Miss Hartwell's Dilemma (17 page)

When she made no move to obey, he bent down, lifted her ankles, and deposited them on the stool. She felt too weak to protest, so she contented herself with glaring at him before she leaned back and closed her eyes. She heard him chuckle, and then the door closed softly. Bertram never laughed at her or ordered her about, she thought with drowsy indignation.

When she woke, the brass clock on the mantel said ten past two. On the table beside her a tray held a glass of lemonade, an apple, a pear, and two slices of chicken. Consumed with thirst, she drank the lemonade at a draught before she realised that Lord Daniel was standing near a window, watching her.

“Definitely feverish,” he said, moving towards her. “I shall have several rooms made up and you shall all stay here until you are recovered. One of the grooms may take a message to Castle Hedingham.”

“Quite impossible. I feel very much better.”

“If you are concerned about propriety, I shall take a room at the inn in Wimbish. Now, will you eat something?”

Disarmed by his calmness, she admitted that the pear looked singularly succulent.

“Let me core it for you.”

Picking up the silver fruit knife and fork, he neatly cut it into quarters. Amaryllis watched his hands, the long, strong-looking fingers with their neatly trimmed, immaculate nails. He cored one piece, and was about to start on the second when he dropped the knife with a clatter. As he tried to retrieve it, his fingers refused to obey him. For a moment he looked very young and utterly vulnerable.

“What is wrong with your arm?” Curiosity and compassion overcame Amaryllis’s good breeding. A moment later she cursed herself as a painful flush mantled his lean cheeks and he scowled at her.

“That is none of your business, ma’am. The fact that I have placed my daughter in your care does not give you leave to pry into my personal affairs.”

“I have no intention of prying.” Knowing herself in the wrong, she spoke coldly. “I merely meant to express my sympathy.”

“I have no need of your sympathy, Miss Hartwell. I beg you will keep it to yourself.”

“You may be sure that in future I shall.” He was detestable. She had been right to resist coming to this place. She stood up. “It is time we were leaving. May I request that you order the carriage and inform the girls that they must get ready to depart?”

“By all means, ma’am. I shall send Prosser to you immediately, and the coach will be at your disposal in fifteen minutes. Good day, ma’am.” He bowed curtly and strode out of the room.

As her annoyance faded, Amaryllis shivered. It was most fortunate that they had quarrelled, she thought, or she would have been seriously tempted to accept his invitation to stay. She felt wretchedly ill, and all she wanted to do was to retire to bed and sleep forever.

However, she roused herself to speak cheerfully to the girls. She asked them what they had found to do, and half-listened as they described the bonfire they had managed to have despite the rain, the guy dressed in Lord Daniel’s old clothes, the roasted chestnuts and delicious half-raw potatoes. She had forgotten it was Guy Fawkes’ Day.

Settling in the carriage, she braced herself to endure the journey. Grey afternoon was merging into dusk when they reached the school. As the coachman helped Amaryllis down from the carriage, she leaned heavily on his arm. He peered at her from under his bushy eyebrows.

“If ye bain’t sick, miss--Here’s a fine to-do! Let me help ye to the house now. Whatever possessed ye to go ajauntering about in sich a state?”

“Thank you, Grayson.” She cut off the flow of soothing words as they reached the door and fumbled in her reticule for a shilling.

He put his weather-tanned paw over her hand. “Never ye mind now, miss. Get ye inside and warmed up. Miss Isabel, fetch someone to yer teacher right smart now.”

Amaryllis stumbled across the threshold and stopped short as Bertram strode into the vestibule.

“I hear you’ve been visiting that fellow Winterborne again,” he said, his face unwontedly grim. “What the devil do you mean by it?”

Amaryllis slapped his face, burst into tears, and headed on leaden feet for the staircase.

When she woke, very late the next morning, she was much improved. Aches and fever were gone, and a huge bouquet of red rosebuds on her dressing table did a great deal for her state of mind. She assumed they were from Bertram. Where he had found them in the depths of the country in November was a mystery, but surely it meant he had forgiven her for her imprudent visit to Wimbish and her behaviour last night. There was a note propped against the vase. She started to sit up to go and get it, but a sudden dizziness overwhelmed her. She lay back lethargically and breathed the roses’ perfume.

A few minutes later, Daisy peeped round the door. “Are you awake, miss? How do you feel?”

“Lazy. I should be glad of some tea, Daisy, and will you pass me that letter, if you please.”

“Right, miss. You got a light dose of the grippe if you’re better a’ready.”

“Yes, thank Heaven.” She opened the note as the maid slipped out.

Bertram offered his profound apologies for his Turkish treatment of her when she was ill. He knew very well that her visit to Wimbish had been perfectly innocent and unexceptionable, and his only wish was to remove her from a situation where her duties included such undesirable acquaintances.

Unreasonably irritated, Amaryllis tore the paper in half and dropped it on the floor.

Mrs. Vaux appeared, bearing tea and shortbread and a bowl of something she referred to as “a strengthening broth.” Amaryllis drank it with docility and ate a piece of shortbread when informed that Cook had made it specially. Mrs. Vaux then went to the dressing table and brought back a box, tied with a red velvet ribbon, that Amaryllis had not noticed.

“From Bertram, my love,” she said. “He was shockingly distressed to find you absent when he arrived yesterday. He is on his way from Tatenhill to London and can stay here only a few days.”

Amaryllis opened the box. It held chocolate-covered cherries. She offered them to her aunt, then popped one into her mouth. The sweet, juicy stickiness took her back to London days, to the handsome, dashing young Corinthian she had fallen in love with.

Of course she loved Bertram! She ate another bonbon, then closed the box. They were sweeter than she remembered, a trifle sickly. She drank some tea.

“Shall you allow Bertram to come and see me here, Aunt?” she asked. “I believe I shall not go down today, if you can manage without me.”

 “Of course we can, and of course you must stay in bed until you are perfectly recovered, and no, I shall certainly not allow Bertram to visit you in your bedchamber.”

“I thought not. I should like something light to read, if you please, though I daresay I shall sleep again presently. If Bertram comes, pray give him my thanks for the flowers and the chocolates. Is Mr. Raeburn here?”

“Yes, and wearing a prodigious long face. Miss Tisdale too is not happy, I think, though it is hard to tell because she is never precisely full of fun and gig. I need not tell you that he did not come up to scratch yesterday. However, I believe I have discovered a weak spot in Augusta’s armour.”

“You would not have been telling a bouncer these past weeks if you gave her to suppose we had opened a fever hospital.”

Mrs. Vaux brushed this aside impatiently. “No, no. I decided it was time to learn why she does not care to live with her brother in London. Amaryllis, her brother is butler to Lord Langston! I was never more shocked in my life. He is something of a black sheep in the family, for they are of gentle birth of course. Augusta is quite ashamed to have a close relative in service, even in so respectable a position.”

“You must be on terms of great intimacy for her to have admitted to such a thing, which is very clever of you but I cannot see how that will help us.”

“No, and I was quite cast down into the dumps when she said it, for she cannot possibly make her home with a butler. Only think what they would say in the servants’ hall, even if Lord Langston were to allow it, which is not in the least likely. I daresay the brother has no more than a room or two to himself. But then I mentioned that I was well acquainted with dear Millicent, and I claimed to have noticed that her household was particularly well run. Augusta begged my pardon and asked if I was referring to Lady Langston. I saw she was impressed at my speaking so familiarly of a person of such consequence, so I went on chattering about all our London acquaintance and the people I knew when dear Mr. Vaux was alive. Her eyes grew quite round and she did not interrupt me once. She has a vastly overrated idea of the superiority and exclusiveness of the Ton, my dear, and I have raised myself several notches in her estimation simply by telling her I once spoke to the Prince Regent. The King, that is.”

“I hope you have dragged Tizzy and me up behind you,” said Amaryllis laughing.

“I did not mention that your papa is...was...is a viscount,” said Mrs. Vaux anxiously. “You said most particularly that you did not want it known.”

“Quite right. However, if Miss Raeburn is so easily overawed, I may in the end use the fact on Tizzy’s behalf. We shall see. You have done a magnificent job, dear Aunt. If I were the British Government I should hire you as a spy, but right now I am going to send you away and indulge myself with a doze.”

The next time Amaryllis woke she felt much of her strength restored, though she was still disinclined to dress and go below stairs. A bundle of newspapers beside her bed reminded her that she had asked for something light to read.

They were the latest numbers of the Morning Post, sent down by Mr. Majendie. They contained the reports of the defence phase of Queen Caroline’s trial, and Amaryllis read them with interest. The witnesses for the defence were not disreputable Italian servants but respectable English people who had met the Queen and her so-called Chamberlain abroad. They all claimed that they had seen nothing to make them suspect that Pergami might be the Queen’s lover.

Thomas Denman, Caroline’s Solicitor General, had taken two days for his summing up. The Queen, he claimed, was innocent of any wrongdoing, all of which had originated in the depraved minds of her Majesty’s degenerate Italian servants. At the end of an emotional peroration he quoted: “If no accuser can come forward to condemn thee, neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.”

The Tory Morning Post made hay of this contradiction, printing a verse it claimed was current in the capital:

Most gracious Queen, we thee implore

To go away and sin no more;

Or if that effort be too great,

To go away at any rate.

Amaryllis, in spite of her sympathy for the Queen, could not help giggling at this. She longed to know the final verdict, but that was the last of the pile of papers. She hoped the King’s suit would be thrown out, except that perhaps it might comfort Lord Daniel if the King were to be divorced, as he was himself. Not that Lord Daniel’s feelings meant anything to her.

Amaryllis went down to the common-room the next day, still a little shaky and well wrapped up. She reclined on a couch, feeling elegantly languid, while her pupils sat round her and read their compositions aloud. They were all touchingly happy to see her recovered, especially Isabel, who pulled her chair up close to the couch. When it was time to go to the next class, the little girl bent over her and kissed her cheek, then flushed scarlet, muttered “I am so glad you are well,” and fled.

Bertram came to take lunch with her while everyone else was in the dining room. He apologised again for having cut up stiff over nothing and would not hear a word of her explanations.

“Only say you forgive me, and we shall forget it ever happened,” he urged. “My only excuse is my disappointment in not finding you here as I had expected. I must be off to town tomorrow, and I doubt I shall be able to return until December. I shall say that I mean to escort Louise home for the holiday. Mr. Majendie has invited me to his Christmas assembly on the sixteenth, and I would not miss it for the world. It is six years since I danced with you.”

“The sixteenth? That is earlier than usual.”

“I understand he does not spend Christmas at the castle this year.”

“School does not end until the fifteenth. The day after is always utter chaos, with carriages and parents and servants running in and out all day. It is hardly the day I should choose to go to a ball.”

“But you will go. Your beauty is not of the sort that requires an entire day of primping and preening to appear to advantage. However, I warn you that if you intend to go in your greys and browns and wearing a cap like a spinster, I shall be forced to take matters into my own hands.”

“Oh?”

“I wager you’d not accept a gown from me, but my mother will be delighted to make a present of one to her future daughter-in-law.”

“That will not be necessary. I bought new gowns for all of us last summer, and we have been saving them for the Christmas party.”

“Is yours green, by any chance?”

“How well you know me, Bertram.” She smothered a sigh, thinking that marriage to Lord Pomeroy would be prodigious comfortable though sadly lacking in excitement.

His lordship looked complacent.

Soon Miss Hartwell’s next class came in. These were the older girls, with a tendency to ogle the handsome gentleman who was so unaccountably paying court to their old maid of a schoolmistress. Lord Pomeroy quickly made his escape, saying he was going for a ride and would return at four. When he did so, Amaryllis received him in the drawing room. Her aunt and Tizzy were there, seated discreetly as far from her as the small room allowed. After greeting his lordship they returned to their own conversation.

Bertram was looking particularly magnificent. His buckskin breeches were as closely moulded to his strong legs as was his coat to his broad shoulders. He brought a fresh breath of outside air into the room with him and sat down beside Amaryllis on the sofa. She raised her hand and smoothed his fair hair, ruffled by the wind. He caught that hand in his and kissed the palm. His lips were hot on her skin.