Scandal in the Regency Ballroom: No Place For a Lady / Not Quite a Lady

Chapter Nine

‘Lord Penrith. Good afternoon.’ Bree was proud of her calm tone. ‘May I introduce Miss Thorpe, my lady companion? Miss Thorpe, Lord Penrith, who was so good as to assist when we found ourselves with a driverless coach.’

She studied him as he shook hands with Rosa. He seemed the same and yet, somehow, different. What was it? Bree puzzled and then stopped as she realised he was waiting while the ladies took their seats. ‘Do sit down, my lord. Would you care to take tea?’

‘Thank you, yes, I would.’

Rosa bobbed up and tugged the bell pull, then sat quietly while Bree spoke to Peters.

‘You see, my lord, I took your advice and engaged a companion,’ Bree said, attempting a rallying tone. It was impossible to read Max’s feelings this afternoon; all the expressive light had gone from his eyes and he was sitting, perfectly composed, his face unreadable. There was an air of seriousness about him, that was what was different.

‘I am flattered that you should take such heed of my advice.’

‘Indeed. But how could I not, after you had demonstrated the need for one so clearly.’

‘Demonstrated?’ His eyebrows went up.

‘By your lucid explanation—or should I say example?—of the dangers to a lady’s reputation when in society.’ She felt the need to provoke a reaction, any reaction. This was like talking to a polite feather pillow.

‘It is a sad fact that a lady, incautiously without chaperonage, may find herself kissed, or worse,’ Max remarked blandly.

‘Outrageous,’ Rosa contributed, her face studiously straight.

‘Of course, the lady might allow such liberties,’ Max added. ‘A gentleman would do well to reflect that this may simply be the expression of innocence, inexperience or a certain naive generosity of spirit.’

‘Or all three.’ Bree could feel her colour rising. He was telling her—in a patronising manner—that he understood, excused and dismissed her behaviour last night. ‘Doubtless the gentleman in question would also reflect that a further attempt would be doomed to failure.’

‘I feel sure that would be the safest path for him.’ His smile was rueful and Bree thought she had glimpsed the first sign of genuine emotion since he had arrived. She decided that she was not being dismissed as wanton, nor was he bent on seducing her, which left the rather embarrassing situation of having kissed him and now not knowing how to behave with him.

‘You may be interested to know that Miss Thorpe will also be taking over some of the office work at the Mermaid for me.’

‘Have you any experience of such a business, Miss Thorpe?’ Max turned his dark eyes on her.

‘None at all,’ Rosa smiled austerely. ‘But I have run a large girls’ school. I am sure my experience with accounting, keeping discipline and managing a complex timetable will come in useful.’

‘I must congratulate you, Miss Mallory, on finding such a well-qualified candidate so quickly.’ His eyes found hers and Bree racked her brain to decide exactly what colour they were. A very dark hazel, or brown? She pulled herself together and concentrated.

‘I was lucky my lord. I hope you also mean to congratulate me upon taking your advice.’

‘I do. And I wonder why.’

‘Because it was sensible advice, of course.’ Bree flushed at her own sharp tone and reached for the tea pot. ‘Cream or lemon, my lord?’

‘Cream. Thank you. Are you from London, Miss Thorpe?’

‘Nottinghamshire originally, my lord.’ He waited, his silence an invitation to prattle that Rosa ignored with a prim smile, much to Bree’s admiration. She knew she would have plunged on with every detail of her life story, confronted by that coolly interrogative voice and the amount of sheer personality behind his bland expression. What is he here for? I thought he was coming to ask me to drive with him.

‘Have you been able to solve my other problem and rein in your friends of the Nonesuch Whips?’ she asked.

‘No,’ he said baldly, putting down his cup and crossing his legs. Bree forced herself not to stare at the length of tightly stretched pantaloons vanishing into glossy Hessians. ‘I hinted, I suggested—and I found myself beginning to sound as though I had an ulterior motive. And that, I would suggest, is more dangerous than the original threat.’

‘Oh …’ Bree mentally passed in review a number of highly improper expressions she had learned in the inn yard. ‘Drat,’ she concluded regretfully. It really did not do justice to her feelings.

‘Drat indeed,’ Max agreed.

‘Will they get bored and find something else if Piers gives them the run of the place for a couple of days?’

‘I doubt it—not unless you let them drive. That’s the big attraction, you see—driving a stage in cold blood, not as the result of a drunken spree. They are good drivers, all of them, they have a serious interest and an inn yard is a public space, when all’s said and done.’

‘Well, they are not getting anywhere near my passengers,’ Bree declared robustly.

‘You let me drive,’ Max said softly.

‘I knew of your reputation. In any case, I had no choice.’

‘And were you satisfied?’

Bree swallowed. ‘I was entirely satisfied with your driving.’

They sat silently looking at each other while the tick of the clock on the mantel seemed to fill the room and Bree felt her own heartbeat stuttering out of time with it.

‘Ahem.’ Rosa leaned forward. ‘May I pass you a custard tartlet, my lord?’

‘Thank you, but no.’ The shutters were back. No, not even that—his expression was so unreadable that she had no idea whether there even were any shutters or whether there were simply no strong feelings for him to hide.

‘I have had an idea,’ she said suddenly. Goodness knows where it came from, other than from her desperate desire to distract the Whips and her equally urgent wish to be anywhere but here exchanging stilted conversation with Max Dysart. ‘Do the Nonesuch Whips have club days when they all drive to a specific destination, as the Four Horse Club does?’

‘Yes, but we are not so hidebound as to insist on the same destination on every occasion, nor do we confine ourselves to trotting in single file the entire way as is the FHC rule. We seek out interesting inns and eating houses and make them the goal for the day. Why do you ask, Miss Mallory?’

‘Because it occurs to me that on some days we do have a spare coach and that we might be prepared to allow that to be driven, without paying passengers, of course, on such an expedition. Would that slake your friends’ thirst?’

‘The very answer, Miss Mallory, I congratulate you. You and Miss Thorpe must be my guests in my drag.’

‘I must insist on my own groom with the stage and Piers on the box as well,’ she cautioned.

‘That seems eminently reasonable to me,’ Max agreed.

‘And no racing.’

‘I promise.’

‘You can offer that on their behalf?’ Bree realised she must have looked as dubious as she sounded when she saw the quirk of amusement at the corner of Max’s mouth. Thank goodness, some sign of humanity at last!

‘I will ensure that everyone who wishes to drive must give me their word to that effect before we start. Does that satisfy you?’

‘Yes. Yes, my lord, it does. Thank you.’

‘The Club will, of course, pay whatever a return journey for the trip would be, assuming a full waybill of passengers.’

Bree opened her mouth to agree that that would be very acceptable and closed it again. Now she had Rosa she did not have to fear curious strangers at the Mermaid any longer, not if they had an acceptable outlet for their desire to drive the stagecoaches. Piers had blossomed in the company of the Whips: he had enjoyed it and it was far better that he had his introduction into society with men who spent their time driving rather than frequenting gaming halls and brothels.

‘No,’ she said slowly, considering it. ‘No, we will not charge, unless any damage is done. If it is successful, then we may repeat it. I see no harm, and perhaps it may give the Challenge Coach Company a certain cachet.’

And it also propelled her into the unsettling company of the Earl of Penrith. And that of a number of other pleasant and attractive gentlemen, she added mentally. Max’s words about finding a husband echoed with Georgy’s teasing matchmaking. Not a gentleman of title, not with her pedigree. But there might be a nice younger son. She tried to feel enthusiastic about that possibility and found the thought strangely flat.

‘That is very generous.’ Max removed his pocket book and consulted it. ‘The next meeting will be on Saturday the tenth.’

‘I will check with the yard and see, then let you know. Where is the destination?’

‘It depends on the weather, although there was discussion of taking a picnic to Greenwich Park, if it is fine.’

A whole day of frivolity. Bree tried to recall when she had last taken an entire day to devote simply to pleasure, and could not. And an entire day in Max’s company. And that of Lord Lansdowne, Mr Latymer, Piers, Rosa and all the other Whips, of course.

‘That sounds delightful,’ Rosa observed sedately, jerking Bree back to the present.

‘Delightful,’ she echoed dutifully.

Lord Penrith put down his cup and saucer and got to his feet. ‘I will wait to hear from you then. Thank you for the tea.’ He bowed slightly. ‘Ladies.’

Rosa jumped up and tugged the bell for Peters and then Max was gone, leaving Bree staring rather blankly after him.

‘I thought he was going to invite me to drive in the park with him,’ she said.

‘Perhaps he forgot, thinking about your proposal with the stage,’ Rosa suggested, looking doubtful. ‘Is he always like that?’

‘No.’ Bree wrinkled her forehead. ‘But I’ve only met him twice before, of course. How did he strike you?’

‘At first, just as he meant to—a conventional, rather cold-blooded English gentleman making a social call. But he isn’t just that.’ Rosa was frowning now too. ‘There’s humour there and warmth in his eyes when he looks at you and you are not looking at him. And something else. Something dark.’

Bree shivered. ‘Rosa, you sound positively Gothic!’ Then she recalled his words during the ball. ‘I think he has something on his mind. A secret.’

‘Hmm.’ Rosa sat down and poured more tea. ‘Lord Penrith is very attractive—I just hope he doesn’t turn out to be Bluebeard.’

Max swung up into the driving seat and gathered the reins. So much for option two—we have a stilted conversation full of undertones that makes us both uncomfortable because of what happened at the ball. ‘Walk on.’ The pair moved off sedately and Gregg swung up behind.

Max tried to sort out how he felt and made the unnerving discovery that his general sense of unease and indecision was worse than before. He wanted Bree, but the thought of marriage was more fraught with discomfort the more he contemplated it. He had dragged the locked trunk out of the attic of his memory and forced himself to open it, look at the hurt and shame and anger and fear that he had pushed away so he could get on with his life again. Only now they were out and he was facing them, all the doubt was back.

Drusilla had left him within weeks of their marriage. It was his job to make a marriage, to keep his wife, and he had failed. Was it just that one woman, or was there something about him that was unsuited to matrimony? Dare he risk it again? Dare he risk it with this woman? He was not even sure what he felt for her other than liking, admiration and undoubted desire. Always assuming she did not laugh in his face at the mere thought of it. Bree Mallory did not strike him as a woman likely to be dazzled by a title.

He turned into Bedford Square and then into Tottenham Court Road, heading for the crowded thoroughfare of Oxford Street. ‘Any idea of the time, Gregg?’ It was too busy to drive one-handed and fish out his pocket watch.

‘About three, my lord, I’d hazard.’

Time then to think in peace and quiet at home before Ryder, the man recommended by Lord Lucas, came to discuss his problem.

My problem, Max thought, jeering at himself. A nice euphemism. I can pretend I have a leak in the roof, or a difficult decision about investments or an unreliable tenant. And a man will come and sort out my problem. Which I should have sorted out years ago.

He was in no better frame of mind at six o’clock when his butler, Bignell, announced, ‘Mr Ryder, my lord’, and ushered in the investigator.

‘Mr Ryder, please, come and sit down.’

‘My lord.’ One would take him for a superior clerk in his sober, understated clothes and with his quiet manner. But his voice was that of an gentleman, he moved with a swordsman’s grace and the grey eyes, when they met Max’s, were cool and assessing. From a clerk the scrutiny would have been insolence; from this man it felt like being assessed by a surgeon. It was about as comfortable.

It was also steadying. Max gathered himself mentally and concentrated, much as he would before a fencing bout. ‘Lord Lucas recommends you highly.’

‘I have been able to be of use to him in the past.’ No false modesty or protestations there. ‘His lordship tells me that there is a personal matter requiring the highest discretion that you wish investigated.’

‘Yes. Ten years ago, when I was twenty-one—just twenty-one—I met a young woman called Drusilla Cornish. She was twenty, the daughter of an apothecary in Swindon. I fell in love with her, and I married her.’

There was a notebook in Ryder’s hand—it seemed to have appeared as though by magic. He jotted something and looked up, a faint smile on his lips. ‘I use codes and a shorthand of my own devising, my lord. Your lordship held your present title at this time?’

‘Yes. I was the Earl of Penrith, I did marry a tradesman’s daughter and, under the terms of my father’s will, virtually all my money was in trust until I reached the age of twenty-five, or married with the approval of my trustees. It was every bit as ill judged an action as you are most tactfully not saying.’

‘Special licence?’ Max nodded. ‘And the marriage took place where?’ He listened as Max recounted how he had recalled the out-of-the way church in Dorset from a visit to a friend’s country estate the year before. ‘And her address in Swindon? Her family?’

He told it all, the memory of the dusty little shop coming back so clearly as he spoke that he could smell the herbs and medicines, could see the light glinting on the glass vessels where the sun stuck through the lead-paned windows, could see the vision of loveliness that had seemed to swim out of the shadows like a black-haired mermaid at the sound of the tinny little bell.

‘I had toothache, of all the damned prosaic reasons for finding myself in this mess now. I wanted to see my own dentist in London, not submit to some rustic tooth-puller, but I needed something to dull the pain for a day or two. And there she was, serving. Her father was in the back, grinding up some nostrum, her small sister was perched on the end of the counter making up lavender bags.

‘I walked in feeling as though some demon were drilling holes in my jaw, fell in love and forgot the pain, all in one glance.’ It was surprisingly easy, talking to this dark stranger. Almost he could understand the allure of the confessional. He took a folded paper out of his pocket book. ‘Here. I have written down everything I can recall about names and places.’

‘Thank you, my lord.’ Ryder glanced through it, nodded and tucked it into his own notebook. ‘And then?’

‘Then I took Drusilla home. I knew my trustees would not approve, but, what the hell—my allowance was a thousand times more than her father earned in a year, we could survive very well for four years. My parents were both dead, my grandmother presided over Longwater. She took one look at Drusilla and told me to say nothing to anyone except the servants.’

‘You could rely upon them?’

‘Oh, yes, they were old family retainers, every one. They, and my grandmother, set about turning Drusilla into a countess.’

‘How well did they succeed?’

‘Not at all. She was appalled. She had no idea of what would be expected of her, she was intimidated by the house, by the servants, by my grandmother—by me, once she saw me in my proper setting, as it were.’

Mr Ryder just waited, silently. It was a technique Max used himself and he was wryly amused to find himself succumbing to it. ‘If she had loved me, I don’t think that would have mattered, but she didn’t. I think she had seen me as the equivalent of a wealthy merchant and that was the height of her ambition. She had not expected to have to work for the title and the wealth and the position. I might have been young, and I might have been besotted, but I knew what a countess’s duties and responsibilities were.

‘She realised that this was not a game and we both realised she did not love me. It took three weeks to reach that point.’

Mr Ryder taped his teeth with the end of his pencil. ‘I suppose that there were not grounds for an annulment?’ he enquired delicately.

‘No.’ Max looked back over the years with grim amusement. ‘I think you might say that the one place where we were compatible was in bed.’

There was a pause while the investigator gazed tactfully out of the study window and Max consigned those particular memories to a deep, safe, dark, mental cupboard.

‘Then she met a gentleman when she was shopping in Norwich. It is the closest town to my country seat. Drusilla enjoyed shopping and Grandmama saw no harm in it so long as she went incognito. That gentleman was handsome, charming, lived by his wits and was, as she informed me in the exceedingly ill-spelled letter she left me, fun. She left, taking all those jewels Grandmama had not locked in the safe.’

‘You pursued her?’

‘No. I wrote to her at the inn her note had come from and informed her that I was opening an account with my bank on which she, and only she, could draw, and that I hoped she was happy.’ He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. ‘I never saw her, nor heard from her, again. Money was taken out, to the limit I told her I would maintain, for two years. After that it was untouched and has remained so to this day.’

‘The logical presumption would be that she is dead, or no longer in the country,’ Ryder remarked.

‘I need more than presumption, Mr Ryder. I need to know whether I have a wife living or not.’

‘Indeed, my lord, I can understand why you feel that to be desirable. Did you contact her family?’

‘No.’

‘Make any enquiries at all?’

‘None.’

‘Why not, my lord? Nine years is a very long time with, if I may be so frank, the succession to an earldom to be considered.’

Chapter Ten

‘Because I had a guilty conscience and because I am unused to failure.’ Max had had long enough to work out why he had consigned the problem of his marriage to a locked cupboard. ‘Don’t think I feel any complacency about my lack of action. But I should never have married her—I took the poor girl completely out of her depth. And having done so, somehow I should have made it work. It may sound arrogant, Mr Ryder, but I am not used to failure.’

‘I am sure that is the case, my lord.’

Max paused, tapping the tips of his joined fingers against his lips. ‘And the longer I left it, the more difficult it became. I suppose, too, that my damnable pride got in the way as well. I had offered her a golden future and she tossed it back in my face to run off with an adventurer—I was damned if I was going to chase after her.’ Was that at the heart of it? Was that the real reason, and I’ve been too much of a hypocrite to admit it? Pride?

‘Well, my lord, I think I have enough to commence my investigations. I will write to you weekly to advise you of progress, unless, of course, I make a breakthrough. I will refer to the Countess in terms of a painting that was stolen some years back and which you wish to trace. That should be adequate cover in the event of a letter falling into the wrong hands.’

Ryder stood, tucking his notebook away in a breast pocket. ‘Just one more thing, my lord. Did none of her family make any attempt to contact you after the marriage?’

‘No.’ He looked at the investigator and suddenly that omission seemed as odd to him as it obviously did to Ryder. ‘How very strange.’

‘Indeed. I believe I will start with them. Good day, my lord.’

Max went to sit at his desk again as the door closed behind Ryder. He felt confidence in the man, both in his discretion and his skill. A few weeks and he would know where he was and how he stood. It was good to have done this at last. For years he had been telling himself that Nevill would make a perfectly acceptable heir. Now he could close his eyes and see the nebulous outline of his own son. The fact that this phantom of the future had only begun to appear since he had met Bree did not escape him.

A son with her blue eyes and his dark hair, or perhaps his brown eyes and her wheaten blonde hair—either was an attractive thought. And a number of daughters, all like their mother.

Max grinned at his distorted image in the silver inkwell, his spirits lifting from what seemed like an inordinate time in the doldrums. Surely, if one was daydreaming about the number of children one would have with a lady, one was beyond the stage of being undecided about one’s feelings? All this needed was very careful timing and complete self-control. And her co-operation, of course. And beyond that, to learn what one had done so very wrong before and not commit the same mistakes again.

By the second circuit of Green Park on Wednesday afternoon with Mr Latymer, Bree had come to the conclusion that she needed at least three new walking dresses if she was going to keep this up. And two new bonnets.

On Tuesday Lord Lansdowne had called and had taken her driving in Hyde Park at the height of the fashionable promenade. She had been acknowledged by a gratifying number of new acquaintances from the Dowager’s ball, despite the Viscount’s protestations that town was virtually empty of company.

‘I wouldn’t be up now if it weren’t that Grandmama wanted to puff off Sophia’s engagement from the town house,’ he explained. He moved the phaeton off again after a stop to speak to three of Bree’s Grendon cousins who were staying up in town while the fine weather lasted.