Surrender to Sin Page 4

  “Don’t know,” said Cary. “I didn’t think to ask.”

  Juliet stared. “Didn’t think to—! And, of course, a lady couldn’t volunteer the information,” she said, exasperated. “Who was with her?”

  “No one.”

  “No one?” said Juliet, in disbelief. “She must have been with someone. Her mother? A chaperone? A maid?”

  “No one,” said Cary. “Unless one counts Lord Dulwich.”

  The Duke sat up in his chair, demonstrating that he had actually been following the conversation between brother and sister. “One don’t, as a matter of fact.”

  “No, indeed,” said Cary. “An absolute negative quantity. One subtracts him, rather.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Juliet. “Was this girl of yours with Lord Dulwich?”

  “No, she was quite alone when the filthy beast knocked her down,” said Cary, remembering the incident with renewed anger. “He shoved her out of the way in Piccadilly, and she fell, poor mite.”

  “Somebody ought to shove him into the bloody river,” snarled the Duke, “except there’d be no grave for me to dance on. Look here, Cary, if you want to call him out, I’ll second you. He can’t go about the place shoving girls in the back. Not in my England.”

  “I hadn’t thought of taking it quite so far,” said Cary, modestly. “I just helped the girl to her feet and showed her the shortcut to Hatchard’s. You know, through the bakery?”

  “Oh, yes,” said the Duke, who knew London almost as well as the other gentleman. “There’s nothing quite like a bun straight from the oven.”

  “What did she look like, this cousin of ours?” Juliet inquired, not in the least interested in shortcuts or buns or even Lord Dulwich’s grave. As the sister of two eligible bachelors, she prided herself on knowing all the marriageable young ladies on the market, and for Cary to have met one whom she could not immediately identify irritated her. “Was she pretty?”

  “She was noticeably human in appearance,” Cary equivocated.

  “What does that mean?” Juliet demanded.

  “I didn’t want to kiss her,” he explained, “but neither did I feel compelled to run away.”

  Juliet sighed. “That doesn’t much narrow things down, I’m afraid. I’ve met three or four of our Derbyshire cousins, and they’re all presentable but rather plain. The word for that is ‘tolerable,’ by the way. You might use it instead of ‘noticeably human.’ What color is her hair?”

  Cary knew better than to reveal that the girl had hair the color of hot buttered scotch.

  “Brown, of course,” Juliet answered her own question. “The Wayborns are all brunettes.”

  “She’s not a Wayborn herself,” said Cary. “Her mother was one of the earl’s sisters.”

  “The man had seven sisters,” Juliet complained. “Your mystery girl could be anyone.”

  “Not anyone, surely,” said Cary, amused by Juliet’s frustration. He was himself only slightly interested in the identity of a girl he probably would never see again in his life, but Juliet was like a dog with a marrowbone she couldn’t crack.

  “It could be the Vaughn girl,” she said hopefully. “There’s a scandal in there somewhere, but no one’s talking…yet. I’ll find it out though. See if I don’t.”

  Cary chuckled. “Sorry, Julie. This girl’s about as scandalous as a pot of tea.”

  Juliet wrinkled her nose. “Too bad. How was she dressed?”

  “I expect her maid was responsible.”

  The Duke appreciated the joke, at least until Juliet indicated with a look that she did not.

  “What? No, you fathead. I mean, what sort of clothes had she on?”

  “Oh, you mean what sort of clothes had she on,” said Cary. “I thought you were asking me how her clothes got on her body, which, of course, is a question no gentleman ought to answer, even if he is in full possession of the facts. Warm cloakish thing, gray, with fox fur at the ends, entirely unremarkable. Hood, no bonnet.”

  “Marry her,” said the Duke. “I can’t bear these foolish new bonnets. I turned to the left in church the other day, during a hymn, and some woman’s feathers got on my tongue.”

  “I daresay I will marry her,” said Cary, stifling a yawn, “if my sister can ever suss out who she is. Really, Juliet, I thought you knew everyone. I thought I could depend on you.”

  Juliet bristled. “Well, is there anything useful you can tell me about her?”

  “She likes the poetry of Wordsworth, but isn’t quite sure about Blake, even though she quoted what must be his most immortal words: ‘Bugger the King.’”

  Juliet was shocked. “She said that?”

  “Mr. Blake said it first, and I daresay he enjoyed the advantage of knowing what it means,” Cary said, laughing. “Our poor cousin merely repeated it. What else? She prefers Tom Jones to Moll Flanders, both of which she has read, even though she is not married. And, like everyone else in London, she’s waiting with baited breath for the publication of Kubla Khan.”

  “She seems bookish,” was the Duke’s deduction.

  Cary admitted that appearances were against the lady, but offered an alternative explanation. “We were talking in a bookshop. Had we fallen down an abandoned well together, our conversation might not have been the same.”

  “What had she to say about Lord Byron?” Juliet demanded.

  “Not a word. She spoke only of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, and Fielding.”

  “Why, she sounds perfectly vile,” said Juliet, a little relieved. After all, she was under no obligation to know young ladies who admitted to liking Wordsworth. “Could her father be a military man? Did she say anything at all?”

  Cary laughed. “Like what? ‘Forward march’? ‘Present arms’? She did say that her mother is generally thought to have married to disoblige her family.”

  “It is Miss Vaughn,” said Juliet in triumph. “Cosima Vaughn. Her mother was Lady Agatha Wayborn, who married Major Vaughn, the rudest man in Dublin—something of an accomplishment, there being prodigious competition for the title! But I can’t think why they’ve come to London if the girl’s merely tolerable. She has nothing but a thousand pounds in the three per cents, and that’s certainly not enough. She would have married better at home.”

  She bit her lip almost savagely. “More to the point, how could she afford fox? I never had any decent fur until after my engagement. Cary, are you quite sure her cloak was trimmed in fox? It must have been squirrel. Trust you not to know the difference.”

  The Duke laughed suddenly. “Major Vaughn—good God, I know him. Once the Lady-Lieutenant—my aunt’s cousin by marriage, you know—asked him why he’d named his daughter Cosima, and the Irish rogue answered, ‘Cosima bastard, that’s why!’”

  He roared with laughter, which not even a look from Miss Wayborn could quell. In a moment, Juliet was laughing, too. It had been quite some time since they had laughed together, and perhaps they laughed a bit harder than they otherwise would have done.

  “And to think,” said Cary, brushing tears of hilarity from his eyes, “I might have met the man himself if I hadn’t been late for my appointment in Park Lane.”

  Chapter 3

  When Abigail returned her engagement ring to Lord Dulwich, she expected a certain amount of private recrimination from the jilted man. To her surprise, he merely disappeared from her life. Abigail, who dreaded all unpleasant scenes, was immensely relieved.

  The public uproar that followed, however, was worse than anything she could have imagined. The fact that her mother had been Lady Anne Wayborn was entirely forgotten, while it was discovered anew that her father, Mr. William “Red” Ritchie, was not a gentleman, but rather the reverse: a Glaswegian and a purveyor of Scotch whisky. For a woman of such imperfect descent to break her engagement to an English lord was tantamount to a peasant’s revolt, and, in the view of the Patronesses of Almack’s, deserving of punishment. This created some difficulty, for, as Lady Jersey dryly pointed out to Mrs. Burrell, Miss
Ritchie could scarcely be cast out of all good society when she had never been permitted into it.

  Lord Dulwich, meanwhile, was not immune to the scorn and ridicule of his peers, who openly despised him for having offered his ancient name to the Scotch heiress in the first place. His lordship retaliated by accusing Miss Ritchie of replacing the Rose de Mai, the carnation-pink diamond in her engagement ring, with a piece of worthless glass. In response to the accusation, Red Ritchie took the unusual step of purchasing twenty thousand pounds’ worth of loose diamonds from Mr. Grey in Bond Street, merely to demonstrate that Miss Ritchie could buy and sell a hundred Rose de Mai diamonds in an afternoon spree.

  No one was surprised when legal briefs were filed in Doctor’s Commons. His lordship alleged that Miss Ritchie had stolen his diamond, and Red Ritchie filed suit for slander.

  Abigail could scarcely venture out of doors without being pointed at and whispered over. People who would never have condescended to know her now went out of their way to give her the Cut Direct. Her uncle, Earl Wayborn himself, who had never communicated with Abigail in her life, not even upon the death of her mother, his elder sister, now petitioned to have the spelling of his family name legally changed from Wayborn to Weybourne in an effort to distance himself from the scandal.

  Abigail went out less and less, and when Mr. Eldridge of Hatchard’s kindly began sending her the latest books, allowing her to choose what she wanted and send back the rest, she stopped going out completely. And yet, despite being a virtual exile in Kensington, she was dismayed when her father announced his intention of sending her into the country until the Dulwich affair was settled to his satisfaction.

  The announcement came at dinner. Abigail set down her knife and fork with a clatter. “No, Papa,” she said, her quiet, genteel voice at odds with his Glaswegian brogue. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I refuse to be driven out of my home. I won’t leave you.”

  Red’s mind was made up, however. “I’ve spoken already to Mr. Leighton. He agrees with me. It’s settled.”

  Mr. Leighton was her father’s personal solicitor and would never have considered disagreeing with his most affluent client. Abigail was no more argumentative than Mr. Leighton; she knew argument would be futile. As long as she never asked for anything that did not coincide with his own wishes, Red Ritchie was an indulgent parent, but on the occasions when father and daughter disagreed, he gainsaid her ruthlessly.

  “Please don’t send me to Aunt Elspeth in Glasgow,” she begged.

  Fortunately, the tyrant had no idea of sending his only child farther afield than St. Albans or Tunbridge Wells. “You’re not going into exile,” he assured her. “I’ve asked Mr. Leighton to look for a suitable situation within easy distance to Town. Hertfordshire or Kent, I’m thinking.”

  “Hertfordshire!” Abigail instantly thought of the handsome “cousin” who had come to her aid on the fateful day Lord Dulwich had so rudely bumped into her. She could now think of him without the crippling terror she had experienced at the actual time of their meeting. She had even begun to believe she could see him again without losing the power to think or speak intelligently. He had a house for rent in Hertfordshire. She would much rather stay in a cousin’s house than a stranger’s, and, of course, she would be absolutely delighted to meet his wife.

  “We know no one in Hertfordshire,” Red Ritchie explained. “You’ll be called Miss Smith, and absolutely no one is to suspect that you’re my daughter, not even your chaperone.”

  Abigail had some objections to the scheme. In particular, she doubted the efficacy of calling herself Miss Smith, but, having secured Hertfordshire as her haven, she was loathe to awaken the tyrant in her father by questioning his judgment. “And who is to be my chaperone?” she inquired pleasantly.

  “Some auld woman of Leighton’s,” was the only answer forthcoming until Mr. Leighton himself arrived the next day with a portfolio of houses he deemed suitable for Abigail’s needs.

  The proposed chaperone was revealed to be the mother of his first wife. A middle-aged widow, Mrs. Spurgeon was entirely dependent on Mr. Leighton, who was only ten years her junior. She had lived with the solicitor throughout his first marriage, and, after the death of her daughter, the arrangement had continued for reasons of simple economy. However, the introduction of a second Mrs. Leighton into the household had made necessary certain changes that had little to do with money. Mrs. Spurgeon and the second Mrs. Leighton cordially despised each other.

  Abigail liked her father’s private solicitor enough to take his former mother-in-law from him without question, but, to her dismay, the portfolio he presented did not include a dower house attached to Tanglewood Manor. She brought the oversight to his attention.

  “Tanglewood Manor,” he repeated thoughtfully. “An old college chum of mine is the Vicar at Tanglewood Green in Hertfordshire, Miss Abigail. There is nothing advertised, but I’ll make a private inquiry. Many of the best families prefer not to advertise, you know.”

  Red Ritchie had left the choice of house entirely to his daughter, and so the matter was settled within a week. Red had but one demand, and, as long as Abigail promised to safeguard her health by drinking a quaich of Ritchie’s Gold Label every day she was away, she was free to do as she pleased in Hertfordshire, and Mr. Leighton was authorized to keep her in funds.

  She could now look forward to making Mrs. Spurgeon’s acquaintance. On the way from Red’s Kensington mansion to his own modest town house in Baker Street, Mr. Leighton explained that his mother-in-law would be traveling with her latest nurse-companion. “Mrs. Nashe comes to us very highly recommended,” he assured Abigail. “The Countess of Inchmery was her most recent employer.”

  “Is Mrs. Spurgeon ill?” Abigail inquired. “If so, Mr. Leighton, I wonder if it is advisable for us to remove her from London at this time of year.”

  “She is not ill,” replied Mr. Leighton, his mouth tightening. “She has been examined by every doctor in London. She was ill, Miss Abigail…but it was quite four years ago. At that time, she so enjoyed the attentions of the young person I hired to wait on her that I believe she is determined never to be well again!

  “She is a difficult woman,” he went on, “but, rest assured, you will not be expected to wait on her, Miss Abigail. I’ve made it clear that Miss Smith is the daughter of one of my clients, and most definitely not her servant. Her nurse and her maid will see to all her needs. Do not feel you must spend one instant in her company if you do not wish to.”

  “I’m sure she’s not as bad as that, Mr. Leighton,” said Abigail mildly. “I would not mind in the least being useful to Mrs. Spurgeon.”

  Mr. Leighton did not attempt to dissuade her from this view. Rather, he trusted that his mother-in-law would soon convince Abigail that he was speaking the gospel truth.

  As they drove into Baker Street they found a scene of disarray. Mrs. Spurgeon herself was standing in the street directing the placement of what appeared to be the trousseau of a royal princess onto the baggage coach. Abigail’s chaperone was a massively built lady swathed in a billowing garment of the deepest black, but the overall impression she gave was of brute strength, not bereavement. Her face was a hard slab supported by more than one chin, and she had the cruel, dark eyes of a rapacious Mongol chieftain. If she had ever been pretty or young there was no sign of it now, except for a mass of bright yellow hair dressed in a style far too girlish for a stout woman of her years.

  A woman of strict propriety, Mrs. Spurgeon refused to get into the private chaise as long as Abigail’s maid was in possession of it.

  “If you are accustomed to traveling in the company of a servant, Miss Smith,” she bellowed in a voice a master of hounds might have coveted, “I am not. I suggest you put her in the second coach with the rest of the baggage. My standards will not be compromised simply because you do not know what is right.”

  Abigail explained that Paggles had been her nurse when she was an infant, after having performed the same service to her m
other before her. “Besides which, she is elderly and infirm,” she added, hoping to gain Mrs. Spurgeon’s sympathy.

  While claiming to suffer from a variety of illnesses herself, Mrs. Spurgeon had no sympathy for fellow subscribers. “If she is too weak to travel with the baggage, then you had better turn her off. When my last maid wore herself out after only ten years, we sent her to the poorhouse. There she makes baskets out of reeds. A basket is a very useful thing, Miss Smith.”

  Abigail was horrified. “Paggles will never be sent to the poorhouse, Mrs. Spurgeon!”

  The lady stared at her. “I hope you don’t mean to pension her off, Miss Smith,” she said severely. “It is very bad for servants to be pensioned off. Is there anything worse than calling upon a new neighbor only to discover that it is, in fact, the pensioned-off dogsbody of a Cabinet Minister? I vow, it is getting to the point where they expect—nay, demand—to be granted a pension. The look Smithers gave me when I turned her off without a character, when it was the doddering old fool who dropped the tray—! Why should I, a poor widow, pay an annuity to someone who is of no further use to me?”

  Paggles had grown frail in her old age; Mrs. Spurgeon’s clarion voice was enough to reduce her to tears. Though it was not in Abigail’s nature to court strife, she dearly wanted to rebuke Mrs. Spurgeon when Paggles clutched her arm in terror, wailing, “Please don’t let her send me to the poorhouse, Miss Abby! I’ll sit in the other carriage, if that’s what she wants.”

  Abigail decided it would be cruel to force Paggles to remain in the chaise merely to satisfy her own urge to triumph over Mrs. Spurgeon. “No one is sending you to the poorhouse, darling,” she assured Paggles, as she helped her into the baggage coach. She gave Evans, Mrs. Spurgeon’s maid, a handful of shillings to look after the old woman.

  Mrs. Spurgeon now assumed the chaise, and called for her birdcage. Abigail would not have objected to a collection of lovebirds, finches, or canaries, but when a servant brought forth a large brass cage containing a scarlet macaw with evil-looking claws and a monstrous beak, she became alarmed. Most parrots, in her experience, were well-behaved, but some sixth sense told her this one was trouble. “Oh, no,” involuntarily escaped from her lips, a reaction that seemed to please Mrs. Spurgeon.