The Dreadful Debutante (The Royal Ambition Series Book 1)

by M C Beaton

  The first dance with her was claimed by young Mr. Danby, who wished her well and hoped she would be happy. Mira was aware of the marquess watching them, and some imp prompted her to flirt with Mr. Danby. The marquess turned away from the scene with seeming indifference but promptly took a pretty young lady onto the floor and began to pay her a great deal of attention. Mira, wondering whether it was possible to die from sheer jealousy, continued to flirt outrageously with partner after partner, while the marquess, for his part, appeared to be trying to outdo her. She had promised him the supper dance, and so they finally went into the refreshment room together, both with angry eyes as hard as diamonds.

  “Just what the deuce do you think you are playing at?” demanded the marquess.

  “I do not know what you mean,” said Mira huffily.

  “You are behaving like the veriest trollop.”

  “How dare you!”

  “I dare. And when we are married, miss, you will behave just as you ought.”

  “You were the one who encouraged me in this folly.”

  “And I am graciously getting you out of the consequences of a folly in which you were a willing partner.”

  Mira glared at him. “And what is so gracious about flirting vulgarly with every woman in the room?”

  “I have not yet got around to every woman in the room. But I shall. Be assured of that, my sweeting.”

  “I wish I had never met you,” muttered Mira.

  “Oh, I do wish you would stop whining and try to behave like a lady.” The marquess’s tone was glacial.

  Almost beside herself with rage, jealousy, and hurt, Mira slapped his face, and the marquess promptly slapped her back. People stopped eating; people stopped talking. For one long moment the silence in the supper room was absolute.

  Then Drusilla, prompted for about the first time in her life by the thought of helping someone else, said in a loud, carrying voice, “I think this meat is bad, Charles. It has a peculiar taste.”

  Voices rose all around discussing the meat.

  “You struck me,” said Mira. “Gentlemen do not strike ladies.”

  “The provocation was great. You hit me first. Was I to allow myself to be humiliated in public and take it with a smile?”

  “Well, I am sorry I forgot myself,” said Mira. She looked so lost and miserable that he said in a gentle voice, “Do eat something. It is not like you to pick at your food. Now we will get a roasting from your father. Perhaps we are well suited after all, Mira. I have never known two people to behave so badly in public. The only way we will now save face is to look so madly in love that people will put it down to a lovers’ quarrel. Come, Mira, if you will not do it for me or yourself, do it for your shattered parents.” He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

  Mira saw the wisdom of his words and forced herself to play the part of a happy girl again, delighted with her partner.

  But although they both behaved admirably for the rest of the evening, the marquess was not at all surprised when Mr. Markham, on their arrival back at St. James’s Square, told him to step indoors with them.

  “I will see you and Mira alone,” he said, opening the door of the Yellow Saloon.

  “Can you both explain the meaning of your disgraceful behavior this evening?” began Mr. Markham.

  The truth was that both of them had been driven mad by jealousy, but neither was going to admit that. The marquess, who had never felt so much in the wrong in his well-ordered life before, fought down his rising irritation.

  “We are both a trifle overwrought,” he said easily.

  “I am alarmed by the pair of you,” pursued Mr. Markham. “I do not want to know what really happened in that inn, but you are going on in public like lovers. Therefore, Grantley, I must suggest you get a special license and that you and Mira marry as soon as possible.”

  “Mira is not pregnant,” said the marquess bluntly.

  “So you say.” Mr. Markham stood his ground. “You would not say and Mira would not know. I repeat, you must marry as quickly as possible.”

  “Oh, very well.” The marquess sighed. “May as well get it over with. But your daughter is still a virgin.”

  Mira thought she could not hurt anymore, but his cold words, “May as well get it over with,” cut her to the quick.

  “Papa,” she begged, “send me back home. I do not want to marry. I want to remain a spinster.”

  Her father’s eyes were as cold as ice. “You will do exactly as you are told from now on. You are a great disappointment to me, Mira.”

  The marquess saw the tears start in Mira’s eyes and said furiously, “That is nothing new. She always was. You wanted a son, so in order to get your attention, she tried to behave like a boy. Did you try to stop it? No, it amused you, and you and your wife were too wrapped up in the beautiful Drusilla to care. So do not sneer at her. Yes, I behaved badly, but do not blame Mira for a standard of behavior that is entirely of your making. Now I will bid you both good night. I will call on the bishop tomorrow and obtain a special license.”

  He strode out of the room.

  “Mira…” began Mr. Markham, but she stood up and walked to the door. “No, Papa,” she said. “No more.”

  “You will be locked in your room until you come to your senses,” he shouted after her.

  Drusilla, standing on the first landing, heard that. She saw Mira stumble blindly past her and heard her father ordering a footman to go up to Miss Mira’s room, to lock the door behind her and bring him the key.

  It’s nothing really to do with me, thought Drusilla. And yet she could not help remembering the way Mira had come to her when she was in distress. It was thanks to Mira that she, Drusilla, was now comfortably engaged to Charles. She went to her own room and sat and worried, hearing the house about her fall silent as everyone went to bed.

  At last she went downstairs quietly to a room off the servants’ hall where she knew the spare keys were to be found. Holding a candle high, she studied the attached labels, finally selecting the one to Mira’s room. Then she darted back upstairs and softly opened the door.

  Mira was not crying. She was slumped in a chair by the window, still in her opera gown, staring blindly ahead.

  “Mira,” said Drusilla, “what happened this evening? You behaved so badly and Grantley slapped you, right in front of everyone.”

  “He was flirting with all the pretty ladies, Drusilla,” said Mira, “and I was so jealous, I could not bear it.”

  “It could have been because you were flirting quite dreadfully yourself, Mira.”

  “That’s different,” said Mira mulishly. “And now Papa thinks something… awful… happened between us at that inn, and he has ordered Grantley to get a special license and marry me as soon as possible, and he, Grantley, said he ‘may as well get it over with.’ He doesn’t love me, sis, and he never will.”

  “Oh, I don’t understand!” wailed Drusilla. “Why can’t you be comfortable?”

  “Because I love him but he doesn’t love me, and I cannot bear it. I am going to run away.”

  “Where?”

  “I will go home and be by myself, and he will be so furious, he will refuse to marry me.”

  “Oh, Mira, home will be cold and empty, with only Mr. George, the caretaker, and his wife in residence.”

  “I do not care. I shall run mad if I stay here.”

  “But how will you travel?”

  “By stage. I have my pin money.”

  “When they find you gone, they will blame me, Mira, for bringing you the key.”

  “I shall replace the key before I leave. No one will ever know you took it.”

  Drusilla sat down weakly on the bed. “Could you not wait until you see Grantley again and tell him of your love?”

  “Never! And you are not to tell anyone where I am, Drusilla. Not even Charles. Promise.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Drusilla. “Is there nothing I can say or do to stop you?”

  “No, give me a hug�
��Mira rose wearily to her feet—and then leave me to my devices.”

  Drusilla embraced her and then went to her own room, feeling puzzled and upset. She did hope madness did not run in the family, but that was the only explanation she could think of for Mira’s wild behavior.

  Mira looked at her own boys’ clothes, thinking as she did so that she had never confessed to the marquess that the riding clothes he had lent her were now buried in the garden. She took off her opera gown and dressed in her masculine garb. Her hat was gone, lost in the river, but there were old hats in a closet off the hall. She put some items into a canvas bag and slung it over her shoulder, blew out the candles, locked the door behind her, and made her way quietly down the stairs. She replaced the spare key and then mounted the stairs to the front hall. She slid back the heavy bolts, reflecting that her father would be furious that she had gone and left the front door unlocked.

  She ran across St. James’s Square and headed for the City on foot. Dawn was brightening the sky as she reached the Strand. How marvelous it had been that day he had driven her along here. Down Fleet Street and up Ludgate Hill she hurried and so to the Belle Sauvage Inn in time to catch the stage.

  As London gradually fell behind her and the sun rose on a perfect summer’s day, despite the heaviness of her heart, she felt she had done the right thing. He would be shot of her at last, and somehow, some year, her father might forgive her.

  Mira’s disappearance was not discovered until eleven o’clock. Drusilla had risen early for her and had suddenly felt she could not bear the strain of waiting for the storm to break any longer. So she had roused her parents and said she had been calling to Mira through the door of her room and could not get an answer. Mr. Markham rang the bell and ordered a footman to unlock the door of Miss Mira’s bedchamber.

  The footman returned in a rush to say that Miss Mira had gone.

  Mr. Markham swore an oath his frightened wife and daughter had never heard him use before. Shouting for his valet, shouting for his carriage to be brought round, shouting at the unfairness of the world at large and swearing that Mira would be found at Grantley’s because “that disgraceful pair cannot keep their hands off each other,” he soon set out for Grosvenor Square.

  He was met by the marquess’s furious denials and worse than that. The enraged marquess said that Mira had added insult to injury by broadcasting to the world that she would rather run away from home than have anything to do with him. He was sick of her and sick of the Markhams. He had no intention now of marrying her. He then ordered the stricken Mr. Markham from his house.

  After Lord Charles had been summoned, a council of war was held in the drawing room of St. James’s Square. The disgrace Mira had brought on the family was too much to bear. Charles would understand that they must take Drusilla home. He said he would return to the country himself. Drusilla, who did not want to leave London, protested in vain. So deep was Mr. Markham’s shame that he ordered the shutters to remain closed, and so the town house looked as if someone had died within. Mr. Markham was to stay in London to search for Mira or wait for her return.

  Drusilla left them to it and went up to her room. She was all at once determined to do something, anything, to stay in London. She was sure the marquess was very like Mira. Therefore it followed that he was probably in love with her. But how to let him know?

  With a courage and determination she had never known before, she changed out of her thin kid slippers and put on a pair of half boots, slung a cloak around her shoulders, and picked up her reticule. She walked boldly down the stairs. The drawing room was closed, and from behind it came the sound of voices as Mr. and Mrs. Markham bemoaned Mira’s dreadful behavior and Charles commiserated with them.

  “The carriage has not been ordered, Miss Markham,” said the butler.

  “I am only going to walk around the square and take the air,” replied Drusilla, opening the door, not realizing that she had made two great breaks from the usual ordered pattern of her life already. Miss Drusilla Markham never dressed herself or opened a door when there was a servant to do it for her.

  Ignoring the butler’s protest that she was not accompanied by a maid and that he would call one of the footmen, Drusilla went out into the square and hurried off. Although she could easily have walked to Grosvenor Square, Drusilla, not used to walking anywhere, hailed a hack. For Drusilla to get into a London hack with an ancient driver leering on the box was as brave as any other female boarding a lugger full of villainous sailors. She wondered if she might faint from sheer excess of bravery.

  But the hack creaked its smelly way to Grosvenor Square without incident.

  Drusilla then paid off the driver, marched up the steps, and hammered on the door.

  The marquess, on being informed that Miss Markham had called to see him, stared coldly at his butler and said, “Without a maid?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Oh, send her away! Is there no end to her folly?”

  “May I say, my lord, that it is not Miss Mira Markham who is called but the elder, Miss Drusilla Markham. I do not have her card. The lady forgot her card case.”

  The marquess felt a stab of anxiety. Something must have happened to Mira to bring the usually correct Drusilla to his town house.

  “Tell her I will be with her directly,” he said.

  Drusilla stood up as he entered and curtsied. “You must forgive me, my lord,” she said, “but only concern for my little sister would bring me here.”

  “If you think Mira is here with me, then you are very much mistaken.”

  “I know she is not.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “May I be seated? I came in a hack.”

  “What an adventure!” he said dryly. “Please sit down. Some refreshment?”

  “No, thank you, my lord. I have come to explain why Mira ran away.”

  “That being?” he asked with seeming indifference.

  “Well, it is all very odd to me. She says she is desperately in love with you, and she could not bear to be married to a man with whom she was so much in love knowing he did not return that love. And, of course, she does not like the idea of your being forced to marry her. She is very wild and impulsive.…”

  Drusilla’s voice trailed away before the blaze of emotion in the marquess’s eyes. “Where has she gone?”

  “Home, to the country. Such a mistake because I am to be taken out of London, and we are going to the country, too.”

  “Thank you for telling me this, Miss Markham. I will go and fetch her.”

  “It will not answer unless you tell her you are in love with her.” Drusilla looked at him doubtfully.

  “Be assured, I shall tell her that.”

  Drusilla rose gracefully to her feet. “Then I shall tell Mama and Papa that the engagement is on again, and we can be comfortable. All this pulsing emotion seems most odd to me. It must be like having perpetual indigestion or disorder of the spleen, I think. Do warn Mira than an excess of emotion causes wrinkles.”

  “I shall do that. Now, Miss Markham, I shall send you home in one of my carriages.”

  “Too kind. It is dangerous for a lady of my delicacy to take more than one hack.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Markham and Charles were still fretting about how to find Mira. Not one of them had even considered the idea that she had simply gone home to the country. When the door opened and Drusilla walked in, they looked at her in surprise, all taking in the fact that she was in her outdoor clothes.

  “I took a hack,” said Drusilla proudly.

  Mrs. Markham looked amazed. “Why, what are you talking about?” Hope lit up her eyes. “Do you know where Mira is? Did you go to see her?”

  “Yes, I know where Mira is. But I went to see Grantley.”

  “You what?” Mr. Markham turned red with amazement, shock, and anger. “Is Mira with him? Did that scoundrel lie to me?”

  “Mira is at home in the country. She left on the stage this morning. I went to tell Grant
ley that she had run away because she loved him.”

  “Run away because she loved him? That does not make sense,” said Mrs. Markham. “And how could you call at a gentleman’s town house?”

  “I was very courageous, was I not?” said Drusilla. “But when I told him, he said he loved her as well, so he has gone to the country to bring her back. So we need not leave, and we can be comfortable again.”

  “What is this farrago of nonsense?” demanded Charles sternly.