Wilful Impropriety (28 page)

“Elizabeth Bennet had a supportive papa,” Flora mused. “He said he would not like her to marry Mr. Collins, and her mama’s threats came to nothing.” Her face was clouding over, and the tears threatened again. “My mama is dead, and would never be so unfeeling as Mrs. Bennet, but I fear my papa may not be so obliging.”

Irene took a gamble. “The Bennet family were in some distress,” she said, as if idly. “Five daughters, and an entail. Of course, with no brothers, you can see how Mrs. Bennet thought it best Elizabeth marry to keep the property in the family.”

“No brothers,” Flora said thoughtfully, and then her stormy brow cleared. “But I am fortunate in mine! I can depend on Jamie to support me, and he comes down from Cambridge tomorrow!”

“Does he, my lady?” This question, hinting as it did of disinterest and ignorance, was, strictly speaking, a falsehood, and Irene resolved to say an extra prayer before bed to atone for it. The homecoming of the Viscount Northcliff, a household favorite, had been all the conversation downstairs for a fortnight.

“Oh, yes, Irene. He is bringing some friend he says could not travel home for Christmas, can you imagine? How horrible! We must be very kind to him.”

“Certainly, my lady,” Irene murmured, forbearing to mention what would happen should the housekeeper have the least suspicion that she was being very kind to any male guest.

“And I will speak to Jamie the instant he arrives. He shan’t allow Papa to make the Marquess propose,” Flora concluded, and looked radiantly beautiful in her relief.

Irene allowed a moment for self-congratulation, and reset the curling charm that had faded with lack of attention. Concentrating her will, she murmured a few phrases. Dark red light streamed from her hands and lifted Flora’s heavy locks—only to fall apart when Flora suddenly twisted, breaking Irene’s concentration. Irene flinched in the wake of the failed spell, her fingers burning as if she had plunged them into boiling water.

“Irene! I have just thought—oh, have I hurt you?”

Irene gestured toward her mouth. Flora, reminded of the silence that followed a badly broken spell, went quiet with remorse. But even genuine guilt could not restrain her very real urgency. “I had just thought,” she whispered, “that if he were to propose tonight, before Jamie arrived, I would not in the least know what to do or say. Irene, is there anything about refusing a proposal in The Book?”

Irene shook her head. There were, to be sure, dozens of etiquette books that would advise Flora on how to gently and genteely decline an unwelcome proposal, but few accounted for a disobliging papa. The Book of which she spoke, Irene was quite sure, contained no such advice.

“We must make sure,” Flora insisted, and Irene let out a breath that would have been a sigh, had her vocal cords been of any use at that moment.

Nevertheless, she left Flora trying to repair her hair with more mundane efforts and hurried up the back stairs to her own room. Her position entitled her to this privacy, and even some degree of luxury, with a mattress not too thin and covers thick enough to banish the chill of Rabton Hall. Irene knew very well that the housemaids envied her the privilege, but she could not despise the treat—not when it allowed her to bend over her scalded hands, and whimper in silence until the wake of the interrupted spell subsided, the pain passed and her voice returned.

Then she reached into her small and crowded bookshelf, a discard from the nursery Flora had long ago left vacant, and retrieved
Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Magickal Management
. Yes, this venerable publication was The Book in which Flora placed such trusting faith, and why not? With its aid, Irene had achieved what the godless might term miracles.

Full of good sense, admirably organized, and clearly written, The Book rarely failed its devotees in the practice of household magick. In this, it was unlike lesser publications, which often resulted in the death of the ill-advised practitioner by the consumption of poisonous concoctions, the dissolution of bodily unity in the event of a particularly strong wake, or, as in the unfortunate case of one poor housekeeper from N—, the transmutation of the human form into that of a vase of lilies.

No, servants who sought the assistance of Mrs. Beeton rarely damaged themselves in permanent fashion. A restless lady of the house who moved before the completion of a curling spell could cause pain, but never dismemberment.

When Mr. and Mrs. Crawford had regrettably departed earthly soil two years earlier, The Book and considerable magickal talent had been among the few possessions they could bequeath their only child. Fortunately, before her own untimely demise, the Countess of Rabton had been of a kindly disposition, and lady’s maids with magickal ability were both all the fashion and exceedingly rare. She had thought Irene a neat, good sort of girl with nice manners, and no looks to speak of—a perfect addition to the household.

Irene might have once cherished other ambitions, but she was too practical to ignore the workings of necessity. Indeed, as she moved down the stairs, The Book under one arm, she focused with the ease of long practice only on her current task, allowing no whimsical fancies to escape, however entrancing they might be.

The sound of another voice in Flora’s chambers, however, aroused both her curiosity and her concern. The voice was certainly male. Had the Viscount Northcliff returned early, and gone to greet his sister in her suite? Even as Irene thought it, however, she recognized the voice.

It was that of the Marquess of Chumley.

Irene froze. For his lordship to enter Flora’s chamber—while she was unchaperoned, no less—was quite beyond the bounds of propriety, and if any hint of such an event got loose, Flora’s reputation would be irreparably blemished. But a man who might enter a lady’s chamber might have even less scrupulous activities in mind.

Irene crept closer, ready to raise the alarm at the first hint of danger, and brave what scandal resulted. In so doing, she inevit ably overheard the substance of the conversation.

“—do think you should leave,” Flora was saying, her usually pleasant voice pitched high.

“Come now, Lady Wittingham—may I call you Flora? And you must call me Cyril.”

“You may not, sir.”

“But when we are man and wife, such a confusion of syl lables as ‘Marchioness Chumley’ would be a bother, do you not think so?” His voice was a warm, wheedling thing, like a garter snake winding itself into a summer nest.

Flora’s voice was beginning to sound desperate. “Please leave, sir. This is most improper.”

“I will not, until I have an answer to my question. Come, Flora, will you not make me the happiest man in the Empire?” It was a question, but the Marquess did not appear to be asking. He delivered each phrase with measured certainty.

Irene’s fingers adjusted their grip on
Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Magickal Management
, which, in addition to its other admirable qualities, was amply proportioned and weighed a good five pounds. If the Marquess became any more importunate, she vowed, she would burst into the room and beat him as she might a rug. For a moment, a wistful thought escaped Irene’s otherwise firm control. If only she had access to more potent magicks, if only the bailiffs had left the inheritance of her father’s books after the sad, shabby little funeral. But they had been valuable, and the debts substantial, and Irene would have to make do with what she had.

“I . . . don’t know how to answer you, sir,” Flora was saying.

Irene frowned, and edged closer. There was something odd about Flora’s voice, as if she spoke half asleep. Irene, who had woken Flora every morning for nearly two years, was very familiar with that drowsing tone.

“Say yes,” his lordship said in that same slow cadence. “It is a good match, and your father wishes it. You do not wish to disappoint the Earl, do you?”

“No,” Flora said.

“You want to be a good girl, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Flora said.

“Then you will marry me, won’t you, Flora?”

“Yes,” Flora said, so quietly that Irene had to strain to hear through the thick wooden door. “Yes, Cyril, I will marry you.”

“Excellent,” his lordship said. “And you will be happy. I cannot abide women who mope. I will go to your father now, and we will marry in the spring.”

Even with this warning, Irene had scarcely time to scramble away, but by the time the Marquess opened Flora’s door, Irene was proceeding towards her mistress’s chambers at a decorous and unsuspicious pace. Lord Chumley paid Irene no attention at all, striding past with a self-satisfied smile so wide his whiskers could do little to conceal it. Irene, on the other hand, stood still and stared after him in the rudest manner. Then she shook herself all over and went in to her mistress.

Flora was sitting on the edge of the bed, perched precariously on her bustle. Her hands were clasped under her chin, her eyes wide, her pupils very large. “He has gone to my father,” she said. “We are to marry in the spring. Oh, Irene! How happy I am!”

She looked happy indeed, but Irene knew Flora’s joy had no natural cause. For as the Marquess of Chumley had walked out of the room, she had seen it—an insubstantial tracery of white lines that limned his form and formed a glowing tangle of shapes above his head. It was the white aura—the very sign and signal of magick most foul.

•   •   •

Irene suffered through the rest of the evening in silence, a silence which went largely unregarded by the rest of the household. Flora was too full of raptures about her darling Cyril to pay any attention to anything else as Irene finished her preparations for dinner. Mrs. Framble, the housekeeper, did note at the dinner of the upper staff that Irene seemed even quieter than usual. She resolved to keep an eye on the girl, lest she be sickening for something.

The news of the engagement, in the traditional course of such joyous tidings, had flowed swiftly downward through the household staff, and all agreed that His Lordship the Marquess of Chumley was a decent choice for Lady Flora. Of course she deserved a duke, but there was none available, so a marquess would have to do. Irene chewed the inside of her lip more than the good Bakewell pudding served to her by little Elsie, the scullery maid.

The white aura! Could she have been mistaken? Irene had never seen it before. She had thought the white aura the province of desperate criminals in city stews, and penny-dreadful novels. She had never expected to encounter it in the honorable surrounds of Rabton Hall.

But she had always been especially skilled in making out signs of magick invisible to nonpractitioners, and it had been clear as a summer sky as the Marquess made his smirking way down the hallway without even a glance in her direction. And Lady Flora’s affections had changed suddenly—and inexplicably, were anything but foul magick the cause.

So, then, the diagnosis was made. Irene nodded, passed the salt mechanically, and set herself to determining a cure.

Irene could not accuse a marquess of employing evil magick, certainly not to his face. Neither could she approach the staff more senior to her with this conundrum, as she would have done with anything less serious. Irene considered going directly to Lord Rabton, and had Mrs. Framble not spoken at an opportune moment, she might well have, and this story might have had a much sadder end. For the Earl of Rabton, though not an evil man, was disinclined to listen to such nonentities as lady’s maids at the best of times, and if Irene had the effrontery to bring him a tale certain to disrupt both his household and a most fortuitous engagement, the results might have been most determinedly against her favor.

But Mrs. Framble did speak. “I hope this friend of his young lordship is a good sort of gentleman,” she said.

“All I know is that no valet attends him,” the butler said in stentorian tones, and at this sign of poverty the senior staff shook their heads, all save the first footman, who was most eager to gain experience acting as valet for Mr. Simon Young, and Irene, who brightened considerably at this reminder of the Viscount’s homecoming.

“Is the Viscount Northcliff delayed?” she asked.

“Why, no, Irene,” Mrs. Framble said. “Not that I’ve heard. We are to expect him tomorrow morning.”

“How nice,” Irene said, and sank back into her thoughts. Mrs. Framble eyed her sharply. The females in the Earl’s employ (and, though Mrs. Framble was not aware of it, at least two of the males) were forever falling in love with the Viscount Northcliff, who was thankfully too well mannered to take advantage of these infatuations. Nevertheless, whenever lovesickness afflicted Mrs. Framble’s girls, they spent too much time sighing and not enough scrubbing. An engagement, with all its attendant bustle, was not an opportune time for a lady’s maid to lose her head over a gentleman, and Mrs. Framble resolved to take steps, should any further signs appear.

Irene, pleased with her new plan of action and unaware of Mrs. Framble’s suspicions, completed her duties for the day and returned to her solitary room. She finished the taking-in of one of Flora’s old gowns for herself, released her plain brown hair and braided it neatly, and composed herself to prayer. “Please, God, help me make it right,” is not the most eloquent petition ever uttered silently in the dark of a person’s soul, but what Irene’s prayer lacked in eloquence—and in originality—was more than surpassed in its sincerity.

•   •   •

“My God,” said Simon Young. “It’s enormous.”