Swept Away Page 3

  Anthony Fairchilde, viscount Ormont, arched a meticulously shaped eyebrow. “Tch. I said his bootmaker was an uncivilized barbarian, unable to apply a shine that lasted from the storefront to the coach.”

  “Perhaps we are approaching this the wrong way, maman,” Beatrice interjected with a sigh. “Perhaps, instead of pointing out that Winston Perry, marquis of Barrimore is devastatingly handsome, stands on the cusp of inheriting a grand title and estates as old as the kingdom itself, and has every eligible beauty and her mother scheming and falling over themselves to catch his eye...perhaps we should be asking Annaleah where he fails in striving to meet her exactingly high standards?”

  With mother and sister united to present a formidable front against her, Annaleah laced her fingers together in her lap. “He makes me uneasy.”

  “Uneasy?” Her mother’s staunch resolve gave way to a hint of shrillness. “In what way does he make you uneasy?”

  “Well...for one thing, he never laughs. Never. I am beginning to believe him incapable of even smiling with any genuine emotion. He is offensively rude to those he considers to be his inferiors, which includes nearly everyone below the level of the king and regent. He criticises the smallest word, the paltriest gesture, yet does not see a single fault in his own stiff-necked, self righteous demeanor. Why, just the other day he crowded a poor flower girl off the pavement and when she went ankle deep in mud, and spilled all her violets, he just stood there glaring at her as if she deserved to be fed poison on top of her humiliation.”

  “And so it should be,” Lady Witham declared. “These costermaids have been warned not to block the walkways when gentlemen and ladies are on parade.”

  “She was not blocking it, Mother. She was keeping to her own side of the boards. When I offered her five shillings by way of compensation--it was all I had on my person at the time or I should have given her more--the admirable Lord Barrimore looked like he wanted to put me in the mud beside her. I have strong suspicions, were I his wife and chattel, he would have done so without a wink of hesitation.”

  “Come now, you judge Barrimore too harshly,” her brother yawned. “I’ve known the man for half a dozen years. He may, at worst, be judged a little dour, but in the clubs and in general company he is regarded to be an out and outer.”

  “Why?” Anna asked dryly. “Because he is a four bottle man? Because he can drink all day and carouse all night and still boast enough stamina to tup his favorite mistress before morning?”

  “Annaleah!” Her mother’s hand flew to her breast. “Wherever do you hear such things?”

  “It is difficult not to hear them, Mother. The identity of his current mistress, how long it took him to cuckold her husband and how quickly he is likely to tire of her is one of the more lively topics of conversation during afternoon tea.”

  “Do you not think, if he had a wife, it would tame his wandering eye?” Beatrice asked.

  “If he had a wife--one he would not hesitate to push in the mud--I rather doubt his habits would change overnight. I shudder to think what a pitiable lump of suet the gossips would make of her.”

  “There is simply no reasoning with you today, is there?” Lady Witham bemoaned. “You are determined to spoil my mood for the entire evening. And what are we to do about this?” She held up an engraved card and waved it emphatically in the air. “He has generously applied to send his landau around at eight tonight to escort us to Lady Worthingham’s assembly. His new landau, mind you. You know what this means, do you not?”

  Anna sighed. “I expect it means he has recently taken delivery of a very large, ridiculously expensive carriage that he wishes to flaunt in public.”

  “It means he is making his intentions known, chit! He is expressing his admiration and his resolve! When you alight from his carriage tonight and he escorts you into Lady Worthingham’s assembly on his arm, all of London will know he has chosen you to be the future Duchess of Chelmsford!”

  Annaleah dug the points of her nails into her palms. “In that case, all of London will be sadly lacking for news, for I have no intentions of going anywhere in Lord Barrimore’s new landau tonight...or any other night for that matter. Nor do I intend to be led around on his arm like a prize heifer purchased at auction.”

  “I strongly suggest he would be considered more the prize,” Beatrice remarked through thinned lips.

  “In a game I have no interest in playing or winning,” Anna countered. “It is all Mother’s doing anyway. She has been the one encouraging his attentions all along, not I.”

  “Regardless of who has been encouraging whom, you are expected at Lady Worthingham’s assembly--”

  “I am not going.”

  “Not going? Not going?” The exclamation was piercing enough to cause her father to rustle the newspaper again with displeasure. “How can you possibly say you are not going? The regent himself is expected, and it would severely jeopardize the likelihood of our receiving a warm welcome at the masquerade ball he is holding at Carleton House a fortnight hence! You know full well Lady Worthingham has the Prince’s ear! One whisper from her and we shall be off the lists. One breath of scandal and--” her hand wafted to her brow and she wilted dramatically back in her chair, unable to even complete the thought.

  Beatrice set aside her needlepoint and glared hollow-eyed at Annaleah as if she had just condemned them all to death. “You cannot be serious about not attending.”

  “I assure you, I am.”

  “Percival,” Lady Witham gasped. “Do something.”

  Her husband’s response was to turn the page and sigh. “What would you have me do, Wife?”

  “Tell your daughter to forsake this nonsense at once, of course. Tell her she must attend Lady Worthington’s assembly tonight, and she must do so with every ounce of grace and charm she possesses!”

  Her father lowered the paper enough for an eyebrow to show over the top. “Annaleah?”

  “If I am forced to attend, I shall swallow ipecac and henbane and contribute a good many ounces of charm and grace, all over Lord Barrimore’s fine new landau.”

  Lady Witham wailed and threw her hands up in a gesture of dismay. “There! You see what I am forced to deal with? She is stubborn and headstrong, callous and unfeeling--”

  “Mother, I am only trying--”

  “Callous and unfeeling! I declare you are trying to send me to an early grave! Any girl in possession of half her sensibilities would see what a splendid opportunity this is. The Duchess of Chelmsford for pity’s sake! ‘Tis rumored he is worth twenty thousand a year before he even inherits the title, and God knows how much after! I will not have it, do you hear me! I will not have it! I will not go to my bed every night with my stomach bubbling like water spigots and my heart suffering such palpitations it is a wonder I can even close my eyes against the envisioned horrors of what might greet me upon arising the next morning! You have been allowed far too many liberties, Annaleah, and there brews the trouble. We have been far too lax with you! Percival!”

  “Yes, my dear?”

  “Call out the coach at once. She refuses to attend the assembly tonight? Fine. Then she will simply not be here to attend it. Beatrice, fetch Mrs. Bishop. Tell her she is to pack Annaleah’s trunks at once. She is leaving immediately for an indeterminate stay at the seaside.”

  Anna’s bravado momentarily deserted her. “The seaside?”

  “Your Great Aunt Florence is as old and mouldy as the house she lives in. Perhaps a few weeks in her company, where the most exciting thing you can hope to see is mortar crumbling from the bricks, will convince you that your life here in London is not as dreadful as you would make it out to be.”

  Anna leaned forward in her chair. “I never said it was dreadful!”

  Lady Witham bent forward an identical amount to glare across the room at her recalcitrant daughter. “Will you attend the assembly tonight?”

  Annaleah tensed her jaw. “No.”

  “Then you will attend upon your Great Aunt Florence
until such time as you come to your senses.”

  In desperation, Anna appealed to the raised newspaper. “Father?”

  “Percival...” Her mother’s voice sounded like nails on a slate. “You know very well how hard I have worked to bring this engagement about, what a brilliant coup it would be, and if you say one word in her defence, I shall instruct Mrs. Bishop to pack your trunks as well. Or mine, no matter. Simply be assured that one of us will not be under this roof tonight.”

  The Gazette came slowly down onto his lap. The familial blue eyes studied the firm jut to his wife’s chin for a moment before casting an annoyed glance in Annaleah’s direction.

  “You say he makes you uneasy because he does not laugh? My dear girl, I have had very little to laugh about in nearly thirty years of marriage and it has not been such a taxing hardship. One simply goes about one’s own business and gets along. Now do as your mother says. Stop this nonsense and accept the fact that you are either going to marry Lord Baltimore--”

  “Barrimore,” Anthony provided.

  “Whatever. You are either going to marry him, live in considerable luxury on any one of his thirteen estates, and generally do whatever you want to do for the rest of your days without any more interference from any of us.....or you are going to spend the remainder of the afternoon packing your trunks to go to Brixham, where you will quickly find yourself wishing you were right back here helping your mother and sister plan your wedding day. Anthony--?” He waited until his son’s head swivelled in his direction. “Have you read this morning’s paper? Can you believe the House is still locked in debates over what should be done with that bounder Bonaparte? They granted leniency once by exiling him to a gentleman’s prison on Elba and look what came of it. A hundred days of war and tens of thousands of good English lives squandered at Waterloo, and for what? An honorable surrender with no penalty? I’ll wager my braces it is that idiot Casterleagh, our vaunted foreign minister, simpering loudest for clemency, for on the same page Wellington says, and I quote: ‘he is an outlaw beyond the pale of civil and social relations, the enemy of humankind.’ Damned fine words too! Hang the bastard, I say, and good riddance.”

  Without waiting or, indeed, expecting an answer, he snapped the paper upright again and carried on reading the latest speculations on the where the English ship, Bellerophon, was going to land with the surrendered Corsican general.

  Annaleah had barely paid attention to the diatribe. She was thinking furiously of what could be done to avoid her own exile to the wind-driven coast of Devonshire. But apart from surrendering her pride and her convictions to her mother’s demands, there was nothing to be done but stiffen her back and prepare to maintain her resolve. How long could they keep her in Brixham anyway? A week? A fortnight? Any longer than that would give rise to giddy rounds of whispers pertaining to much more damaging and ruinous reasons for whisking a daughter away in the middle of the night.

  Remembering this, Annaleah's thoughts returned to the present as she finished drying her feet and glanced sidelong at the tall cheval mirror beside the bed. The thick, wind-blown waves of her hair surrounded her face in curls of deep mahogany brown. Her cheeks were flushed from her exertions and she knew if she had been at home in London, her mother would have ordered a compress of milk and cucumber water to blanch out the effects of sun and wind. She would have been equally horrified to learn of her daughter’s early morning walks along the beach without so much as a wide brimmed bonnet to guard against freckles. And the mere thought that a young lady of genteel breeding had seen, let alone touched a half naked sailor, would have required purges and leeches, at the very least, to drain away the shock.

  Yet this was the same mother who insisted the dressmaker cut Annaleah’s necklines alarmingly low, that the gowns be made of silks and muslins so sheer the shape of her legs showed through. It was she who, after decrying the lack of shame in the beauties who rouged their nipples to betray a shadow beneath their bodices, insisted that her own daughter carry only the skimpiest of shawls to ward off the evening chills in order that every male eye might be drawn to the charming effect arctic air had on her breasts.

  A shiver reminded Anna that she was all but naked now. Hastily, she pulled on a clean dress, one made of a more substantial weight of cotton that did not betray the slightest hint of skin-tightening beneath. Cut high in the waist it was a style that flattered her long, slender body, and of a color--soft mignonette green--that brought out the rich auburn highlights in her hair. A few strokes of the brush served to tame the dark tangle as much as her patience would allow, and, after slipping her feet into dry shoes, she hurried down the hall toward the stairs that would take her back to the second floor day rooms.

  Her aunt was still in the breakfast room, her bony fingers diligently stalking the last smudges of bacon grease with a biscuit. She saw Annaleah and dabbed her mouth with a napkin, then reached for the gnarled stem of her walking cane.

  “I have just been informed your naked man is in the kitchen,” she said. “He is still breathing and, according to Mildred, quite the forthright specimen. Shall we go and have a look?”

  Anna offered a steadying hand as her aunt rose. Florence was wearing a high necked black bombazine gown that was at least twenty years out of style, with rows of black jet beads sewn around the cuffs and collar. She carried a black lace shawl draped over the crooks of her elbows, and wore heavy jeweled rings on nearly every finger, some so loose they were rarely turned the right way around and often became flying missiles during an animated conversation.

  Annaleah recalled how terrified she had been of her great aunt Florence when she was a child. Now her movements were slow and measured, and her hands looked barely strong enough to hold her cane. The skin was paper thin and so pale the blue webbing of veins glowed through.

  Florence had also stubbornly refused to marry the man her father had chosen for her and it made Anna wonder if that was not another of her mother’s less than subtle motives in sending her to Brixham: to see what could become of someone too proud and wilful for her own good.

  “We’ll take the shorter way, shall we?” Florence said, waving her cane toward the serving doors.

  The returning warmth of curiosity made Anna's steps impatient but apart from lifting her aunt and carrying her, she was forced to make a slow, cautious decent in her wake. On one of the landing turns, Florence paused and thumped the wall with the end of her cane, saying casually over her shoulder, “This was where I caught your mother eating an entire cherry pie when she was younger.” She gave a soft cackle of laughter and whacked the wall again for emphasis. “Fat as a bullfrog, she was. Always sneaking food from the pantry and blaming it on the servants.”

  Startled, Anna stared at the wall, then at her aunt, who merely offered a wrinkly smile back. “She quite dislikes me, your mother does. You must have done something excruciatingly dreadful to have wound up here. She sent a letter, of course, but I find her sentences tiresome. For every one worthwhile word there are twenty nonsensical ones crouched about it, and I get genuinely fatigued attempting to decipher it all. In this particular instance, I could barely read past the opening salutation, for there appeared to be even more tripe than usual.”

  It was the first time in the week Annaleah had been there, that her aunt had broached the subject of her banishment, and although it seemed odd to want to hold such a discussion in the intimacy of a stairwell, Anna found herself answering with a sigh.

  “She wants me to marry.”

  “All mothers want their daughters to marry. And all daughters usually want to marry.”

  “You didn’t.”

  The words were blurted out before Anna could stop them, but her aunt only sighed. “No, I did not. A very bold piece of impertinence at the time too, I can assure you, for it was generally presumed that all women were incapable of retaining any thought in their heads more important than which color of thread to apply to their embroidery.”

  “Those presumptions have not changed
much over the years,” Anna murmured.

  “Nor, I suppose, has the maxim that the parents know far better than the child who they should and should not marry?”

  “Mother has decided, yes.”

  “And you do not agree with her decision? Well, no, of course you must not or you would not be here having to endure my silly questions.”

  Her aunt’s wry chuckle echoed slightly as she turned and continued down the stairs. At the bottom, she pushed through the door to the kitchen and announced her arrival with a sharp thwack of the cane.

  “Well, where is he? What manner of fish has my niece caught for us? Still alive you say? Good gracious heavens, and still spewing water on my floors? If there is rum in that mix, and I find out he has lost his clothes in a waterfront brothel, why--”

  The door swung shut, cutting off the last half of the threat, and in the few seconds it took Anna to catch up her aunt was standing at the foot of a long pine chopping table studying the unmoving body of the man lying face down on the boards. The waterman, Harold Broom, who had obviously been attempting to pump the remaining water out of the man’s lungs, was at the head of the table, his thick arms hanging like tree trunks by his sides. Behind him, craning his head up on an already stretched and scrawny throat was the houseman, Willerkins.

  “Go ahead,” Florence ordered, rapping her cane on the floor. “Turn him over.”

  Broom nodded and rolled the unconscious man onto his side first, then his back. There was still a considerable amount of sand clinging to various parts of his body, and enough moisture remained in the skimpy shield of linen to cause Florence’s eyebrows to fold upward into her wrinkles. She said nothing for a moment, then a somewhat reluctant wave of her cane brought forth a towel to drape across his waist and upper thighs.