Her Ladyship's Companion (8 page)

Melissa discovered immediately that waltzing with the young ladies in the music room at school bore not the least resemblance to dancing with a man. Not that it was difficult. If she hadn’t been so flustered, it would have been the most natural thing in the world to be moving with music in the circle of this man’s arms.

It was a totally, completely impossible thing to be doing. “Mr. Tarsin. I can’t do this.”

“You do this very well,” Giles murmured.

He was right. It was easy, easier than she’d dreamed. After the first embarrassing minute waltzing was as natural as walking.

The music slid smoothly across the hall and filled the parlor. The soft Aubusson carpet whispered beneath their feet. The green room was washed in gold and silver light.

Sometimes music is magic, fire in the veins, honey in the mouth. If the august patronesses of Almack’s had not dried up to wizened husks decades before, they would have known better than to allow such a dangerous dance as the waltz within their doors.

As Giles Tarsin whirled Melissa around the room, she discovered that the world can narrow to the distance between two people.

His coat was blue-black. The cravat was tied in a more complicated arrangement than he usually wore. His eyes were deep gray, almost blue-black like his coat. And how full of laughter! Had he been laughing like this, with such a warm glow behind his eyes, when he danced with the heiress?

But there was no comparison, of course. He danced with the tin mine heiress in the ballroom in front of everyone. He was dancing with her in a shabby, dim green room across the hall. And in another measure or two the footmen would finish their work in the ballroom and would come in here to light the candles. She couldn’t be found like this.

Melissa stopped, dropped her hands, and stepped away from him.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“But the music hasn’t stopped,”

“I have.”

The smile that had been hovering behind Giles’s face broke through. “Do you ever do anything you’re not supposed to?”

“Not often.”

“I should have known. Do you think Dorothy will eat you for three minutes of dancing? She won’t, you know.”

Melissa gave the question more serious consideration than it merited. “I wasn’t thinking about Lady Dorothy,” she said with painstaking honesty. “I was thinking about the footmen.” There was a glint of grim humor. “I’ve never done anything the footmen might disapprove of.” She curtsied formally. “Thank you, though. It was kind of you to take pity on me.” Her sudden laugh flashed out, really amused. “Ridiculous, isn’t it, making such a fuss over a minute’s harmless pleasure?”

“Perhaps.” Giles watched Melissa leave the room and close the door after her. “But it may not have been as harmless as you think.”

Chapter 7

...
write letters. Later in the morning, if it’s fine, I take Robbie out and gabble French to him for an hour or so. This does him no harm and may possibly do some good. Early in the afternoon I finish the letters, read French to my lady till teatime, run errands
...

Excerpt from the
letter of Melissa Rivenwood to
Cecilia Luffington, July
17, 1818

One warm July day Melissa was installed at a round table of glowing mahogany in the yellow parlor and set to answering tradesmen’s complaints. This was quite the usual thing. Lady Dorothy looked upon the mercantile community much as Wellington looked upon the French, as an enemy to be routed. There was still a lot of pirate in the Tarsin strain.

“This to Jarvis in King Street. Tell him I’m displeased with the red cushions and I want the work redone.” Lady Dorothy was fierce as if the unhandy Mr. Jarvis were within earshot instead of safe in London. “There will be no payment until the task is finished to my satisfaction. Ashton has orders to admit the men to the town house for this purpose. As to that carrier fellow, where did I put the letter? Ah, here it is. Refer him to my lawyers. The address is in the leather book under Biddle, Bundle and Redshaw. And add at the bottom of the letter that I am still,” she repeated awfully,
‘‘still,
I say, awaiting the decision on the removal of the ruins of the old island summerhouse. I have heard more than enough shilly-shallying about major changes in entailed property. Poppycock. I expect action.”

Melissa sat with bowed head, writing in her beautiful, painfully acquired copperplate. It was more translation than straight dictation. She wished Lady Dorothy would approach these things more calmly. She’d grown fond enough of the old lady in the last weeks to have a genuine fear for her health.

For a time there was no sound but the scratch of quill on paper. Then the dowager interrupted Melissa’s reply to the irate upholsterer to have her write, as she dictated, a long chatty letter to “Cousin Sarah” in Bath. It was concerned mainly with giving a charitable account of Anna’s activities. Lady Dorothy closed the letter with a snort. “That should satisfy the damn fool for another week or two.”

Lady Dorothy resumed pacing. A long morning of complaint to tradesmen and malicious gossip to friends had, if anything, revived her rather than fatigued her. Perhaps, Melissa thought, the doctor was quite mistaken, and the only thing wrong with Lady Dorothy’s heart was its textural similarity to granite.

“I’ve a treat in store for you,” Lady Dorothy announced suddenly. “You remember Amelia Edge-water?”

“Lady Amelia. You sent her grapes.”

“More grapes ahead. She’s been stricken with another of these minor ailments with which she amuses herself. Anna will take her something—Spanish oranges, I think—as my deputy. Good training for her. Giles has to make the trip anyway. Some estate business. You will go and see that he doesn’t murder Anna.”

“Thus my treat. I see.”

“There’s more. Robbie goes with you. If I recall correctly, the youngest Edgewater is of an age. In the absence of a governess Robbie will also be your charge.”

“Delightful,” Melissa assured with a straight face.

“You will abominate it, as you well know. Amelia is so high in the instep you’ll probably find yourself eating belowstairs. I tell you in advance, you see, to spare your feelings.”

“Thank you,” Melissa said meekly.

“I must be near my dotage. I nearly apologized to you for the trouble. You will enjoy the drive, I think. And keeping Anna out of mischief will allay any pangs of boredom you might feel.”

Melissa flicked the quill feather back and forth across the bridge of her nose, a nervous habit she indulged in during heavy thought. As if on cue, Anna fluttered into the parlor. She wore a morning dress of resplendent turquoise, trailing ribbons, and carried a ridiculous little pagoda-shaped parasol tucked under one arm. A lozenge-shaped reticule dangled from her wrist, more than completing the outfit. For a seventeen-year-old girl in a lonely country house, this was certainly attention to dress on a grand scale.

“If that’s to my cousin Sarah,” she said breezily, pointing to the letter on the table, “tell her I send my love and all that.”

“You’d do better to write her yourself, Anna,” her aunt replied mildly enough. “You owe her more than one letter, you know.”

“She’s so unbearably dull.  Don’t be tedious, Aunt Dorothy. Anyway, I can’t this morning. I’m off to town to look at silks. Anything to get out of this musty old house. If I’m cooped up any longer, I shall go mad.”

“Waste of a good morning,” Lady Dorothy replied coolly. “You’d do better to take that dock-tailed gray of yours out for a run. This is market day. So crowded you can’t move, and the streets full of sheep. Not the day I’d pick for shopping. Go out riding with Giles. He wants a look at the preserves anyway.”

“He’s out already,” Anna said. “He went off with Adrian to devastate the wildlife in the park again. He probably misses the chance to shoot people.”

Lady Dorothy laid a letter aside. “That’s a most unseemly way to talk.”

Anna pouted prettily. “It’s only logical that after being in the army for so long he would have got used to shooting things. I suppose it’s a hard habit to break.”

“Giles’s service under Wellington bears little resemblance to hunting in the north preserve, Anna. The less said about subjects of which you know nothing, the better.” The dowager’s voice was more than tart.

Anna fidgeted under Lady Dorothy’s basilisk stare. She began to pull the flower arrangement in the middle of the table out of its careful, intricate symmetry, crumbling the petals between her gloved fingers.

“Harold will drive you to town, I suppose,” Lady Dorothy said.

Anna laughed lightly and unconvincingly. “La, what does that have to say to anything, I’d like to know? As if I couldn’t go driving with Harold anywhere I liked in broad daylight in an open gig. Too Gothic by half, Aunt Dorothy.”

The dowager snorted. “No business of mine, chit, if you choose to make a cake of yourself over a man old enough to be your father. There’s no chance of your marrying him, you know.”

Anna sputtered. “It’s no such thing! Can’t I carry on a perfectly normal friendship with a man who is, after all, a member of my family without being accused of ... of setting my cap for him in the most vulgar way possible?”

“I’m relieved your interest is so platonic,” Lady Dorothy said dryly. “You would please me by demonstrating your tepid feelings in a slightly less public place than the seat of a gig in the middle of town.”

“If you’ve been listening to gossip ...”

“You mistake me, child. I never listen to gossip.”

“Oh, no,” Anna replied bitterly. “You may
cause
it, certainly. But listen to it? Never. All the same, you’re willing to believe the worst possible of me for no reason at all.”

“If I believed the worst possible, Anna,” Lady Dorothy said quellingly, her face rather pale, “you’d be under lock and key in a fortress in Northumberland.”

“If you cared at all about my feelings—”

“It’s your conduct that concerns me,” Lady Dorothy retorted. “While you’re under my roof, you’ll behave with dove-gray propriety. You hear me, gel?”

“Certainly I hear you,” Anna said with some hostility. “The devil knows I’ve no choice but to do what you say. For now. But lessons in propriety don’t fit very well into
your
mouth, dear Aunt.” With a vicious sweep of her hand Anna knocked a Chinese vase of yellow roses from the table in front of Lady Dorothy. Then, quite as appalled by her own behavior as anyone else, she burst into tears and ran from the room.

“And people are always complaining how mealy-mouthed the younger generation has become.” Lady Dorothy closed her account book. “Ah, well, I’ll make something of the chit yet. If she doesn’t ruin herself in the meantime.” She reached down painfully to collect the fragments of the vase where it had fallen, now a heap of petals and leaves and leaf-thin china.

Melissa was on her feet at once. “Here, let me.”

“No, better ring for Bedford. Staff here eating its head off, might as well be useful.” Lady Dorothy sank back into her chair, a worried frown on her face.

“I hope it wasn’t a valuable piece.”

Lady Dorothy shook her head absently. “The vase? No, not particularly. Robbie will never miss it, in any case. Lord knows I’ve broken enough china in my time not to grudge Anna this vase. I’ve thrown ’em at dustmen and dukes and creditors. Rascals all.”

Melissa fitted two of the pieces together sadly. “It’s beyond mending, I’m afraid.”

“Yes.” Lady Dorothy scarcely seemed to hear her. “It’s far beyond mending at this point.”

Melissa looked up, startled. “If I can be of any help ...?”

“Help? No.” Lady Dorothy’s attention was finally caught, and she favored Melissa with her usual cynical amusement. “Bursting to give me advice, I suppose. Never knew a paid companion yet could keep tongue between teeth when it came to someone else’s family affairs. Going to tell me I’m too harsh with the girl. Young. Let her have her fun. Perfectly harmless. Natural infatuation that will pass of its own accord. And Harold? What would you say about Harold, Rivenwood?”

“If asked, I would say that he appears to be an absolutely unobjectionable gentleman,” Melissa replied with composure.

“And if not asked?”

“I would keep my tongue between my teeth,” Melissa replied demurely, “and cultivate a suitably meek demeanor.”

“Hmmm. Much you know about the world, missy. No more than Anna for all your
advanced
years. Heh-ho, if I need your advice, I’ll ask for it. You understand?”

“Perfectly, my lady.” Melissa returned to the unfinished correspondence.

There was silence in the room for perhaps the count of fifty.

Lady Dorothy said in exasperation, “Very well. Out with it, gel. What do you think I should do?”

“I wouldn’t dare venture an opinion.”

“Of course not,” Lady Dorothy said sarcastically. “The housekeeper tells me she’s for packing the girl off to a strict finishing school. My dresser is all for love’s young dream. Let the silly fool elope with some man and she’d be well enough pleased. The cook, the cook, mind you, seeks me out to suggest that I send Mr. Harold away because he’s spoiling the young miss’s appetite. And my coachman wants to move the whole menagerie back to London so he can take Anna to the shops and sit and gossip with his cronies. But Rivenwood, Miss Rivenwood, the highly experienced London companion, the one who has for the first time in three years managed to get wine delivered to Vinton that wasn’t hopelessly bruised in shipping, who orders peach-colored brocade and actually gets peach and not apricot; Miss Rivenwood, who got the second housemaid married in the very nick of time before she disgraced us all with a new addition to the household—”

“These unwarranted encomiums—”

“Miss Rivenwood, as I said, does not even deign to possess an opinion on a matter that is rapidly turning my household into a bear garden.”

Melissa couldn’t help laughing. “It’s not so bad as that, surely?”

“You don’t have a dresser drooling April and May flowers down your neck,” Lady Dorothy said huffily.

“Hardly,” Melissa concurred.

“Or the responsibility, unwanted, I must admit, of producing this fresh young bud for the season, with all the petals unrumpled.”