The Painted Lady (5 page)

“Ah, Lord Stallworth, good evening, sir.” He bowed, before taking a seat at the older gentleman’s nod.

“No. I ain’t paying Junior’s gaming debts, if that’s what you came about, Caswell. Told the coxcomb that myself, I did.”

“Lud, I should hope you put a flea in the gudgeon’s ear about battening on acquaintances.”

“And playing beyond his means, asides. Of course I would have lent the scamp a quid if I had it. Low tide with me, too, though. Should have listened to my own advice, eh?”

“I’ll speak to him in the morning.” Kasey would also see that a purse was delivered to the baron as payment for some nonexistent debt. “Meanwhile, I thought you might know about the latest rumors of the King’s improvement. I was hoping they were true.”

The baron shook his head. “Gossip like that is always flying about. Mostly because people wish the reports to be true, I’d guess.” He sipped at his brandy. “I fear there is no change in His Majesty’s mental condition.”

“But what of his doctors? Can they offer no suggestions, no hope?”

“Bah. Parcel of fools, all of them, too ignorant even to know how ignorant they actually are. I swear they are killing the poor King with their purges and bloodletting. Leeches, every last one.”

“Wasn’t there a treatment that looked promising a few years ago? What was the physician’s name? Banning? Bancroft?”

“Bannister, it was. Seemed a decent sort, highly touted by everyone. Worked a miracle, belike, with some newfangled ideas on brain fevers. His Majesty was his old self after the course of treatment, meeting with his ministers, holding receptions, attending concerts. Dear George and his ministers were so pleased, they made sure the chap was given a knighthood.”

“Yes, I thought I recalled something of that nature. What happened?”

Stallworth sighed. “The King had a relapse, worse than before. That’s when they found him dancing in his nightshirt on the battlements. Nothing the Bannister fellow could do, nothing any of the other imbeciles could do. I fear our Farmer George is lost to us. He worsens daily.” The baron dabbed at his eyes with a lace-edged square of linen.

Kasey held his tongue a moment, in sympathy for the poor mad King. In fact, he’d never felt quite so sympathetic before. Then he asked, “Whatever happened to that physician, Bannister?”

“Disgraced, naturally. They tried to take the knighthood back, but that would have stirred up more of a hornet’s nest, since no one wanted to come out and say the King was insane. Not politic at the time, don’t you know. I think Bannister took up residence outside Maidstone. Yes, that was it. Family had some property near there. No one goes to consult him, of course.”

“Of course.”

* * * *

Of course Kasey had to wait for first light. Meantime he had to go pack. He left the ball, making poor excuses to the Granleighs about a headache, to his hostess about a horse, to his aunts about a hay barn on fire at one of his estates. To his brother he made no excuse whatsoever.

“See the aunts home when they are ready, then come back for Lady Phillida. She expects an escort to the Aldershams’ rout.”

“But ... but I was going off to the card room, and to the clubs after.”

“With what money?” Kasey asked, reaching into his pocket for his purse. “Here. This is for your efforts, not for your wagering. Make sure you dance with the daughter of the house. It is her ball.”

“She is as round as a ball and bounces around like one, too!”

Kasey pulled out a few more bills. “For new shoes.”

“You can’t just leave like this, Kasey. You’re the duke!”

“No, Junior. I can leave like this precisely because I am the duke. No one expects us nobs to act like common men. I have that on good authority. Besides, you’d be duke if anything happened to me—Heaven help us all, and Caswell—so you can stand the week’s practice. I’ll even pay off your vouchers if you act ducal for a sennight. Hell, I’ll pay them if you can stay out of trouble for the week.”

“But where the devil are you off to? What do I tell people?”

“Look down your nose, or, better yet, your quizzing glass, and tell the encroaching mushrooms it is none of their blasted business.”

“Lady Phillida and her parents are no toadstools, and you can wager they are going to ask what happened to their premier parti.”

“You can tell them I have been called out of Town on business, but do not mention what business it is. You are Caswell for the week, remember; you do not answer to lesser mortals. For your own information, and yours only, I am on a repairing lease. I will leave an address with Charles Warberry for emergencies. A fast horse on a slow track is not an emergency, nor is a sure bet at a mill, or a soiled dove outside the opera house. Is that understood?”

Lord Jason drew himself up and puffed out his chicken chest. “Of course. I am Caswell, don’t you know. I understand everything.”

The Duke of Caswell understood nothing, but he was trying to find the answers. He left the address of an inn he knew in Maidstone for Charles, a purse to be delivered to Baron Stallworth, and a heavier one to be sent to Ayers, for giving Dolly her congé. He threw some clothes into a satchel, ordered out his curricle and bays, tucked a pistol in his waistband, and drove out of London. He did not take his valet, his groom, or his ruby signet ring.

He did not stop at the Lonsdale Street house.

* * * *

Miss Lilyanne Bannister went to her bedroom window at the sound of carriage wheels outside. Visitors called so rarely at Bannister Hall that a new arrival was news indeed. This one looked to be especially noteworthy. From the horses and equipage alone, she could tell he was a man of means. From the cut of his clothes and the set of his shoulders, she knew he was a man of sophistication, style, and strength. So what in Heaven’s name was he doing at Bannister Hall?

For an instant she thought he might be Lady Edgecombe’s husband, come to retrieve his wife from Coventry after all these years. But Catherine’s husband must be well past the half-century mark, and this gentleman had the lean, limber gait of a much younger man as he swung down from the curricle as soon as one of the stable lads had his team in hand. He stopped to look around him, affording Lilyanne an unobstructed view of a handsome, fair-complexioned face with a firm jaw and a rather commanding nose. Lord Edgecombe was reputed, by Lady Edgecombe, to resemble a toad, warts and all.

Too bad, Lilyanne thought, still staring out the window even after the gentleman was out of her sight, on his way to the front door steps. Too bad for Catherine, Lady Edgecombe, that her exile was not ended, and too bad for Lilyanne, that she’d have to endure another eternity of the woman’s endless carping.

Either way, the handsome gentleman downstairs by now would not be staying long. They seldom did, conducting their business with her uncle as expeditiously as possible, ashamed that they had to approach him at all with their difficulty, relieved to have their embarrassments handled by someone more capable—and less visible to their friends and associates. An exchange of bank checks, a handshake, and the deed was done.

Lilyanne assumed another difficult young lady would be landed on their doorstep within the week. She could only pray this one would merely be a girl too high-strung to make her curtsies to the Queen and not another like Lady Ursula, who tried to burn the house down, or Miss Morrison, who threw herself down on the ground, kicking, because she was being denied her debut. Gracious, Lilyanne hoped this new young lady would not be a watering pot like Miss Palmeter, imagining herself cursed by Fate because she was not permitted to marry the footman.

Fate, Lilyanne reflected, and not for the first time, was no friend. She herself should have been one of the fortunate females enjoying a London Season, even if not at the apex of the Polite World. Her parents should not have died, leaving Lilyanne and her sister Lisbet to the care of Uncle Osgood. For that matter, Uncle Osgood should have been a respectable landowner like Lilyanne’s father, his older brother, instead of a physician, a failed physician, who never managed to cure anyone of anything. Thanks to the unkind hand of Fate, however, instead of joining the ranks of fashionable young misses, Lilyanne was jailer to the worst of them. Keeper. Nursemaid to Society’s spoiled darlings, dwindling toward an old-maid matron. And she hated every bit of it.

For her uncle’s sake, Lilyanne appeared a sober, steadfast cipher in starchy gray gowns, with her dark hair secured under a plain white mobcap. She never raised her voice, never hurried, never let her charges see how their meanness and ill-manners hurt. She was the end result and the embodiment of Uncle Osgood’s theories of mental stability, theories that eschewed flamboyance, exuberance, excitement of any kind. But that gray shadow Sir Osgood’s doctrines dictated was not Lilyanne Bannister.

The real Lilyanne Bannister wanted to wear pink dresses. No, red ones. Silk, with lace and flounces and trailing bows. She wanted to dance and sing and ride cross-country hell-for-leather, yes, even astride once in her life, with her hair streaming out behind her. She wanted to meet young men and learn to flirt. She was two-and-twenty and had never felt a man’s lips on hers, not even a stolen kiss from the apothecary’s assistant. The villagers were too afraid of her uncle to chance taking such liberties, so Lilyanne had no beaus, and no friends either.

If the difference in their stations had not kept the neighbors away, Lilyanne’s uncle’s medical practice had. Sir Osgood was no sawbones, he was a limb of Satan to the ordinary folk of Upper Lytchfield, outside Maidstone. He could not cure the pox nor help at a difficult birth. He could not even help at a difficult death, so what good was the knighted physician to the farmers and shopkeepers? They did not want any mentalist plotting mischief in their minds. They stayed away, and their wives and daughters did, too.

One of the few pleasures Lilyanne enjoyed was when one of her charges was declared well enough to be returned to the bosom of her family, by which Uncle Osgood meant the young lady would no longer embarrass her relatives in public. He was always torn between the loss of income engendered by a “cure,” and the vindication of his methods. Lilyanne’s uncle believed that his healthful regimen and herbs turned the tide of mental illness, he truly did, even after all those years.

Lilyanne knew for a fact that boredom had been the best prescription. Even the most recalcitrant chit quickly understood she’d have to undergo months more of tedious walks and improving sermons if she did not mend her manners. It was blackmail, plain and simple. The girls would do anything to relieve the tedium of Bannister Hall, which was now called the Bannister Home for Healthful Living. So would Lilyanne.

What could she do, though? Uncle Osgood agreed to continue paying for Lisbet’s schooling as long as Lilyanne remained to assist him. That, too, was blackmail. Lilyanne could not find a decent position to pay for her sister’s education, not without references. She could not find a comfortable husband in London, not without a sponsor or a dowry. She could not make her fortune as a poet or novelist or playwright, not without talent. Furthermore, she barely knew anything of the arts, since Uncle Osgood considered them overstimulating to the mind. He considered everything over
-
stimulating: soft fabrics, bright colors, dancing, laughter, racing on horseback
...
anything that might bring someone happiness.

Except for Lisbet, Lilyanne would long ago have left to make her own way, despite her shortcomings, for surely there must be some avenue open to an intelligent, well-bred female. If she left, however, Lilyanne feared her uncle would simply order the sixteen-year-old home to take her place as his assistant, foregoing the education that would offer Lisbet a better future. In one more year, Lisbet could request a recommendation from her school’s headmistress, to find gainful employment. In one more year, she might be able to accompany a schoolmate to London, or Brighton, or Bath, where she could attract the attention of a decent man. In one year Lilyanne could set out to give her own Fate a gentle nudge. No, she’d give it a kick in the shins.

Meanwhile, Lilyanne had encouraged Lisbet to accept a friend’s invitation to spend the winter holidays with her family in the Lake Country. Lilyanne would miss her sister dreadfully, but recognized a golden opportunity for Lisbet not only to meet people who might prove invaluable connections, but to enjoy herself far more than she would here in Upper Lytchfield.

Here, they would have a goose and a
few
—very few—carols, with perhaps a sip of punch if Catherine whined loudly enough. Then they would have an additional Bible reading, in Uncle’s monotone voice that could steal the joy even out of the Christmas story. There would be no festive decorations, no anticipation of gifts, no elevation of spirits, for that, according to Uncle Osgood, led to Turbulence.

Alone in her bedroom Lilyanne pounded her fist onto the window frame. A plague on Turbulence and the rest of her uncle’s theories. And a plague on the gentleman caller, too. Not only was he not carting Catherine off, he was likely handing Lilyanne a new headache.

Chapter Six

“I have this friend, you see...” Kasey began.

Sir Osgood Bannister adjusted his spectacles on his boney nose and steepled his fingers. “Ah, don’t we all.”

“Pardon?”

“You were telling me about your
...
friend, Your Grace.”

“Yes, well, that is, my friend has a slight problem with seeing things.”

“Seeing? I am afraid I cannot help you with that, Your Grace. I am certain any competent lens-grinder can be of more assistance. In fact, I can only wonder why you were directed toward me in this matter. If this is by nature of a prank, I must say—”

“Things that do not exist.”

“Ah. That sheds a new light.”

A pale, muted light, Kasey noted. Everything in the room was of a neutral tonal value, nothing to jar the eye or capture attention, not even the brown-haired, brown-suited gentleman behind the desk. The only hangings on the beige wall were a sampler and a pastoral scene. Neither of them seemed remotely inclined to offer Kasey good day. He liked the place already.