Sheri Cobb South (13 page)

“And how did you come to take up residence with the Brundys?” he asked as they continued up the beach.

She was weary of keeping the secret, yet hesitant to confide in him. He could read the struggle plainly in her face, and seeing her glance uncertainly up the beach, he added hastily, “Never fear on their account, Miss Crump. They shan’t miss us.”

“You think I meant to take advantage of Mr. Brundy and his wife, but such was not my intention,” Polly began hesitantly. “I came to London to find my father.”

“Who is he?”

“I don’t know. I know only that he is a gentleman, and that I bear a marked resemblance to him. When Lord Camfield showed me such—such flattering attention, I thought perhaps I had—but that is neither here nor there. I came to London and obtained a position in Minchin’s Book Emporium, in the hopes that I might one day come in contact with my father.”

“Did it never occur to you that your plan was, shall we say, a bit simplistic?” Sir Aubrey asked with unwonted gentleness.

“Not at the time,” confessed Polly. “And even if it had, I might well have pursued it anyway, for I have always been impulsive to a fault.”

“I take it your plans went awry?”

“That would be putting it mildly, I’m afraid. I lost my position in the shop. Mr. Minchin said business had fallen off, and he would have to let me go. And then, in almost the same sentence, he—he made me an indecent offer. I could not find another position, I had no family, and nowhere else to turn but the workhouse. Then, through an astonishing series of circumstances which I could only ascribe to a benevolent Providence, I learned of Mr. Brundy. He also had no father, and he was wealthy enough that it would be no burden on him if I were to be his guest, only until I found my father.”

“And yet, knowing it to be false, you claimed to be his sister.”

“I daresay it sounds scheming and unscrupulous, but after—what happened—with Mr. Minchin, I felt it wise to protect myself from unwanted overtures.”

“Unwanted overtures? From Ethan?” To Polly’s chagrin, Sir Aubrey threw back his head and laughed out loud, startling a flock of gulls.  They flew away, their mocking cries echoing Sir Aubrey’s laughter.

“I am glad you find it so amusing,” Polly said stiffly.

“No, no, I beg your pardon,” said Sir Aubrey, choking down another fit of mirth. “I am sure your situation must have been most uncomfortable. Had you but known it, your virtue could not have been in safer hands. If ever a man was besotted with his own wife, that man is Ethan Brundy.”

“I could hardly have been expected to know that!”

“To be sure, you could not,” Sir Aubrey said soothingly.

“And so you have all the satisfaction of knowing that your first assessment of me was correct,” Polly said in summary, meeting his gray gaze with one of false bravado. “I am nothing but a scheming adventuress. Now that you know the truth, Sir Aubrey, what do you intend to do with it?”

Here, at last, was all he needed to fulfill his promise to Mr. Brundy. He had only to drop a few words into the right ears, and the so-called Miss Crump would find herself ostracized from polite society. She might as well have handed him the information on a silver platter—and yet he could not bring himself to betray her. He felt, in some indefinable way, responsible for her. It was a new sensation, and a curiously pleasant one.

“I think you should tell Mr. Brundy,” he said at last. “As you said, he has no father, and although Ethan is not one to brood, I think he sometimes feels the lack as keenly as you do. I suspect you might find him surprisingly sympathetic.”

Polly’s face blanched. “No, I could not! Why should he show me any pity when he has every reason to despise me? Pray, don’t ask me to do such a thing! Only say nothing, and I will slip away, disappear—”

Sir Aubrey seized her by the shoulders and shook her roughly. “If you dare to do such an idiotish thing, I swear I shall hunt you down and thrash you soundly!” Startled by his own vehemence, he released her somewhat sheepishly and continued on a more moderate note. “Even if you were to disappear, where, pray, would you go? No, having committed yourself this far, you had best stick it out, Miss Crump.”

“My mother’s name was Hampton,” interpolated Polly.

Sir Aubrey dismissed this information with a wave of his long, aristocratic hand. “Crump, Hampton—it matters little, as you seem to change it as often as other women do bonnets. Tell me, what would you say to the idea of marriage?”

Polly’s blue eyes opened wide, and her heart, which had seemed so heavy only moments earlier, seemed to sprout wings and take flight. “Marriage?”

“Why not? You haven’t the bloodlines for a brilliant match, but you are genteel enough for a respectable one, and besides having a powerful ally in Lady Helen, you are young and, I suppose, pretty enough,” he conceded, falling back on Mr. Brundy’s unenthusiastic description. “I shouldn’t think you would want to spend the rest of your life listening to Mr. Mayhew’s atrocious rhyme, but either of your captains should serve the purpose. If you were capable of bringing an earl to the point, a mere captain should be no great hardship. What do you say?”

The wings of Polly’s heart were abruptly clipped, and that organ plummeted precipitously back to earth, bypassing its usual locale in order to settle somewhere in the region usually occupied by her stomach. “I shall have to give it some thought,” she answered evasively. “And now I think we had best return to Lady Helen and Mr. Brundy.”

And as they made their way back up the beach, Polly had the dubious satisfaction of knowing that the one gentleman in all Brighton to whom she could see herself wed was also the one who seemed the most unmoved by her charms.

Chapter 11

What is a kiss? Why, this....

ROBERT HERRICK,
Hesperides

“And just what do people
do
at a rout, anyway?” Mr. Brundy asked his wife that evening as he tied his cravat before the mirror.

“It might be easier to tell you what they
don’t
do,” she replied, frowning in concentration into her own mirror as she affixed a dangling ruby-and-pearl earring to her earlobe. “There will not be dancing or cards, nor any refreshments. We shall wait in line for half an hour to greet our host and hostess, mill about inside for another half hour, and wait in line yet another half hour for our carriage to be brought round so that we may go home.”

“I can ‘ardly wait,” said Mr. Brundy with a marked lack of enthusiasm, then suggested on a more hopeful note, “What if you start feeling poorly ‘alfway through the evening? Then we could slip out early.”

But this suggestion found no favor with Lady Helen. “Ethan!” she scolded her graceless spouse. “That is no way to reward Lord and Lady Belmont’s kindness in extending us an invitation.”

“It was only a thought,” shrugged Mr. Brundy, abandoning it with some regret. “What do we do while we’re milling about, as you say?”

“Why, talk, of course!”

“About what?”

“One another, mostly.”

Mr. Brundy looked pained. “Tell me again, ‘elen. Why are we going?”

“Because rumor has it that the Prince Regent is in residence at the Royal Pavilion, and may make an appearance. It is high time you made your bow to your Sovereign. Here, let me look at you.”

Mr. Brundy dutifully turned and presented himself for inspection. As it was his habit to dress for everyday in loosely tailored, comfortable clothing. Lady Helen was always slightly taken aback by the sight of her husband in full evening attire. Although her heart gave a now-familiar little flutter, she gave no outward sign, merely looking him critically up and down before plucking a minuscule speck of lint from his sleeve.

“You’ll do,” she declared at last, giving a nod of approval.

Still, it was a very nervous Lady Helen who entered Lord and Lady Belmont’s summer home on the Steine a short time later on Mr. Brundy’s arm. She had been married for almost three months, and during that time had grown increasingly annoyed at seeing the man she loved snubbed by many who were far inferior to him in character. Not even in his own home could he find unqualified acceptance, so long as Lady Tabor remained under his roof; indeed, when that lady was in one of her more disagreeable moods, Lady Helen was hard pressed to hold her tongue. Only the knowledge that her husband would be far more distressed by her attempts to defend him than he was by her ladyship’s jibes had kept Lady Helen silent thus far. Indeed, he insisted that Society’s scorn bothered him not at all, but Lady Helen (perhaps because at one time she had been among the most scornful) could not dismiss it so cavalierly. If he should find favor with the Prince Regent, however, his position must be assured, for with royal approval, all doors would be opened to him. And if Lady Helen had any doubts as to her base-born husband’s ability to comport himself in the presence of royalty, she would never admit to so disloyal a thought, even to herself,

They took their places in the line, along with Polly, Sir Aubrey, and his mother, and after the thirty-minute wait which Lady Helen had predicted, finally found themselves inside. After saying all that was proper to their host and hostess, the little group scattered, Lady Tabor joining a group of her cronies while Polly was quickly claimed by a rapturous Mr. Mayhew. Sir Aubrey was sorely tempted to follow and rescue her, but as he had a fancy to see his friend presented to the Regent, he mastered the temptation and remained with Mr. Brundy and his bride.

That the royal presence was expected was immediately evident, for the windows were all tightly shut and the number of wax candles burning was enough to make the room uncomfortably warm. This, as Lady Helen patiently explained to her husband, was because the Prince Regent had a morbid fear of taking a chill.

“Not a chance of it in ‘ere,” remarked Mr. Brundy, whose starched shirt-points were already beginning to wilt.

“How true!” commiserated Sir Aubrey, sighing over the once-immaculate cravat which had taken him the better part of an hour to achieve. “But better by far for us humbler mortals to swelter than for His Royal Highness to catch cold. Is that not so, Lady Helen? Lady Helen?”

Lady Helen made no reply, but her face had gone deathly pale, and the Chinese crape fan to which she had sought recourse against the oppressive heat grew still.

‘“elen, love, are you all right?”

As her husband looked on in horror, Lady Helen’s eyes rolled back, and her fan slipped from her nerveless fingers. She swayed alarmingly and would have crumpled to the floor in a heap, had Mr. Brundy not caught her against his chest. His initial fear was quickly allayed by the memory of their conversation earlier that evening, when he had suggested that she feign illness so that they might take an early leave. Still, her performance had been chilling in its accuracy.

“Aubrey, ‘ave the carriage brought round,” he instructed the baronet. “I’m taking me wife ‘ome. You’ll see to your mum and Miss Crump?”

Sir Aubrey assured him on this head and promptly departed to see to the carriage. Mr. Brundy, rejecting offers of sal volatile and burned feathers from the small crowd which had been attracted by the commotion, lifted his wife’s limp body in his arms and bore her from the overheated room. Her eyes fluttered open as he was settling her comfortably in the carriage.

“Good girl!” he said approvingly. “You could’ve given me some warning, though. Gave me a rare turn, you did!”

“Ethan?” she asked weakly. “What happened?”

“It’s all right, we got away clear. I ‘ave to ‘and it to you, love, I’ve never felt so unnecessary. You’d no need to wed me for me money, after all. You could’ve made your fortune at any time on the stage.”

“But Ethan, darling, I wasn’t acting.”

Mr. Brundy stared at his wife, his expressive countenance bearing an arrested look. “You what?”

“I daresay it was due to the heat, or perhaps I got too much sun this afternoon,” Lady Helen speculated. “Whatever the cause, for the first time in my life, I fainted!”

* * * *

While Mr. Brundy bore his bride back to the Marine Parade, Sir Aubrey notified his mama of Lady Helen’s indisposition and set out to do the same for Miss Crump. Here he had considerably more difficulty, for that young lady was nowhere in sight. Recalling that he had last seen her in the company of the effusive Mr. Mayhew, Sir Aubrey began to fear the worst, and expanded his search to include not only the larger public rooms, but the more secluded alcoves as well. While passing a pair of French windows opening onto a small balcony, he chanced to glance outside and at last located his quarry, struggling in the arms of Mr. Mayhew.

To Polly, the opportunity to be presented to royalty had quickly turned into a disaster. When Mr. Mayhew had greeted her with such eagerness, she had been only too happy to respond in kind, if only to demonstrate to certain baronets that
some
gentlemen found her desirable. It had not been long before she, like so many other guests, began to feel the effects of the heat, and when Mr. Mayhew suggested that they step outside for a breath of fresh air, she had welcomed this imminently logical suggestion. Unfortunately, it had not been long before this breath of fresh air had turned into an impassioned declaration, and by the time Sir Aubrey glanced out the French windows, the poet had been emboldened to take the fair object of his affections into his arms.

“Mr. Mayhew, I must ask you to desist!” protested Polly, struggling to free herself as her admirer tried to steal a kiss. “Your conduct is most improper!”

The poet, however, was unmoved by this argument. “What has cold propriety to say in the face of passion’s demands?”

“At this moment, cold propriety suggests you stop making such a cake of yourself,” drawled a bored voice.

Polly and her ardent swain turned as one to discover Sir Aubrey stepping onto the balcony and closing the door behind him.

“Good evening, Mayhew. Your servant, Miss Crump.”

Mr. Mayhew, feeling rather foolish, sought refuge in braggadocio. “I beg leave to inform you, sir, that your presence is unwelcome!”

Sir Aubrey favored the poet with a long and quelling look through his quizzing glass, decided he was not worth the effort of a reply, and turned his attention to Polly. “And what of you, Miss Crump? Do you find my presence unwelcome, as well?”