Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
“Good morning, Aunt Beatrice,” Louisa said quietly as she entered the breakfast room at eight o’clock the following morning and finding Lady Esher the only person at the table. “Gertie said that you sent instructions that the children should breakfast upstairs today.”
“Yes, I did,” her aunt confirmed, looking up from the table with tired eyes and a compassionate smile. “There is much to talk of this morning. Thompson went upstairs to His Grace half an hour ago and I expect we shall have him here shortly.”
Nodding although uneasy, Louisa sat down to wait.
Was it her imagination or was the usually discreet footman who brought in the coffee pot staring at her?
Through the open door into the hallway, Louisa could certainly see two maidservants whispering together as they peeped into the room.
The gossip had started, she supposed miserably.
“Drink your coffee, dear,” Aunt Beatrice advised her softly, buttering a piece of toast as she spoke and then laying it on Louisa’s plate. “You might not feel like it, but some food and drink will fortify you.”
Louisa tried to obey and managed to take a few mouthfuls of coffee, but the toast was presently beyond her.
Her stomach felt too unsettled and her throat too tight to swallow.
She both longed for and dreaded the arrival of the Duke of Northwick.
When the breakfast room door opened again a few minutes later, she almost dropped her coffee cup in nervousness.
It was, however, only Harper, the butler.
"Lady Huxley is here, Your Ladyship,” he informed Lady Esher and Louisa saw her aunt frown deeply.
“At this hour?” exclaimed Aunt Beatrice with real displeasure, speaking loudly enough that Louisa feared her voice might be heard by the guest presumably in the hallway. “It is far too early for social calls.”
“You could say it was not convenient and send her away,” Louisa suggested. “That would be true enough.”
“True enough, but not wise, Louisa,” advised her aunt, lowering her voice now, for Louisa’s ears only. “If Lady Huxley is here now, I suspect she has already heard…something of our crisis here. If I send her away, it might only fuel the worst of her imagination.”
“You think she knows already?” Louisa burst out in horror, her cheeks instantly flaming. “Oh, my! Elsie’s sister is Lady Huxley’s housekeeper, isn’t she?”
“Hush, dear. The servants in the neighborhood have been up and about and running errands for several hours. Likely they all know by now.”
Raising her voice again, she instructed Harper to bring their caller into the breakfast room.
“Can I go upstairs Aunt Beatrice?” pleaded Louisa. “I cannot face Lady Huxley or anyone else, not yet.”
“You must, Louisa,” her aunt told her seriously. “I would shield you if I could but you will have to face all our neighbors eventually. In particular, you will not be able to avoid Lady Huxley. She is the Earl of Ashbourne’s cousin, after all.”
“Is that important?” Louisa asked, not seeing the significance of their neighbor’s relationship with Edmund Weavington, Lord Ashbourne, in this matter.
Her aunt sighed and shrugged her shoulders.
“Perhaps it matters less than it once did…” she told Louisa somewhat laconically, "but still it would be best if you stayed with me for this call. Now, sit up straight, smooth your skirts, and whatever happens, keep your composure.”
Louisa did her best to rally her subdued spirits and control her expression but she found it no easy task when Lady Huxley swept into the breakfast room a few minutes later.
A handsome ash-blonde lady of some fifty years, Lady Huxley was always elegantly dressed and coiffed.
Today she wore an oyster silk walking suit, kid gloves and a perfectly gracious smile.
“Good morning, Lady Esher, Lady Louisa. Rosemere’s gardens are blooming beautifully again this year, I see, almost as beautifully as your niece, Lady Esher.”
“Good morning, Lady Huxley. I trust you are well? Will you not sit down and take some coffee and fruitcake? As you see, you have caught us at breakfast.”
“You are too kind, Lady Esher. Yes, perhaps I will take some coffee.”
The opening of this conversation was perfectly polite but also empty and devoid of sincere feeling. Louisa nodded civilly and murmured a greeting in turn, feeling Lady Huxley’s eyes boring into her like gimlets as she sat down at the table and removed her gloves.
Regardless of whatever gossip had been passed to her, it seemed to Louisa supremely rude for Lady Huxley to stare at her quite so blatantly as she spoke.
What could she mean by it, other than to let Louisa know that she had heard certain gossip?
That was rude in itself. What had last night’s occurrences at Rosemere Hall to do with Lady Huxley, after all?
“The fruitcake is very good, Lady Huxley,” Lady Esher continued, indicating the plate in the centre of the table. “One of Mrs. Finch’s best. Or perhaps you would prefer some bread? These rolls are freshly baked this morning and the butter is from our own estate.”
“Rosemere is always a most welcoming house, Lady Esher,” returned their neighbor while declining these offers with successive shakes of her head. “Yet, I suppose you will guess that I have not come here for breakfast, nor to exchange pleasantries.”
Louisa’s stomach churned. If Lady Huxley had come here for a specific purpose, what could it be? Had she come to break with Lady Esher, perhaps even to tell her that she would no longer be welcome at Huxley Manor due to the disgrace of Louisa’s behavior? That would be too awful.
Aunt Beatrice’s face remained resolute and otherwise unreadable. If she feared Lady Huxley’s intentions, she did not show it.
“I did not suppose this to be a casual social call,” Lady Esher remarked, something in her tone and expression giving Louisa the sense that there were unspoken messages between the two older ladies passing over her head.
“I have come for answers, Lady Esher, whether from your lips or your niece’s. My cousin Lord Ashbourne will certainly have questions when he arrives tomorrow.”
While still nervous and self-conscious in their neighbor’s presence, Louisa was beginning to feel a little indignant.
Lady Huxley was only a neighbor and had no authority to demand answers on anything from her or her aunt.
As for Lord Ashbourne, he was only a casual acquaintance whom they saw a few times a year at Lady Huxley’s garden parties.
Louisa had never paid him much attention.
“I see no particular reason why Lord Ashbourne should have any questions that concern my aunt and myself,” Louisa told Lady Huxley while Aunt Beatrice appeared to be considering their neighbor’s statements more thoughtfully.
“Then let me state myself more plainly, Lady Louisa. My cousin, Lord Ashbourne, would naturally be distressed to hear that the lady he has long admired was discovered alone with another gentleman in the middle of the night.”
The blood drained from Louisa’s face and she felt a little light-headed, in a far less pleasant way than she had last night in the Duke of Northwick’s arms. She could not say whether she was struck more unpleasantly by Lady Huxley’s blunt statement of Rosemere gossip, or the revelation that Lord Ashbourne had some personal interest in her.
Lady Huxley’s cousin admired her?! Louisa had never once guessed at such a thing and could barely recall his face.
Lord Ashbourne had paid her occasional compliments on her appearance which she took only for politeness, and compliments on her modest comportment and country interests which she took to mean that he was of old-fashioned or conservative character.
“May I remind you, Lady Huxley,” broke in Lady Esher, looking distinctly displeased, “that Lord Ashbourne has never once paid formal addresses to my niece. There is no understanding between our families at present, and Louisa was not even aware of the possibility of your cousin’s interest.”
“You are well aware of it, Lady Esher,” returned their neighbor, unblinking. “You have long known of my cousin’s interest and eventual intentions towards Lady Louisa…”
“So long, in fact, that I had ceased to believe Lord Ashbourne had any intentions at all,” Lady Esher cut her off. “It has been almost seven years since you first raised this matter with me, Lady Huxley. Any man who really wanted a wife would have courted and won her by now.”
One revelation rolled after another. Lord Ashbourne had apparently harbored an interest in Louisa for some time, even communicating this to her aunt through Lady Huxley. Despite this, he had never declared himself, nor even attempted a conversation with her…
It made no sense at all. Louisa shuddered slightly. A vague memory of Lord Ashbourne had come back to her. He was tall, thin and intense-looking with very neatly combed hair and orderly clothing. His dark eyes were very cold and his conversation limited.
Louisa did not want to marry Lord Ashbourne any more than she wanted to marry the Duke of Northwick, who was at least handsome, kind and far too easy to talk, or argue, with… No, Louisa wanted to marry neither of these men. She wanted her dream-husband to carry her away on his white horse…
“So, you are hedging your bets are you, Lady Esher? Well, you might have overplayed your hand in inviting such a notorious rake as the Duke of Northwick to Rosemere in the hope he would court your niece.”
“How dare you!” snapped Lady Esher.
“How dare I? I am not the lady found in the Duke of Northwick’s arms last night, am I?”
Lady Huxley looked accusingly to Louisa. Encouraged by her aunt’s defiance, Louisa raised her chin.
“My aunt was there last night,” she said, which was partly true.
“In the sense that Lady Esher walked in on the pair of you, and there were at least two other witnesses. They say you might have been alone with the duke for hours.”
Lady Huxley appeared to be well informed. Likely, she had received a full account of Louisa’s humiliation from her housekeeper, via Elsie.
“They say?” repeated Aunt Beatrice. “Anonymous witnesses have an unfortunate habit of embellishing events, Lady Huxley. I should not give them so much credence if I were you.”
“So, do you deny the essential facts of the account I heard?” their neighbor demanded. “My cousin and I should be only to glad to have such a story denied.”
“What a good idea, let us deal in facts and not gossip, Lady Huxley,” replied Lady Esher robustly.
“Firstly, Lord Ashbourne has never actually sought my niece’s hand nor even her friendship.
Secondly, the Duke of Northwick is indeed a guest at Rosemere and a family friend.
Thirdly, being unengaged, Lady Louisa is free to receive appropriate attentions from any gentleman I deem eligible. ”
“You do fence well, Lady Esher,” retorted their neighbor with a cold laugh, “but not even a skilled swordswoman could fight off the scandal that is brewing here. You may play with words as you wish, but we both know that servants rarely mistake an embrace, and they know a kiss when they see one.”
"You presume a great deal,” Louisa threw back, angered at Lady Huxley’s sense of entitlement, and presumably that of her cousin too.
"Do I?" the blonde lady replied coolly. “Then, spare me the speculation, Lady Louisa, and tell me plainly. Were you, or were you not, alone with His Grace in the drawing room last night, and what were you doing there?”
Before Louisa could say anything more, Aunt Beatrice rose to her feet, eyes glinting angrily.
“My niece does not have to answer that question, Lady Huxley. It is entirely inappropriate."
"On the contrary, Lady Esher. It is the only question that matters. My cousin has every right to know whether the lady he intended to marry has been compromised. I demand…”
At the sound of a man clearing his throat, Lady Huxley fell abruptly silent and Louisa’s heart leapt…