Having seen her charges tucked into their beds in the nursery, a weary Harriet retreated to the drawing room. Simple courtesy required that she spend at least a few minutes in polite conversation with her hosts, two of her favorite people in all the world—her own maternal grandparents, the Earl and Countess of Hawthorne.
The elderly couple had been on hand to greet the arrival of their favorite granddaughter and seven of their numerous great-grandchildren when the group arrived that afternoon. They had received the lot of them in the drawing room, but perceiving the children to be tired and hungry had quickly dispensed with customary greetings and sent them off to the upstairs nursery, always kept in readiness for such welcome invasions. Harriet had been proud of the children, and had expressed to them her pride in their having shown themselves to be polite and well behaved in extending proper greetings to their mother’s grandparents.
“We done good, huh?” Ricky asked, preening.
“You did very well, indeed,” Harriet said. “Those were most correct bows, Richard and Robert.” The boys preened even more.
Harriet had escaped to her own room only long enough to change from her travel dress to a more comfortable day dress and then returned to have supper with the children in the nursery—as she had informed her grandparents she would do in order to help get the youngsters oriented to their new surroundings. Having achieved that order of business, she now welcomed the refuge offered by adult company.
She sank happily onto a gold and maroon striped couch next to her grandmother, a small woman with a determined chin, gray eyes, and iron gray hair that had once been the near-ebony shade of Harriet’s hair. “Ah, Nana! Poppy! I cannot tell you what a feeling came over me as I came through that door earlier!” She gripped her Nana’s hand as she pointed at the drawing room door with her other hand. “I remembered how frightened and lonely Anne and I were at being sent here after Papa died—scarcely two years after we lost Mama. I was–what?—seven, I think; Anne, twelve. We’d never been to London before—never been away from Lancashire, to be sure. But you made us feel so welcome!”
Her grandmother returned the pressure of her grip. “That was a very difficult time for all of us. And this is as well. I am glad Anne’s children have you to help see them through at least this initial upheaval in their lives.”
“I thought a change of scenery would help ease their grief,” Harriet said.
“We shall do what we can to help as well,” the older woman said. “There are military reviews and what not—you know the Prince Regent is going all out to entertain the German and Russian royalty who are visiting to celebrate the end of Napoleon’s reign. The children will surely find all that pomp and finery impressive.”
“Probably,” Harriet agreed. “The boys, especially, are quite mad about the army, what with their uncle’s serving in the Peninsula.”
Harriet had scarcely noticed as her grandfather unfolded his lanky form from a maroon winged chair across from the couch she shared with his wife, but she was abruptly aware of his thrusting glasses of sherry at the women with one hand as he balanced a goblet with a splash of cognac in his other hand.
He sat back down, swirled his glass, savored the aroma, issued a satisfied sigh, and finally sipped. He looked up to catch an exchange of amused glances between the women as they observed this ritual. “A man’s entitled to enjoy a fine cognac, is he not?” he asked rhetorically.
“Especially now that he may do so legally, eh, my dear?” his wife agreed indulgently.
“Well, there is that,” he said, taking another sip. He leaned forward in his chair, his hands clasped loosely around the bottom of the glass on his knees. “We are quite pleased that you chose to visit us, Harriet. Saved us a trip to Derbyshire, don’t you know?”
“Is that so?” Harriet asked.
“Oh, yes. You know how I hate traveling out of the city, but there are certain matters you need to know about.”
“Laurence,” his wife admonished. “The poor girl has scarcely had a moment to relax. Legal matters can certainly wait until morning.”
“If you insist, my dear,” he said.
But Harriet’s interest had been piqued. “Legal matters? That sounds ominous—or at least interesting.”
“Not ominous,” he assured her. “Concerns your mother’s marriage settlements.” He drained his glass and set it aside.
“Mama’s marriage of—what?—three decades ago?”
“Oh, yes. At least that,” he said, with a nod of his snow-topped head. “As is customary, you and Anne received allowances based on not only your mama’s dowry, but also your father’s will, which made ample provision for his daughters.”
“My allowance has always been quite adequate,” Harriet said.
Her grandfather coughed politely. “Yes, I should think so. It is all somewhat complicated, and the solicitor will explain it to you fully, but your fortune was separated from Anne’s when her marriage settlements were negotiated. Sedwick was more interested in cash settlements than in the properties you Mayfield girls inherited from your father, so that was arranged and your interests were severed from Anne’s.”
“I do not recall any mention of these matters,” Harriet said.
“’Tis not something one ordinarily discusses with females, especially as young as you were then,” the old man said.
“Yet another example of men underestimating us women,” her grandmother interjected.
“Now, Celia,” the earl admonished mildly. “Don’t you be haranguing me with another litany from that Wollstonecraft woman. I refuse to take responsibility for the way of the world.” He shifted in his chair and said to Harriet, “Hinckley, the solicitor, will explain it all to you in great detail later, but the short version is this: as of your twenty-seventh birthday, should you still be an unmarried woman, you will yourself have total access and control of what is, to put it simply, an immense fortune. Property—mostly in Kent—and investments on the ’Change.”
“My twenty-seventh—? What a strange number,” Harriet murmured, trying to take all this in.
“Your father undoubtedly thought it highly unlikely either of his pretty little girls would be single past her twentieth birthday,” the old man said.
“My goodness. Your birthday is only a few weeks away,” her grandmother said in some surprise.
“September, Nana,” Harriet said. “And, yes, it is that one.”
“Well, now that you are independently one of the richest women in England, don’t you be thinking of moving away from us—setting up your own establishment like that Holstenmeyer woman,” her grandmother said in a worried tone.
Harriet patted her hand. “I wouldn’t dream of bringing such scandal down on either your household or Sedwick’s. I have quite, quite enjoyed being able to switch from your house here in town to Anne’s in the country as the whim suited me. I just hope…” But she refused to finish that thought, at least for the moment.
Harriet stifled a polite yawn and a few minutes later her grandmother declared it time that they all sought their beds.
Still, Harriet lay awake a long while considering her grandfather’s announcement. Harriet had never thought much about financial affairs. She had never had to do so. Bills for clothing and other necessities were sent to her grandfather. Her allowance had always been adequate for everything else—and suitably increased as she grew older. In recent years, it had been supplemented modestly by earnings from items she published in newspapers and magazines. She was always very proud of these achievements, though she could never have lived on such pittances.
She deliberately turned her mind to that other matter to which they had barely alluded. Since leaving school, she had lived either in London with her grandparents or in the country with Anne and Sedwick, and felt totally at home, having her own suite of rooms—her own space, her own place—in each household. Would that change now? If so, how? To what extent? Well, of course it will change, you ninny, she chastised herself. It already has. The dowager’s moving into the Hall was a start.
With the marriage of her eldest son, Lady Margaret had—quite reluctantly, Anne had confided later to Harriet—removed with her companion, Mrs. Sylvia Hartley, to the dower house where they were attended by a large staff that was supplemented from time to time by members of the staff from the hall itself. The two ladies had often dined at the Hall and were included in any festivity the earl and his countess hosted. Lady Margaret was very much a fixture at Sedwick Hall. The dowager rarely hesitated to offer her opinion on the shortcomings of her daughter-in-law’s management of the household that had, after all, once been her own, and she readily offered her suggestions on how occupants of the Sedwick nursery should be dealt with. Harriet had always admired the forbearance of her sister and brother-in-law in the face of the woman’s criticism. But really, it was none of Harriet’s concern was it? Only now, perhaps it was.
Harriet had not been greatly surprised at Lady Margaret’s presuming to move into the Hall almost immediately on their receiving word of the deaths of the earl and his countess. The dowager’s directives were often more disruptive than otherwise, and the staff, used to seeing Harriet as a surrogate for their countess, often looked to her to straighten matters out—which she did, but incurred the annoyance of the dowager, even on a matter as trivial as a change on a menu item for the nursery. Harriet had ordered the change because Robert was allergic to strawberries, though the child’s grandmother seemed unaware of that fact. Harriet had noted subtle changes in the Hall since the dowager’s arrival: furniture that had been repositioned, knickknacks that had been rearranged or removed, but refused to dwell upon such things.
Finally, she allowed her mind to veer to what was likely to pose the most monumental shift in matters at Sedwick Hall: the arrival of Colonel Lord Quinton Burnes. Harriet had never met Colonel Burnes. At the time of his brother’s marriage, the colonel, then a lowly lieutenant, had been serving in India. A few years later, he had had leave from service in the Iberian Peninsula, but Harriet had missed meeting him because she had been on an extended visit in Cornwall with her friend Miss Hero Whitby. However, for years she had heard his praises sung—to the point that she was sure such a paragon could not exist. Nevertheless, Anne had found him very personable and had expressed genuine regret that Harriet had not met the man. Two portraits in the Hall provided a glimpse of his character. One hung in the Hall’s portrait gallery and depicted the Fifth Earl, his countess, and his two then-teenaged sons: the earl and his wife seated in throne-like chairs, their sons standing rather stiffly at either side of them. The other was on the first landing of the main staircase: a life-size portrait of the then-major in dress uniform. In both instances, Harriet had always thought the boy and then the man in the paintings to be a person of thought and self-confidence—and not at all bad looking, with a steady gaze at the world and a firm jaw. She wondered if that firm jaw signified stubbornness and intolerance. She reached to turn out the lamp and punched her pillow into submission.
* * * *
The next morning as she had promised them, Harriet set out with all seven children and a nursery maid in an open landau for the park. They were crowded, with a footman crouched at the back of the vehicle, Phillip happily riding ahead with the coachman, the maid holding the littlest one, and others loosely squeezed into the two seats. A basket with a blanket, a jug of water, and some biscuits for snacks was tucked under a seat.
Her grandmother had come out to see them off. “Are you sure about this, my dear?”
“Yes. ’Tis only a short distance to the park.” Harriet checked to be sure they had umbrellas just in case London’s always unpredictable weather turned on them, and that they were well supplied with bread to feed the birds and toys to occupy the children, before signaling the coachman to start. It was early enough that they would have time to frolic in the park before the usual “see and be seen” crowd of the ton began to fill up the pathways. When they reached the park, the coachman parked the landau outside one of the gates in a line of similar vehicles. Each child was given something to carry—a toy or a small sack of bread crumbs—and the lot of them set off for the pond amidst a good deal of boisterous skipping, running, and yelling. Harriet made no attempt to quell their exuberance beyond being sure they did not overrun others in the park.
She was amused to see that Maria, at almost fourteen, was too much of a lady to be quite so caught up in the moment as the others were. “You will help me to keep track, to see that I do not lose anyone, will you not, my dear?” Harriet said to her eldest niece.
“Of course, Aunt Harriet. I always did so for Mama.”
“Yes, you did. She once told me how much she appreciated that.”
“Did she really, Aunt Harriet?” The girl turned anxious blue eyes up to Harriet and Harriet was reminded yet again of how much these children missed their parents and how much they still needed reassurances that they had been and were important—and loved. She put an arm around Maria’s shoulders. “She certainly did! Actually, she told me on more than one occasion just how much she relied upon you.”
“Oh.” Maria looked down, but Harriet could tell that she was pleased.
While the footman Beaton hovered over the three boys and Sarah as they sailed toy boats on the pond, Harriet and the maid accompanied the other girls slightly farther along the bank, where they fed the ducks and geese with much awkward flurrying of arms, flapping of wings, avian quacks and honks, and human giggles and shouts of alarm, real and feigned. Soon enough, the boat people joined the bird feeders. In all, they were having a wonderful time. The children were genuinely enjoying the outing and Harriet was immensely glad to see them simply losing themselves in having fun.
Eventually, she became aware that the park was beginning to fill up—and that the nature of the crowd had changed remarkably. She had quite lost track of time. Many of the people now filling the byways of the park were members of the see and be seen crew. It was time to gather up her little group and set them to collect their belongings strewn about on the grass. Just as this thought flashed into her mind, she heard a loud very young female screech, “Robby, no-o-o.”
Harriet whirled around in time to see eight-year-old Robert grab the sack of bread crumbs from which four-year-old Elly had been feeding the ducks at the edge of the pond. Elly reached for the sack, slipped on the muddy bank, and fell into the water. Before Harriet could manage the five or six feet to where Elly had fallen into the pond, Beaton, the footman, plunged into the knee-high muddy water and retrieved the screaming, drenched child.
“Sh-h. Don’t cry, my lady,” Beaton soothed. “You’re safe.” But the child, obviously terrified, continued to cry out and reached for the only figure of rescue she readily recognized: her Auntie Harry.
Beaton hesitated to hand over the little girl whose pretty pink outfit was not only soaking wet, but caked with mud. “Never mind,” Harriet said and took the child from him, aware only of those little arms around her neck, the terror subsiding in the small body. Then she became aware of another small person at her elbow.
“Is Elly all right?” Robert asked in a worried tone. “I didn’t mean for her to fall. Really. I didn’t mean it.”
Harriet reached her hand down to clasp his shoulder. “I know you did not mean to hurt your sister. It was an accident. But maybe you were not thinking as well as you should have been.”
“Maybe. Next time—”
Nurse Tavenner came up with the baby Matilda on one hip and holding a small blanket out to Harriet in the other hand. “Oh, Miss, your dress. That mud will never come out,” she said in a mournful tone.
Harriet set Elly on her feet and wrapped the blanket about the little girl’s shoulders, then looked down at her own light gray wool walking dress splashed with mud on both the chest and skirt and sighed. “I don’t suppose it will.”
She suddenly became aware of an open carriage that had come to a stop nearby. A young woman, blonde, in an apple green grown with a frilly matching parasol, was standing in the carriage, holding court, as it were: two gentlemen sat on mounts on the other side of the carriage and three young men stood with doffed hats gazing up at her admiringly from the near side. Harriet’s gaze traveled up to meet the woman’s belittling glance.
Angelina Grampton, now Lady Bachmann. This I do not need, she thought as she bent her knee in a quick polite curtsy of greeting and turned to call, “Come along, children. Our coachman awaits.”
“Oh, la, gentlemen!” the beauty of the moment called in a loud, falsely merry tone. “How lucky are we? We have stumbled into the very midst of a fairy tale. Behold! We have Snow White and her Seven Dwarfs!”
“Snow White indeed! So clever, my lady!” the youngest of the gentlemen echoed with a chuckle. Harriet recognized him as a sycophantic follower of the Bachmann woman.
Lady Bachmann indeed! Harriet thought in a sarcastic play on the young man’s fawning tone. Miss Angelina Grampton had been one of that group at Miss Penelope Pringle’s School for Young Ladies of Quality who had disparaged and dismissed the “Hs” as mere bluestockings. Later, Angelina and her lot had tried to make the Hs miserable during their shared come-out year. Their catty gossip might have been effective had Harriet, Henrietta, and Hero actually set much store by their talk. Angelina had quickly made what was considered a good marriage—that is, one that came with money and a title. Now, not only having provided her aged spouse his requisite heir, but also having seen him laid to rest in the family vault, she had reemerged on the social scene two seasons ago as one of the so-called “Winsome Widows.” This was a sobriquet that some wag had attached to three women who had been widowed while quite young and had rejoined the social whirl of the ton. Harriet and many others were convinced that the three worked to live up to that frivolous title.
“Come, Maria.” Harriet called, eager to be away. “Take Elly’s hand and help me keep the blanket about her lest she take a chill.”
“Ew. She’s muddy.”
“I know. Here. Put this handkerchief between your hands.”
“Yes. I think that will work.”
“Oh, Miss. Uh, Miss—Uh—Mayfield, is it not?” the beauty in the carriage called down. “Would you like one of my gentlemen here to help you?”
Harriet gritted her teeth. Angelina knew very well who she was. She looked up and smiled despite the streak of mud she knew she had on her cheek. “Thank you for your kind offer, but I have sufficient help.”
“Perhaps we shall see you at Lady Carstairs’s musicale this evening,” Angelina trilled as a parting shot.
“Perhaps,” Harriet said, breathing a sigh of relief as she brought up the rear of her little group leaving the park.