Elizabeth Mansfield (3 page)

"As certain as one can be in such matters. Why?"

"Then, if I were you, I'd leave town. The best way to resolve such problems is to rusticate for a month or so. You'll avoid your mother's wrath and the embarrassment of coming face-to-face with the girl at some fete or other. And by the time you come back, everyone will have become accustomed to the matter."

"Sounds a cowardly way to deal with it," Jeremy objected.

"If you want to be brave, by all means stay. Stay put and face your mother. Stay put and endure seeing all the gossipy females whisper behind their fans every time you enter a room. Stay put and find yourself running into Cicely at the opera or at the Pantheon Bazaar. You'll have to be very brave indeed."

Jeremy rolled his eyes heavenward and downed another gulp.

"If, however, you should decide to be cowardly," Charlie went on, touch of slyness in his voice, "and agree to rusticate as any man of sense would do, I'd go with you."

Jeremy's eyes narrowed. "You'd go with me?" he asked suspiciously. 'To Inglesby Park?"

"Yes, if you'd like company."

"You
hate
rusticating. And you always claim that Inglesby Park is the dullest retreat in all of England, being ten miles from the nearest town and equally far from decent society."

"Yes, I did say that, didn't I? But it's a small sacrifice to make in the name of friendship."

"What a hum! Cut line, Charlie, and tell me the truth. Who are
you
trying to run away from?"

Charlie smiled guiltily. "There
is
a certain opera dancer who has taken it into her head that I played her false. It might be a good time for me to be far away from her."

Jeremy shook his head. "I thought as much. But are you so eager to escape that you would put up with Inglesby Park at this season, when Mama has taken most of my household staff to employ here in London? Most of the rooms are closed off. I'll only have Mr. and Mrs. Stemple and Hickham and a few of the locals to do for us."

"I don't expect to spend the month in high living. A bit of riding, an afternoon or two of shooting, evenings of quiet relaxation—that's all I need."

"Very well, then, I agree. We'll both be cowardly and run for cover."

Charlie brightened perceptibly. "Tonight?"

"Yes, why not?" Jeremy put down his glass, now almost empty, and rose from his chair. "Do you know what I think, Charlie, old fellow?"

"What?" Charlie asked, rising and clapping his friend companiably on his shoulder.

"That we're
both
cads. The pair of us."

Chapter 3

In the foyer of Lady Schofield's town house, Cicely was indeed weeping in her mother's arms. Cassandra Beringer, aghast, held her daughter tightly with one arm, her other hand lifting a branch of candles out of the way. "What is it, my love?" she asked softly, trying not to reveal in her voice the extent of her alarm. "What's happened?"

Cicely shuddered and clutched her mother's shoulders, too choked with sobs to speak.

Eva Schofield, who'd been hiding on the first turning of the stairs so that she might eavesdrop on the announcement of the expected good news, came running down as fast as her heavy, aging legs permitted. "Good heavens, my love," she cried, "are you ill?"

Cicely, keeping her head buried in her mother's shoulder, waved a hand to indicate that illness was not the problem.

"Then where is Jeremy? I thought he was to come in with you," the aunt persisted.

This only increased the girl's sobs. Eva and Cassie exchanged looks of worried helplessness. Eva took the candles from Cassie's hand. "Come to the sitting room," she said, leading the way. 'The fire is going, and we can be cozy. We'll have tea, and after you've calmed yourself, you shall tell us what happened."

"Whatever it is, dearest," Cassie murmured with motherly tenderness, "we shall make it right. You'll see."

It took an hour of being rocked in her mother's arms on the sofa in front of the fire, and another hour of giving tearful answers to anxious questions, before Cicely was able to give the two older women an inkling of what had passed. "So you s-see," she said tremulously, rising and going to the fireplace, "there's n-nothing you can do to m-make it right."

Eva peered up at her niece from the easy chair on which she'd sunk in despair. "He merely said he had
nothing
to say?" she asked, utterly puzzled. "What can he have meant by that?"

"His m-meaning was q-quite c-clear," Cicely said, resting her head on the mantel and staring down into the flames. "He had a ch-change of..." Her tears began to flow again. "... of...
heart.”

"Well, if Lord Inglesby was foolish enough to have a change of heart about
you,
dearest," declared her mother, "then he is too stupid to be worthy of you." She rose and put an arm about her daughter's waist. "Come up to bed, my love. No good will come of speaking of this matter any longer. Besides, everything will look brighter in the morning."

Cassie took the girt upstairs, dismissed the abigail and readied Cicely for bed as if she were still a child. She sponged the girl's tear-stained face, brushed her hair, buttoned her into her nightdress and tucked her into bed. Then she sat smoothing the girl's forehead and murmuring affectionate endearments until Cicely drifted off into a weary sleep.

Cassie tiptoed out of the room and softly closed the door. She was not surprised to find Eva hovering about in the hallway, her brow wrinkled with anxiety. "She's asleep," she assured her sister.

The two women walked slowly down the hall toward their respective bedrooms. "I have never been so disappointed in all my life," Eva muttered, half to herself. "I always found him so very good-natured, so charming, so...
perfect!
How can he have turned out to be so unfeeling? I shall never forgive him... or myself."

"Do not take it so much to heart," Cassie said, her face a frozen mask of self-control. "I myself am not at all sorry this happened."

"What on earth are you
sayingT
Eva raised her candle and peered at her sister's face in disbelief. "Can you possibly be
glad
to see your own daughter so heartbroken?"

"Of course I'm not glad. Do you think I'm not suffering for her pain? I
bleed
for her! But she will get over it. Better that she should weep for a few weeks now than weep for a lifetime later."

"Whatever do you mean? Do you think that if Jeremy had come up to scratch he would have made her unhappy?"

"Yes, I do. I'm sure of it. I let you convince me otherwise, and see what it's brought? It's always tragic when a girl weds a man old enough to be her father."

"Are you still harping on that? What utter nonsense! The fellow would have made her an ideal husband, despite his age!"

Cassie's eyebrows rose in scornful disgust. "Ideal? You still call him
ideal?
Did I not hear you say, a mere moment ago, that he was unfeeling?"

"Yes, but only because he evidently didn't care enough for our Cicely to overcome his reluctance to enter into wedlock." Though they'd arrived at the door to Cassie's bedroom, Eva would not let her go without speaking her mind. "The man's a prize, I tell you," she declared, holding her sister's arm to keep her from going inside. "What we ought to be considering, instead of standing here arguing about his age, is how to win him back."

"Win him
back?"
Furiously, Cassie shook off her sister's hold and pulled herself up to her full height. "I'd rather die! The man had his chance and muddled it. I shall not give him another. Not ever! I'm taking my daughter home, first thing in the morning. The sooner she's far away from town, the sooner she'll start on the road to recovery. And as for you, Eva, when you come to visit, you are not to mention him, do you understand? I don't ever want to hear his name again!"

"Very well," her sister said in offense, starting off down the hall. "Let Cicely become an old maid!"

"She won't be an old maid. Not Cicely," Cassie said to her sister's departing back. "But I'll see to it that any suitor who calls on her is under twenty-five!"

Eva did not look back until she heard Cassie's door slam. Then she turned round and made a disparaging gesture in the direction of her sister's door. "Hummmph!" she muttered.

"Under twenty-five indeed! He'd not be Jeffrey's equal no matter who he is."

But it was too, too bad, she thought sadly as she continued on toward her room, that Jeremy had not come through. If he had, not only would Cicely have been happy for life, but Cassie would have been taught that a twenty-year difference in age was not always fatal to marital bliss.

Eva's disappointment was so great that she could not sleep. She tossed and turned till daybreak, a victim of her thoughts.
There must be something I can do,
her mind repeated in despair. It would be remiss of her merely to let matters stand. Cicely must not be permitted to suffer this rejection, and Cassie must be taught a lesson. But what—?

Suddenly she sat up in bed with a gasp. "Of course!" she said aloud. "His
motherl
Why didn't I think of her before?"

She lit her candle, got out of bed and pattered across the cold floor in her bare feet, to her writing desk. There she set her candle down, drew out a sheet of notepaper, picked up a quill and, without bothering to cut a new nib, dipped it into die inkwell and began to write.
My dear Lady Inglesby ...

Chapter 4

At Inglesby Park a mere two days later, Jeremy, playing a desultory game of piquet with Charles Percy, looked up from his cards to find his man Hickham making nervous hand signals in the doorway. "Blast it, Hickham," he said irritably, his mood having been considerably dampened by two days of dreadful weather, "isn't it enough that I'm imprisoned indoors in this downpour with this deucedly ill-natured fellow playing this deucedly dull game? Must I now be forced to decipher your deucedly mysterious charades? Speak up, man!"

Hickham winced helplessly and gestured with his thumb to the corridor behind him. "Your mother, me lord," he whispered with foreboding.

Jeremy leapt from his chair. "Confound it," he muttered under his breath, "she's
here? Already?"

"Lady Sarah herself, right down the 'allway, lettin' 'er abi-gail brush off the raindrops from 'er furs," Hickham hissed conspiratorially.

Jeremy sighed. "Show her in, Hickham," he said with a helpless shrug.

Hickham nodded and left. Charlie threw a taunting grin at his friend. "Ha!" he snorted callously. "You're in for it now. Told you she'd come."

Jeremy scowled down at him. "What you told me," he corrected, "was that I'd be safe from maternal scoldings if I rusticated."

"Yes, I did, didn't I? I should've known better. Your mother ain't the sort to be put off from her aims by a few dozen miles of separation." Hearing a step in the hall, he dropped his cards on the table and lifted himself from his chair with unwonted alacrity. "This will not be a pleasant scene. I think I'll make myself scarce, if you don't mind."

"Stay right where you are, Lord Lucas!" came a stern voice from the doorway. "Since I have not the slightest doubt that my son would not have run off like a craven were it not for your urging, I have as much to say to
you
as to him."

Charles sat down. The woman in the doorway, Lady Sarah Thorpe Tate, the dowager Viscountess Inglesby, daughter of the Marquis of Rotherham and widow of the late and distinguished Horace Tate, was a tall, imposing woman who was not one to be easily disobeyed. Jeremy, despite his unease at the prospect of a tongue-lashing, glanced over at her with admiring affection. His mother was a nonpareil. Everyone from royalty to her servants held her in the highest respect. Her very appearance, as she stood poised in the doorway, gave evidence of her strength and dignity. She was almost as tall as her son and equally spare of frame, with a pronounced nose and a chin that could only be called imperious. A queenly hat decorated with curled plumes sat atop her severely coiffed gray hair, and a positively regal fur pelisse was draped over her shoulders. And to make her appearance even more formidable, her arms, covered to the elbows in long gray leather gloves, were folded across her chest in an attitude of decided disapproval. "And as for you, Jeremy," she was saying, "I shan't even wish you good afternoon, for my heart would not be in it."

"But I'll wish
you
good afternoon, Mama," Jeremy said, throwing her an affectionate grin as he crossed the room to her, "and my heart
is
in it." He planted a kiss on her cheek. "Will you take off that dreadful hat and let me give it to Hickham?"

"No. The hat is not at all dreadful. It's complete to a shade, as well it ought to be, for it cost me thirty-nine pounds."

"But you can at least take it off indoors, can't you?" her son asked, leading her in and holding out a chair for her at the card table.

"No I can't, for I'm not staying. At which news, I'm certain, you are both giving silent thanks."

"Of course you're staying," her son insisted. "You can't drive all the way down from London and then go back the same day."

"I not only can, I will." She seated herself, stiff-backed, on the edge of the chair. "I dislike this house so much I can never bear staying in it."

"Really, Mama? Why? It is considered one of the finest examples of the Palladian style."

"A much overrated style, if you ask me. Too many pediments, pillars and pilasters. And stairs everywhere. Many too many stairs! An eight-step staircase just to reach the front door!"

"I can arrange for you to have a bedroom right on this floor," her son offered. "You won't have to climb a stair."

"No, thank you. I shall be returning to London immediately. And don't be foolish enough to believe, Jemmy Tate, that you can flummery me with all this affability. It will not make me forget what I came to say."