The Bridal Season (4 page)

I must remember,
Letty thought, still staring,
that
just because a gentleman lives in a backwater burg does not mean he is
gullible.

Fagin, tired of waiting for her, squirmed under her skirts
and, spying a rabbit, jumped to the ground and hied off after it.

“Lady Agatha!” Eglantyne exclaimed. “Your little doggie!”

But Letty could not pull free of Sir Elliot’s gaze, nor did
she see any compelling reason to do so. Fagin was a London native. A bunny
posed no threat to him. “Little doggie,” she muttered, “will be fine.”

His big, warm hand wrapped around hers. She stared. “Lady
Agatha?”

Her heart tripped in her chest and her cheeks grew
warm....Gads! She was blushing, she realized in horror. She hadn’t blushed in
years!

She erupted from her seat, snatched her hand from his, and
clattered unaided down the steps.

Next, Sir Elliot helped Angela Bigglesworth from the carriage.

Letty’s gaze sharpened on Angela and thoughts of Sir Elliot
momentarily receded. Angela Bigglesworth didn’t look to Letty like a woman who
was about to achieve the matrimonial coup of the decade. Instead of
gloating—which to Letty’s mind a woman who’d achieved more than God, economics,
or Society had intended of her, had not only the right but quite possibly the
obligation to do—she looked more like a girl who’d found something unpleasant
in her treacle pudding.

Now that was interesting.

“You’ll stay for dinner, won’t you, Elliot?” Eglantyne asked
and Sir Elliot once more claimed the center of Letty’s attention.

“Thank you, but I am afraid I must decline, Miss Bigglesworth.
I’ve some work I must attend to.”

“Well, at least we’ll see you at the picnic tomorrow,”
Eglantyne said. “And remind the Professor that Grace has made some of those
saffron buns he’s so partial to.” She leaned toward Letty. “The Professor is
Sir Elliot’s father.”

“We are spoiled by your attentions, ma’am,” Elliot said, and
Letty had a glimpse of the affection he felt for his father. Why that sent a
thrill through her, she didn’t know. Men with dueling scars, men with wicked
smiles and brooding good looks, untamed men with wild ways—now those were the
kind of men who had always thrilled her.

Men like Nick?
an inner voice sneered.

She was potty, that was it. Fire, unemployment, and Nick
Sparkle had all conspired to drive her daft. It was just that Sir Elliot
was—no, she abjured herself—
seemed
so different from the other men
she’d known. In her present state she was just as likely to develop a passion
for the vegetable gardener.

“I hope the business is not of a serious nature?” Eglantyne
asked.

“Oh, no. Just a small matter that needs some looking into, and
I’d best get to it,” Elliot said. “If you ladies will excuse me?”

“Of course.”

Once more his gaze touched Letty’s face and she was visited by
an unwarranted impulse to fuss with her hair and powder her nose. He tipped his
hat and climbed up into the driver’s seat. “Miss Bigglesworth. Lady Agatha.
Miss Angela.”

“I am sorry Sir Elliot had to leave,” Letty said, watching him
drive off. “You will miss his company.”

“Oh, yes,” Eglantyne nodded. “But that’s what happens when a
conscientious man holds an office of such responsibility.”

“And what office might that be?”

“Oh? Didn’t I say? Why, Sir Elliot is our local magistrate. He
is responsible for all the criminal cases—” She stopped. “Lady Agatha! My dear,
are you feeling all right?”

If you forget your lines,

you had better mumble with conviction.

“THE LOCAL MAGISTRATE?” LETTY ECHOED faintly.
The bloody
local judge and jury for the whole bloody county?

Her head swam with new interpretations for Sir Elliot’s
sidelong glances and frowns of puzzlement, one that had nothing to do with her
irresistibility as a woman. And then, just as she was castigating herself for
her conceit, her sense of humor saved her and she stifled a laugh.

“Yes. He was a barrister until a few years ago when he
accepted the position, Little Bidewell being the county seat and all,”
Eglantyne said.

And who had his clients been, Letty wondered, linking her arm
through Eglantyne’s, the local livestock? She was amazed a barrister could even
make a living in a burg like this, but then maybe Sir Elliot didn’t need to make
a living. He certainly dressed beautifully. And expensively.

They mounted the front steps and the door swung open, held by
a small, rosy-cheeked, redheaded maid who took one look at Letty, scuttled
backward, and slammed the door shut.

“Merry.” Eglantyne sighed and rapped sharply on the door.

“Our Merry is in awe of titles,” Angela explained. “It was a
full three months after he was knighted before she could bring herself to open
the door to Sir Elliot.”

The door abruptly swung inward with nary a sign of Merry to be
seen. Lambikins, nee Fagin, appeared out of nowhere and trotted past them into
the hall as though to the manor born. Letty followed, looking around in
delight.

Feudal? This was positively
arcane.
The oak-coffered
ceiling soared two stories overhead, while beneath her feet an enormous
Oriental carpet glowed in the last of the sunlight pouring in through a bank of
west-facing windows. Tapestries, suspended from the minstrel gallery railing
above, fluttered in the evening breeze. The headpiece from a suit of armor
peeked sheepishly from behind a lush arrangement of potted palms.

“Stop popping your head in and out of the door, Anton,”
Eglantyne said, interrupting Letty’s looking about.

“Confound it, Eglantyne, I wasn’t popping.” A slight gentleman
with thin, snow-white hair appeared in a doorway at the side of the hall. The
sharp upward tilt of his bristling white eyebrows stamped his face with an
expression of perpetual surprise, while beneath them sparkled small,
raisin-dark eyes. On his shoulders, fluffy white muttonchops bobbed like
frothed egg white.

“Ahem.” He cleared his throat.

“May I introduce my brother, Lady Agatha?” Eglantyne said.
“Anton Bigglesworth. Anton, Lady Agatha Whyte.”

Anton crossed the room with a scurrying gait and, before she
realized what he was about, grabbed her hand and shook it eagerly. “Pleased to
meet you, Lady Agatha. Kind of you to... That is, it’s deuced nice ... Er.. .”

He flushed profusely.

Poor old duffer. He didn’t have any better notion about how to
go on than she. Though socially her inferior—or rather Lady Agatha’s—he was
still her—or rather Lady Agatha’s—employer, and the social niceties of the
situation were obviously right posers for him.

“That is to say, I am honored ... You do us a great fav—”

She couldn’t let the poor little grub quibble himself into a
stew like this. “Not at all, Mr. Bigglesworth. I am only too pleased to be able
to offer my services.”

He broke into a relieved smile. “Thank you. I suppose we ought
to go into my office and see about paying you your fee?”

“Father!” Angela broke in, scandalized. “Not now! Lady Agatha
has traveled all the way from London. She must be exhausted. She’ll want to see
her rooms and rest before dinner.”

“Indeed, Anton,” Eglantyne said, equally shocked. “Tomorrow
will be soon enough to discuss, er, business.”

The color that had slowly been ebbing from Anton’s puckish
face returned with renewed vibrancy. “Of course! Inexcusable of me. Merry!” he
shouted before remembering Merry’s problem with titled persons. “Drat! Grace!”

Within seconds a tall, buxom, middle-aged woman with
suspiciously black hair appeared in the doorway wiping big, square hands on an
apron tied about her narrow waist. “Aye?”

“This is our housekeeper and cook, Grace Poole.”

Grace bobbed a quick curtsy. “Pleased I am to meet you, Lady
Agatha.”

“Where’s Cabot?” Anton asked.

Grace’s expression soured. “Labeling the bottles in the wine
cellar, sir.” She turned to Letty. “I suspect you wants to know what’s been
done in preparation. Well, your man from London’s been up last week, mum, and
between us and the instructions you give, we managed to make a neat bit of
work.”

Letty’s face froze. Lady Agatha had a man who worked for her
here? Damn. She barely kept herself from looking around. She had to get out of
here before this bloke appeared.

“Grace, please,” Anton said severely. “Lady Agatha is
exhausted from her trip. Kindly show her to her rooms.”

“Of course. If you’ll follow me, Lady Agatha?”

“Yes, thank you,” murmured Letty. “I
am
fatigued.”

“Of course,” Eglantyne said, smiling. “We won’t expect you
this evening. We’ll have a tray sent up and see you in the morning.”

Not if she was hotfooting it to the coast they wouldn’t.
“First
thing,” she promised brightly and turned to the housekeeper. “If we might?”

Grace led the way out of the room, Letty falling into step
behind the housekeeper. Her glance kept snapping to and fro, fully expecting
Lady Agatha’s man to appear at any moment and denounce her.

The saints deliver her, she could get caught.

The frisson of fear that had been born with the revelation of
Sir Elliot’s position as magistrate grew. If she was lucky, her rooms would be
on the first floor and she could duck out of a window as soon as it was dark.
But then, hard on the heels of fear, came an imp of devilment. If she had to,
how long could she avoid Lady Agatha’s man? She bet she could...

That, m’girl,
she told herself curtly, will
be your
downfall, this notion that life is all a grand game pitting you against your
“betters.”

One of the reasons she’d become involved in Nick’s swindles
had been because, besides feathering her rather underdressed little nest, it
gave her a chance to thumb her nose at Polite Society. She’d never wasted her
sympathy on Nick’s gulls. She’d seen where they spent their money. They didn’t
have enough ways to waste it. Horses, fighting cocks, the dog pits, opium,
women... the list didn’t have an end as far as Letty could see.

Nah, a few bob donated to the Letty Potts fund didn’t hurt
them any. But then Nick had grown greedy and cruel and the word “gull” had been
replaced in Letty’s mind with the word “victim.” There was some that might say
that Letty Potts was hard-hearted, and some who’d say she was an opportunist,
and maybe both would be right, but she had standards. And while she was a right
good confidence trickster, and a more than fair music hall performer, she
wasn’t a common criminal. There was no sport in taking from those that couldn’t
afford it.

Like these Bigglesworths. Oh, they may well be able to
financially
afford a run-in with Letty Potts, but they’d still be hurt. They didn’t
know any better; they’d stumbled into her life just as she’d stumbled into
theirs. It wasn’t their fault. And that’s what made the difference.

Or seemed to, Letty cautioned herself. But then, Lady Fallontrue
could seem every bit as kindly and ingenuous,
if
you didn’t happen to be
living in her house and your mother didn’t happen to be blackmailing her into
letting you sit in on the lessons the governess gave the Fallontrue daughters.
With that grim reminder, Letty pulled her thoughts away from the moral
implications of what she did to more practical matters.

As bad luck would have it, Grace led Letty up a curved flight
of stairs and down a long hallway. So much for her window escape ... unless
there was a tree. She’d worked a tightrope act one season, been good at it,
too, until the upper part of her anatomy had gotten more interesting than her
act and her step dad, Alf, had retired her from the routine.

Midway down the corridor, Grace Poole opened a door. Fagin
casually pushed by them and sauntered into the room. He took one look at the
four-poster bed piled with pristine white linen and launched himself into the
center of it, where he promptly flopped down and began snoring. Apparently
Fagin, son of the bards that he was, was intent on immersing himself in the
role of “Lambikins,” pampered lapdog par excellence.

Letty looked about. The room was huge and airy, the walls
painted white, the upholstered furniture butter-yellow. A huge wardrobe stood
against one wall, while on the opposite wall a pair of primrose
yellow-and-blue-striped chairs flanked a marble fireplace. Tall windows
overlooked the back vista, an elegant dressing table between them. And even
with all this furniture there was still room for a divan, a piecrust table, and
all that luggage.

There were at least three trunks and half a dozen sizeable
pieces of leather luggage standing in a regimental line along the wall. With an
effort, Letty kept her eyes carefully averted. She might start drooling.

“The bathroom’s through that door. There’s towels hanging
inside.” Grace pushed a little button on the wall. The chandelier overhead
burst into light. Letty blinked in the sudden brilliance.

“Mr. Bigglesworth is most progressive. We got electrical from
our own generator and have had for ten years now,” Grace said proudly. “And, of
course, there’s hot and cold running water. Though why I should say ‘of course’
is a mystery. Not every fine house in Little Bidewell can boast that.”

Grace liked to talk.
God bless her. Now for a bit of
fact-gathering.

Letty turned, her smile in place. As much as she wanted to
tear into that luggage, she couldn’t let such an opportunity pass. Information
was always valuable, especially in her present circumstances. “And are there so
many fine houses in Little Bidewell?”

Grace nodded. “Oh, a few. There’s Professor March’s house what
is all modernized, and Lord Paul’s, too. The Grange is lovely from the outside
but a bit shabby inside, to my mind. And Squire Himplerump’s next door is
rather grand. Though no electrical. I’ll warrant the marquis’ house ain’t any
better lit.”