by Joan Smith
THE ROYAL SCAMP
Joan Smith
Chapter One
Esther Lowden sat alone that evening in her small but elegant Rose Saloon, comparing the merits of a pink sprigged muslin versus a jonquil striped afternoon gown, when the butler announced, “Mr. Ramsay, Miss Lowden.”
“Oh, good. Show him in,” she said, thinking it was Joshua Ramsay’s cousin Buck, her manager, come to make his evening report.
Her face fell when it was Joshua who strode in, wearing a scowl that masqueraded as a smile. “Not serving ale in the tavern this evening, Esther?” he asked, the smile dwindling to a sneer.
“Nice to see you, too, Joshua,” she answered in the same thin tone. “Have a seat—or is this one of your fleeting calls, to complain of noise and dust from the Lowden Arms?”
“Not this time. In fact, your inn is very nearly deserted. You will be regretting you destroyed a perfectly good mansion by turning it into a public house. I counted two carriages in the yard as I drove past.”
“My customers have the bizarre habit of keeping their carriages and cattle in the stable, not standing outdoors. I happen to know I had an even dozen rooms let at four o’clock this afternoon. I expect by dark there were as many again. Travelers will usually pelt along till the shadows lengthen, you know.”
“You dined there, did you?”
“No, Buck dined here, and told me.”
“I hope you had a chaperon with you,” he said swiftly, looking around to see if her aunt was hiding behind a chair or under a table.
“My aunt dined with us, thus depriving your cousin of an excellent opportunity to molest me. Tell me, is it seduction you have in mind as well? Shall I call the butler and request him to bring a pistol?”
“Already the coarsening influence of your profession is beginning to tell. Two years ago you would not have used such language with a gentleman.”
“Two years ago no gentleman was in the delightful habit of reading me a lecture every time we met. You used to be more amusing, Joshua. Sit down, for goodness sake. Why must you lounge against a table like a lazy servant instead of using the posture of a gentleman,” she said sharply.
Ramsay removed his elbow from the high table and strolled farther into the room, looking with distaste at the chamber. “Do you not feel like a bird in a cage in this box?” he asked.
“The saloon is twenty feet by thirty. It is sufficiently large for me. If you are feeling constrained, however ...”
He lifted one black brow in disdain. “You ought not to greet gentlemen without a chaperon, Esther. It is unusual in the extreme for a young lady to do so. And as far as Lady Brown goes, I’m not at all sure that aged and flighty woman is sufficient protection,” he informed her.
“After rooting about in the dusty corners of your mind, is ‘aged and flighty’ the best insult you can come up with? It is an old English custom for widows to be flighty. You must lay the blame for my being unattended, as for all other little lapses, on my having opened Lowden Hall up to travelers,” she told him.
He gazed at her a long moment, shaking his head ruefully. “No, you were unusual even before that. You were always a harum-scarum girl—running hot after you knew not what.”
“But I do know what, Joshua. That is what you refuse to understand. I want more from life than to vegetate in the country. I want to see a face other than family or neighbor from time to time. I did not sell Lowden Hall and go abroad as I wanted to when Papa died, so you need not ring a peal over me for what I did. It was you who suggested I find an absorbing hobby.”
“I meant embroidery or watercolors!” Her scathing look told him her opinion of these occupations. “It would almost be better if you had gone abroad for a spell. That might have settled you down, and there would not be the sort of shadow attached to it that attaches to a well-born lady turning publican.”
“Ah, but who would you Pharisees have to turn your noses down at, if it were not for us publicans?” she chided. “Not that I am, strictly speaking, a publican. I don’t even own the Lowden Arms.”
“You are playing with words.”
“No, no! Ideas. You should try it sometime, Joshua. I am the major partner in the Lowden Investment Company. My aunt is a minor partner. The company happens to own and operate an inn, among its other assets.”
“Its other asset being this dower house you reside in, when you’re not trotting about the inn like a common—” She stopped him with a bright, gimlet eye.
“We own various properties,” she said airily. “Real estate, I suppose is the branch of business we are in, Auntie and I.” Of course Joshua knew that the only properties owned were the two mentioned.
“When a person feels obliged to hide her calling, you may take it for granted she is, in fact, ashamed of it. You own and operate an inn, and it is beneath a lady of quality to do so.”
Esther’s shoulders twitched in impatience. “Too much is beneath a lady of quality. If all we may, with propriety, do is sit on our thumbs waiting for some jackanapes to marry us, then I resign from the quality. Tell me, is your cousin Buck also cast into the outer darkness for aiding and abetting me? He is an excellent manager.”
“How you ever talked Buck into this piece of folly is beyond my comprehension,” he charged.
“But then, so much is beyond your comprehension, is it not?” she asked, and smiled demurely.
He looked at her aslant, frustration burning at his vitals. Why had he come here? He knew Esther was impossible. To add to his chagrin, she had succeeded in casting him in the role of outdated ogre ranting at her success.
“There is also a good deal beyond yours, Esther. I shouldn’t think, at three and twenty, you have entirely given up hope of nabbing a husband. Don’t expect any gentleman of character to offer marriage to a woman who runs a common inn.”
She heard that demeaning “woman” in lieu of “lady” and reined in her temper. “We feel, Buck and I, that the Lowden Arms is something quite out of the common. It is top of the trees, I promise you. We had two lords and a knight staying there last week. Lord Eskett told me personally it was the finest establishment of its kind within fifty miles of London.”
“He happened to mention it as you served his mutton?” he asked with a mocking smile.
“No, I encountered Lord and Lady Eskett while strolling along the Thames, in the delightful private garden the Lowden Arms provides its guests. The countess and I agreed the place is charming. They sang its praises so loud I was a little embarrassed to come out and say I owned it—indirectly, through the Lowden Investment Company, of course,” she added hastily.
“They would not have been speaking to you in a social way had they realized your calling.”
“You say my ‘calling’ as though I were a hangman! I can only assume that my character is not so grossly coarsened as you have been telling me. They did not take me for a publican to talk to me but for a lady."
“Word of it is bound to leak out eventually. Once such persons as Eskett realize what you are up to, they may continue to patronize the Arms, but they will not expect to speak to you as an equal, nor to speak to you at all, except in the way of business.”
Esther twitched her shoulders. “That will be a great loss to me; I always had so much to do with fine lords and ladies!”
“You could have had. You should have gone to London and made your debut instead of this freakish start....”
She turned a fiery eye on him. “You are overlooking a few points, Joshua. A lady does not go up to London with an empty purse. I opened my house to guests to make a living. The estate was so mortgaged when Father died, I had to sell off all the land. How was I to go on living in a mansion on nothing a year? Tell me that, wizard!”
“And you didn’t
even tell me it was for sale! You knew I wanted to enlarge the Abbey. Our lands ran together.”
“What did you plan to use for money? You were complaining at the time that your own father left you land rich, cash poor. You never indicated any interest in buying. I am not a mind reader after all.”
“If selling was your only recourse, you might better have sold the whole thing—lock, stock, and barrel—and lived on the income of your capital, like a lady.”
“That, unfortunately, would not have provided a ladylike existence.”
“It would have provided better than this,” he said, sweeping a condemning arm around the salon.
“This is only temporary. I made three thousand profit my first year of operation. How many thousand pounds must I have had to make that sort of income?”
His eyes widened in surprise, and she rushed on to push her advantage. “Why, in five years or so I shall be so rich, the royal dukes themselves will be offering for my hand.”
“The royal dukes may,” he agreed with a malicious twinkle in his eyes, “but no gentleman of taste and refinement will.”
“Good, that will save me the bother of refusing them. I don’t know why men think we must be forever on the catch for a husband. I am perfectly happy as I am.”
“Till the novelty wears off,” he countered.
“There is always another novelty. That’s half the charm of it. A constant stream of strangers, bringing variety to life.”
He stared blankly. “What pleasure can you possibly find in entertaining strangers?”
“Why, Joshua, you astonish me! You have your own book in the Bible, and you don’t know we are enjoined ‘to entertain strangers’!”
“A hazardous business. You might be entertaining cutthroats or thieves.”
“Or ‘angels unawares.’ But then, you are a confirmed pessimist, and I shan’t confuse you with any cheerful thoughts. Have you read any good obituaries lately?” she asked, and picked up the journal.
Always alive to a hint, Joshua immediately got to his feet. “I see you have better things to do than entertain a mere friend. A pity I hadn’t the advantage of being completely unknown, and you and I might—” He stopped short, and while he didn’t blush or stammer, there was a self-conscious air about him.
While he stood looking at Esther, she puzzled this half remark. It was possible to read into it a hint he had come courting. If so, it was a new wrinkle in their relationship. They had discussed nothing but her “calling” ever since she opened the inn. He used to be more conciliating before her father’s death. Still, she had been a full one and twenty at the time, and he had never come up to scratch.
And she was glad, for she didn’t know then, and still didn’t know, whether she would accept him. Ramsay was considered the prime parti in the neighborhood. He was the owner of Heath Abbey, a huge, sprawling estate stolen from the monks by Henry VIII eons ago and given to one of Ramsay’s ancestors for some chicanery they were involved in together.
In the gallery of Heath Abbey there were portraits of the family going back to the fifteenth century. The pirates who had preceded that time were not so prominently displayed. The males had changed remarkably little over the years. With an older hairstyle and jacket, Joshua might be taken in a dim light for his first painted ancestor. They all had black hair, ruler straight, a pronounced point in the middle of the forehead, dark eyes, a predatory beak of a nose, and a jaw that might have been formed from a set square. From the scowls hanging on the wall, it seemed they had always been sharp tempered as well.
Esther felt she would be very out of place amid the females of the line. The Ramsay gentlemen preferred grenadiers of women, or had so little choice in the matter that they married gigantic antidotes in any case. If you stuck a mustache or beard on any one of the ladies, she might pass for a man, and not a weak man, either. Joshua’s own mama had been not far from six feet in height, with a pair of shoulders that would turn a dragoon green with envy. And with her physique she had the disposition of a little mouse.
Esther, though slight in frame, was not at all biddable. She had inherited her mother’s auburn hair and brown eyes and, unfortunately, her tendency to turn brown as a nut in the sun. From her father she got a certain willfulness that did not take kindly to advice, especially from outsiders. Her streak of practicality was not inherited from either parent, but sprang up like a mushroom when she was faced with a crisis after her papa’s death and led to her “calling.”
Lowden Arms, nee Lowden Hall, seat of the Lowdens of Berkshire for the past three hundred years or so, was one of the ugliest heaps of stones ever piled one on top of the other. It had no grace, no charm, but was a tall brownstone building with a pair of angle turrets guarding either end that added to its fortress-like air. It had a crenellated roofline, with a little domed arch set in the middle of the roof, on which one of her ancestors had erected a metal statue of himself in armor, which had since weathered to a rusty green.
The house had twenty-six handsome bedchambers on the first floor and another twenty only slightly less handsome above that. The second-story roof was low, so that the charge for those rooms was less.
Lowden Hall had had impressive double oak doors with the family crest done in concrete work above. The concrete had since been covered in brass with some enameling to bring the arms into prominence. A few other renovations had occurred as well to transform a private residence into a commercial establishment.
Joshua Ramsay had had a great deal to say against all these renovations. The words “sacrilege” and “desecration” rang in Esther’s ears, as though it were St. Paul’s Cathedral she was changing and not an ugly old house.
None of her work so incensed him as the elegant brass plaque, only about fifteen inches square—one would think it was a broadsheet. Engraved on it in the best of good, discreet taste and the finest Gothic script were the simple words Lowden Arms--Dining and Accommodation. To call it vulgar was ridiculous, and to call it criminal was a plain lie. She had secured her license in the usual way, by a hefty bribe.
The stables had had to be enlarged. Esther confessed to a twinge at seeing the old garden cobbled over for a stable yard. One thing she did not have to desecrate was the wonderful location. The Thames flowed idly by, a few hundred yards behind the Hall, and the willows still wept over it. It was a popular walk for guests on a fine afternoon.
When all her renovations were done, Esther removed to the dower house with her aunt, Lady Brown, to save the disgrace of saying she actually ran the inn herself. Her solicitor gravely informed her that for a lady to have the wits and will to make money was beneath contempt, so he set up the investment company to put her at one remove from commerce. It was a ruse that didn’t fool the locals, but if ever she became rich and decided to try the London marriage mart, it would sound respectable.
It happened that Buck Ramsay, Joshua’s cousin, had a falling out with his father just prior to the opening and was happy to act as manager. Buck usually came over to the dower house every night to fill Esther in on the details of how her business was progressing. He entered on that evening just as Joshua and she were staring at each other.
Buck had escaped the Ramsay looks. He was slighter of frame than his cousin, lighter of complexion, smaller of nose, and altogether a more agreeable specimen, though somewhat dandyish in appearance.
“Your clerk has arrived to hand over the day’s receipts,” Joshua said with a satirical grin at his cousin.
“My manager has come to make his report,” she corrected, and winked at Buck. “I never sully my genteel hands with money. How much did I take in, Buck?”
“Twenty-eight rooms taken,” Buck reported. “Not including Lady Gloria Devere.” He went to the wine table and poured himself a glass.
To assuage Joshua’s temper, Esther offered him wine.
“Is it from your inn?” he inquired.
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll pass.”
“A pity I hadn’t known
you were coming, and I might have got in some hemlock,” Esther snipped. “How is old Lady Gloria, Buck?” Not that she cared, but it was a thorn in Joshua’s side that such a noble old relict as Lord Grodon’s spinster daughter had taken up permanent residence at the Lowden Arms, bringing a whiff of nobility with her.
“Poorly. She never owns up to good health, though she’ll outlive the lot of us. We served sixty dinners, all told,” he added. “We’ll have to think of buying new china. I’ve been looking through some catalogs. I think pink would add eye appeal to Peters’s dinners.”
Joshua stared to hear a man discuss such feminine details.
“It is our excellent location that accounts for the extra meals,” Esther explained to him. “Close to Windsor and, of course, Strawberry Hill, where the tourists are always eager to see Mr. Walpole’s Gothic monstrosity.”
“The location is far from ideal,” Joshua said. “Too close to London for folks traveling west from it to be ready for a stop, and too close for those traveling east to draw a halt. With London only a few miles away, they will go ahead rather than put up at an inn.”
“Twenty-eight travelers seem to be unaware of it today. Of course London is more than a few miles away. And there is Hounslow Heath to be traversed, where the highwaymen do me a very good turn. Travelers are so frightened of them, they rarely venture past my place unless they can reach London before dark. As our reputation spreads and they know they will find a good meal and a well-aired bed awaiting them, they stop over for dinner and remain the night.”
“That’s true,’ Buck agreed. “I personally see that every bed is aired after use. From five o’clock on we have carriages pulling in every ten minutes. All the travelers say the same thing; they might as well call it a day, for they won’t tackle Hounslow Heath with dark coming on. The highwaymen are getting bolder by the day. Captain Johnnie is the main culprit.”
“I don’t know why Bow Street doesn’t set up a stronger patrol on the heath,” Joshua grumbled.
“He would like to see my business ruined,” Esther joked to Buck.