Lady Pamela (25 page)

Your father is bankrupt
was not something any young woman of the
ton
wished to hear.

“He bought a carriage and four just last week!” protested Milly.

“All on credit,” said Annabelle, who understood, from Jason, exactly how these things were done.

“But–but he’s an
earl
!” Millicent was repeating herself.

“And Prince George,” said Belle, “is a prince.”

Lady Millicent considered this. The debts of the Prince Regent and his brothers were notorious, but of such long standing, and so absurdly large, that she had simply never made the connection between the affairs of royalty and those of lesser folk. That Prince George had been forced to marry–unhappily–for money she knew; that this had any relationship to her own life was unfathomable. But, according to Lady Annabelle, so it was.

Millicent had little true affection for her father, who had never spared her a kind word or moment’s attention, but she had always felt the respect due him as a gentleman and an earl. But how could she respect someone who preferred a new carriage over his own daughter’s welfare? Milly had never handled more than a five pound note, but she was sure a fine barouche and four beautiful horses cost dear. She recalled all the other expenses her parents were in the habit of incurring, the new gowns that arrived for her mother almost weekly, the jewelry, the fancy watch fobs and gold snuff boxes...

“Then it was all for money,” she said finally. “Lord Castlereaugh, I mean.”

Lady Annabelle saw no reason to spin fibs with her answer. “Yes,” she told Milly. “Jason says that if your father does not get the cash before the new year, he’ll be rolled up.”

“What does that mean, exactly?” Millicent had never paid much attention details of finance.

This was even more difficult. “He could be sent to prison,” said Annabelle.

“
Prison
–” squeaked Millicent. She and Lady Annabelle were sitting in one of the Lady Tate’s roomy window seats, and as far from the rest of the group as possible, but her voice carried. The dowager Marchioness of Amesbury turned in their direction and glared.

“Shh!” said Belle.

Both girls smiled apologetically to the marchioness. Lady Tate’s soprano had begun one of the arias from
Così fan tutte
; Milly and Annabelle remained silent, hands in lap, for several minutes, their attention ostensibly focused on the music.

É amore un ladroncello,
sang the soprano, Dorabella cajoling Fiordiligi.

Un serpentello . . .

Love is a thief. A snake . . .

“I must speak to Lord Peabody,” Millicent said suddenly, when the dowager’s attention had returned to Mozart.

“Oh, for the love of–” Lady Annabelle could have cried in exasperation. Lord Peabody?
Clarence
Peabody? He was the last person who could possibly be of any help.

“You don’t need the viscount,” she told Millicent. “For heaven’s sake, Milly, you have the
duke
. I’m sure he’s arranged for the settlements with Lord Chambers. Everything will be fine.”

Millicent was momentarily diverted. “Settlements?”

“
Money
, goose. To pay what your father owes.”

Milly frowned, biting her lip. Despite Annabelle’s dire announcements, she still could not comprehend that the earl might be in any real difficulty. She had never known a member of the
haut ton
to be jailed for debt. Such things did not happen to the nobility.

“I must speak with Clarence,” insisted Milly. “I can borrow one of my father’s coaches, and we will run away to Scotland. By the time they find us, Lord Peabody and I will already be married.”

The money would come from somewhere, she was thinking. The money must come from somewhere. Perhaps the Peabody family–

Belle shook her head, which was swimming. What on earth was Milly babbling about? First Lord Castlereaugh had been set aside in favor of the Duke of Grentham–and Lady Annabelle had no quibble there, although it was unfortunate that Milly had suffered an assault to bring this about–but
now
they were back to Lord Peabody.

“Millicent,” she said patiently. “Think. The duke is one of the wealthiest men in England. He’s a duke, for heaven’s sake. You can learn to love him–
I
certainly could–and he will learn to love you. Arrangements such as this are made all the time.”

“But that’s just it. I cannot marry Lord Torrance no matter how rich he is,” said Lady Millicent. “I didn’t have time to tell you yet, but–”

“What?” hissed Lady Annabelle, in flat outrage. If Millicent tells me, thought Belle, that she refuses to marry anyone other than Clarence Peabody, that gapeseed, that insignificant, repulsive little worm, I vow I will scream.

“Don’t be a goose,” she told Milly. “The duke has ten times the consequence of Clarence, a hundred times! And he’s
handsome
.”

“The Duke of Grentham,” said Lady Millicent, “is in love with Lady Pamela Sinclair.”

In love. The words hung in the air. Annabelle stared at Millicent.

“In love?” she whispered. “How can you know that?”

“I saw them, today–”

“Today!”

“Shh!” hissed the Marchioness of Amesbury.

“–in Hyde Park. Lord Torrance had taken me for a drive, and we came up to this carriage–it was the most gorgeous barouche you’ve ever seen, Belle, painted in green and gold–and there were two ladies sitting there, and a young gentleman, Lord Detweiler–I danced with him at the ball, you know–”

Lady Annabelle raised her eyebrows.

“Oh, you do so remember, I told you, Belle–at any rate, the one woman is Lord Detweiler’s cousin, but the other was Lady Pamela Sinclair–”

“Milly. Take a breath.”

“–and I knew, the moment I saw them, that they were in love. So I can’t marry Lord Torrance, and I
must
see Lord Peabody.”

Annabelle sighed, giving up. She knew Lady Millicent a great deal better than Milly’s own father did, and was well aware of the stubborn streak in her friend’s character. If Millicent was determined on seeing Clarence Peabody, then she would see Clarence Peabody, and ’twas better if the matter was arranged carefully, in a manner not likely to get either of them in trouble.

“Oh, all right,” she told Milly. “I’ll talk to Jason.”

* * * *

Amanda had not wanted to leave Lady Pamela to her own devices that evening, but Pam insisted, and now she walked alone, through the small and bitter sea of her rose garden, where the few remaining blooms shone softly in the light of a waning moon.

Engaged. Engaged. And no way out, no possibility of reprieve. The Earl of Banbridge would never allow Millicent to cry off, and Lord Torrance would never allow it of himself.

And she knew, as well, that she would now never marry. The Duke of Grentham was to have been her husband. There could be only one such man in her life.

Lady Pam felt anger at herself and, when she could no longer endure that misery, anger at Lord Torrance.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Lady Pamela spent most of that next day, both morning and afternoon, doing violence to her garden.

All flowers benefited from a good pruning, she told herself. ’Twas good for them. She made a last assault on the rosebushes and then applied herself to the nasturtium and the sweet peas, which were uprooted by the score, finally turning her attention to the poppies. The poppies were a scandal, and Lady Pamela was happily occupied with that problem until early tea.

In the evening she began to plan her remove to the country. Pam and Lady Detweiler always spent the Christmas holidays at Luton Court. No-one would mind if she left London a month early this year, and Amanda could always follow when she wished. Jonathan and Celia–her brother, the marquess, and his wife–would remain in town for some weeks yet, but that was all to the better. A spell of solitary in the wilds of Bedfordshire would be just the thing, and it would give her a chance to talk with Luton’s steward, and to review the winter provisions made for their tenants.

Jonathan tended to be forgetful in these details. Lady Pamela remembered the year she had returned from a trip to Paris a few days before Christmas, only to discover that neither wood nor a store of peat had been laid in for the cottagers’ hearth fires, and that the marquess, oblivious, had spent the week shooting with his guests.

“Yes, yes–” he had sputtered, when Pamela brought the matter to his attention. “But they can cut down a tree or two, can they not?”

“Wet, green wood? ’Twill smoke worse than the peat.”

“Ah, well–”

“Harrison!” Lady Pam had called, and she and the steward had managed to work it out before anyone starved or was frozen.

Bedfordshire, of course, was where she had met the Duke of Grentham. But Lady Pamela would not hold that against the place, and she began packing, arranging for her trunks to be brought down from the attic, and for various items of warm clothing to be aired in preparation for the trip.

 * * * *

Lady Millicent held back sobs.

“Drive on!” she said to the Fitzroy’s coachman, attempting a shout, but her voice was hoarse with unshed tears, and the man did not hear. Millicent banged against the roof of the coach with her parasol; the carriage jerked forward and they began, once again, a slow journey through the streets of London.

Clarence Peabody did not love her. Had never loved her, thought Millicent, for true love did not wilt under some trifling inconvenience of money.

And Lord Peabody had left no doubt of his feelings on
that
subject. Millicent’s lips formed a
moue
of disgust as she remembered how he had near to fainted at her first mention of Gretna Green.

“What? What? Don’t be a goose,” Clarence had gasped, panicked and edging away from Milly as far as he dared. “We can’t marry. You’ve no fortune, and neither have I.”

“We could make do, somehow. I’m sure–”

“Make do?” Clarence stared at her as if she had just suggested an evening’s swim in the Thames. He wiped his brow and glanced about nervously, perhaps expecting Lord Chambers to pop out from behind the nearest bush. “Make
do
?”

“But–”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” said Lord Peabody. He was still attempting, without success, to catch his breath. “It’s late. I must leave.”

He’d nearly jumped from the carriage in his haste, although by that point Milly was hard pressed not to push him.

Hateful person
, thought Millicent, who had yet to master Lady Annabelle’s vocabulary of insult.
Hateful, hateful person
. She threw a cushion out the carriage window, and regretted it immediately, for ’twas the Fitzroy’s cushion and not the earl’s. She stuck out her tongue and blew, a horrible, razzing sound.

She began to feel a little better.

Well, she could live without him, thought Lady Millicent. Live without that stupid,
hateful
man. She almost laughed out loud. She would be a duchess! She would marry the Duke of Grentham, and be a duchess, and have ten children, and every one of them would be far higher
ton
than that miserable, mushroomy Clarence Peabody!

The Duchess of Grentham.

Milly’s sudden good humour evaporated. She wanted to be married. She had always wanted to marry someday, and have a husband, and children, and a home of her own. And there was the problem. If she married the Duke of Grentham, none of it would be
of her own
, would it? ’Twould all belong, in the duke’s heart, to Lady Pamela.

Lady Millicent, suddenly energized, stuck her head out the window of the coach.

“Driver?” she queried.

“Yes, milady?” said the coachman, sounding a bit hesitant. He was an older man, selected by Jason and Annabelle as unfailingly loyal to their family and unlikely to spread gossip. He had also received careful instructions from the Fitzroy siblings concerning Lady Millicent, and Lord Peabody, and about
not
driving outside the confines of Mayfair.

“Driver, can you find Audley Square?”

“Ah. Yes, milady,” said the man, relieved that the young lady’s instructions sent them nowhere near Scotland. He clucked at his team.

* * * *

Benjamin, indulging in a second brandy, had stretched out on the sofa in the newly renovated music room when he heard a light, almost tentative knock at the front door. Silence followed. Josiah was somewhere belowstairs, it seemed; probably chatting with Mrs. Throckmorton, for Benjamin had been amused to notice an association forming between the housekeeper and his valet.

And Marchers House had no butler as yet. Benjamin went to answer the door himself, wondering who would be paying a call in the early hours of the evening.

He found his heart racing. But it couldn’t be her, he knew. It couldn’t.

Yesterday afternoon, in the park, Lady Pamela had scarcely seemed to recognize him. But her smiles had been warm for Lady Millicent, and the introductions had been performed without a hitch. Lord Torrance chided himself for expecting anything less, for being worried, when he saw her carriage, that the meeting would be awkward.

No, Pamela Sinclair had been courtesy itself, and Benjamin thought that Lady Millicent could have had no possible complaint about her reception by his...friends. He found himself imagining the years to come, years seeing
her
during an afternoon’s drive in the park, and at balls and
soirées
and other events of town society. He could not avoid London. He could hardly keep Lady Millicent permanently ensconced in Wiltshire, separated from her family and friends, regardless of what he might wish for himself.

The years of hearing Lady Pamela’s name mentioned, the moment he would learn of her marriage, meeting her husband and children . . .

Her husband.

Benjamin’s heart skipped a beat, then thudded painfully back to life. His steps quickened across the marble floor of the entrance hall, and he opened the door of Marchers with somewhat more force than was necessary. A young woman stood there, apparently of gentle birth, although
sans
maid. Her face was partially covered with a shawl, and ’twas a moment before recognition came.