The Peculiar Pink Toes of Lady Flora

by Jayne Fresina

  I hope you enjoy your summer and do not cause too many riots among the rhododendrons. I understand they are beautiful at Wyndham.

  The paper seemed empty, so he struggled for something to tell her that she would not find dull and dreary.

  There is a particularly noisy chaffinch that comes each day to rattle its beak against my library window, and steal any string, paper or crumbs it finds, should I inadvertently leave the latch ajar. Yesterday it stole its way in and tipped over an entire pot of ink, before it was safely chased out again. Naturally, I have named the bird in your honor.

  M.

  He waited a full fortnight to hear from her again and then tore the seal open so impatiently with his knife that he cut his finger.

  Dear M;

  That looks very mysterious and somewhat menacing for a salutation, does it not? I am minded to call you Fred, if you have no objection. It is much easier to write to a 'Fred' than anything else. There, it is decided, and you are Fred. Now nobody can know to whom I write and we are safe from the horror of being Suspected Friends. In "our circumstances"— as you say— we cannot afford to have our names linked.

  Yes, the summer passes swiftly and with many entertainments. I am to go boating with a small party. I have no great anticipation of enjoyment in the company— Miss Harriet Seton will be there and the last time I saw her she stuck me with a pin, although she denies it— but this is my great aunt's urging and she is best kept happy. There is not much time to write as she watches me like a hawk.

  I hope you feed your little, trespassing chaffinch. I'm sure she is well-meaning at heart, for all the trouble she causes with her visits.

  Yours,

  Flora.

  Fred. She called him Fred. Apparently none of his many other names were adequate in her eyes.

  She had to be different, of course.

  He sensed this strange correspondence was not a good idea— it was very hard to get one's best, most discouraging glare across in written words— but his usually stalwart instincts of right and wrong were, on this occasion, remarkably capricious. It was not a friendship, and about that they were both agreed; they had nothing in common. So he could not say for certain what it was that they had or did.

  But it continued nonetheless.

  Dear Lady Flora;

  Was the "Dear" too much? No, surely she would read it as the common greeting for such missives. Besides, to scratch it out now would seem petty, and he did not like to waste his best stationary. Or his finest ink. Let her think of it whatever she wanted. She might not even notice. While reading his note she could be distracted by merrier company and then simply discard it to the nearest fire with scarce another thought.

  Do take caution. A great many foolish folk are drowned each year by disregarding the rules of boating. It is not a pursuit that should be undertaken lightly. Had I any say in the matter I would advise against it. But I see you rolling your eyes even as I write this.

  I leave for London tomorrow on business, so I must ask the housekeeper to feed your chaffinch in my absence. Although, as a creature of the wild, it should learn to fend for itself and we do the bird a disservice by coddling.

  It took him half an hour of pondering back and forth before he finally, under considerable duress, signed the note,

  Fred.

  When he returned from London there was no further letter from her. The communication ended.

  "The messenger lad has delivered nothing personal, your grace," Plumm assured him. "And the post is all usual business of the estate. Were you expecting something important?"

  "No, no. 'Tis nothing to make a fuss about, and I daresay it is as well to be done with it."

  He would not go running after her like a boy desperate for attention.

  With no encouragement to continue, he let the correspondence end, rather embarrassed that he had conceded to her foolish whim regarding his name. Perhaps she laughed about it now. Doubtless she would be laughing about something and he, if he chanced to be in her presence, would be just as mystified by the cause as he had always been.

  Maxim was far too busy, he decided crossly, to give her another thought.

  Fred, indeed. The woman was unhinged.

  * * * *

  Having waited patiently for a reply from the duke, Flora eventually resolved to put it out of her mind. Clearly she had upset him by choosing to call him "Fred". It was, she supposed, an impertinence that he could not allow. She had pushed it all too far and should have known better. Now he must have many more important things to do than correspond with her.

  With such a person one had to very careful and walk on tiptoe, and she could never keep that up for long. Sooner or later she was bound to offend him irretrievably.

  She'd heard that he was very short-tempered, rude, and terribly unforgiving with servants who slipped in their duties, and although she was not a servant— he still believed her to be a legitimate lady of the upper classes— he probably eyed her with just as little esteem. In the opinion of such a privileged gentleman she too had but one purpose. To serve.

  They had nothing in common. Even less than he imagined, considering that she was not the lady he thought, but an illegitimate nobody who once mopped a kitchen floor and whose true mother had featured in Harris's List as the most sought-after crumpet in London.

  Still, she felt deflated by the absence of another note.

  "I thought perhaps we had a chance to be better acquainted," she wrote in her diary. "Why else would he send me lemon cakes? But I think now that he merely humored me for a while, as one would a chattering child that has escaped the nursery to invade a drawing room party, and runs about evading capture. I read too much into his gesture. He is a gentleman and I suppose, because I asked for cakes, he sent them to me. He must have plenty of it, after all, whenever he wants it— the beauty of being rich—and it is no great inconvenience to part with some. I almost wish I had never asked, though. He must get dreadfully tired of folk always wanting things from him and now I am just another."

  She thought of how, after their one and only dance together, she had gone to fetch macaroons for them both, but returned to find him gone abruptly without another word to her. It seemed as if confectionary and her sweet tooth had caused much confusion during their brief acquaintance.

  * * * *

  Thomas, the duke's personal messenger boy, was always an efficient member of staff and there had been no cause to complain about his promptness or reliability before. But Plumm thought it very odd that Lady Flora should not have replied to his master's last communication. It was not like her to fall silent.

  So he watched Thomas carefully for a few days and eventually his diligence was rewarded. He witnessed the lad singled out for a quiet word with the dowager duchess when she came to Malgrave for a visit. It was a brief, secretive conversation that took place under the arches of the loggia that ran from the stable-yard to the main house, but he saw the messenger boy nod guiltily and the dowager smile before she gave him a coin and moved on.

  "Your grace, if it might have a word," Plumm called out as he followed her inside out of the drizzle of September rain. "A matter of some importance regarding the duke."

  She stopped. "What is it, man? I am in haste. The journey was dismal, and I need my feet soaked." As if she'd walked there, not ridden in luxury.

  "My lady." He bowed and then raised one hand to tug his wig straight since it had slipped forward on his brow. "I wondered if you had heard the unfortunate rumor regarding your son and Lady Flora Chelmsworth."

  She huffed. "Of course, I heard it. There is nobody who has not heard by now. She was utterly unsuitable for the estate. It is lucky the girl saw fit to spite her guardians by rejecting the proposal, for which they no doubt schemed and plotted like the common villains they are. That was weeks or months ago, surely. What of it?"

  "Oh, I quite agree, your grace, that she is unsuitable. I was exceedingly concerned when the duke told me of his intentions, but naturally it was not my p
lace to—"

  "There is no cause for anybody to be concerned now, is there?"

  "Well, I...I did think perhaps the duke might not give up that easily." He knitted his hands together. "He did seem quite resolved on his course. Quite fixed upon his strange choice."

  She laughed softly. "I can assure you there is nothing to fret about. It is all over and done with."

  "You have spoken to him perhaps, madam? Advised his grace?"

  "Why would he listen to me? No, no! We do not talk that much, thank goodness. We keep our dealings to a minimum. I find that is for the best. But, in any case, a conversation was not necessary." A victorious shower of bright sparks short forth from her blue eyes, like a cold wintery sunlight caught on snow-laden ground. "When I had the opportunity, I saw to it myself that it was stopped. No need for discussion."

  "Stopped, your grace?"

  "Thankfully, and for the good of this estate, I keep my eyes and ears open." Her sharp gaze tracked up and down his crumpled height. "I know what goes on. You, dogsbody, look as if you can barely manage your own life, let alone the duke's affairs."

  He put on his most weary and apologetic face, took out his dirty handkerchief and blew his nose soundly. "I do struggle to keep up these days and the young duke is so busy."

  "Yet he insists on keeping you, apparently." She drew back, eyeing the handkerchief with disgust, bringing both hands to her bosom.

  "Indeed, madam." Plumm tilted forward. "But I am grateful that you were able to put a stop to it, my lady, and there is no danger of his grace falling prey to that Chelmsworth girl."

  "Quite. You should be grateful." Now she fluttered her fingers through the air, as if to dispense with a sticky cobweb. "You should all be grateful that I saved us from that mistake. I did not spend twenty years as mistress of this estate to see it handed over to an unworthy chit with no sense of decorum or dignity, and no appreciation for centuries of tradition. She was quite wrong for us. I daresay Bridget Manderby thought to slyly manage this coup behind my back, but I know how she works her whorish spells. As soon as I heard the duke was sending letters to her ward, I knew it was time to intervene. One cannot let these things get out of hand."

  "Letters, my lady?" He drew back, mouth open as if this was startling news.

  "To that red-headed, penniless Chelmsworth flirt. Her affections switched from a common stable lad to the the Duke of Malgrave in the space of a few months? I think not. She would have made us all a laughingstock."

  "How did you—?"

  "The Setons— new wealth and no elegance or handsomeness, but exceedingly useful gossips— were at Wyndham for a house party, at which Bridget Manderby had the gall to boast, proud as you please, that the duke had sent that girl cake!"

  "And that is significant, madam? Cake?"

  Her eyebrows rose up like two slender half moons. "Have you ever known him send anything at all to a young, unwed girl? Langley, my lady's maid, has a cousin in service at Wyndham, and she confirmed that it was lemon cake, followed by letters. Several of them."

  "I see, madam. I had never thought cake to be so dangerous a beginning. I shall never look at it the same way again."

  She beckoned impatiently for Langley, who struggled in her wake with a very heavy trunk. "For goodness sake, make haste! You do create unnecessary drama out of the simplest tasks. I do not know why I keep you." Then, turning to Plumm again, she continued, "When I discovered that Chelmsworth hussy's attempts to get her foot back in the door, I questioned your foolish messenger boy. The bumbling creature could barely get a word out, but once persuaded that I have only the duke's best interests at heart, he let me intervene."

  "Ah."

  "The duke must concentrate on finding a wife and securing the next generation, Plumm, before he is distracted by the enflamed desires of his trouser-wick. There will be time for all that later and I do not trust that family of leeches. Give them an inch and they'll take a yard." She took a breath, her mighty bosom heaving with the effort of dispensing all this vitriol. "Now, have the messenger boy dismissed if you wish. I'm sure I do not care what becomes of him. But you must agree that the correspondence could not be allowed to go on. I acted for the good of the estate. Somebody had to, since you were asleep at your post." With that she swept onward, shouting again for her lady's maid to "stop fussing with that trunk" and prepare a soothing bath for her feet.

  Asleep at his post? Where had she been as a mother for one and twenty years?

  Plumm thought carefully on the matter. He ought to inform the duke. He should also reprimand Thomas, although the poor lad was probably terrified of defying the dowager— or else suffering a droopy sort of moon-struck calf-love for her cruel but undeniable beauty. As she had said, the lad would naively have wanted to help if he thought his master was in danger from a "hussy" and she knew exactly how to wind men of all ages around her finger. A warning, therefore, might do better service in Thomas' case. It had never been necessary before, because the duke had never required secretive personal messages carried to any young lady. They were all new to this development at Castle Malgrave, caught unprepared, as Plumm had been when his master handed him that list of pros and cons.

  But the duke should not be left to think he was ignored. That was a grave misunderstanding.

  For five years Halfpenny Plumm had faithfully served the sixth Duke of Malgrave, and for twelve years before that he had served the young man's father. He had a reputation for getting things done the way his masters wanted them, enforcing their every will and fancy — not that there had been many "fancies" on the young duke's part. It grieved Plumm greatly that he had not succeeded in getting his master the bride of his choice, and it smarted further that the dowager thought to interfere in her son's future happiness when she had never cared a jot about it prior to this. It was clearly a case of personal grudge against the Chelmsworths and Manderbys— nothing whatsoever to do with care for her son.

  Before he could take a step across the hall, however, the dowager turned back, shoved her lady's maid aside, knocking the luckless woman into a console table, and marched to where he hovered. "I suggest you keep your wits about you from now on and report to me should any other unsuitable women come into the picture. In the meantime, if you speak one word to him of my intervention in those letters, I shall expose you, Master Halfpenny Plumm, with the full story of where you came from. Let us see how loyal the duke feels toward you then. A naval deserter and a pirate?" She smiled slowly, with all the charming warmth of a black adder, coyly delaying its strike. "You know his temper. You know how very proper he is. How upright and merciless he can be. His disgust for deceit. He will never trust you again. You will be cast out, you pathetic little man, and I wish you the best of fortune finding another place once the news is out. Perhaps you might take up residency again back at the Marshalsea and eat rats for your supper, as you did before my husband was deceived into hiring you." Thus she left him a second time, once more pushing Langley aside.

  Plumm exhaled a slow, leaking sigh. Well, that was unfortunate. So she knew his dark secret. Part of it, at least. Naturally, she had little to do other than dig into other people's misfortunes. Must have been eager to find something against Plumm for she'd always resented his closeness to her husband and then her son. Had wanted something to hold over him. Just in case it might be necessary.

  Really, he could not help but admire her cold-blooded cunning.

  But the dowager did not know that this "dogsbody" and "pathetic little man" had not only a very keen blade for revenge, but also a vast amount of patience with which to see his schemes come to fruition.

  He was also something of a romantic. Another thing nobody would guess from looking at the ex-convict.

  Yes, indeed, he needed this post and his livelihood. And he rather liked his neck free of a noose. In addition to all that, he would not want young Thomas to receive the sharp end of his master's tongue, so for now he must hold his.

  But even on rough ground, there was always
somewhere to plant a seed and do some good. A very wise and generous gentleman— the current duke's grandfather, in fact— had taught him that.

  He made a swift course toward the lady's maid. "Do let me help you with that, Miss Langley," he said, taking one end of the trunk with which she still fought, unassisted.

  Her cheeks pink, her eyes damp with gratitude, she looked up at him and, once assured her mistress was out of sight, allowed a smile that soon, under his tending, grew bolder.

  * * * *

  Maxim was in his study when Plumm came to find him later that evening.

  "Your grace, I wondered whether you should perhaps write another letter to Lady Flora Chelmsworth, just in case the last was inadvertently misplaced. I could see it delivered myself this time."

  "Why? Do you have cause to think Thomas failed in his duty?" The duke turned from his desk, frowning, the knife he used to open his letters poised in one hand as if ready to cut somebody's throat.

  "No, no, sir! But an error might have occurred at Wyndham. It occurred to me that with Lady Flora's reliance upon a housemaid for secrecy and her guardian's inquisitive habits—"

  "It matters not," came the firm interruption. "We have considered the matter at some length and concluded that we are better off done with it. Nothing could come of the acquaintance now. The proposal was a misstep best forgot. In fact, we would thank you not to mention it, or her, again. We have put her well out of mind. Damn and blast!" The duke had spilled ink on his blotter. He never spilled ink.