Lady Fortescue Steps Out (The Poor Relation Series, Vol. 1)

by M C Beaton

  “Your health, Miss James,” he said, raising his glass.

  She nodded.

  He took a sip of wine and put his glass down on the table.

  “I may as well tell you, Miss James, that I am bent on trying to get this folly of a hotel closed down.”

  “Why?”

  “Is it necessary to explain why? Lady Fortescue is my aunt. She has brought shame on the family. I am convinced she is senile, else she would not have indulged in such a scheme and in such company—saving your presence, Miss James.”

  “Lady Fortescue has the sharpest brains of anyone I know,” said Harriet, still in a calm, even voice. “You cannot call someone mad because she happens to be partner in a thriving business concern.”

  “Then I shall tell you something in confidence. Lady Fortescue is guilty of theft. She attempted to steal two candlesticks from me. And what, may I ask, is a young lady of your undoubted breeding doing here?”

  A wave of anger rose up, bringing hot colour to Harriet’s white cheeks.

  She grasped the edge of the table and glared at him.

  “Did you ever ask yourself why this place is called The Poor Relation?”

  “Some joke in bad taste, no doubt.”

  “We are all, all we partners, poor relations, that most despised class, hoping for crumbs of charity. Had it not been for Lady Fortescue, then my lot would be to live a dreary impoverished life for the rest of my days. Do you know what it is to be hungry, to be cold in the winter because you cannot afford coals? Why do you think Lady Fortescue stole from you? Madness? Pah! She was hungry, your grace, if you can get that simple notion lodged somewhere in that well-coiffured cockloft of yours. Hungry! That is how she and Colonel Sandhurst met. He fainted with hunger in Hyde Park. They found that if we poor relations banded together, we could live better as a group than we could on our own. Sir Philip suggested the hotel.”

  “And how did Sir Philip get the money for the building alterations and the furniture?”

  Harriet studied her wineglass as if it were the most interesting thing she had ever seen. She was sure, as were the others, that Sir Philip had stolen something of great value from the duke himself. “He was left a legacy,” she lied, “and instead of spending it on himself, he decided to help all of us.”

  The duke stared at her in silence. He noticed the blue bruises of fatigue under her eyes. The kitchen was cooling down, but he could not forget the furnace heat of earlier.

  “Why?” he said at last. “Why did you not explain your plight to your relations?”

  “What good would that do?” she demanded scornfully. “They know what we get and consider it sufficient.”

  “I was not aware that Lady Fortescue was living on so little,” he said. “But you, you should not be condemned to work down here. Why you? The others make shift to appear to work, but most of it is done by the real servants.”

  A cynical gleam appeared in her green eyes. “At the moment it would cost too much to hire a chef of my calibre. The aristocracy such as we have here do not pay bills in advance. No, that would be too, too vulgar. They pay at the end of their stay and in some cases we shall be hard put to get them to pay even then. It is a point of honour not to pay tradespeople until the last minute. A professional chef would be too high and mighty to use the cheap ingredients that I do. Because we are an evident success, the grocers, butchers, and wine merchants supply us on credit, but soon they will want some of their money.” She passed a hand wearily over her forehead. “By next year, if all holds good, we shall have a chef and I shall be a lady of comparative leisure.”

  “If you live that long,” he remarked. He looked at the open fire. “Hearth deaths claim many lives each year. Sir Philip’s bounty should have stretched to a closed stove.”

  She laughed and he caught his breath as her beauty suddenly blazed out in the gloomy kitchen. “Ah, you have the right of it,” she said. “Other women dream of diamonds and rubies from Rundell and Bridge or Mr. Hamlit, and I dream of a closed stove.”

  “But how did you become so … so …?”

  “Poor? My parents are both dead. I was left with debts. The usual story. But what of Lady Fortescue now, your grace? I have told you of her sad predicament, so sad it led her to stoop to theft, and yet you appear unmoved.”

  “I am not unmoved. I wish she had chosen to explain matters to me instead of venturing on this hotel. I must buy her out.”

  And that was what Sir Philip had planned, thought Harriet. But what of the rest of us? “You might find it difficult,” she said slowly. “She has found companionship and independence. Why not leave things as they are at present? Everyone has an eccentric in the family. There is no need for you to continue to stay here, to even recognize your aunt. Why, people these days will cut their mothers and fathers in the street if they think them not fashionable enough. I was passing the time in the Park one day last year and I recognized a certain Mr. Southern from my brief days in society. He was with a party of dandies from White’s. An elderly gentleman nodded to him and his friends asked, ‘Who was that old man who hailed you in that familiar way?’ And Mr. Southern replied calmly, ‘One of my tenant farmers. Splendid chap.’ But the old man sat down next to me on the bench when they had gone and he burst out that Southern was his son.”

  “You malign me. I am not thus. But you should not be here. You should be enjoying balls and parties.”

  “The only reason, even for a female of my advanced years, to enjoy parties is to find a husband, but believe me, a servant’s life gives one a jaded view of the gentlemen of society.”

  “How so?”

  “We had a typical example of a Bond Street Lounger here just before you came. He strolled into the coffee room with shreds of fabric on his spurs to show he had been ‘cracking the muslin,’ or deliberately catching his spurs in the skirts of some poor female in Bond Street. He found fault with every single thing. He damned the waiter and would never let the poor fellow stand still for one moment just to remind him that he was only a servant, a wretched subordinate, and therefore devoid of finer feelings, the idea being that the greater the abuse from him, the greater the waiter was supposed to think his superior qualities. In the dining-room, he swore at the fish and said it was not warmed through and the poultry was ‘as tough as your grandmother,’ and that the pastry had been made from rank Irish butter; the malt was damnable, the sherry sour, and the port, musty. I told the waiter to leave and sent Sir Philip to deal with the Lounger.”

  “Which he did?”

  “Oh, certainly,” said Harriet. “I have never heard an old gentleman swear so fluently in my life before.”

  “But I’ll vow this Lounger left without paying.”

  “Of course he did, in the manner of his kind, but not before Sir Philip had relieved him of his gold watch and chain.”

  “I have fallen among thieves,” said the duke with a sudden smile.

  The kitchen door opened and Sir Philip popped his head round, swore horribly when he saw who was in the kitchen, and disappeared.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” asked the duke.

  “I think the best help you could give us at present is to leave us alone,” said Harriet firmly.

  “Meaning you, Miss James?”

  “I and all of us. I am not at my best. This has been a terrible day. Rabbit masquerading as fowl will do only for an occasional dinner. The guests normally expect great joints of boiled beef, and so I must go to bed so that I can rise early and make preparations.”

  She rose to her feet. He rose also and stood looking down at her, thinking how beautiful she appeared despite her fatigue.

  “I would be your protector,” said the Duke of Rowcester.

  Harriet’s eyes flashed green fire. “So your solution is to offer me a post as your mistress? Get you hence, your grace, before I really lose my temper. Do you not see, can you not see that for such as Mrs. Budley and myself this hotel is saving us from indignities such as the one you have
just dared to offer me?”

  The door opened and Mrs. Budley tripped in. She affected surprise at the sight of the duke, but it was done so amateurishly that both the duke and Harriet knew immediately that Sir Philip had told them up in the attics about the duke’s presence in the kitchen.

  “You should not be unchaperoned,” said Mrs. Budley, colouring slightly at her own temerity, for the elegance and height of the duke awed her. “Tea is ready for you in our little sitting-room. I must ask you to come with me.”

  “Gladly,” said Harriet. She swept a low curtsy to the duke, and picking the candle up from the kitchen table, she followed Mrs. Budley out, leaving the duke in a darkness lit only by the glow from the dying fire.

  He stood there for several minutes, wondering what clumsy devil had prompted him to offer her his protection. Then he turned on his heel and felt his way up the dark stone stairs to the hall above.

  “Offered you carte blanche, hey?” demanded Sir Philip when he and the rest had heard Harriet’s story. “Why not take him up on it? Get a house on the Park, carriage, jewels.”

  “How dare you suggest such a monstrous thing,” cried Lady Fortescue and rapped the old man hard on the knuckles with the sticks of her fan. “We must make attempts to keep him from the kitchen.”

  Mrs. Budley heaved a romantic sigh. “But he is so very handsome. Where is he now?”

  “Probably gone to Almack’s,” said the colonel. “You did the right thing, Miss James, and there is nothing like a good solid rebuff for driving a man off and keeping him away. He is no doubt paying court to some fair charmer at Almack’s and has forgot your very existence.”

  Harriet found this very depressing. To change the subject, she said to Sir Philip, “You must stop advertising those teas in the coffee room, for it is simply too much work for me. Oh, I know I have help, but Mrs. Bodge is a good plain cook, nothing more.”

  “Can’t get a chef cheap, not a good one,” said Lady Fortescue.

  “Maybe, maybe,” said Sir Philip, thinking hard. “I wish we could. Then we could keep Miss James away from the duke. I have a feeling he’ll hang about here now just because of her.”

  “Why should he?” demanded Lady Fortescue harshly. “You have no idea how the ladies throw themselves at him. I have seen it on my visits to his home. Why waste time on Miss James when he can have any woman in London? Oh, Miss Tonks, do come off that horse!”

  Miss Tonks was seated side-saddle on a large rocking-horse in the corner of what had once been a schoolroom, rocking to and for in a dreamy way.

  “Leave her,” said Sir Philip crossly. “She’s the only one of you that don’t get on my nerves.”

  Miss Tonks, deciding that the last person she wanted to champion her was Sir Philip, promptly got down from the horse.

  “Do you think the Cadmans mean to pay?” she asked, sitting down next to Harriet. Sir Tristram Cadman and his family had booked only for a month, not for the whole Season. He had been drunk the day he arrived and then had proceeded to drink great quantities of the hotel’s champagne. His wife and daughter were always out shopping, and the day before, Mr. Hamlit, the jeweller, had sent a man to demand payment for a pair of earrings. As the Cadmans had not been in London for very long, it was odd for such a famous jeweller to demand settlement so quickly, so it followed that Mr. Hamlit had learned something unfavourable about the Cadmans.

  “They have to pay,” cried Mrs. Budley, her pansy-brown eyes at their widest. “We would be ruined were we left with such a bill.”

  “Perhaps, as we have only a small staff at night,” said the colonel, “one of us should be keeping a watch on them. They may try to leave in the middle of the night.”

  “I have taken certain precautions,” said Sir Philip with a grin. “I searched their quarters when they were all down at dinner and found Sir Tristram had a bag of sovereigns, more than enough for their bill. So I wedged it down the back of the sofa in their sitting-room.

  “If they’re honest, they’ll scream for the missing money in the morning. You will search while I stand by with their bill. When you find the sovereigns, I present the bill. If they disappear during the night, we have the money anyway. How they pay their other creditors is their affair.”

  “Now, that’s clever,” said Miss Tonks. “I could never think of anything like that.”

  “Nor could you, featherhead,” said Sir Philip nastily.

  Mrs. Budley, to change the subject, looked across at the wooden horse, which was still moving back and forth gently on its rockers. “Do you hear from your children these days, Lady Fortescue?” she asked.

  “Hardly,” said Lady Fortescue bitterly. “I gave birth to ten children, none of whom survived very long. That was my son Harry’s horse. He died in my arms of scorfula when he was ten.”

  Their voices rose and fell in Harriet’s ears, but she hardly heard what they were saying. A waltz tune danced in her head. Was he at Almack’s? Did he think of her?

  The duke was at that moment dancing with London’s latest beauty, Miss Valerie Simms. He had arrived at Almack’s just before the doors closed at eleven. He had never liked Almack’s before, damning it as a shoddy place with bad refreshments, but this evening he found he was enjoying the glittering company, not one of whom would have dreamt of working in a kitchen, even her own. Miss Simms had light-brown hair, light-brown eyes, a straight nose and a rosebud of a mouth. She floated in his arms and flirted to perfection. She would make a pretty and complacent wife. The duke did not like independently-minded women. Some men might affect to dislike the prattle of females but, he persuaded himself, he found it charming and stumbled only once when he was assailed with such a black cloud of boredom and such a longing to go back to the hotel that he forgot where he was. But the moment passed.

  He must put Harriet James out of his mind. She was highly unsuitable. But … but what if her clothes caught fire at the kitchen fire? Ridiculous to furnish a hotel and leave such an antique arrangement in the kitchen. He bowed to his partner, for the dance had finished, and then said, “I wish to ask you something, Miss Simms.”

  Her eyes glowed. Miss Simms knew herself to be belle of the ball. Now surely the Duke of Rowcester could only mean one thing … marriage.

  “Your grace,” she murmured, “you may ask me anything.”

  “How long would it take to get a closed stove installed in a kitchen?”

  Her face fell ludicrously. “Your grace, I know nothing about stoves.”

  “I should have known,” he said. “I must find someone who does.”

  He gracefully handed her over to her next partner and then surveyed the company. Ladies caught his eye, fans flirted, eyes flirted, skirts were hitched just that little bit to show neat ankles. He needed a dowager, he thought, someone from the last century, when ladies were supposed to know more than their servants and do it better.

  He saw old Lady Rumbelow and headed in her direction. “Hey, what’s this, Rowcester?” she hailed him. “Come to ask me to dance, hey?”

  “To ask your advice,” he said, sitting down next to her.

  “He is asking about you,” squeaked Mrs. Trust, Lady Rumbelow’s daughter to her daughter, Fanny. “We will walk towards them, not deliberately, mind, but as if we did not see them and then you must make a pretty start of surprise. Open your eyes to their fullest and cry, ‘Why, Grandmama, I did not know you had company. What can this gentleman think of poor ickle moi?’ Your grandmother will introduce you and you must then sigh and say, ‘Ah, quel dommage, I have only this one dance left.’ Then he will ask you to dance.”

  “A closed stove,” Lady Rumbelow was saying thoughtfully. “The speed of installation depends on the money you are prepared to spend. Promise ‘em the earth and they’ll have it in in a trice. Send your man to Carter’s in the Old Brompton Road. Ask him for a Winkle stove, they’re the latest, ovens and all that, and a clockwork spit. Big thing, but very efficient.”

  “It would need to be installed during the night-tim
e,” said the duke, thinking that Harriet would not appreciate a disruption of her kitchen during the day.

  “Why not wait till the end of the Season?” demanded Lady Rumbelow. “Heard the Bunbarys were in your house.”

  “It’s a present for a lady.”

  “How romantic of you,” cackled Lady Rumbelow.

  “Could I get this Carter person now?”

  Lady Rumbelow said, “It must be about one in the morning. But if you’re that desperate, no doubt the man lives over his shop.”

  “Thank you,” said the duke and fled just before Mrs. Trust and Fanny reached him.

  Harriet rose as usual at six in the morning, washed and dressed and made her way down to the kitchen, quickening her step as she heard crashes and bangings echoing up from the basement.

  She opened the door and stood amazed. A squad of workmen were hammering and banging. Where the open fire had been stood a large gleaming stove.

  “Nearly finished, mum,” said the foreman. “What about some beer?”

  “But what are you doing?” cried Harriet. “Who authorized this?”

  “Duke of Rowcester, mum. Present for Lady Fortescue what owns this place.”

  The duke had cleverly decided that after his proposition of the night before, Harriet James would not want to accept any present from him, even such a homely item as a kitchen range.

  Harriet sat down suddenly at the table. Had he done this for her? He must have done. She would tell them to take it away. She did not want any favours from him. But, oh, what a difference it would make. And … and he had said it was a present for his aunt. So she rose and drew tankards of beer for the workmen.

  Soon the fire was lit and the new stove was crackling merrily. Harriet looked at it dreamily, at the black gleaming surface, at the ovens at the side. Her small staff arrived and cried out in surprise at the transformation.

  Then the workmen left and Harriet realized the work of the day had to begin.

  All that long day, she slaved away, looking up every time the kitchen door opened, thinking perhaps it might be the duke. She could hardly go and thank him, for the present had been for Lady Fortescue and Lady Fortescue had told her she had already thanked her nephew but had warned Harriet, “He is out to seduce you. The colonel and I have agreed that despite his generosity, we must do everything we can to dislodge him from the hotel.”