The Unlikely Rivals

by Megan Daniel

  Mr. Rowbridge, taking in the opulence that had at various times housed the likes of Lord Byron and the great Beau Brummell himself, fervently hoped that in this case ‘bespoke” also meant “paid for” and considered the pitifully few shillings in his purse. A few hopefully subtle questions and some definitely discreet answers reassured him, and he relaxed and allowed himself to enjoy the experience. He followed yet another footman to his rooms to prepare for what he was certain would be an excellent dinner. He would follow it with a glass of port and a cigar, and sleep the sleep of the just on the finest of linen bedsheets.

  Apparently Her Ladyship had been quite busy “bespeaking” rooms at the Castle Inn. It was while Derek was beginning on that very fine dinner, enjoying the genteel bustle of the public dining room, that Saskia van Houten descended the grand staircase of the inn. Her slippers stepped noiselessly on the thick crimson carpet; her gloved hand slid easily over the polished mahogany banister. Oh, she would have such wonders to relate to Mama, and Trix, and all of them. Cornelius might even be impressed by the fact that his sister had slept in the very room that had housed the great Walpole so many years before. How very land it had been of her great- aunt to engage such superior accommodations for her. She was determined to enjoy every moment of such unexpected luxury.

  She stepped to the door of the large gilt-chandeliered dining room and paused, unsure, on the threshold. She knew that, even in this enlightened era, it was more than a bit unusual to see a totally unaccompanied young woman in a public inn. How she wished she had Trix with her—though then the gentlemen would be certain to stare!—or Mama, or at the very least an abigail.

  But surely here, Saskia told herself, in such a very genteel and respectable inn, she might eat her dinner in public without undue embarrassment. Valiantly as she had tried, she found she couldn’t bear to sit in solitary splendor in the private parlor her aunt had so thoughtfully engaged for her. It was a lovely room, all pastel stripes and white wainscoting, but its loneliness soon led to die following rather one-sided conversation.

  “Hello, wall,” said Saskia cheerfully. The wall did not deign to answer. “My, what a very handsome wall you are. I do think green and yellow suit you especially well.” Silence. “Tell me, wall. Do you not think yellow will give way to pink this season?” The wall didn’t seem to have an opinion on this important point of fashion. “Oh well. I suppose I shall have to wait and see, though I fancy you should prefer the yellow.”

  This conversation didn’t seem to be leading in any very promising direction, and Saskia’s unruly mind soon reverted to the unfruitful thoughts that had plagued it for most of the day.

  “No!” she exclaimed, either to the wall, to the air, or to herself. “I will not sit here fretting away the evening in this ridiculous fashion.”

  And so she donned her plainest evening dress—even the gayest was pretty plain, she admitted ruefully—swallowed hard, and descended to dinner.

  “Miss van Houten,” exclaimed the landlord as she paused on the threshold of the dining room. “How may I serve you? Some problem with your private parlor, perhaps?”

  “Oh, no, sir. None at all, I assure you. It is wonderfully comfortable. It is only that, after so many hours in a carriage with nothing but my own thoughts to occupy me, I find I cannot bear another moment of my own company. And it occurred to me how much I should prefer to eat my dinner down here, surrounded by other wandering souls.”

  If the landlord was displeased at the notion of an unescorted lady in his dignified dining room, it showed by not so much as a flicker of an eyelash. Any connection of Lady Hester Eccles must be assumed to be slightly eccentric, and the landlord had no wish to offend Her Ladyship in any way. In any case, the young lady looked quite modest and respectable with her hair wrapped in neat braids around her head and a small cameo on a velvet ribbon about her fine long neck. And times were changing—he allowed himself a little inward sigh of resignation at what the modem world was coming to—and he supposed he must change with them.

  “Of course, miss,” he said with a bow. “There is a quiet table near the fire which may suit.”

  Another superior servant appeared at her elbow as if by magic to show her to her table. She followed in his wake, feeling like a freak in a sideshow and trying to look as inconspicuous as possible.

  If she roused much curiosity in the other guests, they were too well-bred to show it, and she soon began to relax and look about her. There was much to see. The room itself was lovely, beautifully proportioned and elegantly appointed. But it was the people who caught and held her attention.

  Saskia never tired of observing her fellow creatures in all their wondrous variety. She had long ago developed the game, or quirk, of assigning appropriate names to those she observed. She indulged in it now with abandon.

  The lady just rising from a table she christened Mrs. Zebra. In a vain attempt to minimize her bulk and maximize her not very considerable height, she had dressed herself all in stripes: claret on a chartreuse-striped petticoat under a cherry-on-white-striped overskirt, topped by an evening spencer of an unfortunate shade of pink on buttercup yellow. The poor thing looked like a padded maypole, forlornly waiting for some frolickers to come pick up its ribbons.

  Spooning up white soup across the room was Sir Cipher, a thin man so pale of face and hair that he almost wasn’t there. And beyond him, making a somewhat heartier meal, was a jolly-looking fellow she immediately named Mr. Burgher because of his good Dutch burgher face. He was round-cheeked and ruddy with a smile straight out of a Frans Hals portrait, an altogether open, honest face, but also one not likely to miss anything of importance in the world and certainly not one to be imposed upon. Yes, she thought, very Dutch.

  The waiter brought her a tureen of heavenly scented soup, and she turned her attention to her dinner. Usually a light eater, tonight she feasted on semeUes of veal in piquant sauce and roasted guinea fowl. There was a deliciously tart red jelly which she learned from the waiter was made from an American fruit called the cranberry. There were broiled mushrooms and roasted new potatoes, and the whole was crowned with a ribbon blancmange and coffee cream in a chocolate cup. Saskia really fancied she could learn to enjoy the land of wealth that allowed one to eat such a meal whenever one chose.

  The dinner, in all its splendor, had deserved her full attention. But now, as she spooned up the last of the blancmange, she let her eyes wander again. This time they lighted on a gentleman near the door, a young gentleman with auburn hair.

  The young man held her attention because there was something vaguely familiar about him. Nothing pronounced certainly, nor even very definite. She was quite certain she had never seen him before. But there was an expression about the eyes, a tilt to the jaw that she thought ought to remind her of someone she knew well. She couldn’t for the life of her think who.

  The waiter was just removing the remains of a roast leveret and a dish of artichoke bottoms from the gentleman’s table and offering a delicate orange soufl36 and a plate of Chantilly baskets. The young man waved away the sweets and motioned the waiter to pour him another glass of wine.

  A ripple of annoyance went through Saskia. The fellow probably ate like this every night of the week, she thought. No wonder he could wave away such a treat with barely a glance. There would always be another tomorrow, should he want one, and another after that There was an air of assurance, of arrogance even, she thought in the way he lifted his glass to the light to examine its rich ruby color. He was probably wondering if just such a claret-colored coat would suit him, she mused. At the moment, he was wearing hunter green, which did in fact suit him very well. From this distance she could see only that it seemed to be well cut and that his cravat was a snowy white.

  A fashionable fribble, she decided. She would call him Lord Fribble.

  Just as a smile tilted up her mouth at the thought, the auburn-haired gentleman looked up and surprised her gaze. With a little blush, she looked quickly down and began studiously worryi
ng her blancmange.

  She didn’t look up again, but she could see from the comer of her eye that he was still looking at her, staring in fact, quite impertinently. So he was ill-mannered as well as vain. He became Lord Rudesby Fribble.

  Derek Rowbridge was thoroughly enjoying his dinner. How many times had he dined on biscuit, salt beef, and brackish water in his years aboard His Majesty’s ships? The Castle Inn was certainly a come-up. It had been many a long month since he’d had such an excellent wine, and the food had been so delicious that he’d had to decline that tempting orange souffle. He simply could not eat another bite. '

  He felt eyes upon him and looked up to see a young woman across the room staring at him. He quickly planted his feet, which he had allowed to sprawl slightly, firmly on the floor. She must have noticed the incipient holes in the soles of his Hessians. He also lowered his hands to his lap, hoping to hide the cuffs of his coat. More than once lately he’d had to take a pair of scissors to their fraying edges. No wonder she stared!

  One did not expect to see shabbiness in the exclusive confines of the Castle Inn.

  He sat looking at her for some minutes before he realized she looked almost as out of place as he did. Not that there was anything wrong with her appearance, exactly, but she didn’t look at all wealthy. Most of the Castle’s patrons were very wealthy indeed, or very powerful, which comes to the same thing.

  He knew as little of female fashion as he did of female character. But he could clearly see that the young lady’s gown of rust-colored crape, though tasteful and with an able air of propriety about it, was far from new and had obviously never graced the parlors of the ton. It was severely cut, long sleeves demurely buttoned to the wrist, and its neckline was modestly filled in with a gauze scarf. She was neat as wax and looked like a governess or a paid lady’s companion, neither of which could hope to afford so much as a breakfast at the Castle Inn.

  What was still more unusual, she seemed to be quite alone. Perhaps she was one of those disagreeably independent, modem young women he’d heard about. Maybe even a bluestocking! He decided not to approve of her.

  He watched her rise from her table—she did move gracefully, he noted—and leave the room. She favored him with not so much as a glance as she brushed past his table. Yes, definitely governessy. That was precisely the word for her, he decided.

  He laid down his fine linen napkin and took himself off to the smoking lounge. He would have his brandy and his cigar and then off to bed.

  Both of Lady Eccles’s young guests decided on an early start the following morning. Saskia, having condescended to eat her breakfast upstairs in her rooms, was just stepping off the grand stairway and into the entrance hall when Derek emerged from the public breakfast room, having sufficiently broken his fast with lavish helpings of kippers and eggs, grilled ham, cold sirloin, muffins, and plenty of strong, hot coffee.

  At sight of her he inclined his head ever so slightly in greeting, to which she responded with the smallest of coldly civil nods. They turned apart simultaneously, Derek to allow a servant to assist him into his greatcoat, Saskia to pull on her brown kid gloves and tender her thanks to die landlord for his land attentions.

  But the landlord didn’t seem to be at liberty to attend to her just then. He was in conversation with a garishly dressed young man whom Saskia had noticed the previous evening in the dining room. She had labeled him Mr. Tulip.

  His dark hair was curled, pomaded, and brushed into the fashionable Brutus. His greatcoat sported the requisite sixteen shoulder capes and large buttonhole, in which Saskia could name honeysuckle, cowslips, geraniums, myrtle, and a daffodil. His curly beaver possessed a crown of staggering height, and his double-tasseled Hessians gleamed smartly.

  The gentleman was not smiling. The landlord had just handed him his not inconsiderable bill, which he had immediately handed back again with cold arrogance.

  “You may send the bill on to me at Bath. Here is my card. I’ll have my man deal with it.” He tossed an engraved carte-de-visite in the landlord’s direction, who allowed it to flutter to the floor unheeded.

  “I would much prefer, Mr. Tolliver, if you would be so kind as to settle with me now,” he . said with an extreme civility. It seemed that Mr. Tolliver’s reputation had preceded him to the Castle Inn.

  “My good man, don’t be absurdl I dislike carrying money excessively. But you may be very sure of your payment within a day or two. A week at most. Send the bill on.” He began drawing on his smooth yellow gloves preparatory to striding from the room.

  “It quite grieves me to cause you the least inconvenience, but I’m afraid I must insist on settlement of the account now.” The landlord gave a slightly discernible

  lift of the eyebrow in the direction of an attendant waiting at the door, who proceded to slide silently from the room. Not many more minutes of argument had passed, Mr. Tolliver growing more loudly adamant, when he noticed that the horses had been unhitched from his phaeton, waiting before the door, and were being led quietly back to their stable.

  “What the deuce! Here! Where are you taking those horses?” he called loudly out the window. “Hitch them up again at once!”

  “With infinite pleasure,” said the landlord with a smile, “the very moment the bill in question has been settled, sir.”

  Several more splutterings from the dandy, and a profoundly smiling silence on the part of the landlord, led at last to the gentleman reluctantly pulling out his purse. “Mind you, I’ve no intention of paying so much as a ha’penny for that abominable bowl of slops you called a ragout. Nothing but salt and grease, ’pon my word, and stone cold into the bargain.”

  “As you wish, sir. Of course, sir.” The benevolent landlord smiled; his charges were, in any case, quite high enough to cover the small loss of the price of the stew.

  Mr. Tolliver, having grudgingly and incompletely paid his shot, turned a dazzling smile on Saskia, a smile of comradeship, a smile that clearly said, "What is the world coming to when a gentleman is not to be trusted for a paltry innkeeper’s bill?” The smile faded dramatically as he turned back to the landlord and flipped him a coin.

  “Here’s for your trouble, my man,” he sneered, and having favored the company with a well-studied bow he strode from the inn.

  The landlord, examining the single farthing in his hand, grinned in the direction of the other two people in the hall.

  Mr. Rowbridge, who had watched this little scene with growing contempt for a fellow who would try to

  shab off a landlord in such a scaly manner, could not keep an exclamation from his lips. “Well, if that don’t beat the Dutch!” he cried, turning an expectant face toward Saskia for confirmation of his opinion.

  Instead of the answering smile and agreement he expected, however, he discovered that the young lady across the room had stiffened visibly, martial lights shooting from her remarkably fine brown eyes.

  “As it happens, sir, that I am half Dutch I cannot agree to the validity of such a statement. I have never found the Dutch to be half so boorish and silly as many Englishmen I meet!”

  Really, she thought as she turned away in disgust, this young man was beyond impertinencel Lord Rudesby indeed! She had named him well. She thanked the landlord prettily for his care of her, favored the young man with a final lifted eyebrow, and stepped out to her waiting chaise.

  For his part, Mr. Rowbridge just offered up a shrug which clearly implied his opinion of uppish females, and, waiting only long enough for the young lady in question to disappear up the road, followed her from the inn.

  Chapter Five

  Saskia’s first view of Bath was one of pure delight. Every care, every worry, vanished in the beauty of the city, glowing there in the sunlight as her chaise crested a hill and Bath stretched out before her. Saskia loved Holland, the land of her birth. But a life spent in the never undulating remorseless flatness of the windswept polderlands had given her an insatiable taste for hills, mountains, valleys, dales, vistas, inclines
, and glens. Bath might have been designed with Saskia van Houten in mind. Its steeply climbing narrow streets—which were the bane of many a coachman and insured the survival of the old- fashioned sedan chair—suited her temperament exactly. The pinky-yellow Bath stone, of which nearly every building was constructed, glowed invitingly in the bright sunshine of an afternoon in early spring. The sparkle of the River Avon provided the perfect harmonic accompaniment.

  The vista slid from view as the chaise rolled down into the valley and was soon replaced by the reality of a bustling spa town. The carriage bumped along the cobbled streets, rolling past elegant shops, grand public buildings, beautiful people, invalids in Bath chairs, and dogs on the sniff. Almost before she could take in their

  magnificence, the expensive shops were left behind and the chaise was climbing the hill into the most elegant of the elegant residential streets. She swept around the graceful curve of the Circus, rode down Brock Street, and finally emerged into the Royal Crescent.

  Now Saskia really did catch her breath, for never had she seen so elegant, so beautiful a terrace of private houses. It swooped gently round in a vast, graceful arc. What seemed like hundreds of glistening windows looked out with a serene sense of their own superiority onto a field full of placidly grazing cows and across to the Lower Town over which it so obviously reigned as the Queen of Streets.

  The chaise drew to a halt before number seventeen; the steps were let down; and Saskia, pulling herself from her wonderful musings, set foot in Bath.

  She wasn’t certain from her great-aunt’s very odd letter what to expect. She was reassured by the elegance of the house itself and the obvious superiority of its situation, as well as by the absolute Englishness of the heavy lion’s head knocker on the door.