A Scandalous Publication (2 page)

“Sir, I’ve wondered about your reputation as well and confess to having come to the same conclusion. I sincerely hope that I never have to come into contact with you again, and so I will bid you good-bye. I’ve signed all the papers and it only remains for you to do the same, if you still wish to possess Kimber Park. If my being beyond redemption has changed your mind, then I suggest that you go to hell, a place with which I’m given to understand you’re very well acquainted. Oh, and if you do go there, pray take your, er, companion, with you.” With a disdainful glance in Judith’s direction, she gathered her black skirts and walked from the room, closing the double doors behind her.

Silence reigned for a moment, the two lawyers glancing uneasily at Max, wondering how he would take such conduct. He remained motionless, a myriad of emotions showing fleetingly in his quick blue eyes; then he looked at the nervous, anxious Mr. Robards. “It seems to me, sir,” he said softly, “that the late Mr. Wyndham was singularly lacking in his duty.”

“L-Lacking, sir?”

“He should have put his damned daughter over his knee long ago.”

“Sh-She’s been under a great strain of late, sir,” replied the lawyer apologetically.

This caused Max to laugh briefly. “My dear fellow, I wouldn’t give much for your hide if she caught you making excuses for her.”

The lawyer cleared his throat uncomfortably. “No, Sir Maxim,” he admitted with some feeling, “nor do I. Will you still be going ahead with the purchase? Or has this perhaps changed your mind?”

“It will take more than Miss Wyndham’s acid tongue and ill temper to deflect me, sir. I’m determined to have this house, and have it I will.” He sat down again and swiftly signed every document, not bothering to continue reading, now that Charlotte had gone. He didn’t feel well pleased with himself for having goaded her into such a display, but she had been long overdue for a lesson. Maybe he’d been less than considerate in bringing Judith today, but was he expected to leave her outside when he was, after all, on his way to be a house guest at Taynton Castle? Why should he insult his mistress in order to placate a willful, opinionated, bad-tempered creature who seemed almost totally devoid of drawing-room manners? He tossed down the quill. Damn Charlotte Wyndham for so provoking him that his own drawing-room manners were for once less than perfect.

Mr. Robards and Mr. Bereson carefully sanded all the papers and gathered them together, Mr. Berenson looked shortsightedly through his spectacles. “You are now the new owner of Kimber Park, Sir Maxim. May I offer you my congratulations?”

Max looked around the magnificent room, with its gilded plasterwork, shimmering chandeliers, French furniture, and tall, elegant windows. From the ceiling gods and goddesses gazed down from heavenly clouds, as if intent upon all that passed in the room below. It was a beautiful room, a brilliant jewel set in a perfect crown, and he had coveted it all for a very long time. There wasn’t a house in England that, in his opinion, could compare with this. He was tired of his exclusive gentleman’s apartment at the house in Piccadilly known as Albany, and his estates in north Wales were too remote to be enjoyed at a moment’s notice. Kimber Park, so very lovely and so conveniently close to London, was the ideal solution. “May you offer me your congratulations, Mr. Berenson? Yes, I rather think that you may.”

Judith, who with considerable effort had remained silent during Charlotte’s outburst, now rose in a whisper of yellow silk to hurry across to him, slipping her slender arms about him as he sat at the table. “And you have my congratulations too,” she murmured, bending to kiss him.

He got up quickly, pulling her into his arms and kissing her, ignoring the startled lawyers. But as he drew back, his glance moved thoughtfully toward the door where last he had seen Charlotte. He hadn’t done with that young lady yet, but for the moment at least, she must remain unfinished business.

Charlotte was watching from the library window a little later as Max’s carriage departed, its team of perfectly matched bays stepping high down the rain-soaked drive. The coachman’s caped coat flapped in the gusts of wind that swept across the open park as he brought the horses up to a spanking pace, maneuvering them deftly around the curve at the foot of the knoll, where the lake wound its way through the wooded valley. The water was the color of lead as the carriage followed the drive along the shore, vanishing from sight for a while among the trees before reappearing on the open, rising land beyond. It climbed the long incline toward the lodge, driving out through the wrought-iron gates and turning west toward Taynton Castle, some two miles farther on. As the gates closed, she breathed out very slowly. It was nearly all over now; in a month’s time she and her mother would be gone and Kimber Park would be part of the past.

She gazed out at the wet, windswept park she loved so very much. This summer of 1816 had been the worst she had ever known, with endless rain and low, scudding clouds. The house stood on a fine vantage point above the park, and usually it was possible to see right across the ten miles of rolling Surrey countryside to London, but today, as so often recently, it was all shrouded in mist and rain, like an afternoon in January, not July. Even the little white rotunda on the incline beyond the lake looked dismal and uninviting, when normally it was the prettiest of places, quite perfect for picnics on a sunny day….

Her reflection stared back at her from the rain-washed glass. How pale and drawn recent events had made her. Her eyes seemed so very large and dark-shadowed, and her mouth more wide than ever. Oh, that mouth, it had been one of the banes of her life, robbing her of any real claim to beauty. Her father had fondly called it a generous mouth and had sworn that it gave her a wonderful smile, but she knew that it was simply another bad mark, for the fashion was for rosebud lips, like Judith’s. Charlotte lowered her eyes, pondering all her other bad marks, from her undesirably red hair and freckled nose to her uncompromising character, her delight in books, and her refusal to suffer fools gladly. She was too spirited, too outspoken, and too bookish
—what else need be said? Even with the prize of Kimber Park and the Wyndham fortune as an inheritance, she had put paid to her chances of an excellent match by being herself, and by being determined, like the heroines in her beloved books, to marry only for love; now, with her family ruined and her fortune lost, she was likely to remain unmarried forever more.

She glanced around the library, her favorite room with its dark-green brocade walls and countless shelves of costly volumes. Soon all the books would be gone, sold along with everything else at the auction Christie’s was to hold in a week’s time. Her jewels and wardrobes, and her mother’s, had gone already, sold to meet the more immediate of her father’s huge debts. What a sad irony it was that one of his few recent wins had been the horse that had thrown and killed him; and what a further sad irony it was that the horse had been won from none other than Max Talgarth. This, together with Max’s association with Judith, had made him the very last man Charlotte wished to see as master of Kimber Park, but he had made such a very handsome offer that to refuse would have been the height of folly. Now at least she and her mother would have a modest house in a reasonably acceptable street in London, and they would have a small income upon which to live.

Tears suddenly filled Charlotte’s eyes. Max Talgarth was wrong for this house, so very wrong, but now it was his, to do with as he pleased.

It was still raining one month later on the day that Charlotte and her mother were to leave Kimber Park. The house seemed very empty now that most of the rooms had been cleared of furniture. Everything had been made ready for the new owner, the items sold at auction having long since gone, and those that Max Talgarth had purchased having been set aside. Those rooms no longer in use had been closed and shuttered, and the passages and staircases now echoed in a strange, hollow way that made everyone whisper. For the servants
,
life was to go on as before, for although Max had yet to intimate when he intended to take up residence, he had let it be known that he wished to keep the entire complement of staff.

Mrs. Wyndham’s rather elderly maid, Muriel, was the only one accompanying them to Henrietta Street, and that last morning there were tears in her eyes as she dressed, pushing her sandy-gray hair beneath a fresh white mob cap and smoothing her clean apron and brown dress against her bony little person. She left her room on the top floor and went down to attend her mistress, following a routine that had been her very existence for the last twelve years.

When Charlotte and her mother had finished dressing, the housemaids were ready and waiting to strip the beds and remove the mattresses, then the footmen dismantled the beds and took them away to be stacked with all the other furniture Max had purchased at the auction. Then the bedrooms were shuttered and the curtains drawn.

The breakfast room was situated on the eastern side of the house, to catch the morning sun, but this morning, as on so many others this dreary summer, the weather outside was as wet and lowering as could be. The room’s blue brocade walls and sapphire velvet curtains did little to create any cheer, and it was cold enough to warrant a fire in the hearth. The long mahogany sideboard, too heavy by far to be moved from the position it had occupied for some fifty years, had in happier times been laden with fine silver-domed dishes containing everything from cold roast meats to kedgeree, deviled kidneys, eggs of every description, mounds of delicious, crisp bacon, and a pleasing variety of fresh-baked bread; today there was only toast and coffee.

Mrs. Wyndham had yet to come down when Charlotte entered the room, wearing her black muslin gown, her long red hair pinned up beneath a black lace cap. Sitting down at the table and pouring herself some of the coffee, she gazed out of the window at the terraced gardens, where the roses were weighed down by moisture and the dovecote was very quiet, only the occasional bird fluttering into the endless rain. She felt strangely calm now that it was almost over. Seeing the house gradually emptied of everything she had loved, and having to accept that although she and her mother were still beneath its roof, it was no longer theirs, had caused them both a great deal of pain; to leave it and start their new life would surely be a release.

The hands of her fob watch pointed to precisely nine when the door opened to admit Mrs. Wyndham, her black bombazine gown and heavy petticoats rustling as she took her seat opposite her daughter. The former Miss Sophia Pagett, belle of the 1792 Season, was now a plump, rather anxious woman of forty-three, her pale, round face framed by wispy, reddish curls and a rather severe black biggin. She was quite haggard from the grief and anxiety of the past two months. Her gray eyes, so like her daughter’s, were red-rimmed and tired, and her lips trembled a little now and then, as if she was fighting back a sob.

Charlotte looked fondly at her, her heart going out at the look of desolation on the face that had formerly been so happy and bright. “Good morning, Mother.”

“Good morning, Charlotte.”

“Would you care for some coffee?”

“I couldn’t possibly.”

“But you must have something or you’ll make yourself ill. Please, at least have some coffee and a slice of toast.”

“Charlotte, I have no appetite whatsoever.”

“Ten miles in a hired chaise is not agreeable at the best of times, but it isn’t to be considered at all if one hasn’t eaten.”

“I have no wish to be reminded that we are now reduced to hiring vehicles.”

“What point is there in pretending otherwise?”

“The practical side of your nature can sometimes be quite insufferable.”

“Mother.” Charlotte looked reproachfully at her.

Mrs. Wyndham looked a little shamefaced then. “Forgive me, my dear, I don’t mean to be sharp with you all the time, it’s just that…. Well, you know what it is.”

“Yes, of course I do.” Charlotte leaned across to squeeze her mother’s hand. “Now, then, will you have some coffee and toast?”

“You’re quite a bully, aren’t you?” Her mother smiled. “Very well, I’ll try.”

They sipped their coffee in silence for a while, Mrs. Wyndham gazing out at the roses in the garden. “Do you know,” she said after a moment, “Richard and I planted those on the day before he left for America. It must be all of five years ago now. Oh, I do wish he was here now instead of the other side of the Atlantic, for I need him so very much.”

Charlotte said nothing. Richard Pagett was her mother’s brother, but he was so much younger than his sister that Charlotte had always found it impossible to call him Uncle Richard. He had always been just Richard, and she too missed him a great deal. Why, oh, why had he had to go and squander the Pagett fortune? But for that, he would never have taken himself across the world to seek his fortune anew. When he had first gone, she had written regularly to him at his New York address, and in the beginning he had replied, but he was a very poor correspondent and in the end his letters had stopped arriving. She’d continued to write, and she had informed him of her father’s death, but so far no word had reached them. They didn’t even know if he was still alive.

Mrs. Wyndham looked sadly at her daughter. “Well, I suppose yearning for Richard will do no good at all, he is as much part of the past as this house is about to be.”

“We may still hear.”

“That is a very faint hope and we both know it.” Mrs. Wyndham took a deep breath then and continued in a more brisk tone. “When is this wretched hired chaise to arrive?”

“Ten o’clock.”

“I trust it will be acceptable, with springs that perform their function.”

“Oh, I’m quite sure it will,” replied Charlotte a little mysteriously.

“I wouldn’t be so sure, that rogue Job Rendell at the Three Tuns cannot be trusted in the slightest; he’ll send whatever farm cart he chooses.”

“Not for an order placed by Sir Maxim Talgarth he won’t.”