Sally James (2 page)

The man swung round and stared at her. 'You're no country wench,' he accused, his voice thick. 'What the devil are you doing here, unescorted, looking after goats, however incompetently?'

'At the mercy of unscrupulous lechers who think any unprotected girl is fair game?' Kate snapped back.

'If you behave in a way that invites lechery you've only yourself to thank if men accept the offer,' he retorted. 'Who are you? Do you live nearby?'

'That, sir, is none of your business! Your horse went that way, and if you follow it to the village you may find that someone more capable of managing it has caught it for you.'

She turned away, and since the piglets were now returning, she began to help the woman get them back into the garden. The man, after a brief hesitation, shrugged and walked away. Kate took one long look at his tall figure striding along the lane, then, ignoring the woman's exclamations about the state of her gown, said a firm goodbye and walked in the opposite direction.

If that was how fashionable town dandies behaved, she wanted to go to London even less than before. Then she paused, and stole a glance over her shoulder at the tall, lithe figure striding rapidly away from her. If she intended to write novels about fashionable people, books such as the author of
Mansfield Park
wrote, but set in London, she needed to know how they behaved. To learn she had to go to London.

She walked on slowly, planning how she would write the scene where her heroine finally succumbed to the persuasions of the dashing but dastardly villain, and set off with him for Gretna Green.

Chapter Two

She soon met the other travellers, who had decided to walk to West Wycombe to seek refreshment.

'Kate, what on earth have you done to your gown?' Miss Byford exclaimed.

'Oh, er, some pigs and a goat got out from a garden. I helped to herd them back in, and - it was muddy,' Kate explained. How could she confess to her aunt that a strange man had kissed her, and, she suddenly realized, she'd found the experience exciting in a strangely unexpected way?

'Well, you can't change, the rest of the luggage is still on the coach. Here, put on your cloak.'

'It's too hot for wearing a cloak,' Kate protested. 'Besides, I was sitting on it, and it's damp from the grass.'

'Better to be hot than look disreputable. When the mud dries we'll see how much we can brush off. You can’t meet your grandfather looking as though you've been rolled in a ditch.'

How nearly she had been, Kate thought, stifling a giggle. 'I'll pretend it happened when the stage tipped us out into a ditch,' Kate offered. She accepted the cloak, fervently hoping the man's hands hadn't been muddy and left tell-tale marks on the back of her gown. Aunt Sophie would be horrified if she had to explain about that! But the heat and her ruffled feelings made her fretful, and when they were at the George and Dragon she renewed her complaints.

'If Grandfather is indulging in a deathbed repentance he might at least have sent a carriage for us!' she argued. 'Or the money to hire a chaise, instead of forcing us to pay ourselves to travel in a common, dirty, smelly stage, with common - '

'Kate, what will you eat?' Miss Byford interrupted firmly, for Kate's voice had been rising, and the farmer's wife at the next table, tucking into a roasted capon as though she hadn't already eaten a hearty meal, might overhear Kate's uncomplimentary opinions.

Kate subsided while they ordered dinner, but she refused to partake of more than a bowl of soup and a dish of raspberries and cream, rejecting more substantial delights such as lamb cutlets, rabbit or pigeon pie, roast capons, spiced beef and cold ham.

'Even if he has become sorry for the way he treated Mama, I don't want to see him,' she muttered as she began spooning up the soup.

'It is an act of Christian charity to visit him when we were expressly asked to do so,' Miss Byford said repressively.

'Then he might have shown the charity of paying for our journey,' Kate responded mutinously.

'He may refund the money,' Miss Byford said, but dubiously. Despite his vast wealth the Earl's tight fisted nature had been mentioned too often by her sister-in-law for her to entertain many illusions in that respect.

It had not been the action of a charitable man to disown his only child just because she had refused to marry a man three times her age, a notorious gambler, thrice widowed, but a crony of her father, and preferred instead a young and handsome Captain in the Guards.

Peter Byford had been a respectable match, even for the daughter of an Earl. She was
not throwing herself away on a penniless fortune hunter. And if he had not been killed he would have inherited his uncle's title and fortune, instead of it all going to a distant cousin. Then she and Kate would not have been living on the merest pittance.

Perhaps if they had waited, persuaded the Earl to listen to them instead of eloping to Scotland, matters would have turned out differently. But Lady Caroline Rhydd had been terrified that her father, in his fury, would somehow force her to marry the detested Sir Benjamin Crathorn, and had so infected Peter with her terror that he had precipitously carried her off to Gretna Green.

She shook off these thoughts. Regrets were pointless. 'We are going to London,' she said bracingly. 'You have always said you longed to see the shops and St Paul's, and the Tower, as well as experience it for your novels.'

'Since we will
doubtless be kept dancing attendance on him, or wrapped in mourning when he does die, there won't be much opportunity!' Kate said petulantly, determined to extract no iota of comfort from her situation. 'Besides, we won't be able to afford to buy anything, so it will be too depressing to visit the shops.'

'Oh, Kate, I do wish you could have just one season, even just at Bath if we could not afford London!' Miss Byford exclaimed impetuously. 'How dearly I'd have liked you to accept Diana's invitation.'

Kate bit her lip, blinked hard, and smiled determinedly at her aunt. 'What would have been the point without any money for clothes? Besides, Diana's breeding, so it wouldn't have been possible to visit her now.'

'Not this year, but perhaps we could contrive something next.'

'Dear Aunt Sophie, I'm being a beast!' she said tremulously. 'It's none of it your fault, and I'm raging at you as if it were. Do pray forgive me!'

Miss Byford patted the hand held out impulsively towards her. Kate was a dear child, despite her difficult, unpredictable moods, and her rages rarely lasted long. And secretly Miss Byford admitted she had a great deal to provoke her.

Kate stared dreamily into the distance. 'It may be a few months before I finish my novel and find a publisher,' she said with a sigh, 'but the money from that will pay for us both to go next year. For now, I shall explain to my grandfather, quite unexceptionably, not in a complaining way, you may be sure, that you had to use the money you had set aside for our winter cloaks to purchase the tickets,' Kate said eagerly, her eyes shining. 'Then he will feel obliged to refund us the money. We could purchase the material for the cloaks in one of the bazaars, perhaps. Do you think he might give us a little extra so that we could afford a few lengths of muslin too? Or some ribbon, or a few ostrich feathers?' she added wistfully. 'I have longed all my life to buy a gown in London.'

Miss Byford, though she encouraged Kate in her writing aspirations, had strong doubts either that the novel would please a publisher, or that the Earl would even consider repaying their fares. She suppressed them and encouraged Kate, in this new and optimistic mood, to spend the remainder of the journey, once the coach was repaired, searching through the very old guide book she had found to bring with them.

'Try to discover places we might visit at little or no cost, so that we can make the most of this enforced stay in the capital, even if we are not able to meet many people.'

'We can go and see the house where Papa was born,' Kate planned, 'and ought we to call on Cousin William? He did write to you and say we would be welcome if ever we were in London. Perhaps he will present us to some of his friends.'

'That was fifteen years ago,' her aunt said drily. 'He has married since then, but he has never invited you to stay.' And he could have done so much more, she added to herself. He had inherited everything that would have come to Kate's father, the title, the house, a country estate, and all the money, and might in the circumstances have felt morally obliged to do something for her. He could have asked her to stay even if, despite his much more comfortable situation, he had not considered it his duty to give her an allowance.

Kate, mercurial in her moods, refused to be downcast. Still resentful of the curt summons from her unknown grandfather she turned her energies towards planning how to make the most of this unexpected visit to London. As they drove towards the centre she exclaimed in delight at the size and splendour of the great city, and in horror at the smoke, dirt and poverty, and the wizened looks of the people they saw in the outlying areas before they reached the grandeur of Mayfair.

Once in the fashionable area, seeing other men dressed in breeches and close-fitting riding coats, she wondered whether she would see the dandy who had kissed her. Until now she'd managed to thrust the disturbing memory out of her mind by concentrating on her grievances and the new sights and sounds and smells around them.

What would happen if they did meet? Did she want to see him again? Her emotions were in turmoil. One part of her wanted to experience again those strange, terrifying yet delightful sensations which had assailed her while she'd been imprisoned in his arms, but the more cautious side of her couldn't contemplate the embarrassment of meeting him again, perhaps in company, and wondering whether he would refer to their encounter.

She forced herself to concentrate on the buildings they passed. 'It's so different from Oxford,' she exclaimed. 'So much newer than those crumbling old colleges.'

They took a hackney cab to Grosvenor Square, and Kate sat looking up at Malvern House for a moment. Her eyes were wide and her lips slightly parted as she took in the magnificence of the building with its wide flat frontage, the rows of huge tall windows stretching right upwards, it seemed, to the sky, and two bewigged and liveried flunkies at the open front door.

'Is this it?' she breathed, awed. 'It's huge.'

'It's one of the larger houses in Mayfair, but there are many even bigger and grander,' Miss Byford said.

'Did you visit here?'

'I knew the house all my life, and I came to many functions here when I was younger, and when your grandmother was alive. They entertained a great deal,' her aunt said, and smiled.

Kate grinned back at her. 'You hope I'll be too overawed to disgrace myself,' she accused.

They stepped down from the cab, and Miss Byford carefully counted out the exact fare. She paid the driver, who muttered uncomplimentary things about stingy spinsters as he whipped up his horse. Kate was looking at the door, and gave a sudden exclamation of anger.

'What is it?' Miss Byford asked, turning to walk across the paving stones towards the house.

'They've shut the door in our faces!' Kate replied angrily. ‘I thought they were coming out to carry our valises, but they simply ignored us and slammed the door.'

'They couldn't have known who we were,' Miss Byford soothed her, but she sighed.

Kate was no longer feeling even slightly abashed by the imposing size of the house. She'd had enough of being treated disrespectfully, especially by that arrogant man. She was not intending to permit servants to sneer at her or look down their superior noses just because she was poorly dressed and mud-stained.

She picked up her valise and led the way up the shallow steps, vigorously plied the knocker, and had scarcely released it before one of the footmen opened the door.

'Miss Byford and Miss Kate Byford,' she announced curtly. She flushed slightly and her eyes glittered angrily as the footman, otherwise impassive, permitted his eyes to widen slightly and his brows to rise before he stepped slowly backwards and indicated that they were to enter.

The next half hour passed in a confused whirl for Kate. They were ushered from the spacious hall, tiled in black and white, into a small uncomfortable parlour where they waited for Mrs Greenlow to be summoned. She was a thin acidulous female who announced herself as the housekeeper, escorted them up three flights of stairs to adjoining rooms overlooking the back of the house, directed maids to bring hot water and, with a sniff when she saw them, to unpack the valises.

'You must be quick,' she ordered as she left Kate. 'There's no call to keep his lordship waiting any longer.'

Kate, moving without conscious thought, slipped out of her muddy gown.

'Oh, Miss, however did you get it into this state?' the maid helping her exclaimed in dismay.

'I slipped,' Kate said briefly. 'It will wash out, I imagine.'

The maid poured hot water into the bowl and Kate washed away the dust and stains of travel.

'My evening gown's on the top, that one,' she said, drying her hands and face on the soft linen towel.

The maid looked doubtfully at the dress she'd just lifted from the valise. 'It's very creased,' she said.

'It will have to do, there's no time to iron it.'

Kate slipped on the white muslin gown her aunt had decreed she was to wear. It was the only evening gown she had, a childish affair with a high neck and puffed sleeves inexpertly set, and she'd worn it for the past two years on the rare occasions when they were invited to dine, or to occasional parties at the Vicarage or the Manor. She was vigorously brushing her curls when Mrs Greenlow reappeared and announced that his lordship was ready to see her.

'Aunt Sophie?' Kate asked as she prepared to follow the woman.

'His lordship will see Miss Byford tomorrow, if he is well enough,' Mrs Greenlow replied curtly, and Kate gulped nervously.

She had not expected to have to face her grandfather alone, and the prospect was alarming. Whenever her mother had talked about her father she had left Kate with the impression of a stern, unyielding man who had resented the fact she was a girl and not his much longed for heir, and expected her to obey his slightest wish instantly and without question.