Rules for Being a Mistress (24 page)

“It might have been much worse,” Dr. Grantham said, as if disappointed. “As it is, she has broken her wrist.”

“Oh!” She made as if to dart into her mother’s bedroom, but the doctor caught her arm.

“Now perhaps you will listen to me, Miss Vaughn!” he said, giving her a shake. “Lady Agatha should be in a hospital. At the very least, your mother ought to be locked in her room at night, to prevent accidents such as these.”

Cosima pulled away from him angrily. “I am not going to lock my mother in her room like a prisoner! And she doesn’t want to go to your hospital.”

Dr. Grantham turned to Sir Benedict and sighed. “You see how irrational this young lady is on the subject? Lady Agatha became quite dizzy on the stairs and fainted. She might very well have been killed. She ought to be locked up at night for her own safety. Sir Benedict, I implore you. Reason with this headstrong, foolish child. Put your foot down.”

Cosima glared at Benedict, as though daring him to put his foot down.

“Perhaps, Miss Vaughn, you might consider—”

“I am
not,
” she shouted, “putting my mother in some damned hospital, and that’s final! I am not locking her in her room! And I’m not going to keep her in a state of oblivion with laudanum and God-knows-what!”

“I was going to suggest,” Benedict said mildly, “that you move her ladyship’s bedroom downstairs. That way, she at least need not negotiate the stairs.”

“Oh,” she said, embarrassed that she had interrupted him so fiercely.

“That would be most improper,” said the doctor. “A lady’s bedroom, on the ground floor? I never heard of such a thing. Even in cases of ill health, the proprieties must be observed, Sir Benedict. In any case, her ladyship ought not to be moved just yet.”

“I don’t think the man was suggesting we do it
now,
” Cosima said irritably.

She went in to see her mother. Lady Agatha was in bed. Nora was covering her ladyship’s pitted face with cold cream. Lady Agatha’s white hair, badly thinned from years of dyeing, barely covered her spotted head. She held out her right hand to her daughter. Her left wrist was immobilized by a splint.

“Oh, Mother!” said Cosima, kneeling next to the bed. “What were you doing out of bed? Where did you think you were going?”

“I lost another tooth,” Lady Agatha sobbed. Opening her mouth, she showed her daughter the small, black wound in her gum. “I didn’t want to tell you, my dear. I wanted you to go to your party and enjoy yourself. You deserve your night out. I’m so sorry I spoiled it.”

Cosima was awash in guilt. “I shouldn’t have left you. I don’t even play cards!”

“There is nothing you could have done if you had been here,” said Lady Agatha.

“Where were you, Nora?” Cosima demanded of the servant.

“It is not Nora’s fault,” Lady Agatha said quickly. “She was with me all night. She fell asleep, right in that chair. I woke up overheated. It was very silly, I know, but I went downstairs for my fan, and the next thing I knew, the doctor was here.”

“You ought to have woken me up, my lady,” Nora moaned softly.

Lady Agatha could barely keep her eyes open.

“The doctor gave her something,” Nora explained.

Cosima frowned slightly. “Allie?” she asked Nora. “Is she sleeping in my room?”

“Aye.” Nora pressed her lips together. “The doctor gave
her
something, too.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” Cosima snapped.

Lady Agatha squeezed her hand. “Will you sit with me until I fall asleep, dearest? I want to hear all about your party! I’m sure you were the prettiest girl there. Did everyone admire you? Did you enjoy yourself?”

“Oh, yes, Mother,” Cosima assured her. “The ladies were all so beautiful and kind. They paid me so many compliments, my head swelled up like a balloon full of hot air.”

Lady Agatha smiled. “And was there dancing?”

“There was, of course,” Cosima lied, smiling. “And I danced every dance. The gentlemen were all so handsome, I couldn’t decide which one I liked the best.”

Lady Agatha drifted off to sleep happily.

Cosima planted a kiss on her mother’s forehead, then went to find the doctor.

He was in the drawing-room, in conference with Benedict. “—completely irrational on the subject,” the doctor was saying.

“What did you give my sister?” Cosima demanded, interrupting.

Dr. Grantham blinked at her. “Miss Allegra was frightened and distraught. She became hysterical. I gave her something to help her sleep.”

“That’s your answer for everything, isn’t it? Knock the daylights out of them!”

Dr. Grantham smiled thinly. “Do you see what I mean, Sir Benedict? Something must be done. I shall write again to Lord Wayborn. His lordship is by far the most proper person to make decisions about his sister’s health.”

“My uncle could care less about his sister’s health,” Cosima informed the man.

Dr. Grantham placed a tiny bottle on the table near Benedict. “Miss Vaughn is hysterical. Give her three of these drops, Sir Benedict, and it will relax her overwrought nerves so that she can sleep.”

“You can take your drops and you can stick them where—” Miss Vaughn began hotly.

“Thank you, doctor,” Benedict said. “You may see yourself out.”

“The young lady has a wicked and unruly tongue,” the doctor warned him in a very low voice. “I fear that stress may have caused her reason to give way. The first indication of madness in females is very often unfeminine, disobedient, and even violent speech. To be followed, I’m sorry to say, by unfeminine, disobedient, and violent behavior! You would do well to keep an eye on the young lady, Sir Benedict. If her condition worsens—!”

He broke off as Miss Vaughn suddenly sank into a chair and began to laugh hysterically. “Three drops,” Dr. Grantham whispered. “Just three drops and she’ll be right as rain.”

Miss Vaughn began to sob like an abandoned child.

“Quite,” said Benedict, showing the physician the door.

Silently, he walked over to the girl and handed her a clean handkerchief.

“He’s right,” she moaned, blowing her nose. “It
is
my fault. I should have been with her, instead of—! I don’t even like those people!”

“It is not your fault,” he said firmly. “I think you should go to bed. I’ll sit with your mother for an hour or two while you rest.”

“Oh, no!” she said, starting up. Her mother would die of shame and embarrassment if a gentleman were to see her without her makeup and wig, her face slathered in cold cream. “Mother wouldn’t like that at all! Nora and I will take turns. Really,” she insisted, wiping her eyes. “It’s very kind of you to offer, but we’ll manage. I’m just thankful it was no worse.”

Benedict did not feel he had the right to insist. “Then I will leave you,” he said quietly. “I will call tomorrow to see how the patient is doing.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Tomorrow.”

It suddenly occurred to her that Miss Cherry would not be able to keep her appointment tonight, and she felt a sudden burst of anger against her mother. Why hadn’t she sent Nora downstairs for her stupid fan if she was hot?

Almost in the same instant, she was wracked with horrified guilt. Her own selfishness took her breath away. Her mother might very easily have broken her neck on the stairs, and all she could think about was sneaking out of the house to spend a few hours in the company of a man she hardly knew!

What a loathsome, undutiful daughter I am,
she thought, her face flaming.

“Please don’t trouble yourself,” he said. “I’ll see myself out.”

“It’s no trouble,” she insisted. Pride forced her to add: “I have to lock the door, after all.”

“Yes, of course,” he murmured, following her down.

She couldn’t resist taunting him. “I’d kiss you good night,” she said, as they shook hands in the doorway, “but you had the duck.”

Lady Rose Fitzwilliam was the first to call on the Vaughns the following morning. Cosima came halfway down the stairs to meet her. Lady Rose ran up and seized both of Miss Vaughn’s hands in her own. “Oh, Miss Vaughn! How is your dear mama?”

“She must take laudanum for the pain, but her bones will mend,” Cosima reported, leading the younger girl to the drawing room. “When she is better, I intend to move her downstairs into the Book room. She simply can’t manage the stairs anymore.”

Lady Rose listened politely, and said everything that is proper to say when one’s mother-in-law-to-be takes a bad fall on the stairs. Then she burst into tears. “Oh, Miss Vaughn! I am engaged! Mother put the announcement in the paper this morning!”

“But that’s good, isn’t it?” Cosima said, puzzled.

Rose stared at her in amazement. “Good!”

“Aye. Now everyone will know you’re engaged.”

“To Freddie Carteret!” cried Rose. “Mama said she would marry me off to the first man who asked for me, and she means to do it! What am I going to do?”

“You can’t marry Freddie,” Cosima declared stoutly. “The man is a fortune hunter! You should have seen him sniffing around when he thought I was an heiress.”

“It won’t make any difference to Mama,” Rose said. “She just wants to be rid of me. Her only daughter! She doesn’t care who I marry. Papa is in France. The only person in the world who can help me now is Westlands! Please, Miss Vaughn! He will come to Bath if you send for him! You
will
send for him, won’t you?”

Cosima was taken aback. “I don’t have the power to send for him or anyone else.”

“You do,” Rose insisted. “You’re his favorite cousin! He told me so.”

“That was a long time ago, Lady Rose,” Cosy said gravely. “We were children then. But, I’m sure, if
you
summoned him, and explained the situation—”

Rose snorted. “If I summoned him, he’d run as fast as he could—in the opposite direction! It’s not as though I’m asking a lot. It would only be a sham engagement.”

“Sham engagement!”

“Of course,” said Rose. “If I’m engaged to Westlands, Mama can hardly expect me to marry Freddie! Tell Westlands I promise to jilt him the exact moment I turn twenty-one. Then, when I have my money, I shall fly to Dante in India on the wings of love. It’s only four years, Miss Vaughn! Westlands won’t mind waiting four years to marry. He’s only twenty-five, and he’s got lots of wild oats to sow. He is not a
sincere
young man like my beloved Dante.”

“Oh, my God,” Cosima murmured. As much as she loved her younger brother, she would never have described him as sincere.

“If you don’t send for Westlands, Mama will make me marry the odious Freddie. Time is of the essence! In fact, I’m supposed to be at a fitting with the modiste now.” She hopped nimbly to her feet and ran to the door. “At least I’m getting some new clothes. Oh, help me, Miss Vaughn! If you don’t, I fear my wedding dress will be my shroud!”

Miss Vaughn had just put pen to paper when she heard Jackson admitting a visitor at the front door. She ran to the top of the stairs. To her disappointment, it wasn’t Ben. “Hush, can’t you?” she whispered furiously. “Mother’s sleeping!”

“It’s a delivery, Miss Cosy,” Jackson said. “A pianoforte!”

Ben must have sent it,
she thought. He must have missed her company last night as much as she had missed his. She ran outside to stare at the beautiful instrument on the delivery cart. “It’s the exact one I wanted,” she breathed, beginning to blush. “The Clementi. Is there a note?” she asked one of the delivery men.

“No, miss. Where do you want it?”

Benedict waited until after ten o’clock to call on Miss Vaughn. By this time, he knew better than to ring the bell. He knocked.

“Is it yourself, Sir Benedict?” Jackson asked pleasantly.

“Yes, Jackson. It is I,” Benedict replied. “Is that a pianoforte I hear?”

He went up unannounced.

Cosima was seated at the instrument. He guessed it was the Clementi she had been speaking of in such glowing terms at Serena’s card party. The manufacturer, Signor Muzio Clementi, was also a famed musician and composer of the day, and Cosima was playing one of his more intricate and lively concertos. Unlike the prestissimo she had attempted at Lady Serena’s party, she obviously knew this piece well. She played it perhaps a little too fast in her excitement, but otherwise quite flawlessly. He waited for her to finish the movement.

“You got the Clementi,” he said.

She looked at him glowing eyes.

“It’s a beautiful instrument,” she said. “It’s exactly what I wanted. Thank you.”

Benedict frowned, taken aback. He had assumed that she had used some of the money he had given her to buy the instrument herself. “Why are you thanking me?”

She blinked at him. “Did you not send it?”

“No,” he said. “Of course not. That would not have been proper at all.”

“There wasn’t a note,” she said. “If not you, who?”

“Ludham, of course,” he said, annoyed. “You practically begged him to buy it for you.”

She jumped up from the seat. “I did no such shameless thing!”

“Perhaps not,” he said. “In any case, you cannot accept such an expensive present from his lordship. To accept such a gift would be tantamount to a promise of marriage. Send it back.”

She scowled at him. “Why? Because you say so? You’re not my father. You’re certainly not my husband! You have no right to tell me what to do.”

“You cannot marry him,” he said calmly. “You know you cannot. You are a Roman Catholic. You cannot marry a divorced man. As far as Rome is concerned, the Earl of Ludham already has a wife. If you marry him, you would be guilty of adultery.”

“I never said I was going to marry him,” she said sullenly.

She closed the instrument.

“You look tired, Miss Vaughn,” he said.

“Why, thank you!”

“How is you mother?”

“She’s going to be all right. She’s resting. She’s not well enough for visitors, but I’ll tell her you were here. Won’t you sit down?”

“No, I can’t stay. I have come to take my leave of you. I am called to London.”

Her eyes flickered. “London, is it? How nice for you.”

“There is a debate in Parliament I cannot miss. The vote is set for Thursday. I will be gone at least two weeks, I’m afraid.”

Cosima did not believe for an instant this nonsense about a debate in Parliament. London was a den of iniquity, and men went there to be iniquitous. Because of Lady Agatha’s accident, Miss Cherry would not be able to visit him for the foreseeable future, and so, of course, being a man, he needed to explore other avenues. London had lots of avenues. One night alone, and he was off to London like a shot, the faithless hound. He probably kept a mistress there. If not, there was a brothel on every corner, she was sure.

She burned with jealousy when she thought of him bedding another woman.

“Well,” she sniffed. “Don’t let me keep you.”

“Have you any commission for me while I am in London? Is there anything I might get for your mother to make her recuperation less unpleasant?”

“You could bring her an ice from Gunter’s,” said Miss Vaughn. “She used to go there when she was a girl. Mulberry was her favorite flavor.”

“I can hardly bring an ice all the way from London,” he pointed out.

She glared at him. “Of course you can. Put it in your coat, next to your cold heart. That way, it won’t melt!”

“I don’t know,” he said coldly, “what I have done to deserve this acrimony.”

“Oh, you haven’t done anything,” she said bitterly.

And that was no more than the truth. He never did anything but kiss her. He kissed her like a lunatic, of course, but it was still only kissing. Probably, he was tired of playing these pointless virgin games. Lady Agatha’s fall was just the last straw that broke the camel’s back. He was off to shag the dirty fanny off some London slut.

As far as she was concerned, it was over. He needn’t come back from London at all.

“I was only joking about the ice,” she sniffed.

“I think,” he said quietly, “when I get back from London, we should see less of one another.”

Her heart began to beat in wild panic.
Oh, my God!
she thought.
He’s breaking up with me! Who does he think he is? He didn’t even shag me!

She looked down at her hands. “Is that what you think?” she said coldly.

“People are beginning to talk about us,” he explained.

“Who is talking about us?” she demanded.

“Lady Serena has mentioned something. Lady Dalrymple. The very people who pressed me into escorting you to the Upper Rooms now tease me about it.”

Cosima was mortified to hear that he had been “pressed.” She had been vain enough to think he had wanted to take her here and there. She hadn’t realized it was an act of charity on his part. “Well, no good deed goes unpunished,” she said coolly.

“Even Dr. Grantham, I’m afraid, seems to think that I—That you and I—Well, he behaves as though I am your intended husband.”

“Who cares what they think?”

“I care,” he said quietly.

She tossed her head. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t be here now!” she said.

“Yes, I must take my leave of you,” he said instantly, to her chagrin. “Please give my warmest regards to your mother, and my best wishes for her recovery.”

“Wait!” she said, as he started for the door.

“Yes, Miss Vaughn?”

“There
is
something you can do for me in London,
if
you’re not too busy, that is.”

He stood at attention. “Willingly.”

“I have a letter for my cousin, Lord Westlands. He’s young and incredibly handsome, but I don’t know his address in London. His club is in St. James’s Street, though. Would you carry my letter to him?”

“Which club?” he asked.

Cosima frowned. She had hoped to make him jealous, but he looked quite unperturbed. Probably he was already thinking of the acrobat who was waiting for him in London. “Is there more than one club in St. James’s Street? I didn’t realize.”

“I’ll find him,” he promised.

Benedict had no intention of wearing himself out searching for one Marcus Wayborn, Lord Westlands. Instead, when he reached London three days later, he went to two clubs in St. James’s Street, White’s and Brooks’s, and left word with the staff that he was looking for the young man. Rather unscrupulously, he dropped hints that something of value might be transferred from the baronet to his lordship, if only his lordship could be found.

Chronically short on funds, Lord Westlands did not waste any time finding Sir Benedict. As soon as he heard the baronet was looking for him, he walked to Parliament and was fortunate enough to catch the last half of the day’s debate.

Benedict summed the young man up with a penetrating glance. Neither better nor worse in character than most young men of his class and age, Marcus Wayborn was extraordinarily good-looking. His thick, wavy chestnut hair was liberally streaked with gold, and his eyes were a deep, almost black, blue. But if one looked closer, one saw that his eyes were puffy from too many nights on the town, and his generous, red mouth fell naturally into a childish pout.

Benedict had been afraid, just a little, that the young man might be a rival. Now that he had met Westlands, however, he knew he was secure.

When he courteously offered Westlands dinner, the young man did not refuse. Benedict’s carriage conveyed them to back to St. James’s Street.

“You said you had some money for me, Sir Benedict?” Westlands was too pressed by creditors to stand on ceremony.

“I have a letter for you,” Benedict replied, handing it over. “It is from your cousin, Miss Cosima Vaughn.”

Although obviously disappointed that there was no money, Westlands chuckled. “Little Cosy?” he said with a curve to his lips that Benedict did not like. “Pretty little thing. I’ve not seen her in years. I suppose she’s all grown up now. A child no more!”

Benedict silently contemplated his fingernails.

“I saw Dante, of course, when he was in London, shortly before he left for India. Capital fellow. Her brother, you know. At first, when he looked me up, I thought he was going to touch me for money. But he was flush! I ended up touching
him
for a fiver. However, I did take him to Lady Arbuthnot’s ball.” He leaned forward. “Between you and me, Sir Benedict, I shagged Lady Arbuthnot. Her ladyship is fond of a good ramming, as it turns out.”

Benedict had been raised to believe it was the height of nastiness to brag about one’s conquests. He forgot the lady’s name immediately. “Are you going to read your letter?”

For a moment, the viscount seemed content to
smell
his letter. “She’s changed her tobacco. My God, that’s good leaf!”