The Bath Trilogy

by Amanda Scott

  “No, Nigel did. He was bored one day. But I believe that we are now agreed, Mr. Manningford, are we not?”

  He nodded and said, “But I do think I ought to take you now to meet my father. You’ll not want to ride three in the phaeton again, so we’ll get some men to carry your chair, then meet you in Julian Street to show you the way from there. ’Tis better, even now, I daresay, that you avoid the front of the house.”

  She consented, agreeing with a perfectly straight face that for her to be driven in a sporting carriage through the most fashionable streets of Bath would be unsuitable. Mr. Lasenby, in complete accord with that judgment, volunteered to walk by her chair, but Manningford, with a sardonic glint in his eyes, vetoed the notion, suggesting that it might be as well if neither of them were seen in her company just yet. Sudbury, called in to confer, said he would arrange at once for the men and suggested that if Manningford was on the point of leaving, he might tell the lad holding his horses that Sudbury had need of him.

  “Oh, dear,” Lady Flavia said with a frown. “That means Botten will be further delayed in getting to her sister’s house, which certainly means she will be cast into the sullens. But Nell’s needs must come first. Good day, gentlemen.”

  When they were gone, Nell turned a laughing face to her great-aunt and said, “Is it not the most ridiculous coil, ma’am? Imagine me working for an author of such books. They are so silly and unbelievable, but everyone reads them, even when they claim they do not. Only think of the Regent’s reading them!”

  “Oh, I believe some of the newer tales are quite superior, my dear. I had one out of Baldwin’s Circulating Library that I found to be quite amusing. You may read it before I return it. Much of the tale takes place right here in Bath.”

  Agreeing that she would enjoy such a book, Nell excused herself to change her plain gray stuff gown for something more suitable to visit an invalid. Passing her great-aunt’s room, some minutes later, she opened the door to find Botten within, stitching the pale green crepe.

  The dresser, a woman of some fifty summers, with faded blond hair and a soft complexion, professed herself glad to help Nell with her change, and Nell was soon ready to depart, looking very becoming in a dove-gray half-dress with white thread-lace trim, a simple gray bonnet that set off her flaming curls to admiration, her black gloves and gray knitted reticule, the latter much lighter now than earlier.

  Lady Flavia’s chair being kept beneath the swooping stair in the front hall, the two muscular chairmen hailed in and given the direction by Sudbury waited until that worthy had assisted Nell to enter it, then picked it up with ease and bore her out into the street. She had never ridden in such state before and found it an unusual, albeit generally pleasant, way of traveling, once she became accustomed to the sensation of tilting forward caused by the fact that the taller of the two men had taken the rear of the chair. That sensation ended abruptly once they began to climb, however, and since the streets were not crowded, the men made good time, arriving in Julian Street twenty minutes later to find Manningford waiting alone, except for the dog like a toffee-colored shadow at his side. He helped her out of the chair.

  “Where is Mr. Lasenby?” she asked, shaking out her skirt and adjusting the light shawl she wore draped across her elbows.

  “Inside, writing to tell his grandfather he means to remain for a time in Bath,” Manningford said, firmly shutting the door of her chair before telling the chairmen to carry it into the nearby stable and wait there until they were needed again.

  Placing a firm hand beneath Nell’s left elbow, he guided her toward a tall iron-and-wood gate, pushing it open to reveal a large shaggy garden ablaze with the colors of late spring.

  “Oh, how lovely!” Nell exclaimed. “But why has no one trimmed those hedges, or removed the dead flowers and leaves?”

  Manningford glanced around as though seeing the garden for the first time, shrugged, and said, “My father undoubtedly sacked the gardeners as well.”

  “Well, that will not do,” Nell said with a minatory look. “It would be one thing if there were no money, but since you assure me there is plenty, this is but simple neglect.”

  “Tell him so,” Manningford recommended, reaching past her to open a door into the house.

  She lifted her chin. “I am not so impertinent, sir.”

  He grinned at her. “Are you not, Miss Bradbourne? I should have thought you equal to anything. There are times when you put me forcibly in mind of my sister.”

  “I doubt that that is a compliment,” she said thoughtfully, “for I must tell you, sir, that whenever you have put me in mind of my brother, it has not been because of anything particularly admirable in your behavior.”

  “Then shall we consign our relatives to perdition? Talking of one’s family can only be boring to anyone else.”

  “But families are important, sir.”

  “Are they?” He smiled at her. “I cannot agree, but in any case, I did mean what I said to you for a compliment.”

  She could not resist returning his smile wishing she were worthy of such praise. It must, she thought, be an excellent thing to be equal to all the challenges one encountered. She had already discovered, however, that quite frequently she was not.

  They passed along a narrow, whitewashed corridor to a door leading into the stair hall, and there Nell paused to gaze about her, astonished by the faux-marble walls and the would-be stone steps. The house was very quiet.

  “Are there truly no servants, sir?”

  “Only the cook and a scullery maid. Shall I send for one of them? Are you nervous, ma’am?”

  “No, not at all. I was not raised to be missish, you know. My mother died when I was quite young, and my father went through a flock of housekeepers before I took the reins myself. For some reason, any number of them seemed to think he might marry them. I could never understand such misplaced optimism.”

  “Could you not?” he asked.

  His tone was cynical again, and she laughed. “If you mean to imply that he gave them cause to believe such a thing, you really ought not to say such things to me.”

  “I made a point of not saying any such thing to you.”

  “Well, yes, but …” She chuckled again. “You are quite abominable, sir. In point of fact, although I have no good reason to believe that my father’s actions raised false hopes in his housekeepers’ breasts, the possibility does exist. Still, they must have been daft if they believed him.”

  “No doubt, but people do believe the oddest things.”

  She agreed, gazing at the pictures on the stair wall, where hunting scenes and sketches of Bath hung cheek by jowl with ponderous family portraits. It was as if someone had simply stuck every picture in the house up there without order or reason. Oddly, the effect was both interesting and decorative.

  Manningford was watching her. “My sister Sybilla decided that the stair hall was tiresome, and since my father never sees it, she saw no reason not to alter it. I like the result. We go up this second flight now. His rooms are on the top floor.” He paused on the landing and looked at her searchingly. “I hope you are not having second thoughts, Miss Bradbourne. He will not be grateful to you, nor pleased to see you, I might add.”

  She smiled at him. “He will not frighten me, sir.”

  He looked long at her, then said slowly, “No, I begin to think nothing does frighten you, though I cannot help but think that one or two events in your past might well have frightened a person of less resolution.”

  “Goodness, sir,” Nell said, striving for a lightness in her tone that she could not feel, “You will put me to the blush.”

  “You must forgive me.” He gestured for her to precede him, adding gently, “When one has racketed about as much as I have, ma’am, one learns to pay as much heed to the things people don’t say as to those they do. You flout convention by walking alone in a public garden, but you carry a pistol in your reticule. You behave like a lady of quality, yet you agree without a blush to a schem
e that would mortify many other young women. You laugh easily; yet I sense sadness and tension beneath the laughter.”

  There was nothing Nell wished to say to that, least of all to tell him that she had hardly laughed at all for months before meeting him, so she held her tongue and gave her attention to the narrow wooden stairs. At the top she paused, waiting for him to come up beside her, wondering if he would say any more.

  He did not. He smiled at her again and gestured toward a door just inside the corridor leading off the landing. “That is his bedchamber,” he said. “I should like to spring you on him before he has a chance to say he won’t see you, but I daresay that would only send him off into another fit. I don’t mind if he has one, of course—”

  “Sir!” Nell exclaimed, truly shocked.

  Manningford drew a deep breath and let it out again before he said, “Look here, Miss Bradbourne, you might as well know from the outset that I don’t care a damn for my father. He has never given me the least cause even to feel that ordinary consideration one feels for the common man in the street. He has ignored me all my life, exerting himself only to forbid me to do anything of which he does not approve, frequently threatening to cut off my allowance when word of any outrageous behavior reached his ears, but consistently forbidding me to seek gentlemanly occupation.”

  “But surely,” Nell said, looking at the closed door ahead of them, “there must have been something you could have done. Perhaps your brother would have helped you.”

  The glint of sardonic amusement in Manningford’s eyes deepened and he shrugged. “My brother makes few decisions on his own, ma’am, and his wife does not approve of me. To her credit, I must point out that I am just as irresponsible, selfish, and heedless as ever she has accused me of being. Indeed, my myriad faults have been described to me by many others in addition to Clarissa, and with equal regularity. So many who say so very much the same thing must certainly be right.”

  “Goodness,” Nell said, shaking her head with an expression of extreme sympathy on her lively face, “you poor, poor man.”

  The look in his eyes sharpened, then relaxed, and his lips began to twitch. He said in a carefully even tone, “Someone recently told me that you are never impertinent, Miss Bradbourne. I wonder who that can have been.”

  “Why, sir,” she said with wide-eyed innocence, “it was I who told you, but no doubt such adversity has impaired your memory.”

  Taking her arm in a firm grip, he drew her to a padded bench against the wall on the landing and plumped her down upon it. “You deserve that I should take you straight in,” he said, “but I have at least some notion of civility left to me. Moreover, Borland is as likely as my father to have a fit if I simply open the door and present you to their notice. I’d not miss my father, but the entire household would sink without Borland, so you will await me here.” He went to the door of the bedchamber and scratched softly.

  The door opened at once, and Borland stood there, his sharp gaze flying from Manningford to Nell, whereupon his eyes widened and he looked back in dismay at Manningford. “Master Brandon,” he protested in his raspy voice, “you cannot—”

  “I can, Borland, so it is of no use to tell me that I cannot. I have honored my father’s wishes for eight-and-twenty years, but that was before he demanded more than I can give. I quite understand that the wretched novel must be written—oh, don’t look so no-account,” he added when the manservant gasped and stared wretchedly at Nell. “She knows the whole of it, and you may tell him for me that if he does not agree at once to see the pair of us, I shall shout the truth from the rooftops of Bath. It is naught to me if people know his secret. Certainly no one will think for a minute that I had a hand in it, so if they laugh, they will laugh only at him.”

  There was a heavy silence that lasted a full minute before Borland turned and looked back into the bedchamber, his expression as he did so showing clearly that he would not have been surprised to discover that his master had suffered another seizure and died on the spot. What he saw apparently startled him nearly as much, however, for he turned back with a look of amazement on his face and said, “Bring her in, Master Brandon.”

  “What, at once?”

  The response came from within the room, in a gruff but surprisingly firm voice. “Aye, you damned, self-centered knave, at once! I can scarcely be expected to change my attire for the occasion, but damme, I’m still your father, and if you try such threats with me again, I’ll see you suffer for it.”

  Exchanging a speaking look with Borland, Manningford turned and gestured to Nell.

  She arose, stepped forward, and without a thought put her hand in his, not knowing whether she sought to give or take comfort, certain only that she was glad to find his hand, warm and strong, gripping hers.

  He drew her forward, and Borland stepped aside uncertainly to allow the pair of them to enter. “Shall I come in, Master Brandon, or …”

  “Wait here,” Manningford said quietly, and shut the door, turning toward the man in the bed, who had leaned forward, away from the many pillows against which he had been propped, his expression showing both impatience and alarm. Manningford said hastily, “Father, this is Miss Bradbourne. She—”

  “Good God, you’re Flavia Bradbourne’s niece, ain’t you?” Sir Mortimer demanded harshly, falling against his pillows again but not taking his gaze from her.

  “I am her grand-niece, sir,” Nell replied, making her curtsy. Noting his pallor and thinking he must be in pain, she added gently, “I apologize for disturbing you, but Mr. Manningford believed the matter was of some urgency to you.”

  “It is, it is! But never mind about that. Tell me about Flavia. Damme, but she must be an old woman by now!”

  “She’d not thank you for calling her so,” Nell said with a grin. “More likely, she’d threaten to dust you with her cane.”

  “Hasn’t changed then,” he said with satisfaction. “She can give me a few years, of course, though you mightn’t think it to look at me now. Little scrap of a thing, she was, like yourself, though her hair was gold as a guinea. A beauty, a real beauty.”

  Manningford said, “Miss Bradbourne has certain claims to beauty, too, sir, if I might be so bold as to say so.”

  “Oh, certainly, certainly. No need to take offense!”

  Nell’s eyes twinkled. “I thank you for the compliment, both of you, but I can never claim to be such a beauty as Great-aunt Flavia was in her day. Why, she was a nonpareil.”

  Sir Mortimer said, “I’ll not contradict you, Miss Bradbourne.” He fell silent for a moment, then added, “Do I take it that my idiot son thinks you can write a novel?”

  Nell was dismayed but replied calmly, “Oh, no, sir, Mr. Manningford had it in mind only that I should act as your scribe, because no one can read his hand. You see, I need the—” Remembering that he knew her great-aunt gave her pause, but she gathered herself and finished firmly, “I need the money.”

  “So Flavia has run herself to a standstill, has she? Can’t say it surprises me to hear it. Extravagant little puss.”

  “She did not,” Nell said quickly. “That is, it was not extravagance so much as the fact that her jointure remained the same when prices increased. It is really too bad.”

  Sir Mortimer shrugged, and for the first time she was able to see that his ability to move had been impaired, for only his left shoulder went up. She noticed, too, that his face appeared to sag a little on the right side, and that his right eye seemed somehow different from his left.

  “Will you allow me to assist you, sir?”

  “I seem to have no choice,” he said grimly, glancing at his son, but his expression, in Nell’s opinion, showed respect rather than vexation, though his voice was still gruff as he added, “Don’t you think to go haring off now, young man. This is your doing, and you’ll stay to see it through, damme if you won’t!”

  “I will,” Manningford said, but he said it to Nell.

  VI

  FOR A FORTNIGHT THEIR PLAN
succeeded well enough, the only occurrence to upset Nell’s composure during that time being the arrival of a letter from her father’s cousin, who chose to treat her flight with dignity. Suggesting that, as a Bradbourne, she ought to have traveled post rather than by the common stage, Jarvis wrote that he had no objection to her journey and added that she ought to have applied to him for money rather than be obligated to Lady Flavia. But since he enclosed a draft on a Bath bank (for which, as an enclosure, she was obliged to pay sixpence), though she might wish he had not guessed so quickly where she was, the most she could complain of in his letter was that good manners compelled her to write and thank him for it.

  In Royal Crescent, Manningford had taken the reins more firmly in hand than anyone had expected him to do, and Nell believed he was rather enjoying the experience. Not only had he found he could deal very well with his father’s man of affairs (who was delighted to be able to do business face-to-face rather than by post, as had been his habit for many years), but he had succeeded all by himself in convincing the Hammersmyths, his father’s late butler and housekeeper, to return.

  Quarter-day had passed, but he had seemed to take no notice of it, other than to send Max down to Westerleigh to his brother, with a recommendation to see what sort of a gun dog he might make. His mood remained light, and if he seemed to be busy in his father’s study whenever Nell sat with Sir Mortimer, and ready to escort her to her chair when they had finished, she certainly had no objection to make to that. She liked him and had rapidly come to accept him as a friend, though she still found it disconcerting that he frequently understood her thoughts before she spoke them aloud.

  For the first few days, until Mr. Lasenby departed in response to a curt summons from his grandfather, a maidservant sat on the padded bench outside the bedchamber door, but with Lasenby gone, Nell had deemed her presence there unnecessary and suggested she find other duties. By the time Lasenby returned, complaining of his grandfather’s despotism (but ruefully admitting that he had forgotten to visit Miss Wembly in London prior to her family’s departure for the south coast), no one thought about asking the maid to resume her place on the landing.