Anita Mills (13 page)

L
ORD
T
RENT’S ARRIVAL
at the Meadows was a surprise to everyone. His hasty note to his younger brother offered no explanation for his sudden decision to rusticate in his country home. If he had again quarreled and dueled, he would have gone to France rather than returned to the Meadows. Gerald Deveraux reread the tersely worded missive and puzzled over it. It was most unlike Alex to leave the delights of London before the absolute last event was over. And it was more than six weeks until Christmas. Besides, several weeks before, a friend had written that Trent was involved with a new opera singer.

“Well, Biddle,” he told the butler, “ask Mrs. Biddle to remove the holland covers from the main drawing room. As best as I can make out from this, Trent will be home today or tomorrow and he will be bringing a guest.”

“A hunting companion, perhaps?”

“No, Alex does most of his hunting in London. But I gather that it is a rather important personage. He asks that we reopen Mama’s rooms for him.”

A younger son, Gerald Deveraux cheerfully accepted his lot in life. It never occurred to him to curse a fate that gave him a brother nearly five years his senior, a brother to whom both title and estate passed when they were both still boys. But having been left with a generous allowance and a princely portion himself, he found jealousy an unnecessary vice. Nominally a captain in the dragoons, he was frequently afforded the opportunity of a few weeks at home, something he’d been unable to enjoy before the previous year’s Waterloo.

“It’s him! It’s him!” A servant shouted from the wide porch at the front of the house. And from all over the huge mansion, people scurried to be a part of his welcome. Alexander Deveraux was immensely popular with his own servants, and they took relish in recounting his wild exploits among themselves. The boy—never mind that he was nearly thirty—was a handsome devil, and they were sure there was not another like him anywhere. His looks, his easy grace, his aristocratic bearing, even his famed exploits with his rapier—all were things his people admired in him. That he was a Deveraux would have been explanation enough, that he had been a marquess when in short coats, unhampered by the restrictions of parental discipline, was but icing on the cake. They delighted in hearing about his reckless carriage races, his conquest of one beautiful mistress after another, his fantastic gaming successes, and even his duels. In short, he provided them with pride in their own.

“He’s got a lady with him!”

“A lady? Let me see.”

“Gor! ’E does.”

“Naw, he wouldn’t bring no lady here.”

“Well, you look at her. She ain’t one o’ them Lunnon doves.”

“No, it’s a lady, all right.”

Biddle pushed his way to the front of the servants to get to the door. “His lordship knows what is due his ancestral home,” the butler sniffed, “so you can be assured that he is
not
bringing a member of the muslin company.”

Mrs. Biddle craned her neck to watch Lord Trent lift Ellen down from his carriage. “Unnuhhh.” She shook her head knowingly as she reached the obvious conclusion. “She is plainly Quality, I can tell you. Not a beauty, mind you, but she’s pretty enough. He’s brought his bride home to us.”

“A Lady Trent?” was the doubtful murmur around her.

“Thought he was raking around with some foreign singer.”

“Sophia Mantini.”

“But that would not keep him from getting married.”

“Naw, ’ee’d not get shackled—’e’s a Deveraux.”

“And ’ow’d ye think they get ’em—Deveraux, I mean—if they don’t marry?”

Gerald hung back aloof from the uproar caused by Alex’s arrival. He did not know who the chit was, but he’d lay money that it wasn’t any Lady Trent.

Everybody moved back when the marquess entered his hall with Ellen on his arm. He nodded cheerfully to all of them while taking her into the drawing room. She had the uncomfortable feeling that every servant there was looking her over very carefully, a feeling that did not lessen even when a tall, immaculately dressed man bearing an uncanny resemblance to Trent followed them in and shut the door.

“Hallo, Alex.”

“Gerry. I’d like to present Ellen. Ellen—my brother, Captain Gerald Deveraux.”

“Ellen.” The captain bowed gracefully over her hand. “Charmed to make your acquaintance, my dear. That army out there would have it that you are Alex’s bride.”

Ellen’s hand stiffened in Gerald Deveraux’s clasp.

“Not my bride, Gerry. Brockhaven’s.”

There was a stunned silence as Trent’s brother digested what he had heard. He turned loose of Ellen and stared at Alex for some sign of a jest.

“It’s true, I am afraid,” Trent sighed. “But it is a very long story.”

“If you have run off with another man’s wife, I cannot fathom why you have brought her here,” Gerald told him stiffly. “It will be the first place anyone will look.”

“It isn’t like you think at all, Gerry. Can you not just look at her and tell this is no light-skirt I bring home? Even I am not totally lost to propriety.”

“But if she is Brockhaven’s wife—”

“I told you it was a long story!”

“Then tell it.”

“Listen, she is tired and hungry. Wait until she is settled and I will tell you the whole.”

“Alex,” Ellen spoke up, “perhaps it will be easier if we all sit and we explain it now. He may not believe us, but we at least owe your brother an explanation.”

“You’ll have to meet Brockhaven over this, Alex, and it will not look good—killing an old man for his young wife.”

“Take a damper, Gerry.” Trent’s temper was rising rapidly until he glanced down at the white-faced Ellen. “Look at her. Does she look like anyone I would run off with?”

“No.”

“Then be quiet and let us explain.”

Ellen fixed her gaze on the carpet pattern while Alex Deveraux proceeded to enlighten his brother with the whole story of their arrival at the Meadows. He began with the wedding and omitted almost nothing in the telling. She flushed to the roots of her hair when he spoke of their stay at the Grumms’ awful inn, but she did not miss the pride in his voice as Trent told of her setting Timms’ leg and the saving of his own life. To her, the telling seemed ever so much more sordid than the living, and she tried to prepare herself for Gerald Deveraux’ censure. Instead, he broke out laughing when Alex finished.

“Gad! Only you could do something like this! Your pardon, ma’am, but you have to admit he is game for anything. I can see almost every part of it.”

“I could not leave her standing on the ground underneath Brockhaven’s window, Gerry.”

“Neither could I, had I been there, I daresay,” Gerald admitted. “But what are we going to do now? She cannot live here—not that I mind the idea, but think of the scandal.”

“I suppose it will just be said that I am our father’s son.” Alex looked up to the portrait that hung over the mantle, a portrait of a man very like himself.

“What he means, my dear,” Gerald told Ellen, “is that our father took a fancy to our mother and made off with her. But it cannot be said to be the same thing—our mother was only betrothed.”

“I meant that we are an impetuous lot, Gerry. This was not a very romantic elopement, I assure you.”

“It was not,” Ellen agreed emphatically. “There was not the least romantical thing about that awful inn or about trying to cook and care for a man who would not cooperate. There were times I despaired of our survival.”

“You did not. Gerry, do not let her tell you such a whisker. She was as calm as Mama through the whole thing.”

“But it was awful,” she insisted, “when you were sick.”

“And you were not even the one who was bled, and you were not fed pork jelly either,” he reminded her with feeling.

Fascinated with this glimpse of his brother’s suffering, Gerald could not resist asking, “And what is pork jelly?”

“You do not even want to know,” Trent answered with a visible shudder.

“A restorative—at least that’s what the label said, my lord,” Ellen reminded him with a perfectly straight face. “And you cannot say that it did not help. Before I gave it to you, you were lying about in the greatest lethargy, but after, you were inspired to rave and rant almost like you would usually.”

“I did not ’rave and rant’ nearly enough during the whole escapade, my dear girl. You cannot know how close you came to being abandoned when you lost us lodgings that first night.”

“But, of course, being a Deveraux, you simply could not do it.” She smiled. Turning to Gerald, she could not resist adding, “You have no notion, sir, how very sick I was of the Deveraux in one day. I had to listen as to how Deveraux excel in virtually everything.”

“Including conceit, I would suppose.” Gerald grinned. “Aye, we do have a surfeit of that.”

They were interrupted by Biddle announcing that a small supper awaited them in the dining room. Ellen looked at her travel-creased dress in dismay, but Trent shook his head.

“You are fine as you are. Just rinse your hands in the fingerbowl—Gerry and I will promise not to notice.” He moved closer to add
sotto voce,
“ ’Tis but a small country supper, but you’ll like it.” He gave her his hand to pull up. with, adding, “Besides, I am famished.”

His definition of a small country supper was misleading, she decided when she surveyed the table. The Meadows’ cook had obviously been to pains to provide his returning master with the best to be had in the kitchen. There were no fewer than four meat dishes consisting of roast, ham, squab, and a pork pie, four vegetables, a fruit compote, and a delectable fruit cake with rum sauce, in addition to the usual breads and wine. And after diner, there was brandy for the men and an arrack punch for Ellen.

Thoroughly stuffed, Ellen leaned sleepily toward Trent and murmured, “Would you mind very much if I retired, my lord? I should like to discuss what I am to do, but I cannot think just now. I do promise, however, that I shall not impose on your generosity any longer than necessary.”

“You are not to worry on that head, my dear. You will stay here, of course. Biddle!”

“Aye, milord?”

“Have Mrs. Biddle show Ellen up to m’ mother’s rooms, if you please.”

As she followed the housekeeper up one of two staircases that branched off either side of the open entry hall, Ellen reflected that it would not be difficult to get lost in Trent’s country house. Her father’s home had once seemed grand, but it absolutely paled in comparison and probably would fit in its entirety in one wing of the Meadows. The walls and floor of the entry were of shining marble, as were the stairs and the balustrade, while the upper walls were plaster outlined with gilded moldings, and the ceiling over the whole open area was crossed with the same moldings and decorated with gilt rosettes. Upstairs, the hallway floors were wood polished to the gloss of lacquer, with fine Aubusson wool runners in the center. Still, even after such opulence, she was unprepared for the scene that greeted her as the housekeeper opened the door proudly to the rooms that had belonged to the last Marchioness of Trent. The front sitting room was as large as the Marlings’ small drawing room in the house they’d leased during the wedding preparations, and it was fitted in a style that could only be described as truly regal. Two sofas covered in a delicate rose-and-green matelasse flanked a marble-faced fireplace, where a fire had been laid. Cherry-wood and marble-topped tables holding fine brass candelabra sat at either end of the sofas while a high-backed Queen Anne chair done in a rose velvet faced the fire. The rug that covered the center of the room carried out the soft rose and green in a floral pattern, and the walls were covered with green French moiré silk. Even the ceiling was decorated with white plaster and gold rosettes like the entry hall downstairs.

Ellen almost could not tear herself away to follow Mrs. Biddle into the bedchamber and dressing room as she stood stunned by her surroundings. She managed to collect herself finally and allowed the woman to guide her into the dressing room, where a large gilt-splashed
poudre
table with a marble top held every item imaginable for a woman’s toilette. A Louis Quinze chair with a green velvet seat had been drawn back invitingly, and a brace of candles glowed in front of the gilt-edged mirror. Off to one side, a marble washbasin rested on a gilt-washed stand, and a brass pitcher sat on the ledge above it. A rose velvet wrapper and a white silk nightgown lay across a low, velvet-padded bench.

Mrs. Biddle nodded and managed a pleasant smile. “I laid out your nightclothes, miss. As yet, we have no dresser, but one of the maids has some skill with hair if you would wish her assistance tonight.”

“No.” Ellen shook her head slowly, still in a state of shock to find that Trent lived in such luxury. “I would just go to bed, if you do not mind.”

“Your bed is already turned down, miss, and Marie will bring up some warm milk to help you sleep. I hope you do not mind it, but we are quite informal here. I do not know what you are used to, but we call most of the servants by their first names, except for Biddle and myself.”

Ellen looked up to see if the woman intended her remarks as a set-down and saw nothing but kindness mirrored there. “Thank you, Mrs. Biddle. We were not particularly formal in my home either.”

“Do you require assistance before bed—I mean, do you need help with your undressing?”

“No. If you will but get the top few buttons, I can take care of everything, thank you.”

The little housekeeper reached up and undid the buttons as requested with a smile. “There. Well, if that is all, I will be going. There is a bell pull by your bed that rings in my room, miss, so if you need anything in the night, do not hesitate to use it.” She hesitated a moment before adding, “And if you cannot sleep, there are some books in cases in the bedchamber. Nothing recent, of course, but the marchioness was quite a bluestocking, as scholarly as his lordship and the captain.”

“I am sure that I will be able to find everything I need,” Ellen assured her as she walked her back to the sitting-room door.

“Good night, miss.”

“Good night.”