by M. C. Beaton
When they had left, Lord Harry said with a glint of humor in his eyes, “Here is the horrible Biddle, who has done us such fine service. Biddle, the reason you are here is because we wish to show our gratitude to you.”
“Gratitude!” shrieked Biddle. “ ‘Gratitude,’ he says, and he gets me in the bath and washes me all over. Disgusting. You’re spawn o’ the devil, Harry!”
“Biddle!” exclaimed Isabella sharply. “Watch your tongue and do not address your master in that familiar manner.”
“He can’t help it,” said Lord Harry amiably. “He was born a rebel. Well, you old reprobate. What is your reward to be? I suppose you want enough money to drink yourself to death.”
Biddle sat down suddenly, and Isabella bit back an angry exclamation. The castle servants had been left to do much as they pleased for too long. No servant should dare to sit down in the presence of his betters.
“Anything?” asked Biddle, hugging his knees.
“Within reason, yes,” said Lord Harry, half amused, half exasperated.
“ ‘Merica,” said Biddle suddenly.
“America? Oh, not more of your maunderings, old man. I know you have never been out of England.”
“Send me,” said Biddle. “I want for to go to ‘Merica.”
“You’re old and you might die before you ever saw it.”
“Not if I had the best accommodation on board ship,” said Biddle eagerly. His old eyes were shining.
“Why do you want to go to the colonies?” asked Isabella curiously.
“Because they ain’t the colonies no more. Ain’t no lords and ladies there. I can be free!”
“I’ faith,” drawled Lord Harry, “one would think we had kept you in chains. Very well, Biddle, America it is.”
Biddle darted to the bell rope and gave it a hearty tug, and when the footman appeared, Biddle ordered champagne.
“There’s no doing anything with you,” sighed Lord Harry. “Go and have your champagne in the servants hall.”
Biddle scuttled off.
“Good servant, that,” said Lord Harry. “One of the best.”
“But so impertinent and usually so evil smelling,” remarked Isabella.
“He has a good heart, Isabella, and I would rather have that about me than a mincing posturing valet who knew how to shine my boots like glass.”
“But you cannot just send someone so old off to the other side of the world just like that. He will need introductions.”
“A cousin of ours has a plantation in Virginia. Biddle can retire there. So your parents know nothing of your adventures?”
“No, but Lucy does.”
“Damn, James! I beg your pardon, but I did not expect him to tattle all over town.”
“Only to Lucy,” said Isabella. “He loves her, so naturally he told her. I would like to make one request.”
“Your servant, ma’am!”
“I would like you to give me that quizzing glass of yours.”
He unhitched it from around his neck and came and got down on one knee in front of her and held it up, his eyes laughing. “Here it is. Why do you want it?”
“I never want to see you stare at me through it again,” said Isabella with a laugh.
“There are flecks of gold in your eyes when you laugh,” he said softly. “Did you know that? And did you know your mouth becomes soft and tender and made for kissing? Do you remember our kiss, Isabella?”
She put a hand on his shoulder as he knelt before her. “Do not tease me, Harry. Do not mock me.”
“I could no longer tease you or mock you if I tried.” He dropped the quizzing glass to the floor and put both hands gently on either side of her face and kissed her softly on the mouth.
Fire seemed to course down from his lips through Isabella’s body to her toes, bounce and soar up again, a fountain of fire and passion that burned against his mouth, melting all the years of ice.
At last he said huskily, “I should have done this from the first. Are you afraid of me?”
“No,” she said. “No, not at all. Oh, Harry, we should not be doing this. I … I … mean it is not as if we are engaged any longer.”
He swept her down onto the floor, gathered her in his arms, and kissed her breathless. Then, holding her by both wrists, he stretched her arms above her head. “I am going to keep you here until you promise to marry me. Say, ‘Yes, Harry.’ ”
“Yes, Harry.”
“And I will take you to Spain with me, and everyone will be shocked and say, ‘What a brute that man is to take the fair Isabella into death and danger,’ but I will have you by me at night no matter where to have as I please until the day I die. By God, I love you!”
His kissed her so savagely that Isabella cried out and then kissed him back just as passionately.
Lucy, who had been sitting eagerly in the hall for Captain James to arrive, heard that cry just as her fiancé walked in the door.
“It must be Fitzjohn,” cried the captain, rushing for the stairs with Lucy tumbling after him.
The couple stood transfixed in the drawing room doorway. Isabella Chadbury was rolling and groaning on the floor under the onslaught of Lord Harry’s passion. Her once perfect gown was about her waist, and he was kissing her breasts.
Captain James gently drew Lucy away, a furiously blushing Lucy.
“Well!” exclaimed Lucy as the captain helped her into his carriage. “Whoever thought Isabella Chadbury could be so naughty!”
Mr. and Mrs. Chadbury were never to forget that day. Having secured the Tremaynes agreement to the termination of their daughter’s engagement, they returned to find her sitting in the drawing room with a hurriedly put together look about her. Her hair was tousled, her mouth was bruised, and the tapes of her gown looked as if they had been quickly tied by an inexpert hand. Then the couple rose as they entered and dreamily announced they were going ahead with the marriage and that Isabella was to go to Spain.
Then there were all the sudden and hurried preparations for the wedding. Isabella, who had numbly gone through all the fittings for that wedding gown, suddenly deciding it wasn’t nearly pretty enough and demanding changes.
The days flew past until the exhausted Chadburys found themselves at the double wedding, Lucy to her captain, and Lord Harry to their daughter.
Mr. Chadbury comforted his tearful wife as the couples drove off, heading for the wars. “I don’t think we ever knew Isabella,” sobbed Mrs. Chadbury. “It is a mercy she is safely married. So wanton. Every time I took my eyes of that couple, their hands were all over each other.”
“Well, it’s a happy wedding,” remarked the countess. “Champagne is what you need, Sophia. Very soothing thing champagne!”
It was a relatively short war for Isabella. A year after her marriage, Napoleon abdicated and was sent to Elba to remain in exile. She and Lucy were thankful it was all over. They had not felt like heroines and had been frightened on many occasions and dirty and unwashed on many more. Now they were with their husbands in Paris, in a comfortable hotel, bathed and rested and dressed in clean clothes.
Lucy had gone out early riding with the captain, and Isabella was enjoying a late and leisurely breakfast with her husband. She was too thin, and her face was tanned and her dress simple, but she had all the easy manner of a woman who loves her husband and knows she is loved. Lord Harry looked at her affectionately over the top of his newspaper. He was glad she was safe. He often now wondered at his madness in taking her with him. The world was safe again, for that monster of a Corsican was on Elba and could not possibly escape. Isabella was reading a pile of letters that had caught up with them in Paris.
“What is the news?” asked Lord Harry.
“My parents are well, and everything seems much the same. I have a letter from your mother. She tells both of us that we must travel to Tregar Castle as soon as we can because it is changed beyond belief. She says they are very grand.”
“Nothing about Biddle? He’s probably dead.”
>
“Let me see,” murmured Lucy. “Perhaps there is something further on in the letter.” She read in silence for a few moments, and then a look of surprise dawned on her face. “Why here it is. You will never believe this. Biddle is married! Your cousin wrote to your mother. Biddle is living in a cottage on your cousin’s estate and has taken a wife.”
“Some old crone, no doubt, some female Biddle,” commented Lord Harry.
“Not a bit of it. He has married a widow of thirty.” Isabella blushed. “They are expecting a child!”
“Good for Biddle. He must be sober or he’d never have managed it.” He threw aside the newspaper. “What would you like to do today, my love? Go for a drive in the Bois? Make calls?”
Isabella looked at him shyly. “I would really like to stay indoors with you. We have had little opportunity of late to …” She blushed again.
He stood up and walked round the table and drew her to her feet. Then he lifted her up in his arms and gave her a long, slow kiss. “My brave and gallant Isabella,” he said, carrying her through to the bedroom and setting her down.
“I am not brave at all,” said Isabella. “I was so very frightened, and one day when you did not return from the battlefield, I screamed and wept frantically and made a terrible scene.”
“But you rode out to look for me all on your own!”
“That was because of Mrs. Malloy. You remember, the sergeant’s wife. She came up to me and said, ‘What are you screeching and caterwauling about. Faith, get out there and look for him.’ ”
He held her close, thinking he would never forget that day. He had been knocked unconscious when his horse had been shot from under him. He had recovered consciousness, lying among the dead under the blazing sun, dizzy and sick and faint.
At first he had thought he was dreaming when he had struggled upright and had seen the elegant figure of Isabella, picking her way through the bodies, leading her horse by the reins, her white muslin gown fluttering about her, and wearing a ridiculous straw hat crowned with flowers.
“But you came,” he said, untying the tapes of her gown and letting it slide to the floor. “I am going to retire from the army now, and we will go home and raise a family.”
“To Tregar Castle?” asked Isabella.
“No, my sweet. My mother’s housekeeping would drive you mad. We will find a place of our own. Now about these children we are going to have …”
Part VI
A Governess of Distinction
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 1
EVEN IN THE HEDONISTIC SOCIETY of Regency London, Percy, Viscount Hunterdon, stood out as being more carefree, indolent, and pleasure-loving than anyone else among the top thousand.
Although apparently destined to eke out his days on a small inheritance, he found he was lucky at gambling—very lucky—and was therefore able to live an extravagant life. He was extremely handsome with golden curly hair, bright blue eyes, and a tall athletic figure, for he boxed and fenced and raced his curricle, finding that a certain amount of exercise was excellent for dissipating the results of the previous night’s roistering.
As he strolled along the Strand one sunny afternoon in the direction of Temple Bar, nothing disturbed the calm pool of his brain except for one little ripple which wondered what on earth old Mr. Courtney’s lawyers wanted to see him about. Mr. Mirabel Courtney, he knew, was some very distant relative. He had never even met the old man. But now the lawyers had written a tetchy letter to the viscount to say that after repeated calls at his house and at his club without success, they suggested that if he wished to learn something to his advantage then he had better call on them.
He finally reached the musty offices of Triggs, Bellman, and Broome and airly announced his arrival to an elderly clerk who informed the viscount that Mr. Broome would see him.
Mr. Broome was like an elderly tortoise, his thin neck poking out of a painfully starched cravat and high-collared shirt.
“Old Courtney left me something, has he?” Lord Hunterdon demanded gaily.
“Sit down, my lord,” Mr. Broome said severely. “There is more to it than that.”
“Isn’t there always?” The viscount slumped down in a chair and looked vaguely out of the window. “Spare me the heretofores and wherefroms and all that legal jargon and get to the point.”
Mr. Broome sniffed loudly to show his disapproval and picked up a sheaf of papers. “Mr. Mirabel Courtney has left you his quite considerable fortune, Trelawney Castle in Dorset, and his estates,” he said.
Lord Hunterdon blinked in surprise. “Well, very kind of him, to be sure. Fetch a good price, I should think.”
“You cannot sell it,” Mr. Broome remarked with a gleam of satisfaction in his watery old eyes. “In order to inherit, you must live in the castle and make it your home. Also …”
“Also?” the viscount echoed faintly.
“Also you must take charge of Mr. Courtney’s daughters, Amanda and Clarissa, and find them husbands.”
“How can anyone be expected to find husbands for a couple of old maids?”
“The Misses Courtney are fifteen-year-old twins.”
“Hey, now, that cannot be the case. How old was Courtney when he died?”
“Eighty-six years summers, my lord.”
“Why does everyone always say summers? Why not winters? Anyway, he can’t have sired two teenage misses.”
“Mr. Courtney married a housemaid, one Annie Plumtree, fifteen years ago. The lady died giving birth to the twins.”
“Sad. But see here, is that it? I mean, if I don’t want to live in the castle and bring these poxy wenches out, I don’t get the inheritance?”
“In a nutshell.”
The viscount rose and strolled to the door. “Then I don’t want it,” he said cheerfully. “Good day to you, Mr. Broome.”
“In that case,” came the old lawyer’s voice as the viscount opened the door, “the inheritance will go to your cousin Basil.”
Lord Hunterdon turned around slowly. “You mean Basil Devenham? Toad Devenham?”
“Precisely, my lord.”
“In that case, I won’t say no, but I can’t say yes either. Not until I think about it. How long have I got?”
Mr. Broome looked at him maliciously. “We have wasted a considerable amount of time trying to get in touch with you, my lord. I think twenty-four hours would be a fair length of time.”
“Oh, very well.”
Lord Hunterdon walked pensively out into the sunshine.
How he loathed Basil! Basil Devenham was the same age as the viscount, twenty-eight. The viscount’s parents, the Marquess and Marchioness of Derriwell, had always held Basil up to their errant son as a “good example.” Basil was sober and Godfearing. Basil never gambled or went with loose women. Basil was a Good Man. And Basil thought so, too. He had a slimy, unctuous manner. Although he lived just as much a life of leisure as the viscount, he always implied that his days were taken up in study or good works.
The viscount turned in the direction of his club. Surely some of his friends could advise him. When he reached the club in St. James’s Street, he found he was in luck. Not one but three of his closest friends were in the coffee room: Lord Charnworth, the Honorable John Trump, and Mr. Paul Jolly. All were about the same age as the viscount, all were unmarried, and all devoted to a life of ease.
“Here comes Beau,” Lord Charnworth exclaimed. “He’ll cheer us up.” Lord Charnworth was a very small gentleman with prematurely white hair he wore frizzed, which, combined with his small features, made him look like a poodle. In fact, there was something doggy about the other two, Mr. Trump being rather like a collie and Mr. Jolly, like a bulldog.
“Can’t feel happy,” the viscount drawled, dropping elegantly into a chair. “
Curst problem on my hands.”
“Nancy given you your walking orders, Beau?” Mr. Trump asked sympathetically. Nancy was the viscount’s latest mistress.
“No, but I’m beginning to wish she would walk away from me,” the viscount grumbled. “Rapacious, that’s what she is. Fact is, I’ve just been to old Courtney’s lawyers, old Mirabel Courtney, distant relative, left me a castle, estates, and a fortune.”
“What’s so bad about that?” Lord Charnworth asked.
“I’ve got to live there.”
“Still not too bad. Lots of us have to languish in the country for the winter. Nothing wrong with keeping your home in London as a town house.”
“Wait, there’s worse. This old lecher Courtney married a housemaid fifteen years ago, because, one assumes, he managed to get her pregnant, for she died giving birth to twin girls who are now just fifteen and part of the deal is that I have to find husbands for them. I said I wouldn’t accept the inheritance, and then I learned that it would go to Basil Devenham.”
“Never!” Mr. Jolly growled. “Sheer waste of money. You’ve got to go through with it, Beau.”
“Don’t think I can face it,” the viscount remarked.
“But you don’t bring these maidens out yourself,” Lord Charnworth exclaimed suddenly. “You find a governess for them!”
“Bit old for a governess, surely.”
“No, you get one of those dragons who brings misses up to the social mark. Sort of advanced governess. A governess of distinction, that’s what you ask for.”
“A governess of distinction,” the viscount said, turning the phrase over in his mind.
“Sounds a good idea,” Mr. Trump said. “Besides, these lawyers can’t go running down to wherever it is to make sure you’re actually staying there, hey? Go down, see the gels, get the governess, kiss ’em good-bye, pick up the moneybags, back to Town.”