Amy Lake (2 page)

I nodded and held out my hand.  Lord Davies took it, and we advanced onto the dance floor.

* * * *

One concentrates, in the beginning.  You cannot know if your partner is a reluctant waltzer, one perspiring hand held timidly on your back as you oscillate back and forth over the same small patch of ballroom—or one of those enthusiastic souls who will turn and turn at such speed that your feet leave the ground and your stomach begins to protest.

His lordship was neither, and after only two or three steps I saw that I could relax, and allow the music to flow through me, and I do believe we made an elegant couple.  As I said, I enjoy dancing, and this was so much fun that I felt I could nearly close my eyes as we finished one graceful circle after another.  His hand was firm and warm against the silk of my gown—

“You waltz extremely well,” said my partner.

Which might be considered a somewhat forward comment, but I only laughed.  “You are very kind,” I replied.

A second unobjectionable remark.  Almost flirtatious.  What had come over me? 

I asked again about his recent return to London.

“I lived in town as a younger man,” said Lord Davies.  “But I’ve been seeing to the family estate in Cornwall, near Bodmin.  It required some care after my father’s death.”

Which explained why we had not noticed him before at any of the society entertainments.  I learned later that ‘some care’ was not the half of it; the late viscount—Lord Davies’s father—had evinced little interest in the estate or its workers, and my current dance partner had spent the past two years bringing the whole to rights.

“I’ve heard that Cornwall is beautiful.”

“’Tis.  The sunniest place in England, so they say.”

“How lovely.”

We were not to discover if I could maintain this sudden talent for light conversation, as at that moment Lord Culpepper, a well-known hazard of the London ball, tripped over nothing at all and, careening off one couple, stumbled forward towards us.  The viscount, with admirable speed, picked me up bodily as Culpepper fell almost at our feet, his unlucky partner collapsing on top of him.

Hands extended to help them up and everyone laughed, not the least his lordship Culpepper, who was an amiable sport.

The music signaled the imminent end of our waltz.  I felt disinclined to allow my brief association with Lord Davies to come to such an end, but there was no help for it; you waltzed, and then went on your way.

“My lady,” said the viscount, with a bow.

“My lord,” I replied, curtseying. 

He walked off.  I saw him from time to time during the remainder of that night, always with a different young woman on his arm.  ’Twas ridiculous to be mooning over a gentleman you had met for the first time; I applied myself to enjoying the ball, and did so.

Chapter 2: Middlewich Salt, and Other Sundries

Next morning I was in the study reviewing Freddie’s latest expenditures—the excessive, the outrageous, and those beyond all reason, in something like that order—when there was a scratch at the door.

“My lady?”

“Yes, Mrs Peaseley?”

Mrs Peaseley is our head housekeeper; a woman of grey hair and ample waist, but with more energy than any five countesses.  We would be hard put to run Roselay without her.

“Bertie is downstairs, wantin’ his tuppence for the Middlewich salt.”

“Very well, Mrs Peaseley, I’ll be there directly.”

I shut the book on Freddie, and headed toward the back of the house, down the stairs to the kitchen.  Salt was expensive, of course, but one bought no more than a pound at a time; I could pay Bertie from the purse I always carried tucked into the waistband of my overskirt.  I sorted through the coins, recognizing most of them by feel; shillings and sixpence, two sovereigns and a half-crown.

Enough for the week, although we would need to pay the vintner, soon—

But perhaps I should explain why I am responsible for the household accounts.

My father and mother have an odd set of beliefs with respect to tradesmen.  Without such individuals we would have nothing to eat or wear, nor any brandy to drink, of course, but this does not redeem them in my parents’ eyes.  They are no more than necessary evils and, despite all evidence to the contrary, the earl and countess are convinced that the greengrocer, the haberdasher and the like are so generally well compensated for their goods that any particular payment—ours, say—is really quite optional.

“Oh, goodness, Regina,” said my mother once, waving one plump and heavily be-ringed hand, “those people make plenty of blunt.”

This was in regard to my insistence on paying the butcher, who had nearly set up camp on the stairs leading down to the kitchen door at the back of Roselay, greatly inconveniencing the house staff.

“He’s not been paid for a six-month.”

“La, let him settle up some other time.  We’ll be late for the
musicale
.”

The fact that everyone was late for every
musicale
ever given in London signified nothing, and my mother was quite annoyed when on this occasion I refused to go at all, unless the butcher was given his pounds and shillings.

The earl was applied to, but my father detests fuss of any sort, especially over money.

“Let her take care of it, then, if she has such a mind to,” he said, ‘her’ being his daughter.  Me.  

And so it was that I found myself, over a year or so ago, responsible for some small portion of the family expenses.  To give my father credit he did not mean, of course, that I was to pay anyone out of my own pocket; I had little money of my own.  But I was given permission to apply to our man-of-affairs for sufficient cash as to settle the regular household bills.  The situation was most unusual, I suppose, and my friends were astonished, but one has to consider, firstly, that the sums were not large—or at least not after I had settled months of arrears—and that neither parent preferred to involve themselves in anything of the sort.  My father found all such efforts a great annoyance, and to say that the countess has no head for figures is to greatly overestimate her ladyship’s abilities.

My father was so happy, in fact, at being spared the trouble of such contact with the
hoi polloi
that inside of a month he had also entrusted, to me, certain details of the management of Belvoir Manor.  The family rarely visited this country estate—Belvoir was near Penrith, in Cumbria, which was entirely too far north for either parent’s interest—but there was an older man and his wife who looked over the house, and various other staff present, and a few extra guineas now and then to put a roof over the crofters’ heads was appreciated.  So I began a regular correspondence with Mr and Mrs Riddpathe and was soon receiving their thanks for the payment of the household wages. 

Apparently the earl hadn’t always bothered.

Some time went by, and as we all accustomed ourselves to this new routine, Faulkes—the man-of-affairs in question—realized that I was not the usual society miss.  He began to inform me of the true state of affairs with respect to our finances; bit by bit at first, in hints and asides, and then all in a rush, as if he could hardly believe that his luck would hold, that he had found a member of the Knowles family who was sensible and could be trusted to hold two thoughts in her head concurrently.

I had known my brother was a spendthrift, but ’twas only then that I uncovered the whole truth about Lord Freddie.  My parents had transferred such large sums of money to him, and with such heart-stopping regularity, that their own accounts were being bled faster than they could be replenished.  Each transfer meant less capital to earn income, and each successive loss made the situation worse.

“It must be stopped, Lady Regina,” said Faulkes.  “It simply must be stopped.”

* * * *

What was the money for?  What was it not?  I have said that my brother’s expenses included horses and gambling debts; he also required the finest high-perch phaeton and gigs, and frequented the most expensive tailors.  Wilfred had been living outside of his own income for so long that I daresay he had no idea how to do anything else.

When I first understood the true circumstances, and after a few days of biting my tongue, I told Cassandra.

“Hmm,” said Miss Barre.  “I always wondered how he managed to fly so high.  Lady Helen says that his parties at Three Stags”—Three Stags was the family hunting lodge in a far reach of Northumberland county, to which Freddie disappeared for weeks at a time—“are nearly legend.” 

Gods.  “Why didn’t you say something!”

She regarded me with a small frown.  “You are right,” said Cassandra.  “I should have.  But you knew there was a problem—”

“A problem, yes, but not like
this
.”

Cassie pursed her lips.  “Didn’t you tell me once that you have an aunt?  Can she help?”

Lady Sophie Knowles was my father’s older sister, and our only other surviving close family.  Although ‘close’ was hardly descriptive in this case; it had been years since I had seen her.

“I do.  But Aunt Sophie isn’t wealthy, as far as I know.”

“Ah.”

“Besides, my father hates her.”

“His own sister?”

“I believe that just makes it worse.”

Aunt Sophie was the outcast of the family, or so it seemed from the little I had been told.  She lived in Bath and had never married, although rumours spoke of a fiancé, many years past.

“Why does the earl dislike her?” asked Miss Barre, distracted.

“I’m not sure.”  I shrugged.  “We weren’t allowed to visit.”

There was silence for a moment.  Cassandra sighed. 

“Well, at any rate, I wouldn’t worry much about Freddie and your parents,” she said, finally.  “They’ll manage somehow.  The real problem is your bridal portion.”

“Are you suggesting that no-one will marry me without incentive?”  I sputtered, feigning outrage.  Feigned, because I’d hardly be the first young lady whose family was expected to pay for the privilege of someone taking her off their hands.

Cassandra shrugged.  “It will just be your luck—some handsome and impoverished marquess will fall in love with you.  You might need that money.”

“I wish I had my own Lord Jeremy.”

Lord Jeremy Durham-Bourne is Miss Barre’s intended.  They have been engaged since she was fifteen, which sounds like a recipe for a disastrous marriage, but not in this case.  Two more sensible and easy-going individuals you will not find, and they adore each other, while being in no hurry to marry.  The maturity of their behavior has been a sad disappointment to the
ton
gossips.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Cassandra.  “One of us should cause a scandal, don’t you think?”

* * * *

I suppose it sounds as if my brother has no good qualities, which is certainly not true.  Lord Freddie is a glad-handing type of person, with a fair sense of humour, who can be counted on to liven a dining table where the talk has gone dull.  He will speak to you as if you are the most important person in the world, to whom he would give the shirt from his back, although he never quite gets around to that.  Although not terribly bright he is an affectionate sibling, and has never spoken a cross word to me.  But it is extraordinarily frustrating to have one’s financial security dependent, even in part, on an individual whose idea of cutting expenses is to forget to pay a month’s wages for his valet.

After Cassandra and I had mulled over the situation, and with Faulkes’ words still ringing in my years, I went to my parents and did, as I have mentioned, convince them to economize.  A bit.  But they refused to rein in Freddie.

“Oh, Regina, you can’t expect a young man not to enjoy himself,” said my mother.

“The expenses at Three Stags alone—”

“Wilfred
loves
Three Stags!”

“But—”  

“It is one of his greatest pleasures!  You cannot ask him to give it up.  And Regina, my dear, a bit more social activity wouldn’t hurt your own chances.  You’ll never find a husband closeted in the pantry with Mrs Peaseley.”

The fact that my discussions with the housekeeper were what kept their own lives comfortable and Roselay in reasonable order did not occur to her, I suppose.  And there was nothing more I could do.

Chapter 3:  The Viscount of Cardingham

Talfryn Davies, the Viscount of Cardingham, was nursing a glass of brandy.  His friends Lord Peter Wilmott and Lucien Cranfield were both drinking rather heavily, and the viscount felt at least one of the three should remain sober.  The last time Cranfield was heavily in his cups the upshot had nearly involved a brace of dueling pistols, and only by Talfryn’s best efforts at diplomacy were Lucien and Lady Peterborough’s husband both still in one piece.

“To love!” cried Cranfield, lifting his glass.

“True love!” responded Wilmott.

Gods, thought Lord Davies, shaking his head.  He was more and more often the most temperate of his friends.  A few years ago none of them would have described the viscount as a dull duck.  ’Twas Talfryn, after all, who had suggested they all hide in the Duke of Mawmsley’s great hall after a
musicale
and dress one of the suits of armor in petticoats—and not particularly respectable petticoats, either.  There had also been that incident with the geese.  But nowadays—

London was proving to be more exhausting and less enjoyable than he had remembered.  One ball and society entertainment followed another, and however much he liked dancing and young ladies, as he certainly did, a surfeit of such items was . . . a surfeit.  He found himself unable to remember names, as if each young miss was exchangeable for the next.

Perhaps they thought of him in the same way.

Lord Peter began a game—’twas not a favorite of the viscount—in which he attempted to sing with a mouth full of brandy.  Lord Davies moved slightly to the side, and a memory surfaced.  Two years ago Wilmott was playing that same game on the night Talfryn learned his father had died, the night he had suddenly become responsible for his family, their land, and a fortune.