Her Ladyship's Companion (2 page)

Mrs. Brody, (there is no other word for it,) snarled. Melissa smiled gently, and thought: Let the old witch worry about
that,
and wonder what tales I’ve been carrying about town.

“You will unpack your bag, Rivenwood, and complete your quarter here. I need your services, and there can be no question of leaving without notice. No reputable school will accept you if you leave here without notice.”

“No school would take me without a recommendation, Mrs. Brody,” Melissa said reasonably. “Madame Dubois will be happy to take my place with the children for the rest of the term.” That was the elderly émigré Mrs. Brody had already lined up to displace Melissa as soon as the headmistress had weaned a few influential pupils away from an undue affection for their present French teacher.

Mrs. Brody tried another approach. “If you leave here tonight, you’ll never see a penny of your pay for last quarter.”

Melissa said nothing. There was a delighted giggle from the girls which answered Mrs. Brody effectively. All the school knew that the junior mistresses worked for lower wages than the kitchen girls.

“What is the name of this person upon whom you have so grossly imposed yourself? I demand to know.”

“He has your address. If he wishes to get in touch with you, he will.”

Mrs. Brody turned magenta. “If indeed it is an honest position at all. I should have known you were up to something, sneaking in and out of here at all hours. Is it a purely male establishment you go to? I wonder. Is that why you’re so secret? Wise of you to be so discreet.”

Melissa stared back, gravely silent. Even the headmistress realized she’d gone too far. The girl was, after all, niece of a wealthy and respectable clergyman. She began to bluster. “You’ve always been lacking in the humility suited to one in your position, young woman. The Reverend Mr. Rivenwood made a great mistake in his handling of you, encouraging you to behave like one of his
real
daughters.”

Melissa’s face became cold and set. Mrs. Brody hurried on, her harsh voice resounding in the otherwise utterly silent room. Even the kitchen servants, sensing drama, were openly listening at the door. “I only hope that your pride and willfulness have not set you on a course you will most heartily come to regret.” That pious wish disposed of, she continued scathingly. “From the beginning I doubted the wisdom of accepting a foundling of God only knows what parentage into my school. If your uncle had not overborne my scruples... It was an act of misplaced charity on my part.”

Melissa interjected smoothly, “You wrong yourself, Mrs. Brody. You were never guilty of an act of misplaced charity in your life.” It was said in a faintly congratulatory tone.

Mrs. Brody knew an insult when she heard one. “Blood will tell,” she sneered. “That’s all I have to say. Leave the table at once, Rivenwood. Young ladies, return to your meal. No talking.”

With a good imitation of calm covering her white-hot anger Melissa had folded her napkin, steadied her shaking hands on the table edge, and stood up. “I am, of course, desolated to leave your... lavish hospitality,” she had drawled. There had been a hastily smothered titter among the girls, and Melissa had thought fleetingly that the teachers would have a hard time maintaining discipline that afternoon. “But I shall take my pride and willfulness—and my blood, too, about which neither you nor my uncle know anything whatever—elsewhere. I do not believe I will regret it.”

Then she had turned and strolled from the room.

So I burn my boats behind me, Melissa thought, watching the sun glint and sink behind the rooftops of London. What a magnificent bonfire it was. Almost worth the price. If I can’t keep the new position... If I do have to go begging to Uncle Gregory... It’s unthinkable.

Chapter 2

...
discovered the five-pound note tucked into Horace’s “Ode to Fortune” just outside Salisbury. I am touched beyond words, you idiot, and will send it back by the next reliable messenger. It’s by far the most valuable thing I ever found in the classics.

Excerpt from the letter of Melissa Rivenwood to Cecilia Luffington, June 2, 1818

After four endless, bone-jolting days on the road Melissa considered herself an experienced traveler. She had learned to expect the barking dogs, the pigs and chickens scattering in alarm, and the dirty, half-naked boys who came for the horses when the coach entered an innyard at night. She expected also the cacophony of noise from animals and humans at their evening meal and the mingled reek of horses, beer, wood smoke, and various less wholesome stinks. But that night in Cockleford, as they wheeled in under the arched gate at the sign of the Green Lion, the roar and smell were overwhelming. The innyard was filled with a milling crowd of sweat-stained laborers, farm women with baskets, food vendors, and jauntily clad loungers. Half a dozen boys in dirty aprons were passing out pints of ale, brimming or a measure short, depending on the state of inebriation of the customer. There was a carnival mood in the air. Obviously some great event was in the offing.

Her fellow passengers craned their necks around the edges of the windows to see what was going on. “That tears it,” said the elderly man, some sort of clerk traveling to Bodmin on company business. “There’ll be no sleep for any of us tonight.”

“What is it?” Melissa asked. “Has there been an accident, do you think?”

“No, no, nothing of the sort.” He was amused by her naiveté. “It’s only some local affair. Bearbaiting, or a mill, or a horse race or something.” Leaning out the window, he called to one of the loiterers in the yard. “You there! Yes, you. What’s al! the excitement?”

A cheeky voice flung back the answer “It’s a cockfight, Lord luv ya.” Further raucous comment followed, mercifully rendered unintelligible by the din and the thick local dialect.

The clerk thudded back down onto the cushions as the coach lurched forward suddenly. “There you are, miss. Nothing to be concerned about,” he said genially.

“Nothing to be concerned about, my eye.” This came from Melissa’s fellow female on the journey, a certain Miss Tagson, governess attached to the household of the Duke of Pemberly. She was making the long journey to the duke’s estates near Penzance. Delicacy of constitution and exquisite sensibility were to her the hallmarks of the upper crust, so she had exclaimed her possession of both for mile after weary mile in a voice of considerable energy and great power of penetration. “You, an unfeeling male, may find nothing to worry you with every pig driver and half-pay officer in the county drinking and fighting under your window all night long. It’s nothing to
you.
But you might have the courtesy to remember how a
lady
must feel about this. Bouncing about in this filthy coach all day, barely able to hold my head up by nightfall, and then you dare to say the prospect of lying awake all night, listening to these rustic debauches, is of no concern.” There was considerable relish in the way she said “debauches.” “We’ll be forced to rub shoulders with the very scaff-raff of the neighborhood.”

She was interrupted by the coachman, swearing terribly, as he maneuvered the horses into an open area
near the stable. An ostler, who had ducked out of sight too slowly, was bullied into unhitching the team, and the outside passengers scrambled down. Melissa, four days wiser in the chivalry to be expected of tired, hungry men at the end of a day in a swaying coach, waited for no assistance. She alighted and elbowed her way through a crush of gangling adolescent boys, all moving in the opposite direction and none of them overclean. No one hurried to hand down the luggage; there were fatter tips to be had from the gleaming private carriages coming in, and such work was far beneath the dignity of the driver, who was already picking his way toward the inn parlor.

One of the outside passengers tossed the luggage into a heap on the ground, to the extreme peril of anyone inadvertently passing. Melissa waited in silence. It was useless to remonstrate with him. She couldn’t climb up herself to get her bags, so she must be grateful for having them down at all.

Miss Tagson, less philosophic and possessed of a greater belief in the mutability of human behavior, passed the time shouting imprecations. When she recognized her own luggage going over the side, she let out an inarticulate howl that delighted the grinning spectators, then stalked off in high dudgeon with her bag.

Melissa waited until both her bags had fallen with a thump—though significantly with less of a thump than had accompanied the disgruntled Miss Tagson’s luggage—and then, with a bag firmly gripped in each hand, she began to thread her way toward the entrance hall, where a welcoming light shone out into the growing darkness.

Inside, the going was harder. Men of every class and condition were crowded together, drinking and laughing. She searched the room in vain for the innkeeper or a maidservant but could see no farther than the backs of the dozen closest men. How was she to find her room, or her dinner for that matter? Melissa made the practical decision that even if her room were not upstairs, that would be the least crowded place to begin looking for it. She pushed her way between the men by the simple process of banging her valises into their knees until they moved aside.

She made some progress. A raucous bellow of coarse laughter rang out behind her, and she was jostled suddenly into the bulging waistcoat of a burly gentleman. With this assistance he spilled a mug of beer down the front of his jacket. “Damn the devil!” the man sputtered, pushing her away angrily. “Watch what you’re doing there.” When he got a clear view of his assailant, however, he began jiggling with laughter.

“I’m most dreadfully sorry,” Melissa said placatingly, backing off.

The man chuckled and carelessly threw the mug and the remains of his beer onto the floor. Now somebody will have to clean it up after him Melissa thought, watching the amber liquid disappear into the wood. She was startled and dismayed to find the drunken man advancing upon her, his arms outstretched.

“It don’t matter at all, kitten. You just be a good girl and run and fetch me another,” he wheezed. He managed to trap her neatly between his outflung arms and the wall. Melissa lunged sideways but was cut off by a hammy hand. “No harm done, pretty little thing like you.” He exhaled heavily in her face. “Oh, yes, it’s a cute little chicken, you are.” His breath was an indescribable medley of beer and onions. With one hand supporting his bulk against the wall he clumsily grabbed Melissa’s shoulder with the other, attempting to pull her close to him. His grip was leaving bruises from her neck to her elbow, and her hair began to come down.

“Stop that!” Melissa dropped her bags and tried to push him away. She kicked in the direction of his legs but did little more than scuff the polish on his boots. The noisy mob ignored them. She began to panic.

The man took hold of a good handful of her hair and leaned on her heavily, glad of support in a spinning world. Melissa found it painful in the extreme. “Pretty, pretty little kitten. You just run back to the kitchen and get me another mug. Brim full up this time. Don’t give old Harvey no half measures. That’s the good girl.” He buried his face in her falling hair and breathed gustily.

“Blast you!” Melissa snarled and slapped his face. But she made no impression on him at all. “Let me go, you fat oaf!” She tried to disentangle her hair from his greasy fingers. She was shocked, mortified, and furious, but the brainless sot was too heavy for her to push away. “I will not bring you another drink! No more drinks, do you hear me!” she shouted. She boxed his ears smartly, trying to penetrate the stupor. “I don’t work here, you idiot!” She was very much afraid somebody would run off with her bags if she didn’t retrieve them at once, but she was cornered effectively.

Disregarding her scratches and blows, the man settled himself more comfortably against her, belching. Beer had made him oblivious to minor pain or major criticism. In fact, he was still mumbling indistinguishable words of approval into the general region of her forehead when he was abruptly and without ceremony hauled up bodily from behind.

Melissa, with great relief, felt her accoster’s weight pulled away and saw him sent stumbling headlong out through the door, where he collided with two hefty carters, just entering, and tripped and fell, sprawling in the muck in the dooryard. She smiled in simple satisfaction.

Melissa leaned back against the wall to catch her breath, wiping her face with the back of her hand. As her deliverer turned around, she looked up shyly to thank him. A tall gentleman, deeply tanned, with close-cropped brown hair, impeccably dressed in kerseymere pantaloons and a dun riding coat, scowled down at her angrily.

“What the hell are you doing out of the kitchen, girl?” he demanded. “You must be mad to come through the hall tonight. Get back inside before you come to real trouble.”

That was unkind. Melissa realized that in the dim light, with her tousled hair and rumpled, drab clothes, he’d taken her for one of the tavern wenches. She blushed furiously at the picture she must present. So she pulled herself up proudly to her full height—about level with his shoulder—and said in a dignified voice, “I am looking for my room, sir, not the kitchen. If you’ll let me pass, I’ll go upstairs at once. I thank you for your intervention.” Her voice had a tendency to shake. Very annoying.

“What’s that?” The man pulled her roughly into the light. Her well-bred accents were unmistakably not those of a menial at a country inn.

“I do apologize,” he muttered, releasing her. “My mistake.” He moved closer and peered down at her. If the sight of the slender girl, shabbily dressed, her hair wild about her shoulders, affected him in any way, he showed it by no more than the flicker of an eyelid. Melissa, who knew she must look disreputable, was happily spared the knowledge that flushed and shaking, with her full lips trembling, she also looked extraordinarily desirable.

The gentleman, brown as a yeoman farmer at face and hands, appeared to be of some thirty years. His air of authority, not to say arrogance, and his expensive clothing proclaimed him a man of some importance. The scowl of disapproval on his craggy, unhandsome face was quickly replaced by a mask of civil indifference which was scarcely reassuring.