The Waverly Women Bundle

M.C. Beaton

Copyright

The Waverly Women Bundle

Copyright © 2014 by Marion Chesney

The First Rebellion copyright ©1989 by Marion Chesney

Silken Bonds copyright ©1989 by Marion Chesney

The Love Match copyright ©1989 by Marion Chesney

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Cover design by Brehanna Ramirez

ISBN Mobipocket edition: 9780795343377

Contents

The First Rebellion

Silken Bonds

The Love Match

The First Rebellion

M.C. Beaton

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter One

London had come to life again. Fuddled with wine and sick with fatigue, gamblers reeled from the clubs in St. James’s in the early morning hours. Tall houses blazed with lights as rout followed ridotto and ridotto followed musicale. There were fětes champětres in the Surrey fields and wicked nights at Vauxhall Gardens, where the women of cracked reputation haunted the Dark Walk to entice the drunken dandies. Ladies who had been refused vouchers to Almack’s Assembly Rooms in King Street screamed and fainted and threatened suicide. Mothers of hopeful daughters gossiped and intrigued. The daughters practiced the art of flirting and dancing, and declared themselves to be dying of love for everyone and anyone. They lisped in baby voices, wore fluttering, nearly transparent muslin, spoke bad French, and lived in dread of the day when they might have to return to the country, unwed or unspoken for.

The London Season had begun.

But in the midst of all this hectic atmosphere of gossip and speculation, vice and intrigue, stood one calm and elegant house, its very atmosphere aloof from the squabbles of the marriage market.

The house stood in Hanover Square. Few were particularly interested in the doings of its inhabitants, and a few thought it must be a seminary for young ladies. For every day at three o’clock the front door was opened and out stepped a stout lady followed by three misses, all dressed the same and all with their hair braided under their drab hats.

They would walk slowly ten times around the square and then disappear indoors again. They had become such a common sight that hardly anyone wondered at the regularity of this strange promenade.

Except Lady Artemis Verity.

Lady Artemis was a widow who lived on the opposite side of the square. She was still young, frivolous, malicious, and on the lookout for a handsome husband. She was often bored and spent most of her afternoons lying on a chaise longue at the window of her drawing room, which overlooked the square. She could not be bothered reading or sewing or painting or playing the piano. She only came to life after dark when she could don one of the latest creations and star at a ball or party. She was accounted pretty, having glossy brown hair, a skin unpitted by smallpox, all her teeth, a shapely if plump figure, well-rounded arms, and a neat ankle.

One day she was lying on her chaise longue as usual, thinking about as little as it is possible for the human mind to think, when out of the corner of her half-closed eyes, she saw the little procession emerge.

For the first time she watched the lady and the three girls with more than idle curiosity. It could not be a seminary surely, not with only three young misses. It was hard to tell what the girls looked like, for each wore a hat the shape of a coal scuttle and in any case, from her vantage point, she could only see the tops of their heads.

She rang the bell and when a footman answered, she ordered him to find out the identity of the lady with the three girls who lived across the square.

After a short time the footman returned. He said the occupant of the house was a Mrs. Waverley, a widow, and the three girls were her daughters. The footman said he knew one of the maids who worked for Mrs. Waverley and she had told him that there were no men-servants in the house. Mrs. Waverley despised men and espoused the cause of rights for women.

“A bluestocking,” murmured Lady Artemis. “How terribly boring,” and put the matter out of her mind.

That was until that very evening when she attended Almack’s and found that the Earl of Tredair had come to Town. Lord Tredair was tall, rich, and handsome. He was in his thirties and unwed, and looked every bit as bored as Lady Artemis often felt.

The assemblies at Almack’s were confined to Wednesday nights during the Season. “Selection with a vengeance, the very quintessence of aristocracy. Three fourths of the nobility knocked in vain for admission. Into this sanctum sanctorum, of course, the sons of commerce never think of entering on the sacred Wednesday evening,” wrote Captain Gronow. If dancing was the ostensible object of Almack’s existence, the place was useful in other ways. It formed a sort of matrimonial bazaar and its tables, spread with tepid lemonade, weak tea, tasteless orgeat, stale cakes, and thin slices of bread and butter, were often the scenes of tender proposals.

Lady Artemis attended Almack’s every Wednesday in the hope of finding a new husband. She was twenty-five, but was sure she looked nineteen. She had plenty of courtiers and had more or less decided to settle for one of them, until she saw the Earl of Tredair and immediately knew that no one else would do. He was tall with thick black hair, a thin, clever, high-nosed face, and eyes of a peculiar green, like sea-washed glass. He had a supple athlete’s body and his legs were finer than Gentleman Jackson’s. But it was his air of lazy sensuality that quickened Lady Artemis’s pulse.

She pretended to lose her footing while passing him en route to the refreshment room and clutched at him for support and then blushed and begged his pardon. Lady Artemis was very accomplished by the standards of the Regency. She could blush and cry at will.

“I am sure the fault was mine,” said Lord Tredair calmly. “Allow me to fetch you something. A glass of lemonade?”

“Thank you, Lord Tredair,” said Lady Artemis demurely. “But I shall accompany you, or some of my tiresome beaux will continue to bore me with their proposals of marriage.”

The interest in his eyes faded and his face became a polite mask of boredom. But he presented her with a glass of lemonade, found her a chair, and then stood beside her. Lady Artemis could sense he was poised for flight and wondered how to catch his interest.

“Are you enjoying the Season?” she asked.

“No, I am not,” he said. “I feel I made a mistake in leaving the country.”

Lady Artemis was sophisticated and quick enough to know that he had suddenly lost interest in her and was trying to get rid of her. She wanted to attract him and felt at a loss. Usually her beauty was enough to keep any man glued to her side.

She said boldly, “I am not used to gentlemen finding me tiresome.”

A certain flash of insolence crossed those odd eyes of his as he looked down at her. “You must think me a sad fellow,” he said. “I doubt if any man in his right mind could find anyone so fair, tiresome. You are not drinking your lemonade,” he added in tones that obviously meant, “Pray drink it so that I may leave.”

The dancers were being urged to take their partners for a waltz. Lady Artemis knew her partner would be searching for her, but longed to dance with the earl. She fluttered her fan and sighed, “I do so adore the waltz.”

“Then you are fortunate,” said the earl with a sudden charming smile, “for if I am not mistaken, your partner is approaching now.”

Lady Artemis looked up and sure enough her partner, Captain Ian Finlay, was bowing before her. She rose gracefully and curtsied to the earl and moved off on the arm of the captain.

The earl was joined by his friend, the Honorable John Fordyce. “You are a lucky man,” said Mr. Fordyce. “I wish Lady Artemis would look on me with such favor.”

“Is that her name?” said the earl. “Vastly pretty, but nothing out of the way.”

Mr. Fordyce looked at his friend with affectionate amusement. The earl attended each Season for a few weeks, but quickly became bored and retreated to the country. He often said he had decided to get married, but usually he contented himself by having a brief affair with some comet from the opera.

“Is there nothing society can offer you to keep you in town this time?” pursued Mr. Fordyce.

“I should not think so,” said the earl. “It is always the same, you know, balls and routs and silly misses. They are all so well trained that they all sound the same. I despair of finding anyone different or out of the ordinary. In any case, you, too, are fated to remain a bachelor, for you always pursue exactly the sort of female who is bound to turn you down.”

Mr. Fordyce smiled. He was a small man with neat features and a trim figure. He was of good family, but his income from estates in Sussex was small. He always fell in love with the reigning belle of the Season and was always refused, which was why he, too, was still unwed.

“On the other hand,” the earl went on ruefully, “there was no need for me to be quite so rude to Lady Artemis. I shall attempt to talk to her before I leave and be as charming as possible.”

“I do not know why you consider being pleasant to Lady Artemis such an effort,” said Mr. Fordyce, turning to watch the dancers through the open door of the refreshment room. He had a clear view of Lady Artemis. Under a delicate tiara of gold and garnets—diamonds were out of fashion—her glossy brown curls shone in the candlelight. She moved with grace, the thin, fine muslin of her gown fluttering about her body.

“Perhaps I shall become a crusty old recluse,” said Lord Tredair. “Striding about my estates and running for cover anytime I see guests arriving.”

Lord Tredair did not expect Lady Artemis would be so bold as to seek him out again. But no sooner was the waltz over than she appeared in the refreshment room and came straight up to him as if they were old friends. “You are still here, my lord,” she cried. “You do not dance.”

“Perhaps later,” said the earl.

“It is so very hot, and I am so very tired,” said Lady Artemis. “But all the chairs seem to have been taken. Oh, there is a sofa against the wall over there.”

The earl bowed and escorted her to the sofa and after a little hesitation sat down beside her.

“Have you seen the new opera by Mr. Kenny?” asked Lady Artemis. “It is called, Oh! This Love!”

“No, I am afraid not.”

“It has an ingenious plot. The Count Florimond, during a runaway expedition in his youth, conceives an invincible passion for the Countess Belflora, who, to indulge a romantic fancy, had at that time assumed the character and dress of a peasant girl.”

“I may not have seen it,” interrupted the earl, “but from your description of the plot, I swear I must have seen a dozen like it.”

“Oh, there is no pleasing you, you horrible man,” said Lady Artemis, rapping him playfully with her fan. “I declare, I think you are a secret Methodist or one of those gentlemen who find us social butterflies tiresome and prefer the company of bluestockings, the sort of women who despise men and talk of their rights from morning till night.”

“I might be interested if I ever met a genuine one,” said the earl. “But they are usually women who are unmarriageable and want an excuse to take their disappointment and spleen out on the world.”

“How hard you are! How bitter! And yet across from where I live in Hanover Square, there dwells a widow who appears to be the genuine article, for she has three daughters, no menservants, and lives like a recluse.”

“Indeed!” The earl looked at Lady Artemis with interest. “And do you know this lady?”

Lady Artemis thought quickly. If she said, no, he would lose interest in her again. So she said, “I have the pleasure of her acquaintance.”

“I cannot believe that a widow with three daughters can be uninterested in the world of men,” said the earl.

“But that is the case, I assure you,” said Lady Artemis eagerly. “Should you wish an introduction, I could arrange it.”

“I’ll wager you a hundred guineas the woman is a fraud,” said the earl.

Lady Artemis smiled. “I accept your wager,” she said triumphantly, knowing that the bet forged a certain intimacy between them. “You shall hear from me very shortly.”

She rose and curtsied and left him, knowing that if she stayed longer with him, he would lose interest again. She had a feeling of exhilaration. Catching Lord Tredair was like playing a salmon. The bait, the line, the hook, the tug, the final pull, and she would have him gasping at her feet.

It was only then that she realized she would have to ingratiate herself into Mrs. Waverley’s household.

***

Fanny Waverley pulled on her gloves two days later and stood by the window, waiting for the summons to go downstairs for the annual promenade. She thought it might be possible to die from boredom.

Outside, stretched the Germanic facade of the buildings of Hanover Square, four-story houses built of dark gray, red, and yellow stock brick. It was one of the best addresses in London and Fanny wondered, not for the first time, what point there was in living at a fashionable address if one was determined not to be fashionable.

Fanny, like her “sisters,” Frederica and Felicity, were not related and had all been taken from an orphanage and adopted by Mrs. Waverley.

Mrs. Waverley had told the girls that she had rescued them in order to bring them up as her disciples. They must spread the word about women’s rights. They must encourage poor, oppressed women to rise up.

Fanny had been fourteen when they had been adopted by Mrs. Waverley and given her name. She could often remember the elation at being taken out of the dark and freezing orphanage on a foggy winter day and moved into warmth and light and luxury in Hanover Square.

But Fanny was now nineteen. Fanny did not like either Frederica or Felicity for the simple reason that Mrs. Waverley had operated on a divide-and-rule policy from the start, cleverly setting one girl against the other so that she herself could reign supreme in each one’s affections.

Also Fanny was tired of being dressed up as a little girl every time they went out of the house. Indoors, they were allowed to put their hair up and wear the latest fashions, but only the women servants, Mrs. Waverley, and her like-minded lady friends ever saw them in their best dress.

And what, thought Fanny, is the point of urging us to spread the word to other women when we are never allowed to talk to anyone other than those dried-up spinsters who frequent Mrs. Waverley’s tea parties.

It was hard to keep thinking of men as cruel and lustful beasts when the Season began, and at night she could see pretty girls going out from the other houses in the square to balls and parties, all laughing and chattering and excited at the prospect of dancing or flirting with one of those very beasts.

The three Waverley girls had been chosen by Mrs. Waverley for their contrasting beauty. Fanny was fair and blue-eyed, Frederica, now eighteen, dark and fiery, and little Felicity, now seventeen, chestnut-haired and willowy.

Fanny did not think much of her own looks, for Mrs. Waverley had told her that blondes were sadly unfashionable and there had been no men around to prove to her that a combination of silvery fair hair and sapphire blue eyes was considered bewitching by the highest stickler.

Frederica came into the room, followed by Felicity. Like Fanny, they were dressed to go out in the usual long dark blue cloaks and coal scuttle bonnets.

“You will never guess what I found under Felicity’s bed,” crowed Frederica. “A romance.”

Felicity swung around in a fury. “You had no right to go poking and prying about my room. How dare you.”

She darted at Frederica to pull her hair, but Frederica scampered off, crying, “Wait till Mrs. Waverley hears of this!” None of the girls could ever bring themselves to call Mrs. Waverley “Mother.”

With a howl of rage Felicity ran after Frederica. The bell to signal that Mrs. Waverley was ready to take them out sounded from the hall below. Fanny sighed. Another day of scraps and quarrels. She wondered how on earth Felicity had managed to get hold of a romance. That was more interesting than the book itself.

She trailed down to the hall. Mrs. Waverley unfurled her parasol and said as usual, “Now, girls, shoulders straight and eyes down. And should any gentleman approach any of you, you are to pretend to be deaf.”

What gentleman was ever going to approach any of them, dressed as they were, thought Felicity gloomily. She had gained a certain distrust of men from Mrs. Waverley’s teachings. Still, it would be fun to be able to have a chance of spurning one of the monsters.

Out they went into the pale sunlight, Mrs. Waverley in front, Fanny behind, then Frederica, then Felicity. But this walk was going to be different.

Fanny did not know it, but this was the walk that was going to change her life.

They were just coming around the square for the fourth time, when a vastly fashionable lady fluttered up to Mrs. Waverley and cried, “It is you, is it not? The famous Mrs. Waverley?”

Mrs. Waverley stopped and looked suspiciously at the exquisite creature that was Lady Artemis. They made an odd contrast. Lady Artemis was wearing a dress of white leno, trimmed with a narrow edging of lace. Around her white shoulders was tied a scarf of pink Italian gauze, fastened on one side with a gold cord, the tassels descending nearly to her feet. She had shoes of the same color, decorated with small gold roses. Keeping her eyes lowered, Fanny gazed at those roses and thought it must be heaven to be allowed to wear anything so frivolous out in the street. Mrs. Waverley was a massive woman like the figurehead on a four-master. She had a large face and heavy chin and thick white skin. Her masses of brown hair streaked with gray were confined under a bonnet every bit as unfashionable and depressing as the bonnets the girls wore.

“I am she,” said Mrs. Waverley stiffly.

Pansy brown eyes gazed worshipfully at Mrs. Waverley as Lady Artemis breathed, “The famous Rights for Women Mrs. Waverley?”

Mrs. Waverley visibly unbent. “I have that modest reputation,” she said.

“Oh, that I could sit at your feet and hear your words of wisdom,” cried Lady Artemis. “I am a widow, too. Allow me to present myself—Lady Artemis Verity. So we widows know more than anyone the pain of being under the cruel domination of a man.”

“Quite so,” said Mrs. Waverley. “We must teach our sisters that it is possible for women to live free of the shackles of bondage. Men! Pah! We spurn them. We can exist in the sunlight, away from their shadow.”

“If only we could talk longer,” breathed Lady Artemis. At that moment a handsome guard’s officer rode past and raised his hat. With a stern effort Lady Artemis prevented herself from smiling at him.

“I am having a little soirée for like-minded ladies on Saturday,” said Mrs. Waverley. “You are more than welcome to attend. Eight o’clock.”

Lady Artemis thought of the Cordeys’ ball, which was to be held at the same time. Then she thought of the Earl of Tredair and smiled bewitchingly on Mrs. Waverley. “And if it is not too much to ask, Mrs. Waverley, I would like to bring a friend who has like-minded views but is starved for intellectual conversation.”

By now Mrs. Waverley was almost purring. “Bring your friend by all means, Lady Artemis.”

Lady Artemis decided to take her leave quickly before Mrs. Waverley asked the identity of this friend. “Thank you! Thank you!” cried Lady Artemis, sweeping a court curtsy. “Goodbye. A bientôt!”

The procession moved on.

When they entered the house, Mrs. Waverley summoned her housekeeper, Mrs. Ricketts, a formidable lady who acted as a sort of female butler. “We have just met a certain Lady Artemis Verity,” said Mrs. Waverley, “who is desirous to attend my soirée on Saturday. Find out about her and make sure she is not a fortune hunter.”

“I’ll send Martha,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “She’ll soon find out.”

Lady Artemis was sure that Mrs. Waverley would send some servant across the square to question her own servants. So she summoned her most handsome footman, Frank, and told him to loiter outside the house and tell anyone who asked that his mistress was a bluestocking, a man-hater, and a terrifying intellectual. After half an hour she had the satisfaction of seeing a dowdy maid leaving Mrs. Waverley’s, coming around the square, and falling into conversation with Frank.

Frederica had not told Mrs. Waverley about Felicity’s romance, and so the sisters were in one of their rare, friendly moods when they gathered in the drawing room with their sewing. For a long while the afternoon passed pleasantly enough, until Fanny said, “I don’t think that Lady Artemis is interested in women’s rights or anything other than how to entrap a man.”

“You’re jealous,” said Frederica, but without rancor. “Did you mark her gown? I could have ripped it off her back.”

“We have very pretty gowns of our own,” pointed out Felicity, “and heaps of jewels.”

“But we’re not allowed to wear them when anyone can see them,” pointed out Fanny.

“Oh, yes we are,” said Felicity. “We get to wear them at Mrs. Waverley’s soirées. You mean that men never get to see them.”

Mrs. Waverley glided majestically into the room. “Fanny was just saying that men never get to see our pretty clothes,” said Felicity maliciously.

“I did not!” retorted Fanny hotly.

“You said that no one ever got to see us in our pretty clothes,” said Felicity gleefully, “and since dear Mrs. Waverley’s friends always see us in our pretty clothes, who else can you mean but men!”

Fanny reddened. “Come with me, Fanny,” said Mrs. Waverley severely, “and we shall have a little talk.”

When she had left the room with Fanny, Frederica said, “You little cat. I shall tell her about that romance you are reading, damned if I don’t.”

“You said a bad word,” yelled Felicity. “I shall tell on you.”

They flew at each other and were soon rolling around on the floor, punching and pummeling. In truth, all the girls were dreadfully spoiled by boredom and by the unnaturally cloistered life they led and by the machinations of their protectress, who had brought them up to spy and tell tales on each other.

Downstairs in the library, Fanny sat with head bowed as a lecture on the iniquities of the male sex was poured into her ears.

Fanny tried to remember the horrors of the orphanage, she tried to remember how grateful to Mrs. Waverley she must always be, but that day she felt the beginnings of hot rebellion starting somewhere in the pit of her stomach. She, Fanny, wanted to wear pink silk shoes with gold roses and drive in the park in a pink silk-lined chariot drawn by four milk-white horses and have men look at her, lots and lots of men.

That feeling of rebellion grew and grew as Saturday approached. On Friday evening she felt restless and on fire. She took her bed candle and crept along the corridor to Felicity’s room and searched under the bed, finding nothing more interesting than the chamber pot. Then she slid her hand gently under Felicity’s pillow and felt the sharp edges of a book. She drew it out and crept back to her room and started to read her first romance.

In later years she was to smile at her folly and think what a really stupid book it had been. But that night it seemed the most wonderful love story in the world. She read and read until the red dawn crept into the room and the sooty birds began to chirp on the eaves outside.

She managed to catch some much needed sleep that day by pretending to be bent over her sewing while, in fact, being fast asleep. When the dressing bell rang, she felt gritty and tired and almost ill with all the new emotions surging through her body.

Less than ever did there seem to be any point in getting all dressed up for a crowd of women, but Fanny knew that if she did not wear her best, then Mrs. Waverley would send her back upstairs to put it on.

She donned a dress of spotted India muslin with puckered sleeves and the front richly ornamented with silver trimming and lace. Over the dress she wore a Persian robe of rich-figured amber sarcenet, made without sleeves and loose from the shoulder. Then she put on a girdle and armlets of gold studded with rubies. White shoes and gloves completed the ensemble. There was a turban encircled with a rouleau of silver muslin to go with the dress, but Fanny put it to one side, dressing her blond hair in one of the Grecian styles and ornamenting it with a gold circlet.

Fanny went slowly down the steps. How wonderful it would be if one of those despised and terrible men were waiting in the hall for her. But when she entered the drawing room, there was only the usual collection. Apart from her sisters, there was Miss Pursy, faded and genteel, Miss Baxter, fat and ferociously jolly, and wispy little Miss. Dunbar.

Mrs. Waverley was standing in front of the fireplace. “Now that Fanny has deigned to join us,” she said coldly, “I shall commence our soirée with a reading from the poem, “The Rights of Women” by Anna Laetitia Barbauld. Ahem.”

“Are we not to wait for Lady Artemis?” asked Fanny.

“It is now two minutes past eight o’clock,” said Mrs. Waverley. “If she is not here now, she is not one of us. Procrastination is the thief of time. I shall begin. Ahem!

“Yes, injured Woman! rise, assert thy right!

Woman! too long degraded, scorned, oppressed;

O born to rule in partial Law’s despite,

Resume thy native empire o’er the breast!

“Go forth arrayed in panoply divine,

That angel pureness which admits no stain;

Go, bid proud Man his boasted rule resign

And kiss the golden sceptre of thy reign.

“What is it, Ricketts?”

“Beg parding, mum,” said the flustered housekeeper. “But that Lady Artemis is come.”

“Then send her in.”

“Please, mum, she’s brought a friend with her.”

“What ails you, Ricketts. Send them both in.”

“But, mum …”

“Don’t stand there, mopping and mowing like an idiot, send them in.”

“Don’t say I didn’t try to warn you,” said Mrs. Ricketts.

A few moments later the double doors to the drawing room were thrown open.

Chapter Two

The Earl of Tredair was highly amused by the atmosphere of shock among the women servants. “I fear I am about to get my marching orders,” he murmured to Lady Artemis as they stood in the hall.

He was regretting having come. He did not want to establish any intimacy with Lady Artemis. Yet, he had made a bet with her and he was honor bound to stand by it, and the one way he could judge whether Mrs. Waverley was the genuine article or not was by meeting her in person.

That Mrs. Waverley was very rich could be judged by the expensive tiling on the floor of the hall, by the thick red carpet on the stairs, and by the fine portraits and landscapes decorating the walls. There were bowls of hyacinths scenting the air, and he was surrounded by all the hush of a well-run home.

Ricketts, the housekeeper, descended the stairs. “My lord, my lady, follow me,” she said, and led the way up to the drawing room on the first floor.

Throwing open the double doors, she announced with relish, “The most noble Earl of Tredair and Lady Artemis Verity.”

Lord Tredair bowed and looked curiously at the assembled females. A heavy matron was standing in front of the fireplace, a book of poetry in her hands. Three faded spinsters sat looking at him as if Satan himself had descended among them. Then his eyebrows rose as he took in the presence of three young and beautiful girls. Where were the schoolgirls Lady Artemis had described to him earlier that evening when he had called for her?

There was an exquisite blonde with deep blue eyes and a delicate rose leaf complexion, a black-haired beauty with hazel eyes and an oval face, and then, obviously the youngest of the three, one with chestnut hair and wide gray eyes. All were wearing the latest and most expensive of fashions, and all, even the youngest, had an air of good breeding.

Mrs. Waverley took a deep breath and summoned up her courage to ban this … this man from her house when little Miss Dunbar, her faded eyes sparkling and wisps of hair escaping from her pins, said. “You must make the introductions, Mrs. Waverley. What will his dear lordship think of us all?”

There was a general fluttering of agreement from the other females, with the exception of the cool blonde.

“I think Lord Tredair has made a mistake,” said Mrs. Waverley awfully. “We meet here in my little salon to discuss the rights of women …”

“A subject very close to my heart, which is why I am come,” said the earl with a bow.

“Our hostess is quite overcome,” said Miss Baxter with a jolly laugh. To Mrs. Waverley’s fury, she made the introductions. Fanny was bitterly amused. What had happened to all their beliefs and principles? Frederica and Felicity were stifling giggles, Miss Pursy was fluttering about repeating all the introductions, and Miss Dunbar was tripping over chairs in her excitement.

Mrs. Waverley moved forward to take over. His lordship would soon find he had come to the wrong house. Lady Artemis had turned out to be a snake in the grass. She noticed that Fanny was not at all impressed and her heart overflowed with love. Dear Fanny. Better than any other girl. Beautiful Fanny.

“If you will be seated here, Lady Artemis,” said Mrs. Waverley, all but pushing that lady into a seat by the fireplace, “and my lord, here, I think, by little Fanny.”

Lady Artemis was still recovering from the shock presented by this barrage of beauty. “Are the three other girls in the schoolroom?” she asked.

“I have no other girls,” said Mrs. Waverley.

“But I met you with three schoolgirls in the square!”

“You met my daughters,” said Mrs. Waverley. “The only ones I have. Now, if you are all ready, I will begin reading again.”

The earl stole a glance at Fanny, who was sitting demurely next to him, her gloved hands resting on her lap. He found it an effort not to stare openly at so much golden beauty. Her hair was so fair, it was almost silver, and curled naturally with that springiness that no amount of curl papers or heated clay rollers could produce. It was free of pomatum, unlike Lady Artemis’s hair, which gleamed with oil. Her nose was small and straight, and her startlingly deep blue eyes were fringed with sooty lashes. He wondered if she darkened them and immediately decided she did not. There was nothing artificial about Fanny’s beauty. Her gown, as was the fashion, was low cut, revealing the top halves of two excellent white and rounded breasts. Her mouth was soft and pink and well shaped.

Mrs. Waverley finished her poetry reading and there was a spattering of applause. “Now,” said Mrs. Waverley, “our topic for discussion is the education of women.”

“Most important,” said Lady Artemis, flashing a wicked look at Lord Tredair, a look which Fanny intercepted. “An unaccomplished female is a bore. One should be able to play the pianoforte and to sing.”

“I think,” said the earl, “that Mrs. Waverley means education in Greek and Latin and the sciences.”

“But woman’s sole purpose in life is to get married!” cried Lady Artemis.

“And to have children,” pointed out Frederica.

“Exactly,” said Lady Artemis, giving her a warm smile.

“So,” said Frederica, “it surely follows that an intelligent and well-educated mother will be a better example to her children than an ill-educated and ill-informed one.”

“I disagree,” said Lady Artemis, glancing at the earl for approval. “Of what use is Greek and Latin when there is a household to run? I would have thought a sound education in housewifery of more importance.”

“Very important,” agreed Felicity, “but a certain housewifery of the mind is essential or the woman, when her children have grown, may find she has no intellectual reserves for her old age. Come, Lady Artemis, you have seen them in society—the faded lilies of the field who lie on their sofas all day long, vainly trying to amuse themselves with pug dogs and romances.” This was a fair description of Lady Artemis’s afternoons, and she looked at Felicity in high irritation as if thinking the girl had been spying on her.

“Aren’t you too young to wear your hair up?” snapped Lady Artemis. “And it is not the thing for young misses to wear jewels.” Felicity had a very fine collar of emeralds about her slim neck.

“It is not at all the thing for young ladies to be educated either,” said Felicity, delighted that their beautiful and worldly guest was behaving so badly. “But it is time these unwritten and stupid laws were broken.”

Miss Pursy gave a genteel cough. “I think we are forgetting the gentlemen’s point of view,” she said, flashing a flirtatious glance at the earl and earning herself scowls from all around the room. “They surely are only attracted to ladies who are pretty and fluttery and say babyish things.”

“Not at all,” countered Lady Artemis. “It is possible to talk well and wittily about plays and operas and Lord Byron’s latest poem without having to addle one’s brain with a lot of useless science and dead languages.”

“‘Qui finem quaerus amoris, cedet amor rebus; res age, tutus eris,’” said the earl. “Is that what you ladies mean, Miss Fanny?”

There was a little silence. The earl wondered whether this blond goddess was going to ignore him. He wanted to hear her speak. He had maliciously quoted Ovid, feeling perfectly sure that she would not know what he was talking about.

“What did his lordship say?” asked Felicity. “I did not catch it.”

“My lord was quoting Ovid,” said Fanny. “Translated, it means, ‘You who seek an end of love, love yields to business; be busy, and you will be safe.’ And by that you have betrayed yourself, my lord. Because we support the movement which demands more freedom for women and more education for women, you assume that we must have banished romance and marriage from our minds. You suggest then that we should be busy about our household chores and our sewing to keep softer and feminine thoughts at bay. That is not so. We would be happy were there more gentlemen to share our views, but as there are not, we shun their company. We merely try to instruct other females so that we may bring about a bloodless revolution. It takes a great deal of courage and often leaves us open to ridicule.”

“Dear me,” said the earl acidly—for he had never been put down before, “you paint a frightening picture of an Almack’s full of young misses haranguing us on world affairs.”

Fanny turned and smiled at him, an imp of mischief dancing in her blue eyes. “It is natural, my lord, that men who are ignorant themselves should view with some degree of jealousy and alarm any proposal for improving the education of women. But such men may depend upon it: however the system of female education may be exalted, that there never will be wanting a due proportion of failure. After parents, guardians, and preceptors have done everything in their power to make everybody wise, there will still be a plentiful supply of women who have taken special care to remain otherwise.” Her blue glance flicked in the direction of Lady Artemis. “If the great extinction of ignorance and folly is the evil they dread, they should be comforted by the thought that there will always be women who will protect their interests and share their medieval views despite all exertions to the contrary.”

“My dear Miss Fanny,” exclaimed Lady Artemis, “what a tedious bore you make it all sound. Is there no room for frivolity, dances, masquerades?”

“But of course,” began Fanny, but was frowned into silence by Mrs. Waverley. Fanny often argued that their cloistered life was a sham and showed a lack of courage. They had no hope of advocating the independence of women if they sat mewed up in Hanover Square and showed the world not only that they were afraid of men, but afraid of enjoying themselves.

“All frivolity is tedious to the educated mind,” said Mrs. Waverley severely.

“But you go too far,” pursued Lady Artemis. “You have three beautiful daughters. Why do you dress them so drably and allow them only one little walk in the outside world each day? Do you not want to spread your message among the ladies of the ton? Who has ever heard of you?”

“You, for example,” bridled Mrs. Waverley, remembering the blandishments of their first meeting.

“Yes, of course,” said Lady Artemis hurriedly, “but I am not in the ordinary mold. Would you not say so, Lord Tredair?”

“By no means,” he said gallantly. “Your charm and beauty set you apart from most.”

Frederica and Felicity promptly dismissed him as a useless fop. And yet there was nothing of the fop about the earl with his athletic body, beautiful legs, and clever face. But they had judged him to be the property of Lady Artemis and if he could favor her, he was beneath their interest.

“Now,” said Mrs. Waverley, “we have a treat in store. Miss Dunbar is to read us her latest poem.”

Lady Artemis rolled her eyes to heaven. “What a fascinating evening,” murmured the earl to Fanny. “I have never experienced anything quite like it before.”

“Serves you right,” said Fanny, looking amused. “But now that you and Lady Artemis have satisfied your curiosity, why do you not take your leave?”

“How can I tear myself away from such beauty as yours?” he said.

“That sounds like a plaster,” said Fanny equably.

“I beg your pardon?”

“When you rise to leave, my lord, I expect to hear a ripping sound as you tear yourself away.”

“Really, Miss Fanny …”

“Shhh! Miss Dunbar is about to begin.”

“I thought of this poem,” said Miss Dunbar, looking modestly down her nose, “when my watch was returned to me from the mender. It is entitled ‘On a Watch—That Had Been Repaired, Being Hung Up Again in Its Case.’

“Welcome, welcome, little stranger,

To thy neat and safe abode;

There thou art, quite free from danger,

There is naught to incommode.”

A snort of laughter from Frederica, quickly stifled.

“O! how often have I miss’d thee,

Sought in vain the time to know,

And still oftn’er have I wish’d thee

Back, to see thy movements flow.

Days, hours, and minutes, as they pass,

Thou faithfully dost tell,

And art a warning to mankind

To spend e’en moments well.”

All the ladies, except Lady Artemis, clapped enthusiastically. “What a gift education is to women,” mocked the earl, leaning toward Fanny. “It certainly is,” said Fanny. “There was a time when poor little Miss Dunbar could barely even write her own name. She has learned much from Mrs. Waverley. Her father was a brute and refused to pay a penny on educating his daughters.”

The earl promptly felt every bit as churlish as he was sure Fanny had meant him to feel.

There was more poetry reading. The earl hoped Fanny would perform, but she sat on beside him, sedate and unruffled.

Then Mrs. Waverley announced there would be a break for refreshments. Felicity would play for them. The earl sat back, prepared for refreshments such as they served at Almack’s, and for the indifferent playing of Felicity who would no doubt hammer out some piece like “The Woodpecker.”

But Felicity began to play a piece by Scarlatti with such verve and polish that he sat up straight and, almost without thinking, held up his hand for silence. If this is what education does for women, he thought dreamily, then let there be more of it, unaware that his absorption in the music had roused the first feelings of unease in Fanny’s bosom. Fanny was jealous, but did not know it. Before the arrival of Lord Tredair, the only man who had been allowed in the house was the music teacher, an elderly German of superb talent. But that stab of unrecognized jealousy made Fanny painfully aware of the earl for the first time. Here was a man who exuded a male aura of virility, making the high-ceilinged drawing room appear small and cluttered and overfeminine with its pretty gold and white striped curtains and its dainty china figurines. Fanny was glad the musical entertainment was of short duration. Too much attention, she told herself firmly, was bad for Felicity.

To the earl’s surprise the refreshments consisted of iced champagne, crab patties, cheese puffs, cold lobster salad, and thin wafers of Westphalian ham served with slices of near transparent bread and butter. He noticed that the three Waverley girls all drank champagne as did the three visiting spinsters.

Emboldened by the wine, Miss Dunbar, Miss Baxter, and Miss Pursy all tried to engage the earl in conversation. But he would answer their sallies politely and then turn back to Fanny.

Poor Fanny’s equanimity had gone. His presence was making her feel stifled and overpowered and sick. Her legs trembled and she jammed her knees together.

“Do you think I can persuade your mother to let you go about in society?” asked the earl.

“Mrs. Waverley is not my mother. I am adopted, as are the others,” said Fanny. “We were all taken from the orphanage—a very low sort of orphanage,” she added severely, hoping unconsciously to give him a disgust of her so that he would not look at her with that caressing expression in his eyes that made her feel so weak.

“You are fortunate. Where does Mrs. Waverley come from? I am not familiar with the family.”

“Mrs. Waverley is from Scarborough. Her late husband was extremely rich, and on his death she gained her freedom and was able to do as she wished.”

“I would not like to be married to a lady who regarded my death as a release from bondage.”

“Naturally, not,” said Fanny, “but that is how most women feel about marriage.”

“You must be quoting Mrs. Waverley. You do not seem to be allowed to meet other women—I mean, married women.”

“I would … well, I confess I would like to go out to a theater or a party, just once,” said Fanny wistfully. “But perhaps Mrs. Waverley is right. Gentlemen in society can be so cruel.”

“For example?”

“For example, there are many children fathered out of wedlock by members of the ton.”

“True. There are a great deal more fathered out of wedlock by everyone else.”

“But not in such a high-handed manner,” said Fanny desperately.

He smiled into her eyes. “Miss Fanny, I long to hear you describe a high-handed seduction.”

“Oh, you are determined not to take me seriously.”

“I take you more and more seriously by the minute, I assure you. Give me another example of the wanton cruelty of society.”

“Well, there was the case of Mrs. Comfrey, a widow who lives in Berners Street. ‘Tis said she snubbed young Lord Palmont at a ball. He dressed himself up in butler’s livery and went from shop to shop, ordering everything he could think of in her name, and directed it all to her home in Berners Street—even a coffin! The street was blocked for the whole day, and the hysterical lady was beset by tradesmen of every description, porters, medical men, artists, servants wanting places, until the whole of Berners Street was like a fair, it was so crammed with people and wagon loads of goods. Every police officer that could be found was ordered to the area, but it was nightfall before the poor lady could get any peace.”

“A childish joke, I grant you. But hear the other side of the story. Lord Palmont proposed marriage to Mrs. Comfrey and was accepted. She did not just snub him, she told him most cruelly, in front of a listening audience of fashionables, that she had changed her mind, he was not good enough for her. He protested. She went on to maliciously describe his physical defects, ending up by announcing with a coarse laugh that he wore false calves.”

“Oh, dear,” said Fanny. “Then, perhaps it is as well I do not go about in society, for the women appear to be as bad as the men. You yourself and Lady Artemis came this evening out of vulgar curiosity. Neither of you gives a fig for the plight of the modern woman.”

“Nor does Mrs. Waverley. I am persuaded she is secretly a timid woman who has bought love and loyalty from the orphanage and does not dare go about lest she lose her court.”

“I am persuaded you do not know the first thing about love and loyalty,” said Fanny fiercely.

His eyes caressed her furious face. “On the contrary, I do know a great deal about love.”

“I was not talking about either lust or sexual experience,” flashed Fanny.

Unfortunately, her voice had risen at the moment when everyone else in the room had stopped talking.

There was a shocked silence.

The earl rose to his feet and bowed in front of Mrs. Waverley. “My congratulations on the education of your girls,” he said. “Such wit and grace and style! I am quite overwhelmed.”

“Fanny …” said Mrs. Waverley desperately. She had not been able to believe her ears. “You must apologize.”

“No need for apology,” said the earl with a mocking smile. “Miss Fanny is as you have made her. How wise of you to keep her locked up. Lady Artemis! We shall take our leave.”

“Gladly!” said Lady Artemis, tossing her head.

Fanny sat with her head bowed as the guests left.

Out in the square, Lady Artemis looked up at the earl, who was escorting her across the square to her home. “Can I persuade you to return and share my tea tray?”

“No, my lady. I am going to my club to immerse myself in the company of men. But I shall send you a hundred guineas.”

“Generous of you. But I feel it is I who should pay you,” said Lady Artemis. “I am persuaded they are all frauds and none more than the beautiful and farouche Miss Fanny.”

“Perhaps. But I cannot remember when I was last so well entertained,” said the earl. He touched his hat with his gloves and strode off across the square.

Lady Artemis went slowly indoors. That was that. He would smile at her and nod to her across some ballroom, but unless she plotted and planned, she had no hope of being in his company again.

The evening had been strangely exhilarating. Funny, ridiculous, infuriating, but not boring. The key to Lord Tredair’s flinty heart lay with the Waverleys. He seemed to mock them, he had been furious with Fanny, but Fanny had kept her by him for the whole evening. So education was the clue. What had Fanny been talking about before she had made that dreadful social gaffe? The only way to find out was to cultivate the Waverleys.

Lady Artemis thought of her own conversation. Usually she gossiped, passing around the latest on-dit when she found herself in the company of women, which was seldom. With the men she talked light nonsense and flirted.

Her butler relieved her of her cloak and stood waiting for orders.

“Have all the morning papers delivered to me in my bedchamber at nine in the morning with my chocolate,” said Lady Artemis. The butler blinked. Nine o’clock was dawn in fashionable London. “And hire me tutors. I have to learn Greek and Latin. And I need a music teacher. A good music teacher. I want to play complicated and difficult pieces. And go to the shoemaker in the morning and bring him around here to measure my feet. I want walking shoes.”

“Yes, my lady,” said the butler gloomily, for, as he confided to the other servants, my lady was probably as drunk as a lord and would throw things at his head when she was awakened at nine in the morning.

The following morning, after the chambermaid had lit the fire in my lady’s room and opened the shutters and drawn back the curtains, the butler entered carrying the requested cup of hot chocolate and nine morning papers.

Lady Artemis was lying snoring, her mouth open. One white breast had popped out of her nightgown, and the nipple stared up at the butler like one accusing eye.

If he woke her and she found that naked breast, then he would be dismissed for looking at her. And yet it was forbidden for a manservant to touch his mistress’s bare flesh. The chambermaid was too lowly a creature to do it. The lady’s maid was in bed with the grippe. Problems, problems, thought the butler with a sigh. He took out a clean white handkerchief, covered his hand with it, and, leaning over the bed, tucked the bare breast out of sight. Then he coughed loudly.

Lady Artemis came awake and glared at him and then glared at the clock. Then memory came flooding back. She struggled up against the pillows, took the proferred newspapers, and began to read.

“Must be love,” thought the butler. “She’s fallen for a pedant. It won’t last a day.”

At two o’clock Mrs. Waverley appeared, but with only two girls following her. She found to her annoyance that Lady Artemis appeared to have sprung from nowhere and had joined them.

“And where is Miss Fanny this morning?” asked Lady Artemis.

“She is in disgrace,” said Mrs. Waverley. “It all goes to prove my point that the company of gentlemen is destructive.”

“To one who has not been trained in the arts of social conversation,” said Lady Artemis impatiently. “My dear Mrs. Waverley, if I may be so bold, you scuttle around this square like a mother hen. No wonder your daughters have become odd and unruly.”

Mrs. Waverley stopped so suddenly that Frederica and Felicity bumped into her.

Lady Artemis waited curiously. She wondered whether Mrs. Waverley had gone into a trance.

Mrs. Waverley was thinking deeply. Fanny’s bold and brazen remark to Lord Tredair had shocked her. She had been proud of her girls, considering them paragons of all the virtues. She could not bear failure and detected a certain amused contempt in Lady Artemis’s eyes.

“Courage,” murmured Lady Artemis, when Mrs. Waverley did not speak. “The Park is beautiful this afternoon. Why not promenade with me a little farther?”

Mrs. Waverley still stood as if turned to stone. She wanted to refuse. She wanted to berate Lady Artemis for having brought a man into her salon. But for the first time in years, she felt ridiculous and eccentric.

“Besides,” cooed Lady Artemis, “I did not come last night to mock you, Mrs. Waverley. But to learn. You appear to think you have a mission to educate women. Would you spurn me—I, who have so much to learn?”

Mrs. Waverley took a deep breath. “Very well, Lady Artemis. What is it you would like to learn first?”

All at once Lady Artemis thought of those housekeeping books that she could never check because she could not add figures. “Mathematics,” she said with a laugh. “But you will need to begin at the beginning.”

Fanny looked down from her bedroom window. She could see Lady Artemis talking to Mrs. Waverley with Frederica and Felicity standing behind them. Soon, thought Fanny, they would move; the snubbed Lady Artemis would go back to her home and the other three back to walking around and around the square. Then to her surprise, they all moved off together and disappeared out of the square.

She was furious. The first steps into the outside world had been taken without her. She would not admit to herself that most of her fury was caused by the unrealized thought that in that outside world somewhere was the Earl of Tredair. Fanny had been told to stay in her room all day as a punishment. She longed to run after them, to disobey. But at the back of her mind, there was always the fear that Mrs. Waverley might send her back to the orphanage. Well, she could hardly send a great nineteen-year-old back there, but she could just send her away.

Fanny wanted to rebel, but she was not ready yet.

***

The Earl of Tredair was sitting in his club in the coffee room, reading the newspapers. He liked his club. He liked it best during the day when it had a cathedral-like hush and the gentle, dismal peace of one great communal hangover dwelt in the high-ceilinged rooms.

His peace was disturbed by the arrival of his friend, the Honorable John Fordyce who plumped himself down in a chair opposite and exclaimed, “I have seen a most odd sight.”

“What?” asked the earl irritably. “Some freak? The man with the two-headed cow?”

“Better than that. I crossed the Park a short time ago, and there, under a tree on a park bench, I saw the beautiful Lady Artemis. She was seated beside a fat, dowdy matron and two drab schoolgirls, and you will never guess what she was doing.”

“No, I can’t guess. Put me out of my misery.”

“She was reciting her multiplication tables—you know, like in a schoolroom, with the fat woman and the girls chanting along with her. Two times two is four and all that.”

“Two schoolgirls,” said the earl slowly. “Not three?”

“No, two. And Lady Artemis …”

“Was one of the girls divinely fair?”

“No, I tell you, just two drab little girls and I could not tell the color of their hair, for they wore the ugliest bonnets I have ever seen.”

“So fair Fanny’s probably in disgrace,” mused the earl aloud. “Good! Serves her right.”

“What are you talking about? Do you know such people?”

“I know a surprising number of oddities,” said the earl, and changed the subject.

Chapter Three

The Earl of Tredair had hit on the correct reason for Mrs. Waverley’s seclusion. She was at heart a timid woman who not only feared the world of men, but the rest of the world at large. She had used her great wealth to buy herself companionship in the shape of the three girls and to buy the house in Hanover Square to keep all the things she feared at bay.

She was herself a highly educated woman with a gift for teaching. Despite the fact that Lady Artemis was using Mrs. Waverley in order to see the Earl of Tredair again, that frivolous creature of society had to admit to a certain feeling of exhilaration as the days passed and the lessons continued and all those mysterious figures began to make sense.

Gratitude to Mrs. Waverley, plus a desire to further her own ends, prompted Lady Artemis to set about encouraging her teacher to go out into the world a little more. Finally, she was rewarded. Mrs. Waverley agreed to attend a performance of Richard III. All young ladies should see Shakespeare performed on the stage, said Lady Artemis, and Mrs. Waverley caved in and told her startled daughters of the treat in store.

Although she was delighted at the idea of going out to the theater, Fanny could not like the person who had arranged it. She distrusted Lady Artemis and jealousy had sharpened her perceptions so that she felt Lady Artemis was using them all to recapture Lord Tredair’s attention.

The girls did not have a lady’s maid, Mrs. Waverley feeling that lady’s maids were flighty creatures too interested in men. Fanny dressed herself with great care. The girls were not only to be allowed to go to the theater, but to appear at their best.

She chose a pale pink gossamer silk gown, ornamented with a narrow gold edging and tied at the front with ribbons of the same color. On her head she wore a headdress composed of white lace and pink satin, ornamented with double rows of pearls. Around her neck she wore a necklace of fine pearls set in gold.

She wondered feverishly whether the earl would be there and then tried to dismiss him from her mind. She had been rude to him and he probably thought of her, if he thought of her at all, with disgust. He would not be there.

But the earl, too, was preparing to go to the theater. He had received a note from Lady Artemis that had said, “Do you attend Kean in Richard? If so, I have a marvel to show you that will not be on the stage.”

“By which,” the earl said cynically to Mr. Fordyce, “she means she has somehow managed to persuade that recluse you saw in the Park and her three girls to go.”

“Tell me about the recluse,” asked Mr. Fordyce curiously. He had come to accompany his friend to the playhouse. “And I only saw two girls.”

“Her name is Mrs. Waverley, and she is a staunch supporter of the rights of women. She lives in seclusion in Hanover Square with three adopted daughters. It would appear that Lady Artemis has befriended her. I am only guessing, of course. But I shall be very surprised if Mrs. Waverley is not the promised treat.”

“By why should Lady Artemis think you would be interested in a recluse with an interest in bluestocking matters?”

“Lady Artemis took me to a soirée at the Waverley house. I was amused and infuriated. She no doubt thinks I want to be amused and infuriated again. Perhaps she is right.”

“Are you … em … interested in Lady Artemis?” asked Mr. Fordyce. “She is all that is beautiful and kind.”

“No, despite the fact that she is beautiful. I doubt whether she is kind.”

“Then there is hope for me if you are not taken with her,” sighed Mr. Fordyce.

“Every hope,” said the earl cheerfully.

“Not with my undistinguished appearance,” mourned Mr. Fordyce. “Oh, that I could look like you for just one evening!” He glanced enviously at his tall friend’s impeccable tailoring and broad-shouldered, slim-hipped muscular figure.

“Fustian, you look very well,” said the earl. “And you are too good a man for such as Lady Artemis. She is shallow.”

“I am persuaded you are too hard.”

“Let us not quarrel. We shall be late if we do not leave now.”

The earl drew on his gloves and tucked his bicorne under his arm and led the way downstairs.

***

Fanny, Frederica, and Felicity all felt like freaks as they sat in Lady Artemis’s box at the playhouse. Opera glasses, quizzing glasses, and even small telescopes were trained on their box.

Frederica and Felicity blushed miserably, glancing down at their gowns as if expecting to find something wrong. Lady Artemis lazily fanned herself and smiled all around. The Waverley girls were a sensation.

It was only when the earl’s tall figure appeared in a box opposite that Lady Artemis felt a good deal of her complacency leaving her. She felt a trifle soiled and, yes, old alongside this dazzling bevy of fresh beauties who sat grouped together like some nosegay with flowerlike complexions and gleaming hair.

She comforted herself with the thought that such a sophisticated man of the world as the earl would not be intrigued by a parcel of young virgins. She had expected him to be amused and interested, not attracted. But Fanny had kept him at her side that evening, and Fanny’s looks were certainly enough to break hearts. Lady Artemis knew that blondes were not fashionable, but Fanny’s combination of silvery hair and deep blue eyes and black lashes was causing men in the pit to stand up on their benches for a better look.

To Fanny’s relief when the curtain rose, a hush fell on the house. Edmund Kean as Richard III limped slowly down the stage. He looked up at the boxes with an expression of sly cunning, and then he began. “Now is the winter of our discontent …”

Fanny, like the rest of the house, was held captive by the great actor. Usually society came to the playhouse to see each other and the only attention they gave the performance was to catcall or throw oranges at the stage. But Kean held them all in the palm of his hand.

At the first interval the earl and Mr. Fordyce made their way to Lady Artemis’s box. But they had to wait outside until almost the end of the interval, there was such a press of gentlemen anxious to pay their respects to Lady Artemis and to get an introduction to the Waverley girls.

At last Mr. Fordyce and the earl edged in. Lady Artemis welcomed the earl warmly so that it was left to Mr. Fordyce to talk to the girls. “What do you think of the performance?” he asked.

Three pairs of glowing eyes looked at him, and three voices competed to tell him how wonderful Kean was. All the girls appeared to know the play by heart. He was rather intimidated by their direct looks and intelligent speech. Not one blushed or fluttered or raised her fan.

While Fanny talked, she was covertly studying the earl and Lady Artemis. She noticed how Lady Artemis, standing in the box in front of the earl, contrived to make love to him with her body while never touching him. She swayed and undulated as she talked, exclaiming over an imagined rip in her hem so that she could bend over and allow the earl to look down the front of her gown. The enigma that was Mrs. Waverley sat quietly, looking on.

The next act was about to begin. The earl and Mr. Fordyce excused themselves, promising to call at the second interval.

Fanny was glad to lose herself again in the play. The earl made her feel upset, hot, and uncomfortable. If this is what men did to your body, then you were better without them.

The earl and Mr. Fordyce made their way back to Lady Artemis’s box just before the end of the second act. The earl tipped an usher to keep all other callers at bay and entered the box just as the curtain fell. Fanny had not once looked in his direction. He decided to get at her through Mrs. Waverley. Mr. Fordyce was only too eager to speak to Lady Artemis. The earl sat down by Mrs. Waverley, who shied like a horse at the sight of him.

“I am glad to see you furthering the education of your girls in the proper way,” he said. Mrs. Waverley majestically inclined her head. “And surely you must see no harm will come to them.”

“I consider Shakespeare to be part of any young woman’s education,” said Mrs. Waverley. “Balls and parties on the other hand have no educational value.”

“I do so agree,” said the earl earnestly. “You must forgive me if I seemed a trifle sharp the other evening, Mrs. Waverley, but Miss Fanny did provoke me.”

He cast a sidelong look at Fanny whose blue eyes blazed at him.

“I accept that Fanny was unusually provoking,” said Mrs. Waverley. “She has been punished.”

“And can we now hope to see you at other events?”

“I do not think so,” said Mrs. Waverley. “Everything else at the Season is a sad waste of time and will only encourage vanity in the bosom of my girls.”

“Not everything,” said the earl. “There is a balloon ascension in two days time. Now, if you have any interest in the sciences, you must admit a balloon ascension is highly educational.”

“Where is this ascension to take place?” asked Mrs. Waverley.

“At Islington. Our famous balloonist, Mr. Greene, is to take to the skies. Have you ever attended a balloon ascension?”

“No. I …”

“But you must. I insist. Mr. Fordyce and myself can escort you there.”

“But, I …”

“Splendid. Mr. Fordyce, we are in luck. Mrs. Waverley and her beautiful charges are to join us in a visit to the balloon ascension.”

“We shall enjoy that,” said Lady Artemis quickly, although she had not been included in the invitation. “Do wear something warm, ladies. I do not know why it is, but balloon ascensions always seem to take place on the coldest of days.”

The girls’ eyes were shining with excitement. The three of them had feared that this was to be their one and only outing. Fanny even began to feel a certain gratitude toward Lady Artemis, who had been instrumental in effecting this change.

“Thank you, but we shall not go,” said Mrs. Waverley heavily.

“And why not?” demanded Fanny angrily. If this was the outside world of society, then she loved it. She thought of the long days and months and years spent in seclusion and her beautiful eyes filled with tears. “You are always telling us about the wonders of science, about ballooning, about how balloons could be used as a military weapon. And yet you lack the courage to allow us to see such miracles for ourselves.”

Frederica’s hand stole out to grip Felicity’s.

“Balloon ascensions attract a great number of the unruly mob,” pointed out Mrs. Waverley, wishing the interval would come to an end.

“But you will be in my carriage and Mr. Fordyce’s,” pointed out the earl. He took Mrs. Waverley’s gloved hand in his own and smiled into her eyes. “Please say you will come.”

“Very well,” said Mrs. Waverley weakly. “Just this once.”

“Bravo! Then we shall call for you at eleven in the morning.”

The earl rose and bowed to everyone and left the box with Mr. Fordyce. The third act began, but the earl’s thoughts were elsewhere. He was thinking of Fanny and how when her eyes had filled with tears, he had longed to take her in his arms. This yearning, protective feeling was new to him. He was sure that if he got to know Fanny very well, then he would find her boring. By the end of the play he had convinced himself this was the case and regretted his impulse to escort the Waverley ladies.

That night, Fanny tossed and turned, unable to sleep. Excitement gripped her like a fever. She felt she could hardly wait until the balloon ascension to see the proper outside world again. She would not admit to herself she could hardly wait to see Lord Tredair again. “If only I had something amusing to read, like Felicity’s romance,” she thought. Then she began to wonder where on earth Felicity had got that romance.

She got out of bed and went to Felicity’s room and pushed open the door. Felicity was lying in bed reading. She had had her bedside oil lamp specially deepened by the tinman so that it would burn all night.

Fanny sat on the end of Felicity’s bed. “How did you come by that romance?” she asked.

Felicity put down her book and looked at Fanny impatiently. “I went and bought it.”

“But how? We are not allowed out.”

“Well, don’t tell anyone. You know after our daily promenade that Mrs. Waverley goes for a nap. I simply went out and along to Hatchard’s in Piccadilly and bought one.”

“But the women servants are told to stop us from leaving!”

“Stoopid. I go down to the library and let myself out through the window and drop down into the garden. Then I climb over the wall at the side and through the garden of the house adjoining—no one lives there at the moment—and that house has a path around the side to the area steps.”

“But we are not allowed any pin money.”

“We are allowed a great deal of fine jewelry,” said Felicity. “I simply take a little piece from my box, or prize out a jewel and take it to the pawnbroker in Oxford Street.”

“That’s stealing,” said Fanny, appalled.

“Not really. She don’t miss it and it stops me from going mad.”

“Frederica is surely not a party to this?”

“Oh, yes. She escapes one day and I escape the other.”

“Good gracious,” said Fanny weakly. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“You’re always so hoity-toity. We thought you’d tell.”

“I tell? It is you and Frederica who are always telling on each other.”

“We keep important things secret.”

Fanny looked at Felicity in distress. “But all our principles, all our ideas.”

“They’re Mrs. Waverley’s principles and ideas,” said Felicity. “She’s a great teacher, I’ll grant you that. I like being able to read the classics in the original Greek and Latin, but I also like to read something light and frivolous from time to time to take my mind off the boredom of my existence. Mind you, I don’t believe any of this romantic stuff and nonsense. Mrs. Waverley is right. It is a man’s world and women are little better than slaves. I just don’t like the way she keeps us imprisoned. I mean, you support her ideas, too, don’t you Fanny?”

“Of course!”

“Not getting a leetle spoony about the handsome earl?”

“Don’t be cheeky or I’ll punch your head,” said Fanny, her color rising.

“Just try,” grinned Felicity. “Oh, don’t look daggers at me. I’ll have a word with Freddy and tell her you can have tomorrow.”

“I don’t know whether I will be able to find the courage,” said Fanny weakly. “Does one just go into the pawnbroker and hand over a jewel?”

“His name is Friendly, a Quaker; a good name for a pawnbroker and a Quaker, don’t you think? He believes me to be a servant girl, pawning jewels for my mistress. Her fictitious name is Lady Tremblant. I suggest you use it. After all, those usual ghastly duds we are dressed in for our walks are like servants’ clothes.”

The next day Felicity went straight to her jewel box after their walk around the square. To her relief, Lady Artemis had not joined them. Rubies, diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires glinted up at her. How much would a book cost? She selected a small diamond pin and tucked it inside the neck of her gown and then went down to the drawing room. She felt very tired and half inclined to forget about going ahead with the escapade. Their lessons were given to them by Mrs. Waverley at ten o’clock each morning. Felicity looked grumpy having had less sleep than Fanny, but Frederica was excited that the eldest of them, the golden Fanny, was about to behave just as badly.

They took her down to the library on the ground floor and helped her through the window and watched her jump down to the weedy garden below that was on a level with the basement. The servants were taking tea in their hall at the front of the basement and so there was no danger of being discovered. Fanny turned and waved. The girls pointed to an upturned water barrel against the wall, and she climbed up on it and pulled herself to the top of the wall. There was a plank leaning on the other side, and she slid down it and made her way quickly around the side of the empty neighboring house and up the area steps.

At first it seemed terrifying to be out on her own. Oxford Street was crammed with passersby and carriages of every description. Then it dawned on her that everyone was too busy to look at a drably dressed female in a voluminous cloak and depressing hat.

The pawnbroker’s three golden balls glinted in the pale sunlight. She pushed open the door and went into the musty interior, which smelled of fried bacon and old clothes.

Barely daring to look at the man behind the counter, she handed over the diamond pin and murmured that her mistress, Lady Tremblant, was in need of more money. “Five pounds,” said the pawnbroker, beginning to write out a ticket. Fanny looked at him for the first time. He was bent and shabby with a cruel acquisitive look like a bird of prey.

“Nonsense, you scoundrel,” said Fanny haughtily. “Give it back to me immediately. Thirty pounds and nothing less!”

Fanny did not know that both Frederica and Felicity had affected common accents when they pawned their jewels. The pawnbroker looked at that haughty stare and flashing eyes and came to the conclusion that this must be Lady Tremblant in person. He held the pin up to the light and the diamond flashed fire. It was a fine stone, and he had no wish to offend an aristocratic patron. The stone was worth much, much more than thirty and this Lady Tremblant never redeemed her jewels.

“Did I say five, my lady? I am sorry. I meant thirty-five.”

“Good,” said Fanny icily. “Now give me my ticket.” She had every intention of trying to redeem the jewel, although where she was going to get the money, she was not quite sure.

She left the shop and took a deep breath. Thirty-five pounds! A fortune. She was not sure how to get to Hatchard’s, or for that matter, Piccadilly, and had to stop and ask the way.

In the bookshop she bought two three volume romances, which she put into her huge reticule. Now for home.

But the sun was shining and the crowds looked so jolly and happy. Fanny had always wanted to go to the Park at the fashionable hour and see all the fine folk. She glanced down at the watch pinned to her bosom. Four-thirty. She had been away from home for more than two hours!

Perhaps if she made a circular detour home, along Piccadilly, up Park Lane, and along through Grosvenor Square and Brook Street, she could maybe catch a glimpse of society at play.

Almost despite herself, her steps took her into the Park and soon she was standing at the edge of the Ring, watching the light-glittering carriages darting past like dragonflies. She was about to turn away when she saw Lord Tredair. She half raised her hand in salute and then let it drop to her side. For he did not see her. He was riding a coal black stallion, and he had reined in beside a carriage containing two beautiful ladies. They were smiling up at him and he looked delighted to see them.

It was then that Fanny realized her own circumstances for the first time. She was a foundling. She had been taken to the foundling hospital from the steps of St. Bride’s in Fleet Street and then from there to the orphanage. Her parents had probably never married. Her parents were most likely poor and common. If a man such as the earl were interested in her, it would be to purchase her as his mistress.

Sadly, she turned away. She felt miserable. She felt like the thief she was.

Her spirits were hardly rallied on her return when Felicity and Frederica berated her for being so late back and nearly spoiling their future plans of escape.

Then, that very evening, Mrs. Waverley decided to lecture the girls on the subject of love.

Fanny found that lecture very lowering, although it all sounded like good sense. Women, said Mrs. Waverley, usually fell genuinely in love once and then became addicted to the idea of being in love. Romantic love did not last and had no secure foundation. Passion was fleeting. It was a well-known fact that any man tired of the charms of one woman after a time, eighteen months being the longest period. True love was a combination of loyalty and caring. Women should not find it necessary to look to men for such love, when that pure kind of love was something another woman could supply.

“But what about children?” cried Fanny. “God made us as we are to bear children!”

“God also gave us brains,” said Mrs. Waverley. “Look about you. London is overpopulated with unwanted brats. Why add to the misery?”

Fanny felt very low in spirits when they set out the next day for the balloon ascension, and her spirits were further lowered by the fact that she and Mrs. Waverley were to travel in Mr. Fordyce’s carriage while Felicity and Frederica and Lady Artemis went in the earl’s carriage.

“If only men were really like the heroes in books,” thought Fanny before she climbed into Mr. Fordyce’s carriage, and she cast a yearning look at the earl, who did not notice.

But Felicity did, and she pinched the back of Frederica’s hand and whispered, “Got something to tell you.”

When they reached the fields at Islington where the great balloon was moored, Fanny felt much happier. The earl had appeared at her side and she turned impulsively to him and said, “Oh, how I should like to fly above the houses. To be free.”

Again, he experienced that odd, protective, yearning feeling. Mr. Fordyce was happily lecturing Mrs. Waverley and Lady Artemis on the art of ballooning, and Frederica and Felicity were whispering with their heads together. Lady Artemis had decided to try to make the earl jealous by flirting with Mr. Fordyce.

“There is our balloonist, Mr. Greene,” cried the earl as a carriage drove up. “Come, Miss Fanny. I have an idea.”

Fanny was introduced to the famous balloonist. “Mr. Greene, with your permission, before you make your ascent,” said the earl, “may I take Miss Waverley here into the basket so that she may get some idea of what it might be like to fly?”

“By all means,” said Mr. Greene. “There’s some fellows over there with a ladder.”

Felicity and Frederica watched round-eyed as they saw the earl helping Fanny into the balloon basket. Above them, the great pink and gold balloon soared up to the heavens. “I tell you, she’s spoony about him,” hissed Felicity. “She’s going to run off and get married and I can’t bear it. Why should she escape and betray us and our ideas?”

Frederica grinned maliciously. “Let’s give them a fright.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have my sharp knife. We could creep around and fray the ropes so that, perhaps, they might snap and tilt the basket and give Fanny a scare.”

“That won’t do any good. They’re loaded down with sandbags.”

But as the girls watched, Mr. Greene himself climbed into the basket and could be seen explaining the working of the balloon to Fanny. The earl said something and Mr. Greene smiled. He and the earl started to throw out sandbags and the crowd cheered as the basket lifted, straining at the ropes.

“Are they taking Fanny up?” asked Felicity.

“No,” said Frederica. “She’d freeze to death. Mr. Green’s giving them an idea of what it feels like. See, they’re bringing back the ladder. Fanny’ll be getting down.”

“Let’s give her that fright,” said Frederica. “You start shouting that someone has stolen Mr. Greene’s horse and leave the rest to me.”

Frederica darted off. Felicity had no intention of calling Mrs. Waverley’s attention to herself, so she tugged at the sleeve of a man in front of her and said, “I just saw a ruffian steal Mr. Greene’s carriage horse.”

The man immediately shouted out that the horse had been stolen without even looking round to see if the voice at his ear had told the truth. Soon the whole crowd was shouting thief and calling to Mr. Greene. The balloonist darted down the ladder. In the commotion Frederica scurried from guy rope to guy rope, sawing busily. In the shouting and running and yelling no one noticed her.

But the day had become wild and blustery and one great buffet of wind struck the balloon. Instead of just one of the guys giving and tipping the basket over, all the ropes snapped at once. The crowd cheered thinking it was some sort of stunt. Mr. Greene howled. Mrs. Waverley turned white and clutched at Mr. Fordyce for support.

The balloon soared straight up and for a moment appeared to hang motionless just a little above the crowd. Fanny looked white and scared, the earl, furious. Then another buffet of wind and the balloon began to sail away rapidly to the east.

A silence fell upon the crowd as it dawned on all of them that the lady and gentleman had been borne off by mistake. They watched anxiously as the balloon grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared behind a bank of clouds.

Several of the men in the crowd removed their hats and stood with their heads bowed. Few expected amateurs to survive the flight.

Clutching each other, Felicity and Frederica began to cry.

Chapter Four

Fanny’s hands clutched the edge of the balloon basket so tightly that one of her gloves split. The clouds parted, and down below were little fields and little dots of people. The earl was cursing and fiddling with the gas burner. They had changed direction and appeared to be rushing off madly to the west.

“I trust you can get us down,” said Fanny over her shoulder.

“I am trying, Miss Fanny,” he said crossly. “I know little of ballooning. This is one of the older ones, not hydrogen gas, but hot air. I do not think those ropes parted of their own accord. Someone must have cut them. Are you very cold?”

“Yes,” said Fanny, surprised. She had hitherto been too startled and shocked to realize just how cold she was. She wondered for the first time why Mrs. Waverley in all her strictures against the follies of the human race had not thought to attack current fashions. To be dressed in transparent white muslin on a chilly spring day surely suggested a devotion to fashion bordering on the frenetic. Fanny’s gown was deeply décolleté, the transparency of the muslin revealing a minimum of pink underclothing, and a slit at the side showing pink stockinged legs. Over it she wore a lace pelisse, and on her head a Mary Queen of Scots cap of white velvet and gold thread.

He took off his coat and wrapped it about her and then returned to fiddling with the burner. A gust of wind seized Fanny’s cap and sent it flying and tore the pins from her hair so that it blew about her head and shoulders. She slipped her arms into the sleeves of the coat he had put about her shoulders and peered over the edge of the basket again.

“I am fortunate to be able to have this view of the world,” Fanny told herself. “I am sure I am not going to die. It is silly to waste an opportunity like this through sheer maidenly weakness and fear. We must be getting lower. People look more like toys than dots. And, I declare, the wind has dropped.”

The basket swung around, and there, revealed on the other side, was a distant line of gray heralding the broad expanse of the sea.

“Miss Fanny!” Fanny edged around and looked at the earl. His green eyes looked bleak. “I am afraid we may be in for a ducking. I do not suppose you can swim.”

“Yes, I can,” shivered Fanny. “Do not worry, my lord, I am not afraid. I cannot possibly feel colder in the water than I do at present.”

He caught her in his arms and held her close as the balloon swayed and turned, getting lower the whole time.

“Turn up the burner!” cried Fanny suddenly. “That way we shall not continue to sink.”

“My dear child, we shall end up in the middle of the North Sea if I do not get us down soon. The Thames estuary is still directly below us.”

Fanny struggled free and before he could guess what she meant to do, she had wrenched at the gas burner. The flame went out with a noisy pop.”

“You half-witted idiot,” howled the earl.

“Stop shouting at me and light it,” snapped Fanny.

“I have neither brimstone match nor tinder-box, but I suppose such an enlightened, modern lady as yourself carries such items.”

He cast a cynical eye at the piece of dainty nonsense that passed for a reticule, dangling from Fanny’s wrist.

Fanny bit her lip. Normally she did carry an amount of useful stuff about with her, but vanity had prompted the thin gown and the scrap of a reticule. She realized that trying to compete with Lady Artemis had its drawbacks.

“Well,” he said in a milder tone, “down we go. Hang onto me …”

“No!”

“Don’t be silly. If we are plunged into the water upside down or something, you will need all the help I can offer.”

He drew her to him again and held her tightly while the balloon, which had ceased its rushing, plunging motion, drifted down and down.

“I believe we shall make land after all,” he said at last, looking over the top of her head. Fanny pulled free and looked over the edge of the balloon. There was a village below, and she could see faces turned upward and hands pointing. Light glinted from musical instruments as the village band ran this way and that, staring upward, and colliding with each other. A tiny figure in an open carriage, just recognizable as a mayor from one of the neighboring towns, could be seen hurtling along the road to the village.

At first, to Fanny, they seemed to be drifting gently sideways toward the village, and then all at once the balloon gave a lurch and straight down it went. She threw her arms around the earl and clutched him tight.

“Sit down,” he commanded, dragging her down to the bottom of the basket.

They lay in the bottom as close as lovers. There was a sickening bump and then the deflated balloon collapsed on top of the basket.

There were cries and cheers from outside. Dazed and bruised and shaken, Fanny looked up at the earl who was lying on top of her. He grinned suddenly and kissed the tip of her nose and then rolled off her and helped her to her feet, taking his coat from her and putting it on, just as the covering that was the balloon was ripped away and the round red face of the mayor in full ceremonial robes appeared at the top of a ladder.

“I am sorry to have caused so much disturbance,” said the earl, bowing low. “I am Tredair, Lord Tredair, and this is Miss Fanny Waverley.”

The mayor’s red face became even redder with delight. A real live lord!

“Pray descend,” said the mayor, “and accept the hospitality of this humble village.”

The earl made his way down the ladder and then turned to help Fanny.

A great cheer went up from the villagers, the sun shone, the village band began to play “Rule Britannia”, as Fanny with her golden hair streaming about her shoulders descended from the balloon.

“Speech! Speech!” screamed the villagers.

“Cannot we just go?” whispered Fanny fiercely to the earl.

“No. This is the biggest thing that has ever happened to them and we must not disappoint them,” said the earl and climbed back up the ladder. He noticed ruefully that the road leading to the village was jammed with carriages and hawkers, conjurors and jugglers. Everyone must have been following the progress of the balloon for some time and any excuse for a fair had drawn them all as if pulled by one enormous magnet.

The earl raised his hands for silence. “Thank you, my lord mayor, and good people of …”

“Deep-Under-Lime,” hissed the mayor.

“Deep-Under-Lime,” said the earl.

“And the township of Deep of which I am the mayor,” prompted the mayor, sotto voce.

The earl duly repeated all that and went on, “Miss Waverley and I are most grateful to you all. We had said our last prayers and had just given ourselves up for dead, when a ray of light struck down from the heavens, right on this village.”

There was an awed gasp.

“The hand of God guided us here,” said the earl. “In fact, the village of Deep-Under-Lime was chosen by Divine Providence to be our place of rescue. I shall now tell you how we came to be in this predicament …”

Fanny listened in horror. How could he tell such lies? Well, not exactly lies, but such a wildly exaggerated tale. A cloud crossed the sun and she shivered. But she could only be glad that the earl was holding his audience. He made a handsome and commanding figure, and he stood with one booted foot upon one rung of the ladder, the wind ruffling his black hair. For just before he had begun to speak, Fanny had noticed the shocked looks cast at her gown. What she was wearing was respectable for a fine lady in London, but here her scanty attire looked more suitable wear for a prostitute.

“At the height of our peril,” the earl was saying, “a great gust of wind tore Miss Waverley’s outer gown from her body. Picture her distress. Her outraged modesty. Perhaps one of you good people could lend her a warm cloak? Thank you.”

Fanny smiled gratefully at the better dressed group of women at the front of the crowd who had miraculously found a velvet cloak to wrap about her. She was doubly grateful for its warmth as the earl talked on and on. He finally finished by suggesting they sing a hymn and when that was over led the crowd in a rousing chorus of God Save the King. By this time most of the crowd were weeping with emotion.

A garlanded chariot was found and bedecked with ribbons. In it went the mayor, a Mr. Dowdy, and his wife with their backs to the horses and Fanny and the earl facing them. There was a scramble and jolting and heaving as the horses were untethered and the crowd proceeded to pull the chariot themselves to the neighboring town while the band went on before, playing, “See The Conquering Hero Comes.”

Fanny felt exhausted and shattered and buffeted by all the cheering and noise as she had so recently been buffeted by the wind.

“Smile and wave!” hissed the earl in her ear, and so Fanny waved to the cheering crowds, cursing him in her heart for a vain fool.

At the nearby town of Deep they were taken to a posting house and given bedchambers to refresh themselves in and commanded to attend a mayoral banquet that evening while messengers rode to London with the glad news of their safety.

How Fanny got through that terrible evening, she never knew. There were great masses of food and then a personal appearance on the balcony of the town hall and then a fireworks display to attend.

She hated the earl with a black deep hatred. He should have been concerned for her welfare. Had she screamed or fainted or behaved in any missish way? No! But all he did was smile and smile and make those interminable speeches.

It was not until the morning after that they found themselves alone together at last as they set out in a closed carriage on the road to London. The weather had turned wet and blustery, and Fanny was considered too much a heroine to mind the conventions or object to being put in a closed carriage with the earl.

“You, sir,” began Fanny, as soon as the town was left behind, “are a vain knave and a fool. How you basked in all that adulation. What lies you told those poor people.”

“A little exaggeration, that is all,” said the earl mildly.

“All that business of a ray of light from God pointing the way,” scoffed Fanny.

“Think,” he said. “Our deliverance was a miracle, whatever way you like to look at it. Did you not mark how poor that village was? Now, for a short time, it will be on the map. People will come from all over to see where Almighty Providence intervened. The shopkeepers of Deep-Under-Lime will make money and so will everyone else. Why deprive people of enjoyment and fun? They have so very little. You were not hurt. If I may say so, you have shown remarkable stamina and look more beautiful than ever.”

“You may have forgotten,” said Fanny in a thin voice, “but I am a woman, and yet you showed not a whit of concern for my well-being.”

“I would have shown a great deal of impatience if you had added to my misery by behaving in a hysterical manner. Come now, Miss Fanny, are not you bluestockings always going on about how you are as strong as men?”

“Intellectually, but not physically.”

“Then be grateful for a strong mind that enabled you to bear danger in a commendable way. You cannot have it both ways. If you want me to treat you as I would treat a silly, twittering miss, then you must be silly and twitter and look at me as if I were the most marvelous man in the whole world.”

He smiled in a superior way at Fanny’s averted face. Fanny suddenly looked at him with a world of tenderness and adoration in her eyes. Her body appeared to sway toward him, and she said huskily, “Oh, my hero!”

He was shaken to the core. His hands were about to reach for her when she said maliciously, “Something like that, my lord?”

“You are a play actress and a minx,” he said furiously. “You would have me believe that men and women are intellectually equal, and yet that is not so. Women are cruel. They take things too personally, whereas a man is able to dismiss petty slights and insults.”

“Fustian,” said Fanny. “What actions of female violence at any time ever exceeded the cool determined cruelty of eastern princes who murder all their brethren, on their accession to the throne, from the jealousy of rivalship?”

“Then take vanity. Women are more vain than men,” said the earl, feeling huffy.

“Vanity is not confined to women,” said Fanny. “Nature has given to man a penetration to discover when he is agreeable to woman, but vanity will not suffer him to discover when he ceases to be so. Men have much more steadiness in hiding their vanity—that is all. Come, sir, I believe any Bond Street fribble could outdo any woman in vanity.”

The earl glared at her. “You are nothing more than one of those females who dislike men.”

Fanny laughed. “I have had little opportunity in my life to date to have any acquaintance with men. Only you, my lord, and you must allow me the liberty to dislike or like you as it suits me.”

“I could not have such a conversation with a man,” pointed out the earl.

“Of course, you couldn’t,” said Fanny. “Any social equal of yours being patronized in such a way would soon call you out.”

“I am tired,” said the earl abruptly. “I am going to sleep.”

He closed his eyes.

Fanny glared at him. “Coward,” she said. But the earl did seem to fall asleep very promptly, leaving Fanny to her thoughts. Those thoughts turned homeward. She hoped the girls and Mrs. Waverley had received the news that she was safe.

They had not.

The mayor’s messengers had ridden to the earl’s town house and had given the news to his servants, but had not called on Mrs. Waverley, assuming that Lord Tredair’s household would let that lady know.

Frederica and Felicity cried and cried. Frederica said, between sobs, that she was going to hang herself. She had murdered Fanny, and Felicity did not help by crying and agreeing with every word.

Mrs. Waverly sat by the window of the drawing room, her Bible on her lap, looking down into the street. She had remained there the previous night and was still there on the following day.

The candles and lamps had not been lighted, and the house was full of shadows when Frederica followed by Felicity came in and threw herself at Mrs. Waverley’s feet.

“Now, child,” said Mrs. Waverley quietly, “you must not give way. There is still hope.”

“There is something I have to confess,” sobbed Frederica.

There came the sounds of a carriage rattling over the road outside. Mrs. Waverley held up her hand.

“It is of no use. She will not come back,” wailed Frederica. Mrs. Waverley threw up the window and then held tightly onto the sill.

“It’s Fanny,” she said. “Oh, dear Fanny,” and moving with remarkable speed for so heavy a woman, she rushed downstairs.

Across the square Lady Artemis was entertaining Mr. Fordyce. She was dressed becomingly in transparent black muslin. Mr. Fordyce was holding her hand. “Do not cry, dear Lady Artemis,” he said. “I cannot be persuaded that Tredair is dead. Amazingly powerful fellow.”

“It is my fault,” said Lady Artemis, who was sitting close beside Mr. Fordyce on the sofa. “I should never have introduced him to those Waverley women.” And her head dropped until it rested on Mr. Fordyce’s shoulder.

“It was not your fault,” said Mr. Fordyce, patting her back and longing for the courage to kiss her. “Some ruffian cut the ropes of the balloon.”

“Oh, thank you for being so kind,” breathed Lady Artemis, turning a tear-stained face up to his. Her mouth quivered. Demme, I am going to kiss her, thought Mr. Fordyce. He leaned forward. There came the sound of shrill exclamations and shouts from the square. Lady Artemis ran to the window so suddenly and neatly that he nearly fell on his face.

“It is Tredair!” she cried. “He is safe!”

The earl helped Fanny out of the carriage and stood smiling as Fanny was kissed and hugged by Frederica and Felicity. He gave Mrs. Waverley a brief outline of their adventures, refused any offers of refreshment, but said he would call soon to make sure Miss Fanny had not suffered from her experiences.

He was turning away to get back into the carriage when Lady Artemis came rushing up, hair tumbled and eyes shining. She threw herself against the earl’s chest, crying, “Oh, thank God you are safe. My hero.”

The earl’s green eyes flashed a wicked look at Fanny over Lady Artemis’s head, then he gently detached himself.

Mrs. Waverly and the girls bore Fanny off into the house. Fanny felt exhausted and depressed. Of course, that sort of silly gushing female was just what men liked.

She pulled herself together and over the tea tray told the girls and Mrs. Waverley all about her adventures.

“You are a credit to my training,” said Mrs. Waverley. “His lordship must admire your stamina and courage.”

“I think Lord Tredair would have liked me better if I had screamed and fainted,” said Fanny tartly.

She gradually felt more peaceful. The house was warm and secure. For the first time she began to look forward to the monotony of her days—days free from upsetting and disturbing men.

She was about to rise and go upstairs to her bedchamber when Mrs. Ricketts, the housekeeper, appeared. “Now that Miss Fanny is safe, mum,” said the housekeeper, “would you like me to go ahead with the inventory tomorrow?”

“Yes, Ricketts,” said Mrs. Waverley. She smiled at the girls. “We are about to expand our horizons. I feel Lady Artemis has the right of it. There are many women in society who would benefit from our experience. To that end, we shall be entertaining a wider circle. Now, we all have very valuable jewels and it is a sad fact that there are thieves even amongst the highest ranks of society. Have all your jewelry ready for inspection tomorrow. Ricketts will make a note of it and bring it to me. A little precaution, that is all. I am sure I could produce a list from my head. Off to bed, girls. You are all quite white with excitement.”

The three Waverley girls went upstairs and by unspoken accord went into Fanny’s bedchamber and shut the door behind them.

“What are we going to do?” said Frederica. “Will we never be at peace again? First I think I am a murderess, then …”

“A murderess!” exclaimed Fanny. “You cut those ropes! You tried to get me killed. But why?”

“I didn’t try to kill you,” said Frederica sulkily. “Felicity and I thought you were betraying us by getting spoony over Tredair, and we thought it would be fun to tip you out of the basket.”

“I am not in love with Lord Tredair!” howled Fanny.

They all began to shout at once, accusing and protesting. They were so busy arguing, they did not hear the door open. The next thing they knew, Mrs. Waverley had crashed into the room and was standing over them, glaring.

“If you behave like naughty children, then you will be treated as such,” said Mrs. Waverley furiously. “To your beds immediately. Bread and water tomorrow and stay in your rooms!”

Later that night Fanny lay awake, still furious with Felicity and Frederica, but wishing she had not been part of such a noisy row.

The door creaked open and Felicity and Frederica crept in.

“Truce,” said Frederica, holding up her hand. “What are we going to do about these jewels?”

“You see,” said Felicity urgently, “if she finds out they are missing, then she may blame the servants and that would be awful.”

“Did you never redeem any of them?” asked Fanny.

The two girls dismally shook their heads.

“There is only one thing we can do,” said Fanny slowly. “We must wait until Ricketts completes the inventory, then we must take some more of the jewels and redeem the other ones and then pretend to find them, and then somehow we are going to have to raise money to get those jewels back, don’t you see? It was wicked of us after all Mrs. Waverley’s kindness. Do you think, perhaps, our parents were thieves? How odd that none of us know our parents. How odd to think they may have died on the gallows.”

“But how are we to get out tomorrow?” asked Felicity. “We are confined to our rooms.”

“Mrs. Waverley never comes near us when we are in disgrace,” said Fanny. “I can contrive to escape. Now, what jewels have you pawned and have you the tickets?”

“We have the tickets,” said Felicity. “We only started about a month ago so there isn’t much—a pearl brooch, a garnet necklace, and an amethyst bracelet.”

“I pawned a diamond pin,” said Fanny, “and I have enough money left to redeem those items. I need only take one thing to redeem the diamond pin.”

They plotted and planned until far into the night.

***

Everything went according to plan. The minute Ricketts had completed the inventory, Fanny slipped from the house by way of the library window. She carried in her reticule the pawn tickets and a fine diamond brooch. The pawnbroker was furious. He had been about to sell the items, confident that the mysterious “Lady Tremblant” would never redeem them. But the diamond brooch she was offering was a choice item, and this time she seemed to be prepared to accept only the same amount she had received for the diamond pin.

Fanny took the redeemed items and fled back. She found someone had removed the plank from the wall of the neighboring house. She had no time to wonder who would do such a thing. She flung herself at the wall and scrabbled up it with such energy that she shot over the top and landed heavily on the other side, not on the rain barrel, but in a clump of bushes beside it.

Once back inside the house, she gave the girls the items and all hid them in unexpected places. Then one by one they summoned Ricketts to explain their “finds.” The items were duly added to the inventory that was shown to Mrs. Waverley who declared it complete.

With a sigh of relief the Waverley girls settled down to the confinement of their rooms and munched dry bread and drank water, all that they were to be allowed.

Downstairs, Mrs. Waverley read all the newspapers for about the third time.

All carried exciting accounts of the balloon adventure of Miss Fanny Waverley and Lord Tredair. The authorities were still hunting for the ruffian who had sliced the ropes.

One paper referred to Fanny as a “golden goddess descending from heaven.” Mrs. Waverley’s heart swelled with pride. How clever her three girls were. How very beautiful and perfect and so full of grace. Everyone would want to meet Fanny. For a moment Mrs. Waverley’s pleasure was dimmed at the thought of letting intrusive society into the safety of her home. But it was unthinkable that such a triumph should go uncelebrated. Of course, if Fanny had formed a tendre for Lord Tredair, that would be awkward. Fanny must be brought to realize she had no hopes in that direction. An earl would not marry a girl from the orphanage who did not know the identity of her parents. And he would surely find out, because if there was even the hint of a marriage, his family and lawyers would ferret out Fanny’s background. “And my own!” thought Mrs. Waverley in sudden dismay.

A little taste of the world for the girls and then they must retire back into their usual seclusion and be persuaded to give up any dreams of marriage.

A downstairs maid, Betty, announced the arrival of the Earl of Tredair. Mrs. Waverley at first decided to tell him the girls were confined to their rooms and then just as he entered, thought better of it. The girls were not expecting to be allowed out of their rooms and would be in their oldest clothes.

She waited until the earl was seated and murmuring an apology went out onto the landing and told Betty to bring the young misses down to the drawing room, but not to tell them there was a visitor.

Fanny, Felicity, and Frederica were relieved when they got the summons. Mrs. Waverley must have forgiven them. The three were wearing loose drab gowns, the ones they wore under their cloaks when they went out walking.

The earl was standing by the fireplace as they entered. He found it very hard not to stare at Fanny. He had thought of her frequently as she had looked in that naughty, flimsy gown with her gold hair spilling about her shoulders. That gold hair was now screwed up on top of her head in a hard knot, and she and the other two girls looked like schoolgirls from one of the less expensive Bath seminaries.

“My dear Miss Fanny,” he said, taking her hand and kissing the air somewhere above it, “what has happened to you? You appear somewhat distrait.”

“It must be the effect of my adventures. I am not made of iron, my lord,” said Fanny, tugging her hand away and averting her face.

“And you have twigs in your hair.”

“It’s a very interesting fashion, my lord,” said Frederica desperately. She and Felicity had heard of Fanny’s fall into the bush and had been trying to help her get the twigs and leaves out when they were summoned. “We read about a new way of curling the hair by twisting it around twigs. We were trying it out on Fanny when we were summoned here, and I am afraid we had not time to get them all out. Is that not so, Felicity?”

“Oh, definitely,” agreed that young lady cheerfully.

“Lady Artemis Verity,” announced Mrs. Ricketts dolefully. Lady Artemis came tripping in, wrapped in a cloud of scent and gauze shawls. She affected a start of surprise when she saw the earl, but in fact had espied his arrival at the Waverleys through her telescope.

She curtsied to Mrs. Waverley and then turned to Fanny, her eyes widening in delight when she saw the drabness of her appearance.

A look of hellish, glee in his eyes, the earl said to Fanny, “You must explain to Lady Artemis this exciting fashion of wearing twigs in the hair.”

Frederica weighed into the rescue again. “Yes, ’tis a most novel idea, Lady Artemis. I believe the women of the Indian tribes in Virginia use such a method. I …”

“I fear my silly girls are talking rubbish,” interrupted Mrs. Waverley. “Life is so difficult sometimes trying to keep them in order. They are little more than schoolgirls and behave as such. I found them shouting and screaming at each other last night and had to punish the naughty little things by keeping them locked in their rooms.”

Lady Artemis let out a little trill of laughter. Fanny looked at the elegance of her gown, the beauty of her clear complexion, the sophisticated and seductive movements of her body, and decided all in that moment she hated Lady Artemis with a passion.

She also felt a stab of hate for Mrs. Waverley. She was deliberately going out of her way to make them appear like spoiled schoolgirls in front of the earl. In the past Mrs. Waverley had always seemed amused by their quarrels, often, Fanny now realized with a sense of shock, going out of her way to set one against the other. Her soft lips formed into a hard line.

“I fear you must find us very badly brought up, Lady Artemis. But, as you know, we have not been allowed to go in the company of civilized people.” Mrs. Waverley glared and bridled.

“But that is why I have come,” cried Lady Artemis. “I am giving a little party for a few friends, all of them agog to meet the … er … beautiful Miss Fanny and hear of her adventures. You, too, must attend, my lord. An impromptu affair tomorrow night, for as you know we were all to attend the Petersham’s rout, and they have cried off at the very last moment, Mrs. Petersham having the migraine.”

The earl did not want to attend. London had again lost all interest for him. He wanted to return to the peace of the country. But he could not quite think how to refuse, so he bowed and said he would be charmed. Mrs. Waverley, furious with Fanny, decided to accept. Fanny deserved to be humiliated further for having told Lady Artemis her upbringing had been somewhat short of the best.

The earl took his leave. Lady Artemis left with him. She looked quite radiant. “What frumpy gowns those poor girls do insist on wearing,” she said, smiling up into the earl’s eyes.

“They have great intelligence and animation,” he said, feeling defensive and wondering why at the same time, “and are suffering from their odd teaching.”

The smile left Lady Artemis’s face. “May I persuade you to take tea with me, my lord?”

“Your servant, ma’am,” he said, bowing low, “but I have a pressing engagement.”

He raised his hat and walked away, oblivious to the pout on Lady Artemis’s lips.

Chapter Five

Fanny called the girls into her room that evening. She was shocked and worried. Mrs. Waverley had taught them to be proud of their intelligence and looks. Now they had all been exposed as badly behaved and spoiled creatures with neither breeding nor wit.

“What do you want to see us about?” asked Frederica.

“I am ashamed of us all,” said Fanny in a low voice. “What a sorry threesome Mrs. Waverley contrived to make us look today!”

“Oh, that,” shrugged Felicity. “You are just mad because your handsome lord saw you looking drab and obviously prefers the charms of Lady Artemis.”

For one brief moment Fanny felt like shouting at her sisters again.

“I am angry because I feel we have been manipulated into disliking each other by Mrs. Waverley,” she said.

“We scrap and row but we don’t hate each other, do we?” asked Frederica.

“There were times when I hated you,” said Fanny in a low voice.

“Why?”

“You told Mrs. Waverley that my looks were blousy and insipid, that my coloring made me look like a milkmaid.”

“I never did!” gasped Frederica.

“And you, Felicity, you said to Mrs. Waverley that I was possessed of a good memory, but had no real intelligence.”

“Never!”

“And a score of other nasty things,” pursued Fanny.

“But you told her you often thought my parents must have been gypsies,” exclaimed Frederica. “You told Mrs. Waverley there was a certain peasant wildness about me.”

“And that time I got up in the night and stole that cake from the kitchen,” said Felicity. “I shared it with you, Fanny, and yet you went and told her about it the very next morning.”

“On my oath, I never said or did any of those things,” said Fanny. “Don’t you see what has been happening? I felt bound close to Mrs. Waverley, for I felt I could not confide in you or trust you. I felt you were being nice to my face and saying awful things about me behind my back.”

“If this is true,” said Frederica slowly, “then Mrs. Waverley is a very wicked woman.”

“No, not wicked,” said Fanny. “I think she is a coward. She seems frightened to go out of the house. Only look at our strange life. Who is Mrs. Waverley? Have you thought of that? Who was Mr. Waverley? Where does the money come from?”

“I never thought of it,” said Felicity, running her fingers nervously through her chestnut hair. “I was always so taken up with wondering who we were and where we came from. We cannot have had low parents, for the orphanage was very genteel and in a lower one we would already have been found posts as servants. But Mrs. Waverley made our incarceration here seem so logical. It is a man’s world, and she made us feel like a courageous band of women who had decided to live their own lives. I cannot find fault with her ideas, you know. Women do not have any rights to speak of. What is marriage? Tied to some tyrant for life and only allowed peace after one has produced a string of babies and miscarriages.”

Frederica looked slyly at Fanny. “But what if one falls in love with a handsome man like, say, the Earl of Tredair?”

Fanny had a brief thought of what it would be like to be shackled to the Earl of Tredair for life. The idea that it might be heaven came to her, and she decided her nerves must be sadly overwrought.

“Stop teasing me about the Earl of Tredair,” she snapped. “We should study these members of society at Lady Artemis’s party and watch how they go on. On the other hand, it is all very well to have high principles but I, for one, do not want to appear as a sort of sideshow to amuse Lady Artemis’s guests. Believe me, Lady Artemis will make a great story out of our quarrel and how Mrs. Waverley locked us in our rooms. We shall be treated with contempt.”

“We could all fall ill,” said Frederica, after a long silence.

“Mrs. Waverley would send for the doctor and he would soon find out we were malingering,” jeered Felicity.

“Wait a bit.” Fanny sat up straight. “Dr. MacAllister is short-sighted. He is also morbidly afraid of catching an infection himself. If we were to paint red spots on our faces, he would stand at the end of the bed and not dare to come any nearer. Fetch your paintbox, Felicity. We have work to do!”

***

Lady Artemis was furious. Her drawing room was crowded with the cream of the ton. The earl and Mr. Fordyce were there as was Lord Alvanley, Lord Petersham, Lord Byron and many more fascinating and interesting men, not to mention some high-nosed ladies who had been chosen for their social position rather than their looks. Lady Artemis did not want any competition. Not only did Lady Artemis feel she had brought them all to her house on false pretences, but she considered it outrageous that Mrs. Waverley should come alone from an infected house. Lady Artemis kept stealing looks at herself every time she passed a looking glass as if dreading to see red spots beginning to pop out all over her face.

“You must be relieved that the ladies are ill,” said Mr. Fordyce to the earl. “You appear to have taken the beautiful Miss Fanny in dislike.”

“Not I,” said the earl. “I was simply angry at having allowed myself to be coerced into attending this tedious affair.”

He would not confess to himself that he was disappointed. He tried to remember Fanny with that awful hairstyle and dowdy gown, but all he could remember was all that glorious fall of golden hair and how soft and pliant her body had felt against his in the balloon.

“Now Lady Artemis is in the suds,” he said.

“Why?” asked Mr. Fordyce.

“Well, from the cheers outside and the commotion downstairs, I fear Prinny himself has arrived to see the latest heroine.”

Sure enough, the Prince Regent was announced. Lady Artemis fluttered across to welcome him, explaining nervously that Miss Fanny and her sisters had been struck down by a mysterious affliction.

The royal eye fell on the earl, and the portly royal figure moved toward him. “Tell me of your adventures, Tredair,” said the prince.

The earl obliged, giving almost as highly colored an account as he had given the villagers of Deep-Under-Lime. The prince was obviously enjoying himself and Lady Artemis began to relax. The earl finished his story and then said, “But, sire, although Miss Fanny is not present, Mrs. Waverley is.”

“Ah, yes, the gel’s mother,” said the prince. “Which is she?”

Lord Tredair did not think it necessary to point out that Mrs. Waverley was not Fanny’s mother. Instead he nodded across the room and said, “The lady yonder in the purple turban.”

The Prince Regent raised his quizzing glass, looked at Mrs. Waverley, and muttered, “It can’t be.”

“I beg your pardon, sire,” said the earl.

“Nothing … nothing. Must leave. Pressing engagements, lots to do.”

The earl watched curiously as the prince walked across the room to take his leave. Then the prince stopped as he came abreast of Mrs. Waverley. That lady’s face had lost all color. She curtsied low. The earl went and stood behind the prince. “Clorinda?” said the prince, his voice barely above a whisper. “Can it be you?”

Mrs. Waverley gave him a look of mute appeal and then quickly dropped her eyes. “Charmed to meet you,” said the prince in a loud voice. “Sorry your daughter is indisposed. Brave lady. Good day to you all.”

The earl tried to engage Mrs. Waverley in conversation, but she was trembling and abstracted. Had it not been for that overheard whisper of “Clorinda”, the earl would have assumed she was overcome simply by the honor of meeting the Prince Regent. At last, in great agitation, she protested she felt faint, strongly refused his offer to escort her home, and took her leave.

“I think we should go as well,” said the earl, returning to Mr. Fordyce.

“We’ve only just got here!” cried Mr. Fordyce, looking longingly in the direction of Lady Artemis.

“Stay by all means,” said the earl. “I shall most probably see you at the club later.”

But he spoke to thin air. Lady Artemis had just smiled in their direction and Mr. Fordyce had assumed that smile to be for himself and was now standing beside her, talking earnestly.

The earl hesitated before leaving Hanover Square. It would do no harm, surely, to call and pay his respects to Mrs. Waverley. He had not asked her about Fanny.

But when he knocked at the Waverley mansion, Mrs. Ricketts, after leaving him standing in the hall for what seemed a very long time, returned to tell him that now Mrs. Waverley, too, was indisposed and would not be receiving visitors for some time.

***

By the next day the Waverley girls had washed off their spots and were prepared to venture once more into the outside world. But it transpired that even their walks in the square were canceled. Mrs. Waverley kept to her rooms and refused to see them or anyone. After four days of this gloom, the rebellious Frederica put on her bonnet and cloak and made to leave the house to take a walk, only to find her way barred by Mrs. Ricketts and two maids. No one was to leave the house, said Mrs. Ricketts sourly, and force was to be used if necessary.

Bewildered, Frederica returned to tell the others. “Then we’ll need to use the library window again,” said Felicity. “Me first. I feel if I do not get out of here, I shall scream. Have you any money, Fanny?”

“I have quite a lot left over from pawning that brooch,” said Fanny, “but I meant to keep it until we could raise some more money to add to it and get the trinket back.”

“Just a little bit,” pleaded Felicity. “Just enough to buy a trifle in one of the shops.”

Fanny relented. She was enjoying their new found friendship and closeness and did not want to spoil it.

So Felicity went out that day, and Frederica the next. Fanny could hardly wait for it to be her turn. The silence in the house was oppressive. Mrs. Waverley still refused to see anyone, although people knocked at the door all day long. Everyone was anxious to meet Fanny, who had featured so largely in the newspapers.

***

“So you have decided to set yourself up in style,” said the earl to Mr. Fordyce as they walked through the elegant streets of the West End.

“Yes, it seems silly to live in cramped lodgings when I have the ready to hire a town house,” said Mr. Fordyce. “Barton told me he’d got a place to rent, and you’ll never guess where it is.”

“Where?”

“Right slap bang next to Mrs. Waverley,” said Mr. Fordyce.

“And right across the square from Lady Artemis,” said the earl slyly.

Mr. Fordyce blushed. “Coincidence, that’s all,” he muttered. “I mean, it’s demned difficult to find a place during the Season. Barton is asking a reasonable rent.”

“Don’t make up your mind until you see the place,” cautioned the earl. “He may be asking a reasonable rent because it’s ready to fall down.”

“I’m on my way there,” said Mr. Fordyce. “Come and see it with me. You can call on the Waverleys.”

“I have no interest in the Waverleys,” said the earl. “In fact, I do not have much interest in anything at the Season.”

“Then why attend?”

“I do hope to get married one day. I am getting somewhat long in the tooth.”

“Should be easy for you,” said Mr. Fordyce, jealously. “You have only to drop the handkerchief.”

“Ah, but I think marriage should involve companionship, and I have not yet met a lady who would not bore me after a very short time.” For some reason he felt a sudden stab of disloyalty to Fanny. Absence from her was blurring that dowdy image of drab clothes and twig strewn hair.

“I should think any man would be fascinated by Lady Artemis for life.”

“Ah, but I am a difficult creature. I wish you well.”

“I do not think I have much hope there,” said Mr. Fordyce wistfully. “She won’t even look at me when you’re in the room. I thought she was smiling at me at her party, but when I went to join her, all she could do was exclaim at you taking your leave so early and say how disappointed she was and ask me all sorts of things about you.”

“Persevere,” said the earl cheerfully. “They often pretend to be interested in your friend when they are interested in you.”

“I wish I believed that,” said Mr. Fordyce. “I shall be in a good position to plan a campaign if this house is at all bearable.”

They made their way toward the tall house adjoining the Waverley mansion.

Mr. Fordyce fished in his pocket and produced an enormous key.

The door creaked open and they walked into a large hall. The house was double fronted with a saloon, a morning room, and a library on the ground floor. On the first floor was a large drawing room, dining room, study, and another saloon. Above that were the bedrooms.

Everything smelled damp and dusty. Mr. Fordyce got down on his hands and knees and poked up the drawing room chimney with his cane and then leapt back as a cascade of soot tumbled down the chimney. “All the chimneys need sweeping. I’ll bet,” he said gloomily.

“And everything needs scrubbing. Let’s go up and examine the beds,” said the earl. “Bound to be lumpy.”

The beds were, as the earl had feared, lumpy. But Mr. Fordyce, glancing out of one of the bedroom windows, saw Lady Artemis driving out in her carriage, and his mood changed.

“I think the house is splendid,” he cried. “Just a little cleaning and scrubbing and firing and it will be as right as rain.”

“Do you really need all this?” asked the earl, shaking the bed hangings and releasing a choking cloud of dust.

“I plan to entertain, and I cannot entertain in lodgings.”

“Well, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll offer that old screw, Barton, half of whatever he demanded.”

“I’ll try. Anyway, we’ve seen everything.”

“No, we haven’t,” said the earl. “You’d better have a look at the kitchen.”

Mr. Fordyce surveyed his tall friend in amazement. “Kitchens? Why?”

“My very dear friend, if you want to keep a good chef, you have to have a suitable place to house him. Kitchens are very important.”

“Oh, very well,” said Mr. Fordyce reluctantly.

They made their way down to the basement, and the earl pushed open a door and revealed a large, gloomy kitchen. It was a typical kitchen of the times, except that it was rank and dirty. The walls, which should have been limewashed two or three times a year, were black with smoke and grease, and the floor, which should have been sluiced and scrubbed daily, was slippery with dirt. There was an open fire and a spit.

“You see how important it is to examine the kitchen?” said the earl. “Any chef or housekeeper would faint if they saw this. You need a squad of scrubbing women and then you need men to limewash the walls. You’ll have to install one of these new kitcheners. Everyone uses cooking stoves now. Just look at those pots! Throw the lot out and buy new ones. I say, do you really want to go through all this? You can use my house to entertain, if you wish.”

“You won’t recognize the place by the time I’m finished with it,” said Mr. Fordyce with a cheerfulness he did not feel.

“Let’s see what else there is,” said the earl, leading the way. “Servants hall, dark and poky, and dirty like all the rest. Still room, store room, preserving room. I suppose there is a garden of sorts?” He unlocked the back door and tugged it hard. It was stuck fast with the damp. He put his booted foot against the wall and wrenched hard. The door sprang open to reveal a weedy garden beyond.

“I don’t see why these London gardens should be so neglected,” said the earl crossly. “There are plenty of bushes that will survive the constant rain of London soot. And …”

He stopped talking suddenly and cocked his head to one side. There came a scrabbling sound from the other side of the wall.

Both men turned and looked at the wall that separated the garden from that of Mrs. Waverley’s. As they watched, the top of a bonnet appeared over the edge of the wall to be followed by the determined face of Miss Fanny Waverley. She was so intent on her escape that she did not notice the two men. She sat astride the plank, which one of the girls must have found, and propped again on Mr. Fordyce’s side of the wall, slid down, then stood up, and brushed down her skirts.

“Good afternoon, Miss Fanny,” said the earl.

Fanny started and blushed. “Oh, don’t tell on me,” she cried impulsively. “I have to escape.”

“Escape? Why?” asked the earl.

“We are not allowed out,” said Fanny wretchedly. “Not even for a walk in the square. So we have been in the way of escaping by this route, just to walk about the streets and parks for a little.”

“Is Mrs. Waverley still indisposed?”

“I do not think there is anything very much up with her,” said Fanny. “It all happened after she had been to that party at Lady Artemis’s. She returned home and locked herself up in her rooms and gave instructions that we were not to be allowed out. What are you doing here?”

“Mr. Fordyce is going to rent this house.”

“Oh.” Fanny’s face fell. “Now what are we to do?”

“It does seem hard,” said Mr. Fordyce, “that you should not be allowed out. I tell you what, Miss Fanny, I shall pretend I do not see any of you, and you may still use this route.”

“But you will have servants,” said Fanny. “And they will talk to our servants and that will be an end of it.”

“Are you recovered from your illness?” asked the earl.

“What illness?” asked Fanny and then blushed again and looked at the ground. “Oh, that illness. Yes, thank you, my lord. I am recovered.”

“Tell me, Miss Fanny, why did you really have twigs in your hair?”

“I was getting over the wall and fell into the bushes.”

“So that explains it. Does Mrs. Waverley know the Prince Regent?” asked the earl abruptly. Fanny’s eyes flew to meet his. “Of course not. She would have said so. Who would not?”

“I thought I overheard him say, ‘Clorinda’ to her at Lady Artemis’s party.”

“You must be mistaken,” said Fanny. “Her name is Maria. But the Prince Regent was there! Oh, wait until I tell the girls. They will be disappointed not to have met him.”

“I think the whole of society is disappointed at not meeting you, Miss Fanny. One after the other tells me of calls on your house.”

Fanny shrugged slightly. “They have already ceased to call. I am no longer a celebrity. Are you really going to take this house, Mr. Fordyce? It looks sadly neglected from the outside.”

“And hideously neglected on the inside. But nothing will deter Mr. Fordyce. How did you plan to get around the front?” asked the earl.

“There is a path there that leads around the side of the house and up the area steps,” said Fanny. “Perhaps I should not go. I am always afraid of discovery.”

“It is monstrous you should be so cooped up,” said Mr. Fordyce, his kind heart touched. “Perhaps Lady Artemis has some influence with Mrs. Waverley and can persuade her to take you about.”

“Mrs. Waverley will see no one, not even Lady Artemis,” said Fanny. She stopped and listened. “Oh, dear, our servants have finished their tea and are back in the kitchens. I am always afraid they will see me when I return.”

“Come and see my new abode,” said Mr. Fordyce expansively, “and then we may hit upon a way to get you back in your own front door.”

Fanny followed them into the house. She was relieved that the presence of the earl was not disturbing her. No suffocating heartbeats, no trembling knees. She exclaimed at the mess that was the kitchen.

“Mrs. Waverley would be shocked,” she said. “She has very strong views on kitchens. Ours has the latest in closed stoves and is always clean and sparkling. And the kitchen servants have real beds and are not made to sleep on the floor in front of the kitchen fire as they are in most households.”

“Would she feel strongly about this kitchen?” asked the earl curiously.

Fanny looked at him in surprise, and then laughed. “She would be itching to manage the whole thing and Mr. Fordyce as well.”

“Then perhaps this is just the tonic she needs,” said the earl. “Follow me, Miss Fanny, I have a plan.”

The earl knocked at the door of Mrs. Waverley’s mansion. Mr. Fordyce stood behind him. Mrs. Ricketts answered the door.

“Come with me, Mrs. Ricketts,” commanded the earl. “I wish to show you something.”

The housekeeper bobbed a curtsy and followed him next door. The earl pointed down into the area. “Mr. Fordyce is going to rent this place, but the kitchen is a disgrace. Do you think Mrs. Waverley would be interested in letting Mr. Fordyce have the benefit of her advice? It sadly needs a woman’s touch.” As Mrs. Ricketts leaned over the railings, the earl glanced sideways and saw out of the corner of his eye Fanny slipping in through the street door that Mrs. Ricketts had left standing open.

“Very particular about kitchens is Mrs. Waverley,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “And the poor lady does need an interest, she’s been that low recently. But she won’t see anyone.”

“Perhaps if you could furnish me with pen and paper,” said the earl, “I could persuade her.”

“You can try, my lord,” said Mrs. Ricketts, “but I don’t know that it will do any good.”

The earl and Mr. Fordyce followed Mrs. Ricketts back indoors. She led them to the library and indicated a desk over against one wall.

The earl took out his penknife and sharpened a quill and then looked thoughtfully at the paper. That little whisper of the Prince Regent’s of “Clorinda” still nagged. Had she gone into hiding for fear of seeing him again? Then he wrote, “Dear Mrs. Waverley, Mr. Fordyce is desirous of renting the property next door, but the kitchen is in a sad mess and he is in need of help and advice. He has not followed the Prince Regent to Brighton, but has decided to try to enjoy the rest of the Season in more commodious accommodation. We are waiting below and should both be immensely grateful if you could spare us a few moments of your valuable time. Your humble and obedient servant, Tredair.”

“What’s all that about Brighton?” asked Mr. Fordyce, peering over the earl’s shoulder. “I had no intention of going to that watering place, prince or no prince.”

“Hush,” said the earl, sanding the letter and handing it to Mrs. Ricketts.

Mrs. Waverley was lying on a day bed by the window of her bedchamber when Mrs. Ricketts entered with the earl’s letter. She had lost weight and there were pouches under her eyes.

“What is it, Ricketts?” she asked feebly.

“It’s that Earl of Tredair,” said Mrs. Ricketts.

“Send him away.”

“Yes, mum, but you’d best give me an answer to his letter.”

“Oh, very well.” Mrs. Waverley read the letter and then read it again. Her eyebrows rose in surprise. A faint tinge of color appeared in her cheeks. “What an odd request!” she exclaimed. “And yet, men are so helpless. If the management of parliament was left to women, you would see a change for the better, Ricketts.”

“Yes, mum,” said Mrs. Ricketts, beginning to smile. A Mrs. Waverley on the subject of the superiority of women was a Mrs. Waverley beginning to recover. “Won’t you see them? I’ve put them in the library. Ever so upset his lordship was about his friend’s kitchen. Really dirty he said it was.”

Mrs. Waverley flung back the rug that covered her and rose majestically, the light of battle in her eyes. “Go ahead, Ricketts,” she said. “I will see them myself.”

In ten minutes time Mrs. Waverley was standing in the filthy kitchen next door, looking about her cheerfully.

“I suggest you leave the management of this to me, Mr. Fordyce. Men are so weak and helpless when it comes to management. Ricketts! Fetch the girls and tell them to put on their old clothes and aprons. Bring the other servants. Let battle commence!”

“I say, ma’am,” said Mr. Fordyce, round-eyed, as Mrs. Waverley began to roll up her sleeves. “You’re never going to tackle this yourself. Not to mention your girls!”

“A lady should be able to do anything a servant can do and better!” said Mrs. Waverley.

“And a gentleman,” said the earl, removing his coat and beginning to roll up his sleeves as well. “With your permission, ma’am, I shall go next door and help the girls carry all the cleaning tools.”

Lady Artemis returned from her drive and as usual went up to her drawing room and peered through her telescope at the Waverley mansion, hoping for a glimpse of the Earl of Tredair.

All of a sudden he came into focus, walking into that house next door with those Waverley girls and all of them carrying mops and pails and brushes. The earl was in his shirt sleeves and was laughing at something Frederica was saying. Fanny looked flushed and excited and her hair gleamed like pale gold.

Screaming for her lady’s maid, Lady Artemis erupted into her bedchamber, scrabbling in her wardrobe for her oldest clothes.

When she considered she was suitably dressed, she hurried over the square and made her way down the area steps where she had seen the party descending.

The Waverley girls were scrubbing down the walls, the earl was down on his hands and knees scrubbing the floor, Mrs. Waverley was through in the scullery, rattling pots and pans, Mr. Fordyce was standing helplessly in the middle of the kitchen, and the Waverley servants were working on the servants hall, the still room, and the storage room.

“It’s a cleaning party,” said the earl. “Mr. Fordyce will insist on living here, and Mrs. Waverley is giving us all a lesson in house-wifery.”

Lady Artemis looked into his laughing, mocking, tantalizing green eyes.

She carefully drew off her gloves.

“What a good idea,” she said faintly. “Where do I start?”

Chapter Six

Lady Artemis dressed to go out that evening with less than her usual care. She was turning over the day’s events in her mind. She had only started to clean that disgusting kitchen because the earl was doing so and planned to plead the headache at the first possible opportunity. But, somehow, all the laughter and housework and chatter became enjoyable. Soon the compulsion to have the kitchen shining gripped everyone, including Mr. Fordyce. How they had worked! How exciting it had been to see the limewash mixed with blue covering the scrubbed walls and to see the copper pans gleaming on the shelves. But more than anything had been the look in the earl’s eyes, and his words to her as she had left—“You are a most fascinating and surprising woman, Lady Artemis.”

The conversation that day had been stimulating as well. Mrs. Waverley had brought up the subject of the masses of prostitutes who thronged the playhouse. At first Lady Artemis had been shocked. One knew that such creatures existed, but one did not talk about them. Mr. Fordyce had claimed that all such women were depraved, but Mrs. Waverley argued that a great many were forced into prostitution through lack of money, rather than because they were evil. “Most women,” Mrs. Waverley had said, waving a rolling pin to emphasize her point, “are not, like aristocrats, protected by any marriage settlements. If they are divorced, or if the husband drinks himself to death, they must look about for a way to stop themselves from starving. And what else is there but prostitution? And look at all the jobs held by men that should be performed by women—men-milliners, men-mantuamakers, and men-stay makers to mention just a few. Have you read A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, by Mary Wollstonecraft, my lord?” To Lady Artemis’s amazement, the earl had replied, “yes,” and had gone on to argue that somehow Mrs. Wollstonecraft had, in his opinion, failed to define emancipation or set out the rights women should share.

During the following discussion, names like Mrs. Barbauld, Maria Edgeworth, Catherine Macaulay, and Elizabeth Carter had been thrown about. Lady Artemis felt sadly ignorant. She now tried to tell herself that it was not very feminine to argue so much with gentlemen, but the earl had seemed to enjoy it all.

She was still preoccupied with her thoughts when she reached Lord Tomley’s, where a ball was being held. So preoccupied was she that she failed to remember that the Tomleys were old-fashioned and kept old-fashioned rules of etiquette. There were no dance cards. Any lady who refused to dance with a gentleman must refuse to dance with all. And so when Lady Artemis looked up and found herself being requested to grant the honor of the first dance to that infernal bore, Colonel Pargeter, she said, “I am afraid I cannot dance, sir. I am a trifle faint.”

The colonel bristled with anger and stalked away. “But you love dancing,” exclaimed Miss Follity-Benson, who was sitting next to Lady Artemis. “What are you going to do? You know you cannot dance with anyone else.”

Lady Artemis bit her lip in vexation. She had forgotten the rules. “It is not fair,” she said hotly. “Why should we ladies not be allowed to refuse to dance with men we dislike? Colonel Pargeter squeezes my hand and ogles me dreadfully, and his breath smells like the Serpentine on a hot day with a dead cat floating in it.”

“Well, it does seem hard,” said Miss Follity-Benson, round-eyed, “but you see, I cannot be so nice in my tastes, for I am very lucky to have any partners at all!”

“Think on it,” went on Lady Artemis, pursuing her theme, “Look at the way they strut up and down, eyeing us as if we were cattle up for auction at Smithfield. We should have the same rights.”

“We’re all at the Season because we need to get married,” said the ever-practical Miss Follity-Benson.

“Not all,” said Lady Artemis. “You are rich and I am rich and what on earth are we about to sit here meekly waiting to hand our fortunes over to some lout? I tell you, my views have changed since I met Mrs. Waverley. She is the mother of that female who was taken up in the balloon. She has been educating me in mathematics and already my household expenses have been cut in half. The tricks servants play! I find knowledge exhilarating. Let me tell you what I have been doing this day.”

The dance had commenced. Several of the wallflowers drew their chairs around Lady Artemis and listened in amazement as she talked of scrubbing the kitchen. They had more reason to fear the rule of men than Lady Artemis, for they were plain and often ignored at balls, but had never considered anything odd in meekly waiting for a suitor.

Dances ended and dances began and still Lady Artemis talked and talked to her growing court.

Then at one point she looked up and found Mr. Fordyce hovering at the edge of the circle. “Mr. Fordyce,” cried Lady Artemis. “Is Tredair with you?”

“No, my lady,” said Mr. Fordyce. “But I hope you will do me the honor of dancing with me.”

Lady Artemis smiled, rose, and shook out her skirts. “I should be delighted,” she said.

“The Tomleys will be furious,” hissed Miss Follity-Benson. “You will not be asked again!”

“Pooh!” said Lady Artemis over her shoulder and then she walked onto the floor with Mr. Fordyce.

***

That evening Mrs. Waverley summoned Fanny to her room. She had noticed the new closeness among the three girls, a closeness from which she felt excluded.

“Sit down, Fanny,” she said. “I have something to say to you.”

Mrs. Waverley surveyed Fanny with pride. The girl really was extraordinarily beautiful with her silver fair hair and deep blue eyes.

“Fanny,” began Mrs. Waverley, “I have a confession to make.”

“Yes, Mrs. Waverley?”

“I am not much given to demonstrations of affection, but I would have you know, that of my three charges, I love you the most.”

Fanny squirmed in her chair. She felt she had grown up very recently. Only a short time ago her heart would have been warmed by such a statement. Now she felt she knew the reason. Mrs. Waverley was trying to break up their new friendship so as to tie the girls closer to her. She would no doubt summon the other two to tell them the same thing.

“Thank you,” she said, lowering her eyes so that Mrs. Waverley should not see the distrust in them.

“You are happy here with me, are you not?” asked Mrs. Waverley. Fanny looked up. Mrs. Waverley was in her undress. She was wearing a voluminous nightgown, a negligee, and a large muslin cap. She had large pale eyes and a curved nose set in fleshy cheeks and a small mouth. She looked a plump and secure matron. But there was a certain pleading look in her eyes that made Fanny say quickly, “Of course I am happy, and I am always grateful to you for taking me out of that orphanage. Are you sure, dear Mrs. Waverley, that no one knows the identity of my parents?”

Mrs. Waverley shook her head, “As I told you, Fanny, you were a foundling.”

Fanny wrinkled her brow. “But, you know, I have been thinking, ma’am, that the Pevensey Orphanage only houses young ladies, and although the treatment was harsh, we were at least fed, which, I believe, is more than can be said for most orphanages. Someone must have paid to put me there.”

“That would seem to be the case,” said Mrs. Waverley, “and yet they assured me that the three of you were charity cases. They occasionally swell their ranks by allowing in unfortunates of doubtful birth.”

Fanny flushed miserably.

“Which brings me to Lord Tredair. He is rich and titled and can marry anyone he likes. But a gentleman such as he never stoops so low to marry such as you. I believe him to be mildly interested in you. Pray do not encourage that interest, Fanny, for it means he will offer you a position as his mistress. You would be happy for a while and then he would tire of you, as they all tire sooner or later, and you would be passed on to one of his friends and so it would go on. I have brought you up to be independent of men. Your sad circumstances do not allow you to marry. I am here to protect you from that harsh world of men. Better a celibate spinster life with me than to be the mistress of some man.

“Now, he asked me this afternoon for permission to take you driving in the Park tomorrow. I refused. He taxed me with eccentricity and said that I was bringing you up, not to share the rights of men, but to be afraid of them. In a moment of weakness I gave my permission.” Fanny brightened.

“But you must promise me that you will do or say nothing to attach his affections—affections which will subsequently destroy you.”

“I promise,” said Fanny, who would have promised anything in order to be allowed to drive in the Park at the fashionable hour.

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Waverley. “Always remember you are the one most dear to my heart, Fanny.”

Fanny rose to go.

She looked down curiously at Mrs. Waverley. “Were you not happy in your marriage, ma’am?”

Mrs. Waverley’s face took on a closed and shuttered look. “I never talk about it or think about it,” she said firmly.

Fanny left and went to her own room. Soon, she could hear Mrs. Ricketts scratching at the door of Frederica’s room and her voice telling Frederica that the mistress wanted to see her.

“No doubt she is telling Frederica that she is the most loved,” thought Fanny cynically. “Then she will tell the same thing to Felicity in the hope of making us all jealous of each other again.”

After some time Fanny heard Frederica return and then Mrs. Ricketts summoning Felicity.

Fanny waited again until she heard Felicity come back and then she went to Frederica’s room and took her over to Felicity’s.

“Did she tell you she loved you more than the rest?” demanded Fanny.

Frederica and Felicity looked at her in amazement and both said, “yes” in unison.

“Don’t you see,” cried Fanny, “she is trying to set us against each other.”

“Then we shall all go to her room together and tell her we are wise to her,” said Frederica.

“No,” said Fanny. “That would not answer. We are sorely dependent on her continuing affection.” Only such a short time ago they had been warring schoolgirls. Now three young ladies sat and looked at each other in consternation.

“She has given Lord Tredair permission to take me for a drive in the park tomorrow,” said Fanny. “But she told me that I must not encourage him in any way.”

“And neither you should!” said Frederica. “We are unmarriageable and must stick together.”

“As to the unmarriageable bit,” said Fanny thoughtfully, “I pointed out to her that someone surely must have been paying to keep me at that orphanage, but she told me we were all charity cases. Now, my dears, just think of that board of governors—the chairman, Mr. Wilks, then the director Mrs. Goern, and then the others. Can you imagine one of them finding one spark of charity in their flinty hearts? We were fed, yes, but such food! And do you remember on the days when some of the other girls had relatives on a visit, how the food became almost lavish? I am sure the board was taking the money and feeding us slops and pocketing the difference. Such as they would not take on orphans without relatives to pay.”

“I often wonder,” said Felicity sadly, “who our parents were. But I had come to believe they were disgraceful and probably not even married, so I considered it best not to inquire too closely.”

Fanny lay back on Felicity’s bed and clasped her hands behind her head. “I would like to go back to the orphanage and ask a few questions,” she said dreamily.

“But we cannot,” exclaimed Felicity. “It is at least an hour’s drive and any one of us staying away that long—say we could even find a hack to take us that far—would be missed. An hour there, say half an hour at the orphanage, an hour back—too long.”

“I am going to do it somehow,” said Fanny. “In the meantime I suggest we continue to play Mrs. Waverley’s game. An occasional quarrel will keep her happy.”

A tear rolled down Frederica’s cheek. “It does seem hard,” she said in a stifled voice, “to be in London at the Season and to see young misses going out to balls and parties night after night while we stay in here. We are finely dressed and have magnificent jewels, but we are tied to Mrs. Waverley. I feel like a Chinese prostitute!”

“Whatever do you know about Chinese prostitutes?” asked Fanny, trying not to laugh.

“I read a most interesting book,” said Frederica. “But now that we have agreed not to steal anymore money, I don’t see how I can buy anymore books.”

She began to cry in earnest while the other two, new to demonstrations of affection, awkwardly patted her on the back.

***

Fanny was never to know how near Mrs. Waverley came to canceling that drive. But Mrs. Waverley had just made up her mind to tell Fanny to stay in her room while she got rid of the earl, when Lady Artemis arrived on the doorstep with six young misses, all demanding a training in the “masculine arts”—by which they meant mathematics and science.

Flushed with success, Mrs. Waverley, a born teacher, was soon setting up her “schoolroom.” Fanny was forgotten.

Fanny had guessed that Mrs. Waverley might change her mind and so she decided to be waiting in the hall when the earl arrived. She was wearing a new dress of soft white muslin, the high-waisted wrap-over bodice forming a V-neck, edged with a frill. Over it, she wore a pelisse of pale blue silk with a shawl collar and a wrap-over front, fastening under the bust with a belt. The long tight sleeves of the pelisse had frilled cuffs to match the frilled front edges and hem. On her head she wore a small swathed hat of white muslin decorated with pale blue feathers.

The earl arrived promptly at five o’clock. “May I not make my bow to Mrs. Waverley?” he asked as Fanny all but pushed him out of the door.

“She is too busy,” said Fanny quickly and indeed the babble of female voices coming from the drawing room upstairs underlined her remark.

Fanny felt suddenly shy of the earl. He looked very grand in a dark blue coat with brass buttons and deerskin breeches stretched without a wrinkle across his thighs. He was wearing top boots, a striped waistcoat, and a cravat that was a miracle of white muslin and starch. His curly brimmed beaver was set at just the right angle on his black hair.

Outside, he helped her into a phaeton and took his seat beside her and picked up the reins. There was no groom or tiger on the backstrap. The day was fine and sunny. Fanny suddenly felt free and young and happy and decided to forget about her troubles and enjoy every minute of her drive.

But when they got to the Park, she was introduced to one person after the other until her head reeled. Speculative eyes studied her gown, hard society eyes looked from her to the earl. Fanny remembered her undistinguished background and felt like an imposter. She grew silent and withdrawn and began to wish the ordeal would come to an end.

She heaved a little sigh of relief as they moved away from the ring. But the earl drove across Hyde Park, far away from the fashionables, and then reined in his horses and turned and smiled down at her. “I am sorry about all the fuss,” he said. “You are still a celebrity.”

“Can we go home now?” asked Fanny in a small voice.

“Most certainly. But will you not tell me what is troubling you?”

“I am not used to being the focus of attention,” said Fanny in a low voice.

“No, your beauty has been kept well hidden,” he agreed. “There is something else, is there not? Trust in me, Miss Fanny. I would help you if I could.”

Fanny looked up at him nervously, but there was nothing but kindness and interest in his green eyes.

“I should not have come driving with you,” said Fanny, twisting her handkerchief in her gloved hands. “You see, it will lead to vulgar speculation. I am an orphan. I do not know who my parents were. Society will think you are setting me up as your mistress.”

“Society does not know your background unless you have told them,” he pointed out. “They believe you to be the eldest daughter of the rich Mrs. Waverley.”

“But you know that not to be the case, and yet you took me driving. Why?”

“As I said before, Miss Fanny, you are very beautiful.”

“But not marriageable.”

His voice held a mocking note of laughter as he said, “Dear me. Are you by any chance proposing to me?”

Fanny had a longing to embarrass him, to throw him, to make him feel as uncomfortable as she was feeling herself.

“Very well,” she said. “Yes. Will you marry me, my Lord Tredair?”

He looked down into her sad blue eyes, at the heaving of her delectable bosom, at the hint of long slim legs under the filmy gown. He thought of her courage in the balloon, he thought of lying on top of her in the balloon. He suddenly felt silly and light-hearted and very young.

“Why, yes, Miss Fanny, I will,” he said.

“Oh, I should have known you would mock me and laugh at me,” said Fanny bitterly. “I was only jesting.”

“Alas. I was not,” he said. “It seems like a good idea. You, me, marriage, I mean.”

“Sir, your parents, your lawyers, society would be appalled.”

“I do not rely on my parents for either money or permission. Will you marry me, Miss Fanny?”

“Why?”

“You excite me.”

“Not enough,” said Fanny, shaking her head sadly. “There must be more than that. My looks will fade and lust will die and then you will tire of me.”

“That’s a risk you and I will have to take. Have you not thought that you could just as easily tire of me? Society is full of jaded matrons. It is a wonder they do not put the Fashionable Impure out of business.”

“But I am not fickle.”

“That I have to take on trust. As my countess, you would have great freedom.”

“I had not thought of an aristocratic marriage,” said Fanny. “In truth, I have not thought much of marriage at all. But aristocratic marriages have little to do with love and affection.”

“True. But there is always the exception.”

“I would never see you except to produce children. Gentlemen spend all the time in their clubs when they are not on the hunting field.”

The earl sat in silence, turning over what she had said. He certainly had planned to marry, but he had envisaged a marriage that would not interfere with his life. He certainly did not intend to stay in London. He meant to live quietly in the country and improve his estates. Might that not be taking her from one sort of prison to another?

“I do not racket about London all the time, Miss Fanny,” he said. “I have a home in Bedfordshire called Denby Court. It is a pleasant country house with large acres. You might find me a dull stick. Have you ever lived in the country?”

Fanny shook her head.

“There are local balls and parties, but you might find it boring. Think on it. As my wife, you would have an entré to society and money of your own and freedom. You might resent having to live in the country, away from all the fun.”

“If you loved me,” said Fanny, giving her handkerchief another wrench, “it would not matter where we lived.”

He sighed. “You are very young, and I fear you have been reading too many romances. Also, is there any question of you ever loving me.”

Fanny looked at him, wide-eyed, at his strong face, at those lazy, mocking green eyes, at that strong body, and then at his clever sensual mouth. She thought there was every possibility she could not only love him, but she might be well on the way to becoming obsessed by him, and that obsession could bring nothing but pain and hurt.

She blushed and said nothing.

Her body felt awkward and heavy, and her head throbbed.

“Perhaps we are going too fast,” she heard his voice say. “Which orphanage did you attend?”

“Pevensey.”

“But that is an orphanage for young ladies. Surely someone must have paid to keep you there.”

“Mrs. Waverley said we were all charity cases, that the orphanage occasionally took a few out of the kindness of their hearts.”

“Now that I find hard to believe.”

“Oh, how I would like to go there again,” cried Fanny, “and ask them for myself.”

“Mrs. Waverley would not give her permission?”

“Certainly not.”

“Then I shall go on your behalf, Miss Fanny.”

“Thank you. But I should like to see for myself. Do you understand?”

“I understand. But how are you to go about it?”

Fanny shook her head. “I do not know.”

“Look,” he said urgently. “You escape from time to time, do you not? Through the garden of Mr. Fordyce’s house? Could you not escape tomorrow morning early? I shall be waiting for you in the square.”

“I am fearful of discovery,” said Fanny. “You see, we have been very lucky so far. The servants have not once seen us. But if we were caught, we could simply say that we felt like a walk. But to be seen leaving with you …!”

“I think you will find the servants have noticed your escapades. Do not look so surprised. You cannot hide anything from servants.”

“But they would tell Mrs. Waverley. If we try to leave by the front door, they bar our way.”

“Because that is what they had been told to do and would get into trouble should Mrs. Waverley find you had left by the front door. But I think they turn a blind eye to your escapes by the garden. If you do not believe me, take that dragon, Mrs. Ricketts, into your confidence. Here is a guinea. Give it to her from me and promise her more if she aids you.”

“If she tells on me, I shall be cast off.”

“I do not think so. Be cautious. Sound her out first. I shall wait for you at ten o’clock outside St. George’s Church.”

“Yes! Yes, I’ll do it,” said Fanny.

“Then stop torturing that poor handkerchief.” He took it from her and held it up. It was a wisp of cambric. There was a light breeze blowing, and the handkerchief fluttered from his fingers and sailed into a stand of trees.

“I will get it for you,” he said climbing down. He walked into the stand of trees and then called urgently. “Miss Fanny! Come here quickly.”

Fanny climbed down. The horses, startled, raised their heads and looked round and then began to crop the grass at their feet again.

Fanny went in among the trees. He was standing, looking at the ground. “What is it?” she cried, coming up to stand beside him.

He removed his hat and stood looking down at her. He held out the handkerchief. “I am going to kiss you, Miss Fanny.”

“No!” said Fanny, backing away.

He smiled at her. “It is the right of a man to try to kiss a pretty woman. Is it not the equal right of a pretty woman to want to kiss a man? Fie, for shame, Miss Fanny. You are a coward.”

“Not I,” said Fanny. “I just don’t want to kiss you.”

“Liar,” he mocked softly. “You are not dying with love, but you are curious. Come here and kiss me.”

“No.”

“A fine bluestocking you make. Must I make your mind up for you?” He suddenly pulled her close, holding her tightly against his body. She could feel the beating of his heart.

Her body was melting, boneless, liquid fire. She looked up at him in a dazed way, her eyes dark, dark blue. He gave a stifled little exclamation and bent his mouth and kissed her. It was a chaste enough kiss as firm closed masculine lips met soft closed female ones. But neither was prepared for the blinding rush of black passion which that touch of lips caused. Neither was prepared for that maelstrom of feeling where they seemed to be whirling together deeper and deeper down into undiscovered depths.

The sound of a carriage passing nearby made them break apart.

Fanny could feel swollen nipples thrusting out against the thin material of her gown and crossed her arms tightly over her breasts and shivered. “Take me home,” she pleaded.

“Certainly,” he agreed, as formally as if nothing had taken place between them. He suddenly wanted to be alone with his thoughts. That simple kiss had shaken him as no other kiss had done. He distrusted the power she had over him. He had seen poor fellows the slave to some female’s every whim and had sworn it would never happen to him. Fanny no longer seemed like a pretty and desirable girl, but a witch, an enchantress, and she spelled danger in every movement of her body. The breeze blew the fine material of her gown against her body and he looked away.

He wanted to tell her he would not see her on the morrow and then the thought of not seeing her caused him such a stab of pain that he said nothing.

He helped her down from the carriage and waited until she had disappeared inside the house before driving off.

Fanny went up to her room on shaking legs. She felt her innocence had been snatched from her in the Park. She felt she no longer owned her own soul. She kicked off her shoes and tore off her bonnet and lay face down on the bed, trying to fight the surgings and yearnings inside her body.

The door opened and Frederica and Felicity came in. Fanny sat up. “What’s the matter?” she demanded harshly.

“Nothing,” said Frederica with a shrug. “Don’t you look hot and cross! How was your drive?”

“Very interesting,” said Fanny, rallying with an effort. She told them all about the people she had met in the Park and described the clothes and carriages.

Then she said awkwardly, “I want you to help me. Lord Tredair has offered to drive me to the orphanage tomorrow morning so that I might find out more about our backgrounds.”

There was a little silence and then Frederica asked, “Why should he do that?”

“Because I told him I wanted to go,” snapped Fanny.

“We’ll cover up for you,” said Felicity slowly, “but don’t betray us, Fanny, by running off with this lord.”

“I have no intention of running off with him, but if I did, what’s it to you?”

“We are none of us marriageable,” said Frederica. “For all we now distrust Mrs. Waverley, we must always be grateful to her. I agree with her principles. If you become Tredair’s mistress, I will never see or speak to you again.”

“What if I became his wife?” demanded Fanny.

“Don’t be silly. An earl? Marry you!”

“I have no interest in any man,” sighed Fanny, sinking back against her pillows and staring at the ceiling.

“See that it stays that way,” said Frederica coldly. “We can manipulate Mrs. Waverley, now that we know how her mind works, into giving us a more pleasant and freer life. Don’t spoil it. Promise!”

“I won’t spoil anything,” sighed Fanny, feeling she was becoming a practiced liar. Had she not already promised Mrs. Waverley not to encourage the earl in any way? What on earth would Mrs. Waverley, let alone these sisters of hers, think if they knew she had asked the earl to marry her?

After they had left, Fanny wondered whether to send for Mrs. Ricketts and bribe her as the earl had suggested. But she found she had not the courage. If it did not work, then she would not be able to go to the orphanage on the morrow.

Chapter Seven

“There she goes again … and at this time of the morning!” said Mrs. Ricketts to the cook, Mrs. Smiles.

“Which one of them is it?” asked the cook.

“Just caught a glimpse out the back,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “Miss Fanny, I think.”

“Mistress would be in a right taking if she knew they were getting loose,” pointed out the cook, not for the first time. “Good thing she’s not giving lessons this morning.”

“They never stay away long,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “’T ain’t natteral, keeping ‘em in the house from morning till night. Anyway, we’re told to see none of them go out the front door, so there’s no cause to interfere. There’s one thing about this odd household that suits me—no men. No butler puffing and blowing and giving orders and not doing any work hisself. But we’re past marriage, Mrs. Smiles, so it’s comfortable for us. But young things like that should be out at parties and have plenty of beaux.” In the cases of both the housekeeper and the cook, the Mrs. was a courtesy title.

“Madam doesn’t know what you think, I hope,” said Mrs. Smiles.

“No. She doesn’t think that servants think at all. She’s really like the rest of the quality. She preaches on about equality, but that don’t apply to the servants hall. Miss Fanny’ll be back soon enough.”

“But it’s different now,” pointed out the cook, brushing flour from her nose with the back of her hand. “Mr. Fordyce is in that house next door.”

“Not yet,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “He moves in next week with a staff of servants. Reckon I’ll need to have a word with the girls then.”

Fanny flew across the square, expecting any moment to hear an angry voice calling her back. She let out a little gasp of dismay as she reached the pillared entrance of St. George’s Church, for there was no sign of the earl. The morning was chilly, and she wrapped her old woollen cloak more tightly about her. She felt very conspicuous standing alone on the steps.

She heard a carriage approaching and moved behind one of the pillars. It came to a stop and she peered around.

The earl! Thank goodness.

“I thought you were not going to come,” she said breathlessly as she climbed into the open carriage beside him.

“I always keep my word, Miss Fanny,” he said. “Off we go to find your past!”

He drove along in silence. Fanny was wearing her coal scuttle bonnet and looked every inch an orphanage girl, he reflected. He broke the silence at last.

“Do not pin your hopes on this visit,” he said. “Do not cherish any dreams that your parents are noble. It will probably turn out to be as you have heard.”

“All I have heard is that I was a foundling,” said Fanny. “A foundling, and no one knows who my parents are or were. But I cannot believe it.”

“What name were you given at the orphanage?”

“Miss Bride—after the church where I was found.”

“And the two other girls?”

“Bride as well.”

“Do you mean you were all abandoned on the same church doorstep?”

“Hardly,” laughed Fanny. “We arrived at the orphanage at the same time. They said they were tired of inventing names and so they called us all the same.”

“And so the other two are foundlings as well?”

“I do not know. I seem to be the only one who was given at least one crumb of information.”

The streets and houses flew past as his horses were urged to quicken their pace. Fanny began to feel cold with worry as the orphanage approached. She wished now she had put on something grand, not her “walking” outfit that made her look like a charity girl, that made her look as if she had never left the place. She comforted herself in the earl’s title and elegance.

He drove through the curved stone arch of the courtyard and reined in his horse under the familiar brass oil lamp over the door.

As he was tethering the reins to a post in the yard, the great door of the orphanage opened and Fanny recognized Mr. Wilks, the chairman.

He did not recognize her, though his glance only flicked over her and came to rest inquiringly on the earl.

“We were not warned of any visit,” said Mr. Wilks in his querulous, high, fluting voice.

He was a thin, spare Scotchman who affected a sort of genteel dandyism, his bottle green waistcoat being hung with a great many seals and fobs and his new hessian boots dangling with little gold tassels. He had pale blue-gray wary eyes and long bony hands with prominent knuckles.

The earl approached him and made a bow. “I am Tredair,” said the earl, “and this is one of your former charges, Miss Fanny Bride.”

Mr. Wilks looked startled, and Fanny was sure she saw a gleam of fear darting across his pale eyes.

“What is the meaning of this visit, my lord?” demanded Mr. Wilks, his voice shrill. “Our humble orphanage is pleased that the great Earl of Tredair should visit us, but it is most inconvenient—most inconvenient,” he added, looking over one hunched shoulder as if seeking help.

“We will not take up much of your time,” said the earl pleasantly. “Miss Waverley, as she now is, is naturally anxious to discover the identity of her parents.”

“Step inside, my lord,” said Mr. Wilks. “This is too painful a subject to be discussed outside.”

He stood aside to let them pass. As Fanny came abreast of him, Mr. Wilks muttered, “How could you, you ungrateful girl? Did we not do our best for you?”

Fanny opened her mouth to reply, but he strode ahead of her shouting, “Mrs. Goern!”

The door to the orphanage office opened and Mrs. Goern stood there, looking the same as Fanny had remembered her, fat and florid, like an overstuffed, heavily embroidered cushion.

“May I present the Earl of Tredair,” gabbled Mr. Wilks, “and Miss Fanny. You remember our Fanny.”

“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Goern slowly. “What is the problem?”

“Perhaps if we could all sit down …?” said the earl, moving into the stuffy office.

Mr. Wilks sat behind a desk with Mrs. Goern beside him. Fanny and the earl sat facing them.

“Miss Fanny has come to find out her background,” said Mr. Wilks.

“That was a great mistake,” said Mrs. Goern severely. “You are a very lucky girl to have been adopted by a great lady like Mrs. Waverley. Is this how you reward her?”

“Save us your strictures, madam,” said the earl coldly. “Simply tell Miss Waverley what she wants to know.”

Mrs. Goern’s fat lips disappeared into a thin line. “If you will excuse me, my lord,” she said, getting to her feet, “I will fetch the books.”

The earl noticed that Mr. Wilks looked at the director with a certain amount of alarm, and that Mrs. Goern gave him a little reassuring nod.

They waited in silence. The earl rose and went to the barred window and looked out into the courtyard. There he saw Mrs. Goern giving instructions to a surly-looking individual. The man touched his cap and sauntered off in the direction of the stables.

After what seemed a very long time, Mrs. Goern returned, bearing two large ledgers.

“You will find, my lord,” she said, “that Miss Fanny came to us from the Foundling Hospital.”

“In the City?”

“No, my lord. In Greenwich.”

“Pray tell me why a baby found on the steps of St. Bride’s in Fleet Street should be sent all the way to Greenwich?”

“If Miss Fanny knew that much, my lord, then it was a waste of your time to bring you here,” said Mrs. Goern. “I do not know why she was sent to Greenwich, but that is the case.”

“Then tell me, Mrs. Goern, why it is that this orphanage, which houses young ladies with relatives rich enough to place them here, should accept charity cases?”

“Through the kindness of our hearts, my lord,” said Mr. Wilks piously.

Fanny sat with her head bowed, her hopes in ruins. She had never really believed that story about her being a foundling. Now she felt like a romantic fool.

The earl felt himself becoming very angry, indeed. “You will forgive me if I point out that there is nothing in your bearing and manner that leads me to suppose either of you know the meaning of kindness or charity,” he said.

“Ho!” bristled Mrs. Goern. “And just what is your business with Miss Fanny?”

“Miss Waverley is a friend of mine,” said the earl. He smiled down at Fanny. But Fanny did not see that smile, she only heard the words. If only he had said, “The lady I hope to marry.” But, of course, he could never marry her now.

“I realize this is a shock to you,” said Mr. Wilks in a wheedling tone. “And I forgive you. Pray take some refreshment.”

“No,” said the earl haughtily. “Not with such as you. Since you are not prepared to be of further assistance, we may as well leave. I assume you will tell me that the other two girls are also foundlings from Greenwich?”

“But yes, my lord,” exclaimed Mr. Wilks. “So kind of Mrs. Waverley to relieve us of three of our charity cases.”

The earl glanced out of the window where a long crocodile of girls was now walking round the yard. He studied them for a moment and then said thoughtfully, “How odd that the three should perhaps be the most beautiful and intelligent girls in the orphanage?”

“We have many such,” said Mrs. Goern with a tight expression. “Believe me, my lord, this interview is as distasteful to us as it is to you.”

“I doubt it,” said the earl. “Come, Miss Fanny.”

Too broken in spirit to ask any questions herself, Fanny followed him out. She was aware of the envious looks of the girls as she climbed into the earl’s smart carriage. She could not even bear to search their faces to see if there was anyone left in the orphanage she still knew.

The earl drove off in silence and after they had gone a little way, slowed his team to an amble. “I do not know why they should lie, Miss Fanny,” he said, “but I am sure they are lying. I think a visit to that foundling hospital in Greenwich is called for.”

“No,” said Fanny with a shudder. “No more. Enough. I have been living on dreams.”

“As you will. But I would be happy to go there for you.”

Fanny shook her head and a tear rolled down onto her glove.

“Please do not cry,” said the earl. “It does not matter. Would you like to marry me?”

“I cannot … now,” said Fanny. “In time, you would regret having allied yourself to someone of no background whatsoever.”

“That is for me to decide, dear girl.”

“Have you considered what society would say? Your family? Your friends?”

“They would say a great deal if they knew. But they won’t. As far as they are concerned you are Mrs. Waverley’s daughter.”

“Mrs. Waverley will never let me marry.”

“If she has a fondness for you … if she has one spark of affection in her whole body … she will let you marry.”

“Don’t speak of it,” said Fanny. “You do not know her. It is not possible.”

He tried to protest, but Fanny looked so white and ill that he fell silent.

He dropped her outside the church, promising to call, but Fanny barely heard him. All she wanted to do was to get safely home and bury her head in her pillow and have a good cry.

The earl drove off thoughtfully. There was a mystery there. Did the mystery lie in that whisper of Clorinda he had heard from the Prince Regent? Were the girls all royal bastards? If that was the case, then both foundling hospital and orphanage would know it was more than their lives were worth to speak the truth. But if Mrs. Waverley could be persuaded to keep quiet about Fanny’s birth and to give him permission to marry the girl, then there would be no fuss and no scandal.

By the time he reached his own home, he was feeling much more cheerful. It was as well he did not know what was happening in Hanover Square.

Fanny had climbed in the library window and had darted up the stairs to her room. She swung open the door and let out a gasp as she saw Mrs. Waverley sitting in a chair by the window.

“Come in, you scheming, lying, ungrateful girl,” said Mrs. Waverley wrathfully. Fanny entered the room slowly, pulling off her bonnet. She stood facing Mrs. Waverley.

“I have reason to believe you went to the orphanage with Lord Tredair,” said Mrs. Waverley. “I told you, you were a foundling. But my name and protection is not enough for you. How dare you make a spectacle of yourself by driving through the streets unchaperoned with a man?”

“I had to find out,” said Fanny warily. “He wants to marry me.”

“You must be mistaken,” said Mrs. Waverley. “Men like Tredair do not marry girls like you.”

“Lord Tredair says that as far as the world is concerned, I am your daughter, and therefore there can be no reason to stop the marriage,” said Fanny. “How did you know I had been to the orphanage?”

“Poor Mrs. Goern sent me a message. She was most distressed. There is no question of you marrying Lord Tredair or anyone, Fanny. If you do not behave yourself, I shall turn you out. Yes! Turn you out into the street, you ungrateful girl. Have I not given you the best of everything? Have I not taught you my principles? Men are filthy beasts … beasts. How can you do this to me … me … who has loved you like a mother?”

Fat tears rolled down Mrs. Waverley’s face and plopped in the silk of her lap.

Fanny knelt on the floor beside her. “Don’t cry,” she whispered. “I shall forget him. Please don’t cry. I am not ungrateful.”

Mrs. Waverley slowly caressed Fanny’s blond hair.

“Then we will say no more about it,” she said softly. “I would not turn you out, Fanny. I said that in anger. I love you dearly. I am sorry about your background—a foundling and a bastard. But such things are not a disadvantage if you stay unmarried. Promise me you will never see Lord Tredair again.”

“I promise,” said Fanny, too crushed to realize she would soon regret that promise.

“Then kiss me, my child, and we will say no more about it.”

Fanny rose and gently kissed Mrs. Waverley’s wet cheek.

Mrs. Waverley rose as well, took out a handkerchief, and dried her eyes. She peered at the watch pinned to her bosom. “Good gracious. Lady Artemis will be here at any moment,” she cried.

Fanny was relieved to see her go.

She kicked off her shoes and flung herself face down on the bed.

But she was not to be allowed any peace.

Mrs. Waverley had only been gone a few moments when the door opened and Frederica and Felicity came in.

“Go away,” groaned Fanny. “I can’t bear anymore.”

“No, we will not go away,” said Frederica. “Your escapade was discovered, and the servants have been threatened with dismissal should one of us be found outside the house again. You fool, Fanny. I bet you found out that we are all bastards and foundlings.”

“Yes,” said Fanny dismally. “But Tredair is sure they are lying.”

“Tredair, Tredair,” mocked Felicity. “What is it to him?”

“He wants to marry me,” said Fanny, sitting up.

“Rubbish,” said Frederica. “We don’t marry. You know that. He wants you as his mistress.”

“No,” said Fanny wildly.

“Oh, yes. Do you think he will come near you after today?”

“Yes,” said Fanny mutinously.

“Well, he won’t,” said Frederica. “You’ll see. I will never, I swear, get myself in such a state over any man. Mrs. Waverley is right. Look how unhappy you are. And look at the mess you have landed us in, you wicked thing! Now we can’t get out anywhere because of your mawkish desire to marry a lord! Now we know that we are as bad as you, foundlings and bastards.”

“Shut up,” said Fanny. “Foundlings we may be, but where is the proof that we are bastards?”

“We’re trash, trash, trash,” mocked Frederica.

“Leave me alone,” screamed Fanny, picking up the water jug from beside the bed, “or I will throw this at your heads!”

“We have no intention of leaving until you come to your senses,” said Felicity. Then both girls ducked as Fanny leapt to her feet, seized the water jug, and sent it flying. Frederica and Felicity scampered out of the room, just as Fanny followed up the water jug with a bottle of perfume that smashed against the closing door. The whole room reeked of Young Miss in Her Teens. Fanny began to cry again.

***

Question time in the drawing room. Miss Follity-Benson was the only lady who was not enjoying herself. She could not get her sums to add up. She was not experiencing any of the joys of education promised her and felt obscurely resentful of the domineering Mrs. Waverley.

On impulse she raised her hand.

“Yes, Miss Follity-Benson?” cooed Mrs. Waverley.

“Would you not say that since women are made to bear children, it is going against nature if they do not do so?” asked Miss Follity-Benson.

“Not exactly,” said Mrs. Waverley with a frown. “London is full of unwanted children as is the rest of the British Isles. Any woman deciding not to have children is doing society a service.”

“But you have three daughters,” pointed out Miss Follity-Benson.

Mrs. Waverley suddenly saw a way of spiking the Earl of Tredair’s guns.

“Alas,” she said. “They are not my daughters. I do what I can to help the unwanted and unloved, you know. My three girls are foundlings and bastards and can never marry. I adopted them.”

There were exclamations of shock and surprise. Lady Artemis found she was sitting with her mouth wide open and shut it. What marvelous, wonderful news! Tredair was safe from Miss Fanny.

But Miss Follity-Benson had a kind heart. “I am sure I speak for all, Mrs. Waverley,” she said, “when I assure you that not one of us here will breathe a word of this.”

Lady Artemis thought there was a certain look of disappointment on Mrs. Waverley’s face and wondered why.

“You are most kind,” said Mrs. Waverley briskly. “Now, next question …?”

***

Breakfasts were those affairs held at three o’clock in the afternoon. The one Lord Tredair attended with Mr. Fordyce the next day was in the grounds of a large house in Kensington. The weather had turned warm and sunny, and he was strolling about with Mr. Fordyce admiring the gardens when he noticed the arrival of Lady Artemis. He felt more charitably disposed toward her than he had done before because she had helped to clean that nasty kitchen with such good will.

He noticed with amusement that Lady Artemis seemed to have a prime piece of gossip. For she moved busily from group to group, whispering and chattering, and then he heard oohs and aahs of surprise.

Mr. Fordyce noticed the busily gossiping Lady Artemis as well. “I wonder what she is talking about,” he said.

“No doubt we will hear soon enough,” said the earl. “I do not think I shall stay for the breakfast. I came to see the gardens, you know. I shall be like Brummell, who advocates one should stay just long enough to make one’s presence known, and then leave.”

“I cannot protest at your going,” laughed Mr. Fordyce, “for that leaves the field open to me.”

“With Lady Artemis?”

“Exactly, my friend.”

The earl smiled and began to move away. As he reached the entrance to the gardens, his host, Mr. Tommy Blythe, bore down on him. “Leaving so soon, Tredair?”

“Alas, yes. I have a pressing appointment.”

“You always have pressing appointments,” grumbled Mr. Blythe. “Why do you come to the Season if not to stay at the functions?”

“Perhaps I am looking for wife.”

“Never! A hardened bachelor like you? Talking of marriage, that pretty creature you went ballooning with is the talk of the party.”

“Miss Fanny was very brave,” said the earl. “Quite a heroine.”

“Yes, but such shocking news. I could hardly believe my ears. To think I sent cards to the Waverleys! But as m’wife pointed out, Mrs. Waverley at least knows what’s what and refused to attend, or we would have to have sent them packing.”

“What are you gabbling on about?” demanded the earl crossly.

“Why, Lady Artemis was at Mrs. Waverley’s yesterday, and she ups and tells Lady Artemis and a parcel of society misses that her three girls are adopted and not only that, but that they are bastards and foundlings!”

The earl’s hands clenched into fists. “What a hateful, scheming, cruel women,” he raged.

Mr. Blythe took a step back. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “She’s done a great thing. She could easily have fooled society and foisted her girls onto some of us, don’t you think?”

But the earl was already walking away.

He drove the mile from Kensington to Hanover Square where he demanded an audience with Mrs. Waverley. He was shown up to the drawing room. The blinds were drawn and Mrs. Waverley was lying on a chaise lounge by the window.

“Forgive me for not rising, my lord,” she said. “I have had an exhausting day.”

“Very exhausting, madam,” he said coldly. “Ruining the reputation of your adopted daughters must have been quite tiring.”

“I did it for the best,” said Mrs. Waverley. “This letter will explain why. It is from Fanny.”

The earl silently took the letter and read it. Then he went across and jerked up one of the blinds and stood by the window and read it again.

“Lord Tredair,” he read, “I will always be grateful to you for taking me to the orphanage. But I fear I may have misled you as to my feelings toward you. I shall never marry, and it would be best if I never see you again. Your humble and obedient servant, Fanny Waverley.”

“You forced her to write this,” he said angrily.

“Not I,” said Mrs. Waverley mournfully. “My lord, Fanny is a headstrong girl. Can you see me forcing her to do anything?”

“Yes,” he said. “You could threaten to throw her out.”

“I would never do that,” said Mrs. Waverley. “You see, I love Fanny.”

“I doubt if you love anyone other than yourself,” he said bitterly. “Good day to you, ma’am.”

He let the letter flutter to the floor and strode from the room.

Mrs. Waverley leaned back, feeling almost as exhausted as she had claimed to be. It had taken quite a bit of effort to forge that letter. She had expected him to call and had told the servants that at the first sight of him, the young ladies were to be sent to their rooms and kept there, and the name of the visitor was not to be divulged. Mrs. Waverley rose and retrieved the letter, held it over the fireplace and set light to a corner of it with a brimstone match, and waited until the whole letter was alight before dropping it into the hearth.

The end of Lord Tredair. The end of a nasty upsetting chapter. But she had done it for the best. Fanny was safe and would never leave her now.

***

The house in Hanover Square settled back into its previous gloom. Mrs. Waverley gave no more lessons, nor did she take the girls out walking around the square.

Mr. Fordyce moved in next door, but when he called on Mrs. Waverley, he was refused admittance.

Across the square Lady Artemis was suffering from a new feeling, that of an acute guilty conscience. Lord Tredair now went out of his way to avoid her. Mr. Fordyce had told her that he was shocked she had gossiped about the Waverley girls’ dreadful backgrounds, and she appeared to have lost even his admiration. She called at the Waverleys’ and sent flowers and gifts, but she was turned away and the gifts and flowers were returned. The house crouched in silence and no one but tradesmen came or went.

The friendship of the three girls was under a strain. Felicity and Frederica could not help blaming Fanny for their new incarceration. The long days dragged after each other, the sun shone, and merry voices sounded from the square outside to underline their boredom and isolation within.

And then, just when they thought they could not bear it any longer, a new worry descended on them.

Mrs. Waverley was missing her classes. She had decided to send a note to Lady Artemis asking her to resume her attendance. She enjoyed teaching and she enjoyed showing off the richness of her mansion and jewels to these society ladies.

She planned to recommence as soon as possible. She would wear her new purple silk gown and perhaps a very expensive brooch. Something simple, but rich enough to make their eyes pop. There was that diamond brooch of Fanny’s. That would look very well against her purple silk.

At first when Ricketts told her the brooch was missing from Miss Fanny’s box, she was not very worried, merely commanding the housekeeper to search the other girls’ rooms. But when it transpired the brooch was really missing, Mrs. Waverley became angry and summoned the girls and the whole household. If that brooch was not put back on her dressing table by noon the next day, she said wrathfully, then she would call in the Runners.

The girls retreated to Fanny’s room for a council of war.

“What are we to do?” asked Felicity, white-lipped. “Any Runner worth his salt will call at the nearest pawn shops and we will be undone. No one is going to believe in the nonexistent Lady Tremblant. We cannot take any jewelery to get it back, for she now has had all our jewel boxes locked in her room. What are we to do?”

“It is all my fault,” said Fanny. She thought of the guinea Lord Tredair had given her to bribe Ricketts. But it would not go far in getting the brooch redeemed. Tredair! He would know what to do. If only she could see him. Why couldn’t she see him! She knew he lived in St. James’s Square, for she had read a description of a rout at his town house some time ago.

She dared not tell the girls, for they would cry out against it. She had given her solemn promise to Mrs. Waverley not to see Lord Tredair again. But surely God would not concern Himself with the broken promises of a bastard and foundling.

“Leave me,” she said. “I will get it back.”

“How?” demanded the other two.

“It is better you do not know,” said Fanny, and refused to be drawn.

Chapter Eight

Fanny waited until later that evening and then slipped quietly down the stairs to the housekeeper’s parlor.

“Well, Miss Fanny?” said Mrs. Ricketts, looking up from a piece of sewing, “What can I do for you?”

Fanny summoned up her courage. Mrs. Ricketts was using her genteel company voice that was somehow more daunting than as if she had spoken in her normal country accents.

“I have to go out tonight,” she blurted out.

Mrs. Ricketts put down her sewing. “Come in, Miss Fanny, and close the door behind you.” She waited until Fanny was seated and then said, “I know you’ve been slipping out before, out the garden at the back.”

“Oh, Mrs. Ricketts …”

“I didn’t worry overmuch,” said Mrs. Ricketts, reaching to a bottle on a side table and pouring herself a measure of gin. “You always came back quick enough and I reckoned it didn’t do no harm to anyone.” Her country accent became stronger as she went on, “But you got us all in mortal trouble the day you went off with that Lord Tredair.”

“I went to the orphanage,” said Fanny. “I had to try to find out about my parents.”

“And all you found out was bad news,” said Mrs. Ricketts sympathetically. She tossed back her glass of gin and put the glass down on the table with a decisive little click. “Trouble is, the whole of London must know that news by now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mrs. Waverley was preaching or whatever she does to that party of ladies brought here by Lady Artemis. I was bringing in the refreshments just as a snippity little chit asked her about women’s natural duty to bear children or something. Mrs. Waverley ups and says how there’s too many unwanted brats around and that she took you three from the orphanage and that you’re bastards and foundlings. I reckon you’re all foundlings all right, but no call to leap to the conclusion that all your parents never bothered to get married.”

Fanny raised her hands to her hot cheeks. “Why should she ruin us in the eyes of society?”

“Keep you at home,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “See, that way no one’ll want to marry you.”

“So that is why Lord Tredair never came back,” said Fanny in a choked voice.

“Oh, he come back all right, and we had instructions to put you girls in your rooms and see you didn’t come out. I don’t know what madam said, but my lord left here in a fine taking.”

Fanny sat with her head bowed. The fact that she was about to attempt to see Lord Tredair again after having given her solemn promise not to do so had weighed heavily on her conscience. Now, she did not care. Would not any prisoner in Newgate lie and lie again if he knew it was the means to escape?

“Now, why do you want to go out this night?” asked Mrs. Ricketts.

“It’s that diamond brooch,” said Fanny. “I have to get it back.”

“From the pawnshop,” said Mrs. Ricketts, nodding her head.

“How did you know …?”

“Betty, the housemaid, was in Oxford Street one day and saw Miss Felicity going into the pawnbrokers. She followed her when she come out, thinking if it was bad mischief she had better report it to me. Well, she then followed Miss Felicity to Hatchard’s where young miss bought a book and then followed her home. She told me. We talked about it. You’re all laden down with jewels like heathen princesses, so we reckoned that you was pawning the things for pin money. I checked the jewel boxes when you were out walking and there was only little bits and pieces missing. When she asked me to take that inventory, I was sore troubled, for I knew I would have to speak up so as not to let the blame fall on any of the servants. Then the jewels were all there and I wondered how you had done it. Later, I checked again and found the diamond brooch missing, so I knew you’d taken that to redeem the others. Now, you are going to ask Lord Tredair for the money to get the brooch back.”

Fanny nodded her head, and then held out a guinea. “That’s from Lord Tredair, Mrs. Ricketts. I should have given it to you before. Before I went to the orphanage, he told me to give it to you. He said I would find out you already knew. He said to tell you he would give you more if you continued to aid me.”

“What is his lordship’s interest in you, Miss Fanny?” said Mrs. Ricketts, taking the guinea and putting it in her apron pocket.

“He wishes to marry me.”

“Are you sure, Miss Fanny? A man like his lordship could get any woman he wanted.”

“I think he means it at the moment, but, of course, he would never really forget my background.”

She looked hopefully at the housekeeper as if waiting for a contradiction, but Mrs. Ricketts nodded her head and said, “That’s the way of the world. Blood is all in all in them families. Look at Lord Ponsonby what married Miss Linklater, a merchant’s daughter, for her money. All was lovey-dovey in the beginning, but now he jeers at her on every occasion and treats her something cruel.”

“How do you know this?” asked Fanny, momentarily diverted.

“Let me see, Lord Ponsonby’s scullery maid told the page at Mr. Brough’s, him next door to Lady Artemis, and the page told her footman, who told the footman next door, not Mr. Fordyce’s side, but the other, Sir Jeffrey Banks, who told our Mary who told me. But to return to your problem, if you go out, you’ll need to go out late. Mrs. Waverley doesn’t fall asleep till eleven o’clock, and I can’t let you out on your own at that time.”

“Please, Mrs. Ricketts.”

“Also, you can’t go calling at a gentleman’s town house. It would ruin your reputation.”

“I haven’t got a reputation to ruin,” pointed out Fanny bitterly.

“They may call you a foundling and bastard, but if you’re seen going into his town house, they’d call you whore as well.”

“What am I to do?” wailed Fanny.

The housekeeper sat buried in thought. Then she said slowly, “I could get Betty to tell Mrs. Waverley I was indisposed, just in case she sends for me. Then I could go to his lordship’s house and tell him to come here, down to the servants hall.”

“But surely one of the servants will talk!” cried Fanny.

“Not if I don’t,” said Mrs. Ricketts grimly. “Mrs. Waverley gives me absolute control of the staff.”

Fanny brightened. “But I have an idea! In that case, there is no need for me to meet him. I can just give you a letter …”

Her voice trailed off before the housekeeper’s withering stare. “Miss Fanny. You can’t ask an earl to go to the pawn for you in a letter!” Mrs. Ricketts got to her feet, took down a clean tumbler, poured a measure of gin into it, and then one into her own tumbler. Then she took the small smoke-blackened kettle off the fire and added hot water to each glass.

Mrs. Ricketts handed Fanny a glass and raised her own. “No heeltaps,” she said.

“No heeltaps,” echoed Fanny, tossing off her own. She coughed and spluttered as the mixture of gin and hot water burned her throat. “Why heeltaps?” she asked hoarsely. “It’s silly, but I’ve often wondered.”

“Well, you know what heeltaps are?”

“Yes,” said Fanny. “They’re that crescent shaped piece of metal on the heel of a boot to protect it from wear.”

“Practically all of the drinks used to be sweet and sticky,” said Mrs Ricketts. “What was left at the bottom of the glass was a crescent of sticky liquid. No heeltaps means drain it to the last drop. Now, you’d best be off and leave me to find my lord!”

Mrs. Ricketts waited until Fanny had gone and then put on her cloak and bonnet and left by way of the area steps after informing the other women servants that a gentleman would be using the servants hall for an interview with Miss Fanny, and they were not to breathe a word to anyone. They were to go to bed and not stir, no matter what they heard.

The night was chilly and a high wind had risen. The parish lamps flickered in their glass globes as she hurried across the square. She knew Lord Tredair’s address. Mrs. Ricketts knew the addresses of all the nobles in London. She read all the gossip columns and had a staggering memory.

She did not really have much hope of finding Lord Tredair at home. It was Wednesday night and balls at Almack’s were always held on Wednesdays.

She finally reached St. James’s Square and mounted the shallow steps to Lord Tredair’s town house and hammered on the knocker. A butler looking as grand as an archbishop answered the door and told her in tones of haughty surprise that the earl was not at home.

Mrs. Ricketts stood, baffled, not really wanting to give up so easily. She made her way to Almack’s in King Street and stood on the corner. Even at her age and with her grim appearance and sensible dress she knew that any female standing on a corner at that time of night would be taken for a prostitute, so she made her way to Oxford Street until she found an orange seller. Taking out the guinea Fanny had given her, she purchased the whole basket of oranges and went back to Almack’s and stood across the road, watching the long windows and the people coming and going in the entrance.

She was just about to give up because it suddenly seemed all so hopeless. If Lord Tredair was enjoying himself, if he was, after all, there, he might not emerge until five in the morning.

Then she saw the earl standing on the step, drawing on his gloves.

She hurried across the road. “Oranges. Buy my oranges,” she called.

One of the flunkies rushed toward her. Hawkers on the steps of Almack’s! There would be revolution next.

The earl had quickly masked his surprise at the sight of the Waverley housekeeper. He waved the flunky away. “Leave the good woman alone,” he said.

He jerked his head slightly. Mrs. Waverley fell back as he walked away and then followed him at a discreet distance. A man stopped her. “How much are your oranges, grandma?” he said.

“Oh, go away!” yelled Mrs. Ricketts, pushing past him.

The earl was waiting in the shadow of a porticoed entrance on the corner.

“Masquerade party?” he asked.

“My lord,” said Mrs. Ricketts, “you are to follow me. Miss Fanny wishes to speak to you.”

He raised his thin eyebrows in haughty surprise. “I was given a letter by Miss Fanny in which she said she never wanted to see me again.”

“Miss Fanny handed it to you personal?” exclaimed Mrs. Ricketts.

“No, Mrs. Waverley.”

“Then she wrote it herself, Mrs. Waverley, I mean,” said Mrs. Ricketts.

“Are you sure?”

“Stands to reason, don’t it, my lord?”

“Very well. Give me that basket and lead the way.”

“No, my lord. You will simply draw attention to yourself. I will go ahead and get Miss Fanny. You are to go down the area steps. You will find the door unlocked. Wait in the servants hall.”

She scurried off before he could reply.

He tried to tell himself he should not go. The Waverleys, all of them, meant trouble. But the longing to see Fanny again was stronger than anything.

He made his way at a leisurely pace through the streets. The wind was even stronger than it had been earlier, roaring through the chimney tops and sending snakes of smoke from the spinning cowls down into the streets below. He was just turning into Hanover Square when a vis-à-vis drew alongside him and came to a stop. In it sat Lady Artemis and her maid. “My lord!” she cried. “Where are you bound?”

“On my own affairs,” he said stiffly.

“Why do you regard me so coldly?” cried Lady Artemis. “Have I done something to offend you?”

“Yes, madam,” said the earl. “You gossiped to beat the band about the Waverley girls, and now they are become a sad joke and will never escape from that prison in which they are incarcerated.”

“I only repeated what Mrs. Waverley told me,” said Lady Artemis turning pink.

“You should have known that such a piece of news would have been better kept to yourself. Pray, drive on. The night air is cold.”

“But cannot I explain …?”

“You are a malicious tattletale, madam. Pray drive on before I say something much worse.”

The vis-à-vis moved on.

The earl waited until he had seen Lady Artemis enter her own house and quickly made his way down the area steps of the Waverley mansion. As promised, the door was open. He went into the servants hall, which was lit by one solitary tallow candle on the middle of the table.

After he had been waiting only a few moments, the door opened and Fanny came in. Her eyes looked black and enormous in the flickering candlelight.

“Pray be seated, my lord,” she said in a whisper. “Did Mrs. Ricketts tell you why I sent for you?”

He shook his head. He sat down and Fanny pulled out a chair next to him and sat down as well and clasped her hands on the table.

“Now you are here, my lord,” she said in a low voice, “I find it much harder to explain things to you than I could possibly have imagined. Oh, why are you in evening dress!”

A flash of humor lit his green eyes. “I have been at Almack’s, Miss Fanny. They are sticklers for the rules. I could hardly attend in anything else.”

What Fanny really meant was that evening dress made him seem remote, less approachable. The candlelight flickered on the diamond pin in his cravat and on the little diamond chips in the buttons of his evening coat. He had placed his bicorne on the table and his hair gleamed with purple lights.

“I think you had better begin,” he prompted gently, “or we shall be here all night.”

Fanny took a deep breath and then in an urgent whisper she told him about pawning the jewels, culminating in the pawning of the diamond brooch and the desperate need to get it back.

He leaned back easily in his chair as she spoke, one hand resting on the table, the other in his pocket. His face was an inscrutable mask.

The Earl of Tredair was deeply shocked.

He could forgive Fanny all sorts of dreadful backgrounds. Her birth was not her fault. But stealing! Surely that betrayed a low streak in the blood that would come out again and again.

Although he said nothing, Fanny could feel him moving away from her. It was as if a sudden frost had settled on the servants hall.

“And why should you think I would redeem the brooch for you?” he asked when she had finished.

“Because … I thought … I thought you cared for me a little,” said Fanny.

“I cared for you more than a little,” he said. “But I cannot entertain any warm affections toward a thief. And you are a thief, Miss Fanny. Mrs. Waverley is eccentric and confines you to the house. You are little better than prisoners. But what would your lot have been had she left you in the orphanage?”

Fanny hung her head.

“Exactly. With no relatives to claim you, you would at best have become a governess if you were lucky or a companion, but more likely some sort of genteel drudge. Did you write me a letter?”

“No,” said Fanny.

“Yes. I should have known. But it does not matter now. Where is this pawnbroker?”

“In Oxford Street. At the corner of North Audley.”

“And do you have the ticket?”

Fanny took a crumpled ticket out of the bodice of her gown and mutely held it out to him.

“I shall go first thing in the morning,” he said, “and my servant will bring the brooch to Mrs. Ricketts.”

“Thank you,” whispered Fanny, brokenly.

“Then if that is all, I shall take my leave.”

“You don’t understand,” said Fanny urgently, taking hold of his sleeve. “You must understand …”

He firmly disengaged the clutching little hand from his sleeve and stood up. Fanny shivered as she looked up into his cold green eyes, as cold as the Atlantic.

“Good-bye, Miss Fanny,” he said. “We shall not meet again.”

She remained seated, her head bowed. The door closed quietly, and then she could hear him mounting the area steps.

“I heard him go,” said Mrs. Ricketts, coming into the servants hall. “Going to do it, is he?”

“Yes, Mrs. Ricketts. But he has now a bottomless disgust of me. He called me a thief.” Fanny burst into tears.

“Shhh. Quietly now,” said the housekeeper. “I often think Mrs. Waverley has the right of it. Men! Wenching and carousing and boozing and getting the pox and preaching morality. Tchah!”

She put an arm about the weeping girl and helped her from the room.

***

The next day Mr. Fordyce accepted delivery of a brand new brassbound telescope mounted on a stand and had it placed at the first floor window. He put a stool in front of it and focused it on the windows of Lady Artemis’s drawing room. He knew that she had a similar telescope, but he was surprised to see her sitting peering through it. For one moment it appeared to him as if his magnified eye was staring straight into the magnified eye of Lady Artemis. He left the telescope and walked away in confusion. When a servant arrived with a note from Lady Artemis some ten minutes later, Mr. Fordyce was almost frightened to open it in case she was accusing him of spying on her, for that is what he had been doing and why he had bought the telescope in the first place. “Dear Friend,” he read, “Come Quickly. I am in sore Distress, Yrs. V.A.”

His heart beating hard, Mr. Fordyce shouted for his valet, changed into his best coat, brushed cologne on his hair and eyebrows, and hurried across the square, trying not to break into a run.

He was ushered into Lady Artemis’s drawing room. She came to meet him, both hands outstretched. “I am a monster,” she cried, and flung herself against him. Mr. Fordyce patted her shoulder and murmured soothing rubbish in her ear—she was his pet, his darling, the most beautiful woman in the world.

At last she raised a tearstained face. “How can I aid you?” asked Mr. Fordyce. “You must not cry so.”

“I am in disgrace with Lord Tredair,” said Lady Artemis. “You must help me regain his affection.”

Poor Mr. Fordyce. All in that moment, he hated his best friend with a passion.

“I will do what I can,” he said stiffly. “But surely you are mistaken.”

Lady Artemis sat down on the sofa and patted the space beside her. “Come next to me,” she said, “and I will tell you all.”

As Mr. Fordyce listened, Lady Artemis told him about how she had gossiped and ruined the Waverley girls’ reputations.

Mr. Fordyce controled his burning desire to take her in his arms and kiss her breathless. He said, “I think Mrs. Waverley meant you to spread that scurrilous gossip.”

“But why?”

“She wants to keep them all to herself. Until recently they went nowhere but round the square for walks. She hates men and despises them. Tredair looks interested in Miss Fanny, so Tredair and all other threatening men must be kept at bay.”

“But now Tredair despises me for gossiping. What am I to do?”

Mr. Fordyce thought quickly. He thought so hard and fast he could practically feel his mind jumping through hoops like those performing dogs at Astley’s Amphitheatre. If only Tredair could marry Fanny, then Tredair would no longer be a rival.

“The first thing,” he said slowly, “is to gossip about Mrs. Waverley, to ruin her reputation by putting it about she lies about her girls so as to keep the men away. Let me think … and the reason she does this is to … is to … ah, I have it! … is to keep all suitors away because although the girls are not her daughters, they are of noble birth and each holds an enormous dowry. Make her hatred of men a joke.”

Lady Artemis twisted the fringe of her stole in her fingers. “Do you think that would answer? I confess to a certain admiration for Mrs. Waverley. She talks a great deal of sense.”

“About men being dreadful beasts?”

“No-o. But about it being a man’s world and us the underdogs, the lap dogs of society, she calls us. A woman should be able to court a man, just as a man is able to court a woman.”

“But women do do that,” said Mr. Fordyce with a fond smile, “in their pretty little ways.”

“Like a dog standing on it’s hindlegs for attention,” said Lady Artemis. “Now if I were to say to you, I wish to kiss you, Mr. Fordyce, you would be alarmed and back away and put me down in your mind as a forward woman.”

“Try me,” said Mr. Fordyce.

“Very well,” said Lady Artemis, beginning to look amused. “Kiss me, Mr. Fordyce.”

She looked at him with laughter in her eyes, expecting him to be embarrassed.

He seized her in his arms and kissed her passionately, kissed her as he had dreamed of kissing her since he first set eyes on her. She let out a mumble of protest but his lips were insistant, searching, passionate, his body now pressed against her own was throbbing and pulsating. Her own body began to respond, and she kissed him languorously back. Clasped together they slowly rolled off the sofa onto the floor.

At one point Lady Artemis surfaced briefly from the sea of passion to wonder why such a normally correct and shy young man should be writhing on top of her now naked body, his own naked from the waist down, but with his coat still on, his waistcoat and his cravat as impeccable as it had been when he arrived.

At last, she lay lax and sated under him. Her hands slid over his naked bottom and she sighed. It had been so long. “We must dress,” she said. “What are you doing?”

For Mr. Fordyce was urgently tearing off the rest of his clothes. He had a neat trim muscular body, now totally naked as he bent over her again.

“Mr. Fordyce!” exclaimed Lady Artemis. “You cannot possibly … I have not had breakfast. Oh, Mr. Fordyce … !” Her voice faded away as he energetically rode her protests into extinction in an orgy of lovemaking on her drawing room carpet.

By midafternoon the happy couple were finally redressed, engaged to be married, and plotting ways to restore the Waverley girls’ reputation. Any desire for Lord Tredair had faded completely from Lady Artemis’s mind, but she still had a guilty conscience and was anxious to make amends.

“I will drive out on my calls,” she said sleepily, “and start to gossip. I suggest you do the same and start in the clubs. But I must do more. I shall then call on Mrs. Waverley again. If she thinks her girls’ reputation is utterly ruined, then perhaps she may take them to the theater again or some such place she considers educational.”

“My love, before I gossip, I am going to get a special license and put a notice in all the newspapers of our betrothal.”

“Not yet,” said Lady Artemis, shaking her head.

“But why?”

“She is a disciple of Mary Wollstonecraft. That woman finally got married, if you remember, and disappointed all her acolytes who felt she had betrayed them. Silly, because the wigeon was as much in thrall to any man by simply living with him and bearing his children. Let me arrange something and then we will tell the world.”

“You promise?”

“I promise,” said Lady Artemis, stretching like a cat. “Oh, I promise.”

***

But it was the next day before Lady Artemis felt strong enough to call on Mrs. Waverley. All her guilty conscience returned as she sensed the sadness in the Waverley mansion. She did not know it, but although the brooch had been returned, Felicity and Frederica were worried about Fanny who trailed about, looking half alive.

Mrs. Waverley received Lady Artemis. She was bored and was looking forward to resuming her teaching. “I myself can attend, dear Mrs. Waverley,” said Lady Artemis, “but I fear you have disgraced yourself, and I might be the only lady prepared to come here.”

“I?” said Mrs. Waverley awfully. “How so?”

“You told us of the sad background of your girls but … er … someone talked.”

“Tut tut,” said Mrs. Waverley complacently. “But why am I in disgrace?”

“Well, to be sure, society thinks you are monstrously cruel to have betrayed them so. For had you kept quiet, society would have believed them to be your daughters.”

Mrs. Waverley waved a fat hand dismissively. “No matter. We do not go out.”

Lady Artemis looked at her slyly. “Exactly,” she murmured. “The mad Mrs. Waverley.”

“Mad?”

“Oh, yes,” said Lady Artemis sweetly. “Quite, quite mad. What has she to fear, they ask. How can someone of such strong principles fear the world so much? In fact, they are now saying you lied about your girls so that they would be tied to you for life and never leave you.”

“What nonsense!”

“But, of course, if you were to give them the lie …”

“How?”

“But taking the girls about. They need not go to balls and parties. There are plenty of educational interests in London. There is the museum with the Elgin marbles.”

“I do not care what society thinks.”

“Oh, but you should,” said Lady Artemis. “No one is prepared to listen to the views of a woman they consider maliciously mad.”

“I do not believe you,” panted Mrs. Waverley.

“Then send out cards again to one of your soirées. Even your own friends will not attend.”

“Please leave me,” said Mrs. Waverley. “You are talking nonsense.”

The next day she sent out cards to her friends, Miss Pursy, Miss Baxter, and Miss Dunbar. All sent replies refusing to attend and offering no apology.

Now Mrs. Waverley had all the isolation she thought she had craved. She tried to console herself with the girls company at dinner, but Fanny was wan and silent and Felicity and Frederica quietly angry about something.

“I cannot stand this atmosphere!” Mrs. Waverley burst out at last. “Have I not given you everything? My love, my home, my riches?”

The Waverley girls remained silent.

“Speak, I command you!”

Frederica looked at her and said coldly, “You told the whole of London we were foundlings and bastards. May we know your reasons for doing so?”

“I only told someone in confidence. I did not mean any harm.”

“If you wish us to shun men,” said Frederica, still in that icy voice, “then let us have freedom of choice. You say women are little better than slaves, and yet you have bound us more into slavery than any married drudge.”

“That is not true!”

“Oh, yes it is,” cried Felicity. “What is our life to be now? You must tell everyone you lied. And then you must allow us to go out like the free women we should be. If you do not, then people will say you are a mad eccentric.”

This was exactly what Lady Artemis had said. Mrs. Waverley began to cry noisily, occasionally peering through the hands, which covered her face, in the hope of seeing any softening in the three pairs of hard eyes that looked at her.

“What am I to do?” she said at last.

“You will go about on calls,” said Frederica firmly, “and you will tell everyone that some jealous cat spread lies about us, and that we are, in fact, your real daughters. Only Lord Tredair will know that not to be the case.” She flicked a glance at Fanny. “I suggest you summon him here and tell him to keep his mouth shut.”

“I cannot do it,” said Mrs. Waverley, desperately trying to regain control. “We are happy as we are.”

“Look at us,” commanded Frederica, her voice dripping with contempt. “You have pushed us too far. We are now prepared to throw ourselves on the mercy of that orphanage, but before we do, we shall blacken your name in London so much that the mob will throw stones at your windows.”

“And,” said Felicity dreamily, “they may even drag you out in the street and stone you, too.”

“Unnatural, unfeeling monsters!” screamed Mrs. Waverley.

Fanny stood up. Of the three, she was the hardest, the most bitter. “You have until tomorrow,” she said. “And do not ever write letters and say they came from me again.”

“You have been seeing Tredair behind my back!” howled Mrs. Waverley.

“Yes, I have. But if it is any comfort to you, he despises me and does not wish to see me again.”

Silently, the Waverley girls left the room. Mrs. Waverley sobbed and yelled, occasionally tilting her head to one side to listen in the hope that just one would return to comfort her. But no one did.

Chapter Nine

Great waves of gossip about the Waverley girls pounded the shores of society. They were not bastards, they were Mrs. Waverley’s legitimate daughters. They were some noble lord’s by-blows. Mrs. Waverley had tried to glamorize herself by lying about them. They were fabulously rich and even when they sat down to breakfast, they were dripping with jewels.

Lady Artemis had a box at the opera and by nagging and manipulating, she persuaded Mrs. Waverley to accept her invitation and bring the girls along.

Mrs. Waverley was secretly eager to find out that no damage had been done. And when they reached Lady Artemis’s box, such seemed to be the case. All sorts of people crowded the box, asking for introductions. For the one piece of gossip that had really stuck, was that the Waverleys were fabulously rich, and that idea of riches drew even the highest sticklers like moths to a flame.

“I told you I should make things come right,” whispered Mrs. Waverley to Fanny after the second interval, but Fanny turned her head away and did not reply.

The earl was in the box opposite. Mr. Fordyce, who was escorting them as well as Lady Artemis, had waved to his friend several times, but the earl merely nodded and did not make any attempt to come and join them.

Lady Artemis stole anxious little glances at Fanny’s sad face. She herself was wildly happy. She no longer saw Mr. Fordyce as a rather pleasant young man of no significant income, but as a powerful Adonis. And like most people in love, she wanted everyone around her to be happy.

The Waverleys unlike everyone else, were not attending the ball that always followed the opera. Mr. Fordyce and Lady Artemis walked down the stairs with them to escort them to their carriage. They met the Earl of Tredair. He smiled warmly at Mr. Fordyce and Lady Artemis, nodded coldly to Mrs. Waverley, glanced with contempt at Fanny, who blushed miserably and looked away, and ignored the other two girls completely.

“Now I feel really wretched,” said Lady Artemis later at the ball, wondering how she could ever have chased after such a cold, haughty fish as the earl. “Did you not mark the way Tredair looked at poor Fanny? I felt ready to sink. I am surprised he should be so high in the instep. He obviously still believes all that gossip about her birth. There must be something I can do.”

“Leave him to me,” said Mr. Fordyce, pressing her hand. “And I am afraid he is the one who has absolute proof that the gossip is true.”

He decided to visit the earl on the morrow and see if he could learn the reason for Tredair’s sudden disgust of Fanny.

He knew he would probably find the earl at White’s at eleven in the morning. The earl liked to settle down in the coffee room at that time while the rest of the members stayed at home and slept off the memory of their gambling losses.

The earl looked up as Mr. Fordyce approached him and smiled lazily, “How goes your pursuit of Lady Artemis?”

“Successful. You may congratulate me!”

“Then I do. When is the wedding to take place?”

“As soon as possible.”

The earl fought down a qualm of unease. He thought Mr. Fordyce was much too good for Lady Artemis. He remembered his own harsh words to Lady Artemis.

“And when is the betrothal to be announced?” he asked.

“Well, that’s just it,” said Mr. Fordyce. “My beloved is all heart.”

The earl felt his own eyebrows rise cynically, but pulled them down into place and adopted an air of polite interest.

“We cannot announce anything until we are sure all is well with the Waverley girls,” said Mr. Fordyce.

The earl’s face hardened. “I do not see that the affairs of that odd household should stop you putting an announcement in the newspapers.”

“Lady Artemis—Verity—is bitterly ashamed of the damage she did by gossiping about them at that breakfast.”

“You amaze me,” said the earl.

“She feels if the betrothal is announced, Mrs. Waverley will no longer grant her admittance. Mrs. Waverley belongs to the brand of bluestocking that believes marriage a betrayal of their sex.”

“Since she herself has had the experience of marriage, you would think she would leave her sex free to find out for themselves.”

“Be that as it may,” said Mr. Fordyce eagerly, “Lady Artemis is first anxious to see if she can persuade Mrs. Waverley into allowing the girls more freedom.”

“Then it was she,” said the earl, “who obviously manipulated Mrs. Waverley into taking them all to the opera last night!”

“Yes, and my poor Verity should have been in high alt, but she was cast down.”

“Really,” said the earl in a bored voice.

“Do you not wish to know why?”

“Of course,” lied the earl.

“She cannot bear to see the distress of Miss Fanny, and she noticed your savage coldness toward the girl.”

“My savage …? You have been reading too many novels. If I remember, I was all that was polite.”

“You were very frosty, and you glared at Miss Fanny so. I am surprised at you. Even if the girl is a foundling, there is no reason to take her in dislike. She is not responsible for her birth.”

“Let me say I am not angry with Miss Fanny because of her birth. There is something else …”

Mr. Fordyce hitched his chair forward and stared eagerly at the earl like a dog waiting for a bone.

The earl tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. He was about to say he would not discuss it. But he was longing to talk about it. He felt he had behaved commendably, and yet there was a niggling seed of doubt.

“If I tell you, you must promise not to tell anyone, particularly Lady Artemis.”

“I promise,” said Mr. Fordyce and crossed his fingers behind his back.

“Miss Fanny sent her housekeeper to seek me out,” said the earl. “I was let into the servants hall to have an audience with her. She told me, and mark this well, that she had been in the habit of taking jewels and pawning them for pin money. One jewel, a brooch, remained to be redeemed and she had not the ready. She appealed to me to buy it back for her.”

“And?” prompted Mr. Fordyce eagerly.

“And that’s it,” said the earl crossly. “I redeemed the brooch for her. She is a thief. There is bad blood there.”

Mr. Fordyce leaned back in his chair and looked at the earl in consternation.

“Are the girls not allowed any pin money?”

“No.”

“Well, then …” began Mr. Fordyce awkwardly. “It stands to reason …”

“You are forgetting one salient fact. She is a thief.”

“But think of her unnatural life. No freedom. Kept indoors.”

“The girls, as you very well know, were in the habit of escaping by the garden of your house. There was no reason for them to steal from their benefactress.”

“They probably didn’t see it that way,” pleaded Mr. Fordyce. “They probably thought they were just borrowing it.”

“Indeed! And just how did they intend to find money to get back the items?”

“Well, you are very hard. Very hard indeed. They are taken out of the orphanage and immediately draped with jewels and trinkets. They are so used to jewels that they do not really seem more than baubles and toys to them.”

“They knew the value of them enough to pawn them.”

Mr. Fordyce felt himself becoming very hot and angry. “It is easy for you to be high and mighty,” he snapped. “What if you yourself were in a situation where you wanted something and needed to steal to get it, would you not just take it?”

“Certainly not,” said the earl. He picked up his newspaper and rustled the pages.

“It is of no use talking to you,” said Mr. Fordyce, rising to take his leave.

“On that particular matter, none whatsoever,” said the earl.

Mr. Fordyce went straight to Lady Artemis and blurted out the whole thing. “Well, to be sure it is bad in one way,” said Lady Artemis, “but under the circumstances, the whole house is an invitation to theft. Mrs. Waverley often leaves brooches and necklaces lying around. If the girls were so very bad, they could gain their freedom by simply taking the contents of their jewel boxes and disappearing to the continent where they could live in luxury for the rest of their lives.”

“But Tredair is so hard, so adamant. I did not know he was such a cruel and unfeeling man.”

Mr. Fordyce was always anxious to put down his friend, for he had a lurking fear that Lady Artemis might become enamored of the earl again.

“Not like you,” she whispered, leaning toward him. His hands reached blindly for her, and soon they were busily engaged in their favorite sport.

The earl continued to read the newspapers, all of them, from cover to cover with great concentration. Fanny’s face had an irritating way of rising up between him and the printed word, but nonetheless he persevered. He was just perusing an advertisement that read, “A Young Lady of Respectability is desirous of procuring a situation as Companion. She has a knowledge of dressmaking and is prepared to make herself useful in any way, non-menial,” when he was interrupted by old Lord Struthers, who poked the earl in the chest with his cane and said, “Heard the news?”

“Take that cane away,” said the earl. “What news?”

“The Marquess of Pilkington has just spoken in the Lords.”

“The Marquess of Pilkington is always speaking in the Lords.”

“But he caused a sensation. Did you know he was a foundling?”

“No. He has always been regarded as the eldest son of the Duke and Duchess of Hadshire.”

“Exactly. But it transpires they adopted him. This damn Waverley woman everyone’s gossiping about has touched him on the raw. He made a powerful speech. He said a wretched woman, he referred to her as Mrs. W., had tried to ruin the reputation of her charges by telling the world they were foundlings and so trying to puff herself up by appearing a noble and charitable lady. ‘I am a foundling,’ booms Pilkington. ‘I was adopted! And yet, am I not an aristocrat? All this business about aristocratic blood and heredity traits is rubbish. It is upbringing and money that provide the bronze.’ He ranted on and then finished up by crying, ‘Let no one say that one Englishman is not as good as another.’ Of course, the Whigs in the lower house got to hear of it and when the old boy emerged, they took his horses away and pulled his chariot through the streets themselves, shouting, ‘Liberty! Equality!’”

The earl felt a sudden sick feeling of dread. “Excuse me,” he muttered and ran from the club. He called at Mr. Fordyce’s house in Hanover Square. Mr. Fordyce was not at home. The earl hurried across the square to Lady Artemis’s house.

“Is Mr. Fordyce here?” he shouted to the butler.

“Yes, my lord. In the drawing room. But, my lord …!” The earl pushed past him, as the butler tried to bar his way, and hurtled up the stairs and flung open the double doors of the drawing room.

It was, he thought, as he quickly slammed the doors shut again and stood with his face flaming, the most complicated piece of sexual intercourse a man had ever been unlucky enough to witness.

“I tried to tell you, my lord,” said the butler gloomily. “I tried to warn you.”

The earl made his way back down the stairs. But the drawing room doors opened and Mr. Fordyce, now decently clad in a dressing gown, popped his head out. “Thought it was you,” he called. “What’s amiss?”

“Come down here, man, and I’ll tell you,” said the earl.

Mr. Fordyce pattered down the stairs in his bare feet and led the way into a salon off the main hall.

“I am sorry I burst in on you,” said the earl, “but the matter was most urgent.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Mr. Fordyce airily. “Verity didn’t see you. Thought it was one of the servants. No need to upset her.”

“The fact is this. I need your help and Lady Artemis’s help to persuade Mrs. Waverley to remove herself from town and quickly too.”

“Why?”

“I should think the mob will be around to attack her any moment now.” He told Mr. Fordyce of the marquess’s speech in the House of Lords. “So, don’t you see,” finished the earl, “this is just the sort of excuse the mob needs for looting and burning.”

The earl waited until Lady Artemis and Mr. Fordyce got dressed. Soon the three were hurrying across the square to the Waverley mansion, the earl glancing at the sedate couple beside him and trying to banish that picture of them in the drawing room from his mind. He wondered where his friend had got the idea from. The frescoes at Pompeii?

Mrs. Waverley was in her drawing room with the three girls when Mrs. Ricketts introduced Lady Artemis, Mr. Fordyce, and the earl.

Before Mrs. Waverley could start to protest about the unheralded visit, the earl succinctly outlined the problem.

Mrs. Waverley tossed her head. “I shall not run before the mob,” she said, her eyes flashing.

Frederica cast a rather malicious look in the direction of Mrs. Waverley and asked, “Is the mob going to tear us all to pieces?”

“No,” said the earl. “They regard you girls in the light of heroines. It is Mrs. Waverley’s blood they are after.”

“Good,” murmured Frederica, and picked up her sewing again.

Mrs. Waverley turned a muddy color. “You are exaggerating, my lord.”

“Not I. I should estimate you have a bare half hour in which to escape.”

Mrs. Waverley’s defences crumpled. “But where?” she wailed. “Where can we go?”

“I have a very pretty house at Brighton,” said Lady Artemis. “We shall all travel there.”

“Good,” said the earl. “I shall send you on your way.”

Lady Artemis and Mr. Fordyce exchanged glances. “Better come with us,” said Mr. Fordyce. “You can’t abandon us. The ladies may need protection on the road.”

The earl nodded reluctantly and began to rap out orders.

Fanny stuffed clothes and jewels into a trunk, her heart beating hard. She tried to tell herself that her excitement was at the prospect of escaping from London and nothing to do with seeing the earl again.

The earl’s servants, summoned by one of Mrs. Waverley’s housemaids, arrived as well and the whole house was in an uproar. It was a full hour before three heavily laden carriages moved out of the square. All around Hanover Square, the houses already stood shuttered. The news of a possible attack by the mob had gone around the square like wildfire.

Mrs. Waverley sat in the carriage as it moved off, white and shaken. She could only be glad amidst all her distress that the Earl of Tredair had not once looked at Fanny.

Fanny, Frederica, and Felicity were content to watch the passing scene. Each was silently blessing the mob. They were to see Brighton. They were to stay in Lady Artemis’s house where surely Mrs. Waverley could not have a say in how things were done. Lady Artemis was frivolous and would want to entertain. Fanny thought about how Lady Artemis and Mr. Fordyce kept gazing into each other’s eyes. They were obviously very much in love. She remembered how she had thought she loved the earl. She must have been weak in the head. That haughty aristocrat would not stay in Brighton very long. He would disassociate himself from such unfashionable company as soon as possible. Fanny wrenched her mind away from the earl. She would be able to visit circulating libraries and walk about the shops, and she would look upon the ocean for the first time.

Mrs. Waverley’s heartbeats slowed to a regular pace as the miles between them and London grew longer. She had no intention of residing very long with Lady Artemis. She herself would find a house to rent and take her precious girls with her before they became too accustomed to the pernicious and frivolous ways of society.

In another coach Lady Artemis and Mr. Fordyce swayed companionably together with the movement of the carriage. “What are we to do about Tredair and Fanny?” asked Lady Artemis.

“You know, my love,” said Mr. Fordyce, “he is not a free spirit like us. Quite a Puritan. I think we should forget about them and get married as soon as possible.”

“I would like to see him knocked from his high horse,” said Lady Artemis. “I would like to take him somewhere far away and steal all his money so that he had to thieve to get something to eat.”

The earl was driving his own coach, sitting up on the box, wrapped in gloomy thought. He thought it infuriating that Fanny’s downcast face should make him feel so guilty. Here he was involved with eccentrics and he detested eccentrics. He had refused an invitation to Lord Wirt’s the other week. Everyone else who had been invited was eager to go because Lord Wirt never saw his guests but lived in a sort of corridor between the walls of his mansion and spoke to visitors through a small aperture. The earl detested such odd behavior and thought that people who encouraged it by visiting the old freak were just as bad. Now he was stuck with Mrs. Waverley, whom he damned as being the worst type of eccentric.

***

Lady Artemis’s Brighton house faced the sea. Dinner that evening was supplied by a nearby hotel. It should have been a merry party, thought Lady Artemis bitterly, had it not been for that old frump, Waverley. The girls were beside themselves with excitement at their first view of the sea and had begged to be able to go out, but that lady had refused point blank. Not only that, instead of expressing herself in flattering terms of gratitude to her hostess for her rescue, she had said she would go out on the morrow to find a house of her own.

At last, it was all too much. The girls were picking at their food. Lord Tredair’s face looked as if it had been carved out of stone. Lady Artemis excused herself and went up to her bedroom and ferreted in a large medicine chest until she found what she was looking for.

Mrs. Waverley had insisted the girls drink nothing stronger than lemonade. Lady Artemis handed a sachet of powder to her butler and told him to mix it in a glass of lemonade and hand it to Mrs. Waverley. She also handed the butler a guinea to wipe the look of consternation from his face.

Lady Artemis saw the butler hand the glass of lemonade to a footman who placed it in front of Mrs. Waverley.

Mrs. Waverley was prosing on, quoting that bore Wollstonecraft. “The man,” intoned Mrs. Waverley, “who can be contented to live with a pretty, useful companion, without a mind, has lost in voluptuous gratifications a taste for more refined enjoyment. He has never felt the calm satisfaction that refreshes the parched heart, like the silent dew of heaven, of being beloved by one who could understand him. He …”

Lady Artemis leapt to her feet. “Ladies, gentlemen,” she cried. “I give you a toast. The King.”

Everyone rose to their feet and raised their glasses. “The King!” Mrs. Waverley took a sip from her lemonade and made to sit down. “And the Queen!” said Lady Artemis. The queen’s health was duly drunk. “And the Prince Regent,” said Lady Artemis desperately. Sip, sip went Mrs. Waverley. “The rights of woman!” called Lady Artemis. Mrs. Waverley beamed and drained her glass.

“As I was saying,” began Mrs. Waverley again, “women are kept from the tree of knowledge … the rational hopes of women are to be sacrificed to render women an object of desire for a short time. Women …”

Her voice trailed away and she put a hand to her head. “Excuse me. I feel dizzy. The journey.”

“Girls!” said Lady Artemis. “Mrs. Waverley is ill. Assist her to her room.”

Mrs. Waverley was a heavy woman. It took all the energies of the Waverley girls and two footmen to get her up the stairs.

By the time the girls had returned, the lemonade had disappeared to be replaced by champagne.

Outside the sun was sinking lower over the sea. Lady Artemis saw the wistful look Fanny cast at the ocean and said gaily, “I am sure you young ladies would benefit from a brisk walk before bedtime. Do put on warm wraps for the wind has become chilly.”

“You had better escort them, Tredair,” said Lady Artemis. “My poor Mr. Fordyce is feeling faint as well.”

She pressed Mr. Fordyce’s foot under the table in warning as he opened his mouth to protest.

“Very well,” said the earl with obvious reluctance. “I shall go straight to bed on my return. I thank you now for your hospitality, Lady Artemis. I shall be gone to London in the morning by the time you rise.”

“And that’s that,” said Lady Artemis when they had all gone. “I could shake him. Just look at those girls!”

The Waverley girls were running up and down the shingle, dodging the waves. The earl was sitting moodily on a rock watching them.

“I don’t think he cares for Fanny,” said Mr. Fordyce.

“Oh, he does. I am sure of it. I want her to be happy. I only gossipped to spite her, you know. I did not know then I should love you.”

“Well, at least Miss Fanny has a little moment of freedom,” said Mr. Fordyce. “How convenient Mrs. Waverley fell ill.”

“Stoopid! I drugged her.”

“I say!”

“Do you know what I would like to do?” said Lady Artemis dreamily. “I would like to drug Tredair and Fanny and take them far away too … Oh, I know, my aunt has a house several miles from here up on the downs, quite isolated, and she is abroad at the moment. I would leave them there and take all Tredair’s money and force him to find his own way back. I would leave money in the house so that he would have to take it to get them home.”

“He would think nothing of that. He would drive back out as soon as he had deposited Fanny and pay the money back.”

“But they would be thrown together, don’t you see? Something would have to happen. He would be compromised.”

“He would know we had drugged him.”

“He couldn’t prove it.”

“You are as mad as Mrs. Waverley.”

Lady Artemis began to cry. “If you loved me, you would help me.”

“My sweet. Anything. Only don’t cry.”

Mr. Fordyce hugged her and caressed her, confident that she would forget all this crazy nonsense after a good night’s sleep.

***

“Psst!”

Mr. Fordyce started awake.

“It is I,” whispered Lady Artemis. “Get your clothes on, my love. We have work to do.”

“Certainly,” said Mr. Fordyce cheerfully, jerking her on top of him and fumbling with the tapes of her gown.

“Not that!” she said, slapping at his hands. “I have drugged Tredair and Fanny. Now we have to move them to my aunts house.”

“Tredair’s a big man. How are we supposed to carry him out? We cannot managed him between us.”

“My servants will do the work. They have been told it is a practical joke and have been paid to keep their mouths shut. Do come along, my love.”

Had he been less besotted, then Mr. Fordyce would have refused. But he felt as drugged with love as their victims were with sleeping powders.

It all went like a dream. The heaving of the bodies into Lady Artemis’s traveling carriage, the ride through the night, the grunts of the servants as they struggled with the bodies at the other end. “Get the key,” hissed Lady Artemis to Mr. Fordyce. “it’s in the gutter.”

Mr. Fordyce felt along the gutter until his fingers encountered a key. He took it down and opened the door.

“Do we dump them in bed together?” he asked.

“That would be quite shocking,” said Lady Artemis primly. “See, there are two easy chairs, one on either side of the fire. Place them one in each chair. Now, I shall leave money on the table. We will lock them in so that they can have an adventurous time trying to escape. La! I hope these powders were not too strong. I don’t want them to sleep forever. Have the fire made up so they do not freeze and put blankets over them. Good!”

Mr. Fordyce performed the duties allotted to him. It all seemed like such a good joke. He and Lady Artemis giggled like schoolchildren when they finally crept out after the servants and locked the door and took away the key.

One of the servants drove back, while Lady Artemis and Mr. Fordyce traveled inside, hugging and kissing and laughing.

The cottage was some twenty miles outside Brighton, so it was dawn by the time they reached home.

As he undressed for bed, Mr. Fordyce wondered sleepily whether the earl would call him out, but then Tredair could hardly do that, provided they all kept to the story that the house had been broken into during the night and that Fanny and the earl had for some cruel and mysterious reason been abducted.

He did not awake until two o’clock the following afternoon. The events of the night came rushing back to him and he clutched his hair.

Tredair would not believe one word of that rubbish about abduction. Tredair would kill him!

He scrambled into his clothes and rode like a fury for the house where he had left Tredair and Fanny.

The door was lying splintered on the front path.

There was no one inside.

The earl and Fanny had gone.

Chapter Ten

The earl stretched and yawned. He slowly opened his eyes. At first he did not think he was awake but merely moving into a strange dream. He saw the sleeping figure of Fanny in an armchair opposite, clad only in her nightgown. He twisted his head and looked vaguely around at the cottage parlor. Then he looked down at his own body, at his nightshirt and bare feet. He moved one foot and struck his toe against a footstool. With dawning horror, he realized he was not in a dream.

He got to his feet, nearly banging his head on the rafters, and went out of the room into the vestibule and tried the outside door. Locked!

He shook his head to clear it.

Trickery and treachery, he thought bitterly. What a fool he had been to believe all that nonsense about Mrs. Waverley trying to stop him marrying Fanny. All the while she had been plotting and scheming. She must have been afraid he might change his mind because of Fanny’s birth, and so this was her way of making sure he would have to marry Fanny.

He walked back into the parlor, leaned down, and shook Fanny roughly by the shoulder. “Wake up!” he shouted.

Fanny groggily came awake. Her eyes widened when she saw the earl standing over her in his nightshirt. “Where are we? What are you doing here? How did I get here?” she cried. She tried to get to her feet, and then sat down again with a groan. “I feel sick,” she said, “and my throat is dry.”

“We have both been drugged,” said the earl. “I do not know where we are, but wherever it is, we are locked in without our clothes.”

“Were we attacked?” asked Fanny. “The mob … Fanny, Frederica … Mrs. Waverley? Are they all right?”

“The facts appear to be this,” he said. “Your Mrs. Waverley, far from trying to stop me marrying you, has plotted and planned to make sure I do so. Well, I shall not be coerced into marrying you. I shall …”

“Mrs. Waverley would never do such a thing,” said Fanny. “Never! But Lady Artemis would.”

“Why?”

“Sheer, simple spite,” said Fanny furiously. “Painted useless trollop. I could kill her.”

“I do not believe you,” he said, striding up and down with his hands clasped behind his back. “This is what comes of women holding unnatural views. This is …”

“Shut up,” said Fanny crossly. “If you are going to be pompous, wait until you have some clothes on. I have been drugged, I am cold, I am thirsty, and I am not going to put up with a jaw-me-dead from a man in a nightshirt.”

“You are right,” he said with a sudden grin.“How sad that I should look ridiculous in my nightwear and you should look so enchanting.”

“It is no time for empty compliments either,” said Fanny briskly. “Whoever played this trick must be confounded. I have no intention of marrying you. I already have no reputation to speak of, and I can live down this scandal. It is only women who hope to marry who must worry about their reputations. Where is the kitchen?”

“I do not know, madam. I have had a lot more to think about than …”

“Men!” Fanny got to her feet and went out into the little vestibule. She rattled the outside door and then turned about and went back into the parlor then through a door at the back that led to a kitchen that had obviously been built on as a recent extension. Through the kitchen window, she could see a pump standing in the yard. At that moment the hardest thing to bear, as far as Fanny was concerned, was having to stand in that kitchen with a raging thirst and not be able to get a drink of water.

The earl had followed her in and was trying the back door. “Locked and stronger than the front,” he said.

Fanny wordlessly pushed past him and went upstairs. There were two bedrooms with dormer windows set into the thatch. There was a chest on the floor of the one that had obviously been used the most. She threw open the lid and found a pile of old gowns. She was just selecting one of the gowns, when the earl came in to join her.

“You seem to have found what you need,” he said. “Any men’s clothes?”

“Try the other bedroom,” said Fanny curtly. “That is, if you don’t mind stealing.”

“This is not stealing. This is necessity.”

“Oh, it’s always different for you,” said Fanny.

“May I point out that I am imprisoned?”

“Like I usually am,” said Fanny. “Go away and do something useful. My head hurts.”

Fanny found a pair of flat-heeled shoes in a cupboard. They were a trifle large, but she lashed the ribbons tightly around her ankles to secure them. The gown she had put on was of expensive material, but old-fashioned in cut and smelled strongly of camphor. She had also found a shift and stockings in a chest of drawers. There was a toilet table in one corner laden with jars of creams and pomatums. The water jug was empty.

“Found anything?” she called to the earl.

“Yes,” he replied. “I shall be with you presently.”

Fanny sat down at the toilet table and picked up a brush and brushed her hair and then braided it into a coronet on top of her head.

The nausea she had felt on waking had gone, but the raging thirst was still there. She was just thinking of all the nasty things she would like to do to Lady Artemis when the earl came in.

Fanny stifled a snort of laughter. “What clothes!” she said. “You look like a peasant beau of the 1790s!”

The earl was wearing a tight-waisted coat with very long tails. The ruffled shirt, which showed at his throat, was slightly yellow with age. He had on a striped waistcoat and yellowish-white breeches and boots. “The boots fit,” he said, “but that is all that does fit. Whoever lived here was a lady to judge by the quality of your clothes, and to judge by the quality of mine, she once had a very low and shabby beau in residence. But the soles of these boots are quite thick. If I cannot force the front door with my shoulder, at least I can kick it down.”

They went down the stairs again. The earl was getting tired of having to walk with his head bent to avoid hitting it on the ceiling.

Fanny went back into the parlor. “There’s money on the table here,” she called over her shoulder. “Good, we can take it and walk to the nearest place and hire a gig.”

“Leave it,” said the earl. “I will not take anyone else’s money—something that is hard, I know, for you to understand.”

“It is Lady Artemis’s money!” shouted Fanny.

“It probably belongs to whomever owns this cottage. It is one thing to borrow a few old clothes, quite another to take money.”

“You know,” said Fanny in conversational tones, “you are a very silly man. I am glad we are not to be married. What a cold and pompous fish you have turned out to be.”

“It is very hard to try to explain morals and right and wrong to someone who is amoral,” he snapped.

“If you were not in such a childish rage, you would take the money, but you are determined to make me feel bad about taking that jewelery,” said Fanny. “Don’t worry. I still feel wretched about that.”

He went back out of the parlor and looked at the front door. He thought of the trick that had been played on them. He kicked at the lock with savage force. There was a splintering sound as the lock gave. He continued to take his rage out on the door, kicking now at the hinges. Then he flung his weight against it and the whole door fell off its hinges onto the garden path and the earl with it.

Fanny walked delicately around his prone body and disappeared around the side of the cottage. He got to his feet and went after her. She was energetically operating the pump handle in the back yard.

“Let me,” he said, shouldering her aside. Soon a jet of clear water came pouring out, Fanny cupped her hands under it and drank and drank and then splashed water over her face.

While the earl washed his face, she looked about her. It was a sunny morning. A lark soared up into the clear air from the fields behind the cottage. The air was full of the smell of honeysuckle and roses from the tangle of the neglected garden.

Fanny took a deep breath and began to counsel herself. “You are safe and well, Fanny Waverley, and all we have to do is find a village. Now, do I take that money? No, I cannot. He will jeer at me and call me thief.”

“I suggest we set out immediately,” said the earl.

She looked so pretty, standing there in the sunlight, that he began to feel he had been behaving like a bear. It was not her fault that they were in this situation. Once again, he was amazed at her courage. She had been drugged and abducted and placed in a humiliating position, and yet she had neither screamed nor fainted.

He looked at her with a certain amount of tenderness in his eyes. Fanny saw that look and somehow it made her angrier than all his insults.

“If we are going, let us go,” she said sharply. “You do look so utterly ridiculous in those clothes, I find it hard not to laugh.”

“Very well, Miss Fanny,” he said, turning about.

“Are you not going to take the money?” she said, falling into step beside him as they reached the road.

“No,” he said. “It is a fine day and we will soon be rescued.”

It certainly looked as if their rescue was to be quickly at hand. They had only walked about half a mile when they saw a smart gig coming along the road toward them. In it sat what seemed like a prosperous-looking farmer and his wife. The earl hailed them.

The farmer reined in his horse and eyed them with disfavor. His plump wife clutched the reticule in her lap even tighter.

“I say, fellow,” said the earl in his lazy drawl. “We are anxious to get to Brighton. Can you take us up?”

The earl’s manner and voice, which would have been quite in keeping with his normal appearance, seemed like sheer impertinence to the farmer who only saw a jackanapes in the clothes of a shabby dandy.

“Brighton’s the other way,” said the farmer. Brighton was actually in the direction the farmer was going, but he wanted shot of this odd and sinister pair.

“My name is Tredair,” said the earl. The farmer looked at him blankly. “Lord Tredair,” said the earl. “If you will take us at least a little way along the road, say to the nearest village, you will be handsomely rewarded.”

“Stand out of my way,” growled the farmer, raising his whip. Now he knew this man to be a villain. What lord ever wore such clothes?

The earl stood back in surprise. The farmer cracked his whip and the gig bowled past them. They both walked into the middle of the road and looked after it.

“Good gracious!” said the earl. “What odd behavior. Why are you laughing in that idiotic way?”

“It’s you,” giggled Fanny. “You should see yourself. ‘I am Tredair,’ indeed. Of course he didn’t believe you.”

The earl gave a reluctant grin. “At least we know we are on the right road. I hope we come to somewhere soon, for I am sharp set.”

The couple smiled at each other in sudden friendship. He held out his arm and Fanny took it. Together they strolled along the road, confident they would either soon see the buildings of Brighton across the downs, or at the very least, some sort of house and village.

But they walked and walked through the lazy, dusty sunshine without meeting anyone, without seeing a single house. Fanny’s feet were beginning to ache. She stumbled once or twice, but when he offered to carry her, she refused.

And then at last, like a mirage, rising up among the dust and sunshine, they saw a trim country house set back from the road.

“Sanctuary!” said the earl, giving Fanny a quick hug. “Come along. Breakfast and pots and pots of tea!”

With quickened footsteps they went up the short drive. The earl pounded at the knocker.

The door was opened by a thin, spare woman in a cap and apron who looked them up and down.

“No hawkers, no gypsies,” she said, and made to close the door. The earl put his foot in it to stop it closing, and the woman ran off into the house, screaming, “Mr. Digby! Mr. Digby!”

“Is everyone quite mad?” said the earl testily. “Come into the hall out of the heat, Fanny.”

“I feel like an intruder,” said Fanny, standing close beside him. A door at the far end of the hall opened and a man in clerical clothes, carrying a large horse pistol, came out and stood facing them.

“I am Mr. Digby, the rector of the parish of St. Paul,” he said. He leveled the pistol at the earl. “Leave!”

“Mr. Digby,” said the earl haughtily. “My name is Tredair, the Earl of Tredair, and this is Miss Fanny Waverley.” The pistol remained pointed at him. “Come, sir. Show some charity. We are tired and hungry.”

“What is an earl doing, wandering the countryside in such dreadful clothes?” said Mr. Digby, who had a dry scholarly voice to match his thin scholarly face.

“We have had a dreadful trick played on us,” said the earl. “We were both abducted and left locked in a cottage some distance from here. We were both in our night rail and had to borrow these old clothes from the cottage. If you will send a servant into Brighton with a letter from me, the matter can be straightened out.”

“Brighton is quite a distance away. I do not trust you, sir,” said the rector. “You have the look of a highwayman about you.”

The earl would have stalked out had he been on his own, but pity for Fanny made him say, “Can you please not give this lady something to eat and drink?”

Mr. Digby studied them for what seemed an age. Then he slightly lowered the pistol. “Although your appearance is villainous,” he said, “I cannot find it in my heart to believe ill of your sweet lady. You are no doubt one of those villains of the road who drag some poor, loyal wife about with them on their nefarious thieving expeditions. Very well, you shall have food and drink … after you work for it.”

“What is this work?” demanded the earl, who was tired of protesting and arguing.

“You will find wood in the pinking shed that has not been blocked. There are three tree trunks, two to be blocked off, half of the other to be blocked, and the remaining chopped for kindling. While you get on with that, your lady may weed the flower beds.”

“Gladly,” said Fanny.

“The quicker you do it, then the quicker you will be fed,” said Mr. Digby. “But do not plague me anymore with tales of earls, or I might change my mind. Every hale and hearty beggar who comes to my door must work for his charity. The lame, and sick, of course, do not need to do so.”

“I shall do the work for you,” said the earl crossly, “but leave this lady to rest.”

“I see no reason why a perfectly healthy young woman should not earn her keep,” said Mr. Digby.

“Quite right,” agreed Fanny.

Soon she was bent over the flower beds, busily weeding. Mr. Digby had told her the gardener had been sick for some weeks and so the garden had become neglected. As she weeded, Mr. Digby’s words rang in her head. “I see no reason why a perfectly healthy young woman should not earn her keep.” Fanny’s mind raced. Even when the housekeeper briefly emerged to hand her a gardening hat, Fanny’s plans and thoughts went racing on as her nimble fingers pulled out the weeds. She could find a post as a governess. The earl would surely help her to do that! Oh, to be free! No longer would she be dependent on Mrs. Waverley. She would have her own money. Make her own life.

She was so busy with her thoughts that it came as a surprise when she heard Mr. Digby and the earl approaching. Mr. Digby was saying severely, “You did that work in record time. What a waste of a life. Take my advice, young fellow, and apply yourself to a trade.

“Come along, Fanny,” said the earl. “We are to be fed at last.”

Fanny sighed with relief when they were led into a cool dark kitchen. The food was good and plentiful and there was even ale to go with it. The earl and Fanny ate and drank silently, each aware of the grim housekeeper, who stood watching them with her arms folded.

When they were finished, the earl said, “If you will convey me to your master, my good woman, we will thank him.”

“Don’t give me any of your hoity-toity airs,” said the housekeeper. “Off with the pair of you and don’t come around here again!”

She held open the kitchen door and jerked her head.

The earl was obviously about to protest, but Fanny tugged at his sleeve. “Let’s go,” she whispered. “No one here is going to believe us if we talk and talk till Doomsday.”

The earl paused on the threshold, remembering that farmer, a sudden sharp suspicion crossing his mind.

“Which way is Brighton?” he asked the housekeeper.

“Turn left at the bottom of the drive and keep on going,” she said.

“Are you sure?” wailed Fanny. “We have just come that way and we walked miles and miles.”

“That’s the way to Brighton and that’s the way it’s always been,” said the housekeeper.

They wearily trudged down the drive.

“We had better go on the way we were going,” said the earl. “Oh, here comes that tiresome woman again!”

The housekeeper came running after them. She reluctantly held out a guinea to Fanny. “Master says you’ve to take this,” she said. “Throwing away good money, I call it.”

“Thank him very much,” said Fanny quickly, for she feared the earl was going to refuse.

They walked out into the road.

“Since he is the rector, the church must be quite near,” said the earl, “and where there’s a church, there will be houses.”

Fanny stumbled and swayed, and he caught her in his arms.

“I’m sorry,” said Fanny weakly. “It’s the effect of the drug and the food and the sunshine. If I could just lie down for a few moments …”

“There’s a field over there,” said the earl. “We can lie in the shade of the hedge for a bit.”

He swung her up in his arms and carried her into the field. He lowered her gently onto the grass and then took off his coat and made it into a pillow and put it under her head. He lay down beside her and took her in his arms and cradled her against his chest.

“Sleep, Fanny,” he said. “Look, I’m sorry for all the hard things I said to you. I was a fool not to have taken that money from the cottage table.”

But Fanny was already asleep. He kissed her tenderly on the cheek and then fell asleep himself.

***

When Mr. Fordyce had returned after failing to find the couple, he expected the house to be in an uproar. But Felicity and Frederica had assumed Fanny had escaped to go walking by the sea and so had lied to Mrs. Waverley that she was lying down in her room, and the earl was assumed to be well on the road to London, Mr. Fordyce having sent the earl’s valet away, saying his master was waiting for him in town.

Mr. Fordyce sought out Lady Artemis. “I am terrified,” he said. “We must have been mad. Tredair will be here at any moment, and he will either call me out or take both of us to court. You’ve no idea what’s he’s like when he’s in a rage.”

“I think I drank too much champagne last night,” said Lady Artemis. “My love, perhaps it would be better if we moved back to London. Mrs. Waverley can have the house. She will be glad to be shot of us, and she has her own servants here.”

“That is a cowardly action,” said Mr. Fordyce. “I think we should face Tredair together.”

“He will kill you,” pointed out Lady Artemis.

Felicity and Frederica watched anxiously as Lady Artemis and Mr. Fordyce made hurried preparations for their departure. They were becoming increasingly worried over Fanny’s disappearance.

When Lady Artemis and Mr. Fordyce had finally set out on the London road, both went to see Mrs. Waverley and told that astounded and furious woman that Fanny had disappeared, leaving all her clothes and jewels behind.

“She has gone off with Tredair, you fools,” said Mrs. Waverley. “Did you not think of that?” She began to cry. “Fanny is a wicked girl. Her name must never be mentioned in this house again. Never!”

“She would not go without leaving us a letter,” said Frederica stubbornly.

“She never cared for anyone but herself,” said Mrs. Waverley passionately. “She is a snake! A viper!”

Frederica and Felicity retreated quietly and went upstairs to one of the rooms that had a bay window overlooking the sea. They sat in silence, holding hands, and watching the sun sink lower in the sky. Neither could believe that Fanny was gone and would never return.

***

The earl awoke and looked up at the purple sky. The birds were chirping sleepily in the hedge above his head. He had not meant to sleep so long. Fanny’s head was on his chest, and her curls were tickling his nose. Her body lay against his. He was strangely content. Nothing mattered anymore except that he held Fanny in his arms. It was all very simple, he thought dreamily. I shall get us out of this predicament, and I shall marry her.

He sat up and raised Fanny up with him. She came awake, grumbling sleepily. He kissed her gently on the mouth. She tried to push him away, and then as if she, too, was feeling that same contentment, she relaxed against him and kissed him back.

They both sank back on the grass and lay there, kissing each other long and lazily. “Marry me?” said the earl at last.

“How?” said Fanny. “Mrs. Waverley will not give her permission and was not responsible for our abduction.”

“Gretna,” he whispered against her lips. “Why not?”

“Why not, indeed,” murmured Fanny, all thoughts of finding work as a governess vanishing as their lips joined in another long drugged kiss.

“Will we always quarrel?” she asked at last.

“Never again,” he said.

“Perhaps we should be on our way,” said Fanny. “I think we should go to this village and throw ourselves on the mercy of the parish constable.”

“Of all the stupid ideas!”

“It is not stupid,” said Fanny, pushing him away. “What’s your famous idea?”

“We have a guinea. We find an inn and …”

“And get insulted and turned from the doors. Look at the mess we are in! A parish constable cannot think we are villains or we would not seek him out.”

“Listen to me … !”

“No! You listen to me, you overbearing, annoying creature,” raged Fanny. “I come up with a perfectly sensible idea …”

“Which I accept,” he said, kissing her nose. “I thought we weren’t going to quarrel ever again.”

“You started it by being stupid and obnoxious and bullying.”

“Either you get up and on your way, Fanny,” he said, “or I shall keep you here all night.”

The village proved to be a mile farther on. They were shown the roundhouse and soon confronted the parish constable, an elderly shopkeeper who had been regretting that it was his month to be constable and who brightened at this odd diversion. He believed the earl simply because he wanted to believe him. He was bored and tired, and the idea of having a real live earl in his roundhouse was surely something to tell his grandchildren. He accordingly sent a note to the local magistrate saying that he had the Earl of Tredair in the roundhouse, rather than saying he had someone claiming to be the Earl of Tredair.

The magistrate arrived and listened to the earl’s story, appalled. Fanny had been right. The magistrate was perfectly sure an imposter would go nowhere near the authorities. He begged the earl to accept accommodation for the night at his own home, but the earl wearily asked the use of a carriage. The magistrate’s servants could go to Brighton with them and make sure they were who they said they were.

The earl would have liked to enliven the journey by making love to Fanny, but the magistrate’s wife had sent her own lady’s maid to accompany Fanny and make all respectable. With a sinking heart, Fanny had heard the magistrate and his wife promising the earl that they would both swear the couple had been with them the whole time so that the earl should not be compromised.

It was five in the morning when the magistrate’s coachman knocked loudly on the knocker of the house in Brighton. At last Mrs. Ricketts appeared, in cap and nightgown. She took one look at Fanny and the earl and began to cry with relief.

“Oh, Miss Fanny,” she sobbed. “I knew you would not leave us without saying good-bye.”

Frederica and Felicity came hurtling down the stairs and into Fanny’s outstretched arms. Then came Mrs. Waverley, her heavy face alight with relief. Her stray chick was home. She had trounced Tredair before, and she could trounce him again.

As Fanny was led up the stairs by Felicity and Frederica after all the explanations, the earl said, “A word with you, Mrs. Waverley, after I have thanked these servants and sent them home.”

“Not tonight,” said Mrs. Waverley. “So much shock and worry have quite overset me. In the morning, my lord, I pray you.”

The earl nodded curtly and turned away.

Mrs. Waverley began to plot and plan.

As Felicity and Frederica sat on the end of Fanny’s bed after she had undressed, all came to the conclusion that Lady Artemis had played a trick on Fanny out of spite. “They must be brought to court,” cried Felicity.

“No,” said Fanny. “No scandal. I am going to marry Tredair and that will be scandal enough.”

“I do wish you would stop this silly business of marrying Tredair,” said Felicity. “He doesn’t want to marry you. He can’t. He wants a mistress. He is only tricking you.”

“I am going to marry him with or without Mrs. Waverley’s permission,” said Fanny.

“Why?”

“I love him!”

“Nonsense,” said Frederica practically. “You know you only think you are going to lead a free life by marrying him. But you won’t have any freedom. You’ll be his mistress, having bastard after bastard, like some sort of queen bee until he tires of you.”

“I am very tired already. Go away,” said Fanny furiously.

She was so angry with them, she thought she would not sleep, but her eyes began to close as soon as they had left the room.

Chapter Eleven

It was four the following afternoon before Mrs. Waverley agreed to see the earl.

Almost before he began to speak, he knew his request to marry Fanny would be turned down.

Nonetheless, he began, “I hope you will not continue to be foolish, Mrs. Waverley. Fanny must be allowed to marry me. You have no good reason to stop her.”

“I have every reason,” said Mrs. Waverley. “Firstly, I do not believe you. You promise marriage, but you do not intend to go through with it. You want Fanny as your mistress and do not like your will to be crossed. Also, I think blaming your friend and Lady Artemis for having abducted you a shabby thing to do. It was you, my lord, who abducted Fanny. Is she still a virgin?”

The earl’s face darkened with fury. “If you were a man, I would strike you,” he raged. “I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that you have a filthy mind!”

“I am a woman,” said Mrs. Waverley, unmoved by his rage. “Women have a natural modesty. Men do not. They wish to sate their lusts under the guise of a pretty name like love. Beasts, all!”

He looked at her fat, seemingly smug face and controlled himself with an obvious effort.

“Let me tell you this, Mrs. Waverley, and listen well. I am leaving for London. I am going to wring Fordyce’s neck and then begin arrangements to take Fanny away from you. Do not try to take her away from me or hide her. I shall return and find her wherever you have put her.”

Mrs. Waverley crossed her hands in her lap and gave him a look like stone.

He gave her a brief bow and walked from the room. He went straight up to Fanny’s bedchamber, thinking hard. He should not have put Mrs. Waverley on her guard. The door opened before he could knock. “I was waiting and listening for you,” said Fanny. “What did she say?”

She stood aside to let him enter and then closed the door.

“She still insists on crediting me with the worst intentions. I want you to make sure she does not try to spirit you away, Fanny. So please pretend that you have dismissed me. No! You must listen. I must go to London and make preparations for our journey to Gretna. I must punch Fordyce’s head, that is, if he is guilty, although it seems that way. I must wind up my affairs. Please go on as you would if you had not met me. Do not even confide in the other girls or in the servants. Do you understand?”

“She might see it in my eyes,” said Fanny. “Hate, I mean. I do hate her for standing in my way.”

“Think only of pity when you look at her,” said the earl, trying to be reasonable, although at that moment he felt like throttling Mrs. Waverley. “She is a sad, frightened, lonely woman. In return for her previous kindness, treat her with courtesy until I come for you.”

“When will that be?” asked Fanny.

“A week. Look for me in a week’s time.”

“We may not be here. She did not want to stay in Lady Artemis’s house.”

“That, I think, was while Lady Artemis was in residence and likely to entertain. Now Lady Artemis has gone, and Mrs. Waverley has her own servants and the three of you to herself. The news from London is that the mob did not get as far as Hanover Square. The militia stopped them in Oxford Street. But do not tell Mrs. Waverley that. She may try to return to town, and I do not want to miss you when I come here and find you have set out for London.”

He held out his arms and Fanny went into them. He kissed her gently at first and then fiercely. “Wait for me, Fanny, and trust in me,” he said urgently.

***

Lady Artemis and Mr. Fordyce announced their betrothal in the newspapers. But they were not a very happy couple. Mr. Fordyce was appalled at what he had done, and Lady Artemis did not help by pointing out that members of society played worse jokes on each other every day of the week. Mr. Fordyce envied her careless ways and easy conscience.

But Lady Artemis was disturbed. Sometimes she wondered if she had really thought up that abduction to help Fanny or whether it had been to punish Lord Tredair for having given her a lecture. Mr. Fordyce always seemed to be in her home. She thought of Mrs. Waverley’s words and felt her freedom eroding away a bit at a time. Her servants now turned to Mr. Fordyce for their orders, not her. His perpetually passionate and innovative lovemaking was beginning to make her feel like a slut. She had a longing to be treated like a delicate flower, to be courted. He had irritating little mannerisms that were rapidly beginning to grate on her nerves. She did not like the way he made little slurping noises when he drank his tea. She did not like the way he slapped her on the bottom when lovemaking was over and called her ‘Good girl,’ as if she were a horse that had run well at Newmarket. She had canceled the tutors after Mrs. Waverley’s lessons had begun. Now she was anxious to resume her studies. All this had happened in a mere two days.

Above all she missed the joys of the chase. What was the point of going out to a ball or party when all the gentlemen knew you were already someone else’s property.

By the third day she was beginning to hope Lord Tredair would call Mr. Fordyce out.

On the fourth day she learned that Tredair was already back in London. Why he had not come near her, she did not know, but she knew he would come soon. The fact that he was delaying his visit did not suggest a duel, rather it suggested an angry lord consulting his lawyers with a view to taking both of them to court.

That evening, Lady Artemis sent word to Mr. Fordyce that she had a headache and he was on no account to call. She did not tell him the news of Tredair’s return. Then she called her servants and asked them to get her traveling carriage ready and pack her bags. She was going to Paris. Peace had been declared, and the English were flocking to Paris for the first time in years.

At midnight, when the lights in Mr. Fordyce’s house across the square had been extinguished, Lady Fordyce made her way quietly into her traveling carriage. She sat on the edge of the seat, her hands clenched, waiting and waiting in case there should be a cry of alarm that would prove Mr. Fordyce had seen her departure.

She sat bolt upright and rigid until a few miles had passed, and then she sank back against the upholstery and closed her eyes.

Freedom!

Perhaps on her return, she would seek out that odd woman, Mrs. Waverley, and continue her studies.

The next day Mr. Fordyce went eagerly across the square with a light step. He hammered on the door of Lady Artemis’s house. Her butler opened it, but instead of immediately standing back to let Mr. Fordyce enter, he barred the way.

“What is all this, Humphrey?” asked Mr. Fordyce, surveying the butler’s gloomy face. “Mistress still ill?”

“The mistress has gone, sir,” said the butler.

“Gone out? Where? It is too early to make calls.”

“I mean, gone from London, sir.”

“Nonsense, Humphrey. I do not believe you.” Mr. Fordyce pushed his way past and ran up the stairs. The drawing room was empty except for a footman in his shirt sleeves who was standing on a ladder shrouding the chandelier in holland cloth.

Mr. Fordyce went up to Lady Artemis’s bedchamber. It was a mess. Clothes were lying discarded everywhere, but he could tell after a glance that the best items in her wardrobe had gone.

“I told you so,” said the butler gloomily from the doorway. “Here’s a letter for you.”

“Why didn’t you say so earlier, man?” said Mr. Fordyce, seizing it and breaking open the seal.

“Dear Mr. Fordyce,” he read, “By the time you receive this, I shall be on my way to Wales to stay with a relative. Do not try to follow me. I made a great mistake and wish my freedom back again. I wish to terminate our engagement. Forgive me. V.A.”

“Where in Wales has she gone?” he cried. The butler, who knew very well his mistress was bound for Paris, shook his head. “I do not know,” he lied. “My lady would not tell us.”

Mr. Fordyce was stricken. It dismally occurred to him that Lady Artemis had never called him John. Even in moments of high passion. Why had she left? He had serviced her well. He had been tender and loving. He never so much as glanced at another woman. Why?

He made his way back to his own home and into his library and sat down and stared at the floor. He was still sitting staring at the floor an hour later when the Earl of Tredair was announced.

The earl had been wondering what to do about Mr. Fordyce. He did not want to call him out. Duels had a nasty way of getting into the newspapers. Duels were now illegal, and he did not want to have to flee to the continent before his marriage. He could not take the matter to court without causing a scandal.

Mr. Fordyce did not even look up as he came into the library.

“I find it hard to believe that you would play such a dirty trick,” said the earl, glaring down at him. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Fordyce.

“Why, in God’s name?”

“Lady Artemis wished you to be reconciled with Miss Fanny. She thought that might happen if she threw you together. Also, she thought you deserved to be cured of your high and mighty attitude as regards Miss Fanny’s thieving.”

“Which you told her about after promising me not to breathe a word?”

Mr. Fordyce shrugged. “A man should have no secrets from the woman he loves. We did it for the best. If you wish to challenge me to a duel, I am ready to meet you.”

He raised his eyes and the earl stifled an exclamation at the world of misery there.

“Where is Lady Artemis?” asked the earl.

“She is gone. She has left me. She wishes to cancel our engagement.”

“Why?”

“She says she wants to be free. Women were ever fickle. My heart is broken.”

“Hearts don’t break,” said the earl cynically. Then he wondered how he would feel if he returned to Brighton and found Fanny did not want him. A cold feeling of dismay stole over him.

“I think you have been punished enough,” said the earl.

“Please tell me all is well with you and Miss Fanny?” pleaded Mr. Fordyce.

The earl walked from the room without replying. He had no intention of confiding in Mr. Fordyce again. He went home and rushed through the final arrangements for his departure. Was Fanny still missing him? Or had Mrs. Waverley been seeping poison in her ears?

***

Fanny was finding it all a great strain. Frederica and Felicity were in high spirits. They loved Brighton. They were allowed to go out walking accompanied by Mrs. Ricketts and were relishing their new freedom. Mrs. Waverley was particularly tender to Fanny, stroking her hair at every opportunity, and calling her “most beloved.”

Mrs. Waverley had made a few friends among like-minded ladies of the town. In that way she was able to find out that all the gossip about her and the girls had died down. Only one piece of gossip had stuck and that was that all the Waverleys were fabulously rich. Tradesmen vied with each other for Mrs. Waverley’s custom and sent presents of wine and delicacies. Mrs. Ricketts remarked to Fanny that when folks thought you were rich, you could live comfortably without spending a penny.

Fanny longed to confide in Frederica and Felicity but did not dare do so, apart from the fact she would be breaking her promise to the earl. The two girls appeared very young to Fanny now. They had reverted to their usual squabbles and horseplay.

They made Fanny tell the story of her abduction over and over again. They particularly liked the bits where the earl was taken for a villain.

Fanny said it was hard to understand, for the earl was handsome and did not have a sinister cast of face, but Frederica said his eyes were too clever. Proper gentlemen had blank, stupid eyes.

Lying in the bottom drawer of a bureau in her room were three letters Fanny had written. One was to Mrs. Waverley and the other two to Felicity and Frederica. She planned to take them out and leave them on top of the bureau after she made her escape.

Soon the week of waiting was nearly over. Fanny began to worry. What if he had forgotten about her in London? There were so many pretty women there, of good family too, who would be happy to have him for a husband.

She did not dare pack a trunk, but she went up to her room to sort out in her mind the clothes she would take with her. She planned to leave all her jewelery behind. She hated every bauble now.

She pushed open the door and let out a gasp. Frederica and Fanny were standing together at the window, reading those letters she had planned to leave behind when she eloped.

She ran forward and snatched them away, crying, “How dare you poke and pry among my things!”

“I was looking for my pale pink shift,” said Frederica, hard-faced, “and Mrs. Ricketts said it might have been put with your things by mistake. What is the meaning of this, Fanny?”

Fanny looked at their furious faces and knew she was going to have to lie. If she pleaded with Frederica, if she told her of the elopement, then Frederica would be convinced the earl was tricking her and meant to make her his mistress.

“I wrote those some time ago,” said Fanny. “I thought we were going to elope. But then I saw he could never marry me. I forgot about the letters. Tear them up. All is over between myself and the Earl of Tredair. I shall never see him again.”

The strain of the long week’s wait told on Fanny at last, and she burst into tears, which was the best thing she could have done, for the two girls thought she was weeping because she had at last found out the earl’s evil intentions.

Frederica and Felicity hugged her. Such had been Mrs. Waverley’s teaching that they both believed that no man would ever want them in marriage. Frederica vowed never to become as “soft” as Fanny. She felt much older than Fanny and much harder. Any man would find it difficult to trick her.

“So I will take these nasty stupid letters away and burn them,” said Frederica. “You are lucky we found them and not Mrs. Waverley.”

That evening Fanny retired early after dinner. She sat down and wrote three more letters, wondering where to hide them this time.

There came a scratching at the door, and Fanny placed the letters under a large ewer on her toilet table and called, “Come in!”

Mrs. Ricketts entered and went quickly to Fanny’s side. “It’s tonight, miss.”

“What is?” asked Fanny.

“The elopement, to be sure.”

Fanny clutched the housekeeper, her eyes shining. “He has come back?”

“Yes, miss. I was out walking this afternoon when his servant approached me and gave me money and a letter. He knows there might be a terrible scene and the authorities called if he tries to take you out the front way. I cannot unlock the door for him, for I would lose my job.”

“So what is he going to do?”

“Come up to your bedchamber by a ladder in the back garden. I’ve left the garden gate at the side of the house unlocked. I’ve brought a long rope. We have to lower your trunk into the garden first, as soon as it’s dark.”

“Oh, Mrs. Ricketts, bless you!”

“Don’t bless me, miss, until you get clean away. Miss Felicity’s likely to be lying awake reading, and her bedchamber overlooks the garden as well.”

“What time will he come?”

“Two in the morning. Now, for that trunk. Lock your door while I pack.”

Fanny brought out gowns and mantles, bonnets and pelisses while Mrs. Ricketts arranged everything in a stout trunk. “This will never do, miss,” she said straightening up. “Your bonnets will get crushed in here. Hand me that bandbox from the top of the wardrobe.”

“I think we are taking too much,” said Fanny anxiously. “Did he not say one trunk?”

“Well, his servants did. But men never think of practical things like what to do with bonnets.”

At last both trunk and bandbox were corded up. Mrs. Ricketts tied them both firmly to a long length of rope while Fanny gently eased up the window. They heaved the luggage over the sill and began to lower it slowly.

“What if someone looks out and sees it?” hissed Fanny.

“Let’s just hope they don’t,” said Mrs. Ricketts, “and if they do, you’re to swear blind it was all your own doing.”

There was a soft thud as bandbox and trunk hit the grass below.

“Now, it’s up to you and my lord,” said Mrs. Ricketts.

“You do not need to worry about your job here,” said Fanny, hugging the housekeeper. “You can come to me.”

“I shall stay here, miss, and take care of the other two. Better for you to know they have someone looking out for their interests.”

After she had left, Fanny sat and waited. The hours at first dragged by and then seem to speed up. Two o’clock came. Then ten past. Then half past.

Fanny was close to tears with the strain of waiting. What if he did not come?

And then she heard a grating sound from outside the window. She opened it again and leaned out. A ladder was propped against the sill. She turned about and took the letters from under the ewer and placed them on the mantlepiece.

The earl’s face appeared at the window. “Come,” he said softly.

“Do you really mean to marry me?” asked Fanny, suddenly afraid.

“Of all the stupid things to say,” he said crossly. “I am not in the habit of climbing up ladders in the middle of the night to abduct females. Are you going to stand there twittering all night? I could shake you, Fanny.”

Fanny let out a nervous giggle and crossed to the window. “Are you going to carry me over your shoulder?” she asked.

“No, Fanny, I think you are quite capable of getting down by yourself,” said the earl, beginning to back down the ladder.

Fanny climbed after him. The night was warm and the scents of the garden rose to meet her. When she reached the bottom of the ladder two servants glided out of the darkness and began to carry it away. The earl put a hand at her waist and hurried her through the garden.

The sound of the restless sea met their ears, and they climbed into a traveling carriage laden with luggage. There was another carriage behind with more luggage, and the earl’s servants and four outriders carrying torches.

Fanny stood with one foot on the steps of the coach and looked up at the house.

Then she let out a gasp. Frederica was leaning out of a front window, her hair streaming about her shoulders.

Frederica saw the traveling coaches, the outriders, the earl, and Fanny.

“Come back, Fanny,” she screamed. “He will betray you.”

The earl pushed Fanny into the carriage. “Drive on,” he called to the coachman who whipped up the horses.

Frederica stayed there, clutching hold of the sill. What could she do? What could Mrs. Waverley do? What could anyone in this whole household of women do? A stern father would have ridden after them, brothers would have challenged the earl to a duel, or magistrates would be called in to stop the marriage.

She turned away from the window. She did not go to Fanny’s room. She knew now those letters had been written for this night. She went to Felicity’s room. Felicity was lying awake, reading. She had just been reading about a most exciting elopement and so vivid had the description been that Felicity could have sworn she actually heard the ladder grate against the wall, the stifled whispers, and the carriages racing off into the night.

“Fanny’s gone,” said Frederica. “You must come with me to Mrs. Waverley. I cannot bear her tantrums on my own.”

“Gone!” said Felicity. “She has betrayed us.”

Frederica shrugged. “In Fanny’s case, she thinks it’s the world well lost for love. She deserves our pity. She will learn her fate soon enough.”

“Those letters …?”

“Yes, those were the letters we were supposed to find tomorrow morning. She has probably rewritten them. Let us collect them and go to Mrs. Waverley.”

Mrs. Waverley’s rage was terrifying. She did not shout or weep as the girls expected her to, but sat like stone with only her pale eyes flashing fire.

“She will try to come back to us,” said Mrs. Waverley, “after he has ruined her. She is not to be allowed pity or charity.”

“Are women who fall from grace because of the machinations of some man not deserving of pity?” asked Frederica.

“No,” said Mrs. Waverley. “Not Fanny. You see what men are like? Stay with me. Keep close to me and all will be well.”

Despite her distress, Frederica saw a way of manipulating Mrs. Waverley into allowing them more freedom.

“When you look at it,” she said, “it is not entirely Fanny’s fault.”

“How so?” asked Mrs. Waverley.

“What do we know of men or the outside world? Had Fanny been allowed to go out more, she would not have fallen head over heels for the first man who looked at her. Now Felicity is in danger,” said Frederica, surreptitiously pinching Felicity’s arm, a sign to that young lady to remain silent.”

“Felicity?” cried Mrs. Waverley. “Has some man …?”

“No,” said Frederica. “But she has been addling her brains with romances from the circulating library.”

“She is not allowed to read romances!”

“There you are,” said Frederica. “We are not allowed to do so many things that you must understand our lapses. If you continue to restrict our liberty, then we shall both, like Fanny, begin to see any man as the only means of escape.”

The angry fire died out of Mrs. Waverley’s eyes, and she began to look hunted. “Leave me,” she said weakly. “The shock of Fanny’s betrayal has been great.”

The girls went back upstairs. “Why did you have to tell her about me reading romances?” said Felicity fiercely. “I thought we had given up telling tales on each other.”

“I had to frighten her,” said Frederica, “else the shock of Fanny’s escape should make her keep us housebound more than ever before.”

“Don’t you think the earl means to marry Fanny?” asked Felicity. “He went to an awful lot of trouble, and with his title and money he could get any woman he wanted.”

“They get jaded,” said Frederica worldly wise. “Women are like food to them. They are always searching out some new and different gourmet treat. If you think of poor Fanny at all, think of her lying naked on a platter with an orange in her mouth.”

Felicity began to giggle and Frederica to laugh. Mrs. Ricketts heard the laughter and shook her head. It was all for the best. No one but herself had ever had one spark of affection for little Miss Fanny.

***

On their return to London, life certainly took a change for the better for the two remaining Waverley girls. Mrs. Waverley took them out, not to balls and parties, but to plays and operas, museums and exhibitions, and occasionally for a drive in the Park. Instead of attiring them in their drab schoolgirl outfits, she compromised by dressing them in plain but fashionable clothes.

Frederica and Felicity often talked about Fanny. Frederica vowed that if she returned a broken reed in need of help, then they would help her every way they could. She never noticed that Felicity was always very silent on the subject of Fanny. Felicity had written a furious letter to Fanny to the earl’s town house, calling her every name under the sun. She was already regretting that letter, but she had written it in the heat of the moment when she had felt betrayed by Fanny. Both girls believed that Mrs. Waverley was right and that Tredair would ruin Fanny. That trust in Mrs. Waverley’s judgment bound the girls close to her.

Mrs. Waverley was so delighted with the girls new affection for her that she allowed Frederica one day to coerce her into taking them to the Park at the fashionable hour instead of driving out at a time when they could be guaranteed to meet as few people as possible.

The girls dressed in slightly finer clothes than they were usually allowed to wear. The day was chilly and gray. Both Frederica and Felicity prayed it would not rain, for they were to go to the Park in an open carriage.

The carriage was rented. Mrs. Waverley would have loved a female coachman, but knew that would be far too shocking a thing for society to accept. So she always rented her carriages from the livery stables, which meant she did not have to tolerate men servants except on drives.

Frederica and Felicity were excited at the grand sight of all the fashionable clothes and glittering carriages. “I think, girls,” said Mrs. Waverley, leaning forward, “that it is time I gave you an allowance. Pin money, you know.”

She leaned back smiling as the girls chorused their thanks. Mrs. Waverley was happier than she had ever been before. She was loved by her girls. It was good that Fanny was gone. Fanny must have been the disruptive influence.

Then her face hardened. “There is Mr. Fordyce,” she said. “Cut him!”

The girls turned their faces away, but Mr. Fordyce rode along beside the carriage.

“Great news from Gretna!” he cried. “Tredair and Fanny are married.”

Mrs. Waverley’s head jerked around to face him as if on wires. “You must be mistaken. Stop!” she called to the coachman.

Mr. Fordyce pulled a newspaper from a capacious pocket. “It’s in the evening paper,” he said. “You may have it.” He dropped it on Mrs. Waverley’s lap and rode off.

“Is it true?” asked Frederica.

Mrs. Waverley slowly read the account. There it all was. The Earl of Tredair and Miss Fanny Waverley were married at Gretna by the blacksmith over the anvil. The earl was quoted as saying he would marry his countess again in church as soon as she reached her majority.

Frederica snatched the paper from Mrs. Waverley and Felicity, and she read it with their heads together.

A witness at the wedding was quoted as saying he had never seen a couple so much in love.

Frederica felt betrayed, not by Fanny, but by Mrs. Waverley.

“Move on,” cried Mrs. Waverley to the coachman. She avoided the girls’ eyes.

“Got to stay where we are for a bit, madam,” called the coachman. “Seems His Royal Highness is approaching.”

“Drive on! I command you!” cried Mrs. Waverley, turning quite white.

“Can’t do that, madam,” said the coachman. “Everyone stops for the prince.”

All the carriages were lined up. A swannecked phaeton, driven by the Prince Regent himself, came bowling slowly along, the prince nodding and waving to first one and then the other.

He came alongside the Waverleys’ carriage. It all happened so quickly, but Frederica saw the startled and then half-ashamed look in the prince’s eyes as he stared at Mrs. Waverley. Mrs. Waverley was ashen-faced.

“Good day to you,” said the prince and drove quickly away.

“I did not know you knew the Prince Regent,” cried Frederica.

“I don’t,” said Mrs. Waverley. “I met him briefly at Lady Artemis’s salon, that is all. Oh, please move, driver, and take us home.”

Frederica clutched the newspaper, her mind in a whirl. She had often wondered who exactly Mrs. Waverley was and where she came from. By the time they reached home, she was determined to find out. There was a mystery here, and solving that mystery might give her a hold over Mrs. Waverley, a hold that would mean more freedom and independence.

***

“And where do we go now?” asked Fanny, after that first delirious night of lovemaking as man and wife. “Do we go back to London?”

“No, I have decided we are to go to France on our honeymoon,” said the earl.

They were in his carriage, moving down the Great North Road. Fanny leaned her head against his chest and sighed, “I would like to see Frederica and Felicity again.”

“And so you shall, my sweet, after our honeymoon. That will give them time to forgive you.”

“I cannot yet get used to being so free and happy,” said Fanny.

“Don’t you feel tied to me?”

“Yes, but not imprisoned. I am still a modern woman and demand my rights my lord. Kiss me!”

He folded her in his arms and kissed her passionately while the coach lurched and swayed down the long road south.

Silken Bonds

M.C. Beaton

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter One

Marriage was the highest, most laudable ambition a woman could have in Regency England. Women were put on earth to support men, to comfort them, to sustain them. A woman was compared to the tender ivy winding around a strong tower: useless on its own, it just spread along the ground, and needed a strong support to flourish. To cling and draw strength from the lord and master set a woman among the angels.

Most women accepted this role, and a very comforting one it was, too. Protected and sheltered as they were from the realities of life up until the eve of their marriage, gently bred young girls could manage to survive all the rude shocks of the marriage bed and subsequent childbirth by being convinced in their minds that anything inflicted on them must not only be endured but welcomed. It was their divine duty.

But for the small band of women who thought marriage should be a joining of equals, life was very difficult. It was all very well to have these highly modern notions, but where on earth did one find a man to agree with them?

The solution was obviously to shun men entirely, while preaching and laying the ground for a future generation of liberated women.

Such a woman was Mrs. Maria Waverley of Hanover Square in London’s fashionable West End. She was rich enough to please herself and rich enough to buy herself a family. She had adopted three girls out of the orphanage: Fanny, Frederica, and Felicity. But despite all her care, and all her lessons, Fanny, the eldest, had run off to be married, a betrayal felt keenly by the remaining Waverley women, none more so than Frederica Waverley, just turned eighteen.

Although Frederica chafed at the restricted life they led, she could not help but agree with Mrs. Waverley’s teachings. She was highly educated, as were all three Waverley girls, and considered herself the intellectual equal of any man.

But sometimes she could not help thinking that Mrs. Waverley, in her way, demanded the same unswerving loyalty and unquestioning obedience as a husband. Mrs. Waverley not only held the purse strings, she also held over the two remaining girls the threat that she could turn them out if they did not behave themselves.

Neither Frederica nor Felicity loved Mrs. Waverley, nor could either bring themselves to call that lady “mother.” Mrs. Waverley operated on a divide-and-rule policy, trying to set one girl against the other so as to bind each closer to herself. Fanny, now gone, had become wise to this ploy and had opened the other girls’ eyes to it.

Before Fanny had eloped, life for the Waverley girls had become less narrow. But after Fanny’s betrayal, as Mrs. Waverley called it, the walls closed in again. Frederica and Felicity were only allowed out of the house for sedate walks. This imprisonment had not mattered very much during the exceptionally severe winter. But when winter gave way to spring, and London began to hold that heady, strung-up air which heralded a new Season, Frederica began to feel restless.

Unlike Fanny and Felicity, she was fiery and impulsive. She had masses of thick, slate-colored hair, which had a springy, natural curl. Her skin was a golden color, making Mrs. Waverley—when she was cross with her—call her a gypsy. But Frederica’s eyes were a startlingly vivid blue, very large and framed with thick, sooty lashes, which gave an appealing air of femininity to a face that was otherwise too strong for what was hailed as beauty in this first part of the nineteenth century.

The cult of the child bride or little doll was all the rage. It was fashionable for a woman to be stupid, to lisp, and to cultivate pretty babyish ways. The fashion at the court of Marie Antoinette for complete idleness, of never even opening a door for oneself, had finally seeped over and into English society despite the upheaval of the French Revolution and the Great Colonial War. Not only that, it became the fashion for a woman not to think deeply about anything. Useless bodies and useless minds led to fashionable posturing and subsequently to “going into a decline.”

When warm weather and sunny skies finally returned to London, Frederica decided it was time to see about arranging a little more freedom. She considered Felicity to be little help as an ally. Felicity had become quiet and pale and silent since Fanny’s departure. There had been a strong rivalry among the girls that still remained to a certain extent. Frederica privately envied Felicity’s more gentle, feminine looks, but would not admit this to herself and damned the girl as being totally useless.

Frederica’s plan was therefore to manipulate Mrs. Waverley into taking them out somewhere more exciting than round and round Hanover Square on their carefully guarded walks. As soon as she had achieved that, she meant to set about finding out the identity of her parents. Fanny had tried and failed, but Frederica considered herself to be made of sterner stuff. The little she knew was that the three of them had been taken from a foundling hospital in Greenwich and from there to an orphanage.

The house in Hanover Square was well appointed and efficiently run. There were no menservants, only women. Mrs. Waverley did not even keep a carriage, since to do so would mean having a male stable staff, and so rented one from the livery stables when she needed to go out driving.

Frederica went along to her boudoir one morning to start loosening the prison bars a little.

Mrs. Waverley was sitting at a small escritoire in the corner of her boudoir, writing letters. She was a heavyset woman with one of those proud, fleshy faces you see on old cameos. She turned round as Frederica entered the room.

“Tell Felicity to be in the library in half an hour,” said Mrs. Waverley. “That Greek translation of hers was not all it should be, and you yourself, Frederica, are not paying proper attention to your lessons these days.”

“We have a very limited education,” said Frederica.

“My dear child. You have the best. Have I not taught you the masculine sciences as well as a knowledge of languages?” By masculine sciences, Mrs. Waverley did not mean fencing or boxing, but physics and mathematics.

“I thought the purpose of our education was to prove that women have minds the equal of men,” said Frederica. “But we are not in the least equal to men. In fact, we are in our way less than any of the pretty dolls who have come to London to look for a husband.”

Mrs. Waverley’s face flushed with anger. “How so?”

“Balls and parties may be frivolous pursuits,” said Frederica, “but plays and operas are not. You had begun to enlarge our experience, but since Fanny fled, you have made us recluses again. You have no faith in our strength of mind. We are kept at home like useless toys. It makes one think that marriage might offer more freedom.”

“You ungrateful girl!” said Mrs. Waverley.

“I am not ungrateful,” retorted Frederica. “Only think what people must be saying. You think they are walking past the house and saying, ‘That is where Mrs. Waverly lives, that great champion of rights of women.’ But they are probably saying, ‘That’s where that odd recluse lives… you know—the one nobody sees.’”

“Go to your room,” raged Mrs. Waverley. “You are unkind and unfeeling and—”

“Truthful,” pointed out Frederica. “Cannot we have a reasonable debate on the subject, or must your very female emotions always get in the way? Of what are you frightened? That I shall run off with some man? I am not like poor Fanny, who is probably discovering what misery marriage is.”

“Go away,” said Mrs. Waverley quietly. “I shall expect you both shortly to attend your lessons.”

Frederica left, feeling defeated. There must be someone she could apply to for help.

But Lady Artemis, who lived across the square and who might have been relied on to spur Mrs. Waverley into some sort of action, was traveling on the continent. Mr. Fordyce, who had taken the house next door to the Waverleys, had given it up ever since the time Lady Artemis had jilted him, and so he could not be called on, either.

Frederica slouched into Felicity’s room and kicked the door shut behind her with her foot. Felicity was lying on the top of the bed, reading a book.

“That’s all you ever do,” jeered Frederica. “Read, read, read.”

Felicity put down the book and looked wearily at her sister. “I find life between the pages a great deal more interesting than real life,” she said. “What ails you, gypsy? Someone steal your cooking pot?”

“I’ve been trying to get her to take us out a bit more,” said Frederica, “but she won’t be moved. You’ve got to come downstairs for your lessons. Your Greek translation needs improving.”

Felicity groaned. She clasped her hands behind her head and stared at the ceiling. “You know,” she said dreamily, “I think the time has come for me to go into a decline.”

“That’s just the sort of thing a weak-brained creature like you would think of.”

“Can you think of a better idea?” demanded Felicity. “The doctor will come. I shall whisper painfully that I am in need of entertainment to liven my spirits. I shall look so frail and delicate—you couldn’t look frail and delicate if you tried for a year, Frederica—and before I bless Mrs. Waverley with my last dying breath, I am sure she will be forced to take some sort of action.”

“Strikes me as totty-headed.”

Felicity grinned. “Bet it works.”

“All right. I’ll try anything,” said Frederica. “What do you want me to do?”

“Well, for a start you can hand me that pot of blanc so that I can whiten my face.”

“No, I will not. That stuff contains lead. If you don’t die of lead poisoning, you will end up with your face pitted like the face of the moon.”

“I made it myself, stupid. The main ingredients are glycerine and white wax. Go and tell Mrs. Waverley I cannot attend lessons. I am dying.”

“Very well,” said Frederica. “But don’t blame me if she gives you a purge!”

“Take your time,” called Felicity. “I have a lot of preparations to make.”

When Frederica returned with Mrs. Waverley half an hour later she was amazed at the scene that met her eyes. The curtains were drawn close and Felicity’s pale, wan face seemed to float in the gloom. There was also a smell of sickness in the room, a sweetish smell of decay.

Mrs. Waverley tried to question Felicity, but Felicity lay there, unmoving, her eyes blank.

Alarmed, Mrs. Waverley sent for a physician. There were naturally no women physicians, and so a man set foot in the house in Hanover Square for the first time that year.

Mrs. Waverley and Frederica waited downstairs for the physician’s report. Frederica was almost on the point of confessing the trick to Mrs. Waverley, so anxious and distraught did that lady look, when the physician, Dr. Jenkins, came down the stairs.

“Is it serious?” asked Mrs. Waverley.

“She is going into a decline,” said the doctor. “There is nothing I can do for her except suggest you find some way to raise her spirits. I have known the promise of a treat to rouse many young ladies from their sickbed.”

“But what treat?” cried Mrs. Waverley. “I will do anything! Anything!”

“Perhaps it would be a good idea to ask Felicity what it is would amuse her,” said Frederica smoothly.

“Exactly!” said the physician. “I have given her a restorative cordial, but it is the mind which is ill, not the body. I have heard of you, Mrs. Waverley, and must take you to task. This is what comes of taxing the weak female brain with too much knowledge. The poor, little, dainty creatures cannot sustain it and fall ill. What Miss Felicity needs is a few beaux and a few parties. She was mumbling and fretting over some Ancient Greek translation. I beg you, Mrs. Waverley, to be careful, or you will drive her mad!”

Mrs. Waverley took a deep breath. “I would point out, sir, that it is you who will drive me mad. I have never heard such rubbish! I…”

Frederica slipped quietly out of the room and ran upstairs to Felicity.

“I don’t think it’s going to work,” she said anxiously. “That stupid doctor is giving Mrs. Waverley a lecture on the feebleness of the female brain and she is becoming quite incensed. But perhaps she might ask you what would entertain you.”

This proved to be too high a hope. Mrs. Waverley shortly entered and said that as soon as Felicity was better, she would arrange a social visit. But the proposed visit was to a dried-up old spinster friend, a Miss Pursey, who lived in Montague Street. To Frederica’s surprise, Felicity immediately pretended to rally.

“And what is the good of a visit to that old harridan?” asked Frederica after Mrs. Waverley had left the room.

“It is better than nothing,” said Felicity. “We shall be out and about in London and that’s a start. If you look under my bed, Frederica, my sweet, you will find a dead cat in the chamber pot. It was necessary to find something to give the room that smell of sickness. Do throw it out the window for me.”

Mrs. Pursey was duly warned of the forthcoming invasion. Then Mrs. Waverley found that all the carriages at the livery stable had already been taken out because there was a great prizefight over on the Surrey side. For a lady to take a hack was not fashionable, but they were so laden down with jewels that they did not dare walk, and so Mrs. Waverley hired three sedan chairs. Sedan chairs were going out of fashion and more than Mrs. Waverley mourned their departure. The advantage of taking a chair, particularly on rainy nights, was that you could step into it in the comfort of your own hall and then be borne right into the mansion you were visiting.

The Waverley girls were treated like women in a harem. They were allowed to wear their best clothes and jewels only when there were other women to see them.

Fanny had fled, leaving all her jewels, and they had been divided up between the two remaining girls.

Unmarried misses were supposed to content themselves with simple, unpretentious jewelry such as a coral necklace or a locket. But the Waverley girls blazed with jewels like barbaric princesses.

Frederica was wearing a simple white muslin gown under a gold silk pelisse trimmed with swans-down. But a great collar of rubies blazed at her neck and heavy bracelets of rubies encircled her arms. Felicity had chosen sapphires in contrast: sapphire necklace, sapphire bracelets, and long sapphire earrings.

Mrs. Waverley’s pelisse, of striped sarcenet, was fastened at the front with diamond-and-white-gold clasps and a great diamond brooch was pinned on the front of her velvet turban.

Miss Pursey would have liked to refuse to entertain the Waverleys, for she lived in genteel poverty and knew even the few sandwiches and cakes she would need to produce would mean she would have very little to eat in the days to come. But she had often been entertained royally at Mrs. Waverley’s, and so when that lady had sent her a note to say they were descending on her, she felt she could not refuse.

With tears of gratitude and relief in her eyes, she accepted a large basket of delicacies from Frederica. Frederica, unlike Mrs. Waverley, had remembered Mrs. Pursey’s straitened circumstances, and had the thoughtfulness to augment that lady’s poor larder.

Miss Pursey’s two friends, Miss Baxter and Miss Dunbar, were also there. Frederica thought dismally that nothing had really changed. Another evening with the faded ladies. Another evening of poetry reading. Another evening of orgeat and stale cakes. Frederica looked impatiently at their blazing jewels. How tempting it was to take off just one ruby bracelet and leave it behind. It would keep poor Miss Pursey in comfort for quite a long time. But Miss Pursey would return the bracelet. Outside the poky little house in Montague Street, stretched nighttime London, full of excitement and adventure. Perhaps I shall never escape, thought Frederica. Perhaps when I am quite old, thirty, say, I shall still be here, listening to poor Miss Pursey read her dreadful poems. Fanny had adventures. Fanny was taken up in a balloon. Even her elopement was an adventure. She cannot be happy. No woman can be happy as the slave to some man. I wish I had not been so angry with her. Now I do not know where she is and how she is. Oh, God, send me just one small adventure!

Mrs. Waverley was obviously enjoying herself. She was reading aloud an essay she had written, called “The Thraldom of Womankind.” Frederica stifled a yawn. Felicity’s trick of appearing to go into a decline had been wasted if this boring evening was the only result.

At last, Mrs. Waverley rose to take her leave. Miss Pursey sent her little maid out to look for chairs. After some time, the maid returned to say there was not a chairman or a hack in sight.

Mrs. Waverley unpinned the diamond brooch from her turban and told the girls to unfasten their jewelry and to put it in her reticule. They would walk. It was not so very far to Hanover Square.

As they walked down Montague Street, Mrs. Waverley admonished them, “Keep your eyes firmly on the ground if we pass any gentlemen, girls!”

They had just reached the corner of New Quebec and Upper Seymour streets when they were confronted with a party of drunken bloods. Mrs. Waverley put down her heavy head—rather in the manner of a charging bull—and hurried down the street.

“I say, hold hard!” cried one of the men. He caught hold of Felicity’s arm and swung her round. There were five men, all reeking strongly of spirits. Their eyes gleamed feverishly in the dim light of the parish lamps.

“Pray, let my sister go,” said Frederica in chilly accents. “I do not want to have to scream for the constable.”

The man who was holding Felicity dropped her arm. Perhaps matters would have ended there, for the men were startled by the authority in Frederica’s voice. But Mrs. Waverley, who had rushed on, swung about, snatched a large hat pin like a rapier from her turban, and flew at the men. She stabbed the one who had caught Felicity in the hand with the pin.

He cursed furiously and lashed out and struck Mrs. Waverley a mighty blow across the face so that she fell to the ground.

Frederica’s brain was working very fast indeed. She knew now there was only one thing she could do: scream.

She threw back her head and let out the most tremendous scream for help, which bounded off the buildings roundabout and resounded down the streets.

That elegant creature, Lord Harry Danger, was strolling home toward St. James’s after a pleasant dinner. He heard that dreadful scream and started to run lightly in the direction from which it had come.

He took in the scene at a glance—the heavy matron lying moaning on the ground, the two young girls facing up to a band of drunken men.

“I say,” he said plaintively, “leave ’em alone do. Dear me. Did you actually strike that poor lady?”

The leader of the men focused his bleary gaze on Lord Harry. He saw before him a tall Exquisite in evening dress, carrying only a cane in one hand and a scented handkerchief in the other.

“Be on your way, milksop,” he growled. “We are going to teach these women a lesson.”

“Well, I cannot let you do anything to them,” said Lord Harry. “You see, I have a mind to escort them home.”

The leader made an impatient noise and swung his fist. Lord Harry neatly jumped aside with the dexterity of a ballet dancer. Another of the men seized Lord Harry from behind. It appeared to Frederica as if Lord Harry only gave a shrug of his elegant shoulders, but the next minute the man who had attacked him was sailing over Lord Harry’s head to land with a thud in the kennel.

“Leave him to me.” He was a thickset fellow with great, long, muscular arms. He lunged at Lord Harry with his fist. Lord Harry ducked and then brought his own fist up hard against the man’s chin. There was a cracking sound and a howl, and then the leader stretched his length on the pavement. The others ran away.

“What a punch, sir!” cried Frederica, while Felicity went to help Mrs. Waverley to her feet. “How did you do it?”

Lord Harry looked ruefully at his split glove and then opened his hand. In his palm, he held a rouleau of guineas. “Great things, the coin of the realm,” he said. “Adds that certain something to a punch. Now, ladies, you had better give me your direction.”

“I thank you very much,” said Mrs. Waverley. “Hanover Square, if you please. May we know the name of our rescuer?”

“Lord Harry Danger, at your service, ma’am.”

“I am Mrs. Waverley, my lord, and these are my daughters, Miss Frederica and Miss Felicity.”

“We would have managed very well, Mrs. Waverley,” said Frederica severely, “if you had not chosen to drive a hat pin into that ugly man’s hand. It put up his temper no end.”

“Women must learn to defend themselves,” said Mrs. Waverly huffily.

“Then I suggest you enlarge our education,” said Frederica tartly. “Instead of wasting the hours on Latin and Greek, might not you be better employed in introducing us to the arts of pugilism? After all, are you not always saying that women are equal to men?”

“Do you say that?” Lord Harry sounded amused. “Well, you’re wrong, you know.”

“Of course, I would expect you to think so,” said Frederica, with a tinge of contempt in her voice. “In what way are we not equal?”

“Simple,” said Lord Harry. “Men can’t have babies. Deuced clever thing, having babies!”

Mrs. Waverley’s ample bosom swelled in outrage. “Ladies present,” she said. “How dare you mention such a subject to tender ears!”

“My apologies, ma’am. You will find me lacking in polish. There are so many words one cannot mention in front of ladies these days—legs, breeches, babies. I declare, if this censorship goes on, we shall return to the Stone Age and converse in a series of grunts. I have heard of you, Mrs. Waverley. I met the Earl of Tredair and his new bride on my recent travels.”

“How is Fanny?” asked Frederica breathlessly. “I mean, how goes the new countess?”

“Blooming and happy,” he said, with a smile.

“We do not talk of her.” Mrs. Waverley’s voice was full of suppressed rage.

“Hey ho! It appears we do not talk about a lot of things,” said Lord Harry. “To return to the subject of babies, an educationalist like yourself must cry out against the ignorance of the average woman and do all in her power to rectify it. Now, my cousin had two of ’em before she actually realized what giving birth was. Didn’t know what was happening to her. That must be a frightening thing—ignorance, I mean.”

“Women must be protected from the lusts of men,” said Mrs. Waverley, quickening her step, anxious to get home and get rid of this uncomfortable jackanapes.

“And how would you have them do that?” he asked, with interest. “Not marry at all? The population would die out in no time at all.”

“There will always be untutored primitives to keep the human race going,” said Frederica, beginning to be amused.

“And what happens to old England when there are more of them than us? Invasion, ma’am! And who would be there to defend the shores? A lot of mopping and mowing, toothless old people. You could be damned as a traitor, ma’am, willing the decline of England by turning all the ladies into Lysistratas.”

Mrs. Waverley reminded herself that this was the man who had rescued them. “You have obviously been away from London for some time,” she said charitably. “Many changes have taken place in society.”

“You mean they’ve all become mealy mouthed?”

“No. I mean that a delicacy and sensibility among womankind has been serving to refine the coarse natures of men.”

“Very interesting. What has it done for women? They seem to be in a worse plight than ever. The working-class woman is a drudge, and the middle-class woman is empty headed, vain, and idle.”

“You don’t know what you are talking about,” cried Mrs. Waverley angrily.

“Why not? My observation is as keen as the next.”

“You are a man,” said Mrs. Waverley, and walked on in silence.

Lord Harry turned to Frederica. “I have made her cross,” he said. “Mrs. Waverley has the right of it. I do not know how to go on. I would have you teach me, Miss Frederica.”

They passed under a parish lamp. His eyes were mocking.

“I do not think you are teachable,” said Frederica. “Poor Mrs. Waverley. She is feeling every bit as assaulted now as she was when that man attacked her. There was no need to strike her with words, my lord.”

“But I thought she would relish a good argument.”

Frederica cast a look at Mrs. Waverley’s back as that lady forged on ahead, as if anxious to put as much distance between herself and Lord Harry as possible. “I don’t think anyone relishes an argument,” she sighed. “Strong-minded people like to state their views and are not used to being crossed.” She lowered her voice. “Are you sure Lady Tredair was well and happy? Where did you see her?”

“In Italy, in Naples. She was the talk of the town. So gay and pretty and so very much in love with her husband.”

“Perhaps Fanny is as weak as the rest of the society ladies,” said Frederica. “Despite all her views, she was only looking for some man to cling to.”

“You are hard. It struck me as a very equal partnership.”

“There is no such thing.”

“I must contradict you. If the man is as much in love with the woman as she is with him, then it is always an equal partnership.”

“Oh, love,” mocked Frederica. “I do not believe in it. A marriage is lust on the one side and weak dependency on the other.”

“Odd views coming from one so beautiful. You are beautiful, are you not? I cannot see you very well.”

“I am not beautiful,” said Frederica. “Fanny and Felicity are beautiful, but not I.”

“Here we are,” called Mrs. Waverley. “I thank you again for our rescue, my lord, and bid you good evening.”

“May I not see you inside?” asked Lord Harry. “There may be murderers lurking in your hallway.”

“Good night,” said Mrs. Waverley. “Come, girls!”

And shepherding Frederica and Felicity inside, she slammed the door in Lord Harry’s face.

Lord Harry walked thoughtfully up and down outside. He wished he had been able to see Frederica clearly. His gaze fell on the house next door. The knocker was off the door and the shutters were up. A slow smile curled his lips.

“What an odd young man,” said Felicity when she and Frederica were alone. “We shall not be seeing him again. I have never known Mrs. Waverley be quite so angry with anyone before.”

Frederica sat silently in a chair. She had found Lord Harry’s presence exhilarating. Now she felt flat. She had prayed for an adventure, she had had her adventure, and now life would slip back into that same boring old routine.

“You know, Felicity,” said Frederica at last. “I sometimes have a longing to take all these jewels and sell them and go to America or somewhere equally far away.”

They were in Felicity’s room. Felicity’s jewel box lay open on the toilet table, the gems winking and blazing in the candlelight.

“Let us find out where we came from first,” said Felicity.

“First? You mean you have thought of running away as well?”

“Often. But I must unravel the mystery. Who are we? Who is Mrs. Waverley? Why does she seem ready to faint when she sees the Prince Regent? What has soured her against men? She is a good teacher, but all her arguments against men seem couched in emotion rather than logic. Who was Mr. Waverley?”

“Too tired to think anymore,” yawned Frederica. “Lord Harry will no doubt call tomorrow to pay his respects… and he will be told firmly that we are not at home.”

The next day, Lord Harry, anticipating a rebuff, decided not to call on the Waverleys. Instead he took himself to an apartment in Covent Garden to see Caroline James.

Lord Harry was in his early thirties. As a young man, he had fancied himself in love with the famous actress, Caroline James. He had decided to make her his mistress, but when he had called at her lodgings he found her ill with consumption. Instead of offering her the joys of his bed, he took her on a long journey to Switzerland, found her a chalet high up in the mountains, and left her there to see if the clear mountain air would effect a cure.

The grateful actress corresponded with him regularly, finally delighting him with the news that she was indeed cured.

He knew she had returned to London, not to resume her career, but to prepare for marriage to James Bridie, a retired colonel who had met Caroline during his travels.

Caroline received Lord Harry warmly. She had recovered much of her beauty, but her figure had become plump, and she looked more matronly than she had when she had delighted London audiences with her acting.

“And so you are to be married,” said Lord Harry. “Where is the colonel?”

“He has traveled to Shropshire to his estates. He will be returning to London shortly.”

“And are you in love with him?”

“What is love?” sighed Caroline. “He is a strong man who organizes my life and thoughts. It is so wonderful, you know, not to have to worry about the future. I did not tell him that I owe my life to you. He would not understand, and would assume I had been your mistress.”

“You owe your life, dear lady, to your own strong constitution. As far as the colonel is concerned, I do not exist. There is a service, however, I wish you to perform for me.”

Caroline looked at him, a mixture of sadness and disappointment in her eyes. “I suppose I should have expected this,” she murmured, “but I had come to think of you as a saint.”

“No, not that kind of service,” said Lord Harry crossly. “The deuce! I seem to be plagued with women who think the worst of men. Have you heard of a certain Mrs. Waverley of Hanover Square?”

“No, I am not au fait with the London gossip.”

“She is a champion of the rights of women and lives in Hanover Square with her two daughters. One of the daughters is called Frederica. I wish to know her better. I met them by chance last night and became intrigued with the family.”

“Then all you have to do is call on them!”

“Aye, there’s the rub. Mrs. Waverley fears and detests men. I would not be granted admittance. I found this morning that the house next door to theirs is for rent and have gone about taking it for the Season.”

“But how can I help you? I do not understand what it is you wish me to do,” said Caroline.

“I wish you to masquerade as my sister, Lady Harriet. Harriet is actually in the country. She never comes to town. I wish you to become a disciple of Mrs. Waverley’s, get close to this Frederica, and plead my case.”

“It seems simple enough,” said Caroline. “But my colonel returns next week and my movements will be limited.”

“A week should be enough,” said Lord Harry cheerfully. “Now here is what I wish you to do…”

Chapter Two

Mrs. Ricketts, Mrs. Waverley’s housekeeper, who, because Mrs. Waverley would not employ menservants, acted as butler as well, was responsible for hiring the staff. Although she mostly enjoyed the responsibility, occasionally she found it a strain when the correct running of the household was put at risk by Mrs. Waverley’s principles.

She had tried to get rid of a housemaid, Annie Souter, on two previous occasions, finding the girl lazy and insolent. She had told Mrs. Waverley of the need to dismiss the girl, but Mrs. Waverley had stepped in and pointed out that women had a hard time of it, and it was their duty to reform any female servants who appeared wayward, and then had comfortably forgotten about the whole affair.

On finding two silver candlesticks missing, Mrs. Ricketts had searched under Annie’s mattress and had found them. Annie was dragged before Mrs. Waverley.

The fact that the housemaid was extremely lucky not to be turned over to the authorities—-where she would no doubt have been tried, found guilty, hanged or, at best, transported—did not seem to fill Annie with any gratitude.

“I am afraid I shall have to let you go, Annie,” said Mrs. Waverley severely. The housemaid had one of those fat faces and large mouths so beloved of the cartoonist, Rowlandson.

“I’ll make you sorry, mum,” said Annie.

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Waverley severely. “Your threats do not amuse me. Pack your belongings and leave. First, we shall pray for your redemption.”

Annie tried to storm off, but was held where she was by the strong arms of the housekeeper. The other servants, Felicity, and Frederica were summoned and all got down on their knees while Mrs. Waverley prayed loudly and earnestly for the soul of Annie Souter.

When she left Hanover Square, carrying her one bundle of belongings wrapped in a large handkerchief, Annie made her way to her home, or what passed as a home. Her mother, father, four brothers, two sisters, grandmother, and one uncle lived in a damp basement in Sommers Town.

Not one of them was glad to see her back.

Mr. Souter welcomed her by unstrapping his belt. “What did you muck up a good job fer?” he said.

Annie backed away and then tossed her head defiantly. “They said I stole them two candlesticks, but it warn’t me. ’Twar that housekeeper, and she put the blame on me.”

“Stole ’em yourself and got caught,” said Mrs. Souter heartlessly. “None o’ us ever gets caught.”

“That’s because all you lot can steal are wipes,” sneered Annie, but keeping a weather eye on her father. “Handkerchiefs is all you got, and that’s why we live like pigs.”

“You never was any good, Annie,” growled her father. “Seemed like the best thing to put you into service. If we hadn’t of stole them references for you, you’d never have got the job.”

“Listen to me,” yelled Annie. “I kin tell you all how we can be rich.”

“Garn!” said her father, but he sat down again.

Annie edged into the crowded room. “Them Waverley women,” she said, “has got jewels just dripping off of them, jewels for the picking. She don’t employ menservants, and she and her daughters goes out walking sometimes with a king’s ransom on them.”

“Too many police about,” said her father, trying to look unconcerned, but his eyes gleamed with interest.

The gin shops of the last century had brought about a staggering rise in crime in London. It was only when the Prince of Wales was robbed in Hay Hill in Mayfair, and highwaymen started to operate in St. James’s Square, that the public at last listened to that great reformer, Patrick Colquoun. He had tried to get them to accept a professional police force that was dependent on central government. This was going too far, but they set up paid magistrates—they had hitherto been unpaid—in each parish and increased the amount of constables.

There was still, however, no central organization or direction, no sense of a comprehensive metropolitan police force designed to deal with London as a whole. Each London district now had its own local magistrates, officials, and constables, and their authority was essentially parochial. So, although the police forces, both professional and amateur, at the disposal of the authorities was greatly enlarged, the system was effective only in dealing with local crimes, and often no one even bothered to pursue suspects into a neighboring parish.

The watchmen were often old and infirm men who were only too happy to look the other way if a robbery were in progress. And so this family of thieves, though less bold than they might have been in the climate of a few decades ago, were nonetheless encouraged to take risks—provided the stakes were high enough.

Happy that she had her family’s full attention and the threat of violence had passed, Annie seized a pig’s trotter from a dish on the table and began to munch it. With her fat face and snout of a nose, she looked like a sort of cannibalistic porker.

“Well, go on, then,” urged Mr. Souter, picking at his blackened teeth with a quill. “Tell us more.”

Annie put down the chewed pig’s trotter and wiped her mouth on her shawl. “They’ve got these here jewels all over the house. And no menservants, mind! But I got better news. The house next door is empty. You could break in the back.”

“And what would that do?” asked her mother, aiming an ineffectual kick at a lean dog who was sniffing under the table.

“They way I see it,” said Annie, “is you could loosen the bricks in one o’ the walls in that house, get through next door, and surprise them in their beds.”

They all stared at her.

“You sure there’s all them jewels?” asked her father.

“Thousands and thousands o’ pounds worth,” said Annie.

The Souter family began to argue the pros and cons while Annie, thrilled to be the center of attention, drank gin and dreamed of Mrs. Waverley’s horrified face as she watched all her precious jewels being taken away.

***

Two days after her adventure, Mrs. Waverley was told that Lady Harriet Danger had called.

“Are you sure it is not Lord Harry Danger?” she asked Mrs. Ricketts.

“No, mum. A lady she is.”

Mrs. Waverley sighed. “I hope she is not so feckless and flighty as her brother. There was a levity in that young man I did not like. Show her up.”

Frederica and Felicity looked up from their books with interest. “Lady Harriet Danger,” called Mrs. Ricketts.

They saw before them a plump, well-dressed lady in a modish hat. It was her eyes that Frederica noticed first. They were certainly fine eyes, being large and golden brown, but it was the expression in them that caught Frederica’s attention. Aristocrats usually had a haughty damn-you stare. It was not affected. It came from a way of life which led you to believe that most of the people in the world were beneath you. “I am looking down on you from a great height,” said that stare. But Lady Harriet’s eyes held a peculiar mixture of intelligence, wariness, and kindness.

After the introductions had been effected and tea served, Lady Harriet, said, “I believe you met my brother the other night?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Waverley. “A very brave young man. He saved our lives.”

“I think our dignity was more in danger than our lives,” said Frederica.

“Do not correct me,” said Mrs. Waverley in the tones of a schoolteacher. “It is very rude to disagree with anyone in public.”

So this was Frederica. Lady Harriet’s eyes turned on the figure sitting behind the great pile of books. She saw a young slim girl with masses of slate-colored hair, bound with a gold fillet, and beautiful blue eyes, which were now looking at her with an unsettling mixture of interest and amusement.

“I have called,” said Lady Harriet, “because Harry tells me you champion the rights of women. This is a subject very close to my heart.” She raised her eyebrows in surprise as she found that Mrs. Waverley was regarding her with a certain cynicism. Mrs. Waverley was remembering Lady Artemis, who had claimed an interest in freedom for women simply to catch the interest of the Earl of Tredair—the Earl of Tredair who had run off with Fanny.

“I hope that is the case,” said Mrs. Waverley. “Sisters can be very devoted and affectionate, and I trust Lord Harry has not sent you along to—er—gull me, Lady Harriet, with a view to striking up an acquaintance with one of my girls.”

I did not think she would be so sharp, thought the actress, Caroline James, behind the mask of Lady Harriet. I am being myself and that will not answer. Let me see, I played the Duchess of Worthing in that play in 1802. That’ll do.

“I beg your pardon,” said Lady Harriet icily.

Frederica was amazed at the change. The comfortably human person who had been sitting there had disappeared—to be replaced by a haughty aristocrat. Now the eyes were as hard as glass.

“I am sorry, my lady,” said Mrs. Waverley, sounding flustered.

“And so you should be,” said Lady Harriet awfully. “How can you be of assistance to women if you cannot trust them? I am interested to hear your teachings, and the best way to start is by questioning your pupils. You, miss,” she said, turning slightly to Frederica, “what are your views on marriage?”

“Ambivalent,” said Frederica.

“How so?”

“Logic battles with emotion and tradition. Logic tells me that marriage in this day and age can never be a partnership between equals. Once all the pretty words are said and the courtship is over, a woman must submerge her personality and agree with her lord’s every view and every whim. She is told her sole purpose in life is to cosset and minister to some man. On the other hand,” she said wistfully, “I cannot help wishing sometimes that all the romances were true. That great love and romance and passion should settle down through the years to a joint life of companionship and mutual respect.” She grinned suddenly. “In short, what I am trying to say is that part of me still wishes that the knight on the white charger would bear me off to a life free of responsibility and care.”

“I would say your mother has seen to it that you are at present free from responsibility and care,” said Lady Harriet.

Frederica was silent.

“Men fight battles, go to war, engage in commerce,” pursued Lady Harriet. “Women are made to bear children. Is it not true that men are our masters and know better?”

“Such a gallant picture,” said Felicity, “all the men in England bravely riding off to war. But most of them, you know, spend their days in coffeehouses, clubs, and taverns and fight England’s battles from the safety of a comfortable chair. A woman, when she marries, not only loses her independence, but, if she is not aristocratic and does not have a marriage settlement, all her money and property become her husband’s, and so she cannot leave him else she would starve.”

“And what is your solution to this problem? It is no use trying to change the existing order unless you are prepared to put something in its place!”

“I think greater education for women is important. Change only comes through education. I would like to see a day when women retained their independence after marriage,” said Frederica, “where a man who beats his wife is subjected to the full penalty of the law, just as if he had assaulted a stranger. I would like to see the cult of the pretty, useless, female toy exploded. But, alas, there always will be women who will betray their own sex by behaving like morons.”

Lady Harriet laughed. It was a joyous, rippling laugh, a famous laugh which had once charmed London audiences. “You must argue with my brother,” she said. “He shares your views, Miss Frederica.”

Frederica thought of the handsome, beautifully tailored, and languid Lord Harry. “I find that hard to believe, my lady.”

“Are you calling me a liar?” The Duchess of Worthing was back on stage.

“N-no,” said Frederica, taken aback. “I was merely funning.”

“Come,” said Lady Harriet imperiously. “You shall come riding with me, Miss Frederica.”

Frederica jumped to her feet and ran from the room to get her bonnet before Mrs. Waverley could protest. But Mrs. Waverley was delighted that a titled lady should show such interest in Frederica.

During that short drive, Frederica found Lady Harriet an odd mixture of personalities. At times she would be warm and amusing, laughing at Frederica’s stories about London society, now knowing they were all out of date, Frederica having not been allowed any social life since Fanny’s elopement. At other times, she would look tired and wan and fall silent. And at others again, she would turn back into the haughty aristocrat.

She seemed very fond of her brother and insisted he was unusual among men as he agreed with Mrs. Waverley’s views. She asked Frederica why it was she called her mother Mrs. Waverley, and Frederica, surprised, explained that she and Felicity had been adopted by Mrs. Waverley. Frederica was surprised because she thought that was a piece of London gossip known by everyone in the town.

At last, Frederica confided that she led a maddeningly restricted life. Lady Harriet pressed her hand and said she would take her driving on the following day.

She called in at the house when she returned with Frederica to gain permission for the further drive, and to Frederica’s surprise, that permission was granted. “If your ladyship does not find me too forward,” said Frederica hurriedly, “I would like to suggest that Felicity should accompany us.”

“By all means,” said Lady Harriet graciously, and then drove off, glad to be Caroline James again.

Her apartment in Covent Garden was above a baker’s shop. Despite Covent Garden’s well-deserved unsavory reputation, Caroline liked being so near the theaters and being able to watch the carts bearing their burdens of flowers and fruit and vegetables to the market. The apartment was surprisingly spacious and well lit, filled with a mixture of furniture styles, Caroline having furnished it piece by piece in the days when she first started to earn money as an actress. She had been one of a family of fifteen boys and girls, and, at the age of thirty, was now the sole survivor. Her father, a mercer, and her mother, had died of smallpox, and consumption and influenza had carried off the children. Mr. James’s shop had been in Covent Garden. Caroline had sold it and the stock to pay his debts and for the subsequent family burials, and then had gone on the stage. She had no acting experience, but she was young and very beautiful. At first she was only given small parts, but then the manager had discovered her acting ability and she had gone from strength to strength on the stage—and lover to lover off it. Before she had contracted consumption, she had known she could never bear children.

She had just unpinned her bonnet when her little maid entered to say that Colonel Bridie was asking permission to come up.

“What the deuce is he doing back so soon?” asked Caroline. “Never mind, Betty, send him up. I hope that splendid curricle has been taken to the stables out of sight.”

“Yes, mum.”

“Very well. Bring a bottle of the best port and some biscuits.”

Caroline arranged herself gracefully in a chair just as the colonel entered. He was a fiery, choleric man in his mid-fifties. He was tall and slightly corpulent, and he still had all his own hair and some of his own teeth. He spent a great deal of time outdoors on his estates and his face was baked walnut brown. He had shaggy eyebrows which Caroline longed to trim, and a pair of small, restless gray eyes.

He clicked his heels and kissed her hand. “I called earlier,” he said. “Where were you?”

“I was paying a visit to a certain Mrs. Waverley in Hanover Square.”

“Waverley? Waverley! That’s that demned female who caused a fuss last year. Adopted bastards out of an orphanage and preaches against men—and yet one of ’em is now the Countess of Tredair. Don’t have anything to do with her!”

“Very well, dear, if you say so. But I find her most interesting.”

“Won’t do at all. You’ll get your mind addled with all her rubbish. Easily influenced creatures, women.”

“I am quite capable of making up my own mind about people,” said Caroline.

The colonel leaned forward and patted her hand. “Silly puss,” he said. “You have not the first idea of how to take care of yourself. Well, those days are over, and you’ve got me to do the thinking for you.”

“Yes, dear,” said Caroline.

***

Lord Harry Danger paid a call on his mother, the Dowager Duchess of Tarrington. The Tarrington town house was occupied by the duchess’s eldest son, the present duke and his duchess, but the duchess had found a town house of her own in Park Lane. She was a tall, thin, nervous, faded woman. Everything about her looked washed out. She had pale, myopic blue eyes and pale, fair hair, a long white face, and a long, thin, flat-chested body.

“Why have you come to see me?” asked the duchess nervously. “If you want me to do something, I shan’t do it, so there!”

“I am not here to ask you to do anything,” said Lord Harry sympathetically. “Michael been bothering you?” Michael was his elder brother, the present duke.

“He won’t leave me alone,” said the dowager feebly. “Quite like your poor father. Always red in the face with temper, and always laying down the law about something. He complains that this house costs too much and that I should retire to the dower house in the country. I can tell you, Harry, it took a deal of courage to tell him I would not.”

“You told him off! I should like to have heard that.”

“I cannot lie to you, Harry. I confess I finished the lecture by pretending to faint. Stay for tea, Harry. You are such an elegant, restful creature.” The duchess smiled fondly on her youngest. Lord Harry was lounging negligently in a chair. He had thick, fair hair arranged in a mass of artistically disarrayed curls. He had a tall, thin, muscular body covered in Weston’s tailoring and ending in the shiniest of Hessian boots. His rather heavy lids over startlingly emerald green eyes gave his face a sensuous look.

“How goes the world with you these days, Mama?” asked Lord Harry. “Found out who you are yet?”

“I think I am a scared rabbit,” said the duchess, ordering tea from a hovering footman. “But if everyone—well, not you, dear—but the rest of the well-meaning bullies would leave me alone, I should get along splendidly. I want to do all those exciting things I was never able to do before—like stare vacantly at the wall, or eat cream cakes at two in the morning, or leave off my stays.”

Lord Harry’s father had died four months earlier in a fit of bad temper. He had been an autocratic bully, ten years older than his wife. He had married her when she was seventeen and had proceeded to bully her into submission. She had to do exactly what he wanted, think like him, share his interests, and remain constantly at his side. Other wives had respites when their husbands went to their clubs or the House of Lords, but the late duke, from the day he had taken his bride off to his palace in the country, had kept her there, under his thumb and under the constant scrutiny of his choleric eye. When he had died, the duchess had prayed nightly to God to send her down a personality, for she had become unused to thinking any individual thought or taking any individual action. The house in Park Lane had been her first rebellion, prompted by the fact that her eldest son, despite marriage and ten children, showed alarming symptoms of taking over where his father had left off. The late duke had detested Lord Harry, and Lord Harry had grown up nimble and athletic from running through the grounds of his father’s estate at an early age, pursued either by the enraged duke or by a posse of servants sent to give him a whipping.

“It is kind of you to call,” said his mother, pouring tea. “You are sure you are not going to nag me out of this house?”

“Not I,” said Lord Harry lazily. “I am setting up my own town house now that I have inherited Aunt Matilda’s fortune. My lodgings in Jermyn Street are a trifle cramped.

“Where do you plan to live?”

“I haven’t settled on anything to buy. I am renting Barton’s place in Hanover Square, a very large, gloomy place, but ideally situated. Next door lives a Mrs. Waverley with two girls, the eldest—I think—being called Frederica. This Miss Frederica is out of the common way, so much so that I have decided to marry her.”

The duchess’s hand, holding her teacup, shook and hot tea spilled onto her lap. She dabbed at it miserably with her napkin.

“Oh, Harry, you are going to ask me to do something. You are going to ask me to call on this Waverley woman. I have heard of her. She is a militant lady who adopted three girls out of an orphanage. It is said they are bastards, but one of them married Tredair. Gretna. Had to elope.”

Lord Harry raised his thin eyebrows. “For such a recluse, you are singularly well informed, Mama. So Frederica is not her daughter. It does not matter. Our line could do with some fresh blood… and if her blood is common, so much the better. If she survived an orphanage, she must be made of strong stuff. Do you know that I went on the board of an orphanage to do something with my miserable life? No, of course you did not, for I did not tell you. Well, I found that out of five hundred orphans last year only one hundred and fifty survived… and the governors were proud of their record! Anyway, I do not expect you to call on the Waverleys, although it might do you no harm to hear their bluestocking views. Do you not think women should be allowed more freedom in marriage?”

“I don’t think anything yet, Harry. You know that.”

“In order to have someone plead my case, I asked an actress, Caroline James, to pretend to be Harriet and to visit the Waverleys.”

“Is this actress very beautiful?” asked his mother curiously.

“She was once. She is still, however, a fine-looking woman and very kind.”

“If I had an opinion,” said his mother cautiously, “I might think that you had made a stupid choice. Harriet does not come to town, but she still looks like a bad-tempered pig. Might it not have been clever to get someone like her?”

“Anyone like my sister, Harriet, would tell the Waverleys that I am a milksop. Come to think of it, Harriet would scream at the very idea of setting a foot inside their house.”

“Well, you must do as you please,” said the duchess, “just so long as I do not have to know anything further about it.”

“Will you come to my wedding?”

“Of course not,” said the duchess. “Michael and Harriet would be there, cursing everyone and at everything.”

“As you will. But if I can arrange a quiet wedding without anyone but yourself there, perhaps you will grace it.”

“I shouldn’t think so, dear. Weddings make me cry dreadfully. The bride always looks so sweet and I think what is going to happen to her and I cry my eyes out. Have you proposed to her?”

“No, I’ve only just met her. If I had proposed to her and been accepted, I should not have had to hire that dreary house or engage the services of an actress. Do you not wish to have some amusement, Mama? I could take you driving or to a play or something.”

“No, dear boy. I like to sit here and look at the park, and listen to all that beautiful silence. No raised voices, no shouting, no one throwing things at the servants. How odd that you should be the only child I had who did not turn out like the father.”

“Perhaps it was because you managed to get me sent away to school,” said Lord Harry, with a grin. “Do you not remember? You cleverly told Father that I was too delicate to go to school and must never, ever be sent away—and so he promptly did just that. It was the greatest day of my life.”

“And the worst day of mine,” said the duchess. “I did miss you and I did cry, and Harriet, who was then only twelve, berated me and accused me of having common blood. Only common people, she said, became mawkish over their children. Oh, I do hope your Frederica is very common.”

***

Lord Harry called later that day on Caroline James. He found her looking rather worried and flustered. “My colonel has returned sooner than I expected,” she said, “and I told him I had been to the Waverleys.”

“He no doubt warned you against such a pernicious influence?”

“Yes. I am to go driving with the two girls tomorrow.”

“If all this is going to make life difficult for you,” said Lord Harry, “we will forget about the whole thing. You are under no obligation to me, you know.”

“I can manage,” said Caroline. She, in fact, felt under a very heavy obligation to Lord Harry. He had saved her life, and yet he had never expected any return.

“Just be sure that the colonel does not hear of any subsequent visits,” said Lord Harry. “He may call on the Waverleys himself, and they would then discover that my so-called sister, Harriet, is none other than Caroline James.”

“And how dreadful that would be,” said Caroline, with her rippling laugh. “A common actress.”

“A very uncommon one. The colonel does not mind your having been an actress?”

“Yes, he hates it. As soon as we are married, he plans to bear me off to Shropshire—where no one has ever heard of Caroline James.”

Lord Harry looked at her curiously. “And how will you manage to bear that sort of life, year in and year out?”

“Very easily. You forget that I led a very isolated life in Switzerland and grew to like it.”

“But one cannot be isolated in the country, although one can be very alone in London,” pointed out Lord Harry. “People call the whole time, you know, and stay forever.”

“Oh, James will manage everything,” said Caroline, with a little sigh. “He is so sure and definite. I will have nothing to worry about but the ordering of the next meal. So wonderful to have someone to lean on.”

“I wish—” began Lord Harry awkwardly, but she quickly interrupted him.

“No, you fancied yourself in love with me once, but you were young and you were in love with the creature of the stage.”

“Perhaps,” he said. “But you are welcome to be my pensioner. You do not need to marry for security.”

“I have already taken enough of your money. It must have been hard for you to keep me in Switzerland before you inherited your aunt’s money, for I know your father kept you short.”

“I became one of the few lucky gamblers in London,” said Lord Harry. “It is amazing how much you can win if you confine your refreshments to seltzer water.”

“Have you not considered,” said Caroline, “what will happen when you woo and win your Frederica and she meets your real sister Harriet? She will immediately demand to know the real identity of the fake Harriet. She will assume I was your mistress.”

“That is a gamble I am prepared to take. As soon as I have caught her interest, you may fade away, and then I shall tell her myself. But you shall dance at my wedding, Caroline James!”

Chapter Three

The colonel called on Caroline the next day, just before she was about to go to Hanover Square. She sent her maid, Betty, with a note to the livery stables to cancel the hire of the carriage. The colonel, who knew Caroline had very little money, would immediately have demanded to know what she was about to hire an expensive carriage and two bays.

She at last pleaded a headache and the colonel left. Caroline did not want to wait for Betty to go back to the livery stables and then wait for the arrival of the carriage. She hired a hack and told the driver to take her to the corner of Hanover Square.

Caroline told Mrs. Waverley that it was such a fine day she thought the girls might prefer a walk. Felicity and Frederica were only too anxious to agree to anything that would get them out of doors.

The actress had no fear of being recognized. She knew she had changed a great deal from the slim beauty of the stage. But Felicity and Frederica were surprised that Lady Harriet did not appear to know anyone at all in the park.

“You must find Mrs. Waverley’s views difficult to live with,” ventured Caroline.

“Not in the slightest,” said Frederica. “The only thing about Mrs. Waverley which irritates me is the fact that she confines us at home.”

“It is odd you do not call Mrs. Waverley mother.”

“Because, as I told you, she is not our mother,” said Felicity. “We are both adopted.”

“How sad! Did you lose your parents at an early age?”

“We do not know,” said Frederica. “We were taken out of an orphanage. Before the orphanage, we were at a foundling hospital in Greenwich. We are probably bastards.”

I don’t suppose Lord Harry knows that, thought Caroline. I thought my colonel was exaggerating. I am sure this masquerade must soon be over.

Aloud, she said, “How difficult for you. Perhaps, you know, it would not be wise to talk about such a thing. After all, Mrs. Waverley has adopted you. It is better society should think you her daughters.”

“Mrs. Waverley disabused society of that fact herself,” said Frederica bitterly. “But it should not stop us accepting invitations, for everyone knows Mrs. Waverley to be immensely rich. Mind you, since neither of us plans to marry, I suppose it does not matter all that much.”

“But what other ambition is there for a young lady?” cried Caroline. “Should Mrs. Waverley die, then what would become of you without a strong husband to support you?”

“I should trust,” said Frederica cynically, “that Mrs. Waverley would have the good sense to leave us both her money in her will. That would ensure our independence. I would make a very good spinster, you know.”

“But the loneliness of it all,” pointed out Caroline. “Would you not like children?”

“At my age, one does not think about having children,” said Frederica, “or so I believe. I do not think women actually want children. That is something that is surely thrust upon them.”

“I would love to have children,” said Caroline wistfully. “Lots and lots of little boys and girls, but I cannot.”

“How do you know you cannot?” asked Felicity curiously. “You are not married.”

Caroline bit her lip. How could she possibly explain how she had come to know such a fact? She could hardly say to these two innocents, “If you have had as many lovers as I and have never become pregnant, then the odds are you cannot have children.”

She said, “I had—er—surgery for a delicate complaint. My life was saved, but the treatment left me barren.”

Frederica’s piercingly intelligent blue eyes searched Caroline’s own. “What kind of surgery?” she asked. “Removal of the womb is not possible without killing the patient.”

“Miss Frederica!” exclaimed Caroline, turning as red as fire. “You should not know such things!”

“Why not? I read a great deal of medical literature. I know how babies are conceived and how they are born. Is it not better that I should have such knowledge?”

“Women do not need to know about such things,” said Caroline.

“Well, I think that is a monstrous silly thing to say. It’s their body. Why should they not know what is happening to it?”

“Perhaps you have the right of it,” said Caroline, sweating with embarrassment, “but I pray you, do not talk so freely. It is most shocking.”

“I thought you shared Mrs. Waverley’s views.”

“Oh, I do,” said Caroline desperately, praying inwardly for help. Suddenly her face lit up. “Look!” she cried with relief. “There is my brother.”

Sauntering toward them at an easy pace came Lord Harry Danger. Both girls looked at their rescuer curiously. It was the first time either of them had an opportunity to see him clearly.

Frederica experienced a certain pang of disappointment, but did not quite know why. Here was no storybook hero, but an Exquisite, tailored and barbered and manicured to perfection. He bowed low in front of them, sweeping off his curly brimmed beaver to reveal his gold and burnished curls.

“Are you enjoying your walk, my sister?” he asked.

“Very much,” said Caroline politely, but looking the very picture of shock and distress. Lord Harry fell into step beside them. The path was narrow, so Caroline moved ahead with Felicity and Lord Harry and Frederica walked behind.

“Now what were you saying, I wonder,” murmured Lord Harry, “to give my sister such a fright?”

“Perhaps I was too bold,” said Frederica ruefully, “but Lady Harriet did claim to share Mrs. Waverley’s views. I was explaining to Lady Harriet that I know how children are conceived and how they are born. She seemed to think I should not have such knowledge.”

“I am about to have the vapors myself,” said Lord Harry. “My dear Miss Frederica, in a society which blushes at the mention of the words legs or breeches, you cannot go about talking about the functions of the human body with such carefree abandon. Also, as I remember, the very mention of the word babies frightened Mrs. Waverley to flinders. Have pity on us. You shock her and you shock me.”

“Of course, I would expect a man to be shocked,” said Frederica, “but I would have expected a freethinker like your sister to have better sense.”

“Be kind to her,” said Lord Harry. “You cannot drag us all into this new nineteenth century by the hair. Also, freedom for women is one thing, hatred of men is another. The two do not necessarily go together, you know.”

“And yet it is only natural for the slave to hate the master.”

“Acceptance of one’s role in life is a beautiful thing,” said Lord Harry airily. “What if one’s servants started to wonder why they should wait hand and foot on such idle creatures as ourselves and started throwing things at us? Most uncomfortable.”

“Servants can be a nuisance,” replied Frederica.

“You shock me again, but in a different way. If a man had said—and in that same dismissive tone of voice—‘Women are a nuisance,’ you would be furious, would you not? Are servants not equally deserving of our consideration and pity? If you think God puts us in our appointed stations, then you should be as content with your role as a woman, as servants have to be content with theirs.”

“There is no comparison. Servants labor and are paid accordingly. They are not forced by society to be parasites!”

“How fierce you look, Miss Frederica! And yet it could be argued that servants are parasites, living off the rich. We could all look after ourselves and open our own front doors and cook our own meals very well. Idleness causes discontent. A woman who has to do most of the housework herself has little time to fret or be angry.”

“So you think a woman should really be a cross between a prostitute and scullion?”

“You debase both duties. Good housekeeping is a noble art, and it is possible to have as much love and respect between the sheets as out of them.”

“Women should have a choice,” said Frederica stubbornly. “They should be able to work at all sorts of trades and professions. Why not have women lawyers and doctors, for example?”

“We already have women coal miners,” he said dryly, “who would give their back teeth, if they had any left, to be able to wear pretty clothes and stroll in Hyde Park on a sunny day, sorting out the world at their leisure.”

“I am really talking about women being treated as intellectual equals, and you know it.”

“No, I don’t,” he said. “I am listening to you indulgently because you are a vastly pretty girl and because that is what I am expected to do. If you wish me to consider you as an intellectual equal, then try to talk like one and not moan on about the servants like your peers.”

Frederica was so angry she thought she could strike him. “How dare you sneer and patronize me?”

“It’s better out than in, Miss Frederica. Now you are despising me inside. ‘What a useless fribble,’ you are thinking. ‘What can this elegant, dandified creature know of life?’ I should look Byronic and smolder at you, and then you would take me seriously.”

“I thought no such thing!” lied Frederica. “I thought nothing.”

“Liar. You have quite dismissed me in your mind, you know.”

“Come then,” said Frederica, with a reluctant smile, “we will begin at the beginning. You must agree that women do have a hard time of it. Nothing, once they marry, is their own. They are expected to share their husband’s views, give him all their money, and bear him as many children as he chooses to demand.”

“And how would you change that?”

“By talking to other women, by encouraging them to educate their minds, to lay the groundwork for future generations of women.”

“There are men who would grant you freedom of thought and would shudder at the idea of bedding an unwilling wife.”

“Show me just one!”

Lord Harry stopped and struck his breast. “Before you, ma’am, stands such a paragon.”

Frederica giggled. “I don’t believe a word of it. You twist my words quite deliberately. You accused me of talking about servants, but it was you who introduced the subject.”

“Perhaps.” He smiled. “But London is a cruel world, and you will one day long for a strong man to protect you, Miss Frederica.”

“I had forgotten your rescue,” said Frederica. “That was brave of you.”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Only too glad to be of service. You had better marry me, you know.”

“Why?”

“Your concern is womankind. I have to protect my own sex from you. You would lead any other man a quite miserable life.”

Frederica, who had been momentarily taken aback by his proposal, began to laugh.

“I was not joking,” he said seriously. “Do marry me, Miss Frederica. You see, I am leaving you to make up your own mind—otherwise I would call on Mrs. Waverley.”

Frederica stopped and looked up at him curiously. His green eyes were lazy and mocking.

“You are an eccentric,” she said finally. “Let me pretend to take you seriously. No, I will not marry you.”

He tucked her arm in his and led her forward. “I think you will, Frederica Waverley. Just make sure you do not cast those beautiful blue and wanton eyes in the direction of any other gentleman.”

Frederica felt nervous and exhilarated. She was conscious of the pressure of his arm, of the hidden strength in that slim and well-tailored body. She then wondered what he would look like naked, and immediately felt as burning hot as if she had been plunged into boiling water.

“That’s better,” came the light, mocking voice of Lord Harry. “Now I am getting some sort of reaction.”

Frederica pulled her arm away and called, “Felicity!”

Felicity and Caroline stopped and turned about. “We must go back, Felicity,” pleaded Frederica. “We have been away long enough.”

Lord Harry stood with Caroline and watched the girls as they hurried away across the park. “She is as beautiful as I thought,” said Lord Harry, half to himself. “All that hair… and those glorious eyes and a skin like honey.”

“I should have returned with them,” said Caroline, “but the jig is up.”

“You mean you disclosed your true identity?”

“No, not that. Miss Frederica is unmarriageable. She is a foundling and a bastard.”

“I know,” said Lord Harry, his eyes still on the receding figures, “and it does not make a whit of difference.”

***

It was the custom in the Waverley household for each inmate to drink a glass of fresh milk before bedtime. A housemaid was sent each evening to St. James’s Park, where there was a small herd of cows, to buy the milk. Annie Souter knew of this custom. She lurked in the bushes of the park and waited until the maid collected the milk in the milk pail and set out for home. She followed her closely, waiting for her opportunity. When the housemaid went up through the Green Park and then waited outside the lodge gates at Piccadilly for a break in the long moving line of carriages in order to cross, Annie crept close and poured a bottle of strong sleeping draft into the milk.

It had been her idea and she was proud of it. When the effects of the gin had worn off, she no longer felt quite so strong about confronting Mrs. Waverley, even with the protection of her father and two of her brothers who had been selected for the job. She had told her family that if Mrs. Waverley was awake and recognized her, then the police would know the names of the culprits.

Unaware that the house had been let and that Lord Harry Danger was shortly about to take up residence in it, Mr. Souter and two of his sons, Joe and Bill, were already in the upstairs of the house, which they had broken into the night before, and were even now prizing out the last of the bricks on their side of the wall. They then intended to loosen the bricks on the Waverley wall so that they could push their way through when they were sure the whole household was drugged. The fact that one of them might lay awake did not cross Annie’s mind—and with reason. Fresh milk was a precious commodity in London and the servants considered themselves fortunate to be allowed a glass a night. The entry into the Waverley house was to be made into a passage on the second floor, where the girls and Mrs. Waverley had their bedrooms.

But the only member of the household who would not touch the milk was Frederica. Ever since she had heard the scandalous rumor that the wicked Marquess of Queensbury bathed his ancient body in the stuff every morning, and that his servants sold it back to the milkmaids, she had been unable to touch it. Although the nightly glass of milk was supposed to come straight from the cow, Frederica was always afraid that some courting housemaid might contrive to buy the milk in the morning so that she could use her evening outing walking out with some young man.

Like the rest of the household, she had heard the occasional scrapes and thumps coming from next door and had assumed Lord Barton had got the builders in to effect some repairs.

That night, she found she could not sleep. She kept turning the conversation with Lord Harry over and over in her mind. She was sure she would not have been so upset about the outing if she had been used to more freedom. It had been wonderful to be out in the world without the ever-constant presence of Mrs. Waverley calling, “Keep your eyes down, girls.”

She picked up a book and tried to read, but after a time she put it down again and began to listen to the silence of the house. There was something sinister about that silence. It was so dead, so absolute. Usually there were a few noises: a sigh, a grunt, an occasional call as someone had a nightmare. Mrs. Waverley usually snored dreadfully, her great rumblings echoing from across the passage. But tonight even she, it seemed, was silent.

In the house next door, the Souters waited. At last, Mr. Souter lit a lantern and held it high so that its rays shone on the broken section of wall and great lumps of plaster which lay about the floor.

“Now!” he whispered.

Lord Harry was strolling across Hanover Square. It was not his route home, and yet he felt drawn to the place. He glanced up at the Barton house, reflecting that he should really do something about hiring staff, when he saw a flicker of light coming from an upstairs window. It was there, and then it was gone. He wondered if he had imagined it.

Then he felt the weight of the door key dragging at his pocket. He had meant to have a further inspection of the house earlier in the day, but had forgotten all about it.

He crossed the square and mounted the steps, and inserted the key in the lock. The lock was well oiled and the key turned easily. He gently pushed open the door and went into the blackness of the hall.

And then, high and far above, he heard a muffled scream.

Frederica heard an almighty crash from the passage outside. She thought the building was coming down. She opened the door and looked out. She saw a light flickering at the end of the passage, and dark shapes. She could smell danger in the air, but thought it was her imagination. Something had fallen and the servants had come to see what it was. The figures moved toward her. “What’s amiss?” called Frederica. One of the figures raised a lantern and she saw three men. She opened her mouth to scream, but one of them ran toward her and clamped his hand over her mouth while the other two seized her. She twisted her head and managed to scream before that smelly hand was clamped over her mouth again.

“Hit ’er with somethink,” came a female voice.

“Naw, get her in here and tie her up,” growled Mr. Souter.

Frederica was pushed back into her room, thrust in a chair, and her wrists were tied behind her back with the bell rope, which Joe Souter tore from the wall.

“Pretty, ain’t she?” said Joe Souter. “Let’s have a bit o’ fun, Dad.”

“Leave her be,” screeched the female who was in the darkness of the passage outside. “Get the jewels.”

Mr. Souter went over to the jewel box on Felicity’s dresser table and wrenched open the lid with one great paw. Diamonds and rubies, pearls, emeralds, and sapphires cascaded onto the floor at Frederica’s feet.

Mr. Souter and his two sons sank to their knees beside the jewels, as if praying. Then there came a shrill scream and the sound of a blow from outside. The Souter men jumped to their feet.

Frederica’s candle was still burning, and so she was able to see clearly that, by some miracle, Lord Harry Danger was standing on the threshold of her room, a drawn sword in his hand.

“Evening, gentlemen,” he said pleasantly.

Joe Souter snarled and made a lunge for Lord Harry, who drew back his dress sword and drove it into Joe’s arm. Mr. Souter took out a wicked-looking knife and held it to Frederica’s neck.

“Stand clear,” he said, “or we kill her.”

“Go ahead,” replied Lord Harry, with a smile. “I have never seen a lady knifed to death before. It would amuse me.”

The Souters looked at him in baffled fury. They had heard of decadent aristocrats like this who would no doubt enjoy the novelty of seeing a young woman killed.

But to make sure, Mr. Souter pricked Frederica’s neck with the point of his knife and a thin trickle of blood began to run down the white skin.

One minute Lord Harry had been standing in the doorway, looking very much at his ease. The next, he erupted like a whirlwind into the room. The candlelight flickered on the blade of his sword as it darted like quicksilver, slashing this way and that. Mr. Souter dropped the knife he had been holding to Frederica’s neck and clutched his wounded side with a groan. Joe and Bill Souter, cut and wounded, ran for the door and made their escape.

Lord Harry held his sword to Mr. Souter’s fat neck and said, “You will now tell me who you are before I call the watch.”

Frederica looked over his shoulder and saw Annie, holding a chamber pot. “Look out!” called Frederica. Lord Harry twisted like an eel, but the chamber pot came smashing down on his shoulder. Mr. Souter aimed a vicious kick at Lord Harry as he reeled and stumbled, and then the old villain fled from the room, dragging his daughter with him. Lord Harry sat down on the floor and held his shoulder. “Are you hurt?” cried Frederica.

“Of course, I am hurt,” he said testily, massaging his shoulder. “Nothing seems to be broken, however.”

“I am sorry about that,” said Frederica. “You deserve to be killed. You were prepared to see me die.”

“I thought they might believe me,” he said, getting to his feet. “I would not let them harm you.” He took out a handkerchief and tenderly dabbed at the trickle of blood at her neck.

“Please untie my wrists,” said Frederica crossly.

His green eyes suddenly flashed like the emeralds lying spilled at his feet. “I think I deserve a kiss,” he said.

“You are a monster,” raged Frederica. “I am nigh killed and you have no pity but needs must begin to flirt.”

He put both hands on the arms of her chair and leaned over her. She stared defiantly up into his eyes, her own almost black. She was wearing a delicate muslin nightgown and her masses of dark hair were streaming about her shoulders. He was in full court dress: satin knee breeches, clocked stockings, blue coat with gold buttons, and a cascade of lace at his throat and wrists. And then he saw the shine of tears in Frederica’s eyes.

He stood back. “Stand up and turn about and I will free your wrists,” he said quietly.

Frederica did as she was bid and, once her wrists were free, she rubbed at them vigorously. “That was Annie,” she said.

“The robbing female of the party?”

Frederica nodded. “A housemaid, recently dismissed. I cannot remember her second name.”

“No doubt Mrs. Waverley will know.” He raised his head and listened, and then frowned. “But why did no one come running? There was enough noise going on to wake the dead.”

Frederica clutched at him in sudden terror. “What if they are all killed?”

He strode from the room and Frederica ran after him. He pushed open the door of Felicity’s room. “Get a candle,” he called over his shoulder.

Frederica went and got her bed candle and tried to hold it high over Felicity’s bed, but her hand shook so much that he took it from her and set it down on a table. He bent over Felicity and listened to her regular breathing, then pried up one eyelid.

“Out cold,” he said. “No doubt drugged.”

He and Frederica then went from room to room, examining the sleeping occupants. “How did they manage to drug the whole household?” he marveled.

“The milk,” said Frederica. “It must have been in the milk. I am the only one who does not drink it. How did you get in? How did you rescue me?”

“Well, if you would please put something on over that delectable nightgown, and find us something to drink, I shall tell you… but at the moment the sight of you is sending my senses reeling.”

Frederica blushed. “If you would be so good as to go down to the butler’s pantry, you will find something to drink.”

When he went off, she returned to her room and hurriedly dressed, expecting him to saunter in at any moment. But she heard the sound of voices from the street outside and, opening the window, saw him talking to the watch, then saw the watch hurrying off.

At last he entered, carrying a tray with a decanter of brandy and two glasses. “I had to report the matter,” he said. “I have sent the watch to find the constable.”

“But how did they get in?” asked Frederica as he poured two glasses of brandy and held one out to her.

“From the house next door. If you will look at the end of the passage, you will see they have driven a hole through the walls.”

“We heard sounds from next door all day,” said Frederica, “but thought Lord Barton had engaged builders to make repairs. How did you come on the scene so promptly?”

“I was crossing the square and saw a glimmer of light at one of the windows and decided to investigate. I have rented the place next door, you know.”

“Why?”

“To be near you.”

“I do wish you would be serious.”

“Alas, I am always serious, but no one takes me seriously. I come gallantly to your rescue and you look at me as if I were a species of black beetle. Shame on you, Miss Frederica! Not even one kiss.”

“You seem to have no concern for me, sir,” said Frederica. “I have been nearly robbed and killed and yet you think it is a good excuse for dalliance.”

“But you are a modern woman, equal to any man, as tough as old boots, may I remind you.”

“Then treat me as an equal and stop flirting,” snapped Frederica.

“Oh, very well,” he sighed. “Is that all your own hair?”

“Yes, I would hardly sleep in a wig.”

“It would surprise you to know how many people cannot bear to be their natural selves at any time of the day. I knew one man who slept with his false calves on. On my oath! And a lady who never took her fine red wig off, day or night.”

“I should have known your experience of what ladies wear or do not wear at night would be vast.”

“You want me to talk to you as I would to a man, and when I do so, you become jealous.”

“I? Jealous because of you! You are an idiot.”

“Now I really do have a good mind to kiss you. No! Do not bristle up like an angry cat. I shall not kiss you until you throw yourself into my arms.”

“Then I am quite safe,” said Frederica, “for that will never happen. You should not be in my bedchamber, drinking brandy. I am unchaperoned.”

“True. But you must admit the circumstances are extraordinary. Besides, a man would not cry out for a chaperone. Or would you have the rules of society changed?”

“Yes, I would,” said Frederica. “I would like every man in society to be as closely guarded as the women, to know what it is like. It is well you had your sword with you. I did not know dress swords were so sharp.”

“Usually they are not. But I feel the need for protection in London’s dangerous streets. I like to walk, you see. I can never understand why people must go to a ball or rout by carriage and spend an unnecessary hour waiting for a place in the crush.” He smiled at her lazily, and then suddenly the smile was wiped from his face. He got slowly to his feet and Frederica rose as well, looking at him apprehensively. She was standing with her back to the door. He looked over her shoulder and his face became a mask of horror. “Oh, my God!” he said slowly.

Frederica twisted about. He had left the door open. The flickering candlelight made the shadows dance and sway. Her overwrought nerves could not take any more. She flung herself into his arms and held him tight. “What is it?” she whispered. “Have they returned?”

And then the green eyes looking down into her own began to laugh and dance. “You tricked me,” said Frederica fiercely, just before his lips met her own.

Shock held her rigid in his arms, and then she began to kick and struggle. A tremendous knocking at the front door sounded from below.

“The forces of law and order are arrived,” he said. He raised a tress of her hair to his lips and let it fall.

She stood staring at him, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. He bowed slightly, turned, and was gone.

Frederica sat down suddenly, her legs shaking. From below came the murmur of voices, and then footsteps ascended the stairs. She closed her bedroom door quickly, and then listened as Lord Harry outlined what had happened. Then she heard him say, “Do not trouble Miss Frederica Waverley until tomorrow. She is shocked and upset.”

Her first feeling was one of gratitude, and immediately that was followed by one of shame. A man would have gone out and joined them, and talked for the rest of the night if necessary. But she felt very weak and tired, and if she went out, then Lord Harry would look at her with that glinting, mocking look in his eyes and make her feel weaker.

Just this once, thought Frederica, I am going to be weak and helpless. She undressed and climbed into bed, and fell asleep with the taste of his lips on her own.

Chapter Four

Caroline James rose late the following morning. Two months until her marriage. Two more months during which she could call her life her own.

She did not miss the theater. Her long illness had taken away any desire to act. Lord Harry had sent her a generous allowance and she had thriftily saved as much as she could of it. She had written to him, offering to send him what she had saved, but he had replied that she was to keep it. She could have afforded to live in a better part of town, but fear of the future had prompted her to return to the rundown Covent Garden area, where only a very few respectable people still lived.

She had only just settled in when she had met Colonel James Bridie again at the playhouse. She had been in the audience. The colonel had met her briefly in Switzerland, two years before. It transpired he had once worshipped her from afar. He had called on her the day following their reunion at the theater, had taken her driving, had escorted her for walks in the parks, and after a week, had proposed marriage.

Caroline knew in her bones that the colonel did not know that she had once had lovers. The stigma of licentious living, which clung to most actresses, also seemed to have passed the colonel by. He thought she was a fine woman and a respectable matron, and in his company Caroline automatically fell into that role.

But as she slowly dressed that morning it dawned on her that she had not given up acting, that she was about to act the part of Mrs. Bridie for life.

She did not love the colonel. In fact, she did not find him attractive in the least. But she was tired and weary, frightened of her little stock of money running out, frightened of being forced to take to the streets. She knew her once great beauty was gone, that beauty which would have given her a choice of husbands.

She remembered her conversation with Felicity. Felicity appeared to think that entering the bonds of marriage was like entering Newgate. Caroline had laughed and called her cynical, and Felicity had apologized and said, “Perhaps, Lady Harriet, you are one of the fortunate ones who will not mind bearing endless children and being allowed no thoughts or views of your own.” Caroline had reminded her gently that she could not bear children and had been subjected to another grueling examination.

Caroline sighed. She had told the colonel that due to her illness she was barren, and he had laughed and said she was all he wanted. But would not such a man want sons? Would he not, after his infatuation for her had cooled, cease to be so blind to what might have happened in her past?

In an attempt to bolster her flagging spirits, she sent her little maid out to buy hot rolls for a late breakfast and put on a filmy muslin gown and dressed her hair in an elaborate style.

She was just sitting down to enjoy her breakfast when the colonel was announced. She frowned with impatience, and was on the point of telling her maid, Betty, to inform the colonel she was not at home, when she remembered she would soon be seeing him every moment of the day and as soon as she got used to it, the better.

The colonel was ushered in. Betty brought him coffee and he waited until she had left, obviously impatient to unburden himself of something.

As soon as they were alone, he said, “My dear, I do not think you should wear that gown.”

Caroline looked at him in surprise. “What is wrong with it?”

“It is… how shall I put it?… a trifle fast.”

She colored up angrily. “I think it exceedingly fine. I am proud of it and know it becomes me. I made it myself.”

“It is too thin and revealing, madam!”

“The day is warm and it is the fashion, you know.”

He tried for a lighter note. “As my wife, you will shock the poor villagers if you appear half-naked.”

“But my dress pleases me!”

He looked at her seriously. “You do not understand. It does not please me. No woman should dress for any reason other than to please her husband.”

Caroline made a bid for independence. “Are you going to choose my clothes once we are married?”

“No, my love. Once we have established what is suitable for you to wear, I am sure you will keep to it.”

“In other words, I am to have no mind of my own?”

“A pretty lady does not need to trouble her head with any decisions. It is her duty to mold herself to her husband’s wishes.” His eyes narrowed. “What has happened to you? I know, you have been listening to that Waverley creature and her stupid ideas. Such women should be put in the pillory!”

Caroline wanted to rage that, yes, she had been seeing Mrs. Waverley—and she would continue to see her when and where she liked. But first, that would be disloyal to Lord Harry, for the colonel would forbid her any more visits.

She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Now, I have put you in a passion and I would not make you angry for the world. See! While you finish your coffee, I shall retire and change my gown.”

The colonel beamed at her. He should have been pleased when Caroline returned wearing a silk gown with a modest neckline. But there was something rebellious in her eyes which annoyed him. They went out for a drive, Caroline prattling away and talking about all the innocuous things he expected her to talk about, unaware that the colonel was studying her closely.

At the end of the drive, Colonel James Bridie came to the conclusion that Caroline had been seeing Mrs. Waverley, and that ogre had been dripping poison into his beloved’s ear.

He went to Gentleman Jackson’s boxing saloon and tried to relieve his feelings with a hearty bout of fisticuffs. It did the trick for a little, but the nagging unease soon returned. He went to his club and drank more than he usually did, and the more he drank, the more he became obsessed with the idea that Mrs. Waverley was poisoning Caroline’s mind against him.

“Study the enemy. That’s the trick,” he said loudly and fiercely, and several of the members eyed him nervously and shied away from his vicinity.

***

Mrs. Waverley, because she had been asleep during the attempted robbery, pooh-poohed the danger of going about London bedecked with jewels. The fact that the rescuer had been none other than that pest, Lord Harry Danger, made her play down the whole thing. A silly little housemaid had merely been trying to get her revenge. She would not dare show her face near Hanover Square again. Lord Harry called, and to Frederica’s fury, was refused admittance. She persuaded herself she did not want to see him again, and yet felt that Mrs. Waverley was being most ungrateful—-and downright unladylike—in not thanking her rescuer. Mrs. Waverley also played down the whole episode to the constable and magistrate and they, having many crimes to cope with, were glad to let the matter drop. She was also not grateful to Lord Harry for paying the builders to repair the damage. It was only right that he should do so. The thieves had used his house as a means of entry just as, she was sure, Lord Harry had rented the house as a means of ingratiating his way into her own.

Mrs. Waverley had been asked to a soirée by a certain Lady Mackay who shared her views. She was sure there would not be any upsetting men there and was anxious to show off Frederica and Felicity in all their finery. Although she said out loud that Frederica was too gypsyish to have any claim to beauty and Felicity was too retiring, she was secretly proud of them.

Felicity and Frederica were delighted at the idea of an evening out even if, as Felicity put it, it was to another room full of old frumps.

When Frederica came down to the drawing room to join Mrs. Waverley, she was finely gowned in gold net over a dark gold underdress, but was wearing only a simple gold chain. Felicity was wearing a magnificent set of emeralds and Mrs. Waverley had a huge diamond brooch in her turban and diamond clasps on her pelisse.

“Why so drab, Frederica?” cried Mrs. Waverley. “Go and put on your rubies. They will go well with your gown.”

“Our constant display of jewels has attracted one thief and will attract more,” said Frederica. “Besides, you know it is not comme il faut for young ladies to wear expensive jewels. The other debutantes, no matter how rich, must content themselves by wearing coral or a simple string of pearls.”

“We do not abide by convention,” said Mrs. Waverley, with a toss of her head. “As neither of you plans to marry, you may wear what you like.”

“Then I shall go as I am,” said Frederica.

“Do as you are bid!” shouted Mrs. Waverley. “How can you be so ungrateful to me? Me!” She struck her bosom so hard that her diamonds blazed and sparkled. Tears came to her eyes. “Oh, how can you be so selfish and uncaring, Frederica? Did I not take you out of the orphanage? Have I not given you everything your heart desires?”

Except freedom, thought Frederica, and went to put on the rubies.

As they left, Lord Harry was just leaving the house next door. He bounded up to them and made a low bow.

“Moving in tomorrow, ma’am,” he said cheerfully to Mrs. Waverley, “so we shall be neighbors.”

Mrs. Waverley gave a stately dip of her head and made to enter the carriage.

“Mrs. Waverley,” said Frederica maliciously, “is most grateful to you, Lord Harry, for your gallant rescue.”

Mrs. Waverley turned about. “Yes, yes,” she said hurriedly. “But such a fuss over a little housemaid.”

“A little housemaid who drugged you and brought her thieving family or thieving companions to rob you,” pointed out Lord Harry.

“Pooh! We were in no danger,” said Mrs. Waverley.

“Well, I was!” said Frederica furiously. “I was tied up and threatened and frightened out of my wits.”

“Come, Frederica,” said Mrs. Waverley majestically. “You must not enact Haymarket scenes on the doorstep.”

She entered the carriage. Felicity curtsied to Lord Harry and said quietly, “Thank you, my lord. I am most grateful to you.” Then she, too, entered the carriage.

“I am sorry, Lord Harry,” said Frederica. “You were most brave, and I can only apologize for my guardian’s churlish manner.”

He smiled into her eyes. “I was amply rewarded. When are you going to marry me?”

He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

“Frederica! Come here immediately!” called Mrs. Waverley.

“Can I not see you?” asked Lord Harry, still holding her hand.

“It would not be allowed,” said Frederica.

“I would like to point out that were you married to me, you could go where you liked and do what you liked.”

“Frederica!”

Frederica suddenly felt she owed it to Lord Harry to see him alone. After his brave rescue of her, it was the least she could do. “In the garden, your garden, tomorrow, at three,” she whispered, and then snatched her hand out of his grasp and dived into the carriage.

***

Tyburn Jack, the highwayman, was taking his ease in the Three Bells Tavern in Tothill Fields. No one was hanged at Tyburn anymore, although public executions were still performed outside Newgate Prison, but Tyburn Jack had been thieving for a long time, hence his nickname.

He had robbed a coach the night before and had been rewarded by a rich haul. He was still amazed at his luck, for the occupant of the coach had been an elderly vicar and the highwayman had not expected such rich pickings. To save the vicar reporting him to the authorities, he had shot the old man, his coachman, and his servant. The vicar had proved to have a remarkably tenacious hold on life, and Tyburn Jack had to waste two more bullets before the clergyman had decided to go to Heaven.

He was in a good mood and had a good pint of old ale in front of him. There was a family of piggy-looking people in the booth behind him, drinking gin and hot water. He had noticed them before he had sat down and had thought, in an amused way, that they looked just like a family of porkers.

As they drank more, their voices became raised, and Tyburn Jack began to listen in amazement to what they were saying. It transpired, from what he could gather, that there was some rich woman who lived in Hanover Square with her two daughters, and they all went about laden with precious stones. The pig family had tried to rob them and had been trounced. “We daren’t try again,” he heard the girl say, “an’ it ain’t fair, them peacocking about the town with all them jewels hanging off them like ripe fruit. I’d like to kill that old Waverley bitch.”

So the name was Waverley and she lived in Hanover Square. Tyburn Jack continued to listen. This Mrs. Waverley did not employ menservants.

In the smoky gloom of the tavern, Tyburn Jack took out his pistols and began to prime them. He was a gambler and felt his luck with the vicar was only the beginnings of more luck to come. He decided to go to Hanover Square and see what he could see.

***

Colonel Bridie had called at Mrs. Waverley’s and had been informed she was out. He paced up and down the square. He could not leave. He wanted to see this woman for himself. He was determined to wait all night if need be.

And then, just as the watch was calling one in the morning, a carriage drove into the square and stopped outside Mrs. Waverley’s house.

The colonel took up a position by the railings of the house next door.

Three ladies alighted, one matron and two young women. The light burning in the iron bracket over the door of Mrs. Waverley’s house struck fire from the rubies, sapphires, and diamonds the women wore.

Mrs. Waverley dismissed the coach and mounted the steps with Frederica and Felicity behind her.

“Hold hard, ladies,” called a rough voice.

A man had appeared as if out of nowhere. He had a hat pulled down over his eyes and a muffler up over his face. The light, which shone so bravely on the jewels, also shone on the wicked-looking barrel of the pistol the man held in his hand.

Tyburn Jack felt his heart beating hard with excitement. What a fortune they were wearing!

Mrs. Waverley, Frederica, and Felicity stared at him in shock and dismay.

Colonel Bridie, who had been standing in the shadows beyond the pool of light thrown by the lamp, felt in his capacious pocket and drew out a small but serviceable pistol, which he always carried with him, primed and ready.

“Come on,” growled Tyburn Jack.

Mrs. Waverley raised trembling hands to unclasp the diamond brooch from her turban.

The colonel took careful aim and fired.

Tyburn Jack stood stock-still for a moment, a look of utter amazement on his face. Then he crumpled at the knees and fell in a heap at the bottom of the steps.

The colonel advanced, blowing on his smoking pistol. Mrs. Waverley was standing, swaying, looking at him with dilated eyes. He went up to her. “Leave me to handle this, ma’am,” he said. “Get your girls indoors.”

“I—I—” began Mrs. Waverley. Then she put a hand up to her brow and stumbled forward into the colonel’s arms. He dropped his pistol and caught her, and held her tightly. Doors and windows all round the square were flying open. The watch came running. He turned Tyburn Jack over with his foot and held his lantern high.

“Are you the gennelman what done this?” asked the watch.

“Yes,” snapped the colonel, still holding Mrs. Waverley. “The cur was trying to rob these ladies.”

“Blessed if you might not get a medal for this,” said the watch. “That’s Tyburn Jack, that is—a dretful villain.”

“Take the body away, my good man, and tell the magistrate I will talk to him in the morning,” said the colonel. He looked at Frederica. “Please open your door, miss, so that I may carry this poor lady inside.”

But the door was opened by Mrs. Ricketts, who shrieked and exclaimed and tried to relieve the colonel of the burden of Mrs. Waverley. Mrs. Waverley appeared to have recovered her senses, but she still clung tightly to the colonel, who shepherded her inside.

They all helped Mrs. Waverley up to her drawing room and Mrs. Ricketts roused the rest of the servants, demanding the fire to be lit and wine and brandy to be served.

The colonel sat next to Mrs. Waverley on the sofa and patted her hand. “You, sir,” said Mrs. Waverley faintly, “are a hero.”

Mrs. Waverley was a stout matron and normally of a rather intimidating appearance, but the soft glow of admiration in her eyes warmed the colonel’s heart. Here was surely no silly bluestocking, but a lady to her fingertips.

“It was nothing, ma’am,” he said gruffly. “Lucky I was passing.”

“Oh, indeed it was,” said Mrs. Waverley. “Such calmness, such fortitude.”

“It made my blood boil to see such a delicate creature as yourself, ma’am, being held to ransom by that fiend.”

Mrs. Waverley colored faintly and raised her fan to her face.

“My dear sir,” she said in a soft voice, almost babyish, which the girls had never heard her use before, “may I have the honor of knowing the name of my rescuer?”

“Colonel James Bridie, ma’am, at your service. And you are the famous Mrs. Waverley.”

“Or infamous,” said Mrs. Waverley, with a trilling laugh.

“Now I have met you, I realize I have been guilty of listening to scandal and lies,” said the colonel, and he really believed what he said. Of course, Mrs. Waverley could not compare with his beautiful Caroline, and yet there was a solidity about her, a refinement, which pleased his eye.

“Wine, Mr. Bridie?” said Mrs. Waverley. “Yes, I insist. Goodness, shall I ever forget such courage!”

Frederica had recovered from her shock and was becoming highly irritated. Lord Harry had been every bit as brave, and yet Mrs. Waverley had not even done him the common courtesy of receiving him.

“I would suggest, Mrs. Waverley,” said the colonel, “that perhaps it would be wise not to wear quite so many jewels. Not yourself, of course. Magnificent jewels are suitable in your case.” He turned a hard eye on Felicity and Frederica. “But in your—er—daughters’ case, it is not quite the thing for young ladies to wear such jewels.” The colonel had heard all the scandal about the girls being adopted.

“You are so right,” cooed Mrs. Waverley. “I indulge them too much.”

“I did not want to wear them and told you it was not wise,” said Frederica.

“Silly puss,” said Mrs. Waverley, “you do not know what you are saying. Go to your rooms. The hour is late.”

“And what do you make of that?” demanded Felicity as they went upstairs together. “Mrs. Waverley is fawning on that crusty old man.”

“He did rescue us, you know,” pointed out Frederica.

“A simple thank you would have been enough. What has come over her?”

Mrs. Waverley would have been hard put to say what had come over her herself. Her nerves were admittedly overset, but there was something so solid and comforting in the colonel’s presence. Mrs. Waverley had been a beauty in her youth, and all the old flirtatious mannerisms came creeping back as she talked to the colonel.

“To think you have the reputation of being a hater of men,” said the colonel, sipping an excellent burgundy and looking about the pleasant drawing room with pleasure.

“Not I,” said Mrs. Waverley. “I am an educationalist.”

The colonel gave her an indulgent smile. “What do the fair sex need with education?”

“A lazy, untutored mind in a female can cause misery in later life when she has nothing to occupy herself.”

“Well, well,” said the colonel. “To be sure a lady needs a certain knowledge to make up the housekeeping books and to be able to sew well and sing a song prettily.”

“She also needs independence of mind.”

“Only if she is alone in the world,” said the colonel. The wine, added to all that he had been drinking earlier, was making him feel mellow and infinitely wise. “I admit that. Yes, yes. But when a lady has a strong man to do her thinking for her, she has no need to addle her beautiful head with books. I see what it is that ails you, you know.”

“Thanks to your timely intervention, I am alive and well,” said Mrs. Waverley. “What can you mean?”

“I see now you did a very noble and generous thing adopting these girls,” said the colonel. “But you have been burdened down with responsibilities for so long, you have forgotten what it is like to lean on someone. You have cared for others for so long, you have forgotten what it is like to have someone to care for you.”

His words struck Mrs. Waverley like a hammer blow. Nobody appreciated her. The girls found her dictatorial and tiresome. Not once had one of them put their arms about her or given her one caress. She was indeed alone in the world. The fact that she was the envy of many women because of her wealth and freedom no longer entered her mind. She felt like a little lost and pathetic waif.

“How true. How very, very true,” she said, taking out a handkerchief and giving a delicate sniff.

The colonel pressed her hand, blushed and stared down into the contents of his glass. “I am engaged to a certain lady,” he said gruffly. “But if you would permit, I could take you about a bit. As friends, you know.” With an instinctive cunning he did not know he possessed, he added, “It should appeal to your principles… I mean that men and women can be friends.”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Waverley.

“Good. I shall call on you tomorrow at two in the afternoon and we shall go driving if the weather is fine.”

Mrs. Waverley dropped her eyes. “I have never had a hero in my life before,” she said.

The colonel’s chest swelled. “You have an old but trusty soldier in your life now, ma’am.”

***

Colonel Bridie awoke the next morning with an unaccustomed feeling of guilt. He had promised to take Caroline driving and, in the heat of all last night’s excitement, he had forgotten their engagement. He decided to call on Caroline in the morning and tell her of his adventures, and then he would send a note of apology to Mrs. Waverley.

When Betty told her the colonel was belowstairs, Caroline groaned in dismay. She had been looking forward to a quiet morning. There was anything but lovelight shining in her eyes when he entered the room.

Now the colonel still felt no end of a hero and that cold, impatient look in Caroline’s eyes was like a bucket of cold water being thrown over his head.

“I am delighted to see you at all times,” said Caroline, “but I am not at my best so early in the morning.”

“It is ten o’clock,” said the colonel crossly. “You are still in your undress. I know we are to be married, but it must be very shocking for your young maid to see her mistress receiving a gentleman caller clad only in her nightgown.”

Caroline sighed. “I have the headache, and slept badly.”

All in that moment, the colonel decided to keep his engagement with Mrs. Waverley. He was a hero and craved a hero’s adulation. Still, Caroline must hear of his bravery. He told her of his adventures, but instead of crying out at his bravery and demanding reassurances that he had not been hurt, she turned a trifle pale and said, “Is Mrs. Waverley aware that you are engaged to me?”

“I told her I was engaged but not to whom,” said the colonel testily. “Does it matter? I told her I would take her driving this afternoon, but, of course, I shall not go, for we have an arrangement to go driving ourselves.”

“I would rather you did not discuss me with, or mention my name to, Mrs. Waverley,” said Caroline. “Go, by all means. I would have thought a lady of her views would have given you a disgust of her.”

“Oh, like all those bluestockings, she has some silly ideas,” said the colonel, “but it comes from having been so much alone and without a man to guide her.”

Caroline did not feel the slightest pang of jealousy. To her, Mrs. Waverley was old. Fifty or so was old in a woman. All she thought was that Mrs. Waverley might put a few ideas of women’s liberty into the colonel’s rigid mind. He need never know her masquerade as Lady Harriet. She would call a few more times to see Frederica and then tell Lord Harry that her role as his sister was finished.

“You must keep your appointment with Mrs. Waverley,” she said gently. “I am really not feeling very well and I think I shall return to bed.”

“It’s this filthy slum you live in,” said the colonel, dismissing the whole of Covent Garden with one wave of his hand. “Some good country air would set you up no end. Nothing but peace and quiet. No theaters, no noisy carriages and coaches and street hawkers. After we are married, you will be a changed woman.” Caroline repressed a shudder.

The colonel stood up to take his leave. He kissed her hand, and then, for the first time ever, he drew her into his arms and kissed her lips. It was a hard, clumsy kiss. He smelled unpleasantly of all he had drunk the night before mixed with all the smells of a body which had not been bathed for the past few months. The colonel was one of the many who agreed with one of the royal dukes that it was “sweat, dammit, sweat,” that kept a man clean.

Caroline was now very pale indeed. His conscience eased, for he was now sure she was really ill, the colonel rang for the maid and told her to put her mistress to bed.

***

Frederica wished she had not arranged to meet Lord Harry. What if he should kiss her again? She still remembered that first kiss and it made her feel hot and uncomfortable and, somehow, weak and helpless. She had thought that men dominated women by bullying and by holding control of the finances, and by constraining them to breed as regularly as rabbits, but now she was aware that sex could undermine the strongest woman. Passion was a cheat, that Frederica had learned from Mrs. Waverley, and despite the little she had been in society, she had seen evidence to prove that what Mrs. Waverley had said was true. A pretty debutante Frederica knew, who had been blushing and sighing every time her lover even looked at her, was a cowed and dowdy wreck a bare five months after her marriage. It was well known that men did not look for love in marriage but found it fleetingly elsewhere, discarding the mistresses they were tired of with little worry or compassion.

She had almost decided not to meet Lord Harry when promptly at two o’clock Colonel Bridie arrived to take Mrs. Waverley driving, a Mrs. Waverley beribboned and bowed and scented and twittering in the silly way she had often claimed to despise in other women.

So with the coast clear, Frederica found her treacherous mind telling her that it was only civil to make her way into the garden next door and exchange a few polite words with Lord Harry.

She went upstairs to change her gown and met Felicity on the stairs. “Where are you going?” asked Frederica.

“Too good an opportunity to miss,” said Felicity. “I am going out to buy a book.”

The servants had strict instructions that the girls were not to be allowed out of the house, but they took turns at escaping through the library window at the back, over the wall into the garden next door, and so out to freedom. Mrs. Waverley had recently begun to allow them a little pin money but no opportunity to spend it, and so both had quite a fair sum saved up.

“It’s my turn to go out,” said Frederica, who had no intention of telling Felicity that she was going to meet Lord Harry.

“No, it’s not,” said Felicity crossly. “You went last time. You know you did!”

“Look, let me go this time,” begged Frederica. “Tell me what book it is you want and I shall buy it for you.”

“No! I am sick of being kept in here.”

“Listen!” said Frederica urgently. “Sounds from next door.”

“Perhaps those thieves have come back,” said Felicity. She led the way into the drawing room. Frederica followed and together they looked out of the window. Servants were arriving next door, loading crates and boxes into the house.

“That Lord Harry has decided to take up residence on this day of all days,” said Felicity furiously. “There is no escape for either of us. Hey, ho! What shall we do? Would you like a game of backgammon?”

Frederica thought quickly. She would have to pick a quarrel with Felicity and in that way she would be able to escape unnoticed.

“No, I don’t want to play backgammon. You weary me, Felicity. You are so babyish.”

“I? Babyish? Let me tell you, Frederica, dear, that I have more sense in my little finger than you have in your whole head!” Felicity tossed her mane of chestnut hair. “I am all of eighteen years now.”

“Baby! Baby!” jeered Frederica.

“I don’t know what has come over you. I thought we had become friends.” Her head held high, Felicity made a stately exit from the room.

All in that moment, Frederica hated Lord Harry. What Felicity had said was true. Their days of rivalry and fighting were over, and since the elopement of Fanny, they had become closer, although not close enough to be confidantes, which was why Frederica enjoyed the company of “Lady Harriet.” But because of the frivolous Lord Harry, she had picked a quarrel with Felicity.

She went up to her room, determined now that she would not go. She tried to read. But at ten to three, she suddenly threw down her book, changed into a light gown of blue muslin, scampered down to the library, and dropped down from the window into the weedy garden below. She climbed up onto a box and pulled herself up on top of the wall, then slid down a plank on the other side, which the girls had placed there to help them in their escapes.

The garden she found herself in was a tangled mass of undergrowth and weeds. Out of this dark green mess, some brave roses held their faces up to the sun. The air was warm and drowsy. Not a puff of wind disturbed the hot stillness of the walled garden.

She could hear the busy sounds and voices of Lord Harry’s servants and felt self-conscious standing there. She turned to leave, for surely any minute now the door would open and some housekeeper or butler would demand to know what she wanted.

“Servant, ma’am.”

Frederica wheeled about. Lord Harry Danger stood before her. He seemed to have sprung up from nowhere. He was wearing only a thin cambric shirt and breeches and top boots. His fair hair gleamed guinea gold in the sunlight.

“You must forgive my undress,” he said when she did not say anything. “I have been helping to arrange things in my new home. You look so uneasy. Wait! I shall go indoors and put on my coat and cravat and we shall pretend it is a formal call.”

“No, don’t go,” said Frederica hurriedly. “I should not have come. I have very little time. Mrs. Waverley went out driving with Colonel Bridie at two and will be back soon.”

“And what is Mrs. Waverley doing driving with the colonel? Mr. Bridie is engaged to a friend of mine.”

“The colonel rescued us from a thief last night. He shot him dead. It will no doubt be in the newspapers tomorrow.”

“You lead an adventurous life. What happened, exactly?”

Frederica told him hurriedly, moving restlessly from foot to foot and glancing up at the windows of her own home as she did so, as if expecting to see Mrs. Waverley’s angry face at one of the windows.

When she had finished, he said, “You see, thwarted thieves talk to other thieves. It is possible that most of the criminal world will now know that you all wear a great too many jewels and do not have a single manservant to protect you.”

“Oh, dear,” Frederica forgot her fear of discovery in her dismay. “I must speak to Mrs. Waverley.”

“Has my sister called?” he asked.

“No. Can you give me her direction? I would like to send her a letter.”

“She will no doubt call on you tomorrow,” said Lord Harry. He privately thought he had better call on Caroline and tell her to drop the masquerade. With Colonel Bridie on the scene, her true identity would soon be revealed. He wished he had not enlisted her help in the first place. It was a stupid thing to do. Frederica would be furious.

“In any case,” said Frederica, not looking at him, “I am come to thank you again and to apologize for the churlishness of Mrs. Waverley.”

“And that is the only reason?”

“What other reason could there be?”

“I was hoping that you might have decided to marry me.”

“Of course not. I must go.” Frederica walked toward the plank and began to shin up it. Two strong hands encircled her tiny waist and lifted her easily back down to the ground.

“I am sure you can spare a few moments longer,” he said. “What have you got against marriage to me?”

“You had no right to touch me!” raged Frederica. “And I have no intention of being the slave of any man.”

“Oh, Miss Frederica, it is I who am your slave.”

He smiled down at her tenderly. His frilled shirt was open at the neck, revealing the strong column of his throat.

“In any case,” said Frederica in a stifled voice, “you cannot want to marry me. I am not Mrs. Waverley’s daughter. I do not know who my parents were.”

“I know,” he said. “It makes no difference, my sweeting.”

“I am not going to marry anyone,” said Frederica almost tearfully. “Now, I must go.”

He put a hand under her chin and looked into her eyes. “How very blue your eyes are,” he said softly. “Like delphiniums.” He bent his face toward her own. She looked up at him in a dazed way. His mouth moved ever closer and her lips began to tremble. The sun was hot on her head and the noises from the house had ceased, leaving them enclosed in a heavy silence charged with emotion. His lips descended gently on her own.

This time Frederica did not struggle. He put his arms around her. His long fingers caressed her neck under the heavy tresses of hair, which she wore loose. She felt as if her body was melting into his. A drugged, lethargic sweetness stole over her and his lips continued their gentle seductive caress.

At last he raised his head and said huskily, “Now you will have to marry me.”

Rigid with shock, Frederica stared up at him, all she had ever read and studied fleeing from her brain, to be replaced by one scared mass of feminine ignorance. “What have you done to me?” she cried.

“Merely kissed you, my chuck.”

Common sense came back, but Frederica was now frightened of the power he had over her wanton body. “Oh, that!” She shrugged. “I am used to being kissed, my lord.”

His green eyes mocked her. “Liar,” he said. “Nobody ever kissed you before.”

“How can you tell? Oh, I know. It is experience. In the way a gourmand can tell which herbs have been used in the cooking. So you have kissed so many ladies, you can tell one flavor from t’other. This one has had two lovers, this one five. Pah!”

“Frederica, you are going to marry me, so why pretend to be angry with me?”

“Lord Harry, what you have in mind is an amusing seduction.”

“Miss Frederica, I do not amuse myself with virgins.”

“I am definitely going now,” said Frederica, her color high. “I admit I was at fault this time. I should not have let you kiss me. Please let me leave.”

He caught her round the waist and hoisted her up so that she was able to grasp the top of the wall. “Off with you then,” he called. “But you shall see me again, very soon.”

When she got back indoors, Frederica sought out Felicity and apologized for her earlier behavior, but Felicity was still cross. “I don’t trust you anymore,” she said. “Mrs. Waverley is returned, and that Lady Harriet is in the drawing room, looking for you.”

Caroline had waited until she was sure the colonel had returned Mrs. Waverley home and left before calling herself. Mrs. Waverley regaled her with a long tale of the colonel’s bravery and then gave her gracious permission to allow Frederica to go out walking.

Frederica and Caroline walked in silence to Hyde Park. Caroline was deciding she must tell Frederica that she was going off to the country. With the colonel calling on Mrs. Waverley, the masquerade must stop. But she must do her best to persuade Frederica to look favorably on Lord Harry.

“Have you seen my brother?” she asked, breaking the silence at last. “I know that he has taken up residence next door to you.”

“Yes, I saw him recently.” Frederica colored up. “Lady Harriet, are your brother’s intentions honorable?”

Caroline was about to cry out, yes, but then she wondered if Lord Harry had anything more in mind than a seduction. He had been very kind to her, but she did not really know him. Surely a man whose intentions were honorable would call on Mrs. Waverley, despite that woman’s well-known aversion to men. To hire an actress to masquerade as his sister was the sort of thing a philanderer would do. Caroline’s conscience smote her. She owed Lord Harry her life, but that debt must surely not allow her to connive at the seduction of an innocent girl.

“I know my brother to be anxious to win your approval,” she said cautiously. “You must insist, all the same, Miss Frederica, that he calls on Mrs. Waverley and asks her permission to pay his addresses. He has not done anything, I trust, to show that his intentions might be dishonorable?”

“I arranged to meet him in the garden of his house this afternoon,” said Frederica. “I know I should not have done it, but Mrs. Waverley did not even thank him for rescuing us from thieves, and yet she made a great fuss of Colonel Bridie. Do you know Colonel Bridie? He is one of those bluff, insensitive, bullying sorts of men.”

“Yes, I know him,” said Caroline quietly.

“Oh, I should not be so rude, then. In any case, I met Lord Harry. He—he kissed me. I should not have let him.”

“No, you should not,” agreed Caroline severely. Scandalous as her own past was, she still knew the ways of society. A gentleman did not kiss a lady until after they were engaged, and often, not even until the marriage. Her heart sank. Lord Harry was behaving in a disgraceful way. She could not be a party to it. She wished heartily to be shot of the lot of them: Frederica, Lord Harry, and, yes, Colonel Bridie. She suddenly realized exactly what life would be like once she was married to the colonel, and a large tear rolled down her cheek.

“I have distressed you,” exclaimed Frederica. “but you are so unhappy. It cannot be because of your brother!”

Her blue eyes were warm and sympathetic, and she put an arm about Caroline’s waist and guided her to a park bench. “Sit down, dear Lady Harriet, and tell me what ails you.”

Caroline was so miserable, she could not bear the weight of her secret any longer. Lord Harry would probably never forgive her, but she could not be a party to the seduction of an innocent.

“I am not Lady Harriet,” she said, “and I am not Lord Harry’s sister.”

Frederica looked shocked. “Then who are you?”

“I am Caroline James, a former actress, and I am now engaged to a country gentleman.”

“But why did you pretend to be Lady Harriet?”

“Some years ago, I contracted consumption. Lord Harry saved my life. He sent me to Switzerland and paid for my keep until I recovered. He asked me if I could pretend to be his sister and befriend you, and persuade you that he shared your views. After what you have just told me, I fear his intentions. I cannot help him any longer, although I owe him my life.”

“So that is how you come to know you cannot have babies?” said Frederica, her mind adding up the sum of actress plus lovers equals gynecological knowledge.

“Meaning all actresses are harlots? No, that is not the case. I did not have an affair with Lord Harry, that I promise you. But I am about to enter into marriage with a man I do not love, nor do I respect him. I owe it to my sex to make sure that another lady is not going to be made unhappy. And so I had to tell you the truth.” Something stopped Caroline from telling Frederica that she was engaged to Colonel Bridie.

Frederica felt a great lump in her throat. She wondered whether Lord Harry joked about her with his friends, whether they had betting books in the clubs with her name on them, everyone laying odds on her seduction.

“You do not need to marry,” she said.

“My funds are running low. There is nothing else I can do,” said Caroline, beginning to cry in earnest.

“You can act,” said Frederica fiercely. “Just think. You have a career which makes you independent of men.”

“I am no longer young and I have lost my looks.”

“Nonsense!” said Frederica. “Do actresses earn much money?”

Caroline dried her eyes. “Not much in London, but a very great deal in touring the provinces.”

“Surely you could try.”

“I am so very tired,” said Caroline. “I am afraid my future lies with my fiancé.”

***

The headache that Caroline had claimed to have was very real by the time she returned to her lodgings. When Lord Harry was announced, she longed to refuse to see him, but then thought she would feel better if she got it off her chest about how she had let him down.

“You look dreadful,” said Lord Harry. “The colonel been nagging you? Do you know, he is the champion of the Waverley household… and so I am afraid that Lady Harriet must disappear. I am progressing favorably as it is.”

Caroline looked at him wearily. “I went out walking with Miss Frederica Waverley this afternoon,” she said. “She told me you had met her in secret and had kissed her.”

“What gossips you women are! Is nothing sacred?”

“She is, as you well know, of very doubtful parentage,” said Caroline severely. “In fact, she does not even know who her parents were. Had your intentions been honorable, then you would have approached Mrs. Waverley for her permission to pay your addresses, rather than hire an actress. I told her who I was. I am shortly to enter into a marriage with Colonel Bridie. I shall not be very happy. Miss Frederica Waverley has the right of it. We women owe loyalty to each other in this world of men. I would not see another woman unhappy—I could not see such a charming girl seduced to amuse even such as you, Lord Harry. I owe you my life—”

She broke off as Lord Harry held up his hand.

“Caroline,” he said severely, “you have a nasty, low mind. What on earth would be the point in me asking that old trout, Waverley, for permission? I would be refused, the door slammed in my face, and Frederica’s movements would be watched like a hawk. But now I will have to do just that, for Frederica will never believe me otherwise.”

Caroline looked at him in dismay. “You mean you really do want to marry the girl?”

“Have I not been saying so all along?”

“But it all seems so odd. You could have anyone. You came to me with your plan after you had first met her and barely knew what she looked like.”

“It’s those plays you used to act in,” he said mournfully. “They have given you such a low opinion of my class. We are not all wicked seducers, striding about the countryside demanding our droit de seigneur.”

“I shall go back to her—” began Caroline, but he interrupted her.

“No, that would not answer. I shall contrive something on my own. But what of you, my faithless friend? Why so wretched? although wretched you deserve to be. What has the good colonel done to alienate your affections?”

“Nothing. But he expects me to obey him in all matters and I am used to my independence.”

“Mrs. Waverley has upset you. What you are describing is an ordinary marriage.”

“Perhaps. But I do not love him.”

“I am rich. I will give you a pension.”

Caroline looked at him, her eyes swimming with tears. “I cannot do that. If I must be under an obligation to someone, I shall marry the colonel. I am not dying now, thanks to you, and can stand on my own feet.”

“By lying on your back in the colonel’s bed? Think of it, sweet Caroline. My pension would surely be preferable.”

Caroline moaned and clutched her temples. “Leave me,” she said. “Only first, say you forgive me for ruining your chances with Frederica.”

“I forgive you, but do consider my offer.”

Lord Harry strolled along the noisy, congested streets of Covent Garden, buried in thought. He stopped as he was passing the playhouse and then, after only a moment’s hesitation, plunged into the fusty gloom of the theater and asked to see the actor manager, Mr. Josiah Biggs. He sat in the Green Room and studied the paintings of various expressions of dramatic emotion hanging on the walls.

Mr. Biggs came in, holding Lord Harry’s card.

“What can I do for you, my lord?” he asked.

Lord Harry swung around. “Do you remember Caroline James?”

“Ah, yes. Poor Miss James. Died of consumption this age.”

“No. She recovered in Switzerland and now resides a few streets away.”

Mr. Biggs’s eyes gleamed with sudden hope, and then he said gloomily. “Married with ten brats, no doubt.”

“No, not married,” said Lord Harry. “Still a fine-looking woman.” He tapped a poster on the wall with his quizzing glass. “More a Lady Macbeth now than a Juliet, but I should swear she still has in her that great power of hers. Do you remember how she could silence the pit with just one look?”

“My lord,” said Mr. Biggs, clasping his beringed hands together as if in prayer, “it comes about that Mrs. Anstruther, who was to play Lady Macbeth, is sick… and I cannot get anyone very well known to replace her. But if I could bill the triumphant return of Miss Caroline James… well…”

“Give me a piece of paper,” said Lord Harry. “See! Here is her address. If there are any financial difficulties with the production, I would be glad to supply you with the necessary money.” And with the manager’s heartfelt thanks ringing in his ears, Lord Harry set off again, wondering how to get Mrs. Waverley to receive him.

Chapter Five

As soon as Mrs. Waverley had finished her morning lessons and left to examine the housekeeping book, Felicity slammed shut her Latin primer and said, “What ails you, Freddy? You look so tired and worn. Didn’t you sleep?”

“No, I didn’t sleep,” said Frederica. “Oh, Felicity, I have made such a fool of myself.”

“How so?”

“Lord Harry led me to believe he wanted to marry me, but instead he was playing a game to amuse himself.”

“What is this? You cannot have seen him alone…. So that’s why you picked a quarrel with me yesterday. You went off to meet him. For shame, Frederica! You, of all people, to be so easily gulled by such as he.”

“You see, Lady Harriet is not his sister. She is not even Lady Harriet. She is an actress called Caroline James. Lord Harry hired her to plead his case.”

“So he has been using one old mistress to entrap a new and younger one?”

“Miss James told me she had never been his mistress and I believe her. She said she could no longer go on with the masquerade. She said she had done it because she owes Lord Harry a great debt. I feel so wretched, so foolish. I let him kiss me, Felicity.”

Felicity looked at her sadly. “There is something so wild and unbridled about you, Frederica. You must realize that our background is such that no one of any standing can want to marry us.”

“Tredair married Fanny,” said Frederica stubbornly.

“But he did want to marry her at all times, did he not? He did not hire an actress.”

“What am I to do? He has taken the house next door.”

“Just be thankful his lusting after you put him next door, where he was able to save you from those thieves, and forget him. You must tell Mrs. Waverley.”

“No!”

“Yes, you must. For what if he returns to the attack?”

Frederica shook her head. But the fact that she really should tell Mrs. Waverley weighed heavily on her mind. At last, by early afternoon, she felt she could bear it no longer. She went to see Mrs. Waverley, who was sitting at a desk in the drawing room, writing letters.

Mrs. Waverley heard her out in grim silence. Frederica left out the bit about the meeting in the garden and the kiss.

“Frederica,” said Mrs. Waverley, “you must remember we do not know your origins, and they were no doubt common, which is why you do things that no gently bred lady would even think of doing, such as encouraging the attentions of a rake like Lord Harry. Oh, yes! When we were leaving for Lady Mackay’s, I noticed how you fawned on him in that bold way.”

“I was merely trying to thank him properly for saving my life,” said Frederica, “a politeness you seemed determined to deny him.”

“Has it not occurred to you,” said Mrs. Waverley, “that a man who hires an actress to impersonate his sister may well have corrupted our poor maid, Annie Souter, and arranged that so-called robbery so as to appear a hero in your eyes?”

Frederica shivered. “No, that was real.”

“Colonel Bridie,” announced Mrs. Ricketts from the doorway.

“No, do not leave, Frederica,” said Mrs. Waverley. “The colonel shall hear this.”

“I pray you, Mrs. Waverley,” said Frederica desperately, “do not humiliate me in front of strangers.”

“Colonel Bridie is no stranger. Welcome, Colonel. We have discovered a most shocking thing. A lady who has ingratiated herself into this household masquerading as Lady Harriet Danger is none other than the actress, Caroline James!”

It was at that moment that the full, shocking enormity of Lord Harry’s behavior struck Frederica, for the colonel looked almost ready to faint.

“This cannot be possible,” he whispered.

“But it is, I assure you,” said Mrs. Waverley.

The colonel sat down heavily. He had not told Mrs. Waverley the name of the lady to whom he was engaged, for he was secretly ashamed of Caroline’s past profession.

He had no intention of telling Mrs. Waverley anything about it now. He was burning with jealousy.

“Where does Lord Harry reside?” he asked.

“Next door. He has rented the house next door, and all, I am sure, as part of his plan to seduce my poor Frederica.”

The colonel rose to his feet. “Leave him to me, ma’am,” he said. “When I have finished with him, he will wish he had never been born.”

“That is a rare man,” said Mrs. Waverley, smiling mistily when the colonel had left. “So strong! So brave!”

“I would have thought Mr. Bridie to be all that you despise in men,” said Frederica. “Bullying, patronizing, and arrogant.”

“You ungrateful girl! He has gone on your behalf. I only hope that philandering lord is getting what he richly deserves!”

Lord Harry was preparing to go out when the colonel was announced. He did not want to see him but sensed trouble and thought he had better get it over with as soon as possible.

His valet was holding his shirt, ready to put it on his master, when the colonel came striding in. The colonel had his gloves in his hand, ready to strike the foppish Lord Harry across the face and challenge him to a duel.

But the sight of the half-naked lord gave him pause. Lord Harry’s smooth and hairless chest was hard and muscled and his face, devoid of its usual pleasant, mocking expression, was firm and set.

“Sit down, Colonel,” said Lord Harry, “and state your business.”

“I will not sit down in your house, sirrah!” blustered the colonel. “You are a seducer and a liar.”

“So Miss James told you of her masquerade?”

“No, she did not. I found out from Mrs. Waverley. Just what are your relations with my fiancée?”

“Miss James is an old friend and that is all. I should not need to tell you this. Your own knowledge of Miss James’s character should be enough. I could not have embroiled her in this affair had I known that you yourself would become a guest in the Waverley household, or had there been any other way to get Miss Frederica to marry me.”

“Marry you? You surely do not mean that. I know your sort. I know—”

“If you keep talking about my sort and being insulting, I shall have to call you out.” Lord Harry’s normally pleasant voice was like a whiplash.

“You cannot expect me to believe you,” said the colonel. “All you have to do is to ask Mrs. Waverley leave to pay your addresses.”

“And you think that is simple? Very well. Come with me, my dear colonel, and you shall hear me try.”

Despite his distress over Caroline’s deception, the colonel could not help anticipating pleasurably the look of admiration on Mrs. Waverley’s face when he bore Lord Harry into the drawing room. With any luck, Mrs. Waverley would think he had forced this lord into proposing marriage.

Mrs. Waverley was sitting with Frederica and Felicity. As soon as she saw Lord Harry behind the colonel, she tried to send the girls from the room, but the colonel stopped her, saying, “Let them stay. All must hear Lord Harry’s explanation.”

Lord Harry looked quizzically at Frederica, who blushed slightly and turned her face away.

“This is most unusual,” he said lightly. “More like making a political speech. I resorted to the disgraceful plan of getting Miss Caroline James to masquerade as my sister, and for that I am truly sorry. But what else was I to do? How can I court a lady when I am not allowed near her? But now I am here in your drawing room, Mrs. Waverley, and I must beg your permission to be allowed to pay my addresses to Miss Frederica Waverley.”

Frederica stared at him, wide-eyed.

“No, I will not grant you permission,” said Mrs. Waverley. “You, sir, have caused your mistress, an actress, to ingratiate herself into the bosom of my household. You are not fit to breathe the same air as my Frederica.”

To Frederica’s surprise, Lord Harry cast an amused look at the colonel, who shuffled his feet miserably and stared at the ground. “Have you not something to say in the defense of Miss James, Colonel?” asked Lord Harry.

“How can such a sterling character as Colonel Bridie have anything to say in the defense of a common, deceitful actress?” boomed Mrs. Waverley.

The colonel took out his watch and looked at it, and affected a very—to Frederica—stagy start of surprise. “Good heavens! Is that the time?” he cried. He threw a peculiarly pleading look in the direction of Lord Harry.

“If you must go,” said Mrs. Waverley, “then take Lord Harry Danger with you.”

“Do I understand you refuse your permission, Mrs. Waverley?” asked Lord Harry.

“Of course, I refuse permission.”

“And what has Miss Frederica to say to that?”

“I am Frederica’s guardian and she will be guided by me.”

“For a so-called modern woman, you are sadly old-fashioned,” said Lord Harry. “Miss Frederica would have more freedom were she married to me.”

“Frederica has plenty of freedom.”

“My dear lady, the Season has begun, and yet the only outing the Waverley girls are allowed is round and round the square.”

“Nonsense. We go out to many functions.”

“We don’t,” said Felicity, who was always on the lookout for ways to manipulate Mrs. Waverley into giving her more freedom. “I fear you are afraid to go abroad.”

“And quite right, too,” said the colonel, “after all Mrs. Waverley has been through.”

“Still here, Colonel Bridie?” demanded Lord Harry, with a sweet smile. “Have you not something to tell Mrs. Waverley?”

“No,” barked the colonel. “Just away.”

“Good day to you, Lord Harry,” said Mrs. Waverley. “We shall not be seeing you again.”

“I doubt that,” said Lord Harry. “Your servant, Miss Frederica.”

He looked hopefully at Frederica, but she kept her eyes lowered.

Once out in the street, Lord Harry mocked the colonel. “Oh, faithless one.”

“It’s all your fault,” raged the colonel. “Miss James is all that is respectable, and I am going to find out how it was you managed to coerce her into behaving so disgracefully.”

He strode off down the street. Lord Harry shrugged and began to walk to his club. There must be some way he could get Frederica to want to see him alone. He wondered who her parents had been, and then he began to wonder if Frederica did not often wonder about her parentage. Why! Of course, she must wonder. How then would she react to an offer of help? A slow smile curled his lips and he asked the club waiter to fetch him paper, pen, and ink.

***

Colonel Bridie walked through the narrow lanes of Covent Garden, his head bent. Someone tried to shove a playbill into his hand and he shied away. Playbills were usually still wet from the printer and had a nasty way of ruining gloves. What did he really know of Caroline James? All those years ago when he had seen her on the stage, he had thought her magnificent. Much as the colonel despised actors and actresses, he loved going to the playhouse, and although he would not admit it himself, he was stagestruck. That this woman he had worshipped from afar was soon to be his bride had made him feel the luckiest man in England. And yet he was anxious to hide the fact that she had been an actress. He was confident that as Mrs. Bridie, and buried in the country, no one would know anything of her past.

But Lord Harry must have been her lover. Why else would she do such a disgraceful thing as trying to fool poor Mrs. Waverley?

Another playbill was held out in front of him. He was about to wave it away when suddenly the name, Miss Caroline James, seemed to leap up at him. He stopped stock-still and took the playbill in the tips of his fingers. Miss Caroline James was once more to appear on the London stage, screamed the black letters. A triumphant return. She would play Lady Macbeth the following week.

He shook his head like a baffled bull, and then, dropping the playbill in the kennel, he seized his stick firmly in his hand and headed purposefully in the direction of Caroline’s lodgings.

He prayed it would transpire to be some mad joke of Lord Harry’s. He prayed someone had made a dreadful mistake. But as he mounted the narrow stairs to Caroline’s apartment, her clear voice sounding from above mocked his hopes. “‘Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?’”

The colonel did not knock. He pushed open the door and walked inside. Caroline was pacing up and down, the play in her hand. She stopped short at the sight of him, and a look of weariness crossed her face.

“As you see,” she said, “I am beyond redemption. I have decided to return to my old profession.”

“Which one?” sneered the colonel.

“Why, acting, to be sure.”

“I have reason to believe, madam, that you are, or were once, Lord Harry Danger’s mistress.”

“And why should you think that?”

“Because you have been masquerading as his sister!”

Caroline sat down and said quietly, “Pray be seated, Mr. Bridie. I have much to explain.”

“I should deuced well think so!” said the colonel, but he sat down, both hands resting on the knob of his cane, and glowering at her from beneath his bushy eyebrows.

“Lord Harry discovered a long time ago that I was ill with consumption,” said Caroline. “He was never my lover. He arranged for me to go to Switzerland to live in the mountains. I stayed there for a long time, even after I was cured, for I feared a return of my illness. I owe him a great debt. He had apparently fallen in love with Miss Frederica Waverley after meeting her for the first time, but knew that Mrs. Waverley would not accept his suit or give him permission to pay his addresses. He wanted someone at court to plead his case, so to speak. He asked me if I would masquerade as his sister. It was very little to ask. But something Frederica said to me made me fear he meant to seduce her and so I told Miss Waverley my true identity. But it transpires Lord Harry’s intentions are honorable. I am ashamed of myself. I should have known they were.”

“It was a despicable thing to do,” said the colonel. “You are shortly to become my wife and no scandal must be attached to your name. What is this folly?” He pointed to one of the playbills of Macbeth which was stuck on a screen in the corner of the room.

Caroline looked at him pleadingly. “Mr. Biggs, the manager of the playhouse, begged me to return. I wish to be independent. I should not make you a suitable wife.”

“No, I don’t think you would,” said the colonel. “How can I have been so blind?” He looked about the room as he spoke: at the script of Macbeth, at the clutter of fans and shawls, at the flowers shoved haphazardly in vases, at the tea things lying on the table, waiting to be cleared away. The whole parlor, which might seem cozy to most, now screamed “Actress” at the embittered colonel.

He got to his feet. “I am a great fool,” he said. “I release you from the engagement. I may forgive you one day, madam, but I doubt if I shall ever forgive myself for my folly. No, don’t come near me.”

Caroline crossed to the window and watched the colonel walk out of her life. She tried to feel sad but could only feel a great lightening of her spirits. She picked up the script again and soon she was engrossed in rehearsing her lines.

It was that conversation in the park with Frederica that had made her realize she could never be tied to the colonel.

Unaware it was Mrs. Waverley—and her teachings which Frederica had so faithfully passed on—who was responsible for the break up of his engagement, the colonel found his steps leading westward—toward Hanover Square—in search of consolation.

***

Mrs. Ricketts received the news that Lord Harry Danger wished to speak to her with great aplomb. The cook thought she looked almost as if she had been waiting for him. Sternly telling the servants not to breathe a word of it, Mrs. Ricketts went to the area door. Although a woman and a mere housekeeper, Mrs. Ricketts knew the servants were more loyal to her than they were to Mrs. Waverley. Only Annie Souter had been a sad mistake. Mrs. Ricketts employed all the servants and chose them well. She went to the basement door, which opened into a narrow, coffinlike area below the street.

Lord Harry was standing there with a letter in his hand. “You wish me to give a letter to Miss Frederica,” said Mrs. Ricketts. There was no suggestion of a question in her voice.

“If you would be so kind,” said Lord Harry. “How is it you know the reason for my call?”

“Looked out of the upstairs window yesterday and saw the pair of you in your garden.”

“And you don’t think I am an evil seducer?”

“No, my lord. You look like a man in love.”

“I am glad someone credits me with finer feelings.”

Mrs. Ricketts took the letter and put it in her apron pocket. Then she held out a work-worn hand. Lord Harry smiled and pressed two guineas into it. Mrs. Ricketts deftly slid the coins into her pocket and bobbed a curtsy.

“If there is an answer, my lord,” she said, “I will throw it over the garden wall.”

Upstairs, Felicity was trying to get Frederica to swear she would never see Lord Harry again. “For, you know,” said Felicity, “there is a lightness and frivolity about him I cannot like. I fear he means you harm.”

“I don’t need to promise anything,” retorted Frederica angrily, “for you may be sure I will not be allowed to see him again.”

“Which is just as well, for we cannot marry. Tredair was another thing… and Fanny was so extremely beautiful, you know.”

“What a terribly insulting thing to say,” said Frederica, sounding almost tearful. “You mean that because I am plain, his intentions cannot be honorable. He proposed to me! You heard him.”

“That could merely be a way of getting you in his clutches.”

“Felicity, I am going to burn all your romances. Clutches, indeed.”

“If you do not know how to go about saving yourself, then I must do it for you,” said Felicity. “I am going to my room. If you come to your senses, you know where to find me.”

When Felicity had left, Frederica surveyed herself gloomily in the glass. Why was her skin not white? It was the color of pale gold, but to Frederica’s jaundiced eyes it looked sallow. Her mouth was too large and generous for beauty. Fashion demanded a tiny little rosebud of a mouth. Elderly ladies had spiderwebs of radiating lines around their mouths from years of practicing their Prunes and Prisms and primping them into the required shape. Her slate-colored hair should have been brown. Brown was fashionable. She tried to tell herself that it did not matter what she looked like. Certainly she had often dreamed of a man. What young lady did not? But she had always imagined someone stern and authorative who would impress Mrs. Waverley. Lord Harry was not for her. He caused all sorts of wanton feelings in her body… and surely no gentleman with honorable intentions would ever do that. Ladies in love fainted and sighed, only demireps lusted.

The door opened and Mrs. Ricketts came in. She handed Frederica Lord Harry’s letter, curtsied and said, “Ring for me when you have your reply ready,” and left the room.

Heart beating hard, Frederica broke the seal and opened it.

Dear Miss Frederica,

It has crossed my Mind that you might be Desirous of finding out the true Identity of your Parents. If you wish me to help You, I shall be in the Garden at four o’clock tomorrow.

Yr. Humble and Obedient Servant,

Danger.

Frederica’s first reaction was that she would not go. Her second, that tomorrow seemed an unconscionable time away.

***

Since her rescue by the colonel, Mrs. Waverley had received a great many invitations. The Waverleys were once more in the news. The colonel’s killing of the famous highwayman had been reported in all the newspapers, simply because the newspapers wished to discourse at length on the boldness of criminals who had moved in from the highroads, once more to terrify the citizens of London.

She flicked through them, longing to accept some of them, but fearing that terrifying outside world of society. She had meant to lead the life of a semirecluse, to put up barriers against the world—particularly the world of men. She had adopted the girls in order to supply herself with an immediate, ready-made family, who would be bound to her by gratitude and who would keep her company in her declining years. But things had not worked out as expected. The ungrateful Fanny had run off, and now Frederica was showing signs of waywardness.

Mrs. Waverley thought about Colonel Bridie. Now there was a man she could trust, she could lean on. His fiancée was indeed fortunate, and so Mrs. Waverley imbued the crusty and old-fashioned colonel with sensitivities and liberal ideas he did not possess.

When he was announced, she blushed like a girl and asked him in a shy voice to sit down.

The colonel did as he was bid and looked at her wearily. Here was a real lady, he thought: plump, stately, and dignified.

“You seemed distressed, Colonel,” said Mrs. Waverley. “I hope nothing has gone wrong.”

“Everything is wrong,” mourned the colonel. “Madam, I am shattered. Was ever a man so betrayed?”

“Then you shall be comforted and you shall tell me all about it,” said Mrs. Waverley, ringing the bell. She ordered Mrs. Ricketts and two of the housemaids to put a footstool at the colonel’s feet, to make up the fire for the day was cold, to bring cakes and biscuits and a good bottle of canary.

To have women bustling about him, to have a footstool tenderly placed under his feet, and a glass of wine placed in his hand, to hear the crackle of the fire, listen to the ticking of the clocks, and watch the cold rain lashing down outside, was balm to the colonel’s wounded soul.

“I should have known there were ladies like you in this sad world,” said the colonel, “before I tried to throw away my good name on a slut!”

“Faith!” cried Mrs. Waverley, raising her plump, beringed hands to her massive bosom. “Do tell me. What happened?”

“You heard from Miss Frederica that the character of Lady Harriet was impersonated by Caroline James?”

Mrs. Waverley nodded so vigorously that her starched muslin cap bobbed and shook.

“Alas, madam, Miss James was my fiancée.”

Mrs. Waverley’s face perceptively hardened, and the colonel cried, “Ah, do not look at me so. Hear me out. I believed she had given up her profession. She agreed to become my wife. I was blind! Blind! When I heard of her masquerade, I went to berate her. She explained Lord Harry had never been her lover, but, when she contracted consumption, had arranged for her to go to Switzerland until she was cured. That I might just have believed. But there is worse than that. She is to go back on the stage. ‘I spurn you,’ I cried,” said the colonel, showing that what had first attracted him to Caroline was because he had a taste for enacting tragedies himself. “Oh, she wept and pleaded. But in vain. I am made of strong stuff. ‘Our engagement is at an end,’ I said. She flung herself at my feet, but I walked over her, madam, and came straight here to remind myself there were decent women in the world. Cannot you understand how I came to make such a mistake? But, of course, you cannot. How can you know what it is to be betrayed?”

“I know,” said Mrs. Waverley sadly. “You are well shot of her, my dear colonel. I quite understand. Scheming adventuress. That’s what she is! Her name will not be mentioned between us again. Be assured there is always a welcome for you here.”

“I thank you from the bottom of my heart,” said the colonel. “It has been a sorry episode. I am afraid I interrupted you at your business.”

“Nothing important,” said Mrs. Waverley. “I have received a great many cards and invitations. Your brave rescue of us has made society anxious to meet us again. Here is a card from the Countess of Heatherington. We are invited to a ball, and she encloses a letter begging me to bring you as well. As if you would care for such frivolity.”

But the colonel cared very much. No countess had ever issued an invitation to him before. “Might be amusing to go along,” he said casually.

“Do you think so?” Mrs. Waverley frowned. “I always find these ton affairs so tedious.”

“But you would be escorted by me,” pointed out the colonel.

Mrs. Waverley reflected it had been a long time since she had been squired anywhere by any man. People could not say she was betraying her principles, for everyone knew the colonel to be a hero.

“Perhaps I might accept. My little girls have been teasing me to take them somewhere.”

“They will be well chaperoned with both of us present,” pointed out the colonel.

“If you are prepared to escort us, then I shall feel safe,” said Mrs. Waverley.

The colonel leaned comfortably back in his chair and took another sip of canary.

Chapter Six

Lord Harry was waiting in his garden when Frederica’s head appeared over the wall the following afternoon. He had received a short letter from her, thrown into his garden by Mrs. Ricketts, in which she said briefly that she would see him.

He went forward to help her, but she waved him away. “If you have brought me here to flirt with me, then I shall go back.”

“No,” he said. “You are quite safe. My offer of help is genuine.”

“I don’t see what you can do,” said Frederica, walking up to him. “Fanny, you know, went to that orphanage with Tredair, but before she returned, the orphanage had alerted Mrs. Waverley and there was the most dreadful scene. But perhaps the foundling hospital in Greenwich will be able to supply some information.”

“Perhaps. I will go there today and let you know tomorrow how I fared.”

“It is very good of you,” said Frederica awkwardly.

“Have you given any more thought to my proposal of marriage?”

“Yes,” said Frederica bleakly. “It would not answer. After a year or so, you would regret the impulse which made you propose to me. What if my parents were mad?”

“Then they would be no different from most of the aristocracy,” he said, with a grin. “Where is Mrs. Waverley?”

“She has gone to Kensington Gardens with the colonel.”

“How plebeian of her!” Kensington Gardens was no longer fashionable. “Quite a budding romance there.”

Frederica looked at him in surprise. “Romance? It is not possible.”

“Very possible. In her heart of hearts, I do not think Mrs. Waverley cares one jot for the rights of women.”

“She is a great educationalist!”

“Possibly she is a gifted teacher. But that is quite another thing. Go and get your bonnet and ask Mrs. Ricketts to let you out by the front door.”

“But I cannot go all the way to Greenwich with you! I would be away for hours!”

“I am taking you to meet my mother. Go and fetch your bonnet. You will find Mrs. Ricketts willing and eager to help you.” He handed her five guineas. “Give this to her.”

Frederica put her hands behind her back. “Mrs. Ricketts is a sterling lady and will not be bribed.”

“Do as you are bid or I shall kiss you again. Take the money, do, and hurry up!”

Frederiea cautiously held out her hand for the money. Mrs. Ricketts would not take it but would probably agree to delivering a letter to Lord Harry, saying Frederica could not go.

But to Frederica’s surprise, the housekeeper calmly pocketed the money and said, “You had best be quick and escape before Miss Felicity returns. I saw her leaving by the library window.”

“So you know of our escapes!” exclaimed Frederica.

“Of course. Run along, Miss Frederica, and don’t keep your gentleman waiting.”

Frederica was very silent on the road to the Duchess of Tarrington’s. She thought she was very silly indeed to have agreed to such a visit. She would be treated with disdain, but at least Lord Harry might realize just how impossible his suit was.

“Are you sure your mother is at home?” asked Frederica, breaking the silence at last.

“Yes, she is always at home. My father died a short while ago and she is becoming very gradually accustomed to a life of independence.”

“I am sorry about your father. You do not wear mourning.”

“That is because I do not mourn. Does that make me appear an unnatural son? But he was, I assure you, a most unnatural father.”

Frederica looked nervously up at the imposing house in Park Lane. Her legs felt quite weak and shaky as he helped her down from the carriage.

He led her up the shallow steps. A butler stood by the open door. “We will announce ourselves,” said Lord Harry to the butler. “Come, Miss Frederica.”

“Pray do consider,” said Frederica in an urgent whisper, “that she may not wish to receive me.”

“Why should she do that when she does not even know you? Come!”

Frederica walked reluctantly beside him, up the winding staircase to the first landing. He threw open the double doors of the drawing room and ushered her in.

The duchess was lying on a sofa at the window, a box of chocolates on her lap and a novel in her hand. Two pug dogs were lying on a rug beside the sofa. They scampered forward, wheezing and gasping, as Lord Harry and Frederica entered.

“Where did you get these repulsive creatures, Mama?” asked Lord Harry, aiming a kick at one of the pugs, which was trying to eat his boot.

“They are terribly sweet and quite devoted to me,” said the duchess, putting down her book and peering shortsightedly at Harry. “Oh, dear, you have brought someone. This must be your Frederica.”

In that moment, Frederica finally realized that Lord Harry was in deadly earnest about marrying her, and instead of scaring her, the fact sent a warm glow through her body.

“Come here, child,” said the duchess, “and let me look at you. How alive you are! How vital! I envy you. The very meeting of you makes me feel exhausted. Ring the bell, Harry, and order tea. Sit down, Miss Waverley. Are you going to marry my son?”

“I cannot, Your Grace.”

“And why not?”

Frederica looked miserably at Lord Harry.

“Miss Waverley is thinking of her doubtful parentage, Mama.”

“Oh, you must not exercise your poor mind over that,” said the duchess. “Have a chocolate. It is so wonderful to be one’s own mistress, Harry. I can have chocolates and novels whenever I like and my darling doggies. Perhaps Miss Waverley does not wish to marry for other reasons. Perhaps she prefers her independence.”

“She has no independence,” said Lord Harry. “Mrs. Waverley does not even know she is here.”

“Oh, but that’s most unconventional. I do hope she will not call on me. Reformers of any kind frighten me to flinders. Where is that tea?”

“I have only just ordered it, Mama. Has Michael been troubling you?”

“He has given up. I was quite brave at his last call and told him roundly he should receive no money from me on my death if he continued to trouble me, and that mercenary wife of his almost dragged him from the room. Of course, he isn’t getting any anyway. He has more than enough of his own, but he is as greedy as his father. Marriage is quite a terrible institution, Miss Waverley. One promises, you know, to love, honor, and obey, and then one goes on obeying for the rest of one’s days. The servants have a better time of it. At least they can give notice and quit. I once said—with great courage, mark you, very great courage, for it was to your father—that it was all very well complaining about slavery and tut-tutting over it, but wasn’t it about time they emancipated women? Of course, it was a silly thing to say, for he threw the coffeepot at my head and roared like a wild beast. Men do roar a lot, Miss Waverley.”

“Mama,” said Lord Harry, torn between amusement and exasperation, “I am trying to persuade Miss Frederica to marry me, and all you are doing is to make the state of marriage sound like lifelong imprisonment.”

“Well, not in your case, dear boy,” said his mother. “I am sure you would not bully anyone.”

The butler and two footmen entered with cakes and tea. The duchess fell silent as she greedily examined each cake. “Which one would you like?” she asked Frederica.

“I have no special preference, Your Grace,” said Frederica. “I have a great fear of getting my teeth pulled so I do not normally eat sweet things.”

“You do not! Then I shall just have to eat all the cakes myself,” said the duchess cheerfully. “Tell me about yourself, Miss Waverley.”

“There is little to tell,” said Frederica. “I was adopted by Mrs. Waverley and lead a somewhat restricted life. I do not go out in society.”

“How lucky you are,” mumbled the duchess, her mouth full of cake. “You are not missing a thing, let me assure you. I used to loathe going to balls. All such pretense you know. We all pretended to sigh and flutter and be in love—while in the background our parents’ lawyers were busily signing contracts on our behalf with some other parents’ lawyers, quite like a business deal. I hated the opening of a ball, standing shivering in a thin gown in a badly heated, drafty room, while the men stared at the women with that cold, calculating, assessing look. Horrors! I had one bright moment. I fancied myself in love with a handsome captain, but, of course, nothing came of it, for I was ordered to marry your father, Harry.”

“But your children must have been a great comfort to you,” said Frederica.

“Harry is, because he leaves me alone, but Michael and Harriet are pig-faced bullies. Do not rely on children for comfort, Miss Waverley. They can turn out quite dreadful. Much better to be on one’s own. I can now do anything I like. I can wear comfortable clothes and eat cakes and have pugs and scream if I want to.”

To Frederica’s alarm, the duchess threw back her head and let out a piercing scream. She beamed on Frederica. “You see? Bliss!”

“Miss Frederica,” said Lord Harry, crossing one booted leg over the other, “has found out about Caroline James masquerading as Harriet.”

The duchess was just reaching out a hand to take another cake. She looked at Frederica sympathetically. “So silly of him, was it not?” she said. “I suppose you thought this actress was his mistress?”

Frederica blushed and nodded.

“I don’t suppose she was,” said the duchess. Her hand hovered over the plate of cakes and then descended on an almond jumble.

“You will become very fat, Mama,” said Lord Harry, “if you go on indulging yourself in such a way.”

“Oh, probably not. Your father would not allow me cakes, and just before his death made me go on a diet of potatoes and vinegar, just like Brummell. It made me feel quite ill. I was so sad and miserable, I really thought I would die first. He must be quite a nuisance to the other angels in Heaven, you know, shouting around the clouds about the gaming laws and tiresome things like that, and telling them that too much ambrosia is bad for them. I will never forget the look of outrage on his face as he departed this world. I could not believe he was dead, even when they nailed down the coffin.”

“Mama. I fear you are shocking Miss Frederica.”

“Am I? I apologize. Do not let me give you a disgust of marriage, Miss Waverley. My husband was a thoroughly nasty man.”

“I think it is time I returned Miss Frederica home,” said Lord Harry, “before her absence is noticed.”

“Yes, you had better do that, for I hear this Mrs. Waverley is one of those overbearing creatures and I could not sustain a visit from her and would never forgive you, Harry, should you be instrumental in causing such a thing to happen.”

As he drove Frederica back to Hanover Square, Lord Harry said, “My mother must have struck you as being a trifle eccentric, but she did have a miserable sort of life. I will leave you at your door and then go directly to Greenwich. Meet me tomorrow if you can and I will let you know how I fared. As far as Caroline James is concerned, I did once think of making her my mistress. I was very young and callow and it seemed to be one of the things one did, like going to prizefights.”

“But you have had mistresses?” asked Frederica.

“Perhaps. But that need not concern you.”

“What would you think if you knew I had taken lovers?”

“I should be so mad with jealousy, I would probably wring your neck.”

“And yet you wish me to accept the fact that you have had mistresses with unconcern?”

“The only reason I had mistresses was because I had not met you.”

“Prettily said, sir, but I would feel more comfortable contemplating marriage with someone of my own age, someone not yet soiled.”

“A perfectly understandable point of view,” said Lord Harry. “You will, however, just need to forgive me for my past sins.”

“Perhaps they are unforgivable.”

“Miss Frederica, if you go on baiting me and making me feel like an elderly satyr, I shall be forced to kiss you again, if only to silence you.”

“How did you manage to corrupt Mrs. Ricketts?”

“Aiding and abetting a young lady who leads an imprisoned life is hardly corruption. You should be grateful to Mrs. Ricketts. Now I must ask your age.”

“Nineteen.”

“And your name before you became Waverley?”

“Bride. We were all called Bride. In Fanny’s case, I can understand it, for she was abandoned on the steps of St. Bride’s, or so the orphanage said. But why we should all be given the same surname, I do not know.”

“Here we are,” said Lord Harry, reining in his team. “I will leave you here at the corner of the square. You will probably find Mrs. Ricketts on the lookout for you.”

Too much afraid of her outing being discovered to linger and say good-bye, Frederica ran toward the house. As she approached, the front door opened and Mrs. Ricketts beckoned to her. “Give me your bonnet,” whispered the housekeeper, “and go to your room. I told mum you was lying down with the headache. But Miss Felicity knows you have been out so you’d best think up something to tell her.”

Frederica ran upstairs to her room, where she found Felicity waiting. “Where have you been?” asked Felicity sternly.

“I have been meeting Lord Harry’s mother,” said Frederica defiantly. “It would appear his intentions are honorable.”

“Fiddle. Dilettantes such as Lord Harry will go to any lengths to secure their prey. He consorts with actresses…”

“Do not be so stuffy, Felicity. I rather liked Miss James. Furthermore, Lord Harry has gone to that foundling hospital in Greenwich to see if he can find anything out about our parentage.”

Felicity shivered. “Perhaps it might be better if we never found out.”

***

When he reached the foundling hospital, Lord Harry discovered his task to be easier than he had anticipated. It was as squalid, depressing, and noisy as most foundling hospitals were, but the governor, a Mr. Longrigg, was proud of the fact that all foundlings were christened on admission and meticulous records were kept.

He gave Lord Harry the use of his office and left him with piles and piles of enormous ledgers. Lord Harry selected the volumes which covered the year of Frederica’s birth and got to work. It took him several hours to go through all the ledgers, and there was no record of any girls named either Fanny, Frederica, or Felicity. He pushed the books away and frowned. The secret must lie with that orphanage. Orphanages did not rename children who had already been christened. Perhaps the girls really were sisters and really were called Bride, and the orphanage was being paid by some relative to keep quiet about them. He was disappointed. He had hoped to find some record. But how had he expected to discover Frederica’s parentage at a foundling hospital? Some had indeed been born in the workhouse, causing the death of their exhausted mothers, but most of the waifs and strays had been abandoned and there was no record of either parent.

He felt a surge of impatience. Frederica would just have to accept the fact that the mystery might never be solved. But what about that orphanage? Tredair had failed. But Tredair had probably never thought of stooping to bribery. The Pevensey Orphanage, which had been home to the girls, only took the daughters of quite well-to-do families. So someone must have been paying for their keep before Mrs. Waverley came on the scene. Lord Harry decided to spend the night in Greenwich and then travel to the orphanage in the morning. He scribbled a letter to Frederica and covered it with a letter to Mrs. Ricketts, asking her to deliver it, sealed both, and gave them to his manservant and told him to ride to Hanover Square, but to go to the area door and make sure he saw no one other than Mrs. Ricketts.

Frederica went straight to Felicity when she received his letter. “Don’t you see,” cried Frederica, “the orphanage will simply send someone directly to Mrs. Waverley and I shall be locked up in my room for days.”

“Then just say that you did not know of Lord Harry’s enquiries,” said Felicity.

“He has told her he wants to marry you, and so she will believe he is bent on satisfying himself as to the respectability or otherwise of your background, although I know he is simply trying to appear as a knight in shining armor in your eyes.”

“Oh, why will you not trust him, Felicity?”

“There is a frivolity and decadence about him I cannot like,” said Felicity severely. “It is just the sort of game to appeal to an aristocrat such as he.”

“But he is rich and handsome and could have any woman he wanted.”

“Exactly. He wants you as his mistress because he enjoys hunting and wishes to do something to titillate his jaded palate.”

“Oh, why don’t you write a book, Felicity! You speak like the worst of novels. Jaded palate, indeed. Try to live outside the pages of a book for a change.”

But Felicity was living inside the pages of a book, the book she was writing. The book was about a rake, but the rake was a woman who philandered and broke men’s hearts and seduced them, and when taxed with immorality, she would laugh and point out that she was going on like a regular gentleman. The heroine had green eyes and fair hair and in speech and manner was remarkably like Lord Harry Danger. Felicity thought it an excellent satire, which would highlight the folly of men and the double standards of society, which demanded that a girl should remain a virgin until her wedding night, and yet a man was expected to have had a great deal of experience. Felicity was not quite sure how to resolve the plot. Ordinary morality cried out that the licentious heroine should end in the gutter or the gallows, but Felicity had grown quite fond of this fictitious, female rakehell. She lost interest in Frederica’s predicament. The predicament of her heroine was more real to her.

Frederica, seeing that familiar, vague, abstracted look on Felicity’s face, went off to confide her worries to Mrs. Ricketts.

“Now you’ve warned me, I won’t let anyone from that orphanage come near Mrs. Waverley,” said Mrs. Ricketts, and with that, Frederica had to be content.

***

As he drove to the orphanage next day, Lord Harry wondered if the Waverley girls realized how lucky they were. London was a city of villages. In that village of the West End of London, with its glittering shops and fine buildings, where Frederica lived, the inhabitants were kept secure from that other London, where a careless turning could take you away from elegance and magnificence and plunge you among gin shops, pawnbrokers, and broken-down dwellings of such squalor that they literally oozed filth.

The orphanage was situated in a quiet suburb. He drove in through the arch and stopped under the shadow of a grim, brick building with barred windows.

He rang the bell and told the servant to tell the chairman that Lord Harry Danger wished an interview.

He was shown into a bare anteroom, furnished only with two hard chairs and a deal table.

Mr. Wilks, the chairman, entered, followed by the director, Mrs. Goern. Lord Harry Danger raised his quizzing glass and eyed the pair with disfavor. Mr. Wilks was a shabby dandy, a tall, thin Scotchman with wary, suspicious eyes. Mrs. Goern was fat and florid and truculent.

After the introductions were over, Lord Harry stated his business and watched the shutters being swiftly pulled down over two pairs of eyes.

“Those girls again,” said Mrs. Goern. “Can’t they leave well alone? Poor Mrs. Waverley. Those girls were brought to us from the foundling hospital in Greenwich as charity cases—we take a few—and that’s all we know about them.”

Lord Harry took out a heavy bag of gold and put it on the table. “You both work hard,” he said evenly, “and must find it difficult to remember things.” He had carried the gold with him to Greenwich in case he had needed to bribe anyone there. He gave the bag a little shake and gold coins spilled onto the table.

Mrs. Goern and Mr. Wilks exchanged glances. “Perhaps we are forgetful,” said Mrs. Goern. “I shall go and look at the records again.” She rang the bell, and when the maid answered it, she ordered wine and biscuits, and then left the room.

She was gone a long time. Lord Harry and Mr. Wilks made stilted conversation. At last, Mrs. Goern reappeared. “I am sorry, my lord,” she said, “but the only information we have is that we took the three foundlings in and that Mrs. Waverley adopted them. I would help you if I could.”

“You, madam, are a liar,” said Lord Harry furiously. He scooped the gold back into the bag and put it in his pocket. “The foundling hospital at Greenwich has no record of the girls.”

“There now!” said Mrs. Goern, raising her hands to heaven. “You cannot expect places like that to know one baby from the other. I forgive you for your harsh remarks, my lord. Be assured we speak the truth.”

As Lord Harry drove off he suddenly remembered all Mrs. Waverley’s wealth and jewelry. Of course! The orphanage people were not going to accept a mere bag of gold from him when they could get much more from Mrs. Waverley for keeping quiet. He cursed himself for a fool. Mrs. Goern had left the room, not to search the records, but to send someone to Mrs. Waverley’s to warn her, and to demand more money for their silence.

Unfortunately for Mrs. Ricketts, the emissary from the orphanage arrived just as Mrs. Waverley was leaving with the colonel to go for a drive. Telling the colonel to wait, Mrs. Waverley took the ill-favored-looking man into the study. The colonel waited impatiently. The man soon reappeared, bowed, and left. Then Mrs. Waverley came out looking pale and shaken.

“Those tradesmen,” she said, with a ghastly smile. “I forgot to pay the wine merchant’s bill and he must needs send one of his creatures to dun me. He has lost my custom, and so I shall tell him.”

Mrs. Ricketts, who had been watching and listening, went up to Frederica’s room after Mrs. Waverley had left to tell her that it appeared Lord Harry had faired no better with the orphanage than the Earl of Tredair.

***

The Souter family had moved to lodgings in the city, knowing full well that the police of Sommers Town would no longer be interested in looking for thieves who had left their parish. Politicians and reformers had tried in vain to set up a general police force controlled from one central office, but their proposals were always turned down on the grounds that such a force would become like the gendarmes of France, nothing more than government spies. The police constables, such as they were, were badly paid, although they got “blood money” for catching thieves.

The Souter family were sitting in the warmth of a gin shop just outside the bounds of the City, still talking about the Waverley jewels and how to get them. As usual, the more they drank, the louder they talked. Two constables, Brock and Pelham, seated quite near, caught snatches of the conversation. “Some birds there, ripe for plucking,” murmured Brock. “Set things up and leave it to me.”

Brock carried a chair over and joined the Souters. “What d’ye want?” growled Mr. Souter.

“I have a mind to put you in the way of getting some money,” said the constable, laying a finger alongside his nose and dropping one eyelid in a wink. Brock, like many of the constables, looked like a villain himself, and the Souters were sure they were being joined by one of their own kind.

“How?” asked Mr. Souter.

“Let me buy some more Blue Ruin for you and I’ll tell you,” said Brock. The Souter family warmed to him. He teased Annie and flirted with her… and told them a great many lies about his thieving career.

Finally Mr. Souter said expansively, “Now what’s this here—er—business?”

“Involves a little work, but the pay’s good provided you keep your mouths shut,” said Brock. “Follow me.”

They followed him like sheep to a rickety building in Petticoat Lane and up the stairs to a dingy room.

“Now here’s what you do,” said Brock. “Sit round this table.” The Souter family obeyed. He put a shilling on the table before them, gave them metal, a file, scissors, and other tools and told them to copy the design of the shilling.

“This here’s forgery!” exclaimed Mr. Souter, as indignant and furious as only a respectable stealer of handkerchiefs could be.

“Good money in it,” said Brock. “Think about it while I go and get another bottle.”

The Souters winked at one another. They had no intentions of taking up the career of forgery. The Souter men occasionally knifed and killed during their thieving expeditions, and so when Brock had left, they decided to stab him on his return and take any valuables they could find from his body.

But when Brock returned, he was carrying not a bottle but a large pistol. With him was the other constable, Pelham, and a third law officer. “Forgers,” cried Brock, and arrested all the Souters in the king’s name.

And so the three constables were able to supplement their wages with the “blood money” they got for catching such wicked forgers as the Souters, and the Waverley women remained blissfully unaware that the Souters, who had never given up plotting against them, were sentenced to transportation to Botany Bay.

Chapter Seven

Lord Harry waited for Frederica in his garden. He wondered whether she would come, for it was raining steadily, dismal, chilling rain, which drummed on the leaves on the sooty trees.

But she appeared over the wall, wearing a large calash over her bonnet.

“Can I persuade you to step into the house?” asked Lord Harry, but Frederica shook her head.

He told her he had not been able to get anywhere at the orphanage. He wondered whether to tell her about his suspicions—that he was sure there was some mystery about her and the other two girls—but decided against it. He wanted to marry Frederica, and did not want that marriage put off while she continued her search.

“Mrs. Waverley found out you had been there,” said Frederica. “But unlike the time that Tredair went, she did not shout or rage. In fact, she has been looking very white and worried ever since. I wish you had not gone. I do not like to see Mrs. Waverley distressed.”

“You must be very fond of her,” said Lord Harry.

“I should be,” said Frederica sadly. “But she has been more like a stern schoolteacher to us than any kind of mother. She occasionally demands and expects affection, and yet has never given anything other than a kind of demanding possessiveness when she feels her little empire threatened by the outside. She also, until recently, would try to set us against each other, as if frightened that our shared affection would take away any we might have for her. I do not know who Mrs. Waverley is, who Mr. Waverley was, or where she comes from, or where she gets her money. She has a man of business in the City, but he does not come to the house. She goes to him.”

“Mrs. Waverley may marry again.”

“To the colonel? Never! She says that no woman of independent means should marry.”

“Perhaps she has letters or papers you could read…?”

“Spy on her? I could never do that. I do respect her and her views, although I am not so committed to them as Felicity.”

“And what of you? We could be married, you know, and then you would be free.”

Frederica looked at him sadly. Even on this dingy London day, he looked a golden and elegant creature. She felt very young and drab. It might amuse him for a little to be married to her, but then he would take a mistress, and she suddenly felt that no amount of freedom would make up for that.

“I must go,” she said quietly. “It is of no use proposing to me. I am determined not to marry. You must find someone else.”

He looked at her seriously, and then his lips curved in a smile. “Very well, Miss Frederica, I will try.”

She felt a wrench of pain at her heart. Felicity had been right. He had been amusing himself.

***

The Countess of Heatherington looked around her ballroom and felt she would like to wring Caroline James’s neck. Why on earth had that actress creature decided to make her triumphant return to the stage on this night of all nights? Society had flocked in droves to see her in Macbeth. If they came at all, it would be after the performance was over. Her prize of the evening—Mrs. Waverley and Colonel Bridie—had arrived, and the two Waverley girls, but apart from them, there was only an undistinguished group of young people and their chaperones.

Frederica and Felicity were enjoying themselves immensely. There were no threatening dandies or leaders of the ton present, no Lord Harry, only cheerful and amusing young people. Mrs. Waverley seemed happy to sit in a corner and talk to her colonel, but she did approach the girls at one point to say they would probably leave at eleven o’clock and take a late supper at home.

But at eleven, when Mrs. Waverley tried to leave, she found her way barred by an almost hysterical Countess of Heatherington. The guests would soon be arriving, said the countess. Mrs. Waverley must not leave. She was the guest of honor.

Had it not been for the colonel, Mrs. Waverley probably would have insisted on going. But the colonel had been looking forward to a bit of praise and adulation from the notables and managed to persuade her to stay.

Shortly after the curtain had been rung down on what the critics were to describe as the best performance of Lady Macbeth ever seen, the heavyweights of society began to file in.

Before their arrival, the ball had had the pleasant, informal air of a country-house party for young people. But the regiment of society was upon them, with their hard eyes and high, drawling voices, their restless hands flicking the lids of snuffboxes and waving silk handkerchiefs the size of bed sheets with great flourishing gestures.

The colonel and Mrs. Waverley were soon the center of attention and the colonel was telling his story with many dramatic embellishments.

And then Lord Harry Danger arrived with a party of people. He had an elegant lady on his arm and seemed quite fascinated by her. “You see?” whispered Felicity fiercely in Frederica’s ear, and Frederica felt her soul wither and die. The hundreds of candles lighting the ballroom shimmered and shone through the sudden veil of tears that covered her eyes. Her own popularity appeared a sham. She was one of the Waverleys, those pets of society, those odd people to be feted and talked about like the latest craze, such as a prize boxer or a clever dwarf, but never to be taken seriously, never to be married.

She almost hated Mrs. Waverley for having taken them out of the orphanage, only to place them in some time limbo where one was in society but never of society. Lord Harry had just put his hand at the elegant lady’s waist to lead her in the steps of the waltz, and Frederica herself had taken the floor with her latest partner, when the Prince Regent was announced. The music ceased and the guests shuffled into two long receiving lines. The Countess of Heatherington fluttered about to make sure that the highest in rank were at the head of each line and that no upstart had forgotten his or her place.

That massive contradiction that was the Prince Regent was in high good humor. He was a gross sensualist, a drunk, a glutton, and yet had a great love of the arts and appreciation of them. He had been to Caroline’s performance and was still elated by the tremendous acting he had seen.

Frederica and Felicity were standing with the colonel and Mrs. Waverley. When the prince approached, the countess said, “Here is our hero of the evening, Your Royal Highness. May I present Colonel James Bridie, he who shot the highwayman in Hanover Square.”

The prince’s good humor appeared to vanish. He gave the colonel two fingers to shake. But he held out his whole hand to Mrs. Waverley, his large, red-veined eyes holding a hint of sadness. She dropped a curtsy and kissed the fat hand. Then she turned an alarming color and fainted dead away.

“Your royal presence has overcome the poor lady,” said the countess as a group of people, including the colonel and the Waverley girls, supported the stricken Mrs. Waverley.

“We wish to leave,” said the prince petulantly. “Where’s Alvanley?”

“Oh, Your Royal Highness,” pleaded the countess, “we were about to sit down to supper—and we have some fine reindeer’s tongues from Lapland and little Gunter has created a most divine sugar castle especially for me, and the champagne is properly iced.”

The prince walked on while the countess fluttered nervously about him like a pale moth.

“We shall be pleased to stay,” he said suddenly. “But be sure each knows his place. One hostess put a Cit in my vicinity because the vulgar merchant had paid for the honor. Keep common people well away from me.”

His turned briefly and looked back at Mrs. Waverley, who was slowly recovering her senses.

There was no hope of the Waverleys leaving, or anyone else for that matter, until the Prince Regent decided to do so.

Sensing that for some reason His Royal Highness did not approve of Mrs. Waverley’s presence, the countess had her party seated in the furthest corner of the supper room. The colonel put Mrs. Waverley’s distress down to womanly sensibilities. He himself was so overcome at having met the Prince Regent that his own good humor was unimpaired and he regaled his little audience with a great many long and boring stories of his bravery.

The supper dragged on and still the prince stayed at the table. Lord Harry and his lady were seated next to the prince. At one point the prince said something and Lord Harry and the elegant lady both laughed, looking very much like a well-suited couple. Frederica felt excluded from that dazzling world, and yes, shamed. She had been an amusing flirtation, nothing more.

And why was it that the very sight of the prince made the normally redoubtable Mrs. Waverley turn faint?

When the supper was over, it transpired the prince wished to dance. He led Lord Harry’s lady friend to the floor; Frederica found Lord Harry at her side. “The waltz again,” he said. “Prinny is not in a state to try anything more energetic. Will you honor me with this dance?”

Frederica turned to look to Mrs. Waverley for help, but that lady was in low-voiced conversation with the colonel.

“I do not want to dance, sir,” said Frederica firmly.

“Don’t be silly,” said Lord Harry, exasperated. “I am not going to walk off, snubbed, and leave you here… you with your white face and glittering eyes. Come along, widgeon. March! Back to the supper room, sit down, drink champagne, and tell me what ails you.”

He put a firm hand under her arm and steered her back toward the supper room.

Waiters and footmen were clearing the dirty dishes from the table. The confectioner Gunter’s sugar castle lay in ruins, its walls having been broached by many greedy hands. One little sugar cannon hung drunkenly over the edge of the remains of a battlement.

“Sit down. Here!” said Lord Harry, dragging out two chairs at the end of one of the long tables.

“Waiter! Champagne! Now, Frederica, what is the matter with you?”

“I am tired, that is all.”

“Liar. Here is your glass of champagne. Drink it. A toast! Who or what shall we toast?”

Frederica’s eyes flashed. “Why do we not drink a toast to your fair companion?”

“Very well. Excellent idea. To Lady Gaunt, wife of my friend, Sir John Gaunt, at present stationed in Paris—-who wrote to me begging me to squire his beloved bride to a few events, which I had not done so to date because of dancing attendance on you.”

“Oh,” said Frederica in a small voice. “I thought you were going to look for someone else.”

“I may do so. But not this evening. Why did that amazon, Mrs. Waverley, faint at the sight of the prince?”

“I do not know.” Frederica turned anxious eyes up to his. He looked into the blue intensity of their depths and felt his heart turn over. “It happened before,”[*] said Frederica. “I think she must have once known him.”

“In the biblical sense?”

Frederica blushed. “No, of course not. Can you imagine Mrs. Waverley having a wild affair with anyone?”

“Not when I look at her as she is today. She might have been very beautiful once. Perhaps the root of the mystery that surrounds you lies with the Prince Regent.” Lord Harry silently cursed himself. He did not care about Frederica’s parentage and was sure she might marry him if only she could stop caring about it herself. She looked so worried and distressed that he put his gloved hand over her own. That simple touch sent a tingling up his arm, and then filled his whole body with a feeling of exhilaration. “Think of it,” he said urgently. “I could pick you up in my arms this minute and run off with you and marry you. We could travel. Would you like that? We could go to Paris now that that monster had been defeated. We could go to Italy or go to Greece and look at the ruins. We could leave dingy, dark, rainy London behind and travel to the sun.”

Frederica half closed her eyes. His voice went on like a siren’s song. “We could see Venice, drowned Venice, and sail between the houses, or go to Constantinople and cruise up the Bosporus, where the white marble steps of the palaces descend down into the blue water. We could smell the hot smells of pine and tamarisk and mimosa instead of the drains of London. We would be together, alone, in each other’s arms, all the world we need.”

“Frederica!”

Frederica’s eyes flew wide open at the sound of Mrs. Waverley’s stern voice. All the golden pictures whirled away and she was suddenly back in the real world. She disengaged her hand from Lord Harry’s.

“We are going,” said Mrs. Waverley.

“So the prince has left,” said Lord Harry, rising to his feet. “That must be a great relief.”

“I do not know what you mean, Lord Harry,” said Mrs. Waverley. “You have no business to be holding Frederica’s hand.”

“I would make it my business,” he said, “were it not for your constant and unreasonable interference.”

“Come, Frederica,” said Felicity, her voice sharp with disapproval.

Frederica rose and curtsied to Lord Harry. Her eyes were warm and happy.

Mrs. Waverley and Felicity, like warders on either side of her, marched her off and down the stairs to the carriage where the colonel was already waiting.

Frederica remained wrapped in a happy dream all the way home. She floated up the stairs to her room and then hummed a few bars of the waltz the orchestra had been playing while she had sat in the supper room and learned that Lord Harry’s companion was only the wife of one of his friends. She unpinned her hair and unfastened the simple necklace of seed pearls that she had worn, Mrs. Waverley having been finally persuaded by the colonel of the folly of being seen in public wearing too many jewels.

Felicity came in and stood for a moment watching her.

“I have to tell you this,” she said. “Do you know the name of that lady who was with Lord Harry this evening?”

“Yes,” said Frederica happily. “Lady Gaunt, wife of one of his friends, Sir John Gaunt, at present stationed in Paris.”

“And did you know that Lady Gaunt, before her marriage to Sir John, was a widow, a Mrs. Sommerville, and that she was Lord Harry Danger’s mistress?”

“That cannot be true,” said Frederica fiercely. “Sir John wrote to Lord Harry and asked him to escort his wife.”

“That does not alter the fact that she was his mistress and may still be amusing herself with him. At least five people told me the gossip while you were languishing in the supper room with him.”

“People are amazingly jealous.”

“It was the dowagers who told me, not the young misses. I made it my business to find out who she was.”

“I do not believe a word of it!”

“Then ask him!” cried Felicity. “He cannot deny what most of London society—with the exception of such an innocent as yourself—knows very well.”

“I shall ask him and you will look a silly, vindictive, and interfering fool.”

“Is that what you think of me?” said Felicity sadly. “I do worry about you, Freddy, and would not see you hurt.”

“Go away,” said Frederica fiercely. “You are nothing but a troublemaker.”

When Felicity had left, Frederica sat down at her writing desk, wrote a note to Lord Harry, sealed it, tied it onto the poker, ran downstairs to the library and, raising the window, leaned out as far as she could and threw the poker and letter sideways over the garden wall. She had asked him to meet her at ten in the morning. It seemed like a lifetime away.

***

When she arrived in the neighboring garden the next morning, the rain had stopped, but the skies were gray and a chilly wind was whispering and rustling among the leaves like so many society gossips. Poker and letter were gone, but she wondered if his servants were waiting until their master awoke before delivering her note.

But the door to the garden opened and he came out, wrapped in a huge quilted dressing gown.

He approached her with a smile on his face, a smile that soon faded when he saw how grim she looked.

“Now what?” he asked plaintively.

Frederica faced him, hands behind her back, head up. “I have reason to believe,” she said, “that Lady Gaunt was your mistress.”

“I had an affair with her before her marriage to John, yes.”

“And is Sir John aware of this fact?”

“I believe so.”

“And yet he trusts you with his wife?”

“Oh, yes. They are very much in love.”

“All this hopping from one bed to the other,” said Frederica wearily, “disgusts me.”

“You would have us all chaste and pure?”

“As you would have me. I am glad you have told me the truth.”

And then the elegant and sophisticated Lord Harry blundered badly. “I was never in love with her,” he said.

“Worse and worse,” mocked Frederica. “Nothing but lust—no finer feelings, all intrigue… and heartless intrigue at that.”

“You little puritan. I could shake you.” He took a step toward her.

“Leave me alone,” said Frederica. “You disgust me. No! Do not come near me. Ever, ever again!”

Sadly, he watched her go, and then took himself back indoors and into his library.

“Damn,” he said aloud. “Now, what am I going to do?”

He slumped down in an armchair and looked bleakly at the ranks of serried books. “All the wisdom of the world,” he muttered, “and yet not one volume can tell me how to get Miss Frederica Waverley as my bride. Damn, and double damn!”

He moved over to his writing desk, pulled forward a blank sheet of parchment, dipped a pen in the inkwell, and began to write two neat columns. On the one side he put down the fact he was sure Frederica was attracted to him. On the other he put down the facts, as he knew them, of her strange upbringing. He sat back and studied the result. Because of Mrs. Waverley’s teaching, Frederica was now regarding him as a man would regard a woman who turned out to have lost her virginity. He tried to think of what his own reactions would be if he had found Frederica being escorted to a ball by a handsome man who turned out to be one—only just one, mark you—of her previous lovers. How could an innocent like Frederica ever begin to understand his affair with Lady Gaunt, or Mrs. Sommerville, as she then was? She had been witty and sophisticated and amusing, and ready for an affair. They had both enjoyed the liaison tremendously. Then she had begun to hint at marriage and he had deftly sidestepped all such hints, so that she had finally and gratefully told him their affair was at an end. No, Frederica could not possibly understand that. So how was he to see her again? If he could find out some piece of news to intrigue her, to lure her back to the garden. Damn that weedy, rank hole of a garden. He was beginning to hate it.

Then he remembered the Prince Regent, There just might be something there.

He went up to his room and called for his valet, and ordered the man to lay out his best clothes. He then went out to Bond Street, searching in the jeweler’s windows until he found what he wanted. It was a clockwork robin with a brave ruby chest that piped, “God Bless the Prince of Wales.” He paid a fortune for it and then traveled to Clarence House.

The prince was still in bed when Lord Harry called, but demanded he be sent up. To the prince, Lord Harry was a cheerful, frivolous member of society who had never asked for favors and had never been anything other than witty and kind.

Lord Harry came in and stooped to kiss the prince’s beringed hand, then handed him the present. The prince was enchanted with it, so much so that Lord Harry almost despaired of being able to put his questions before the usual retinue of toadies and dandies arrived to pay their respects.

“We are very pleased,” said the prince, putting down the expensive toy at last.

“Splendid ball t’other night,” said Lord Harry vaguely.

“Tol rol.” The prince waved dismissive fat fingers. “Well enough in its way.”

“Our heroine of the evening was quite overcome by your royal presence,” said Lord Harry. “Mrs. Waverley.”

The prince seized the little robin in its gilded cage and started to wind up the mechanism again. “We do not know her,” he said petulantly.

“Mrs. Waverley. The fat woman who fainted at the sight of you,” said Lord Harry, raising his voice slightly to compete with the tinkling strains of “God Bless the Prince of Wales,”

The bird revolved. Its little beak opened and closed, its ruby chest gleamed and flashed fire in the beams of light from the oil lamp beside the great canopied bed.

“Clever. Monstrous clever,” mumbled the prince, watching the bird.

“Do you know Mrs. Waverley?” pursued Lord Harry.

The prince seized the bell rope hanging beside the bed. When the Lord of the Bedchamber appeared, the prince said, “We will sleep now. Show Lord Harry out.”

Lord Harry looked at him curiously. The fat face was as sullen and sulky as that of a spoiled child.

He sighed and took his leave. No news for Frederica there.

***

Before the Souter family were borne off to Australia, they had talked to their fellow criminals on board the hulks about the Waverley jewels, and as they talked, the jewels grew in size and magnificence. And so the news of the Waverley jewels spread from the hulks and out through the rookeries and steaming alleys of London’s underworld. Still, the idea of making an assault on a lady made famous by the newspapers and printsellers caused all to shrink from making the attempt. All except Mr. Oscar Tooley.

The young bucks and blades of London were fascinated by the underworld. Tooley was the son of respectable middle-class parents, brought low in the world by a natural streak of viciousness combined with sloth. He preyed on the rich who frequented the low dives, seeking the young men out, fleecing them at cards, supplying them with drugged drink and stealing their valuables, and occasionally hiring some doxy to lure one of them into a dark alley and killing his victim, not only for the trinkets and money he could get, but for the sheer joy of killing. His face was his fortune. He was handsome in a boyish way, with clear honest-looking blue eyes.

He picked up all the gossip he could about the Waverley household and then, dressed in his finest, took to strolling around Hanover Square and watching the house. He waited and watched and marked down one of the prettier housemaids as his prey. As there were no footmen, the women servants were often sent out on errands. He tracked the pretty housemaid and then left to dive round alleys and back streets so that he came out again just in front of her and pretended to bump into her. Her basket went flying. He retrieved it and begged mercy for having bumped into her in such a comical and contrite way that the housemaid, Mary, began to laugh. She had been with Mrs. Waverley for some time, but she was still in her early twenties and often longed to move to a household where there were some handsome footmen to flirt with. But common sense told her that the wages were good and the position secure.

It had been a long time since she had had an opportunity for a little innocent dalliance. The gentleman was finely dressed and had a pleasing, honest, boyish air about him. She let him persuade her to join him in drinking chocolate at a pastry cook’s. She was a wonderful source of information. In order to impress this fine beau, she bragged about her mistress’s great wealth and of the fabulous jewels she and the girls possessed. “Of course, they don’t wear them no more when they go out,” said Mary, “on account of some wicked people trying to rob them afore.”

And as she sipped chocolate and prattled on, Tooley’s agile brain was working hard. This Lord Harry Danger, who lived next door, had set himself up as a sort of watchdog, as had that colonel who had shot the highwayman. Then Mary began to talk about the restricted life the young misses led. “But they sneak out,” she said. “Mrs. Ricketts, the housekeeper, she told us they wasn’t doing no harm and to say nothing of it to madam. They gets out through the garden of the house next door most afternoons when madam isn’t looking.”

Tooley leaned back in his chair, a beatific smile on his face. Ransom. That was the game. He would kidnap one of the girls and hold her to ransom. He would rent a room and keep her there… and when he had the money, he would kill her. Very simple. Betty wondered if she had said something to offend the gentleman, for he immediately appeared to lose interest in her and suggested, quite coldly, that she should be busy about her duties.

Lord Harry was standing at the window of his drawing room, looking down into the square, when his butler entered. “One of the young ladies has just climbed over the wall into our garden, my lord,” he said.

“Which one?”

“The dark-haired lady.”

Lord Harry darted down the stairs to the basement and out into the garden, but there was no sign of Frederica. He ran round the narrow passage at the side of the house and up the area steps. He could see Frederica’s slim figure hurrying around the square. And then as he watched, a carriage drew alongside her and the door opened. She was jerked bodily off the pavement and into the carriage, which set off at high speed.

Lord Harry started to run in pursuit. Every time he seemed to be gaining on the carriage, there would be a break in the traffic and off it would go again, leaving him far behind. He did not dare call for help for fear the villain who had abducted Frederica would knife her. Through Westminster he raced, down the long length of Whitehall and Parliament streets, across the front of the Abbey, down Tothill Street, into New Tothill Street, and just in time to see his quarry disappearing around a corner which led into New Pye Street. Jeering men tried at one point to block his way, but with a mad strength born of desperation, he plowed through them. By the time he got to where the carriage had disappeared, he found no trace of it. Everyone appeared to have fled indoors, leaving him suddenly alone in the midst of evil-smelling, broken-down buildings.

He looked down at himself. He had rushed out without his coat. He was standing in the middle of a thieves’ quarter in his shirtsleeves, breeches, and top boots, and without a weapon. He could sense, rather than see, hundreds of eyes observing him from every rat hole of a tenement. But if he wasted time going in search of the police, then Frederica might be killed. He knew the pattern. Abduction, ransom note, and death to the victim before the note had even reached its destination.

Frederica was hustled up a rickety staircase with a knife at her ribs. She was thrust into a dark room. Tooley slammed and locked the door behind them. “Sit down,” he ordered. Frederica sat down on a stool. There was a table in the room and a chair. On the table was pen and ink and paper. “Don’t move,” said Tooley. He sat down and wrote a letter demanding six thousand pounds, addressed it to Mrs. Waverley, sanded it and sealed it, went to the door and unlocked it, handed the letter to someone who stood outside, and then relocked the door.

“What do you want with me?” asked Frederica.

“Money,” he said briefly. “Ransom. Faith, nothing to drink in this sewer.”

“Release me and I shall give you money,” pleaded Frederica. “I can see you are a gentleman. You cannot abduct someone from the middle of Hanover Square in broad daylight without bringing the whole of the militia down on your head.”

“No one saw me,” he said curtly. He picked up his long knife and tested the blade. “Sharp enough,” he muttered.

It was then that Frederica saw how pale and merciless his eyes were.

Outside, Lord Harry searched and searched. Fear was making him frantic. Time seemed to be racing past. He knocked furiously on doors of tenement hovels, but the few individuals who answered took one look at him and slammed the rickety door in his face.

They were all terrified of Tooley. It was not an unusual occurrence to have a wild-looking aristocrat demanding to know where Tooley lived. But Tooley had never any fixed address. He rented rooms here and there throughout the warren, never staying in one very long. The inhabitants were afraid of him, knowing he would kill for pleasure.

Lord Harry was at the point of despair as he descended one of the tenement stairs and nearly trod on a mite of a child who was sitting cradling a bundle of rags which she had tied into the semblance of a doll. “Pretty lady,” crooned the little girl.

Lord Harry was about to step around her when something made him say, “Where is the pretty lady?”

The girl looked at him vaguely. She rocked her makeshift doll. “Pretty lady go to sleep,” she said in a singsong voice. Lord Harry groaned. The pretty lady was obviously only the child’s doll. He stepped carefully round her and went down the stairs. “Pretty lady up the stairs,” said the little girl.

Lord Harry turned and went slowly back up to her. He stretched down a hand. “Show me,” he whispered. Outside the rain had begun to fall and pattered on the broken roof far above his head. The wind sighed through the holes in the old building.

The child put a dirty paw of a hand in his and together they went up the stairs. “There, mister. Pretty lady there,” she said, pointing to a stout door on a first-floor landing.

Lord Harry sprinted down the stairs and ran hell-for-leather to Parliament Square. He ran wildly up and down the ranks of hackney carriages, picking out the tallest. “Do as I tell you,” he called to the driver as he clambered up onto the roof, “and you may name your price. New Pye Street. Fast!”

“What’ll you give me?”

“The best and strongest carriage horse Tattersall’s has on offer.”

“I’d do murder for that,” said the driver cheerfully. “Hang on.”

The tall hackney rattled off in the direction of New Pye Street.

Inside the room, Frederica said sadly, “You are going to kill me.”

“Yes,” said Tooley.

“I shall scream.”

“Scream away. No one will come. Not here.”

“I didn’t know there were places like this,” said Frederica. “What a place to die.”

I should have married him, she thought bleakly. I’ve been a fool. What if he had tired of me? At least I should have known bliss.

Tooley stood up and Frederica got to her feet at the same time. She took off her bonnet and unpinned her hair. Afterward, she did not know why she did such a thing, but she felt as if she were mounting the steps of the scaffold. She edged round the room toward the window, her back to the wall, watching him.

“You can’t get away,” he said, advancing on her. A smile of pure pleasurable anticipation lit up his face.

“God in Heaven have mercy on my soul,” said Frederica.

Tooley threw back his head and laughed.

And then the whole world seemed to erupt into glittering shards of flying glass as Lord Harry Danger leaped from the roof of the tall hackney carriage outside, straight through the window. He hurtled to the floor, blood gushing from innumerable cuts, and howling with rage and fury, twisted away just as the equally cut and gashed Tooley leaped at him with the knife. Lord Harry kicked him savagely in the groin. Tooley screamed and doubled over. Lord Harry kicked out savagely again, and Tooley went flying out through the broken window.

I suppose it’s worth an ’orse, thought the cabman gloomily, glad he had moved his carriage a little away as Tooley’s body came flying out and struck the cobbles with a sickening thud.

Frederica had miraculously only sustained one cut on her arm. She ran into Lord Harry’s arms, kissing his bloody face and crying out her thanks over and over again.

From the end of the street sounded the rattle of the watch.

“You will bleed to death,” sobbed Frederica.

“No, don’t cry. No arteries cut. Don’t cry. Kiss me again. You see what happens without my protection?”

“Oh, Harry, I will be your mistress.”

“No, Frederica, you will be my bride.”

“She won’t let me. Mrs. Waverley, I mean. Not even after this. The ransom. He sent someone with the ransom note.”

“The deuce. Come with me until we tell the authorities. We may catch him on the return.”

Frederica was bundled into the hackney carriage. The driver was commanded to sit beside her and keep intruders away. Tooley had broken his neck when he hit the cobbles. Lord Harry hurriedly explained the situation to the police who had arrived on the scene.

He climbed in beside Frederica and told the driver to move the carriage around the corner out of sight.

As the man Tooley had sent to fetch the ransom appeared at the corner of the street, it was once more totally deserted. The man, a small-time thief who often did work for Tooley, was whistling through his teeth. He was carrying a bag full of jewels. Mrs. Waverley had cried out that it would take time to get such a large sum of money from the bank and so he had demanded the jewels. He did not see why Tooley should get the lot and had cached several of the finer pieces about his person.

He had just turned into the vile-smelling stairway when he was arrested.

Frederica clung tightly to Lord Harry through the whole affair. At last the bag of jewels was dumped in her lap by a smiling police constable. “Stay with her,” ordered Lord Harry. “There is something I have to do.”

He was gone for what seemed a very long time, but at last returned carrying a small, dirty child. “Had it not been for this mite,” he said, lifting the child into the carriage, “you would not be alive, Frederica. She told me where to find you. I shall find a home for her. She does not have any parents.”

All the way home, Frederica felt her heart swell with gratitude, not only to Lord Harry, but to Mrs. Waverley. She herself might have ended up living in a hole such as the one in New Pye Street after her time at the orphanage was over.

But her newfound gratitude was to have a quick death. Mrs. Waverley ran down the steps and hugged and kissed Frederica, but when Frederica at last pushed her gently away and pointed out that Lord Harry had once more risked his life to save her, Mrs. Waverley’s face hardened.

“Frederica would not have been out in the square alone unless you had persuaded her to meet you.”

“That is not true!” cried Frederica. “I went out of my own accord.”

“Go, my love,” whispered Lord Harry. “I shall see you soon.”

When they got indoors, Frederica raged against Mrs. Waverley, finally bursting into tears of sheer frustration when Mrs. Waverley tried to say that Lord Harry had probably arranged the whole thing so as to look like a hero. Frederica threw the large bag of jewels at Mrs. Waverley’s feet, crying she never wanted to see one of the baubles again. Mrs. Waverley was contrite at last. She knew she had behaved very badly. But her relief at having Frederica delivered back to her safe and well had been quickly replaced by the sharp fear that another of her girls would escape her and leave her to a lonely old age. Frederica refused to listen to any apologies and was finally hustled out by Mrs. Ricketts to have the cut on her arm attended to.

“Frederica had the right of it,” said Felicity quietly. “You showed a most ungenerous spirit, Mrs. Waverley.”

“But he is not for her,” said Mrs. Waverley, drying her eyes. “He would only break her heart.”

“We may have been mistaken in him,” said Felicity slowly.

All Mrs. Waverley’s fears of being abandoned came back. “I have not told you, Felicity dear, but there are things about him which I have learned which scandalize me. Pray be guided by me. He is a libertine and a rake and they never reform.”

“Are you sure of this?” asked Felicity.

“On my word of honor,” lied Mrs. Waverley.

“Then I would send him a courteous letter of thanks and a gift, and then I shall help you to keep Frederica away from him.”

“You are the dearest of all my girls,” cried Mrs. Waverley. “You must never leave me.”

“I promise,” said Felicity.

[*] The First Rebellion, Book I of “The Waverley Women”

Chapter Eight

The furor caused by this latest attempt on the Waverley jewels excited society for a few days. But as all invitations sent to the Waverley household were refused, and all callers turned from the door, the ton soon lost interest again.

Mrs. Ricketts took letters from Frederica to Lord Harry and then delivered his letters to her. The housekeeper had warned Frederica not to confide in Felicity. Mrs. Ricketts said that she often thought Mrs. Waverley only pretended to champion the rights of women, whereas Felicity believed every word she had been taught.

Had Colonel Bridie come to call, then Frederica would not have been so closely guarded. But he had not been near Mrs. Waverley for a week, and that lady grew increasingly depressed and could be heard saying loudly that it was a mistake to blame women for being fickle when men were much more so.

The colonel had, in fact, contracted a bad cold and had been confined to bed. He had not troubled to read any of the newspapers and so remained ignorant of the latest drama. He felt very ill done by as the days passed and no letter of concern appeared from Mrs. Waverley. At last he felt well enough to go for a short stroll on Primrose Hill. The rain clouds had rolled back at last and London lay spread out at his feet, glittering in the sunlight, new washed, lying under a sky of pure blue.

For the first time in days he realized that Mrs. Waverley could not possibly have guessed he had been ill. He decided to wait another day, until he was really stronger, and then go to see her. He had menservants in his gloomy house in Primrose Hill and he missed all the pleasure of being looked after by women that he had become accustomed to enjoying in Hanover Square.

He ambled back down the hill toward his house. When he came in view of it, he saw there was a carriage in front of his door with the royal arms emblazoned on the coach panels. He began to hurry, his heart beating hard.

As he hastened up to his front door, his butler opened it and said in an awed voice, “A messenger from His Majesty, The Prince Regent.”

The liveried messenger was standing in the hall. He handed the colonel a huge letter and bowed.

With feverish fingers, the colonel broke the enormous seal and groped for his quizzing glass. It was too dark in the hall, so he went out on the front steps with it.

It was a gigantic sheet of parchment, but the message was brief. He was summoned to Clarence House at the request of the Prince Regent. He was to present himself there at six that very evening.

He hastened back in. “Wait here.” he said breathlessly, “and I shall pen a reply.”

The messenger looked haughtily down his nose. “That will not be necessary, sir. Your presence, as a loyal subject, is expected.”

“Of course, of course,” said the colonel, crackling the parchment nervously in his square fingers.

By the time late afternoon arrived, the colonel was beginning to feel ill again with worry and nervous tension and rushing about. He had had to hire court dress at great expense and spent a whole hour being instructed as to how to walk easily with a dress sword girded about his waist.

It was only when his carriage was bowling southwards, in the direction of Clarence House, that a stab of sheer alarm hit him somewhere in the region of his stomach. Why did the prince want to see him? The prince had met him, but His Majesty had not seemed to be pleased by the presence of Mrs. Waverley.

The colonel thought hard. If Mrs. Waverley had offended the royal presence in any way, then he would swear he barely knew the woman.

Flambeaux were blazing outside Clarence House, the smell of burning resin tickling his nostrils as he climbed down from his carriage.

He clutched the letter, now much thumbed, in his gloved hands. He had to show it many times as he was transferred from hall to anteroom, anteroom to saloon, and then through a great number of rooms, being stopped in each doorway and having to produce the letter again and so finally to the prince’s bedchamber.

The Prince Regent was in his bedchamber, but not in bed. He was seated at a table in the middle of the vast, gilded room with several other men, playing cards. No one even bothered to look up and the colonel waited and sweated and waited and sweated, and began to wonder if he would have to stand at the doorway all night.

At last the prince looked up, saw him, and frowned. He said something to his companions who all rose and filed from the room, all of them looking at the colonel with open curiosity.

“Come forward,” commanded the prince when he found himself alone with the colonel.

The colonel’s sword seemed to have taken on a life of its own and to be determined to trip him up. He wrenched at it feverishly, so that it was hanging over his bottom, and approached the prince. The Prince Regent was wearing a new, nut brown wig, a blue coat embellished with jeweled orders, and white, buckskin breeches stretched to cracking point over his enormous thighs. The colonel was reminded of the nasty poem which called him The Prince of Whales.

He bowed and then tried to kneel and kiss the royal hand, but the end of his scabbard stuck in the floor and so he was confined to a half crouch.

“Rise and stand before us,” said the prince. “You are, we believe, Colonel James Bridie.”

“Yes, Your Majesty, an it please Your Majesty.”

“We met you t’other evening at the Heatherington woman’s.”

“Yes, sire.”

“With a certain Mrs. Waverley. Fat fainting woman.”

“Yes, sire.”

“You are an officer and a gentleman and it is your duty to serve me without question.”

“Indeed, sire, with my life.”

“Not asking that much, hey!” There was a long silence. The prince sat with his hands folded on his stomach. He then picked up a card and let it drop.

“We do not wish to see Mrs. Waverley again… in London.”

“Sire?”

“It does not please us. You must take the lady out of London and keep her there.”

“As my prisoner, sire?”

“As your wife. You are not married?”

“No, sire.”

“Well, then…”

The colonel looked at him with the pleading eyes of an old dog that has just received an unexpected whipping from its master. “Sire, Mrs. Waverley does not seem to hold with marriage. Perhaps if I explained your royal wish to—”

“No! You must persuade her and swear never to mention a word of this interview to anyone.”

Overawed and trembling, the poor colonel said, “I swear on my life.”

“We have made enquiries concerning you. You have a house and land in Shropshire… a place called Melden?”

“Yes, sire.”

“Give me your sword, Bridie.”

The colonel performed a sort of mad dance, twisting and turning to get the sword belt back round where it should be and then pulling and straining to get the wretched thing out of its scabbard.

“Kneel!”

The colonel struggled to his knees, the Apollo corset he had donned in order to get his dress breeches to fit creaking and straining like the timbers of a four-master rounding the Horn in a force-twelve gale.

As in a dream, he felt the sword lightly touching one shoulder and then the other. “I dub thee Lord James Bridie, Baron Melden. Arise, Lord James.”

The colonel got to his feet and looked down at the prince in a dazed way. “Mrs. Waverley may only know that you have received your title because your bravery has found favor with us. You will receive the official confirmation and papers as soon as the notice of your marriage has appeared in the newspapers.”

“Yes, sire.”

“Should Mrs. Waverley, or as she will soon be, Lady Melden, be seen in London again, I shall find ways to remove your title from you.”

“Yes, sire. Certainly, sire. May I ask…?”

“We thought we had made it clear you are to ask nothing. Nothing! Be off with you.”

“Yes, sire.” Bowing and scraping, the colonel made his way backward toward the door, proud, amid all his confusion and bewilderment, that he had not tripped over his sword once.

He strode through the ornately scarlet and gold rooms, back the way he had come, his head held high. In his brain, he heard celestial trumpets sound a fanfare.

Lord James Bridie, Baron Melden marched out to his carriage and then paused, his one foot on the step and his mouth hanging open in ludicrous dismay. What if she refused him?

By the time his carriage rolled into Hanover Square, he was in a greater state of terror than he had ever been at any time in the Prince Regent’s presence.

Mrs. Ricketts left him waiting in the hall and mounted the stairs with maddening slowness to announce his arrival.

He marched up and down the hall, his sword clanking against his dress spurs.

Then Mrs. Ricketts started to descend.

“Well?” called the colonel.

“Madam will see you now, sir.”

To Mrs. Ricketts’s amazement, the colonel bounded up the stairs past her, shouting, “See we are not disturbed or it will be the worse for you!”

Mrs. Waverley looked up in alarm as the colonel walked into the drawing room and then turned about and went back and locked the double doors.

“What is the meaning of this?” she cried, one plump hand fluttering up to her throat.

The colonel dropped to his knees with such force that he glided toward her across the polished floor on a small rug, as if sledging, and bumped against her knees.

“Be mine!” he cried.

“Colonel Bridie, you are drunk!”

“With love, madam!” he shouted, striking his heart. “And no longer colonel, but Lord James Bridie, Baron Melden.”

“What… how…?”

“This very evening, the Prince Regent himself summoned me. ‘You are the bravest man in England, James,’ he said, and there were tears of emotion coursing down his cheeks. Before, I felt unworthy of you, madam, and only that held me back. Now I wish to make you my baroness.”

Mrs. Waverley looked at him in a dazed way. “But—but—I do not think of marriage.”

The colonel seized one of her hands. “You have been alone in the world too long, Mrs. Waverley, a defenseless creature with no one to support you.”

“How very true,” said Mrs. Waverley, hanging her head.

“We will leave this decadent city and live in Shropshire like two lovebirds.”

“Pray rise and be seated, colonel,” begged Mrs. Waverley. “A little refreshment?”

“Not a drop, madam,” said the colonel, rising and pulling up a chair next to hers, “until I have your answer.”

“What of my girls?” asked Mrs. Waverley. “What of Frederica and Felicity?”

“They are not your flesh and blood. Leave them. Send them back where they came from. You have squandered your love and affection on them, and how do they repay you? By being a constant problem.”

“I cannot. What would people say?” Mrs. Waverley threw back her head. “I am admired throughout the world for my principles.”

“And what have they brought you?” demanded the colonel. “Who loves you except for this trusty soldier who lays his heart at your feet?”

A shrewd glint appeared in Mrs. Waverley’s pale eyes. “I am a rich woman, sir.”

“Leave your fortune with those ungrateful girls, if it will ease your conscience. I have money enough. What do I need of yours?” The colonel spoke the truth. All he wanted in life was to hang on to this most precious of titles.

A soft glow lit Mrs. Waverley’s eyes. “I believe you really mean that, Colonel, but there is a great deal of business to attend to. My money comes from coal mines in the north. Two girls such as Frederica and Felicity would not know how to handle such a large concern. Of course, I have my man of business, but he is guided by me.”

“Why should they have it all? Leave them this house and all that jewelry which has caused you so much distress.”

“But two such young girls alone in London…”

The colonel did not like either Felicity with her cynical eyes or Frederica with her odd gypsy ways and uncomfortable intelligence.

He looked at the floor and sighed. “If, however, you are determined that two such odd creatures, and not of your blood, mark you, should come between us… Two girls singularly lacking in love and gratitude… Ah, well.”

He made a move as if to rise.

“No, no!” cried Mrs. Waverley. “Pray do not be so hasty. You must understand all this has come as a great shock. I need time to think.”

“I was led to believe you cared for me a little,” said the colonel. “Perhaps you were only trifling with my affections, trying to break this old heart.”

Mrs. Waverley felt a heady sensation of power. And her mind was racing. She would be a married woman with a respectable husband. She would have a title. A tinge of spite lit up her eyes. Frederica and Felicity had always taken her great gratitude for granted. Had she not lavished love and attention and education on them? She would be away from the threat of further blackmail from that orphanage. She would be secure from anyone who might one day reveal her past. Let Frederica and Felicity fend for themselves as she had had to fend for herself for so many years. Her spinster friends would feel she had betrayed them. Had she not cried out against marriage? Let them cry out against her. She would not be in London to see or hear them.

“There is only one way I could marry you,” she said. “It would need to be an elopement and marriage by special licence.”

“Done, madam!” cried the colonel triumphantly. “We shall send a notice of our marriage to the London newspapers after it has taken place. But there is only one other leetle condition—I do not want to live in London ever again.”

“That is something I can easily agree to,” said Mrs. Waverley.

They talked for two hours after that, Mrs. Waverley occasionally showing alarming signs of being about to change her mind, and the colonel pretending to leave. Wrapped in an armor of happy selfishness, Mrs. Waverley did not trouble to even mention Lord Harry’s name or talk about Frederica’s capture.

At last it was agreed that he should call on her in the morning and they would go together to the City to discuss matters with Mrs. Waverley’s lawyers and man of business.

“Who was your husband, my love?” asked the colonel. The doors had been unlocked and Mrs. Ricketts had brought in champagne and cakes, her eyes gleaming with curiosity.

“I do not want to talk about him,” said Mrs. Waverley, glancing nervously toward the now open doors to make sure the housekeeper was not standing on the landing, eavesdropping. “He was a beast.”

“Ah, so that is what made you so bitter against the idea of marriage. Oh, my poor crushed blossom.”

And with that phrase, all Mrs. Waverley’s defenses collapsed. She felt like a blushing virgin again, and tittered and sighed and flirted with her eyes over the rim of her champagne glass.

After the colonel had left, she rang the bell and asked Mrs. Ricketts to fetch Felicity and Frederica.

When they came in, she looked at them with pale, cold eyes.

“Do you love me?” she asked.

To Frederica and Felicity it was simply a recurrence of one of Mrs. Waverley’s many emotionally blackmailing scenes. Both looked as hot and uncomfortable as they felt.

“You must realize, Mrs. Waverley,” said Frederica, “that we are both most grateful to you and always will be.”

“Ah, how cold you are! If you but knew… Come and kiss me.”

They walked reluctantly forward and each stooped and placed a brief kiss on Mrs. Waverley’s, rouged cheek.

“Mrs. Waverley,” said Frederica, “why is it that the orphanage is so reluctant to give us any information? When Tredair tried, they sent a messenger to warn you, and the same with Lord Harry. Warn you of what? I wonder.”

Mrs. Waverley’s face hardened. “Warn me, quite rightly, of nosy people meddling in my affairs. You know as much of your background as I do.”

“I cannot be convinced of that,” said Frederica slowly. “There is some mystery—”

“The only mystery,” yelled Mrs. Waverley, working herself up into one of her rages, “is your ongoing lack of love and affection. You do not deserve a benefactress such as I. Vipers that I have nourished in my bosom.” Her voice rose to a scream. “I despise you!”

“Mrs. Waverley,” said Felicity, “if you would but listen—”

Mrs. Waverley rose to her feet, threw back her head, put one hand on her brow, and with the other hand pointed to the door. “Begone!” she said awfully.

“What on earth came over her tonight?” asked Frederica as she and Felicity walked up the stairs together.

“Oh, I think it was just one of her usual scenes. Too much champagne.”

“Sometimes,” said Frederica, “I cannot help but feel she has the right of it. We are a pair of cold fish, you know.”

“That is because she does not love us and never has,” said Felicity practically. “She took us for our looks. She went shopping for a family and she got us. Have you ever noticed in her any genuine affection or tenderness? Have you ever noticed anything other than a desire to keep us close so that she will not be alone in her old age? But I am grateful to her. Very. And she does have sound principles and sticks by them. We do lead a confined life, but think what our lives might have been like otherwise. I trust you have not been seeing Lord Harry again, Frederica.”

“When would I have had the opportunity?” parried Frederica, thinking guiltily of that last letter, now lying under her mattress, in which he had asked her to meet him in the garden of Mrs. Waverley’s house at midnight.

Felicity looked at her anxiously. “Be assured, Freddy, he is a bad man.”

“A bad man who has twice saved my life.”

“True. But do not feel beholden to him in any way. He will ruin you.”

“Forget Lord Harry,” said Frederica lightly. “What of the colonel? Do you not find it odd that Mrs. Waverley should encourage frequent visits from a man?”

“I think she thinks the colonel is a bit of a joke,” Felicity said, laughing. “She told me it is important to convert the gentlemen to our way of thinking—so that they will make better husbands—if they seem willing to listen to our views.”

“I am being silly,” said Frederica, with a grin. “Can you imagine a woman like Mrs. Waverley languishing in the colonel’s arms?”

They went off to their respective rooms, Felicity meaning to write some more but feeling too sleepy, and Frederica, to sit and watch the clock and wait until midnight.

***

At just a few minutes after midnight, Frederica climbed out of the library window and dropped lightly to the ground. She stifled a gasp as a pair of strong arms caught her and held her. Then she let out a little sigh and leaned back against Lord Harry Danger, who buried his lips in her hair.

He turned her about to face him. “It seems like years since I saw you last,” he whispered.

She put a hand up to his face in the darkness and stroked it gently. “Are your cuts healed?”

“Almost. I received a handsome gift from Mrs. Waverley.”

“What is it?”

“A very handsome traveling dressing case.”

Frederica’s voice gurgled with laughter. “She obviously hopes you will use it as soon as possible.”

“An excellent gift for our honeymoon. I have a special licence. I have arranged things with my mother. In two weeks time, my love, I shall collect you and take you to her. We will be married quietly and then go on our travels.”

“I have no dowry,” said Frederica.

“You do not need one. Bring only yourself.”

“But clothes…?”

“Give Mrs. Ricketts one of your old gowns and your measurements tomorrow and tell her to bring them to me. My mother will have enough clothes made ready for you.”

Frederica shivered. “I am afraid something will happen before then.”

“More attempts to take those wretched jewels? Be assured that every thief in London will be too frightened to make the attempt. Tooley was evidently a monster, feared even by his own kind. His killing will stop anyone else from trying to rob you.”

“What happened to the little child you rescued?”

“Already in a good home. My butler’s married sister is childless and is delighted to take the waif as her own.”

“I must tell Felicity of our plans,” said Frederica.

“No, I do not think that would be wise.”

“Please. I cannot leave her without saying goodbye. Perhaps, after the honeymoon, she can come and live with us.”

“If Felicity wishes, she can live with us, but she must not know of our marriage until I have you safe.”

“She would not betray me!”

“I do not think that young lady approves of me in the least. Do be sensible, my love.”

“You must allow me to make up my own mind as to what is best to do,” said Frederica firmly. “We are not even married yet and already you are trying to tell me what to do.”

“Trust me in this case.”

Frederica opened her mouth to protest, but he covered her lips with his own. His lips were warm and caressing in the darkness and his body was hard and muscular against the softness of her own. She tried to remain passive and unresponsive in his arms, for that was surely the behavior of a lady, but her senses started reeling and soon she was matching passion for passion.

He freed his lips at last and said on a sigh, “How wonderful it will be not to have to meet like this—to have all our days and nights together. I shall not feel I have you safe until we leave London together.”

“And will you always love me?” demanded Frederica fiercely.

“I promise. And you must never even look at another man or I shall beat you.”

Frederica drew a little away from him and said, “If you beat me, I shall leave you.”

“I am sure you would, my termagant. No beatings, then. Only kisses for punishment, like this… and this…”

A small moon rose above the houses and silvered the walled garden with light. “It is different for me,” murmured Frederica at last. “All your kisses are new and wonderful, but you have kissed so many women, how do I know you are not comparing me to any of them?”

“I didn’t want to marry any of them. Only you.” He bent his fair head and kissed the throbbing pulse at her neck before seeking her mouth again.

They kissed and caressed, the hoarse voice of the watchman from the square only coming faintly to their ears. Drugged with passion and dizzy with kisses, Frederica twisted and turned in his arms to accommodate his searching hands, her body pliant and malleable beneath his fingers.

Mrs. Ricketts stood by the library window and wished they would hurry up so that she could get to bed. Kisses were safe enough, but she felt it was her duty to see that Lord Harry did not go any further until he had put a ring on Frederica’s finger.

At last, she heard the murmur of voices and saw the figures in the garden below separate. Then she heard the sounds of stifled laughter and moved quickly back from the window as Lord Harry helped Frederica up to the windowsill.

She darted out to the landing outside the library and listened again, until she heard Frederica call softly, “Good night,” and then went thankfully to bed.

***

During the following week, Felicity began to be puzzled by the changed atmosphere in the house. Mrs. Waverley appeared to be in a state of suppressed excitement and was hardly ever home, always driving off somewhere with the colonel. But there was nothing loverlike about the pair that Felicity could detect. There were no more lessons from Mrs. Waverley and, most strange of all, no supervision. Felicity wanted to go out and buy more paper and ink. She put on her pelisse and bonnet and walked boldly to the front door and opened it. Mrs. Ricketts came out into the hall. “Going out, Miss Felicity?” she asked mildly.

“Only for a little,” said Felicity defiantly.

“You must no longer go out in the streets of London on your own,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “Wait there, miss, and I’ll fetch my bonnet and come with you.”

“Do you mean Mrs. Waverley has actually given instructions that we are to be allowed more freedom?” asked Felicity.

“No, miss, not exactly. But if I did not let you go, you would only escape as usual by the library window.”

“So you know about that?”

“Of course. Won’t be long, miss.”

As they walked in the direction of the shops, Felicity asked curiously, “Why did you never report our escapades to Mrs. Waverley?”

“Didn’t seem important,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “If I had thought you young misses were up to something bad, then I would have felt it my duty to report you, but I followed you myself on a few occasions, and you only went to buy books. Books!” sniffed Mrs. Ricketts. “Waste of money. Addling your pretty heads with education and dead languages. Unnatural, that’s what it is.”

“It is the duty of every woman to educate herself as much as possible,” said Felicity.

“Why?”

“So that in turn she may educate others, so that they may bring up enlightened children.”

“The only way to bring up children is to give them a good taste of the birch when they’re naughty,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “The gentlemen like stupid ladies and that’s a fact.”

“Yes,” said Felicity slowly, “they do. Now, Frederica is very clever. I should have thought most gentlemen of the ton would find her intimidating.”

“Most, yes.”

“And she is not precisely attractive.”

“Miss Frederica is very beautiful,” said Mrs. Ricketts, “but not in the common way.”

“I fear any man who shows an interest in Frederica must only be some rake who is looking for amusement.”

So Felicity did not really know how things stood with Lord Harry, thought Mrs. Ricketts. Just as well. Aloud, she said, “You do have a poor opinion of your sister.”

“Frederica is not my sister, as you very well know. On the contrary, I have a high opinion of her, but a low one of the gentlemen of society.”

“You know what it is,” said Mrs. Ricketts, with a sudden burst of insight. “It ain’t Latin and Greek what’s addled your brains, Miss Felicity, but them novels you keep reading. I peeked in some of them and there’s always some lord out to seduce some female… and in the last chapter she throws him over and goes off to live in a cottage with some poor but honest tradesman. If a cobbler had come courting Miss Frederica, you would credit him with all the virtues, where in real life, he’d probably only be after her money.”

“I think any honest tradesman is more likely to have virtues that a spoiled lord has had no opportunity to acquire.”

“You should have been alive when Oliver Cromwell was running the country,” said Mrs. Ricketts gloomily. “A right puritan, you are.”

They continued on their way to the shops, arguing amicably, Felicity privately feeling relieved to have the company of the tall, bony housekeeper, for once she was out in the streets, she could not help looking nervously about her in case there was another thieving attack on the Waverleys.

When Mrs. Ricketts returned, she found Frederica waiting for her in her parlor.

“My dear Mrs. Ricketts,” said Frederica. “I am going to elope… next Wednesday.”

“Yes, that sounds like as good a time as any,” said Mrs. Ricketts placidly. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing,” said Frederica happily. “Lord Harry and I do not want to involve you for fear you’d lose your job. I shall leave by the library window at midnight. He is taking me to his mother’s and we are to be married from there. Thank you for giving him the dress and the measurements.”

Mrs. Ricketts poked the fire and put a small black kettle of water on it. “I would not tell Miss Felicity of your proposed elopement,” she said.

“That is what Lord Harry said. But I would so like her to know.”

“I would not risk it, miss,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “A dreadful puritan is Miss Felicity.”

“Then I am doing nothing to shock her. I am going to be married, not to be his mistress.”

“Don’t reckon as how she’ll believe that. Do be guided by me, Miss Frederica.”

But Frederica found her secret beginning to weigh heavily. Mrs. Waverley was forever absent, rushing here and rushing there. She never summoned them, and either dined with the colonel, or dined alone. Felicity was busy writing, sometimes far into the night.

On the day of her elopement, Frederica could not bear it any longer. She went into Felicity’s room and stood looking at her. Felicity was bent over her work, her shining chestnut hair spread about her shoulders. At last, as if conscious of Frederica’s gaze, she put down her pen and turned about.

“What is it, Freddy?” she asked.

Frederica moved toward her, her hands clasped in front of her. “Felicity, dear, there is something I must tell you.”

“Oh, what?” asked Felicity vaguely, her eyes still full of the story she was writing. She was nearly at the end. She could hardly believe she had done so much. With luck, it would all be finished by early evening, and the following day, before she lost her courage, she would take it to the bookseller, Harvey, in Bond Street, and see if she could interest him in publishing it. If only she could! She would have her own money and no longer be dependent on Mrs. Waverley’s generosity. Perhaps she might even be able to buy a cottage somewhere, where she and Frederica could live.

Frederica knelt on the floor beside her and looked at her pleadingly. “I am going to elope with Lord Harry Danger tonight, Felicity.”

Felicity looked down at her in dawning horror. “Oh, Freddy, I thought you had come to your senses. Don’t you see it is all a game with him?”

“It is not a game,” said Frederica. “I love him and he loves me. I am meeting him in our garden at midnight. He will take me to his mother’s and we will be married from there.”

“He will take you to his mother’s house,” said Felicity, her ever-fertile imagination working hard. “but his mother will not be there. He has a dreadful reputation, Freddy. Mrs. Waverley said—”

“Oh, we all know what Mrs. Waverley said!” Frederica got to her feet. “Mrs. Waverley will say anything to keep us close. I am escaping for good and all, Felicity, and after my honeymoon, I shall send for you.”

“Frederica, I beg you to be sensible, to see reason.”

“I only know that he loves me and I love him,” said Frederica quietly. “When you see the announcement of our wedding in the newspapers, you will realize how wrong about him you have been.”

“That is an announcement that will never appear, you poor fool.”

“I should have known better than to tell you,” said Frederica bitterly. “Just don’t interfere in my plans.” She went out and slammed the door behind her.

Felicity sat for a long time, staring into space. Then she got to her feet and went downstairs. Mrs. Waverley was not in the drawing room, and there were sounds of commotion and bustle from the hall.

When Felicity went on down to the hall, she stared in amazement at the scene that met her eyes. Trunk after corded trunk was being carried outside and loaded into a fourgon. “Careful with that one,” cried Mrs. Waverley, supervising the operation.

“What is happening?” asked Felicity. “Are we going on a journey?”

“No one is going anywhere,” said Mrs. Waverley. “I am tired of all my clothes. The good colonel has said he will take them to the workhouse for me and distribute them among the inmates.”

“But so many trunks,” cried Felicity. “Would it not have been better to have had a new wardrobe of clothes made before getting rid of the old?”

Mrs. Waverley rounded on her fiercely. “It is not your place to question me,” she snapped. “Go to your room.”

“But there is something about Frederica I must tell you.”

“Nothing that Frederica does or says interests me any further. Go to your room!”

Felicity backed up the stairs before the blast of Mrs. Waverley’s anger.

Mrs. Waverley saw to the last of the loading of her trunks. The fourgon would bear them down to the colonel’s home in Shropshire. Mrs. Waverley had told no one of her marriage plans. No one loved her except the colonel. No one had ever appreciated her except the colonel. They could all learn to look after themselves.

She went back to the drawing room, sat down at her desk, and began to write a letter to Frederica and Felicity. In it she stated that she was leaving them. She said nothing of her marriage. She said she was leaving them because of their lack of love and affection. But she was giving them the house and everything in it, including the jewels. She hoped that one day both of them would realize how their coldness had wounded her. She then propped the letter up on her desk with the title deeds to the house. She picked up a smart new bonnet and put it on, smoothed the silk of her gown down over her massive hips. “A fine figure of a woman,” the colonel had said. Mrs. Waverley began to glow with happiness.

She went down the stairs and said to Mrs. Ricketts, “I am going for a drive with Colonel Bridie to visit some friends in Primrose Hill and shall not be back until late. Do not wait up for me.”

“Very good, mum.”

Mrs. Waverley swept out.

She climbed into the colonel’s carriage. He seized her hand and kissed it. The driver cracked his whip and the carriage moved out of Hanover Square. Mrs. Waverley did not look back, even once.

***

Felicity went down the stairs several times that day, looking for Mrs. Waverley, but each time Mrs. Ricketts told her the mistress had not returned.

The drawing room had been dusted and polished earlier that day so there was no reason for the servants to go into it. The letter and title deeds to the house lay unnoticed by everyone.

Felicity decided that the saving of Frederica’s soul had been left to herself. She knew instinctively that Mrs. Ricketts would refuse to help.

As midnight drew nearer, she went down to the deserted kitchen and made a pot of chocolate, tipped a generous measure of laudanum into it, put two cups and saucers on a tray with the chocolate, and carried it up to Frederica’s room.

“I thought you would like a hot drink to sustain you before your elopement,” said Felicity, with a smile.

Chapter Nine

Frederica looked in surprise at Felicity as she stood in the doorway, holding the tray. “Oh, Felicity,” she cried. “I do believe you have forgiven me.”

“There is time to have a comfortable coze,” said Felicity, putting the tray down on the table and pouring out two steaming cups of chocolate.

“Is Mrs. Waverley returned?” asked Frederica, pacing up and down.

“No, not yet. Sit down, dear Freddy, and drink this chocolate. It will sustain you for your adventures to come.”

Frederica sat down, but she eyed Felicity warily. “When did you change your mind?”

Felicity thought quickly. She could not act too out of character or Frederica would become suspicious. “Alas, I have not really changed my mind about Lord Harry,” she said, “but it is your life and your decision. Only promise to return after he has ruined you. I will steal the jewels and take you away if Mrs. Waverley will not forgive you.”

Frederica began to laugh. “What a romantic you are! I am sure that is a book you have been writing, or do you have a secret lover?”

“Do drink your chocolate,” urged Felicity.

“Tell me about your book, if it is a book, and I will drink it.”

“Very well, it is a novel and it is about a rake—but the rake is a woman!”

Frederica had raised the cup to her lips. She put it down untasted and stared at Felicity. “You do not hope to sell it, do you? No man is going to publish a book about a loose woman.”

“She is not precisely loose,” said Felicity, watching as Frederica’s hand reached for the cup again. “You see it is a satire on the double standards of our times. A man is a gay blade if he seduces many women, but a woman is a—”

“Prostitute,” said Frederica, holding the cup to her lips. She lowered it again and Felicity nearly groaned aloud. “Do you realize that if such a book were ever published, it would ruin your reputation?”

“You forget. I do not have a reputation to lose,” said Felicity. “Do drink your chocolate, Frederica. The night is cold.”

“Nonsense, it is close and warm. If I thought for one moment some bookseller would publish it, I should really fear for you. Still, I think it is monstrous clever of you to write a whole book.”

“Three volumes,” said Felicity proudly.

Frederica glanced at the clock and jumped to her feet. “Look at the time! I must be off.”

“Drink a toast to the success of my book before you go,” said Felicity desperately.

“A toast in chocolate? Oh, very well.” Frederica picked up the cup and took a great gulp of the hot, sweet liquid. “To your book. Goodness, that chocolate tastes odd,” she said. “Now, let me see, do I have everything? He wants me to leave the jewels and I am glad to do so. I had begun to detest those baubles. Kiss me good-bye, Felicity, and always remember…” She swayed and clutched hold of the back of the chair she had been sitting on to support herself. “I feel faint,” she said dizzily. “I cannot faint, now, of all times.”

“Lie down for a moment,” said Felicity. “He will wait.”

“No,” said Frederica thickly. “Must go.” She staggered toward the door.

Felicity leaped up and seized her. “No, you shall not go. He means to ruin you!”

With a tremendous effort, Frederica thrust her away, wrenched opened the door, and staggered into the passage. Felicity ran after her and caught at her skirts. Frederica tripped and fell. She made a heroic effort to rise, but fell forward again. Her eyes closed, and soon she was unconscious and breathing heavily.

“What is happening up there?” came Mrs. Ricketts’s voice.

“Nothing,” called Felicity sharply. “Go to bed. I fell over something.”

She waited until she heard a door close downstairs as the housekeeper went back to bed. Then she seized Frederica by the ankles and slid her along the uncarpeted corridor and back into the bedroom. “You will thank me for this one day,” she said.

She tugged down Frederica’s rumpled skirts and tenderly smoothed her tumbled hair back from her brow. Then she ran downstairs quietly to the library and gently eased up the window.

Lord Harry’s face looked up at her in the moonlight.

“Go away,” whispered Felicity fiercely. “She has seen sense. She has changed her mind.”

“Rubbish,” said Lord Harry loudly.

“Shhh!” admonished Felicity. “Go away. Shoo!”

And with that, she pulled down the window and left the astonished Lord Harry standing in the garden.

What on earth has she done to Frederica? thought Lord Harry. The deuce. I will get her out of that house this night if I have to break down every door.

He climbed nimbly over the wall, into his own garden, and round the side of the house and up the area steps to the street. Taking a deep breath, he marched to the Waverley door, seized the knocker and hammered on it so hard that his carriage horses in the square behind him whinnied and shied.

Mrs. Ricketts opened the door. “What on earth, my lord…?”

“She was to meet me in the garden, but now Felicity tells me she has changed her mind. Where is Mrs. Waverley?”

“Not returned, my lord.”

“Then we have only Felicity to blame. Lead the way, Mrs. Ricketts. You have my permission to tell Mrs. Waverley I threatened you.”

Mrs. Ricketts hurried up the stairs holding an oil lamp, while Lord Harry followed. Felicity heard them coming. She darted into Frederica’s bedroom and locked the door.

“Go away!” she shouted as the doorknob began to rattle. “You shall never have her.”

“Bless me,” said Mrs. Ricketts in high irritation. “I’ll burn all that young lady’s novels tomorrow, see if I don’t.” She fumbled with the great bunch of keys hanging at her waist. Mrs. Ricketts always carried the keys with her, even sleeping with them, the chain that held them firmly fastened over her red flannel nightgown.

“Here we are!” she said triumphantly. She put a key in the lock and turned it. The door swung open. Felicity stood over Frederica’s unconscious body.

She flew at Lord Harry and tried to claw his face. Mrs. Ricketts darted forward and caught hold of Felicity with powerful arms. “You silly, little girl,” she said furiously.

Lord Harry gathered Frederica up in his arms. He looked at her sleeping face and then his gaze fell on the two cups on the table, one nearly empty and one still full of chocolate.

“Drugged,” he said bitterly. “You hellcat.”

While Felicity kicked and struggled, he bore Frederica out of the room. Mrs. Ricketts held fast to Felicity until she heard the street door slam.

Then she released her. Felicity slumped down on the floor and began to cry.

“Fool!” said Mrs. Ricketts. “Do you not know when a man is desperately in love? You have behaved wantonly, disgracefully, and callously… and were nigh close to ruining Frederica’s happiness. Dry your eyes and come down to the drawing room and we will wait for Mrs. Waverley—and if it pleases you to ruin me by telling her of my part in this elopement, you are welcome.”

Felicity wearily dried her eyes. “Mrs. Waverley made me promise to protect her. She said she knew Lord Harry to be a lecher and a rake.”

“Lord Harry Danger is as pretty a gentleman as I have ever met,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “Use the common sense God gave you. Did Mrs. Waverley not do her uttermost to stop poor Fanny marrying an earl? And would she not do her uttermost to spoil Frederica’s chances, no matter what?”

“I shall come with you and wait for her,” said Felicity, getting up, “but I shall not betray you. Your punishment will be to find out how you have helped to ruin poor Freddy!”

“Oh, come along,” said Mrs. Ricketts, exasperated.

Together they went down to the drawing room. Mrs. Ricketts set down the oil lamp and then went and lit the fire. She poked a taper between the bars and then lit branches of candles on the mantelpiece with it until the room was flooded with a soft light. Frederica’s workbasket was lying open beside a chair, the colored silks hanging over the side.

Mrs. Ricketts walked over to the long windows and drew back one of the curtains to see if there was any sign of Mrs. Waverley returning. She shook her head and let the curtain fall. “I wonder what has become of the mistress?” she said. And then she saw the letter and title deeds on the desk.

With a feeling of wonder, she picked everything up and carried it over to Felicity. She soundlessly laid the letter and the title deeds in Felicity’s lap.

Felicity broke open the letter and began to read. “I cannot believe this,” she whispered. “She has gone and left us. She has gone forever. She says she does not care what becomes of us. She has left the jewels and the house, although she says such generosity is too good for us. She says we never cared for her, never loved her.”

Mrs. Waverley took the letter from Felicity’s limp hand and carried it closer to the light. “I should have known,” she said at last. “She’s gone off with that colonel, that’s what. She only wanted you girls because she hadn’t a man and was frightened of getting one. But now she’s got one at last, she don’t need nobody else.”

“That I will never believe,” said Felicity, white to the lips. “I can understand her leaving us, I can understand her distress at what she considered to be our lack of affection, but leave because of some man… nonsense.”

“Go to bed,” said Mrs. Ricketts wearily. “You’re the mistress now, but this night, obey me and go to bed. You’ll see sense in the morning.”

***

Mrs. Waverley had a splendid time after her arrival in Shropshire. She bullied the colonel’s servants, upset his housekeeper by checking the household books and pointing out several mistakes, and had the furniture in his drawing room rearranged.

She had told the colonel firmly that no announcement of their marriage was to appear in the newspapers. The colonel merely said, “Yes, dear,” and told his servants that no newspapers were to be allowed anywhere near Mrs. Waverley for over a week. He had already sent the announcement off to the newspapers. It would appear on the same day as the wedding. All he wanted was that title. Once Mrs. Waverley was his wife, he could set about putting her firmly in her place. Once Mrs. Waverley was his wife, he could find out what it was about her the Prince Regent so disliked and feared.

They were quietly married in the local church, the colonel not yet using his title until those precious papers arrived from London.

His new wife became more soft and cajoling and feminine as her wedding night approached. But the colonel would not come to bed. He sat by the window of his study on the ground floor, still dressed in his wedding finery, watching and waiting for that royal messenger. What if the prince had tricked him? He broke out in a cold sweat at the thought.

When his bride finally and sulkily fell asleep alone in his great bed upstairs, he sat on, waiting and waiting through the long night, until a pale dawn light filled the room and the birds began to twitter sleepily in the ivy outside. The sun rose higher in the sky. He heard Mrs. Waverley getting up and rose and locked his study door and resumed his vigil.

He could hear his new wife’s voice raised in anger outside and several times she banged angrily on the study door, but he paid her no heed. His eyes were just beginning to droop when suddenly he heard the sound of a horseman, riding hard up the drive leading to the house. He leaped to his feet and unlocked the door, ran through the hall and stood on the steps, one hand to his fast-beating heart.

How haughty and contemptuous these royal messengers were! But the colonel seized the huge packet and carried it back into his study and locked the door—without so much as a thank you or an offer to the messenger to rest his horse or take some refreshment.

With trembling fingers he opened it and the documents fell out. The prince had kept his word.

The new baron was so happy, he burst into tears. Then he dried his eyes, unlocked his study door, and called for his wife.

“Good day, my baroness,” he said. “My precious darling.”

He held out the documents. A slow thaw set in on his wife’s stern features.

“I think I’ll go to bed,” said the colonel and yawned.

“I think I’ll join you,” said his wife.

He smiled at her and winked, then slapped her on the bottom.

Arm in arm, they went upstairs to the bedroom.

***

Frederica awoke in total darkness. She felt groggy and slightly sick. She stretched and turned in bed to go back to sleep again, and then her memory came rushing back. The chocolate! Felicity must have drugged the chocolate. In cold panic, she sprang from the bed and groped her way to the window, pulled back the curtains, and tugged open the shutters. The cool, green expanse of Hyde Park lay below her.

She wondered for one mad moment whether she was dreaming. She swung round as the door opened and then cried out with relief as Lord Harry walked into the room.

“Thank goodness you are awake at last,” he said. “We are getting married in an hour’s time.”

“Where am I? What happened?”

“That wretch, Felicity, drugged your chocolate and came down to the library window to tell me you had changed your mind. Fortunately, Mrs. Waverley had not yet returned home, which left me only Felicity to battle with. While the redoubtable Mrs. Ricketts held her, I carried you off. You are in my mother’s house.”

“I will never forgive Felicity. Never!” said Frederica bitterly.

“Oh, I am sure time will take the sting out of her actions. She is very young. Come, my sweet. Time is passing. I hope you do not mind. I have invited Miss Caroline James to our wedding. I promised her she should dance at my wedding, and although there is to be no dancing, I would like her to be there.”

“As you will,” said Frederica shakily. “But do not talk to me again of Felicity. How could she do such a thing?”

“Misguided affection and bad teaching on the part of Mrs. Waverley. I will send the maids to dress you, my sweet. Do not keep me waiting. Would you like some breakfast?”

“No,” said Frederica. “I feel sick.”

“Do try not to be sick until after we are married,” he said callously.

A lady’s maid came in, carrying a wedding gown, followed by the duchess and two other maids.

“Is this not all beautifully irregular?” The duchess beamed. “Such a rush getting this gown ready. You poor thing! Drugged, I hear. How lucky you are. I never have any adventures.” She talked on in her soft voice while the maids bathed Frederica’s face and arms with rose-scented water. Still feeling groggy, she stood passively while she was washed and dressed. Then the hairdresser arrived, fussed and flurried because he had so little time. He exclaimed in horror at Frederica’s unfashionably long masses of hair and tried to persuade her that one of the new short crops was all the thing, until the lady’s maid told him sternly that he was wasting time.

Frederica’s hair was put up and a tiara of pearls arranged among her curls. Her wedding gown was white and simple, but the train was of fine lace and yards long.

“Who is to give me away?” asked Frederica as she finally was seated in a carriage next to the duchess and borne off to a church in the Strand.

“I don’t know,” said the duchess vaguely. “But Harry’s sure to have organized something.”

“It is very good of you, ma’am,” said Frederica shyly.

The duchess patted her hand. “Not at all. It is, however, slightly tiresome that I shall have to leave town for a little while, for when the announcement of your marriage appears in the newspapers tomorrow, Harriet and Michael will descend on me, foaming at the mouth. You will meet them on the return from your honeymoon, which will not be at all a pleasant experience for you. Mrs. Waverley will no doubt be calling on me today, but I have told the servants to keep her out.”

“It will seem like a sad return of all her generosity,” said Frederica quietly.

“Well, you know, once you are married, I am sure she will forgive you.”

Frederica shook her head. “She never forgave Fanny.”

“Odd woman,” said the duchess, dismissing Mrs. Waverley.

The church was cold and dark. An elderly relative called Sir Geoffrey Harper had been summoned to give Frederica away. Caroline James was maid of honor. Frederica felt a flash of jealousy, which she quickly suppressed. She and Lord Harry, having had no rehearsal, stumbled painfully through the words of the marriage service under the cold eyes of a jaded vicar. The vicar had been drinking deep the night before and was feeling every bit as ill as Frederica.

They were finally pronounced man and wife after an extremely long sermon, the vicar having become aware of his duties and the sum of money he was being paid for performing them.

Frederica began to feel better as she left the church. The sun was shining and a mischievous wind sent her long train spiraling up to the heavens, and the duchess and Caroline had to help her catch the billowing folds.

“Married at last,” said Lord Harry. “Back to mother’s, change, and then on our way.”

“Where to?” asked Frederica.

“Paris first. We will stop tonight at an excellent posting house.”

At the duchess’s home, the maids changed Frederica’s bridal gown for a pale blue muslin dress and a blue silk, fur-lined pelisse. Caroline James stood on the steps with a basket of rose petals, which she threw at the newly married couple as they set out on their journey. She watched them rather wistfully until the carriage had disappeared from view.

Frederica slept for most of the first day’s journey and felt fully restored to health by the time they stopped for the night.

They ate dinner in a private parlor and then went to their bedchamber.

Frederica felt desperately shy of this new husband, and fearful of the night to come.

“It’s only me, Harry, you know,” he said, his green eyes glinting with laughter.

“I’m frightened and cold,” said Frederica miserably.

He picked her up in his arms and carried her fully dressed to the bed. He lay down beside her and began to murmur endearments as he unfastened tapes and took out pins until she was naked. Then he slipped quickly out of his own clothes and gathered her in his arms. “Now,” he said, “let the night begin…”

At one point, Frederica looked up at him tearfully and said, “You hurt me.”

“So there are some facts my well-read bride does not know,” he said. “It gets better.” He pulled her back into his arms to energetically begin to prove his point.

The couple set out late the next day. Before they left the yard of the posting house, Lord Harry’s valet’s face appeared at the carriage window. “Morning Post, my lord.”

“I do not think I want to be bothered with the newspapers today,” said Lord Harry. “But keep it. It will contain the announcement of our marriage.”

The valet bowed and retreated to take his seat in the carriage behind. It was only when they were some way along the road that the valet realized he had let the newspaper drop in the posting house yard.

The rain began to fall gently on the announcement of Frederica’s wedding, and below that announcement, one stating that Mrs. Maria Waverley had married Colonel James Bridie.

***

Mrs. Ricketts quietly entered the drawing room. Felicity was seated at a chair by the window, watching the square.

“She isn’t coming back, Miss Felicity,” said Mrs. Ricketts.

“Mrs. Waverley will return,” said Felicity, not turning around. “She has only gone off in a pet. She will be back. She is simply trying to test our affection.”

Mrs. Ricketts walked forward, holding out the morning newspaper. “Read that, Miss Felicity.”

Felicity took the newspaper and read the announcement of Frederica’s wedding. Her face flamed. “Oh,” she said miserably. “So he did mean to marry her after all!”

“Look at the other announcements,” said Mrs. Ricketts grimly.

Felicity slowly read the other announcements and then let out a gasp. “It cannot be true. After all her teaching, after all she said.”

“She’s a woman like every other woman—only more selfish than most,” said Mrs. Ricketts.

Felicity looked wildly around. “I am alone,” she said. “What will become of me?”

Mrs. Ricketts folded her work-worn hands over her apron. “You’ve got me, miss. You’ve got all them jewels. She did right by you. She didn’t take a one, nor did Miss Frederica.”

“I don’t want them,” said Felicity passionately. “I’ll earn my own money.”

“How?”

“I’ve written a book. I shall go out and sell it.”

“Mercy!” Mrs. Ricketts clutched at her cap in despair. “Will you never grow up? I’ll sell them jewels as we need. Then you’d best see about hiring yourself a companion.”

“Never!” said Felicity. “I will never trust anyone again.”

“There, now. It’s only Mrs. Waverley what’s let you down. Drop this silly book idea, do.”

“I am mistress of this house now, Mrs. Ricketts,” said Felicity, getting to her feet. “So remember your place in future.” And with that, she flung herself into the housekeeper’s arms and cried her eyes out.

***

The bookseller, Mr. Harvey, was giving one of his little literary parties two afternoons later. His guests were the poet, Mr. Southey; the actor, Mr. Keane; two aspiring poets, Mr. Jessop and Sir Francis Broome; and the marquess of Darkwater. Of the little party, it was the marquess who looked the most like a Byronic hero. He had thick, raven black hair and piercing gray eyes. He was tall and tanned, with a broad-shouldered athlete’s body. He had just returned from the West Indies where he owned sugar plantations. He had been accused of being a Jacobite by the other landowners, for the marquess had freed his slaves, and this emancipation had meant his free and now-salaried workers cut more sugarcane than the slaves on the other plantations, which did not surprise the marquess in the slightest but had infuriated all the landowners who had prophesied doom and disaster. He was in his thirties and had been married for only a short time, his young bride surviving the West Indian climate for only a few short months after their wedding. He had come back to the London Season to find himself a bride, and now with the Season nearly over, had not seen one young lady he considered had enough strength of character to bear life in the West Indies, let alone the long journey there.

He was just thinking of making his escape, for one of the aspiring poets was about to read his latest work, when Mr. Harvey’s servant appeared and murmured there was a young lady out in the shop with a manuscript to sell.

Mr. Harvey groaned and put an eye to the keyhole in the door, which gave him a view of the bookshop beyond.

He saw a very fashionably dressed and very beautiful girl, standing by the counter, clutching a sheaf of manuscript.

He turned away and sighed. “Tell miss I am otherwise engaged and will not be publishing any new novels until next year.”

“Wait a bit,” said the marquess, amused. “How do you know that is not another Miss Austen you have out there?”

“Take a look at her, my lord,” said Mr. Harvey.

The marquess put his eye to the peephole.

“Now, where has that one been hiding?” he murmured. He turned back. “I still do not see why her obvious youth and beauty should put you off.”

“The beautiful ones can’t write and can’t spell but are convinced they can.”

“She has intelligent eyes,” said the marquess. “Do me a favor, Harvey, and cast an eye over her magnum opus.”

“Oh, very well.”

The bookseller went into the shop. While the others gossiped and drank, the marquess put his eye to the peephole again.

He could see the bookseller’s bored face bent over the manuscript. Then Mr. Harvey’s face brightened and he pulled out his quizzing glass, leaned his elbows on the counter, and began to read in earnest. Then he began to ask questions. The marquess saw the girl answer calmly.

He stepped back as the door opened and Mr. Harvey said breathlessly, “A find, gentlemen. Amuse yourselves. I shall not be too long.”

“You do realize, Mr. Harvey,” said Felicity, “that no one must ever guess the identity of the author.”

“Of course, Miss Waverley. Perhaps if you will allow me until tomorrow to read it, we can come to terms.”

Felicity looked longingly at her precious manuscript. “Very well,” she said. “Can you give me an idea how much you will pay me?”

“I will have a better idea when I have read it, of course,” said Mr. Harvey. “It is a first novel, and highly unusual, and I don’t know—”

“One hundred pounds,” said Felicity firmly. “At least that or I shall take it away and try Mr. Murray.” She reached for the manuscript.

“No, no! I agree,” said Mr. Harvey, holding firmly on to it.

Felicity gave him a sudden, blinding smile. “Until tomorrow then,” she said.

Mr. Harvey carried the manuscript back into his study. “Good day,” said the marquess hurriedly. He looked up and down Bond Street when he got outside and then set off in pursuit of Felicity. He followed her to Hanover Square and stood watching as she entered the door of a handsome, brick-fronted house.

He stopped a liveried servant who was passing and said, “Who lives in that house yonder?”

“A Mrs. Waverley did live there, but she’s gone orf and got married again,” said the servant. “One of her girls goes orf at the same time and marries Lord Harry Danger. There’s a chit of a thing left on her own, people say.”

The marquess tossed him a coin and turned back in the direction of Bond Street. He was determined to see Miss Waverley’s manuscript. After all, Harvey need never know he had found out who she was.

Felicity sat in an armchair in the drawing room and kicked off her shoes and threw her bonnet in the corner. She rang the bell, and when Mrs. Ricketts answered, she said, “I would like champagne and strawberry ice cream from Gunter’s. Have some champagne yourself. In fact, serve champagne to all the staff.”

“Those jewels will never last long if you’re going to squander money like that,” grumbled Mrs. Ricketts.

“Jewels!” Felicity laughed. “Who needs jewels? Congratulate me, Mrs. Ricketts. I have sold that book and have need of no man or woman to protect me.”

“A woman always needs a man to protect her,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “There’s always danger about.”

“Pooh!” said Miss Felicity Waverley. “I have money and my freedom, and I can do exactly what I want.”

Mr. Harvey sat in his bookshop that evening, reading Felicity’s manuscript and passing each page to the Marquess of Darkwater as he finished it.

“Goodness,” said the marquess. “Such sensuality and such experience in one so young!”

“She’s got the morals of a tart,” said the bookseller, “but, by George, she can write. This will set the ton by the ears.”

“I would like to meet her,” said the marquess.

“You’re a dangerous devil, my lord, and I am sure my young miss might be a match for you. But you’ll never find out her name so you have no hope there!”

The marquess smiled, a slow and dangerous smile.

“We’ll see, Harvey,” he said. “We’ll see.”

The Love Match

M.C. Beaton

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter One

The large house in Hanover Square had a lost and abandoned look, as if no one lived there anymore. And yet servants could be seen going about their duties, and very occasionally a beautiful young lady would emerge and take the air accompanied by her maid.

The rooms seemed haunted by the voices of the bluestockings Mrs. Waverley had invited to her soirees. But Mrs. Waverley, that champion of rights for women, had betrayed her sex. She had married a colonel, now Baron Meldon, and had fled London. Society gossiped furiously after the announcement of the marriage and then forgot about her. They also forgot about her three adopted daughters, Fanny, Frederica, and Felicity. Fanny had married the Earl of Tredair; Frederica, Lord Harry Danger; and surely that third one had married as well.

But the third one, Felicity, was all alone. Mrs. Waverley had gone, leaving her the house and a treasure in jewelry, enough to keep Felicity in comfort until the end of her days. But Felicity was an independent lady. She had sold her first novel and was already hard at work on another. The servants were all women, Mrs. Waverley having never employed menservants, and the housekeeper, Mrs. Ricketts, was always at hand to accompany Felicity should she care to go out. Felicity had recovered from the blow of Mrs. Waverley’s desertion of her, from the feeling of aching loss at being abandoned by her “sisters.” But she had quarreled with Fanny and had tried to break up Frederica’s marriage—sure Lord Harry did not mean to marry her—so they could hardly be expected to want to see her again.

In fact, she would have considered herself content had it not been for that ongoing nagging curiosity about her birth. Mrs. Waverley had adopted the three girls from an orphanage. Both Fanny and Frederica and their then suitors had tried to find out why Mrs. Waverley had chosen them, why they had initially been kept at an orphanage that demanded high fees from the relatives of the orphaned, yet in their case there did not seem to be any relatives, and why Mrs. Waverley turned faint every time she saw the Prince Regent: Each time the girls had come up against a blank wall.

Of the three girls, Felicity had been the one who had most rigidly followed Mrs. Waverley’s training. Women were little better than slaves, and marriage was a way of selling themselves into bondage. But now that Felicity was independently wealthy and had a profession, she found her nights plagued by romantic dreams. The Season was beginning again. The air was full of excitement as if throbbing with all the hopes and dreams of the young misses arriving by the carriageload to look for husbands.

She was not vain, but her looking glass told her she was beautiful. She had masses of chestnut hair, an elegant figure, a sweet face, and large hazel eyes. Fanny was still abroad, Frederica was also on the Continent, and there were occasionally reports in the papers of their happiness and beauty. Although Felicity did not yet know it, her determination to remain a spinster was already crumbling.

Yet still she often toyed with the idea of taking up the reforming process where the treacherous Mrs. Waverley had left off—at finding women who needed to be trained to educational independence. But women, thought Felicity bitterly, were all fickle. A man had only to smile on them and they forgot all their principles.

Mr. Harvey, the bookseller who was publishing Felicity’s book, had cleverly spread gossip about it through society before publication. It was called The Love Match by a Lady of Quality. The heroine was a rake who broke men’s hearts and left them weeping. Mr. Harvey was sure of its success.

So good was his promotion that by the end of the first day of publication every copy had sold out.

Felicity was sitting in her drawing room one day, admiring the handsome volume for the hundredth time, when Lady Artemis Verity was announced.

She put down the book and rose reluctantly to greet this unwelcome caller. Lady Artemis lived on the other side of Hanover Square and had recently returned from Italy. She was a dashing widow who had been engaged to a Mr. Fordyce but had broken the engagement and run away from him. Her fine eyes were snapping with curiosity as she came into the room.

“I could not believe my ears, dear Miss Waverley,” she cried, “when I learned Mrs. Waverley had become married.” Lady Artemis giggled. “So much for all her theorizing and prosing on about the independence of women. And Frederica! Now Lady Harry Danger, I believe. Tra la. You bluestockings seem to know how to snatch the best husbands from the marriage mart. So how do you go on? Never say you are living here alone.”

“No,” lied Felicity, although she did not know quite why she lied. “My aunt is chaperoning me. A Miss Callow.”

“Indeed! I should like to make her acquaintance.”

“She is very old and frail and is lying down at the moment.”

“You must bring her to tea.” Her eye fell on Felicity’s book. “I see you have been reading The Love Match. A sad sham.”

“How so?” demanded Felicity angrily.

“Oh, everyone is tut-tutting over it and saying what a monstrous rake the authoress must be herself, but, my dear, I could swear it was all the imaginings of a virgin.”

“I found it highly convincing,” said Felicity stiffly.

“Well, you would, would you not?” Lady Artemis laughed. “But to any woman of the world … la, the ravings of an innocent. Men do not fall in love with such a philanderer. If she is still in prime condition, they get their lawyers to offer her a sum for her favors. If she is past it, then a shilling and a glass of rum is the usual fee.”

“It is selling very well,” pointed out Felicity.

“A novelty. But society will soon become wise to her, and her next book will be left on the shelves. I have not seen you about. Are you determined to keep to Mrs. Waverley’s teachings and stay hidden from the world of men?”

“I have been busy of late,” said Felicity. “But we shall no doubt meet soon.”

“I look forward to meeting your aunt. Miss Callow, is it not?”

“Yes.”

“Strange. I did not think you had any relatives … er … that you knew of.”

“Well, I have,” snapped Felicity.

She was still smoldering when Lady Artemis left. She picked up her book and scanned the pages. A blush mounted to her cheeks. Was it so naive? Was Lady Artemis being malicious? But, then, Lady Artemis could not know that she, Felicity, had written that book. Felicity bit her lip. Perhaps it was naive. How could she enlarge her experience? She could not attend balls and parties unchaperoned. She rang the bell.

Mrs. Ricketts, a tall, powerful woman, came in and stood with her hands folded.

“I have been thinking, Mrs. Ricketts,” said Felicity, “that it is time I made my debut.”

“You cannot do that on your own, miss,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “Perhaps you had best advertise for some genteel lady to chaperon you.”

“I don’t want a stranger in my house interfering with my ways and my independence,” said Felicity. “Why do not we dress you up finely, Mrs. Ricketts, and you can come with me?”

The housekeeper recoiled in horror. “I couldn’t do it, miss, and that’s a fact, me with my plain speech and plain ways. Me sit with them dowagers? Your social standing would be in ruins. Besides, you don’t get no invitations, and you won’t get none neither, not without some older lady to nurse the ground.”

“Drat!” Felicity chewed her fingernails. “Never mind, Mrs. Ricketts, I shall hit on something.”

To her surprise, she had another caller that day, the famous actress Caroline James. Caroline had entered the Waverley household the year before in the guise of Lord Harry Danger’s sister, Lord Harry having employed her to befriend Frederica and so further his suit. Caroline had, furthermore, been engaged to be married to Colonel James Bridie, now Baron Meldon, he who had run off with Mrs. Waverley. The famous actress was a handsome woman and had conceived an admiration for the strong-willed Felicity.

“I put off coming to see you,” said Caroline, “for actresses are not at all respectable, but a rumor reached me that you had been left alone, and I was anxious to reassure myself the world went well with you.”

“Yes,” said Felicity. “I am truly independent now. Mrs. Waverley left me this house and all the jewelry.”

“Then you are indeed fortunate,” said Caroline. The Waverley jewels were famous.

Felicity looked uneasily at her book, then said impulsively, “I wish to confide in you, Miss James. Have you read The Love Match?”

“Not yet,” said Caroline, “but all London is talking about it.”

“I wrote it,” said Felicity, coloring slightly.

“How clever of you!” exclaimed Caroline.

“I felt until today it was indeed clever of me,” said Felicity. “But a certain Lady Artemis called on me. She is a widow and very mondaine. She does not know I wrote it, of course, but she sneered and said it was obviously written by a virgin, that it was naive. The heroine in my book is a rake, or rakess, if there is such a thing. I wish to enlarge my horizons and go about in society. I told Lady Artemis I was chaperoned by an aunt, a Miss Callow, but Miss Callow does not exist.”

“Then you must advertise for someone to take you about,” said Caroline, unconsciously echoing Mrs. Ricketts.

“I don’t want that,” said Felicity fiercely. “I do not want to be under anyone’s thumb again. Could you, my dear Miss James, not pretend to be Miss Callow?”

Caroline shook her head. “I have too many performances, too many rehearsals.”

Felicity fell silent, and Caroline’s blue eyes watched her sympathetically.

“Could you not,” said Felicity, raising her eyes, “make me up to look like an elderly lady?”

“I could. But someone so young as yourself would not stand close scrutiny. What is your plan?”

“Oh, Miss James, if you could make me up to look like a dowager, I could entertain the ladies of the ton to prepare my own debut.”

Caroline looked amused. “But when you are invited to a ball or party, you will be expected to arrive with this Miss Callow. You cannot split yourself in half.”

“I shall worry about that when the time comes,” said Felicity. “Please say you will do this for me.”

Caroline hesitated, looking at the glowing, pleading face turned to her own. “You could come with me to the theater,” she said, “and we could try something.”

Felicity clapped her hands with delight. “Now!” she said. “Let’s go now!”

The Marquess of Darkwater was strolling across Hanover Square when he saw Miss Felicity Waverley emerge with Miss Caroline James.

“What is that minx up to now?” he mused, watching as both ladies climbed into a carriage and drove off.

For the marquess not only knew who Felicity was but that she was the authoress of The Love Match. He had been present at the bookseller’s when Felicity had first presented her manuscript and, unknown to her, had followed her home to find out who she was.

The marquess looked like one of the villains in Felicity’s book. He was tall and tanned, with a broad-shouldered athlete’s body. He had thick raven-black hair and piercing gray eyes. All Felicity’s villains were handsome. The hero was plain-featured to show the readers that beauty of soul was more attractive to the rakish heroine in the long run than mere good looks. The marquess had returned from the West Indies the year before, where he owned sugar plantations. He was in his thirties and had been married to a delicate lady who had only survived the climate of the West Indies a few months before falling sick and dying. He had had some vague hope of finding a new wife in London, someone strong and brave enough to travel back with him to the plantations. But so far he had not met anyone to excite his interest … except, perhaps, Felicity Waverley, whom he considered highly unmarriageable in view of her spicy book. Unlike Lady Artemis, the marquess thought Felicity had a great deal of experience that no young lady should have in order to write such a shocking book, not knowing that the more purple passages of Felicity’s prose had been culled from Greek and Roman classics.

He had hoped to meet Felicity at some society function, but it appeared Miss Waverley did not go out.

He went on his way but had only gone a few yards when he was hailed by one of his friends, Lord Freddy Knox. “Are you coming to our ball?”

“Of course.” The marquess smiled. Lord Freddy had recently become married at the great age of nineteen to an heiress one year younger. The ball was to be the couple’s first social engagement since their marriage. “Good,” said Lord Freddy. “I do hope it will be a success. Cassandra can barely sleep a wink with nerves.” Cassandra was his new wife, whose looks did not live up to her name, as she was small and plump and fair and vague, forever losing things and forgetting things. “Any fair charmer we can ask for you?” demanded Lord Freddy.

“No,” began the marquess, and then his eye fell on the Waverley house. “Well, there might be.”

“Only name her,” cried Lord Freddy.

“Miss Felicity Waverley. She lives over there.”

“I thought they were all married.”

“No, I believe Miss Felicity is still unwed.”

“There was a story going about,” said Lord Freddy awkwardly, “that the three girls were foundlings and bastards adopted by Mrs. Waverley.”

“And yet such lack of parentage did not stop either Tredair or Danger from marrying,” pointed out the marquess.

“True. If you want her, you shall have her. But this Miss Felicity might think it odd to receive a card at this late date. The ball’s on Friday, and this is Monday.”

“Try,” said the marquess.

“Oh, very well, although I don’t think my Cassandra will like it.”

***

Felicity sat in Caroline’s dressing room. “I will need to try to effect this transformation myself,” said Caroline, “for no one else must be in on the secret. Now, let me see. I think a rather nasty birthmark might answer.”

“Why?” demanded Felicity. “I want to be a sweet white-haired old lady who will be doted on by the dowagers.”

“Because if you have a disfiguring mark on your face, then people will not look too closely. Before I even begin on your appearance, you must learn to move and walk like an old lady.”

The day wore on as Felicity went through “rehearsal” after “rehearsal” until she began to feel very weak and old indeed. Caroline then drew out wigs and makeup and white wax and got to work.

“You must always sit in a bad light,” she said at last. “I have finished. You can look now.”

She held up a branch of candles, and Felicity looked in the mirror.

A white-haired old lady stared back. A purple birthmark disfigured her left cheek, and white wax wrinkles crisscrossed her brow. The huge wig shadowed her face. “Never be seen without gloves,” said Caroline, “or your hands will give you away. Do not sit too near the fire, or your wrinkles will melt. Now you will need to have all that taken off and then learn to put everything on yourself. It is a good thing Monday is the one night I do not have a performance.”

“Surely you don’t perform on Sunday.”

“I rehearse. But don’t tell anyone or they will close down the theater!”

At long last, Caroline pronounced herself satisfied. Then she said, “Before you embark on this mad scheme, I trust you are only going into society to observe. You may feel Mrs. Waverley betrayed you, but her principles were sound. It is a good thing for a woman to have her independence. It was you yourself who convinced me I should not marry.”

“And you are happy?”

“Yes, I am very happy. My success is secure; I am thrifty; I shall have enough money to keep me comfortably in my old age.”

Felicity looked again in the mirror. “This birthmark is quite repulsive,” she said.

“It will serve its purpose,” said Caroline. “Wear some of those famous Waverley jewels. All will look at those rather than at your face.”

“I hate those jewels,” said Felicity fiercely. “Mrs. Waverley enjoyed forcing us to wear them to excite the envy of the ton. I used to feel like some pasha’s favorite. Fanny and Frederica must have hated them as well, for they left theirs behind. But if you think it will serve the purpose, I shall wear something dazzling.”

Felicity returned home late, feeling weary. Mrs. Ricketts handed her a letter she said had been delivered that evening by hand. When she opened it, Felicity found a heavily embossed invitation card and a letter from Lady Freddy Knox. In it, Lady Freddy apologized for the lateness of the invitation, saying it had been dropped down the back of her desk by mistake.

“My first ball this Season,” said Felicity with satisfaction. “I shall pen an acceptance.”

“You cannot go, miss,” pointed out Mrs. Ricketts. “You don’t have a chaperon.”

“I have now,” said Felicity cheerfully, and told the appalled housekeeper of her plan.

In vain did Mrs. Ricketts argue and protest. Felicity was determined to go. She would accept for herself and her “aunt”; she would arrive alone and, on reaching the ballroom, say that her aunt was right behind her. She would make her entrance with a crowd of other people.

Mrs. Ricketts at last threw up her hands in despair. She resigned herself to the inevitable. Felicity would be found out, and there would be a minor scandal. Her hopes of a debut would be dashed, but at least the household could return to peace and quiet.

Felicity was glad of the invitation, for it meant she could put off playing the part of Mrs. Callow in society for another week.

But she had a longing to try out her masquerade on someone first, just to see if it worked. Then she thought of Lady Artemis Verity and sent a servant across the square the next day with a card in which Miss Callow requested the pleasure of Lady Artemis’s company.

At one point, she thought she would not be ready in time. The whole putting on of makeup, wig, and wrinkles took much longer than she had remembered. She instructed the grumbling housekeeper to half pull the curtains in the drawing room closed and to tell the other servants they would receive instant dismissal if they so much as breathed a word of what was going on.

Lady Artemis arrived at four o’clock in the afternoon, her fine eyes sparkling with curiosity. She was ushered into the shadowy drawing room.

“Pray forgive me for not rising to greet you, Lady Artemis,” said a frail voice from a wing chair by the fireplace.

Lady Artemis walked forward and made her curtsy. She looked at the little old lady sitting in the chair and then averted her eyes quickly from that ugly birthmark and looked at the glittering diamond brooch pinned on her gown instead.

“Where is your niece, Miss Callow?” she asked, looking around.

“She has contracted a chill,” said Felicity, “and is lying down. She sends her compliments and begs to be excused.”

“Poor thing,” said Lady Artemis. “It is hard to believe such a strong character as Miss Felicity should succumb to anything. Are you but lately come to town, ma’am?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“A great surprise. Mrs. Waverley led society to believe her girls had no relatives whatsoever.”

“Maria Waverley is a sad and devious woman,” croaked Felicity. “She lied to suit what ends I do not know. The girls are in fact sisters of the name of Bride.”

“Indeed? Which county?”

“The Somerset Brides.”

“Never heard of them.”

“My lady, your manner distresses me. But, ah, then, the younger generation is mannerless to a fault,” said Felicity gleefully.

“Oh, I am sorry, Miss Callow. What you must think of me! But to more cheerful topics. Does your presence in London mean that Miss Felicity will be able to make her debut like a regular debutante? Poor Fanny and Frederica had to be courted on the sly.”

“Yes, I plan to take her everywhere,” said Felicity, “my health permitting, of course.”

Mrs. Ricketts brought in the tea things and stood about nervously until Felicity ordered her from the room.

“Tell me, Lady Artemis,” asked Felicity, “why it was that your engagement to Mr. Fordyce came to naught?”

“You are well informed,” said Lady Artemis with a little laugh. “I found I had made a mistake.”

“In what way?”

“I simply felt we should not suit.”

Her curiosity almost made Felicity forget her role of old lady. “Was his annual income not large enough?”

Lady Artemis put her teacup down in the saucer with an angry little click. “Miss Callow! I am a very rich woman. I do not need to marry a man for his money.”

“I am sorry,” said Felicity. “But, you see, love does not appear to enter into a society marriage.”

“Be assured,” said Lady Artemis dryly, “that it most certainly entered into the marriages of both Miss Fanny and Miss Frederica Waverley.”

“If I could only be sure of that,” said Felicity half to herself.

She leaned forward and picked up her own book with one gloved hand. “You told my niece that this was the work of a virgin, that the authoress had obviously no experience of the opposite sex.”

“Yes, that is my opinion.”

“You having, on the other hand, a great deal of experience?” said Felicity, enjoying all the license of being an old lady to the hilt.

Lady Artemis thought of her sexual antics with the ever-inventive Mr. Fordyce and blushed and then rallied. This old lady could not know of such goings-on.

“I am a widow,” she said.

“Oh, yes, of course, that must help,” mused Felicity. “But how do you suppose this writer could gain experience without … er … losing her virginity?”

Lady Artemis’s eyes perceptibly sharpened, and Felicity raised her fan to her face. Ladies of the ton did not talk about virginity, especially elderly ladies of the ton.

“I suppose she must be content to observe, but that is hardly a substitute for firsthand experience,” said Lady Artemis. “Tell me, Miss Callow, do you share Mrs. Waverley’s views? Or rather, as we must now assume, the views Mrs. Waverley pretended to have?”

“I believe all ladies should be as highly educated as men,” said Felicity, “and I believe more professional jobs should be open to them. Do you plan to marry again, Lady Artemis? You must forgive the curiosity of an old woman.”

“Perhaps … if I find someone to please me. I am fortunate in being able to pick and choose.”

“For Felicity’s sake,” pursued Felicity, “I must find out the marriageable, the eligible, men. Who is the top prize?”

“The Marquess of Darkwater,” said Lady Artemis promptly. “But there is a drawback there.”

“Which is …?”

“He is a widower, handsome and rich, but any bride of his would have to travel back to those wretched plantations in the West Indies with him. The climate killed his first wife. She wrote to a friend of mine when she first arrived, complaining about the heat and flies and the dreadful provincialism of the other plantation owners. Do you know some of them adopt American manners and the ladies do not sit down to dinner with the men? She was vastly shocked that Darkwater did not keep slaves but freed all the Africans and paid them wages.”

“Oh, excellent man!” cried Felicity.

“You do hold radical views, do you not? But of course there are many who are convinced that were they to wed Darkwater then they might persuade him to stay in England and send out an overseer.”

Felicity looked at her speculatively. “And are you one of the hopeful, Lady Artemis?”

“La! I have not even met the man … yet. But he is a great friend of young Lord Freddy Knox, and so we are all sure of seeing him at the ball to be held by the Knoxes.”

“Felicity has been invited.”

“Indeed! Then it is fortunate for us other ladies that she holds such strong views on the rights for women. Nothing disaffects a man more.”

Felicity stiffened. “And yet, Lady Artemis, Felicity led me to believe you shared her views.”

“For a time, for a time. But, la, one wishes the gentlemen to adore one, after all.”

“Like the Earl of Tredair, say? But, alas, he did marry Fanny without being the least bit put off by her principles.”

“My dear Miss Callow, Fanny Waverley was very beautiful, as I recall.”

“As is my Felicity,” said Felicity, thinking that being one’s own aunt had great advantages. For example one could sit and praise oneself all one liked.

Lady Artemis rose to leave. She heartily wished she had not mentioned Darkwater’s name. What if that minx Felicity should steal him away? Somehow she must contrive to see him before that ball and poison his mind against Felicity.

“Again I must beg you to forgive me for not rising,” said Felicity.

“Are you sure you are strong enough, ma’am, to face the rigors of a Season?” asked Lady Artemis, looking down at the huddled figure in the chair.

“I shall manage very well,” said Felicity. “It is my wish to see Felicity married.”

“I thought Miss Felicity was against the idea of marriage.”

So she is, thought Felicity, but I am not telling you that, or it would be all about London. Aloud, she said, “She is not against marriage, only against marriages of convenience, which, as she is very rich, she does not need to make.”

***

Lady Artemis discovered that the marquess had rented a house in Green Street. The next day, she made her way there, followed by her long-suffering maid, and walked up and down until she saw him appear, or rather she saw a richly dressed man appear and assumed it must be the marquess. As she came abreast of him, she stumbled and let out a scream. He raised his hat. “Have you hurt yourself, ma’am?” he asked politely.

“A little twist, that is all,” said Lady Artemis. She smiled up at him. “May I present myself. I am Lady Artemis Verity and you, I believe, are the Marquess of Darkwater.”

“At your service, my lady.”

“Oh, if you could just give me your arm to the end of the street,” said Lady Artemis, taking him literally. “My poor ankle hurts a little.”

He offered his arm, and she leaned on it. “I believe you attend the Knoxes’ ball, my lord?”

“Yes. Will you be there?”

“Of course I shall.” She dimpled up at him. “May I hope for a dance?”

The gray eyes looking down at her turned a trifle frosty and he said “Certainly,” but she realized dismally she had appeared too bold.

“I shall not keep you to it,” she said. “I was only funning. There are many pretty young ladies looking forward to the pleasure of your company.”

“I am sure none prettier than yourself,” he said gallantly.

“Oh, but London is evidently to have a new belle. Miss Felicity Waverley is emerging from seclusion.”

“Ah, yes, I have heard of her.”

“Quite farouche,” said Lady Artemis with a little laugh. “She holds strong views on the rights of women, yet she plans to marry some complaisant man and bend him to her ways.”

“Then I wish her every success.”

“Miss Waverley will no doubt be very successful. She pretends to appear helpless and feminine, but she is made of iron.”

“I gather you do not like Miss Felicity Waverley.”

“I?” Lady Artemis opened her eyes to their widest. “I admire her immensely. So strong, so ruthless, so cynical.”

“We are now at the end of the street,” he pointed out.

“So we are,” she said gaily. “À bientôt, my lord.”

She stood and watched him walk away. Such shoulders! Such legs! Really, the prospect of living in the West Indies seemed more attractive by the minute.

Chapter Two

Felicity was carried along on a wave of elation right up until half an hour before she was due to leave for the ball. Then the full enormity of what she was about to do struck her. Surely she would never get away with it!

She longed for the company of either Frederica or Fanny. Why had she quarreled with Fanny? Why had she been so stupid as to try to ruin Frederica’s chances of marriage? Mrs. Rickett’s doom-laden face was no help.

Nervously Felicity checked her appearance in the looking glass again. She was wearing a gown of fine white India muslin with an overdress of gold gauze fastened with pearl and gold clasps. A rope of fine pearls glowed against the whiteness of her neck, and she wore a little pearl tiara in her curled and pomaded hair. Her face was surely a trifle too pale. She reached for the rouge pot and then decided against it.

Oh, if only there were a real Miss Callow! For a brief moment, Felicity toyed with the idea of sending a servant to say she was unable to attend. But Lady Artemis’s criticism of her book still rankled. She had to find out more about the real world. She, Felicity, did not even know what it felt like to be kissed by a man. Perhaps in the interests of literature she ought to begin by encouraging some man to kiss her. But how did you get a man to kiss you and then reject him? The critics had said her book was amusing and shocking. If she told some man she had only encouraged his advances to further her experience so she might get to work properly on her next novel, she would create more of a scandal in society than Fanny or Frederica had ever done.

Mrs. Ricketts entered to say the hired carriage was at the door. Mrs. Waverley had employed only women servants and had hired a carriage from the livery stables as she needed it, that way avoiding having men in her employ. Felicity allowed Mrs. Ricketts to put a swansdown-lined mantle about her shoulders. She picked up her reticule and fan.

The evening had begun.

As the carriage lurched forward through the crowded streets, Felicity wished she had ordered a sedan chair instead, although it was becoming increasingly hard to find one. The benefits of a chair were that you stepped into it in your own hall and were borne straight into the house you were visiting, and as the chairmen ran along the pavements, there was no danger of being stuck for hours in a press of carriages.

She was anxious to make her entrance and get it over with. The Knoxes’ house was only a few streets away, but it was a social disgrace to arrive on foot. Her carriage lined up behind the other carriages in the street where the Knoxes lived.

At last it was her turn to alight. She hesitated a little on the pavement and looked up at the house. It consisted of four stories, but it was smaller than her own, not being double-fronted. It was not overwhelmingly imposing, and there were no liveried footmen lining the steps. She saw a large party about to go in and fell in behind them, following the ladies to a room at the side of the hall where they were to leave their wraps.

Felicity felt quite old. Another Season, another batch of fresh, hopeful faces up from the country. She left her cloak with a maid and then walked back out into the hall and up the narrow staircase. The ball was in progress on the first floor. Three rooms had been joined together by dint of removing the connecting double doors for the evening and taking out most of the furniture. Felicity presented her card to a footman and made her curtsy to Lord and Lady Freddy Knox. Lord Freddy was a genial-looking young man, and his small, plump wife seemed too nervous to wonder where this Miss Callow who was supposed to be escorting Felicity had got to.

Felicity passed through to the ballroom and began to edge around the floor to where she could see a free seat against the wall.

She sat down and looked about her. A few couples were dancing energetically in the small space provided. More people were arriving by the minute, and it looked as if there would soon be no room left for dancing.

And then she saw Lady Artemis. She was standing by the door talking to a tall, handsome man. As Felicity watched, he turned and looked full at her. She studied him curiously, wondering whether to cast him in the role of villain or hero.

Definitely villain, she decided. Here was no plain yet honest hero but rather a tall, commanding man in exquisite tailoring and with a haughty, arrogant air. His eyes were as cold as the North Sea. His face was lightly tanned. He said something to Lady Artemis, still keeping his eyes on Felicity. Lady Artemis made a little moue, shrugged, and then began to lead him forward.

They came up to where Felicity was sitting, and she rose at their approach. “Miss Felicity,” cried Lady Artemis. “Where is your aunt, Miss Callow?”

“Somewhere in the press,” lied Felicity. “She recognized an old friend.”

“May I present the Marquess of Darkwater. Lord Darkwater, Miss Felicity Waverley.”

Felicity curtsied and the marquess bowed. “Would you care for some refreshment, Miss Waverley?” he asked.

“That would be very welcome,” said Lady Artemis, quick to include herself in the invitation.

And then Felicity saw Mr. Fordyce, Lady Artemis’s exfiancé. He was standing in the doorway. He was a small man with neat features and a trim figure. Lady Artemis’s pansy brown eyes widened in alarm. “I am sure I see Lady Dunster signaling to me,” she said, and quickly wove her way between the groups of onlookers and dancers to make her escape.

“Would you like me to present myself to Miss Callow first?” Felicity realized the marquess was asking.

“No, there is no need to bother her,” said Felicity. “She is a very old lady and does not like to be troubled when there is no need.”

“Meaning that you have decided for yourself I am safe and respectable?”

“Meaning that, yes, I should like some refreshment and, no, I do not think it necessary to trouble my aunt.”

“Very well. Follow me and I will try to beat a path for us.”

The rooms were now crammed. Dancing couples were colliding with spectators. The sound of voices beat upon the air, and the rooms were suffocatingly hot. A morning room on the half landing between the ground and first floors had been set aside for refreshments. There was nowhere to sit down. Waiters who were supposed to be circulating among the guests with glasses of wine, negus, champagne, and lemonade stood helpless, trapped in the press, their trays of drinks held high above their heads. The marquess, benefiting from his height, lifted two glasses from a tray and said to Felicity, “Out again, I think. There must be somewhere we can find space.”

He led the way downstairs and paused on the bottom step. “I suggest we be unconventional and sit on the stairs, Miss Felicity. Or would you rather stand?”

“No, I am quite happy to sit down,” said Felicity. She sat on a corner of the stair, and he sat close beside her to leave room for the guests who were ascending and descending. “I do not know what is in these glasses,” he said, handing her one, “but it looks like canary.” He took a small sip. “Yes, it is, and not bad at all.”

“It is not at all like a ball,” ventured Felicity. “I spent all day wondering whether I would remember the steps of the waltz, but I fear I am not even going to be allowed to dance.”

“It is a sad crush, and the newspapers will hail it tomorrow as a success. Freddy was so afraid no one would come, he invited far too many people.” He looked down at Felicity, noticing the pureness of her skin and the delicate rise and fall of her excellent bosom. It seemed amazing that such a pure and virginal-looking girl could ever have penned the words of The Love Match.

“I am led to believe you are a supporter of the rights of women,” he said.

“Yes, in a muddled kind of way,” said Felicity candidly. “I am not much of a campaigner. Also, I have come to believe women only listen to such views when there is no hope of them being married. But the minute some gentleman appears on the horizon, they revert to simpering misses.”

“How very harsh. Most of them are not really simpering, you know. They are young and shy.”

“But it is a sad life when the sole aim of a gently born girl is to trap a husband.”

“Then why is the stern Miss Felicity Waverley appearing at such a frivolous event?”

“I weary of my own company.”

“You have Miss Callow.”

“Yes, but she is so very old, you see, that she cannot attend many functions or entertain much, so I am mostly on my own. Also, I like observing people.”

“Ah, yes. Taking notes. You do not write by any chance?”

“Not I,” lied Felicity. “I enjoy reading. I thought that new novel The Love Match was very fine.”

“Well enough in its way,” he said, looking amused, “but I should be frightened to meet the authoress. I would fear she would eat me alive.”

“I am sure she is a charming lady,” said Felicity. She took a sip of her wine and studied his mouth with interest. It was firm and well-shaped. She wondered what it would be like to be kissed by that mouth.

“My teeth are all my own,” he said in a mocking voice.

“I beg your pardon, my lord?”

“You were staring at my mouth.”

“Not I,” said Felicity. “I was thinking of something else.”

“May I ask what you were thinking about?”

“Lord Darkwater!”

The marquess looked up. Lady Artemis, slightly flushed and out of breath, smiled down at him. “You promised me a dance, my lord.”

“Did I? I really do not think there is any room left to dance, Lady Artemis.”

“Oh, but there is. You will excuse us, will you not, Miss Waverley?”

Felicity rose as well. “Of course,” she said. She watched them mount the stairs together and wondered what to do. Then she found Mr. Fordyce had joined her.

“Have you seen Lady Artemis?” he asked.

“Lady Artemis has just left with the Marquess of Darkwater. I believe they are going to try to dance.”

“What a good idea,” said Mr. Fordyce. “Will you do me the honor, Miss Waverley?”

“Thank you,” said Felicity.

They walked together up the stairs and then began to edge through tightly packed groups of people who were drinking or shouting to make themselves heard above the din.

“I do not think we should trouble to try to dance,” said Felicity. “This is more like a rout than a ball.”

“No, no,” said Mr. Fordyce eagerly, for he had just spotted Lady Artemis circling in the arms of the Marquess of Darkwater. He pulled her through a space in the crowd and onto the floor. Crammed in one corner a small orchestra was bravely playing away, occasionally hitting wrong notes when dancers collided with one of the players.

There were only three couples dancing. Felicity and Mr. Fordyce made up the fourth. When they came abreast of Lady Artemis and the marquess, Mr. Fordyce suddenly called, “All change partners.” Lady Artemis and the marquess stopped dancing and looked at him in surprise. He quickly abandoned Felicity and seized Lady Artemis about the waist and forced her to move off with him. The marquess put his arm about Felicity. “It seems you are left with me,” he said.

Couples dancing the waltz were supposed to dance twelve inches apart from one another, but the dancing space was so small Felicity found herself being crushed against the marquess. She tried to make the most of the experience. After all that was what she had come for—experience. So here she was, pressed tightly against a man. It was all very embarrassing. She felt hot and breathless. And then she very definitely felt a hand stroke her bottom. She jerked back, her face flaming. “How dare you, sir!” she hissed.

“How dare I what?” asked the marquess crossly.

“You fondled my posterior.”

He looked startled and then smiled. “Use your wits, Miss Waverley. I was holding one hand in mine and have the other firmly at your waist. Any one of the gentlemen behind you must have seen this crush as a delightful opportunity. Now, apologize.”

She looked at him, her lips trembling, for she had been badly shocked.

“Think, Miss Waverley,” he chided. “I do not have three hands.”

“Oh, you are right,” said Felicity. “I am sorry. But what a scandalous thing to do.”

He put his arm round her waist again. There was a scream from nearby them, followed by the sound of a slap. “It seems as if the bold fellow has got his comeuppance,” murmured the marquess. He piloted her smoothly round the small space, noticing the party was beginning to get out of hand. People were drinking a great deal and becoming excited and bold with the proximity of so many bodies and the heat of the rooms.

Lord Freddy passed close to them, and the marquess said, “If you do not let some fresh air in here soon, Freddy, your ball will become a romp.”

“Good idea,” said Lord Freddy. He walked toward the windows, and with the help of two footmen, raised both windows. A gale blew into the room; the candle flames streamed sideways and went out.

The ballroom was plunged into darkness. There was a little silence and then giggles and scuffles and screams.

The marquess put both arms around Felicity and held her tight. “Stay still,” he said. “Better I than some stranger.”

He could smell perfume from her hair, and he could feel her breasts pressed against his chest.

Felicity stayed very still, motionless, in his arms.

I believe she is frightened of me, thought the marquess. It’s hard to think she wrote that book, but I was there when she delivered the manuscript. Could she possibly have been delivering it for someone else?

Lady Artemis, a little way away, was struggling in Mr. Fordyce’s crushing grip. “Leave me alone,” she wailed.

“That is not what you used to cry when you lay naked in my arms,” he said fiercely. He forced his mouth against her own, ignoring her mumbled protests. Lady Artemis’s mind was screaming that she would never more be trapped into performing Mr. Fordyce’s degrading lustful exercises, yet her wanton body betrayed her and her lips grew soft against his own.

“You may release me now,” said Felicity crossly. “The candles are being lit.”

He let her go a little, but kept one hand at her waist. Those normally cold eyes of his were lit with a mocking, teasing look. “This ball is going to become very wild,” he said. “Do you not think we should find your aunt and leave?”

Felicity looked about her, at the flushed faces and glittering eyes, and shook her head. It was too good an opportunity to observe society at its worst. She knew from gossip that this occasionally happened. Bound as they all were by the strict laws of conventions, by the many social taboos, occasionally the ton would rebel and kick up their heels. Glasses were being snatched off trays as soon as they appeared, and toasts were being drunk. Lady Artemis, Felicity noticed, was no longer dancing stiffly in Mr. Fordyce’s arms but was sinuously swaying. Both their faces were hot and flushed, and their lips looked swollen.

“I cannot stay with you all evening, even at such an affair as this,” said the marquess. “It would occasion comment. Come. Let us find Miss Callow.”

“I will look for her myself,” said Felicity, and pulling free, she disappeared into the crowd. Lord Freddy hailed the marquess again. “What am I to do?” he said. “They will take the house apart.”

“Serve only lemonade,” said the marquess. “That will soon cool their fever.”

Lord Freddy nodded and soon could be heard calling to the footmen.

Felicity was meanwhile deciding to make her escape. The press of people was too much and the noise of so many voices deafening.

And then a young man smiled down at her and said, “May I help you, ma’am? You seem in need of protection.”

Felicity looked up into his face, and then smiled back. Here was the hero of her book. He had a square, plain face, a snub of a nose, clear blue eyes, and thick unruly fair hair. His figure was stocky, and his cravat was limp.

“Thank you,” said Felicity. “I was on the point of leaving.”

“Then follow me and I will take you downstairs,” he said. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Bernard Anderson.”

“And I am Felicity Waverley,” said Felicity. “Do you really think you can get me out of here? There appears to be a solid wall of people between us and the stairs.”

“Follow me,” he said. He lunged at the crowd with such energy that people squeezed to either side to let him past, and Felicity quickly followed. She took a deep breath of relief once they had reached the comparative peace of the stairs.

“May I fetch your mother or your chaperon?” he asked.

“You are very kind,” said Felicity. “But my aunt, Miss Callow, is an eccentric old lady, and I fear she has already left without me.”

“But you have a carriage?”

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Anderson.”

“Then I shall escort you to it.”

As they stood on the step waiting for the carriage to be brought round, Felicity found herself very much at ease in Mr. Anderson’s company. He prattled on about what a sad crush it was and how Lord Freddy had commanded the waiters and footmen to serve nothing but lemonade, but had forgotten to tell his wife, who had promptly countermanded the orders.

When Felicity’s carriage arrived, he begged leave to call on her and Miss Callow the following day. Felicity thought quickly. She would need to receive him as Miss Callow, but as Miss Callow she could sing her own praises. So she thanked him prettily and said she looked forward to seeing him.

Mr. Anderson made his way back up the stairs, but before he reached the top he found himself confronted by his mother.

“What were you doing with Felicity Waverley?” demanded his mother. Mrs. Anderson was a big, imposing woman with big, imposing breasts that were thrust up by her corset so much that her heavy bulldog chin appeared to be resting on them.

“I was escorting her to her carriage, Mother,” said Bernard mildly. “I promised to call on her tomorrow.”

“You will do no such thing,” said Mrs. Anderson. “Those Waverley girls are foundlings and bastards. And there is no dowry there. For it is rumored Mrs. Waverley ran off and left that one penniless.”

Bernard’s face fell. “She is awfully pretty,” he mumbled.

“But portionless,” said his mother. “Come. We are going home. You know you must find an heiress, Bernard, yet you waste your time squiring the most unsuitable female at the ball!”

***

In her guise of Miss Callow, Felicity sat in her darkened drawing room the next day and waited for callers. Mr. Anderson would come and she would see if she, as her own aunt, could get him to offer to take her “niece” on a drive.

But the first person to arrive was the Marquess of Darkwater. Felicity shrank back in her winged armchair and asked to be excused for not getting up.

“I came to pay my respects to Miss Felicity,” said the marquess, sitting down opposite.

“I am afraid my niece is lying down,” said Felicity.

“A pity. Last night was a sad romp, was it not?”

“Quite disgraceful,” said Felicity sternly. “I would not have believed the ton capable of such shocking behavior. Felicity told me there were many loose screws present.”

The marquess blinked and then said, “I trust she spoke favorably of me.”

“She did not mention you at all,” said Felicity maliciously. “But she did meet a most charming young man. A Mr. Anderson.”

“Oh, yes?” said the marquess. “I do not know him.”

“Well, you wouldn’t. He is not fast.”

“What a low opinion you have of me and on such short acquaintance. Besides, it is ladies who are fast, not men.”

“Lady Artemis Verity,” announced Mrs. Ricketts.

Lady Artemis sailed into the room, both hands outstretched in welcome. Felicity felt every bit like the grumpy old lady she was supposed to be. Lady Artemis was wearing a dashing bonnet and a high-waisted morning gown with long tight sleeves ending in pointed lace cuffs. Her face was glowing, and her lips were delicately rouged.

“My niece is resting,” said Felicity before Lady Artemis could speak.

“What is happening to these young girls, Lord Darkwater?” said Lady Artemis. “No stamina.”

“That is true,” said Felicity. “One obviously toughens up with age.”

Lady Artemis ignored her. Her eyes were fixed on the marquess. She began to talk about the ball, about the crush, and about how disgracefully everyone had behaved. The marquess replied pleasantly that at least the Knoxes had had their first success. Any affair where so many women fainted, so many coachmen fought outside for places, and so many gentlemen were carried out drunk was always deemed a success.

While he talked, Lady Artemis studied his handsome face. Here was a man who would make her an ideal husband. Not Mr. Fordyce, who had managed to get into her bed after the ball and had left her feeling peculiarly degraded. She had had several affairs since her husband died. Now she craved respectability. She had tried her best to be discreet, but she knew there were many whispers about her.

She urged the marquess to talk about the West Indies and listened to him eagerly, interrupting every now and then to say she longed to travel, to see such countries. Felicity sat hunched up in her chair behind her wrinkles, feeling forgotten.

At last the marquess rose to take his leave, and Lady Artemis rose as well. “We shall all need to be on our best behavior now, Miss Callow,” said Lady Artemis. “After that ball, you know. Society has shocked itself and will become very prim and proper for a while.”

“I shall tell Felicity of your call,” said Felicity.

After they had left, she sat and brooded. She was just about to rise and go up to her room, when to her surprise, Mrs. Ricketts entered to say that a Mrs. Anderson had called. “I did not usher her up, miss, for she looks bad-tempered.”

“I shall see her,” decided Felicity. “Draw the curtains a little more, Ricketts.”

Mrs. Anderson had come to see Felicity for herself. She was alarmed because her son had turned peevish on the subject instead of being his usual malleable self. Mrs. Anderson was a fairly rich woman in comfortable circumstances, but she was greedy and, being a doting mother, had an inflated idea of her son’s attractions. Bernard should marry an heiress—on that she had her mind set.

She was startled to be told by the housekeeper that Miss Felicity was lying down but that her aunt, Miss Callow, would receive her. Now Bernard had mentioned the existence of this aunt, but Mrs. Anderson had not believed such a creature existed. No one had noticed any chaperon with Felicity at the ball.

When she entered, she curtsied to the old lady in the chair. But at first Mrs. Anderson’s covetous eyes did not even notice that disfiguring birthmark. They had fastened on the old lady’s jewels. Felicity was wearing fine kid gloves with rings worn over the gloves and heavy bracelets encrusted with jewels at her wrists. Six strands of the finest diamonds blazed at her neck. An oil lamp had been cleverly placed so that although Felicity’s face was in shadow, the jewels caught fire and blazed with a wicked light.

Mrs. Anderson gulped and sat down. “Is Miss Felicity present?” she asked.

“No, Mrs. Anderson,” said Felicity, taking an instant dislike to Bernard’s mother. “She is lying down. My niece is a delicate flower, Mrs. Anderson, and was vastly shocked at the behavior of the guests last night.”

“As was my son,” said Mrs. Anderson. “He was fortunate enough to be of assistance to your niece.”

“So Felicity told me,” said Felicity. “He was all that was kind and helpful.”

“Society does gossip so,” said Mrs. Anderson with a false little laugh. “I was led to believe poor Miss Felicity had been abandoned and was unchaperoned.”

“I am surprised you should listen to malicious gossip,” said Felicity sternly. “Felicity is very well protected by me. She is plagued by fortune hunters … of course.”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Anderson weakly, looking at those glittering jewels.

“Apart from her own wealth,” said Felicity, “which is considerable, she will, of course, inherit my fortune on my death.”

Mrs. Anderson felt more wretched by the minute. Why had she not let Bernard call? She must make her escape and send him round immediately.

“Why did your son not come with you?” asked Felicity. She still thought kindly of Bernard but put his mother down as an avaricious, vulgar creature.

“He sent me … because he is very shy, don’t you know … to get me to beg you to give him permission to take Miss Felicity on a little drive in the park. But she is not feeling at all the thing, so …”

“I am sure if he calls at five o’clock, my niece will be glad to take the air with him,” said Felicity.

Mrs. Anderson beamed. “I shall go and tell the poor boy immediately. To be frank with you, Miss Callow, I have never before seen him quite so taken with any lady.”

Felicity bowed her head in assent.

Mrs. Anderson rose in a flurry of silk, anxious to take her leave.

As soon as she had gone, Felicity cast a worried look at the clock. Four o’clock! She must work hard or she would never manage to transform herself back into Miss Felicity Waverley in time.

At five o’clock, Mrs. Ricketts was posted in the hall with instructions to tell Mr. Anderson that Miss Callow was lying down, and then summon Felicity.

Felicity had been wondering whether Bernard was worth all the trouble. Surely such a mother must have passed on her greedy traits to her son. But when she saw him standing in the hall, looking shy and awkward yet so very happy to see her, she was glad he had come.

They had a sedate drive in the park, Felicity carefully confining her conversation to observations on the people she saw and the inclemency of the English weather. Because of Bernard, Felicity began to contemplate the idea of marriage for the first time. Here was no man to bully her or enslave her, but a pleasant fellow who would allow her to run her own household. It would be a relief not to feel alone in the world. Of course, his mother was a problem, but Felicity felt sure she could easily put that lady in her place. It was the thought of the irregularity of her position, her lack of parents, her lack of support, that made Felicity feel quite weak. For the first time, she realized why even women of independent means finally crumbled and preferred to be married rather than to face the rest of their lives alone. At one point, the Marquess of Darkwater’s face seemed to float in front of her eyes, his gaze searching and mocking.

But the marquess was a powerful and dominating personality. He would not allow her any freedom. Nor would such an aristocrat wish to ally his name to a girl with the background of a foundling hospital and orphanage. “And yet,” said a treacherous voice in her head, “both Fanny and Frederica managed to find men who did not care about their birth.”

Bernard was seeing Felicity Waverley as no one had seen her before, shy and grateful for each little attention and compliment.

Lady Artemis was driving round the square when Felicity arrived home. She saw Bernard Anderson tenderly helping Felicity to alight and saw the warmth and admiration in the young man’s face.

She felt a stab of pure jealousy. Those Waverley girls always managed to get men to fall in love with them. She would find out the name of that young man and see if she could draw his attention to herself. She had flirted with Darkwater, but he had remained cold and uninterested. She was only twenty-seven, but she felt much older. She had always been secure in the power of her beauty. It became important to her to prove she could take at least one man away from Felicity.

***

The Marquess of Darkwater was sitting in his club, wondering about Felicity Waverley. He could not get her out of his mind. She was an odd contradiction. Had she really written that book? Or had that ugly and sinister aunt of hers written it for her?

His mind turned to the aunt. Unlike Lady Artemis and Mrs. Anderson, he had not been put off by the birthmark or dazzled by the jewels. She was remarkably like Felicity and with the same young, hazel eyes. Felicity had remarkable eyes, he mused, golden brown with green flecks. There was a nagging little suspicion about that aunt somewhere in his mind. He remembered the room, how it had been darkened and how the light had been carefully placed so as not to shine on Miss Callow’s face. Like a theater scene.

He decided to call unexpectedly on the following day to find out who would receive him … Felicity or Miss Callow.

Chapter Three

Felicity awoke the next day with a feeling of anticipation. She lay in bed, enjoying that rare sensation and wondering dreamily what was causing it. Then she remembered Bernard Anderson. She was looking forward to seeing him again.

She did not have any romantic thoughts about him. Rather, she looked on him as a newfound friend. She need not dress up as Miss Callow and call on the parents of eligibles. Bernard would court her and, yes, she would very likely marry him and settle down to a contented life. She would invite Frederica and Fanny to the wedding and hope they had forgiven her. Perhaps they had not been in love either, but had merely wearied of the unnatural life they had been leading under Mrs. Waverley’s protection. Should she ask Mrs. Waverley? Felicity’s face hardened. Mrs. Waverley had not really cared for any of them. She had bought herself a family out of an orphanage, and the minute a husband had appeared on the scene, she had forgotten all about them. But, Felicity mused, she had left the house and all the jewels. Yes, it would only be fair to ask Mrs. Waverley.

She rose and dressed, ate a light breakfast, and sat down to work on the first chapter of her new novel. She had decided to use the same heroine, but her female rake had been left in the last book on the point of reform, and on the point of marrying her plain but honest hero. Clorinda, as the heroine was called, must now jilt the hero and continue her amorous adventures. Felicity needed a new villain. The Marquess of Darkwater’s face rose before her mind. She began to write busily.

The day wore on, and when she looked up, it was three in the afternoon. With an exclamation, she dropped her pen and began to change into one of her finest morning gowns. Bernard would surely call. But no sooner had she dressed than Mrs. Ricketts knocked at the door to say the Marquess of Darkwater was waiting in the hall.

Felicity bit her lip. She did not want to see him, but, on the other hand, he was now her villain and she should study him closely.

She opened the door and told Mrs. Ricketts to show the marquess up to the drawing room. She was to say that Miss Callow was out on calls.

“You can’t see him alone, miss,” said Mrs. Ricketts severely.

“Oh, yes, I can,” retorted Felicity. “Leave the door of the drawing room open, and be on hand in case I want you.”

Felicity ran to the mirror and checked her appearance. Her gown of palmetto green satin with long sleeves and a Vandyke ruff looked rich and stately. Her hair was dressed high on her head with little tendrils being allowed to escape and fall round her cheeks.

The marquess rose at her entrance and bowed and said he was sorry not to have the pleasure of seeing Miss Callow.

“Why?” asked Felicity curiously.

He raised his thin black eyebrows. “I find her a most interesting lady,” he said. His eyes were mocking, and Felicity wondered whether he had penetrated her disguise on his previous visit.

“I have just come from Harvey, the bookseller,” he went on. “You said you had read that novel The Love Match. Harvey hopes to have a new book from the authoress shortly.”

Felicity feigned a yawn of boredom. “I have little time to read these days, my lord.”

“But he told me a most interesting thing. It appears that perhaps our bold authoress gained her knowledge from Greek and Roman classics rather than from life, if you take my meaning.”

“No, I don’t,” said Felicity rudely.

“It appears that instead of being the work of an experienced lady of the ton, it may instead be the work of a highly imaginative and well-educated innocent.”

“Unlike you,” said Felicity, “I do not have the necessary experience to judge the book.”

“You surprise me.” He held up his hand as Felicity glared at him. “I mean,” he went on smoothly, “that Mrs. Waverley had the reputation of being a great educator. ‘Tis said you and the other two ladies were better educated than many men.”

“Perhaps,” said Felicity.

There came the sound of a carriage stopping outside. Felicity rose and hurried to the window. But it was not Bernard Anderson, only a young man who had stopped his carriage to talk to a passerby.

She returned to her seat, looking downcast. The Marquess of Darkwater realized with a little shock that Miss Felicity Waverley was most definitely not enjoying his company. In fact, she was clearly waiting and hoping for the arrival of someone else. It was a new experience for him. His title, his looks, and his fortune had always insured that women looked on him with glowing admiration and hung on his every word.

“Perhaps you would care to accompany me on a drive tomorrow?” he found himself saying.

“No, that will not be possible,” replied Felicity firmly. “I have other engagements, oh, not only for tomorrow but for weeks to come.”

The snub was obvious. He rose to take his leave. “I am sure,” he said, “Miss Callow would welcome a visit from me. Present my compliments and tell her I will call on her.”

“I do not think that is a good idea,” said Felicity.

“Why, I pray?”

“I regret to inform you, my lord, that Miss Callow took you in dislike. You must forgive her. She is old and set in her ways and not likely to change her mind.”

He was suddenly very angry. Yet did not he himself firmly dismiss people he considered tiresome?

But he found his anger was so great he could barely take a civil leave of her.

***

At that moment, Bernard was sitting in the Green Saloon of his mother’s house in Cavendish Square, and feeling miserable and awkward. He had been all set to go and call on Felicity with his mother’s blessing but Lady Artemis Verity had come to call. Being a widow, Lady Artemis enjoyed the freedom of being able to call on Mrs. Anderson on her own. A young miss would have had to be taken along by her mother or chaperon.

Mrs. Anderson was flattered by the visit. She was even more excited when she noticed the melting glances Lady Artemis was throwing in the direction of Bernard. Mrs. Anderson knew Lady Artemis was rich. Even better than that, she had a title and was well-established in the ton, unlike Felicity Waverley who was of doubtful birth and social standing to say the least.

And when Lady Artemis, with another flirtatious glance at Bernard, said she would be delighted if both mother and son would grace her box at the opera that evening, Mrs. Anderson was already mentally preparing her son for his wedding.

Bernard was terrified of Lady Artemis. She was undoubtedly very pretty in the accepted mode. She had rich brown hair with glossy ringlets falling on either side of her face. Her complexion was fashionably pale, her pansy brown eyes large and sparkling, and her features piquant and delicately formed. But Bernard was twenty and Lady Artemis was twenty-seven, and she appeared to him a terrifyingly older and sophisticated woman. He longed for the fresh and undemanding company of Felicity Waverley.

As soon as she had taken her leave, Bernard rose to his feet. “Where are you going?” demanded his mother.

“Thought I would call on Miss Waverley,” mumbled Bernard.

“Nonsense, my son. Lady Artemis is a catch, and did you mark how she looked at you? Forget Felicity Waverley. No breeding there and no title either.”

“But, Mother …”

“Do as you are told, Bernard!”

So, as usual, Bernard did what his mother told him.

***

After a week of isolation, Felicity would have welcomed a visit even from the uncomfortable Marquess of Darkwater. The London Season was well underway, yet she sat in the great house, ignored and alone.

She summoned up her courage, put on the disguise of Miss Callow, and went to call on one of Mrs. Waverley’s acquaintances, Lady Dexter, a lady who had claimed to share Mrs. Waverley’s radical views.

It took a great deal of courage to emerge into the daylight as Miss Callow, but Felicity felt it was the only way she could get invitations for herself and to find out what had happened to Bernard Anderson.

She was just about to go out when Mrs. Ricketts came to say that Mr. Fordyce had called.

“Tell him Felicity is resting and put him in the drawing room,” said Felicity, “but tell him I am about to go on a call and can only spare him a few moments.”

Mr. Fordyce got to his feet as the bent old lady came into the drawing room. “Forgive me for disturbing you, Miss Callow,” he said. “I was anxious to speak to Miss Waverley.”

Felicity walked forward leaning heavily on a stick and settled herself in the wing chair. “What do you wish to speak to my niece about?” she asked.

“I knew Miss Felicity when I lived in the house next door and was engaged to Lady Artemis Verity,” said Mr. Fordyce. “I wondered, perhaps, if Miss Felicity saw much of Lady Artemis these days.”

“As little as possible,” said Felicity.

“But they were great friends at one time!” exclaimed Mr. Fordyce.

“I believe at one time it amused Lady Artemis to pretend to share my niece’s views on the rights of women,” said Felicity, “but that was only a pretense.”

“You must not think ill of Lady Artemis,” said Mr. Fordyce. “She is a creature of nature.”

Felicity blinked. “Like a wasp?”

“No, Miss Callow, like a pretty fluttering bird.”

“Dear me, Mr. Fordyce. I would like to be of help to you, but your fluttering bird is not to be found here.”

“I do not understand what she is about,” said Mr. Fordyce wretchedly. “Why she must needs seek out the company of that youth, Bernard Anderson, I do not know.”

“We do know Mr. Anderson slightly,” said Felicity. She experienced a sinking feeling in her stomach. “Is Lady Artemis enamored of him?”

“She cannot be, ma’am!” cried Mr. Fordyce. “What has a youth of his years to offer her?”

“Youth and kindness and a good heart,” said Felicity wistfully.

“I beg you, Miss Callow, if your niece has any inkling of how Lady Artemis feels toward me, I would be most grateful if she would let me know.”

Felicity bowed her head. “Be assured, Mr. Fordyce, my niece is not intimate with Lady Artemis. Now I beg you to excuse me. I have calls to make.”

So that was that, thought Felicity, as she climbed into her carriage. Faithless Bernard! Or was it that his greedy mother saw better game? For one moment, she contemplated canceling the call and returning to the house. Her book was barely started.

But the day was gray and cheerless and threatening rain, and the large house looked dark and gloomy. She climbed into the carriage and told the coachman to take her to Lady Dexter’s.

***

“You have left the preparations for Felicity’s Season a little late, Miss Callow,” said Lady Dexter after her odd visitor had been given tea. Really, this Miss Callow was extraordinary, covered as she was with blazing jewels. It was hard to look at her face, for one’s eye kept being distracted by all those flashing rings and bracelets and brooches. Lady Dexter remembered the attempts to thieve the Waverley jewels and marveled at the old lady’s courage in being seen abroad with such a king’s ransom on her. “I will see what I can do, Miss Callow,” she went on. “Your visit is a great surprise, for Mrs. Waverley put it about that her girls were orphans and had not any relatives.”

“Maria Waverley told a great deal of lies,” said Felicity. “I do not like to see my Felicity suffer because of them.”

“Oh, I agree. Now, I am giving a musicale tomorrow night, Miss Callow. Not knowing of your existence, I did not send you a card, but I should be delighted if you and your niece would attend. Many eligibles will be coming. Who is new on the market? There is Darkwater. Then there is Mr. Johnson. There is the divine Colonel Macdonald, but lately come to town to set all our hearts aflutter.”

“We should be pleased to come,” said Felicity, although wondering how she was to manage to arrive as Felicity and explain the absence of her aunt.

“Splendid. Now do not run away, Miss Callow, for I am expecting several ladies for tea, some of whom might prove useful to you.”

***

Felicity passed inspection by the ladies of the ton very creditably. The jewels were passport enough. Society had very strict social laws to keep upstarts at bay. Breeding was all. Vulgar money could not buy entrée. Or so they claimed. But the older and more aristocratic the family, the more ruthless the determination to hold onto power and land. That was the reason so many weeping girls were led to the altars of London to marry old and diseased men. Girls might weep, but they, like their parents, knew what they owed their ancient names. Love could be found outside marriage. There was only one commandment there to obey—Thou Shalt Not Be Found Out. And so the bartering went on: my ancient name for your dowry. The ladies Felicity met that afternoon bowed down before her display of jewels and pronounced her a fascinating character.

The thieves who had originally tried to steal the Waverley jewels had been transported, the highwayman who had in turn tried to get them had been shot, and the underworld of London still buzzed with occasional rumors, but no one dared try where others had so disastrously failed.

But there was a new breed of villain on the London scene: the confidence trickster. The wicked lord in the novels Felicity and other ladies read who seduced and betrayed and left some innocent weeping in the snow with a baby in her arms existed in real life, but he was not an aristocrat but a clever and ruthless man masquerading as one. Society prided itself so much on the great wall of strict taboos and shibboleths it had built around itself to keep the unfashionables at bay, that smug and secure, it was often betrayed by its own greed. So as Felicity was able to masquerade as an old lady by dint of attracting all eyes to her fabulous jewelry, so Colonel Macdonald was able to gain entrée to the best houses because of his handsome face, charm of manner, and reputation of having gained a fortune from an Indian prince while commanding a sepoy regiment.

It was fashionable for military men to forget about wars and campaigns in civilian life. The bravest of soldiers often appeared as a dandy only interested in the cut of his coat or the folds of his cravat. Of course, they discussed serious matters together in their clubs, but Colonel Macdonald made sure he performed only in the company of the ladies, where such serious subjects were forbidden.

He had been born Angus Mackay, son of a Scottish weaver. He had served as a private in a Highland regiment in India and had deserted as soon as he saw that his regiment was to be posted to the Peninsular Wars. Before he deserted, he stole several items of regimental plate, which he sold in Glasgow. He had studied the manners and bearing of his senior officers. In Glasgow, he had become Mr. Guy Flint, a Virginian tea merchant, and there had courted and married the daughter of a wealthy Scottish merchant. He had managed to spend her dowry very quickly on luxurious living and had taken himself off to fresh pastures right after his young bride had presented him with a son. He moved to the lake district the poets had made fashionable and had begun to court the daughter of a local landowner. Again, his suit was successful. He married her, but, again, her dowry, although generous, was not enough to keep him in the luxuries to which he had rapidly become accustomed. He deserted her and moved south. He was after bigger game. He took on the name and character of Colonel James Macdonald, Member of Parliament for Linlithgowshire. One would think that the very claim of being an M.P. would have exposed him, but Linlithgowshire was believed to be in Scotland, and Scotland was a world away, and society was used to Members of Parliament who represented odd and barbaric constituencies and who never put in an appearance at the House of Commons, and so he was socially accepted.

He was a fine-looking man with silver-blond hair, a Greek god profile, blue eyes, and a slight Irish accent, which fell most seductively on listening ears. He made a great joke of his accent, saying he belonged to the Irish branch of the Earl of Hopetoun’s family and, sure, wasn’t it a plague to have a good Scottish name and be cursed with an Irish brogue?

When he was not masquerading as Colonel Macdonald, he liked to escape to low taverns and thieves’ kitchens, where he could be himself, and it was in one of these low dives that he first heard about the Waverley jewels. He was used to thieves’ stories being either downright lies or wild exaggeration, and so he all but dismissed the story of the jewels from his mind.

That was until he met Lady Dexter in the street on the day of her musicale and heard about Miss Callow.

“I was never more surprised,” said Lady Dexter, “for all the talk was that the girls were taken by Maria Waverley from an orphanage and had no relatives at all. In fact, she told me so herself. Then this Miss Callow came to call. There is one Waverley girl left unmarried, Felicity, and this Miss Callow, who is the girl’s aunt, wishes to bring her out. I had met Felicity Waverley, a glorious creature, so I told Miss Callow to bring her to my musicale this evening. But, I tell you, Colonel Macdonald, I was quite blinded by Miss Callow’s jewels—if they are her jewels, for the Waverley jewels are famous, you know. Such fine stones! She must be quite a strong old lady, since the weight of all those gems must have been considerable.”

“I look forward to making her acquaintance,” said Colonel Macdonald.

“Don’t let young Miss Waverley steal your heart away,” teased Lady Dexter, “or we shall all be most terribly jealous.”

He kissed her hand. “Now, who could tear me from your side?” he said in his soft, lazy brogue. “You know I adore you.”

“Go on with you,” laughed Lady Dexter, but secretly she was delighted. She was nearly fifty, and Colonel Macdonald made her feel like a young girl.

The colonel sauntered on his way, his mind racing. This could be it. If he could charm this Waverley girl into marriage and get those jewels, he could flee the country and set himself up for life.

***

Felicity decided she could not stand the strain of arriving on her own and then lying about her “aunt’s” supposed indisposition, so she decided to gamble and see if she could make her explanations before she arrived. She accordingly sent a pathetic little note to Lady Dexter, saying her aunt was ill and had begged her to go on her own but she feared to do so as it was a very shocking thing to do. A note from Lady Dexter was delivered back by one of her footmen. Miss Waverley must come alone. Her maid could escort her to the door, and Lady Dexter herself would introduce her to the company.

Colonel Macdonald’s first feeling on beholding Felicity Waverley was one of dismay. He was used to hearing wealthy girls described as “beautiful,” meaning the girl’s fortune lent her an allure. But Felicity Waverley was beautiful. When he first saw her, she was standing with Lady Dexter, being introduced to some people at the doorway of the music room. She was wearing a slip of a gown of white satin covered with an overdress of white French net decorated with a tiny blue spot. She had white silk roses in her hair, the center of each rose being formed of seed pearls and tiny sapphires. But she wore no other gems. Her white throat was bare and her gloved arms free of bracelets. He found himself daunted by her beauty and wishing she had worn some of the famous Waverley jewels to give him courage to woo her.

For the first time, his usual confidence deserted him. His previous victims had both been on the plain side. He squared his shoulders as if going into one of the battles he had so neatly avoided by deserting and bowed low before Lady Dexter. “Introduce me to this enchantress, I command you!” he cried.

Lady Dexter looked amused and Miss Felicity Waverley decidedly annoyed. Lady Dexter performed the introductions and then, being hailed by a party of new arrivals, left Felicity with Colonel Macdonald.

“Your beauty leaves me dumbfounded,” said the gallant colonel. He heard his voice sounding in his own ears and realized with some irritation that his carefully cultivated Irish brogue was slipping into a decidedly Scottish burr.

“On the contrary, you appear to have plenty to say, sir,” said Felicity, fanning herself and looking over his shoulder. Bernard Anderson, his mother, and Lady Artemis were just entering the room. Lady Artemis said something to Bernard, who blushed. Felicity looked up at the colonel with new eyes. He was handsome and personable. Bernard must not see that she cared about his neglect one bit.

“You do not appreciate my compliments, I can see,” the colonel was saying.

“It is rather hard to know how to receive them,” said Felicity with a smile. “I can either simper, hit you playfully with my fan, or walk away.”

“Then I had better try to be sensible,” he said. “Oh, that my poor Irish tongue could find the magic to charm you.”

“Is that your way of trying to be sensible?” asked Felicity, beginning to be amused.

“Sure, it’s the best I can do,” he said with a grin. “Will you be after letting me fetch you a glass of something?”

“Delighted, sir. Ratafia will do.”

He bowed and left to find a glass of ratafia for her. His place was taken by the Marquess of Darkwater. “Where is Miss Callow?” he asked. “Not still indisposed.”

“Alas, yes, my lord.”

“You and your aunt are like those cunning little figures on a curiosity clock. You know, the clock chimes and little figures appear, one for rain and the other for sunshine, but never the two together.”

“We are both unfortunate in that we have suffered from bad health, but I am glad our misfortune provides you with amusement.”

“Your ill health does not amuse me, only the strange way it seems impossible to see the two of you together at the one time.”

Felicity affected a yawn and stared around the room as if seeking distraction. Bernard caught her eye and gave her a look like a whipped dog. His mother saw that look and stepped in front of him to block his view of Felicity.

“A word of warning in your ear, Miss Waverley,” Felicity heard the marquess say. “Colonel Macdonald claims to be a Member of Parliament for Linlithgowshire, but there is no such place. I fear he is an impostor.”

“How interesting,” said Felicity languidly. “Thank you for telling me, my lord. It adds a certain luster to his charm and looks, and adds spice to this dull evening. Ah, Colonel Macdonald. We were just talking about you.”

“Evening, Darkwater,” said the colonel cheerfully. The marquess ignored him completely, gave Felicity a stiff bow, and strode away.

“His spleen must be mortal bad,” declared the colonel.

“You are a Member of Parliament, I believe,” said Felicity.

“For my sins. Linlithgowshire—in Scotland.”

“I have heard of the town of Linlithgow in Lothian, but not of Linlithgowshire.”

“Oh, ‘tis a small county,” said the colonel airily. “The musicale is about to begin. May I have the honor of escorting you?”

Felicity’s glance flicked over the guests, from the marquess’s cold eyes to Bernard’s sheepish ones, to Lady Artemis’s mocking ones, and then she gave the colonel a radiant smile. “With pleasure,” she said, placing her hand on his arm.

The musicale was unfortunately composed of amateur performers. Usually hostesses tried to secure the latest diva, but Lady Dexter considered such a practice a waste of money when there were so many ladies in society eager to perform for no fee whatsoever. Although she herself was a flirtatious and mondaine lady, she had a weakness for the company of middle-aged bluestockings, not the genuine ones, but the affected ones who considered that the way to compete with the masculine intellect was to roar out ballads in as deep a voice as possible.

Felicity felt the colonel pressing something into her hand. She looked down. Two little pieces of candle wax lay there. “Earplugs,” whispered the colonel. Felicity gratefully popped the pieces of wax into her ears and endured the rest of the concert in an uncomfortable state of unease. It was not the muffled roar of the singers’ voices nor yet the presence of the handsome colonel that was causing Felicity discomfort but an acute awareness that the Marquess of Darkwater was sitting behind her. She could sense his physical presence, and that presence seemed to be upsetting her body. She realized with a little shock that she was physically afraid of him, yet could not make sense of her feelings.

She could only be glad when the last red-faced lady had roared off into silence. She deftly removed the earplugs. “Thank goodness that is over,” said the colonel cheerfully. “Supper, I think, and let’s hope the supper is good enough to make up for the ordeal we have just endured.”

The supper proved to be as good as he had hoped. He had a hard time enjoying the food, however, for Felicity kept asking him searching questions about the abolition of slavery and the Corn Laws, two subjects he knew little about and cared less.

He privately thought slavery was a great idea and the law that declared any black man setting foot anywhere in Britain was automatically a free citizen absolutely ridiculous. But it was fortunate he kept such views to himself. Felicity was now sure he was an impostor and adventurer and was amused by him, but she would never have forgiven him had she known he held such callous and unnatural views. Felicity regarded herself as an impostor, and that made her feel drawn to the colonel. She then asked him about his home in Ireland. The colonel, glad to be free from political questions, waxed eloquent over his family home. The fact that he had never been to Ireland and had never had a home since he had left the weaver’s cottage he had been born in did not faze him. He described the old square building set among the gentle green hills of County Down and the fine stables he had and the splendid fishing on one of his own private lakes. He went on to describe the splendid alfresco meals he had had on the grounds of his estate when his cousin the Earl of Hopetoun and his family had come to stay. He conjured up mythical cousins and aunts and soon had Felicity in tears of laughter over their fictitious eccentricities. There was Aunt Jane who rode to hounds just like a man and swore like a trooper. There was gentle Aunt Phyllis who knitted garters for the peasantry, blind to the fact that the poor souls had no stockings to hold up. And there was roistering Uncle John, the terror of the neighborhood when he was in his cups. He told story after story, and Felicity listened to him, wide-eyed, delighted with his handsome face, soft voice, and his hilarious stories about the members of his family. By the end of supper, she was beginning to believe there might even be a place called Linlithgowshire.

The colonel had found out she had come unescorted and quickly secured permission from Lady Dexter to escort Miss Waverley home by riding alongside her carriage.

He promised to take her driving on the following day. Felicity smiled as she undressed for bed that night. Bernard was forgotten. She did not care if the colonel was an impostor. He was kind and funny and he made her laugh. And then, all at once, the smile died on her lips. She could feel the presence of the Marquess of Darkwater so strongly that she looked wildly about the room. With a little shiver, she climbed into bed, feeling haunted.

At that very same moment, the Marquess of Darkwater finished a letter to the Earl of Hopetoun telling that peer there was a certain Colonel Macdonald in London who was not only claiming to be M.P. for Linlithgowshire but to be a cousin of the earl. He sanded the letter and decided to send his servant off with it in the morning to catch the royal mail to Edinburgh. The new fast coaches only took thirty-four-and-a-half hours to reach the capital of Scotland. He had paid for a return reply. With any luck, he should hear from Hopetoun before another week was out. Damn Felicity Waverley. He should leave her to her fate. But somehow, he just could not get that girl out of his mind. …

Felicity decided to spend the earlier part of the following afternoon as Miss Callow and then change back to herself to go driving with the colonel.

Her first caller, to her surprise, was Bernard Anderson. When he learned Felicity was “out,” he looked ready to flee rather than spend any time with Miss Callow, but Felicity in her role as her own aunt pressed him to stay for tea.

“You look very disturbed, young man,” she croaked. “What is amiss?”

“I had hoped to see Miss Felicity,” said Bernard wretchedly. “You see …”

He broke off and got to his feet in blushing confusion as the famous actress Caroline James was announced. Caroline’s blue eyes twinkled as she surveyed Felicity in the guise of Miss Callow.

“I am delighted to see you,” said Felicity. “Felicity is out at the moment. She will be devastated to have missed you. May I present Mr. Bernard Anderson to you? Mr. Anderson, Miss Caroline James.”

“I say,” said Bernard, thanking his stars his mother was not present. “I have seen you many times on the stage, Miss James. Such divine acting! Your Lady Macbeth quite frightened me.”

“Thank you,” said Caroline. “I mean, I should have hated to have played a Lady Macbeth people actually liked. Do you attend the playhouse often, Mr. Anderson?”

“When I can,” said Bernard eagerly. He meant when he could escape from his matchmaking mama.

“I am sorry not to see Felicity,” said Caroline. “It may surprise you to learn, Mr. Anderson, that Miss Waverley was the one who gave me the courage to go back on the stage instead of entering into a marriage that would, I am now convinced, have made me miserable. Of course, this all may seem strange to a young bachelor like yourself. Men do not know what it is like to be constrained to marry someone out of fear of insecurity or because a pushing parent demands the sacrifice.”

“Oh, yes, they do,” said Bernard in a hollow voice, and Caroline looked at him curiously.

Tea was brought in by Mrs. Ricketts. Felicity sank back into the shadow of her wing chair and watched with amusement as Bernard began to relax and talk easily in Caroline’s company. Caroline was looking particularly fine in a blue velvet carriage dress with a wide-brimmed black velvet hat on her head. Felicity found she was glad she had not had to meet Bernard as herself. It had been a stupid idea even to think of marrying him. He was too puppyish, too naive, and too much under the thumb of his mother. The colonel on the other hand was tall and mature and very amusing. One would never be bored. She roused herself with a glance at the clock and realized she would need to get rid of her guests, for it would take her a full hour to take off her disguise.

Bernard and Caroline left together. “I do not have my carriage, ma’am,” said Bernard eagerly, “but I would be honored to escort you.”

“Very well,” said Caroline, and Bernard waved down a passing hack.

When they reached Caroline’s address in Covent Garden, Bernard helped her down, paid the hack, and stood on the pavement with a sort of extinguished look on his face that went straight to Caroline’s heart.

“Something is troubling you,” she said gently. “I do not have to be at the theater for two hours yet. Come upstairs and we can sit and chat.”

Her flat was a modest apartment above a bakery. It was all exotic and exciting to Bernard—the cozy parlor with a screen in the corner plastered with playbills, various theatrical costumes and plays lying about, the cheerful fire, the noises of the street coming up from outside and the general feeling of freedom.

He drank wine and looked dreamily at the fire while Caroline went into her bedroom and changed into a loose-flowing gown and then came back and sat on the other side of the fire and said, “Now tell me all about it.”

And Bernard did. All about his mother, all about how he was being forced into marriage with Lady Artemis—“and she frightens me,” he said. “She is such a knowing sort of lady.”

“Did you hope to court Felicity?” asked Caroline.

“I don’t know now,” said Bernard. “I thought it would be jolly to have a friend my own age, but Mama … Well, there you are. She holds the purse strings.”

“What would you do if … I mean, say you were free to work for your living; what would you do?”

Bernard ran his hands through his thick fair hair and stared at her wildly. “What would I do? Oh, ma’am, I would be a carpenter.”

“A worthy trade. You would need to serve an apprenticeship.”

“But I have,” exclaimed Bernard. “When my father was alive, we lived in Mealchin in Berkshire. There was a carpenter in the village and he taught me all his skills. My father—he died two years ago—was amused by my enthusiasm, but my mother was furious. She could not do anything to stop me when father was alive, but when he died, well, it transpired she had set her heart on me marrying an heiress and so we moved to town. I am a simple sort of chap, really, and would have made an excellent tradesman. Life is very unfair. There is probably some poor carpenter somewhere who dreams of how wonderful life would be if he could only be a gentleman of leisure and go to all the ton parties.”

“No doubt. I am afraid you must excuse me now, Mr. Anderson. I am due at the playhouse.”

Bernard thought of his mother’s disapproving face; he thought of Lady Artemis, who made him feel so awkward and clumsy and gauche. He clasped his hands together and stared at Caroline James. “Oh, how I would love to watch you from the wings,” he said. “To be a part of the theater. To be behind the scenes.”

“That can most certainly be arranged,” said Caroline. “But your mother will be waiting for you.”

“Let her wait,” said Bernard. “Please …”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“A great age,” said Caroline with a mocking smile.

“I am a man,” declared Bernard, standing up and striking his breast in the best Haymarket manner.

“And I am turned thirty,” said Caroline, “an old lady compared to your youth. Oh, very well. You may come with me. But do not get in anyone’s way!”

The play in which Caroline was appearing was called The Beau’s Delight or Miss Polly’s Fancy, a lightweight piece of nonsense that was drawing large crowds. At several points in her performance, she remembered Bernard and glanced toward the wings, both right and left, but of her young cavalier, there was no sign. It was the last night of the play, and the theater was crowded to the gods. When it was over, she sat in her dressing room removing her makeup. The manager of the playhouse entered. “I want to talk to you about that young fellow you brought along,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” said Caroline quickly. “He is in love with the theater. I thought it would do no harm. I assume he made a nuisance of himself and you sent him packing.”

“On the contrary,” said the manager, Mr. Josiah Biggs, drawing up a chair and sitting down by the small coal fire, “he has made himself very useful. That is what I want to talk to you about. He repaired some scenery for me in a trice. So deft and busy with his fingers! I fell into conversation with him. We began to talk about transformation scenes, and he got some paper and a pencil and drew out plans for a stupendous waterfall operated by a clockwork device, not like that tin thing at Vauxhall, but using real water.”

“You would flood the stage and drown the harlequin,” said Caroline.

“Not the way your Mr. Anderson has planned it. Is he really a gentleman?”

“I am afraid so, and one with a mother who would tear you limb from limb.”

“I could be the talk of the nation with such a device as that waterfall,” said the manager dreamily. “You gave up marriage to a baron to stay on the stage. Why should not this Mr. Anderson amuse himself by working with us for a little?”

“Colonel Bridie was not a baron when I knew him,” said Caroline, “although I would have given him up just the same. But this is different. I was an actress in my youth and returned to the theater. It would not answer.”

“I have given him the offer of a job.”

“He cannot take it. He goes in fear of his mother.”

But Bernard, who joined the party in the Green Room that night, appeared to have forgotten his mother’s very existence. His eyes were shining, there was sawdust on his coat, and he was talking happily to various members of the cast. When Caroline took her leave, she found Bernard at her elbow.

“I am going to escort you home,” said Bernard firmly. He appeared to have grown in stature in one evening.

When Caroline reached the baker’s shop under her flat, she turned to Bernard and held out her hand. “Good night, Mr. Anderson,” she said firmly.

Bernard held tightly onto her hand. “I was offered a job this evening,” he said proudly.

“So I heard,” said Caroline, trying to tug her hand free.

“Might I not come up with you and talk about it for a little?”

Caroline’s face hardened. “Certainly not!”

“Oh, just for a little, please, Miss James. This has been the most wonderful evening of my life.”

Caroline relaxed. Mr. Anderson really just wanted to talk.

“Just for a little,” she said, “and then you really must be on your way.”

Mrs. Anderson paced up and down the hall of her town house all night long, listening to the hoarse call of the watch, waiting for her son to come home. She had had to attend a rout on her own. Lady Artemis Verity had been there, and because of Bernard’s absence, Lady Artemis had spent most of her time talking to that ex-fiancé of hers, Mr. Fordyce. Pale dawn light began to creep into the hall. Mrs. Anderson began to feel seriously alarmed. Bernard must have been attacked by footpads.

And then at six o’clock she heard his key in the lock. Bernard came in quietly. “Morning, Mother,” he said coolly, and made for the stairs.

Mrs. Anderson’s massive bosom swelled. “Have you nothing to say to me?” she cried, head back, eyes flashing fire.

“No, Mother,” said Bernard quietly. “Nothing at all.”

Speechless with amazement, she watched him mount the stairs to his room.

Chapter Four

While Bernard Anderson fell into a dreamless sleep, Felicity awoke. She drew back the bed hangings and looked at the little French gilt clock on the mantelpiece. She turned over on her side and tried to go back to sleep, but her mind was racing.

Fragments of conversation with Colonel Macdonald floated through her head. “I have never been married. I never before found anyone I was willing to share my life with … until now.”

It was as good as a proposal of marriage. She had spent last evening in a mood of happy elation. But what now of all her previous strictures and beliefs about that prison called marriage? She had always considered marriage a sort of genteel serfdom. But life with the colonel would never be dull. He was so happy and carefree. He had admitted with an endearingly rueful smile that he had little money. Felicity had confessed that although she did not have a bank balance, she did have the Waverley jewels and was about to start selling a few in order to pay the servants and to cover the daily expenses of running the house. Colonel Macdonald had promptly said if she would trust him with them, he could get her a very good price, so Felicity had agreed to hand a few items to him that very afternoon.

The Marquess of Darkwater’s handsome, saturnine face rose in her mind’s eye again, and his caution rang in her ears. Had she been too trusting? Everyone knew about the Marquess of Darkwater, his unlucky marriage and his background. No one seemed to know much about the colonel apart from what he told them. Lady Dexter had sung the colonel’s praises, but when Felicity had pointed out the colonel was a very odd sort of politician in that he seemed to fight shy of political subjects, Lady Dexter had laughed and said he never bored the ladies with tedious discussions. Felicity was lonely. She realized that was the root of her problem.

Felicity frowned. She should really write to either Frederica or Fanny, begging their forgiveness and so put an end to loneliness. But she was an independent lady, a published author. She should not be so weak-kneed.

But as the time for the colonel’s call approached, Felicity, sorting out a few jewels, became more and more worried about Colonel Macdonald. It certainly would not hurt to lose such a few trinkets when she had so many, yet, because she was a woman and alone, pride made her want to be sure she was not being gulled.

As a young miss, she could hardly interrogate the colonel. But in the guise of her aunt, Miss Callow, she could ask as many searching questions as she wanted.

With great care, she donned her disguise and then went down to the drawing room and waited for the colonel to arrive. On a small table beside her, she placed two fine rings, one ruby and one sapphire, and a collar of diamonds. Mrs. Ricketts was ordered to draw the curtains but to light only one candle and to place it on the table next to the jewels. Felicity wanted to keep the colonel’s attention on the flashing jewels and not on herself.

The colonel was ushered in. At first he looked taken aback to find “Miss Callow” and not Felicity, but then his eye fell on the jewels and he found he could not look away.

He was sorely in need of money. Triumphant and sure of Felicity, he had gambled heavily the night before and had lost a large sum of money to a Mr. Herd, a wealthy landowner. But the colonel had already lost money on a previous occasion to this same Mr. Herd, and Mr. Herd coldly said he expected to be paid promptly. The colonel had promised to meet him after he had seen Felicity. He would use the money for the jewels to pay Mr. Herd, tell Felicity the jeweler would pay a sum the following week, and then in the intervening week, do his damnedest to get her to promise to marry him.

“My appointment was with Miss Felicity,” he said to the little old lady in the high wing chair.

“I know,” said Felicity, “and I know why you are come.”

The colonel wrenched his eyes away from the jewels and looked at her directly and then quickly averted his gaze. Gad! What an ugly birthmark. Had Felicity changed her mind?

“Sit down,” commanded Miss Callow. “I believe you have offered to sell a few items of jewelry for us.”

Colonel Macdonald heaved a sigh of relief. The game was still on.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I would do anything to be of service to Miss Felicity.” He was about to boldly add he had also come to ask leave to pay his respects, but then no doubt Miss Callow would proceed to ask him all about his income and prospects. Better persuade Felicity herself.

Felicity shrank back further into the shadows in order to study him better. She could see he was nervous and uneasy, but it did not seem the uneasiness of the lover.

She leaned slightly forward. “Felicity tells me you are a Member of Parliament.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“There is a bill at present being read in the House that interests me. It is—”

“Ah, sure,” he interrupted quickly, “you must not be bothering your poor head with such things, ma’am. You see, I can get a good deal for those jewels if I get them to the man quickly.” He half rose.

“Please remain seated,” said Felicity. She felt a wave of sadness engulf her. The colonel was not interested in turning his charm on what he thought was an ugly old woman, and his eyes, which were fastened on the jewels, held a naked look of avarice. Thank goodness I have discovered what he is really like in time, thought Felicity. Aloud she said, “I do not see any need for haste, Mr. Macdonald. Nor do I now wish the Waverley jewels to go to some anonymous jeweler. I shall take them myself to Rundell & Bridge. So much safer to deal with a known and reputable firm.”

The colonel felt a sharp stab of fear somewhere in the pit of his stomach. He had put it about society that he was in easy circumstances. If he did not pay his gambling debts, then he would need to flee London. He had become accustomed to luxuries. His credit with his tailor, his club, his grocers, and his wine merchants had run out. He did not want to start off again penniless in some provincial city. He looked at the jewels again. He could raise enough on those to take him to Paris, and there he could emerge with a new identity and play the field. It was a pity about Felicity, for it would have been grand to have had the pleasure of such a beauty in his bed.

Still, he tried. “Come now, ma’am,” he cajoled. “Let me be speaking with Miss Felicity herself, and she will vouch for my good character.”

“Miss Felicity is guided by me in all matters,” said Felicity. “I wish to retire.” She reached out a hand for the bell.

“Don’t touch that, or it will be the worse for ye!”

Felicity looked up in amazement. Colonel Macdonald had got to his feet and was drawing a wicked-looking knife from his pocket.

And then downstairs came a knocking at the street door. “Stay still,” hissed the colonel, holding the point of the knife at her throat. “Not a word.”

From downstairs came the Marquess of Darkwater’s voice and Mrs. Ricketts’s answering one saying that Miss Felicity was out and that Miss Callow was entertaining someone and perhaps would not like to be disturbed but she would go and find out.

The colonel backed away until he was standing behind the door. “If you value your life, you old baggage,” he hissed, “you will tell her to send Darkwater away.”

Felicity stared at him in baffled fury. But if she did not obey, then he might stab Mrs. Ricketts as well.

“Do not come in,” said Felicity as Mrs. Ricketts appeared in the doorway. “Tell the marquess I am not free.”

“Yes, mum,” said Mrs. Ricketts. She turned and went away.

“Good,” whispered the colonel. “We will sit and wait until the coast is clear, and then we will go to your bedchamber, old lady, and we will find the rest of the jewels.”

“You will hang, you greedy scoundrel,” said Felicity.

Colonel Macdonald shrugged. “May as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.”

Downstairs, Mrs. Ricketts held open the street door for the marquess. “Miss Callow does not wish to be disturbed,” she said in a loud voice. But as the marquess made to leave, she caught his arm and whispered urgently, “Please go up, sir. Something is wrong. I know it.” She slammed the door loudly so that anyone listening would think the marquess had left.

The marquess looked at her in surprise and then ran lightly up the stairs.

He stopped short at the tableau that met his eyes. Miss Callow was shrinking back in her chair while the colonel held a long sharp knife in front of her.

The colonel saw him. “Come one step nearer, and I will kill her,” he said.

Unnoticed by him, Felicity had been slowly drawing up her knees. As the marquess hesitated, Felicity kicked out with all her might, the serviceable half boots she considered correct dress for an old lady striking the colonel full in the stomach. As he doubled up, the marquess moved like lightning and struck him full on the chin with a massive blow of his fist. The colonel was driven backward by the blow. He crashed into a chair opposite, then crumpled up and lay half across it, dead to the world.

“Oh, bravo!” cried Felicity, leaping to her feet, “A flush hit, sir. Bravo!”

The marquess took off his gloves, took out his handkerchief, and wound it around his bleeding knuckles. Then he looked at Miss Callow, and a flash of amusement lit up his eyes. Her white wig had slipped to one side revealing the glossy chestnut hair of Felicity Waverley.

“I mean,” quavered Felicity, remembering her role all too late, “we are monstrous pleased to be rescued.”

The servants came running in, Mrs. Ricketts carrying a length of cord with which she proceeded to tie up the colonel.

“Drag him out to the landing and shut the door,” ordered the marquess, “and give me a few minutes in private with Miss Callow.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “Mary, Beth, Joan, seize a hold of this fellow.”

They removed the colonel by pulling his unconscious body to the floor and then sliding it across the rugs and out onto the landing. Mrs. Ricketts turned in the doorway. She tried to signal to Felicity that her wig was askew, but Felicity was looking at the marquess. But the marquess saw Mrs. Ricketts and jerked his head. She gave a resigned sort of curtsy and withdrew, closing the door behind her.

“The jig is up, Miss Felicity,” said the marquess.

“Yes, I am so glad that villain has been unmasked,” said Felicity. She sat down in the wing chair. One of the wings caught at her wig and it and the cap she was wearing fell off and landed on the floor.

The marquess began to laugh. “I mean you have been unmasked, Miss Felicity. What a fright you have made of yourself!”

Tears started to Felicity’s eyes. “So you know,” she said weakly.

The amusement left his face. “Come, Miss Felicity. Go abovestairs and change back to your normal and beautiful appearance while I deal with the authorities.”

Felicity nodded dumbly, too upset to protest. But she scooped up the jewels before she left the room. She was so rattled by the colonel’s attack on her, she was worried the marquess might prove to be a thief as well.

The marquess went out after her, stepped over the colonel’s unconscious body, and told Mrs. Ricketts, who was waiting in the hall, that he would return shortly with the constable and a magistrate.

Upstairs, Felicity wearily removed her disguise. She felt terribly lost and tired. All around her in the west end of London were young misses with mothers and fathers to turn to in an emergency. Her thoughts turned again to the mother she had never known, and she longed to give up completely, to lie facedown on the bed and cry her eyes out.

Colonel Macdonald recovered consciousness. He cautiously felt with his fingers at his bound wrists. Feverishly he began to work at the knots. The rope was thick, and Mrs. Ricketts had not made a very good job of tying him up. Soon he had his wrists free and then his ankles. For one mad moment, he thought of trying to get at least some of those jewels. But Darkwater might be somewhere about, and if he were not, he would surely be returning with the forces of law and order. Groggily the colonel got to his feet. He slid down the banisters. Mrs. Ricketts had left her post in the hall to go down to the kitchens. He quietly opened the door and walked down the stairs and then he began to run as hard as he could, down toward the river, down to where that sordid network of alleys, wharves, and slums would swallow him up.

The marquess was furious when he returned to find the colonel had escaped. But he sat with Felicity while the magistrate, the beadle, and the constable asked questions. When they had finally taken their leave, he said quietly to Felicity, “I did not tell the authorities of your ridiculous masquerade. Now tell me why you found it necessary to pretend to be your own aunt. Were you trying to chaperon yourself at the Season?”

Felicity nodded dumbly.

The marquess looked at her bent head. “Have you no one to care of you, my child?”

“No, my lord. Except, of course, Mrs. Ricketts.”

“A housekeeper, however worthy, is not enough to protect you from charlatans. Colonel Macdonald pretended he was going to sell some jewels for you. Why? Are you so destitute?”

“No, my lord. I own this house and all the Waverley jewels. I have no money in the bank and wanted to sell a few items.”

He glanced about him. The money she had received for her book would certainly only last a short time in Regency London. He had an impulse to tell her he knew she was the author of The Love Match, but decided against it.

“Then I suggest,” he said, “that you allow me to escort you to a reputable jeweler, where you may sell the items yourself. Tell me what you know of your family. The other two Waverley girls, Fanny and Frederica, are now titled ladies. Can you not write to them and ask them for protection?”

Felicity hung her head. “I cannot. I quarreled with them. I do not know if they have forgiven me.”

He rang the bell and ordered tea to be brought in; Quite like the master of the house, thought Mrs. Ricketts with dawning hope.

He waited in silence while tea was served and while the obviously upset Felicity had time to compose herself.

“Begin at the beginning,” he said, “and tell me how you came to be in this odd situation.”

Felicity spread her hands in a gesture of resignation. Then she began to speak.

“We were taken from an orphanage, that is, I and Fanny and Frederica, by Mrs. Waverley and brought up in an odd way. We were allowed little social life; we were constantly warned against the evils of men and marriage. Mrs. Waverley is a very good teacher, and she educated us herself. Then Fanny ran away to get married, and later Frederica. But Mrs. Waverley herself deserted me to get married to Colonel Bridie, now Baron Meldon. She left me this house, as I told you, and all those wretched jewels. There is a considerable amount of fine jewelry. Mrs. Waverley would make us dress very drably when we went out but liked to attire us as richly as barbaric princesses when she entertained at home. I felt Fanny had betrayed me, and then I tried to prevent Frederica’s marriage, for I really truly believed Lord Harry Danger did not mean to marry her. Both the Earl of Tredair, who married Fanny, and Lord Harry made attempts to find out the mystery of our parentage but were both unsuccessful. Since Mrs. Waverley had almost convinced us we were all foundlings and bastards, we might have let the matter rest. But it did seem as if someone or some people were determined to stop us from finding out anything.” She gave an embarrassed laugh. “We even began to think we might be royal bastards, for every time Mrs. Waverley saw the Prince Regent, she turned white and he looked monstrous upset. Then the orphanage itself only housed girls who were being kept there by wealthy relatives. They told us we were charity cases, but I found that hard to believe as no one on the ruling body of that orphanage showed any signs of charity whatsoever.

“I decided never to marry. I agreed with Mrs. Waverley’s views, even though she had betrayed them, because women are the lesser sex and marriage is a form of slavery. But I began to think there might possibly be exceptions to the rule,” said Felicity wistfully. “I hear reports that both Fanny and Frederica are very happy. I was … I am … lonely. I thought, don’t you see, that being of independent means I could perhaps find a companion, an equal. Yes, I suspected Colonel Macdonald was an impostor, but he seemed so gay, so charming, and I am by way of being an impostor myself. Baron Meldon, who married Mrs. Waverley, was at one time engaged to the actress Caroline James. She called here, and I hit on the plan of being made up to look like an elderly lady. That way I could chaperon myself. Now you have discovered my trick; there is nothing left for me but to settle down to a solitary existence.”

“But what is stopping you from writing to Lady Tredair or Lady Harry?” asked the marquess.

Felicity sighed. “We were brought up to be rivals. Pride, combined with fear they might still be angry with me—That is what is stopping me.”

She fell silent. He sat opposite her, very much at his ease, the candlelight shining on his handsome face. He studied her for some moments, noticing the purity of her skin and the gleaming cascade of her chestnut hair.

“I sometimes hate Mrs. Waverley,” said Felicity suddenly.

“And yet,” he said, “she saved you from the orphanage and left you independent. She educated you well and made you all so independent-minded that at least Fanny and Frederica found two gentlemen who were prepared to treat them as equals, or so I believe.”

“Perhaps,” said Felicity slowly. “But I think I hate her because I feel in my bones she knows the identity of our parents. Before she met the baron, she was very possessive and did everything to bind us close to her, almost as if she had bought herself a ready-made family to protect her from the world.”

There was another long silence, and he shifted restlessly, and she wondered whether he was becoming bored, and that thought gave her a sharp pain. Soon he would rise to take his leave, his curiosity satisfied, and she would never see him again.

“It is a fascinating mystery,” he said. “Have courage, Miss Felicity. Surely you and I would be better employed finding out where you come from than spending our evenings in hot rooms talking to a lot of charlatans and bores.”

“I do not see how we can succeed where Tredair and Danger failed,” said Felicity.

“They were both men deeply in love, and having secured their hearts’ desire, they lost interest,” said the marquess. “But we, Miss Felicity, are heart-free and intelligent. Before we set about our investigations, we must find a chaperon for you. No, do not look so surprised. I know what you are thinking. I shall not tell anyone of your masquerade. As far as society is concerned, Miss Callow has retired to the country. Now, I have a fourth cousin, resident in London, a poor relation. I had planned to do something about her plight, for she is companion to an old harridan and having quite a miserable time of it. Allow me to fetch her here. We may have to travel, and you cannot drive off with me on your own.”

From being in the depths of misery, Felicity began to feel quite light-headed with excitement. She clasped her hands together and looked at him beseechingly. “It would be wonderful if we could solve the mystery.”

He raised an admonitory finger. “Be warned, Miss Felicity, that the outcome may not be what you hope.”

“Anything is better than not knowing,” said Felicity. “Where do we start?”

“I think,” he said, “we will start with Mrs. Waverley herself.”

***

The marquess’s fourth cousin, Miss Agnes Joust, was a thoroughly silly woman, and was suffering as much as any woman without any strength of character can when she finds herself in a nasty predicament. Miss Joust had survived three months as companion to a Mrs. Deves-Pereneux. Mrs. Deves-Pereneux was a gross, overfed bully. Miss Joust was thin and faded and fortyish. The only thing that lightened her days was the knowledge that her handsome relative, the Marquess of Darkwater, was in London. She had not seen him for many years until he had called on her a bare month ago. Miss Joust had fallen violently in love with him on the spot. She wrote him little notes about the happenings of her days. Occasionally he would reply, and she kept his letters in a sandalwood box on her toilet table, reading and rereading them. One of her favorite dreams was that he would arrive in person again, but this time he would sweep her off, away from the horrible Mrs. Deves-Pereneux.

Miss Joust had no faith to console her. Every Sunday for the past three months she had prayed for deliverance from her mistress, and every Monday came along to show that God had not paid any attention. Therefore, it followed that God did not exist, and Miss Joust became determined to punish Him by telling Him so. Mrs. Deves-Pereneux liked to walk home from church. It was half a mile, and the going was slow and painful for both women—for Mrs. Deves-Pereneux because she was fat and for Miss Joust because her mistress leaned too heavily on her arm and grumbled and wheezed.

They were just reaching the bleak red brick house in Bloomsbury where Mrs. Deves-Pereneux lived when Miss Joust saw a smart curricle approaching and her heart began to hammer hard as she recognized the driver.

“Why, ‘tis Lord Darkwater,” she cried.

“What’s he want?” grumbled Mrs. Deves-Pereneux. “Got no right to come calling on servants without a by-your-leave, and so I shall tell him.”

Tears started to Miss Joust’s weak eyes. Mrs. Deves-Pereneux, a frightful old snob, had no intention of being rude to a lord, but it did her heart good to torment Miss Joust.

But the old lady was quite put out when the marquess said he wished to see Miss Joust in private. “Servants,” said Mrs. Deves-Pereneux nastily, “have to give notice when they are expecting callers.”

“I was under the understanding that Miss Joust was your companion,” said the marquess icily as he followed them into the gloom of the downstairs parlor.

“Well, well, paid companion,” said the old lady, but in a mollified tone, for she had noticed Miss Joust’s nose had turned red, a sure sign of acute distress. “I shall retire for a few moments, my lord, and then you may have the honor of taking tea with me.”

“That will not be possible,” he said coldly. “My time is short.”

Miss Joust groaned inwardly. A few moments bliss in his company would mean days of cruelty as Mrs. Deves-Pereneux exacted her revenge. An hour, say, would have made such treatment bearable.

As soon as her mistress had lumbered out, Miss Joust began on a long, prepared speech, well-rehearsed for just such an occasion. But he interrupted her and said, “I had hoped to do things pleasantly, but that old fright never does anything pleasant. I have found a congenial post for you, Miss Joust. Go and get your trunk packed. We will leave immediately.”

Miss Joust clasped her hands to her bosom. The marquess’s well-tailored coat of Bath superfine and leather breeches and top boots faded to be replaced by a suit of shining armor. Somewhere in her ears she could hear a celestial choir and the snort of his milk-white steed outside the door.

“Are you all right, Miss Joust?” asked the marquess anxiously, for her eyes were now closed and she was breathing rapidly.

Miss Joust opened her eyes. “I will do as you command, my lord,” she said firmly, “and escape this dungeon!”

With head thrown back, she strode out of the room.

The marquess experienced a qualm of doubt and then reassured himself with the thought that half the spinster companions and chaperons in London were decidedly weird.

Then there came sounds of the very devil of a row, coming from upstairs. He could hear the deep bass of Mrs. Deves-Pereneux’s voice punctuated with the shrill protests of Miss Joust.

The afternoon dragged on, the noise upstairs went on and on, the clocks ticked, and the fire died in the hearth. The marquess was just about to rouse himself and go upstairs to find out what was going on when the door opened and a much-flushed and exhilarated Miss Joust stood there, carrying a trunk, while the bulk of her mistress loomed behind her.

Mrs. Deves-Pereneux’s curses and complaints followed them from the house. The marquess could not be bothered telling her what he thought of her and so pretended to have been struck deaf.

“You will be relieved never to see her again,” he remarked as he drove through the streets of Bloomsbury.

“Oh, my lord, you have saved me from the jaws of hell,” exclaimed Miss Joust, and then in a more practical tone, “Where are we going?”

“There is a young lady in need of a companion.”

“Young? How young?”

“Nineteen or twenty, I should guess.”

“Oh.”

“I had better tell you the whole story.”

As the marquess talked, Miss Joust began to feel more at ease. This Felicity had had a weird upbringing. And a bluestocking! Bluestockings were notoriously ugly. Nothing more tedious for a man than the company of a young bluestocking. Mature men like the marquess must find the feminine company of a mondaine older woman like herself infinitely preferable. For Miss Joust lived in a fantasy world. When she looked in her glass, she did not see a long-nosed spinster with drab brown hair and thin lips, but a calm, medieval beauty with an air of mystery. She was still convinced the vicar of the church in which she had prayed so uselessly to God was in love with her and had not declared his passion because of the fearsome Mrs. Deves-Pereneux. The fact that the marquess might have arrived because of some divine intervention did not occur to Miss Joust. She had shown Him she could manage very well on her own, thank you, and so she did not believe in Him.

Felicity and Miss Joust sized each other up like two stray cats. Felicity decided quickly that Miss Joust would do. She appeared to be a silly, nervous woman, but not a bully. Miss Joust was taken aback initially by Felicity’s beauty, but she quickly recovered. It was just like the gallant marquess to offer to help Miss Waverley, but he would soon discover she came from very low origins indeed. One had only to look at her! No lady was ever so obviously beautiful. One had only to look at Emma Hamilton. Low origins meant Miss Waverley would remain unmarriageable. Miss Joust had not yet learned the happy fate of the other two Waverley girls.

There was, moreover, nothing of the lover in the marquess’s demeanor. Miss Joust, her main worry laid to rest, was able to appreciate her comfortable surroundings, the finely appointed bedchamber allotted to her, and the excellence of the cuisine. Her head was full of dreams. They were to set out for Meldon in two days’ time to confront Mrs. Waverley. Miss Joust could see it now: Mrs. Waverley would produce papers proving Felicity’s father had been a low felon. The marquess would fall very silent and then he would seek her out. “You cannot stay in such a household,” he would say. Miss Joust, wearing her best lilac sarcenet with her hair loose, would exclaim, “Alas, what is to become of me?” He would then gaze at her with a smoldering look and reply, “Fear not. I have found you another position.” “Where?” demanded Miss Joust. “What as?” “As my wife,” he cried, seizing her in his arms. And that was such a lovely dream that Miss Joust smiled dreamily all through dinner and paid little attention to Felicity, who wondered whether to be cross or amused.

Miss Joust decided to pay attention to her surroundings by the time the pudding was brought in. That way, she could save a little of the splendid dream for bedtime. “How do you pass your days in London, Miss Waverley?” she asked.

“Really, Miss Joust, I have just been telling you how I pass my days. Are you usually so inattentive?”

“Oh, no, Miss Waverley. I am just so glad to be away from that dreadful woman. So fatiguing. She quite addled my poor wits. Do tell me again.”

“Firstly, you may call me Felicity, and I shall call you Agnes. I do not have much in the way of a social life. I read a great deal. Do you read much, Agnes?”

“Yes, though I have not had the leisure to indulge my tastes of late. Mrs. Deves-Pereneux would have me read to her quite shocking and unsuitable books, you know. The Love Match was the last book. Quite dreadful. As if any woman of society would be so loose in her morals.”

“I thought it was an excellent book,” said Felicity crossly. “Why should people read books about rakes and philanderers with complacency yet shudder at the idea of a woman doing the same thing?”

“Ah, you are young, Felicity. Ladies have a natural modesty that curbs their actions. We all know we are put on this earth to be the support of some gentleman, as the ivy wraps itself around the strong oak.”

“Well put,” said Felicity acidly. “Ivy is a parasite and will soon destroy the strong oak with its clinging dependency.”

“La! How fierce you are. Simon told me you were a bluestocking.”

“Simon?”

“The Marquess of Darkwater.”

“Forgive my ignorance, Agnes. I am not on such terms of familiarity with his lordship as to call him by his Christian name, or even to know of it.”

“It is different in my case,” said Agnes Joust, her nose turning pink. Her nose turned red when angry and pink when she was lying. “Us being related, you know.”

“With relatives as rich as Darkwater in your family, I am surprised you have to earn your living,” commented Felicity.

“Well, one does not want to be a burden and …” Agnes was about to add that she was just one of many indigent relatives but thought better of it. “Would you like me to read to you, Felicity?”

“No, thank you. I am perfectly capable of reading to myself.”

“Perhaps you would like me to demonstrate an interesting new stitch?”

“Do not be so worried about earning your keep,” said Felicity with quick sympathy. “Your main job will be to chaperon me on our travels. In the meantime, you may rest as much as you like.”

Agnes felt a sudden rush of gratitude for Felicity. Such a pity she wasn’t a lady.

Felicity was glad to retire to the privacy of her room as soon as possible. She looked wearily at the few pages of manuscript on her desk. Would she ever write another book?

Chapter Five

The next day, Felicity checked over the inventory of the Waverley jewels, the huge box that now held them open on her bedroom floor. She was wondering where she could put them for safekeeping. She had removed the items she meant to sell that day. As she was kneeling on the floor, bending over the box, there came a faint scratching on the door and Agnes walked in. She stopped short at the sight of the jewels, blazing like a pirate’s treasure.

“I do not like to be disturbed before noon,” said Felicity shortly.

“Oh, what wondrous gems!” cried Agnes. She walked slowly forward, her eyes shining. “Oh, how I would love to be able to wear jewels like that!”

“I am wondering where to put them for safekeeping,” said Felicity, half-irritated, half-amused by her companion’s raptures. “You may choose something to wear today, if it would please you.”

Agnes fell to her knees beside Felicity and began to lift piece after piece out of the box, holding the jewels up to the light. “Do not take all day,” snapped Felicity. “Select something and be off with you.”

Agnes seized an emerald necklace and bracelet from one of the many trays and darted from the room.

“It is not at all the thing, you know,” said Felicity later when Agnes joined her in the drawing room, “to wear such gaudy baubles with a morning gown.”

“Oh, I know,” breathed Agnes, “but just for this little while. I feel like a queen.”

“Mr. Bernard Anderson has called,” said the housekeeper from the door of the drawing room.

Felicity hesitated and then said, “Send him up, Ricketts.”

Bernard entered at a half run. He fell to his knees in front of the startled Felicity and cried, “Oh, I am in love, and I am so very happy!”

Agnes let out a squawk and darted from the room and shut the door. She went halfway down the stairs, her hand to her breast, her heart beating hard. How wonderful. That very personable young man was obviously proposing to Felicity, and Felicity would accept him, and she, Agnes Joust, would be maid of honor, and the marquess would squeeze her hand tenderly and whisper in her ear, “This wedding has given me the idea of marriage, Miss Joust … or may I call you … beloved?”

Inside, Bernard was pouring out a tirade of gratitude that Felicity had introduced him to the most wonderful woman in the world, Caroline James.

“I am glad you are happy, Mr. Anderson,” said Felicity. “But please do rise and take a seat and tell me calmly what has happened. Are you engaged?”

“I have not dared ask her,” said Bernard. “I have taken a job in the theater, you know.”

“No, of course I do not know. And what has Mrs. Anderson to say to that?”

“She is furious, but there is nothing she can do,” said Bernard simply. “Do you think there is hope for me with Miss James?”

“Mr. Anderson, I really do not know. I have not seen Miss James since that day you met her. I am afraid you will need to ask her yourself.”

“I stayed the whole night with her,” said Bernard. He saw Felicity’s raised eyebrows and blushed. “I mean, I stayed all night and talked and talked. It was so wonderful.”

Outside on the staircase, the Marquess of Darkwater was finding to his irritation that his way was being barred by Agnes.

“Hush!” she said. “They must not be disturbed.”

“What on earth are you babbling on about, you widgeon?” snapped the marquess. Agnes blushed painfully. His words and tone were like a bucket of cold water being thrown over her. The fantasy marquess of her dreams had a much better script.

“A Mr. Anderson is proposing marriage to Felicity.”

“And did Miss Waverley order you from the room?”

“N-no, but you see …”

“He may prove to be another charlatan. You should not have left her.”

He mounted the stairs and opened the drawing room door. Bernard was now seated respectably in a chair with Felicity in a chair opposite. Felicity rose and curtsied and made the introductions.

The marquess looked from Bernard’s glowing face to Felicity’s amused one and said sharply, “Well? Am I to congratulate you?”

“Why?” asked Felicity bluntly.

“I gather from Miss Joust you have just received a proposal of marriage.”

Agnes let out a faint bleating sound.

“If Miss Joust had stayed in the room,” said Felicity, “she would have learned that Mr. Anderson is indeed on the point of proposing to someone … but not to me.”

The marquess found he was feeling relieved but put it down to the fact that he was looking forward to the unraveling of the mystery about Felicity and did not want anyone else on the scene.

“I will bid you good day, Miss Waverley,” said Bernard. “I pray you will come to my wedding.”

“Gladly,” said Felicity. “Good luck!”

After he had left, the marquess asked curiously, “What was all that about?”

“Mr. Anderson is enamored of the actress Caroline James. He hopes to marry her.”

“A boy like that!”

“Miss James is very beautiful.”

“Granted. But there is a great difference in their ages.”

“Quite. Miss James is, I should guess, about your age, and Bernard, near to mine. Women marry older men every day. I do not see what is so wrong in that.”

“Women do not wear so well.”

“Only because they are worn out with childbirth,” said Felicity sharply.

“My dear Felicity!” cried Agnes. “You must not say such things.”

The marquess turned and looked at his relative and then his eyes sharpened. “I gather those are not your jewels, Miss Joust.”

“No, dear Felicity was kind enough to lend them to me.”

He turned back to Felicity. “As for the Waverley jewels, do not trouble to sell any of them at the moment. I will pay all expenses, and we can settle our accounts later. I suggest we take them to my bank for safekeeping, and that includes those you have on, Miss Joust.”

Agnes’s hand fluttered protectively to the necklace at her neck. “Oh, but surely dear Felicity will need some for the journey.”

“I am grateful to you, my lord,” said Felicity. “Those jewels have brought me nothing but trouble. But please do render me an exact account of all expenses when this adventure is over.”

“I have my carriage. I think we should take them to the bank now. If you do not mind, I shall send an item of news to the Morning Post to say the jewels are lodged in the bank. You do not want your servants to be imperiled.”

Felicity called Mrs. Ricketts and two of the maids to help her carry the jewels downstairs. Her mind was working busily. She did not know what she thought of the marquess now, only that it was a relief to have some of her worries taken off her hands.

Agnes came with them to the bank and watched sulkily as all the jewels including the emerald necklace and bracelet were locked away in the vaults and Felicity tucked the receipt from the bank in her reticule. But soon a dream arose to console her. Felicity had been proved to be of low birth. The marquess came to rescue Agnes from her post as he had rescued her from Mrs. Deves-Pereneux. As they drove away from Hanover Square, he handed her a flat morocco leather box, and when she opened it, there were the emeralds. “I bought them for you, my beloved,” said the dream marquess. “Poor Miss Waverley was only too glad to get the money for them. Of course, she cannot live in London anymore now that the scandal of her birth is out. But we can, my darling, as man and wife.”

This was such a good dream, Agnes spent the rest of the day adding to it and embroidering it.

Felicity was already beginning to find this companion tiresome. She retired to her room early to prepare for the journey on the morrow. The marquess had proved not to be a villain. His only interest in her was as a provider of a mystery to amuse him. He had pointed out they were both heart-free. Felicity had often dreamed of having the company of some man as a friend. Now it seemed she had it. So why did she feel so low?

After some thought, she put it down to her dread at meeting Mrs. Waverley again. She could never think of her as Baroness Meldon.

***

It was a blustery sunny morning when they set out for Meldon. The marquess’s traveling carriage was comfortable and well-sprung. Felicity was tired after a night during which she had had little sleep and soon dozed off.

Agnes gazed hungrily at the marquess. She was sure he was longing for an opportunity to say something intimate to her. He was shy, of course. That was it. Since his wife’s death, it was rumored he had shunned the company of the ladies. Perhaps he needed a little encouragement.

She smiled at him fondly and said, “It is a fine day, is it not, Simon?”

The marquess looked at her coldly, and she blushed under his gaze. All at once, her use of his first name seemed like the impertinence it undoubtedly was. He took out a book and began to read.

Agnes could not bear the silence. After a little while, she gave a genteel cough and said tentatively, “What are you reading, my lord?”

“The Use of Phosphates in Increasing the Yield of Wheat,” he said without raising his eyes.

“How interesting!” cried Agnes. “I dote on phosphates.”

He raised his eyes. “So you know about phosphates?”

“Yes, my lord. They are those pretty blue flowers, are they not?”

“Phosphates are salts that enrich the earth, like fertilizer,” he said. He lifted his book higher this time, as if to barricade himself from further questions.

“Silly me,” said Agnes with a tinkling laugh.

She did not feel at all stupid. A woman’s role in life was to make a man feel superior on all occasions.

Felicity awoke and yawned and stretched. She blinked and looked around. Agnes put a playful finger to her lips. “Shhh,” she admonished. “Our gallant companion is deep in literature.”

“What are you reading?” Felicity asked curiously.

With an edge of irritation in his voice, the marquess told her.

“Oh,” said Felicity in surprise. “Is that Hulm on phosphates, or Jardine?”

He looked at her in amazement. “Jardine, Miss Felicity. Never say you have read it.”

“Yes, indeed. Mrs. Waverley considered a knowledge of the latest innovations in agriculture an essential part of my education.”

“You poor thing!” exclaimed Agnes.

“On the contrary, I found it fascinating. Is this to improve your plantations, my lord?”

“No, I own a small estate in Surrey that is not in good heart.”

The pair plunged into a long discussion on crops, phosphates, and drainage.

Agnes was just wondering whether it was possible to go into a decline through sheer boredom when a dream came to save her. The marquess was standing in the middle of a plowed field, hatless, shirt open at the neck, in leather breeches and thick shoes. She herself was wearing a simple peasant dress—lilac muslin, perhaps?—with one of those leather bodices. “This land is all ours, my sweeting,” said the marquess, gathering her to his side with one hand and pointing across the field with the other. A warm wind blew Agnes’s hair across her cheek, and he tenderly brushed it aside. She frowned in irritation. With his third hand? This dream needed more work. She resolutely closed her eyes. In no time at all, she was fast asleep.

***

The former Mrs. Waverley, now Baroness Meldon, and her husband were dozing in front of the fire in the parlor after a hearty meal. The sound of carriage wheels crunching on the drive outside made both sit up.

“Callers,” said the baroness bitterly. In London, it was easy. If one did not want to be disturbed, then one’s servant simply said one was not at home, but in the country, everyone for miles around seemed to know exactly when one was at home or out. “I hope it is not the vicar,” she added. “A most stupid and encroaching fellow.”

A footman came in carrying a card on a silver tray, which he presented to the baroness. The servants had quickly learned which one of the pair held the purse strings and managed the household.

The baroness fumbled for her quizzing glass and held it up scrutinizing the card. “The Marquess of Darkwater,” she read. “Don’t know the man. What does he want, do you think?”

“Perhaps a friend of the Prince Regent,” said the baron importantly, brushing grains of snuff from his coat and straightening his wig.

“Show his lordship in,” said the baroness, getting to her feet.

The baron had turned away from the door and was arranging his crumpled cravat in the glass when he heard his wife’s exclamation of dismay. He swung around. His eyes went straight past the marquess to where Felicity Waverley stood, and he turned a slightly muddy color.

Felicity had told the marquess she did not think their visit would be welcomed, but he had not expected them to be greeted with such shock and dismay.

The baroness wanted to forget all about the three girls she had adopted from the orphanage. The baron alone knew he had received his title from the Prince Regent on the understanding that he married Mrs. Waverley and took her away from London. Why the Prince Regent should go to these lengths, the baron did not know, nor did he care. He had a title and a rich wife. Now, as he looked at Felicity, he dreaded that the prince would somehow learn of her visit and be displeased.

“Felicity,” said the baroness faintly. “Why are you come?”

“May we sit down?” asked Felicity impatiently. “We have journeyed from London to see you.”

“It is too small and stuffy here,” said the baroness with a distracted look about her. “We will repair to the Green Saloon.”

The small party followed her across the hall and into a large, chilly, and very grand room. The baron had bought the house and estates with his wife’s money. He loved his new home and he loved his title. Could the Prince Regent remove a title through displeasure?

The marquess sat down and looked at Baroness Meldon curiously. She was a massive stately woman like a figurehead on a ship. She looked at him, and she looked at Agnes, but she would not look at Felicity.

“We are come,” said Felicity, “because I feel it is important to trace my parents.”

“But that is impossible,” said Mrs. Waverley. “And pointless. I gave you the jewels and the house. Why should you wreck your life by trying to find out about parents who were probably not even married?”

“Why should you believe that?” put in the marquess.

“They were charity cases at the orphanage,” said the baroness angrily. “I gave them a home. I took them to my bosom. Did they thank me? Did they give me love? No!” She struck her breast. Agnes looked at her with approval. The baroness was behaving just as a lady ought.

“We are all grateful to you,” said Felicity. “You know that. We might have loved you had you not kept us like prisoners in the house in Hanover Square. We might have loved you had you not tried to set us against one another.”

“Viper!” cried the baroness.

“In truth, Felicity, I must say you are too hard,” said Agnes.

“Do not interfere in matters that are not your concern,” retorted Felicity. “You must have some idea, ma’am. Why was it when Tredair tried to find out from the orphanage, they sent a messenger to warn you of his visit?”

“Because they considered it none of his concern.”

Felicity leaned forward. “Then tell me, ma’am, why it is you turn faint when you see the Prince Regent and why his majesty looks most uncomfortable. Are we royal bastards?”

The baron exploded into wrath. “Take yourselves off!” he shouted. “Begone from my house and leave my wife in peace.” He rang the bell and told the footman who answered it, “These persons are leaving. Have them escorted off the estate and make sure they are not allowed to return.”

The marquess was about to expostulate when he saw two letters lying open on a desk by the door. Felicity had got to her feet and was now raging at the baroness. He moved quietly to the door, straining his eyes to read the letters.

“You unnatural woman,” Felicity was saying. “There is no need for this rudeness. And what of your famous principles? What of all your lectures on the evils of marriage?”

“Saints preserve us,” screamed the baroness. “Am I to be molested in my own house, you strumpet? You came from the gutter, and you will no doubt return to the gutter when this fine lord has tired of you.”

“You have a mind like a kennel,” raged Felicity. “What of your precious background?”

She found the marquess had taken her arm, and she tried to shake him off. “Come along, Miss Waverley,” he said. “There is nothing for us here.”

The fight suddenly seemed to go out of her, and he led her from the room.

When they had gone, the baroness said, “Ingratitude always makes me feel ill, my love. I am going to lie down.”

“I’ll be up soon,” said the baron. “Do not fret. I will make sure those tiresome people are not allowed to trouble you again. I must write an urgent letter.”

He sat for a long time at the writing desk. He did not particularly want to remind the Prince Regent of his existence, yet perhaps it might be better to tell him one of the Waverley girls was ferreting about. He bent his head and began to write.

***

The marquess found a comfortable inn to stay the night in the village of Meldon. He studied Felicity during supper. Agnes was prattling on, acting, as she fondly believed, the part of hostess and marchioness-to-be. Felicity, he thought, could do with a good cry. He wanted to tell her what he had found out but was reluctant to say anything in front of Agnes, who would cackle and exclaim. He regretted having chosen her to be a companion to Felicity, but, on the other hand, he was sorry for her, as he was sorry for all poor relations, neither fish nor fowl, treated with contempt by both servant and master. After they had finished the pudding and the covers had been removed, the marquess said, “Miss Joust, I am sure you are tired and this business is really not your affair. Please leave us.”

Agnes bridled, and her long nose turned red. “I feel it my duty to point out it is not at all the thing to leave Felicity unchaperoned.”

“We are in a public dining room, Miss Joust, not a private parlor. You force me to order you to leave us.”

Agnes got reluctantly to her feet. She dropped her fan and made a great work of picking it up. She then spent a long time arranging her shawl about her shoulders. At last, she left.

She stood outside the dining room, fretting. What were they talking about?

What if they were talking about her?

Then a rosy dream began to curl about her brain. They were talking about her. She could see the marquess, leaning back in his chair, toying with his glass of wine. “Miss Waverley,” he was saying, “I do hope all this is not too much for Miss Joust. My late wife was not strong, you know.” In the dream Felicity answered something or other. “Yes,” the dream marquess went on, “I worry about her. Will she be strong enough, for example, to endure the climate of the Indies?”

Agnes went out to stroll in the inn garden just in case he should care to come looking for her.

“I think I found something out,” said the marquess. “Oh, cry, for heaven’s sake. You will feel better.”

“I don’t want to cry,” lied Felicity, although her eyes glistened with unshed tears.

“Then listen to this. While you were shouting at the baroness, I noticed two letters on the desk in the corner. One was a business letter from a firm of lawyers in Scarborough. I could not make out the rest. There was no time, but enough to know it was about money and business. The lawyers are Baxter, Baxter, and Friend, Whitestairs Walk, Scarborough. If Mrs. Waverley—I think of her as that, you know—if she has her business run from Scarborough, then that is probably where she came from. If we find out who exactly she is, where she was born, and who she married, we might have a clue as to your birth.”

“Scarborough,” said Felicity in a hollow voice.

“Yes, Scarborough. I suggest we return to London tomorrow and make preparations for the long journey.”

“You are very good, my lord,” said Felicity. “I do not know why you should go to so much trouble on my behalf.”

“Because it amuses me,” he said with a smile.

And Felicity decided at that point that she really must escape to her bedchamber and burst into tears.

***

The marquess had said it would take two weeks to put his affairs in order and to make preparations for the long journey to Scarborough in Yorkshire.

Felicity found time lying very heavy on her hands. Agnes was beginning to irritate her immensely. She kept urging Felicity to take the Waverley jewels out of the bank—“just for a little, you know. So terrible to think of them lying in a dusty vault where no one can see them.” Felicity protested wearily that the jewels should remain where they were until she returned from Scarborough. To escape from Agnes, she went to Covent Garden to see Caroline James. She was fortunate in finding the famous actress at home. Caroline welcomed her warmly and then listened in amazement as Felicity recounted her adventures at Meldon.

“So the third Waverley girl is to have a titled marriage,” teased Caroline.

Felicity looked surprised. “What can you mean?”

“Why, this Lord Darkwater is going to a great deal of effort and expense on your behalf.”

“Oh, as to the effort, he says he is bored and the mystery amuses him, and as to the expense, I have promised to reimburse him.”

“Come now. There must be more to it than that.”

Felicity frowned. “No. We have become friendly, that is all. I was mistaken in him. My first impression of him was wrong. He is a gentleman on all occasions and, believe me, there is nothing warmer in his attitude than that of friendship. But tell me about yourself? Mr. Anderson called on me to tell me he had taken a job at the theater.”

“Yes, and a dreadful scene his mother made, too. I must confess, I thought the boy would soon tire, but he seems engrossed in his work and is very enthusiastic.”

“About his work—or about you?”

Caroline turned pink. “It is calf love, nothing more. He will soon grow out of it.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“We’ll see. I am much too old for him.”

“And yet the difference in your ages is almost the same as the difference in age between myself and Darkwater.”

“But that is not the same. Darkwater is a man.”

“What is that to do with it?”

“You must know you are being deliberately naive. This is a man’s world, or had you forgot.”

“No, I am not likely to forget, particularly as I am burdened with a silly woman Darkwater has chosen to be my companion. But if one is of strong mind and independent spirit, then the conventions, most of them made by men, do not matter.”

“We’ll see. How goes your writing?”

“Not at all. I appear to have run out of ideas.”

“With all the adventure in your life! Perhaps, like Miss Austen, you should base your writing on people and places you know well.”

“I do not find Miss Austen much of an inspiration,” said Felicity gloomily. “Genius is never inspiring. I had better get back to Hanover Square before my companion drives my servants mad with her airs and graces.”

“Who is she?”

“A Miss Agnes Joust. A poor relation of Lord Darkwater. He rescued her from a tyrant of a mistress, but she does not seem in the least grateful to be with me.”

“Get rid of her!”

“I shall speak to Darkwater about her when we return from Scarborough.”

***

The Marquess of Darkwater walked through the gilded splendor of Clarence House. It was almost two weeks since he had been in Meldon. He found a letter from the Earl of Hopetoun waiting for him in which that peer angrily denied any knowledge of Colonel Macdonald.

The marquess had made all the necessary preparations for the journey north and planned to leave as soon as possible. But before he could call at Hanover Square to tell Felicity he was finally ready, he had received a summons from the Prince Regent.

The Prince Regent was lying in a darkened saloon on a chaise longue, wrapped in a Chinese dressing gown with a turban made of cloth of gold on his head.

The marquess bowed and kissed the fat hand languidly extended in his direction.

“How may I be of service to you, Sire?” he asked.

“Hey, that’s what we like in a man,” said the prince. “Straight to the point with an offer of obedience and duty.”

The marquess frowned. His offer had been a courtly gesture, not to be taken seriously.

The prince propped himself up on one elbow. “Sit down, man, and take your ease. We have good news for you.”

“Which is?” asked the marquess, pulling up a chair beside the chaise longue and sitting down.

“We are leaving for Brighton tomorrow and wish you to accompany us.”

“Sire, I am about to set out on a journey. I am flattered and pleased Your Majesty should wish my company, but I must refuse.”

“You will obey your sovereign,” said the prince wrathfully. “We command you to accompany us to Brighton.”

“Why?”

“What d’ye mean, why? Is our wish not enough?”

“In this case, Sire, no, it is not. Your Majesty has many friends and admirers to accompany you to Brighton.”

The prince looked more like a large cross baby than ever. He thought of the letter he had received from Meldon. He had decided to keep Darkwater with him in Brighton until such time as he considered the marquess had forgotten all about the Waverley girl. But perhaps he was worrying overmuch. Darkwater had an estate in Surrey. Perhaps he was bound there. Or, better still, back to the West Indies.

“Well, well, where are you bound that is so important?”

“Scarborough,” said the marquess.

“You shall not go. It does not please us.”

“May I ask why, Sire?”

“No, you may not,” roared the prince. “Odd’s fish, are we to account for our actions to every petty lord? Get out of our presence!”

The marquess rose and bowed and began to walk backward toward the door.

“Stay!” cried the prince. “When do you set out?”

“In two days’ time, Sire.”

The Prince Regent slumped down against the cushions and put a hand before his eyes. The marquess bowed his way out and shut the door behind him.

He drove straight to Hanover Square and told Felicity to make ready. They were leaving that very night.

Felicity exclaimed at the hastiness of the departure and demanded to know why. He replied he was bored and did not want to hang about London any longer. He did not want to scare her by telling her the real reason. He felt sure the prince would try to stop him. The secret to the royal distress lay in Scarborough and in the mysterious Mrs. Waverley’s background.

Chapter Six

Felicity was never to forget that mad drive to the north of England. The marquess’s traveling carriage pulled by six black horses moved at an amazing rate.

The marquess was driving his team himself. Agnes became so sick with the constant swaying motion that Felicity opened the trap in the roof and begged him to slow his pace because Agnes was ill. He called down heartlessly that if she looked like she was dying, he might consider stopping. Otherwise, he advised Miss Joust not to be sick in the carriage but to put her head out of the window.

“What did he say?” asked Agnes faintly.

“He is very concerned about you, but says that speed is of the uttermost importance,” lied Felicity.

A faint color came back to Agnes’s wan cheeks. “Dear Simon,” she murmured. “So solicitous.”

Felicity was beginning to feel quite sick herself and heaved a sigh of relief when they finally stopped at a posting house for the night.

The marquess opened the carriage door. Agnes collapsed into his arms and appeared to faint dead away.

“Was there ever such a woman?” he said crossly. “Here, John,” he ordered one of the grooms, “carry Miss Joust into the inn.”

Agnes felt herself being lifted in strong arms. She had been so busy pretending to be unconscious, she had not heard the marquess’s order to his groom. She pretended to recover consciousness and wound her arms around John’s neck and said, “Oh, that this moment could last forever.”

She opened her eyes wide and gazed up into John’s weatherbeaten face.

“Put me down, sir,” she cried, writhing like an eel. “Where is your master?”

“Right behind, miss,” said John, tightening his hold. “My lord said I am to carry you into the inn and carry you I shall.”

Furious, Agnes lay rigid like a plank, and like a plank, John propped her up against the wall of the hallway of the inn.

Agnes was furious. She had been nearly at death’s door, and no one had cared. She would show them. She allowed Felicity to help her up the stairs to her room. One of the many things Agnes did not like about Felicity was that that self-sufficient young lady did not consider it necessary to employ the services of a maid. Agnes collapsed on the bed as Felicity efficiently ordered the chambermaids to unpack such items from their luggage as they would need for a night’s stay at the inn.

Agnes was torn between pretending to be ill and staying in her room, or putting on her best lilac silk gown and dazzling the marquess. The lilac silk gown won the toss.

They had a private parlor. To Agnes’s disappointment, the marquess was abstracted and said little. Felicity looked wan and tired, and he asked sharply, “Are you sure you are fit to travel tomorrow, Miss Felicity? I am afraid our headlong dash has been a little too much for you.”

“And for poor me,” said Agnes pathetically.

He ignored her and looked at Felicity.

“I shall be well enough after a night’s rest,” said Felicity. “What of you, Agnes?”

“I suppose so,” said Agnes sulkily. Really, it was too bad of Simon. She was his flesh and blood and not some little parvenue of suspect birth like Felicity Waverley. What would he have done if she had been really ill? Agnes half closed her eyes. She could see in her mind’s eye the darkened inn room and hear the hushed voices around the bed. “I fear you may have been the cause of her grave malady, my lord,” the physician said. “Ah, no, never say that!” cried the marquess, falling to his knees beside the bed. Agnes stretched out a hand as pale as alabaster to lightly touch his dark locks. “I forgive you, Simon,” she whispered.

This scene was so very affecting that tears began to roll down Agnes’s cheeks.

“Poor Agnes,” cried Felicity. “It has all been too much of a strain for you. Come and lie down, and I shall go to the kitchens myself and make you a posset.”

Agnes’s agile brain raced. All at once, she had a plan in her mind, a plan that would get her the marquess’s sympathy and might get Felicity accused of trying to murder her. Like some ladies of this first part of the nineteenth century, Agnes took a small quantity of arsenic to add luster to her hair and to keep her skin clear. She had enough of the poison with her to insure she would be very sick but in no danger. She would put the arsenic in the posset Felicity brought her and then say she had been poisoned.

“Thank you my dear,” she said faintly. “That would be most welcome.”

Felicity took her up to her room, helped her undress, and put her to bed. She then went back to the parlor to say good night to the marquess.

He gave her a rueful smile. “I engaged Miss Joust to look after you. I am afraid she is not a suitable companion.”

But Agnes’s plight had touched Felicity’s kind heart. “She means well,” she said. “The journey was a hectic dash. Is such speed really necessary?”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

“If Mrs. Waverley has something to hide, she may have written to Scarborough to alert her lawyers.”

Felicity shook her head in bewilderment. “She has no reason to know we are bound for Scarborough.”

“She may have guessed. It is better we reach there as fast as possible.”

“Very well,” said Felicity reluctantly. “I only hope Agnes manages to get a good night’s sleep. At what hour do we depart in the morning?”

“Six o’clock.”

Felicity groaned.

She made her way to the kitchens and ordered the cook to produce the necessary materials for a posset, made it up, and carried it in a cup on a tray to Agnes’s room. Agnes was lying in bed with her eyes half closed. Felicity noticed with surprise that Agnes’s hair was still piled on top of her head and that her lips were slightly rouged. She did not know Agnes had prepared for her famous deathbed scene.

“Dear Felicity,” said Agnes. “Leave it beside me.”

“Would you like me to stay with you until you fall asleep?” asked Felicity.

“No, Felicity, I shall do very well.” Agnes waited until Felicity had gone and then climbed from her bed and found the paper twist of arsenic she carried in her reticule. She carefully measured some grains into the cup. She knew she was going to have an uncomfortable time of it, but was sure she had not put in enough to make her actually vomit.

But Agnes had misjudged the dose. Felicity’s room was next door, and she was aroused in the night by Agnes’s screams for help.

She ran next door. The room reeked of vomit, and Agnes was standing, clutching her throat. “Poison,” she screamed. “Poison.”

The noise alerted the marquess. He took one look at the situation and called for the inn servants. Soon a glass was pressed into Agnes’s hand, and his stern voice was commanding her to drink it. She threw the contents down her throat as the marquess seized the chamber pot and stood at the ready. Agnes spluttered, and her eyes bulged. It had been hot water liberally laced with rock salt.

Agnes was dreadfully sick. But by the time the physician arrived, she was lying weak and pale in the bed, purged of all the poison, and able to start to accuse Felicity. “I think it was that posset,” she said faintly. “See, you may examine it. There is a little in the cup.”

The physician was a dour Scotsman who had been roused from his bed. “It certainly appears to be some sort of poisoning,” he said, and Agnes closed her eyes in satisfaction. But his next words were not at all what she had expected. The doctor was examining the contents of the toilet table. He then picked up Agnes’s reticule and said, “Mind if I look in here, my lord?” and then without waiting for permission, he drew open the strings of the reticule and tipped the contents out on the table.

He picked up the twist of paper, gently opened it, and carried it over to the oil lamp to examine the contents. “Arsenic,” he said, his face grim. “These silly women, playing with death. They will do it.”

“That is not mine,” cried Agnes. “I do not know how it got there!”

And then came the marquess’s voice, as cold as ice. “If you are suggesting Miss Felicity put some in that posset and put the rest in your reticule, Miss Joust, then I suggest you recover as quickly as possible and find your own way back to London.”

The physician came to the bed holding the oil lamp and peered down at Agnes. “I thought so,” he said. “Do you see those moles, my lord? Here, and here?” He pointed to a mole on Agnes’s chin and then one on her forehead. “An arseniceater, quite definitely.”

“Was a man ever plagued by such a dangerously silly woman?” said the marquess furiously. “Well, Miss Felicity? Shall we continue on our journey and leave her behind?”

Agnes burst into frightened tears. “I am sorry, Felicity. It was wicked and silly of me. Yes, I do occasionally take arsenic and was ashamed to confess to the practice.” Tears poured down her cheeks.

“It is all right,” said Felicity. “No one is going to send you away. My lord, we cannot travel tomorrow.”

He looked furious, and then suddenly his face relaxed. “Very well,” he murmured. “It might be interesting to see what happens. I may be worrying overmuch.”

***

Agnes was genuinely weak and ill the next day. At one point, she managed to struggle from the bed and look out the window. Her window overlooked the inn garden, and the sight that met her eyes did little to cheer her. It was a fine, sunny, very English afternoon. A light wind was pushing great fleecy clouds across a blue sky. The sun shimmered on the winding river bordering the inn garden. Walking along the riverbank was the Marquess of Darkwater and Miss Felicity Waverley. Felicity was wearing a lilac muslin gown—my color, thought Agnes, gritting her teeth. It was high-waisted and had long tight sleeves ending in points at the wrist. It had a little gauze ruff at the neck and three deep flounces at the hem. Under the hem, little lilac kid shoes peeped in and out. On her head was one of the new transparent hats, a circle of stiffened gauze decorated with white flowers. The lilac gown, like the matching parasol she carried, was ornamented with a little white spot.

The marquess was in morning dress: blue coat, striped waistcoat, pantaloons, and Hessian boots. He was laughing at something Felicity was saying, and she was smiling up at him. Agnes got back into bed and rang the bell.

When a chambermaid came in, Agnes groaned pathetically and said, “Fetch Miss Waverley. I am nigh to death.”

The minute the chambermaid had left, Agnes got up again and looked down from the window. Soon the chambermaid appeared below, the streamers of her cap flying. She stopped before the couple and began to talk. Felicity looked startled and made a move to leave, but the marquess placed a hand on her arm to restrain her and said something to the chambermaid. Agnes crawled back into bed and practiced a few groans. She waited and waited. At last the door opened, and, to her horror, neither Felicity nor the marquess appeared but the crusty Scottish doctor, who gave her a draft of something, told her to behave herself and stop wasting his time, and left. It was shortly after he had gone that Agnes realized he had given her a heavy sleeping draft, the doctor having put her down as a hysterical woman who needed sedation. So when Felicity did look in, Agnes was sleeping peacefully. She returned to the garden to tell the marquess the news, and found him in the company of two gentlemen. Felicity was versed enough in the ways of the world to recognize such men as gentlemen when she saw them, although the less initiated might have assumed that men attired in many-caped coats despite the warmth of the day and wearing belcher neckcloths belonged to the stables. Here then were two Corinthians with clothes and manners to match.

“Who’s the filly, Darkwater?” asked one as Felicity approached them.

“That is Miss Waverley,” said the marquess, “and if either of you refer to her as a filly again, I shall take great pleasure in ramming your teeth down your throat. Miss Felicity,” he said, as she reached them, “allow me to present Sir George Comfrey and Mr. Peter Harris.”

“Pleasure,” said Mr. Harris laconically. He did not remove the straw he had been chewing from his mouth. He was a squat, brutal-looking man with blue jowls and broken teeth. Sir George Comfrey was tall and thin with a long nose and slanting pale green eyes. He looked like a fox.

He made an elaborate bow.

“What brings you here, Harris?” asked the marquess.

“Same as yourself,” said Mr. Harris. “Traveling north. Stay with m’friend in Harrogate. When do you leave?”

“It depends on the health of Miss Waverley’s companion. She was taken ill last night. Hopefully we might be able to leave tomorrow.”

“You said you were bound for Scarborough? What takes you there, Darkwater?”

“I am going there on business of a private nature.”

There was a little silence. Both men exchanged glances. Felicity wished they would leave. It had been so comfortable walking in the garden with the marquess and talking about all sorts of things. “Care to broach a few bottles in the tap?” asked Comfrey.

“No,” said the marquess pleasantly. “I prefer the company of Miss Waverley.”

The two men began to move reluctantly away.

“Are they friends of yours?” asked Felicity.

“No, mere acquaintances. The darker side of Prinny’s entourage, I think.”

Felicity looked shocked. “I do not think our Prince Regent would relish the company of such fellows. Forgive me for speaking plain, my lord, but I could not like them.”

“Then we shall avoid them. There are always such characters on the fringes of the court. Sporting is all the rage, and quite a number of men wish to look and sound like a cross between their own coachmen and gallows birds.”

Agnes joined them for dinner that evening. The deep sleep had refreshed her, and she wanly declared she felt quite her normal self. Felicity insisted they should stay one more day to make absolutely sure Agnes did not have a relapse. The marquess frowned impatiently but said nothing. He felt uneasy about the sudden appearance of two of Prinny’s toadies.

He did not see what those two could do to stop their journey north, if such was their intention. He posted two of his grooms in the passageway outside their rooms with instructions to rouse him at the slightest sign of anyone approaching.

The marquess found it hard to get to sleep. He tried to remember his wife as she had been when he was courting her and to remember if he had felt the easy companionship in her company he had enjoyed with Felicity in the inn garden. But all he could remember was it had been a strict and correct courtship and he had not really been alone with her until their wedding night. He closed his eyes in pain as he remembered that night. How she had writhed away from him and called him a monstrous cruel and unfeeling brute. After that miserable night, she had complained of headaches and backaches and every kind of malaise. He was sure she was making every excuse she could think of not to sleep with him. Although he had tried to cherish her, to treat her with tenderness, she had infinitely preferred the company of her lady’s maid. He had been most surprised when she had died, to find she really had been a frail creature, yet he had nothing with which to reproach himself. Before he met Felicity Waverley, he had never before envisaged a woman as being a friend and companion.

He was just about to slip off gently into sleep at last when a voice in his brain asked, What would you do if you wanted to stop three people journeying north?

“I would wreck their carriage,” he answered crossly in his mind. All at once, he sat bolt upright. The carriage!

Felicity, too, was awake. She could not stop thinking about the marquess. She turned over and over in her mind everything they had said that day. She thought of the charm of his deep voice, of the humorous twist to his mouth, and of the way his normally cold gray eyes had lit up with laughter as he had looked down at her. But there was something about this journey and the frantic need for haste that he had not told her. And what of those two ugly men, Harris and Comfrey?

And then she heard a low voice in the passage outside. She ran to the door, unlocked it, and looked out. The marquess was talking to his groom. He looked up when he saw Felicity and said sharply, “Get back to bed.”

“Where are you going?” she asked softly.

“Just as far as the stables to see that everything is all right.”

She closed the door, but stood irresolute. The stables. All at once she did not like the idea of his going out in the blackness of the night with Harris and Comfrey possibly around.

Feeling silly, but determined to go ahead with it, she opened her trunk and took out a small pistol and primed it. Then she pulled a warm cloak with a hood over her nightgown and slipped her bare feet into a soft pair of kid shoes. She made her way swiftly out into the passage and down the stairs. The inn door was standing open. Outside, a high wind was blowing, and a small bright moon was racing through the clouds. The stables were at the back of the inn. She felt in her pocket for the cold reassuring smoothness of her pistol and hurried across the yard.

The marquess had checked the horses. All was well. He made his way through to the carriage house, moving as silently as a ghost. Just as silently, the groom crept behind him.

All appeared to be quiet and still, yet there was an atmosphere of danger in the air. The wind sighed around the building and pieces of straw drifted across the floor. The carriage gleamed softly in a shaft of pale moonlight coming in through a high barred window at the end. Feeling confident now that he had been imagining things, he strode forward. And then a sickening blow struck him from behind and, as he went down, he could hear a groan behind him from the groom, who had also been attacked.

He lay on the cobbles fighting to keep conscious while the whole world seemed to whirl about him.

“Right, Comfrey,” said Harris. “Bring that ax over here. A few blows on the wheels of this carriage should be enough, and then we’ll be on our way.”

Slowly the marquess eased himself up onto one elbow and shook his head to clear it. Harris was standing by the gleaming panels of the coach, an ax in his hand. He raised it to bring it down on the wheels when a clear feminine voice called out, “Hold hard, or I shall blow your brains out!”

Harris dropped the ax and he and Comfrey swung around to face the doorway. Felicity Waverley stood there, a small pistol in her hand.

Comfrey began to laugh. “Pick up the ax, man,” he said to Harris. “She ain’t going to do anything with that toy.”

Harris bent down to pick up the ax and a bullet whizzed through his hat. He stayed where he was in a half crouch as if frozen. The marquess struggled to his feet. Felicity was reloading her pistol. “Are you unhurt, my lord?” she called.

“Yes,” he said, moving toward the two men.

“Do not get between me and the line of fire, my lord,” said Felicity coolly.

The marquess nodded and unhitched a coil of rope from the wall. Stumbling slightly, for he still felt groggy, he tied up the two men. “It was only a joke, Darkwater,” pleaded Comfrey. “See here, did it for a wager, don’t you know?”

“You can explain matters to the justice of the peace,” said the marquess. His groom groaned and shifted. He went and bent over him and then felt his pulse. The landlord of the inn came running in followed by some of his servants.

“These men tried to wreck my carriage after attacking me and my groom,” said the marquess. “Call the constable and have them taken to the roundhouse for the night.”

He waited until Harris and Comfrey had been bundled out and then went to Felicity. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?”

“Mrs. Waverley taught me,” said Felicity.

“What an extraordinary woman,” he said with a grin. “Finding out about her past is going to be a pleasure.”

“Are you badly hurt?” she asked.

“My head is quite hard, but I must confess I feel pretty sick.”

The landlord came back with more servants, and the groom was carried out. Instructions were given to rouse the Scottish doctor from his bed again to attend to the groom.

“And now,” said the marquess, “back to bed, Miss Felicity. We will go to the authorities in the morning and find out what these two ruffians have to say for themselves.”

“There is something wicked about this,” said Felicity with a shiver. “Someone is very anxious to stop us from finding out about Mrs. Waverley.”

She looked white and strained. He had a longing to take her in his arms, but prudence held him back. He was not sure of his feelings. And then at the back of his mind, he was always haunted by the coldness of his wife.

“They were probably doing it for a wager,” he said, although he didn’t believe it. “Come along, Miss Felicity.”

They made their way out. The inn was ablaze with lights and the courtyard full of guests demanding to know what had happened.

Felicity was glad to escape to her room. She had a longing to tell him she had changed her mind, that she did not want to find out anything about Mrs. Waverley. Her dull existence in Hanover Square now seemed like paradise. What was she doing risking her life on the Great North Road when she had a comfortable home and the efficient Mrs. Ricketts to take care of everything?

***

Agnes was furious to learn she had slept through all the excitement. She eagerly asked Felicity to repeat over and over again what had happened. Agnes was bitterly jealous. Knowing how to prime and fire a pistol was a most unmaidenly talent, yet she wished she had been the one to save the marquess.

They were sitting in the private parlor having a late breakfast when the marquess came in, looking grim. “They’ve gone,” he said, sitting down at the end of the table.

“Harris and Comfrey?” exclaimed Felicity. “How can that be? They were surely locked up in the roundhouse.”

“They were visited during the night by the local justice of the peace, Mr. Haggerty. I roused Mr. Haggerty and demanded an explanation. He is a weak, shiftless man. He began to bluster that the two criminals were fine gentlemen who had only been playing a prank. I swore and said I had been struck nigh unconscious and my groom attacked as well, that they had been on the point of wrecking my carriage. He apologized but said he was sure a fine gentleman like myself would not wish to press charges. I said I most certainly did, and he said he would send men out to look for the pair.” He fell silent, wondering again if the pair had used the magic of the Prince Regent’s name to escape.

Agnes shivered. “They may come back and attack us!”

“I doubt it,” said the marquess, but he added silently, But someone else may.

***

Agnes wanted to continue to play the ailing invalid, but the thought that if they waited any longer at the inn they might be attacked by Harris and Comfrey decided her against it.

The little party set out again at dawn the next day. Agnes could not help noticing that the marquess’s attitude to Felicity had noticeably changed. Before he had always been courteous and polite. But now there was a warmth in his smile and admiration in his eyes when he looked at her.

Blowsy strumpet! thought Agnes furiously. She would come to a bad end like her sisters, or not her sisters, but those other two. Then Agnes realized for the first time that she did not know what had happened to the other two. Before her job with Mrs. Deves-Pereneux, she had been taking care of an elderly lady in the country and so had not heard much town gossip. Agnes did not read the newspapers either, or she would have learned of the adventures of the famous Waverleys.

“Do you ever hear from the other two ladies?” she asked.

“Who?” Felicity was looking dreamily out the window.

“I mean the other two ladies who were adopted with you. I gather they do not reside with you anymore.”

“Oh, Fanny and Frederica? They are married.”

Of course they are, thought Agnes. Mrs. Waverley, who could buy all those fabulous jewels, had no doubt bought them lowly but honest husbands.

“And where are they now?” asked Agnes.

“Both are still on the Continent, I believe,” said Felicity. “Fanny, Lady Tredair, is now in Paris, and Frederica, Lady Harry Danger, is in Rome. Goodness, how tired I am, but it is hard to get any rest with the sickening motion of this carriage.”

“Mrs. Waverley, or rather, Baroness Meldon, no doubt worked hard to secure such good husbands,” said Agnes, who had hardly been able to believe her ears at the sound of both titles.

“On the contrary, she worked very hard to stop either of them marrying. Both married without even a dowry.”

For one brief anguished moment, a flash of common sense penetrated Agnes’s mind, a mind normally cobwebbed by dreams and fantasies. Such was the power and attraction of the Waverley girls that neither birth nor lack of dowry had stopped two of them from marrying the best in the land. She, Agnes, should appreciate that she was well-treated as a companion and strive to hold this post for as long as possible.

But jealousy combined with fantasy soon took over again. The marquess’s voice seemed to sound in her ears. He was confiding to Agnes his worries about Felicity. “As soon as I saw her waving that pistol about, Miss Joust,” he was saying, “I knew she could not be of gentle birth. No lady even knows one end of a pistol from the other.”

So Agnes’s dreams grew stronger as the miles and days flew past and the air grew colder and fresher and was tinged with the salt of the sea.

At long last, the marquess’s voice from the box shouted down, “Scarborough!”

Felicity tugged at the strap and let down the glass and leaned out. Cliffs and elegant buildings and a magnificent stretch of blue sea and an odd feeling of recognition and familiarity braced the Yorkshire air.

Somehow she knew the long journey to find the identity of her parents was nearly over.

Chapter Seven

The seaside of the aristocracy had grown from the fashion for visiting spas. The move from inland spa to seaside had been gradual. It had begun at Scarborough, where a mineral spring by the seashore had first attracted visitors to the town. Some enthusiasts had bathed there in the seventeenth century when the government had even considered taxing bathers on the grounds that the seas belonged to the kings of England. At that time, a few aristocrats sporting naked in the sea had not been enough to make Scarborough fashionable. The impetus started in the middle of the eighteenth century when Dr. Richard Russell set about promoting the use of seawater to cure disease—taken internally. According to Russell, seawater in half-pint doses, mixed if necessary with port or milk, could cure scurvy, jaundice, gonorrhea, gout, and other ailments.

The fashion for seaside holidays having been established, the visitors set about creating the same atmosphere that prevailed at the inland spas. Assembly rooms were built, establishments for taking the waters and bathing in them were set up by doctors and professors of the new science, reading rooms were built at which card games and raffles were included among the amusements, and every social event was designed to provide a medium for getting to know other visitors.

The marquess was anxious to go to the lawyers as soon as possible before the news of their arrival was published in the social columns of the local papers. He obviously did not consider Scarborough a very safe place for them to reside in for very long, thought Felicity wistfully, as she stood on the balcony of her hotel room and looked out across the sea. It was such a jolly place, and the changing colors of the sea were fascinating.

And then a tall man came into view, walking along the esplanade in front of the hotel. He was holding onto his hat. He sported a fine pair of black military sideburns. There was something about his manner, and the confident air of the man, that forcibly reminded Felicity of Colonel Macdonald. The man looked up and saw the slight figure on the balcony. He tugged his hat down over his eyes and went on his way, his pace a little faster than before.

Colonel Macdonald, now the Comte D’Angiers, his Irish brogue changed to a lisping French accent, hurried on his way. When he had gone some distance, he turned about and looked back at the hotel. The figure on the balcony had gone, but he had recognized Felicity Waverley. He thought of those jewels and his mouth watered like that of a hungry man thinking of a sumptuous banquet. He had done well at cards at the gaming tables of Scarborough and was feted and petted by the ladies and had as many social invitations as he could desire. But he wanted to secure enough money to end his shaky life of cheating and lying.

He slowly turned about and made his way back to the hotel. He reminded himself that with his hair dyed and his new Frenchified air, Felicity would hardly recognize him unless he got too close.

He hesitated outside the hotel, then squared his shoulders and strolled inside. The manager came forward to welcome him. The comte was a prime attraction with the ladies, and his presence in the hotel usually meant extra guests for tea and other refreshments.

“Any new guests, m’sieur?” drawled the comte.

“Yes,” said the manager importantly. “The Marquess of Darkwater.”

The comte frowned and half turned, about to escape. But perhaps his eyes had been deceiving him. “Did he come with a party, or alone?”

“His Lordship came with a most beautiful young lady, a Miss Waverley, and her companion, Miss Joust. Why, I believe that is His Lordship coming down the stairs.”

The soi-disant comte moved behind the screen of a potted palm and looked through its fronds. It was indeed the marquess and Felicity. He watched as they exchanged a few pleasantries with the manager. Then they went outside and walked off along the esplanade.

He moved out from the shelter of the palm and approached the manager again. “I see no sign of the companion,” he said.

“Probably in her room,” said the manager. The comte thought quickly. Companions were poor sorts of creatures, easily gulled. “I seem to remember meeting a Miss Joust in London,” he said. “Perhaps you could present my card and ask her if she would do me the honor of taking tea with me on the terrace?”

The manager bowed, took the card, and hurried off. The comte made his way to the terrace, which, in fact, was a long narrow room with French windows overlooking the sea. It was not the fashionable hour for tea, so there were few people about.

Agnes had been moping in her room when the comte’s invitation was delivered to her. She had been feeling very low at being left behind by the marquess, but the marquess had begun to think the less Miss Joust knew of Felicity’s affairs the better. He had put her down as an unstable, gossipy woman.

She did not stop to consider that she had never met any French comte in London. Excited and elated at the invitation, she dressed in her best lilac gown, ran to Felicity’s room and borrowed a handsome cashmere shawl, and then made her way downstairs to the terrace.

That the comte must indeed know her appeared to be borne out by the fact that he rose and bowed as soon as she entered the room. But the comte, looking at the long-nosed dab of a creature, knew immediately this must be Miss Joust. Companions were always stamped with the mark of faded gentility.

As she came up to him, he seized her hand and kissed it, clicking his heels together.

“I am enchanted to meet you again,” he said.

Agnes blushed and simpered. He held out a chair for her, then snapped his fingers. The comte ordered tea and cakes, then sat down next to Agnes.

“I have been trying to recall where we met, my lord,” said Agnes.

“Sure …” he began, then remembered in time he was supposed to be French, not Irish. “Ma foi, Miss Joust,” he said. “I have a terrible confession to make. We have not met.”

“Indeed!”

“I saw you driving out with Miss Waverley, and I made it my business to know who you were.”

This was like one of Agnes’s very best fantasies. That she had only been companion to Felicity for a very short time and how truly amazing it was that the comte should have had a chance to see her in London and then miraculously appear so quickly in Scarborough did not enter her mind. She threw him a killing glance, and he looked suitably smitten, as though by Cupid’s arrow.

He began to ask her what they were doing in Scarborough, and Agnes looked down her long nose and said it was all very mysterious and dear Simon would be furious with her if she told anyone.

“Simon?”

“The marquess is my cousin.”

“If you are a cousin to a marquis,” exclaimed the comte, “I am bouleversé that he should allow you to work as a companion to such an eccentric young lady.”

“He did not want me to, of course,” said Agnes. “But I prefer to earn my keep rather than be anyone’s pensioner.” Agnes was not surprised to hear Felicity described as eccentric. Young ladies who carried pistols and knew how to use them were eccentric in the extreme.

“Most commendable. But an onerous task, considering the dangers attached to it.”

“Dangers?”

“I assume Miss Waverley has all her famous jewels with her. Attempts have been made before to steal them.”

“No,” said Agnes crossly, thinking of that dear emerald necklace. “She lodged them all in Simon’s bank before we left.”

The comte nearly rose to his feet and left there and then. But apart from his desire to get his hands on the jewels, he also wanted revenge on Felicity. He remembered her masquerade as Miss Callow and how her disguise had slipped when she had kicked him in the stomach. He had decided she had deliberately disguised herself and lured him to her home with a promise that he would be able to sell the jewels for her, only to unmask him.

Then he heard Agnes complain, “So silly to lock all the jewels away and not even take a few trinkets for the journey. Yet she leaves the bank receipt for the jewels lying about where anyone might pick it up.”

The comte let out a slow breath. He was glad the waiter arrived at that moment with the tea things, for his excitement was so great, he felt it must show on his face.

He did not immediately return to the matter of the jewels. He encouraged Agnes to talk and quickly learned that she was in love with the marquess and was bitterly jealous of Felicity and that she coveted those jewels almost as much as he did himself.

He slid in little barbed remarks. It was a pity one so fair as Miss Joust should have to wait hand and foot on a lady of doubtful background. Then he flattered her. Did she know lilac was her color and she should never wear anything else? Did she know her eyes were like moonstones? And Agnes’s eyes shone like pale oysters in a barrel of dough, and her yearnings for the marquess dimmed and faded to be replaced by yearnings for this handsome comte.

“It is a sad life being a companion,” said Agnes, “and also dangerous.”

“How so?”

“I shall tell you this in confidence. May I trust you?”

“Word of a D’Angiers,” he said, putting his hand on his heart.

Agnes leaned forward and looked to the right and left. Then she said slowly, “On the journey north, Felicity tried to poison me.”

Mad, quite mad, thought the comte. But he exclaimed in horror and begged for more details.

“Simon had been paying me … well, extra attention. He is, how shall I say, a little bit overwarm in his attentions to me. Felicity noticed. I was sick from the mad pace at which we were traveling, and she offered to make me a posset. She laced it with arsenic! Had not Simon heard my cries and given me an emetic, I should most certainly have died.”

“But milord, the marquess, did he do nothing to have her brought to justice?”

“She! She made sheep’s eyes at him, and then she bribed a savage Scottish doctor to say I was an arsenic-eater.”

The comte correctly interpreted all this to mean that Agnes was an arsenic-eater, had tried to bring disgrace on Felicity, and had overdone things and been unmasked. He had a weak pang of sympathy for Felicity. What a fright this woman was!

But the afternoon wore on as he charmed and flattered, and when he finally begged Agnes not to reveal their meeting, Agnes readily agreed, although she would not for one moment admit to herself the real reason for complying with the request, which was fear this comte should fall in love with Felicity if he set eyes on her.

He got her to agree to slip out that evening after Felicity had gone to bed and to take a walk with him in the moonlight. Agnes felt it was the happiest moment of her life.

***

The marquess and Felicity sat facing Mr. Baxter, the senior partner of Baxter, Baxter, and Friend. He repeated that Baroness Meldon owned some property in Scarborough that she rented out and that her main business affairs were handled by a firm in the city of London. He did not know anything of the baroness’s background and implied that if he did, he would not reveal it.

When the marquess and Felicity finally took their leave, Felicity asked, “Do you think he was warned of our arrival?”

The marquess shook his head. “He was behaving just like any ordinary provincial lawyer. But why should she buy property in Scarborough if she has no connection with the place? I wonder where it is.”

“He would not even tell us that,” pointed out Felicity.

“But somewhere in that musty office is a box, which, I feel sure, would tell us a lot more. Leave it to me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Break in after nightfall.”

“That will not answer,” said Felicity practically. “When he returns in the morning and finds the shattered door, we will be the first suspects.”

“He will not find anything out of order,” said the marquess. “I managed to get hold of a set of these before I left London.” He drew a ring of skeleton keys from his pocket.

“Let me come with you,” said Felicity eagerly.

“No, stay and get some rest.”

He remained resolutely deaf to her protests. “And do not breathe a word of my plans to Miss Joust. She is a good-hearted lady but silly and gossipy.”

Felicity had long ago come to the conclusion that Agnes was not good-hearted in the slightest, yet she felt a great pity for her. Felicity was firmly convinced all women had such a hard role to play in life, it was no wonder they turned out such poor creatures. She could not find it in her heart to blame Agnes for her silliness. She thought Agnes had poisoned herself not to try to get her, Felicity, accused of murder, but simply to draw attention to herself. Also Felicity had gradually realized that Agnes was in love with the marquess, and that awareness had made her treat her companion with more kindness than she deserved.

Felicity decided to spend the evening after dinner being pleasant to Agnes. But she had become so used to London hours, she had forgotten dinner would be served at four in the afternoon. Agnes, because she had stayed on the terrace with the comte, had missed dinner, too, but declared wanly she could not eat a thing and would go to bed early.

The marquess ordered a late supper for himself and Felicity, late for the hotel, but at the London hour of seven in the evening.

He was abstracted and talked little. Felicity began to worry that he was becoming bored with the whole affair.

When dinner was over, he asked her to lock the door of her room and to make sure Miss Joust kept her door locked as well.

Felicity went to Agnes’s room. She knocked at the door but did not receive any reply. She tried the handle, but the door was locked. Assuming Agnes had gone to bed, Felicity sighed with relief. She would have the rest of the evening to herself.

But she did not want to stay confined in her room. It would be pleasant to go down to the terrace and drink coffee and listen to the sound of the sea. When she reached the terrace, she wondered at the propriety of what she was doing. She really should not be unchaperoned. But the tables in the terrace room were empty except for four old ladies drinking negus and eating sweet biscuits.

They all bowed as Felicity passed, and Felicity dropped them a low curtsy and sat at the table next to theirs.

She was soon to know they had all learned her name. Addressing her as Miss Waverley, they introduced themselves. The spokeswoman for the group was a Mrs. Crabtree. “Do you and Lord Darkwater plan to stay in Scarborough long?” she asked.

“Not very long,” said Felicity.

“Not on holiday, then?” asked Mrs. Crabtree after much whispering.

“Yes, in a way,” said Felicity, wishing she had sat at another table.

More whispering transpired and then Mrs. Crabtree asked, “You come from London?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Ah, the dear Season. I wonder you can bear to leave it. Does the Prince Regent attend many functions?”

“Yes, Mrs. Crabtree. His Royal Highness enjoys parties as much as ever.”

“How beautiful he was as a young man,” sighed Mrs. Crabtree. And “Beautiful … beautiful …” murmured her friends in a sort of Greek chorus. “Our young Prince Florizel. We were all in love with him.”

One thin lady leaned forward and muttered fiercely in Mrs. Crabtree’s ear.

“Yes, but she don’t want to know about a scandal like that,” said Mrs. Crabtree. She smiled at Felicity. “Old gossip. One of our dashing young matrons set her cap at the prince all those years ago. Her poor husband. Such a to-do.”

Felicity sat up straight, her eyes suddenly shining with excitement. “Was this matron’s name Waverley, Mrs. Waverley?”

“No, no.” Mrs. Crabtree shook her head, and the Whitby jet ornaments on her cap glittered in the lamplight. “It wasn’t that. Now, what was it?” The ladies put their heads together and whispered and muttered, but not one of them could remember the name. “She wasn’t from here,” explained Mrs. Crabtree. “York, I believe.”

***

The marquess sat at the desk in the lawyer’s office going through a pile of receipts and books and papers. They were all connected with three buildings in Cliff Place East. The lawyers had records of having received money for the rentals and then of sending bank drafts to Mrs. Waverley at Hanover Square and then, more recently, to Baroness Meldon at Meldon. The marquess took a note of the address. The office contained no other clue. He could only hope there was some elderly resident in one of the properties who remembered Mrs. Waverley.

He put everything back in place, glad that the office, unlike most lawyers’ offices, was so well-dusted. That meant he did not have to worry about leaving smears and fingerprints.

Having spent a long time finding the right key on the ring to open the office door, he was able to close it quickly and make his escape. Although it was early in the evening, the town streets were deserted. The residents went to bed early. Only the fashionable, elderly dowagers and visitors stayed up late in the hotels.

He was walking along the blackness of the esplanade when he nearly collided with an amorous couple who were locked in each other’s arms. He muttered an apology, swerved, and went on his way.

“That was Darkwater!” cried Agnes. “Did he see us?”

“No,” said the comte. “He did not, my darling.”

“Oh, then, kiss me again,” said Agnes.

“I cannot,” said the comte, who had had more than enough of Agnes. “I fear I could not restrain my passions. Oh, that we could be wed!”

For once in her life, Agnes very nearly fainted—such was her emotion on hearing those beautiful words.

“But why can’t we marry?” she asked, pressing close to him.

“I am a poor man. I lost all my fortune. My parents were guillotined, and I was brought to England as a young boy. I have my wits and talents and a certain skill with cards, but I could not ask any lady, especially one of gentle birth and sensibility such as yourself, to share my vagabond life.”

“Take me!” said Agnes, throwing her head back. “We will wander the roads of England together, like gypsies, stealing an occasional crust of bread and living on berries.”

He sighed. “It does seem an unfair life when such as Felicity Waverley has a fortune in jewels and thinks so little of them that she leaves them to molder unseen in some bank vault. No! Forget I ever spoke of marriage. It is impossible.”

He waited hopefully in the darkness. How long would it take the silly bitch’s mind to work it out?

“I could take that receipt for the jewels,” said Agnes at last. “We could collect the jewels and flee the country.”

He almost laughed with relief. But instead he said passionately, “I cannot expose you to such danger. Come, I will kiss you one last time.”

Agnes, dizzy with passion and mad with hope, spent quite half an hour persuading him to let her do what he had been manipulating her into doing in the first place. Then she said in dismay, “But could we get to London in time? If Felicity finds the receipt missing immediately after I have taken it, she will write to the bank and send the letter by the royal mail coach, and nothing is faster than that.”

“All you need to do,” he soothed, “is to let me have the receipt for an afternoon. I will make a fair copy, which you will return instead of the original.”

A sharp stab of fear shot through Agnes’s brain. A cynical voice in her mind pointed out he appeared to have thought of everything. But his lips found hers again, and she gladly shut out that nasty voice.

The marquess stopped outside Felicity’s room and then decided to wait until morning. It was too late to speak to her. But the sight of that amorous couple wrapped in each other’s arms in the blackness of the night had roused and stirred his senses and brought old dreams and longings flooding back.

He raised his hand and knocked gently. He was about to turn away when the door was opened by Felicity. She was wearing a white nightgown trimmed at the throat and wrists with fine lace, and over it she wore a white silk wrapper lined and trimmed with swansdown. Her thick chestnut hair was brushed down on her shoulders. “Come in,” she cried.

“I should not have come,” he said awkwardly. “You had better leave the door open.”

“It is too cold to sit in a draft,” said Felicity, “and no one is about this time of night.” He walked in, and she shut the door behind them.

“I was successful in finding out where the properties are, but nothing else,” he said. “But perhaps there might be someone there who can tell us something about Mrs. Waverley.”

Felicity knelt down on the hearth and picked up the tongs. “I had better make up the fire,” she said. “It has turned chilly.” He knelt down beside her and took the tongs away from her. “Let me do that,” he said.

She smiled at him suddenly. He knelt there beside her and then gently put the tongs back on the hearth and turned to her. The candlelight was shining on her hair, and her eyes were large and dark. Her lashes were so long, he could see the shadow of them on her cheeks. He could smell the light flower perfume she wore. He put his hands lightly on her shoulders and bent his head toward her lips.

He felt her tremble slightly under his hands. He remembered his wife’s disgust at any physical intimacy whatsoever. He could not bear any form of rejection from Felicity Waverley. That he realized with a stab of pain. He shook her shoulders lightly and said huskily, “Go to bed. It’s late. We’ll talk in the morning.”

Felicity nodded dumbly but did not meet his gaze. He rose and left the room.

Felicity got shakily to her feet. She had been so sure he meant to kiss her. She had wanted him to kiss her. She clenched her hands into fists and glared bleakly about the room. How terrible to fall in love with the very man who might find out your birth was so disgraceful, he could not possibly marry you!

***

The marquess had hired a curricle to drive about the town. It also meant he could avoid taking Agnes along with them as he would have had to do if he and Felicity had been in a closed carriage.

It was perhaps unfortunate for the comte’s plans that the marquess chose to be especially kind to Agnes at breakfast. He felt guilty about leaving her behind. She was, after all, related to him and had had a poor sort of life, filled with snubs and neglects. He smiled at her and asked solicitously after her health and apologized for the first time for the rigors of the journey. Agnes blossomed under all this attention and became convinced once more the marquess was enamored of her. She felt very powerful. Here she was, Agnes Joust, with two handsome men competing for her favors. The comte had asked her to meet him that night on the esplanade and to give him the receipt. He had said it would be safer to make the substitution overnight instead of leaving it to the insecurity of a bare afternoon.

When Agnes was finally told she was again being left behind, she accepted it with good grace. Of course, dear Simon was anxious to get this tiresome business about Felicity over and done with. She gave him a conspiratorial smile of sympathy.

She planned to take her knitting downstairs. She would need, of course, to keep her eyes on her work. With such dangerous charms as she had been proved to have, she must watch she did not ensnare any other poor gentleman.

She would go to meet the comte that evening just the same. Perhaps she might even let him kiss her in farewell. It would be a touching scene, but she would tell him gently that her heart belonged to Simon. Perhaps he might be so distraught he might dash himself on the rocks below the esplanade. Agnes gave a delighted shudder. She would try to hush it up, but it would get into the newspapers somehow, that Agnes Joust, fiancée of the Marquess of Darkwater, had driven an attractive French aristocrat to his doom. Women would stare at her jealously and accuse her of being a Delilah, but Simon would proudly take her arm as they walked out and, with flashing eyes, defy anyone to say anything against her. She might even allow Felicity to come on a visit after they were married, and gently, as a married woman, point out to the spinster Felicity the folly of a lady learning too much. “Brains should be left to the men,” she would say. “You know I have always told you that, Felicity dear. Now, there is a nice young man coming to dinner tonight who would suit you very well. The curate. Not very handsome, but a lady in your position cannot look too high.”

Felicity dressed in one of her best outfits to go driving with the marquess. She wore a morning gown of apple blossom sarcenet with a high ruff and a large mantle of pale blue mohair in the form of a cloak. On her head was a yellow straw hat with a brim à la Pamela, ornamented with a broad plain blue ribbon.

She felt shy in the marquess’s company and longed for a return of their old easy companionship.

As they walked from the hotel together, she heard an elderly voice calling, “Miss Waverley! Miss Waverley!”

Felicity turned around as Mrs. Crabtree came hurrying up to her. Felicity introduced her to the marquess. “Such a little thing,” said Mrs. Crabtree, “but I thought it might interest you. That lady we were talking about the other night, you know, the one whose name I could not remember.”

“Yes,” said Felicity. “What was it?”

“It came to me in the middle of the night. It was Bride. Yes, yes, her name was Mrs. Bride.”

Chapter Eight

“You have had a shock,” said the marquess as he climbed in beside Felicity and picked up the reins. “What was all that about?”

“Drive on,” said Felicity quietly, “and I will tell you.” He flicked the reins, and the horses tossed their manes and set out along the esplanade at a brisk trot. They had gone a little way when he slowed their pace and then said, “Now, what did she say that upset you so?”

“That was a Mrs. Crabtree,” said Felicity. “I met her last night. She and her companions were talking about an old scandal. The Prince of Wales came here as a young man. One of the local matrons set her cap at him. I asked if the lady’s name had been Mrs. Waverley, and Mrs. Crabtree said no. She has just told me she remembers the name. It was Bride. Mrs. Bride.”

“And what is the significance of that?”

“That was the surname we had at the orphanage, Fanny, Frederica, and I. Bride. Oh, do you think …?”

“I do not think it possible that the now Prince Regent stayed long enough to father three girls in Scarborough, however long ago, without the scandal being generally known. The occasional by-blow can be hushed up, but not three of them.”

“So you think it might be a coincidence?”

“No, not exactly. It only adds to the mystery.”

He turned into Cliff Place East, a cul-de-sac. The buildings were three stories high and made of red brick, in good order, and with the steps well-scrubbed.

The houses were divided up into apartments. They rang bells and knocked at doors, but no one appeared to have heard of Mrs. Waverley. The rent was collected by a man from the lawyer’s office; that was all they knew.

“Is there anyone quite old living here?” asked the marquess. He was told there was an old lady called Mrs. Shaw who lived in the attic at number seventeen.

It seemed a long climb up to the attic, and Felicity wondered how an old lady managed to cope with so many stairs.

Mrs. Shaw answered the door herself. She was a dwarf of an old lady, with wisps of white hair escaping from under an enormous cap. Her face was crisscrossed with wrinkles, and she had ugly white hairs sprouting from her chin, but her faded gray eyes were sharp with intelligence. They introduced themselves and were ushered in, the marquess ducking his head to avoid bumping it on the low ceiling. The room was neat and clean, a clutter of odd bits of furniture, bric-a-brac, shawls and fans, and a linnet in a cage by the window.

The marquess explained they were trying to find out about a Mrs. Waverley, and Mrs. Shaw shook her head. “I can remember everyone I ever met, and I never knew a Mrs. Waverley,” she said.

“But she owns this property,” cried Felicity.

“Ah, but I never met or knew the owner of this property,” said Mrs. Shaw. “Someone in London, I believe.”

Felicity turned her head away to hide her disappointment. The marquess was just picking up his hat and gloves again to take his leave when Felicity suddenly said, “But did you ever know a Mrs. Bride?”

“Ah, her,” said Mrs. Shaw with a cackle of laughter. “What a woman!”

“Tell me about her,” said Felicity.

“She was a buxom, handsome lass who had just given birth to a baby girl. Her husband was a rich landowner. I think he owned coal mines in Durham, although they lived in York. They came here so Mrs. Bride could drink the waters and recuperate after the birth. The Prince of Wales, a wild young man at that time, came here, and well, they barely tried to hide their love for each other.”

“Mrs. Bride and the prince?”

“Yes.”

“And what happened?”

“Such a scandal it was,” said Mrs. Shaw dreamily. “Such excitement. And then all at once it was over. The Brides disappeared from Scarborough, and the prince’s fancy was taken by someone else, quite a plain woman.”

“Do you know her name?”

“Let me see, it was a Lady Torry, a Scottish lady.”

“Do you know exactly where in York the Brides lived?”

“I could not say. No one here ever saw either of them again.”

“So we had better travel to York today,” said the marquess as they climbed into the carriage again. “I am sure if we find out about the Brides, we will find out about Mrs. Waverley.”

They were turning out of the cul-de-sac when Felicity thought she saw two people she recognized, but when she twisted about and looked back, there was no one there.

“That’s odd,” she said. “I thought I saw Comfrey and Harris. They were standing at the corner of the street. But I must be mistaken.”

“Just in case you are not mistaken,” he said grimly, “we had better set out for York right away.”

Agnes was upset at the speed of their departure. She scribbled a hasty note to the comte to say she had gone to York and that Darkwater had sent a servant to reserve rooms for them at the Swan Inn. She felt for a moment she should tell him she could not see him again, but then the idea that a jealous suitor in hot pursuit might bring the marquess up to the mark occurred to her, so she sent him her love instead.

But she did wish she had told the comte to be careful in approaching her again, for the marquess’s servants were all armed, pistols primed and ready, and Felicity was calmly sitting in the traveling carriage and priming her little pistol like a veteran.

“Why are you doing that?” cried Agnes. “It is a sunny day, and we shall reach York by nightfall. There is no fear of highwaymen.”

“You never know” was all Felicity would say.

“Are you any nearer in solving the mystery?” asked Agnes curiously.

“Perhaps. I do not know.”

“Poor Simon,” sighed Agnes. “I am sure it is a burdensome task for him. I am sure he now wishes to wed and to return with his bride to the West Indies.”

Felicity carefully placed the loaded pistol on the seat beside her and said in a colorless voice, “I did not know he was interested in any lady.”

Agnes gave a sly little giggle. “I will not betray Simon’s secret, but be assured, he is on the point of proposing marriage.”

“Why did he not tell me?” asked Felicity. “I would have gone on with the investigation myself.”

“Well, it is not likely he would confide something of such an intimate nature to you,” said Agnes. “I, being of his own blood, am a different matter.”

“And who is this lady?”

“I was told in confidence,” said Agnes primly.

Felicity felt very low. She had thought he had been on the point of kissing her last night. She must have been mistaken. Of course he had no interest in her. He had been friendly and charming, but he had shown not one sign of wishing their relationship to be anything more serious, and he had had ample opportunity to do so, had he wished.

The carriage jolted across the moors, the sun shone down, and Felicity felt more miserable than she could ever remember feeling in the whole of her life.

Then as they were traveling through a tract of deserted moorland, the horses suddenly reared and plunged. The carriage slewed across the road, and there came a hoarse cry of “Stand and deliver!”

Agnes screamed and flung herself facedown on the floor. There came several sharp explosions. Felicity seized her pistol, let down the glass, and leaned out. The carriage dipped and swayed as the marquess and his coachman jumped down from the box. The grooms and outriders were standing around two men who were sitting on the ground, one nursing his leg and the other his arm.

Felicity opened the door and climbed down onto the road and went to join the marquess.

“Take off their masks,” ordered the marquess. The groom, John, stooped down and ripped off the masks. From behind them, Agnes’s hysterical screams sounded from the carriage.

“Harris and Comfrey,” said Felicity.

“They are both lucky to be alive,” said the marquess. “Go back to the carriage and keep that silly woman away while I question these men, Miss Felicity. Tell her they are highwaymen.”

Felicity reluctantly returned to the carriage. Agnes was writhing on the floor, letting out piercing screams for help.

“Now, now, Agnes,” said Felicity wearily. “It is all over. Two highwaymen held us up, but the marquess or his servants wounded them.”

Outside on the road, the marquess leveled his pistol at Harris and Comfrey. “One of you had better talk,” he said. “I can put your masks back on and shoot you dead and say I thought you were the highwaymen you pretended to be.”

Harris cursed and clutched his wounded leg. “It was a joke,” he said hoarsely. “Did it for a wager.”

The marquess turned to John. “Shoot him in the other leg, John,” he said. The groom raised his pistol and took aim.

“No,” screamed Comfrey. “Leave Harris alone. I’ll tell you. I don’t know what it’s about but a friend of Prinny’s told us to stop you somehow and turn you back to London. He said there was a purse of gold in it for us. We didn’t ask any questions.”

“Then hear this,” said the marquess. “You may make your own way to the nearest doctor and get your wounds attended to and then I suggest you return to London as fast as possible and tell the Prince Regent or whoever of his courtiers employed you that I shall be coming to see the prince on my return, and if he does not want a scandal to break about his ears, he had better leave me alone. Do you understand?” Both men nodded dumbly.

Agnes could hardly believe it as the coach began to roll forward again. She tried to catch a glimpse of the highwaymen, but by the time she put her head out of the window, the coach had turned a bend in the road and they were lost to view.

“What is Simon about?” she asked. “Why did he not keep a guard on them while he sent someone for the constable?”

“I do not know,” said Felicity, more shaken by Agnes’s news that the marquess meant to marry than by the attempted attack. “Please be quiet, Agnes, and stop asking questions. I have the headache.”

Agnes sat back sulkily. She had screamed her best, yet the marquess had not even put his head in at the door to see how she was. She was glad she had not given the comte his quittance.

They arrived among the narrow lanes and twisted and jumbled buildings of York as night was falling. The old Tudor houses overhung the street, cutting off what little light of the day was left.

The Swan Inn was near the Minster, a bustling, prosperous place. They were all hungry, having not stopped to dine on the road, and were soon seated in a private parlor to enjoy a late supper. The landlord apologized for the paucity of the fare while his waiters set down a meal that would not have disgraced the finest table in England. There was a first course of macaroni soup and boiled mackerel, followed by entrées of scallops of fowl and lobster pudding. The second course consisted of boiled leg of lamb and spinach, roast sirloin of beef and horseradish sauce, and the third course of roast hare and salad, soufflé of rice, cheesecakes, strawberry jam tartlets, and orange jelly.

Agnes forgot her love life and ate her way steadily through the meal. Her downfall came with the strawberry tartlets. Neither the marquess nor Felicity wanted any, so Agnes ate the whole plateful, and by the time the covers were removed and the port passed round, she was feeling decidedly ill. She said weakly to the marquess that she wished to retire to her room for a few moments and made her escape. Instead, she went to the outside privy and was very sick indeed, after which she felt quite refreshed, Agnes being quite accustomed to gorging herself and then being ill. She then went to her room to bathe her face and put a little rouge on her cheeks. Simon should not be left alone with Felicity for too long. So wearisome for the poor man. Felicity would no doubt be talking about crops or drainage or some such boring thing.

Just before she left, she glanced out her window, which overlooked the inn yard, and saw the Comte D’Angiers strolling across the cobbles. She half raised her hand and then backed away. He would expect her to take that receipt for the jewels. And why bother? Why ruin her chances of being a marchioness?

A silence fell between the marquess and Felicity after Agnes had left the room. At last he said gently, “What is the matter? I know you have had a dreadful fright, but I am sure something else is troubling you.”

“I feel guilty,” said Felicity in a low voice.

“About what?”

“About you, my lord. You are chasing across the north of England on my affairs when you should be in London making preparations for your wedding.”

“I? What or who put such a silly idea in your head?”

“Agnes … Miss Joust… said you were about to marry.”

His lips tightened. “Miss Joust becomes sillier and more wearisome by the minute. I have no intention of marrying anyone at the moment.”

“Oh.” Felicity knew she should feel relieved, but she continued to feel low in spirits. That “no intention of marrying anyone” had done the damage.

She looked at him from under her lashes. He was leaning back in his chair, studying her face with a mixture of affection and amusement.

Felicity wished he would look at her in some different way, that he would show some sign of being attracted to her. Her head ached. She rose to her feet, and he rose as well. “Excuse me, my lord,” she said. “I must lie down.”

He stood aside to let her pass, and then his hand seemed to shoot out of its own volition to catch her by the arm. “Felicity,” he said.

She looked up into his eyes. He was looking down at her warily, apprehensively.

How she found the courage to do it, how she instinctively knew she must do it, she never knew. But something made her put both her hands against his chest. He gently brushed a tendril of hair back from her face.

“Felicity,” he said again. His lips met hers in a cool, firm kiss, almost a boyish kiss. Felicity’s body leapt into flame, her lips softening against his. He gave a muffled exclamation and held her closely, burying his mouth in hers, delighted and amazed at her answering passion, moving his hands to caress her cheeks and then burying them in the thick tresses of her hair as his mouth explored hers and his lean hard body fused against the softness of her own. At the back of his brain, he felt he should say something, make some declaration of love, but he was frightened to break the spell. His whole world had narrowed down to this raftered inn room with the smells of wine and cooking, the smoky fire, the flower perfume she wore, the feel of her lips and skin, the ecstasy of that young body pulsing against his own.

Agnes softly opened the door and then stood, stricken.

They did not hear her. The marquess slowly gathered Felicity up in his arms and sat down, cradling her on his lap.

Agnes quietly closed the door again and leaned her back against it, her face flaming with mortification. She might have known it. Felicity Waverley was a slut! He would not marry her. He could not marry such as she. But while he was dallying with that tart, that wanton, that Felicity, he could not notice the pearl of womanhood that was Agnes Joust. She adjusted her shawl about her shoulders with shaking fingers and went downstairs and out into the courtyard of the inn and looked about. A black shadow moved in the blackness of the corner of the courtyard near the stables. She made her way toward it, calling softly, “My dear comte! Is it really you?”

***

The marquess freed his lips at last and said softly against Felicity’s hair. “Do I frighten you?”

“No. Yes. Are you dallying with me because I am available?”

“You enchant me.”

He tenderly kissed her throat. “Now I must leave you,” he said.

Felicity shivered, suddenly cold. “Why? Where are you going?”

“To get a special license, my love.”

Felicity Waverley’s hazel eyes blazed with love and relief. “Oh, Simon,” she cried, and flung herself against his chest with such force that the chair toppled backward and spilled them both onto the floor. He rolled over on top of her and then kissed her lovingly and longingly, straining her to him.

He said at last, “Do we need to go on with this business? Does it really matter who or what Mrs. Waverley was? Or this Mrs. Bride?”

Felicity sighed. “Yes, it does. I have a feeling we are very close to the solution.”

“Then we will go ahead with it. But you must realize we will be married whether your parents turn out to be jailbirds or something equally horrible. I do not want you turning to me and renouncing me through some mistaken idea of honor.”

“I’ll never let you go,” said Felicity.

“Then kiss me again.”

***

“Kiss me again, darling Agnes,” the comte was saying.

Agnes held back a little. Disappointment in the marquess was making her more inclined to be more suspicious than she would normally have been. “Before I kiss you,” she said, “when are we to be married?”

“As soon as we collect the jewels, light of my life.”

Agnes looked mutinous. “If you loved me, you would get a special license and marry me now. Perhaps it is only the jewels you want.”

The comte thought quickly. He had been married twice before. What difference would a third make? And he could soon be shot of her once he had his hands on the Waverley jewels.

“I shall get a special license in the morning,” he said. “Now kiss me.”

“Meet me on the steps of the Minster tomorrow at ten in the morning with the special license,” said Agnes, “and then I will give you the receipt.”

***

Drugged and dizzy with kisses and caresses, Felicity stirred in the marquess’s arms. “I do not think we should tell Agnes,” she said softly. “She is a little in love with you, I think.”

“I will put her on the London stage tomorrow!”

“But she has nowhere to go.”

“One of my aunts in Devon will, I think, accept Agnes as a guest until I find somewhere to settle her. I shall send her to London with a generous amount of money so she may stay at one of the best hotels before journeying on to Devon. She must go as soon as possible because I am going to marry you as soon as it can be arranged.”

“But does it not take two weeks to get a special license?”

“Not when so many of the clergy are in need of money. I shall marry you again in London. Will you come to the Indies with me?”

“Of course. I am very strong. You must not worry about me. It must have been a sad blow losing your wife. You never speak of her.”

“The marriage did not last very long. I… it was not really a marriage.”

“Why?”

They were now sitting in an armchair in front of the fire. He said against her hair, “I frightened her. Physically. She would not have me in her bed. I do not want to frighten you or disgust you, Felicity, for if you rejected me, I could not bear it.”

Felicity took a deep breath. “Come now, Simon. Come to my bedchamber and let us lay your ghosts.”

“After marriage, my brave girl. Kiss me again and then I shall go out in the streets of York to find a special license.”

But it took the marquess at least half an hour to tear himself away from more kisses and embraces.

Agnes heard the marquess returning at two in the morning. Her room was next to Felicity’s. She opened her door a crack to make sure it was he. A dim lamp in the corridor showed her it was indeed the marquess, and he was knocking softly at Felicity’s door.

As Agnes watched, Felicity opened the door. She was wearing a filmy nightgown with priceless lace at the neck and wrists. She stretched up and wound her arms around the marquess’s neck and then she drew him into the room and closed the door behind them.

Slut! thought Agnes furiously. She dived into bed and put the pillow over her ears in case any disgraceful sounds of lovemaking should penetrate from the next room.

“I not only have a special license,” the marquess was saying, “but I think I have found out where we can go to solve the mystery. The clergyman who gave me the license was quite old. He hemmed and hawed at the speed of the matter, but he needs money badly in order to feed the poor of his parish, and I paid him well. We fell to talking. He had never heard of anyone called Waverley, but he did remember a Mr. Bride. He said the rector of St. Edmund the King by the south gate of the city had a wealthy landowner called Bride among his parishioners and there was some dreadful scandal years ago. We shall go to this rector in the morning. Now I am going to leave you alone before I misbehave myself.”

He lifted her up and carried her to the bed and laid her gently down on it. He bent his head and kissed her tenderly. She pulled him down on top of her, and the bedsprings creaked, and next door Agnes bit the bolster in a fury and pulled the pillow more tightly about her ears.

At last, he disengaged himself. “We will be married the day after tomorrow,” he said. “We can wait till then.”

***

The marquess arose early the next morning and summoned Agnes to the private parlor. He looked tired but happy. Agnes thought he looked soiled.

“Your duties with us are finished, Miss Joust,” said the marquess. “I have made arrangements for you to catch the royal mail coach at six this evening. I shall give you enough money to allow you to live at the best hotel in London for a week, and then I suggest you go to Aunt Tabitha’s in Exbridge in Devon. She is kind, and you may stay there as her guest until I manage to make provision for you. I do not like to think of any relative of mine condemned to spend the rest of her days working as a companion. When I return to London, I shall see my lawyers and arrange for a settlement to be made on you. You will have a yearly pension and a sum of money as a dowry.”

Agnes stared at him with her mouth open. It was a generous offer. More than generous, although her vanity stopped her from realizing the marquess was possibly the only man in England kind enough to consider her to be still of a marriageable age. But the better side of her nature was soon silenced by her jealousy. She longed for revenge on Felicity, and what better revenge was there than taking away the Waverley jewels?

But she could not refuse to go. She would try to get the comte to travel on the mail coach with her.

She waited eagerly, hoping the marquess and Felicity would set out early so she could meet the comte at the Minster at ten o’clock.

To her relief, they set out at nine. She hurried to Felicity’s bedchamber and found to her annoyance that the door was locked. But as she was known to be Felicity’s companion, she was able to persuade the landlord to unlock the door with the spare key.

She went straight to Felicity’s traveling desk, hoping that, too, would not prove to be locked. But she raised the lid easily and looked inside. She ignored the other papers as she scrabbled about, looking for the receipt. At last, she found it. She was arranging the other papers back in place when her eye fell on a letter from a London bookseller. In it, the bookseller was congratulating Felicity on the good sales of her first novel, The Love Match, and said he was looking forward to receiving her next manuscript.

Agnes was flooded with a heady feeling of triumph. Before she got on that mail coach, the marquess, dear Simon, should know Felicity Waverley had written that dreadful, that shocking, book.

When she met the comte on the steps of York Minster under the shadow of the great twin towers, she was by far the happier and livelier of the two. The comte had had no intention of paying any large sum of money to get a special license at short notice. He had become an expert forger and so he had been up all night forging the license. He held it out, and Agnes blushed and smiled and handed him the receipt for the jewels. “But you must be quick,” she urged. “Felicity has poisoned Simon’s mind against me, and he is sending me off on the mail coach this evening at six. He says he will give me enough money to stay at a grand hotel in London before journeying to Aunt Tabitha in Devon.”

The comte thought quickly. He was staying in modest lodgings, but he had very little money left.

“I will not have time to book a seat on the mail coach myself, Agnes, my precious. Could you please secure a place for me, and I will reimburse you?”

Agnes readily agreed. “Try to stop Miss Waverley or Darkwater from coming to see you off,” he added. “I cannot conceal my love for you, and they might see it in my face. The bank receipt will be easily forged. I shall get it to you within the hour, and then we may look forward to our marriage.”

Agnes sighed romantically and agreed.

***

Felicity and the marquess walked with the rector in the walled garden of his home while the old man rambled on and digressed and then suddenly began to talk about Mr. Bride. “He was a very strict man. He was a printer at one time, and he gradually bought up land. He was called a landowner, but he did not own broad acres belonging to one estate. He had pieces of land here and property there and then coal was discovered on one of his pieces of land in Durham and then on another. He became very rich indeed. He married a young lady some fifteen years his junior in this very church. She was the daughter of a curate and had practically nothing in the way of a dowry. She had three daughters, one after the other, and after the birth of the last, he took her to Scarborough to recuperate, leaving the new baby and the other two with a nurse.

“He returned from Scarborough and came to see me. He was a broken man. He said his wife had had an affair with some highborn gentleman and he would never forgive her or speak to her again and he had turned her out in the streets. I cried out in vain against his cruelty. I begged him to make some provision for her. He said he did not want to be reminded of her. The next thing I heard, he had sent the children away. What became of Mrs. Bride I shudder to think. People are very cruel.

“Then five years later he died. His will was published, and it was a great surprise. He left all his money to Mrs. Bride. Whether the lawyers found her or not, I do not know.”

“But did Mrs. Bride not return to her father?” asked the marquess.

“She tried. But her mother was dead and her father in ailing health. He would have nothing to do with her.”

“Have you ever heard of a Mrs. Waverley?” asked Felicity.

“Let me see. I remember a Miss Waverley who was a close friend of Mrs. Bride. She, too, was a curate’s daughter and lived in a village outside York called Lower Demper.”

“Let us go to this Miss Waverley now,” urged Felicity after they had bade the rector good-bye.

“I think we should go tomorrow morning. I have made arrangements for us to be married at two tomorrow afternoon. Besides, we must say good-bye to Miss Joust. You may learn some sad news, Felicity. It is more than likely you are the daughters of poor Mrs. Bride who was turned out in the streets to die. But if that is the case and Mrs. Bride is indeed dead, then the Bride fortune belongs to you and your sisters.”

“I would rather find Mrs. Bride alive,” said Felicity.

They went immediately to Agnes’s room on their return. She was sitting waiting demurely, her bonnet on her head and her corded trunk at her feet. In her hand she held a letter, which she handed to the marquess. “Read that,” she said, then sat back with her hands folded and a smile of triumph on her face.

“That’s my letter!” cried Felicity, her face flaming. “You have no right, no right at all, to read my correspondence.”

The marquess handed the letter to Felicity and said coldly to Agnes, “Are you ready to leave?”

“But the letter!” cried Agnes, starting up. “She wrote that book.”

“I knew Miss Felicity wrote that book long before I met her,” said the marquess. “I thought she must be a very fast young lady. Then I discovered her racy knowledge came from a good grounding in the classics. I hope after we are married Felicity will continue to write.”

Agnes’s nose turned bright red. “Marry? You cannot marry her. She is a wanton.”

“Miss Joust, if you persist in insulting my future wife,” said the marquess evenly, “I must withdraw my generous offer.”

There was nothing the now-frightened Agnes could do but beg Felicity’s pardon. But her spite had had the effect of stopping either Felicity or the marquess from going to the mail coach to say good-bye to her. John, the groom, was sent instead.

Agnes climbed into the mail coach. The comte was already there. She sat down beside him. “We shall be married as soon as we reach London,” she said.

“Alas,” said the comte, “the special license I got in York will not serve in London. We must wait a few days until I find another.”

“Give me the receipt for the jewels,” said Agnes, a sharp fear gripping her.

“There is no need, my love. I have it safe.”

“Give it to me,” said Agnes evenly, “or I shall return to the inn and tell Darkwater what we have done.”

He reluctantly handed over the receipt, which Agnes popped down the front of her dress and wedged in the top of her corset.

The couple waited tensely as the clocks of York began to chime six o’clock.

“Will he never move?” cried the comte.

“Always waits for the Minster clock,” said a fat lady who had just climbed in.

Then there was a great boom from the Minster clock, the first stroke of six. The coachman cracked his whip, and the mail coach began to move off.

Agnes tried to remind herself she had nothing to fear, she would soon be married to this handsome man. But no rosy fantasy came to soothe her, only increasing dread that he meant to cheat her.

***

Miss Waverley, it transpired, ran the village school. She sent word to them that she refused to be disturbed until school was over. The marquess smiled at Felicity and said they may as well pass the time by getting married as planned. To Felicity, it was all a dream, the dark church, the hired witnesses, the brief service.

“I don’t really feel married,” she said timidly as they left the church.

“It will grow on you,” he remarked cheerfully.

“I still cannot get over that you knew all along I had written that book,” said Felicity.

“I think I probably fell in love with you then,” said the marquess, “when I saw you standing in that dark bookshop, clutching your manuscript. Now let us find out what this Miss Waverley has to say for herself.”

Miss Waverley ushered them into her home, a small cottage beside the school. She was a tall, thin lady with a mannish figure and a stern face.

Felicity explained that she suspected Mrs. Bride might be her mother and wondered whether she was still alive.

Her heart beat hard as Miss Waverley replied, “She is still alive.”

“Where may I find her?”

“I would like to write to her first and see whether she wants to see you,” said Miss Waverley. “She does not reside near here. She lives in the south. If you give me your address in London, I will write to you there and let you know what she says.”

“And is she indeed my mother?” asked Felicity desperately.

“If you tell me a little of your history, Miss …?”

“Lady Darkwater,” said the marquess. “We are newly wed.”

Miss Waverley bowed from the waist. “My felicitations, Lady Darkwater.”

“All I can remember is the orphanage,” said Felicity. “The Pevensey orphanage. Fanny has some memory of another place before that, but not anything very clear. A Mrs. Waverley came to the orphanage one day and adopted the three of us, Fanny, Frederica, and me. We lived with her in Hanover Square until she ran away to marry Baron Meldon. Tell me about Mrs. Bride. We came looking for Mrs. Waverley’s past and found Mrs. Bride’s.”

“You know about the scandal?” asked Miss Waverley.

Felicity nodded.

“She came to me, quite distraught. By that time, my parents were dead and I was even then running the school. She had always been a heedless, flighty thing, and I told her a woman with an uneducated mind had no resources. And so I proceeded to educate her. She had an agile mind and soon outstripped my knowledge. And then after five years, I read that Bride had died. I contacted his lawyers despite Mrs. Bride’s protests that he would have left her nothing. On the contrary, he had left her everything. I told her she now had her chance to build a school for young ladies and educate them as I had educated her. But the flighty part of her was still there. She said she was going to go to London to find her daughters. She settled a generous annuity on me, but I preferred to remain here and teach.”

Felicity looked at Miss Waverley’s stern face and then said slowly. “You do not need to write to my mother. I know who she is. She changed her name to Waverley, did she not? She went to the orphanage and adopted her own daughters. Oh, why did she not tell us who she was? Why did she treat us so unnaturally, keeping us mewed up, playing tricks on us, setting us against one another?”

“It is her story,” said Miss Waverley harshly, “and you must ask her her reasons.” She stood up to indicate the interview was at an end.

“I shall never forgive her. Never!” cried Felicity as they drove back to York.

“Then you will always wonder and wonder why she did it,” pointed out the marquess. “The social column of the Morning Post today says both Lady Tredair and Lady Danger are back in London. There is an address for Fanny, Lady Tredair. Write to her and suggest the three of you to go to see Mrs. Waverley.”

“Perhaps,” said Felicity. “I should be relieved to find my parents were actually married and not criminals, but had they been, then they would have had an excuse for sending me to an orphanage.”

As he drove into the inn yard, he said, “Do not look so downcast, my love. Remember we are married. Are you still worrying about Mrs. Waverley?”

“No, Simon. I was wondering if losing my virginity was going to be very painful.”

“You have no doubt read extensively on the subject?” he said, half-exasperated, half-amused.

“Yes,” said Felicity, hanging her head.

“Well, my love, there is no need to rush into things. I can wait.” He helped her down from the carriage and tossed a coin to a hostler who had come running out.

He tucked her hand in his arm and led her toward the inn. “I would not frighten you or hurt you for the world,” he said gently. “You have had an upsetting day.”

Felicity frowned and worried all the way up to her room, remembering what he had said about his first wife.

At the door to her room, he kissed her gently on the forehead. “I shall see you at dinner,” he said. “I must speak to the landlord. We are late again.”

Felicity looked up at him, her eyes wide and dark. Then she turned and opened the door, then seized him by the hand and pulled him inside.

“What are you doing?” he asked, as she tore off her bonnet and pelisse and began to fumble with the tapes of her gown.

“I am getting into that bed with you,” said Mrs. Waverley’s daughter, “before I change my mind.”

***

The York Minster clock boomed out the first stroke of midnight. Felicity lay with her head on her husband’s naked chest. She awoke and rolled on top of him and luxuriously stretched against him, marveling how well their bodies fitted together.

He awoke, and his arms went tightly around her. “What are you doing, my wanton?” he asked.

“Still trying to complete my education,” mumbled Felicity as his hands slid down to her bottom.

***

The next afternoon, Felicity sat at her writing desk and sleepily pulled a blank sheet of paper toward her. She began to write: “Dear Fanny.” Then she frowned and tore up the paper, took a fresh sheet, and wrote: “My very dear sister.”

At last she finished the letter and sanded it. She opened her desk to find a stick of sealing wax, when her eye fell on the bank receipt for the jewels. She picked it up and looked at it. Something was not quite right about it. The receipt, she remembered, had been in heavy black ink. But the ink now was a faded brown. The comte had not used the best ink for his forgery.

She stared at it. Agnes had been searching in this desk, which was how Agnes had found the bookseller’s letter.

She picked it up and went through to her husband’s room.

“Simon,” she said, “do but look at this receipt. There is something odd about it. Do but mark the color of the ink. Then the bank manager, Mr. Lombard, had an odd curly flourish at the end of the d.”

The marquess took out his quizzing glass and studied the document. He let out his breath in a long hiss. “A forgery. Damn that long-nosed grasping bitch.”

“Can we let the bank know in time?”

He shook his head. “She went by mail coach, and nothing is faster than that. She will probably go straight to the bank as soon as she arrives.”

“But they will surely not give her the jewels without a letter from me.”

“Whoever forged this for her, if she did not do it herself, will no doubt forge a suitable letter for her.”

“Then I am penniless … apart from the house in Hanover Square.”

He put his arms around her. “After the riches you gave me last night, my sweeting, I do not care a damn about the Waverley jewels.”

“Are you sure?”

“Come to bed and I will show you how very sure I am.”

As he unfastened the tapes of her gown, Felicity said shyly, “Do people make love all day and night like us?”

Her gown fell to the floor followed by her petticoat. He put his hands over her naked breasts and sighed against her hair. “Who cares about what other people do. It is what we do to each other that matters. Damn Agnes Joust. The jewels will never bring her one fraction of the pleasure we enjoy.”

***

Agnes Joust followed the bank manager down to the vaults, her heart beating hard. At Limmer’s Hotel, the comte was waiting for her return. He had given her a forged letter supposed to come from Felicity. He had tenderly kissed her goodbye and promised to marry her on the following morning.

But Agnes did not believe him. The part of her mind that had manufactured all those fantasies to trick her and comfort her did not seem to be able to work anymore. She now knew his hair was dyed. She knew his French accent was false. She knew she was afraid of him. On her way to the bank, she had torn up his forged letter. She presented herself to Mr. Lombard, the manager, as Miss Waverley’s companion and said Miss Waverley had instructed her to fetch a few items from the box. She looked a highly respectable lady, and she did have the receipt. The manager saw no reason to doubt her. Agnes felt sure if she only took some of the jewels and not all, Felicity would not trouble to report her to the authorities.

She had brought a large wash leather bag with her. Into it, she put the emerald necklace and bracelet. She would never sell those. Then a diamond parure, a sapphire brooch, a diamond tiara, twelve fine rings of various precious stones, and a collar of rubies.

She remained calm and ladylike until she was seated once more in the hired hack that had brought her, and then she burst into tears because nobody loved her and she was nothing more than a common thief.

She returned to the hotel where, unknown to the comte, she had packed her luggage early that morning and left it downstairs. She sweetly told the manager that she was leaving and that the Comte D’Angiers who was abovestairs would settle the bill. The hack was still waiting. She went straight to Rundell & Bridge, the famous jewelers, and, looking the very picture of respectability, sold the diamond parure for a very large sum of money indeed. Afterward she returned to the hack and continued on to the city, where she bought a seat on the mail coach for Dover. Napoleon no longer terrorized Europe, and she could travel freely. She endured the long miles of the journey in a frozen calm. She endured all the rigors of a rough crossing without complaint. She traveled in a foul stagecoach to Paris, barely noticing the discomfort. Once in Paris, she went to the best hotel, bespoke the best suite of rooms, telling the manager her lady’s maid would be arriving shortly. Then she roused herself enough to go around the suite and turn all the pornographic pictures the French assumed the English visitors would adore to the wall. After that she lay on the silken cover of the bed and listened to the sounds of Paris.

And then all at once, that part of her mind that had seemed to be frozen for so long came back to life. Paris was full of handsome and dashing men. She would go downstairs to dine, and she would wear her lilac silk gown and the emeralds. He would approach her. “I am smitten with your beauty,” he would say. He would be tall and blond and English. He would not be a mere marquess, but a duke. Agnes closed her eyes and smiled and followed the dream all the way back across the Channel to her triumphal wedding at Westminster Abbey, and was happy last.

***

The Comte D’Angiers trudged along the Dover road, his boots cracked and his fine clothes covered with chalky dust. He had been wandering ever since his escape from the hotel. He did not know what had gone wrong. He had been so sure of Agnes, so very sure. He was wondering who he was going to pretend to be next. He would wait until nightfall and then stagger up the drive of some country home and say he had been attacked by highwaymen and his luggage and carriage stolen. He looked to right and left as he walked along, searching for a suitable mansion. Perhaps he should pretend to be a comte still. The ladies were his mark, and the ladies all had a soft spot for French aristocrats.

Then he saw a pair of imposing gateposts. He stopped before he reached them. He did not want the lodgekeeper to see him. He climbed over the wall and slipped quietly into the green gloom of a small wood. He heard someone coming and lay down in a tangle of brush and brambles until he heard whoever it was go away. He would wait until dark, walk to the drive, then stagger up it and collapse artistically on the doorstep.

The owner of the mansion was a choleric squire with a passionate hatred for poachers. He stared wrathfully at his lodgekeeper. “What d’ye mean, Jem … there’s a ruffian on the grounds?”

“I marked him approaching the lodge,” said the lodgekeeper, “but he never come past. Shabby individual. Must have climbed over the wall.”

“Get the gamekeepers out and tell them to shoot on sight this time. I’m wasting no more time in court.”

Night fell and a full moon rode above, silvering the landscape.

The comte rose stiffly from his hiding place, his bright blue coat grass-stained. He made his way cautiously toward the drive. He could not risk going to the gates in case the lodgekeeper refused him admission. He would say he had staggered over the wall after he had been beaten up by the highwaymen. He hoped there was some pretty lady in the house whose heart would be melted by his plight.

And then there was a flash of fire, and something struck him with a blow like a hammer in the chest. He cried out in sheer amazement, and as he fell dying to the ground, his last thought was that somehow it was all Agnes Joust’s fault.

Chapter Nine

The three sisters sat in the drawing room of Baroness Meldon’s home and awaited the arrival of their mother. The baron was visiting an old friend in a neighboring county, and his servants had not felt able to turn away three titled ladies from the gates.

The double doors to the drawing room were thrown open and Baroness Meldon, or Mrs. Waverley, as she would always be to her daughters, walked in.

Her eyes ranged coldly from Fanny’s golden beauty to Frederica’s gypsyish looks to the slim elegance of Felicity.

“Why are you come?” she demanded harshly. “I have no time for you.”

“Why not, mother dear?” demanded Felicity.

The baroness held onto a chair back for support. “You know?” she whispered.

“Yes, we know,” flashed Frederica. “But what we do not know is why you should rescue us from that orphanage where we were placed through no fault of yours, yet not let us know we were your children.”

“But why must you know?” demanded the baroness passionately. “You never cared for me, any of you. You have all married well. What do you want of me?”

“We demand an explanation, and we will stay here until we get it,” said Fanny in a cold, hard voice.

The baroness sat down and put her hands on her knees like a fisherwoman and glared at them. “Very well. I hope I have trained your brains sufficiently so you will understand and not be shocked.

“I had just given birth to you, Felicity. It had been a hard labor, and the doctor advised Mr. Bride to take me to Scarborough to take the waters. I had never been in love with your father. Does that surprise you? But my family had no money, and I was tired of being poor. I craved fine clothes and jewels and fun. My husband was a dour, withdrawn man, very religious. My life in York was dull and tedious.

“And then we went to Scarborough. Scarborough. What a magical place it seemed. All light and color and fine people and witty conversation. Then the Prince of Wales arrived with his entourage. I persuaded my husband to let me attend a ball that a certain Lady Torry was giving in the prince’s honor. He saw me and asked me to dance—me, and nobody else. We fell madly in love. He was so beautiful then. We tried to be discreet, but word finally got to my husband. I told him I was going to live with the prince as his mistress. Then emissaries arrived from King George’s court. I do not know what they said to the prince, but he refused to see me. My husband took me back to York. He said not a word on the journey, but when I got down from the carriage, he told the servants to keep me outside. He called me a harlot and told me to make my living on the streets. I went to my father, and he turned me away as well.

“I finally went to Miss Waverley, a schoolteacher. She told me I was suffering from neglecting my mind and education. She told me that men were beasts and fickle and only interested in women to satisfy their desires. I did not believe her.

“She lent me money, and I went back to Scarborough to see the prince. This time I did see him. He held me to him and kissed me and then he told me I must go away and never see him again. I asked him why. The pompous fool said I was causing a scandal and I owed it to England to leave him alone.”

She fell silent, and the girls waited. Then she began to speak again.

“The contempt I felt for him soon cured me of my infatuation. All my hate was reserved for Mr. Bride. I learned through my spies that he had become slightly deranged and claimed you were probably not his daughters and so he had a nurse take you south and pay a foundling hospital to take you, and then he had you transferred to the orphanage. You were neither foundlings nor orphans, but then, money can take care of everything.

“When he died and left me all his money, it was like a miracle. I planned to take you out of the orphanage, and when the time was right, I would tell you I was really your mother.

“But there was no natural bond between us, no affection. I cried out for your love, and you spurned me.”

“That is not true,” said Frederica hotly. “You would whisper wicked tales to one of us about the other so we were constantly quarreling, and when we found out what lies you were telling, we did not trust you. You could have had all our love had you told us the truth at the beginning.”

“How could I tell you the truth?” demanded the baroness. “I did not want anyone to know Mrs. Waverley was the once-scandalous Mrs. Bride. I gave you love.…”

“You fed us on a diet of constant emotional blackmail,” said Felicity. “With all your knowledge and education, you should know nothing disaffects anyone more than that.”

The baroness shook her heavy head sadly. “So ungrateful. So unkind. I am lucky to be married to a fine man. I shall try hard to forgive you, but I confess I have no liking left for any of you.”

“I suppose we should not have expected anything else,” said Fanny to Felicity and Frederica. She turned to her mother. “Well, we thank you, Mother or Baroness or Mrs. Waverley. I am sure I speak for all when I say that despite the lack of love on both sides, there is a home with one of us should you ever need us. Had it not been for your education, we might not all have been lucky enough to marry men who wanted us for ourselves alone.”

The three sisters rose to leave. “Do you still have the jewels?” the baroness asked Felicity.

“All but a few items that were stolen from me,” said Felicity. “I know the name of the thief, but my husband does not want to pursue her because of the scandal it would cause. Why do you ask? Do you want them back?”

“Yes,” said the baroness, fingering a heavy rope of pearls about her neck. “I have only a few trinkets left.”

“Then you may have the lot,” said Felicity. “I never want to see any of them again.”

“Come, let us not quarrel,” said the baroness, all smiles at last. “You will deliver the jewels as soon as you can, Felicity, my chuck? Now we will take tea.”

“No, I thank you,” said Fanny. “I feel we have spent too much time here already.”

“As you will,” said the baroness indifferently. “But the jewels. I must have the jewels. I was a fool to leave them behind.”

***

“And what did you make of that?” demanded Felicity as they got back in their carriage.

“Strangely enough, she behaved exactly as I expected her to,” said Frederica. She put her arms around both her sisters and hugged them fiercely. “We have found one another and that is all that matters.”

The baron arrived home that evening and said to his wife, “The servants say three titled ladies called.”

“Oh, them,” said his wife. “They were collecting for some charity. Do you remember, my love, that I left all the jewelry to Felicity?”

“Yes, and a damn silly thing to do, or so I thought at the time.”

“Well, the dear girl has written to me to say she is giving it all back to me. So sweet!”

“Don’t wear it all at once,” said the baron. “You used to look like a French ambassador’s house during a victory celebration.”

“Always funning,” said his wife with a fond smile. “Such a wit.”

“Yes, I know,” said the baron complacently. “I always thought it was my wit that charmed the Prince Regent into giving me the title.”

The baroness’s eyes narrowed a fraction. She was sure she knew why the prince had given him that title as she knew why she was somehow never allowed to go to London. But then she looked around at the comfort of her house and thought of her precious jewels soon to be returned to her.

“I am sure you are quite right, dear,” said the champion of women’s rights. “But then, you always are.”

***

The Marquess of Darkwater was finally ushered into the royal presence. He was not at all surprised to learn the prince had not yet gone to Brighton. He looked around the gathering of courtiers and said with a low bow, “What I have to say to you, Sire, should not be overheard.”

The prince looked at him apprehensively, but he waved his fat hand, and the company filed out.

“Now, Darkwater,” said the prince sulkily, “state your business.”

“I am come,” said the marquess, “to tell you I know all about that affair you had in Scarborough years ago with a Mrs. Bride, so there is no reason to set your bully boys on me again.”

“We don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Yes, you do. Comfrey and Harris told me they had been set on me.”

The prince seemed to crumple. “We have had enough of scandal,” he said. “Our public hates us. We had to stop it.”

“But if Your Royal Highness had simply told me the truth,” said the marquess, “I would have held my tongue. You had me believing the Waverley girls were your children.”

“Odd’s fish, man!”

“And all it turns out to be is that a youthful fling of yours nearly ruined a woman’s life. Why did you misbehave with a respectable Yorkshire matron? There are plenty of dashers at court to oblige you.”

“You would not think it to see her now,” said the prince mournfully, “but she was so fresh and innocent and beautiful. Word got to the king. We could not do anything other than give her her quittance. You will not speak of this, Darkwater?”

“Not I, Sire. I only want your assurance that I and my wife will be left in peace.”

“Our word of honor.”

“Then I shall take my leave.”

“I loved her,” said the prince, dropping the royal “we.” “I loved her very much.”

The marquess sighed. This poor fat prince would never love his wife because he fell hopelessly in love with quite unsuitable women—Mrs. Fitzherbert being his current passion, a passion that showed no signs of dying.

He bowed his way out backward and, wheeling about, strode through the gilded, overheated rooms until he reached the fresh air outside. He was walking along Pall Mall when he found himself being hailed by Mr. Fordyce.

“Darkwater,” cried Mr. Fordyce. “We are surely both the happiest of men. I read of your marriage to Felicity Waverley, and tomorrow you may read of my re-engagement to Lady Artemis.”

“I congratulate you, Fordyce. When is the wedding to be?”

“Almost immediately. My bride-to-be says she cannot wait.” He kissed his fingertips. “Such fire! Such love! One day, she was all coldness and then the next, she was in my arms. Will you attend the wedding?”

“We should be delighted. We do not sail for the Indies for another month or two.”

“Lady Artemis has gone to call on Lady Felicity. Ah, if only I could hear what my darling is saying now, how she is describing her love for me.”

***

“So I had to promise to marry the fool,” Lady Artemis was saying. “Faugh! Trapped like a rabbit.”

Felicity blushed slightly. “But did you not consider, Lady Artemis, that … er … such a thing would happen?”

“Not I. I consulted some quack during my last marriage and the idiot told me I should never breed. Children! I detest children. With all your knowledge, do you not know any way to get rid of the brat?”

Felicity wished Lady Artemis would leave and take her troubles with her. “I do not suggest you answer any of the advertisements offering such a service,” she said. “It is said the women only bleed to death or die of infection.”

Lady Artemis stood up and walked to the window. “I suppose I shall have to go through with it and then farm the wretched baby out to some nurse. I declare! There is young Lord Western lately come to town. Such an Adonis! Such legs. He is talking to that frumpy Miss Nash. Fie, what a waste. I shall descend and see if I can make life difficult for her.”

After Lady Artemis had left, Felicity crossed to the window and looked down into Hanover Square. The handsome Lord Western had been leaning against the side of a vis-a-vis talking to a young lady and her mother. Lady Artemis sailed up, parasol twirling. She stopped and spoke. Lord Western laughed. Soon Lady Artemis and Lord Western were walking off round the square in the direction of her house.

Felicity shook her head. Poor Mr. Fordyce. Did he deserve such a wife? And then Mrs. Ricketts came in to say Caroline James had called.

Felicity’s face lit up with pleasure, and she went to meet the actress with both hands outstretched in welcome.

“Tell me all your news,” said Caroline, who then listened as Felicity recounted her adventures.

“You do not need to worry about a plot for a book.” Caroline laughed. “You have had so many adventures. Why do you still live here? Darkwater has his own house, has he not?”

“We are staying here to make preparations for our journey to the West Indies,” said Felicity. “We have to find jobs for the female servants, except the inestimable Mrs. Ricketts. Fanny and Frederica are quite jealous that I am to have her with me. She says she longs to see a country where the sun shines all day long. And what of you? And what of Mr. Anderson?”

“We are to be married,” said Caroline. “His mother has left town in disgust. I fought against it. He is so young, you know, but … I am very happy with him. Do you think I am doing wrong?”

“Not at all,” said Felicity. “I shall dance at your wedding.”

Caroline took her leave, feeling elated and happy. No one in the theater seemed to consider her proposed marriage to Bernard odd, and Felicity seemed to think it was all right. She walked all the way to Covent Garden and mounted the stairs to her apartment. Bernard was lying on his stomach on the floor, drawing up sketches for yet another fantastic piece of stage machinery.

“You will make me jealous,” laughed Caroline. “The manager says you attract more people than the actors.”

“Where did you go?” he asked anxiously. “You were gone a long time.”

She knelt on the floor beside him and smoothed the hair from his brow. “I went to see Felicity Waverley. She is now married to the Marquess of Darkwater. I told her we were to be married, and she was so delighted at the news, I felt happy and decided to walk home.”

He kissed her tenderly. “You are always so sure someone will exclaim in horror at the idea. Now come and look at this design for a flying harlequin, and tell me it is the most wonderful thing you have ever seen.”

***

The Marquess of Darkwater arrived home in time to change for dinner. “No Waverley sisters?” he teased. “I was sure I would find Fanny or Frederica here. It is a wonder their husbands see anything of them at all.”

“It is marvelous to have a family,” said Felicity. They were standing in his bedroom, which he never slept in but only used as a changing room. He stripped off his shirt. “Where is my valet, George? He is never around since we moved here.”

“He is the only male servant in a household full of female servants,” said Felicity. “He lives like a king with housemaids running errands for him and Mrs. Ricketts getting Cook to make treats for him. Shall I call him?”

“No, I’ll dress myself. Kiss me first.”

She put her hands on his naked chest and smiled up into his eyes. He caught his breath, then held her close and kissed her fiercely. “It’s been so long,” he whispered at last.

“I know,” said Felicity. “Since dawn this morning.”

His busy hands felt for the tapes of her gown, and his mouth came down on hers again.

Mary, the little housemaid, who had been posted at the top of the stairs, listened hard. She heard the master’s dressing room door opening and closing. Then there were sounds of footsteps, and her lady’s bedroom door opened and closed. Mary listened harder until she heard a key clicking in the lock.

She ran down the stairs and into the servants’ hall. “Oh, mum,” she cried. “They’re at it again.”

“Watch that tongue of yours,” snapped Mrs. Ricketts. “Well, they won’t be wanting any dinner, and it’s a shame to waste it. Pass the lobster, Mr. George, and pour the iced champagne, but see that Mary only gets half a glass because she does giggle so.…”

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

The First Rebellion

Silken Bonds

The Love Match