The Carriagemaker's Daughter (3 page)

Helène turned around to see the marchioness standing with arms outstretched. Lady Sinclair advanced toward the man and flung her arms around his neck.

So he
is
a lord, was Helène’s first thought.

“Oh, Charles,” cooed Lady Sinclair, “tell me you’ve come to stay. I’ve been so dreadfully lonely.”  Helène could hardly avoid noticing that her ladyship’s bosom, only half covered by the thin material of her dressing gown, was now pressed closely against the man’s chest. She  wondered if it was accepted practice for the ladies of the
ton
to walk about
en déshabillé
. Her own father–

“Hello, Celia,” the man said, and Helène could have sworn she saw a flicker of disgust on his face. The lady, undeterred, continued her enthusiastic embrace, and if it hadn’t been for that brief flash of expression Helène would have concluded that they were lovers. She was turning to leave–it was high time to find Mrs. Tiggs–when she heard the man’s voice.

“Celia, perhaps you could introduce me to your new governess. I believe she is in some need of assistance.”

“Oh, Charles, simply
look
at the pathetic creature!” said Lady Sinclair, waving her hands vaguely in Helène’s direction. “I can’t imagine why Jonathan hired such a girl, her reference was
quite
inadequate. I’ve half a mind to turn her out this instant, she’s dressed
abominably
, Charles, it’s a disgrace to the household. You have no idea what I endure here, absolutely no idea–”

Helène didn’t hear the rest. She stood rooted to the carpet, a strange buzzing in her ears, and wondered if this is what it felt like to faint. Ridiculous. She had never fainted before.

I just need something to eat,
thought Helène.
I need to find Mrs. Tiggs.
She tried to take a step but the hallway contracted and skewed sideways around her. A figured rose carpet... plush, soft...

The buzzing grew louder. She heard an exclamation of annoyance, somewhere in the far distance, and then even the carpet disappeared.

CHAPTER TWO

Lord Quentin pushed Celia away and caught the girl as she fell.

“Charles!” screeched Lady Sinclair.

The governess–although of more than medium height–weighed next to nothing, Lord Quentin discovered. He could feel the bones of her hips as he cradled her against his chest, and,  if the bodice of her dress had not hung so loosely, he guessed it would be a simple matter to count each of her ribs. For the first time he looked closely at the girl’s face and saw the signs that he had missed earlier, signs familiar to him from three wretched years on the Spanish peninsula.

The chit was half-starved. Charles was suddenly furious with Celia.

“Oh, just leave her there and I’ll call a footman,” the lady was saying. He looked at the marchioness blankly, unwilling to believe that even Celia could be that callous. But no–

“I’ll have James take her to the kitchen,” said the marchioness. “Cook will feed the girl and send on her way first thing tomorrow. Of all the cheek, to show up at Luton looking like that. Really, Charles, she’s filthy!  How can you stand to touch her?”

Lord Quentin considered his options. He had no idea where the girl’s room might be and, all things considered, it was entirely possible that Lady Sinclair had never bothered to have one prepared. His own bedchamber, on the other hand–as a frequent visitor to Luton–was not far away down the adjacent hall. He started to push past Celia.

“Oh, Charles!” protested Lady Sinclair, but, seeing the frank determination in the set of his shoulders, she changed tactics in an eyeblink. She laid a well-manicured hand on his arm to stop him as he passed and flashed a disarming smile, the invitation written plainly on her face.

“Don’t be so tiresome, Charles.”  Her voice was warm, honeyed. “James will collect the silly girl in a minute. Come, tell me all about London... ”

Celia motioned toward the open door of her rooms.

Lord Quentin hesitated. What had gotten into Celia?  She’d always been a flirt, but this brazen invitation–as a married woman–was not her usual style. Despite the long journey and the unconscious, rather grubby woman in his arms, Lord Quentin’s body was quick to respond. Lady Sinclair had been toying with the neckline of her gown as they spoke, and at this point very little of her bosom was left to the imagination. Vivid memories of previous visits to Celia’s boudoir before her marriage sprang forcefully to Lord Quentin’s mind.

Lady Sinclair leaned closer, and Charles realized the answer to his own question as the scent of a fine sherry wafted in his direction.

Celia was drinking again. Poor Jonathan.

The girl stirred in his arms. “Papa,” she said, and then something too soft for him to hear.

Somebody’s daughter. He sighed, and, ignoring Celia, carried the governess off toward his rooms.

“Charles!” the marchioness cried, watching him leave. “You can’t take her into your rooms!  She’s–she’s... unclean!”

“Call Mrs. Tiggs,” he called back to her.

“Oh!  I’ll do no such thing!  If you’re so smitten with that odious...
creature
, take care of her yourself. ”  Celia flounced off, slamming the door to her suite.

Charles knew this was bluff. The marchioness would call the housekeeper–and quickly–if only to remove the governess from his bedroom.

Lord Quentin laid the girl down on the silk coverlet. He checked her breathing–strong and regular–and would have unfastened the stays on her dress if the garment hadn’t already been little more than a loose sack. There was nothing else he could do for her at the moment. The years in Spain had familiarized him with all manner of bullet and bayonet wounds, but hunger was a different problem. He sat down to wait for Mrs. Tiggs.

As expected, the housekeeper arrived within minutes, clucking loudly. She took one look at the woman lying unconscious in the middle of Charles’s large, four-poster bed, and rang for a footman.

“ ’Tis the governess, milord?” she asked Charles. “Telford said–”

“It would seem so.”

“Taken ill, milord?”

“Hungry, I should think.”

“Hungry!”  Mrs. Tiggs looked astonished for a moment; then she nodded and set to work, muttering imprecations under her breath.

 “Not that I’m complainin’, you see,” she told Lord Quentin, gently wiping the girl’s forehead with a moistened cloth, “but ’twould be better t’ my way of thinkin’ if a body was informed when someone new comes t’ the door.”

Lord Quentin frowned. “Are you saying that no one knew that a governess had been hired?”  That would be just like Celia, he thought.

“No, milord. Well, yes, milord. Didn’t know she was t’ be comin’ today. Last girl left over a month ago.”

“Ah.”  Charles considered this for a moment. “There was a previous governess?”

“Aye, milord,” said Mrs. Tiggs. “This one’ll be the third.”

“What happened to the first two?”

Mrs. Tiggs shot him a sharp look. “Well, now, ’twouldn’t be my look out, would it?  But both of them was pretty and young, and as near t’ quality as makes some people nervous, if you get my meanin’.”

“Ah.”  Celia’s resentment of any other pretty woman was well-known. But Charles still wondered at the unconscious girl’s physical state. Was Lady Sinclair hiring from the poorhouse now?  Or was this merely Jonathan’s attempt to appease his wife’s jealousy? 

He looked at the governess’s face, where the clear ravages of recent hunger–dry, cracked lips and sunken cheeks–couldn’t erase the charm of thick lashes, black against smooth skin, and a wide, sensual mouth.

She might have been lovely, thought Charles. If she had been a lady.

“Not that I need the warnin’, you understand,” continued Mrs. Tiggs. “All my rooms are in order and ’twould have been a simple matter–”

Lord Quentin nodded his agreement. “I dare say.”

“And the poor girl, half froze t’ death, I just don’t know–”  Mrs. Tiggs chattered on, smoothing tendrils of the governess’s hair back from her face. The thick mass of auburn curls gleamed in the candlelight. “Ought t’ be wakin’ up by now, t’ my way of thinking.”

The governess moaned. Her eyelids fluttered open, then closed again, and Charles caught a glimpse of clear green eyes.

“Mrs. Tiggs,” said Lord Quentin.

The woman looked around. She looked surprised to see him still sitting there. “ ’Tis no need for you t’ stay, milord.”

“Mmm, yes. Well, it is my room.”

“Eh?  Oh, right you are, right you are. Well, ’twill just be a minute–”

“Mrs. Tiggs, I think the young woman will appreciate a light meal when she awakens. Perhaps you could send for some tea.”

“Just be a minute, milord, James’ll be movin’ the girl t’ her own room in a trice.”

The girl. Charles was suddenly curious. “Does anyone know her name?”   

“Miss Helen Phillips, I believe.”

Miss Phillips. Twice the chit had been in Lord Quentin’s arms, and she was now lying on his bed, but it seemed almost improper to know her name. As if some odd intimacy had been established, thought Charles, and immediately banished the thought. He didn’t need a compromised governess on his hands.

A burly footman scratched at the door. “Mum?”

“James, take Miss Phillips to Miss Fitzpatrick’s room.”  Mrs. Tiggs took another look at the governess, who was stirring again. “I believe she’ll need t’ be carried. You can do that, can’t you James?”

“Mum?”  The footman looked confused. “Miz Fitzpatrick?”

“Now, James,” the housekeeper said, as if speaking to a child,  “you remember Miss Fitzpatrick, don’t you?”

He nodded. “Yes, mum.”

“And you do remember where her room is?”

The man looked unhappy. “Miz Fitzpatrick ain’t here no more.”

Mrs. Tiggs nodded. “Yes, quite right you are. Very good, James. But if she
was
here, do you remember where she would be?”

“Oh. Oh, yes, mum.”  James nodded vigorously.

“Good. Take Miss Phillips t’
that
room, do you understand?  I’ll follow you in a minute.”

“Yes, mum.” 

The footman picked up the governess as if she was a delicate piece of porcelain, nearly weightless, and left. Mrs. Tiggs followed, pausing at the door to send Lord Quentin a speaking look.

“James is a good lad. He wouldn’t do anything t’ annoy Miss Phillips, if you take my meaning, milord.”

“Ah.”  Charles nodded.

“And I’ll see that she gets some nice hot tea.”

“Something to eat, too, Mrs. Tiggs,”

“Yes, milord.”

She left, and Lord Quentin was not to see Helène Phillips again for the remainder of that day.

* * * *

Amanda Detweiler reclined on the fine brocade of a chaise lounge and watched Lady Pamela Sinclair put the final touches to her
toilette
.

“London is simply too dreary this time of year,” she remarked. “Everyone swathed in layer after layer of scarves and smelling of wet wool.”

“Indeed,” said Lady Pamela,  “Would you have them freeze, instead?”

Lady Detweiler considered this seriously. “I believe I might,” she said finally. “A score fewer bird-witted females would have made Lady Jersey’s
musicale
last night entirely more bearable.” 

Pam laughed. “I must beg to differ. With Sally’s choice of a soprano, last night was destined to be intolerable.”

“Mmm. I concede the point.”

“But it’s only a few more days in town. We’ll be at Luton Court by Sunday.”

“I understand that Charles Quentin will be joining the party this year,” said Amanda.

“As he does every other year.”

 “The countess said he may have arrived there already, in fact. On his way to Tavelstoke.”

“Mmm,” said Pamela. She looked at herself in the mirror, frowned, and started removing hairpins. White-gold hair fell down in heavy waves around the faultless oval of her face.

“I have always thought him as handsome as any man of our acquaintance,” continued Amanda. “Excepting the Earl of Ketrick, perhaps.”

“Mmm.”  Patiently, Pamela arranged layer after layer of silken curls atop her head, fixing them in place with the pins. The reflection of her wide, aquamarine eyes stared back at her from the mirror. “Beastly things.”

“Men?”

“Hairpins.”

“Ah.”  Lady Detweiler pursed her lips, and blew out her breath in annoyance. “Pamela.”

“Yes, darling?”

“It’s been almost a year.”

“A year?”

“You know very well what I mean. Edward and Claire were married over a year ago. You’ve been avoiding the male of the species ever since.”

“Surely not.”  Lady Pam turned around and flashed Amanda a mischievous grin. “I assure you, I still find men perfectly fascinating–”

“Then why on earth–”

“–in theory.”

 Amanda gave an unladylike snort. “Men are no good in theory, my dear. Only in the flesh.”

Pam laughed. “Have you been talking to my sister-in-law again?”

“Hmph,” said Lady Detweiler. She shook her head at Pamela. “Well, I do know one thing. If you can’t be bothered with Charles Quentin, I’m sure there will be more than one woman at that houseparty to take up the slack. And I assure you, their interests will
not
be theoretical.”

“Mmm,” said Lady Pamela.

* * * *

Lord and Lady Sinclair kept city hours even at Luton, and Charles judged that he was not too late for dinner. He arrived in the huge, Pompeiian-red dining room to find Jonathan and Celia chatting with Viscount Dreybridge and his young bride. The Viscount was a distant cousin of the Sinclairs, if Lord Quentin’s memory served. And there was Lord Burgess, making calf-eyes at a voluptuous beauty. Ah–Lucinda Blankenship. Lord Quentin smiled, thinking that Jerry was well on his way to making a cake of himself–as usual.

Several other guests were scattered about the room, a number of whom he knew by sight but not acquaintance. Of the ones he did–well, there was Lady Harkins, she of the formidable bosom and sharp tongue. A true dragon, she was; widowed these twenty years and spending every moment of it the soul of propriety and the terror of every debutante. Lord Quentin could remember Lady Harkins’s comments on the occasion of Jonathan and Celia’s marriage, and wondered how she came to be invited to Luton. Some connection of the late Lord Harkins, no doubt.