The Scandal of the Season

by Annie Burrows

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Godmama as Captain Bucknell leaned back in to offer her his hand to help her alight. ‘Whatever shall I do if she writes to her papa and the man demands his money back? I have spent most of it. At least, I handed a lot over to Dawes to settle my outstanding debts and deal with the staff wages,’ she twittered as they all began to mount the steps to the front door.

  ‘He can demand all he likes,’ said the Captain with an amused expression, ‘but he cannot get back what’s gone, can he? And what will he do? Sue you through the courts?’

  Godmama let out a little shriek. ‘No! I mean, yes! That is exactly the sort of vulgar thing a man like that would do! Oh, Bertram,’ she said turning to him and laying both hands on his chest. ‘What am I to do?’

  He squared his shoulders. ‘This is my fault, in part, I know that. So I will—’

  ‘No, no, it isn’t. You have been a rock...’

  ‘But if it wasn’t for your refusal to give me up, my angel, your stepson would never have started waging war on you, would he? Don’t think I don’t know it.’

  Cassy, who’d grown increasingly suspicious of Captain Bucknell ever since she’d heard him tiptoeing along the bedroom corridor instead of going out the front door, began to think that he could not be all bad if he could look at Godmama that way, as though he’d take on the world to keep her safe. If a man looked at her like that, she supposed she might be tempted to defy the world to keep him in her life, too.

  ‘You just leave that girl to me,’ he said.

  ‘But what can you do?’

  ‘Well, for one thing, I can advise you to leave her be, tonight. Let her cool down.’

  ‘But she might write to her papa...’

  ‘So what if she does? How is she going to get a letter out of the house without involving one of your staff, who will do nothing without your say-so?’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Godmama with admiration.

  Cassy’s opinion of the Captain promptly did another about-face. Was he really suggesting that they denied a guest the right to contact her relatives when she was in distress? And could Godmama not see how unethical that was?

  No. As Rosalind had pointed out, and as Cassy knew only too well, Godmama never did have a very firm grasp on the principles of right and wrong.

  ‘And tomorrow,’ said Captain Bucknell, ‘I will call round and take the girl out. To somewhere like Astley’s and Gunter’s for ices. Turn her up sweet.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Godmama. ‘If anyone can do it, you can.’

  ‘While you,’ he said, tapping her on the nose, ‘will go round all the society tabbies, explaining about Miss Furnival’s family connections.’

  ‘Oh, they know all about that!’

  ‘Well, then, you must think of something else to salvage the situation. And you,’ he said, turning to Cassy, ‘you could always try to see what you can do on the girl, overnight. She might listen to an appeal to her heartstrings, if you can fashion one.’

  She would do no such thing. Rosalind had every right to feel duped. Nothing about the Season was what she’d been led to believe it would be.

  However, this was no time to start an argument with him. Not with Godmama gazing up at him as though he was the fount of all wisdom and the source of all her happiness.

  ‘I will go and talk to her,’ she muttered, heading for the stairs. Though she had no intention of making an appeal to her heartstrings, in the way Captain Bucknell meant. Because she felt that Rosalind had every right to be angry. For the men from whom Colonel Fairfax had unwittingly rescued her had all of them snubbed Rosalind, which was one of the things that had made her dislike them.

  They’d also made her cringe as they paid her increasingly extravagant compliments, which were more to do with besting each other than impressing her. And they’d all put her in mind of her stepfather, who could put on a caressing manner when it suited him. The Colonel, for all his rudeness and prejudice against her, had been like a gust of fresh air, blasting away all the cloying falseness that had been practically choking her.

  The truth, however hard, was always better than make-believe.

  And so she would tell Rosalind the full truth, about how she’d been drawn in to Godmama’s schemes. Surely Rosalind would understand how she’d felt when she’d seen all those gowns she’d worked so hard on drive past her cottage in Miss Henley’s coach? Especially now that she’d met Miss Henley and seen what she was like? And how, when Godmama had turned up, not ten minutes after she’d wished she could go to London, and dance at balls, and all the rest of it, the temptation to go along with her plans had been too great to resist?

  She could also remind Rosalind that the Season hadn’t turned out the way Cassy had hoped, either. She certainly hadn’t bargained for the Colonel and his hostility.

  She sighed as she trudged up the stairs. Rosalind was so angry it was unlikely she’d be in a mood to listen to anything she had to say. She probably wouldn’t even let her in her room. But at least Cassy would have tried.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Nathaniel pushed aside the papers that General Fewcott had given him the day before. He’d promised himself that he would attend to them before he investigated the matter of Miss Furnival’s fortune, or lack thereof. But it was useless. The columns of figures wouldn’t add up, no matter how many times he started again. Not when the amount of eight hundred and thirty-two pounds kept on going round and round in his head.

  Could his sister really have believed such a sum amounted to a fortune? Or could her friend, Agatha, who was Lieutenant Gilbey’s sister, have exaggerated the importance of it? The family could have resented Lieutenant Gilbey having made any sort of bequest to Miss Furnival, he supposed. Although surely, that money had been Gilbey’s to do with as he saw fit?

  Or had Miss Furnival told him a barefaced lie?

  But if she had, then why had she been working as a seamstress? Or was that a lie to make him feel sorry for her? But then where had the rumour started? Unless she’d started it herself...

  But why would she do such a thing? What did she have to gain?

  He flung his pen aside with irritation and got to his feet so swiftly that his chair toppled over backwards.

  As he reached the study door, it swung open, revealing the startled features of his butler.

  ‘Is there something amiss, sir? I thought I heard...’

  ‘I overset the chair, that is all, Dasset. In my haste. I am...’ He frowned. Just when had he ever felt the need to explain his movements, or the speed at which he made them, to his staff?

  ‘My hat and coat, Dasset,’ he barked.

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ said the butler, snapping his fingers for a footman to run and perform the errand. ‘And might I enquire as to whether you will be returning for dinner?’

  Nathaniel glanced at the window to see that the sun was already on the wane. He must have been sitting in his study, accomplishing precisely nothing, for almost a whole day. By this time, his sister would be...well, he wasn’t sure exactly how his sister filled her days. But many people would be parading about the park soon, he supposed. If he was quick, he might catch her before she went out. And if he could compel her to speak concisely, he would be back well before it was time to dine.

  Concisely? Isabella?

  ‘Probably,’ he grunted. ‘If my business goes smoothly.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ said Dasset, helping him into the coat which the footman handed him before handing him his hat.

  * * *

  In less than fifteen minutes he was knocking on his sister’s front door.

  ‘Lady Fritwell,’ her butler informed Nathaniel with a suitable expression of regret, ‘is on the point of going out. But I shall enquire if she has time to receive you before doing so.’

  It crossed Nathaniel’s mind to simply march into whatever room his sister was in, preparin
g to go out, and demand answers.

  Which stunned him. When had he lost his ability to remain detached from the kind of issues which preoccupied his mind so much, of late, that he couldn’t even tot up a few columns of figures? Let alone consider storming the boudoir of a married lady to shake some answers out of her. Even if that married lady was his sister, whose pigtails he’d pulled when he’d been a lad?

  He stalked back and forth in the hall as he awaited his sister’s decision, half wishing there was a stool lying about so that he could kick it out of his way.

  Perhaps he’d been spending too much time at desk work, lately. Perhaps he’d built up a store of energy that needed release in a bout of stool-kicking. He should visit a boxing saloon more often. Or a fencing academy. If he’d got to the stage where...

  ‘Nate! How lovely to see you,’ cooed his sister from the top of the stairs. ‘Do come up. I am, as you can see, in the midst of titivating,’ she said, waving her hand at her outfit as though he would see exactly what she meant by the word. ‘But I am sure you won’t delay me by more than a minute or two, will you?’

  He was not in the habit of wasting more than ten upon his sister, on the few occasions he had paid duty calls to her house since she’d married Fritwell, so he supposed he could see why she might think this time would be no different. And he wasn’t about to disabuse her of her assumption, not if it meant she would grant him the interview he sought.

  ‘And I am sure,’ she said as he began to mount the stairs, ‘that you must have something very important to tell me, if you are visiting at such an hour.’ Her eyes were gleaming with curiosity. But she did not look at all alarmed by his impromptu visit. Nor the slightest bit guilty.

  What, he wondered as he reached the landing and she leaned forward to kiss him fondly on one cheek, did she think he might have come to tell her that would put such a beaming smile on her face?

  He waited until they’d reached the sanctuary of her sitting room before saying anything.

  ‘I have come to ask you for some information,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Isabella folded her hands in her lap, though the smile on her face did not dim. On the contrary, it took on a cat-like quality. But then there was nothing his sister liked more than gossip. And this was the first time he’d actually asked her to tell him what she knew, rather than informing her he didn’t care for tittle-tattle.

  ‘It concerns Miss Furnival.’

  ‘I rather thought it might,’ she said, primming up her lips as though trying not to laugh.

  ‘Yes. Some weeks ago you came to me with some tale about her wheedling a fortune out of the family of Lieutenant Gilbey and urging me to do something about her. Something to the effect of stopping her before she got some other poor man into her clutches. You told me that your friend Lady Agatha was so cut up about her brother’s fate that she could not face staying in Town in case, and I think I am quoting you accurately, she came face to face with the designing baggage who’d cast her spell on her poor deluded brother.’

  Isabella shifted slightly. Her fingers, he noted, were no longer lying lax in her lap, but had twined into a sort of knot. ‘Yes, that is correct. What of it?’

  ‘Do you happen to know exactly how much Lieutenant Gilbey bequeathed Miss Furnival, in the event of his death before he was able to marry her?’

  Isabella spread her hands wide. ‘I am sure it must have been an awful lot, for Agatha to have carried on the way she did...’

  ‘Are you?’ He stared directly into her eyes, which slid away from his.

  Guilty!

  ‘Did you never wonder,’ he said, slowly and with a hint of menace, ‘how Lieutenant Gilbey came to be in possession of such a large amount of money that the prospect of losing it caused his family so much distress? Or if, since he had it, he chose to go into the army, as though he needed to earn his living?’

  Isabella pouted. ‘We didn’t go into details, it’s true...’

  ‘I should like to give you the benefit of the doubt, Issy. I should like to believe that your friend lied to you, and put you up to this, for some reason of her own. However...’ he got to his feet ‘...I cannot believe that, being so close to Agatha as you’ve been over the years, you did not have a pretty good idea of exactly how her younger brother was circumstanced.’ She lowered her head. Picked a tiny piece of fluff from her sleeve and flicked it to the floor. Which evasive action removed all further doubt from his mind.

  ‘So all that remains to learn is, why did you lie to me? What did you hope to gain? And I want the truth this time. Not some made-up tale about the family losing a fortune, or Miss Furnival being a grasping witch. Because I have it on good authority that she has been obliged to make her living as a seamstress, these last few years. And if she was the kind of creature you made her out to be and she’d managed to work her way through this vast fortune you claim she had, she would have been in Town long since, trying to sell her wares to the highest bidder.’ As the words came out of his mouth, he realised something. She had a good deal of pride, did Miss Furnival. So much pride that she would rather work with her own hands at some honest trade than sell herself to a man. No wonder she’d been so indignant when he’d accused her of doing precisely that!

  ‘So tell me, Isabella...’ he leaned over her, bracing one hand on the arm of her chair ‘...what possessed you to come to me, with tears in your eyes, and beg me to destroy a woman who has never done you any harm?’

  ‘Destroy her? No... I never meant that. I just...’ She looked up into his face, with tears in her eyes. And then, to his utter shock, she reached up and stroked his cheek. ‘I couldn’t bear it any longer.’

  He flinched away. She let the hand drop to her lap.

  ‘Bear what?’

  ‘The way you were. Ever since you’ve come back from the war you’ve been...’ She waved both hands as though trying to grasp the right words. ‘Like a dead man, walking. You’ve always been a touch serious, about some things, but you used to enjoy life, too. At first, we just thought we needed to give you time. That you’d recover from whatever it was that had made you go...’ She made the vague gesture again. But she didn’t need words to tell him what she meant. He knew exactly what she meant.

  He was numb. He’d had to numb himself, or he would have cracked wide open under the pressure of all the things that had been churning around inside him, after Corunna.

  ‘At least you weren’t drinking yourself into an early grave,’ Issy continued, ‘like some men who came back from that dreadful campaign that Moore botched so badly. So we waited...’

  ‘Who? Who is this we you keep talking about?’ Issy had frequently irritated him in the past, but he’d never have believed she could stoop to the level of discussing him with her friends as though he was some...cripple who needed their sympathy.

  ‘Bonnie and Dody and I.’

  His sisters. He heaved a sigh of relief.

  ‘And then later Aunt Charlotte, and Aunt Susan, and Aunt Meredith.’

  ‘Good God.’ He could imagine them all sitting about, like some coven, pulling his reputation to shreds over the teacups as though he were some tender lamb shank.

  ‘And we all agreed that we had to take drastic action. Because,’ she said, lifting her chin defiantly, ‘you showed no signs of improving. You turned down every invitation you ever got to go anywhere. The only time anyone saw you go out was to the War Office. Or to some vile manufactory, or warehouse, or something equally tedious. And instead of showing any signs of healing, you’re, well, we think you’ve been getting steadily worse. More...’ She made a cutting motion with her hand. ‘The crisis for us came when you stopped even visiting Cranbourne.’

  ‘I can run my estate perfectly well from London,’ he retorted. ‘There is no need for me to keep on wasting time idling about down there when Greaves has everything in hand. But I do need to be here to make sure the army g
ets the funds and the supplies it needs. Wellington needs allies here, at the seat of government, to back him—’

  ‘It’s all very well,’ she interrupted, ‘saying Greaves has everything in hand, but he’s only your steward. What about all the other estates you will inherit when Uncle George dies? What if you should die before you have an heir? And Cousin Sebastian steps into your shoes? Never mind what Greaves can do about Cranbourne, nobody will be able to stop Sebastian gambling it all away and leaving your tenants starving.’

  That had the ring of Aunt Meredith about it. She was forever telling him to remember that he would one day step into his uncle’s shoes, and become the next Earl of Crashaw. Or she had done until he’d given Dasset strict instructions to deny her admittance to his house. Which had been all the more reason for avoiding society gatherings where he was in danger of running into her.

  ‘It is your responsibility, Nate,’ Issy insisted. ‘Your duty to marry and provide an heir to run things after you’ve gone.’

  ‘I know that,’ he said impatiently. As if he could ever forget, with the trio of aunts continually plaguing him to think of that duty. Not that he had any intention of shirking it. When the time came, of course he would marry and get on with the task of filling his nursery. He was just too busy to consider it yet.

  ‘But how are you ever going to meet someone to marry if you won’t take part in the Season? Suitable brides don’t just fall into your lap!’

  No, but then taking part in a Season wasn’t exactly his idea of a sensible way to pick out a bride, either. A man was allowed a few fleeting, chaperoned meetings with girls who said all the right things so that he’d have no idea what she was really like until it was too late to do anything about it. Besides, he hated dancing.