An Untitled Lady: A Novel

by Nicky Penttila

  Surprisingly, Deacon made the opening salvo. “Mama, Nash has joined a select committee. He’s charged with keeping the peace.”

  “Is that safe?” She touched the corner of her mouth in a pantomime of agitation.

  Miss Wetherby’s head snapped to face him. Reappraising the merchant? For a moment he warmed himself with pride at his conscription.

  “Nothing to worry about.” Heywood’s voice carried that tone used to calm small children. Nash didn’t know how Mama could stand it. “We don’t do the battling, only send the troops out. If need be, of course.”

  Miss Wetherby’s steady brows pinched in the tiniest bit. “Manchester has so many criminals you must call out an army?”

  His pride sank to his shoes.

  Wetherby answered his niece. “It’s the lower orders. They seek to break machines and steal from better men than they.”

  Heywood held up a hand. “Too strong.”

  “Is it? Looks like a return of the risings of Seventeen.”

  “Which were put down quickly. And only the guilty workers were put down,” Heywood soothed Mama.

  Put to death, he meant. The bite of turbot lay like ashes in Nash’s mouth. He swallowed it down. “I heard it was spies for the crown that started the tinder.”

  “Whyever would they?” Deacon’s brow knitted.

  “To earn their keep,” Nash bit out. “No revolt, no pay for spies.” He’d known some spies in the Navy, nasty buggers.

  “But it isn’t spies inciting these blighted meetings spreading across Lancashire.” Heywood pointed his fork at Nash. “Ten thousand at the one in Manchester this past winter alone.”

  “I observed that meeting, and while the words were strong, the people didn’t appear violent,” Nash said.

  “Perhaps the spies were away that day?” Wetherby’s baiting skills needed work, though they made Deacon smile.

  Deacon looked to Heywood. “But still you formed a committee? Sidmouth must be quaking.”

  “Trumped-up aristo.” Wetherby dismissed the chief of the country’s Home Office with a flick of his twice-ruffled wrist.

  Deacon signaled for the next course. “I for one don’t wish any trouble. The last thing I need is my tenants up in arms. As Nash is forever reminding me, I am responsible for them. Noblesse oblige, and all.”

  “Nonsense.” Wetherby straightened his cuff. “Noblesse, c’est toute.”

  Mama clapped twice in appreciation of his witticism, but her smile did not reach her eyes. As her gazed traveled the circuit from Wetherby, Deacon, Heywood, Miss Wetherby, to him, her expression clouded.

  “I must admit, I did not arrange this supper, nor was I consulted on the guest listing. Shaftsbury drew it up himself, and Perkins did the favors. I cannot fathom why we all are drawn together tonight.”

  “It’s for me, isn’t it, Mama?”

  “Of course, Deacon dear. But Mr. Heywood, while a very old family friend, has no special connection to you. He’s been closer to Nash these past years.” She pursed her lips, looking at Wetherby.

  That man tittered, an oddly feminine sound in this room of solid timbers and armaments. “Too true. Your husband, rest his soul, did not invite me to ordinary events. Why should I be here now?” He was so magnanimous she patted his hand in praise.

  Mama continued down the table. “And you, Miss Wetherby?”

  Nash felt the lady stiffen, her hands quickly dropping below the table to twist at her napkin. She must have looked to Deacon, for Mama flicked her gaze in that direction, mouth thinning in calculation.

  “Miss Wetherby has aspirations to join the family, Mama. Sadly, father neglected to inform us of that fact.”

  Everyone at table and standing around it turned to stare at the lady. She looked into her lap. Then snapped her head up, resting her gaze on Mama.

  “Impossible,” Wetherby declared.

  Mama only sighed. “I wouldn’t put it past him. Poor George.”

  Nash felt compelled to correct their impressions. “She has letters from father, Mama. Letters that reach back a decade or more.”

  “I don’t doubt it. The man took an unhealthy interest in you from the start. Apparently, he always wanted a girl. Obstinate creature.”

  Wetherby finally cast a glance at his niece. “Why ever would a peer choose to correspond with you? You’re nothing to him. Less than nothing.”

  She opened her lips, but no sound emerged. She closed them again, swallowing hard, her hand reaching for her throat protectively. “He called himself my godfather.”

  “So he was.” Mama turned to Wetherby. “A quiet affair, at the chapel at Wetherby. She was a bit older than she should have been, or bigger at least.”

  Miss Wetherby’s voice was stronger now. “The earl—the previous earl—arranged for my schooling. After my parents’ deaths. His influence helped turn me out as a lady.”

  “What do you know of being a lady?” Wetherby’s anger took Nash by surprise, but did not rattle Miss Wetherby.

  “I was born one, and raised one. And nearly always act as one.”

  “Hear, hear.” Deacon raised his glass to her.

  Wetherby scowled. “Don’t encourage her.”

  Her gasp knifed Nash’s ears. He couldn’t let that pass. He’d had well enough of Wetherby.

  “What do you mean by that?” His protest drew all eyes to him: Mama’s confused, Deacon’s amused, Wetherby’s infuriated, and the lady’s prepared for more pain.

  Wetherby shrugged and turned his attention back to Mama.

  Deacon tried to smooth things over. “Not just family. It seems she’s to be my wife.” He tossed the word out lightly, as if marriage were the biggest joke in the world.

  Wetherby burst out laughing, the sound ringing to the candles above their heads. “A marvelous joke. Did your brother set it up?”

  “My first thought, too. But no, it was my dear papa’s doing.”

  Wetherby sat up straight, choking off his laugh. He stared at Miss Wetherby a long moment, and then turned away in dismissal. “She does her family proud.”

  Mama set her glass on the table with an audible clink. “Lord Wetherby, I must protest. How could you say such a thing of your brother’s child?”

  “She isn’t my brother’s child.”

  Miss Wetherby’s hand went to her throat again.

  A clink of silver on plate reminded them that theirs weren’t the only ears listening in the room. No one spoke until the young rabbit had been served, and Mama sent the staff from the room.

  “A by-blow?” Deacon’s eyes lit up, as if the circumstances of her birth were the only thing that could interest him about Madeline Wetherby.

  “Worse. The daughter of no one.”

  “Explain, if you please.” Mama tapped her mouth with her napkin, and then rested her hands in her lap, as if to give a lecture—or receive one.

  Wetherby obliged. “As you know, Lady Shaftsbury, my brother’s wife refused to whelp him the requisite pups.”

  “She didn’t refuse, she miscarried. And speak of the dead with more reverence, if you please.”

  “Beg your pardon, ma’am,” Wetherby drawled. He looked pleased that he had their undivided attention, and spoke loud enough that those servants listening behind the doors could easily make him out. “The lady finally did bring a child out into the world, but sadly he did not last a week. Shortly after, while riding back from town, the family carriage ran over a farmer’s daughter. Those sort like to walk in the roads as if they own them, you know.” He shrugged.

  “This woman died on the spot, but the babe in her arms was tossed free, and unharmed, they say. My lady sister-in-law took that child as hers. This Madeline.”

  “That poor Lady Wetherby. To keep such a secret.”

  “What about the babe’s other family?” Deacon leaned forward, rapt.

  “My brother paid them handsomely. I’m sure they didn’t miss her.”

  Nash was sure they did, and their mother more.

 
; Deacon’s eyes flashed with his mind’s humming. “So they adopted the girl, and then had a boy of their own. Isn’t that always what happens?”

  “Exactly. Nihil et nemo.” Nothing, no one.

  Madeline Wetherby lurched to her feet, swaying. The four men at table scrambled to their own feet. Nash had no doubt all were wondering the same thing: Does one stand when a lady does if she’s suddenly no longer a lady?

  Mama rapped her knuckles on the table. “Sit down at once. Don’t you dare faint; it’s been done already once today.” The girl sat down, her breath escaping in a gust, like a sail pulled too fast on the line.

  Nash didn’t like the looks the others were giving her.

  “She is still a Wetherby.” He wished he could stretch his arms across the table and slap some sense into Wetherby’s too-fine façade.

  “Not by blood.”

  Mama’s hand fluttered over her chest. It was her reaction Nash feared the most, he realized.

  “This changes nothing,” he said, rather too forcefully.

  “I don’t know, dearest. What could Shaftsbury have been thinking?”

  He had to wonder the same thing. His father had been a stickler for “pure blood,” critical of any news of a dilution of the peerage. Or was he? “I suppose that is why he felt responsible for her.”

  “He needn’t.” Wetherby sliced a bite of the tender rabbit and ate it. “Her kind always lands on its feet. Look how high she’s risen.”

  “Take care, Lord Wetherby. My father was in trade as well.”

  Both her sons turned to their mother in shock. Deacon recovered first. “So the old codger did have something of the democrat in him.”

  Miss Wetherby held her hands in her lap as if squeezing coal to make a diamond. “I don’t believe you,” she said, looking directly at her uncle. If he was her uncle.

  “Careful what you say, girl. Accusing a peer of lying is a transportable offense.”

  Heywood seemed to rouse himself at last. “Now, now, we’re all friends here.” He drew his hand down the length of his beard, a sure sign of nerves. “In fact, I now know why I was invited tonight.”

  Deacon’s eyebrows arched. “I hardly know if I can stomach another surprise.”

  “Nothing like. In my earlier days, I served as solicitor for the great families, you’ll recall. I drew up the adoption agreement for Miss Wetherby, and served as parish witness at the christening. Madeline wasn’t your first name, you know.” He wagged his head slowly side to side.

  She slowly mirrored the movement. “You don’t say.”

  “Right. So I’m here as confirmation, so to speak.” He patted her arm, an Iago to her Desdemona.

  She started at the touch, and pulled away, toward Nash. “She wasn’t my mother? My mother was dead? I have two dead mothers?”

  “They adopted you, and my father stood up as your godfather. So he approved.”

  Wetherby dropped his silver onto his plate, the crash a signal that the course was over and the servants should come in and clear away. “If you say so.”

  { 5 }

  Maddie followed Lady Shaftsbury upstairs to her cozy sitting room, behind the minstrel’s gallery of the banqueting hall. Supper had continued for another three courses, but she could not remember if she even tasted them.

  Adopted! She’d never heard of such a thing. Children were taken in, and some eventually adopted, but never in such secret. Her mind skittered around the thought. To light on it for any length of time made her stomach lurch.

  The lady seemed to have no such troubles. She steered them into the small room with painted paneling and a roaring fire. Directing Maddie to a small settee too close to the heat, she deposited herself on the large upholstered sofa behind it. This odd arrangement placed their heads at the same height.

  “Unusual fabric, don’t you think? It’s Indian silk. We’re becoming quite the cosmopolitan establishment.” Lady Shaftsbury seemed content to natter on, maintaining both parts of the conversation on her own. Grateful to be relieved of this social obligation, Maddie found it gave her thoughts too much space to roam. Still, she didn’t trust that her clenching throat would allow her to speak.

  Adopted. What did that mean? She had precious few memories of her childhood, little bits of treasure. Mama and her roses, Papa’s booming laugh, baby George who liked to drool. She didn’t remember the overturned carriage that took their lives while sparing hers, though she’d heard the story enough to picture it in her mind: tumbling over a soft embankment, rolling, spilling her clear before coming to rest upside-down in the tumult of the spring-swollen river. The dazed outriders, also spun free, had found her at the edge of the river, watching the axle drop below the water line.

  Lies, all of it. She’d been unconscious when they found her, her Nana had said.

  Did her Nana know about her? Adopted. Did everyone know? Maddie shivered, even with the burning fire. It was as if she had been stripped bare for all to see all this time, and only now discovered it.

  “Not listening at all, are you, dear?” Lady Shaftsbury patted the seat beside her, bidding Maddie move. The sofa was softer than it looked, but the world seemed so much harder. She tried to force the words out, the simplest phrase, “Thank you, ma’am.” But the sound she heard was completely different.

  “Oh my Lord.”

  “My sentiments exactly. What a pickle for you. But it answers a score of questions for me.” She held her hands out toward the flames. “I always wondered why your mother—pardon me, Lady Wetherby—didn’t accept the usual bedside callers after you were born. You weren’t born, were you? Well, you were, but you understand.” She patted Maddie’s hand, branding her with the heat.

  “I’d heard she’d had another boy, and we were all so glad because the first one hadn’t lasted. But then you appeared. First-born girls aren’t preferred, of course, but a healthy specimen did promise that a living boy might be forthcoming. And so he was.”

  Except that boy hadn’t lasted either. And instead there was Uncle Cecil.

  Maddie shook her head slowly, trying to keep the tears at bay. How could the lady act as if everything were normal, when the whole world had changed?

  She was not a natural Wetherby. Everything her parents had told her was a lie. They weren’t even her parents.

  She was no one.

  No wonder Uncle Cecil didn’t care for her—he wasn’t her uncle. She had no family. What would happen to her? What would she do? Whom could she ask for help? Who would deign to help her, a girl of no family?

  “What will happen to me?” She didn’t know she’d spoken aloud until Lady Shaftsbury answered her.

  “Your uncle will find you something, I’m sure.”

  “I think not. He would prefer me dead.”

  “A bit extreme. But then, it might have been better, were you dead, than all this hullabaloo.” Lady Shaftsbury’s limpid gaze suggested she had no depths. Her nearly unlined face, with its touch of powder, bespoke a nearly worry-free life. But Maddie knew better.

  “Your husband once wrote me that you were the smartest person he’d met in the flesh.”

  Her expression changed in an instant. Her jaw tightened, revealing the sharp shadows of cheekbones. Her gaze shot toward the door, as if to assure herself that no one had overheard.

  “How he hated that. Men do, you know. But no, you haven’t yet learned it. Deacon said you argued quite persuasively.”

  “He was not persuaded.”

  “He nearly was, to his terror. You mustn’t frighten my boys. They’ll run away.”

  “His father wrote that I could confide in you.”

  “More fool him. Why should I help you, who were too fine an infant to have poor me as your godmama?”

  Maddie bit her lip. The iron taste of pain stemmed the confusion of her thoughts. “I’m sorry?”

  “Don’t I sound the petty one. Must be talking about my late love that does it. Or that Lady Wetherby.” She rolled to her feet, smoothing out her skirts. “I
t’s late. I believe we’ll do without tea tonight. The boys will drink hearty to Deacon’s majority. They won’t show their faces up here.”

  Maddie’s legs wobbled but held as she rose. She wanted nothing more than to escape into a silent bedroom and sleep this nightmare away.

  Nearing the door, Lady Shaftsbury turned back to look at her. “You’re certainly a pretty thing. And well-trained. Perhaps one of my friends will take you on. Companion or governess?”

  Maddie fell mute in shock.

  “Think on it, but quickly. I’ll start writing the letters in the morning.”

  Then she understood.

  Like a silk dress from the wrong provenance, she was no longer marriage material.

  * * * *

  “A riddle: When is a Wetherby not a Wetherby?”

  Deacon tilted his head, the better to gaze at the rainbow created by his snifter of brandy. The colors shifted prettily, far finer than Nash’s thoughts had run these past few hours. He’d never think of his brother as Shaftsbury.

  “She still is.” His voice came out a growl. Refined folk, his ass. These fine folk beside him cared for nothing but themselves.

  “She never was.” Wetherby had kept the decanter for himself, sharing only with Deacon, since the ladies had left the table.

  Heywood seemed to find some pleasure in his cigar. “She is, in the eyes of the law.” Heywood should know; he’d done the paperwork all those years ago, back when Madeline Wetherby was but an angelic face on a doll’s body.

  Deacon shifted his already wobbling gaze to the older man. “But then, why did we have the care of her?”

  Heywood’s gaze flicked to Wetherby. Deacon’s meandered after him.

  Wetherby made a pretty moue with his mouth. “Shaftsbury said he wanted it so. Who was I to argue? I needed his support with my tenants, and that was his price.”

  “A little girl?”

  “Useless, I know. Shaftsbury sold himself cheap.”

  Nash had never met such an ass. “What help did you need with your tenants?”

  “Can’t rightly recall. Some talk of an uprising. Always happening in these parts.”

  “Not at Shaftsbury, nor Middleton,” Nash said.

  Heywood tapped his pipe. “What the master is, that will his men be.”