have once given the world for.
For Hannah, Lady Trevan, catering to the spoiled darlings of the ton as a humble chaperone is nothing compared to the pain she suffered at the hands of her late husband. Alone and impoverished, she is a person of no consequence but once, a long time ago, she sacrificed her world for the dashing Comte de Mont Clair. Now all she can do is hope that he may glance her way…
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Contents
London February 1815
About the Author
OTHER TITLES by Alison Stuart
Preview - Lord Somerton’s Heir
London February 1815
Fabien Brassard, the Comte de Mont Clair, paused at the head of the graceful stairs leading down into the ballroom. Delicate lace fans waved in sudden agitation as if a draught of tropical air had descended on the room. Aware that his entrance had created something of a stir, he touched the diamond cravat pin at his throat and swallowed as he surveyed the crowded room.
‘You’re late, Fabien,’ his sister remarked as he stooped to kiss her proffered cheek, ‘I thought your manners were better than that?’
‘I was unavoidably detained,’ the Comte murmured.
‘Who was she?’ his sister enquired in a tone that indicated she did not expect an answer, but had resigned herself to her brother’s frequent unavoidable detentions.
Fabien did not reply, merely gave Marie the benefit of his most charming smile and offered her his arm. She guided him in the direction of her husband, skilfully traversing the sea of suitable young women, who simpered in his general direction, fans fluttering like a rabble of butterflies.
‘Mont Clair, old chap!’ Marie’s husband, William, Duke of Lydbury had been engaged in earnest conversation with a group of men of his own age and ample build. ‘What do you think?’
‘What do I think about what?’ Fabien responded.
‘This rum business with Napoleon.’
Fabien stiffened, ‘Napoleon? But he is on Elba, is he not?’
‘Not what I’ve heard,’ one of William’s friends interposed. ‘The blackguard’s escaped. Slipped out from under their noses. Word is he’s heading for Paris.’
His sister’s fingers dug into his arm, warning him, reminding him that this was London and he was a Frenchman on English soil.
‘This is news indeed,’ Fabien replied.
‘I think,’ Marie said smoothly, ‘that this is not an occasion for discussing such things, gentlemen. There are so many beautiful young women and, messieurs, your own good wives, to divert you from any dark thoughts.’
‘Demme, Marie, you’re right.’ William indicated a group of young ladies. ‘There’s some fine lookin’ fillies for you to amuse, Mont Clair.’
‘I’m not here to entertain fatuous young girls,’ Fabien hissed in his sister’s ear as she turned him to face the room again.
Marie’s smile did not slip as she murmured, ‘No, indeed, married women are far more your style, are they not brother?’
Fabien glowered at her as she steered him towards a group of young women and their chaperones who hovered by one of the elegant pillars.
‘Mes cheres,’ Marie beamed, ‘allow me to present my brother, the Comte de Mont Clair.’
She reeled off the young women’s names and Fabien bowed low as the girls curtseyed in a sigh of silk and satin dresses. As he raised his head he ran his eye with more interest over the formidable mamas and chaperones standing in a group behind the girls. Marie was quite correct, a neglected, attractive married woman made a much more interesting target than these fluttering ninnies.
One woman stood apart from the others, her features lost in the shadow of the balcony, but he felt her gaze on his face, searing to his soul. Her dreary gown set her apart as the chaperone of one of the young women, and he glimpsed apprehension in her stiff shoulders. Apprehension and yet something familiar.
It couldn’t be…? Surely not? Not after all these years?
He forced his attention back to the group of eligible young debutantes but the tug of the past pulled him back to the memory of the slight girl in a green gown struggling in the arms of his would be captor, her chestnut curls in disorder.
‘Fabien?’ Marie’s voice jolted him back to the present.
‘My apologies. Madamoiselle,’ he offered his arm to the nearest girl, ‘May I have the pleasure?’
His partner giggled and he winced inwardly, ignoring the the surreptitious victory glances she cast in the direction of her friends as he led her on to the dance floor. He waited until they were well into the cotillion before he ventured the question.
‘You are here with friends, mademoiselle?’
‘Oh yes,’ the girl, whose name he could not recall, responded.
‘And who is the lady in the dark gown, who hides in the shadows?’
‘Oh, her!’ the girl remarked dismissively. ‘That’s Lady Trevan. She is chaperone to Sophie Westhall. Mama says she is a person of no consequence. Sophie’s grandfather pays her to act as chaperone. That’s Sophie.’ She waved at a plain, rather dumpy girl with buck teeth, dancing nearby.
Trevan. Fabien’s blood ran cold at the name.
At the end of the dance Fabien bowed to his partner and let her return to her mama. He scanned the crowd trying to make Lady Trevan out among the gathering, but he could see neither her nor her charge.
‘But, Lady Trevan,’ Sophie wailed, ‘Lord Easterbrook had asked me for the supper dance.’
‘I have a headache,’ Hannah, Lady Trevan, snapped. ‘I could not have borne another mom
ent in that room.’
She leaned back against the coach seat and closed her eyes. She had not lied. The throbbing in her head felt like the pounding of a blacksmith’s hammer.
Sophie snivelled. Hannah opened one eye and regarded her charge with irritation. As unprepossessing as the Honourable Sophie would appear, she would have no difficulty snaring a husband. A comfortable twenty thousand pounds a year would ensure her future with Lord Easterbrook or someone like him.
Sophie had never known poverty, had never had her home taken from her. Nor would circumstances ever force the Honourable Sophie into a marriage that would be so hateful to her that she would spend every day in contemplation of taking her life but then it was doubtful that Sophie would ever know what it was to be truly in love. That memory had been what had sustained Hannah for the nine long years of her marriage to Simon Trevan and had stayed her hand when she felt that life was too intolerable to go on living.
Simon Trevan had left her as penniless as she had been on the day he married her. His gambling and debauchery had stripped his estate and she had been forced to sell what few assets remained. Now she once again eked out a life of genteel poverty, forced by nature of her gentility to take on the role as chaperone to girls such as Sophie, who lacked a female relative to chaperone them and introduce them in the right circles. If she failed to see her charge married by the end of the season, it would be unlikely any more commissions of this nature would come her way again.
Sophie flounced up the stairs to her bed chamber and flung herself full length on her bed. ‘When I marry Lord Easterbrook,’ she announced. ‘I will hold balls every night.’
Hannah, engaged in removing her gloves, looked down at her charge. ‘I think any man you marry had better have deep pockets,’ she remarked.
‘Oh, I’ve plenty of money,’ Sophie said, ‘and I will marry a rich husband and have diamonds and pearls. Not like you!’
The girl sat up and seized Hannah’s right hand. ‘How pitiful that the only jewellery you wear is that pathetic little ring. Is that the best Sir Simon could afford?’
Hannah froze, looking down at the little garnet ring that had attracted Sophie’s derision. She snatched her hand away and with the threat of tears stinging her eyes, she abandoned Sophie to her abigail and all but ran to the sanctuary of her own bedchamber.
She sat down at her dressing table and stared sightlessly at her reflection in the mirror. She heard the door latch click but didn’t turn her head as her own maid, Bet, entered.
‘I didn’t expect you back so early?’ Bet started to unpin Hannah’s hair.
Hannah cleared her throat, forcing herself to still the wild urge to run from the house. ‘I have a headache.’ Still staring at the mirror she said, ‘I saw HIM tonight, Bet!’
‘Who?’ Bet enquired, her voice muffled by a mouthful of hairpins.
‘Fabien.’
Hairpins fell to the floor with a succession of soft pings and Bet’s hand fell to her mistress’s shoulder.
‘No, m’lady, you must’ve been mistook!’
Hannah shook her head. ‘No mistake, Bet. He didn’t even recognise me.’ She heard the hurt and bitterness in her voice and replayed that awful moment when Fabien had entered the room. Despite the immaculate and expensive clothes, he had still been instantly recognisable as the half drowned sailor she had pulled from the sea, so many years ago.
As his eyes had swept the crowd, they had passed right over her with no recognition in those green depths. Green like the sea from which he had come...
She straightened her shoulders. ‘There is no reason why he would recognise me after all these years and after all he is a Count and I’m …’
‘You’re still the same person you was ten years ago, Miss Hannah.’
Hannah shook her head. ‘No I’m not, Bet.’
Sir Simon Trevan had beaten that person out of her a long time ago.
‘Fabien, mon chere, please sit down. Your pacing is making me quite weary,’ Marie looked up from the letter she had been writing for the last half hour. ‘Is it the news of Napoleon?’
Fabien stopped in his perambulation of the room and looked at his sister. ‘Napoleon? No.’ He hadn’t spared a thought for Napoleon since he had heard the news.
‘Then what?’ His sister laid down her pen.
‘Are you acquainted with a Lady Trevan?’
A smile curved the corner of Marie’s mouth. ‘One of your married ladies?’
Fabien stared at his sister in horror. ‘One of my...? Mon dieu, Marie, you make me out to be some sort of monster!’
Marie frowned. ‘I apologise. Please, Fabien, sit down and tell me what is bothering you and how does it concern Lady Trevan?’
‘What do you know of her?’
‘Trevan?’ Marie frowned. ‘Ah, I recall! She is the chaperone of that silly girl, Sophie Westhall. But why should she concern you? She is a woman of no great consequence, certainly below your usual taste.’ Marie’s Gallic shrug added emphasis to her words.
Fabien hitched up his coat tails and drew a chair up to his sister. ‘What do you know about her?’
‘Her ‘usband, Sir Simon Trevan was the Chief Constable of Cornwall. I assume her ‘usband left her nothing and she must earn a living as a chaperone. That is all I know of her.’
‘Trevan is dead?’ Hope sparked in Fabien’s chest.
‘I believe so. Were you acquainted with Sir Simon?’
Fabien rose to his feet and paced the room again as the memories came flooding back.
‘It was so long ago…’ He whirled to face his sister. ‘Do you recall when that stupid drunken sot of a captain sailed the Marguerite into English waters?’
‘The ship was sunk and you were shipwrecked on the Cornish coast. Ah, but you managed to escape in a small sailing boat.’ She patted his cheek as only an only an older sister could. ‘Such bravery, mon chere Fabien.’
He shook his head. ‘The courage was not mine, Marie. It was a girl called Hannah Linton who saved my life.’
‘Hannah Linton?’ Marie’s eyes widened. ‘Surely not this Lady Trevan?’
His silence gave her the answer she sought.
She rose to her feet. ‘Fabien,’ she said. ‘That was ten years ago. You were a boy and she a young girl. Any tendresse you may have felt was just childish infatuation. I must remind you that you have a great future in the new France and any woman you choose must be of the first order, not a shabby little English widow.’ She laughed. ‘She has probably forgotten you.’
Fabien turned his back on his sister and walked over to the window. Clasping his hands behind his back, he looked out on the busy street scene below him, seeing not the carts and pedestrians but the rugged cliffs of the Cornish coast and an angel with chestnut ringlets and a smudge of dirt on her cheek.
‘Of course you are right, Marie. You always are,’ he said.
Hannah kept a discreet distance as Sophie and Lord Easterbrook strolled through the Kew gardens. The girl’s simpering giggles grated on her nerves but she was pleased to see his Lordship put on a brave appearance of being captivated by Sophie’s charms. These were, no doubt, considerably improved by her substantial dowry and her researches had informed her that Lord Easterbrook had considerable gambling debts. A match made in heaven. She had done her job and she had no doubt that the engagement would be announced by the end of the season.
His Lordship stooped to pluck the head off a rose which he proffered to Sophie with a flourish. Sophie blushed prettily as she accepted it and Hannah allowed herself a smile at the extravagant play acting. What would these two youngsters ever really know of love?
A small group of ladies and gentlemen approached from the opposite direction. The ladies, dressed in the height of fashion and carrying elegant parasols to protect them from the thin, London spring sunshine, walked with their arms looped into those of the gentlemen in their tall hats and impeccable frock coats.
As the group neared, Hannah’s heart gave a lurch, recog
nising Fabien and the woman on his arm as no less a person than Lady Challingbrooke. The lady was notorious for her scandalous affairs, news of which apparently failed to reach the ears of the ever patient and besotted husband, Lord Challingbrooke.
Lady Challingbrooke laughed, leaning in towards her escort, almost resting her head on his shoulder. For his part, Fabien appeared enthralled, only cursorily acknowledging Lord Easterbrook and Sophie as they passed.
His gaze passed over her without recognition and a hard knot of disappointment lodged in Hannah’s throat. She fought the urge to look back at the happy group, will him to acknowledge her. Instead she straightened her shoulders and fixed her eyes firmly on her charge, wondering if she could, in all conscience allow the couple a few private moments together in the summer house just ahead.
‘You cannot reserve every dance on your card for Lord Easterbrook,’ Hannah chided her charge. ‘People will talk.’
Sophie sniffed. ‘Must I dance with Charles Burchfield? He treads on my toes and last week he ripped my favourite gown.’
‘Yes, you must. Until your gallant swain has summoned the courage to speak to your grandfather, then you must not be seen to favour him unduly.’
‘You are so mean!’ Sophie’s lower lip pouted and she sunk back against the cushions of the coach.
‘Those are the rules.’
‘Well this time, if you get a headache, I am ordering you to stay,’ Sophie said. ‘After all, grandpapa pays you well enough.’
Hannah ignored her petulant charge and looked out of the carriage window at the bright welcoming lights of Chalfont House. The ball at Chalfont House was one of the highlights of the season. A couple of hundred people already packed the ballroom, spilling into the anterooms and out onto the terrace. Another ball, another evening to be pitied and ignored.
A Person of No Consequence: A Short Regency Romance Page 1