Amanda Scott - [Dangerous 04]

by Dangerous Lady

  “What I think,” Miss Dibble said severely, “is that you will do better to give no cause for speculation. They will look for anything amiss with you, that lot of precious Whigs, if only to cast disparagement on a proper Tory lady. If you are wise, you will wear nothing so informal as a demi-corset at court.”

  “I should think they must have learned the dangers of gossip by now,” Letty said thoughtfully as she moved to stand in front of the nearby cheval glass so that she could see herself full length. “Poor Lady Flora, to have been the butt of such wicked speculation, all because she had fallen ill.”

  “Who is Lady Flora?” Jenifry asked, catching her mistress’s eye in the mirror as she shook out the lilac challis gown Letty would wear to Buckingham Palace.

  With tart disapproval, Miss Dibble said, “Such a question springs most inappropriately from your lips, my girl.”

  Abashed, Jenifry begged pardon, but Letty only laughed again and said, “Don’t scold her, Elvira. You must know by now that I have been telling Jenifry my secrets since we were children. There is no reason, moreover, not to tell her about Lady Flora, particularly since her ladyship’s brother, Hastings, seems to have sent copies of all their mama’s letters to the Times for publication. Anyone who reads the newspapers knows nearly the whole sordid tale by now.”

  “The topic still is not suitable for polite conversation, Letitia.”

  “Very well, then, I promise that I shall not mention it to the queen,” Letty said. When Miss Dibble looked scandalized, she added with a repentant chuckle, “Truly, ma’am, I wish you would not excite yourself so easily. I rarely do anything in company to put you to the blush.”

  “That is true,” Miss Dibble admitted, “but you say such wicked things privately that I am constantly in fear that your tongue may slip on other occasions.”

  “I’m well aware of the position I shall occupy at court,” Letty said, holding up her arms so Jenifry could slip the gown over her head. When she emerged from the sea of lilac challis, she said, “Lady Flora is sister to the Marquess of Hastings, Jen. She served for years as a lady of the bedchamber to the queen’s mama, the Duchess of Kent. Victoria never liked her very much, though, and upon taking the throne, told Lord Melbourne to beware because Lady Flora was a spy who would repeat everything she heard to Sir John Conroy and the duchess. The queen’s ladies, in consequence, hold Lady Flora in great contempt.”

  Miss Dibble clicked her tongue in disapproval.

  Ignoring her, Letty went on. “At the beginning of this year, matters reached what Papa called a dangerous stage. Lady Flora spent the Christmas holidays at her home in Scotland, and when she returned, she did so in a post chaise that she shared with Sir John Conroy.”

  Jenifry gasped. “Lor’, then, she never!”

  “Oh yes, she did. They said afterward that for the previous month she had felt unwell, and indeed, on the very day of her return, she consulted the court doctor, Sir James Clark. The symptoms she complained of included a tendency to biliousness and pain low on her left side; but the worst one, from the court’s point of view, was that Sir James reported that her abdomen was considerably enlarged.”

  “Letitia, really!” Flushing deeply, Miss Dibble clutched a hand to her breast and said in the sternest tone she had yet employed, “This conversation must cease at once. You have no business to be talking of such private things.”

  “But isn’t that just the point?” Letty demanded. “They took one look at her belly, for goodness’ sake, and jumped to the worst possible conclusion, when the poor woman was quite ill! The queen and her ladies detected the strange alteration in her figure at once, Jen, and it was not long before they demanded that she be banished to protect their purity.”

  “Is it true, then, that she was sick all along?” Although Jenifry had dutifully twitched Letty’s skirts into place, adjusted her sleeves, and begun to fasten the tiny buttons up the back of the gown, she clearly was paying close heed to the tale.

  “Indeed, she was sick,” Letty assured her. “However, before they discovered that trifling fact, the queen had accused her of being with child by Conroy. He is a firmly fixed bosom bow of the Duchess of Kent, you see, and Victoria despises him because between them, he and the duchess kept her closely restricted during her adolescence. Some say that Victoria has actually banished him from court.”

  Miss Dibble said quickly, “Not from court, Letitia, but only from her private rooms. He was accustomed in earlier years to enjoy quite intimate discussions with her, you see, and doubtless expected to become the true power behind the throne. Really, my dear, if you must repeat gossip, you should get the facts right.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Letty said with a mischievous twinkle. Restraining a base impulse, she forbore to point out that Miss Dibble seemed even better acquainted with the details than she was. “In any case, Jen,” she went on, “Sir James Clark next requested that Lady Flora allow him to examine her with her stays off—”

  Jenifry gasped again. “Lor’!”

  “Needless to say, Lady Flora refused, but that only made things worse. Victoria banished the poor woman from her presence, and it was at that point, I believe, that the Duchess of Kent discovered the whole sordid tale.”

  “If Lady Flora was her bedchamber lady, she must have been vexed,” Jenifry said, hanging on every word now, her duties forgotten. “What did the duchess do?”

  “She said that if Lady Flora was not welcome, then she, too, would stay away. She also discharged Sir James, who was her doctor as well as the queen’s.”

  “And then?”

  “Well, I think Lady Flora must have been utterly distraught at having caused such a stir, because she agreed then to let both Sir James and a second doctor examine her. What’s more, she emerged triumphant from the examination. The doctors issued a certificate declaring that they found no grounds to suspect that she was then or ever had been with child.”

  “Lor’,” Jenifry said softly. “Did the queen apologize to her after that?”

  “She did, but the apology came to naught.”

  “Letitia, it is not your place to criticize the queen,” Miss Dibble said sharply.

  “I’m not criticizing her, ma’am. In my opinion, the blame falls upon any number of folks. At all events, Jen, the queen expressed contrition and Lady Flora assured her that for the sake of the Duchess of Kent she would contain her wounded feelings instead of voicing them to all and sundry.”

  “Then it all came right,” Jenifry said, gesturing for Letty to sit at the dressing table so she could smooth a few curly auburn wisps that had escaped her coiffure.

  “It might well have done so but for a few awkward details,” Letty said as she obeyed. “Unfortunately, the queen retained private doubts about Lady Flora’s virtue. Worse, the doctors apparently admitted to Lord Melbourne that they, too, still had doubts. To make matters even worse, a number of troublemakers aligned themselves with Lady Flora. Many were Tories, I’m sorry to say, who wanted to discredit the Whig government.”

  “Oh, dear,” Jenifry said.

  “Then, Sir John Conroy, who Papa says is the greatest troublemaker in all London, incited Lady Flora to fling fire and flame everywhere she went. And, of course,” Letty added, “there was also the duchess. She believed it was all a plot to discredit her by casting aspersions on Sir John and her favorite bedchamber lady.”

  “What happened next, then?”

  “The letters happened next,” Letty said. “Lady Flora must have written to everyone in her family, but most importantly to her brother, who, as I told you, is the Marquess of Hastings. He is an excitable individual at the best of times, they say, but his brain then was more than ordinarily enfevered by an attack of influenza. He flew into a frenzy and demanded audiences with both Melbourne and the queen. When that course proved unproductive, he apparently wrote letters to everyone he knew. The Times has already published some of them, unfortunately.”

  “Truly? The newspaper really published their private let
ters?”

  “Very private, some of them.”

  “Lor’.” Jenifry carefully set Letty’s straw bonnet in place, then stepped back, cocking her head and narrowing her eyes to examine her handiwork in the dressing-table mirror. When she nodded approval, Letty stood and turned to examine herself from tip to toe in the cheval glass again.

  The lilac-colored dress had a plain high corsage trimmed at the neck with a frilly white tulle ruff. Its long sleeves were fashionably tight, with narrow bands of white lace at the wrists. The skirt flared wide, and although the waistline was slightly higher than Letty’s natural one, as fashion demanded, the wide, dark lilac belt emphasized her narrow waist nonetheless.

  Miss Dibble had insisted that she wear morning dress to meet the queen’s mistress of robes, but they would take another, more elaborate gown for her to wear if Victoria desired her to take up her duties at once.

  Drawing on a pair of lilac kid gloves, Letty stood still while Jenifry draped an ermine-trimmed lilac pelerine over her shoulders. Then, with a last look in the glass, she grinned impishly at her two companions. “Will I do, do you think?”

  Miss Dibble said sternly, “You look quite charmingly, as usual, Letitia, but I pray that you will show the good sense to leave your levity at home.”

  “I shall be as solemn as a funeral mute, ma’am, I promise you.”

  Miss Dibble clicked her tongue again, then shot the giggling Jenifry a look.

  Sobering at once, Jenifry said anxiously, “I’ll warrant your knees must be quaking, Miss Letty. Mine surely would be if I was going to meet the queen.”

  Letty picked up her lacy reticule but smiled at the girl who had become such a close friend over the years. “You know that I have practically no sensibility, Jen. What’s more, you must recall that I have met Her Majesty before, first when she was still the Princess Victoria, and again last year after her coronation.”

  “Still, miss, she is the queen.”

  “So she is,” Letty agreed, “and that means one must approach her with all due pomp and circumstance, but she is still quite young and even shorter than I am, for she is not even five feet tall. Moreover, I have lived with pomp and circumstance all my life, thanks to Papa’s being with the embassy in Paris, so ceremony does not frighten me. Nor do even the most pompous heads of state. And few people, you know, pay heed to the ladies of the court in any event.”

  She knew, as she said the words, that she was understating the case, for never before in Britain’s history had the royal bedchamber ladies drawn such interest. No doubt the attention was due to Victoria’s youth and to a general perception—in Tory circles particularly—that the Whig ladies with whom the young queen had surrounded herself must exert undue influence over her.

  The two most powerful Tories in the land, the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, had requested two years previously, at the onset of her reign, that she appoint a few Tory ladies to balance the mix. Victoria had refused their request outright, preferring to remain surrounded by ladies friendly to, and frequently, even related to, Prime Minister Melbourne and some of the most powerful Whig families. Only as a cushion to increasing public disapproval had she reluctantly agreed to appoint a lady from one of the Tory families, and although she had chosen an influential family it was one that for many years had played a small role in politics. Therefore, Letty had no illusions about the position she was about to assume.

  The Marquess of Jervaulx had explained these details to her, and in his usual frank manner had said, “Victoria thinks you will cause her no trouble, and my expectation is the same. She will underestimate you, however, because you will rarely draw notice—no more, in fact, than a new chair or painting. Naturally, people will talk about you at first, but only briefly, before they take pains to ignore you. You will be there only to appease the more outspoken grumblers, but you can help our side by showing Her Majesty that we Tories are not monsters but only ordinary subjects with opinions that frequently differ from those of her favored Whigs.”

  Letty was still remembering the gist of their several such conversations when she entered her town carriage with her two faithful companions in attendance. She settled herself as comfortably as her tight stays allowed while her footman carefully bestowed the box containing her second dress in the boot. She felt the sway of the carriage as he swung himself up behind, and almost immediately thereafter, heard the coachman give his team the office to start.

  As the carriage passed out of the courtyard, she glanced back at the huge house. Jervaulx London House was impressive by anyone’s standard, but today Letty felt as if it were her anchor, as if it would keep her steady when she entered the unfamiliar new world of Victoria’s court.

  She was not nervous. Indeed, she could not remember ever having been a victim of her nerves. Instead, she felt excitement and anticipation, not unlike what she had felt the first time she had come to England without her parents. At nine, she had looked forward to spending a few months in Cornwall with her maternal grandparents and her much older cousin, Charley. Although the visit had resulted instead in tragedy, adventure, and a more intimate acquaintance with smugglers, wreckers, and spies than her fond parents or anyone else could have anticipated, Letty had enjoyed her adventures. She expected to enjoy her service to the queen, too, although she doubted that it would prove nearly as exciting.

  The carriage approached the palace from the north, rattling along the gravel drive, passing through the magnificent Marble Arch—erected as a memorial to the victories of Trafalgar and Waterloo—to the entrance front. Drawing up beneath a two-story portico of coupled Corinthian columns, the carriage swayed when Letty’s footman jumped down to open the door and put down the step.

  Jenifry, last to enter, was the first to emerge. Miss Dibble followed, and then Letty accepted the footman’s outstretched hand and, carefully managing her skirt and reticule, stepped down to the pavement. Not one of the colorfully-uniformed guardsmen standing stiffly outside boxes that punctuated the colonnade screening the inner courtyard, so much as looked their way or moved to speak to them.

  Letty said to her coachman, “Wait here, Jonathan, until we learn where you are to go and when you should collect us.”

  “Aye, m’lady. Leastwise, I’ll wait till they sends me away.”

  “Perhaps, in that event, Lucas should stay here with you,” Letty said.

  Miss Dibble protested, “Lucas must attend you, Letitia, both to lend you consequence and to carry your second gown.”

  “They will hardly let me keep my footman with me when I am attending Her Majesty, or when I meet with the mistress of robes,” Letty pointed out. “However, Lucas had better carry the gown inside, I expect, and I daresay someone will know where to send for Jonathan when we want him. Come along for now, then, Lucas. Since no one is moving to stop us, I presume that we are to use the main entrance. Ah, yes, I see someone coming out to meet us now.”

  A liveried porter of indeterminate age and magisterial bearing approached them without haste, causing Letty to stifle a sudden urge to chuckle. “He looks as toplofty as Grandpapa’s butler, Forbes,” she said. “I thought I’d never see Forbes’s equal for depressing pretension, but I am very glad we have an appointment here today. I am Lady Letitia Deverill,” she said to the man when he was near enough to hear. “I am to see the Duchess of Sutherland. Show him the letter, Elvira.”

  Miss Dibble did so, and without a word the porter signed to a minion to hold the doors open for them. Inside, Letty and her companions found themselves in a grand hall sixty feet long, forty feet wide, and twenty feet high. At the far end rose an imposing winged, white-marble staircase with a broad center flight and two slightly narrower returning flights.

  Noting her gaze, the porter said austerely, “That staircase leads to the state apartments, your ladyship, but if you will be so kind as to follow me, I shall take you to the Duchess of Sutherland.”

  Letty smiled and thanked him, adding, “My companion will accompany me, of cours
e, but perhaps you will be kind enough to have someone direct my servants to a room where they can await my return.”

  “Indeed, my lady,” he said with an imperious gesture toward another of his minions. “Naturally, we have allotted a chamber to your use. They can wait there.”

  “Excellent,” Letty said.

  He spoke briefly to the palace servant, then nodded to Letty and said, “If you and your companion will follow me, my lady.”

  Although the route by which he took them was not as elaborately decorated or as elegantly appointed as the magnificent grand hall and its impressive staircase, the difference did not dismay Letty. She had much experience with stately homes and knew that often the corridors and rooms beyond the state apartments were austere to the point of bleakness. Apparently Buckingham Palace was no different in this respect from any other great house.

  They passed through several long, dimly lighted corridors and up a flight of narrow but carpeted stairs, emerging on a landing with four closed doors. A footman beside the one directly in front of them leapt to open it, and they entered a pleasant, sunny, pink-and-pale green sitting room, presently occupied by two ladies.

  Letty recognized Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland, as the elder of the two. The duchess, nearing her thirty-third year, had grown plumper since the last time Letty had seen her, but she still retained a great portion of her justly acclaimed beauty. As a granddaughter of that diamond of the first water, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Harriet Elizabeth Georgiana Howard had taken London by storm on her entrance into society. Marriage to Earl Gower, the heir to the Sutherland dukedom, had only increased her stature, and now she occupied one of the most powerful positions in the country as mistress of robes to the young queen. When the door opened, the duchess was sitting on a pink velvet claw-footed sofa. She put down the book she had been reading and looked expectantly at the intruders.

  Her companion, a younger woman, who sat bolt upright on a scroll-ended bench in a nearby window embrasure, continued knitting placidly. The results of her labor spilled over her lap to the floor in a riot of bright colors. Either she had not heard the door or she had chosen to ignore the interruption.