The Dreadful Debutante (The Royal Ambition Series Book 1)

by M C Beaton

When it was time to descend to the drawing room, she felt quite exhausted with lack of sleep and the effort of trying on one outfit after the other. Charles looked incredibly remote and handsome. She could feel her newfound confidence ebbing. She tried to remember what the marquess had said about moral courage and not focus on petty things, like how the damp air would make her wretched hair even more frizzy.

  Charles talked politely of this and that as he drove her to the Park. She tried to tease him in the old way, but he appeared not to hear what she was saying or he chose not to. When they reached the Park, he bowed to various acquaintances and friends, and Mira fell silent. But when they were making the round for the second time, he said, “The reason I asked you to come with me, Mira, is because I wish to talk to you privately.”

  Her mercurial spirits soared. She turned shining eyes up to his face. “Oh, and I have longed to be private with you, dear Charles,” she said.

  But he went on in a flat, even voice. “The fact is this, Mira: I am about to propose marriage to Drusilla. I worship her and can think of no greater happiness in life than that she should be my bride.”

  A spot of rain fell on Mira’s cheek. It felt like a tear. She found her voice. “I hope you will be very happy, Charles.”

  “I hope so, too. Now your sister is a gentle creature, delicate as a flower. She has told me how worried she is about your behavior. You must try to be supportive to her, Mira, and put your hoydenish ways behind you. There is still a boldness about you that can do nothing but displease. I am sure you will not mind my speaking to you like this, for I have always regarded myself as an older brother to you. Try for a little more maidenly modesty. And do not take the flattering attentions of Grantley too seriously. He was merely amusing himself by bringing you back into fashion. I notice he did not dance with you last night. There are plenty of young men at the Season more of your age.”

  “The marquess is not much older than you, Charles.” Mira bit her lip to fight back the tears.

  “But too worldly and experienced and sophisticated a man for a child like you, Mira. It is threatening rain. So I am soon to be your brother-in-law, Mira. Think of that!”

  And Mira did think of it all the way home as her poor head ached and the alien and hostile world of London lay all about her. She realized that despite Charles’s interest in Drusilla, she had hoped and dreamed that he would marry her. Before they reached home, she said in a small voice, “I cannot see Drusilla as an army bride, Charles.”

  He smiled complacently. “Nor I. Such a gentle flower must not be bruised by a barracks life. I am selling out.”

  Perhaps it was that simple statement that made Mira suddenly realize how ridiculous her dreams had been, for Charles had loved his life in the army, and here he was, prepared to sacrifice everything for the love of Drusilla.

  She thanked him politely for the drive. He said he would not accompany her indoors but would probably see her on the following day after he had proposed to Drusilla—and, hopefully, he said with a shadow of his former boyish grin, been accepted.

  Mira curtsied low and then ran up the steps. She went straight to her room, slumped in an armchair by the window, and stared unseeingly in front of her. She wished now that the gossip about her had stuck and that she had been banished to the country. There she could ride and go on walks and talk to the townspeople.

  They were to go to the playhouse that evening. Mira knew that Charles would have asked her parents’ permission to call the following day to propose to Drusilla and that they would talk of little else during the evening, and so she roused herself to call the maid and say she had a headache. Then she allowed the maid to undress her and put her to bed.

  But she lay awake, listening to the sounds of the house and then the sounds of departure. When she heard the family carriage drive off, she roused herself from bed. She manufactured a dummy of herself from the bolster, a cushion, and a nightcap. She had sworn never to wear masculine clothes again, but she was hurting badly and craved the marquess’s comfort and advice. She would change and go round to Grosvenor Square and perhaps catch him as he was leaving for the evening.

  Somehow, to her, her masculine dress did not feel at all disgraceful in the evening, for London had that hectic nighttime feeling it always had in the West End as society set out to drink and dance and gamble the night away.

  She had expected him to be there, perhaps just getting into his carriage or walking out to his club, but his house had a shuttered air. She walked slowly round to the mews at the back and shoving her hands in her pockets approached a loitering groom and asked him which was the marquess’s carriage. “Several of them,” said the groom. “Taken the closed one out tonight to the playhouse.”

  Mira ambled off, feeling more miserable than ever. If she had gone to the playhouse with her family, then she might have had the opportunity of a few words with him. Still, she might be able to see him after the performance. She began to walk in the direction of Drury Lane.

  She walked up and down the waiting carriages until she recognized the marquess’s tiger, Jem. He was lounging against a closed carriage, talking to a coachman. Mira crept around the far side of the carriage and opened the door. She crawled inside and gently closed the door behind her, wrapped a huge bearskin carriage rug about her, and lay on the floor. The time dragged on. There was the play, and after the play there would be a farce or a harlequinade.

  The misery of the day overcame her, and she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

  The marquess entered his carriage and then started in surprise as his foot struck the bearskin rug on the floor and it emitted a startled yelp. He pulled it aside, and in the flickering light of a parish lamp outside the carriage, he saw the white face of Mira Markham staring up at him.

  “What are you about?” he growled. “Are you hell-bent on ruining yourself?”

  Mira’s eyes filled with tears. “I am so miserable.”

  “For heaven’s sake. Get out if you can without being seen, and wait for me at the corner.”

  He waited impatiently until Mira had quietly crept out and shut the door behind her, and then he opened the trap in the roof with his sword stick and called to his coachman. “I have decided to walk. Take the carriage home.”

  “Raining again, my lord,” called the coachman.

  “Nonetheless I will walk.”

  He joined Mira at the end of the street and put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll find somewhere out of the rain where we can talk. I hope you have a good explanation for this scandalous behavior. Will your parents or the servants not miss you?”

  “I said I had a headache, my lord, and left a dummy in my bed. They will not notice.”

  “Thank goodness for small mercies. Just let us hope no one recognized you. Pull your hat down more over your face.”

  Home-going carriages from the playhouse passed them. Lady Jansen looked out, recognized the marquess a little ahead walking in the rain, and debated whether to call to her coachman to stop and then offer him a lift. But her eyes sharpened as she saw the “boy” walking next to him. Surely there was something familiar about that lithe figure. The couple walked under a lamp as her carriage came alongside them. For a brief moment Mira turned her face up to the marquess’s, and Lady Jansen recognized her.

  She leaned back in her seat and fanned herself vigorously. It was all too plain to her that the marquess was having an affair with the chit. Why else would he walk about London with her dressed as a boy? She must think what to do. She could not risk ridicule again. And the marquess had not proposed to Mira Markham, so that underlined the fact that his intentions were highly dishonorable.

  There was yet hope… if she plotted and planned carefully.

  Chapter Four

  “Here, I think,” said the marquess, entering a coffeehouse in the Strand. Mira crunched across the discarded oyster shells on the sawdust-covered floor and followed him to a table in a shadowy corner.

  The marquess ordered coffee for both of them. Hi
s eyes looked black behind the stump of a candle that burned in its flat stick on the tabletop between them.

  “Now, Miss Mira,” he said, “begin at the beginning and go on to the end.”

  “Charles took me driving today.”

  There was a silence.

  “Go on,” prompted the marquess gently.

  “He told me he is to propose to Drusilla tomorrow. He told me to mend my ways. Worse than that—”

  “There’s worse?”

  “Yes, he loves Drusilla so much that he is selling out. He will probably buy a property near us in the country, and he will be my brother-in-law.”

  “My opinion,” said the marquess, “is that Lord Charles has probably grown and changed since the days of your childhood into a rather pompous man. If you keep on searching for the easygoing companion of your youth, you will continue to be disappointed.”

  “It is so very hard to take,” said Mira in a low voice. “I know I am behaving disgracefully, but I had to talk to someone.”

  The great Marquess of Grantley gave a wry smile. He was not used to hearing himself described as “someone.”

  “You are going to have to be very brave,” he said, “and put it all behind you and concentrate on trying to enjoy this Season. If you try very hard, pretense will soon become reality.”

  “Another thing disturbs me,” said Mira. “I did not like lying to my parents or ridiculing Mrs. Gardener. I first had a feeling that such a tattle-tale deserved it, but she only spoke the truth as given to her by that Lady Jansen.”

  “I am afraid the fault was really all mine.” The marquess poured more coffee. “I told the story of our adventure to amuse my mother. Lady Jansen was present. I should have known it was too good a piece of gossip to remain unspread. I am sorry I had to lie and encourage you to lie as well, but your reputation was at stake.”

  “I think Lady Jansen is a despicable woman,” said Mira fiercely, “and yet you took her in to supper and appeared well pleased with her.”

  “I was, and I have forgiven her,” said the marquess. “She is a lady of good sense.”

  “I do not think spreading dangerous and malicious gossip a sign of good sense!”

  “Your sex will gossip.”

  “Not I! If you told me not to tell anyone something, then I would not!”

  “You are not typical of your sex, my chuck. Young society ladies do not venture out at night dressed as boys.”

  “Well, you cannot know that,” retorted Mira, all mad reason. She waved an expansive arm. “This coffeehouse could be full of them.”

  “That I doubt, Miss Mira. You are an original. Are you sure you can return home without being observed?”

  She tugged a large key out of her pocket. “I took the spare key to the back door when I left.”

  “When you finish your coffee, I suggest I take you home. Do you feel better?”

  “Somewhat. Not much. If I were in the country, I would take my mare, Sally, out of the stables and ride and ride.”

  He hesitated and then said, “If you are very sure your absence will not be discovered, I could lend you a mount, and we could go for a night ride.”

  Those green eyes sparkled. “I would like that above all things.”

  “Then I rely on you to keep quiet about it.”

  Mira surveyed him with a quaint haughtiness. “You do not need to tell me to keep quiet. I have my virtues, my lord.”

  His eyes shone with amusement. “Are you a very good rider?”

  “I am accounted so. There is no need to find me a quiet lady’s mount.”

  “Then we will take some exercise. You will need to walk home with me while I change into riding clothes. Fortunately for you I am an indulgent master and do not have my servants waiting up for me—the house servants, that is. I will need to rouse the head groom to saddle up for us.”

  London had changed back to an exciting and wonderful place in Mira’s eyes as they walked together through the rain-washed streets. The rain had ceased to fall, and a tiny moon, a hunter’s moon, was riding high above the jumbled chimney pots.

  When they reached his house in Grosvenor Square, he produced a door key, opened the door, and ushered her in. “You had best come upstairs with me,” he said. “I had a young nephew staying here, and he has left some of his clothes. I may be able to find something to fit you more suitable for riding than what you have on. Your clothes are still damp.”

  He was amused to sense that innocent Mira saw nothing odd about being unchaperoned in his home. He led her into a bedchamber, lit the lamps, and searched in a large press in the corner and then threw a riding outfit on the bed. “Change into that and meet me downstairs.”

  Mira changed into the clothes after stripping off and rubbing herself vigorously with a towel. She put on the clothes, which fitted her well, plaited her frizzy hair, and taking a bone pin from the pocket of the damp coat she had discarded, skewered the plait on top of her head and then put a curly brimmed beaver on top of it. She surveyed herself in the glass. She had tied a cravat in a simple style. She thought she looked the very picture of a young gentleman.

  When she went down to the hall, he was changed and waiting. “Good,” he said, looking her up and down.

  They walked round to the mews, where he roused the groom and asked for two horses to be saddled up.

  Soon they were riding together sedately out of Grosvenor Square. “Where to?” called Mira.

  “The parks are closed. We take the Great West Road again. Go easily on the gravel, and we will swing away across country after Knightsbridge. Look out for footpads.”

  After Knightsbridge they set out across the open fields. Then he called, “Now!” and they both spurred their horses.

  Mira felt the magnificent Arab he had lent her surge under her. Under the moon they rode with the wind whistling in their ears. Mira felt she could ride forever. London was in the distance, London with its peculiar society and its grim laws, London with heartless Charles.

  He finally slowed to a canter and then a trot, reining in finally on top of a rise. A pale dawn was spreading across the sky, and the first birds were beginning to twitter.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Much better,” said Mira, leaning forward and patting the horse’s neck.

  “We had better return. Your servants will soon be awake.”

  As they rode easily back to London, he talked of his home in the country, of improvements to the land, and then said, “I may decide to return and forgo the rest of the Season.”

  “Wait a little longer,” said Mira. “I need your help a little longer.”

  He had dismounted. He reached up and lifted her down from the saddle. She was pressed against his chest. He suddenly felt a spurt of anger at her sheer indifference to his masculinity, and before he could stop himself, he kissed her full on the mouth. Sheer shock kept her still until he released her.

  “That is to teach you a lesson,” he said, standing back. “Be careful in future of treating men as friends. London can be a wicked place.”

  Mira backed away from him, her hand to her mouth. “So I have found out,” she whispered. She turned and ran away. He stood for a long moment, hearing the clatter of her feet on the cobbles, and then he shrugged and tried to put her out of his mind, tried not to tell himself that he had behaved cruelly and badly. He could still taste her lips, young and sweet and full. He swore under his breath and called loudly for his groom.

  Mira managed to gain the privacy of her room, unobserved. She carefully took off the clothes he had given her, wondering in a numb sort of way if she would ever have the courage to return them to him or to face him again. She washed and changed into her nightdress and lay down on the bed after having taken the dummy out. She lay on her back, very still, and stared up at the bed canopy. The sounds of morning London filtered into the room, carriages, street cries, footsteps, dusters flapping from windows as the maids went about their work, and the occasional clatter of an iron hoop, bowled a
long the pavement by a child.

  That kiss had changed everything. Unlike Sleeping Beauty the kiss had awakened her to a difficult world of reality. A child had slipped out to meet the marquess the night before, and a woman had returned. This was the day Charles was coming to propose to Drusilla, and she felt… nothing. She turned abruptly over on her side and fell asleep, not waking until two in the afternoon, when she was roused by the maid, who told her coyly that she had to put one of her best gowns on and make herself ready for a family celebration.

  When she entered the drawing room, she was not at first aware of Charles and Drusilla standing holding hands in front of the fireplace but of her father. Mr. Markham was surveying her with an odd half-questioning, half-anxious look in his eyes.

  “Wish your sister every happiness,” said Mrs. Markham. “She and Charles are to wed.”