Gallant Waif (37 page)

“But I…”

“Oh, yes,
I
know what you were about, but did
she?”

Jack groaned and clutched his hair in anguish.

“Expects to be despised, you see. Happened before. Lost her betrothed for that reason. Not saying that was a bad thing, mind you—chap wasn’t good enough for her. He’d known her all her life, childhood sweetheart sort of thing. Didn’t stop him despising her after the scandal. Fellow called off the wedding on account of it. And most people thought he did the right thing.”

Jack groaned again. “I didn’t know…didn’t think…”

“Thing is, the story got out and all the cats got stuck into her in the most appalling fashion.”

“My God.”

“Things some of them said to her would make your hair curl. Ha! The gentler sex! Bitches carved young Kate up in the most vicious and cold-blooded fashion, and all the time with the sweetest smiles on their faces. Held her to be a traitor because she nursed wounded French soldiers. Claimed she went with them willingly. Called her a whore behind her back…and a few said it to her face. And all with such smiling politeness and seeming sweetness… I tell you, Jack, it almost put me off women for life. The gentler sex.” He shuddered.

The beautiful, hypocritical face of Julia Davenport appeared in Jack’s mind. “I know just what you mean,” he muttered grimly. The two men sipped their brandy. The flames danced in the grate.

“Thing is, same thing could happen in London. Some of the tabbies in Lisbon last year are bound to be in London now. Even if they aren’t, you know what women are like for writing letters. Bound to be someone who knows the story. Come out sooner or later, I’d say—just a matter of time.”

Jack was too appalled to speak. He felt as if his stomach had dropped out of his body. Oh, God, no wonder she’d looked as if she was going to an execution; she would have an axe suspended over her head the whole time she was in London, and it was only a matter of time before it would fall.

Jack groaned and clenched his fist. There was a snap as his glass shattered in his hand. Francis sat up, exclaiming at the blood dripping from Jack’s fingers. Jack waved him aside impatiently.

“Going to London,” he said. “Can’t leave her to think that— Oh, shut up, Francis, what’s a damned scratch? I’m off to London in the morning. Are you coming with me or not?”

“Oh, absolutely, old man, absolutely.”

Chapter Sixteen

Your young protégée seems to be doin’ rather well, Maudie.”

“Thank you, Gussie,” replied Lady Cahill. “I couldn’t be more pleased with her if she was my own daughter.”

Lady Cahill and several of her cronies were doing what they called “taking tea and cakes’. The tea trolley was laden with dainty cakes and elegant little savouries. Steam curled languidly from the spout of the teapot, and each lady sipped delicately from a fine eggshell-thin teacup. The sherry decanter was half empty.

“Charmin’ gel, quite charmin’.” The speaker, wearing an enormous feathered turban, reached for a fourth crab-and-asparagus patty.

Lady Cahill beamed. Kate had taken to her new life like a duck to water, hadn’t put a foot wrong. Lady Cahill had, at first, been rather anxious lest Kate reveal herself as a true scholar’s daughter—it would be fatal for her to gain a reputation as a bluestocking.

However, to Lady Cahill’s pleased surprise, Kate had proved to be almost as delightfully ignorant as any anxious sponsor would wish her protégée to be. She seemed to take more pleasure in a visit to the Pantheon Bazaar or Astley’s Amphitheatre than she did in an afternoon at the British Museum or a viewing of the archaeological sensation, Lord Elgin’s Marbles. She knew nothing of famous thinkers, writers or philosophers. Her conversation was not weighted with dull pronouncements from weighty tomes, and she was in no danger of frightening gentlemen by spouting screeds of poetry at them. It seemed that the only topics on which Kate was knowledgeable were horses and the Peninsular War—and since the
ton
was full of horse-mad military gentlemen that was not held to be a disadvantage.

Lady Cahill basked in her protégée’s praise.

“A sensible, well-bred, pretty-behaved gel, Maudie. Poor Maria would have been delighted to see how charmingly her daughter has turned out.”

The others nodded.

Kate’s success was only to be expected, Lady Cahill told herself complacently. Kate was a sociable girl, and a sympathetic listener. Moreover, a life of ordering her father’s household and her experience of having had to adapt to extraordinary conditions had given her an indefinable air of assurance, taken by many to be a sign of good breeding.

And, from having spent most of her life in male company from all walks of life, she was neither shy nor coy nor odiously missish with the London gentlemen she met. She seemed to listen as happily to the dull military pronouncements of an elderly general as to the stammering confidences of a young man in his first season or the practised compliments of a rake.

Lady Cahill’s granddaughter, Amelia, had introduced Kate to her more dashing set, made up largely of young fashionable matrons. They had noted her elegant, modish appearance, her mischievous sense of humour, her quick wit and her complete lack of interest in their husbands, and pronounced her to be a sweet and charming girl.

*
  
*
   
*

“Very popular with the soldier laddies,” said one elderly lady waspishly, holding out her teacup to be refilled.

“And you know why, Ginny Holton, so you need not sneer!” snapped Lady Courtney. “You know perfectly well what that dear sweet girl did for my Gilbert.”

The others nodded. Lady Courtney’s grandson, Gilbert, had barely set a foot outside his home, until Miss Farleigh had teased him into going about in society with her, apparently oblivious of the awkwardness of his missing arm and the ominous black eyepatch.

“Told him he looked like a wonderfully sinister pirate and that it would help protect her from unwanted attention.” Lady Courtney wiped her eyes.

“And
then
she told him that he must not blame her if they were mobbed by young ladies because he looked quite disgustingly romantic, and, while
she
knew him to be odiously stuffy, other girls were not as discriminating as she… And he laughed—my boy actually laughed—and consented to take her out. He hasn’t looked back since.”

“Yes, shame on you, Ginny,” agreed another elderly lady. “If Maudie’s Kate is popular with military gentlemen, it is not to be wondered at. You are only being uncharitable because your Chloe is without even a sniff of an offer! A pity to be sure, but no reason to snipe at others!”

It was true. Kate’s unselfconscious attention to the wounded had done her no disservice in the eyes of the more fortunate of the military. The polite world soon noted that little Miss Farleigh had a court of large, protective gentlemen, led by Mr Lennox, and Sir Toby Fenwick and other military types, who seemed equally delighted to fetch her a glass of ratafia, escort her to the opera, take her driving in Hyde Park at the fashionable hour or depress the pretensions of any too assiduous suitors.

There were many of these, as word of her inheritance had leaked out. She was being courted by several gazetted fortune hunters, as well as men of substance and position.

Lady Cahill sat back in her chair as the talk turned to more general topics. She was almost satisfied. One factor, however, was missing from the equation. She hoped he would bestir himself soon and get himself to London before Kate was snapped up by some fashionable fribble who didn’t deserve her.

“What do you think of this, miss?” The maid held an elegant spray of artificial flowers to Kate’s hair and looked enquiringly at her new mistress in the mirror.

Kate stared. She almost didn’t recognise herself. Her hair had been cropped in the latest style and feathered curls clustered round her face, doing amazing things to her appearance, things Kate would never have dreamed possible. For the first time in her life, she felt elegant, and, though the Reverend Mr Farleigh’s daughter knew it to be an immodest thought, almost pretty. The new face and hairstyle were enhanced by the gown she was wearing—a soft shade of green that brought out the colour in her eyes and minimised the slight unfashionable golden tone of her skin, brought about by too much time outdoors.

Lady Cahill and Amelia had subjected Kate to a rigorous regime of crushed strawberries—to refine and clarify the skin—buttermilk baths—to soften it—and, for general toning and nourishing, slices of raw veal laid on her skin for hours at a time while Amelia read to her. In addition there were twice-daily applications of distilled pineapple water—for clarity and beauty and to erase wrinkles—egg and lemon face packs—to fade that dreadful tan and nourish the skin—and oatmeal masks—to brighten and refine the skin.

Kate laughed, complained they made her feel rather like the main ingredient in a strange and exotic stew, and admitted her complexion had improved under their ministrations. But it was still a terrible waste of good food.

And then there had been the shopping, a positively sinful orgy of it, in Kate’s eyes, but “the merest necessities’ as far as her female mentors were concerned. Kate tried to remain sensible and practical, but the fizzing excitement that rose in her at the sight of the exquisite, dashing outfits that Lady Cahill and Amelia had bullied her into purchasing was irresistible to a girl who had had very little opportunity to indulge in fashionable feminine frivolity.

Kate’s head had been spinning at the end of that first day, which had begun at the silk warehouses. Delicate and lovely fabrics were draped, compared, contrasted, swathed, discussed, discarded and selected, mostly without reference to Kate, who was far too easily pleased, according to her companions. Then it was off to see Amelia’s modiste, Madame Fanchot, who, well primed as to the state of
mademoiselle’s
finances, went into professional Gallic raptures about
mademoiselle’s
face, her figure, her air of
je ne c’est quoi,
then flew into genuine raptures when Kate responded to her in fluent French. Then there were hours spent poring over issues of
La Belle Assemblee
and
Ackerman’s Repository,
with dozens and dozens of plates, all of the most elegant outfits.

In the end Kate had spinelessly allowed Madame Fanchot, Amelia and Lady Cahill to decide everything and left to them the meticulous planning and endless discussion which went into every choice. For her part, Kate could not have cared less whether, for instance, the lemon muslin was cut to drape
so,
enhancing the lovely line of
mademoiselle’s
shoulders and neckline, or like
so,
to enhance her bustline, or like
so,
to give her height. Her only contribution to that discussion had been to suggest that perhaps the neckline was rather too low, a suggestion that was ignored by all three ladies as too nonsensical even to warrant a response.

So now Kate stared at her reflection, exposing more of her chest than she had ever done in her life. She became aware of her maid still holding out the artificial flowers, awaiting her response, and smiled apologetically.

“I think not, Dora. To be quite honest, I am terrified that it would fall out of my hair.” The maid bridled, assuring her that such a thing was quite impossible.

Kate interrupted the flow. “It is just that my head feels so strange and light since my new crop, and I cannot but feel that something is missing, so although I am sure you would place the flowers most securely you do understand how I feel, don’t you?”

Dora relented after a moment and said that of course she did, and miss looked very elegant and lovely and would be sure to be a success again tonight.

Kate wrinkled her nose. Yes, of course, “success’ was what was important. How could she have forgotten? She had tried not to let herself think of other things, or wonder what might be happening at Sevenoakes. That was one benefit of such hectic socialising—one didn’t have time to brood. Tonight, for example, she was going to a ball and it would be surprising if she had time to think of Jack even once.

Jack leant against an elegant column, arms folded, a black frown on his face, staring, glaring, unable to tear himself away. It had been Francis’s idea to come to this ball on the evening of their arrival in London and Jack had regretted it the moment he’d arrived and clapped eyes on Kate, utterly transformed from the shabby little starveling he had first met. She was dancing, her head thrown back, mischievously laughing up into the eyes of a fellow Jack had been to school with, and knew to be titled, rich and eligible.