Regency Innocents

by Annie Burrows

  ‘Give him an answer.’ Mrs Gillies nodded. ‘He has a deal of pride, that young man.’ She leaned down and kissed her daughter on the forehead. ‘But my advice to you is to carry on as best you can, as though you did not have … a decision to make. If he has asked you to keep the matter confidential, you must act as though you were not considering … umm … whatever it was you discussed so intently in the garden yesterday.’

  Deborah could not believe her mother had so nearly guessed at the truth. From her knowing smile and meaningful nods, she made it obvious she thought Captain Fawley had proposed to her, and was giving her time to consider her answer. She sat up straight, in alarm.

  ‘Mother, you won’t speak of this to anyone else, will you?’

  ‘Of course not! Especially if you decide not to … umm … that is, I am sure you would not wish it to be known that you … And naturally, he will not want anyone knowing that you would not … No, no! Far better to keep the whole thing under wraps, until you have decided you will … I mean, when we may speak freely, without risk of hurting anyone’s pride.’

  Deborah felt much better, knowing that her mother had an inkling of what was in the air. It would be much easier to tell her the whole once they were on the way to her wedding than if she had to spring it on her out of the blue.

  It would be easier to make some excuse to go out to the lawyer’s too. She would assume she would be meeting Captain Fawley secretly, in order to give him an answer.

  She rose early in the morning, after another restless night, wondering how he would manage to communicate with her. He could hardly come to fetch her himself. They could not just go out, without a chaperon of any sort. But she could not imagine how she was expected to find the lawyer’s office unless he sent her a message. Her stomach roiled at the thought he would send her a letter, which she would have to somehow keep from the curiosity of both her mother and Susannah. They normally read all the post over the breakfast plates, discussing the various invitations they received, or comparing news from home. She shook her head, a nagging pain building across her forehead, which, she realised, had been ridged with worry almost since the moment he had made his proposal.

  But in the event, Captain Fawley had, as he had promised, arranged things so she did not have to tell any lies at all. They had scarcely risen from the breakfast table, when the butler strode into the room, looking full of self-importance.

  ‘The Countess of Walton is here, Miss Gillies,’ he said, handing her a card. ‘I have shown her into the front parlour.’

  All three ladies gasped at the unexpected honour of having such a grand person visit them, especially at such an unsocial hour.

  ‘Go on, go on,’ her mother urged her, making shooing motions with her hands. ‘Do not keep her ladyship waiting. We will join you as soon as we have …’ She trailed off, straightening her cap as Susannah scurried to the mirror, where she patted her curls and tugged at the neckline of her gown.

  ‘Oh, no, is that a smear of butter on my dress?’ Deborah heard her saying, as she followed the butler from the room. ‘I had better go and change!’

  ‘Ah! Miss Deborah!’ the Countess greeted her incorrectly, in a decidedly French accent, as soon as she entered the room.

  Deborah had been introduced to the Countess at Lord Lensborough’s ball, and had spent a few minutes trying in vain to think of some topic of conversation that might interest the diminutive and rather vague-looking woman. She had learned later, from her mother, that the Countess was generally considered something of a failure, socially speaking, although the universally poor opinion of the Earl’s choice of bride had mellowed somewhat when she had eventually fallen pregnant.

  ‘Alone too!’ she beamed, leaping to her feet, and taking Deborah’s hands to pull her down on to the sofa next to her. ‘This is good! For I come from Robert, to bear you to him who is waiting at the office of his lawyers. He has told me how I must keep this a secret, and how I am to say to your mother that we are to go shopping, that I admired the gown I saw you wearing at Lensborough’s ball, or some such piece of nonsense. As though anyone would believe I would wish to spend the day shopping when I am this size!’ She indicated her clearly visible pregnancy with a rueful moue. ‘But there, that is Robert for you!’

  The countess was dressed in layers of pink muslin, which draped over, and emphasised, the roundness of her tummy. Together with her chirruping voice and her fluttery hand movements, she put Deborah in mind of a chaffinch hopping about her drawing room. This impression was reinforced when her mother entered the room, and Lady Walton briskly folded those hands in her lap, regarding the newcomer with her head tilted to one side.

  ‘Mrs Gillies?’ she enquired without preamble. ‘You do not mind that I borrow your daughter for the morning to go shopping? It is a fancy of mine.’ She checked, an expression of inspiration coming to her face. ‘Yes! For we women who are enceinte, we get these fancies, you know. Nothing will do, but to have the delightful Miss Gillies to come shopping with me this morning. We met at Lord Lensborough’s ball. I have very few friends in London,’ she finished, with an abstracted air. ‘Except for Robert, of course, who is quite like a brother to me. I mean to say, Captain Fawley,’ she explained, at the mystified look Mrs Gillies gave her.

  Deborah decided she would have to get the woman out of the house before she blurted out something that would give the game away. How could Captain Fawley have entrusted such a delicate mission to such a scatterbrained creature as this? She dashed upstairs, gathered her coat and bonnet, almost tripping on the hall carpet in her haste to get back to the drawing room.

  Both women heaved a sigh of relief when the door of the Walton carriage shut behind them, and they set out on their mission.

  ‘Oh, this is so exciting!’ Lady Walton trilled, settling herself into a corner and regarding Deborah out of a pair of black, beady eyes. ‘To think that I should be able to help Robert to outwit that vile Lampton, at last!’ She checked herself, going a little pink in the cheeks when Deborah looked at her in astonishment.

  ‘Lampton? What has Lampton got to do with this?’

  ‘Oh, dear, now I have ruined everything. Robert will be so cross with me. I promised I would not spill any beans and now I have done it before we even get to see the men who control his fortune. Miss Gillies …’ she leaned forward, her face creased with distress ‘… please tell me that you will not turn him down, now that you know he has done what you must think reprehensible.’

  Deborah felt a strange sensation in her chest, as though someone was squeezing her there, making it hard to breathe. ‘Reprehensible?’ she echoed. ‘I do not know what you mean. What has Captain Fawley done?’

  ‘He has done nothing! It is that vile worm of a pig, Percy Lampton, who has tried to steal everything from him. Please, if you care anything for him at all, do not side with his enemies today. From much he has recovered in the past, but not this, I think. It has been so hard for him to summon the courage to ask a woman even to dance with him, thinking himself so ugly, but to beg for your hand … You cannot think what courage he had to summon to approach you.’

  She took Deborah’s hands between her own. ‘You see beyond the scars, to his heart, do you not? You have not just agreed to marry him because you wish to have a big house in the country and not to have to become a governess? I would not have agreed to take part in this deception if I did not believe you were worthy of him. But I saw how you looked at him at Lensborough’s ball. You love him, don’t you? Please tell me I have not this all wrong?’

  ‘Y-yes, I love him,’ Deborah breathed, tugging her hands out of the Countess’s grip. ‘But I don’t understand ….’

  ‘You don’t need to understand! Only love him. Trust him! Men … they do the foolish things sometimes, because they think to protect us. Wrong things, perhaps. But Robert will be so good a husband to you. I know it! He is so grateful that you give him this chance ….’

  ‘I don’t want his gratitude!’ Deborah snapped. The fu
nny feeling in her chest was developing into a burning pain. She had felt from the outset that there was something not right about all the secrecy Captain Fawley had insisted on. Now the Countess had confirmed that it was not just his sensitivity to the way he looked that had made him insist the wedding should be held in secret.

  But the worst thing of all was knowing that he had taken this ninny completely into his confidence, even to telling her all about her plans to become a governess, when he had kept her in the dark. It had been bad enough when she had thought she came in a poor second to Susannah. Now she had to accept she did not even come in second. This woman, his sister-in-law, stood closer to him than she did.

  She blanked out the Countess’s persistent chirruping as the coach bore them into the City, as she tried to make some sense out of what she had let slip the moment they had got into the coach. She remembered the look of contempt Captain Fawley had directed at Percy Lampton the first time he had seen him with Susannah. And the malicious smile Lampton had returned. At the time, she had thought it was odd, but now she saw it was the look of two long-standing adversaries. She recalled the way Lampton had ridden up to them in Hyde Park, requesting an introduction, as though the meeting was purely accidental. She remembered her instant distrust of his charm. And felt certain that he was not merely another in Susannah’s long line of conquests. Could his pursuit of her been deliberately calculated for the sole purpose of preventing Captain Fawley from marrying her, and thus gaining his inheritance?

  She alighted from the carriage in a daze. Captain Fawley was waiting for her on the steps of a functional building in a narrow, though cleanly swept, side street. He looked tense.

  As well he might. He was using her as a weapon in his ongoing struggle with the Lamptons in general, and Percy Lampton in particular.

  And it hurt.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ he said, limping forward to offer her his arm. ‘I was beginning to think my ruse would not work. Heloise is such a pea goose. A dear little pea goose, but sadly featherbrained.’

  ‘I heard that, you ungrateful beast!’ Lady Walton put her head out of the carriage window to inform him, her eyes full of laughter. ‘Now you will have to wonder if I will return, in Walton’s carriage, to take your Miss Gillies home, or if I will take offence and wash my hands of you once and for all!’

  ‘You wouldn’t do anything so hard-hearted,’ he returned, with a fond smile. ‘Besides, you will be burning with curiosity to discover how this interview turned out.’

  ‘Pig!’ she answered, slamming the window and thumping with her parasol on the roof to indicate the driver should set off.

  Could she really believe the Countess would connive at doing something that was really reprehensible? Though her words had set alarm bells ringing, the insouciant way she had driven off, after laughing and joking with Robert, made it sound as though she were participating in some kind of prank, at the very worst.

  She shook her head, too hurt and bewildered to do more than follow meekly where Robert led her, which was into a narrow hallway and up a wooden staircase to the cramped office of the lawyers, Kenridge and Hopedale.

  As they entered the room, two men looked up from behind a desk almost obliterated by the mounds of papers and files stacked upon it. One, a kindly-faced, stout gentleman, got to his feet, indicating that she should take the ladder-backed chair set out for the convenience of his clients. As Captain Fawley took his place directly behind her, the other lawyer scowled at them over the top of a pair of half-moon spectacles.

  ‘Now, then, Miss … Gillies, is it not?’ the cherubic lawyer muttered, shuffling a sheaf of papers in front of him. ‘We just need to ask you a few questions.’

  She felt Captain Fawley place his hand upon her shoulder, as though offering her reassurance. She felt an almost overwhelming urge to shake it off. Why had he not been open with her about his real motive for wishing to get married? Could he imagine for one second that she would side with the family who had wronged him even before he was born? She could not believe a man as starchy as the Earl of Walton would acknowledge a man as his brother, if there was even a hint he might be illegitimate. The Lamptons must have deliberately robbed Captain Fawley’s mother, and him, of what should have been theirs. Now Percy Lampton seemed to be trying to do the same thing, all over again!

  ‘We only need to know that she is of age, and entering into marriage with Captain Fawley freely,’ the acid-faced lawyer interrupted. ‘Are you?’ he shot at her.

  But before she could answer in the affirmative, the kindly lawyer shook his head. ‘No, no, we must establish not only the legality, but also the suitability of this union. The marriage must be watertight. We do not want the Lamptons thinking they might have any possible grounds for contesting our decision to wind up the trust. If she does not come from an impeccable background, they might—’

  ‘Codswallop!’ the thin lawyer snapped. ‘It is quite clear that Euphemia Lampton intended all her estate to go to this young man. Her nephew never even got a mention in the original will. Not even to a keepsake. You and I both know that she only added the codicil under duress.’

  Something like a cold dart shot through Deborah at the use of the word nephew. Nephew to a Lampton? Could this other legatee mentioned in a codicil be … Percy Lampton? Was this the inheritance he had been fully expecting to come into? If so, what Captain Fawley was doing was worse than she had imagined. Not only was he using her to get his hands on this legacy, but it was a property that morally belonged to somebody else. Or at least … she chewed at her lower lip … Lampton had always assumed it belonged to him. So he would feel as though he was being robbed. Now she felt like an accessory to a crime.

  The plump lawyer’s cheeks went a little pink. ‘Now, now, we do not need to mention specifics in front of this young lady ….’

  ‘Why not? You are practically demanding she provide references!’

  The plump lawyer lost his cherubic look, his brows drawing down in an angry V as he swivelled to face his partner. ‘Only in order to satisfy a legal point. Normally it is preferable for a property to go to a blood relation than somebody who has no connection with the testator.’

  ‘The connection is there. You heard what Miss Lampton told us when we drew up the original will—’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Deborah said, rising to her feet, her pulse tumultuous with agitation. ‘But I am quite able to vouch for my suitability to marry any man I choose,’ she said, addressing the plump lawyer. ‘My mother is granddaughter to the Earl of Plymstock, through the female line. You may check her lineage in Collin’s Peerage. My father was a Gillies of Hertfordshire. Again, check away as meticulously as you please. Third son of Reginald and Lucinda Gillies, of Upshott. Not perhaps a noble family, but old.’

  She drew in an indignant breath. Not only had Captain Fawley been dishonest in the manner of his proposal, but he had exposed her to this piece of impertinence!

  ‘You may also investigate as long as you please, and you will discover I have never done anything that would give anyone any justification for claiming I was not completely respectable. My father was a man of the cloth. As his child, he taught me how important it was not to let him down by so much as an unseemly gesture. Go and inquire in the town of Lower Wakering, where I grew up. You will not find anybody who could cast an aspersion on my moral rectitude. And as for the other matter, yes, I am of age! At my last prayers, in fact,’ she said, her face twisting with bitterness as she recalled that it was precisely this fact Captain Fawley had used to lure her into what he thought was her last chance of ever marrying. ‘And do I marry Captain Fawley of my own free will?’

  She whirled round to glare at him. She felt humiliated, used, deceived. He held her regard without the slightest sign of guilt or remorse. There was only what might have been interpreted as a slightly mocking challenge in his eyes.

  Trust him, the Countess had urged her. Do not side with his enemies.

  She swallowed. Furious as she was with him
, right at this moment, could she really back out of this horrible tangle, having come this far? Would he not see it as a betrayal, far worse than anything that had been done to him to date? He would regard her as an enemy. He would hate her.

  Shaking with impotent fury, she turned back to the lawyers, who were awaiting her answer with quills poised.

  ‘Yes,’ she croaked, her voice clogged with emotion. She cleared her throat. ‘If I do not marry him, I shall not marry anyone,’ she declared firmly.

  Then, her eyes full of humiliated tears, she whirled from the room and stumbled down the stairs into the dusty street. Leaning against the wall, her forehead grinding into the brickwork, she fought to regain her composure.

  What was she doing, allying herself to a man who could deceive her, use her without regard for her feelings? Condemning herself to a lifetime of hurt, that was what!

  ‘Miss Gillies!’ She blinked as the Walton coach drew up at the kerb, and the countess leaned out, her face puckered with concern.

  ‘Miss Gillies!’ She heard another voice, a masculine voice, calling her from within the lawyer’s offices. Captain Fawley must be making his way down the stairs, of necessity slowly and carefully.

  A footman jumped down from the box and opened the carriage door for her. She strode across the pavement and got in.

  ‘Where is Robert?’ the Countess asked, peering behind her.

  ‘I don’t think we ought to be seen together, do you?’ Deborah said, on a flash of inspiration. ‘Wouldn’t want to give the game away!’ she finished bitterly.

  The Countess’s face lit up. Clapping her hands, she gave the order for the coach to set off.

  Just as Robert emerged from the doorway, his face as dark as a thundercloud.

  Chapter Five