“Bounder! Scum! Muckworm!”
Dandelion, clover, Queen Anne’s lace, proud survivors of a time when Sloane Street was still wide open pasture land, fell victim to Lady Maryann’s punishing hand as she weeded in a secluded corner of the gardens.
“Cad! Back stabber! Blackguard!”
And if tender shoots of anemone, columbine, or daisy were uprooted in Maryann’s quest for violence, it was nothing to be wondered at. She shook in the grip of red-hot fury, a rage such as she had not experienced since Cousin Reggie, her father’s heir and a pesky brat spoilt by misguided and indulgent parents, had guillotined her favorite doll. Ten years younger, more than two heads shorter than Cousin Reggie, Maryann had flown at him and engaged him in a battle that required the combined forces of her father and a footman to break up.
The only reason why she had run away from Farrell instead of flying at him with balled fists, was that she had learned the hard way it was all right, even laudable, for boys and gentlemen to engage in fisticuffs. Girls and young ladies, however, were locked into windowless cellars if they so much as boxed a deserving ear.
But how she wished she had aimed a jab at the square jaw, or a punch at the nose with its proudly aquiline curve.
She had admired that nose and jaw when Farrell walked toward her in the receiving line. She had believed him the most fascinating of the guests. She had liked him—perish the thought!—until he stepped beyond the bounds of decency. And when she expected an explanation, he compounded the offense with more foul remarks and lies about Tammadge.
“Confound it! I’ll make him pay,” she grimly assured the plants. “He’ll pay for embarrassing me. Pay for spreading lies about my betrothed. He’ll rue his words to the end of his days.”
Maryann abandoned weeds and trowel. Dropping gloves and sacking apron along the way, she hurried to the Sloane Street entrance of the gardens. She would speak to Tammadge. She’d tell him about the viper he had nursed in his bosom.
As she approached the gate, Maryann’s steps slowed. She remembered that it was far too early for Robert to be waiting with the carriage.
And it occurred to her that even the most indifferent of fiancés might ask why she had been in Mr. Farrell’s company today—in which case she’d have to confess that the viscount’s “friend” had already slandered him at the ball. She’d have to admit that not only had she allowed Farrell to get away with slander, but had accepted his invitation this morning in the hopes of hearing a redeeming explanation.
Considering the matter, Maryann was not at all certain how much of what had transpired she was prepared to disclose to her betrothed. Even Tammadge with his habitual air of indolence and boredom might feel obliged to call Farrell out if he were to learn the whole truth.
Not that she’d mind if Tammadge shot Stephen Farrell, Maryann thought bloodthirstily. But she couldn’t be certain that her betrothed was a good marksman—or a fencer. It seemed to her that the choice of weapons was up to the challenged party. Farrell, no doubt, was expert with either, the pistol or the sword.
It was with less fervor than she would have displayed a few minutes earlier, that Maryann hailed a hackney.
“Rivington House. Mount Street.”
The least she could do was bathe and change before calling on her elegant betrothed. The sturdiest apron, the thickest gloves, did not stop a gardening enthusiast from getting dirty. And besides, the long, sphinx-footed tub, installed two years ago in the former powder closet, was her favorite thinking place. By the time she was clean, she’d know exactly what to say to Lord Tammadge.
Whether the magic of the tub had worn off, or whether Maryann’s mind was in too much of a turmoil, when she was freshly gowned and coiffed, she still had not come up with a satisfactory argument why, on the one hand, she didn’t want her betrothed to do something rash, and why, on the other hand, she wanted him to do something to punish Farrell for his despicable behavior.
It did not occur to her that she might, to avoid uncomfortable questions, back down from her decision to see Tammadge, or, at least, postpone the visit. Maryann was a doer. She wanted to warn her betrothed about his false friend, and she’d warn him now. She wanted to make Farrell pay, and she’d instigate his punishment now.
Mouth set, step firm, Maryann swept into her mother’s chamber to beg the chaperonage of Hedwig, Lady Rivington’s formidable German maid, who had left Lower Saxony with her young mistress thirty years ago to accompany her to a new home in England.
“Of course you may have Hedwig.” Irene Rivington put down the novel she had been reading and removed the spectacles no one but Maryann and Hedwig knew about.
Adding more cushions to the stack supporting her back on the day bed, she asked, “But why, dearest? Where on earth are you going that your own Jane is not sufficient protection? And why are you not in Sloane Street?”
“I must speak with Tammadge.”
Irene raised a brow. “I take it you plan to pay him a visit in Grosvenor Square. It would be more proper to send a note asking him to call on you.”
“I know.” Maryann started to pace. “The thing is, Mama, I don’t want to sit around waiting for him. I have something unpleasant to disclose, and I’d rather get it over with.”
“Child!” Spectacles, book, and the lace shawl covering her legs, dropped to the floor as Irene Rivington sat up. “You’re not—not breaking the engagement, are you?”
Startled, Maryann came to a halt in front of the dressing table. Break her engagement? Give up the marriage that would provide the means for financial independence from both, father and husband?
“No, Mama. I’m not crying off.”
In the mirror, Maryann saw her mother’s agitated face. Their eyes met, and she remembered the interview before the ball. Her mother had voiced sudden doubts about the betrothal. About Tammadge’s suitability.
As had Farrell.
Her mother had mentioned gossip about the viscount. Maryann had assumed the gossip referred to Tammadge’s mistresses—just as she had assumed Farrell’s vulgar remark was about her fiancé’s ladybirds.
She felt cold. She saw her mother’s eyes, wide with distress, and it was as though she were looking into her own eyes, seeing her own growing apprehension.
“Mama? Those rumors you mentioned. About Tammadge. They were about his mistresses, were they not?”
Irene opened her mouth as if to speak. But she said not a word, only shook her head.
“What sort of rumors, then? And where did you hear them?”
“Hedwig told me.”
Hedwig was outspoken and blunt, but Maryann had never known her to indulge in idle gossip.
“What did she say?”
Irene hesitated, then, with an air of resignation, reached for the bell pull behind her. “Let Hedwig tell you herself. I cannot bear to.”
After one more glance at her mother’s wan face, Maryann turned from the mirror. Once again she took up pacing, as though the exercise would help stave off the questions she burned to ask.
“I tried to make myself tell you,” Irene said. “Even though your father forbade me to do so. And then I simply couldn’t. Since you are committed to Tammadge, I thought you’d be better off not knowing. Especially since Rivington assured me that there’s no basis to the rumors.”
Maryann kept pacing. She knew, if she pressed her mother for answers, she’d get them. But she also knew that somehow her father would learn of his wife’s disobedience. He would shout at her until she took to her couch with a sick headache; or, his favorite method of punishing Irene, he would hurt her through her daughters.
Since the older girls were married, Maryann had for a year and a half borne alone the brunt of Rivington’s malevolence. She would marry soon, and thus escape her father’s tyranny, but for Irene there was no such easy way out. A woman who left her husband was considered no better than a fallen woman.
Hedwig did not keep them waiting. Wasting no time on a knock, the gaunt German woman marched into the chamber. She was dressed in gray. Her gown and stockings were a light silver gray, her apron a dark charcoal—the only colors Hedwig considered suitable for a lady’s maid, colors that should have made her inconspicuous.
But Hedwig had a weakness for caps. Pretty, frilly, lacy caps of gigantic proportions, which, set atop a head of fiery hair that refused to be confined by any number of hairpins, made her as inconspicuous as a peacock among a flock of hens. On this morning, Hedwig sported a lavish creation of Nottingham lace and pink satin bows against which strands of escaped hair flamed brightly.
“And why are you not sleeping as you promised, my lady?” Hedwig demanded as she picked up shawl, book, and spectacles. “Reading has never cured a headache yet.”
Unlike Irene, who was educated by an English governess, a French mademoiselle and a German Fräulein, the maid had spoken only her native tongue when she arrived in England. Now, her English was as correct as that of any upper servant, but she had never lost the guttural German accent.
“Please lie down, my lady. Let me bathe your temples with lavender water. And you must take a drop of tonic. You’re too pale and your hands are like ice. You know you shouldn’t be sitting about without a rug to cover you.”
“Don’t scold.” Lady Rivington allowed Hedwig to plump cushions and to replace the shawl over her legs, but shook her head when the maid reached for the tonic bottle and glass on a table nearby. “Leave that for now. I need you to tell Maryann what you learned about Lord Tammadge.”
“Well now! If those aren’t the first sensible words I’ve heard you speak since Saturday. Gott sei Dank im Himmel, kann ich da nur sagen. Es wird höchste Zeit.”
Only when she was deeply moved did Hedwig resort to German, and Maryann was startled to hear the familiar words. But she knew better than to follow up in that language.
“What is it that I must be told without delay?” Maryann pulled two rosewood chairs closer to the day bed. She sat down, offering the second chair to the maid. “Why do you make it sound as though my life depended on it, Hedwig?”
“Perhaps not your life. But your sanity.”
Maryann saw that her mother had started to tremble and reached out to clasp her hand. “Hedwig, please don’t tower above us. And for goodness sake, don’t talk in riddles.”
“Very well.” Hands folded on her knees, back poker straight, the maid perched on the edge of the chair. “It is said that Lord Tammadge’s wealth comes from brothels he owns in Seven Dials and on the waterfront.”
The words delivered in Hedwig’s harsh, guttural voice had barely sunk in when Maryann cried out in protest.
“Brothels! That’s preposterous. Not Tammadge!”
Hedwig said nothing.
“Tammadge is an honorable man!” Maryann tightened her grip on Irene’s hand. “One of the most respected peers in the country.”
“Dearest,” whispered Irene. “Dearest child.”
“Stop shaking, Mama. Hedwig made a mistake. There’s nothing to those outrageous lies. Nothing to worry about.”
“It is you who is shaking, my love.”
Maryann stared at the hand lying atop her mother’s, a hand bearing on the fourth finger a sapphire-and-pearl betrothal ring. Her own hand, firm and strong from gardening, but trembling like that of a palsied octogenarian.
Stephen Farrell’s words echoed in her mind. “You are naive! Preferences outside the marriage bed refer to cravings, as sadistic as they are perverted….”
She shuddered. What else did Farrell say before she interrupted him? She couldn’t remember. She had shut her mind against the horrid implication of his words, then cut him off. Would he have told her what Hedwig said? That her betrothed owned houses of ill repute? That the money he planned to settle on her came from the filthy brothels of Seven Dials?
“Drink this.” Hedwig put a glass to Maryann’s lips and coaxed a sticky-sweet, potent draught down her dry throat.
Gagging, Maryann pushed the glass away. She would not believe Hedwig’s tale. It was totally and absolutely incredible, as farfetched as it was revolting. Tammadge and whores? Impossible. He might have a mistress, a ladybird or two. But he was a gentleman. He was respectable. Honorable. He wouldn’t go near a brothel, let alone own and profit from one.