The Wicked Guardian Read online

  Lady Thane, perceiving that she had made substantial progress in the last few minutes, added a further thought that had just occurred to her. “Sir Alexander, you know, would certainly meet with my approval. And I know, your grandmother’s approval as well.”

  “But—”

  “And there is no one else, I think, who has paid you so much attention?”

  “There is one other...” Clare said, after reflection.

  Lady Thane’s heart sank. “If you mean Harry Rowse, my child, no one in her right mind would encourage him. He is not at all the thing, you know.” She looked intently at her charge. “You surely have not developed a tendre for him, have you?”

  “I have talked with him not above three times,” said Clare, “but he is amusing. And he was kind, to take the trouble to see that I was not left out. That was at the duchess’s card party, ma’am, while you were playing cards.”

  “Kind” was not the word Lady Thane would have used, but she thought better of explaining exactly what her opinion of that rake was. Instead, she chose to expand on the virtues of Sir Alexander Ferguson, and at length achieved a result which, while it was not exactly what she wished, yet would serve to allow Sir Alexander to press his suit.

  “Well, then,” said Lady Thane, rising and shaking out the folds of her morning gown, “I am glad to see that you will be agreeable. I confess I had not thought, to begin with, that you would be such a success, your first season, and getting off on the wrong foot with Lord Choate to begin with, too. But all’s well that ends well, I say. Best get some rest before tonight. You will want to look your best!”

  With a surprisingly roguish glance, Lady Thane tripped out, leaving her goddaughter behind. It was as well that Lady Thane, believing firmly in the wisdom of her own words and congratulating herself on her good fortune at being so successful in her obligation to Clare and to Lady Penryck, did not see the results of her information.

  For Clare had dropped her head into her hands, and began to sob as she had not done since Miss Peek, her governess, had been called home to tend her ailing sister, Sara, two years before.

  7.

  Carlton House, so Sir Alexander informed Clare, had undergone a remarkable transformation in the past years, since the prince regent, then Prince of Wales, had taken it over upon the death of his grandmother, who had let it fall sadly into disrepair.

  “Didn’t have the columns then,” interposed Mr. Totten, rousing himself from his dreams of vast winnings at Crockford’s. “Holland put them on.”

  Henry Holland had rebuilt the Pall Mall facade, added a long colonnade of Ionic columns, broken by two gates, in order to screen the royal residence from the curious passerby. Inside, Clare was informed by Amelia Totten, who had never seen the interior, there was a hall that was eight-sided, and a double staircase, and the most marvelous cabinetwork and ornamentation, in the latest fashion, altogether making a wondrously harmonious appearance.

  “But,” continued Amelia, “it is the gardens that I long to view. There, the regent has given full reign to the picturesque, with great sensibility, I am told. There are bowers and grottoes, and of all things, one might expect at any time a wicked nobleman to appear!”

  “You read too much,” said Mr. Totten, roused to comment by his wife’s fantasies. “Hard on your complexion.”

  “I cannot imagine why you should say so,” retorted his Amelia. “You told me only this evening,” she added complacently, “that I was looking in high gig.”

  “Want to keep it that way,” said her husband, unruffled. “Forget the wild tales—the Minerva Press has done more damage than can be calculated.”

  His wife joined battle, and Clare was glad when the coach turned into Pall Mall, the new gas lights making it, she declared, as bright as day.

  When they arrived at the entrance, and were assisted to descend by a myriad of footmen and other satellites, Clare was on tiptoe with excitement. Ushered into the entrance foyer, and beyond into the famed Octagon Room, she realized that the extravagant praise lavished upon the regent’s residence was only the truth. Not a spot but what had some kind of finery on it, not a cabinet but what was inlaid with fine parquetry, its shelves filled with such a multitude of snuffboxes, tankards, bibelots of all kinds, so, that she thought she could never tire of looking at them.

  But Sir Alexander and Lady Thane urged her forward to make room for the press of arriving guests.

  Dinner was served in the great conservatory, lit by five hundred flambeaux. She gasped with delight at the sight. The table stretched the entire length of the room—a distance of at least two hundred feet, said Sir Alex, who was possessed of an endless supply of information. Before the prince regent’s place at the table she saw a large basin of water from which flowed a stream of real water, of lights, perfumes, wavering candle' flames, the music of sand, moss, and rocks—in miniature, with elfin bridges spanning the stream.

  Incredibly, there were gold and silver fish swimming in the water, and Clare eyed those nearest her uneasily, fearing they might leap their watery bounds and splash into her soup.

  The evening moved on for Clare in a vague impression of lights, perfumes, wavering candle flames, the music of stringed orchestras, and a steadily rising sensation of heat.

  The prince regent himself made her welcome, and while this was not the first time she had seen him, yet at close quarters he was more than stupefying. Taller than the average, and displaying abundant proof of the prosperity of his life, the broad chest of his field marshal’s uniform provided room for the many decorations that he chose to wear. He smiled down at Clare, restrained a swift impulse to pinch her cheek, and allowed Lady Thane to carry her away.

  Sir Alexander set himself to amuse Clare, and pointed out the various celebrities he thought might interest her. Beau Brummell, the son of a clerk, who now was regarded with awe by the regent himself. John Nash, the new architect, who probably would add to Carlton House a new Gothic garden, which would be completely hidden from the Haymarket.

  Thomas Moore, an obscure poet who had the regent’s ear, at least for a short time.

  “There is to be dancing later,” said Sir Alexander.

  Clare’s heart sank, for Sir Alexander, heavy with virtue, was equally heavy on his feet. The tragedy, she felt, was that he did not seem to be aware of his lack of grace.

  In the Chinese Room a small orchestra played, and Clare, always susceptible to music, moved toward the sound. It was a shocking squeeze, and before she realized it she had been separated from Sir Alexander. She was able to make her way toward the column at the door, which would protect her somewhat.

  At least she could breathe. She began to worry about her gown. Truly it seemed such a waste to dress with such care, and then be in a crowd so dense that your gown could not be seen! But at least she would be grateful if the fragile gauze overlay sustained no damage.

  She examined it as well as she could, and was gratified to find no great rent in it. A snag, where one of the spangles had caught on something, but—

  “I am gratified to see,” said a well-known voice in her ear, “that this time at least your gown has remained whole.”

  “Lord Choate!” she breathed, mortified beyond measure to be caught in such an undignified posture. But even more so to remember the incident that was clearly in his mind.

  “I had not expected to find you unescorted,” he said. “But perhaps you will trust me enough to give me your hand for the next dance?”

  Scarcely knowing what she replied, she found herself led out on the small dance floor by Lord Benedict Choate, surely tonight the handsomest man in all of London!

  He was dressed in black, with snowy ruffles edging his sleeves, his satin breeches and striped hose in the first line of fashion.

  She soon discovered that he danced as elegantly as he looked, leading her through the intricate steps with ease. She found that she was nearly floating on the strains of the stringed viols that were hidden in an alcove.

  His
accomplished grace soon lured her into incautiousness. She did not have to mind her steps as much as usual, and her thoughts strayed, arriving sooner than advisable at impishness. “I do know, Lord Choate, that I am very young, and inexperienced in the social ways of London...” she began.

  “I have no wish to argue that point,” he said with grave civility. “We are agreed.”

  “And yet it seems to me that I have been told that it is customary to exchange a few words while one dances?”

  His eyes flashed, telling her that he understood her. But he was not inexperienced in flirtation. “I feared to distract your mind from your dancing,” he said. “I see now,” he added handsomely, “that I need not have been anxious. You dance well.”

  She did not know precisely what a great compliment she had just received, but she did think he probably did not give such praise to everyone.

  If she had been content to bask in the attention of Lord Choate, letting him take her back to Lady Thane when the set was finished, all might have gone well.

  Lord Choate himself precipitated events unwittingly. “You will be returning to Dorset soon?” he said smoothly.

  “I am?”

  “Of course I would expect that you would. Your grandmother must be satisfied, now that you have had a taste of London society, even though I wonder at her sending you at such a tender age.”

  “It is your affair?” said Clare, biting her lip to hold back a retort that she feared might be tear-laden.

  “Insofar as I am of some kin to you, I take an interest.”

  “Believe me, nothing could make me regret our kinship more than you do. But at least my Uncle Horsham will be easier to get along with than you are.”

  She had succeeded in startling him. “What does he have to do with this?”

  “If Grandmama is unable to deal with my affairs, as I fear may soon be the case,” said Clare, her eyes shiny with tears, “then Uncle Horsham is to be my guardian. And so, you see...”

  Benedict suddenly fell into thoughtful silence. The set ended, and he made his mistake. Leading her back toward the conservatory, where he expected to find Lady Thane, he said to Clare, “I don’t envy Horsham a whit. But if you take care, and don’t step over the line again, I think you may do very well. Once you have a bit of polish, that is, and begin to look as though you had left the schoolroom behind.”

  Clare, stung, retorted, “I can’t help the way I look!”

  ‘True, but very unfortunate,” said Lord Choate. “Although time will mend all things, so I am told.”

  Clare breathed heavily. She knew no one who could make her quite so angry, with just a supercilious lift of his heavy black eyebrows. She wished above all things to throw something—something very hard and unbreakable—at Lord Choate. But the thought that he would consider such an action as juvenile was distinctly lowering. Perhaps he was right!

  The squeeze at the door gave her the chance that she had, without knowing it, been looking for. She eased away from Benedict’s hand on her elbow and allowed someone—Mrs. Morton?—to intrude between her and her escort. And in a moment she had made her escape in the crowd.

  Seeing in the distance Sir Alexander, taller than most of the men, peering nearsightedly around the room, doubtless in search of her, Clare edged away in the opposite direction. Suddenly she found herself in front of a window that came to the floor, and stood ajar. The welcome thought of fresh cool air drew her like a magnet, and she eased the window open sufficiently to pass through.

  She was outside the house. Carlton House, since the Prince of Wales had set up his separate establishment in 1783, had undergone transforming changes. She was not aware of all the building, the restoring that had taken place after the dowager princess had departed, leaving the house in sad condition, according to Sir Alexander.

  But she was fully sensible of the magical quality which pervaded the gardens and grounds. Beyond her sight, now, in the darkness, were flowerbeds under the great old elms, statues of varied description, a waterfall, a temple with a floor of Italian marble, in the Florentine fashion, and, she remembered hearing, an observatory, where the regent fancied himself an astronomer.

  Now there were flambeaux beyond counting glimmering in the dark, marking the walks, illuminating—but not too brightly—marble benches in the shelter of blooming shrubs that scented the air.

  If Clare had thought about paradise, she decided, she would have eventually come to imagine just such a place as this. The cool air refreshing on her hot cheek, the soft luminosity of the artificial lights, from far off the strains of sweet music, and nearer at hand little bursts of muted voices.

  And, below the terrace where she stood, looking up at her with admiring laughter in his face, stood Harry Rowse.

  “Stand there,” he advised her, “while I drink my fill of the sight. A veritable marble maiden, a beauty from another world.”

  A small part of her mind suggested that Harry Rowse should be thoroughly snubbed. But another part of her mind, fortified by resentment against Lord Choate’s overbearing superiority, and irritated by his assumption that she hardly knew how to go on, overruled, and she stepped to the marble balustrade and smiled back at Harry.

  “If you call Dorset another world,” she said, “then you are right. But not otherwise, I fear.”

  He appeared to consider. “I think we need to discuss this,” he said, amusement in his voice. “Shall I come up, or will you come down?”

  She had no illusions about Benedict. He would not take it kindly that she had strayed before he could bring her safely to Lady Thane. She realized that the first place he would search for her was right here on the terrace. “I’ll come down,” she told Harry.

  He held his hand up to help her down the last broad steps that led between rock gardens to the graveled walk below. Once on the walk, she withdrew her hand from his, and, she noted with gratitude, he did not try to hold it. In fact, as they strolled away from the building, down the walk leading farther into the gardens, he put himself out to be amusing. There were other couples and groups on the path, coming and going, and surely, Clare thought, there could be no criticism of her strolling in company with anyone she chose, even Harry Rowse.

  He was, she knew, a gambler and a rake, but he was hanging out for a rich wife, so everyone said, to mend his fortunes, and she was clearly not suitable. So she set herself to enjoy his company—frankly admiring, and in sharp contrast to that of the forbidding nobleman she had eluded.

  “Did you ever see anything so vulgar,” he said, “as that veritable river wandering down the middle of the table? Nothing like it in the world, I am convinced.”

  “I could not believe that those were real fish,” said Clare. “But I do not quite see how one could contrive such real-looking creatures.”

  “No need to contrive,” said Harry. “They were real fish. I can tell you this is the truth, for a lady seated near me found one leaping into her glass of champagne.”

  Clare gurgled with laughter. ‘Truly?”

  ‘Truly,” he affirmed. “I can tell you I haven’t seen such a sight since my brother and I took a dislike to our tutor and ... well, that’s not germane to the issue at all.”

  They reached a turn in the path, but beyond, the flambeaux flickered reassuringly, and she allowed Harry to urge her gently forward. “Should you like something to drink?” he asked at last. “I should have thought of it when we were closer to the house!”

  “Oh, I would!” she exclaimed. “But—”

  “No buts,” he said. “Here is a bench. If you will wait here for me, I shall bring you ... What shall I bring you? A lemon squash?”

  “That will be fine. But had I not better come with you?” She looked around her at the bench, the shrubs.

  “And have Sir Alexander whisk you away?” said Harry in assumed shock. “To dance?”

  “I’ll wait here,” said Clare. But in truth it was not Sir Alex she feared, but Lord Choate. Perhaps he had given up searching for her. She devout
ly hoped so, for she was too restless and upset to endure further strictures from a man she barely could tolerate, and who, thank goodness, had no right to tell her anything.

  But sitting alone on the bench, she began to consider her position. Surely she was wrong to allow herself to be lured so far from her friends, and while there were voices beyond, and now and then a footstep on the gravel, yet she felt suddenly very much alone.

  But she did not have time enough to become truly frightened. Harry returned, bearing a tall glass of lemon squash. “I’m sorry to have been so long,” he said. “I had trouble finding a waiter.”

  The glass was cold, and welcome. She began to sip it. “Were you frightened here?” said Harry, sitting beside her on the bench. “Did ... anyone come?”

  “No,” she said. “Not precisely frightened, although I confess I did not like it very much. It was darker than I thought at first. But ... Isn’t this delightful! I do appreciate your bringing me the drink.”

  It tickled her nose. “This is quite the best lemon squash I ever had,” she told him in a rush. “It is so tingly!”

  Harry laughed softly. “They do not stint on the soda water. The regent, you know, thinks in large terms!”

  She had half-finished her drink before she spoke again. “I really think this is more than I want. Mr. Rowse, I think ...” She truly thought the drink was too much for her. After her exertions on the dance floor, perhaps the cold drink was upsetting her stomach. At least, she was feeling very strange.

  “I think,” she began again, “that we had better...”

  Mr. Rowse’s arm, which had stolen along the back of the bench, now encircled her shoulders, and turned her toward him. Instinct told her to throw the drink in his face, but her fingers would not obey her.

  Mr. Rowse, with his free hand, took her chin firmly in his fingers and tilted it up. His smile was still admiring, but there was a quality in it now that turned her blood to ice.

  How foolish—how very stupid—she had been!