Margaret Moore (8 page)

Arabella, however, was considerably less enthusiastic about wearing a dead woman’s clothing, even if the woman in question had never actually put them on.

Still, she consoled herself, the clothes would be new, they would be fashionable and, if Lady Lippet guessed right concerning Mademoiselle Juliette’s pricing, they would likely be a bargain.

“If they can be ready soon, we can begin to show her about without further delay,” Lady Lippet said.

The earl nodded.

“If possible,” Lady Lippet said with a hint of sly manipulation, “we should go to the theater
as soon as humanly possible. There is an absolutely delightful new play that everyone is talking about and, more important, attending. I believe that is the one we should see.”

Arabella tried not to betray too overt an interest in the conversation.

“What is this play?” Lord Barrsettshire asked.

Lady Lippet’s brow furrowed, then she smiled. “The name escapes me, I fear. It is by a most fascinating young man, who I believe may be an acquaintance of yours, Sir Richard Blythe.”

Richard Blythe—Neville’s friend! Of all the plays in London, surely that was the one they should
not
attend, Arabella thought.

Then it occurred to her that Neville would have seen his friend’s play already.

“That man should be horsewhipped! He was a fine soldier, and now he’s disgraced himself and his family with this writing nonsense!”

Lady Lippet shook her head. “Wattles, you must get over these old-fashioned notions. He is a famous fellow, and justly so, for a more witty playwright does not exist, or so everyone of the first rank declares. Besides, many noblemen will be there. It is simply too good an opportunity to miss. If an appropriate gown can be found for her, we should go tomorrow.”

“My lord, I fear I am being too much of a burden to you,” Arabella protested, more from
a sense that she should than from any true regret.

She did so want to attend a play!

Nevertheless, she continued in the same self-sacrificing vein. “It all sounds like so much hustle and bustle.”

“So it must be, if we are to find you a husband without wasting time,” Lady Lippet replied, shaking her head decisively to make her point and nearly sending her hat tumbling to the floor.

“You will let me pay for the gowns from my inheritance, won’t you?” Arabella asked, and in this she was sincere.

“We shall see, we shall see. The important thing is to do what Nettie says if we are to get you wed,” Lord Barrsettshire said. “What time do these infernal things begin?”

“Half past three o’clock,” Lady Lippet replied. “I could take her to the dressmaker’s today, and surely at least one gown could be made ready for tomorrow.

“And there must be no more scrubbing and mopping as if she were a servant,” the lady added with a curl of her falsely ruby lips, glancing at the bucket by the door. “Her hands will be totally ruined.”

“But I don’t mind—”

“Arabella,” the earl growled before he marched to the door, “if I am willing to put myself out for your good, I should think you
would be happy to do as Lady Lippet and I say.”

“Yes, my lord,” Arabella murmured as he bellowed for Jarvis.

“A pox! I don’t believe it!” Neville declared as his booted feet, which had been propped on the table, hit the wooden floor with a bang.

“It’s true,” an affronted Jarvis replied as he set down the bundle of clothing and other items belonging to Neville on the rough floorboards. “I heard ‘em meself, my lord, may I be stricken with plague if I’m lyin’.”

“When was this decided?”

“This morning, my lord,” Jarvis replied absently as he surveyed the small chamber above a cheese shop currently serving as both Richard’s withdrawing room and Neville’s temporary bedchamber.

In addition to the interesting odors that wafted through the floorboards, Neville and his companion were treated to a cacophony of sound from the street below. Hawkers proclaimed their wares, carters cursed with astonishing imagination, and passersby grumbled about the crowd, the dirt, the soot and everybody but themselves.

Neville noticed that Jarvis’s hand had apparently became possessed of the power of levitation, for it slowly rose, palm outstretched.

“Tomorrow?” Neville repeated as he
reached for his slender purse. “You are certain they are going to the theater tomorrow?”

“Aye, my lord. What happened to your hand?”

“Nothing of consequence. A slight burn.”

Jarvis glanced down at the coins that had magically appeared in his hand. He closed his fist around them.

“I see they are wasting little time in the pursuit of a husband,” Neville remarked.

“No, my lord, they ain’t,” Jarvis agreed.

“This can hardly be my father’s idea.”

“No, my lord, it was the lady’s.”

Neville scowled darkly. What more evidence did he need that Arabella could, and did, exert considerable influence over his father?

Just as he now had ample evidence of Arabella’s hypocrisy. What virtuous woman would have remained for so long in his bedchamber, given her state of undress? What innocent maiden kissed with such inflaming passion?

If only he had kept his composure last night! He should have alerted his father to her presence in his bedchamber, and any notion his father harbored that she was morality personified would have been destroyed.

But he had not, because he had been rendered an idiot who was too frustrated to do anything save leave the house entirely.

When he had an opportunity to have her hypocrisy
and immorality discovered again, he would not hesitate.

He would win the wager, too.

He prodded the bundle with his toe. “I fear you have forgotten something, Jarvis.”

The man frowned. “I don’t think so, my lord, although I might have, with all the upset.”

“What upset is this?”

“The cleanin’ and the washin’. You’d hardly recognize the place,” Jarvis said with a touch of nostalgia.

“Pining for days of bachelor disorder gone by, Jarvis? I expect my father’s hired several servants to clear away the debris.”

“No, sir, he hasn’t. It’s
her.
Lady Arabella.”

“What, all by herself?”

“Until he made her stop.”

“Must be the Puritan influence,” Neville mused. “Washing away of sin and all that.”

“Then she must have thought us all regular pagans, the way she went about it.”

“Perhaps, or in need of some cleansing herself,” Neville muttered with a sardonic smile.

“Her?” the servant said incredulously.

“Why not?”

Jarvis shrugged.

Neville subdued the urge to scowl. Was there a man in England beside himself who was proof against her fraudulent appearance? “I tell you, Jarvis, you have forgotten something,
which will, unfortunately, necessitate my return to the house.”

He reached for his purse again.

This time, Jarvis was faster to comprehend.

“Aye, my lord, so I did, so I did,” he agreed as his hand once again ascended.

“I don’t know quite when I shall discover that something has been overlooked, but when I do, I shall expect to be admitted to the house to retrieve it, whatever the hour of the day. Or night.”

“Your father might dismiss me if he finds you there.”

Neville added another coin to the pile in Jarvis’s palm.

The Irishman glanced down. “O’course, he hates me anyway,” he reflected philosophically.

“He hates just about everybody.”

“True, true.”

“Do you know the name of the play they intend to see?”

“It is Sir Richard Blythe’s new one.”

“Not
The Country Cuckold?
”

“I didn’t hear the name of it, my lord.”

“Yet you are certain it is Richard’s play they plan to attend?”

“Aye, my lord, you can rip me liver if I’m wrong.”

Neville smiled. “Fortunately, I don’t think it will come to that.”

Chapter 6

“O
ut of our way, oaf!” the earl thundered as he led Arabella and Lady Lippet through the boisterous crowd in front of Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre.

The coal smoke, ever present in the city, made Arabella cough, and she held her skirt and cloak close about her as she eased her way forward. She didn’t want to tear her lovely new gown or have her elaborate coiffure ruined. It had taken the maid a long time to create the
confidantes
, clusters of curls at the side of her face. Nancy had wanted to do more curls, but there had not been sufficient time, for which Arabella was grateful. It seemed sinful to waste any more effort on her hair.

She felt almost as guilty about her gown. It was an elaborate royal-blue velvet dress in the very latest fashion, or so petite Mademoiselle Juliette, who had better taste than Arabella had
suspected, assured her. The low, rounded bodice was trimmed with gold embroidery, as was the gathered skirt. The skirt was drawn back and held by a series of slender gold chains to reveal a light-blue silk underskirt. Her feet were clad in thin slippers that made negotiating the mud and dirt of the street a difficult task, and she was in perpetual fear that someone around them would tread on her toes.

Her gown was protected from the soot by a thin cloak of taffeta, whose hood rested lightly on her elegant hair.

Lady Lippet was attired in a similar gown, albeit of persimmon and lemon yellow, with a cloak of the most astonishing shade of brilliant pink Arabella had ever seen, which made the earl seem positively subdued in his garments of indigo blue. Where they had come from, she could not begin to fathom, unless his absence from the house this morning meant he had been to a tailor.

So many surprising things had happened since their arrival in London that she could believe even this.

“Clear the way, you impudent puppy!” the earl demanded, speaking to a splendidly attired fellow blocking his way.

The man, who was with a pale, plump, overdressed woman, turned around and ran a disdainful gaze over the earl before slowly surveying Arabella. As he did so, his scornful
scowl transformed itself into the most insipid smile Arabella had ever seen.

He was dressed in what Arabella knew to be the most extreme example of fashionable male attire, from his curling wig, ruffled lace jabot and bright green jacket, petticoat breeches adorned with so much ribbon and lace that they looked more like a petticoat than her own undergarments, down to his silver-buckled shoes. His powdered face bore so many patches that he looked as though he had a nasty disease.

His companion was likewise dressed in a flamboyant, expensive ensemble of pea green, which had the unfortunate effect of making her look astonishingly bilious in the daylight. Arabella could only hope she looked better by candlelight.

“May I ask who petitions me in this bold manner?” the fashionable male vision inquired. Although he ostensibly addressed the earl, not for a moment did he take his impertinent scrutiny from Arabella.

Neville Farrington had also regarded her with bold impertinence, yet he had not made her feel soiled, as this man did.

The stranger’s companion looked at Arabella with hostile eyes, and Arabella wanted to tell her that she thought the man looked utterly ridiculous and totally unattractive.

“I am the Earl of Barrsettshire,” the earl declared,
running an equally disdainful gaze over the man. “Who the devil are you?”

Lady Lippet shoved her way forward.

“Your Grace!” she cried, as if this stranger’s appearance were the answer to all her prayers.

“Madam?”

“It is I, Lady Lippet.”

The stranger bowed. “Ah, yes, Lady Lippet. Your servant, ma’am.”

Lady Lippet grabbed the earl’s arm to pull him forward. “Your Grace, Lord Barrsettshire. Lord Barrsettshire, the Duke of Buckingham.”

“The Duke of Buckingham, eh? I knew your father,” the earl replied, and it was quite obvious the earl was not impressed.

The duke didn’t seem disturbed by the earl’s reaction; indeed, Arabella noted with some distress, he hardly seemed to notice her guardian at all. “And this charming young lady is …?”

The duke’s smooth tone reminded Arabella of some of the peddlers who came to Grantham, the ones whose goods were particularly shoddy and overpriced.

“Your Grace, may I present Lady Arabella Martin,” Lady Lippet gushed. Apparently overcome by the honor of conferring with the duke, she began to fan herself so rapidly that a small cloud of powder rose from the unnaturally white expanse of her bosom. “Arabella, this is the Duke of Buckingham.”

Arabella dropped a curtsey and kept her
gaze focused on the large silver buckles on the duke’s shoes.

“London has missed your distinguished presence, my lord,” the duke said.

“London is missing many things these days,” the earl retorted, “like sense and morals.”

“It was lacking even more until the arrival of your beautiful and charming companion. A pleasure to have you among us, Lady Arabella,” the duke said as he swept the plumed hat from his head and bowed again.

He reached out to take her hand and leaned forward to kiss it.

The last thing Arabella wanted was to have her hand touched by the duke’s painted lips, for the man’s appearance and insolence disgusted her. Unfortunately, the crowd continued to press around them and look at them with curiosity, so any action on her part would likely have drawn more attention. Therefore she allowed him the liberty.