Love and Lady Lovelace (The Changing Fortunes Series, Vol. 8)

by M C Beaton

  Priscilla did not notice. She had decided to give him the ultimate encouragement. She closed her eyes, stretched out her arms, and puckered up her lips.

  Then she heard Mr. Worthy’s voice. “Ah, Mrs. Jarrett,” he was saying. “Miss Armitage is a trifle under the weather and I think she should lie down. Pray escort her to her room.”

  Priscilla’s eyes flew open and she stared unbelievingly at the housekeeper. Too dazed to protest, she allowed herself to be led away.

  Only when they reached the hall did the full extent of her humiliation strike her and she roughly shook off the housekeeper’s arm. Mrs. Jarrett was quite convinced Miss Armitage was indeed drunk and showed every sign of bearing her forcibly off to her room, but at that moment there was the sound of a carriage arriving, and, at the same time, a footman came to inform Mrs. Jarrett that my lady and Mr. Foster were in the Long Gallery and wished to see her immediately.

  Mrs. Jarrett hurried off and Priscilla lingered in the hall, curiosity as to the identity of the newcomer overcoming her hurt feelings.

  Two footmen opened the double doors and the Earl of Harrisfield walked in, shaking snow from his coat.

  “’Lo,” he said cheerfully. “Weather. Beastly. Lady Lovelace. Home? Marriage all a hum, I hear. Marry me.”

  Priscilla, aching for revenge against the world in general and the whole household in particular, tripped forward.

  “Oh, poor Lord Harrisfield,” she cried. “Do not stay in this house. We have been most dreadfully deceived.”

  “Bit early. Drinking the port, what!” said his lordship, retreating before her.

  “No, no! I am not drunk. Pray listen. Mr. Bagshot has spurned me and Lady Lovelace is still married to Lord Philip and not only that! She has been accused of murdering Lord Lovelace!”

  “Fustian,” said the Earl, drawing off his gloves.

  At that moment, Agatha strolled into the hall, dressed for traveling.

  “Mrs. Jordan,” said Priscilla. “This is the Earl of Harrisfield. I have just told him poor Lady Lovelace has been accused of murder. Tell him it’s true!”

  Agatha was not averse to plunging a knife into her hostess’s reputation. “Oh, certainly,” she said calmly. “Where is Harry? I must leave this terrible house. She’s quite liable to murder one of us next.”

  At that moment Harry Bagshot joined them. He cast a scared look at Priscilla, made a sketchy bow in the Earl’s direction, and hustled Agatha out to his carriage.

  “I’m going,” said the Earl. “Bless m’soul. What!”

  “Take me with you,” pleaded Priscilla, all eyes and teeth. “I am alone here and unprotected.”

  Lord Harrisfield looked at her consideringly, at her neat figure and blond hair.

  “Well, well, well,” he grinned. “Let’s be off. I’ll protect you. How soon… ready?”

  “A few moments,” said Priscilla. “I shall fetch my maid.”

  The Earl felt less cheerful after she had gone. He had traveled to see Amaryllis with the idea of proposing marriage since he had heard rumors that her marriage was about to be annulled. But a murderess! He started uneasily at every footfall and was immensely relieved when Priscilla arrived back in the few moments’ time she had promised.

  As they settled in his carriage, Priscilla thanked him over and over again, calling him her Sir Galahad.

  Privately she cast a calculating eye out at the thickening snow. They would not get very far and would have to put up at an inn for the night. Perhaps she could lose her maid somewhere on the road. Then the Earl would just have to marry her. She cast a sidelong look at him. He was quite old, but he was an Earl and she would be a Countess, and that way she could recover from the humiliations of Beaton Malden.

  “The Long Gallery, if you please, my lady,” said Foster in a wooden voice.

  “Very well, Foster,” said Amaryllis. “I trust you can throw some light on this matter of me being hailed as a murderess.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  Foster walked before her, carrying a candle in a flat stick, for the day was dark. He pushed open the door of the gallery, which led off a landing on the first floor.

  The room had long windows down one side and family portraits down the other. Under the portraits were glass cases containing rare china, war souvenirs, and old family documents. The gallery was cold because Amaryllis had given instructions that fires were only to be lit in rooms used by herself, her guests, or her servants. The state rooms were to stay fireless.

  “Well, Foster?” demanded Amaryllis, looking up at a portrait of Lord Lovelace’s father, who stared back down at her with haughty disdain.

  “An it please my lady, I would like Mrs. Jarrett to be present.”

  “Oh, very well, Foster,” said Amaryllis testily, “only don’t take all day about it.”

  Foster rang a bell and told the footman who answered to fetch Mrs. Jarrett.

  Snow was piling up on the sills of the windows and blotting out the prospect of the park. A few deer could just be made out, sheltering under a stand of spruce.

  “Is hay being put down for the deer?” asked Amaryllis.

  “I believe so, my lady.”

  “Ah, here is Mrs. Jarrett. Mrs. Jarrett, you may not be aware of it but there is gossip circulating in the district that I poisoned my late husband. I gather that you and Foster can explain how this has come about.”

  Mrs. Jarrett threw her apron over her head and began to cry, the keys at her waist jingling with each heaving sob.

  “Oh, dear,” said Amaryllis helplessly. “Do make her stop, Foster. This room is very cold and I shall catch the ague if this goes on much longer.”

  “Pull yourself together, Mrs. Jarrett,” ordered Foster. “We may as well tell her ladyship the whole thing.”

  After a few moments, the housekeeper’s flushed and distressed face appeared from the folds of her apron.

  “It’s like this, my lady,” said the butler, standing to attention. “With us not getting any wages and all, well, me and Mrs. Jarrett hit on a scheme to get some money. You see, although a few people call here during a year to have a look around the place, Beaton Malden doesn’t have any attractions like, say, Warwick Castle. And so we hit on a scheme. When some folks did arrive one day, I told them that the ghost of his lordship walked the Long Gallery. Mrs. Jarrett, she… oh, well, may as well tell you all, my lady… she dressed up in his lordship’s clothes. We had the curtains drawn and only one candle at the end there and the door at the far end just a little ajar. Mrs. Jarrett, just as I was talking about his lordship’s ghost, she would walk past the open door, a-moaning and a-wailing. She wore his lordship’s old white satin evening dress, my lady, and his white wig, and she painted her face white. Quite horrible she looked, my lady.

  “Word got about and people began to come in droves. Well, one day, there were these two ladies, a Mrs. Benson and a Miss Apple. They says to me, they says, ‘But we thought ghosts only walked when they had been murdered to death,’ and I says, ‘That’s as may be,’ or something of that nature, and they took it to mean that my lord had been murdered and they must have invented the poison bit by themselves.

  “Well, the money kept coming as the people kept coming. The aristocracy, saving your ladyship’s pardon, is clutch-fisted but the lower orders would fork out generous, often a sovereign from each of them. And that’s why we done… did… it, my lady.”

  “But that’s wicked!” gasped Amaryllis. “And how could you both be so greedy? Dragging my name in the dirt and all to get yourself money!”

  Foster stood rigidly silent, staring straight ahead as if facing a firing squad.

  “I’ll tell her ladyship if you won’t,” cried Mrs. Jarrett.

  “He done it out the goodness of his heart, he did. Why, he’s been paying all the staff right up to the minute out of them earnings. Wanted to surprise you at Christmas by telling your ladyship it wasn’t necessary for you to go a-worritin’ and a-frettin’ over the wages.”

&nb
sp; “Is this true, Foster?” asked Amaryllis.

  “Yes, my lady. We didn’t mean no harm.”

  “Oh, Foster,” said Amaryllis, her eyes filling with tears. “How good you are, how very good you both are!”

  She rushed forward and threw her arms around the butler and kissed him on the cheek.

  There was a shocked silence.

  Amaryllis realized she may as well have tied her garter in public. Such a breach of protocol had shaken Foster rigid. There was only one thing to do: ignore her social lapse and carry on as if nothing had happened.

  “It looks as if we shall manage now, Foster,” said Amaryllis. “Now, since you and Mrs. Jarrett have proved to have such ingenious brains, perhaps you can tell me how we are to save my reputation. The two ladies you mentioned, Mrs. Benson and Miss Apple, were evidently at the hunt ball last night and gossiping for all they were worth.”

  Foster backed away from Amaryllis in case she should forget herself again.

  “I think, my lady,” he said after a long pause, “that since the gossip seems to be general, my lady should allow me to send a notice to the local newspaper, the Daxtead and Malden Gazette, saying that this gossip is libelous slander and that my lady will be forced to take the culprits to court if it continues. I mean, my lady would never advertise such a statement were my lady guilty.”

  “Very well, Foster, and find me the directions of those two ladies and I will write to them personally.”

  “There is one more thing, my lady…”

  “Which is…?”

  “Shall we say ‘Lady Lovelace’ or ‘Lady Philip’?”

  Oh, my lost love, wailed Amaryllis’s heart. Gone with all my love and my paste jewels. He must have been lying about his inheritance. Only look how he tricked me before. He knows I shall be too ashamed to set the Runners on him.

  But aloud she said, “‘Lady Lovelace’ will do. You may go now; Mrs. Jarrett too. But remember! No more haunting. And spare us these unwanted guests. Tell them at the north and south lodges that all visitors are to be turned away while I am in residence.”

  “Very good, my lady.”

  “And Foster. I wish you to explain financial matters to Mr. Worthy. Tell him how you came about finding the money to pay the servants. That money is to be paid back to you and Mrs. Jarrett when the estate is solvent again.”

  “Oh, my lady. Thank you, my lady,” chorused the butler and the housekeeper.

  “Very well. Leave me now. I wish some time to myself.”

  But no sooner had they left than the door opened again and Colonel Freddie Jackson came sidling apologetically in.

  “Wanted to ask your advice, Lady Lovelace,” he said. “I’m in the most terrible fix.”

  “Let us go somewhere more comfortable, Colonel Jackson,” said Amaryllis. “I am chilled to the bone.”

  “But I might run into her,” said Freddie in anguished tones.

  “My lady.”

  “Yes, Foster. What is it now?” asked Amaryllis as the butler reentered the room.

  “I have just learned, my lady, that the Earl of Harrisfield called.”

  “Dear God and saints preserve us!”

  “Exactly, my lady. James, the second footman, was in the hall. It appears my lord wished to ask my lady’s hand in marriage, having heard rumors that my lady’s marriage was to be annulled.”

  “Drat those Fangs,” said Amaryllis. “Go on.”

  “Miss Armitage was in the hall where Mrs. Jarrett had left her when she received your summons, my lady, Mrs. Jarrett having been instructed by Mr. Worthy to remove Miss Armitage on account of her having drink taken.”

  “Priscilla. Drunk! Impossible!”

  “That’s as may be. In any case, my lady, Miss Armitage, she ups and tells the Earl of Harris-field as how you are a murderess.”

  “Which, of course, he did not believe.”

  “Not at first. Not until that Mrs. Jordan comes in looking for Mr. Bagshot because they were leaving together and she confirms what Miss Armitage has just said.

  “James, the footman, he says that Miss Armitage was making sheep’s eyes at my lord and in James’s humble opinion, my lord did not quite believe all this business about murder but that he saw Miss Armitage being young and pretty and eager for to go with him and he seized his chance. James put forward the suggestion that Miss Armitage was thinking of marriage and the Earl of Harrisfield was thinking of something else.”

  “I don’t care. Just so long as both of them have left my house.”

  “They have left, my lady, and Mr. Bagshot and Mrs. Jordan.”

  “And the Fangs?”

  “Well, now, my lady. The fact is…”

  “Thank you, Foster,” said Freddie. “I would prefer to explain matters to Lady Lovelace myself.”

  “Very good, my lord.”

  “Now, Colonel Jackson…” said Amaryllis firmly when the door closed behind the butler.

  And so Freddie, with many stops and starts and apologies for his “warm” language, recounted the episode of the game pie.

  “I was funning, do you see?” said Freddie anxiously. “I was rather taken with the little thing and meant to tease, you know, dash it all. Flirt a bit.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Amaryllis, thinking of poor Belinda. First Lord Philip, then Harry Bagshot, who seemed to have interested her at one point, and now the Colonel.

  “I think,” she said carefully, “that if you are not really interested in marriage then it would be only fair to let Miss Fang depart with her parents. Why are they still here, by the way?”

  “Snow,” said Freddie with a gesture toward the howling whiteness beyond the windows.

  “And do you want to marry Miss Fang?”

  Freddie looked hunted. “No, not I! Not the marrying kind.”

  Amaryllis gave a little sigh. “I think perhaps if you apologized to Miss Fang you would feel more comfortable. You must make it plain, however, that although you were flirting with her, that is all it was.”

  “It will be very embarrassing.”

  “Well, so will having her lowering at you over the dinner table. Why not try to make everything all right? There is nothing worse than seeing two people who are not open and honest with each other,” said Amaryllis with some passion.

  “I doubt if Philip will be back this evening,” said Freddie.

  “I doubt if he will be back at all,” snapped Amaryllis.

  “Oh,” said Freddie innocently. “I shouldn’t say that. I’m here, you know, and he’ll want to see me.”

  “Of course,” said Amaryllis in a thin little voice, “we do not for a minute imagine that he would want to see me.”

  “Well, I’m his friend and you’re… oh, lor’, you’re his wife.”

  “Where has Lord Philip gone?” said Amaryllis, turning her face toward the windows.

  “Didn’t exactly say. Actually, he said something about he would be back soon and I assumed he had just gone to call on Sir Peregrine. But if he’s gone to town, why, he could be away weeks if this weather lasts.”

  “Would you say Lord Philip was trustworthy?” asked Amaryllis.

  “Soul of honor, ’pon rep! Knowed him since we were in short coats.”

  A little of the pain at Amaryllis’s heart began to leave. He had known that necklace was merely paste. She was sure he had looked startled when Belinda had mentioned the fact. Why must she always think the worst of him? She must trust. Perhaps, knowing it to be only a bauble, he had taken it as a souvenir.

  She sent Freddie to find Belinda and took herself off the morning room to warm herself in front of the fire.

  It was there that her lady’s maid, Simpson, found her. Simpson looked quite white. She was carrying Amaryllis’s jewel box.

  With a dramatic gesture, she threw open the lid and presented the empty interior to her mistress.

  “It is all right, Simpson,” said Amaryllis in a calm voice. “I gave them to Lord Philip to take to London. There were some of the settings
I did not quite like. He is leaving them at the jewelers to have them altered.”

  Simpson did not know the jewels were fake. Color began to flood back into her face.

  “Oh, why did you not tell me this morning, my lady, when I noticed your ruby-and-diamond necklace had gone from the toilet table?”

  “I forgot,” said Amaryllis flatly. “I was very tired. Tell Foster to bring me the post, if there is any, and please leave me.”

  “Very good, my lady.” Simpson bounced out jauntily, all her worries over. Amaryllis sat very still, staring at the fire, willing herself not to think.

  Foster came in with the post. He put it on a small table next to her and stood for a moment, looking at her anxiously, but all she said was, “Thank you, Foster. That will be all,” and so, with another worried look at his mistress, he left the room.

  Amaryllis flicked over the letters until she came to a fat one. She recognized her sister Bella’s handwriting and crackled it open. Both her sisters had combined to write the letter, Sarah’s lines crossing over Bella’s. Both were extremely agitated over all the rumors circulating around that their dear sister, Amaryllis, was socially damned. That she had married Lord Philip Osborne and then both of them had tried to commit bigamy before the Season was over.

  And wasn’t that just like Amaryllis? the letter went on. Always thinking of herself and never of her sisters. No wonder poor Bertram had come to a bad end. There was bad blood in the family, only thank goodness they were not tainted with it….

  Amaryllis read no further. With one jerky movement, she threw the letter on the fire and watched it while all the nasty words, all the ungrateful phrases curled and shriveled and blackened in the heat.

  The door opened and Miss Tabitha Wilkins came in. She took one look at Amaryllis and said, “Nothing is that terrible. Nothing can be that terrible.”

  Amaryllis ran to her like a child to its mother.

  “Oh, Tabby,” she wailed. “He’s gone. With all my jewels. And Bella and Sarah are such nasty, vulgar cats.”