A Dream Come True (3 page)

Much as Lucia would have liked to have feigned a headache and remained in her room, she knew that she could not.

“Her Ladyship looks so happy!” sighed Mary-Anne, as she dressed Lucia's hair. “It will odd to have a new Master in the house, won't it?”

“He will never replace my Papa,” she muttered grimly.

Blushing, Mary-Anne realised she had spoken out of turn.

“I'm sorry, miss. I did not mean to offend.”

“Do not concern yourself, Mary-Anne. The Hall is still Mama's by rights and, even if she has changed her name, she is still a Mountford.”

“Yes, miss.”

Mary-Anne put the finishing touches to Lucia's coiffeur in silence. If the truth were told, she did not care for the look of the new Master and neither did many of the servants at the Hall. They considered him to be a jumped-up trader who was seeking to better himself.

The servants of Bingham Hall were rather old-fashioned in their views and were proud to be working for members of the aristocracy. Some felt that Sir Arthur might lower the tone of the place.

By the time that Lucia came down stairs, the ballroom had been cleared for dancing. Guests had spilled out into the marquee in the garden and she could hear the musicians tuning up.

Lucia spotted Geoffrey Charlton coming through into the ballroom. She walked quickly over to him.

“Lucia. How can you be yet more dazzling than earlier?”

“Geoffrey, you should save your chatter for someone who will believe it,” she retorted smiling.

“Come now, if I cannot practise my flattery on my dear sister's charming friend – ”

“Geoffrey, you must promise me that you will take the first dance with me. I don't want one of my stepfather's dreadful friends to think they have the right.”

“It will be my pleasure, but Lucia, dearest, do I detect a hint of dislike for your new stepfather?”

“You know that I hold him responsible for Papa's death,” she replied, giving him a cold stare. “If it were not for him and his stupid investment schemes, Papa would still be here.”

Geoffrey sighed and took Lucia's hand.

“And who is to say that your father would not have died in that blasted car of his he insisted on driving himself? My dear, I believe that when the Almighty decrees that it is time for us to join him, then join him we must!”

“That is a very fatalistic view of life, Geoffrey.”

“Nevertheless, you should try and comfort yourself with that thought, dark though it might seem. But I do understand why you might not welcome him into the bosom of your family – he is not one of us, is he?”

“No, Geoffrey, he is not. But we should not hold it against him that his grandfather was a dyer. He worked very hard to own the textiles factory where he was originally employed – ”

The handsome young man looked slightly scornful and then remembered that Lucia was a modern soul who did not look down on the working classes.

“You will be telling me next that you agree with these suffragette women,” he sneered, as they took their place at the edge of the dance floor.

“I believe that married women should have the vote. Do we not, after all, give birth to men?”

Geoffrey laughed.

“No doubt, you wished you could have been there, lighting the fuse that nearly blew up Lloyd George's house the other week?”

Their political argument was interrupted by the orchestra's first few notes. It ran through Geoffrey's mind that Lucia, if she was not careful, would find it most difficult to find a husband herself, if she continued to express such radical views.

He looked at her as he took her in his arms to dance – she was very beautiful with her pretty blonde hair and wistful grey eyes. She was intelligent and amusing with many accomplishments. But her opinions –

‘If only they were not so forthright and so damned unfeminine!' he thought.

Lucia was unaware of what was going through Geoffrey's mind. She had no conceit about her attractiveness, but did not consider herself especially lovely.

Her mother had been a great beauty in her day, which was one of the reasons that Lord Mountford had fallen in love with her and, even now, Lucia felt that she outshone many women far younger than herself.

She watched as her mother and Sir Arthur whirled around the room to the Viennese waltz. So elegant and majestic.

‘If Mama had not been so ill after Papa died, she would not have been so weak as to have fallen prey to his attentions.' she mused, feeling sick inside each time her mother smiled at Sir Arthur.

The dance came to and end and Lucia told Geoffrey that she wished to sit the next one out.

“I am feeling a little unwell,” she said. “I am not used to so much champagne so early in the day.”

She was just about to leave the floor, when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

Turning around, she saw it was Sir Arthur.

“Lucia. As my new stepdaughter, I hope you will do me the honour of having this dance with me.”

Lucia opened her mouth to protest, but over Sir Arthur's shoulder she saw her mother urging her to accept.

With a curt nod of her head, she allowed him to lead her onto the floor.

“Your dress suits you well,” he said, as he moved in time to the music whilst holding her stiffly. “It's French silk, is it not?”

“From Bond Street, yes.”

“And I'll wager you paid far too much for it. Tch! London prices! The shopkeepers know that silly London fools will pay over the odds and push up their prices accordingly.”

Lucia tried to ignore his comments. She feared, if she replied, she would sound irritated.

“You know that I now regard you as my own daughter,” he continued, “and as such, I will provide the correct guidance for you. Without a man's superior knowledge, it's too easy for women to fall prey to idle indulgence.”

“Papa always used to praise me for my sensible and practical nature.”

“What in buying over-priced gowns in Bond Street? Pah!”

A hot surge of anger rose up inside Lucia. How dare this man pass comment on her father? Who did he think he was?

“No, Lucia, I am your Guardian now and man of the house and I will expect you, as my dutiful stepdaughter, to follow my rules and not your father's.”

Lucia stopped dancing and stared at him.

“Sir, I must retire at once, I declare I feel quite unwell.”

Without waiting for a response, Lucia quickly left the dance floor. Before she had even reached the door, her mother was at her side.

“Lucia, what on earth possessed you to behave in such a rude fashion? You have offended Arthur.”

“And is it acceptable for him to make offensive comments about Papa to me? Mama, do not ask me to listen gladly whilst he criticises my own father!”

“Darling, I know this is difficult for you.”

“Mama, why did you have to marry him so soon after Papa's death? Do you care nothing for what people are saying?”

“Lucia, I am still your mother and you shouldn't speak to me like this,” she snapped, tears welling up in her eyes. “Come outside. Everyone is looking at us.”

She took Lucia into the library and closed the door.

With tears running down her face, she took her daughter's hand.

“Darling, I want you to understand. If it had not been for Sir Arthur, we would both be out on the street.”

“What do you mean?” asked Lucia, her voice trembling.

“My long illness was an expensive one and your father made some very ill-advised investments shortly before he died. I know it has come to your attention that there is not much money in the bank, but what you do not know is that had I not married Sir Arthur then Mr. Urwin advised me that we would have to sell Bingham Hall and live in reduced circumstances!”

“No! It cannot be,” answered Lucia horrified.

Her mother was now weeping freely.

“It's true. Our funds were so low that Mr. Urwin suggested that I begin to sell off some of our belongings – I was forced as well to take – certain steps. Sir Arthur was such a comfort to me during those dark days and then, when he proposed, I agreed to marry him. Darling, he loves me very much. You must accept him, as I have done and be nice to him.”

All the resentment towards him bubbled up inside Lucia and she began to cry.

How could her mother ask such a thing of her? She had made no mention of loving the man, so why should she obey him as if he was her own father?

She tried to control her emotions.

It was almost as if someone, or something, else had taken her over – words came out of her mouth without her bidding and she found herself running away, out of the library and towards the garden.

‘No! I would rather end up a pauper in the workhouse than have him as my stepfather!' she wept, blinded by tears as she, without thinking, made her way to the Rolls Royce that stood in the drive.

“Richard – do you have to go?”

The striking-looking woman with the curly red hair pulled the bed covers up to her chin and pouted as the tall handsome man with the thick brown hair and piercing blue eyes leapt out from between the sheets and pulled on his shirt.

She eyed his muscular frame and sighed.

Lord Winterton was as superb a lover as he was at everything else he turned his attentions to. And now, after such a short visit, he was leaving.

“Now, Beatrice, you knew that I had an important appointment this afternoon and that I could only stay a few hours. I told you as soon as I arrived.”

“But, darling – ”

“Beatrice, please do not look at me like that.”

She was gazing pleadingly up at him from the warmth of her bed – the bed that she had once shared with her husband, Lord Shelley, who had died when he fell off his horse the previous September.

Lord Winterton never failed to find it amusing that he was cocking a snook at the man he called ‘the old boy' up in Heaven.

She mustered every last inch of seductiveness as she patted the space beside her.

“I have to go,” he told her curtly, buttoning up his jacket and looking for his gloves. Although it was early March, there was quite a nip in the air.

He walked over to the bed and kissed her on top of her mass of red curls.

Somehow he had found himself seeing rather more of her than he had intended, now that certain other matters brought him more often to London.

Before leaving the boudoir, he took one last look at himself in Lady Shelley's cheval mirror.

He was presentable enough for the appointment ahead. He looked down at his immaculate black boots and silently thanked his butler, Jepson, for having ensured that they were so well cleaned in time for his early departure from Longfield Manor that day.

He smoothed his clipped moustache into place and then, bade Beatrice farewell without turning around.

“But when will I see you again?” she called to his departing back.

Hearing the front door slam shut, she snorted with anger and, picking up one of the feather pillows next to her, hurled it at the bedroom door.

“Cad!” she hissed, curling her pretty mouth into a sneer. “Perhaps I will not be at home the next time you come to call.”

*

Outside Bingham Hall, Lucia sat in the empty car and sobbed her heart out for half an hour. She was only too familiar with the fate of fictional heroines when their mothers remarried and wondered if a similar one awaited her.

‘The way he spoke to me,' she whispered, as she dried her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘How dare he? If I had a brother, I would have had him call him outside, or at least, have words with him.'

But Lucia did not have a brother to share her burden.

Furthermore, what her mother had just told her had shocked her to the core.

‘Could Papa really have landed us in such dire straits?' she said to herself. ‘It hardly seems possible. He always seemed such a wise and careful man when it came to money.'

She noticed that a footman was approaching the car.

She quickly composed herself and tucked away her handkerchief.

“Is everything all right, Miss Mountford?” he asked.

“Y-yes, thank you. I just wanted to be alone for a moment or two,” she murmured, stepping out of the car as he held the door open.

She looked quickly around the drive and could not see anyone who might know her, so she ran back indoors shivering.

‘And now I feel terribly guilty for upsetting her so much,' she thought gloomily. ‘It was wrong of me to do so on her wedding day.'

She walked quickly towards the library but her mother was not there.

‘No doubt, she will be with her guests,' she thought and went off to find her.

“Darling. There you are.”

Lucia had just entered the ballroom when her mother came up behind her.

“Mama, I'm sorry – ”

“Ssh. We shall not speak about it again today. I am glad I have found you because I will shortly be going upstairs to change.”

“You are leaving already?”

“Arthur has booked us on the midnight train. We are going on the Orient Express all the way to Venice, did I not tell you?”

Lucia hung her head.

She now felt utterly wretched at her behaviour. The day was not meant to be about her. It was her mother's day.

“You will have a wonderful time,” sighed Lucia.

“Now, don't you worry about me, Geoffrey has been looking after me. Look, there he is, waving at us.”

They returned his salutation and Lucia kissed her mother's cheek.

“I will come and see you off when you are ready to leave,” she whispered, as Geoffrey made his way towards them. “I want you to be extremely happy and enjoy a fabulous honeymoon. Now, I will leave you with Geoffrey and will see you outside in half an hour.”

“What ho, Lucia!” called Geoffrey. “I thought you had run off.”

“No, I have come to my senses,” she answered thoughtfully. “I shall try to make the best of the situation.”