The Tudor Signet

by Carola Dunn

  The grim-faced stablehands opened a way for him then closed in behind and tramped after. Charles took his lordship’s hat and gloves from the small table by the door, and murmured to Mariette, “Don’t want to give him an excuse to come back. We’ll see him off atween us, miss, never fear.”

  As he dashed off, Lilian ran to Captain Aldrich and flung herself on his chest, weeping. His sword clattered to the floor and he clasped her close in what she appeared to find an eminently satisfactory one-armed embrace. Mariette was debating whether she ought to play chaperon or allow the pair their privacy when Jenny hurried up.

  “Well, bless me!” she gasped. “They said Lord Wareham--”

  “It is all right, Jenny,” Mariette assured her. “Her ladyship does not need you for the moment. Will you tell Blount to be prepared to produce a bottle of Champagne?”

  “That I will, miss,” said the abigail, beaming. “This very minute!”

  Emily had none of Mariette’s qualms. She pulled Mariette into the room and shut the door. “In case Miss Thorne comes,” she whispered. “Mama does not mind the captain holding her, does she? Not like Lord Wareham?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I’m so glad.” She heaved a satisfied sigh. “I shall like to have Captain Aldrich for a step-papa.”

  “Hush!”

  In fact, oblivious of both company and decorum, the happy couple were fully occupied in exchanging vows and kisses in equal measure. Emily watched and listened, fascinated.

  Mariette, embarrassed and envious, drew her away to the window. Thence they had the felicity of seeing Lord Wareham’s dogcart race past as if pursued by forty devils, though his only pursuers were Benson and the stableboys. The four stopped at the corner of the house and continued the pursuit by means of jeers and catcalls, fortunately indistinct within the house, and rude gestures, all too visible.

  Emily applauded.

  “Oh!” Very pink, her cap awry, Lilian broke away from the captain’s embrace, leaving him with a grin liable to split his weathered face in two.

  Emily ran to her and hugged her. “I’m so happy for you, Mama.”

  “Truly, Emmie? You will not object to having a step-papa?”

  “As long as it is Captain Aldrich. Did Lord Wareham want to marry you, too?”

  “Yes, but only because he is deeply in debt. He found out somehow that though we live quietly I have a considerable fortune besides Corycombe--”

  Captain Aldrich’s grin vanished and he groaned. “You do? Lilian, you don’t think I--”

  “Of course not!”

  “But everyone else will believe--”

  “Let them.”

  “I ought not--”

  Lilian stamped her foot. “Desmond, if you think you can honourably withdraw an offer of marriage simply because I happen to be quite wealthy, I shall never forgive you.”

  “I don’t dare!” He pulled her close. Over her head he winked at Emily and Mariette. “I can see I’m going to hitch myself to a shrew and live beneath the cat’s paw.”

  “Shall you mind?” she asked saucily.

  “Provided you don’t decide to wear the breeches, not in the least.” He bowed his head to kiss her. She put her arms around his neck and raised her face.

  Mariette seized Emily’s hand and dragged her from the room.

  “Well!” said Emily as the door closed behind them. “I never thought to see Mama behave so.”

  “Nor I,” Mariette agreed.What changes Love had wrought in the once sedate, proper widow!

  When they reached the front hall, they found lurking there all the indoor servants except the lowliest scullery maid. Boult stepped forward.

  “Her ladyship, miss?” he enquired, his lined face anxious.

  “Unless it is rung for sooner,” said Mariette loudly, “you may serve Champagne with luncheon.”

  Through the servants’ respectfully hushed huzzas cut Miss Thorne’s acid voice. “Champagne!” She stood in the drawing-room doorway like a witch in a fairytale. “Just who do you think you are, Miss Bertrand, to give orders in Lady Lilian’s house?”

  The servants vanished. Mariette, taken aback, was about to acknowledge with chagrin that she had no right whatsoever to issue orders to the butler. Emily spoke first.

  “It is a celebration, ma’am,” she explained eagerly, “and it will be more fun if it is a surprise.”

  “A celebration!”

  “Mama is engaged to be married to Captain Aldrich.”

  “To Captain Aldrich? Humph! And what has Lord Wareham to say to that?”

  “Nothing,” said Lilian quietly. Her arm linked with the captain’s, she had come up unnoticed. “Pray wish me happy, Cousin Tabitha.”

  “I am sure I hope you will be happy,” said Miss Thorne in a tone expressive of her expectations to the contrary. “But to dismiss a gentleman of the nobility in favour of....” She faltered to a halt before Lilian’s steely gaze.

  “You must be relieved not to have to stay to observe my wedded bliss. When I am married I shall no longer be obliged to have a companion so you may in good conscience go to keep house for your brother, as I know you have long wished. In fact, I should not dream of delaying you until the wedding. Benson shall leave today to bear Mr. Thorne news of your coming, and my carriage shall be at your disposal as soon as you are packed.”

  Miss Thorne’s mouth dropped open and two fiery spots stained her sharp cheekbones. Then she drew herself up again and snapped, “I fear you will bitterly regret this start, Lilian. What your father the marquis will say I dread to think. I wash my hands of you.” She stalked past them and up the stairs.

  Lilian laughed softly and ruefully. “At last! Desmond, you will not turn tail if Papa is a trifle choleric to begin with, will you? I shall come around him in the end.”

  “I daresay you can wind him about your little finger? I’ll be sorry to vex the man who helped me to my present position, but you shall not be rid of me so easily.”

  She cupped his cheek with a loving hand, which he took and kissed. Restored to gaiety, she cried, “Did I hear the word Champagne? Blount, we shall drink it now, in the drawing room. And a glass of port to everyone in the servants’ hall to drink the captain’s health.”

  “And yours, my lady.” Blount appeared from nowhere in the fashion of all good butlers. “Allow me, on behalf of myself and the entire staff, to wish your ladyship very happy.”

  “I am, Blount, I am! Champagne is not nearly celebration enough.” Suddenly thoughtful, she led the way into the drawing room. “I know, I shall give a ball!”

  Chapter 14

  “A ball!” Mariette and Emily spoke at the same moment, in the same startled tone.

  Captain Aldrich gazed fondly on his betrothed. “A ball?”

  “A ball. I shall hire the best assembly room in Plymouth and invite the neighbours and your Navy friends, Desmond, and both our families. We shall need new gowns, girls.”

  “You mean I may go, Mama? I am not too young?”

  “How could I celebrate my betrothal without my dear daughter?”

  Emily ran to kiss her mother, and her new step-papa into the bargain.

  “I cannot ask Uncle George for a ball gown,” Mariette said wistfully. “He has given me so much lately. Will it serve if I sew a bit of lace and some ribbons onto one of the new dresses I’m making?”

  “Oh, if you ladies are going to prattle of clothes, I’m off,” said the captain.

  Lilian reached for his hand. “Don’t go, I need you. Mariette, my dear, you heard Captain Aldrich’s dismay when he heard of my fortune. It is clearly my duty to ease his trouble by spending it, so I hope you will assist by accepting the gift of a gown.”

  The captain laughed. In some confusion, Mariette stammered, “Indeed, I cannot--”

  “But you absolutely must look your best for my ball. You are the only one of my friends whose support I know I can rely upon.”

  “Malcolm is on our side,” her betrothed assured her. “I’d
not have had the nerve to offer without his approval.”

  “But Malcolm may not be able to come to the ball. Please, Mariette?”

  “Oh, how can I resist when you make it sound as if I shall be doing you a favour? A ball! I can scarcely believe it.” Even if Malcolm did not come, she resolved to enjoy what might very well be the only ball she would ever attend.

  Surely he would tear himself from the joys of Town to celebrate his only sister’s betrothal to his friend!

  “Splendid,” said Lilian. “Now let me see, when shall it be? There should be a full moon for safe travelling.”

  “Ten days,” said the weatherwise captain.

  “That is far too soon.”

  “If you wait another month, we shall be celebrating our wedding. You don’t think I mean to wait, do you?”

  They gazed into each other’s eyes, and Mariette feared they were going to fall to kissing again. Fortunately Blount came in with the Champagne. After everyone had toasted everyone else, Lilian returned to business.

  “Ten days! Desmond, I shall have to leave you to find a suitable place. Besides the ball room, we shall need a supper room, ladies’ withdrawing room, and several chambers for those who live at a distance. Mariette, can you go with us to Plymouth this afternoon? Most of my dresses are made in London but I have heard there is a modiste in Plymouth, a French emigrée, who is very capable. This evening, Emily, we must write invitations. Oh, how vexing of Cousin Tabitha to make me send her away just when I need her!”

  At that they all laughed, though Mariette could not help feeling just a little sorry for the woman who had lost her place in so delightful a household through her own censorious spleen. Still, Miss Thorne did not find it delightful, so perhaps she would be happier with her brother.

  * * * *

  The Maison Duhamel was very different from the dark little shop of the seamstress who made Mariette’s riding habit. Madame Duhamel’s customers entered a large, airy, mirrored apartment draped with beautiful materials. Gilt chairs surrounded small tables whereon rested the latest fashion plates from London--and from Paris itself.

  None of Madame’s clients ventured to question the presence of the French plates. And if some of Madame’s silks and laces had a French look to them, Madame was far too discreet to boast of the fact. England had been at war with France for close to two decades, but where ladies’ modes were concerned, Paris still reigned supreme.

  Smugglers brought cognac and claret across the Channel for the gentlemen; why not fashions for their wives and daughters?

  Lady Lilian Farrar, her daughter, and her young friend were greeted with urbane complacency by Madame Duhamel herself. A dark, slender woman perhaps a year or two older than Lilian, she wore a black silk gown of the utmost plainness and the utmost elegance.

  “Milady honours my humble establishment,” she said in nearly accentless English, curtsying. “It will be a pleasure to dress three ladies so lovely.”

  Though, as she studied them, her professional gratification appeared to be quite sincere, Mariette thought she caught a gleam of malicious curiosity in her eyes. Perhaps the burgundy-red riding habit Mariette considered so smart aroused Madame’s scornful interest. She must wonder why anyone so obviously tonnish as Lilian was visiting her shop with a dowdy provincial.

  Lilian explained their needs. Madame went off to look out suitable materials while the ladies sat down to study the fashion plates. Emily was much taken with a violet satin gown ornately beruffled around the hem, the bodice embroidered with seed pearls.

  “I think not, dearest,” said her mother. “See, that is a French plate. I have heard that the Emperor likes his court to be elaborately dressed, but we shall stay with the simpler English fashions--though, to be sure, even those came originally from France.”

  “But they are English now, like Mariette. No, I should not care to wear anything Napoleon likes when it was he who shot off my step-papa’s arm.”

  Lilian smiled as she set aside the Parisian plates. “Very right. Besides, you are far too young for anything but white to be proper.”

  Emily pouted a little, but the gown finally chosen delighted her: a white dress of exquisite simplicity, falling straight to the ankles from a very high waist, with a tunic of silver Urlinger’s net and a white shawl embroidered in silver. In her hair she would wear a wreath of white rosebuds.

  “You will look like a fairy princess,” Mariette assured her.

  Madame advised Lilian to wear celestial blue, to match her eyes. Assenting, Lilian blushed. Mariette guessed her blue eyes had been the subject of more than one compliment from Captain Aldrich.

  Turning to Mariette, Madame said, “White is de rigueur for young ladies, but mademoiselle is not just come from the schoolroom, I think? The colour of mademoiselle’s habit is most becoming. For a ball, a more vivid red, perhaps?”

  Crimson zephyr, soft and silky, Madame suggested. A tunic of white gauze, spangled with gold--embroidered with gold, milady preferred? But of course, milady had excellent taste. A tracery of gold embroidery on the tunic, nothing vulgarly ornate. White rosebuds in the hair, perhaps, to match Mademoiselle Farrar’s? And a crimson cashmire shawl, for after all, it was February still.

  “May I, Lilian?” Mariette asked with bated breath. “Ought I not to wear white?”

  “No, you are old enough to wear colours, my dear, and I believe crimson will suit you very well.”

  Madame’s assistants escorted the ladies up to small fitting rooms on the first floor. Stripped to her shabby chemise, Mariette stood raising and lowering her arms to order while the girl measured every inch of her.

  She faced a window overlooking a small, walled courtyard with a wing of the house on one side. On a line strung across the court hung several dresses, airing or drying. Mariette was inspecting these with desultory interest when a door in the back wall opened. Around it appeared a man’s hat which turned from side to side as if the wearer was peering cautiously around. Apparently all was safe, for he popped in, hastily shut the door behind him, and took off his hat to wipe his forehead.

  Mariette at once recognized Lord Wareham’s groom, tall and thin, his long, narrow face apprehensive. Clapping his hat back on his head, he scurried across the cobbles towards the house and out of her view.

  Odd! For a moment she feared the baron had sent his man to make mischief for Lilian. However, he could not know her whereabouts since they had come to Plymouth on the spur of the moment. Maybe the groom had a sweetheart in the house, though Mariette failed to imagine any female taking up with such an unprepossessing character.

  Measurements taken, the ladies descended to the waiting barouche to repair to the Duke of Cornwall Hotel, where Captain Aldrich had invited them to take tea. On the way, Mariette mentioned seeing Lord Wareham’s groom, and his furtive behaviour.

  “Perhaps he was there in connection with a debt,” Lilian surmised. “I know Lord Wareham is deeply in debt, and I have heard Madame Duhamel keeps a gaming house, so what is more likely than that he owes her more than he can pay?”

  Emily’s eyes grew round. “A gaming house, Mama?”

  “A place for gentlemen to gamble,” her mother elucidated, frowning. “Not on the dressmaking premises, and it is a private club, quite respectable, I believe, but perhaps we ought not to patronize her.”

  “Just this once,” Mariette pointed out, fearful for her glorious crimson gown, “because we have no time to go elsewhere.”

  She was relieved when Lilian agreed that it was too late to seek out a different modiste. All the same, she could not help wondering whether Madame’s club was where Ralph had been gambling recently. “Deep play,” Mr. Bolger said. Ralph had won to begin with, but already his winnings were lost. Would they let him go on playing when all his ready cash was gone? Might he end up, like Lord Wareham, deep in debt to Madame?

  Mariette remembered the fleeting gleam of malice in the Frenchwoman’s eyes.

  Reaching the Duke of Cornwall, they found the
captain awaiting them, pleased with himself: the hotel’s assembly room, the best in Plymouth, was available for the betrothal ball. They went to inspect it, and the other accommodations, and Lilian gaily pronounced herself satisfied.

  As they returned through the passage, they came face to face with Ralph.

  “Hallo, Mariette!” he said. “What on earth are you doing here?” Then he noticed who she was with. Flushing, he stood aside to let them pass.

  “I’ll tell you later, Ralph.” She was going to move on, but Lilian laid a hand on her arm.

  “This gentleman is your cousin, is he not? Will you not present him?”

  Grateful for her friendly gesture, Mariette performed the introductions. Lilian promptly invited Ralph to the ball. While he was stammering out a confused and flattered acceptance, Mariette happened to glance at Captain Aldrich.

  The captain took a dim view of the invitation. In fact, the captain clearly viewed Ralph with extreme disfavour.

  Ralph did not know Captain Aldrich, or so he had said when Mariette mentioned his name at home. Therefore Lord Malcolm must have told the captain about Ralph. What had he said to lead to such deep disapproval?

  She had thought his opinion of Ralph less black after their meeting at the manor, but it must once have been black indeed to influence the easy-going captain to such an extent. Perhaps that was why he had left Devon so abruptly: seeing Mariette and Ralph together had forcibly reminded him of the connection, and his fondness...his friendship for Mariette had not survived the reminder.

  The hollow in her heart swiftly filled with anger. What right had he to condemn her cousin? She could not really be in love with a man as quick to pass judgment as Miss Thorne!

  So why was she so miserable?

  She forced herself to smile as they parted from Ralph, forced herself to listen to Emily’s chatter over the tea. Emmie, with great indignation, told Captain Aldrich about the Parisian fashion plates at Madame Duhamel’s, the lace which her mama suspected came from Brussels or Valenciennes. The captain listened intently, though Mariette was not sure whether he was genuinely interested or was humouring his daughter-to-be.