Rakehell's Widow

Alabeth drew back the crimson velvet draperies to watch the approach of her father’s heavy traveling carriage. Its lamps cast a pale light over the mauve rhododendrons lining the drive and an unseasonal rumble of thunder wandered darkly over the April night sky, followed by a flash of lightning which shone sharply on the coach’s polished brasswork and gleaming panels. Why had he decided to pay Charterleigh a visit after all this time? And why make the journey from London to the coast of Kent after a long and tiring day in the House of Lords debating the new peace with France? She knew he hated traveling by night because of the danger of highwaymen, and yet he chose this late hour to visit her. Perplexed, she watched the carriage, its harness jingling and its wheels crunching on the freshly raked gravel. It swung in an arc around the stone fountain before the main entrance of the rambling Tudor house, and then it passed from her sight.

She was thoughtful as she remained by the window. It
had been six years now since she had scandalized polite
society by jilting the elderly and influential Duke of
Treguard at the altar and eloping instead with Robert, Lord
Manvers, master of Charterleigh and one of the most
notorious rakehells in England. Society had abhorred her actions, finding no mitigating circumstances in the fact that she had been only seventeen and had never wished the arranged match with the Duke
in
the first place. She had
friends who had remained loyal to her, but she had made a
great many enemies, many of whom would never forgive
her for breaking so many rules. Her father had forgiven
her to a certain extent, once he had got over the shame and
embarrassment, but he had never once set his seal of
approval on her unwelcome marriage by visiting Charter
leigh. She had always been welcome at Wallborough
Castle, the family seat in Derbyshire, provided she visited alone, but no single member of her family had ever called
upon her. Now she had been a widow for two years, and still those same rules applied—until tonight. Why?

Another vivid flash of lightning pierced the night sky, reflecting clearly in her large green eyes. Hers was a breath
taking beauty, the sort of beauty which even a man like
Lord Manvers, who had vowed never to encumber himself with a wife, had been unable to resist. Her hair was dark red, twisted back into a Grecian knot at the back of her
head and teased into dainty curls around her face. Her
sprigged muslin gown, white picked out with primrose,
was a fashionable echo of ancient Greece, with its high
waistline and elegant train, reminiscent of the classical
lines so much admired now. Slowly she lowered the drap
eries and turned to leave the tapestry-hung room, her cashmere shawl dragging on the polished wooden floor behind
her as she went to greet her father. The sound of his footman’s cane rapping smartly on the ancient door echoed dully through the house.

The Earl waited in the great hall, a stone-flagged chamber with dark paneled walls and a number of suits of armor which always seemed to Alabeth to still contain their long-
dead owners. The candles on the walls cast a poor light,
but the Earl was standing by the immense stone fireplace
where the butler had placed a small oil lamp. Geoffrey
Albert Carstairs, eleventh Earl of Wallborough, was a
portly man, once considered very good-looking but now rather too round to be called handsome. He did not much
care for modern fashions, choosing to still powder his hair
and wear colorful coats and buckled shoes, and his face
bore a habitually mournful expression that concealed the
gruff humor which was the mark of his many speeches in
the House.

Her skirts rustled as she approached. “Good evening,
Father.”

“Beth.”

“May I offer you some cognac?” She spoke lightly, but
she was nervous as she went to the heavily carved Eliza
bethan sideboard.

He nodded. “It’s good to see you in something other
than black for a change.”

“My two years of mourning ended in January.”

“Two years? Most women settle for one.”

“I am not most women.”

“By God, that’s an irrefutable fact, madam, for how
many other women would be so foolish as to ally themselves to a wastrel who then set out deliberately provoking
a duel in which he was almost certain to die? Eh? Damn me
if I don’t think he deserved to snuff it, and that’s another
irrefutable fact.”

“Father, I would prefer not to quarrel with you, but quarrel we will if you persist in speaking ill of Robert in his
own house.”

“I don’t wish to quarrel with you, my dear, but I can’t
help regretting your past connections with all my heart.”

“I loved him, with all
my
heart,” she retorted. “And besides, the duel was not of his choosing. It was brought
about by the interference and evil influence of Sir Piers
Castleton.”

The Earl’s shrewd eyes moved thoughtfully over her
face. “Castleton was his second, not his opponent,
Beth.”

“He was still entirely to blame.”

“Well, I admit that Castleton isn’t one of my favorite fellows, but I still can’t truthfully say that I agree entirely
with you. Robert was his own man and nobody’s
cat’s-paw.” The Earl accepted the glass of cognac she held
out for him. He swirled the amber liquid and sniffed the bouquet. “Some of Robert’s contraband stock?” he asked with a smile.

“Smuggling wasn’t one of his vices.”

“Then he must have been the only gentleman in this part
of the country to be so innocent.”

“Not everyone in Kent is a smuggler, sir.”

“Perhaps not quite, but a more notorious lair of
contre-
bandiers
would be hard to find. I’ll warrant the new peace
treaty hasn’t been all that well received here, for now
there’ll be more time for the revenue cutters to do their
appointed task.”

She smiled. “You may be right.”

“What is your opinion of the peace?”

“Well, the thought of continuing with a war which has already lasted eight years isn’t cheering, but for all that, I
think this particular treaty is a bad thing.”

“Ah, so you’re a daughter of mine after all,” he said
with some satisfaction. “I wondered if perhaps marrying a Whig had blinkered you as well.”

“Robert may have been a Whig, sir, but he was not a
Jacobin. He loathed the revolution as much as you.”

“Perhaps he had a redeeming feature after all, then,” remarked the Earl smoothly, swirling the cognac again and sniffing it appreciatively. “One thing the French
can
do well is produce an excellent swig— Now, then, where was
I? Oh, yes, this shameful peace. I swear, Beth, that if
you’d been in Town when the news first broke, you’d have
thought them all gone completely mad, for there seemed as
many revolutionaries in Piccadilly as in every Paris
boule
vard
put together. There was no stopping to consider the
wicked terms of this treaty, no pause to wonder why
England is giving back everything to France, but the
French relinquish nothing in return. No, there was no
thought of that, there was just the mob, parading through the streets, demanding that every house be illuminated in
celebration—and woe betide those who did not hasten to
comply! First Consul Bonaparte was their Messiah, and Ambassador Otto’s house in Portman Square was become a shrine. I’ll warrant the King wondered how long it would be before Madame Guillotine sprang up in Hyde Park.”

She smiled as she watched him, for his whole manner
smacked of the House of Lords, from the way his head was
held back so that his clear, precise voice could carry, to the
way he surveyed the invisible ranks of peers somewhere to
the rear of Charterleigh’s great hall. With a smile, she went
to sit on a high-backed settle. “You
have
had a long day in
the House, haven’t you?” she said.

“I have, indeed, trying to point out the dangers of this iniquitous Treaty of Amiens. Bonaparte is laughing at us,
he’s successfully swept us to the sidelines, leaving him free
to continue annexing Europe to his ever-growing empire. He sees himself as the new Charlemagne, you mark my
words! Which brings me to my reason for coming here ton
ight, Beth.”

She blinked. “You’ve come here because Bonaparte aspires to be Holy Roman Emperor? How on earth can
that involve me?”

He chuckled. “I admit that the link must appear some
what tenuous.”

“It’s not even that, sir, it’s completely invisible!”

“It is because of the peace treaty that I’ve accepted the appointment in Madras, assisting the Governor-General,
the Earl of Mornington.”

Now she was completely mystified. “But you’ve always sworn never to take a post abroad—”

“I’ve sworn many a thing in my time, Beth, including
never to set foot in this house, but here I am.”

“Why have you accepted this post? And what’s more to
the point, why have you come here?”

“I go to Madras because there are those in the government who, like me, can see Bonaparte for what he is. The terms of the treaty dictate that Britain shall hand back
French territories, including those in India—once my province, you will remember.”

“I remember.”

“It is widely felt that Bonaparte has no intention of
meeting any of the terms which are supposed to bind him, and so it has been decided—most secretly, you understand—that there shall be some diplomatic delaying on the side
of the British.”

“Some fudging, you mean, and who better to do it than
you, one of the most expert fudgers in Parliament.”

“Do I detect a note of sarcasm?”

“I thought I was praising you,” she replied blandly,
“for is it not the ambition of every politician to be a
notable fudger?

“Hmm. Well, call it what you will, I prefer to call it dip
lomacy. My skills in the field will be of undoubted assistance to Mornington in his dealings with the French, and I feel it most important that at such a delicate point in our
country’s history, I should do my utmost to be of assis
tance.”

She was silent for a moment. “I still fail to see what this
has to do with me.”

“I was coming to that.” He looked away from her.

She was immediately suspicious, for his inability to meet
another’s gaze was his weak point as a politician—and as a
card-player. His eyes always wavered when he knew he was
on thin ground, and she knew him well enough by now to
see that he was in just such a predicament now. “Yes?”
she said. “Do go on.”

“Beth, this was to have been your sister’s first
Season—”

She stiffened. “No!”

“Please, Beth.”

“No! Jillian has made her feelings toward me more than
clear, Father, so asking me to oversee her first Season would be an unmitigated disaster.”

“I was hoping that you and she might have made up since that business with Captain Francis.”

“I have been quite amenable and agreeable; Jillian has
not.”

“But you were always so close—”

“We no longer are, sir. She still believes I snitched to you about her indiscretions because I was jealous and
spiteful. She will not believe that I did it because I was concerned for her, knowing Francis to be a blackguard—I
had her best interests at heart, but she is determined not to
believe it.”

“She’ll come around, Beth.”

“She won’t, for she believed herself in love with him.
Father, it must be obvious to you that I’m not the person
to ask. Couldn’t Aunt Silchester attend to it?”

“Aunt Silchester was to have done the honors, but she is
now too ill to take on the responsibility. There’s only you, Beth. You’re Jillian’s elder sister and you’re a widow, you’re entirely suitable to have charge—”

“You seem to be conveniently forgetting my notorious
past, sir. There was a time you believed me to have be
haved so shamelessly that you almost disinherited me.”