Lisbon (13 page)

Outside the drawing-room door Charlotte’s young face had turned white as parchment. Her uncle had actually come north to bring her . . . this! She felt physically ill. Indeed she would have run away at that moment had not the fourth voice, which held an odd attraction, inquired curiously, "But what of the girl, Lord Pimmerston? After all, this is Russ’s niece we’re talking about, not some street 
wench. She ll be eager to wed a man of your stature, no doubt. But will she not contract the gallant s disease from you?”

Charlotte cringed at his lordship s callous response. "Were not women put on this earth to do men’s bidding and assuage men s ills?” he rumbled. "Of what other use are they? The girl will serve my purpose well enough— after all, Russ here vouches for her, and she has a decent background. God s teeth, what’s keeping the wench?” "She will run away once she learns what you have planned for her,” predicted the fourth voice indifferently.

Charlotte was indeed about to take flight when she heard Bodine’s voice—"Ah, we’ve taken care of that, haven’t we, Russ?”—followed by an unpleasant chuckle.

Charlotte would have dashed back the way she had come and gone out the open front door, but as she whirled, she saw Livesay and the stableboy just now staggering in under the weight of her uncle’s chest and a large box. Coming in at that moment, they effectively blocked her way.

"Ah, there you are, Mistress Charlotte!” Livesay’s carrying voice held a rising inflection. She saw that he had discarded the countryman’s smock he usually wore and was wearing the old-fashioned stained brown velvet coat— one of Uncle Russ’s castoffs—that he considered his badge of office. "Your uncle was asking where you were. ” He was looking at her somewhat accusingly. "And I told him you were out strolling somewhere.”

Charlotte knew that Livesay was only trying by this method to warn her that he had not mentioned Tom, but her gratitude for that was outweighed by the fact that his voice had been loud and piercing enough to attract the attention of those in the drawing room, and she heard her uncle say, "Ah, here she is now, Pimmerston. You can view her at last.”

Charlotte did not want the occupants of that room to know that she had overheard their conversation, so she flew down the great hall to Livesay with a breathless, "Is that box for me, Livesay?”

"No, Mistress Charlotte.” Livesay blinked and trudged on past her.

Charlotte whirled and so appeared to be just coming through the front door as her uncle stuck his bewigged head and ruddy face out into the hall.

"Charlotte?” He looked startled at the change in her. His gaze raked her up and down and a pleased expression spread over his florid features. His chest, in his brown satin coat, expanded. "Come greet our guests.” He beckoned with a deep-cuffed arm.

With her head held high, albeit a trifle pale, Charlotte brushed coldly past her uncle with only the barest of greetings to face the three men he had brought north with him.

She would never quite forget the scene that greeted her there in the familiar drawing room of Aldershot Grange:

Golden afternoon sunlight spilled into a room that must have been beautiful during her mothers girlhood but that had long since gone shabby with peeling yellow paint and moldering moss-green wall hangings. Three men were seated upon the faded olive-green velvet of the heavy Jacobean chairs arranged around the cold hearth, drinking ruby port wine. All three came to their feet at the entrance of a beautiful young girl.

Over on her right she recognized the fustian-clad form of Arthur Bodine, not so well-dressed as the others and slightly bowlegged. He raked her with his hard brown eyes, pleased with the gown he had sent her, and his smiling gaze briefly met Charlotte s in a devouring sort of way. Charlotte could not restrain the look of loathing that crossed her face like a shadow, and Bodine's smile faded.

The other two, she saw, were both dressed in the height of fashion.

The thin and languid gentleman on her left could be none other than Lord Pimmerston. His pomaded bag wig was elegantly curled, enormously modish, and of an unlikely golden hue, and the large dark green satin bow at its back was matched by a similar bow at the front, just below his pointed chin. His sallow face was unhealthy-looking and he wore a black patch that seemed to emphasize the 
slight sneer his mouth habitually wore. The splendor of his apparel far overshadowed his countenance, for he was wearing a bottle-green satin coat with glinting gold buttons enameled in green marching down it from the neck to the hem of its stiffly flared skirt. The rest of the coat was entirely overpowered by wide pale green velvet cuffs of enormous dimensions that covered his elbows and indeed most of his arms as well, but allowed a rich spill of lace to fall over his wrists to highlight his bejeweled hands. A long ivory brocade waistcoat bore a similar march of slightly smaller buttons that matched those on the coat, and his trousers were of the same bottle-green satin as his coat. Like the others, he wore riding boots.

His lordship had just been in the act of taking snuff, and as Charlotte entered, his nose was twitching. But twitching or not, to the fashion-conscious his was a daunting figure and he had risen to his feet and taken a mincing step forward, expecting to be instantly noticed and admired.

Charlotte ignored him and addressed her sweeping curtsy entirely to the tall, more soberly dressed gentleman in the center. On her left, Lord Pimmerston looked affronted. He snapped his green-enameled gold snuffbox shut and assumed a pose that had cut a wide swath in London drawing rooms. When Charlotte still ignored him, his sneer deepened, while his small eyes peered out at her with grudging admiration of her beauty and discontent that she could be so lacking in grace as to overlook him.

The tall gentleman in the center, who occupied Charlotte’s complete attention, was doubtless the fourth voice she had heard in that sunny room, and certainly the only voice that had expressed any interest at all in her welfare.

Charlotte stared at him breathlessly.

He was a man worthy of being stared at—and used to it, she guessed, from the amused expression that now crossed his sardonic features.

He was of a swarthy complexion, lean and tall with very black hair and a face that Charlotte supposed would be considered handsome; she was not disposed to consider it so, for she judged him to be in a minor way one of the conspirators against her, and she gave him her attention 
only to annoy Lord Pimmerston, whose pointy countenance was now covered with an angry flush.

But the effect of this tall fellow before her was indeed impressive. He wore his white cambric Steinkirk cravat with an air, pulled loosely through a buttonhole of the dark riding coat that matched his trousers. Under his coat, which was open, could be glimpsed a light gray brocade waistcoat with silver buttons.

“And who might you be, sir?” she wondered. “Since my uncle does not choose to introduce us.”

His dark eyes had widened at the sight of her floating into the room like a graceful white moth. Conscious that he had the young lady’s full attention, he made her an elegant leg, sweeping the floor with his dark tricorne alight with silver braid.

At her words a twitch of amusement altered the expression on what Charlotte considered to be a stern mouth, and he shot a quick glance at Lord Pimmerston, seething beside him, but his reply was grave enough.

“Rowan Keynes, at your service.”

“Lord Pimmerston.” Slightly disconcerted that Charlotte had so far managed to ignore that elegant bird of plumage in gold-encrusted green satin, who preened, discomfited, to her left, her uncle quickly seized Charlotte by the elbow and turned her about to face his lordship. “My niece, Charlotte.”

Charlotte’s cool violet gaze swept over his lordship completely without interest and she gave him only the barest shadow of a curtsy before turning back to the tall gentleman in the center. At this snub, his lordship’s face drained of color save for two spots that remained on his sallow cheeks as a badge of the indignity he felt he was suffering from this wench.

The wench appeared already to have forgotten him. “Have you traveled far, sir?” Charlotte again addressed Rowan Keynes.

“From Lord Pimmerston’s estate north of Sheffield,” was the lazy reply.

“And Arthur Bodine,” said her uncle doggedly, again 
turning Charlotte about so that she might not ignore his other guest. “I believe you’ve met my niece, Charlotte."

At her stare that denied recognition, Bodine’s brown eyes narrowed.

“I believe I selected that gown you’re wearing,” he said in a slightly threatening voice.

"Did you indeed?” Charlotte managed to sound so completely indifferent that a flash of amusement again flashed over Rowan Keynes’ dark features. "I had rather selected my own.”

"Come now, Charlotte,” sputtered her uncle. "Bodine chose well, admit it!” It was not lost on him that all three gentlemen—although the tall dark-haired one was not so obvious about it—had let their gazes rest lingeringly on Charlotte’s white bosom and the tops of her pearly breasts, exposed to view in the low-cut white gown.

Charlotte too had noticed, and under the pretext of toying with her hair, she lifted her arm to hide that pale expanse from three pairs of questing eyes.

"We have been awaiting your return,” her uncle told her jovially. "Lord Pimmerston is opening up Castle Stroud for a brief stay, and since word of his arrival has already spread along our way here, he is expecting callers throughout the evening. We are invited to be his guests for dinner, and there will be dancing afterward.”

"How nice,” said Charlotte, speaking up clearly. "It is unfortunate that I will not be able to attend.”

"Eh, how is that?” Lord Pimmerston leaned forward, perplexed.

"Yes, what do you mean, girl?” demanded her uncle.

"I mean that this is my only decent dress.” Charlotte indicated her new white voile gown. "And I am afraid I may have gotten the back of it badly stained—from lying on the grass.” She drawled those last words and gave the company about her a challenging look. She hoped they would put the worst construction on it. Let them think she’d been lying on a grassy bank with some chance-met swain!

Rowan Keynes was the only person in the room who 
looked amused, but her uncle roughly brushed her remark aside.

"Nonsense, of course you’ll go! Turn around. ’’ And when she did half-turn reluctantly, "Why, there’s naught amiss with the dress! Stop this missishness, you are accompanying me to Castle Stroud!’

"Well, at least I must comb my hair first,” Charlotte insisted stubbornly. "I certainly cannot go out looking like this!” She gave her golden hair a shake, and three appreciative pairs of eyes followed its golden shimmer.

"‘You may comb your hair but you will be back downstairs and ready to accompany us in fifteen minutes,” her uncle told her in a voice of menace.

"Very well.” Charlotte left the room, leaving the door slightly ajar behind her, and leaned for a moment against the doorjamb in the empty hall. She felt weak from the encounter.

Behind her she heard her uncle’s complacent, "Well, now, Lord Pimmerston, is Charlotte not everything Bodine told you—and more?”

And his lordship’s petulant rejoinder. "Aye, she’s a beautiful thing—though she’s obviously in need of taming. ”

"Ah, you’ll enjoy that, won’t you?” Bodine’s voice, accompanied by an evil chuckle.

But his lordship was not to be so easily mollified. The wench had publicly slighted him, and she should pay dearly for it!

"What’s this about grass stains on her back?” he added in a disgruntled voice. "She seemed to be making a point of it. I warn you, Russ, if when I’ve married her she turns out not to be a virgin ...”

"Why, then I’ll make you a widower myself—with my own hand,” promised her uncle in so cold a voice that Charlotte shivered.

Oh, they were vile, vile!
Sitting there discussing the ruin of her young life as if she were of no account!

The front door was closed now and she had little doubt that if she tried to run away she would be ridden down and dragged to Lord Pimmerston’s dinner party by force. Oh, if only she could ride!
Then
she might fling herself on 
the most likely mount available and thunder away. But by now the grooms, who had probably been enjoying a tankard or two in the kitchen, would be gathering out front to await their masters. There was no chance of immediate escape; she would have to make plans for later. She must get word to Tom.

With that in mind she turned away from the stairway, intending to head for the kitchen, when a large woman in indigo linen, who seemed to appear from nowhere, interrupted her progress. The woman must have stood all of six feet in her striped stockings, and she was built like a wrestler. Her ample bosom and hennaed hair swayed toward Charlotte.

“Mistress Charlotte?” said the woman with a smirk. “I’m Semple, your new lady’s maid brought by your uncle to serve you.”

“Well, then serve me upstairs,” said Charlotte briskly with a nod toward the stairway. “I’ll be right up.”

“No, Mistress Charlotte.” The formidable newcomer stood her ground. “I’ve been told that you’re in my charge and I’m not to let you out of my sight. ”

So this was what Bodine had meant when he told Rowan Keynes that they had
“taken care of ” any attempt she might make to escape: Semple was to take her in tow. 
Charlotte gave the huge woman a hopeless look.