The Wicked Guardian Read online

  There was the great river, that in her grandmother’s time had furnished much transportation for ladies and gentlemen, but was now populated mostly by freight barges.

  There was the prince regent’s residence, Carlton House, looking out over St James’s Square, only a short distance from where she stood this moment And out of sight but not out of mind, lay the park, the rendezvous of the fashionable world, and the most exciting, colorful spot in the world!

  She must remember, she told herself, not to give way to her enthusiasm. It was not quite the thing, she had already learned, to let one’s feelings show, at least very much. And Lady Thane’s strong injunctions to her to watch her decorum, lest she betray her extreme youth, had made an indelible impression.

  She sighed deeply. There was so much to learn in the fashionable world, and she dreaded putting her foot wrong. Lady Thane’s advice had included the dire warning that one mistake could easily mean the end of her pretensions to a place in this world.

  “But surely they are not so uncharitable?” protested Clare, unwilling to believe that such unkindness existed, particularly in the glittering world of England’s aristocracy.

  “Fashion, my dear. That is all it is. But if you experienced a breath of criticism, you would be sadly out of fashion, and there would be nothing more I could do for you.”

  But Clare’s misgivings, while lurking just out of sight in her thoughts, nonetheless had to give way to the tremendous activity that began to fill her days. She was used to riding, and Lady Thane’s stables provided an unexceptionable hack for her to mount With Wells, the groom, discreetly behind her, she rode nearly every morning in Hyde Park. The morning was reserved, so it seemed, for those on horseback, while the late afternoon found carriages of all descriptions joining the outing.

  Lady Thane, usually rising just before noon, .managed to restore her vitality in time to ride out in her barouche, the top laid back, to allow the fashionable world to catch a glimpse of her pretty protégée. The tactics had worked when she was presenting Harriet three years ago, and while Harriet’s generous but meddling offer to stay and help chaperon Clare had been promptly and decisively vetoed by her indignant husband, Lady Thane was convinced she knew well enough how to go on without her daughter.

  Lady Thane’s efforts were rewarded with a decided increase in invitations, and Clare soon found that the wardrobe that had been made and packed with such care to accompany her to London was not nearly sufficient for the round of parties that was her lot.

  So, taking her small hoard of money with her, she and Lady Thane repaired to the silk mercer’s, the dressmaker’s, and the milliner’s, where she fell in love with a wide-brimmed bonnet of straw, the brim bordered with a ruching of pink satin ribbon, which extended to allow a big bow to be tied under her chin. On their way home, they passed by Covent Garden, where Lady Thane promised to take her to the theater one night.

  Clare had not been in London above a week when she realized one of her childhood ambitions. At Penryck Abbey, the long gallery held portraits, of varying quality, of members of the family. They were by artists of uneven ability, but one feature all had painted clearly. The Penryck eyebrows.

  Black and straight, like bars across the face of both lady and gentleman, giving the Penrycks as a family an air of stern foreboding. And Clare, from the time she had first glimpsed them, could not believe that such eyebrows existed.

  “I shall believe them when I see them,” she had told grandmama brightly.

  There were few enough Penrycks left, so Grandmama had once told her. “Your poor papa was the last. Except for a distant cousin, and she died young.”

  This particular day, Lady Thane found she had exhausted her supply of reading material. Repairing to Mr. Lane’s library in Leadenhall Street, she explained to Clare, “I know I shall not have much time to read now that you are here, but I do like to settle down in the afternoon after lunch with one of Miss Burney’s novels. I have read all that she has written, I believe. And some, more than once. I do believe I have read Clarentine—one of her books, you know—three times. Do you read a great deal?”

  “We do not have a bookseller near us,” said Clare. “But I did borrow from Lady Melvin a novel called The Fated Revenge.” She laughed a little, and added, “I have never cried so much in my life.”

  Lady Thane nodded approvingly. “You show great sensibility, my dear. I do not blush when I say that I have wept more at Maria Edgeworth’s hands than I did when my dear husband died.”

  The carriage turned into Leadenhall Street, to find they were not alone in seeking the latest from the Minerva Press. There were two barouches ahead of them, and by the time that Lady Thane’s carriage reached the door, and her footman, Charles, leaped to the ground and disappeared inside with his mistress’s list in his hand, the owner of one of the vehicles was emerging from the door of the library.

  It was, so Lady Thane announced, Miss Marianna Morton, one of the brightest lights of society, betrothed a year since to Lord Benedict Choate.

  But Clare had eyes only for the exceedingly well-dressed gentleman who followed Miss Morton toward her carriage. He was dressed in trousers of gray, a morning coat of impeccable fit and quiet cut, and a top hat. His “highlows” were polished till they outshone the sun, and, if Clare had known it, they were among Hoby’s newest creations.

  The gentleman had a distinct curl to his lip, and the glance full of faint contempt with which he swept the street could have daunted the brashest person. But Clare bounced in her seat and said, “I know him!”

  Lady Thane looked at her with unveiled surprise. “You do? Lord Benedict Choate? How can that be, child?”

  The conversation had not taken into consideration the open window of the carriage. Clare’s voice had carried as far as the nonpareil standing on the sidewalk. Lord Choate turned in their direction, and then, recognizing Lady Thane, descended the steps and crossed the sidewalk to speak to her.

  Somewhat flustered, Lady Thane managed the introductions, including Miss Morton, who joined her affianced husband.

  “But then,” she said in a rush, “I needn’t have introduced you, should I? For my goddaughter, Lord Choate, tells me she knows you!”

  Lord Benedict bowed civilly. “I fear I have the wretchedest memory,” he murmured.

  “Of course you don’t remember,” said Clare, seeing that she had made a mull of things. “It is only your eyebrows...”

  Lord Benedict lifted one of the items in question, and Clare rushed on. “In the long gallery at home, you know,” she stammered. “All the portraits of the Penrycks...” Her voice died away, as enlightenment dawned on Lord Choate.

  “My mother was a Penryck,” he said musingly. “But I fear I am not acquainted with her family. She died, you must know, when I was very young.”

  Clare thought of several things she wanted to say to him, but before she could decide upon one of them, she met the quelling eye of Choate’s betrothed. Miss Morton was dressed in a simple elegance that reduced Clare to dumbness. Her gown of gray, with the new full sleeves, was topped by a bonnet of primrose yellow, setting off her raven curls. Clare felt at once dowdy and awkward. Miss Morton’s kindling eye did nothing to put her at ease.

  “So you are related to Choate?” said Miss Morton in a tone calculated to fob off pretenders to intimacy. “I don’t believe I knew much of your connections, Benedict. At least I do not know the Penrycks.”

  Clare was moved, injudiciously, to fence with Miss Morton. “An old family,” she said innocently, “from Dorset. Of course, we prefer our own quiet life to the tumult you have here in this city. You don’t find London dirty? I must confess I am moved to dust everything I see.” Realizing that her words could be interpreted to mean that she herself plied the duster, she added, even more unfortunately, “My own staff at the abbey would be struck with horror.”

  Lady Thane said with a suggestion of tartness, “I am sure, my dear, that you have not found a mote of dust in my house.”
r />   “Oh, no, dear Lady Thane, but you have such hardworking servants.”

  “But,” said Lord Choate suddenly, “this is your first season in London?”

  “Yes,” said Clare languidly. “I wished not to come at all to London, but I was told that I should come before I grew too old to enjoy it.”

  Miss Morton, who had decided at first that Clare was an importunate, childish connection of her affianced, whom she would make sure to see very little of in the next years, now decided that Clare must be older than she looked. Miss Morton, an only child, had little humor, and a strong tendency to take a literal view of all things.

  Enough of this was certainly enough, she thought, turning to Benedict But her betrothed had a queer look in his eye, one that she had not as yet been privileged to see, and could not decipher.

  “I must regret that our families have grown apart,” he said soberly. “Perhaps Lady Thane will permit me to call upon you one morning next week. I should enjoy pursuing the ramifications of our relationship.”

  Lady Thane, overcome, said faintly, “Of course, Lord Choate.”

  But Clare, conscious of a strong surge of dislike for the mocking light she discerned in his dark eyes, objected. “I fear, Lady Thane, that we will find it difficult for some days to come to find time. With much regret, Lord Choate.”

  Miss Morton’s eyes took on a glitter. Benedict, catching sight of her tucked-in lips, thought better of baiting the girl in the carriage. She was far out of her depth, he realized, if she wished to tilt with Marianna. And he himself, surprisingly, did not wish the child to be publicly shamed.

  And, he thought ruefully, Marianna could do it!

  “Come, Benedict,” said his beloved. “I cannot think why we stand here on the street, when I have told you I wished to go to Botibol’s. Countess Lieven says he has a new shipment of ostrich feathers, and I must see them at once.”

  Bowing civilly to Lady Thane and to Clare, Benedict followed his Marianna to the fashionable black barouche just ahead of them.

  “For all the world,” said Clare, nettled, “like a small lapdog.”

  Lady Thane was horrified. Even more, she was stirred to the bottom of her conventional soul. “Do you know who he is?”

  “A cousin, I daresay,” said Clare. She was beginning to realize now that she had made an error: one of the ever-present pitfalls of the world of Mayfair had sucked her in. She would have, if she could, crawled into a small hole. But she was open to the world in Lady Thane’s barouche, and must of necessity put a good face on things.

  “He is,” said Lady Thane in a stifling manner, “a nonpareil. A notable whip, an arbiter of fashion...” Words failed her, not surprisingly, and she fell back upon the cushions. “Well,” she said finally, as the coachman began to draw ahead, “perhaps all is not lost. I doubt that Choate himself will talk, and Miss Morton, I wager, has already forgotten you. But, child, do not be so forward. It does make you look very young, you know.”

  In part, Lady Thane was mistaken. Marianna Morton had not forgotten Clare. She, like her late father, was well-versed in the ramifications of every family of consequence in the kingdom. She knew to the fourth cousin all of Benedict’s family, meaning, of course, the Choates. But she became conscious now of a lack in her information. The Penrycks had nearly dropped out of sight Nothing derogatory was known of them—in fact, little at all was known of them. Benedict’s mother faded gently from the scene, after presenting her lord with the heir, and the lord’s subsequent remarriage, to a Fenly from Derby, and the regular succession of additions to the nursery had obscured the Penryck connection.

  Marianna intended that the connection remain unnoticed. Looking sidelong at Benedict she thought better of broaching the subject to him. He had taught her, politely but with decision, that opposition could in no way alter his mind. She resolved, not for the first time, to tread warily until after their wedding. He would not cry off now, she knew, but still ... forty thousand pounds a year was not a sum to take the least chance on.

  She could not help but say, however, “Such a charming child,” in an interrogatory tone of voice.

  There was a frown between Lord Benedict’s black brows. Absently he reached a finger up to smooth his left eyebrow. Suddenly he laughed. “Imagine! Being recognized in London only because I resemble a portrait in Dorset! And not even I, in fact, but my eyebrows!” he said, genuinely amused.

  “I believe they are considered very distinguished,” said Marianna, adding, “although of course, it is not the thing to discuss such a personal matter.”

  “But, knowing my friends, I am assured that it is done. But rarely, I will admit, with such frankness.”

  “I wonder,” ventured Marianna, “how she will take.”

  “At the rate she has started,” said Benedict, “I dread the thought of further association with that child.”

  “I feared,” said Marianna, “that she was going to make a claim upon you.” She added archly, “And if so, I should be very jealous.”

  “Jealous of a child, Marianna? I confess I thought better of you than that.”

  “I trust your honor, Benedict.”

  With that not-quite-subtle reminder, Marianna tugged gently at the silken rein by which she led Benedict Choate in the ways she wished him to go.

  Dutifully Benedict bowed. “Your servant, my dear, as always,” he said automatically. “But not, I fear,” he added in quite a different tone of voice, “as far as your plumassier’s. I see Lady Courtenay approaching, and I have remembered that I must meet friends at White’s.”

  “At eleven in the morning?” protested Marianna.

  “Pray give Lady Courtenay my best duty,” he said, ignoring her protests, and, tipping his top hat with grace to her, and a bow to the fast-approaching Lady Courtenay, who, he had time to notice, had her plain, eager daughter with her, Benedict vanished with all possible speed in the direction of St. James’s Street.

  4.

  If Clare believed Lady Thane’s comfortable assurance that the recent interview with Miss Morton and Lord Choate had already been forgotten, she could agree at least so far as those two were concerned.

  But as for herself, she found that as they drove away from Leadenhall Street the eyebrows engrossed her to the exclusion of all else.

  It was unsettling to see the portrait come down from the wall of the long gallery and walk about the streets of London. And while she must be perfectly honest, knowing that the portrait of Lord Benedict Choate himself did not hang on the gallery walls, yet the family resemblance to their mutual great-grandfather was more than striking.

  She was finally able to put Lord Choate out of her mind, when Sir Alexander Ferguson and his aunt, Lady Warfield, made up a party to see the Tower of London. Sir Alexander was knowledgeable about the ghosts and the executions and the famous and ill-fated prisoners, but his prosy gloom vanished from her mind when she saw the snowy bear from Greenland with his coal-black nose, and the lions, and the improbable zebra—what was once called a painted ass—and the strangest of all, the two kangaroos. Never before, had she seen such marvels!

  Clare was gratified, during the next few days, to know that she was becoming more and more acquainted in the circle of her godmother’s friends. As well she might, since Lady Thane was invited nearly everywhere, and Clare was of course invited too.

  At length came a day, three weeks after her arrival in London, when Lady Thane came in search of her in the small back sitting room, called, from the color of its furnishings, the Yellow Room. It was now a favorite retreat for Clare, not so grand as the Blue Saloon or the green brocade drawing room, or even the somber-hued back room.

  She had with her this day the second volume of Bewildered Affections, or All is Not Lost, a novel of some years past, but Clare had much reading to catch up on, for Grandmama had not subscribed to the latest novels.

  Lady Thane opened the door and hurried in, the swish of her taffeta underskirt marking her progress. “My dear, there you are! I
will not stay long, for I know that I hate to have my own reading interrupted, but I just have had a revelation.”

  Clare promptly put away her book, secretly noting the page number so as not to be delayed when she could take it up again. “What can that be?”

  “I have just been counting up the parties we’ve attended, my dear. Routs, and afternoon teas, and a card party at the duchess’s, although I fear that must have been a very dull evening for you, since you do not play cards. And Lady Warfield’s invitation to the Tower, and Lady Courtenay’s being so good as to invite you into her barouche last week Friday in the park...”

  “Your friends have been most kind.”

  “Well,” said Lady Thane complacently, “I do have friends, and I fancy that I still have credit in society, even though dear Harriet has been married these two years, and rarely comes to London now. But my idea, Clare, is to have a ball.”

  “A ball?”

  “We owe so many people. I thought we could open up the ballroom—you know, it hasn’t been used since Harriet’s last ball. I remember it was such a sad crush!” Lady Thane’s eyes sparkled. ‘Two hundred and fifty cards...”

  That was the beginning of what Clare could only regard as pandemonium. There was system in it, somewhere, she was sure. But she could not discern the pattern. Lady Thane, far from being the indolent, lackadaisical woman that Clare had thought her, responded to the challenge she had set herself as an artillery horse hearing the trumpets.

  There were lists, and tradesmen, and Darrin the butler dealing with ever-increasing details, and Lady Thane in a blissful state of confusion.

  Clare was allowed to do nothing—and in fact, she would not have known where to begin. Berry Brothers were consulted for wine, and Gunter’s for the ices they were famed for—at a most" reasonable price, too, said Lady Thane, for a new shipment of ice from Greenland had just arrived and been buried beneath the cellars of their establishment in Berkeley Square.

  At length Clare decided she needed some new ribbons to run through a new skirt, and with Lady Thane’s permission she set out with Budge for Oxford Street. It was the first time that Clare had been shopping alone, and the unexpected sense of freedom was exhilarating.