The Rules of Gentility
Page 20
Papa gazes at me without speaking for a long, uncomfortable moment. “It is. Your young man—the young man before last, that is, wrote me a letter that went to Lancashire and back telling me about the captain—and he’s an impostor with the regiment, too. And then this young woman was brave enough to come forward.”
I realize then, that in my pleasure at seeing my father, I had not noticed a woman who sits quietly to one side in a dark corner of the room.
She rises and curtsies. At first I barely recognize her with clothes on, or by the bruises which distort her pretty face.
“Why, Kate!” I say. “Kate, what has happened to you?”
“He did it, miss. That captain. He was boasting in Mrs. Bright’s house how he had an heiress madly in love with him, and let slip your name. So I went to find your father.” She stares at her hands. “I don’t read too well, miss. So it took me a time to find where you lived, even though you gave me your papa’s card, and the first time I went they told me he wasn’t home.”
I sit beside her and take her hand. “When did he beat you, Kate?”
“After the wedding—I mean the—you know, in the church. I went back to the house, hoping to gather my clothes and leave, but he caught me.” She smiles, but with a distinct wobble in her chin. “Twopence ha’penny’s too much, miss. He’s more of a penny three farthings.”
“Papa, I should like to hire Kate as my maid,” I say, wondering if I even have an allowance anymore. “That is, Kate, if you’d like to have the position.”
“Good girl,” Papa says. “And now, what’s to do about Mr. Linsley? I presume it is he? He has to marry you, lass, whatever his family may say.”
“That wastrel?” Aunt Rowbotham thunders into the room. “You’ll take tea, I trust, brother? Why, my footman has turned him away three times already today, and he brings shame upon the street, waiting in a hackney outside all day. I have twice asked the Watch to send him on his way. She cannot marry Linsley. He keeps an actress as mistress and has half a dozen b—s from all I hear.”
“Only one,” I say, “and he is a very sweet baby, Aunt. And why did you turn Inigo away?” I realize then that the brigand outside the house must have been Inigo—and I nearly let Roland bite him!
She snorts. “Nonsense, miss. Babies make messes, particularly if they’re boys, and you don’t want anything to do with that reprobate Linsley. Brother, I’ll take Philomena on as my companion, and she shall play cribbage and read to me and take Roland for walks, and be cosy with no men in sight.”
The thought of this, as grateful as I am, makes me sink back on the sofa in horror.
Aunt Rowbotham pours tea and offers biscuits, first to Roland and then to us.
“Mr. Linsley is obliged to marry her, if what she said in the church is true,” Papa says. “Is it, Philly?”
“Well, yes, but Mrs. Gibbons was in bed with us too…”
Papa sprays tea over himself. Kate looks at me with new respect in her eyes.
“No, no, it wasn’t like that.” I slap Papa’s back as he chokes and splutters.
“Well,” he says after he has recovered, “his brother forbade him to marry you and they threaten to disown him if he disobeys. And you see, Philly, I don’t know whether Mr. Linsley, as pleasant a young man he is, has the courage to withstand them. He’s much attached to his family, for all their pride and faults.”
“Then why has he called here three times today?”
After an uncomfortable silence, Kate speaks. “Well, miss, you see, he’s packed his mistress off to the country, and is maybe on the lookout for one in town. His family wouldn’t object to that, I’d wager. That’s what the girls at Mrs. Bright’s say, anyway, and we’re usually right about men.”
“That’s monstrous!” I spring to my feet and burst into tears again. My biscuit falls from my saucer and Roland waddles over to slurp it from the carpet.
The doorbell rings very loudly at this point, and I look out of the window to see Inigo there.
It is too much. I recall what I said in the church, my shameful public admission, my treatment of Tom Darrowby, and now the dreadful doubts planted in my head.
Maybe he did only do it for Weaselcopse. Maybe he was only interested in my fortune, and now that is gone—for Papa has not said he’ll cut me off without a penny, but he may yet do so—my person and the tattered remnants of my honor are all that remain.
I bolt out of the drawing room as the footman opens the front door and look around for shelter.
There is only one place to go.
I slam the door shut, bolt it, and curl up on the wooden seat.
“I know she’s here,” I hear Inigo shout. “Let me in, damn you.”
I believe at this point Papa, Aunt Rowbotham, and Kate emerge from the drawing room. Roland, too, as a series of yips and snarls, in conjunction with colorful language from Inigo, suggests he has joined the fray.
Papa shouts something about a horsewhip and restoring his daughter’s honor. My mild-mannered papa! I am proud of him.
Aunt Rowbotham announces that men are not welcome in her house, particularly Inigo.
“Philomena!”
Oh, I will not listen to him. I cover my ears.
I cannot become his mistress. I have to marry, but no one will have me now, unless Papa packs me off to marry a mill-owner at home. Oh, horror!
The door shakes under a series of heavy blows. “Philomena, you ninny, open the door!”
I gather what little is left of my dignity. “Certainly not, sir.” My voice shakes. “It is very ungentlemanly of you.”
“What are you doing in there?”
“It’s a water closet. What sort of question is that?”
“Well, hurry up. I want to propose to you.” He thumps on the door again and mutters something about women taking so long in there, it must be all the petticoats.
My papa comments that he’s always thought it so, too.
“Propose what?”
“Don’t be obtuse, girl. Open up.”
“No! Go away.”
“D—n.”
I can hear a sort of scratching, metallic sound. “Mr. Linsley?”
“Yes, Miss Wellesley-Clegg?”
“What are you doing?”
“Taking the door off its hinges. Your aunt’s butler was good enough to lend me a screwdriver.”
“Please stop.”
“No.”
“At least, send everyone else away.”
I hear him walk away, presumably to confer with the others, and I try the door. It wobbles. I unbolt it and open it a crack to see what is going on.
“Philomena!” Inigo rushes inside, bearing me onto the wooden seat. “Marry me. Make me the happiest of men. I love you, you ninny.”
I am so glad to see him, so very glad. He has shaved and looks as handsome as ever, and even while I protest I put my arms around him. “But your family—”
“Oh, don’t worry about them. They’ve disowned me.”
“What!” Oh, poor Inigo.
He doesn’t seem unduly upset. “You see, I have no recourse now but to marry an heiress and satisfy the gossipmongers. Say yes, Philomena.”
“Inigo, how can we tell our children you proposed to me in a water-closet, twice, and each time I accepted you?”
“You forget the time I proposed to you in my former mistress’s bed. Of course, you are quite right.” He stands and straightens out the door, which now tilts at a crazy angle; only the bottom seems to be fastened securely. “After you, Miss Wellesley-Clegg.”
Outside, he reaches into his coat pocket, removes a screwdriver, and sets the door into position. “Miss Wellesley-Clegg, make me the happiest of men. Put your hand into my pocket and hand me a screw.”
I do so.
“Miss Wellesley-Clegg!”
“Yes, Mr. Linsley?”
“Philomena, for God’s sake.” He looks quite shocked and wild-eyed, to my delight. Now it is he, the rake, who is thrown all out of sorts.
I move my hand around in his trouser pocket. Goodness, it is most interesting!
“I didn’t mean that pocket!” he hisses.
“Oh, I do beg your pardon.” I put my other hand into the trouser pocket on the other side, thus neatly trapping him against me.
“Come on, Philomena. Behave yourself. Say you’ll marry me, for God’s sake.”
“Are you not forgetting something, sir?”
“What?” He looks excessively distracted now.
“Aren’t you supposed to tell me you love me?”
“I should think, Miss Wellesley-Clegg, that the answer lies at your fingertips.”
“How very vulgar of you, Mr. Linsley. Nevertheless, I love you to distraction.”
His lips brush against my hair, and it is the most natural thing for us in the world to kiss. “And I love you too. Marry me,” he whispers. “You may put your hands in my pockets as much as you like, and you can buy bonnets to your heart’s content.”
What woman alive could refuse such a proposal?
Not I.
Letter from Miss Lydia (or possibly Miss Charlotte) Wellesley-Clegg
From the Great Northern Road, near L–
Dear Mama and Papa and my dearest sister,
The journey has been most interesting so far. We have seen several picturesque ruins and I have made some sketches. There are some very fine views hereabouts and we go often on walks and picnic. You will be interested to know that we visited the house of the Duke of P—, His Grace not being in residence, and saw many fine works of art. The house is reputed to have thirty bedchambers!
Phillie gave me a new ribbon for my bridesmaid’s bonnet, but I liked it better the way before.
The weather continues fine and we are all well.
I send my love to you all and to Hen, and I hope the house in Lancashire still stands.
Your most loving daughter and sister,
CharWesClye
Sister,
I trust you managed to secrete this note away as we agreed upon, for I have much to tell you that I do not think Papa and Mama should know about. To think you and I quarreled so violently on who was to accompany Mr. and Mrs. Linsley on their honeymoon! It is, as Papa promised, an educational experience, but possibly not in the way he meant.
As usual, I am in the parlor of an inn in the middle of nowhere and it is pouring with rain. Kate is darning yet another tear in Philomena’s nightrail—I did not realize the amount of damage done to linen on a honeymoon, although she shrugs and says Mr. Linsley is a passionate man. He and our sister are of course in their bedchamber, where they retired shortly after breakfast, she saying she needed to put on a different bonnet, and he, with a foolish grin on his face, saying he would help her. They have been there some four hours. So it is, most of the time.
The day before yesterday, when it did not rain, we went out to see some druidical ruin or some such (a collection of large stones in a field where cows were much in evidence—my new boots are quite ruined, I fear), and Phillie and Mr. Linsley wandered off. I was quite worried that they were lost, but eventually they reappeared, both of them grinning stupidly, much disarranged, and with twigs in their hair.
When we visited the Duke of P—’s house I regret that the housekeeper who showed us around thought Phillie and I were relations of Wellington and was most obsequious. Naturally Mr. and Mrs. Linsley became separated from us for some time and I suspect they visited at least one of His Grace’s thirty bedchambers. However, I enjoyed the house greatly. There was a magnificent gallery of statues, many of gentlemen in the classical style, i.e. unclothed, and I shall show you my sketches on our return. Tomorrow we
[Author’s note: At this point the original letter is overwritten in another, barely-readable hand. Since the words stockings and pins are legible, we can only assume the letter was recycled into yet another Wellesley-Clegg shopping list.]
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to:
My fearless agent Lucienne Diver and my intrepid editor May Chen; the members of the Wet Noodle Posse, particularly Colleen Gleason, Delle Jacobs, and Lorelle Marinello, who encouraged me to go on with “that Regency chick”; my critique group The Tarts; Kathy Caskie and Kasey Michaels; writer friends Sammi Hoard, Randy Jeanne, Adrienne Regard, Pam Rosenthal, Robin L. Rotham, and Brooke Wills; the ladies of the Risky Regencies Blog and The Beau Monde; Rosie Mullany (and the rest of the Mullany gang), Gail Orgelfinger, and Maureen Sarson for digital and in person nice cups of tea, friendship, and support; and Steve—my editor made me take out the stuff about the Normandy Beach landings, so it’s okay if you don’t want to read this one.
About the Author
JANET MULLANY’s debut novel was a Signet Regency, Dedication (2005), that went on to win several awards including the 2006 Golden Leaf. She was raised by half of an amateur string quartet in England, and was persecuted from an early age for reading too long in the family’s only bathroom. After discovering Georgette Heyer, she spent many happy hours exploring the city of Bath and longing to be transported back in time, although worried about how she’d explain the miniskirt. Now living near Washington, D.C., she has worked as an archaeologist, draftsperson, classical music radio announcer, opera publicist, and editorial assistant at a small press. Janet also writes erotic historicals under the pseudonym of Jane Lockwood. Find out more at www.janetmullany.com.
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By Janet Mullany
THE RULES OF GENTILITY
Credits
In Love, 1907 (oil on canvas) by Stone, Marcus / Private Collection Bridgeman Art Library
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE RULES OF GENTILITY. Copyright © 2007 by Janet Mullany. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Mobipocket Reader May 2007 ISBN 978-0-06-146863-6
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