An Intimate Education: A Comedic Tale of Open Hearts and Narrow Minds

by Anna Willman

  AN INTIMATE EDUCATION

  A COMEDIC TALE OF OPEN HEARTS AND NARROW MINDS

  by Anna Willman

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE: In Which Lord Carew Initiates a Most Improper Scheme

  CHAPTER TWO: In Which Lady Legerwood Is the Recipient of Astonishing Information

  CHAPTER THREE: In Which Lady Guinevere Has a Secret Worry

  CHAPTER FOUR: In Which Lady Legerwood’s Spirits are Elevated and Miss Manning’s are Disturbed

  CHAPTER FIVE: In Which Lady Legerwood Opens Her Mind to Her Husband

  CHAPTER SIX: In Which Lady Guinevere Pays a Call

  CHAPTER SEVEN: In Which Lord Carew Puts His Scheme into Effect

  CHAPTER EIGHT: In Which Mr. Digby Comes to a Decision

  CHAPTER NINE: In Which Married Love is Sorely Tested

  CHAPTER TEN: In Which Lady Guinevere Discloses Her Fears

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: In Which Lady Guinevere Quarrels With Lord Carew

  CHAPTER TWELVE: In Which Mr. Digby Loses Control

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: In Which Lady Legerwood Falls Ill

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: In Which Lord Carew Makes Plans

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: In Which Lady Guinevere’s Life Is Overset

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: In Which Mr. and Mrs. Digby Persist in Opposition

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: In Which Lady Guinevere Confides in Lady Legerwood

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: In Which Lady Guinevere Calls on an Old Friend

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: In Which Mr. and Mrs. Digby Make Plans

  CHAPTER TWENTY: In Which Lord Carew Encounters Difficulties

  chapter twenty-one: In Which Miss Westlake Shows Her Mettle

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: In Which Certain Transgressions are Discovered

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: In Which Married Love Finds Its Way

  chapter twenty-four: In Which Young Love Thwarts Convention

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: In Which the Ladies of the Ton Have Their Say

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: In Which A Marriage is Announced

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: In Which Lord Carew Loses Hope

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: In Which Love Has Its Way

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: In Which Lady Guinevere Presents a Bride

  CHAPTER THIRTY: In Which Lord Carew Accepts His Fate and the Tale Is Ended

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  CHAPTER ONE: In Which Lord Carew Initiates a Most Improper Scheme

  When Lancelot, the gallant Lord Carew, discovered himself aged to the point where he was no longer capable of inspiring passion in the hearts of the gentle sex, he retired to the countryside with the publicized intention of writing his memoirs. This proposition understandably struck terror into the bosoms of a good number of elderly ladies in the highest circles of society, and inspired not a few of them to inscribe letters to him filled with passionate pleas to be excluded from his published autobiography.

  As soon as Lady Guinevere Stanton heard the news, she called for her barouche and had herself transported immediately from her London townhouse in Cavendish Square to her old friend’s rambling and dilapidated country estate for the express purpose of bringing him to his senses. They had been close friends since early childhood, when they had commiserated one another on the unfortunate appellations bestowed on them by their overly sentimental mamas, so she felt no compunction whatsoever about calling outside the usual hours for social intercourse.

  Alighting from her carriage with a facility uncommon for a lady of her advanced years, Lady Guinevere swept up the weathered stone steps and into the large, tiled front hall. She handed her feathered bonnet and her elegant green velvet cloak to the ancient butler who waited upon her, so intent upon her errand that she failed to remark until much later the absence of the usual liveried footman in the vestibule.

  “Really, Jarman, he has gone too far this time!” she pronounced.

  The portly old retainer, as familiar with her pronouncements as with his master’s queer starts, merely shook his head and escorted her to the library.

  She found Lord Carew ensconced in a faded tapestry chair next to two tall leaded glass windows, gazing out at an early October landscape. Tall maples shaded the drive as it crossed the vast park and framed the old Dower House at the far end of the overgrown lawn. A stand of oak interspersed with fir lay beyond.

  “Look at the trees,” he said, as he struggled to his feet to greet her. “They’re just beginning to rig themselves out in all their fall finery – sweet ladies whispering together discretely as they prepare for the grand ball.”

  “Far too romantical a notion for me,” Lady Guinevere said. “Though I’ll grant you that’s a handsome stand of timber.”

  He flashed a grin that displayed remnants of the charm for which he was well renowned. “My pretty words never made a dent in your armor, did they, my dear?”

  “A lot of good it would have done me, if they had,” Guinevere said. “Nor you either, Lancelot, though you like to pretend otherwise. We’d have made a fine picture, the pair of us, with your fairy tale features and my great nose.”

  Lord Carew shook his head. His face, ravaged by years of dissipation, was no longer the handsome visage that had overturned so many tender hearts and brought so many young ladies of quality close to ruin.

  Lady Guinevere thought, not for the first time, that it was a pity that he had so nearly resembled his literary namesake, though she no longer wasted energy wishing that she herself had been similarly blessed. For while he had been fair and remarkably handsome for the greater part of his life – a true Lancelot with classic features, golden curls, and perfectly arched eyebrows – she had in no way resembled the beauteous Guinevere of mythic Camelot. Instead, she had been dark with a nose far too generously proportioned for her small face, eyes set so close together that she appeared to have a squint (though she did not!), and lips thin and straight and lacking any resemblance whatsoever to a rosebud.

  The plainness of her face was only partially compensated for by the glorious abundance of her hair, the neatness of her figure, and the instinct she had for dressing herself always with the most exquisite taste. While she had succeeded in astonishing the ton by making a respectable match during her very first Season, her unremarkable appearance had preserved her from the attentions of the likes of Lord Carew and the trouble that generally ensued.

  Now in their old age, she had blossomed into a handsome woman with a glistening white mane of hair, while he had deteriorated into a tottering wreck of a man, red-nosed and gout-ridden, showing all too plainly every one of his seventy-four years of extravagant living and retaining nothing of his former glory but a little residual charm and a self-deprecating sense of humor.

  “And who is it that has sent you to plea for mercy?” Lord Carew asked before she could accost him with his latest folly.

  “Who would it be but Louisa?” Lady Guinevere promptly answered. “She lives in terror that Ned will finally note the remarkable resemblance of his heir’s eyebrows to yours. But really, Lance, she is not the only one. Half of the dowagers in London are scheming how to put a period to your existence before you have the opportunity to complete this memoir. How could you be so foolish? I do not ask how you could be so heartless, for I have known you too long to cherish any illusions on that head. You have no heart.”

  “No, for I gave it to you when we were but children, before you grew that preposterous nose,” Lord Carew replied. “Had you had the good sense to become a beauty, you would have found me a faithful and devoted husband, my dear, and the world would h
ave been spared the excesses of my reckless youth.”

  “And of your reckless middle years, and now of your reckless dotage, I presume. Do leave off your nonsense, Lance. You must abandon this project and advertise that you have done so. Else I truly fear for your life.”

  “From your dowagers?”

  “If not from them, then from their unfortunate offspring.”

  “They would spur their bastards to parricide? I think not.”

  “Not all your victims are widowed. There are a number of elderly gentlemen still above ground who might not hesitate to bring out their dueling pistols.”

  “Doddering fools the lot of them. You may tell Louisa that Ned remarked upon those unfortunate eyebrows some twenty years hence and told me he was not sorry to see some robust Carew blood injected into the dried up Legerwood lineage.”

  “No, really, did he?” Lady Guinevere crowed with delight.

  Lord Carew nodded. “I’m afraid poor Ned was ever a laggard when it came to dealing with the fairer sex. His interests, alas, lie elsewhere. A beautiful piece like Louisa was wasted on the likes of him. You may tell her that I said so. “

  “I certainly shall. But Lance, are you truly bent on causing a scandal? Will you show me what you have written thus far?”

  My lord had the grace to look a bit shamefaced. The hand he waved towards his battered old oak desk was not marred by even one ink stain. The pens she found laid out on the desktop had not been sharpened, and the bottles of ink were tightly corked.

  “Don’t tell me it is all a hum!” she exclaimed.

  Lord Carew had the grace to look shamefaced. “I’m afraid it is. Harcourt, you see.”

  “Harcourt?”

  “I ran into him coming out of White’s. You know how I feel about the man. False to the core. Respectability oozing from his pores, the old hypocrite, as if I couldn’t tell a tale or two about him if I wished.”

  “Well, yes. He’s never sweeter than when he wishes one ill. And he is no friend of yours. That is certain. But what has that to do with your memoirs?”

  Lord Carew looked out at the trees again. “You know his ways – his false smile. ‘Heard you was rusticating again,’ he said. ‘Poor fellow. Whatever are you going to find to do in the country? We both know you’re too knocked up to hunt.’’’ Lord Carew’s voice raised a few octaves and added a slight lisp and a sugary sweetness as he spoke these last words, so that he sounded quite like Lord Harcourt himself.

  Guinevere could not help but smile at the accuracy of his portrayal.

  “Too knocked up to hunt!” Lord Carew snorted. “It’s true, of course, but he took such pleasure in it! So I told him I’d be far too busy to hunt as I intended to write my memoirs. Truly, Gwen, it was a joy to see the look of terror on his face! The old fool was remembering a number of foul deeds much better forgotten. I can tell you I had a great laugh as he made haste to put some distance between us.”

  “So Harcourt spread the word, did he? Lancelot, the whole ton is atwitter with the news.”

  “So I have gathered. You should see the correspondence I have received,” Lord Carew said. “Really it is most amusing. In fact, I can scarcely recollect half of the ladies who have been so obliging as to write to me, and now here they are condemned by their own hand. The gentlemen who have written to me have been somewhat more discreet.”

  He picked up his cane and thumped vigorously over to the desk, opened a drawer and pulled out a thick sheaf of pages, all written in different hands, some of them crossed and recrossed, many of them watered artistically by tears.

  “I am glad that you came,” he said, “for I have been longing to share these, and there is no one I can trust but you.”

  Guinevere sat down at the desk and read them through, as he stood watching her. She read quickly, sometimes chuckling, twice gasping in surprise at the identity of the writer, once frowning in sudden dismay and then quickly moving on. Occasionally she asked for his assistance in interpreting a difficult hand. When she had finished, she set the packet of letters on the desk and looked up at her old friend.

  “What an extravagant life you have led.”

  His eyes glittered in response. “And prolific.”

  “Profligate, more like.” Her tone was condemning, but the spark in her eyes betrayed her amusement.

  He bowed slightly. “You may tell Louisa that I commend her good sense in sending an intermediary instead of committing the folly of putting her indiscretions to the pen.”

  Guinevere picked up the packet of letters. There was a troubled note in her voice. “You must burn these before they fall into the wrong hands.”

  He shook his head. “It is too late for that. I have had the wildest idea. Truly the best joke of all.”

  “My dear friend, I shall not try to guess what it is you intend, but it cannot be to your advantage. I beg you, please let me put them in the fire at once.”

  He reached out and took the letters from her hand and returned them to the desk drawer. He locked the drawer and returned the key to his pocket.

  “That would be most improvident,” he said. “You see, I have a very particular use for these letters. They shall repair my fortune.”

  Guinevere said nothing, but just looked at him askance.

  “At first it was no more than an amusing thought. I have so many respectable children, you see, and it occurred to me that it might be salutary for them to know the truth about their origins. Surely all that hidden Carew blood must be longing to escape the confines of propriety and convention so popular these days.”

  He hesitated, seeing the frown on his friend’s face. “You might say that I have found within myself a longing to be a father to my children.”

  “Lancelot – you could not. You would not.”

  “Why not? It has, in fact, it occurred to me that it might answer my financial difficulties as well. Does it not seem just that these ladies, who spent my money so freely when they were young beauties, should now become my means of support in my old age?”

  “You intend to threaten them with discovery?”

  He shook his head. “Oh no, nothing so crude as that. I’ll not distress the dear creatures. But their offspring – my bastard children – are quite a different matter. I’ve a dozen or more sons quite at the peak of their careers, and most of them, I am astonished to report, are decidedly respectable men. I am certain they will be most eager to provide for their dear Papa in his dotage.”

  “That hardly seems likely.”

  “Well, I should be sorry to learn it. Nevertheless, if they are a trifle reluctant to acknowledge their connection to me, then perhaps they will be all the more ready to pay when I assure them that, in return, I will undertake not to advertise our close kinship.”

  “Lance, you must not do this!”

  “I’m afraid I must. Look about you my dear and you will see that I am on my last legs. If I do not find a way to get my hands on some blunt soon, this old pile will fall down around me.”

  Guinevere did look around. Familiarity had hidden the signs from her before, but she realized with a small shock that indeed this room at least was in a very bad state of repair. The carpets and curtains were not merely faded, but torn and badly mended. The wainscoting was dull and even scratched in places. The furniture was long ago outmoded. Everything was covered with a thin layer of dust, and in the corners and shadows, there were even a few spider webs. It was clear that no housemaid had been in this room for at least a fortnight. This was not, as she had long supposed, the careless neglect of a heedless bachelor, but the result of poverty.

  She turned to face her old friend. “Is all your fortune then wasted and gone?”

  He nodded and gave her a rueful smile. “All gone.”

  “Your servants?”

  “Only Jarman and William remain. I cannot persuade them to leave me, though I have told them I can no longer afford to pay them.”

  They sat silent for a moment. Then Guinevere looked around her at the dus
t and the cobwebs and spoke again. “And so you came here, penniless. With what intention?”

  “With no clear intention. I suppose I thought I would come here and…die.”

  Guinevere gave a little gasp, and he went on, quickly. “No my dear, not by my hand. I suppose I thought that as I had nothing to live for, I would simply cease to exist. Alas, it has not proved so. It seems gout is not a fatal condition, and I still get hungry at mealtimes.”

  He smiled. “And when I got here, I found myself longing to see those grand ladies at the end of the lawn don their gold and red ball gowns. And when that show is ended, I expect I shall long for the snow. So it seems I will linger on here, despite my intentions.”

  “Can you not come about again? You have always landed on your feet before.”

  “Yes. And now, with these letters, I intend to again.”

  “This new generation is not so lax as ours was, Lancelot. They are a stiff-necked lot, by and large, and will not take this kindly. Can you not see that your plan is fraught with danger?”

  “So is bedding another man’s wife. Danger has never deterred me before. I don’t see why it should do so now.”

  “There must be another way. You cannot do this!”

  He winced a little at the urgency in her voice, but did not relent. “How can I not? Surely it is natural for a man of my years to look to his progeny for support. It is not just for the money, you understand. I’ve a fancy to become a family man.”

  “They will not accept you. And they will not pay.”

  “I think they will. And if my sons should fail me, well, I have seven or eight daughters, most of them leg-shackled to admirably wealthy husbands.”

  CHAPTER TWO: In Which Lady Legerwood Is the Recipient of Astonishing Information