Barbara Metzger (2 page)

He could, however, have asked Rosellen for her explanation about that disastrous evening at Lady Maplethorpe's ball. He could have trusted that she would not have gone out on the balcony with a hey-go-mad young cavalry officer without good reason. He could have had faith in Vicar Lockharte's daughter not to let an inebriated stranger kiss her.

Uncle Townsend could have done all those things, but he had not. He'd listened to Clarice instead, spiteful, jealous, vain Clarice who'd engineered the entire debacle rather than share the least of her beaux. Then he'd declared Rosellen wanton and ruined. She'd been a bad influence on his daughter, a threat to his wife's equilibrium, and a disgrace to her mother's memory. She'd also been on a public coach the next morning.

Uncle Townsend did secure a position for her at Miss Merrihew's, Clarice's old school. What Miss Merrihew might have taught the self-absorbed shrew was a mystery to Rosellen, for Clarice never spoke of aught but fashions, flirtations, and finding the highest-titled, deepest-pocketed fiancé. Despite such a poor recommendation, Rosellen accepted the post of handwriting instructor rather than return to the vicarage, a drain on her father's slim resources, a disappointment to his hopes.

Rosellen did not hold Baron Haverhill responsible for Miss Merrihew's refusal to let her return home to nurse her father in his last hours, she continued on a second sheet. No, she thanked him now for his efforts on her behalf. She was sorry she had embarrassed him in the social world he and his family inhabited. She'd try her best to look after them all when she got to Heaven, as she had every expectation of doing, since she was not a fallen woman despite certain persons’ accusations and appearances to the contrary. She did hope, however, that Uncle Townsend would not be quite so quick to judge others in the future or, barring that, that he not sit as magistrate in his home borough. And could he please see that she was buried next to her parents in St. Jerome's churchyard, next to the manse where she'd been raised?

Rosellen folded the letter, then tipped the candle to make a drip of wax to seal it. She felt years younger, pounds lighter, having given expression to her spleen. She felt so much relieved, in fact, that she took out her quill and bottle of ink to address the front of the letter in her best copperplate. There, let Uncle Townsend see that she wasn't an entirely ignorant female, like some she could mention if she weren't a vicar's daughter with hopes of Heaven. Then she sharpened the point on her pencil and smoothed out a fresh sheet of paper.
Dear Cousin Clarice,
she wrote,
I am dying, and I never wore a silk gown.

Ten thousand silkworms had spun their little hearts out for Clarice. Her closets and clothespresses were filled with gossamer gowns in every color. She also had satins and sarcenets, laces and lutestrings, fabrics Rosellen had barely heard of, much less seen or touched. Seeing and touching was all she got to do, fetching for her cousin. Clarice had a fancy French lady's maid, of course, but she enjoyed having her cousin wait on her, lest the country rustic start putting on airs.

The country rustic got to put on Clarice's discarded muslins from her debutante days, at her uncle's insistence. Aunt Beatrice had refused to be seen with such a dowd, declaring that the French maid dressed better than this unwanted chit. Uncle Townsend had refused to expend another groat on his sister's brat when his own poppet had more gowns than she could wear.

The castoffs were white, all of them, with the trims long removed for use on other frocks. Clarice was raven-haired and rosy-complected. She must have looked stunning in those demure colorless gowns. Rosellen had looked like a ghost. With her sandy hair and pale skin, not even her turquoise eyes—quite her best feature, she always thought—could bring life to unrelieved white. She might have been wearing bedsheets.

Rosellen had tried tucking flowers in the necklines, from the bouquets Clarice received daily, until she saw how the flowers drooped and faded during the interminable evenings of sitting on the sidelines at one ball or another, watching Clarice dance by on the arms of her handsome beaux. Her bedsheets would have been welcome.

Uncle's next suggestion had been for Clarice to pick out a horse from the stables for Rosellen, so the cousins might ride together at the fashionable hour, where the vicar's undowered daughter might catch the eye of some well-heeled gentleman. Rosellen would have caught flies quicker. Clarice had made sure that her poor relation was mounted on the slowest plug she could find, one that couldn't possibly keep up with her and her friends on their high-bred, spirited Thoroughbreds. Rosellen had stopped riding in the park at about the same time she had stopped trying to prettify her white gowns. What had been the point?

Uncle had also insisted that Clarice introduce Rosellen to her circle of admirers. Clarice had duly presented her to all her suitors with spots, stutters, squints, and skimpy finances. None of the marriage-minded could afford a wife of no income. Leg-shackles were fine, so long as they were made of gold. Half-pay officers, aged libertines, hardened gamblers, and anyone else of no use to Clarice were also sent Rosellen's way. As soon as these so-called gentlemen found out that the vicar's daughter would not play their sophisticated games in dark corners, she was back on a gilded chair against the wall, as dispirited as her drooping flowers.

Rosellen had been so excited about going to London. She was to be welcomed by her mother's exalted relatives, see the sights, meet the man of her dreams. He'd cherish her forever and look after Papa in his retirement. Hunched over her writing desk, she frowned now at her own naiveté then. She shrugged her thin shoulders. She'd been seventeen and away from home for the first time in her life. What could be more wondrous than being introduced to the
haut monde
under her beautiful cousin's aegis? Falling off the barn roof, that's what.

Clarice had been nineteen, the reigning Toast of the last two London Seasons. She'd won accolades and offers but none elevated enough for her to accept. She had quickly gained a reputation as a heartless jade, hard to please, and hot-at-hand. In two days Rosellen had realized that the Diamond of the First Water had ditchwater in her veins.

Rosellen sharpened her pencil again while she thought some more. Clarice was not entirely to blame for her faults, of course. Her very beauty was her greatest handicap. The Incomparable Miss Haverhill had been raised to be her father's prized possession, her faded mother's restored youth and looks. So what if she'd been her nanny's nightmare, her governesses’ grief? The baron and his wife never had to deal with Clarice's tantrums. They never noticed the crying maids, the broken crockery, the winded horses. To ensure their continued ignorance of the harridan they'd raised, Aunt Beatrice kept to her bed and Uncle Townsend kept to his clubs. No wonder they'd hoped Rosellen might prove a good influence on their daughter. Pigs would fly first.

Not content to hold her cousin up to ridicule among her own friends, Clarice had set out to ruin her. Perhaps Miss Lockharte had had a holier-than-thou attitude toward Clarice and her rackety circle. She'd apologize for that in her letter. Then again, perhaps Clarice hadn't approved of her cousin's making friends with the other wallflowers or some of her rejected suitors. Maybe Rosellen hadn't been quite the antidote, once the French maid had given her some silk flowers and a bit of ribbon to trim the gowns and put in her hair. Either way, Clarice had wanted her cousin out of her house, out of London. She'd known enough rotters and rag-mannered rascals to see the deed done and witnessed by half the ton.

From her viewpoint at death's door, Rosellen couldn't see where her cousin had benefited. Clarice was now twenty-two and still unwed. What Rosellen gathered from her students’ gossip was that Clarice Haverhill was deemed a confirmed fortune hunter. No one held husband hunting against a female;

that's why they all went to London in the first place. But the
belle monde
did frown on those who reached above themselves. Clarice was standing on tiptoe. She was also standing perilously close to the shelf by London standards.

Rosellen didn't write any of this, of course. Considering that Clarice had been educated at Miss Merrihew's Select Academy, Rosellen doubted her cousin could read, much less between the lines. What she did write was of her true regrets that the two of them couldn't have been friends. Rosellen added that she hoped Clarice found her heart's content—beyond finding the perfect bonnet—before it was too late. She promised to look down fondly on the only cousin she was ever to have, even if they'd never rubbed along well together. And yes, she forgave Clarice for the white dresses, the slow horses, and the chinless callers. She even, Rosellen ended with a flourish, forgave her cousin for the melodrama at Lady Maplethorpe's. Clarice couldn't have known that Rosellen would end up at Miss Merrihew's, dying alone in a damp and dirty nightgown in a dormitory of dimwitted debutantes.

That was magnanimous of her, Rosellen decided, resting back on her pillows. And forgiveness was definitely divine, for she felt immeasurably better once Clarice's letter was sealed and addressed. She felt light-headed, in fact. Perhaps that was the fever, or the lack of nourishment, or the course of her illness. Knowing she had no time to spare for idle thoughts, Rosellen took out a fresh sheet of paper and wrote.
Dear sir, I am dying, and I never had a dog.
She would not address this letter to the Honorable Timothy Heatherstone, nor the similar one she intended to copy for his twin brother, the Honorable Thomas Heatherstone, for she did not consider these two make-bates to be honorable at all.

London considered the Heatherstone lads regular goers, cheerful pranksters, and choice spirits, up to every rig and row. Rosellen considered the identical redheads fribbles. They were two gudgeons with one freckled face and one feckless brain between them. Papa would have disapproved of the twins as peep-o'-day boys, reckless sportsmen and reckless gamblers. They were two of the so-called gentlemen who had aided Clarice to ruin her cousin on a bet.

Part of the beauty's court, the twins had seemed innocuous at first. After they played their silly game of changing identities, they'd ignored Miss Haverhill's poor relation until the night of the Maplethorpe ball. Then one of them, Heaven only knew which, or cared, came to find Rosellen, where she occupied yet another uncomfortable gilt chair on the edge of the dance floor. Clarice needed her, the Heatherstone halfwit claimed, out on the terrace. Rosellen never questioned what her cousin might be doing on the terrace or why her aunt hadn't been called from the card room or a footman delegated to carry Clarice to safety, or any of a thousand questions she should have asked, in much wiser hindsight. But she was a parson's daughter, used to serving, used to giving aid in emergencies.

The interchangeable Heatherstone hurried her out of the ballroom, down the stairs, and toward the library at the rear of Maplethorpe House. There, French doors opened onto the paved terrace, where lanterns were strung in the trees to mark benches and paths. Rosellen couldn't see Clarice.

"Under the balcony,” Timothy or Thomas urged, pointing her in that direction but not following. Clarice wasn't there either, but a castaway cornet was, his swaying scarlet regimental jacket like an exotic flower blooming under the lantern light in Lady Maplethorpe's garden. He seemed to think that Rosellen had left the ball, left the chaperones, and left her morals behind, just for him.

"Knew you'd come, sweetings. Been waiting all night."

Still concerned for her cousin, Rosellen never considered her own safety. She merely pushed past the officer, looking for Clarice.

He grabbed her wrist. “Not so fast, little bird. I'll have a kiss first,” the soldier slurred.

"Do not be absurd, sir. I am looking for my cousin, not a flirtation. You should ask Lady Maplethorpe's butler for some coffee if you are too foxed to tell a proper female from one who meets gentlemen in dark corners."

"You're here, ain't you?” That seemed proof enough for the knave, for he pulled on her arm until she was against his chest, like an angler reeling in a reluctant trout. Rosellen didn't want to scream, to draw attention to the awkward situation, but she did beat against his arm and try to kick at his shins. He was wearing high boots. She was wearing paper-thin dancing slippers. For all the dancing she'd been doing, she'd have been better off in her riding boots. For all the good her struggling did, she'd have been better off saving her breath for when he kissed her. That way she wouldn't have had to smell the sour wine fumes emanating from her assailant.

A scream ended the assault, but it wasn't Rosellen's shout. It was Clarice's, from the ballroom balcony directly overhead. Scores of guests rushed to her side, to see the Haverhill country cousin in the arms of a notorious womanizer, Lieutenant Roland Dawe.

Before her uncle came and dragged her away, a benumbed Rosellen did hear both Heatherstone brothers congratulate their friend. “Clarice swore you'd never get a kiss out of Miss Prunes and Prisms, Roily. Here's the monkey we owe you. Good show."

Her downfall had been entertainment for those dirty dishes, costly but amusing. Rosellen felt no compunction about taking a bit of pleasure herself, thinking of the discomfort she hoped her letters might cause. She wrote that she forgave the brothers for their contribution to her short, tragic life. Papa would be proud of her generosity. He'd be less pleased when she concluded both letters with the threat of coming back to haunt the Heatherstones if they ever,
ever,
brought dishonor on another female.

Rosellen didn't really believe in ghosts, but who knew? Certainly not those featherheaded Heatherstone twins. If anyone deserved to be besieged by bogeys from the beyond, it was Lieutenant Dawe. He had laughed when Uncle Townsend demanded a proposal of marriage.

"What are you going to do, Baron, call me out if I don't offer for the chit? She came out to the terrace by herself, you know. Who's to say I was the first?"