Lady Elinor's Wicked Adventures (28 page)

Harry said nothing.

“Think of your sisters. In a few years they will be grown. You can't expect an earl's daughters to be brought out from a house in Pimlico.”

“That is not a problem,” said Elinor. “Harry's sisters now live with us, and I am sure I can manage to bring them out. If I have any difficulties, I can always call on my mother.” She smiled serenely.

Lady Doncaster looked at her son, suddenly uncertain.

He smiled. “You don't really think I would allow my sisters to remain with a woman who thinks nothing of entertaining her lover in what should be a house of mourning?”

She stared at her son with narrowed eyes. “He told you, didn't he? The old fool.”

“Told me?” Harry was trying to appear imperturbable.

“Told you what I said to him when you were born—that you probably weren't his. God, he was so stupid. Such a stupid, boring prig.”

“A prig? The earl? That is hardly the way I would describe him.”

Harry was still leaning casually against the mantel. Elinor wondered if his mother could see how tense Harry really was, how coiled, ready to spring. Probably not. She did not seem to be a perceptive woman.

The countess laughed shortly. “You should have seen him back then. Chortling with delight over a puny, mewling infant. And I was feeling sick as a dog. I couldn't stand it. I had to do something to prick that inflated bag of smugness.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you lied to him?” Harry's hand was clenched so tightly the knuckles were bloodless. Elinor didn't think the countess could see it from where she stood, but she reached up to put her hand on his anyway. If he struck his mother, he would regret it later. His hand was icy, and she wrapped her fingers around it to try to restore some warmth. Slowly it relaxed and wrapped around hers in turn.

Lady Doncaster looked at her son, an unpleasant smile twisting her lips. “You'd like to know, wouldn't you? You would like to be certain that you are Doncaster's son. You might be. You're smug and self-righteous enough. But that means the uncertainty will be good for you.” She stood and strolled to the door. “Very well, I will leave, and I think it unlikely that we shall meet again. I will let Dalrymple know when I decide which house I want.” She turned to look back. “It will take me a few days to pack, but this house is big enough for us to avoid unpleasant encounters.”

“Wait.” Elinor stood up.

The countess raised her brows, but paused.

“Excuse us, Harry. I need to speak to your mother.” He scowled and began to protest, but Elinor shook her head decisively and pushed him toward the door. “We need to come to an understanding. You can go give orders about having Lord Winters' things sent after him.”

Once the door was closed firmly behind him, she turned to face the older woman. They were of a height. The equal footing made it easier to speak without any pretense of subtlety. “You will not cause Harry or his sisters any further distress.”

“I? How could I possibly distress them?” Lady Doncaster looked amused. “I see them so rarely I hardly recognize them.”

Elinor was not amused. “You will create no more scandals. You will behave with at least outward propriety. And you will continue to keep away from your children.”

That ended Lady Doncaster's amusement as well. “Why, you sanctimonious little brat. How dare you presume to order my behavior? I will live as I please, just as I always have.”

“No. You have shamed Harry and his sisters enough. There will be no more of that.”

Lady Doncaster's smile was more like a sneer. “And just why do you think I should pay any attention to a child like you? Do you think I am powerless? I have friends who could make your life miserable if I choose.”

“Do you? I think not. You forget that I have a family and friends myself, and I do not think your friends would care to make enemies of mine. You saw how quickly Lord Winters took his departure. He knows how much difficulty my parents could make for him, were he to offend me.”

Elinor saw doubt begin to creep into Lady Doncaster's expression and smiled implacably. “You see, the queen, who rather admires my mother, wrote to Harry and me, wishing us well in our marriage. Her Majesty also expressed the hope that this meant an end to scandals in the de Vaux family.”

“As if it matters what they say of me in that pompous, prudish court.”

“You will find that it matters to many people, even to those you call your friends. I doubt you have any who care for you enough to risk their own positions in society. If you do not wish to change your habits, I suggest you take up residence abroad. It's a pity you can't enter a convent, but you might like Vienna, or perhaps St. Petersburg.”

“I don't believe it. You can't be serious.”

Elinor shrugged.

“Harry would not let you…”

“Do you seriously think that Harry would come to your defense? You have brought him and his sisters nothing but shame and scandal all their lives. Be grateful it has not occurred to him that he could have you clapped into an asylum as a depraved lunatic.”

Elinor almost laughed at the expression of horror on the woman's face. She truly did not know her son at all. Harry would die before he did such a thing to anyone. Fortunately, he had a wife who would make any threats necessary to protect him, and his sisters as well. “Your departure from England would be the least painful solution for all of us,” she said.

A snarl escaped from the countess before she caught herself up and looked coldly at Elinor. “I will consider what you have said.”

“One more thing. Harry's sisters will be arriving later today. You will not distress them with your complaints.”

She shrugged. “Why would I even see them? There is privacy enough for all of us. We need not meet again.”

Then she was gone, leaving Elinor half triumphant, half aghast. She collapsed into a chair to collect herself, hardly believing her own success. Without the tension that had held her upright, her legs would not hold her up. When she was able, she hurried off to find Harry.

He was in the library, staring at the portrait of the late earl. She wrapped her arms tightly around him, wanting to wrap him in her love, and could feel the trembling begin. It grew stronger until he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight until it subsided. He was still pale, but he seemed to have regained control of himself.

“She may have lied just to make him miserable. She destroyed him in a fit of pique. What kind of woman would do that? Is that my heritage?”

“You inherit nothing from her. She gave birth to you. That is the only connection between you.”

He shook his head. “Now you know why I wanted to keep you far away from her.”

“She is nothing to me, so she cannot hurt me. But she had the power to hurt you. I didn't want you to have to face her alone.”

“He may well have been my father. I should have…”

She put a hand to his lips to stop him. “There is nothing you should have done, nothing you could have done. When did he ever take on a father's role? He was no more your father than she was your mother. He made his choices just as she did, and you are not responsible for them.”

He cupped her face in his hands and moved his thumbs across her cheeks in a gentle caress. “I do love you. You are a very fierce champion, wife.”

“That I am.” She smiled and tugged at him. “Now come along. We have to locate the housekeeper and find out where your sisters should be put. Then we have to make this a home for them.”

“And then we will build our own life with our own family. Not like mine.”

“And not like mine, either. But our own. After all, we make a good team, do we not?”

“We do. Oh, indeed we do.”

Bradenham Abbey, 1861

“Mama, Mama, this way. Come see.” His little legs churning, young Viscount Tunbury raced at surprising speed down the neglected portrait gallery of the Abbey. It had become a favorite rainy-day playroom ever since he and Nurse discovered it. Its length offered space for running with a minimum of things to crash into. He stopped before a large family group near the end of the gallery. “Here.”

His mother, laughing gently at his excitement, followed at a somewhat more subdued pace. “What have you found, Will? Another knight in armor?”

“Me,” he said proudly. “My picture.”

“Oh, I don't think so.” Then she stopped in front of the portrait. Most of the paintings in this gallery were mediocre portraits of unimportant and long-forgotten members of the family, and this was one she had never noticed before. She glanced at it, and then she stopped and stared. It was a family portrait, the father in a dark coat with one of those elaborate neck cloths wrapped around his throat, the mother in a simple white dress that looked almost like a nightgown, and a child, a little boy, wearing a red velvet jacket.

Will pointed at the little boy in the painting, a little boy with the same brown curls as his, the same brown eyes, even the same way of standing with his head tilted to the side. “It's me.”

The silence stretched out as she stared at the painting. “No, my sweet,” she said at last, “not quite you. That's a portrait of your grandfather, Papa's father, when he was a child.”

He frowned. “It looks like me.”

“Yes it does, indeed it does.”

“I like it.”

“I like it too.”

“Will Papa like it?”

She bent over to hug her son. “I think that when Papa sees it, he will like it too. Very much indeed.”

Lillian Marek's Victorian Adventures continue with

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Constantinople, March 1861

The British Embassy in Constantinople was a major disappointment. With its neoclassical facade and geometrical flower beds, it would have looked right at home had it been set down around the corner from Penworth House in London. Inside it was furnished in the latest English style, with Scottish landscapes hanging on the walls and Wilton carpets on the floor.

Emily heaved a sigh. Constantinople had looked so promising when they arrived this morning, with the city rising up out of the morning mists, white and shining with turrets and domes and balconies everywhere. The long, narrow boats in the harbor all sported bright sails. It had been so new and strange and exotic. Now here she was, walking with Julia behind her parents on Wilton carpets. Wilton carpets imported from Salisbury! When even she knew that this part of the world was famous for its carpets.

The doors at the end of the hall were flung open and a butler, dressed precisely as he would have been in London, announced, “The Most Honorable the Marquess of Penworth. The Most Honorable the Marchioness of Penworth. The Lady Emily Tremaine. The Lady Julia de Vaux.”

They might just as well never have left home.

Emily smiled the insipid smile she reserved for her parents' political friends—the smile intended to assure everyone that she was sweet and docile—and prepared to be bored. She was very good at pretending to be whatever she was expected to be. Next to her, she could feel Julia straighten her already perfect posture. She reached over to squeeze her friend's hand.

“Lord Penworth, Lady Penworth, allow me to welcome you to Constantinople.” A ruddy-faced gentleman with thinning gray hair on his head and a thinning gray beard on his chin, inclined his head. “And this must be your daughter, Lady Emily?” He looked somewhere between the two young women, as if uncertain which one to address.

Emily took pity on him and curtsied politely.

He looked relieved, and turned to Julia. “And Lady Julia?”

She performed a similar curtsy.

“My husband and I are delighted to welcome such distinguished visitors to Constantinople,” said the small, gray woman who was standing stiffly beside the ambassador, ignoring the fact that he had been ignoring her.

Emily blinked. She knew marital disharmony when she heard it. She also knew how unpleasant it could make an evening.

“We are delighted to be here, Lady Bulwer,” said Lord Penworth courteously. “This part of the world is new to us, and we have all been looking forward to our visit.” He turned to the ambassador. “I understand that you, Sir Henry, are quite familiar with it.”

“Tolerably well, tolerably well. I'm told you're here to study the possibility of a railroad along the Tigris River valley. Can't quite see it myself.” Before the ambassador realized it, Lord Penworth had cut him out of the herd of women and was shepherding him off to the side.

In the sudden quiet, Lady Penworth smiled at her hostess and gestured at the room about them. “I am most impressed by the way you have managed to turn this embassy into a bit of England,” she said. “If I did not know, I would think myself still in London.”

Lady Bulwer looked both pleased and smug. She obviously failed to note any hint of irony in Lady Penworth's words. Emily recognized the signs. Her parents would out-diplomat the diplomats, smoothing over any bumps of disharmony in the Bulwer household, and conversation would flow placidly through conventional channels. Boring, but unexceptionable. And only too familiar.

Then Julia touched her arm.

Still looking straight ahead, and still with a faint, polite smile on her face, Julia indicated that Emily should look at the left-hand corner of the room. Emily had never understood how it was that Julia could send these messages without making a sound or even moving her head, but send them she did.

In this case, it was a message Emily received with interest. Off in the corner were two young men pretending to examine a huge globe while they took sideways glances at the newcomers. This was much more promising than the possibility of trouble between the ambassador and his wife. Refusing to pretend a lack of curiosity—she was growing tired, very tired, of pretending—she looked straight at them.

One was an extraordinarily handsome man, clean-shaven to display a beautifully sculpted mouth and a square jaw. His perfectly tailored black tailcoat outlined a tall, broad-shouldered physique. The blinding whiteness of his shirt and bow tie contrasted with the slight olive cast of his skin. His hair was almost black, and his dark eyes betrayed no awareness of her scrutiny. He stood with all the bored elegance of the quintessential English gentleman. Bored and probably boring.

The other man looked far more interesting. He was not so tall—slim and wiry, rather than powerful looking—and not nearly so handsome. His nose was quite long—assertive might be a polite way to describe it—and his tanned face was long and narrow. Like his companion, he was clean-shaven, though his hair, a dark brown, was in need of cutting. While his evening clothes were perfectly proper, they were worn carelessly, and he waved his hands about as he spoke in a way that seemed definitely un-English. He noticed immediately when she turned her gaze on him and turned to return her scrutiny. She refused to look away, even when he unashamedly examined her from head to toe. His eyes glinted with amusement, and he gave her an appreciative grin and salute.

The cheek of him! She laughed out loud, making Julia hiss and drawing the attention of her mother and Lady Bulwer. Sir Henry must have noticed something as well, for he waved the young men over to be introduced to Papa.

They both stopped a proper distance away, and the handsome one waited with an almost military stiffness. Sir Henry introduced him first. “This is David Oliphant, Lord Penworth. He's with the Foreign Office and will be your aide and guide on the journey. He knows the territory and can speak the lingo. All the lingos, in fact—Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic, whatever you run into along the way.”

Oliphant bowed. “Honored, my lord.”

Lord Penworth smiled. “My pleasure.”

“And this young man is Lucien Chambertin. He's on his way back to Mosul where he's been working with Carnac, digging up stone beasts or some such.”

“The remains of Nineveh, Sir Henry.” Chambertin then turned to Lord Penworth with a brief, graceful bow and a smile. “I am most pleased to make your acquaintance, my lord, for I am hoping you will allow me to impose on you and join your caravan for the journey to Mosul.”

He spoke excellent English, with just a hint of a French accent. Just the perfect hint, Emily decided. Sir Henry was not including the ladies in his introductions, to her annoyance, so she had been obliged to position herself close enough to hear what they were saying. This was one of the rare occasions when she was grateful for her crinolines. They made it impossible for the ladies to stand too close to one another, so she placed herself to the rear of her mother. From that position, she could listen to the gentlemen's conversation while appearing to attend to the ladies'. What's more, from her angle she could watch them from the corner of her eye without being obvious.

“I cannot imagine why you should not join us,” Lord Penworth told the Frenchman. “I understand that in Mesopotamia it is always best to travel in a large group. You are one of these new archaeologists, are you?”

Chambertin gave one of those Gallic shrugs. “Ah no, nothing so grand. I am just a passing traveler, but I cannot resist the opportunity to see the ruins of Nineveh when the opportunity offers itself. And then when Monsieur Carnac says he has need of assistance, I agree to stay for a while.”

“Well, my wife will certainly find the ruins interesting. She has developed quite a fascination with the ancient world.”

Oliphant looked startled. “Your wife? But surely Lady Penworth does not intend to accompany us.”

“Of course.” Lord Penworth in turn looked startled at the question. “I could hardly deny her the opportunity to see the ancient cradle of civilization. Not when I am looking forward to it myself.”

“I'm sorry. I was told you were traveling to view the possible site of a railway.”

“I am.” Penworth smiled. “That is my excuse for this trip. General Chesney has been urging our government to build a railway from Basra to Constantinople. His argument is that it would provide much quicker and safer communication with India. Palmerston wanted me to take a look and see if there would be any other use for it.”

The ambassador snorted. “Not much. There's nothing of any use or interest in this part of the world except for those huge carvings that fellows like Carnac haul out of the ground.”

The handsome Mr. Oliphant looked worried. Before he could say anything, dinner was announced, the remaining introductions were finally made, and Emily found herself walking in to dinner on the arm of M. Chambertin. He had behaved quite correctly when they were introduced and held out his arm in perfectly proper fashion. He said nothing that would have been out of place in the most rigidly proper setting imaginable. Nonetheless, she suspected that he had been well aware of her eavesdropping. There was a decidedly improper light dancing in his eyes.

She liked it.

About dinner she was less certain. The oxtail soup had been followed by lobster rissoles, and now a footman placed a slice from the roast sirloin of beef on her plate, where it joined the spoonful of mashed turnips and the boiled onion. The onion had been quite thoroughly boiled. It was finding it difficult to hold its shape and had begun to tilt dispiritedly to one side.

“This is really quite a remarkable meal,” Lady Penworth said to their hostess. “Do you find it difficult to obtain English food here?”

“You've no idea.” Lady Bulwer sighed sadly. “It has taken me ages to convince the cook that plain boiled vegetables are what we want. You can't imagine the outlandish spices he wants to use. And the olive oil! It's a constant struggle.”

“And in that battle, the food lost,” muttered Emily, poking the onion into total collapse.

A snort from M. Chambertin at her side indicated that her words had not gone unheard. After using his napkin, he turned to her. “You do not care for
rosbif
?” he asked with a grin. “I thought all the English eat nothing else.”

“We are in
Constantinople
, thousands of miles from home, and we might as well be in Tunbridge Wells.”

He made a sympathetic grimace. “Perhaps while your
papa
goes to look at the railway route, Sir Henry can find you a guide who will show you and your friend a bit of Constantinople. You should really see the Topkapi—the old palace—and the bazaar.”

“Oh, but we aren't going to be staying here. Julia and I are going with my parents.”

Mr. Oliphant, who had been speaking quietly with Julia, heard that and looked around in shock. “Lady Emily, you and Lady Julia and Lady Penworth are
all
planning to go to Mosul? Surely not. I cannot believe your father will allow this.”

Emily sighed. She was accustomed to such reactions.
Lady Emily, you cannot possibly mean… Lady Emily, surely you do not intend…
All too often, she had restrained herself and done what was expected. She intended this trip to be different. Still, she was curious as well as annoyed. Was Mr. Oliphant about to urge propriety, or was there some other reason for his distress? “Why should we not?” she asked.

Mr. Oliphant took a sip of wine, as if to calm himself. Or fortify himself. It was impossible to be certain. He cleared his throat. “I fear Lord Penworth may not be fully aware of the difficulties—dangers, even—of travel in this part of the world. The caravan route through Aleppo and Damascus and then across the desert is hazardous under the best of circumstances, and these days…” He shook his head.

“My friend does not exaggerate,” put in M. Chambertin, looking serious. “Although the recent massacres in the Lebanon seem to be at an end, brigands have become more bold, and even the largest caravans—they are not safe.”

“But we are not planning to take that route.” Emily looked at Julia for confirmation and received it. “We are to sail to Samsun on the Black Sea, travel by caravan over the mountains to Diyarbakir, and then down the river to Mosul. And eventually on to Baghdad and Basra. Papa discussed it all with people back in London when he and Lord Palmerston were planning the route. So you need not worry.” She smiled to reassure the gentlemen.

M. Chambertin and Mr. Oliphant exchanged glances, trying to decide which should speak. It fell to Mr. Oliphant. “I do not question your father's plan, Lady Emily. These days that is by far the safer route, though no place is entirely safe from attacks by brigands. However, he may have underestimated the physical difficulties of the trip. The mountains—these are not gentle little hills like the ones you find in England. They are barren and rocky, and we will cross them on roads that are little more than footpaths. It is impossible to take a carriage. If they do not go on foot, travelers must go on horseback or on mules. And this early in the year, it will still be bitterly cold, especially at night.”