The Misguided Matchmaker (23 page)

Then
finally, with the fittings at an end, she could set in motion her plan to visit
Billingsgate. Her father had put a carriage at her disposal and luckily both
the coachman and groom he’d provided were elderly seamen, whose knowledge of
ladies had heretofore been restricted to ladies of the night. Hence, neither of
them raised a question as to the propriety of two young women visiting the
Billingsgate counting house owned by their employer.

“Do
you remember exactly what you are to do?” Maddy asked as she departed the
carriage at the door of her father’s office.

“I
remember,” Carolyn said. “But I hope I shall not have to sit here too long. If
I do, I fear I shall never get the smell of fish out of my garments, and this
is my favorite carriage dress.”

Maddy
gave her a quelling look. “A small price to pay considering the future
happiness of both your brothers is at stake.” Without another backward glance,
she marched to the door bearing her father’s nameplate.

The
discreet buzz of conversation which greeted her as she opened it ceased
instantly, replaced by a communal gasp of astonishment. She stared at the
collection of soberly dressed men of business positioned about the room like so
many blackbirds in a cornfield and felt a flush of embarrassment heat her
cheeks. This was definitely a male milieu that did not welcome female intrusion
into its hallowed confines. She took a deep breath, thought of Tristan, and
stepped boldly into the room

The
blackbirds scattered before her, all except one odd-looking fellow who shuffled
forward from the midst of the flock. “Here now, miss, I’m afraid I must ask you
to leave. This is a house of business—no place for a lady,” he said, his thin
lips pursed in disapproval.

Maddy
stared down her nose at him with the hauteur that had put many an eager young
Royalist in his place. “I am Madelaine Harcourt, sir, here to see my father.”

“Miss
Maddy? Is it really you?” The old fellow peered up at her with rheumy eyes. “I
can scarce believe it, though the Cap’n did mention you were home again where
you belonged.”

The
wrinkles crisscrossing his ancient face rearranged themselves into a smile. “I
don’t imagine you remember me, Lord
luv
you, you was
no taller than this when last I saw you.” He held out his hand waist high.

Maddy
blinked as long-forgotten memories struggled to the surface of her mind. “Mr.
Scruggs? My goodness, don’t tell me you’re still with my father.”

“Aye,
that I am, and likely to be until they fit me for a coffin. We’re getting old,
the Cap’n and me. ‘Tis a good thing you’ve come back to see to his welfare, for
he’s naught but those two old sea dogs to do for him now.”

Maddy
felt a brief twinge of conscience as to how she was currently seeing to her
father’s welfare, until she reminded herself to what lengths he had gone to
force her to marry against her will.

“Follow
me, Miss Maddy,” her father’s old clerk said. “I’ll show you to the Cap’n’s
private office. As you’ve no doubt noticed, we’re a bit more elegant now than
we was in the old days when you and your mama lived above the Cap’n’s shipping
office on Fleet Street.”

“Indeed
you are,” Maddy agreed, staring about her at the elegant furnishings and fine
paintings.

Crooking
his finger, the old fellow beckoned her to follow him to the massive, carved
door gracing the far wall of the huge waiting room. He knocked once, then
turned the knob. “Here’s Miss Maddy to see you, Cap’n,” he said and stepped
aside to let her enter her father’s office.

“Maddy?
What the devil are you doing here? And alone? Good God, girl, hasn’t Lady
Ursula told you time and again you should never leave the house without a
proper companion?”

“But
I have a proper companion, Papa,” she declared. “Lady Caroline is waiting
outside in the carriage.”

“Hell’s
bells!” Her father leapt to his feet. “The Billingsgate fish market is no place
for an innocent child like Lady Carolyn.”

“So
I found out,” Maddy said petulantly. “The missish creature was too terrified to
leave the carriage, so I left her to drench the squabs with her silly tears and
came in without her.”

“The
devil you say! Lord, Maddy, I’m beginning to think there’s naught but an empty
space between your ears.” Grim of face, he marched to the door and threw it
open. “Don’t leave this room. I will fetch Lady Carolyn and then, miss, I will
have a few words with you.”

No
sooner had the door closed behind him than Maddy rushed around the desk and began
searching through the drawer. Luck was with her. In the second drawer from the
top on the right-hand side, she found the papers she sought. Quickly she
stuffed the stack of vowels into her reticule and slid the mortgage documents
into the slit she’d made earlier in the lining of her pelisse. Then, closing
the drawer, she hurried to seat herself in one of the two chairs opposite the
desk.

She
glanced about her at the quiet, tastefully decorated room. So incongruous with
the noisy, stench-ridden market beyond its wall. Less than two months earlier
Tristan and the earl had sat in these very same chairs and listened to her
father’s ultimatum. In her mind’s eye she could see him waving the damning
evidence she now possessed in the poor earl’s face—demanding he acquiesce to
his demands or suffer the humiliation of being thrown into debtor’s prison.

She
gritted her teeth, envisioning how helpless Tristan must have felt watching his
brother squirm; how desperately he must have wanted to help rescue him from the
clutches of the powerful cit who held his future and that of his stepmother and
sister in his hands. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for them,” he had said,
and proved the truth of his words by choosing honor over love.

A
good ten minutes passed before the door opened and her father led a weeping
Lady Carolyn to the chair beside Maddy’s. Caro had apparently thrown herself
wholeheartedly into the task of stalling their return long enough for a
thorough search—and from the looks of it she was enjoying her theatrical stint
immensely.

“I
hope you’re satisfied with this day’s mischief, miss,” Maddy’s father declared
after pouring Carolyn a glass of water from the pitcher on his desk. “This poor
child had swooned away before I reached her, and even when she recovered
consciousness, she was so terrified, I literally had to pry her from the
coach.” Like a great bear, he patted Carolyn’s heaving shoulders with his
mammoth paw, while sobs racked her body and tears coursed down her cheeks.

“It
was so dreadful,” she wailed, wringing her hands till the knuckles shone white.
“All those horrible men whacking the heads off poor, helpless little fish with
cleavers the size of Saxon battle axes—and I shall have to bathe in lemon juice
from head to toe or smell like something dragged from the bottom of the Thames
when I go to Almack’s tonight.”

The
most seasoned actress in Drury Lane could not have played the scene more
convincingly, and Maddy was still shaking with laughter when Carolyn and she
arrived back at the Ramsden townhouse an hour later.

“So
now that we have the papers, what do we do next?” Carolyn asked when the two of
them had repaired to her bedchamber to discuss their minor triumph. It was
obvious from the tone of her voice she was more than ready for another adventure.

Maddy
kicked off her shoes, settled onto the window seat and drew her knees up to
where she could rest her arms on them. “I have a plan,” she said, watching the
steady stream of carriages and pedestrians in the street below. “But first, you
must arrange to introduce me to Lady Sarah Summerhill, for I shall need her
help.”

“In
that case, your plan will be certain to fail. Sarah is a dear soul, but the
shyest, most retiring creature alive. She couldn’t say ‘boo’ to a baby in
leading strings, much less your father.”

Maddy
frowned. “I thought you said she was in love with your brother. I’m a firm
believer that any woman can find the courage she needs to fight for the man she
loves. Now what must I do to meet this shy, retiring lady?”

“She’ll
be at Almack’s tonight. Her mama has dragged her there every Wednesday night
since she’s been back on the marriage market.”

Maddy
groaned. “Then Almack’s it is, and for the good of the cause, I shall even do
my best to be civil to the very uncivil Lady Jersey.”

Almack’s
was a shock. Maddy had expected this most exclusive social club in London to be
elegant in the extreme. The large, overheated room into which Lady Ursula led
Caro and her was, in fact, rather tacky with its swags of dingy velvet and
sagging balconies supported by columns too ill proportioned to claim close
kinship to their Greek ancestors.

“Don’t
make the mistake of eating or drinking anything,” Caro whispered behind her
fan. “Almack’s is noted for its stale cake, salty ham, and warm lemonade.”

“Then
why is it considered such an honor to be invited to this ugly pace?” Maddy
whispered back.

“The
seven patronesses are the most powerful hostesses in the
ton.
One word
from them and a person will never again receive an invitation to any affair of
importance.” Caro shrugged. “Actually, Emily Cowper and Lady Maria Sefton are
quite nice, but the rest of them…well, you’ve met Lady Sally Jersey. The other
four
grandes dames
are more of the same, except they don’t talk as much.

Lady
Ursula glanced nervously over her shoulder. “Shhhh, girls. Behave yourself. It
is absolutely essential that Madelaine make a good impression on her first
visit to Almack’s.”

Behind
her mother’s back, Caro made a moue and Maddy fought the urge to giggle. “Do
you see Lady Sarah?” she asked Caro as they made their way through the crown of
hopeful debutantes and their mothers gathered to see and be seen at London’s
famous marriage mart.

“She’s
across the room, standing at the edge of the dance floor with her father and
mother,” Carolyn answered. “I’ll waylay her and take her to the ladies’
retiring room. You can join us there.”

Maddy
glanced in the direction indicated. But her view of Lady Sarah was cut off by
an exceedingly fat woman, dressed all in purple, who was bearing down on them.
With a white ostrich feather topping her purple turban by a good two feet, she
looked for all the world like a mammoth purple frigate in full sail. Trotting
beside her was the redoubtable Lady Jersey.

“Ah,
Lady Ursula. We’ve not seen you in an age,” the purple frigate declared in a
voice that carried the length and breadth of the vast room. She raised a
lorgnette encrusted with amethysts and studied Maddy from head to toe. “So this
is the chit Rand’s chosen to pull his fat from the fire.”

Lady
Ursula blanched. “May I present my son’s fiancée, Miss Madelaine Harcourt, Your
Grace,” she said, one word tripping over another in her nervous agitation.
“Madelaine, dear, make your curtsy to Her Grace, the Duchess of Sherbourne.”

Maddy
dropped into a graceful curtsy; though, in truth, she would as lief have cut
the rude old woman dead, and her haughty companion with her.

“Humpf!
Too scrawny for my taste, but surprisingly good bone structure for a cit’s
daughter.” The duchess lowered her lorgnette, but continued to study Maddy as
if she were a filly at auction. “So, miss, we know who your father is, but what
sort of woman was your mother? Never heard Harcourt was leg-shackled; now all
at once he’s purporting to be a widower.

“My
mother was the daughter of le Compte de Navareil,” Maddy said, staring down her
nose with true de Navareil hauteur at this impossible creature who dared impugn
her lineage. “She did not find London to her liking and returned to my
grandfather’s home in Lyon six years after her marriage.”

“Impudent
chit,” the duchess grumbled. “I suppose you think that with old Harcourt’s
money behind you, you’ll make quite a splash in London society as the new
Countess of Rand.”

“The
thought had not occurred to me, Your Grace,” Maddy said demurely. Raising her
fan in the manner she’d been practicing since observing Tristan’s Austrian
archduchess, she leaned forward and remarked
sotto voce
, “I am
accustomed to my grandfather’s salon, which attracted the most brilliant
political minds in Europe, you see. I believe I should find anything less
stimulating to be utterly boring.”

The
duchess drew back as if she’d been stung by a wasp. For one instant, her
already florid face turned as purple as the turban topping it. Then she threw
back her head in a guffaw that had all eyes in the room riveted on her. “You’ve
spirit, gel, I’ll say that for you. What say you, Lady Jersey, has your
precious Almack’s seen the likes of this cheeky baggage before?”

Lady
Jersey made an indistinguishable sound and the duchess returned her basilisk gaze
to Maddy. “Take my arm, gel,” she commanded. “We’ll promenade the room together
and I’ll introduce you to a few people of consequence.”

Reluctantly,
Maddy slipped her hand through the old harridan’s plump arm. She had acted in a
moment of pique; now she was trapped by her own reckless tongue into being
introduced to people in whom she had no interest whatsoever—for the only person
she really wanted to meet was Lady Sarah Summerhill.