Miss Dashing, page 24
But then, Mama would doubtless get wind of that request, and an interrogation would follow.
“You deserve a scolding,” Flavia said. “I know Johnny is a cousin of some sort, but he’s also a grown man, and we don’t really know him that well. If Mrs. Roberts hadn’t assured me she’d remain in the library for the duration, I would have been kept awake until all hours watching you make a fool of yourself with Johnny.”
Portia tried a bite of toast. “I did not make a fool of myself. I merely kept up with him. I took one sip for every two of his—his rules—and won sixpence off him. I took very small, almost invisible sips, Flavie, so don’t be a nag.”
Had Mrs. Roberts been there the whole time? Lurking on the mezzanine perhaps. The evening’s details were a bit hazy.
Flavia regarded her with something that looked very like pity. “You undertook a drinking contest involving strong spirits and an unattached gentleman. Portia, that will not serve.”
Portia’s conscience, when last she’d consulted that tiresome article, did not care in the least that Flavia had turned up puritanical at this late date. Flavie had no sense of adventure and was doomed to live a dull life. Portia’s inherent shrewdness nonetheless admitted the rebuke was deserved.
If Johnny got to boasting in his clubs, if he let the wrong words slip over cards with fellow former officers…
“I’ll give him back his sixpence and swear him to secrecy, but honestly, once I get him compromised with Hecate, he will be forever in my debt, and you will think me the greatest genius ever for putting him there. Besides, Johnny is almost as aged as Mr. DeGrange. Tippling with him is nearly like tippling with an old uncle.”
Flavia spread jam on a croissant and did so without creating the usual cascade of crumbs. “We saw Johnny and Mr. DeGrange in the altogether, Porry. They are nobody’s doddering uncles, and you have been foolish.”
Portia set aside the tea tray, flipped back the covers, and pushed to the side of the bed. “I’m foolish because I engage in the occasional minor diversion? Foolish because I make the smallest inconsequential wager when ruralizing at the family seat? Flavia, I despair of you. We are no longer schoolgirls, and gentlemen like a woman with a bit of dash. We will be in our third Season next year, and you know what that means.”
Flavia bit off the end of her croissant and munched placidly, like the silly cow she was. Three Seasons and no offers was tantamount to ruin, only without the adventures.
“Porry, you are apparently intent on getting Johnny compromised with Hecate, so why does it matter if he likes a woman with a bit of dash? You don’t need to attract his notice. You plan to solve all his problems by discovering him in flagrante linen closet-o with the family heiress. Instead, you have given him the worst sort of gossip—true gossip—about you.”
Portia steeled herself for the rush of pain that always followed upon rising after a bit of indulgence. She stood, and the pounding in her temples became the afflictions of the damned.
“Please don’t make me cross, Flavie. I will say things I regret if you make me cross.”
“You should be regretting what you did last night, Portia. I found you asleep in the window seat on the landing.”
“No, you did not. I’d recall that if you did.” A vague wisp of memory, of cold glass at Portia’s back and Flavia undressing her, tried to intrude.
“You doubtless waved off the maid who was to light you up, and that will have caused talk belowstairs.”
Flavia was beginning to sound a lot like Mama, and Mama lately had taken to sounding like Hecate.
“I hate the countryside.” Portia’s mind, still a bit foggy—from excessive fatigue, of course—lit upon a consoling thought. “Perhaps I need a tonic.”
“You need a spanking,” Flavia said, rising. “Let’s get you dressed.”
A spanking, like a naughty girl. On any other day, that comment would have been merely the sort of annoying observation Flavia was prone to, one of a hundred petty vexations Portia brushed aside in a morning.
“Don’t be insulting, Flavia. If I’m currying favor with Johnny, I’m doing it for you and Mama. When he has control of Hecate’s fortune, you will thank me for humoring him last night.”
Flavia disappeared into the dressing closet and emerged with a muslin day dress at least three years out of fashion. Little better than a schoolgirl’s rag.
“You fancy Johnny because you know you cannot have him,” Flavia said, retrieving Portia’s half-empty tea cup from the tray and passing it over. “I grant you, he’s a splendid specimen, and he can be charming, and cousins do marry, but Johnny is apparently set on gaining the family fortune.”
Portia finished her tea, unable to dismiss Flavia’s observation entirely. “Johnny has dash and daring, two qualities one does not often find among the Mayfair tulips. All that time in the wilderness honed his courage, no doubt.”
Flavia took the empty tea cup from her. “Shall you wash, Porry?”
Portia took a sniff in the general direction of her armpit. “I’ll have a bath later. I want to do one more draft of my notes.”
Flavia held out a hand for Portia’s nightgown. Flavia would have made a good lady’s maid, which was a cheering thought. When Portia was married to Lord Phillip, she might keep Flavia around as a sort of unpaid companion. Many spinster sisters dwelled with a married sibling and made themselves useful despite having neither husband nor children of their own.
“If you are done with your tray, make use of the toothpowder, please,” Flavia said, folding up Portia’s nightgown and placing it beneath the pillows. “All in your ambit will thank you, and you might consider ringing for some parsley.”
“Don’t be half-witted. Chewing parsley makes me bilious. Have a look at my notes. Tell me what you think. They’re in the drawer of the escritoire.”
Flavia obliged. She was a better speller than Portia, but she apparently found nothing to correct.
“You will lure Johnny to the gallery?” Flavia set the notes aside. “On the night of the ball, the gallery will be lit. It’s a public room with lovely views from the balcony. Half the shire will be milling around there at some point in the evening.”
“Which is why I’ve asked for Johnny to post at eight of the clock, before the guests start to arrive, when everybody will be rushing around, making last-minute preparations, servants everywhere. Our mistake before was not waiting until enough witnesses were on hand.”
“But the gallery? If Hecate is admiring Great-Uncle Nunn’s portrait, and Johnny is across the room, perusing the painting of him and Emeril in their regimentals, nobody will find that in the least compromising. Johnny and Hecate are cousins, and she’s on the shelf.”
Flavia, in the venerable tradition of blind hogs, had a point. “Hecate wouldn’t ask Johnny to meet her in a linen closet.” Portia tried to sort through other possibilities, but Flavia’s nattering, the bright sunshine, and the hopeless, infernal birdsong conspired to rob her of her powers of concentration.
“Let’s do your hair,” Flavia said. “A loose braid to start with and a low bun.”
“Like a governess?”
“Your head pains you.” Flavia picked up the brush and ran her thumb across the bristles. “You are always cross when your head pains you. I thought only of your comfort when I suggested the style, Porry.”
Portia took a seat on the vanity stool. “Go gently with that brush. You are correct. The fresh country air has given me the worst head.”
Portia was admiring her reflection in the cheval mirror—a tot or three of brandy really had very little effect on a lady’s appearance, after all—when it occurred to her that Hecate’s bedroom had no parlor. Flavia was always borrowing things. If Johnny was lured to Hecate’s bedroom, and Hecate was inspired to visit the same location, and Flavie—accompanied by Portia, of course—took a notion to borrow something from Hecate’s jewelry box at the opportune moment…
“You are looking a little more the thing,” Flavia said. “Still a bit pale, but fashionably so.”
“I am, aren’t I? Fashionably pale. Well done of me.”
“You’ve had an idea. What are you planning, Portia Ariadne Brompton?”
Not even Hecate resorted to using Portia’s middle name. Perhaps Flavia would make a poor choice of unpaid companion after all.
“Whatever I plan, whatever I do, I am doing it for the greater good of the Brompton family, meaning I do it for you too, Flavia.”
Flavia took the vanity stool and pulled the ribbon from the end of her braid. “I know you will think badly of me for saying so, but I don’t like to hear you telling fibs. You want Hecate out of contention for Lord Phillip’s hand, and that means foisting Johnny off on her. She won’t like that, Johnny won’t like being manipulated even if he does get her money, and Lord Phillip… He won’t marry you, Portia. He’s not the sort to be duped by notes or schemes.”
“Perhaps not, but he’s the sort who will do the right thing by a lady’s reputation when the decision has been taken from his hands. The trouble with you, Flavia, is that you lack ambition and imagination. One can manage with only one or the other, but I have both, and I intend to use them.”
Flavia muttered something about having a little humility, but Portia elected not to hear her. Flavia meant well, but she truly was rather limited. Portia had until Saturday night to talk her sister ’round.
All the time in the world, when it came to convincing Flavia to comply with a scheme.
“Hecate, good morning. Do have a seat,” Nunn said, on his feet and very much on his dignity by the study’s windows.
To Hecate, Uncle Nunn had been a fixture, the patriarch harrumphing and scowling over the familial landscape, not malign, but certainly hard to warm up to. Morning light revealed him to be human, aging, perhaps even tired.
Good God, I can’t lose him too. Not now. A wife would be a little check on Johnny’s excesses, but Nunn’s consequence would have some real influence. Clubs would reject Johnny, hostesses and bankers would do likewise if Nunn asked them to.
“You are wondering why I intruded on what will be a very busy morning for you,” Nunn said, clasping his hands behind his back. “I began my day in the company of Lord Phillip, and he has delegated to me certain tasks.”
That Phillip would assign the earl a few chores was unsurprising—Phillip had been inspecting Nunnsuch at close range for more than a week—but that Nunn had apparently accepted those orders without protest was astonishing.
“We haven’t done our quarterly review of Nunnsuch’s books,” Hecate said, the only reason she could come up with for Nunn’s summons.
“Our quarterly tutorial on the care and feeding of a pretty country manor, you mean. I have managed to save back a few pounds again. This pleases me inordinately, but Lord Phillip had a different discussion in mind.”
Nunn was shy. Hecate had deduced as much years ago. He dealt fairly well with his lord of the manor duties, when he could circulate in a crowd, making small talk for a few minutes here and there, never risking more than boredom or bad jokes. He was equally capable of managing a private discussion, where formalities need not apply.
He loathed, though, the settings in between—formal suppers, where he could not escape the scrutiny of the whole table, or breakfast parlor meals, where anybody raiding the sideboard could aim verbal darts in his direction.
Phillip was shy too. What had these two shy, reserved men found to discuss that concerned Hecate? “Whatever you have to say, Uncle Nunn, just tell me. The way this week has gone, I would not be surprised if you announced a decision to take holy orders and move to Sweden.”
Nunn propped a hip on the windowsill, his gaze on the vast park. “Lord Phillip was insistent that I make my support of you known, though I have little enough to offer. You have been all that has stood between this family and ruin—between Nunnsuch and ruin—for years, and you don’t deserve the treatment your Brompton relations have in mind for you. Whatever is in my power to do on your behalf, you have only to ask.”
Lord Phillip had been insistent? When had he done this insisting, and what on earth was Uncle Nunn about? “Not all of my Brompton relations are plotting my doom. This marriage scheme is Johnny and Isaac’s doing. I know that.”
Nunn rose and took the place not behind his desk, but in the chair next to Hecate’s. “I doubt Isaac had much to do with concocting the business. He’s lazy by nature. My late countess pronounced him born to pout and sulk, but he’s certainly complicit with Johnny’s maneuvers now that mischief is afoot. Perhaps an old scheme of Isaac’s inspired this new scheme on Johnny’s part. I am sorry.”
The apology likely cost Nunn considerable dignity, but it amounted to an admission of defeat, an acknowledgment that Johnny’s machinations would achieve his desired goal. Hecate might have reached that conclusion—though last night had given her reason to rethink the whole situation—but Nunn’s astonishing declaration of support was all but obliterated when he proposed to give up without a fight.
“You owe me no apology, my lord. Let’s have a look at your books, shall we? I have not been shut up in the tower of Johnny’s choosing yet, and you might have a project or two in need of financing.”
“We soldier on, don’t we?” Nunn said, gaze on the late countess’s portrait hanging behind his desk. “Lord Phillip is likewise not one to give up. If you must look at the books, feel free. Lord Phillips has recommended Henry Wortham for the post of understeward, and with what I’ve set aside for the past few quarters, I can afford to create the position. Dear old Mr. Jamison can retire to Bristol as he has longed to do, just as soon as Henry learns to dress the part.” Nunn rose and fetched a ledger from shelves behind the desk. “The quarterly summary, for your review.”
Henry was an inspired choice, one Hecate should have seen, but she’d given up expecting Nunn to listen to her on any but financial matters. She perused the earl’s summary figures and mentally compared them to last year’s totals for the same period.
“More income,” she said, “and fewer expenses.”
“You claimed that marling and irrigating and so forth would bear fruit eventually. In fact, those suggestions have born peppers and potatoes and a lot of other garden produce. We can haul our surplus to Basingstoke and Reading in a few hours. The roads are better than when I was a youth, and both towns have grown enormously. I have become something of a gentleman farmer, despite myself.”
“And the reduced expenses?”
Nunn’s hands were behind his back again. “I don’t really care that much for Town. The hostesses are forever pairing me with silly women half my age. The old coach is quite serviceable, though Edna despairs of my sense of fashion. I’m not riding to hounds enough to matter, so why keep a dozen horses whose sole redeeming attribute is a willingness to jump the occasional stile? When one sets out to look for potential economies, one is more likely to find them.”
Particularly when those economies had been mentioned every quarter for years. But that Nunn would implement them quietly and wait patiently for the results…
There was hope for Nunn and for Nunnsuch. “Are you doing this for Charles and Eglantine?” Hecate asked. They would certainly benefit, as would their children.
Nunn nodded toward the countess’s portrait. “I do it for her. Her likeness hangs behind my desk so she can look over my shoulder as I tend to the estate. I ride the bridle paths she took such delight in, and when I at last join her in the celestial realm, I intend to be welcomed with open arms, rather than with the sort of scold only my dear countess could deliver.”
Not the motivation Hecate would have guessed, but entirely consistent with what she knew of Uncle Nunn. “You loved her that much?”
“I love her that much.” Nunn resumed his seat. “She would be displeased with your situation. If there’s anything I can do, Hecate, any influence I can bring to bear, you have only to tell me. One hoped you were aware of my perspective on recent matters, but Lord Phillip was very severe with me. He cited an excess of discretion on my part, an unwillingness to show any favoritism lest the family have another reason to take you into dislike.”
Nunn’s logic was sound, but his confession—that’s what this was—nonetheless hurt. “I wasn’t looking for a full-page advertisement in the Times. You might have said something to me. An occasional word of encouragement. Some sort of acknowledgment.”
Hecate’s throat had acquired an ache. Perhaps the result of sleeping under the stars, more likely the result of Phillip seeing what needed to be done and doing it.
“I am offering encouragement now, albeit too little and too late.” Nunn seemed to hold a silent exchange with his late wife’s portrait, then he rose and went to the safe reposing behind a landscape of Nunnsuch manor and withdrew a packet of documents.
“Your young man has quit the premises,” he said, resuming his seat. “He has promised to return, and I cannot vouch for his destination, but I suspect he’s gone to Bristol.”
“Is he taking ship?” The ache in Hecate’s throat was spreading downward, toward her heart.
“No.”
“His father forbade him to see the world. Phillip was a virtual captive to the old man’s whims, but he managed… Phillip managed to make a paradise of his prison.”
Nunn considered the papers in his hand, some of which were yellowing, all of which were covered in a tidy script. “Not a paradise, but one takes your meaning. He found joy and purpose despite the ill will directed at him. Does the name Edward Ross mean anything to you?”
This extraordinary conversation had just exceeded all bounds. Hecate managed a nod. She would have popped to her feet, bounced a curtsey, and claimed a pressing appointment with the housekeeper, except that she did not trust her legs to keep her upright.
“Mama mentioned him.” With love. Mama had always mentioned him with love, on the few occasions she had brought him up, or Hecate had found the nerve to ask about him. “I hope Mr. Ross fares well.”
Please do not let him be dead. Please not that.
