Two Corinthians (12 page)

Bertram shrugged. “Golightly promised me the marks could be removed. I took the liberty, Miss Sutton, of requesting a hot bath for Alfie.”

“Then I had best go down and make sure he bathes,” Lizzie said, folding her needlework, setting it aside, and rising purposefully. Then she noticed the gentlemen’s aghast looks.

Again her laughter pealed. “Never fear, I do not mean to watch him at it!” she gurgled. “Only I must tell him to get into the tub or he will think it some new harassment.” She hurried from room.

“What a minx your sister is,” Bertram said to Claire.

She smiled, but he thought there was something of sadness in her look. “She will soon learn to curb her tongue in London,” she said, “when she comes to realise that it is not only Mama who thinks her shockingly outspoken. I shall miss her frankness, I confess.”

“I shall not!” Horace was still incensed at Lizzie’s description of him.

“Doubtless she will not change her manner with her intimate friends,” said Bertram, wondering whether he himself was to count among those continuing to be treated to her devastating candour. “By the way, Miss Sutton, have you learned yet where you will be staying in Town? I hope you will be kind enough to give me your direction.”

She cast a dubious glance at Horace, and Bertram wished he had thought not to ask in his cousin’s presence. Still, it could not be kept secret from him if he chose to find out.

“My lawyer has found us a house in Portman Square. It is a little out of the centre of things, I know, but otherwise it sounds as if it is just what we need. We left it very late, and London will be particularly busy this spring, I collect, because of the King’s coronation.”

“No knowing when that will be,” Horace put in. “Prinny ain’t going to set the date till they think up a legal reason to keep Caroline from being crowned queen beside him.”

Bertram disliked gossip, and he found the subject of the relationship between George IV and his erring wife distasteful in the extreme. Nor was he happy that the Misses Sutton were to reside on the fringes of Society. That, together with their appalling mother, might well damn them in the eyes of the Ton, and he could not marry a woman who was not acceptable to the best hostesses. He frowned.

“Does Lady Sutton go with you, ma’am?” he asked. “I believe there was some doubt.”

“I am not yet certain, my lord, but I think not. She... My father cannot spare her for so long.” She avoided his eye. “In fact she...she does not know yet that I have taken a house. I had hoped to keep it from her until we are about to leave.”

“She shall not hear of it from me, nor from my cousin.” He turned a stern gaze on Horace who looked puzzled but murmured assent.

He relaxed. It was unusual, to say the least, for an unmarried female under thirty to sponsor a girl in her first Season, but it could be passed off more easily than her ladyship’s ill-breeding. He looked at Claire consideringly, wondering for the first time whether her single state was more due to her mother’s vulgarity than her own oddities.

Lizzie hurried into the room. “Claire, Mama is returned from the vicar’s. Shall we go for a walk?”

Her sister glanced at Horace’s shoes and Bertram’s borrowed garments and shook her head regretfully. “Our guests are not dressed for walking,” she pointed out.

Lizzie followed her glance to the glittering shoes and stayed there. She giggled. “No, I suppose Mr Harrison will not wish to risk soiling his finery. He may stay and entertain Mama, if he prefers. You will come, will you not, my lord?” She turned to Bertram.

“I, too, must pay my respects to Lady Sutton,” he said.

“Fustian! I believe you are afraid to expose yourself to view less than perfectly dressed. You use your fashionable clothes as armour to hide behind.”

“Lizzie!”

“Oh Claire, I’m sorry.” She ran to hug her sister, then looked at Bertram and said stiffly, “I beg your pardon, my lord, I ought not to have spoken so.”

Bertram accepted her apology with a cold nod, but the shaft had struck home. He was forced to recognise that to some extent his insistence on perfection of dress was a defence, a shield with a device which announced his identity so that no one need question more deeply.

“After I have greeted her ladyship, I shall of course be pleased to walk in the gardens with Miss Sutton,” he said, with an ignoble feeling of having triumphed over Lizzie.

Judging by her grin, she considered the triumph hers.

She was not deterred from joining the outing, so they left Horace torn between sulks at being deserted and gratification at Lady Sutton’s flattery.

They returned to the house just in time to change for dinner. Bertram was conducted to a spare chamber where his own shirt, waistcoat, coat, and pantaloons were laid out ready for him. Edward Sutton’s valet fussed over him, assuring him that he personally had made sure that not the least stain remained.

“A shocking business, my lord, to be sure,” he said. “I understand Sir James has had the boys thoroughly whipped for their mischief.”

“I have not told Sir James what occurred. How did he learn of it?”

“Why, I suppose one of the grooms, my lord....Naturally everyone knows of your lordship’s misfortune.”

“Naturally,” said Bertram drily. He had forgotten to allow for the rest of the world’s love of gossip.

It was a relief to be properly dressed again. He was dismayed to realise how great a relief. Was his image of himself really so dependent upon his clothes?

It was in no very good mood that he went down to the drawing room, just in time for the announcement of dinner. With the Suttons, the Carfaxes, and the Harrisons, there were twelve at table. Bertram found himself seated between Claire and his cousin Amelia, and had to admire his sister’s and his aunt’s superior tactics. Lizzie was on the opposite side, some way down between Horace and one of her brothers. He surprised himself with a wish that she was next to him.

After passing the first course trying to extract a word or two from Amelia, Bertram turned with relief to Claire as the second course was carried in. His opening remark was interrupted by Sir James, calling loudly across the table.

“I say, Pomeroy, frightfully sorry about that affair in the stables. Tossing manure around indeed! Assure you the boys have been whipped soundly.”

A startled silence fell on the company. Lady Caroline and Lady Harrison stared at their host, shocked at his breach of good manners in mentioning such a subject in polite company. Then Caroline glanced enquiringly at Bertram, hoping for enlightenment. As he shook his head in warning that the entire incident was equally unmentionable, Lady Sutton broke the silence.

“Of course the idiot will be turned off. We cannot have our guests subjected to such insult. I always told you, Claire, that no good would come of your championing an imbecile. He must go at once.”

All eyes turned to Claire, but it was Lizzie who rose to her feet, her face blazing with anger.

“So he shall, Mama. He leaves tomorrow, with Claire and me, for London. And I shall have my Season despite anything you can do or say!”

She realised suddenly that everyone was gaping at her. She flushed, and Bertram thought he saw her lips tremble, then she fled the room.

Lady Sutton, her colour alarmingly heightened, was glaring at her other daughter. Bertram turned to Claire. Her pale face was blank.

“You will wish to go to your sister,” he said quietly, pressing her hand. He stood up and pulled out her chair. Her grey eyes glowed with fervent gratitude, and, wordless, she went after Lizzie.

Lady Sutton showed signs of intending to follow, but Lord Carfax, sitting beside her, spoke to her and she was obliged to respond. Caroline made some negligent comment about the foibles of young girls and launched into a story of her own gaucherie at that age. The rest of the meal passed in uncomfortable avoidance of the slightest mention of the distressing incident.

The guests did not linger long once the gentlemen left their port. Lady Caroline insisted on travelling home with Bertram in his curricle, despite the cold.

“Well!” she said as they drove away from the front door. “What was all that about?”

Bertram told her. He described the simpleton’s despair and the unintended damage to his apparel. He explained, insofar  as he understood it, Claire and Lizzie’s need for a London Season without their mother. “And who can blame them?” he said. “I cannot think how you come to be on visiting terms with such people, Caroline!”

“In the normal way of things I am not. We have met them at other people’s houses, of course, being neighbours, but I have never before invited them. It is entirely for your sake, brother dear, and once you are gone I hope never to see them again.”

“But you gave me to understand that you were well acquainted with Claire!”

“With Claire, yes, and with Lizzie to some extent. I buy all my roses from Claire, without ever seeing her parents.”

“You buy roses from her? I had not realised her interest in gardening went so far! You have not been honest with me, Caroline. You are as full of mischief as Lizzie, I vow. Had I known the true situation, I’d never have started upon this damnable courtship.”

“Well, you may drop it now,” she said guiltily. “There can be no obligation upon you to call on them in London.”

“True. Very well, I forgive you.”

“And you will not tell Carfax?”

“If you promise you will never again embroil me in your nefarious schemes!”

Chapter X—Claire

Sir James Sutton, taking an interest in his daughters’ welfare for perhaps the first time in his life, lent his aged travelling coach, a team of horses, and a groom to take them to London. He did not, however, go so far as to appear on the doorstep to wave farewell.

To Lizzie’s disappointment, it was not the day after the disastrous dinner party. It did not take long to pack most of their belongings in a couple of trunks, but Claire’s garden equipment had to be sent off by carrier’s cart to Bumble’s Green. It took most of the day to disassemble and crate the dry stove. Claire looked longingly at the greenhouse itself before deciding that it was not practical to ship all that glass.

Alfie was in a ferment of excitement and had to be constantly recalled to the task at hand. By the evening, Claire was exhausted.

“We shall go to bed early so as to be ready to leave early,” Lizzie proposed. “And let’s have our dinner on trays in our chamber. It may be shockingly cowardly, but I prefer not to face Mama at the table.”

Molly, the chambermaid, brought up their trays one by one. As she set the second on the little table by the empty fireplace, she burst into tears.

“Please, Miss Claire, take me with you!” she sobbed.

The sisters looked at her in astonishment. Claire had never really noticed her before. She was a slight, pale girl of about sixteen who went about her duties as silent as a shadow, never drawing attention to herself.

“You want to go to London?” Claire asked kindly. “We had not thought to take anyone but Alfie.”

“You’ll need a maid, miss. I’ll do anything. I’ll cook and clean, and I’m good wi’ hair, you can ask Doris, the parlourmaid, and even her ladyship says I set a neat stitch. And...”

“What of your family?” Lizzie interrupted. “Would they be willing to let you go?”

“I’m an orphan, miss. I don’t have no one but Alfie. I takes care on him, like, see he gets his meals and his clo’es is clean and that. He’ll be lost wi’out me. Please, Miss Lizzie, take me, too.”

Claire and Lizzie looked at each other and nodded.

None of the family saw them off the next morning.

“I never imagined,” said Lizzie, “that being disowned by one’s family might give one such pleasure!”

The ancient carriage creaked down the drive, with Alfie perched proudly on the box beside the groom and Molly, quietly contented, inside with her back to the horses. Lizzie, seated opposite, opened her mouth to speak, then looked at the maid in dismay.

“‘Tend like I’m not here, miss,” said Molly earnestly, catching her glance. “I wouldn’t never tell anything I heared, honest, and I won’t listen anyways. I’ll just look out the window, quiet as a mouse. ‘Tend I’m not here.”

Lizzie was too eager to talk not to take her at her word. “I wonder why Papa lent us the carriage,” she mused aloud. “To ensure our departure, perhaps. It is a pity that even his best horses cannot move it at more than a snail’s pace, the great lumbering thing. Do you remember George’s coach? With the blue leather seats? It was more comfortable than most chairs, and one hardly knew one was moving. Do you think George will come to see us in London?”

“Yes, I do,” Claire said with certainty, “or he’d not have asked for our direction, and told us to expect him.”

“Perhaps he was just being polite.”

“I believe George—Lord Winterborne, that is—you really ought not to speak of him so familiarly, Lizzie. He seems to me to be a thoroughly sincere person. He is no diplomat, unlike Lord Pomeroy.”

“You mean Lord Pomeroy sets tact above truth?”

“Well, that is an extreme way of putting it. I do not mean to accuse him of telling outright bouncers! But just because he, too, asked for our direction I do not necessarily expect him to turn up in Portman Square. Will you be disappointed if he does not?” Claire hoped that her sister was not developing tendre for Lord Pomeroy.

“Yes, I should be sorry. I like him, for all he is so stuffy at times.”

“He is certainly very reserved. He has been kind to me, chivalrous even, but I cannot feel comfortable with him, never knowing what he is thinking.”

“I believe he is shy, like you. You would make an excellent pair.”

“Oh, surely not!” Claire laughed. “Just imagine us at the breakfast table, neither speaking a word for fear the other does not wish to talk! You cannot be enamoured of him, though, if you think he and I would be a perfect match. I am glad.”

“Enamoured of Lord Pomeroy?” It was Lizzie’s turn to laugh. “Heavens no! If you and he would sit in silence, he and I would never stop brangling. Have you not noticed how we constantly come to cuffs? No, I had rather marry George—sorry, Lord Winterborne—for I can say anything at all to him, and he never turns a hair.”