My Dear Duchess (2 page)

“I am sure no one else would have been so
brave
,” she smiled, flashing a melting look at Captain Wright. As usual, he was so taken aback by her beauty that he scarcely heard what she said. Her hair, as fair as his own, rioted over her small head in artistic disorder. Her gown of blue-figured muslin complemented wide blue eyes set in a small heart-shaped face. The slightest gesture she made from the turn of her wrist to the way she applied neat stitches in the tambour frame in front of her was poetry in motion.

“Now you’ll be turning our poor young Captain’s head,” fluttered Mrs. Sayers. “You know the Earl of Minster and the Marquis of Blandhaven are to call. I declare my child has so many handsome beaux Mr. Wright, it quite makes me worry which she is going to choose.”

“I hope she chooses from the heart,” said the Captain lightly.

“But
of course
I will,” said Clarissa, opening wide her blue eyes which seemed to hold a meaning for the Captain alone. “
You
at least do not think that titles mean anything to me, my dear Mr. Wright.”

A footman arrived with the tea tray and the Captain took the opportunity to lean closer to Clarissa. “Does that mean there is hope for me, Miss Sayers?” he asked in a light, teasing voice. But when she looked up into his grey eyes what she saw there made her heart beat faster with a pleasant sensation of power. She would ensnare him further. Broken hearts could only add to a debutante’s consequence, and the handsome Captain was quite a catch.

“Of course you may hope,” she whispered with a cautious eye on her mother who was busy with the tea things out of earshot at the other side of the room.

“Miss Sayers,” he said with a hard edge to his voice. “Do not flirt with me, I beg…”

“Flirt?” Clarissa turned a pretty muslin shoulder on him. “You do me great wrong. I never
flirt
.”

She turned back and cast a look up at him through her lashes. He was watching her with a fierce speculation in his gaze which for a moment gave the belle pause. Perhaps… just perhaps… this Captain who exuded such a strong air of commanding masculinity might prove more than she could handle. Then she mentally shrugged. There had never been any man in her young life that she had been unable to manage.

Mrs. Sayers bustled back and began coyly making pleasantries in such an arch manner that the Captain could only wonder how the vulgar creature could have produced such an exquisite daughter.

When he finally rose to take his leave, he enquired of the ladies if he might expect to see them at the opera that evening. Gasparo Pacchierotti, the male soprano, was to sing. “Oh, dear,” simpered Mrs. Sayers with a quick look at her daughter, “I think since the weather is so dreadful, that perhaps we shall sit quietly at home. But we shall certainly be with Mrs. Bannington’s party at Vauxhall on the morrow.”

He bowed. “Pray do not ring for the servant, madam. I can find my way,” he said. Clarissa raised her eyes to his in farewell. They seemed to hold a message of warmth meant for himself alone. Already dreading the long wait until the following evening, he closed the door behind him and stood for a few moments on the landing. Should he have pressed them to accompany him to the opera? The message in Clarissa’s eyes had been unmistakable and no young girl that he had ever met would look just that way at a man unless her affections were engaged.

A drop of moisture fell on his hand and he stared at it in a puzzled way. The roof must be leaking. It was followed by another drop. He looked upwards.

A child’s face stared sadly and solemnly down at him from an upper landing. He raised his hand in mock salute and prepared to descend the stairs.

A small hiccupping sob stopped him in his tracks.

Moved by a kindly impulse he turned about and mounted with easy athletic steps to the upper floor. Crouching beside the bannisters in the shadowy light of the stairwell was a young girl. Her long, black hair fell straight to her waist and she was dressed in a short, faded tarlatan gown. He thought her to be about fourteen. He put his long fingers under her chin and turned the tear-stained face up to his.

“Why so mournful, miss,” he said gently. “Is there not enough water already on this dreadful day?”

Large black eyes flecked with golden light held his own for a moment and then dropped. “It’s of no use,” sobbed the pathetic figure. “I shall live in the schoolroom till I die.”

“Surely a few years is not so long,” he said teasingly.

The girl got to her feet. “I am seventeen years of age,” she said with a quaint dignity, “and until Clarissa gets married I’m condemned to remain up here.”

“Clarissa! Why? How should that affect you, my child?” asked the Captain intrigued.

“I am determined to introduce myself,” said the girl, smoothing down her faded gown, “I am Miss Frederica Sayers and you are Captain Henry Wright.” She went on as he would have interrupted her. “You see I know everyone who calls. I see them from the top of the stairs, although it’s very difficult telling what people are like by just the top of their heads.”

“But why must Clarissa be married before you descend the stairs?” pursued the Captain, looking down at her. No wonder he had taken her for a child. She was barely five feet tall!

“Oh, please come into the schoolroom where we can talk,” said Frederica. “Someone’s coming.”

The bewildered Captain found himself whisked into the schoolroom and the door shut behind him. It was a small, depressing room with a sanded floor and furnished with a deal table and two upright chairs. Small barred windows let in the dull grey light of the murky day outside. His petite hostess jerked forward one of the hard chairs and motioned him to sit, perching herself on the other and gazing at him with wide eyes. She began without preamble. “It’s like this. Mama says I am a troublesome
ingenue
and that I would only embarrass Clarissa if I appeared in public and that poor Clarissa has waited a long time for this Season since she is already two and twenty.”

The Captain looked at her and raised his thin brows. “I am surprised your sister is not yet wed. It does not say much for the young bloods of Yorkshire.”

“Oh, she had offers a-plenty but she didn’t want any of them. She wanted to have a Season and marry a title but Papa said there was nothing wrong with Yorkshire and she should stay there… but… then he died and Mama said she would see to it that Clarissa was rewarded.”

“I fear you are confusing your mama’s ambitions with those of your sister,” commented the Captain acidly. It was only natural after all that this embarrassing chit should be jealous of her beautiful sister.

“Are you in love with her?” asked Frederica, looking at him with those large and strange eyes.

“Yes,” he said baldly, suddenly wishing himself elsewhere.

“It’s only natural,” she sighed. “I will help you if you will help me. I can tell you… oh… all sorts of useful things. For example, they are going to the opera tonight.”

“But Mrs. Sayers assured me…”

“To the opera,” she went on firmly. “Mama wants her to make a match with the Marquis of Blandhaven but Clarissa is a bit frightened of him because he’s said to be a roue and to keep a string of West End Comets.”

“Watch your tongue, miss,” said the Captain beginning to sympathize with Mrs. Sayers.

“
And
so if you were to go to the opera, say, around about the last act, I think you could be sure of a welcome from Clarissa.”

“Thank you for your information,” he said dryly, “but I am perfectly capable of carrying on a courtship without your help.”

Two tears began to form in Frederica’s eyes. “Oh, what’s the use,” she sobbed. “Now you won’t help me.”

The Captain levelled his quizzing glass at the woebegone figure and sighed. “How can I be of assistance, Miss Frederica?”

She looked at him pathetically through her tears. “I… I was hoping you could help
bring me out
. Mama is taking me with her on a shopping expedition to Bond Street at ten o’clock tomorrow. If you were to meet us by chance and demand an introduction and
then
say that you hope to see me at Mrs. Bannington’s party at Vauxhall
then
mama might be persuaded to take me. I do so long to see Vauxhall.
Please
. You have no idea what it is like to hear the sounds of all the music and parties and never, ever, be able to join in.
Please
.”

“Very well, then,” said the Captain, after a moment’s reflection. It would do no harm, he decided, to befriend Clarrisa’s little sister. Keeping the child in the schoolroom was surely entirely Mrs. Sayers’ idea. Clarissa on the other hand would be grateful to him for being kind to her sister.

She flew out of her chair and flung her arms around his neck and planted a resounding kiss on his cheek.

“Oh
thank you
,” she breathed. “Oh, how I wish…”

“What do you wish, my child?” he teased, tugging at a lock of her long hair.

“Why… I wish that the sun may shine tomorrow,” she laughed.

But after the tall figure of the Captain had descended the stairs, Miss Frederica Sayers whispered to the uncaring schoolroom walls, “Oh, Captain Henry Wright.
How
I wish you were in love with
me
.”

“If you stop once more in the middle of the pavement, I shall take you home directly,” stormed Mrs. Sayers, pushing her youngest daughter in front of her along Bond Street and thanking her stars that the hour was too early to attract any fashionable shoppers.

Mrs. Sayers was out of sorts. Who would have thought that Captain Wright would attend the opera last night after all. And who would have thought that her usually biddable daughter would cold shoulder the Marquis at the second interval to flirt with the Captain. And now
this
ridiculous daughter of hers was mooning along like a
widgeon
looking for all the world as though she had lost something precious.

The sun shone down so brightly on the rainwashed street that at moments it seemed as if London was indeed paved with gold. Tiny wisps of clouds, the tattered stragglers from yesterday’s storm, chased each other across a sky of pure cerulean.

Mrs. Sayers stopped to admire a dashing bonnet of pleated lilac silk in a milliner’s window. She was often to remember that had it not been for the wretched bonnet, she could have been half way down Piccadilly before disaster befell.

A polite “Good morning, ma’am” brought her about and she stared upwards in dismay into the tanned and smiling face of Captain Wright. And as if that were not enough, hanging on his arm, her face alight with mischief was none other than that dashing society matron, Mrs. Bannington—she who had invited the Sayers to Vauxhall that very evening.

Her thoughts running like rats about her brain, Mrs. Sayers gushed “Good morning Mrs. Bannington… Captain Wright. Get behind me, girl!” The latter was hissed in an undertone to Frederica. If her daughter stood meekly and silently behind her, then Mrs. Sayers fervently hoped that Frederica might be taken for the maid. But that wretched child stayed exactly where she was, smiling at the Captain and Mrs. Bannington and patiently waiting for an introduction.

Mrs. Sayers made a supreme effort to extricate herself but Mrs. Bannington had already taken Frederica’s hand in her own. “And who have we here?” she demanded.

Frederica saw her golden chance and took it. Without waiting for her mother, she smiled at Mrs. Bannington, “I am Frederica Sayers.”

“Indeed!” cried Mrs. Bannington, her thin pencilled brows almost vanishing into her hair. “A cousin of Clarissa’s perhaps.”

“No ma’am, her younger sister,” said Frederica, nervously aware of the seething volcano that was her mother standing beside her.

“Indeed,” said Mrs. Bannington again. “You know Captain Wright perhaps?” And without waiting for a reply, she presented Frederica. His grey eyes held a mocking look but he bowed over her hand and then addressed himself to the angry Mrs. Sayers, “I was not aware that you had
two
beautiful daughters.”

“Tish. Frederica is but a schoolgirl. Now if you…”

“I am seventeen, mama,” Frederica reminded her with a sweet smile.

“Seventeen! Oh, you must not keep her hidden,” said Mrs. Bannington. “I insist that you bring Frederica to Vauxhall tonight.”

Mrs. Sayers’ face was a study. Mrs. Bannington was one of London’s foremost hostesses and her voice had held an undoubted steely note of command. To exclude Frederica from the outing would be to exclude Clarissa from any future Bannington entertainments. Mrs. Sayers’ thin mouth curved down to meet her massive jaw. She looked remarkably like an irritated bulldog. “Very well, then,” she said with bad grace. She had an obscure feeling that this was all the fault of Captain Wright. She suddenly saw a way in which she could make some use of this social disaster. Mrs. Sayers smiled sweetly on Mrs. Bannington. The bulldog had just found a juicy bone in unpromising ground. She said:

“Perhaps you could be of some service to me this evening, Captain Wright. You know how it is at these Vauxhall parties. Everyone swears to stick together and not get lost and then as soon as they’re through the gates, they start pairing off and one never sees anyone again until after the fireworks. Would you be so kind as to keep an eye on my little Frederica? A
fatherly
eye, of course. It is all right for Clarissa. She never wants for beaux but poor little Frederica will need some gentleman to take care of her.”

There was nothing Captain Wright could do but bow and say he would be delighted. It said a lot for his breeding and social charm that he managed to leave Mrs. Sayers with the impression that he was indeed as pleased as he said.

But as Mrs. Sayers and Frederica turned the corner, he looked ruefully down at Mrs. Bannington, “I fear I have underestimated Mrs. Sayers. What a horrible Friday-faced female she is. How she could contrive to produce so beautiful a daughter as Clarissa is beyond me.”

“Or Frederica for that matter,” said Mrs. Bannington. “Oh, don’t look so surprised. I’ll swear that girl has more character in her little finger than your precious Clarissa any day. I know it is hard to judge when she is wearing a shapeless dress and that quiz of a bonnet, but I swear if the chit were dressed properly, she could set London by the ears.”