Perdita (17 page)

Tomorrow I would be gone. “Yes, tomorrow,” I said, in a placating way, as I urged him towards the door.

“You agree, then?”

I did not actually say yes, nor even nod my head, but I did not deny it, which he took for agreement. “We’ll take April wherever she is going, and I will take you to a place I have, a very nice house,” he said. I smiled nervously, wishing he would stop these plans. “We are going to be very happy, Molly. We shall suit admirably. You’ll see. Don’t judge by the way I have been carrying on with April. I was only vexed at being outwitted by a—by you and Daugherty.”

I got him to the door as he spoke, listened to ensure the hall was empty, then opened the door an inch to peek out. “Can’t we seal it with a kiss at least tonight?” he asked, but still in a reasonable manner.

“No, I . . .”

“Yes.”

I was in his arms, with his head coming down to me. His lips found mine. Believing me to be a professional at this sort of thing, he did not hold anything back. I was subjected to a ruthless, long, passionate embrace that left me weak, breathless, shaken with shock.

“There goes my sleep. This is going to be a long night,” he said, with a glowing smile, friendly. Then he kissed the tip of my nose, and slipped silently out the door.

The most amazing thing about the encounter was how enjoyable was the chore for which certain women were paid staggering sums of money. No, I think there was one item more amazing still—that I was considered dashing and desirable enough to qualify. Like Tuck’s theatrical performance, one was morally bound to object, to take dire offense in this case, but if one were a legal wife, it would be a different matter.

I wondered, as I sat on the edge of my bed looking out at the moon, what Lady Dulcinea was like. I indulged, too, in a little self-pity. Every girl or woman one met, or the ladies at least, were being helped to a husband. Millie’s parents threw her a party, Lady Dulcinea’s got her Stornaway, Maude would make a good match for Perdita. Who was to act for me? I would obviously not settle for being Stornaway’s mistress, but I would look sharp when we got to Brighton. I would find someone, and it would not be an aging widower, either. If Stornaway could admire me as a woman . . . But it was best to forget Lord Stornaway.

Chapter Fourteen

The sky was just lightening when I awoke, tired, my eyes gritty from lack of sleep. I made a hasty toilette in cold water, noticed Stornaway’s cigar butt in the potted fern and threw it out the window, then went next door to rouse Perdita. It took five minutes to get her from her bed. While she complained and dressed, I packed up our few belongings and tidied her room, which she had managed to reduce to an utter shambles. The kitten bounced off a chair in the corner and meowed under my feet. We moved quietly along the hallway to prevent awaking the other sleepers. Already the servants were up. The aroma of coffee greeted us, along with sounds from the breakfast parlor hinting at cups being placed on the table. With a rising sense of urgency, I told Perdita we would have only coffee, to hasten our departure.

"If John is even up yet,” she answered, smothering a yawn.

John was not only up but already into a breakfast of gammon and eggs. Millicent sat at his side, looking disgustingly bright and chipper for six o’clock in the morning. I did no more than glance at them. Stornaway was up, too, sitting at the end of the table with an anticipatory smile decorating his face.

I stopped dead in the doorway, my eyes flying to John. The gentlemen disturbed their eating to arise and make us welcome. John had the decency at least to look embarrassed, but beneath the embarrassment was a firm sense of purpose, as he outlined the change of plans.

“It happens Stornaway is going back to London today, girls, and has offered to drop you off at Mama’s. It will save me the trip.”

With Millicent smiling her approval, it was difficult to enter into the tirade that was building up inside me. Perdita took the offer as another compliment to her own charms. Tired as she was, she cast a coquettish smile on Stornaway as he placed her chair. I said literally not a word, but I had not the least notion of leaving Bromley Hall in any carriage but John’s. When I took my seat beside John, he leaned over and said in an undertone, “No need to frown like Jove, Moira. I explained the whole to him. We’ll talk before you go.”

So eager was I to hear this talk that I had only half a cup of coffee, before making an excuse to return to my room. I cast an imperative stare on John, who joined me in the hallway within a minute.

“You have got to take us, John. You cannot desert us now.”

“You misunderstand. We had a long talk last night, the two of us. I convinced him he was wrong about Perdie. He’s not going to blackball me with the FHC. Quite a decent chap, really, when you come to know him.”

“How did you convince him? He would never listen to
me.”

“You’re a woman,” was the unhelpful answer. “He listened to
me
right enough. Told him your whole story—about old man Croft, and that trollop Perdie’s papa got shackled to, the lot. He is very sorry he acted so awful, wants a chance to apologize, make it up. Now listen to sense, do, Moira. How should I be sending a couple of
actresses
to put up with Mama? Go with him, and I won’t have to make that demmed long trip there and back today. Millicent and I were planning to go to visit her Aunt Hazel this afternoon. Rich as a nabob. She might give us a set of sterling silver plate, if we butter her up right.”

Even in the midst of my turmoil, I could not but smile at John’s new turn for domesticity and acquisition. "You are
sure
he understands? We will be in a fine state if he has gammoned you.”

“Lord, Moira, men don’t gull each
other.
He knows full well I would be obliged to call him out if he tried anything. Wouldn’t care for that, and he on the edge of an engagement himself. Now there is a good point to bear in mind if he
does
try anything off-color. You have only to let drop the name Lady Dulcinea, and he’ll fall into line. He wouldn’t want that blue sock he’s dangling after to hear a hint of his carrying on.”

“You think he might try it, then! You have just admitted it.”

“I don’t. I know full well he won’t do nothing havey-cavey, for he told me so. He only wants a chance to make it up to you and Perdie for the way he’s pestered the pair of you to death.”

As he finished this speech, the others joined us in the hallway.

“All set and ready to go, ladies?” Stornaway asked, in a perfectly polite manner. There was no mischief in his eyes. Really, I thought he
did
look slightly repentant.

“This has worked out very conveniently,” Millicent congratulated the group. “Now John and I can begin paying some visits to relatives who have not met him.”

“The weather looks good, too,” Stornaway pointed out, glancing towards the windows. “We should be in London by early afternoon. I have an appointment this evening.”

After a few more respectable utterances from him, I was convinced he had accepted the truth about us. It would be amusing to hear his apologies and explanations. John and Millicent came out to the front to wave us off.

The apologies were not so amusing as I had hoped. As to the explanation, it was practically nonexistent, but at least he
did
apologize, and behaved with decency. "I am sorry for the difficulty I have caused you both since our meeting,” he said as soon as we got rolling. "We all know what caused my misapprehension. The less said of the affair, the better. So, ladies, I cannot believe you plan to remain indefinitely with Mrs. Alton in London. A Mrs. Cosgrove, Alton mentioned as your chaperone. Aunt, is she?”

"She is my aunt, and Moira’s cousin,” Perdita told him. "We are going to stay with her in Brighton, if she will let us.”

“Is there some doubt about it?” he asked, looking startled.

As I firmly declared “no,” Perdita said, “Oh, yes,” and went on to explain.

I had very little to do but listen during the remainder of the morning. Perdita, her imagination and dramatic instinct activated by a handsome listener, went into a lengthy spiel of her melodramatic background. A tear oozed out as she mentioned her mother’s death. Her stepmother was sunk from being a common, jealous female to a positive ogress, who would
force
her to have the libidinous Mr. Croft, and steal her fortune into the bargain if she could.

"Quite like a romantic novel,” Stornaway mentioned, properly awed. “Just what is the extent of your fortune?” I measured a calculating stare on him, but his eyes rested on Perdita. We were in his carriage, not the curricle. His tiger drove the latter; he had passed us a few miles before. It was beginning to appear to me the gentleman had a new set of designs on my charge. Whatever Lady Dulcinea might look like, she could not possibly be prettier than Perdita. He had described the lady as dull, which was a charge never levelled at Miss Brodie. In fortune, it was unlikely the noble Dulcinea outranked my cousin. The only other matter up for comparison was behavior; Perdita’s assorted tricks had never disgusted any other suitor, once her fortune was known. I supposed Stornaway was not that different from other men in that respect.

“Fifty thousand pounds,” she answered sweetly. "And
more
when my Aunt Maude dies. She will leave me her house in Brighton. It is on the Steyne, in the center of town, with a view of the Pavilion. Aunt Agatha will leave me something as well. That is Papa’s sister.”

“And
you,
Miss Greenwood, have you no fairy godmothers?” he asked, with a little smile, possibly of disbelief, towards Perdita.

“Yes, she has
me!
I shall take care of Moira when she is old,” she told him, with a self-righteous face.

“That should set you to trembling!” he cautioned. “You two are cousins, you say. How does it come one is not only an heiress in her own right, but to receive legacies from the aunts as well? It would seem more logical the old girls leave it to
you,
Miss Greenwood.”

"They are more closely related to Perdita. Mrs. Cosgrove is only a cousin to me. She is Perdita’s aunt. Naturally she will leave her estate to her niece. The other, Agatha, is no kin to me.”

“It is not the way estates are managed in my family,” he mentioned.

“It is really too bad,” Perdita agreed, “and on top of it all,
I
shall make a very good marriage, while Moira will not make any.”

He quirked a sympathetic brow at me, then returned his attention to Miss Brodie. If I was not eligible for a mistress, I was of no interest to him. It was as clear as glass.

As the morning wore on and the hour for luncheon approached, Perdita said, “When are we going to stop? I am
starved.
I hope we go to a very fashionable inn. I mean to wear the new bonnet I got yesterday. You will have to get the box for me, Stornaway.”

“I planned to stop at my country place,” he replied.

“Stornaway is nowhere near here! It is up towards Chippenham,” Perdita objected, voicing a fact that had occurred to me as well.

"How the deuce did you know that?”

“You need not think we are flats. We have known ever since Marlborough that you live at Stornaway. Is it a very grand estate? Phoebe made sure it was. She suspected all along you were a lord. Remember, Moira, she said she made a point of calling him ‘milord,’ and he never batted an eye, but only turned around and answered her.”

“The actresses are well organized,” he said, looking at her askance.

“It will be best if you forget about the actresses,” I told her. “That is a shameful part of your past we shall not draw to anyone’s attention in future. As she mentioned, however, Stornaway is not near here, is it?”

“I was not referring to Stornaway. I have a summer place, a weekend retreat I use when I am in London.”

“It will not be ready to receive company,” I pointed out, disliking to be drawn off our direct route.

“I keep a couple there all year to look after it. I would like to stop and give my servants instructions. Now that I am going to town, they will want to know it, and ready things for me. They can give us a luncheon, at least.”

The lack of funds limited our options. When Stornaway was to feed us, it was hardly polite to insist he do so at a public inn. “Very well, but we must make quick work of it,” I said.

His place lay just to the west of Tunbridge Wells. It was reached by turning off the main road and traveling down a pretty country lane for about a mile. It was a cottage, no more, but a quaint Queen Anne cottage, with leaded windows and a garden of roses just budding. Behind it, a row of willows streamed their green ropes down, hinting at a body of water. As we approached the house, the glimmer of a smallish river was seen, sparkling in the sun.

“How lovely! It is like a little fairy castle!” Perdita exclaimed. “What do you call it. Stornaway?”

“Birdland,” he answered.

The word raised a tumult in my breast. I had heard the name before. It was the singularly appropriate name selected for his love nest, where he had planned to bring Perdita when he mistook her for a ladybird. I expect this nest had seen an assortment of them in its time. But his face was impassive as he rhymed off various larks and robins whose presence contributed to the place’s name. I could not like to betray too close an interest in his possessions, nor that I had been listening in on his private conversations.

The house was tended by a respectable-looking couple, a Mr. and Mrs. Steddy, who did all that required doing when his lordship was not in residence. It would be more grandly looked after when it had a regular occupant. They expressed considerable surprise to see him.

“I want to talk to you, Steddy,” he said to the man. “Would you be kind enough to take the ladies upstairs to wash?” he added to the woman.

We followed her up a circular staircase, to a long hallway lit by leaded windows at either end. There were six doors, three down either side. “I guess it’s the guest room he’d be meaning,” she said, opening one door for us. The room was charming. There was old Chinese wallpaper, good furnishings that dated from the same period as the house. We washed rather quickly, and thus returned below before luncheon was prepared.