by Joan Smith
“I daresay this will put me out like a light,” he said heartily, to plant this idea in her head.
“If you sleep poorly, stay in bed in the morning. If that headache persists, we shan’t hold you to your promise of a drive.”
“I wouldn’t want to miss meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury,” he said. Miss Beddoes lifted her eyes from the pot and gave him a long look. “It is not every day one has the honor of meeting an archbishop,” he added inanely.
“That must be a very severe headache” is all she said, but it was enough to make him blush.
She poured the posset and handed it to him. “Do you have these headaches often, milord?”
“Frequently,” he said, hoping to elicit sympathy.
“You must be doing something wrong. Trotting too hard, perhaps,” she said with a conning smile. “And worrying about money. I daresay if you regularized your living, the headaches would disappear. I hope you sleep well.”
“Thank you,” he said through thin lips, and accepted the cup. He made a mechanical bow, not unlike Norton’s, and left.
Cook lifted her flour-smudged face and said, “Headache. Hah! Hangover more like, if he sluices wine down like his valet. His Lordship came in by the back door, but he didn’t leave by it. What was he doing at the stable if he had a headache?”
Lettie did not encourage her servants to gossip and did not mention that Havergal had not left by the front door either. How had he got out of the house? She reviewed her movements since his first going abovestairs, and she decided that he might have got out the front door when she and Violet went into the library to write the place cards for their dinner party. In any case, Havergal was not drunk like his valet. He had expressed the proper opinion in that matter.
In his room, Havergal ranted to Cuttle about the woman’s demmed interfering manner. “Jawing at me, as if I were a schoolboy.”
“What happened with the duke?” Cuttle asked.
“He had women at the inn. If she finds out, I’m sunk.”
“How come you’re home so early?”
“Don’t be impertinent. Be sure to mention to Cook tomorrow that you were up half the night with me. I was here, in this room all night.”
“Going out again then, are you?”
Havergal considered it a moment. He thought of a red-haired, green-eyed wench and was tempted, but in the end he said, “No, it ain’t worth the risk. I’m tired as a racehorse anyway. Get rid of this slop, will you?” He handed the posset to Cuttle, who drank it off in one gulp.
“And while we’re here, Cuttle, lay off the wine. You were staggering like a horse with the heaves. It won’t do your boxing career any good, you know.”
Cuttle gave a sheepish look. A hiccup prevented him from denying this charge, so he just backed away and left.
Havergal had a bottle of his own excellent wine and puzzled over the pages of his favorite philosopher, Kant. It was not an easy read, and he paid particular attention to some passages his father had underlined. His father had given him the book. Scanning these passages, Havergal read that the dignity of life did not depend on natural endowments, power, riches, or honor, but on goodwill. Intelligence, wit, judgment—all could be bad and mischievous if the character that makes use of them was not good.
What had Papa heard that he felt impelled to send him this sly message? Had he learned about Uncle Eustace’s estate? Only three thousand guineas—the bequest had come at a particularly convenient time, just when he was overdrawn at the bank and had to settle up at Tatt’s. Papa had expected him to give some portion of that money to the Cauleigh school for orphans. He should have sent a thousand at least. A thousand, Papa had mentioned earlier, would pay a teacher’s salary for five years. Or it would pay for one bad race run by Hamlet. Did men actually live on two hundred guineas a year?
God, it must be awful to be poor. At the rate he was going, he would soon know. He really must curb his spending. But first he must pay his debts, and that meant charming Miss Beddoes into giving him an advance on his interest. Well, to be realistic, it meant biting into the capital left by Cousin Horace. Miss Beddoes could not give him unearned interest. The lady was not a magician after all. It just sounded better if he asked for an advance on his interest.
A reluctant smile tugged at his lips. Not that a paltry euphemism would pass muster with Miss Beddoes. She’d dredge up some quotation and beat him over the head with it. His eyelids began to droop, the book fell from his fingers to the counterpane, and he was asleep.
Chapter Five
Havergal was awakened early the next morning by the raucous call of chanticleer. Hearing a rooster, he knew he was in the country, but was unclear for a moment as to precisely where or what he was doing there. Glancing around at the relatively modest and unfamiliar furnishings, he knew he was not at his ancestral home. Then it came back to him, and he emitted a low groan. Miss Beddoes, and Crymont at the inn three miles away with the lightskirts, like a charged pistol waiting to go off. He dragged himself from bed. At least he hadn’t overindulged in wine the night before, so his head was clear.
In fact, he found, as he lifted the window and stuck his head out, that he felt remarkably good. It was the early night that had done it. Country smells of meadows, apple blossoms, and the lingering scent of cattle hung on the air. It reminded him of his youth and was a strong contrast to his more recent mornings. He really must change his ways. His conscience had not yet petrified, and he felt badly about his behavior. He inhaled deeply. A country breakfast would hit the spot. He went to the adjoining door and called, “Cuttle.”
The unmoving hulk under the blankets told him his valet was still asleep. “Poor masters make poor servants,” his father used to say. His conscience gave another jab, as it always did when he thought of his father. Cuttle’s services were so seldom required before ten o’clock that he had fallen into the lazy habit of staying abed long after daylight. Havergal advanced and shook him by the toe.
“Gorblimy, it’s hardly daylight,” Cuttle muttered, but he pushed the blankets aside and got up, grumbling.
Havergal noticed, while Cuttle was assisting him with his toilette, that his valet’s eyes were bloodshot and his general air unsteady. “That must have been some drinking spree you had last night?”
“The duke left some wine in the stable.”
“That was a pourboire for the servants here at Laurel Hall.”
“We shared a few bottles with the house servants. A rare treat it was for them.”
“I should think so! That was excellent claret! Bring what’s left of it up to my room. We don’t want Miss Beddoes accusing us of debasing her servants. And you especially, Cuttle, ought to lay off the drink. It won’t do your boxing any good. Look at that paunch! Soft!” he said, touching Cuttle’s midriff. His finger sunk into a layer of fat.
“Get me a fight arranged, and I’ll get into shape,” Cuttle retorted.
The valet had attended to his duties before the drinking bout the night before. His master turned out in a style to do him proud, with Hessians gleaming and cravat immaculate. Havergal appeared a perfect tulip of fashion when he joined the ladies at breakfast half an hour later.
Miss FitzSimmons shot a triumphant glance at Lettie. They had exchanged views as to their guest’s probable hour of rising. “Not before noon” was Lettie’s opinion.
“I am happy to see you so much recovered,” Lettie said when Havergal bowed before them. She was unaware of a smile lifting her lips, but she knew that his appearance gave her pleasure. He looked vitally healthy, so handsome and elegant.
“We thought you might keep later hours,” Miss FitzSimmons added with a worried look at Lettie. This was due to the fact that Cook had burned the gammon. They had planned to have a new batch served later.
“I am up with the rooster when in the country.” He smiled. He went to the sideboard to help himself to breakfast.
“I’ll ask the servants to get some fresh gammon and eggs,” Lettie said. “I d
on’t know what ails Cook today. She never burned the gammon before. I hope the stove is not going on us.”
“This will be fine,” Havergal assured her, and helped himself to some charred meat. The footman who poured his coffee not only slopped the liquid into his saucer, but also made a mess of the table covering.
“I am so dreadfully sorry,” Lettie said two or three times. “I really cannot imagine what has come over them. I wonder if they have caught some flu bug. You were feeling poorly last night, Lord Havergal. Did you have any symptoms other than the headache?”
“No, none, and I feel fine today,” he assured her.
“Well it is very odd,” Miss FitzSimmons said, puzzled. “Let us hope you and I escape it, Lettie, or we shall miss our drive to Canterbury this afternoon.”
The afternoon was taken care of in a manner to please the ladies, but there was a long morning in which Havergal hoped to forward his cause by being agreeable. “I hope you have not forgotten your promise to give my grays a try as well, Miss FitzSimmons,” he reminded her.
“I look forward to it.”
“And you, too, Miss Beddoes,” he said, turning to Lettie. Without Norton there to lead the way, he reverted to the proper mode of address.
“The curricle only holds two, does it not?”
“Two at a time. I thought after Miss FitzSimmons returns, you might like to try a spin.”
“You wanted new gloves for the trip to Canterbury, Lettie,” her companion reminded her. “Ashford is only three miles away. You could drive into Ashford with Lord Havergal.”
It was the last place Havergal wanted to take her. Ashford meant Crymont, possibly not alone. He never leapt his fences till he came to them, however. By the time they were in the carriage, he could talk her around to some different drive.
“What are you thinking of, Violet?” Lettie said. “Lord Havergal will not want to cool his heels while I go shopping.”
“I am an excellent shopper,” he offered gallantly. “All the ladies tell me so. My opinion is much sought in the selection of a bonnet or a shawl. Gloves are not my forte, but I know pigskin from kid.”
“We shall see.” Lettie laughed. She was only human, with the normal feminine weakness of wanting to appear in public with a gallant escort. What a dash she would cut in Ashford! Arriving in Havergal’s bang-up curricle, then going on the strut with him. It was more than she could resist. “When do you think you and Miss FitzSimmons will be back?” she asked.
“That depends on when Miss FitzSimmons would like to leave?” he said, turning to Violet and making it a question.
“Is nine o’clock too late?” she asked. “I have a few things to attend to before I go. The chickens are mine,” she explained.
He had no notion what care chickens required, but said, “Nine will be fine. It will give me a little time to look over the library and gallery, if Miss Beddoes permits?”
Her smile of relief was perfectly obvious. She found it not so difficult to entertain a viscount as she had feared. With a perfectly inedible breakfast on his plate, Havergal soon rose and asked directions to the library.
“Just down the hall, third door on the left. I’ll show you,” Lettie said.
The library was the best-furnished room in the house. The Beddoes gentlemen had always been scholars, and the requisite tomes in Latin, Greek, and French had a place on their shelves. The room, too, was lovely. A long wall of windows looked out on the home garden, where flowers were planted next to the house to conceal the rows of cabbages, carrots, onions, and beets beyond. A tall wall of irises stood against the ferny lace of asparagus plants, with sweet peas, lupines, and other modest blooms approaching close to the windows.
“This is charming!” Havergal exclaimed when they entered. He went to the window and looked out a moment, admiring the sun-drenched garden and spreading park beyond the garden.
“It is my favorite room in the house.”
After admiring the window view, he turned back to examine the room itself. A pair of long tables ran down the center, with lamps at either end and chairs all around. This seemed a good time to begin flattering her erudition. “Like a dining room for feasting on great works of literature,” he said.
There were more comfortable, stuffed chairs in the corners, and a pair drawn up beside the grate.
He strolled toward them. “I wager this is where you and Miss FitzSimmons curl up with a good book on a rainy afternoon.” A table between the two chairs held an assortment of magazines, a bonbon dish, and other telltale signs of frequent occupancy. He lifted a book, opened facedown on the table, and glanced at it.
“It is Frances Burney’s latest, The Wanderer," she said.
“This, I take it, is Miss FitzSimmons’s book. What are you reading?”
“I am reading that.”
“Ah.” It was going to be difficult praising her bluestockings if she admitted bluntly to reading Burney. “I rather thought from your conversation yesterday that you were interested in philosophy.”
“Oh no. I usually get my philosophy secondhand—that is, I used to, from Papa.” She looked rather wistfully at the shelves. “There is a great deal of worthwhile stuff here that I expect I ought to be reading, but somehow when evening comes, I seem too tired to tackle such weighty things.”
“If one is truly interested, I expect one would have to set oneself a course and start on it bright and early in the mornings. A sort of university at home.” He was willing, indeed eager, to pursue this, with himself as her mentor.
“Yes, I expect so,” she said, and revealed her total lack of interest by turning away. “I shall leave you to the books. The gallery is just across the hall. I will be happy to accompany you when you are ready. Our pictures, I fear, were not executed by artists you will immediately recognize, but are mostly family portraits by local painters. Unlike books, the works of the best painters are not so easily available.” She smiled and turned to leave.
Havergal felt he was getting along famously with Miss Beddoes and wanted to continue the conversation. “Wait! Let us go to the gallery now—if you are at leisure, that is,” he said, fearful that he was imposing.
“Yes, certainly.”
The gallery was not what Havergal would call a gallery. It was just a large rectangular room with portraits down either side and sofas and tables at either end. “This is Josiah Beddoes, the man who built Laurel Hall in 1695,” she said at the first portrait. A glowering visage with piercing eyes glared at them. “Josiah was an officer. He went to Ireland with William the Third and was rewarded with land here when they won the Battle of the Boyne.”
“Ah, a military family.”
“Just so, and this is Josiah’s son, Thomas. He was at the siege of Gibraltar. He was the last soldier. As the family seemed to produce only one male in each generation, they gave up soldiering and went to court. Till my grandfather’s time, that is. He had no use for London and turned into a country squire.”
They continued down the wall, looking at the pictures of ancestral squires and their wives. Havergal scraped his mind clean to conjure up compliments. By the time they got to Lettie’s father, he had run dry, so he turned to her favorite topic, young Tom. “Soon your brother must have his portrait taken,” he said.
“Not for a few years yet. He will wait till he has reached full manhood. He is only one and twenty.”
“He would be offended to hear you say he is not a man at one and twenty.”
“Men mature more slowly than women, I think” is all she said, but he soon read a slur into it.
“I hope you will remember to have him call on me when he goes up to London. I will be happy to help see him settled.”
“That is very kind of you.”
They were finished with the tour, and while Havergal felt they were on a slightly firmer footing, he wished to advance further. With a lady no course occurred to him except flirtation. “Is it not the custom for the young ladies of the house to have their likenesses taken?” he aske
d. “I don’t mean to deride your ancestors, but a few more pictures of ladies would improve your collection a hundredfold. If the daughters were all so pretty as yourself, Miss Beddoes ...” He gave a charming smile.
Lettie had virtually no experience in flirting, and none with such an accomplished flirt as Lord Havergal. She felt woefully out of her depth and stiffened in embarrassment. “It is the custom for ladies to have their pictures hung in their husbands’ galleries, I believe. If I marry, then I shall be painted.”
“If?” he exclaimed, feigning astonishment. “Surely you mean when, Miss Beddoes. The gents must be lined up for miles. I am surprised you have waited so long to accept—that is—not that I mean to imply you are—” He came to a stumbling halt. Dolt!
“I am seven and twenty, like you, Lord Havergal. Three months older, actually.”
“Is that all?” The horrible words were out, echoing endlessly in the still room, while Havergal stood, openmouthed at his own incredible gaucherie, and Miss Beddoes stared dumbly, as if she had been struck. “Not that I mean twenty-seven is old! Good gracious, I consider myself quite a young sprout, I promise you.” He laughed inanely to cover his gene.
As his full meaning sunk in, Lettie felt as if she had been bludgeoned with a hammer. Bad enough to be seven and twenty and single, but to hear from a gentleman that he took her for much older was a severe blow. “Yes, appearances to the contrary, that is all,” she said in a glacial tone. “A female of seven and twenty years is called a spinster, not a sprout,” she added, reigning in the urge to crown him.
He saw her jaws working in vexation, saw a moist sparkle in her eyes, and was seized with a dreadful premonition that she was going to cry. His warm sympathy was engaged at once, and he reached for her hands. “I’m sorry, Miss Beddoes. I ought to be drawn and quartered for that. It is this bizarre business of your being my guardian. I came expecting an old man, and having got over the shock of your being a woman—lady—I am still grappling with the fact that you are young.”