by Mary Balogh
He laughed outright. “We will invite them, by all means,” he said. “But don't be disappointed when you have no success with your scheme, Abby. Gerald is a confirmed bachelor. What are you planning for this morning?”
“I am going to spend it with Mrs. Williams,” she said. “I want to find out all about the workings of the house. Until two years ago, you know, I was used to running a house almost single-handedly.”
“No, I don't know,” he said, smiling. “You have told me remarkably little about your home and your life there, Abby. We will sit down sometime and you can tell me about it.”
“Yes,” she said, and looked over her shoulder. “May I have more coffee, please, Mr. Watson?”
Her cup was still three-quarters full, her husband noticed. He got to his feet, squeezed her shoulder, and took his leave of her, promising to see her before dinner.
“I will speak with Gerald,” he said. “You will see to inviting Miss Seymour?”
“Yes,” she said.
For someone who clearly liked to talk, he thought as he left the house and took himself first to his friend's rooms to issue the invitation for that evening, his wife really had said remarkably little about her home life before the death of her father.
She had run the household almost single-handedly, she had told him just that morning. Had there been no servants, then, or very few? Her stepsisters were almost like her own children, although she must have been only twenty-two when her father died. How long before that had the stepmother died? And her father had been very ill for a long time before his death. Had
Abigail nursed him too? Her brother was younger than she.
Somehow the father had got into debt, so deeply in fact that they had lost everything after his death. And now the brother was living by his wits in London. Abigail was clearly very fond of him if her reaction after his visit the morning before was anything to judge by.
And she herself had been forced to send her sisters away to a great-aunt while she went into service.
She had had a hard life, it seemed. He looked forward to making it all up to her.
Though that might not be so easy, he discovered when he arrived at Sir Gerald Stapleton's rooms to find his friend looking pale and disheveled.
“I just got home half an hour ago,” he said with a groan, one hand going to his head. “Do me a favor, Miles? Drive out to the coast and see if I really did drink the sea dry last night. I think I must have.”
The earl clucked his tongue. “And this is the idyllic bachelor life you cling to so tenaciously?” he said.
Sir Gerald lowered himself gingerly into a chair and ran a hand over the bristles on his chin. “Priss has gone home to her swain,” he said. “Cried all over me yesterday afternoon, wouldn't let me touch her beyond allowing her to cry all over me, that is, and left. What else was there to do last night after the ball but drown myself?”
“What you need is a wife,” Lord Severn said. “I am beginning to agree with Abby after all. You have grown fond of Prissy, haven't you?”
“Habit,” Sir Gerald said. “Sheer habit. Lady Severn hasn't turned her attention to my eternal happiness, has she? Confound it, Miles, can't you control her? Isn't it enough that she has you wrapped about her little finger?”
“Careful,” the earl said. “I have all due respect for the state of your head, Ger, but you are likely to find your nose on a collision course with my fist if you say anything disrespectful about my wife.”
Sir Gerald clutched his head with both hands. “See what I mean?” he said. “You are a lost cause already. I had something to tell you. Something to do with Lady Severn. Confound it, couldn't Priss have waited until the summer, when I would have been leaving town anyway?”
“What about Abby?” the earl asked.
Sir Gerald frowned. “Something to do with Galloway,” he said. “Ah, got it! Can't imagine how I could have forgotten. Did you know that he and his good lady were putting it about last night that Lady Severn was in service with a cit and was dismissed for dallying with the son?”
The earl frowned. “Well, it is true,” he said, “except that the charge was false, of course. I haven't been trying to hide the fact, Ger.”
“You left early,” Sir Gerald said, “with the Chartleighs and the Beauchamps. Lady Trevor's was buzzing with the information before the evening was out, Miles, and the conjecture that you had taken your lady away early because you were ashamed of her.”
The earl clucked his tongue again. “What utter nonsense!” he said. “I don't even want to listen to such rubbish, Ger. Why would I have taken her in the first place if I was ashamed of her?”
“You had hoped to hush it all up,” Sir Gerald said. “If you must cluck, Miles, do you think you could do it a little more quietly, old chap?”
“I shall take myself off and cluck all the way along the street,” Lord Severn said. “I am already late for my tailor's. I would lie down for an hour if I were you, Ger. Did I tell you that you are to come for dinner tonight and then to the theater?”
“Who is the fourth?” Sir Gerald asked. “No, don't tell me. Let me guess. The auburn-haired governess. Am I right? Lady Severn is going to get the two of us leg-shackled. Have you warned her that she is doomed to failure?”
The earl grinned. “Yes,” he said, “but Abby is undaunted.”
His friend groaned. “Priss had a way with headaches,” he said. “I don't suppose you would care to take my head in your lap and stroke my temples, would you, Miles? Ooh, I wish I had not said that,” he added, as both men bellowed with laughter.
The Earl of Severn did not carry his laughter beyond his friend's room. The Galloways were having their revenge, it seemed, and would make life uncomfortable for Abby if they could.
Over his dead body, damn their eyes!
Abigail spent a thoroughly pleasant morning, first of all with Mrs. Williams and then in the kitchen.
Mrs. Williams, she felt, was somewhat disappointed with their lengthy talk and tour of the house. The old earl had been a bachelor, and so had Miles until three days before. The housekeeper had hoped for an ally in his new countess, someone who would approve her schemes for making the house a more feminine place.
But Abigail liked the house as it was, especially the library, her husband's favorite room, with its old leather and wood furniture, the old paintings, and the heavy velvet draperies. She did not like the sound of the colorful chintzes and the cushions and frills with which Mrs. Williams wished to brighten and add comfort to the room.
“I want my husband to be comfortable here,” Abigail said. “I do not want him to feel that his home has been invaded by women and that he must search out comfort in his clubs.”
And besides, she thought more selfishly, she was comfortable there. She felt more at home after three days in Grosvenor Square
than she had in almost two years at the Gills', despite all the splendors of the nouveaux riches that that house boasted.
The cook was thrown into consternation at first when Abigail arrived unannounced in the kitchen to discuss the menu for dinner that night. However, she was soon set at her ease and began telling her new mistress about the French chef next door who cooked foods so fancy that everyone was too awed to eat them.
“The cats are getting fat on them, my lady,” she said, and proceeded by some strange progression of thought to describe the veins in her legs and the difficulties she sometimes had standing on her feet for any length of time.
“Then you must take more time to sit down and put your feet up,'' Abigail said. “You must delegate more of your tasks. I know how difficult that is to do sometimes. It is easier just to do everything oneself, is it not?”
She picked an apple out of the barrel by the door, bit into it, smiled at Victor and tossed one to him too, and sat down on a kitchen chair to have a comfortable coze with the cook. She set an arm about the child's waist as they ate their apples.
“Do you go out much, Victor?” she asked when
there was a lull in the conversation.
“To market with Sally, m'lady,” she said.
“Do you enjoy it?” Abigail asked. “You may come shopping with me too when I go, if you wish. You may carry some of my parcels and get some fresh air. Would you like that?”
The child nodded.
“Do you know your letters or your numbers?” she asked him. “Does anyone teach you?” He shook his head.
“He is just a poor little waif, my lady,” the cook said fondly. “He is fortunate to have a home.”
“He is also a child,” Abigail said. “I shall teach you some things, Victor, when I have time. You shall learn to read books. Will you like that?”
The child stared at her with open mouth.
She would ask Miles if she might take the child into the country for the summer, Abigail decided later when she was upstairs getting ready to drive to her mother-in-law's house. He was too pale and thin for a child. He needed country air and country food and some small tasks, perhaps in the stables rather than in the kitchen. And she would let him learn some lessons with Bea and Clara.
In the meantime she had an afternoon of visiting to prepare herself for. She did not much relish the thought. She had spent almost two years as companion to a woman who did almost nothing else in the afternoon but visit or be visited—and gossip endlessly. But at least it would be easy. She had already faced the ordeals of her first meeting with Lady Ripley and Constance and her first drive in the park and her first ball. Now she could relax.
It was not to be as easy as she had anticipated, however. Her mother-in-law offered a cheek for her kiss when Abigail arrived, and both she and Constance were clearly ready to go out. But neither smiled.
“We are going to call on Lady Mulligan, Mrs. Reese, and Lady Galloway,” Lady Ripley said. “If we can carry off those visits, Abigail, then all may be well after all. It will be best if we are quite frank about your circumstances before you married Miles. Constance and I, of course, will express our delight at welcoming you as a daughter- and sister-in-law.”
Abigail raised her eyebrows and looked at Constance.
“The story is out,” Constance said. “It was, even before you and Miles left last evening, Abigail, but it was unfortunate that you left early. It was the main topic of conversation after you left.”
“The Earl and Countess of Chartleigh invited us to their home for an hour,” Abigail said, “since the countess had not finished telling me ail about their son during supper and Lady Beauchamp was feeling too fatigued to continue dancing. And what story is out?” She grew cold as she remembered Rachel's presence at the ball. She should have told Miles herself, she thought, not let him find out this way, the whole ton knowing before he did.
“That you have been in service with a man who is not even a gentleman,” her mother-in-law said. “And that you were dismissed for dallying with his son.”
“Oh, is that all?” Abigail said, laughing with relief. “But I had no wish to hide those facts, ma'am. And anyone who had seen Humphrey Gill would realize how absurd that charge was. He is nineteen years old and has pimples.”
Constance smiled fleetingly but grew serious again. “Even so, Abigail,” she said, “the ton does not take kindly to welcoming into its numbers someone whose past has been sullied in any way. Miles, of course, has great influence, but we must be careful. Mama and I will do our best for you this afternoon.''
“If the ton does not take kindly to me,” Abigail said hotly, “then I shall not take kindly to the ton. I shall certainly lose no sleep over their disapproval, believe me.”
“Abigail.” Her mother-in-law's voice was cold. “Miles has done you the great kindness to bestow the prestige and security of his name on you. A few days ago you had nothing. Now you are the Countess of Severn, the wife of one of the wealthiest gentlemen in England. I believe you owe it to him to care.”
Abigail clamped her teeth together and felt herself flush. It was true. There was no argument against such a truth, especially when it was spoken by Miles's mother. But she would see herself in Hades before she would grovel to the ton or tiptoe about them. She had groveled once in a lifetime and was married as a result. She did not plan to lower herself ever again.
“Shall we go?” Constance slipped an arm through Abigail's and smiled at her. “That is a very becoming dress, Abigail. Have you thought of having your hair cut? Short hair is all the crack, you know, and so easy to care for. It would suit the shape of your face.''
“I can't,” Abigail said curtly. “Miles has ordered me not to cut it. He likes me to wear it loose at night. Besides,” she added, smiling and forgetting something of her chagrin, “if he had ordered otherwise, he would have to drag me by the hair to a hairdresser's.”
Constance smiled uncertainly and glanced at her mother.
Abigail realized immediately on their arrival why her mother-in-law had chosen Lady Mulligan's as a place they must visit that afternoon. She was hosting an at home, and her drawing room was filled with fashionable ladies, all of them balancing delicate cups and saucers in one hand.
Lady Ripley linked an arm through Abigail's as they entered the drawing room and smiled graciously as she presented her daughter-in-law to their hostess and the group of ladies surrounding her.
“So provoking for you, dear Lady Ripley, to miss the nuptials by one day,” one lady said. “Young people are far more impatient than they used to be in our day, are they not?”
“But I had all the delight,” Lady Ripley said, “of meeting a brand-new daughter-in-law as soon as I arrived in London, without having all the headache of a wedding to arrange. Imagine my delight!”
A few of the ladies joined in her laughter.
“Besides,” Abigail said, “Miles and I were so deeply in love that we could not wait even one day longer.”
The ladies tittered again as her mother-in-law squeezed her arm.
“You were a Gardiner, I understand, Lady Severn?” another lady said. “Would that be the Gardiners of Lincolnshire?” “Sussex,” Abigail said.
“And our kinsmen,” Lady Ripley added. “An illustrious branch of the family.”
One lady had raised a lorgnette to her eye and was viewing her through it, Abigail noticed. And all the other ladies were looking at her in that polite, arctic way that Mrs. Gill and her cronies could also do to perfection when they wished to establish their superiority over another poor mortal.
“Also an impoverished branch,” she said, smiling and looking easily about her. “Did you ladies know that I was forced to earn my own living for the past two years? I was companion to a wealthy merchant's wife.” She laughed. “I was very fortunate to meet my husband when I did, and even more fortunate that he fell as deeply in love with me as I with him. I had been dismissed from my post without a character for objecting rather pointedly to the attentions my employer's husband was paying the unwilling governess. He could not tell his wife that that was the reason, of course. She would doubtless have smashed a chamber pot over his head.”
A few of the ladies were smiling. Two laughed out loud.
“He convinced his wife that I was sighing over his nineteen-year-old son,” Abigail said, “whose chief claim to fame at the moment is that his face is all over spots, the poor boy. His doting mama believed all, of course, and I was given a week's notice. And then along came Miles.”
“It is quite a Cinderella story,” one very small lady said.
“And certainly has its Prince Charming,” Lady Mulligan said. “You have done all the other young ladies of the Season a great disservice, Lady Severn, I do assure you.”
“My husband's second cousin was forced into service for a whole year,” another lady said, “before being fortunate enough to inherit a competence from her maternal aunt. Then she married Mr. Henry. Ten thousand a year, you know, and property in Derbyshire. They do not come to town very often, I'm afraid.”
Lady Ripley squeezed Abigail's arm again and they moved on to another group
.
“My dear Abigail,” she said later, when they were in the carriage on the way to Mrs. Reese's, “it was a very near-run thing. I thought I would have the vapors when you began to speak so very candidly. It was more fortunate than I can say that Lady Murtry found your story amusing. When she laughed, everyone else followed suit. But do be careful. It would be wise to allow me to do the talking for the rest of the afternoon.”
“I thought I would die,” Constance said. “But you did make it sound so funny, Abigail. I could just picture your employer's wife smashing a chamber pot over his head.”
“That detail must certainly not be repeated,” Lady Ripley said hastily. “Some people may consider it downright vulgar of you to say such a thing, Abigail.”
Abigail held her peace. But if Mrs. Reese tried freezing her out with that look, she thought, then she would not be answerable for what she might say. And it was indeed fortunate that the ladies at Lady Mulligan's had found her words funny. She had not meant to amuse them. She had meant to give them a collective and blistering setdown.
She was glad it had not worked that way. For Miles's sake she was glad. She would not wish to embarrass him by any vulgar display or by making an enemy of the whole of polite society. She would keep her mouth closed for the rest of the afternoon, she decided. She would smile meekly and allow her mother-in-law to thaw any chilly atmosphere that might greet her.
Lord Severn called on his mother before returning home to change for dinner. It had been a long day, he reflected as his mother's butler preceded him to the door of her sitting room. He had had luncheon at White's, read the papers there for a while, having recalled that he had not had a chance to read at breakfast, and joined a few acquaintances in a walk to Tatter-sail's, though he had no present interest in buying any horses.
How long had he been married? he thought with a frown. Three days? Could it be that short a time? Had he really known