A Rake by Any Other Name (6 page)

“There is no agreement,” he admitted. “At least, no formal one.”

“And formal is all that counts with your kind, isn't it? At any rate, I want to help you,” she said. “I feel certain that between the two of us, we can show our families how very unsuitable we are for each other. It's readily apparent to me. We just have to demonstrate it to them.”

Richard frowned. After being openly hunted on the London marriage mart, he wondered why this woman, who because of the cavernous difference in their station should have been delirious over the prospect of a match with him, found him “unsuitable.”

“Which will clear your way to be with whomever you wish,” she finished.

It wasn't as simple as that. There was still the money, always the money. And though he and Lord Pruett had never discussed the specifics of a dowry for his daughter, Richard was certain his grandmother was right about the earl's gambling habits. Sufficient funds would not be coming from that quarter.

Still, Sophie was being very decent about the whole thing, and Richard told her so.

She glanced up at him, her blue eyes merry this time. “Just because I'm
nouveau
riche
doesn't mean I can't occasionally be decent as well. Father will just have to look for another titled lord who's more desperate than you for me to marry.”

“I doubt he'll find one more desperate than me” slipped off his tongue before he thought. “Forgive me. I didn't mean to imply that a man must be desperate in order to wed you. That didn't come out right.”

“No, but it came out honest. I like that about you, Richard.”

So he was unsuitable, but she liked him. Sophie Goodnight was a riddle with feet.

They walked along in silence for a while. The only sounds were the clomps of Pasha's hooves and the creak of his leather tack. Richard didn't feel the need to fill the quiet for once. Surprisingly, it didn't seem uncomfortable. Sophie didn't expect him to be entertaining or clever. There was no burning need to discuss the weather or make small talk.

It felt…companionable.

He was as at ease with her as he was in his own skin. After dodging debutantes and his determined wooing of Lady Antonia, which he was never certain would go well, it was a novel sensation to be so relaxed with a woman.

Of all the people in his life right now, it was beyond ironic that Sophie Goodnight was the only one who made no demands on him.

“Do you ride?” he asked.

“Like the wind.”

“Pity you're not dressed for it, or we'd ride Pasha double back to the house.”

“I'm dressed enough,” she said, “though these confounded gowns are terribly narrow.”

Without waiting for further invitation, she hitched up her skirts, revealing her pantalets to mid-thigh, grasped the pommel, and mounted Pasha unassisted. Her skin was still completely covered, but the fabric of the pantalets was so sheer as to be nearly transparent in the sunlight. The curve of her calf and neatly turned ankle made Richard forget to breathe for a moment.

“I can leave you the stirrups,” she said, patting the pillion behind her, “but I prefer to handle the reins myself.”

“I'll just bet you do.” Richard mounted behind her in one fluid motion. “Why am I not surprised?”

Young women should practice what every carnival huckster knows. Nothing makes an object more desirable than taking it away.

—Phillippa, the Dowager Marchioness of Somerset

The horse clattered up to the ornate door of Somerfield Park. Laughing and flushed with exertion, Lord Hartley and Miss Goodnight, in a shocking display of stocking and undergarment, half tumbled off their mount and handed off the reins to the waiting hostler. Digory Hightower prided himself on being unflappable, but he was sure the dignified expression he tried to maintain had a pinched look about it now.

“Your guests have arrived, your lordship,” he said as he took Lord Hartley's slightly battered hat. “They are in the drawing room with Lady Somerset and the dowager. Shall I have David draw you a bath and—”

“In a moment,” Lord Hartley said. “I wish to greet them first and introduce Miss Goodnight.”

Miss Goodnight looked as if she'd already been introduced to a pigsty. Both young people were flecked with mud from head to toe but, still breathing hard from their ride, seemed indifferent to their state of disarray.

Hightower followed them into the drawing room. He was a stickler about not prying into the affairs of the Family he served, but this introduction promised to be too entertaining to miss.

Lord Hartley greeted his mother and grandmother with kisses on the cheek, then after quite correct addresses to Lord and Lady Pruett, he kissed Lady Antonia's offered hand. He spoke to her so softly Hightower couldn't hear what was said no matter how hard he strained.

“Hart, how on earth did you become so filthy?” his mother finally managed to sputter.

“Oh, that's my fault, your ladyship,” Miss Goodnight said, stepping into the room, bold as brass. “I had the reins you see, and I can't resist a jump. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a bog on the other side of the fence, but we muddled through without mishap.”

The dowager raised her lorgnette and looked down her long nose at Miss Goodnight. “You must be an accomplished rider, Miss Goodnight, not to have gone tail over teakettle after attempting a jump while riding double.” Then her lips quirked a bit in suppressed merriment. “However, as long as you're both unhurt, I suppose no harm done.”

“Exactly, your ladyship.” Miss Goodnight smiled at the elder Lady Somerset. Mr. Hightower was struck by the change the expression made in her countenance. Sophie went from being a dirty-cheeked chit to a slightly fallen angel, some of heaven's light still radiating from her mischievous face. “My mother always says if a problem can be fixed by a good washing, it's not really much of a problem, is it? Well, Richard, aren't you going to introduce me to your guests?”

Mr. Hightower blinked in surprise at her easy familiarity with the son of the house. A grasping upstart if ever there was one, no matter how much blunt her father had.

“Certainly.” Lord Hartley did the honors, presenting Miss Goodnight to Lord and Lady Pruett and Lady Antonia. Hightower couldn't fault his lordship's manners. Lord Hartley was as correct as if he and Miss Goodnight were dressed fit to be presented to the queen.

“Oh, Lady Antonia, I'm so pleased to meet you,” Miss Goodnight said, extending a hand which the lady took with limp reluctance. “Richard has told me so much about you.”

“Really?” she drawled, her eyes widening at the repeated familiar address. “Strange that Hartley hasn't said a word about you.”

“Not so strange really,” Miss Goodnight said. “He couldn't very well have, since we only met last evening.”

“One doesn't generally ride double with people one has only just met.” Lady Antonia's eyes narrowed. “And how is it you two know each other?”

“My parents are acquainted with Lord and Lady Somerset. They've graciously allowed us use of Barrett House.”

“Now I know where I've seen you,” Lady Antonia said, burying her pert nose in her teacup for a brief moment. Hightower approved of the delicate way she elevated her pinky finger. Here was a lady worthy of the name. “You were gardening like a common drudge when we drove by earlier. I'd have recognized you sooner if not for the mud.”

Hightower was less approving of the nastiness of her tone.

Miss Goodnight's smile didn't reach her eyes as she turned to Lady Somerset, the younger. “Our stay at Barrett House is part of the reason I came to Somerfield today.”

“So becoming covered with mud alongside my grandson was not your chief aim?” the dowager put in.

“No,” Miss Goodnight said with a laugh, “though that was a definite side benefit. I haven't had a ride like that since the tiger hunt in Punjab. Of course, we were on elephants then.

“Elephants!” Lady Antonia put in. “Dear me. How very…exotic.”

Miss Goodnight ignored her and continued. “In any case, as a small way to thank Lady Somerset for her hospitality, my mother and I wish to invite all the ladies to tea on the morrow. Do say you'll come.”

Mr. Hightower cocked his head. It wasn't the most correct way to invite a marchioness and her family to tea, but it was prettily done. If one didn't look too closely at the mud…

“We'd be delighted, Miss Goodnight,” the marchioness said.

“Please, your ladyship, I wish you'd call me Sophie.” She turned to Lady Antonia and Lady Pruett. “Of course, you are both included in the invitation. Any friend of Richard's…”

“Thank you, Miss Goodnight. I look forward to meeting your mother,” Lady Pruett said. “She must be an extraordinary lady to have raised such…an adventurous daughter.”

“Don't hold her to account for me,” Miss Goodnight said breezily. “My failings are my own, I assure you.”

“We won't have to ride elephants, will we?” Lady Antonia asked with deceptive sweetness.

“Not unless you wish to, but I don't recommend it in any case,” Miss Goodnight said. “Very bony spines.”

***

“Thank you kindly for lending us a hand today, Miss Quimby,” Aloysius Porter said as he mopped his brow. “It's not often a lady's maid will condescend to serve at tea.”

“Not at all,” Quimby said as she took an apron from her satchel and donned it. “I'm right happy to do it.”

“Well, as you can see, we're in need of help and not just extra hands either,” Porter said as he led her through the residence toward the kitchen. “Barrett House isn't set up for a gathering of this size and importance. Counting the dowager and Lady Somerset, Lord Hartley's three sisters, Lady Pruett and her daughter, and Mrs. and Miss Goodnight, there should be nine of them—ten if Lady Ariel brings her governess, which I hope she will, since no one likes uneven numbers.”

The parlor was much too small for ten ladies. The dining room would have been cramped as well and was not really the correct venue for tea in any case.

“I tried to make Mrs. Goodnight see the impracticality of it.” But then she simply suggested something even more impractical that made Porter wish they'd muddled along in the small parlor. “‘If the house will not support a tea,' she says to me, ‘then we'll have it in the garden.' Of all the ideas…”

“Sounds positively American,” Quimby said. “From what I've heard, they're always keen on picnics and such. Are the Goodnights colonials by chance?”

“No, indeed not. British through and through. Though I gather they've not spent much time in England. Mr. Goodnight is quite the nabob, they say, and the daughter was born in India, you know, which might account for any number of queer notions.”

But queer notions or not, Porter had been busy till late in the night, setting up canvas awnings to shelter the white lawn chaises. Mrs. Beckworth, Barrett House's cook, was in a fine state trying to pull together a tea on such short notice. She threatened mutiny if he couldn't commandeer someone from the big house to help her.

Having Miss Quimby volunteer was a gift from heaven. And such an unexpected gift. It was almost unheard of for a lady's maid to do such a thing, but Porter wasn't one to turn down willing hands. He and Miss Quimby stopped into the kitchen, where trays of dainties were laid out on the long trestle table. He introduced her to Mrs. Beckworth and Eliza, the kitchen girl from Somerfield Park, and Miss Quimby was put promptly to work icing small cakes.

“Between Mrs. Beckworth and Eliza, they've prepared enough petit fours and finger sandwiches to feed a small army.” Mr. Porter chuckled with nervousness. “Instead, we'll be serving ten ladies, who are likely to have appetites like birds.”

“Real ladies always do.” Quimby didn't look up from her cakes.

“Yes, er, quite,” he mumbled, feeling rather dismissed. “Well, I'll leave you to it then.”

Porter hurried out of the dimness of the kitchen into the blinding sunlight of midmorning to inspect the final preparations. The arrangement of tables still wasn't to his liking, but since the table settings had already been laid, there was no good way to rearrange matters now. He'd settled for two linen-covered card tables with service for four each and one smaller table which would serve two. With any luck, he'd be able to steer Lady Ariel and her governess to that one.

If the governess didn't come, and the party was an uneven nine, he didn't know what he'd do.

It was an impossible task, but Porter was determined to make this tea a success. If he did, perhaps he'd be called up to serve at Somerfield Park, instead of cooling his heels at the frequently empty Barrett House. He wouldn't accept a position of footman, of course. That would be a step backward, even given the difference in the size of the households. But if he could be made underbutler, or even Lord Hartley's valet, that would be something.

Best of all, he'd have a chance to see Mrs. Culpepper every blessed day. And wouldn't that be a fine thing?

***

Eliza slanted a sideways glance at Miss Quimby. She was smart, she was, with her fine muslin gown with real lace at the bodice. Eliza had heard that lady's maids got first pick of their mistress's cast-offs, and this was a still a lovely gown, even if it was secondhand. Quimby's drab brown hair had been pulled into a tight bun at her nape, but a few artful curls tumbled onto her forehead and dangled at the sides of her thin face.

With
both
Lady
Pruett
and
Lady
Antonia
to
tend, when does she find time to curl her own
hair?

Quimby's movements were as crisp as her apron as she laid on the icing with an expert hand.

“You've worked in a kitchen before,” Eliza said.

“I've done a bit of this and that, it's true. I was a sous chef before I was a lady's maid. But going into service with Lady Pruett offered me a chance to do some traveling and see something of the world,” Quimby said with a friendly smile. “What about you, girl? Eliza, is it? Where did you train?”

“Nowhere, miss. At Somerfield, I guess.” Eliza shrugged and kept her voice low. She didn't want Mrs. Beckworth to think she was complaining about her lot. Plenty of girls in Somerset-by-the-Sea would trade places with her quick enough. A position at Somerfield Park, even one as lowly as Eliza's, was more precious than jewels when the whole village was scrambling for work. “Don't know how much training it takes to chop carrots, lay fires, and generally make myself scarce whenever anything interesting is happening.”

“Well, when you've a chance at something interesting, take it, my girl. That's my motto.”

That sounded like sense to Eliza. She'd wanted to see what would happen at this tea, so when Mr. Porter sent up the request for extra help, she was the first, and only, volunteer. A small candle of pride flickered in her chest. She'd been offered a chance and took it.

But why would Miss Quimby want to be here? Eliza asked her.

“After I heard about the state Miss Goodnight was in when she made the invitation for this tea, I simply had to see how it would come off.” Miss Quimby raised her brows in censure.

“Oh?” Eliza wasn't allowed upstairs, and the Somerfield staff had been uncharacteristically tight-lipped about anything to do with the Goodnights, so she hadn't heard anything about Miss Sophia's “state.” “What was wrong with her, then?”

“What wasn't?” Quimby quietly described Miss Goodnight's disheveled—no, make that positively grubby—appearance in Lady Somerset's oh-so-proper parlor.

Eliza wasn't good enough to be seen in that parlor even if she were dressed in her Sunday best. She stopped listening for a bit while she stewed over the injustice of it. Miss Goodnight was no more a lady than Eliza was, yet because her father had the chinks, she could parade around in the marquess's parlor covered in mud.

“Makes you wonder, don't it?” Miss Quimby finished.

Eliza blinked, realizing she'd missed a bit of the lady's maid's diatribe while she was woolgathering. “Wonder what?”

“It's clear from talking to Mr. Porter that the Goodnights have no idea how things are done properly, else they'd not have tried to throw this party together at the last moment,” Quimby said as she finished icing another row of lemon cakes. “They aren't Quality. That's obvious as a wart on the nose. Just what is the connection between the Goodnights and Lord Somerset? Is Mr. Goodnight his lordship's man of business and his womenfolk are somehow getting ahead of themselves with this tea?”

“No, I shouldn't think so,” Eliza said. She'd seen Mr. Witherspoon coming and going from the estate quite a lot over the last month or so. He'd been Lord Somerset's man of business for years. Leastwise that's what she'd inferred from overhearing David and Mr. Hightower discuss which room to arrange for the gentleman when Mr. Witherspoon had to stay over.

“Then why are the Goodnights here at all, much less inviting their ladyships to tea?”