A Scandalous Countess: A Novel of the Malloren World (54 page)
Read A Scandalous Countess: A Novel of the Malloren World Online
Authors: Jo Beverley
Tags: #Romance, #General, #Contemporary, #Historical, #Fiction
“Are there no messages from anyone?” Georgia demanded. She needed news from Town.
“I’d have given you them if there were, milady.”
It occurred to her that she’d never sent Dracy a letter—a scribbled note didn’t count—and sat to do so.
Saying what?
she wondered, stroking her chin with her quill.
Biting her lip, she wrote,
My dearest Dracy,
I am quite bereft that you prefer trees to me, and you’d be justly served if I were to address you as Humphrey at all times. That would steal your dark demeanor, would it not? I shall expect more careful attendance in future.
For now, I will insist that Lizzie teach me frugal household management. I believe people can subsist entirely on offal and potatoes if necessary.
Your helpmeet in training,
Georgia
She folded it, but following the maiden’s game, she drew a little heart by the join before dripping wax there and pressing on her seal. She glanced at Dickon’s picture, for she’d done that during their courting time, but she no longer felt any conflict there. Dickon and Dracy were very different, but she felt they’d have liked each other if they’d met, because they were both honest and kind at heart.
She gave the letter to Jane, to have it placed in Dracy’s room, then sought out her friend. She found her in the stillroom, looking through a book.
“Frugal housewifery?” Lizzie asked. “You know how to run houses, extravagantly or economically.”
“But I’ve not practiced the latter. Beyond some girlhood lessons, I’ve never managed a stillroom. I had none at the London houses, and at Maybury, the dowager ruled there. What are you doing?”
“Looking for a cure for the evil sleep.”
“Whatever is that? A poison?”
Lizzie looked up. “What? No, of course not. The evil sleep is an affliction of pigs, and there’s a case at the home farm. The pig sleeps too much, especially in the middle of the day.”
“That could describe Father when he’s rusticating.”
“Georgie! I don’t suppose your father neglects his food so he’s in danger of starving to death.”
“Quite the opposite. What’s the cure?”
“I know I have something here. Ah, stonecrop. Come, we’ll collect some.”
Georgia went off with her friend but noticed the man who followed. One of the outriders, keeping an eye on
her in case Sellerby attacked. In her new, brighter world, the very idea seemed ridiculous, but she was glad he stayed in sight.
They found the yellow flowers on a wall near the orchard and gathered a basketful, then carried their haul to the farm.
“Why isn’t the farmer’s wife doing this?” Georgia asked. “It was that way at the Maybury home farm. The still room at the castle was used for household concoctions.”
“Mistress Pennykirk is an invalid—a tragic fall, which has left her crippled and melancholic—and her daughters are young. So I help in such matters.”
Farmer Pennykirk was a short-legged, robust man who seemed weighed down with care. He was truly grateful for their help, as was his poor wife, who sat in a chair by the fireplace, bolstered with cushions and with a rug over useless legs. She was eager to do her part by bruising the flowers in a big bowl, encouraging her two young daughters to help.
A young maidservant was cutting up some bony meat for a stew.
Lizzie went off with the farmer for some other ingredient.
Some flowers spilled on the floor, and Georgia returned them to the bowl. “I’m sorry for your injury, Mistress Pennykirk.”
Tears started in the woman’s eyes. “I’m such a trial to everyone, your ladyship. I sometimes wish I were dead, and that’s the truth.”
Georgia almost said something bracing, but her heart knew better. “Perhaps you would feel better if you were a little more mobile. I’ve seen some chairs with wheels. With one of those, you could at least push yourself around the kitchen. And perhaps with a low table you could do some of the things you used to do, like cut up meat.…Oh, I’m sorry, I’m afraid I have a managing disposition. I shouldn’t try to rearrange your life.”
“
Oh, no, your ladyship,” the woman said. “If such things were possible, it’d be a godsend!”
“Well then, a lower table should be easy enough to arrange, perhaps even to sit in front of your chair. As for the wheeled chair, when I return to London I’ll see what I can learn.”
Lizzie returned with a pungent mash and added it to the bowl. “When that’s thoroughly mixed, it will be ready. By God’s blessing, the pig will recover.”
“Thank you, your ladyship,” Mistress Pennykirk said. “And to you, your ladyship.”
The woman had tears in her eyes. Georgia only hoped she could make good her promises. As they left, she asked, “Are you sure that potion will work?”
“It works some of the time, which is the best anyone can hope for.”
“I wish there were a cure for paralysis. Sometimes life seems so unfair.”
“Which is why we should count our blessings—and not seek out suffering,” Lizzie added pointedly. “Are you going to marry Dracy?”
Georgia felt herself blush. “I rather think I am.”
Lizzie hugged her. “I thought as much. Torrismonde’s very impressed with him, you know. Sadly lacking in knowledge, but keen to learn.”
“He says I must visit Dracy before committing myself. He assures me it’s a dreary mess. What if I can’t face that? Truly, I don’t think I could marry into dire poverty, no matter how I loved.”
“The Dracy estate can’t constitute dire poverty, and if it’s run-down, you’ll have a home to improve. You’ve always delighted in that.”
“Not one about to fall on my head!”
“It can’t be as bad as that. It probably needs a thorough cleaning and some coats of paint, and then it will be ready for you to make beautiful.”
“With virtually no money.”
“
A challenge,” Lizzie said. “I do not doubt you.”
Georgia held on to that thought as they returned to the house, and then went to her room to write some letters. She would write to Lord Rothgar about wheeled chairs, for he was interested in many devices besides automatons. If he didn’t know about such things, he’d know who did. However, that reminded her that she’d not sent a report to Diana Rothgar about the water situation at Danae House.
She was in the middle of that letter when someone knocked at the door. She opened it herself and found Dracy there. She couldn’t help but smile, and he smiled back.
But he sobered. “A letter from your brother. The plan is in hand.”
She pulled him into the room and shut the door. “What does he say?”
“Read it.”
Strange events at the Cocoa Tree last night, where there was a considerable company, including Waveney, Brookdale, Sellerby, and others, all gathered to hear more of the rumor that Sir Charnley Vance has been discovered to be dead and buried in an unmarked grave. No one speaks of anything else.
“Sellerby,” she muttered. “Of course he couldn’t stay away.”
“Especially not when rattled by the news. It improves.”
It seems to be true, for the undertaker remembers the well-built corpse with the significant attribute, and he also noted a long scar on the corpse’s thigh, which many know to have resulted from a riding accident some years ago.
Georgia looked up. “Is the scar real?”
“I assume so. Convenient.”
“
It really was Vance. Sometimes I think we’ve invented it all.”
There’s a lively search to find his remains, but how anyone hopes to identify one skeleton from another, I’ve no idea, nor the point of it. The inquest said suicide, so he can’t be reinterred.
No sooner had this tale built up steam, but Henry Dagenham comes in with news of a letter he’d seen that very afternoon at the offices of the Chief Justice where he works…
“Dagenham’s a friend of Perry’s,” Georgia said.
“Convenient again.”
“Or reason to choose the device.” She read on.
… a letter written by Vance a year ago. He claimed that he couldn’t reveal more or lose his position, but that the letter cast doubt on the judgment of suicide, and that Vance feared an enemy. An enemy he named. Dagenham even hinted that Lord Mansfield has set in hand questions about Vance’s movements after the duel, and placed where he might have met his end.
“Spoken in Sellerby’s presence! Oh, I wish I could have seen his face.”
“Sick as a dog,” Dracy said. “Read on.”
Speculation ran wildly, but with no conclusion, for Vance was a man disliked by many and feared by some. Of course the Maybury duel was mentioned, but as the letter had been written before the event, his death could not be revenge. As well for me, who could be seen as a suspect there!
All will be revealed, I’m sure, and in the
meantime people are fleeing Town. There’s sickness in the air, which afflicts rich or poor. Lord Sellerby left the club early last night looking unwell. It’s to be hoped he is not attacked by it.Your servant, sir,
P. Perriam
Georgia refolded the paper. “That all happened last night. Sellerby could have killed himself by now. I wish I knew. I wish I knew.”
“Your brother will write as soon as there’s news.”
“The fastest courier takes nearly three hours.” She eyed him. “We could return to Town.”
“No, Georgia. If Sellerby is still resisting his fate, he’s particularly dangerous.”
“Oh, damn you, but you’re correct. Now, I suppose, we must go down to dinner and pretend none of this is happening.”
“I think it’s best not to share these stratagems with your friends. They’re honest people.”
“And we are not?”
“You can certainly be cruel. Would you really call me Humphrey?”
“If sufficiently provoked.”
He grinned and kissed her. “You’re a remarkable woman, Georgia—soon, I hope, Dracy.”
She kissed him back, but as they left the room she said, “Only think, if you were a duke’s younger son you’d be Lord Humphrey. No hiding it at all.”
“But in that case,” he said, “you’d soon be Lady Humphrey. How would you like that?”
“I’d have to achieve a title for you in order to be saved!”
After dinner Dracy went off with Torrismonde to go over accounts, so Georgia suggested she and Lizzie do the same thing.
Looking on from the side, she pointed out some errors. “You
need to keep your columns more neatly. Your figures tend to drift.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lizzie said with a look.
“I like numbers,” Georgia said. “They’re precise.”
“Mine aren’t.” Lizzie pushed the ledger over to her. “You look at that while I go over the inventory.”
Georgia began but said, “I wonder what state the Dracy accounts are in.”
“A magnificent mess, I’m sure.”
Georgia smiled at the thought. Lizzie rolled her eyes but chuckled.
Georgia enjoyed putting Lizzie’s ledger in order, and when she was with Dracy again, she asked, “Is the bookkeeping at Dracy in a shameful state?”
“Completely neglected for years. Now, what has you looking so cheerful?”
“I enjoy numbers.”
“Can I hope that extends to cards? I think whist is proposed.”
“How good are you?” she asked.
“Tolerable.”
“Then we’d best play for tiny stakes. So impolite to beggar one’s hosts.”