A Rake by Any Other Name (7 page)

“Oh, that's easy,” Eliza said, glad to finally have something definite to contribute to the conversation. “Lord Hartley's meant to marry Miss Goodnight.”

“Is he? Indeed.” Quimby's lips pinched tight in a prim line for a moment. “And her blood no bluer than yours or mine. What do the servants at Somerfield make of Miss Goodnight?”

“We don't discuss his lordship's guests, miss,” Eliza said. Quimby's questions were beginning to make the hairs on her arms prickle. It didn't do to ignore a body's arm hair.

“It don't sound like she'll be only a guest for long,” Quimby pressed on.

“How should I know?” Eliza said, remembering how it seemed Lord Hartley and Miss Goodnight didn't like each other much in the gallery. At least, not until they started kissing. “I don't think anything's for certain yet.”

“Well, I should think not. They're from two different worlds, Lord Hartley and Miss Goodnight. His is an old, established family with a lineage that runs back to the time of the Conqueror. She's a harpy on the catch if ever there was one. It'll never work.”

When it was put like that, barring the buckets of money Miss Goodnight's father was said to have, Eliza had to admit that the young woman's station was far closer to hers and Miss Quimby's than his lordship's. Of course, a body couldn't be blamed for trying to better themselves. Eliza hoped to move up the ranks in the servants' hall. Why shouldn't Miss Goodnight yearn to move up in the upstairs world if she could? It gave Eliza a bit of common feelings with her and made her like her a little better—never mind the bit about not being a virgin, of course.

She hoped the tea went off swimmingly for the Goodnights.

“Like oil and water, fish and fowl,” Miss Quimby was saying. “You know what they say, ‘birds of a feather' and all that.”

“I don't put much stock in old sayings because, well…they're old.” All this talk of fish and feathers and oily water was giving Eliza a headache. “I figure Lord Hartley will make the right decision and do what's needful when it comes to it.”

“Undoubtedly,” Quimby said. “Provided Lord and Lady Somerset have the right information about Miss Goodnight to pass on to their son. You know as well as I that them who live below stairs know more of what's really going on than any of the Quality folk we serve.”

That was true. No one but Eliza and Lord Hartley knew about Miss Goodnight's astonishing confession. She wondered what his parents would make of her not being a virgin. Buckets of money or not, that sort of thing might change everything.

“All I'm saying is, you never know when what you might see and hear could come in useful like,” Quimby went on in a softer tone.

“Useful?”

“To your employers. You'll be doing them such a service, and they'll reward you for it. So keep your ears open.”

Eliza twined her fingers together. “What if I'm not sure I should tell something I hear?”

Quimby shrugged. “Tell me first and then we can decide together who needs to know it. Will you do that, Eliza?”

“I'll think about it.” Her arm hair was tingling again. “If I hear anything, that is.”

“Eliza, stop your chattering and come help me with this ham,” Mrs. Beckworth said as she waved her apron before the smoking oven on the opposite side of the kitchen.

The kitchen girl trotted to obey. Miss Quimby took the opportunity to sneak a small bottle of syrup of ipecac from her pocket. With the brush she used to apply lacquer to her mistress's fingernails, she coated one of the lemon cakes with the virulent purge-inducing substance. The result was a perfectly appealing dainty, albeit one slightly shinier than the others.

Which would make it much easier to serve to the right person when the time came.

A proper English garden is a delight to the senses…provided one has removed all the excess fertilizer first.

—Phillippa, the Dowager Marchioness of Somerset

Sophie escorted the elder Lady Somerset around the garden, so she could show the dowager what she and her mother had accomplished since they came to Barrett House. It wasn't the exotic profusion of plants they'd presided over in India, but she was proud of the riot of blooms beginning to unfurl now that most of the weeds had been pulled.

At her mother's insistence, Sophie wore a cool, lemon-colored gown of fine silk. Atop her dark hair, a broad-brimmed straw bonnet with a matching yellow ribbon was perched. She felt as if she'd stepped from a fashion plate. Since the marchioness was similarly well dressed in deep purple, Sophie decided her mother was right for once. Evidently, tea was a serious business at Somerfield Park and required serious fashion as well.

“Gardens, not unlike lives, need to be cleared out from time to time.” The old woman leaned lightly on her cane as she pontificated on each flower and bush in the now well-groomed space. “While I generally approve of the changes you and your mother have made to the grounds around Barrett House, I must deplore your methods.”

The dowager fixed her with a pointed look, and Sophie tried not to giggle when she noticed that a stuffed pigeon was wedged among the blooms festooning the old lady's hat. The bird seemed to have been frozen with the same dour expression and tilt of head as the dowager, both of them united in scolding her.

“If you would be taken for a lady, my dear,” Richard's grandmother said, “you simply mustn't grub about in the dirt.”

“That supposes I wish to be taken for a lady,” Sophie returned tartly. If she were going to be weighed in the balance and found wanting by the dowager, at least it ought to be for being herself. “If ladies aren't allowed to get their hands dirty once in a while, I rather think they can't have much fun.”

Lady Somerset gave a decidedly unladylike snort. “We have fun, my dear. But we do it with clean hands. Don't you see? By insisting upon doing the labor yourself, you have robbed others of an opportunity. To put it more biblically, ‘To whom much has been given, much is required.' As the daughter of a wealthy man, it is your obligation to provide employment for those less fortunate.”

“I had not thought of it like that.”

“Well, it's high time to think of it then. When I laid out this garden years ago, I had six full-time gardeners.”

“For this small space?”

“For this small space,” the dowager repeated. “Not that the size of Barrett House's gardens required that many, of course, but the families of the gardeners did. The Marquessate of Somerset may no longer function as a feudal overlord, but we are still expected to provide a major source of employment for the village folk as well as support for the tenant farmers who work the estate's land.”

Sophie hadn't thought about the landed nobility in that light before either. She'd considered them spoiled, puffed up with their own sense of entitlement, and generally a blight on the land they'd inherited. When her father first brought up the subject of marrying Lord Hartley, she'd been livid. She couldn't see why it was so important to her father that his grandchildren bear a
Lord
or
Lady
before their names. What earthly good could it be?

To learn that the dowager viewed her family's land and the people attached to it as a trust, and that the relationship between the Lord Somerset and his people was a mutually beneficial one, was a bit of an eye-opener.

“So you're saying that even aristocrats have their uses.”

The elder Lady Somerset had leaned down to smell the hydrangeas. She straightened instantly. “Dear me! You are determined to be objectionable, aren't you?”

“I'm sorry, my lady. Words tend to slip out my mouth before I've fully considered them.”

The dowager's lips twitched in what might have been a half smile. “The same has been known to happen to me from time to time.” She linked arms with Sophie and continued their stroll. “To be honest, sometimes I consider my words fully and say them anyway, but if you tell anyone I said that, I'll dispute it with my dying breath.”

“Your secret is safe with me.”

“I say, what's happened to my roses?” She stopped by the front door to Barrett House and peered down at the woody stubs which were all Sophie had left of the runaway bush.

“I pruned them, your ladyship,” Sophie admitted.

“Are you sure? It looks more as if you exacted revenge.”

There had been no new growth since she had hacked away at it. No tender green leaves unfurling. Not even a bulge in the woody stock that might indicate one was forthcoming.

“Pruning must be done with a light hand, my dear.” The dowager cast a gimlet eye at Sophie. “This poor bush looks as if you held a grudge against it.”

“I'm afraid I may have gotten carried away,” Sophie said. “I had just met your grandson, my lady.”

“Indeed. In that case, I suppose we must be grateful the bush was there to bear the brunt of that meeting.” Lady Somerset chuckled. “Let that be a lesson to you. Never wield pruning shears when you're unhappy with a man.” She raised her lorgnette to study the ruined bush more closely. “You'd only just met Hartley. One can't imagine there was time for you to become acquainted with him well enough to motivate carnage on this level. Why were you unhappy with him, if I may ask?”

Sophie's shoulders drooped a bit. “It wasn't just him. I was unhappy with myself as well.” Now was not the time to go into why her parents felt it imperative to spirit her out of India and why her father was so keen to settle her into a wedded state so quickly. “It just seems as if everything is out of my control of late, and I don't like that feeling one bit.”

“None of us do, my dear. And though it will likely be of no comfort to you, no one else is in control half as much as they'd like either. Not my son, Lord bless him, stuck in that wheelchair without his wits, poor man. And not my grandson, who is suddenly responsible for a one hundred thousand acre estate and all the lives attached to it.”

One
hundred
thousand
acres?
She had no idea Somerset was such a huge estate. If its financial difficulties were as dire as her father thought, no wonder Richard was under pressure to wed her for her dowry.

“And of all those who don't have control over their own lives as much as they wish, I must add myself to the list most especially,” Lady Somerset said. “A dowager takes her portion from the estate, you see. If the Barrett family is forced to sell, well…let's just say I will not spend my declining years in the comfort to which I've become accustomed.”

“I suppose you mean to make me feel guilty enough to accept your grandson.”

“Is it working?” She gave Sophie a searching look and then chuckled. “Don't mind me. It's just the ramblings of an old woman. Think nothing of it. No one else does.”

“I think that very unlikely.” From all appearances, the dowager was still a force to be reckoned with in the Barrett household. Richard especially seemed solicitous of his grandmother whenever he was near her.

“Don't trouble yourself about the plans others have made for you. Or the roses either, for that matter,” Lady Somerset said. “They are like the Barretts—hardy and hard to eradicate. One way or another, the fortunes of Somerset will arise, just as this rosebush no doubt will. Mark my words.”

Sophie wished she could give the old woman a hug, but Lady Somerset didn't seem the sort to appreciate such demonstrations of affection. So instead, she linked arms with her again.

“You know, my mother has been encouraging me to hire a lady's maid,” Sophie said. “I've been resisting because I'm perfectly capable of dressing myself.”

“Then in that case, you need a new modiste, my dear. Your wardrobe is clearly lacking. No lady worthy of the name wears garments she can don unassisted.”

Sophie stifled a laugh because she was sure the dowager was dead serious. “Then I shall have to remedy that. Perhaps you can recommend a seamstress and a likely lady's maid.”

“My, you are a fast learner, aren't you? No wonder Richard likes you.”

“I don't think he does.”

“That's because you didn't see his face when he looked at you, my dear.”

“Men have admired me before.” In Bombay, on the ship returning to England, she'd never been without a coterie of gentlemen sniffing around. Sophie told herself it was her father's money that drew them in. “It didn't mean they liked me particularly.”

“Perhaps, but did they admire you covered in mud and smelling of horse? My Richard certainly did.”

A warm sensation coursed through her chest, but she immediately tamped it down. No doubt the smell of her father's money overpowered even the earthy scent of mud and horse. Besides, he'd told her point-blank his heart was otherwise engaged.

She glanced across the green lawn at Lady Antonia, looking cool and willowy in a frosty blue gown with a matching bonnet and satiny slippers of the same azure shade. She was holding court with Richard's two oldest sisters and had apparently shared something funny with them. Her laughter was silvery and light, the sound dew drops on flower stems would make if they could. Collected and self-assured, she was every inch a future marchioness.

Whenever Sophie looked at herself in the mirror, she was reminded of the old sow's ear–silk purse adage. Not that she was unattractive, but she'd never have the polish that seemed inbred in someone like Lady Antonia. She'd always put a foot wrong or say something gauche.

Even if she did become a “Lady,” she'd feel like a fraud. How could her parents expect her to live such a lie?

Her mother rang a small bell and called the gathering to join her at the tables. For a moment, there was a bit of confusion, since there were ten places and only nine ladies present. Lady Ariel had not brought her governess as expected. Lady Antonia's pursed-lipped expression trumpeted her disapproval over the uneven party.

As
if
I
give
a
flying
fig
what
Lady
Antonia
thinks
, Sophie told herself sternly. But before she could suggest how to divide the group, so as to leave Lady Antonia at the table for two by herself, the dowager stepped into the fray.

“Now then,” the elder Lady Somerset said. “Why don't we have Lady Somerset, Lady Pruett, and Mrs. Goodnight along with Ariel, there's a dear, right here? I'll join my other granddaughters at that table. This way Miss Goodnight and Lady Antonia can become better acquainted at that small one. Come now, everyone. Take your places before the tea gets cold.”

Since they'd been sorted out by someone whom nobody wanted to countermand, the group settled in as the dowager dictated. From the corner of her eye, Sophie saw Mr. Porter's shoulders sag in what looked like relief. Then he leaped into action to begin serving the light repast.

Appreciative murmurs went up over the finger sandwiches and fruit compote from her mother's table. Against all expectations, it appeared their tea was going to come off without a single hiccup. Sophie waited until Lady Antonia was seated and then sidled into the chair opposite her.

“Since Lady Somerset has decreed it, it appears we are to be friends,” Sophie said. “I should like that. So, tell me: how did you and Richard meet?”

“
Hartley
and I met in Paris.” Lady Antonia stressed Richard's title as Sophie poured out for her. The lady raised her teacup halfway to her lips. “At one of Madame Boulanger's salons for poetry readings.”

“Oh? Not in London at Almack's?” Sophie filled her cup with the steaming liquid. “From what I hear, that's all the crack when one is in hot pursuit in the marriage mart.”

Lady Antonia blinked hard. “Perhaps it's the done thing in Outer Mongolia or wherever it is you came from, but here one does not speak of such things.”

“Really?” Sophie added a lump of sugar to her tea and stirred with vigor. “I had no idea Almack's was so sordid.”

“It's not,” Lady Antonia said, her evenly modulated voice now edged with irritation. “Almack's is the height of respectability.”

“Pity. For a moment, it sounded rather interesting.”

“Miss Goodnight, are you attempting to be annoying?”

“Please call me Sophie. And no, I wouldn't call it an attempt.” She helped herself to the finger sandwiches Mr. Porter offered her, and waited until he had served Lady Antonia and moved on to the table where the dowager and her granddaughters were seated before continuing. “I am simply being myself. If you find that annoying, I fear I can't apologize.”

If Lady Antonia had been a porcupine, all her quills would have been standing on end. “Honestly, I don't know what Hartley could possibly see in you.”

“Yes, you do. He sees my father's nearly bottomless purse.” Sophie sipped her tea. She hadn't expected to have so much fun today. Lady Antonia was terribly easy to provoke. It almost didn't seem fair, so she decided to toss her a bone. “But, cheer up, my lady. I know full well what Richard sees in you.”

“What's that?”

“Someone from his world. Someone who will fill a marchioness's shoes without pinching so much as one of her little toes. Someone who fits in. Believe me, he finds that much more appealing than the Goodnight fortune.”

At that moment, a pair of riders clattered to a stop at the garden gate, their horses blown and streaked with sweat.

“Hello the house,” Lawrence Seymour called from atop a piebald gelding. He waved his hat in the air as though every feminine head wasn't already turned his way. “We've just come from an exhausting ride around Somerset's holdings. Is there any chance a pair of weary travelers can gain sustenance here?”