Sheri Cobb South (3 page)

“I don’t know what I want, Papa, but I am quite certain that Mr. Brundy is not it,” she said emphatically.

The duke’s brow lowered ominously. “I haven’t the luxury to wait while you reject all your suitors for some man who may not even exist. Were it not for the protection afforded by my title, I would have found myself in debtor’s prison long ere now.”

“Fortuitous, indeed!   What a pity the law offers no similar protection to women against other forms of imprisonment.”

“What is this nonsense about imprisonment? Mr. Brundy is not, I will grant you, genteel, but he is rich enough to support you in comfort—far greater comfort, I might add, than any of your Town beaux.”

“A gilded cage, perhaps, but a cage nonetheless.”

“Nonsense! You want a husband who can provide for you in the manner to which you are accustomed; he desires a wife who will improve his standing in Society. The match, if not equal, would at least be mutually advantageous.”

“I think you have been too long in this parvenu’s company, Papa. You are beginning to talk like a tradesman.”

“You mind your tongue, my girl! I’ll not allow you to bankrupt us all for the sake of mere pride!”

Lady Helen arched a delicate eyebrow.
“Mere
pride, Papa? This from one who claims descent from one of the oldest families in England?”

The duke heaved a sigh, then glanced down at the ledger before him. “Unfortunately, pride won’t put food on the table. Who, pray, will marry you without a dowry? Men of breeding but no wealth can’t afford you, and men of breeding
and
wealth are scared to death of you. That only leaves men of wealth but no breeding, and you would be hard pressed to find a candidate with more wealth—”

“—Or less breeding!”

“—than Mr. Brundy,” concluded the duke, glaring at his rebellious daughter. “This man is a godsend, Helen, and I’ll not allow you to whistle a fortune down the wind.”

“These are not the Middle Ages, Papa,” protested Lady Helen. “You cannot force me to marry against my will!”

“Against your will, eh? Very well, then, I shall give you a choice.” Turning back to his desk, the duke picked up his newspaper and flipped a few pages. “Here is a widower in Yorkshire who needs a governess for his six children. Oh, and look here! A dowager in Bath wishes to hire a companion. Duties include reading sermons aloud and walking her ladyship’s pug.”

“Papa—”

The duke tossed the newspaper aside and turned back to address his rebellious daughter. “You will marry Mr. Brundy, Helen, or you will earn your own living. The choice is yours.”

Thus dismissed from the ducal presence, Lady Helen trudged up the plushly carpeted stairs to her bedchamber. “ ‘Choice,’ indeed! Hobson’s choice, more like,” she muttered.

Had a third alternative suggested itself to her, she would have seized upon it with relish, for both of her options seemed equally repugnant. The very idea of marriage to such a man as Mr. Brundy was too dreadful to be borne, as it would make the
ton
look upon her as an object of ridicule or, perhaps worse, pity. On the other hand, if she swallowed her pride and sought employment, she would be buried alive in a position only a little higher than that of a servant, exiled forever from the glittering world of balls and routs, theater and opera, which was her birthright. How could one possibly choose between two different kinds of hell?

Throughout the afternoon, Lady Helen clung to the forlorn hope that her father’s secretary would discover Mr. Brundy’s reputed wealth to be greatly exaggerated. Surely if that were the case, her father would change his mind—and if not, perhaps Mr. Brundy might be persuaded to change his....

Alfred returned from his errand shortly after four o’clock, and the mercurial rise in the duke’s spirits immediately thereafter led Lady Helen to suspect that her father’s most cherished hopes had been realized. This suspicion was confirmed a short time later, when she was summoned yet again to the duke’s
sanctum sanctorum.

“Daughter, it is settled,” announced the duke as soon as the door had closed behind her. “According to Alfred, Mr. Brundy’s wealth was, if anything, understated. He dines with us tomorrow night, after which he will no doubt make you a formal offer of marriage.”

Lady Helen’s eyes opened wide in feigned surprise. “Alfred? Why, Papa, I didn’t know he cared.”

“Do not be impertinent, miss! I have written to Mr. Brundy, giving him permission to pay his addresses. You would be wise to accept them. In the meantime, I shall leave the dinner arrangements in your capable hands.”

“Yes, Papa,” said Lady Helen with deceptive meekness.

“Oh, and Helen—”

She had already turned to confer with the housekeeper, but her father’s voice held her back. “Yes, Papa?”

“I shall hold you personally responsible to see that all goes well tomorrow night. No tricks, mind you!”

Lady Helen bowed her head. “I trust I know what is due my name, Papa.”

“Good! See that you do it.”

At seven o’clock on the following evening, Lady Helen paused in the doorway of the dining room before repairing to her room to dress for dinner. Surveying the scene before her, she permitted herself a smile of satisfaction. The long mahogany dining table had been buffed with beeswax until it gleamed in the light of the two large chandeliers overhead. Mrs. Overstreet, the housekeeper, had thought it odd that Lady Helen did not wish to remove at least a few leaves from the table, since only four would sit down to dinner, but the duke’s daughter was adamant, and so the leaves remained. Lady Helen had further instructed that the best gold plate, adorned with the ducal crest, be used—a significant departure from the usual arrangements, which dictated that the ducal plate be used only on the most formal of occasions.

Lady Helen was most pleased with the results of her labors. Every detail, from the elaborate floral arrangement at the center of the table down to the shrimp sauce to be served with the salmon, was designed to drive home to the plebian Mr. Brundy his unworthiness to aspire to her hand. Casting a contented eye over the silver cutlery and crystal goblets, Lady Helen owned that she would not be surprised if the poor man took one look and ran all the way back to Manchester, or Liverpool, or whatever God-forsaken place he had come from.

Best of all, her father could not accuse her of subversion, for she could answer with all honesty that she had ordered the best of everything for the occasion. On this happy note, she turned and made her way to her room, blissfully unaware that in the kitchen Mrs. Overstreet confided to an enthralled Cook that Lady Helen must be that taken with the young man coming to dine, so eager was she to see that everything looked just so.

* * * *

Mr. Brundy presented himself at the duke’s residence precisely at eight o’clock, and was ushered upstairs to the drawing room by a dour-faced and disapproving Figgins. The duke was already there, along with a very young man whose golden coloring reminded Mr. Brundy forcibly of his intended bride, of whom there was as yet no sign.

His Grace, noting Mr. Brundy’s ill-fitting evening attire, felt a momentary pang of sympathy for his daughter, but suppressed it at once. “Pleased to see you’re prompt, at any rate,” he said grudgingly, offering his hand to the newcomer. “Allow me to present my son Theodore, Viscount Tisdale. Theodore, Mr. Ethan Brundy. Mr. Brundy is to marry your sister.”

“If she’ll ‘ave me,” Mr. Brundy felt obliged to add.

Like most young men who had yet to reach their twentieth year, the viscount had a fatal tendency to levity, and the thought of his haughty sister wed to this badly dressed Cit struck him as supremely funny. He offered his right hand to his prospective brother and raised his left to his mouth, hiding the grin he could not quite suppress.

If the duke was aware of the effect of his pronouncement upon his son and heir, he chose to ignore it. “Theodore will shortly be returning to Oxford, but you may rely upon both of us to do all we can to ease your entry into Society,” he said.  “I shall, of course, put you up for membership at White’s—”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but I should find Brooks’s more to me liking,” put in the bridegroom.

The duke was less than pleased by this show of independence on the part of his future son-in-law. “A Whig, eh? Well, don’t think your money gives you the right to dictate politics to me, or you shall soon learn your mistake!”

“Yes, sir,” replied Mr. Brundy meekly.

He was spared the necessity of further reply by the appearance of Lady Helen in the doorway. She was dressed for the occasion in a high-waisted gown of palest blue satin, with pearls at her ears and throat. At the sight of her unwanted suitor, her chin rose and she looked down her patrician nose at him in much the same way one might regard a particularly repugnant species of insect.

“Mr. Brundy,” she said with a nod, making the most perfunctory of curtsies to her father’s guest.

He made no move to take her hand, but merely bowed and responded in kind. “Lady ‘elen.”

“My name is
Helen,
Mr. Brundy,” she said coldly.

“Very well—’elen,” said Mr. Brundy, surprised and gratified at being given permission, and on such short acquaintance, to dispense with the use of her courtesy title.

Lady Helen would have acquainted him with his error in no uncertain terms but for the dinner gong which sounded at that moment. Biting back the retort which trembled on the tip of her tongue, she took her father’s arm and led the procession to the dining room, where the foursome assumed their places at the table. His Grace, of course, was seated at the head, and Lady Helen as his hostess occupied the foot, some twenty feet away. Midway between the two sat the hapless Mr. Brundy at the duke’s right, and directly across the table from him (and by far his nearest neighbor) was the viscount, although Mr. Brundy’s view of this young man was blocked by a large floral arrangement. Behind each chair, a footman in full livery and powdered hair stood ready to refill glasses and remove dishes.   Mr. Brundy’s only visible sign of discomfiture might have been observed in the dubious glance he cast over his shoulder at this attendant, as if he suspected the man of having designs on his dinner.

The meal began with a curry soup, which was removed by a salmon in shrimp sauce, and Lady Helen noticed with no small sense of relief that Mr. Brundy neither slurped his soup nor ate with his knife. Conversation, such as it was, was desultory. Neither the duke nor his offspring were in the habit of fraternizing with tradesmen, and Mr. Brundy showed no tendency toward loquacity. Lady Helen, remembering his accent, could not feel the frequent lengthy silences to be entirely a bad thing.

The second course had hardly begun when young Tisdale, feeling it incumbent upon him to contribute something to the foundering conversation, leaned to his left and addressed Mr. Brundy around the formidable barrier of the centerpiece.

“If you will forgive my saying so, Mr. Brundy,” began the viscount, “you seem rather young to have amassed a—that is, to have acquired a textile mill.”

“I am turned twenty-eight,” confessed Mr. Brundy, “and as to ‘ow I came by the mill, well, that’s a story in itself.”

“Pray, indulge us,” beseeched the duke, ignoring his daughter’s pained expression.

“Me mum died when I was six, and I was sent to the work’ouse—” began Mr. Brundy, only to be interrupted.

“Why the workhouse?” asked Theodore. “Could not your father have taken care of you?”

“I’d no father, nor any other family.”

“So you are an orphan,” observed the duke, relieved to learn that there were no more Brundys waiting in the wings to avail themselves of the Radney connection.

But if the duke was pleased at the turn the conversation had taken, Mr. Brundy looked distinctly ill at ease. “Not ‘ardly, your Grace.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, there were men living as
might
‘ave been me dad, but me mum wasn’t quite sure which—”

Here he was obliged to delay his narrative, for the young viscount succumbed to a coughing fit while Lady Helen, blushing scarlet, applied herself with vigor to the consumption of a peach syllabub.

“At any rate,” continued Mr. Brundy, “I left the work’ouse when I was nine. A mill owner in Manchester—Brundy, ‘is name was—came to London on business, and took me back with ‘im.”

The duke nodded. “I detected the East End in your speech. But why London? Are there no workhouses in Manchester?”

“Aye, that there are, but Mr. Brundy’d ‘eard ‘e could get a better price in Town.”

“Are you saying he
bought
you from the workhouse?” demanded the viscount, appalled.

“Not at all. They paid ‘im to take me,” he explained in a voice devoid of self-pity. Finding shocked disbelief written large upon the faces of his audience, he felt compelled to explain, “ ‘e was paid for removing me from the parish. Fewer mouths to feed, you know.”

“As a matter of fact, I did
not
know, having never had the need nor the inclination to inquire into such matters,” barked the duke, uncomfortably aware of having fallen asleep during the recent Poor Law debates in the House of Lords. “You wander from the point, sir. Pray continue.”

“As you wish. One day Mr. Brundy caught me changing the bobbin while the loom was still in motion. Sort of a game it was with me, to ‘elp pass the time, seeing if I could beat the machine—” Seeing the baffled looks on the faces of his audience, Mr. Brundy broke off. He might as well have been speaking Russian, for all they understood. “Anyway, it was a fool thing to do. I might’ve lost me fingers, or worse. But Mr. Brundy took a shine to me, thinking ‘ow dedicated I was, not wanting to waste time shutting the loom down. Took me off the loom that very day, ‘e did, and set about teaching me the business, ‘im ‘aving no lad of ‘is own to in’erit. When I finished with me apprenticeship—I was twenty-one by then—’e made me ‘is partner, and when ‘e died two years later, ‘e left the mill to me, provided I took the name of Brundy—which I did, me ‘aving no name of me own, so to speak.”

Silence greeted the conclusion of this narrative, until Lady Helen broke it by rising from her chair. “That was quite a story, Mr. Brundy. Papa, Teddy, I leave you to digest it over your port,” she said, and left the room in a swirl of pale blue satin.