The Pretender (2 page)

Elizabeth Regina Gloriana Drayton was the eldest of the duke’s daughters, and by far the most like him. Headstrong and assertive from the very day she’d been born, she had been christened after King Henry’s daughter Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen of England. With her straight auburn-blond hair and milk-pale skin, it was a name this daughter seemed fated to bear. Taller than most other women, Elizabeth had grown into the very image of her royal namesake, with a striking manner of carrying herself that drew stares whenever she walked with her distinctive brisk pace through a room. Educated far above her gender, Elizabeth—or Bess, as her father liked to call her—could converse in a mixture of languages, was fond of dancing and the theatre, and was as proficient with the needle and thread as she was at the pianoforte. She rode a steady sidesaddle with the recklessness and spirit of a man, and could debate any topic with a conviction worthy of the House of Lords. And it was her father’s high dudgeon over the pamphlet that
morning which had brought that particular characteristic astir. She waited, however, until she was certain the duke was deep into his morning newspaper before she chose to speak.

“Papa?”

“Hmm?” the duke responded without moving from behind his newssheet.

Elizabeth pushed away her plate and threaded her slender fingers together on the table before her. “I was just thinking about what you said earlier, of that pamphlet you read.”

“Yes?”

She glanced once at Isabella, the sister closest to her in age, who gave her a small dissuasive shake of her head.

Elizabeth, however, pressed on.

“I believe you stated that the pamphlet was ‘foolishness’ and ‘a waste of the paper on which it was printed . . .’ ” She paused, staring at the wall of his newspaper. “I wondered, though, mustn’t there be some interest in such writings if the publishers of these pamphlets are printing them?”

The room went silent. Conversation ceased as all eyes turned to gape at Elizabeth. A moment passed. Then two. Everyone, including the footmen, and even her mother’s pet pug, Ming, braced themselves for the outburst that was sure to follow.

But the duke simply lowered his newspaper, peering at his eldest daughter over its top. “What did you say?”

Elizabeth sat up straighter in her chair, squaring her shoulders. “I simply wondered why anyone would go to
the expense and trouble of publishing works such as the one you mentioned if they truly were unworthy of print.”

The duke’s eyes, the same hazel color as hers, narrowed.

“After all,” she quickly added, “I am merely a woman and so do not have your grasp of such matters.”

Her sarcasm, disguised in humility, went lost on the duke. He lightened. He even smiled. One could almost hear the others in the room breathing a collective sigh of relief.

“Ah, my pet, you are too young, too innocent to grasp the true concept of scandal and controversy. You must therefore allow me to enlighten you.”

Elizabeth nodded.

“It is an unfortunate reality that two things—scandal and controversy—alone sell more newspapers and books than the greatest examples of literature and learning combined. The more shocking the subject matter, the more copies, I am afraid, go into circulation. It doesn’t so much matter if any of it is true. What it comes down to is that so long as the public continues to devour this rubbish, the publishers will continue to print it and fill their coffers to overflowing from it.”

“I see.”

Elizabeth waited several moments before she quietly added, “But did
you
not buy one of these pamphlets yourself, sir?”

The duke turned to his wife. “What is it you are teaching these girls, Margaret?”

“The child makes a valid point, Alaric.”

“Valid?”
The duke exhaled, looking again to his eldest daughter. “Yes, my dear child, I did purchase the
pamphlet,” he paused, searching for a suitable explanation, “but only so that I might educate you and your sisters on what is proper and improper reading material.” He plucked a book of poetry from Matilda who was reading over her bowl of breakfast porridge beside him. Mattie shrieked at the unexpected assault while the duke waved her book through the air like a war banner.

“This,”
the duke said, his voice gaining as he swept the book outward for all to see, “this is proper reading material for genteel young ladies. Pretty words to create pretty thoughts.
This,
” he went on, taking up the objectionable pamphlet, “is improper reading material, filled with nonsensical words that breed nothing but nonsensical thoughts.” He walked to the hearth and flung the booklet into the embers, then turned to frown at his children behind him. “You would do well to remember that. All of you.”

The dutiful chorus sang out again, “Yes, Papa.”

At the opposite end of the table, however, Elizabeth was staring at her father in stony silence. She watched him return to his chair and retreat behind his newspaper once again, effectively putting an end to any further commentary. She wanted desperately to counter, but as her mother had always told her, “a wise woman must choose the most opportune time and place for such debate.” The Drayton breakfast table when her father was in a foul mood to begin with was not the most propitious choice. So Elizabeth held her tongue and waited the handful of minutes until the clock in the hall outside the parlor struck nine, echoing in the lingering silence of the breakfast room.

“May I be excused from the table, please, Father?” she asked, setting her napkin onto the table before her.

The duke looked at her. “What are your plans for the day, daughter?”

Elizabeth did not hesitate in her response. “I thought to give some time this morning to my sampler work and letter writing before Mother and I are to go off to the modiste in Corbridge for a fitting.”

The duke beamed his approval. “Splendid. You’ve been working very hard on that sampler, Bess. It must be quite good. Will we ever see it?”

Elizabeth eyed Isabella a second time, exchanging another private glance. “When it is finished, Papa. Not a moment before.”

The duke grinned at his wife. “Our Bess is quite the perfectionist, Margaret. Just like her papa.” He waved a hand. “Off with you then, child. Make good use of the morning’s light.”

Elizabeth pushed back from the table. “Thank you, sir. I intend to.”

Moments later, Elizabeth was twisting the key in the lock on her bedchamber door to ensure that she wouldn’t be disturbed. She turned to face the room. Mullioned windows were opened onto the bright morning sunlight, spilling past the pale damask draperies to glow like amber in the freshly polished wall paneling. A wardrobe, carved in elegant rosewood, stood in the far corner, filled with countless gowns of satin and silk. Her dressing table was lined with bottles of scent that had come from as far away as the Orient. A Savonnerie carpet stretched across the floor and hangings of elegant brocade draped her poster bed, a bed whose mattress was stuffed with the finest goose down in all England. She had but to pull a bell and an army of servants would come running;
she’d been born to a life of privilege, yes, but that privilege came at a cost.

Elizabeth crossed the room to where a small willow basket lay tucked upon a cushioned window seat. She removed from it the scrap of linen she had stretched across a wooden tambour frame, plucking the needle from where it was stuck at the fabric’s edge. She studied the canvas thoughtfully before poking the needle through, drawing the colored thread its length and repeating it for a single perfect stitch. There, she thought as she held the piece out and admired the result in the light. After all, she had told her father she intended to work at her sampler. . . .

Elizabeth left the window and her needlework, and lowered herself into the chair behind her writing desk. She sat for several moments, her chin at rest in the palm of her hand, staring out onto the ornamental knot garden that stretched to the apple orchard below her windows.

Even at this early hour, it had all the makings of a perfect summer day. The duchess’s roses were in bloom, spicing the air on the breeze gently rustling through the treetops. A chorus of birdsong trilled in perfect accompaniment as Caroline began her practice at the spinet in the drawing room below. Horses, their dark coats gleaming in the sunlight, grazed peacefully on lush green pastures in the distance. Elizabeth, however, scarcely noticed it at all. The serenity, the music, the beauty of the day, none of it reached her. It was her father’s indignant words at the breakfast table that morning that echoed through her head instead.

Preposterous . . .

Idiocy . . .

Equality! A woman to a man? Have you ever heard of such nonsense?

Much as she loved her father, admired and respected his goodness and genuine love for his wife and daughters, there were times when he could be simply antediluvian. It was as if he’d woken that morning several centuries too late for breakfast. Why? she thought for what wasn’t the first, second, or even the twentieth time, why had he afforded her and her sisters all the benefits of the best education their station in life offered, only to refuse to allow them to use it? Was it merely to have something to boast of with his cronies over brandy, like the agility of his hunter or the cleverness of his favorite retriever?

Yet even as she wondered this, Elizabeth already knew the answer. While her ability to translate texts into various languages or calculate a ledger column effortlessly in her head might be
novel
and
unique,
the world in which she lived was still primarily governed by men—

—and they liked it that way.

But that didn’t mean she had to like it, too.

Fitting the small silver key she kept hidden on a chain around her neck into the side lock on her desk, Elizabeth sprang a false bottom concealed beneath the center desk drawer. She removed a small sheaf of foolscap tucked away inside, skimming through several sheets until she came upon the one she sought, reading its title to herself in the muted sunlight.

A Letter in Favor of Woman’s Equality to Man . . . by a Lady of Quality.

Elizabeth smiled. It had been one of her better efforts.
She had suspected it from the moment she had submitted it to London for print. Her father’s reaction that morning, and the fuss it was apparently creating in town, only confirmed it.

Setting the papers aside, Elizabeth took up a copy of
The Female Spectator
from inside the desk drawer. Unlike the one that had been tossed into the fire in the breakfast parlor that morning, this one was dated nearly two years earlier and had been read and reread so many times that its edges had grown worn and ragged. It had been a happy summer morning, quite like the present one, when Elizabeth had chanced upon the publication sitting at the circulating library in Corbridge. The title had caught her attention, but its candid subject matter soon had her enthralled.

The objection that I have heard made by some men that learning would make us too assuming, is weak and unjust in itself, because there is nothing would so much cure us of those vanities we are accused of, as knowledge. . . .

At long last, she’d thought, a journal written by women who weren’t afraid to speak the beliefs that so many had kept suppressed for generations. Elizabeth had purchased a copy of the pamphlet and had read it from cover to cover, sitting down later to write a letter of commendation to its editor, Miss Eliza Heywood, a novelist and playwright of some repute, sadly famous more for having deserted an abusive husband than for her talent with the written word.

What followed was a correspondence that developed into a friendship between two like-minded women who
had come from utterly different walks of life. Finally Elizabeth knew a kinship, a confirmation of the thoughts and opinions she had grown to have during her upbringing. And then one day had come the invitation for Elizabeth to contribute her own writing to the publication, anonymously, of course, since a scandal unlike any other would surely have ensued if it were ever discovered that the daughter of one of England’s most respected dukes had authored such ideals.

In the beginning, Elizabeth had only intended to write one commentary, a simple examination of the disservice being done in keeping women from pursuing the same fields of study as men. Why? she had wondered through her pen, was it generally believed that a woman’s intellect was better served by the choosing of hair ribands or the placement of a stitch upon a needlework sampler than in the study of philosophy or history? That one discourse had continued into two, and then, before she knew it, more, until Elizabeth was writing an ongoing dialogue, a “Letter From A Lady of Quality” for each successive publication.

And so Elizabeth drew a fresh sheet of foolscap from her desk and prepared to compose her next letter for publication, thinking for a moment before dipping her quill into the inkwell as she replayed the scene from the breakfast parlor that morning in her head.

What are your plans for the day, daughter?

Elizabeth began to write in her careful, elegant hand:

A Letter From A Lady Of Quality Opposed To The Keeping Of Young Women At Their Needles . . .

One month later . . .

A murky mist hovered about the crumbling remains of Hadrian’s Wall as the Sudeleigh traveling coach rolled sluggishly along the rugged Northumbrian road. Overcast skies blocked out any trace of sunlight overhead and the wind didn’t so much as stir the tall moor grass, making it appear as if they were swimming in the breath of the slumbering dragon long fabled to have been hiding in the surrounding desolate, heather-clad hills.

Inside the coach were Elizabeth and Isabella; guarding the outside were two of the duke’s most trusted men-at-arms—bulky expanses of muscle and brawn named Titus and Manfred. Of course, there was the coachman, Higgins, as well, but he didn’t pose any real threat, being barely five feet tall and weighing all of ten stone with his boots on. They’d taken to the road late that morning, stopping once to rest the horses while they enjoyed a picnic lunch of bread, ham, cheese, and tart apples from the
Drayton orchard that the duchess had sent along. Now almost dusk, they were nearing England’s northern border, where they would spend the night at a roadside inn. If all went as planned, by this same hour on the morrow, they would have reached their destination, the home of their widowed aunt, Idonia.

And then Elizabeth’s punishment would officially begin.

“I cannot believe this is happening,” she muttered. She had leaned her head against the coolness of the window pane and her breath fogged the glass when she spoke.

“You must have known Father would discover the truth about those letters eventually, Bess,” Isabella said from the opposite seat. “It was only a matter of time.”

They were nearly the same words her father had spoken several days earlier when he’d summoned Elizabeth to his study unexpectedly.

“Deceived! Ridiculed! And by my own daughter!”

The clamor of his anger alone had set the bottles in the inkwell upon his desktop to rattling. “You’ve done some outlandish things in the past, Elizabeth Regina, but this? How could you have done
this?
And even worse, how could you think I’d not have found out?”

Deep down inside, as she’d sat there facing her father more angry than she’d ever seen him before, Elizabeth had to admit there had been a small part of her that had wanted to be found out.

While she might, on occasion, spark a bit of conversational debate around the breakfast table, in the letters she’d written for
The Female Spectator,
she had expressed ideals even she had not dared to speak out loud.
She told herself she had been speaking for every woman who had ever lived a life of quiet acceptance, for every young girl whose spirit had been stifled beneath the cloak of ignorance. She’d wanted so badly to make a difference, yet now, reflecting back, it wasn’t any of those things that lingered with her. Elizabeth could only see the look that had been in her mother’s eyes as the duchess sat quietly in the corner chair while the duke had raged that morning. It was a look that seemed to say, “You cannot change the world, my daughter. And you should have known better than to try.”

The duke had railed at Elizabeth for nearly an hour that morning, cataloguing every one of her shortcomings before he’d finally dropped into his chair, facing her with a furious scowl.

“Now I just have to decide what to do with you,” he’d said with a shake of his periwigged head. “A shame you’re too old to send off to a convent.”

At that, the duchess had interjected. “Alaric, really!”

“Well, she is, Margaret. I should have done that eight years ago when she first pulled that exploit at Kensington, disgracing us in front of the queen as she did. I should have known then that it would come to something like this one day.”

The duke sighed, twisting the errant end of his snowy white cravat as he pondered his predicament. Finally, he’d said, “Well, it may be too late now to change the mistakes of the past, but I can do the next best thing.” Then he’d looked at Elizabeth. “I’ve made up my mind. You’re going to Idonia’s.”

Aunt Idonia, whose idea of occupying herself was to rearrange her stockings in order of color, starting with
white and working her way through the entire color spectrum to black.

Elizabeth had blanched at the suggestion. “Father, please . . .”

But the duke had simply shaken his head. “Do not even attempt to convince me otherwise. My mind is made up. I can only hope that a few weeks—or months if that is what it takes—in the north will help you see the folly of your actions.”

Elizabeth had opened her mouth to protest, but the duke had held up a silencing hand. “I am doing this for your own good, Bess. At the very least let us hope this visit will expel these rebellious thoughts from your head once and for all. But don’t fret overmuch. I’m not such a total beast as to send you off to my sister without reinforcements. Misery loves company, or so they say. I’ll allow Isabella to go along with you. If you can convince her to do it, that is.”

Elizabeth shifted her gaze from the coach window to where her sister sat across from her, head bent gracefully over a book of Shakespearean sonnets.

At times, it was a wonder that they could be sisters at all. All one had to do was look at her to see that Isabella Anne Eleanor Drayton had been born of a different world altogether, one in which faeries frolicked among a sea of bluebells and springtime never ended. Two years younger than Elizabeth, she had hair the color and softness of black silk that fell in loose waves over elegant shoulders. Her skin was pale as the finest ivory, her eyes the deep, deep blue of twilight.

In contrast to Elizabeth’s fire and rebellion, Isabella was the image of everything that was soft and at peace
with the world. She had the soul of an artist—not just seeing, but breathing in the world around her. When she moved, it was with the elegance of a swan. When she spoke, her voice carried a lilt just like a song. Isabella never challenged authority. She was utterly and maddeningly accepting of the ways of the world. At times, Elizabeth envied that quality in her almost as much as she found fault with it. Yet despite their differences, from the day she had been born, Isabella had been Elizabeth’s closest confidante; she had in fact known about her sister’s writing from the beginning, had even warned her against it while keeping her secret faithfully.

“He’ll soon calm down,” Elizabeth said not a little hopefully. “Father has been upset with me before and he always forgives me. Remember my season in London, when I wore breeches to the queen’s masquerade ball? Father’s anger that night was more fierce than a storm. It blew and it raged and it thundered, but it just as quickly passed, too.”

Isabella looked up from her sonnets in disbelief. “How can you honestly say that, Bess, when it was nearly eight years ago, and he hasn’t allowed you to return to London since?”

Elizabeth shrugged. “What care I for mincing bucks in powdered wigs and face paint? Father still forgave me that episode just as he’ll forgive me this. I’m sure of it. Oh, I’ll have to suffer through a fortnight or so at Aunt Idonia’s, no doubt ready to yank out every hair on my head by the time we’re through, but afterward, I shall be allowed to return home dutifully sorry. I’ll even finish that damnable sampler, if that is what it takes. But in the end, all will be well, Bella. You will see.”

Having convinced herself of it, Elizabeth turned her attention back to the scene outside the window, glancing at the fast-darkening sky.
Hmm,
she thought,
I wonder if it will rain.

“I’m afraid it isn’t as simple as that this time, Bess.”

Elizabeth looked to her sister. Isabella’s expression had turned suddenly grim.

“There is something you should know.”

“What? What is it? Is something wrong, Bella? Are you unwell?”

“No, nothing like that . . .” Isabella looked at her, her eyes threatening tears, struggling, Elizabeth could see, as if uncertain of what to say. Finally, she burst out, “Oh, Bess, we are not going to visit Aunt Idonia, not at all. That was only a ruse to get you to agree to leave Drayton Hall willingly. Papa knew if you were aware of where we were going—where we are really going, I mean—you’d never agree to it and they’d have to carry you kicking and screaming out of the house.”

Elizabeth suddenly remembered her father’s comment about the convent. Surely he wasn’t serious.

“Isabella . . . if we aren’t going to Aunt Idonia’s, then where exactly are we going?”

Isabella blinked.

“Bella, you must tell me.”

“Oh, Bess, we are on our way to the estate of one of father’s associates, a Lord Purfoyle, in Scotland.”

Scotland?

Elizabeth was stunned. “Why on earth would Papa send us to Scotland? And why to Lord Purfoyle? We’ve scarcely acquainted with the man—I believe we met just
once when he came to tea. I didn’t even know he had a daughter our age. . . .”

“He hasn’t. I mean, I guess he could have a daughter, but that’s not why Father is sending us—is sending
you
to Lord Purfoyle’s estate.” Isabella hesitated. “Oh, how in heaven am I supposed to explain this? It is so atrocious. I’ll simply have to just say it. Bess, Father means for you to wed Lord Purfoyle.”

“Wed him?”
Elizabeth felt all the color drain from her face. “But the man is as old as . . . as our father!”

“He’s not quite so old as that, but Papa knew it would be your reaction, which is why he misled you into thinking we were going to Aunt Idonia’s. Father holds Lord Purfoyle in great esteem and he reasons that a man of his maturity—”

“You mean a man of his
age,
Bella.”

“A man of his experience,” she went on, “will be a better husband to you than a younger man. Father will not be around forever. Think of it. He has already lost a number of his closest associates to death. He worries about your future, about all of our futures should something happen to him. The title, the estates, we will lose everything.”

Isabella’s words took Elizabeth aback. Her father had always been so vital, so timeless in her eyes. Her hero. Her protector. She had never once thought of him in such a way.

“Oh, Bess, I’m so sorry. But Papa said if I told you of this before we were out of England, he would make
me
wed Lord Purfoyle in your stead!”

Elizabeth’s heart knotted inside her chest. She felt as if she’d just been betrayed in the worst of all ways, and
by her own father, a man who, despite their differences of opinion on some matters, she had still always respected and adored. And Bella, too . . . what of her? She had known all along and yet had said nothing.

“How could you have kept this from me, Bell? Even with Father’s threats, why did you not tell me before now?”

Before Isabella could answer, there came a sudden deafening crack from outside the coach. Isabella gasped. The carriage lurched forward, then tilted perilously sideways, sending Elizabeth tumbling headfirst from her seat amid a jumble of silk petticoats and lace ruffles. She bumped her head against something hard, then struggled to right herself. A moment later, the coach ground to a sudden, bone-jarring halt.

And then, silence.

Pulling herself upright, Elizabeth reached for the limp bundle that was her sister, her breath catching in her throat. “Bella? Are you hurt?”

“No,” came a muffled reply from beneath a cloud of petticoats. “Just a bit disconcerted is all. Whatever happened?”

“I don’t know.” Elizabeth called out to the coachman as she pushed back the lopsided brim of her straw bergère. “Higgins, are you there? Why have we run off the road?”

“ ’Twere a sheep standin’ in the middle of the road, my lady. I had to turn us off the road to keep from hitting him, but it looks like we’ve gotten stuck now. Might’ve broken a wheel, too.”

“Oh, goodness!” said Isabella, lifting her head to peer out the window. “You didn’t hit him, did you, Higgins?”

“Who?”

“The sheep, poor thing . . .”

“Bother the sheep, Isabella! We could have all been killed!”

“But he does not realize that, Elizabeth. . . .”

“Oh, he’s a’right, Lady Isabella. Still standing in the very same spot.”

Elizabeth glanced out the window to where, indeed, a shag-haired sheep stood watching them from the middle of the roadway. When he saw her glaring at him, he bleated.

Entertaining thoughts of mutton stew and leg of lamb, Elizabeth reached for the latch on the door. Outside, the back wheels of the carriage were hopelessly mired in what appeared to be a substantial stretch of bog. Higgins was on the ground, standing a space away and scratching his balding head beneath his hat.

“Do you think you can repair it?” she asked him.

“Aye, if I can get to it to fix it, that is. It looks mightily stuck.”

The duke’s two men-at-arms, Manfred and Titus, circled around from the other side of the lopsided coach. “We best get you ladies out of there and see what we can do to push the coach free.”

But when Manfred took the first step toward the coach, he immediately plunged ankle deep in the mire. He moved to pull his foot free, slipping clean out of his boot instead, his toes wiggling through the hole in his stocking.

“Gaw, it’s like molasses, it is,” he said struggling to get his foot back inside his boot. He twisted his bulk, stretching back awkwardly, lost his balance and fell face
first with a howl, flailing as he went over like a tree. When he gained his feet several moments later, the front of him—his hands, his face, his paunchy girth—was hopelessly covered with mud.

Titus was laughing behind him. “Didn’t you know ye’re supposed to take your coat
off
before you lay it down for the ladies to walk upon?”

Manfred delivered his comrade a lethal glare as he removed his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at the mud dripping off his face. “I think I’ll be steadier if I were t’ carry you on me back, my lady, ’stead of in me arms. D’you think you can wrap your arms ’round me neck?”

“I believe so, yes.”

Elizabeth reached for the doorway of the coach and pulled herself to stand at the edge, reaching out for where the man had doubled over and was waiting.

It was just as she was bent over Manfred’s back, her feet dangling behind her in a most indelicate piggyback pose, that she heard an unexpected and unfamiliar voice coming from behind them.