“It is very difficult for the prosperous to be humble.”
—JANE AUSTEN, EMMA
The house seemed unwontedly quiet without Lord Davenham. Or perhaps, Abby thought, it was because the girls went out more often, now that they lived so close to all the fashionable shops in Oxford Street—not shopping, for they had little money to spend, but gleaning inspiration for the outfits Daisy was designing for them all. Or being taken for drives in the park by Mr. Monkton-Coombes.
Lord Davenham’s restrictions had not gone down well with the other girls either. Of course, they loved being escorted by Mr. Monkton-Coombes—who could object to such a handsome, entertaining and fashionable escort?—but the girls soon started to object to being shadowed everywhere by the new footmen, Turner and Hatch, dressed in livery.
“It’s silly,” Jane said, when Abby discovered her and Damaris returning home yet again with no escort. “We don’t need an escort.”
“It’s for your own safety,” Abby said, although privately she thought it was a little overprotective.
“Yes, but you were attacked, not me or Damaris or Daisy, and you said yourself he must be a cutpurse, so why must we be shadowed every step? It’s like being in prison!”
“In prison you can’t go anywhere,” Abby pointed out dryly. “Now stop complaining; you know perfectly well we promised Lord Davenham we wouldn’t go anywhere without an escort, and since it’s his house we live in, he makes the rules.”
“I didn’t promise.”
“No, but I did for all of us,” Abby said firmly. “So please don’t do it again.”
“We only went across the park to get an ice,” Damaris said soothingly. The location of Gunter’s just across the park was a constant temptation. “We were visible all the time from the house.”
“Oh, and Abby,” Jane exclaimed, diverted. “You’ll never guess who we saw outside Gunter’s—at least, I saw, because Damaris doesn’t know him.” She didn’t wait for Abby to guess. “Sir Walter Greevey.”
Abby had to think for a moment. “Oh, the man who found you that job in Hereford? Did you speak to him?”
“No, for he was getting into his carriage and had his wife with him—at least, I think it was his wife—she was quite old. I waved at him but I don’t think he recognized me, because he drove off without a sign. I wish he had, because he’s ever so nice. He would have bought Damaris and me an ice, I’m sure—he always used to bring the girls little treats at the Pill.”
“Well, hurry along; the ladies for the literary society will be arriving shortly.”
The literary society was going very well. Lady Beddington had put the word out among her friends and acquaintances, and each day more people came. No young men yet—apart from Freddy Monkton-Coombes, who’d attended the last one, but Lady Beatrice had hopes.
The society met three afternoons a week; there was little on in London at this time of year, so those members of society who disdained country living were delighted to have an afternoon entertainment, something refreshingly different from the usual round of morning calls.
Abby had chosen a very popular and quite fashionable book to start with, and though most of the members of the society knew of it and could discuss it in vague terms, it was surprising how many of them hadn’t actually read it. For some it was simply that the print was too small and gave them a headache, but as many confided to Abby later, they hadn’t bothered because they never found books entertaining.
It was very gratifying to find the large drawing room filling up for each meeting—they’d even had to send out for more chairs. And each time more people brought a friend or relative, and soon, Lady Beatrice and Abby hoped, they would bring young men.
“My nephew will be so cross,” Lady Beatrice had declared gleefully, “but he cannot object, because I’m not taking you gels out and about in society—which he strictly forbade—society is calling on me.”
A few days later, society of a different kind came calling. Abby and Lady Beatrice were sitting quietly in the cozy back sitting room, enjoying a welcome patch of late-morning sunshine, when Featherby appeared in the doorway and cleared his throat.
Lady Beatrice looked up from her game of patience. “Yes, Featherby, what is it?”
“Excuse me, m’lady, but there is a . . . a person at the door, asking to see Lord Davenham.”
“He’s gone to Manchester, as you very well know,” Lady Beatrice responded.
Featherby did not move.
Lady Beatrice picked up her lorgnette and eyed him. “A person, you said?”
“Yes, m’lady.”
“You know I don’t receive persons, only ladies and gentlemen. Send the fellow away.”
Featherby stayed where he was.
Lady Beatrice eyed him narrowly. “You’re suggesting I see this person?”
“I am, m’lady.” Featherby presented Lady Beatrice with the silver salver, in the center of which lay a lavishly embossed visiting card.
She picked up the card between thumb and finger, scrutinized it, turned it over, then dropped it back on the silver tray. “You’ve informed him that Lord Davenham has gone to Manchester?”
“I have, m’lady. He seemed to find it highly amusing.”
Lady Beatrice exchanged a long look with Featherby, then sighed. “Then I suppose we must admit the wretched man. Send him in then, and bring us some tea. And take this, will you?” She passed him a kitten, which he received with aplomb.
Abby folded her sewing. “Would you like me to leave?”
“Good gad, no—stay where you are. The dratted Parsleys have come to town.”
A moment later Featherby announced the visitors. A chunkily built middle-aged man entered the room, looking around him with what Abby felt was the eye of an auctioneer, calculating the value of everything he saw. Some of the furniture, she could tell, did not meet with his approval.
He was dressed in a coat of green tweed, a plainly tied neck cloth, a checked waistcoat and brown breeches—not a fashionable outfit, but clearly expensive. The materials were of the finest quality, as was the heavy gold chain of his fob watch.
A man who knew his own worth, Abby thought, and felt no need to trumpet it. Nor to pander to fashion.
The young woman with him, on the other hand, might have stepped straight from the pages of La Belle Assemblée. Pretty as a doll, with eyes of bright china blue, she was dressed in a white muslin dress over which she wore a deep-pink-and-white-striped redingote. Over a cluster of fair ringlets she wore a fetching straw bonnet trimmed with dark pink ribbons and pale pink artificial roses. She smoothed her pink kid gloves nervously and stared at Lady Beatrice with much the same expression as she might regard a viper.
Lady Beatrice held out a gracious hand. “Please forgive me for not rising. I have been unwell.”
Mr. Parsloe took the proffered hand, shook it and said, “An honor to meet you, my lady. My daughter, Miss Parsloe.”
The young lady curtsied and murmured a polite greeting.
Lady Beatrice eyed her coolly, and indicated Abby. “My niece, Miss Chance.”
Abby curtsied. “How do you do, Mr. Parsloe, Miss Parsloe.”
Featherby brought in the tea tray, and Abby occupied herself pouring tea.
“And where is your other daughter, Mr. Parsloe?” Lady Beatrice inquired when they had been served.
He looked puzzled. “Other daughter?” He spoke with a broad northern accent.
“I meant Miss Henrietta Parsloe.”
He gave her a puzzled look. “This is Henrietta. I have only one daughter, my lady.”
Lady Beatrice’s brows snapped together. She was silent a long moment, then exchanged a speaking glance with Abby.
Abby had no difficulty reading her mind; she was just as shocked. How could Lord Davenham have been betrothed to this young girl for nine years? She looked barely eighteen.
They drank their tea in silence, the only sounds in the room an awkward clinking of china and silver. Lady Beatrice made no effort to put the Parsloes at their ease; she was very much playing la grande dame. Abby hadn’t seen this side of her before.
Mr. Parsloe seemed to notice nothing amiss. “To think Lord Davenham has gone up to Manchester to call on us and we’re down here, trying to call on him.” He chuckled. “We might have passed him on the road, but we didn’t see him, did we, puss?”
“No, Papa.”
“He wrote to tell us to expect him any day, then wrote again to say he’d been delayed because you had visitors, my lady.” It almost sounded like an accusation, Abby thought.
“Indeed?” Lady Beatrice said in arctic tones.
“Aye, he did.” Mr. Parsloe seemed unaware it was a snub. He gave Abby a critical inspection. “I suppose you would be one of those visitors, Miss Chance.”
“Yes, myself and my sisters.”
“Younger or older sisters?” he asked, not seeming to realize it wasn’t polite to ask. Or perhaps he didn’t care.
“Younger.”
He pursed his lips, seeming displeased. “Ah, well, Henrietta’s here now.”
There was another long, uncomfortable silence broken only by the clatter of tea things.
“I see your London weather is no better than what we’ve been getting up in Manchester.”
Lady Beatrice gave a bored sigh.
“Really?” Abby murmured, to keep the conversation going. It was a bit of a shock to see Lady Beatrice behaving in such a cutting manner; she was normally so kind.
Not that Mr. Parsloe seemed to notice. “Nay, we’ve not had anything that could be called summer. My girl here has had to bring her winter clothes, haven’t you, puss?”
“Yes, Papa,” Miss Parsloe murmured, twisting her pink kid gloves restlessly. She saw Abby noticing and immediately smoothed the gloves out.
There was another long silence. “Aye, feels more like a mild winter than summer,” said Mr. Parsloe. “Mark my words, we’re going to pay for this.”
“Indeed?” Lady Beatrice said again.
“Oh, aye, with weather like this the crops will fail, and there’ll be shortages all ’round.” He rubbed his hands, though whether it was a response to the chilly atmosphere in the room or at the prospect of the shortages, Abby couldn’t tell. “A shrewd man would be well advised to buy up whatever grain he can—the price is going to soar once the shortages start to be felt. And so I’ll be advising your nephew.”
“Profiting off human misery?” Lady Beatrice said icily.
Mr. Parsloe was unoffended. “Bless you, my lady, it’s how business works, but there, I should know better than to discuss such matters with softhearted ladies. Members of your sex simply don’t have a head for business, but that’s how we men like it; isn’t that so, Henrietta?”
“Yes, Papa,” Henrietta murmured. Abby couldn’t make her out. In one way Henrietta seemed quite composed, looking around her with an air of disinterest, but then there was the way she was treating those gloves.
He chuckled, then, as silence fell again, glanced around him in search of another topic. “Now, this is more like it. I took a look at Davenham House before we came—I’ve been wanting to see inside that house for nine years.”
Lady Beatrice stiffened.
“A grand old house in its day, I daresay, but sadly shabby now.”
“Indeed,” Lady Beatrice said in a freezing tone.
Mr. Parsloe nodded, seemingly unaware of the offensiveness of his comments. He was apparently of the school of men who prided themselves on their blunt speaking. “You won’t have noticed it, my lady, having lived there all your life, but young people expect things to be bang up to the knocker, don’t you, puss?”
“Yes, Papa,” Henrietta said. Those gloves would be ruined, Abby thought, watching her.
Was she normally nervous in society, or was she responding to Lady Beatrice’s chilly politeness that barely concealed hostility? Henrietta seemed a great deal more sensitive than her father. It was as though a bull had fathered a doe.
Abby felt sorry for the girl. One’s first visit to one’s prospective in-laws—one’s all-but-official aunt-by-law—would be nerve-racking enough without there being an obvious class difference. And then there was the matter of the disparity in age—and the nine-year engagement, starting from when Henrietta was a child.
It was all most peculiar.
Mr. Parsloe chuckled again. “Likes everything that’s new and bright, does my lass. Chip off the old block.” He glanced around. “No doubt the minute she becomes mistress of the house, she’ll be after her papa to buy her some fashionable new furniture.”
Lady Beatrice swelled and seemed about to explode, so Abby said quickly, “Much of this furniture has been in the family for years. They’re valuable antiques.”
“Valuable?” Mr. Parsloe pursed his lips dubiously. “Ah, well, if you say so. My lass has her heart set on making a splash in London society once she’s Lady Davenham, and a fashionable London house on Berkeley Square is just the ticket. You’ll like living here, won’t you, puss?”
“Yes, Papa.”
She didn’t sound too excited, Abby thought, but no doubt the poor girl was mortified by her father’s crassness.
“Have you been to London before, Miss Parsloe?” Abby asked her, as much because she felt sorry for the girl, as from wanting to distract the company from Mr. Parsloe’s disastrous conversational attempts.
“No, it’s my first visit.”
Abby smiled. “I know when I first came to London, I was so excited, I made a list of all the things I wanted to do and see. Have you made a list?”
“She doesn’t need one,” Mr. Parsloe said firmly. “Lord Davenham will show her everything she needs to—”
“Abby, we’re going out. Do you want—Oh,” Jane exclaimed as she came to an abrupt halt in the doorway. “I’m so sorry, Lady Beatrice; I didn’t realize you had visitors.”
“My sister, Miss Jane Chance,” Abby said, and introduced the Parsloes.
“I’m sorry to have burst in on you like that,” Jane said with a smile. “But since it’s the first bit of sunshine we’ve seen in days, we’re going for a walk and thought Abby might like to come.”
“Thank you, but I think I should stay here,” Abby said, knowing she could not possibly leave Lady Beatrice alone with Mr. Parsloe.
Lady Beatrice slumped elegantly back in her chair. “Oh, dear, I’m exhausted,” she declared, closing her eyes. “Abby, ring for Featherby to show these people out. Good day to you, Parsloe, Miss Parsloe,” she said without opening her eyes.
It was very rude, but effective. Mr. Parsloe immediately said he understood, with my lady having been ill and all, and got up to leave, bidding Henrietta to say her good-byes.
Neither Abby nor Lady Beatrice said a word until the front door was shut firmly behind them. Lady Beatrice sat up, all signs of exhaustion gone.
“Promised at the age of nine, damn him! I detect the ambitious hand of Papa Parsloe—though how the devil he managed it . . . The only way Max would have agreed to something so outrageous was if Parsloe had him in a trap, some sense of obligation. So what was it? Why would Max throw his future away on the nine-year-old daughter of a cit—good God, he was just eighteen himself at the time.” She wagged her finger at Abby. “You can’t tell me an eighteen-year-old boy just out of school is thinking of marriage—let alone with a child of nine!”
“You had no idea?”
“No, and if I had I’d have stopped it. All these years I’ve been thinking of Miss Parsloe as an older woman, the kind of woman who’d take advantage of a young boy’s calf love to trap him into a promise of marriage. And all the time she was just a child! So why? Why?”
Abby had no answer.
Lady Beatrice was silent for a long time, staring out the window with a brooding expression.
“Can you think of anything that happened to your nephew around that time?” Abby asked. “Something that may have prompted him to . . . I don’t know . . . get into some kind of trouble? Gambling, perhaps? A young boy might—”
“No, Max was never interested in that kind of thing,” Lady Beatrice said. “He preferred horses. And machines. He was mad for machinery.”
Abby couldn’t see how machinery would get an eighteen-year-old into trouble. “So you can think of nothing nine years ago that might have prompted him to this . . . agreement?”
“Nine years ago? No, there was nothing, only my husband dying and Max inher—” She broke off, an arrested look on her face. “Good God!” she half whispered. “Of course!” She slumped back in the chair, looking suddenly old and gray and crumpled. “I’ve been such a fool. . . .”
Abby waited, but Lady Beatrice didn’t explain. After several moments of silence she opened her eyes and hauled herself wearily upright.
She sent for Featherby and ordered a brandy, and when it came, she drank it straight down, shuddering. Slowly her color returned. At last she sighed, and said, “We need to fix this, Abby. I won’t have that boy making such a sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice?” Abby asked, but Lady Beatrice wasn’t listening. Or didn’t choose to answer.
“Although how we are to prevent it—short of drowning the wretched gel—is more than I can imagine, for Max has given his word, and when he gives his word, wild horses, flocks of elephants and the angel Gabriel himself cannot make the boy break it, curse him!”
“Have they tried?”
But Lady Beatrice was in no mood for a touch of gentle levity. “You know what I mean. Max would rather die than break a promise.” She shook her head. “Men and their cursed sense of honor.”
“Would you have him any different?” Abby asked softly.
The old lady sighed. “No, of course not. I just don’t want his future happiness ruined.”
“They might be happy,” Abby suggested. “One cannot tell in advance how a marriage will turn out.”
Lady Beatrice made a scornful noise. “With that man for his father-in-law? Interfering in everything—because a blind beggar could see he’s the meddling type. Did you see the way he turned his nose up at my furniture? And wanting to pull down Davenham House and build some ghastly modern monstrosity in its place? Wretched cit!”
“Mr. Parsloe is a forceful man, used to having his own way, I admit, but I don’t believe he’ll be able to bully Lord Davenham. I don’t know what he was like as a boy, but the man I know is more than a match for the Parsloes of this world. Or anyone, really.”
Lady Beatrice gave a halfhearted shrug, which might have indicated agreement.
“And Henrietta is pretty and seems very sweet and biddable, and she’s young and will soon learn how to please—”
Lady Beatrice cut her off. “You think my nephew could be happy married to a spineless little ninny with no conversation? A cit’s daughter who can only bleat, ‘Yes, Papa, no, Papa, three bags full, Papa’?”
Abby didn’t think that. Or rather, she didn’t want to think it. But in her admittedly limited experience men did generally like women who were sweet and pretty and who agreed with everything they said.
Abby was plain and she tended to argue back.
“Well, when all’s said and done, it’s not up to us, is it?” she said. “Lord Davenham will do what Lord Davenham wants.”
Lady Beatrice sighed and said in a defeated voice, “No, Lord Davenham will do what he believes is right—there’s a difference. Now, Miss Burglar, ring for William and my maid. I’m tired and I need to lie down.”
Just over a week later, Max returned to London. He’d had a thoroughly wasted trip. It was early afternoon as he threaded his way through the busy streets, but when he turned into Berkeley Square, he was surprised to find a line of carriages lined up along one side of the square. Somebody holding some kind of event, he presumed. Odd for the time of year; London in summer was usually thin of company. Then again, it wasn’t exactly a typical summer.
Impatient with the slow-moving traffic, he jumped lightly down from the carriage and cut across the square to his house. He was eager to get home. Home? The thought startled him.
He’d slept only a night in the house; why would he think of this place as home? His aunt, he supposed.
But it wasn’t the prospect of seeing his aunt again that had put the spring in his step. And it had to stop, he told himself firmly.
The housekeeper at the Parsloe residence in Manchester had told him that Mr. and Miss Parsloe, having heard of his arrival in England, had posted down to London to prepare for the wedding. They’d set their hearts on the most fashionable kind of wedding—St. George’s in Hanover Square—and Miss Parsloe was intent on ordering her bride clothes from the most fashionable London modistes.
The arrangement stood, then, firm and unalterable. He’d given his word; he was a betrothed man and he should not—could not—look at any other woman.
To do so would compromise his honor—and hers.
As he crossed the park in the center of the square, he saw two fashionable ladies being admitted to his house. A moment later another two stepped down from their carriage and mounted the steps of his new house. They too were admitted.
Morning callers for Aunt Bea. Excellent. It was as he’d hoped: This location would make her much less isolated.
Max quickened his pace. By the time he reached the house, two more carriages had disgorged their occupants, and fully half a dozen more people had entered Max’s house. What the devil was going on?
Bemused, Max mounted the steps.
“Lord Davenham, is it not?” a voice hailed him from behind.
Max turned. An old friend of his aunt’s stood there beaming, a small, fussily dressed white-haired old gentleman. What was his name again? Sir something.
“Don’t suppose you remember me, do you, Max, m’boy?” the old gentleman said. “You were a mere striplin’ the last time we met.”
“Of course I remember you, sir, how do you do?” Max pumped the old gentleman’s hand, hoping the name would come to him. Sir Edward? Sir Oliver?
The door opened, and they entered. “Ah, Sir Oswald,” Featherby greeted him as they entered. Sir Oswald Merridew, Max thought. Of course.
Sir Oswald turned to Max. “Your aunt’s literary society is provin’ a great success.”
“A literary society?” Max repeated blankly. He’d been gone not quite ten days. How had his aunt established a literary society in that time? Besides, a literary society? Aunt Bea?
The old gentleman beamed. “Indeed, and not like the usual sort of literary society—all allusions and metaphorical whats-its and epigrammatic thingummies—frightful bore, that kind of thing, too clever for me by half. But this one . . .” He rubbed his hands. “Somethin’ to look forward to each visit—as good as going to the theater. Those pretty nieces of hers—Griselda’s gels—they do a splendid job of readin’, simply splendid.”
“Gris—They aren’t Griselda’s girls. Griselda is just some nonsense my aunt made up. The young ladies are simply guests of my aunt, no relation at all.”
Two ladies who had just entered exchanged speaking looks as they passed them in the hall. “I told you,” one said to the other. She gave Max a pitying look. The second lady tsked reproachfully at him.
Sir Oswald drew Max aside and said in a confidential tone, “Don’t mind me sayin’ this, m’boy, but I’ve known you since you were breeched, and take it from one who knew both your father and your uncle—it’s time you accepted the truth about those gels. It’s the manly thing to do.”
“But—”
“To be sure, it’s a scandal—no family likes divorce—and one that was well hushed up at the time; I knew nothin’ about it, and I’m usually beforehand with the latest on dits—”
Max gritted his teeth. “There was nothing to know—”
“A shame you were raised in ignorance, when as the heir you should have been informed, but you do yourself—and your aunt—no good to deny those gels now they’re here. Why, society has taken those sweet young ladies to its bosom, and it’s clear your dear aunt is very fond of them, and they of her.” He patted Max on the arm in a fatherly manner. “So, best you just accept the gels for who they are, eh? Now, I’d best get along. I don’t want to be late. Might miss somethin’ excitin’.” He hurried along to the large drawing room, leaving Max in the hallway, shaking his head.
“I trust your trip to Manchester was pleasant, my lord.” Featherby hovered at his elbow.
“Complete waste of time,” Max said.
“Indeed, m’lord, so we suspected when Mr. and Miss Parsloe called here not two days after you’d left. May I fetch you some refreshment?”
“They called? Here?”
“Indeed they did, m’lord. And Mr. Parsloe had a nice long chat with your aunt.”
“Damn.”
“Are you sure you won’t take some refreshment, m’lord?”
“No, I want to see what’s happening. A literary society? Founded by a woman who’s never read a book in her life? What the devil is going on, Featherby?”
“It’s not for a simple butler to say, m’lord.” Featherby bowed and glided away. Looking smug.
Simple butler indeed. Max gritted his teeth and marched toward the large drawing room.