A Commercial Enterprise

by Sandra Heath

  This, he pointed out, would also be to the Lexham’s advantage, for the ladies were all influential. If they were pleased, then so also were the gentlemen—such things did not work in reverse, for what pleased gentlemen very rarely appeared to please their respectable womenfolk.

  He also advised Caroline to have places at the table marked as being reserved, for in this way unwanted persons could be denied entry. If one wished to have respectable ladies as guests, one could not risk them being exposed to the presence of Cyprians. It was a simple matter for the notices to be removed from the places if suitable persons wished to dine, and thus all risk of doubtful respectability was eliminated.

  This ruse worked excellently in Paris, and must therefore work equally well in London, and was especially advisable in an establishment which was in its infancy and therefore had a reputation to create. She took his advice, bearing in mind Dominic’s recent scheming, for respectability was all important if she was to meet the terms of her uncle’s will.

  True to his word, Hal had quitted the Oxenford and taken an apartment at the Lexham. His arrival, however, inevitably meant frequent visits from Marcia, who swept in every morning, issuing orders and generally behaving as if she were the lady of the house. She played her cards with great care, making all she could of Jennifer’s guilty conscience. No one could have been sweeter or more patient than Lady Chaddington, no one could have been more willing to be of assistance to the bride during the frequent rehearsals which now took place.

  Each day the bridesmaids came, and the bridal procession was to be seen practicing descending the grand staircase, and Marcia was to be seen at the foot of the steps, advising and instructing as if she had all the time in the world. Caroline found her conduct contemptible after her attempt to ruin the wedding arrangements by interfering with Gunter’s. But Marcia was a consummate actress, and no one could have guessed the truth about her as she smiled at Jennifer or leaned adoringly on Hal’s arm.

  She was so very credible, superbly beautiful, and every inch a lady of rank and fashion; to Hal she obviously appeared to be the perfect bride, and if the way he glanced at her was anything to go by, that was exactly what he intended her to be. Toward Caroline her conduct was publicly impeccable, containing just the correct degree of courtesy one would have expected considering Jennifer’s frequent statements that Caroline was her very dearest friend. Marcia had to gauge her behavior very precisely, according Caroline neither too little nor too much in the way of condescension.

  Caroline’s position was a difficult one to define as far as society was concerned, for she was well connected, being so closely related to the Earl of Lexham, and she was acknowledged to be socially acceptable by both the Seymours and Lord Carstairs, but at the same time she was mistress of a commercial enterprise, which was hardly a ladylike pursuit. All in all, Marcia had to tread very carefully, which feat she achieved superbly well in public—in private it was quite another matter.

  Only once did the two women encounter each other when no one else was present, and then Marcia made no pretense whatsoever. Her eyes were incredibly cold and her face dangerously still, and she spoke very softly indeed. “I have not done with you yet, of that you may be sure.”

  But guarding against Marcia was only one of Caroline’s worries on the eve of the wedding day. The last guest went up to his room, holding aloft the candlestick he had been handed by the footman in the vestibule. The quivering light threw monstrous shadows over the walls as Mrs. Hollingsworth said good night to Caroline and then proceeded to her little parlor, where no doubt the ardent and attentive Gaspard would be waiting to take supper à deux with his unlikely quarry.

  Caroline smiled as she watched the housekeeper hurry away, her keys chinking busily. Unlikely indeed, for who would have thought that the dapper, excitable Frenchman would have been so inexorably drawn to the prim, correct housekeeper? And who would have expected this feeling to be reciprocated? There was no doubt that this was the case, for Mrs. Hollingsworth had rather too swiftly succumbed to his wish to take his meals alone with her, something Caroline had certainly never expected. Now he was nearly always to be found in her parlor when he was not in the kitchens, and it was here that he seemed to be at his happiest.

  He was a creature of sudden moods, lapsing into unexpected and dark silences which only the housekeeper appeared able to laugh him out of, and this she could do with ease. Soon he would be smiling and singing again, and glancing adoringly at his beloved Madame H.

  Caroline would have been very happy for Mrs. Hollingsworth, of whom she was very fond, had it not been for her own nagging suspicions that Hal’s activities were in some way connected with Gaspard—which led inevitably to the possibility that the chef was involved with the Bonapartist plots against the Duke of Wellington. When Gaspard was happy and smiling, these suspicions seemed unbelievable, but when he was quiet and withdrawn, or when he was with the unpleasant Boisville, then those suspicions did not seem quite as wild.

  She wanted to ask Hal about it, but somehow she knew that she could not, for when she had given him her word that she would do all she could to ease Jennifer’s mind, it had somehow been implicit that she would never again mention the subject. She did not know exactly why she felt this, but she did, and she knew that her instinct was correct; it would not be the thing at all to say anything more.

  The housekeeper disappeared toward her parlor, and Caroline returned to her own apartments, intent upon going over the arrangements for the wedding one last time before retiring. Wearily she sat at the escritoire by the light of a candle, taking out all the papers on which she had written seemingly endless lists and notes. One by one she ticked off the items.

  The white coach had been attended to, the flowers ordered from Covent Garden—including the extra ferns and garlands Gaspard had advised for the dining room—and the cake had been delivered from Gunter’s, that establishment being anxious not to find itself left with a specially ordered item decorated with the heraldic emblems of the Seymour and Carstairs families.

  Jennifer’s silver tissue wedding gown had been delivered from her couturière together with the primrose and lilac gowns to be worn by her many bridesmaids, and on the same day Caroline’s new gowns had also been delivered, although they had not arrived in so grand a style, being brought to the rear of the house. But at least she could appear in something other than gray wool or turquoise lawn, and as she sat in the candlelight, her new white muslin gown was blushed to the palest of pinks.

  “How very pleasing you look in white, Caro.”

  She turned with a gasp to see Hal leaning against the doorjamb. He had returned from an evening engagement and was dressed formally in a black velvet coat and silk breeches. His waistcoat was of white satin and his cravat edged with lace. His dark hair was a little ruffled, and this added an attractively casual note to his otherwise distinguished appearance. He smiled, coming further into the room, dropping his gloves and tricorn hat upon a table.

  “Good evening, Sir Henry.”

  “Good evening, Caro.”

  She wondered why he had chosen to come to see her, and at such an hour. “Is there something—”

  “I have merely come to wish you well for tomorrow. Since I have lodged here I have taken the opportunity of observing you, Caro Lexham, and what I have seen has impressed me greatly. You have taken to the running of this house as if you have known no other life. In short, you appear to have been born to be the mistress of a great London mansion.”

  “I think that most of the praise should go to Mrs. Hollingsworth, for without her I could not—”

  “Nonsense, you fully deserve the praise. Mrs. Hollingsworth is no doubt extremely efficient, but she can only respond to the lady of the house, and in your case that lady is very significant.”

  “I think you are too kind, Sir Henry.”

  He shook his head. “No, Caro, that is one thing I am not. In fact, I have not been at all kind, a lamentable lapse on my part.”

&nb
sp; “I don’t know what you mean.”

  His hazel eyes moved over her face in the candlelight. “No, I don’t suppose you do, and in a way I hope you never understand, for that would be a welcome solution.” He smiled then. “Forgive me, I think I may have enjoyed a rather too convivial evening.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Don’t know me too well, Caro, a fellow likes to retain a little mystery.”

  She smiled.

  “I came here tonight not only to wish you well, but also to thank you.”

  “Thank me?”

  He nodded. “For all you have done for Jennifer. I know that you have toiled as much because you love her as because you need to make a success of this venture. Whatever happens tomorrow, you will have done all you possibly can to make my sister’s wedding day the most splendid occasion.”

  She lowered her eyes then, unable to help wondering if he would still be thanking her at this time the next day, for by then there was no doubt that Marcia would have made some move against her. “I—I just hope that all goes well, Sir Henry,” she said at last, raising her gaze slowly to his face.

  “Oh, I don’t think anything will go drastically wrong,” he said softly. “Of that you can be sure.”

  Could she be so sure? She doubted it very much..

  Something in her glance drew him a little closer suddenly, and he put his hand to her chin, stroking her skin gently with his thumb. “How very vulnerable you are at times, Caro, which fact I find quite irresistible—and at this very moment I do not feel inclined to restrain my baser instincts.”

  He slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her toward him and kissing her on the lips, his fingers moving in the warm hair at the nape of her neck. A wild, warm desire coursed through her, a desire to which she momentarily yielded, but then she drew firmly away. He did not mean the kiss, it was merely a passing fancy which would be forgotten within a moment.

  “Why, Sir Henry,” she said lightly, endeavoring to sound merely amused. “You must indeed have enjoyed a convivial evening.”

  “I did indeed, and for the sweetest of moments I cherished a hope that it was about to continue.”

  “That would not be at all the thing, sir.”

  “So it seems. Pray forgive the trespass.”

  “Forgive it? Why, I have already forgotten it, Sir Henry.”

  He raised an eyebrow at that, smiling a little. “Have you, be damned? I must be losing my touch.”

  “Good night, Sir Henry.”

  A light passed through his eyes and he gave a low laugh. “Good night, Caro.”

  Chapter 25

  It seemed that she had barely fallen asleep before it was time to rise again. Mrs. Hollingsworth brought her a silver pot of freshly made coffee and, as she set it down, announced that the menu cards, which had had to be hastily reordered when Gaspard came to the hotel, had not been delivered as promised. Nor had the flowers arrived from Covent Garden.

  With a groan, Caroline slipped quickly from the bed. Mrs. Hollingsworth hurried away to do her own tasks, and Caroline washed and dressed as swiftly as possible, for if those two vital items had not been delivered by the time she left her apartment, she would have to go out to see what had happened to them.

  As she stole a moment or two to enjoy the excellent coffee, the lower servants, who had risen at five to commence their work, were just finishing their early tasks. In the main reception room the fires had been raked out and laid anew, and damp sand had been scattered on the carpets to settle the dust before brushing. Everything was attended to in silence, so that not a single guest was disturbed by all the activity.

  In the kitchens Gaspard and his brigade had commenced the preparation of the wedding feast, which work would go on at the same time as the guests’ breakfasts were begun. So, while truffles were being cleaned and ortolans stuffed, so also were being made ready the bacon and eggs, kidneys, omelettes, and kedgeree which would soon grace the tables of the dining room and private apartments.

  Everyone worked swiftly and efficiently, with only Boisville apparently having little to do for the time being. Mrs. Hollingsworth was curious about this, until Gaspard pointed out that in the absence of a glacier from Gunter’s, it would be Boisville’s task to do the ice carving, at which art he was very skilled indeed. She accepted this explanation, but she could not help thinking that Boisville was apparently a very dispensable entremettier. The housekeeper had come to dislike Boisville intensely, for she had swiftly realized that it was after speaking with him that Gaspard frequently fell into his quiet, withdrawn moods. However, this morning Boisville had not approached Gaspard, who was fully occupied with all the preparations, and who was enjoying the hard work so much that he sang to himself as he inspected the freshly delivered Severn salmon.

  Her coffee finished, Caroline soon ascertained that neither the menu cards nor the flowers had arrived in the meantime, and so, as the rest of the staff sat down in the servants’ hall to a well-earned breakfast, she set off to Piccadilly to find a hackney carriage. It would not have done at all to be seen traveling in such a lowly vehicle, and so she went about it as discreetly as possible, trusting that no one saw the mistress of the Lexham Hotel engaged in such an exercise!

  The menu cards were ready and so she easily accomplished the first part of her errand, then went on to Covent Garden. The market had been busy for many hours already and the noise and bustle was considerable as porters with baskets on their heads jostled and shouted, as prices were argued, and as wagons and carts struggled to pass through narrow ways.

  The little single-story shops and open-fronted booths were doing a brisk trade and such was the crush that it was impossible for the hackney to proceed further. Bidding the coachman to wait for her, she alighted and went on foot into the flower market. She stepped carefully over the dirty cobbles where rotting fruit and vegetables had been carelessly thrown, and at last she approached the man who had undertaken to provide the flowers, ferns, and garlands for the wedding.

  He was a portly fellow with a bulbous nose and a battered top hat which could have done with a good brushing, but he was surrounded by the most beautiful flowers in the whole market. Buckets filled with daffodils, narcissi, and tulips cluttered the cobbles, together with bowls of roses and carnations from the market garden hothouses upriver from the city at Chelsea. To the rear of the booth, the man’s assistants were employed making garlands, their bowed figures almost concealed by large wooden pails of ferns and other greenery.

  Caroline hardly dared to ask him about the delivery for the Lexham Hotel, for a dreadful thought had occurred to her: had Marcia chosen this way for her next move? But to her overwhelming relief, the man immediately assured her that the flowers had been sent off barely ten minutes before, the delay having been beyond his control as he had not received his own order until late, the market gardeners having had some difficulty owing to awkward tides and so on. Caroline gladly accepted his explanation, for all that mattered to her was that the order was en route for Mayfair Street.

  She retraced her steps to the hackney, but when she got there she halted in dismay, for there was no sign of it. She glanced swiftly around, thinking that she had mistaken the place, but no, the hackney had simply gone! Desperately she cast around for another, for she must return as quickly as possible. As if to emphasize her predicament, the church bells chose that moment to chime the half hour; it was already half past nine and she was stranded on the opposite side of London!

  She did not see the smart red curricle emerge slowly from a side street, its high-stepping team of bright chestnuts driven with great skill by the young gentleman at the ribbons. He was fashionably dressed and wore his top hat tipped back on his honey-colored hair. He seemed to be searching the busy street, and then he saw her. “Cousin Caroline?” It was Dominic.

  She turned in surprise, hearing his voice above the noise. What a strange coincidence it was that he should happen to drive along this very street at the time that she was there. She greet
ed him warily. “Good morning, my lord.”

  He halted the curricle in the middle of the street, ignoring the angry shouts from the other vehicles which could not now pass by. “So cool still, cousin? I had hoped we were friends now. Why are you alone here at this hour?”

  The complaints were becoming angrier as he waited deliberately for her to reply, and she glanced uncomfortably at the other vehicles. “Had you not better clear the way, my lord?”

  “When you have answered my question. You should not be in this disreputable neighborhood on your own, Caroline, it is hardly advisable.”

  “I had to come because the flowers had not been delivered for the wedding.”

  “Ah, then your error is understood and forgiven. I trust that you did not walk all the way, but the apparent absence of any vehicle suggests that that has to be the case.”

  She was suspicious suddenly, sensing that he knew about the hackney. “I did not walk, my lord, I hired a carriage.”

  He smiled a little, still ignoring the shouts and waved fists. “Is that a delicate way of admitting that you committed the heinous sin of traveling in a hackney? Tut, tut, my dear Caroline, that is not at all the ton. However, I am pleased to be at your disposal and would be honored to convey you back to Mayfair Street. Will you accept my offer?”

  She looked up at him, knowing that this was a charade he had deliberately staged. He must have seen her alight from the hackney and he had dismissed it, fully intending to just happen along. But why?

  He held out an elegantly gloved hand. “Come on, this is hardly the time to demur, cousin; you are in need of transport and I can provide it.”

  He was right and she knew it, and so she accepted his hand. He drew her easily up to the seat beside him, flicking the whip so that the red curricle leaped away at a spanking pace. She clung fearfully to the seat as he negotiated a corner.