Stephanie and the Wicked Deceiver (Wild Marchmonts #2)

9. A Disturbing Conclusion

Chapter 9

A Disturbing Conclusion

T hey travelled back to Hedley Court an hour later, Hedley allowing the baronet to spell him on the long road. Armitage was the only one amongst his friends that he would trust with his pair. Fortescue was good – but not enough – and Pettigrew too imprudent. Perhaps, he thought, one day he would let Miss Marchmont drive his greys. What he had seen of her skill was remarkable.

But if his punishment came into force, he doubted that there would be time. He did not wish to display his superior pair to her as yet because she was not an idiot; to see that he owned such a high-spirited pair was to expose the deception at a stroke.

The earl felt that familiar stab of guilt that had grown daily since the jest he had once considered harmless had begun. Now he just longed to see her, to enjoy what time they had left.

He had not expressed the deal he had made with the redoubtable mama to his friend; on reflection he had not been quite sure of what it consisted. If Stephanie took his confession of perfidy as a bad joke as a child might, with anger and vows for vengeance, once her mother removed her back to London he was to be parted from her.

But what if the confession took a different route? What if Stephanie took it as a young lady might and was truly wounded? What if she displayed…? This alternative had not been fully discussed with her mama. But he supposed he must… No, there was no must ; any hint of a must would insult mother and daughter both. The lady had been right; it would then be his privilege.

Hedley had a headache. He realised they had jumped one hundred steps ahead and all of this was out of his imaginative capacity; probably that was why the wonderfully competent mama had stopped at option number one.

Armitage looked at him. ‘I’ll take over at the next halt. You have windmills in your head.’

‘How did I get here, Rupert?’

Armitage cocked an eyebrow. ‘Do you regret it?’

Hedley’s head cleared at this. ‘Not a moment of it.’

‘Then the problem is?’

‘ She might,’ Hedley said quietly.

‘Yes.’ Armitage’s tone was cool. ‘If she is not the child we think her, she might.’

Stephanie had come to the Court for riding and company even without Hedley’s presence. Gertrude Galloway, who had been informed by Fortescue about the purpose of Hedley’s London visit, invited the child for dinner in the evenings, too, expressing her desire to be amused by someone other than a pair of raffish boys. Stephanie was pleased to agree, stating that dinner in state on her own at Reddingate was dull as ditch water.

Over dinner, Gertrude watched as Stephanie offered Horace Pettigrew tips on riding to that young man’s intense irritation. ‘I shan’t take notes from a green girl like you!’

‘Well, you should,’ said Stephanie calmly, ‘for your rise is much too marked, you know. It is a waste of your energy, and it sends the wrong message to your mount.’

‘I am famed for my skills!’ he protested.

Stephanie was unimpressed. ‘Well, I should never let you ride Qianlong Emperor. He would be skittish in five minutes, and then you would not be able to hold him.’

‘Fortescue,’ appealed Pettigrew, ‘bear me out! I do not know why I should respond to this minx but tell her I am famed in London.’

‘He is famed,’ Fortescue assented, ‘but for what , precisely, I cannot now recall.’

When Pettigrew exclaimed, Gertrude laughed. ‘You leave me out of the conversation if you all discuss riding.’

‘Oh, I am sorry, ma’am, but I know nothing of embroidery and such, you know!’ Stephanie said.

Gertrude recoiled at the assumption that this was her only entry point into polite conversation, but the child had not intended to offend.

‘Though I can sew,’ the girl continued. ‘Mama tied me to a chair more than once to make me learn and forbade me the stables for a week for disobedience. Then she made me unravel all my sisters’ yarns, until I decided it was easier just to learn to set a stitch. But I cannot discuss it.’

‘You just have,’ said Gertrude brightly. ‘I think your mama’s methods show your similarity of spirit, Miss Marchmont.’

‘Oh, you should call me Stephanie – all of you should. Once you meet my entire family you will not be able to distinguish me among a hoard of Miss Marchmonts. There is not just my sisters Phoebe, Roseanna, Tabitha and Berthe. Even my married sister Naomi is now Mrs Marchmont, just to be confusing.’

‘How dreadfully inconvenient,’ intoned Lord Fortescue with humour.

Stephanie smiled. ‘Yes, isn’t it? But Eliot, her husband, is very nice, I assure you.’ She continued. ‘But on top of that, there are another two Miss Marchmonts under the same roof: Miss Ophelia Marchmont and Clytemnestra, both sisters of the Earl of Tremaine. Distant cousins, you know.’

‘Then,’ said Gertrude decidedly, ‘we must definitely call you Stephanie or when we go back to London we shall be in a real pickle, calling after you in the street only to find five other females arrive. I have forgotten all the names already, apart from Clytemnestra, which is rather difficult to forget.’

‘Poor woman,’ remarked Pettigrew.

‘I know ,’ said Stephanie. ‘But fortunately, her sister Ophelia renamed her Queenie when she was a child, and it is what everyone calls her now. Everyone in the family, I mean.’

‘I know Ophelia Marchmont,’ remarked Fortescue. ‘I danced with her last Season. She is very beautiful.’

‘Oh, Miss Galloway,’ said Pettigrew, without thinking as usual but in the spirit of including her, Gertrude was sure. ‘You are from the same play.’

‘Pardon?’ Gertrude frowned a little then understood. ‘Oh Hamlet! I suppose I am.’

‘I do not know that play,’ Stephanie confessed. ‘I was supposed to go to a performance in London but it sounded dull when Eliot described it. A prince thinks his mother and her new husband, his uncle, were involved in his father’s death.’

‘But it has gravediggers and ghosts,’ said Fortescue in a sinister voice.

‘Gravediggers are necessary,’ said Stephanie blandly. ‘And ghosts do not exist.’

‘You are not easily frightened, Miss Marchmont – or Stephanie, I should call you.’

‘Who are Ophelia and Gertrude in the play?’ she enquired.

‘The first is Hamlet’s lost love who goes mad and kills herself, and the second is Hamlet’s beloved – but possibly faithless – mother.’

‘It sounds rather better than I thought. Perhaps I should have gone.’

‘Did not your Mama insist on you at least reading the bard, Stephanie?’ asked Gertrude, smiling.

Sticking a fork in his beef, Pettigrew murmured, ‘Have to catch her first.’

But Stephanie nodded. ‘Sonnets!’ she said, mouth still stuffed with mutton.

Fortescue laughed and looked to Miss Galloway as the only other adult at the table. She smiled.

‘Did you enjoy your coming out, Miss Galloway?’ asked Stephanie, once she had swallowed.

This was tantamount to asking a spinster why she was unwed, but Miss Galloway was unfazed. ‘I was not presented , but I did have one Season. Then, alas, it was over twenty years until I saw London once again with my dear Lady Maria. But I do enjoy plays and opera, and even dancing. I do not only sew. Though you think poorly of ladies who do not ride or drive themselves, I do like to walk. Indeed, I walked five miles or so today.’

‘Alone?’ exclaimed Stephanie, who dearly missed her usual accompaniment of siblings. ‘ I shall come with you next time.’

‘Why, thank you!’

‘Well, Morag cannot walk far, and she will not let me out much on my own.’

‘Selfish minx!’ remarked Pettigrew.

‘ You are selfish since you did not accompany Miss Galloway today,’ Stephanie chided.

‘I did not know…’

‘Pooh!’ said Stephanie, and Fortescue laughed.

‘You are both a pair of spoiled children,’ he said.

There was an altercation in the hall while the two were squabbling about this accusation from Fortescue, then Hedley and Armitage entered.

Stephanie jumped up. ‘Hedley!’ she cried, almost ecstatic.

‘What is this noise I hear?’ Hedley was shaken by her greeting. She was standing opposite him after running from the table to welcome him and was looking up her delight at his return.

‘It is just Mr Pettigrew being silly. Lord Fortescue said we are both spoiled children.’

Because he could not help it, Hedley thought, he chucked her chin albeit briefly and casually. ‘Well, you are!’ He handed his cape and hat off to a footman without looking and walked to the table, where a setting had already appeared. Stephanie traipsed happily at his back. Armitage sat, too, and his eyes flicked between the red-haired child and Hedley.

Stephanie was wearing a London gown, a day dress of primrose dimity, and her curls were atop her head in a delightful crown since presumably tonight there were no horses to ride or trees to climb.

Hedley was trying to keep his face neutral and not quite managing it. Stephanie Marchmont had not taken her eyes from him, and he flushed a little even as he looked away. Armitage did not think she had noticed him arrive at all. Things had moved along without anyone knowing exactly when.

‘I do like your coat, Hedley. It is less … it is much nicer than your others,’ the girl said. It was one of his own coats, of course, not one of the flashier numbers sported by his young friend.

Pettigrew sniffed. ‘That is because you have no notion of fashion.’

‘I think Stephanie is fashionably attired this evening,’ Miss Galloway intervened. ‘She must know fashion very well.’

‘Oh, I know nothing of fashion, except what I like and do not. Mama gowns me.’ Stephanie turned to the earl again. ‘Did you miss us?’ she enquired. ‘Is that why you returned?’

‘It is only that our business was finished,’ Armitage offered as Hedley hesitated.

‘And I feared Fortescue and Pettigrew might drink my cellars dry in the interim,’ remarked the earl as casually as he could.

Fortescue, seeing his struggle, helped. ‘Stephanie has taken to teaching Horace when she did not have you as her pupil.’

‘You all seem very free with Miss Marchmont’s name since we left.’

‘Stephanie suggested that, since there are such a lot of Marchmont girls in London, we should call her by her name lest she is lost in the crowd.’

‘Then we should do so, too, eh, Hedley?’ said Armitage, a trifle evilly.

‘I suppose,’ Hedley replied inconsequentially.

‘You do not wish to?’ Stephanie asked, a little hurt at his cool tone.

‘Not at all,’ said Hedley, his voice warm once more. ‘It would be my privilege, Stephanie.’ As he watched a touch of colour come to her freckled cheeks, he remembered when else he had heard the word ‘privileged’, and he felt his own cheeks warm.

‘Do you know,’ complained Pettigrew, ‘that this chit told me I had a bad seat , Hedley?’

‘I did not say bad ,’ said Stephanie patiently. ‘I just said it could improve .’

‘See the arrogance of it?’ Pettigrew sounded exasperated. ‘I tell you, miss, Hedley is known as one of the best h—’ he stopped. ‘I mean Armitage is known as one of the best horsemen in England, and he has never mentioned such a thing to me!’

‘That is because I did not know how to break it to you, dear boy,’ said the baronet gently.

They all laughed at this except for the butt of the joke, and Gertrude watched as Stephanie’s eyes sought Hedley’s to share the jest. The earl was presently in shock, thought the spinster lady. He was looking at Stephanie’s smile with a slight return of his own, but generally in a mood of deeply moved amazement.

The young girl had missed him; all could see that but the two children. Stephanie had missed him and now every joyful smile from the usually phlegmatic child showed that, with Hedley’s return, all was once again right with her world.

Later, once Stephanie and her maid had departed back to Reddingate in her phaeton with the sinister little Italian riding behind, the four friends were joined by Miss Galloway to share a port. She left early to bed then Fortescue said, ‘Well!’

‘Well, what?’ enquired Pettigrew.

‘He is the idiot Stephanie thinks him,’ remarked Armitage to Fortescue. At Pettigrew’s amusing expostulation, Armitage went on, as though to a child, ‘Horace, why did Hedley and I travel to London?’

Pettigrew shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Ben said it was to visit the girl’s family.’

‘And why did he do so ? ’ Fortescue pursued.

‘Because he’s guilty about the trick we’ve been playing, I suppose, though I have no idea why. She’s been mightily amused coming here giving instructions and sparring with me. She likes to ride too. Treat for her.’

‘But what if she finds that we have all been making sport of her?’ asked Armitage.

‘She’ll likely take her crop to us and I suppose we’d deserve it,’ Pettigrew considered.

‘We would indeed, but what if she was to be really hurt by it, Horace?’ asked Benjamin Fortescue patiently.

‘I can’t see that. She’s not missish , ye know. Most likely take it on the chin like a man.’

‘But she is not a man, is she? She is a girl, and we have all been guilty of tricking her for days now,’ pursued the baron.

‘My fault,’ sighed Hedley.

‘We all played our part,’ Armitage offered.

‘But I mean to say,’ protested Horace Pettigrew, ‘I know it began so, but it is just … well, we are all friends now. Why, she rags on me constantly, just like my sister Amy.’

‘And what if a group of strange men deceived Amabel when she was far from you and made sport of her?’ intoned Armitage.

There was a pause while Pettigrew imagined and gulped. ‘I’d kill them!’ he concluded.

‘And we’d help you,’ agreed Fortescue.

Pettigrew looked totally abashed. ‘What do we do now?’

‘I must tell her of course,’ sighed Hedley. ‘But her mama suggests that I delay until she arrives the week after next. And I want to find a suitable time to tell her, also.’

‘I don’t suppose we’ll laugh quite so much at the joke in these days going forward,’ remarked Fortescue wryly.

‘Goodness! What did her mother say to you?’ Pettigrew asked.

‘Nothing I was expecting,’ said Hedley cryptically.

‘She didn’t insist you must offer for her, or anything ghastly like that?’ Pettigrew sounded appalled.

‘No. Indeed, she insisted that the word ‘must’ would never be associated in any offer for Miss Marchmont. That any man who did not think it was his privilege to wed her was not worthy of her precious daughter.’

‘No talk of the advantages of becoming the richest countess in England?’ remarked Fortescue with a hint of cynicism.

‘No,’ replied the earl drily. ‘I do not think that the Duke of Clashmore’s heiress is much concerned with my fortune.’

‘Clashmore? Good God! But does she not say words about her daughter’s reputation?’

‘I explained the addition of Miss Galloway to our household. And, thank goodness, no one else knows of her visits here.’

‘Well, about that – Lady Cressida Parkinson might.’

‘What?’ explained Hedley, truly appalled.

‘She appeared again when you were gone,’ sighed Fortescue. ‘Very anxious to see you and to know who the girl with the dreadful bonnet whom she had met in the grounds might be. We turned the subject, of course. Miss Galloway was excellently vague.’

‘Lady Cressida is a beautiful viper,’ said Armitage

‘She cannot believe that there is one man in England who does not want her!’ said Fortescue disdainfully.

‘There’s more than one,’ Horace Pettigrew added. ‘There’s a roomful here who find her nought but repulsive after watching her be a wasp to anyone Hedley deigned to dance with last Season!’

‘Did she?’ The earl sounded surprised. ‘How do you know?’

‘Had a go at Amy,’ replied Pettigrew shortly, referring to his younger sister.

‘No!’ Hedley was shocked that a girl he had known since a child could have suffered such a fate only because of a friendly dance. He wondered who else had been at the barbed end of Lady Cressida’s tongue.

‘I spoke to her exalted ladyship about it and had my nose bitten. Her father came to me – after she complained about me, I assume – and said it was his fault that she lacked good manners. The esteemed duke apologised.’

‘How can it be his fault?’ Hedley asked.

‘Apparently, he left her with a shrew of an aunt when he was off fighting the French. He told me the woman brought her up telling her about her noblesse but missing out the oblige . He asked me to forgive her.’

‘And what did you say?’ asked Lord Fortescue. ‘Fawned over the ducal blaze on his waistcoat, I suppose.’

‘I did not, for my dander was up,’ Pettigrew protested. ‘I told him I might forgive this time, but I would instruct my sister to slap Lady Cressida’s face if she was insulted again.’

‘What did the old man say to that?’ The baron was amused.

‘He said it would serve her right, but that he would ensure that it did not occur again.’

‘I suppose she’s staying at Hardcastle. I wonder where Mrs Taunton has been shifted to?’ Fortescue mused.

‘I’d have said to the inn in the village if the duke was out of time. I must visit her. A vastly amusing woman, Mrs Taunton,’ remarked Armitage.

‘I think old Dorchester will marry her once he sees off his daughter. I suppose he’s afraid the old scandal might besmirch his daughter now.’

‘I doubt Cressida knows anything about it. Young ladies generally do not, and Mrs Taunton is a discreet woman,’ considered Armitage. ‘A fine lady, in my opinion.’

‘Dorchester cannot think he can foist the wench on me , can he?’ Hedley demanded. ‘I made it perfectly plain last Season that I did not like her. I even left the ballroom when they came towards me at the Lassiters’ Ball. But why else would he bring her to Shropshire?’

‘I expect she plagued him,’ suggested Horace. ‘Ben’s sister has that down to a fine art with the Dowager Lady Fortescue.’

‘It is true,’ agreed his friend. ‘Evelyn simply repeats the same thing several times a day in a failing voice until Mama gives permission.’

‘You cannot compare Evelyn’s tricks to see a play or some such with Lady Cressida’s behaviour.’

‘I heard that the patronesses were considering withholding vouchers,’ remarked Armitage, who was generally more in the know than the others.

‘No!’ Pettigrew was shocked. ‘From a duke’ s daughter?’

‘From anyone without the requisite manners,’ said the baronet with hauteur. He was an intimate friend of two of the patronesses of Almacks that Fortescue knew of. ‘Anyway, things have rather moved on in the case of Hedley and Stephanie, do we not think?’

‘How?’ said Pettigrew. ‘Because we call her by name?’

‘Let us to bed, my boy.’ Lord Fortescue threw an arch look at his two friends. ‘It is better to have an early night.’

‘It is too early,’ protested Pettigrew.

‘Then we’ll have a game of billiards. I think Rupert and Max have things to talk of. ‘

‘They do? Well, alright, but I’m taking the sherry.’

‘As our dear friend the baron said, things have moved along somewhat even in your absence,’ said Armitage when Fortescue and Pettigrew had gone.

For the second time that day, Hedley felt himself blush. ‘Yes.’

‘It cannot be denied.’

‘No.’

‘Of course she might just consider you her chief friend. Like a new brother.’

‘Don’t confuse me, Rupert. I have been trying to deal with what I found on my return. She gave herself away.’

‘As did you. Miss Galloway gave me a word to say that you needed some care. Stephanie certainly displayed that she had missed you but, though you tried to hide it, you also showed your delight in seeing her .’

‘I am ten years her senior, Rupert. And she … she is still more of a child than a whole town of debutantes her age. Even if she does feel for me more than as a friend, she is not aware of it. Should I be the man to make her aware?’

‘What did her mama say?’

‘That if she was still a child in my presence, I should part from her once she drives Stephanie back to London.’

‘Ah!’

‘Yes. So I do not know what to hope now. When she finds out, will she be an angry child who takes a just revenge, or will she be a damaged young lady?’

‘I have an idea to make it clearer.’

‘Yes?’

‘Since we will no doubt be plagued by the appearance of Lady Cressida…’

‘Whose tongue would seek to ruin Stephanie if she guessed my inclination,’ said Hedley in a tone of dread.

‘She could not ruin her if she became your betrothed .’

At this thought Hedley’s heartbeat almost from his chest.

‘But before that,’ his friend went on inexorably, ‘you need to know if Stephanie really is thinking of you differently.’ The eyebrow rose once more. ‘My advice? Pay some attention to Lady Cressida in Stephanie’s presence.’

‘ That is juggling with fire. And I have no wish to damage the duke’s daughter, either.’

‘We shall all be there to protect you … and even the viper, once we explain it in words of three letters to Horace. And you need not do much. A beautiful rival might be enough.’

‘And do we do this during my riding lessons or fencing lessons ?’ asked the earl sarcastically.

‘No. Let Miss Galloway invite Lady Cressida to dinner, together with the duke, and then we will see what occurs.’

‘We seek to induce jealousy. Another trick on the poor girl. I have been shamefully dishonest from the start.’

‘We fight for your life , Max, and possibly Stephanie’s. I do not think she could find a better man than you.’

Hedley quirked an eyebrow at this unusual and unexpected compliment but said only, ‘She is not interested in men at all.’

‘We shall see.’ Armitage gave his most satyr-like look.

Mrs Taunton, returning for lunch at the inn, was surprised to be called downstairs before the hour. ‘A gentl’m’n wants you, ma’am!’ was told to her by a busy maid, who no doubt had been interrupted in her preparations to serve the inn guests their luncheon.

The duke must be free today, she thought happily as she adjusted her lovely chestnut hair in the mirror and retrieved a paisley shawl to cover her day dress. But it was not the duke who awaited her at the foot of the stairs; it was three very fashionable gentlemen whom she knew well.

‘Sir Rupert, Lord Fortescue, Lord Hedley! How pleasant to see you all!’

‘We met the duke and heard you were here, so we thought we must come to visit you, Mrs Taunton!’ said Hedley.

The lady put a finger to her lips. Of course her connection to the duke was known in the district, but it was not to be spoken of in this busy inn where travellers might hear. ‘Do you wish to take luncheon?’ she asked. ‘It is very busy here today but fortunately I have a private parlour.’

The gentlemen nodded assent and soon were ensconced in the largest private parlour the inn boasted. A server came to expand the table to accommodate the luncheon party.

They spoke of mutual acquaintances. Dorchester frequently invited close friends to dine with himself and his lady, and she was much regarded among them. Her presence in the Season was not obvious and Hedley had often wondered why. There was no scandal attached to Mrs Taunton’s name; she had only to call herself by her real title, Miss Taunton (her family was an old and venerable one, with only an uncle left living in the Indies) to be accepted everywhere. The wealthy uncle would be assumed to frank her rich clothes and jewels, and she might live a full life without the connection to the duke being admitted. But she preferred to be the power behind the ducal throne and remain in the shadows, known only to his friends.

She was not much older than them, and the fashionable young gentlemen greatly admired her beauty and poise as well as her warmth. Hedley frequently felt that the imperturbable Armitage might have the vague wish to have met her before the duke, for he looked into her hazel eyes a little too long at times. He spoke of her one evening as a ‘pattern card for grace’, and so she was.

‘The duke has told me that you were injured, Hedley,’ she now said. ‘Are you quite recovered?’

‘Almost.’

‘Then you go to London soon?’

‘Perhaps…’ said the earl vaguely.

‘Don’t expect logical decisions or answers from the earl, Mrs Taunton, for he is far from capable at the moment.’

‘You hurt your head?’ The lovely lady was full of concern.

‘No, it is his heart, I’m afraid,’ said Armitage.

‘Rupert!’ warned Hedley.

But Fortescue also laughed.

‘Ah, I hear Lady Cressida is at Hardcastle,’ said Mrs Taunton significantly with a sidelong look at Hedley.

The gentlemen shook their heads. ‘I always thought you the most discerning of women, Mrs Taunton,’ said the baronet, ‘but not on this occasion.’

She laughed and said easily, ‘I am so sorry to disappoint , Sir Rupert!’ But Armitage thought, as his heroine supped some wine with a gay smile, that she looked a little concerned.

As they left, she remarked, ‘I heard that Mr Pettigrew is also at the Court. He did not come?’

‘He has a sore head after opening a new cask of the earl’s brandy last night,’ said Fortescue.

‘Also,’ said Armitage more openly, ‘he has an indiscreet mouth.’

‘You protect my reputation.’ Mrs Taunton gave a trilling laugh.

‘No, everyone else’s. Horace usually has no idea of what he speaks and has no notion what secrets he tells.’

‘Like unwittingly disclosing the object of Hedley’s affection?’ said Mrs Taunton shaking the curls that had escaped from her topknot as she laughed. The earl gave a murmur at this. ‘I am sorry, then, that he did not come!’

When Mrs Taunton returned to her chamber, there was a telling line between her eyebrows. ‘Oh dear!’ she muttered to herself.