Saved by Scandal (15 page)

Rather than trusting her notes to the post, Margot ordered Fenning to send a carriage for the women. She might as well get some benefit from being a viscountess, she told the butler, for as long as she was one.

Despite Fenning’s reassurances that she would suffer no insults that evening, Margot left for the theater Saturday with a whole flock of butterflies practicing acrobatics in her stomach. She could not concentrate on her music, and did not care which gown Ella laid out for her. Instead of reciting her lyrics, Margot kept repeating to herself that Fenning said it would be all right, and Galen said she could trust Fenning about everything.

When she peeked out from the side of the stage during the drama, trying to gauge the mood of the crowd, she could see the butler’s handiwork: every footman and groom from Woburton House was dressed in Woburton livery and scattered around the pit. Fenning himself was going to sit in the family box, beside Skippy Skidmore.

The crowds were noisy during the intermission, not paying attention to Margot. At least no one would notice if she forgot a stanza or two. Those in the tiers went visiting or gossiped loudly between the boxes, plainly showing their disdain. She was sure the beturbaned matrons would have turned their backs on her or pulled their skirts aside if she passed their way in the park. She’d warned the viscount that she’d never be accepted, that going on stage had blotted her copybook for all time, but Galen had not listened, the clunch. Now he was going to be so disappointed, if he ever returned, the bounder, after leaving her here like this.

Margot sang, her voice wavering a little in the beginning, but smoothing as she realized no one was going to start booing or hissing or throwing rotten fruit. The Woburton House servants quickly surrounded the first young man castaway enough to consider their mistress open to suggestive remarks. They changed the drunkard’s mind, and any other would-be troublemakers’.

When the time came for her last song, Margot did not step closer to the family box. She was not going to place herself nearer to the men in the pit whose hands reached out to touch her ankles or her skirt, despite her menservants’ frowns and fisted hands. Before she could begin the last selection, though, a gentleman in the viscount’s box stepped forward into the light. Margot could not see very well, with the flambeau between them, but he was elegantly dressed, with a large pearl at his cravat. He was tall like Galen, inches taller than Fenning, and broad-shouldered, not chicken-chested like Skippy. Her husband had come home.

Smiling radiantly, Margot stepped toward the lights, toward the box, as the crowd craned their necks to get a better
look. The gentleman threw an orchid down to her—a beautiful rare orchid, with purple throat and pink-tinged petals. Margot cradled the flower in her hands, realizing this was not Galen’s token; this was not her husband. The gentleman resembled him, but with silver at his temples and a more prominent nose. Someone gasped, “His Grace,” just as she was reaching the same conclusion.

Margot dipped into a curtsey and silently thanked Fenning, who must have sent for the Duke of Woburton. Most likely her father-in-law had left his gardens and come to Town to ring a peal over Galen’s head for marrying so recklessly. Perhaps he’d try to dissolve the marriage. Perhaps he’d throw Margot out of the house. For now, though, he was lending her countenance, bless him. With the duke so obviously showing his approval, no one even whispered during her last song.

Margot hoped Fenning had asked His Grace to bring along his cook.

*

His Grace invited Margot to dine with him that evening at the Pulteney. He wanted to show off his new daughter-in-law, he told everyone who stopped by their table.

“Knew her father, I did,” he told a few old cronies who were sure to pass on his words. “Sound as houses, Marcus Penrose. Married for love, same as I did. Same as my son did. Good show, what?”

When they were alone back at Woburton House, Margot had to confess that the marriage was not truly a love match. She could not lie to this gruff, courtly gentleman.

“Think I don’t know that?” He patted her hand as Fenning brought in the tea cart, laden with delicacies to surpass Gunther’s, for the duke had, indeed, brought his own cook. While Margot poured, His Grace went on: “I know the name of every opera dancer, every actress, every high-priced Bird of Paradise my son has ever tumbled.”

Sipping at her tea, Margot decided she’d think about every one of those mistresses later.

“I know you aren’t one of them, either,” His Grace continued, “which pleases me. Forgive my plain speaking, my dear, but I wouldn’t trust any marriage based on a passing fancy or a moment’s lust. No, this may not be a love match, but it will be soon, I’d wager, as soon as that gudgeon gets back to Town. Woodbridge is a likeable enough chap, if I say so myself, and you’ll suit him to a cow’s thumb. Why, I’m halfway jealous of him myself, simply hearing you sing. Now that I have met you, I have no worries. In fact, I have great hopes of bouncing my grandson on my knee within the year.”

That was not in the marital agreement, but Margot could not say so, of course. Feeling her cheeks grow warm, she said, “Thank you, Your Grace.”

“No, thank you, my dear. Now I think one more day of my company ought to put paid to any lingering gossip. We’ll attend church together in the morning, then I’ll make sure the bow-window babblers know your marriage has my approval, and the gabble-grinders at the Botanical Gardens at Kew. The gossipers will find another juicy morsel soon enough, even if that nodcock son of mine does not return soon. I’ve got to get back to my grounds and greenhouses—it’s the growing season, don’t you know—but I promise to return for the party Fenning tells me you are planning. I claim the first dance, and that jackanapes you married can have the second.”

“You won’t stay until then?”

“No, I hate the City. Nothing grows here but mildew.”

“I don’t suppose you’d leave your chef? Monsieur Claveau had a racing hound of his own as a child in France, and he adores Rufus.”

“I am willing to sacrifice almost anything for my children, my dear. I do have to draw the line somewhere, however.” Woburton had already lost a pair of slippers to the cur. He was not going to lose his cook.

His Grace and his chef left on Monday morning. His daughter arrived Monday afternoon.

Chapter Sixteen

Whoever said spare the rod and spoil the child was most likely itching to lay a birch to the backside of Lady Harriet Woodrow. Margot was certainly itching to put her in a coach and send her back to Cheshire.

No one had ever denied the duke’s daughter anything. If some poor governess had tried in all the ten and seven years, the chit had gone to her doting papa and wheedled her way to the village fair or wept her way to a new bonnet better suited to a Cyprian than a schoolgirl. The string of governesses gave up. The academy for young ladies she briefly attended surrendered after two months. The proprietress was afraid of losing His Grace’s patronage if they reprimanded the chit for sneaking out after hours, or applying lip rouge or waving to the soldiers at a military parade. The headmistress sent Lady Harriet home, declaring quite correctly, that the school had taught her all they could.

Harriet’s latest companion, hired to take her about London while they were in Town to attend Galen’s wedding, gave her notice as soon as they had left the metropolis. Lady Harriet, excited and eager, was difficult enough. Disappointed, dragged away from the delights of Town, denied her chance to dance at her first adult party, she was downright impossible. Who knew what trouble she’d get up to? The governess left before she got blamed.

The duke had dried Harriet’s tears on the way home with visits to every shop along the way. His Grace could do nothing about his son’s appalling loss of a bride, but he could console his daughter for the curtailed visit. With no companion to restrain her, Harriet had chosen a wardrobe for a wanton, all diaphanous fabrics in bold colors. Her new frocks would have to be delivered to their home, however, where she had no place to wear them, which brought on another bout of weeping. From where he rode alongside the carriage, the duke tut-tutted her misery. Her aunt Mathilda could see to Harriet’s come-out next fall, he promised. In fact, the more he thought about it, and a summer full of tantrums and tears, the duke decided Harriet ought to spend the summer in Bath, getting reacquainted with her aunt and cousin, polishing her social skills on the matrons and retired military gentlemen who gathered there.

What, thought Harriet, molder amongst a bunch of dodderers who spent their days discussing their digestive systems? Worse, being seen with Cousin Harold would quite sink her chances of making a stir when she finally got to London. No, Lady Harriet wished to be in Town, where all the interesting gentlemen were, and she wished to be there now.

As soon as her father left on some foolish errand, likely to do with his fusty old flowers, Harriet followed in a hired chaise with a girl from the posting house to serve as attendant, less for respectability’s sake than because Harriet had no idea how to do up her own hair or iron her own gowns. Her sense of adventure did not extend to fetching bathwater. Money was no problem, for she directed all the bills to her father.

Harriet was far behind the duke in arriving at the London town house because she insisted on stopping at each of the village modistes to gather her new wardrobe. She also detoured for a horse fair, purchasing a darling mare, the exact chestnut color of Harriet’s hair. She’d be the Toast of the Town on such a mount, and show her brother she knew something about horses, too.

Of course the chestnut color washed off the mare’s gray muzzle with the first rain, and the horse stopped prancing as soon as the pebble worked its way out of her shoe, and she
bit the groom at the last inn before Town. Harriet traded the mare for a pocket watch, thinking to turn her brother up sweet so he would let her stay in Town. The poor dear needed consoling, after all, and who better to do it than a loving sister? When the watch stopped ticking, she tossed it out the carriage window.

Now here she was, on Margot’s doorstep. Harriet would not believe her older brother had married such a dasher, nor that her father approved, until she heard it from Fenning himself, and then Skippy Skidmore, whom she’d known her entire life. Then she was delighted. Having married a notorious performer, her brother could not possibly fault Harriet’s own behavior.

Declaring that her hired chaise and hired maid had already left, Harriet ordered her boxes and trunks moved upstairs. She was not leaving until her brother returned, and that was that. Margot hated to say it of her new sister-in-law, but Galen’s sister was a spoiled brat. And she could not cook, either.

When applied to, Skippy, spiritual guide that he was, suggested locking the chit in the wine cellar for a year or two; perhaps she’d mellow with age. She’d been a pest as a child, he declared, and still was. Fenning advised Margot to ship the female to her aunt in Bath in a carriage with armed guards, the guards’ weapons being less for protecting Lady Harriet than for self-defense. Margot couldn’t send Galen’s sister away, though, not knowing the pitfalls waiting for a young woman on her own. Lady Harriet seemed younger than the dawn to Margot, already exhausted from the duke’s visit and worrying over Galen and Ansel.

“Very well,” she told the minx, “you can stay until your brother returns to decide what to do with you, but with conditions.”

“Anything,” Harriet promised, having no compunctions about lying to an opera singer. The maids who’d done her unpacking were chattering about a party to be held at Woburton House in a few weeks. The dinner party had now
escalated to a ball, at the duke’s insistence, they said. Harriet vowed she would not leave before what promised to be a grand affair, even if she had to perjure her soul.

“First, you shall write to your father so he knows where you are.” Margot and Fenning had both already written while Harriet was overseeing the unpacking of her clothes, but the chit ought to learn some sense of responsibility. “Second, you will stay in the house or on the grounds while I am at the theater. I’ll not have you traipsing about London on your own, destroying your reputation. We are not accepting callers or making visits, so you’ll find things quite dull. If you wish to reconsider and travel to your aunt in Bath, I can send Fenning with you to ensure your safe arrival.”

Even Harriet was intimidated by Fenning. “Please, not Aunt Matty! I’ll do anything if you don’t send me to Bath. She’ll make me take the waters and stroll the Pump Room with Cousin Harold. Why, your dog would be a better escort than Cousin Harold.” Since Harriet was feeding Ruff one of the last strawberry tarts the duke’s chef had baked, Margot did not think much of either of them. She did feel sorry for the girl, though, having her activities thus curtailed, so she offered to take Harriet to some of the shops tomorrow morning. Margot had to see about expanding her own wardrobe, and she had not yet decided on a gown for the party.

Harriet clapped her hands and declared Margot the best of sisters-in-law. Lady Floria had never invited Harriet anywhere, not since the time Harriet set her horse to a mad gallop in the park so that handsome lieutenant could come to her rescue.

Margot could do no more that afternoon, since she was already late for rehearsal. She went off to the theater with Ella and Skippy and Ruff, confident the young woman would be content with the latest novel, the daily papers, the finely tuned pianoforte. Margot even suggested Harriet might make an early night of it, after her tiring journey.