Stephanie and the Wicked Deceiver (Wild Marchmonts #2)

5. Keeping Up the Proprieties

Chapter 5

Keeping Up the Proprieties

M orag McLeod knew her duty. She had gone to open Stephanie’s door the day before and found the girl within. However, a lady’s maid’s eye had noted that Miss’s hem was muddier than when she, Morag, had locked the girl in the chamber (a draconian practice that it would take seventeen years of knowing Miss Stephanie to understand) so as to know where the girl was while she made up for the deficiencies of the housekeeper’s skills.

Fully instructed by this plainly dressed, plain-faced Scottish person, Mrs Drake the housekeeper’s pride had been eventually appeased by Morag McLean’s breadth of knowledge and her superior understanding of how a duke’s house should be run. Morag did not criticise but instructed calmly, a trick she had learned from her mistress.

Now Mrs Drake met the maid again and was surprised at her visit to the boot room.

‘Who takes care of these, Mrs Drake?’ Morag asked.

‘Stanley is the boot boy. I newly installed him for your visit.’

‘Well, tell Stan to let me know about the amount of mud on Miss Stephanie’s boots during the day.’

‘The amount of…’

‘There’s no point in me telling you about Miss Stephanie yet, Mrs Drake. You will see it all soon enough.’

As this was not said in a repressive, mind-your-business tone, but in a long-suffering one, Mrs Drake did not take offence. ‘I’ll tell him, Miss McLean.’

‘Call me Morag, there are too many McLeans where I come from.’

But Morag had seen the mud for herself, so she had to inform her lady.

Stephanie was introduced to Hedley’s friends the next day when she arrived with Morag and Pietro for the riding lesson. She was dressed in her shabby clothes, but all three gentlemen stared at the long red curls that hung beneath her dreadful hat, spilled onto her shoulders and down to her waist.

She was used to this and said, ‘Red. A sign of a devil’s child, I have been told.’

Pettigrew responded with jocularity, ‘No, no! No one believes such old wives’ tales anymore, Miss Marchmont.’

‘Good. Let us ride! Pietro, you come with me. Morag will await us here with Wilson. Good morning, Wilson!’

The butler looked down his nose, but Morag McLean would not have it. ‘Well, mannie, answer your betters.’

Wilson looked at her with revulsion then turned back to Stephanie. ‘Good morning, Miss Marchmont,’ he said with absolute disinterest.

‘Watch your tone!’ Morag whispered sharply, but Stephanie heard it and smiled a little. It was one thing for Morag to be annoyed with her but she would not brook it from others.

As the riders reached the stable, Stephanie noted Horace Pettigrew squinting at Pietro. ‘What do you look at, Mr Pettigrew?’

‘Your groom’s clothes. Queerly dressed little fellow, ain’t he?’

Stephanie looked at Pietro’s ancient frock coat detailed with many metal buttons and a deal of filthy braid; it had a certain swagger about the cutaway collar that now curled with oily residue. ‘Yes. My sister Naomi says that his clothes were all stolen from an aristocrat by his brigand grandfather sixty years ago.’

The gentlemen all looked to see how the evil-faced demon took this, but Pietro’s black brows slanted upwards in the middle to make an expression of acceptance and he nodded his head as though to say, ‘Very likely.’

‘His fold-over boots are very useful, you know,’ Stephanie added. ‘They cover the thighs as one rides.’

‘The robbed aristocrat must have been rich indeed for that leather to have lasted so long,’ remarked Fortescue.

‘The only care he takes of his appearance is to oil his boots, I believe,’ Stephanie confided.

‘And his hair, by its looks,’ murmured Armitage.

Under the round hat and greasy black curls, Pietro grinned.

‘I shall have tea brought to you inside,’ Wilson said in a distant tone to the middle-aged Scottish maid, thus displaying a mind too great to encompass petty attacks on his manners.

But Morag answered in a sincere, if not warm, tone. ‘Thank you, Mr … Wilson, is it? And thank you for seeing to it that a maid rides with them.’

The butler bent so far as to offer information in response to this olive branch. ‘Maisie is a farmer’s daughter and accustomed to riding. But it was the earl’s instruction.’

‘Keeping the proprieties. I should have asked if one of my own staff could ride, but the country is not the Town and Pietro is with her.’

Wilson looked disapproving.

‘Did my young miss come back here again yesterday in the afternoon?’

Wilson’s eyelids did not flicker. ‘It is not my place to discuss my master’s visitors.’

‘You must understand, Mr Wilson, that Miss Stephanie is granddaughter to a Scottish duke and an English earl. She is unused to having to account for her behaviour.’

‘Quite!’ Wilson’s tone was superior. ‘Her reputation, therefore, is for others to protect.’ He looked significantly to Morag as he said this, then left.

Morag made a face behind his back but followed him to the tea.

Riding out with all four gentlemen, Stephanie summed them up in her head. Mr Horace Pettigrew was friendly, jocular and the youngest of the group. He was riding a fine roan horse called Derby. His round face was quite handsome and his shock of brown curls attractive, though too fussy for her liking. His sense of dress seemed cut from the same mould as her cousin, the Earl of Tremaine, in that he seemed an over-fashionable, preening sort of man; his seat on a horse was showy but still better than Hedley’s. She thought the complex knot on Mr Pettigrew’s cravat might strangle him, and his starched shirt points were hurting his cheeks, but he was young and friendly, not so much like Tremaine after all.

Lord Fortescue, whom the others referred to as Ben, was dark and attractive. His burly build and square face made him look a little older than Hedley, though they were probably the same age. As they all did, he liked to tease Pettigrew; it was to their credit that they did not tease Hedley who was the much weaker rider. Fortescue was riding a pure white stallion named Warrior, which was as tall as Stephanie’s Qianlong Emperor.

Sir Rupert Armitage’s strange and quite riveting face was sinister but his horse, a glossy black called Satan, loved him; he rode his fine mount with remarkable skill and Stephanie counted that among his qualities. He was a fashionable buck like the others, but not as flashy as Hedley and Pettigrew or as restrained as Fortescue. He was what Stephanie thought of as elegant, like Eliot’s friend and her fencing instructor, Sir Francis Sedgewick. Armitage’s coat fitted him perfectly without strangling him; his waistcoat was impressive and his knee breeches and boots immaculate. She could see that he might adopt a mirror shine in London, but in the country, he was dressed elegantly but appropriately. He was intelligent, somewhat of a wit like her sister Naomi.

‘Why, sir,’ said Stephanie to him, ‘did you not teach Hedley yourself when you are obviously an excellent rider?’

‘I did not think he needed my instruction,’ Sir Rupert replied lightly.

On the other side of her Pettigrew said hastily, ‘What Armitage means is…’ he leaned forward in his saddle ‘…that Max – Hedley, I mean … is a trifle sensitive to criticism.’

‘I thought so!’ said Stephanie. ‘It is a lowering thought, but he probably finds correction easier coming from a woman than from his friends.’

‘Only such a woman as yourself, Miss Marchmont,’ said Armitage suavely.

‘Yes, I am a better rider than most, better than all my sisters except Phoebe. I like a challenge, but when Phoebe is enraged she can be a complete madwoman on a horse. Brilliant, but crazy! Once she cleared a wall that must have been twelve feet high. I might have done so too, but I had more respect for the animal beneath me.’

‘I should hope so. But I should be intrigued to meet a sister more reckless than you.’

Stephanie appraised him. ‘I don’t think she would like to meet you, Sir Rupert. She has sworn off rakes, you know.’ She kicked her heels in and drew abreast of Hedley again, correcting his posture with a poke of her crop. ‘Shoulders!’ she told him.

Pettigrew let out a guffaw. ‘Well, that floored you, Armitage! And she was not even jesting.’

‘No,’ said Sir Rupert. ‘She was merely reporting on what she saw. I must change my tailor.’

‘That won’t help with the wicked face.’

‘I fear not,’ said Armitage sadly.

‘Did I hear that you called Armitage a rake?’ said Fortescue, who was riding abreast of Hedley.

‘Oh, is he not?’ Stephanie asked, slightly disinterested because she was observing Hedley’s hands on the reins.

‘Well … what do you mean by rake, Miss Marchmont?’

‘Oh, someone who flirts with women. He told me my red hair was enchanting. Pooh! ’

‘He does do that,’ said the earl. ‘And what else?’

‘Someone who does not mean the things he says … a deceiver.’

Fortescue coughed.

‘I see.’ Hedley threw him a strange look. ‘Do you know any other rakes?’

‘No, but I was in London and the talk was of rakes and men who must be avoided. I did not really understand. But there was a man at Tremaine who said nice things to Ph—’ she stopped herself with belated discretion ‘—one of my sisters, and who did not mean his words at all. Everyone agreed he was a rake.’

‘That sounds right. However, my friend may be charming but he is not a rake.’

‘Then he shouldn’t talk nonsense to me. That is just the sort of thing that can get sillier girls like my sister R—’ she stopped herself again ‘—to become deliriously happy and imagine a wedding, and so on.’

‘I should warn him,’ said Hedley gravely.

‘No,’ said Fortescue with feeling. ‘Let me!’

‘You are laughing at me, Lord Fortescue,’ Stephanie protested. ‘You should be more like your friend the earl. When he speaks, he is forthright. He does not make jests at girls who do not understand them. My brother Rich says I have no humour but neither does he, so he was not being insulting.’

They rode on without incident until the horses were obliged to walk because of a narrow, rough path. Stephanie and Armitage were abreast, with the others behind in twos.

After chatting for some time, the baronet gallantly bent over to the right to disentangle the hem of Stephanie’s skirt, which had become caught in her stirrup. A whirr and a wind passed his left ear and everyone stopped their horses in shock, except for the groom who rode ahead of them through the narrowest of gaps and retrieved his knife from a tree trunk. He turned his horse to head back to his position at the rear and began cleaning his teeth with the point of the blade.

‘Good Go-—!’ gasped Pettigrew.

‘Oh, do not mind Pietro, I pray you. We were probably too close, Sir Rupert,’ Stephanie explained to him. She laughed at the others. ‘He broke a man’s arm in a London street when the fellow tried to lay a hand on me after I interceded when he struck a poor child.’ The gentlemen looked at her, agape. ‘Once he gets to trust you all, Pietro will not bother you, I assure you.’

‘You are lucky he is so loyal,’ remarked Hedley, a trifle concerned.

‘Oh, not luck,’ she said airily. ‘Mama pays him a great deal of money.’ She looked back at the Italian. ‘However, I think he finds me interesting now. Sometimes, when we practise tumbling or fencing, he even smiles.’ She turned to Armitage. ‘Do you forgive him yet, Sir Rupert?’

‘I do. He was protecting a maiden’s innocence. Is he mute? I have never heard him talk.’

‘He does not,’ she said, ‘or only to me occasionally. ’He is a man of few words and many expressions. He makes himself understood.’

‘Well, we all understood him today,’ said Hedley.

‘I expect it was just a warning. But you are a good man, Sir Rupert.’

This was said rather as Armitage’s friends at school had praised him for a home run at cricket; even so, the baronet bowed and said, ‘Miss Marchmont, you unman me!’ in a dramatic voice.

‘No more of that or Pietro will very likely clip your ear!’ But she smiled – and Armitage was amused to encounter a dark look from his friend the earl.

As they finished their ride, Stephanie said to Hedley in a whisper, ‘I will escape Morag and come back at two for our fencing lesson. Best not invite your friends until you are a little improved. I should not want you discouraged, and they are given to jest.’

‘Thank you, Miss Marchmont.’

He seemed to look a little ashamed. ‘Do not fear, you are improving all the time,’ she continued. ‘When I am finished with you, no man shall laugh at you.’ She gave him a hearty slap on the back – then turned and found the Morag at the archway to the stable block looking at her disapprovingly with narrowed eyes.

‘We expect another guest, I think!’ remarked Hedley to the others over nuncheon two days later. They had all just enjoyed a longer and more spirited ride with the young tutor this day and were eating heartily.

‘Who? Ramsey?’ asked Fortescue.

‘No, Miss Galloway.’

‘Your Aunt Maria’s companion?’ said Pettigrew, shocked.

‘Not companion but friend,’ Hedley stated.

‘But why? To join our brandy-soaked evenings?’ Fortescue raised his brows.

‘For the proprieties, of course,’ drawled Armitage, feeding a morsel of poulet de nicoise to the cat at his feet, who ate it with a delicate grace. He wiped his hands.

‘You are considerate, Max,’ laughed Fortescue.

‘No,’ said Armitage, ‘just terrified that his amusement might end in betrothal.’

‘Miss Marchmont is not grown up enough yet to have any such notion. And she is too terrifying to take to wife,’ remarked Hedley. ‘One would never know what she was about.’

The other three gentlemen nodded at this and the butler gave his inward assent.

‘But what others might say if it became known that a young lady visited a house full of men…!’ Hedley went on. ‘Miss Galloway will pose as my relative. Miss Marchmont is completely unaware of the need for a chaperone, and I will not let her know I disagree. It will spoil her innocent approach to me; no doubt she has been told the purpose of chaperonage often enough but she only trusts her own judgement. She knows that she has no romantic interest and she believes she can deal with males on her own. But she needs protecting from herself, and from wagging tongues. And the Scottish maid, though formidable, does not seem enough protection.’

‘Well, there’s that Italian rogue, too,’ said Fortescue.

‘Her royal bodyguard, if I am not mistaken,’ agreed Armitage.

‘Yes, but a respectable female will protect more than her body – she can protect her reputation. So the story in the area will be that Miss Marchmont visits here to see her friend Miss Galloway. You might set it about in the village inn, Horace.’

Pettigrew raised his brows, ‘Why me?’

‘You are known for your slack jaw,’ Ben Fortescue chimed in.

‘That will tip off Miss Marchmont if she hears of it!’ suggested Armitage with a satyr’s frown.

‘I shall come up with an explanation.’

‘Tell her that your aunt is cruel to Miss Galloway or some such thing. Miss Marchmont has a soft heart,’ suggested Armitage cynically.

‘I don’t see that!’ said Pettigrew. ‘She called you a rake!’

‘Perceptive as well as kind, then,’ said Fortescue, his brown eyes amused.

Miss Gertrude Galloway, dressed more fashionably than Armitage remembered, arrived that evening. She was in her forties and would never have been considered beautiful even in her youth, with hair the most common shade of mouse and a rather flat profile. But there was a light in her eyes, her slim figure was pleasing and she smiled at them all composedly.

But to say she put a damper on dinner was an understatement. Where the gentleman would have broached several bottles of wine as they ate, the butler, Wilson only had to open three. Miss Galloway’s plain face looked on at the consumption of wine not with judgement but with amazement. When Pettigrew gestured to Wilson for another, Miss Galloway’s rather serious eyes looked at him in mild surprise and he waved the butler off as though his grandmother’s eye was upon him.

‘It is very kind of you to invite me, my lord,’ she said to Hedley in her quiet, polite voice.

‘I am only sorry that you have no female company but must put up with a crew of reprobates such as we, Miss Galloway.’

‘Well, my lord, I am fascinated to be involved in the kind of irregular chaperonage that you propose. But I do not quite understand…’

‘Well,’ said Pettigrew, jerking his brown curls to the earl as he spoke, ‘the case is that Miss Stephanie Marchmont is giving lessons in riding to our friend Hedley here.’

A slight frown appeared on the lady’s face, ‘Ah. But I thought Lady Maria said… You are a member of the Four Horse Club, are you not, my lord?’

‘Yes, but Hedley’s skills have declined somewhat,’ said Pettigrew hastily.

‘Fool!’ said Fortescue. He turned his burly body full towards the lady, his face open. ‘The truth is, Miss Galloway, that Hedley is playing rather a trick on Miss Marchmont.’

Shocked, Miss Galloway looked from one to the other.

Hedley opened his mouth but it was the smooth voice of Armitage who said, ‘It is not at all a harmful trick. Amusingly, Miss Marchmont mistook our friend, who is known in Town as a Nonpareil, for a fearful incompetent. He accepted her tutelage for amusement, but now it may be a little embarrassing for the young lady to find out that she has been fooled.’

Hedley eventually spoke. ‘She was sent here because her mama wished to curb her rather effusive energy from getting her into trouble.’ Seeing the concern of Miss Galloway’s face, he continued, ‘Miss Marchmont has no interest in gentlemen except as friends. She is rather a sporting sort of young lady, and I understand her mother’s concern was that she was a little too heroic in town. She saved a child from drowning, for example, and rode too quickly in the London parks. She walked with her attendant in insalubrious areas of town and engaged thieves in conversation. This is all due to her innocence and intense interest in the world, but her mother must be concerned for her safety.’

Miss Galloway nodded, wide eyed.

‘But as you can imagine,’ Hedley went on, ‘such a young lady would be royally bored to be still, for it does not suit her at all. I think that her amusing tutelage is keeping her occupied in the most harmless of ways.’

‘Well, I am not sure,’ Miss Galloway said thoughtfully. ‘I like the idea of an adventure but I do not wish to speak a falsehood to the young lady. And I am not sure… You gentlemen are all so handsome, and there is a danger for a young lady’s heart…’

‘You will see tomorrow that Miss Marchmont is not at all impressed with us. She treats us rather like misbehaving puppies,’ Fortescue told her, amused.

Miss Gertrude Galloway looked at them chidingly. ‘I might venture to suppose, gentlemen, that you probably are just that.’

‘But we do not seek to ruin the reputation of a young lady not yet out, nor make her ashamed of her innocent interest in this pack of hounds.’

Miss Galloway tittered behind her hand. ‘What age is she?’

‘I believe she is sixteen or perhaps seventeen. Just old enough to think all boys are stupid,’ said Armitage.

‘Seventeen,’ reported the earl.

‘Well, my lord, I am not sure that I can help you deceive the young lady,’ Miss Galloway insisted.

‘Why do you not wait until you meet her tomorrow before you decide, dear lady?’ asked Hedley gently.

He realised that this simple lady was rather more opinionated than when he had first met her after she had taken up residence with Lady Maria. No doubt that was a result of Hedley’s aunt’s care of her and her security in living with her friend rather than as a poor relation in her brother’s home, where word had it that she had been treated poorly. But now he would be ruled by this gentle lady’s integrity for he, too, did not wish to harm Miss Stephanie Marchmont at all.

‘I promise that if you do not agree I will end the game and drag her and myself back to boredom by telling her the truth,’ he offered.

‘ Whatever…?’ said Pettigrew, amazed.

Hedley looked at him. ‘Can you think of a better judge of my actions? You were concerned about Miss Marchmont, too.’

‘I totally agree that Miss Galloway should be our judge and jury,’ said Fortescue, hand on heart.

Armitage’s nodded. ‘Do we participate in a gentle escapade that entertains the teasers and the teased both, or do we do ill? Miss Galloway shall decide.’

Miss Galloway smiled at them. ‘If you say so gentlemen, but do not be disappointed if I disagree with your sport. Young ladies are often more delicate creatures than you imagine.’

‘See if you keep that opinion tomorrow,’ said Armitage, his devilish dark eyes amused.

They parted, Miss Galloway seeking her bed early and the gentlemen finally able to broach the brandy.