A Royal Likeness (6 page)

However, time had been gracious to Maude Ashby’s looks and figure. Now a woman in her fifth decade, she was still sleek and attractive, although with a tempered ferocity simmering visibly beneath
the surface.
A bit like a panther, Marguerite thought wryly. I must stay out of reach of her claws.

“Nathaniel and I have missed seeing you, Marguerite,” Maude said while ignoring Claudette’s presence completely.

Marguerite watched as Claudette pulled herself up to full height.

“Welcome to Hevington, Mrs. Ashby.”

Her address forced Mrs. Ashby’s attention in return. “Lady Greycliffe,” she said through gritted teeth.

Even worse than Claudette’s insulting departure from her employ was her audacity in marrying a man who had frequented the Ashbys’ supper parties and was a rising aristocrat. Maude was angling to use her association with him to improve her own social standing, but his marriage to Claudette had destroyed her plans. The homage demanded by the Baroness Greycliffe’s position tasted to her like sour milk lapped from a crystal dish.

“To what can we attribute the great honor you do our household today?” Claudette asked. Like Marguerite, she was impatient to end the interview, yet curious as to why they had made the journey all the way from London to see them.

“Nothing other than a deep concern for our dearest sister and daughter. We just wanted to see how you were getting on, Marguerite.”

Clearly this was not going to end quickly.

Claudette rang for tea and cakes and invited the Ashbys to sit down. When they were comfortably seated and refreshments had been served, Maude started circling stealthily around her point.

“Marguerite, dearest, how has your health been?”

“My health? What do you mean?”

“Nothing in particular. You’ve just been through a great deal of distress. Have you had any illnesses as a result?”

Whatever was the woman about? Had the servants’ gossip reached her ears all the way in London?

“Illnesses? No, I don’t believe so.” She looked at Claudette for guidance, but got a helpless shrug in return.

“You know Nathaniel has taken over more and more of his father’s business what with Mr. Ashby’s heart condition. And you’re
doing a fine job of it, aren’t you, pet?” Mrs. Ashby adored Nathaniel above all else, other than her own reputation.

Nathaniel responded to his mother’s praise with predictable pomposity. “Simple, really. The old man just doesn’t have the head for figures that I do.” He looked down at his fingernails in a useless attempt to appear modest.

“I see that congratulations are in order for you, Nathaniel.” Marguerite couldn’t understand where this strange conversation was going to end up.

“I do so wish he would get married to a respectable woman, though, and stop all of his naughtiness with common women. Son, you’re such a handsome and clever man. I’m sure there is a young lady of quality who would be honored to be seen on your arm.”

“When I’m ready, Mother. Right now I’m still enjoying myself.” He was lately enjoying himself with Lydia, one of the housemaids his mother had brought in to expand her staff as a show of the Ashby family’s promising rise in Society.

The Ashbys would never be accepted by Society, so why did the woman keep on with the charade? Well, it kept him well supplied in female companionship. He folded his hands on his emerging paunch in satisfaction.

“Enjoying yourself in the gaming hells, more like. You’re a thirty-four-year-old man who should be considering his future, especially when he has a father who is not well. We need a future generation to carry on the family name.”

“Father has plenty of years left in him. Let’s not whack the old man off yet. Besides …” Nathaniel gave a nod toward Marguerite.

“Yes, of course.” Maude turned away from her son to give Marguerite her full attention, smoothing back her tightly coiffed hair with an exquisitely manicured hand. Her claws were filed to points.

“As you know, my dear, you have always been so highly regarded by Mr. Ashby and me and it just
distresses
us so deeply to think of you wasting away out here in the country.”

Why did Marguerite have the sense that Maude was crouching in the tall grass, waiting to pounce and nip her head off with one sharp bite?

“You’ve no need to worry, Mother Ashby. I like it here at Hevington. No one bothers me and I have free run of the estate.”

“Well, I’m sure that cavorting about the horse pastures may seem like an amusing pastime, but I’m sure we all agree that it can be damaging to a delicate woman’s health.”

Marguerite felt her temper beginning to flare and pressed her lips together to maintain her outward composure before replying.

“I had no idea you were so concerned for my well-being, Mother Ashby. Especially considering your total disinterest in my affairs since Nicholas died. As I recall, your carriage could not pull away from the funeral quickly enough to get you back to London. Wasn’t there some social event for which you were anxious to return? Did your merry party companions find it odd that you had only spent a single day grieving for your son?”

Marguerite paused only for a quick breath and to take a moment of pleasure in the look of pure astonishment on Maude’s face. Nathaniel still sat there like a perched chicken with his hands folded over a stomach entirely too distended for a young man of his age. She was startled to see almost a look of—was that approval?—on Aunt Claudette’s face.

“But now your concern for your daughter-in-law has you racing back to Kent to see of what service you can be, and to pretend that you are now anxious that the bloom may have fallen off the rose of my ruddy good health. Pray tell, what scheme is prowling around in your mind that compels you to take interest in my tragic affairs? Lest it be some wild thought that Nicholas might have some sort of bequest that I am withholding, let me assure you that everything we had together was destroyed in Aunt Claudette’s shop. That shop was our entire life, and now it’s all gone. I don’t wish Nicholas gone, but I certainly do wish you gone, Mother Ashby.”

Marguerite was shaking. She couldn’t believe it. This was the longest dialogue about Nicholas she had had since his death without breaking into a disheveled heap of weeping. Claudette was slowly nodding her head in encouragement of her tangible fury.

Maude held up her hand in appeasement. “Why, Marguerite, you misunderstand me. We are absolutely concerned about you
personally. Especially since you might be carrying Nicholas’s offspring. Perhaps his son.”

“But I’m not with child. I’m absolutely certain of it.”

“Yes, so Lord Greycliffe told me in his return letter to my inquiry. But, child, it’s still early and you might not be showing yet.”

“My courses started again last month.” She reddened at having to speak so indelicately in front of Nathaniel, but he seemed oblivious to the entire conversation now that it was not focused on him.

“Again, you might not be showing yet, and we have to be absolutely
certain
of the truthfulness of your statement, don’t we? After all, any child of Nicholas’s is really an Ashby, isn’t it? And we would want to be sure he grows up in a loving and proper environment with his
true
family, not out here in some remote village where he’ll never have an opportunity to meet young ladies of breeding.”

Claudette cut into the conversation. “Mrs. Ashby, are you implying that Lord Greycliffe’s name and connections would not suffice to give Marguerite’s child a good launch when the time came?”

“But I am not—” Marguerite said.

Maude Ashby sniffed. “I said nothing of the sort. You’re just simply so far away from the city out here, and the society pages don’t mention you much, which tells me that you don’t come to London often.”

“Aunt Claudette, you’re letting her—”

“Mrs. Ashby, you are treading perilously close to the end of my hospitality.”

“Ah, but I see Marguerite protests that she is not expecting, although
you
do not. Perhaps I am correct in my suspicions. And as such, I am recommending that you return to London with us, Marguerite.”

“What?”
Marguerite and Claudette gasped in unison.

“We have a coach large enough to take you with us this very night, once you get yourself packed up. You’ll have a comfortable room and can sit and read or embroider or wander the hallways to your heart’s content until we know undeniably whether or not you
are carrying a child. My grandchild. The Ashby name will live on through this child, since Nathaniel may not ever father a successor.” She cut her eyes over to Nathaniel, who appeared to be enjoying the fracas among the women.

“If you prove to be without child, then I will send you back to Hevington straightaway. Trusting, of course, that you have not taken advantage of my dear Nathaniel’s sensitive feelings by then. However, if you are expecting, you will remain at our home until such time as you bear the child, and then of course we would insist that you leave him with us, to be raised with his true family.” Maude nodded, an indication that she was finished and that all parties were to accept her proclamation.

Even Claudette was speechless at the woman’s audacity. But now Marguerite found her mettle, much as she had when she went on the offense against the mob in the shop. This felt as much an affront to her as that had.

“Mother Ashby, have you completely taken leave of your senses? I have told you repeatedly that I am absolutely, positively not with child. But if I were—and I am not!—it is beyond the pale that you would come here while I grieve my husband to suggest that I willingly go as your prisoner to be poked and prodded by doctors for the next month while you make a decision as to whether or not I’m going to produce a grandchild for you to manage and oppress.

“You’ve already extended past Aunt Claudette’s good graces of hospitality, and you’ve just stepped beyond the bounds of my own goodwill. I recommend that you leave now before this gets any worse, if that’s possible.”

Maude was unsettlingly serene. “Yes, I can understand your unease now that I have pointed out the obvious. Nevertheless, it shall be as I say. Would you like to come with us now, or perhaps Nathaniel can return for you in a week to let you get your affairs in order?”

“Mother Ashby, I will
never
go back to London with you.”

“But you will.”

Drat the woman. She practically purred in self-satisfaction.

“Why in heaven’s name would I do this?”

“Because it would just be so
unfortunate
for people to continue thinking that you’re hiding out here waiting to bear someone else’s bastard child. Tongues are wagging, my dear, and I have no reason to correct people’s impression.”

“But I’ve been in mourning with my relations. Everyone knows what happened to me—it was in all the London papers. The only way they could think I’ve done something illicit is if—oh!” Marguerite shuddered involuntarily. She felt a streak of pain start at the base of her neck and run up behind her right ear. She’d been experiencing blinding headaches since Nicholas’s death.

“Is if what, dear?” Maude’s eyes narrowed into contented slits.

“Is if … is if …
you
were spreading rumors about me.”

“I? Spread rumors?” Maude rose, as did Marguerite and Claudette, which signaled to Nathaniel that the interview was over and he was to rise as well. He tugged on his waistcoat to ensure it covered his abdomen. As if completely oblivious to what had just happened, he extended a warm farewell.

“Good to see you, Lady Greycliffe. Next time we’ll bring Father. He always enjoys a good cigar with Lord William. Marguerite, a pleasure. Indeed a pleasure.”

Marguerite stepped back in revulsion from his attempt to place a brotherly kiss on her cheek. Undaunted, he moved in on an unsuspecting Claudette and planted a moist and loud smack on her right cheek before she had the sense to step away.

Maude gave her parting shot. “Remember, Marguerite, that I cannot hold on to your good reputation for you forever. You’ll have to make a decision quickly. I’ll send Nathaniel back in one week for you.”

Maude Ashby held her head high and proud as she left Hevington, as a woman who had successfully completed her mission of havoc.

Marguerite sank down on the parlor’s pale green settee that Maude had just occupied, and Claudette sat next to her. “Oh, Aunt Claudette, what a ridiculous situation I am in. What should I do?”

Claudette’s mouth was a grim line. “We’ll think of something. Maude Ashby is nothing if not utterly predictable in her self-serving
conduct. Perhaps William can go to London and bring pressure to bear.”

“No, I could not stand for him to have to rescue me like that. He’d have to drag the Greycliffe name through the slops in order to clean my own. You’ve both been too kind to me for me to allow that to happen. Perhaps I should leave the country. Surely I can find relatives of my mother’s back in France who will take me in for a while.”

“No! There will be no traveling to France! William forbids it,” she added.

Marguerite took her beloved mentor’s hand. “Aunt Claudette, all of that was long ago.”

“The Terror may be over, but the strife with France goes on and on. William expects that we will declare war on that country any day. I’m not sure we have the strength to stand up to Napoleon. In any case, it would be foolish and dangerous to go there for respite while Maude Ashby’s gossiping settles down.”

“I suppose you’re right. Nothing good ever comes from dealings with my mother-in-law.”

“I disagree. I see color in your cheeks, the first I’ve seen in months. And anger has ignited your soul. I’d say Maude’s visit was very good.”

Claudette lifted Marguerite’s hand to her lips. “Darling girl, I think you may recover yet. And I think this talk of France has given me an idea.”