Chapter One #2
Mattie shrugged. “I believe he died very young. But his father had been the 6th earl, so he was the 7th, and the present earl is the 8th. Or so I heard. It’s such a tragic story.
I suppose it’s stuck in my head as it’s so like our own.
Only neither of us died. We were just girls who couldn’t inherit.
” She screwed up her face. “Which some would say is just as bad as the only boy heir dying. Men put such importance on having a male heir.”
Phoebe frowned at her again, but had the misfortune to be caught doing so by her aunt. “Phoebe. Stop that at once or you’ll get lines you won’t be able to get rid of. And pulling such a face will put gentlemen off, despite your fortune.”
Phoebe wiped the frown from her face and replaced it with the expression of bland indifference she kept for just such an occasion.
Give away nothing. Look blank. Stare into the distance with a sweet smile on one’s face but see nothing.
It was going to be difficult to remember all the things Aunt Fanny had told her to be sure to do, and especially the things she’d been told not to.
One of which was of course frowning or even moving her face in case wrinkles appeared by magic.
Things that Mattie seemed to be able to do and not do without even thinking about.
Probably because she’d had Aunt Fanny drumming them into her all her life.
Thank goodness Papa hadn’t been so obsessed with what she did.
She sighed. How much she still missed him, even after three years.
“I see Lady Chatteris,” Aunt Fanny exclaimed, Phoebe’s frown forgotten.
“Come along, girls. We’ll go and speak to her.
Lord Chatteris’s son and heir, the Honorable Jeremy Wade, is unmarried and I see him by her side.
Quite a desirable young gentleman and heir to the viscountcy.
A very respectable estate and a large house in London.
I’m sure his mother will introduce him.”
Trust Aunt Fanny to know his worth. She knew the worth of every eligible gentleman in London, or liked to think she did. And Mattie was following in her footsteps.
With that, Aunt Fanny swept around the edge of the dance floor like a galleon in full sail, leaving Mattie and Phoebe with little choice but to follow her, like a pair of bobbing jolly boats.
“My dear Lady Chatteris,” Aunt Fanny opened with, in the most gushing of tones.
“It seems an age since we last encountered one another. Allow me to introduce my own daughter, Miss Matilda Nicholson, and my niece, who is my ward, Lady Phoebe Nicholson. Phoebe is my late brother-in-law’s only child, and thus his heir, but I’m sure you must know that already.
This is their first Season, of course. It was my decision that they should come out together.
Such fun for them both. Although you wouldn’t believe it to look at them, they’re as close as a pair of twins. ”
Phoebe regarded her often-rebellious feet as this introduction went on, then curtsied at the appropriate moment and thankfully didn’t wobble.
She was conscious of Mattie doing the same by her side.
She had no desire to talk to Lady Chatteris, nor her son, but Mattie had fixed her gaze on the young man waiting beside his mother.
Lady Chatteris, a woman of similar impressive girth to Aunt Fanny, ran her gaze over Mattie and Phoebe as though she were assessing a pair of horses for her carriage.
Her darkly penciled eyebrows rose in supercilious disdain at Phoebe’s lack of height, or so Phoebe assumed.
However, as they also rose in further disdain at Mattie’s towering figure, perhaps her expression wasn’t so damning.
The reason, however, was obvious. Young Mr. Wade, Lady Chatteris’s son, stood a mere five feet and five inches in his high heeled shoes. Mattie topped him by a good two inches.
“My son, Jeremy,” Lady Chatteris said, and the young man bowed to them with aplomb.
Phoebe eyed him up and down with a similar appraising gaze to his mother’s.
Apart from being short, Mr. Wade was also on the frail side, with a thin face and no breadth to his shoulders other than some judicial padding.
However, he possessed soft brown eyes and a charming smile.
Both young ladies returned him polite curtsies, and Phoebe warmed to him immediately.
He was probably as much under his mother’s thumb as Aunt Fanny thought they were.
“We were just discussing the latest of these terrible burglaries,” Lady Chatteris said. “My son is convinced they’re the work of insiders, or so he puts it. He means he suspects the servants have had a hand in them.”
“Burglaries?” Aunt Fanny said, raising her eyebrows. “Which burglaries?” Clearly her information was not as up to date as she liked to think it was.
Mattie stepped in. “The Mayfair Highwayman, Mama.”
“The Mayfair Highwayman?” Aunt Fanny’s face took on an expression of shock that something like that could exist where she lived. “Do you mean we have a highwayman in Hyde Park? How ridiculous.”
“Not in Hyde Park,” Mr. Wade said. “In Mayfair. And he’s not a highwayman exactly as he doesn’t hold people up and steal their goods like a common footpad. Oh no, he goes into their houses in the dead of night, into their very bedchambers while they are sleeping, and helps himself to their jewels.”
Aunt Fanny’s hand flew to her throat where she was wearing a garnet necklace her late husband had given her. “Into people’s houses? Their very bedrooms? While they are asleep in them? Oh my goodness.”
Lady Chatteris nodded, a hint of glee in her eyes at having had such an effect. “Indeed. The infernal cheek of it. No house is safe, it seems, no matter how well barricaded it might be. This fellow strikes at random, with no regular pattern, Jeremy tells me.”
“I think it must be more than one person,” Jeremy said, sounding pleased to be the knowledgeable one. “It seems obvious to me that the servants are taking advantage and undertaking some of these crimes themselves, knowing the thefts will be blamed on the Mayfair Highwayman, as he’s known.”
“Because so far, he’s only struck in Mayfair,” Lady Chatteris said. “Although of course he may branch out.”
Aunt Fanny, whose house was in Mayfair, fluttered her fan. “Oh dear me. Do you know who has suffered at his hands? Anyone I might know?”
Lady Chatteris nodded, leaned a little closer and dropped her voice. “Lady Dundee was robbed of a pair of diamond earrings. Lady Windermere a ruby ring. Lady Tenby of a gold necklace.”
“But what is most strange,” Mr. Wade said, his eyes alight, “is that the thief never takes more than one thing. He leaves behind most of the jewelry and takes one item, or perhaps two, and not always the most valuable of the collection. Most odd. Which is what makes me think it’s the servants, hoping that taking one item won’t be noticed.
” He chuckled. “How wrong can you be. Mama would notice if anyone had moved her jewels by a few inches, never mind taken some of them.”
Phoebe regarded Mr. Wade with interest. He really was rather an astute young man. Could it be servants doing the robberies? Did she have to wonder about their own servants? Perhaps she could ask his advice if he chose to dance with her. In between tripping over his feet, that was.
Unfortunately for her, or possibly fortunately for his feet, he seemed more interested in her blonde goddess of a cousin. He smiled. “I would rather forget the robberies this evening, Mama. Miss Nicholson, might I trouble you to stand up with me for the next dance?”
Mattie seemed very pleased at this request.
Phoebe took half a step back, used as she was to playing second fiddle to her cousin, and cast her gaze around the room at the throng of people.
She was far more used to observing than she was to participating, and that suited her well.
She and Mattie had attended a few dances at the local assembly rooms whilst staying with their Uncle Robert at Coakham Hall, the ancient seat of the Earls of Alresford, last summer.
And Phoebe had learned early on that dances and balls were not for her.
Robert, youngest of the Nicholson brothers, and the one who’d never expected to inherit anything, had, in the space of a few months, become the owner of the Hall, an earl, and then a husband in quick succession.
Thankfully for the inheritance, his new young wife had promptly produced not one but three sons, the younger two being twins, and was at present expecting a fourth child.
“Disgustingly fecund,” was Aunt Fanny’s view, as Robert’s two older brothers had only managed to produce a girl apiece.
She was wont to point out that had Mattie been a boy, she would have been heir to the earldom her father had never inherited as he’d unwisely died before his father.
Phoebe pushed all thoughts out of her head and just observed. She very much liked watching people, preferably from somewhere she was unlikely to be seen. It was fun to guess their stories, not that she was ever likely to find out if her imaginings were true.
How gorgeous all the young ladies looked, like exotic flowers in their silks and satins, some with real flowers in their hair, some with jewels that glittered in the light from the candlelit chandeliers.
Jewels that might tempt the Mayfair Highwayman if he were cheeky enough to be here.
Might he be one of the discreet footmen?
All of the women present wore jewelery upon their persons—dangling earrings, sparkling bracelets and necklaces, beautiful brooches.
So much that the whole ballroom was awash with gold and silver.
Surely a temptation for so daring a robber?