Chapter 17 #2
Like the Fates, or Macbeth’s weird sisters. Richard deposited Amabel on a worn love seat and passed her a shawl that had been hanging on a peg at the back of her door.
“I will have a look at Clementina’s pension arrangements. Her seniority might mean she should become the underhousekeeper. Nothing need change, save for her compensation and her title. Perhaps she’ll take an extra half day if we insist.”
Mabel’s expression shuttered.
Richard wasn’t giving up on we, us, and our simply because Orla’s true colors were more in evidence. He started a fire and denied himself the relief of pacing.
“Don’t loom, please, my lord. What I have to say is difficult enough without you being all tall and broody.”
The appointments—worn rug, a sideboard in need of new varnish, a low table before the love seat that might have done service on Noah’s ark—offered no place to sit other than the lumpy cushion beside Amabel. Richard lowered himself to the love seat, which creaked under his weight.
“Why are you consigned to this mousehole, Amabel? I expect I will find a cot in the next room, a basin, towel, and nothing else.”
“I have a very comfortable bed. I chose this room for the view and because I am as far as possible from Wealtha without being in the attic.”
Richard’s view was of Amabel’s determined profile. A lady had never had a more perfect nose, exquisitely blending strength of character and femininity. He was also certain that he’d never seen Amabel more upset.
“Tell me more about your settlements.”
“They are the least of it, but I cannot prevaricate with you, or I will be like Orla, shading the truth, omitting facts that don’t suit me, and lying by innuendo.”
“You are not like Orla in any material regard.” He would have taken Amabel’s hand, save for the fear that she’d snatch it back.
Amabel slanted a look at him, curiously dispassionate.
“I am like Orla. I have wanted what I should not have wanted—again—and I know better. I am not simply a spinster, my lord. I am a ruined spinster. You cannot court me. You cannot marry me. I have concluded that you would not disport with me without marriage in mind, so I am resorting to plain speaking for the sake of all concerned. I excel at plain speaking, according to Orla.”
This was sounding ominously like a dismissal for Richard’s own good, and that he could not countenance.
“I adore your direct manner, but, Amabel, I do not understand what you’re telling me. My own mother was ruined, and yet, she—”
Amabel glowered at him. “Forget your mother for two minutes, Richard. I do not intend to repeat myself, and I need… That is, I hope you will listen to me.”
Forget his mother. Would that he could. “Whatever you wish from me, I will exert myself to the utmost to see that you have it. That is an oath, Amabel, so cease dithering and unburden yourself of this terrible tale of ruination.”
He did take her hand in both of his, and she allowed it.
“I went to London,” she said. “Great-Aunt was getting on, she’d been insisting for years that I deserved a Season, and I had a now-or-never conviction that spring.
I did not want to marry some stranger who dwelled two hundred miles from my home, but I wanted to see the world, or a little bit of it.
I wanted to be free for a few weeks of Orla’s subtle demands and Wealtha’s increasingly unpleasant company. ”
“Good for you. If you’d instead chosen yet another spring stitching Wealtha’s frocks and ordering trays for Orla, you would have been some sort of martyr, and at an age when the world should have been expanding for you.”
“The world became an abyss. I had a barely suitable wardrobe for Mayfair at homes, but I had no armor. I had not memorized Debrett’s.
I had no lineage. I vow the term ‘near relation’ in polite circles applies to anybody to whom one is related at even the seventh degree of consanguinity, but as far as I knew, my family tree hadn’t a single illustrious personage at even that far a remove. I was a bumpkin in a bonnet.”
“Don’t be cruel to yourself.”
“The term arose in the betting books, my lord, or so I was informed. The man who’d exerted himself most often to escort me, the fellow about whom I was building golden castles in Spain, bet that he could sample my charms with my consent.
He won a tidy sum—earned it three times over. I earned eternal disgrace.”
The tale was nearly prosaic. Exactly the sort of admonitory fable governesses and chaperones trotted out to scare young ladies into caution, but the story was always supposed to be apocryphal.
A young lady came down from the rural north and failed to exercise proper decorum in the presence of a Town dandy. She came to a very bad end, and it took the bounder only thirty days, three carriage rides, and two walks in the park to bring about her ruin…
Richard was ready to visit ruin on the Town dandy responsible. “I knew Mayfair hadn’t impressed you favorably. I assumed your heart was broken, but not… not this. I don’t know what to say.”
He’d further assumed she’d allowed herself a few rural frolics, more fool he.
“You say farewell, my lord. You need not be delicate. I am still young enough to go into service. Perhaps, like your mother, I can find a housekeeper’s post. I am certainly capable, but somebody will have to do the menus here and count the linens and—”
Richard wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “At the moment, I am not thinking about menus or much of anything, other than to whom I owe a very sound beating.” He certainly wasn’t thinking about his dear mama or her past.
Amabel resisted his embrace. He waited.
“You need not be so kind. I have lived with the knowledge of my lapse for years, but the situation was in the past, and as long as I comported myself properly, I could manage.”
“I am not being kind, Amabel. I am furious.” He squeezed her shoulder gently, when he wanted to curse down the rafters.
“Your chaperone was lax. The precise sort of predator she ought to have been guarding against was probably all but invited under your skirts because she—who truly should have known a wolf in Bond Street clothing—was incompetent. You were hurt, you were harmed, and ever since, your Season has been thrown in your face as some great, undeserved privilege by those who should have been offering you comfort and support.”
The fire needed more fuel, but Richard stayed where he was, arm around his lady, heart breaking.
“Amabel, I know how London Society is. The marriage mart is a blood sport in disguise, and the innocent and unsuspecting become prey. They tried to make me prey and, to some extent, succeeded, but a bastard—ironically—is hard to truly ruin. None of this was your fault.”
She was still sitting up straight, ignoring the embrace he offered.
“It was all my fault,” she said. “On that at least, Orla has been correct. I climbed into that coach, I flirted to the best of my bumpkin ability, I did not protest, or not enough, and I am due the consequences of my actions.”
Later, after Richard had persuaded her to give up this self-flagellation, he would kick the wainscoting and howl and curse.
He would also send another letter to the duchess by express, express reply requested. “How did Orla even learn the details? Why is this any of her business? Blast the woman, she has convinced me that having family is a highly overrated blessing.”
“Orla doesn’t need to know the details to conclude that my Season was a rousing failure.
I came home without any offers. I made no fancy Town friends.
If my foray into Mayfair society came up in conversation, I changed the subject as quickly as I could.
Orla has concluded that I failed badly enough to put a substantial blot on my reputation.
I have not taken issue with her interpretation of matters because her guess is all too correct. ”
“Your great-aunt kept the situation quiet?”