The Chaperone's Secret Read online

  Amy clutched her hands into fists and squeezed, a rare flare of temper surging to the forefront. Just once she would like to say what was on her mind, which was that Lady Rowena was a spoiled, rude, impossibly poisonous child, and that all of the men in England should consider themselves lucky that she did not compound her hideous faults of demeanor by marrying one of them and making him miserable for the rest of his days on earth. With a deep sigh, she relaxed, finding even that internal venting of her bile a release of sorts.

  Just for a moment, as she and her charge took seats while the literary guests readied themselves for their reading, Amy let her mind wander. What would it be like to be so sought after, as Lady Rowena was?

  She pictured herself, dressed in pink silk, the center of attention and with adoring gentlemen vying for her hand. Prince Verstadt on one side offering her a lemonade, and Lord Norland on the other, plying her with a plate of sweets, as she sat in perfect bliss, knowing that whichever gentleman she deigned to offer her hand to, he would enthusiastically accept it and strive to make her life an everlasting picnic.

  How easy life would be! Her life had not been comfortable by any means; she had known early that her poor aunt could not support them both, so she had scrambled herself into the best education she could and had begun a governess job, one of several that led to the propitious moment when she found her way to the emerald green island and the Donegals’ doorstep. She had been happy enough there, but it was still a paid position, and there was never a guarantee of it continuing. Perhaps her resolution the night before that independence was worth the struggle was a mere concession to the futility of wishing for anything more. For she had to admit how pleasant it would be to never have to worry again about the future. How lovely to have wealthy gentlemen tripping over themselves to gain her favor, as they did for Lady Rowena!

  But a vision would interrupt even that happy dream, an apparition of a man in dark clothes, shaggy hair in his eyes and muck streaming down him. Poor unknown gentleman! He had haunted her dreams all night. She hoped he had recovered from his drenching with no ill effects. Why could she not forget him though? Was it simply her own predilection for rescuing strays? As if a man could ever be a stray! Still, she would give much to know of his fate. Was he even now laying in feverish delirium, needing the soft touch and cooling affects of a lady’s touch on his heated brow?

  She roused herself from her daydream to the unusual sight of Lady Rowena smiling upon a gentleman who sat some distance away from them. He was well-looking though not exceptional, but he was certainly attracted by the fair Lady Rowena, for his cheeks were suffused with a dull brick red, and his lips parted, his eyes glittering. As Amy watched, an uncertain smile trembled on his lips, and then the lady at his side claimed his attention. She was a plain but elegant lady, older than either Lady Rowena or Amy by some years, Amy would guess.

  Amy glanced sideways at her charge and caught a secretive smile on Rowena’s lips. What was this all about? If she had learned anything about the young lady in the first few weeks of the Season, it was that the duke’s daughter did not dispense smiles without a return expected. She enjoyed conquest.

  Spying Mrs. Bower, her mentor in the chaperoning of a tonnish maiden, Amy determined to ask that lady who the gentleman was.

  After some more droning poetry and a reading of a passage of Byron just to shock everyone, there was a break for a light repast. It was not strictly necessary at a reading, certainly, but Lady Bainbridge set her own standards of conduct and she liked to feed people, showing how brilliant a pastry chef she had stolen from the household of the Prince Regent himself.

  Amy, seeing Lady Rowena moving to sit with one of her few female friends, made her way to Mrs. Bower, who was chewing contentedly on a pastry, whipped cream clinging to her mustache. After their mutual affectionate greeting, Amy nodded toward the gentleman who had exchanged looks with Rowena earlier. “Who is that gentleman, Mrs. Bower, and what is his marital status?”

  Mrs. Bower glared short-sightedly across the room and adjusted her lorgnette. “Mmf,” she muttered, swallowing and licking the cream from her lips. She brushed crumbs from her fingers. “That, my dear, is Lord Newton-Shrewsbury; earl, well set-up, no vices, thirty-eight but in good health, widowed sister dependent upon him. Good prospect, but not on the block, my dear,” she murmured, her words concealed by the chatter of the crowd near the refreshment table. She cleared her throat and continued. “Lady Bainbridge has marked him for her daughter, Lady Harriet—that is the gel he is sitting with—and woe betide any young lady who should interfere with her plans. You remember I mentioned Lady Harriet when we were speaking of her friend, Lady Francis Mortimer? So it is not worth it, my dear, to even consider him a possible suitor for Lady Rowena. Lady Bainbridge’s favor is more important than any potential beau.”

  Amy felt a spurt of alarm. Why would Lady Rowena be smiling at him? And he smiling back at her with such a look of warmth. Oh my. She felt a sharp presentiment she was learning to trust as the internal voice of self-preservation. She glanced at her charge and saw, to her alarm, that Lady Rowena was glancing over at Lord Newton-Shrewsbury, and that he was, again, looking back!

  She could do something about this, and would. She thanked her friend, who turned her attention back to her plate of pastries, and bustled over to Lady Rowena.

  Detaching her from her friend, Amy took her aside. “My lady, of all the gentlemen in the room, please do not fix your interest on that man, the one who was just smiling at you.”

  A frozen look on her pretty face, Lady Rowena said, “I have not fixed my interest on anyone, Amy; I don’t know what you are talking about, but I do know that you are being impertinent and vulgar.”

  Taking in a deep breath, Amy surged ahead, despite the young lady’s forbidding tone. “You know very well what I mean. That gentleman in the blue jacket who is sitting with the lady in the peach gown. The lady is our hostess’s daughter, Lady Harriet.”

  “I knew that already.”

  “And that gentleman is her intended beau, Lord Newton-Shrewsbury.”

  The secretive smile teased Lady Rowena’s perfectly shaped lips again. “I know that, too, Amy, so you have just wasted your breath.”

  Amy stood stock-still for a moment. If Lady Rowena knew all of that, then why was she deliberately . . . oh. In that moment Amy came to understand just how much more difficult her task was going to be. The last puzzle piece of Lady Rowena’s character slipped into place. Amy was chaperone to that most despised of feminine species, a determined, if very subtle, flirt and beau-thief.

  Four

  Bainbridge stood staring out the window of the garret while Pierson paced behind the artist.

  “That’s it, man, that is it,” Pierson cried, clapping his hands together and gazing down at the drawing. He reached out to it and touched it with reverence. “You have captured that sweetness of expression, that moonlit hair, those lips, that angelic, demure and modest cast of features.”

  The marquess snorted and turned to stare at his friend. “I cannot believe that this is actually you. Have you been consorting with brownies? Have they left a changeling in your place? You sound absurd.”

  Pierson colored crimson as he looked up from the artist’s rendering of his fair obsession. The artist, a lanky young man with dull eyes, gazed with little interest at the two peers.

  Perhaps Bainbridge was not the ideal companion for this task. Stung into a defensive retort, Pierson said, “You are just loath to be left alone in your misogyny, my friend.”

  “I am not a misogynist,” Bainbridge retorted. “I adore women, all kinds of women, even my sister . . . even my mother. But I do not believe in their ineffable sweetness, nor that they are any different from men in their needs, frustrations, furies, aggravations and tempers. I think we mistake them, adore them from afar, place them on a rickety pedestal and then blame them when it crumbles and they tumble into the dirt. I will not marry until I find a woman honest with those baser feelings a
nd urges.”

  Pierson pulled the sketch away from the artist’s charcoal-smudged hands and held it up to the light of the garret window. A coldhearted fellow like Bainbridge would never understand how he longed to surrender to this image of innocence and rectitude he held before him, how he felt that if he could just give his life over to her, she could fashion it into something pure and fine with her delicate hands. The marquess wasn’t capable of the kind of renascence he was experiencing, but he wouldn’t insult his friend with the cold, hard truth. “I think you are talking utter nonsense just to hear yourself talk, as usual, my friend.” He gazed at the picture and sighed deeply. “Behold the face of the perfect lady, and the one I will marry.”

  “That’s her?” Bainbridge said, staring at it without admiration. “That is your paragon? She looks like the epitome of a milk-and-water miss, no spirit, no fire, no independence. What would anyone want with a woman like that?”

  Pierson held the sketch to his breast and glared at the marquess. “You wouldn’t know an angel if you trod on her wings!” he exclaimed.

  “I think if I ever found such an angel, I would want to tread on her wings!”

  “That is where you and I are different.” Pierson stared down at the sketch and traced the line of her chin with one finger. “I think a lady’s place in a man’s life is to inspire him, to give him a reason to follow a straight and true path, to work toward some better life. Just think of the artists who have slaved over great works just for the love of a woman. Authors have written tomes of poetry devoted to love and inspired by a woman. For her I would do that; for her I will change my life.” He waved the drawing in front of his friend’s face. “But instead of poetry or art, my homage to her will be to turn Delacorte into something worthy, a home to be proud of. I will toil with my own hands until they are rough and brown, making a better life for her and our children.”

  Bainbridge frowned at him, his gray eyes dark with some strong emotion. “I have never seen you like this, Pierson. And yet I should have known this was in you; I always felt like you were waiting for something, but maybe it was someone. You are a romantic at heart, aren’t you, my friend? All of that, just for a woman.”

  They stood in silence for a few minutes, two friends peering at each other across an abyss comprised of lack of understanding. Pierson didn’t regret his grand speech, but knew to someone of Bainbridge’s stolid deportment it likely sounded flowery and excessive. He couldn’t help it; it was just how he felt and it flowed out of him like water from a pump, and so he didn’t try to explain himself any further. He and the marquess had known each other long enough that he should not have to.

  Bainbridge finally ventured, “Perhaps we will agree to disagree on this. If this lady will inspire you to reduce your drinking, stop gambling money you can’t afford and reclaim your inheritance, then I will think her the paragon you describe.”

  “I will ignore your slurs on my character since it is all too accurate an account of my failings.” Pierson hesitated, but then continued, “If you really feel that way, Bain, will you help me find out who she is? I will be unable to continue with any of my intentions until I find that out, for I am completely captivated and in her thrall. She was young, perhaps twenty, and lovely, of very good ton, I should say, judging from the jewels at her throat and the quality of the carriage. I think there was a coat of arms on the carriage, but there was so much mud I could not see the elements.”

  “I will help you.”

  “Thank you, old friend,” Pierson said, choosing to ignore the reluctant tone in his friend’s voice, and they clasped hands warmly. “I feel myself at some fork in the road.” He tried to clarify his feelings, his strong belief that the young lady he had seen the night before represented something more than some meaningless infatuation. There had to be a way to make even Bainbridge see that this was not some passing fancy, but a new course he was setting himself on, the new road to a new life. “If I can only find the right path, I may be able to reclaim some of this wretched life and turn it to a good purpose, Bain. But I know myself well; I have been purposeless so far in my life. I need something . . . someone to work for, someone to inspire me.”

  Bainbridge shrugged but held out his hand to his friend. “I will not pretend to understand, my friend, but I will help in any way I can.”

  The two men left the studio after Pierson handsomely rewarded the artist. The sketch was rolled up and the viscount carried it under his arm. “Do you think it would be safe to go back to your home?” he asked his friend.

  Bainbridge chuckled. “If you mean, will that hideous invention, the literary tea, be over, I would say yes. But why would you want to go to my home? You have always had a horror of my mother. I was startled to see you two talking this morning.”

  “It is time I got over that ridiculous . . . uh, aversion. Your mother is . . . is a wonderful woman.”

  “Don’t choke on those words, Pierson.”

  “But she is! And she knows everyone in society; she could help me find my fair destiny.”

  “Ah, I see your purpose. All right. We’ll go.”

  Just twenty minutes later they strolled up to the Bainbridge house as a carriage with an ornate coat of arms was pulling away from the curb in front.

  “I hope that was the last of them,” Bainbridge muttered.

  They entered and doffed their hats, gloves and sticks. The rotund, gloomy butler took the items and disappeared.

  “Hallo, Harriet,” Bainbridge said to his sister as he ambled into the parlor. “Well, Mother, how did your day go?”

  Lady Bainbridge was reclining on a sofa, a damp cloth to her forehead.

  “Don’t ask,” Lady Harriet said, smiling up at her brother from her divan. “Hello, Pierson. Haven’t seen you in an age.”

  Lady Bainbridge stood, tossing the cloth away and pulling herself up to her full height. “It is an outrage, what happened here this afternoon. I cannot believe you are taking this so lightly, Harriet. He was your beau, after all.”

  “What, let another one slip away?” Bainbridge said with a casual caress of his sister’s simple hairstyle.

  “Oh, I didn’t let this one slip away,” she said, a sly smile on her face as she caught her brother’s hand and squeezed it. “This one had help escaping.”

  “He was . . . was stolen!” Lady Bainbridge spat the last word out.

  “What, you mean someone packed him up under their arm and carried him away? I know we’ve missed some silver lately, but I did not know anyone could lift a beau.”

  Pierson, chuckling at his friend’s witticism, said, “I understand why the fashion is beginning for ladies to wear such voluminous capes, if they are pilfering more than extra cream cakes and silver forks.”

  Lady Harriet broke into giggles but obscured them with a cough.

  “We are speaking of a serious subject, the deliberate theft of a gentleman admirer by another lady.” Lady Bainbridge gave Pierson a quelling look. “And her mother was my dearest friend! It is that daughter of the late Duchess of Sylverton, Lady Rowena. One simpering look at Lord Newton-Shrewsbury and he fell completely under her spell and abandoned Harriet.”

  “Mother, you make me sound like a parcel left behind by accident on a park bench.” Harriet’s tone was acidic. “I was no more than friends with Norman and he knows it. He is free to wander where he may.”

  “But I had great hopes of this one, and then that hussy cast her sheep’s eyes at him and—”

  “I would say if the fellow was so easily conquered he was not deserving of your daughter’s favor, my lady,” Pierson said. He earned a warm look of regard from the marchioness for that remark, but Lady Harriet just flushed and bit her lip.

  “I suppose you’re right, Pierson,” the marchioness said, with the back of her hand against her forehead, “but I am overset, nonetheless.”

  “I have a boon to ask, my lady, that may take your mind off—”

  “Not now, Pierson,” she said and started toward the
door. “I am too upset. I had even hoped, before meeting Lady Rowena, that she might be right for . . .” She glanced at her son and stopped. “I am going to my room for a while,” she announced. “I will come downstairs for dinner, but not before.”

  She sailed from the room.

  Lady Harriet burst into laughter, her color returning to normal. “Lord, you should have seen Shrewsbury, Bainbridge. He went positively white, and once I gave him permission he beetled over to Lady Rowena and never left her side all afternoon, even when her chaperone—poor thing, I did feel for her—tried to separate them.”

  “If that means the fellow won’t be haunting my parlor, I am glad,” her brother said, lounging around the room.

  “Bain!” Lady Harriet said with a mock expression of shock. “Did you not like Norman? Did you not think him my ideal beau?”

  “I think the man is the ideal idiot. And Mother is doing it up a bit brown when she blames the poor girl. I have seen Lady Rowena at a few balls already this year, and she seems a perfectly demure young lady, remarkably beautiful but not in any way a heartless flirt.”

  “Oh, I don’t say she flirted with him, Bain; I saw nothing of the sort, and her manner at the tea was everything that could be considered modest. I think that Norman was just becoming frightened by Mother’s repeated hints that it was time and past that he should be making his offer for my most valued hand in more solid terms. And really, anyone looking at Lady Rowena and comparing her to my own aging person would be smitten by her immediately.”

  Pierson laughed, once again entertained by the lady’s determined lack of conceit. She was a good sort, was Bain’s sister, the kind of lady a fellow would like for a sister. He regretted that he had no siblings and thought how different his life would be if he had family, as Bain did. It would have given him that purpose he had always lacked. If a man had a sister and mother to care for, then he could not, in all conscience, act the wastrel. “Lady Harriet, any man so ungallant as to desert you in favor of any other lady must be considered wanting in wits.”