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Authors: Hayley A. Solomon

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“Truly? I am a little thin for the average. . . .”
“So is she, though I mean to fatten her up!”
Tessie laughed. “She will not thank you for that. But if you are certain about her measurement . . . her height, for instance, is crucial. . . .”
“Oh, exactly your own.” Tessie raised her brows a fraction.
“Are you certain? It seems odd, indeed, though naturally my form is not out of the common way. . . .”
The countess begged to differ, for Tessie, quite frankly, was utterly perfect and a positive
marvel
relative to some of the young ladies of Chiswick. Even in Bath, more fashionable than the local village, it was impossible to find ladies who were not breathless from lacing that was far too tight. Tessie needed no such help—it was obvious from the undergarments Madame Fanchon had so artfully provided. Also, from the great gulps of air that she frequently took—sometimes from sighing, sometimes from sheer youthful exuberance. No one even remotely laced could be so excessive in their breathing.
The countess lied with practiced aplomb. “Indeed, your form is not out of the ordinary way at all, which is most fortunate for us. Continue, if you please, to use yourself as a model in all things. The finer details we shall attend to closer to the wedding.”
“When shall that be, ma'am?”
“Oh, it all depends. My son is hopelessly rag-mannered. He has to be schooled in the gentler arts before the marriage can take place.”
Tessie regarded the countess curiously. “Indeed! If the lady is consumptive, as you say . . .”
But she got no further. With a great snort into her handkerchief, the countess took her leave, as abominably rag-mannered as her absent son. Bewildered, Miss Hampstead had no option but to carry on stitching.
 
The house, in the next few weeks, was positively beset with morning callers. Poor Tessie had not a moment to be bored, for she had no sooner finished the seams of an ermine mantle or a satin-trimmed pelisse frogged with lavender braid, when the butler was announcing another guest in stentorian tones.
Tessie always put her needlework away and made to leave the drawing room, where Lady Cathgar insisted she sit “on account of the light”—and, indeed, sunshine
did
stream into the first-floor room with its rows and rows of French windows, paneled here and there with colored glass—but the countess always stopped her.
“Oh, my dear,” she would say, “you simply
must
meet Lady Halgrove, or Lady Ashleigh. . . .” The list seemed enormous, and each lady seemed to wish to place yet another order with her, so that Tessie felt quite sunk with the pressure brought to bear upon her shoulders.
Surprisingly, it was the countess who came to her rescue, frowning prodigiously on one particularly handsome lady with sapphire-blue eyes that seemed extraordinarily familiar, when she begged a new spencer of “lead-colored silk, fur trimmed, perhaps . . .”
Tessie smiled wanly, but the countess was outraged.
“Miss Hampstead cannot be expected to sew on the whim of my guests! As it is, she has her hands perfectly full sewing a trousseau for . . . for . . .” She looked about wildly, then brought out her great handkerchief yet again and began coughing so loudly that Tessie felt
she
might be consumptive. The lady in question, languid, drew forth some sal volatile, much to the countess's indignation.
“Take that hideous stuff away from me! You would be well served, Delia, if I banished you from the house!”
“Well, you won't, not before I first become acquainted with your newest houseguest! Do you ride, Miss Hampstead?”
“I do, but it is really not proper, and I have no habit. . . .”
“What nonsense is this?” The lovely lady smiled archly.
Tessie looked to the countess for help but received none, she obviously seeing nothing extraordinary whatsoever in her seamstress dillydallying with the morning callers.
“I am not a houseguest, ma'am, but an employee.”
“Oh, is that all? I shall not tear you away from your precious gowns long, but I
do
think I shall show you the sights of Chiswick! We have a haunted castle, you know. . . .”
Tessie did
not
know, but she soon did, for she was being dragged out of the house toward the stables with not the slightest consideration for the fact that her morning dress was far too short for a country ride, and that indeed, as she had protested, she had no suitable riding habit.
“Oh, pshaw!!” had come the merry response, and Tessie had warmed prodigiously to the lady despite the difference in their ages—ten years at the least—and, naturally, their stations in life.
“You shall have Bess. A genuine thoroughbred Arab. A little darling, though a demon if you can't ride. You
did
say you could, didn't you?”
Tessie nodded, her eyes shining, for Bess was
magnificent.
Better yet than anything the Hampstead Oaks stables had to offer. She would ride, for it might be the last time she ever had the opportunity. Besides, Lady Ashleigh, dressed all in blue velvet and looking very much the thing, seemed to expect her to. Neither lady waited for the requisite groom, both mounting with consummate ease and grins of sheer pleasure that cut straight across the social barriers that might have come between them.
“Race you to the downs!'
And Lady Ashleigh was gone. Tessie, her spirits soaring, flew after her, Bess as responsive to her touch as if they'd ridden together forever. Lady Ashleigh jumped a stream, so Tessie did the same, ignoring the great splashes of mud that ruined her delightful new morning gown of blue organdy cut high at the bodice and flowing in classical lines. The thrill of the chase was upon her, and by the time Lady Ashleigh had negotiated a topiary hedge, Tessie had caught up.
“By God, you are a bruising rider!”
It was hard for Miss Hampstead to look demure, little dimples peeping cheerfully from flushed cheeks.
“I learned when I was little. Not sidesaddle either.”
“You don't mean . . .”
“Astride? Yes, shameful, isn't it? Just as well I am no longer a lady. My reputation would not stand the scandal!”
Lady Ashleigh frowned. “Tessie Hampstead, we have not known each other long, but I vow and declare if you talk such fustian again, I will rinse your mouth out!”
“What?” Tessie, not surprisingly, looked astonished.
“Don't gape, young lady! You know perfectly well you are as much a lady as I. As for your reputation . . .”
“It is in shreds.”
“By becoming a seamstress?”
“Yes. That, and . . .”
“Oh,
do
tell me! I swear, if you clam up, I shall positively
die
from curiosity!”
“There is nothing to tell. I have behaved scandalously and must pay the price. It is not so very unusual in our circles. Come, let us find this church. I would rather be haunted by specters than by . . . sad memories.”
“Are they so very sad? None . . . worthy of a fluttering heart or a clandestine smile?”
“You make me sound like a heroine from one of Walpole's romances!”
“Well, aren't you?”
“Certainly not! Wherever can you have conceived such a notion? I am very plain and ordinary, though I fall into the most fearful scrapes. . . .”
Lady Ashleigh laughed. “Then we are kindred spirits! But come, answer my question. In that dark and gloomy past of yours, is there not some shining knight lurking somewhere? I sense it!”
Tessie laughed. “Perhaps. But I have placed him in the gloomiest corner of my mind and am determined to forget all about him!”
“Why? If
I
had a knight—and, indeed, my dear Robert, though I love him dearly, is far too prosaic to be termed such—
I
should not merely pine over him and consign him to the dusty recesses of my mind!”
“You would if it was the best thing for
him
!”
“Nonsense! For how can
any
knight care to be treated thus? What good is a knight without a corresponding damsel in distress?”
“Perhaps I am the wrong damsel. Indeed, I am sure of it, for I cause nothing but trouble, and the only reason why the knight is offering for me is out of pigheadedness and pride!”
“Offering for you, is he?” For some reason, Lady Ashleigh brightened considerably on her russet-colored side saddle.
“Yes, but only . . .”
“. . . out of pigheadedness and pride. Sounds about right. Most knights offer for those reasons, for they are too stupid to admit the truths staring at them in the face.”
“Which are?”
“Which are, my dear Tessie—I shall call you that, for I am certain we shall be friends—that they are head over heels in love! Gentlemen just can't seem to admit to such thoughts. Well, not without a little prodding. The amount of times I had to prod dear Lord Ashleigh you would simply not credit! It is not in their makeup despite the delightful sonnets they make such fools of themselves over.”
“Oh, you mean, like ‘Ode to Tessie'?”
“I suspect so. How does that go?”
Miss Hampstead giggled. “I shan't tell you, but it contains about five stanzas devoted to the peculiar shade of my hair.”
“Not
by your knight? Oh, tell me not!”
Tessie sobered. “No, for I doubt he would write me so much as a line. He thinks I am a child, you see.”
Lady Ashleigh's gaze became piercing. “Yet he has offered?”
“Only because . . .”
“He is stubborn and proud. You would not love him else, I swear. Beware, Tessie, that you are not tarred with the same brush.”
Lady Ashleigh, possibly at her gentlest and most perceptive, gave Tessie a sweeping stare that again was tinged with that enormous sense of familiarity. Tessie wondered why this should be so, or, indeed, who Lady Ashleigh reminded her of so forcibly.
But she was not permitted to muse long. Bess, champing at the bit, was ready to forge the stream.
Behind her, to the right, she was watched. The man called Tallows had been very patient.
Seventeen
The church in Chiswick was all that Lady Ashleigh promised, minus the ghost. It was old, built in the sixteenth century, and boasted a crumbling tomb, and some impressive mosaics upon the stone floors. It was no longer habited, partly because of the ghost theory and partly because the current archbishop of the area preferred the more modern structure just east of the Great North Road.
The church, then, was a mere curiosity, its winding stone steps abandoned chiefly to dust, spiders, and the more intrepid sightseers of Chiswick.
Tessie, though cold, insisted on exploring the entire edifice, laughing as she mounted the steps ahead of Lady Ashleigh.
“But where is the ghost?”
“Perhaps it is too cold for him.”
“Or her. I feel certain the ghost is a her.”
“Then you should sew her a mantle to keep out the cold.”
“I have enough to sew, thank you very much, for the countess's daughter-in-law.”
“Ah, yes, the consumptive one!”
“I do not see why your eyes sparkle so mischievously, Lady Ashleigh! It cannot be pleasant to be so afflicted!”
“No, indeed. And
do
call me Delia. If you are going to scold, you cannot be forever ladyshipping me!”
“I am
not
scolding! I am merely . . .”
“Curious?”
“Yes, indeed, though I know it is none of my business. . . . Why
does
the lady need so many gowns? You can have no
notion
of how much has been ordered. . . .”
Lady Ashleigh swallowed a cough. “I am sure, if the countess has ordered them, they are very necessary. Shall we go?”
Tessie nodded. She felt reproved somehow. She was not to know that Lady Ashleigh's cough was actually a repressed giggle, or that if they remained a second longer, her ladyship might have done something dire.
Like spoiling everything and telling the little seamstress the truth. No, indeed. The truth, as everyone but Tessie knew, was for Lord Nicholas Cathgar to tell. Too bad he was still languishing in town. Now that her curiosity was satisfied, Delia had a good mind to write him a letter of her own.
They passed, along the way, an enormous common bustling with peddlers and gypsy caravans and cartloads of produce. Ordinarily, Tessie would have begged to stop, for she adored fairs, and this, clearly, was the beginning of one. But her high spirits had deserted her, and her pockets were to let besides. So she ignored the familiar bustle, and the stalls of fruit and gingerbread and cheeses, kicking in her heels instead, so that Delia had to race to catch her.
While Lady Ashleigh finally took her leave—with an indecorous wink that relieved Tessie's mind—Lord Nicholas Cathgar was not, as his sister had accused him, “languishing in town.”
He was, in fact, purchasing, as a result of a tip from Lord Alberkirky—to whom he was now being more civil—a certain stable full of horses. The friskiest of these—a lively little chestnut called Pebbles—he transported to his own residence in London. For the balance of his time he was inspecting roofs, talking to bailiffs, and generally exciting a very large degree of interest in Hampstead Oaks.
Indeed, Tessie, returning, would have been quite astonished, for the village people, wise in their own way, had made some pretty obvious inferences. Fortunately for Tessie's peace of mind, she was nowhere near her home, nor did she expect to be for a six month at least.
Lord Cathgar was not entirely lighthearted about his high-handedness, for it weighed heavily upon him that his chosen one was as hardheaded as himself. She would need careful handling to be convinced of his good intentions. She was more likely, he knew, to fly into a pelter over his actions than to thank him.
For the first time in his life, he was uncertain, both of himself and of his ability to attach to the most desirable creature he had ever encountered. So hotheaded she was! More likely, he knew, to shoot him in the foot than to acquiesce meekly to his honorable intentions. But honorable they were despite the many overtures of several young debutantes, all
dying
to attach themselves to his fortune and rank.
He felt like he was running the gauntlet, for hardly a day went by when some young wisp of a thing didn't try coyly to trap him into indiscretion. Truly, he needed Tessie to save him!
Well,
one
of his actions, at least, was bound to please her bloodthirsty nature. Upon tooling his cattle down a country Hampstead lane, he was very nearly overturned by the merest whipster, occupying more than his fair share of the road, and driving his team into a lather. He might have let the matter pass had the whipster not then compounded his sin by shouting out obscenities and claiming to own half of Greenford.
Nicholas dismounted and waited for the gentleman to do the same. His lanky stature was quite striking, and all of a sudden, Nick was struck with a quite diverting notion.
“You are not Oliver Dobbins, of Greenford, are you?”
The gentleman looked quite smug. “I am. Heard of me, have you?”
“Indeed. And what they say is quite true. You require a hatter, your boots are indecent, and your waistcoat is an insult to any arbiter of good taste.”
“Why, you . . .” Oliver lunged forward, but Nicholas was more than a match for such a paltry fellow. He delivered a marvelously flush hit, guaranteeing Mr. Dobbins a black eye for a sennight or more. Then, only half satisfied, he waited for Mr. Dobbins to return the favor. He did, but with weak, flailing arms and a neck far too stiff to see, due to the height of his ridiculous collar. Nick regarded this as fortuitous and blackened the remaining eye. Then with a merry whistle he doffed his hat and proceeded upon his way. Tessie could not quibble with
that!
The return from Hampstead Oaks was dull and boring by comparison. Nothing at all like the first time he'd stopped at the posting station, buoyed up by the anticipation of snaring the notorious Luddites, led astray by the French spy, the Monsieur le Duc.
At worst, he had expected to die—that was the nature of his clandestine activities—but he had never, never expected to have his heart so mercilessly stolen by an impudent little chit of a thing with more sovereigns than sense.
Yet, she had single-handedly saved his life, a fact for which he was thankful, but not so thankful as she seemed to think. He was not offering marriage as a salve to his conscience.
He was offering for perfectly selfish reasons and, being a spoiled and cosseted peer of the realm, he did not intend to be thwarted! No, not even by sultry black lashes and lashings of tears sniffed back fiercely.
Nicholas, just passing the Postlethwaite toll, decided that patience was for fledglings. Despite all his good intentions and the countess's frequent little notes reminding him to bide his time, he would not. To hell and damnation with Delia's laughing epistles too! He was not surprised that Tessie had wriggled her way into their hearts—in—deed, how could she not? But it was singularly unfair that he, who had discovered her, should kick his heels meekly in London.
The more he thought of it, the more he balked at the idea of Tessie being treated like a mere seamstress, working her fingers to the bone, and if he knew all his siblings, she would not be short of work! Yes, Lady Victoria Halgrove, the eldest of his many sisters, had already written of a feathered muff she was to have, embroidered all in the newest shade of blond floss, or some such nonsense. Apparently, Delia, too, was toying with a new spencer, and he would not put it past any of his beloved siblings to take advantage of the consummate opportunities Tessie offered.
And they were laughing at him! He knew it, for Delia had the most wicked sense of humor, and the tone of her last missive was suspiciously meek, almost as though she were choking on mirth as she penned it. But maybe he was being oversensitive. Where Tessie was concerned, he could not help it. Even if he could, that Friday-faced Joseph would not let him. There he was, walking now with his best Arab, his face sweeping the floor, muttering all sorts of dire epithets about allowing chickens to fly the coop, and about females “wot could teach un a thing or two,” which he rightly inferred to be himself.
Even threats of instant dismissal did not stop the man, who looked at Nicholas with doleful, reproachful eyes until he thought he would scream. It was not as if he had not offered, dammit! More—insisted, even! What in the world could that contrary female wish for?
There was an attraction between them that he was perfectly certain she felt—indeed, it was her very responses to him that drove him crazier. Well, by George, he was going to find out! He was
not
going to meekly await another of his mother's merry missives and hope that Madame Stubborn had grown tired of her work. No! He was going now, to the Dower House at Chiswick, and to tarnation with the rest!
“Joseph!”
It took a moment for Joseph to halt the Arab and walk back to the chaise, bound for London.
“Aye, me lord?”
“You can stop looking so glum. I have had a change of plan.”
“A change of plan wot includes snabbling the little mistress, me lor', or jest a change of plan wot some might say is chicken-hearted, like . . .”
“I am excessively interested to hear your theories on my chicken-heartedness, Joseph, but I have no time. You shall enlighten me when I return, however, having ‘snabbled' the mistress. That is, if I haven't already dismissed you for impertinence.”
Joseph righteously ignored the last part of Nicholas's sentence and allowed his countenance to brighten considerably.
“Good on yer, guv! We can take the Marlborough route—it is a shortcut wot I know across the downs, then into Fennimore—but wot are we goin' to do about the cattle?”
“We
are going to do nothing.
You,
however, are going to stable the Arab and the mare with the ostlers at the next posting house. You are then to return to London at all speed on Juniper, returning with Jenkins and two of the grooms. Pay the shot and transfer the balance of the cattle to Cathgar House. That, I trust, shall keep you busy.”
“Guv!” Joseph looked shocked. “I be missin' out on all the 'citement! Wot if she shoots yer?”
“Then doubtless I shall die.”
“But . . .”
“No buts, Joseph. I realize my life is your chief source of entertainment, but on this issue I remain firm.”
“Lawks alive! You might be wishin' for my 'elp, beggin' your lor'ship's pardon!”
“You apparently regard my . . . eh . . . private life to be as hazardous a mission as my . . . government activities. You may be right. However, I shall risk it, if you please, in peace. Besides, Pebbles is her favorite horse.”
Joseph brightened. “Well, a rare goer she is, and that be fact! Orl right, guv, I shall do as yer say, but mind yer p's and q's and don't make a botch of it this time! I 'ave a fancy to see the little mistress again, and that be fact! ”
“I shall endeavor to please you, Joseph.”
Nicholas barely kept the irony from his tone. Joseph, however, saw nothing amiss in his master's words, and actually doffed his cap. Then he spoiled the effect by winking, shaking Nick's immaculate gloves mercilessly, and whistling as he returned to his duties.
Nick, free of those eagle eyes, sighed. He only wished he could be so sanguine. If Tessie was outrageous enough to dismiss his suit again, he would have to either murder her, kiss her, or abduct her. The trouble was, he really did not know which.
 
Miss Hampstead, the object of such musings, needed to clear her head. She had come to love the bustle about the great ivy-clad mansion, and even the comfort of her work, for while she stitched, there was precious little time to pine or muse. She had, of course, several times fallen into some happy daydreams but been rewarded for her pains by a needle pricking into her thumb or pins poking at her fingers. When the countess finally lifted an inquiring brow at such hamhandedness, she had colored and muttered nonsense about needing air and such.
The countess often obliged by ringing for a footman and having several of the windows open despite some inclement breezes from the east.
Then Tessie had shivered a little over her work but felt foolish asking for the great glass panes to be shut again. Once, when she was biting back an involuntary tear, the countess took her work from her and threw it—in a shockingly haphazard manner—on the bureau behind them.
“Come, come, is it so very bad, then, this life? It is very different from being a lady of fashion, perhaps—”
“No! Oh, no! You have been so kind. I never
dreamed
being in service could be so pleasant!”
“Then why are you crying? Yes, scrub at your face as you may, I can see there are tears! I may be as blind as a bat and need my monocle from time to time, but I am not in my dotage! Can you not confide in me?”

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