Araminta (Regency Belles Series Book 2)

by Caroline Ashton

  ‘Of course. One has noticed that the dear boy has not been seen for a couple of days.’ His lordship extracted an enamelled and gilded snuff box. ‘One,’ he repeated with the same emphasis, ‘is inclined to wonder if the dear boy has suffered an accident.’ He flipped open the lid of the snuff box and held it out.

  Everett waved it away. ‘I’m sure I have no idea.’ He moved aside to allow two scions of a noble house who had imbibed far too well gain the flagway without falling over him. One of them, Lord Broxborough, the Marquess of Tiverton’s heir, saw Trelowen and grinned.

  ‘In the dibs again, my lord?’

  His companion giggled and was compelled to hold onto the gloating Broxborough to stay upright.

  Trelowen’s lids quickly veiled his eyes. ‘I fear I lack the Tiverton ability to put my estate into hock.’

  Broxborough scowled at the insult. He took a step towards the Viscount only to have his arm dragged backwards by his companion. The man pulled at his sleeve muttering about the best shot in the country.

  The future Lord Tiverton allowed himself to be wrestled away. ‘That’s not what I’ve heard,’ he called over his shoulder as the pair staggered down the street.

  Trelowen turned his back to them and extracted a pinch of snuff. He resumed his comments to Everett as if the pair had never appeared. ‘Perhaps his absence is related to the similar absence of the titan-headed one.’

  Everett turned his head away. Trelowen’s regard sharpened.

  ‘Ah. A hit perhaps? Has our dear boy absconded with the heiress?’

  Everett regarded the fingernails of one pale hand. ‘Your lordship has allowed his imagination to overwhelm him. As far as I am aware neither of the people you deign to mention has left Town.’

  The slightest of smirks stretched Trelowen’s mouth. ‘I see I have fallen into vulgar error. Forgive me.’ He bowed. ‘I’ll bid you goodnight.’

  He sauntered off. Everett watched him. The longer he did, the more his worried expression became.

  A short distance away, Wilhelmina Orksville opened her eyes. They surveyed the Ellonby’s Blue room. A candle in a chased silver holder stood on the bedside cabinet. Its wavering light reflected off the polished wood and bathed the silken damask hangings beside her with golden glimmers. Her survey continued only to stop at a truckle bed drawn close to the small fire flickering in the grate. A burnished tangle of copper locks fell over the face of the person lying there.

  Wilhelmina tried to ease herself upright. She winced. An inquiring hand reached for the bandage wrapping her shoulder. She closed her eyes again and lay back. Memories crowded through the pounding in her head. The Vauxhall outing. The darkening night. The sudden downpour and aborted journey. The chill of clothes damp from the rain. The jolting progression into Pall Mall. The – her thoughts halted abruptly. She caught her breath. The men. She remembered the men. The shouting. The shots. The shots...

  She gasped.

  The figure on the truckle bed immediately struggled up. ‘Ma’am?’ The quilt had entangled itself round her arms. Araminta pushed it down and wriggled from under it. Freed from its warm embrace, she hurried to the bed.

  ‘You’re awake,’ she said, unnecessarily. ‘Thank goodness. How do you feel?’

  ‘Where am I?’ Wilhelmina’s voice came weak and querulous.

  ‘In the Ellonby’s house. Some ruffians attacked us outside it.’

  ‘Who ..?’

  ‘I don’t know. Lord Frederick and Mr Blythburgh chased them off.’

  Wilhelmina closed her eyes. ‘Lord Frederick?’

  ‘Yes. He carried you in.’

  ‘That’s why . . .’ Wilhelmina wiped a pale hand across her forehead.

  ‘Yes, that’s why we’re here.’ Araminta reached for a cloth folded beside a bowl of cool scented water on the cabinet. ‘Are you hot?’ She laid her hand on the flushed forehead then dipped the cloth into the water. A twist forced most of it to dribble back to the bowl. She laid the cloth across Wilhelmina’s forehead.

  After a few moments Wilhelmina’s eyes reopened. ‘The Duchess . . . have you seen her?’

  ‘Her Grace did attend you after she arrived home. For a short while only though. She was very kind.’ Araminta looked down at her hands. She rubbed one thumb over the opposite nail. ‘She would not hear of it when I said we would return home.’

  A deep sigh issued from Wilhelmina. The merest hint of a smile briefly stirred her mouth. ‘Sylvia Ellonby always was a sweet thing.’ The smile faded. ‘Sweet but sharp.’

  ‘Sharp?’

  Wilhelmina laid her hand on Araminta’s. Her breath came unevenly. ‘Never trouble your head, dear.’ She sighed. ‘I’m weary. I think I’ll have a little sleep.’

  She closed her eyes and, with the faint smile back on her lips, fell asleep in seconds.

  In the cold, fading night with the wind whistling round the street corner, two grimy men stopped pretending to collect horse dung and leaned on their long-handled shovels. They eyed the house.

  ‘Damn his eyes,’ the shorter, skinnier one said. ‘Why’s he want us hanging round here agin? It’s odds on some cove’ll con us.’ He shook a gaping boot. Droplets sprayed from it back into the puddle beside him. ‘And me feet’s wet.’

  ‘Don’t fret yerself, Webb,’ his companion growled. ‘It were black as pitch afore. And raining. No-one’d take time to spec us.’

  ‘I reckon you’re wrong there. That miss would. Not the old trot. I mean the young’un. Her as shot Digby.’

  The taller man cleared his battered nose by sniffing long and loud. ‘He won’t be doing owt for a while.’ He sniffed again. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t turn his toes up after all.’

  ‘He might at that. Not that his high and mightiness would give tuppence for him.’ Webb spat on the ground.

  ‘He ain’t that bad. Digby said he gived him ’alf a sovereign.’

  ‘Only ’alf? Fat lot of use that’ll be with his missus about to drop their ninth. Nah, Griggsie,’ Webb shook his head. His lank hair flopped round his dirt-lined face. ‘They’re for the workhouse. Apart from the eldest. Maggie, in’t it? She’ll end up in Mother Bundry’s house earning her livin’ on her back.’ He shook his head again. ‘Shame. She’s a bonny lass.’

  ‘She is that.’ Griggs sucked in air over his discoloured teeth. ‘If it weren’t for our Hannah I’d have her myself.’

  Webb snorted. ‘You cast yer eyes in that direction and your Hannah’ll do for you.’ He leant on his scabby shovel. ‘I’m minded to have done with this. I didn’t bother when we was just watching the girl but there was nowt said about gerrin’ shot.’

  ‘Ah, it’ll be fine. His lordship’ll think of summat. Some way to get her away without any more of it.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. An’ if there is, well, like I said, he weren’t that bothered about Digby. Him and his ’alf sovereign.’ He dug a filthy thumbnail into the wooden broom handle. ‘Nah, Griggsie. I’ve had it with him. You stay if you want to. I’m off.’ He shoved the shovel handle at Griggs and ambled away into Pall Mall keeping well away from the pools of light from the new gas lamps.

  While Nat Webb was abandoning his crony to a lonely vigil, Archibald Neave was keeping one in his empty salon. He stood by one of the tall windows looking onto the dark square. In his hand was a plate bearing the remaining part of two slices of bread wrapped round a thick slice of ham. He had made it himself in the kitchen, leaving his early-rising cook, butler and kitchen maid in a state of shocked amazement.

  If he squinted he could just make out the merest hint of light in a room in the Duke of Ellonby’s house. Late last evening, he had let himself into his house unseen by Nesbit and taken himself to the parlour in case the ladies were still about. Disappointed, he had settled down in his shirt sleeves in a comfortable chair to review the exigencies of the late business deal and had dozed
off for a few moments. A maid guiltily creeping up the main stairs to her attic room had seen the flicker of candles in the parlour. Scurrying away on silent feet, she had alerted the household to the presence of its unconventional master.

  Nesbit had mounted to the parlour, anxious on several counts, to break the shocking news. Archibald’s immediate reaction on hearing that his daughter and affianced wife had been attacked was to rush over and demand to see them. Indeed, he had leapt up from the chair, grabbed his coat and was halfway down the stairs with one arm shoved into a sleeve before an imagined echo of Wilhelmina’s voice had stayed him. His dear girl was in a duke’s house. Moreover it was one where that horse-mad sprig resided. If Archibald’s opinion was anything to go by, and it usually was since he had made his pile with comparative ease, the boy was sweet on his girl, but hadn’t realised it. Accordingly, he had pulled his arm back out of his sleeve, ordered the basket and violets and sent them with his painfully-composed note to Her Grace.

  Now he stared at the house and pondered. If his girl remained there for a few more days the Duchess was bound to see what a darling she was. That would quell any objections she could have to one of her sons marrying her. Or none that would deter an ardent young man. And speaking of ardent men, that Viscount fellow had crossed his path again yesterday. Almost sought him out, in fact.

  He frowned. He’d ordered Wixhill to find out as much as there was to know about the man. His head clerk was a redoubtable man. Eminently reliable. Absolutely discrete. And despite his ancient and wizened appearance, all due to the hours spent protecting the Neave interest, someone of immense resource. Archibald now knew all about Lucius Renford, fifth Viscount Trelowen, and none of it was amusing. All of it made certain that, lord or not, Trelowen would not be marrying Araminta. Any man whose debts were soon to become a matter of public knowledge rather than just rumour, who had left a trail of financially ruined youths and unfortunate girls nursing unnamed babies in workhouses and whose predilection was for sports of the most disgusting kind, was not fit to wipe her boots.

  No. Archibald decided he would stay well away from the Ellonby house and hope the Duchess would be won over. He would send a stream of delicate treats for the invalid. Grapes to tempt a poor appetite? Or would peaches be better? A pineapple? And a pashmina from Kashmir to warm her. Some beautiful examples had arrived, carefully wrapped, on the most recent of his ships to dock. And he’d send Araminta’s maid too. As well as saving the Duchess’s household from more disruption, she could sit with Wilhelmina while Araminta took the air outside the sickroom. Riding Pegasus perhaps, in the company of Lord Frederick. Archibald sighed. Pity the heir was so mad for rushing off overseas.

  The next afternoon, he had the pleasure of learning that Araminta and Lord Frederick, followed by Araminta’s groom, had ridden in Rotten Row. The following day Lord Frederick had offered to drive her there with her maid in the Ellonby’s carriage but the invalid had forbidden it.

  That evening, his lordship tapped on his mother’s boudoir door.

  ‘Come in.’ The Duchess was sitting at her dressing table watching in her large looking glass the new arrangement of her blonde curls her maid was achieving. The Duchess was charmingly gowned in azure blue silk. Ruffles fluttered round her neck from an elegant décolletage. Deep flounces caught up by bows with pearls at their centres draped in graceful folds onto the carpet. Ropes of pearls separated by diamonds lay on the dressing table beside diamond hair clips ready for completion of the coiffeur.

  ‘Freddie, dearest,’ she said.

  He advanced slowly across the thick Aubusson and kissed her hand. ‘Are you out this evening, ma’am?’

  ‘Indeed I am. I promised to bear Constance Fosbury company in her box at some play or other.’

  Frederick smiled. He knew his mother adored an evening at the theatre. Strangely she enjoyed the plays more than the social chatter and speculation. Not that she would have much hope of following the play in Viscountess Fosbury’s company. Frederick had never met anyone so engrossed in gossip as Lady Fosbury. Consequently he avoided her whenever possible.

  ‘I hoped for a quiet word with you, Mama.’ He shot a half-smile at the maid.

  ‘Ah,’ said the Duchess. ‘I rather thought you might.’ She watched her maid pin up the final curl. ‘That is excellent, Mitcham. Run along now and refresh yourself. I’ll ring if I have need of you again.’

  Mitcham curtsied. ‘Yes, Your Grace. Thank you.’ She nodded at Frederick. ‘Good evening my lord.’

  Frederick smiled and watched until Mitcham was out of the room with the door firmly shut behind her.

  His mother regarded him. An affectionate look brightened her face. ‘Now, dearest. What is it you wish to say?’

  Unaccountably her son could not find the right word to begin.

  The Duchess swivelled on her chair to look at him. Her silk skirts whispered. A half-smile expanded. ‘Sit down, dear, and tell me all about Miss Neave.’

  Frederick’s mouth fell open. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘My darling, I’ve been acquainted with you for quite some time.’

  ‘Yes, but –’

  His mother raised a hand. ‘I’m teasing. I’m sorry. Now, tell me about her.’ Her fingers tensed in her lap but her voice stayed neutrally controlled. ‘I am told you have been seen about with her.’

  ‘Only a couple of rides down The Row, mama. For some air out of the sickroom.’ Frederick stared down at her anxiously. ‘The quack – the doctor – advised it.’

  ‘I know dear, but you must have a care for her reputation. She seems a good girl despite her connexions.’ She studied her son carefully, noting the sadness that had covered his face. She prepared herself to disappoint him further.

  ‘But Mama, just let me explain . . .’ Frederick dragged a small upholstered chair across the carpet by the carved rail of its back. Its two rear legs left a trail of disturbed wool tufts. The Duchess blinked at the ache that had stricken her heart.

  The chair righted beside the dressing table, Frederick folded himself onto it. He leant forward, arms propped on his knees, hands clasped and his face alight. ‘She’s a great girl, Mama. She’s the only one I ever met who knew anything about horses beyond their colour. She’s . . . well, she’s . . .’ His voice faded and a puzzled frown pleated his forehead. ‘I don’t know, Mama. I just like being with her. But . . .’

  ‘But ..?’

  ‘But there’s her father.’ He chewed his lip. ‘Trade.’ He raised sad eyes to his mother. ‘Do you think His Grace would ever agree to . . . well, you know?’

  His doleful expression tore his mother’s heart further. ‘I fear he will not, dearest. He will expect a much better match for you.’

  ‘But I’m only the spare, Mama. There’s George to do the pretty for the family name.’

  ‘I know, dearest.’ His mother soothed his hands with tender fingers. ‘But George has placed His Grace at an impossible stand. He cannot refuse a request from Arthur Wellesley. George must accompany him to the Continent.’ A rare frown lined her smooth forehead. ‘You know His Grace’s health makes him desperate for one of you to wed. Now George is engrossed with sailing off into heaven knows what danger, it falls to you to oblige.’

  ‘Can’t George make a contract before he goes?’ Frederick gave himself to furious thought. He sprang from the chair and paced across the pretty rug. ‘There’s that niece Lady Fosbury keeps pushing at him. Or her daughter. She’s due out next Season, isn’t she?’

  The Duchess’s pretty features came as close to disapproval as she would ever permit. ‘Constance Fosbury is an unwise woman. We could never allow George to wed such an unprepossessing creature as the Pinchford girl. And Elise is only fourteen.’ She shook her head. ‘No. I have my eye on the Duke of Wenham’s daughter. She does her come-out next Season. From what I’ve seen of her, she’s a biddable child. She will make an excellent Duchess wh
en she is grown.’

  Light filled Frederick’s eyes. ‘Couldn’t you make an agreement now? Get in first, so to speak? Ahead of the field?’

  His mother sighed. ‘Do try to avoid such cant chatter, dearest.’

  The hope disappeared from Frederick’s eyes. ‘Sorry, Mama.’ He took a steadying breath. ‘If only His Grace would get to know her. He cannot enter the sick room, of course, so he won’t see her there. I’ve tried to persuade Miss Neave to dine with us en famille but she refuses.’ Another deep breath. He stared pensively at the pastel patterns on the rug beneath his feet. At last his optimism resurfaced. ‘At least His Grace agreed Miss Orksville could go to Lidgate. That’s something.’

  The Duchess looked over his head at a particularly attractive painting of an Italian lake on her wall. A distant, reminiscent expression softened her features. ‘Yes,’ she said in a sweetly dreamy voice. ‘His Grace was moved to say it was entirely up to me whom I invited to Lidgate.’

  Frederick grinned. ‘Capital, Mama. Capital. It’s a start. Perhaps His Grace might even call. Then he’d see how good she is.’ He patted his mother’s knee with some vigour.

  Her Grace of Ellonby winced.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Meredew Hopton, under butler currently in charge at Lidgate, Mr Sallis being with Their Graces in London, opened the door to Miss Leonora Pencombe. He might have been forgiven for assuming the lady’s enthusiasm for visiting was to hang on His Grace’s sleeve. He would have been wrong. Miss Pencombe was possessed of a small competence and a large passion.

  She loved to paint. No, she adored to paint. Painting consumed most of her waking hours. It accounted for much of the appearance of her hands and clothes. It was not unusual for her to appear with splashes of colour on her gowns and traces of madder rose or laurel green under the tips of her nails. This passion had endowed her with something of a reputation. Her watercolours of the more charming of English landscapes were everywhere regarded. As were her pen and ink architectural sketches. An interpretation of the urn crowning Lidgate’s portico actually adorned the Duke’s own book room. Beautiful as these were, it was her delicate portraits of children that sent every mother of the ton into paroxysms of rapture. The fashion in portraits was for large, imposing oils. Miss Pencombe’s skill in producing small, ethereal watercolours of babies, toddlers and children that were just the right size to grace a Mama’s dressing table had made them objects of intense desire.