My Lady's Pleasure (22 page)

“You missed my coronation.” Gerry looked at her quizzically. “By virtue of a twisted ankle, I was queen of dinner,” she said with mock majesty. “I was placed on a throne in the drawing room and waited on hand and foot.”

“By Jove, if I had been there I would have waited on you with both hands and both feet,” her visitor said with feeling. “But here I am gabbing on when you haven’t had any breakfast. Should you like to come down for some tea and toast?”

The very thought of food made Alexandra queasy, but she thought she could stomach a cup of tea. “Perhaps a cup of tea,” she said, “but I think I’d like to ring for it. I’m not quite ready to go downstairs.”

“Let me get it,” said Miss Mumford, so eager to reestablish herself in Alexandra’s good graces that she was willing to set aside her scruples about leaving her charge alone in the room with an unmarried man.

As soon as she was gone, Gerry turned his chair toward the bed and looked at Miss Niven with uncharacteristic earnestness.

“Miss Niven,” he said, “I’m glad to have an opportunity to see you alone, because there’s something very particular I want to say.”

Miss Niven’s experience of the world, limited as it was, had taught her what to expect when a gentleman says he has something particular to say, and she felt a warm glow at the thought of it.

“These last few days have been some of the best I’ve had in a very long time. And, although I know a lot of the people here, and have always enjoyed my stays at Penfield, this visit has been so particularly . . . topping.” He settled for the word as he couldn’t think of a better one. “And it’s all been because you are here.”

Alexandra looked down modestly, but didn’t interrupt. “There are so many blasted clichés about men and women and love and sunshine and all that,” he went on, “but this is the very first time I’ve ever felt a woman’s presence brightening everything around me. You simply make everything better.

“I know my shortcomings,” continued Gerry. “I’m old, I’m set in my ways, and I’m certainly no beauty.” He swallowed and looked at the floor. “But the thing is, I love you. And I’m hoping that, perhaps, you could learn to love me.” He took her hand and got down on one knee by the side of the bed. “Miss Niven. Alexandra. Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

He swallowed audibly. This hadn’t been easy for him. The day before, he’d spent all afternoon and evening contemplating this step, and was absolutely sure he wanted to take it. Nevertheless, the actual taking of it felt difficult and momentous.

Alexandra’s head was in a whirl. What was she to say to him? She was sure she wasn’t ready to say yes, but neither was she inclined to say no. And she would not, could not, must not toy with his affections.

Before she said a word, though, she had to get him off his knee. Because the bed was high, when he knelt next to it she could see only the top half of his face, which gave his proposal a comical air. Because the matter was so very serious, Alexandra wanted him to reclaim his dignity before she spoke with him about it.

“Please, please get up.” She pulled the hand that still held hers, and gestured for him to take his chair again.

Then it was her turn to swallow. Finding the right words would have been difficult even had her head been clear and her stomach calm.

“Gerry, you do me an honor that I did not look for and have not expected,” she began. But the words sounded stilted and false even to her own ears, and she did not like it.

“That is,” she corrected, “in the sense that good girls are never to expect such a thing.” She smiled slyly and he laughed out loud. Her small joke brought back to him all the reasons he admired her, and he sat more at his ease.

“I am deeply, gratefully sensible of what an honor it is,” she said, seriously this time, looking him in the eye.

“Isn’t that what girls generally say when they’re about to say no?” Gerry asked.

“I have very little information about what girls generally say on these occasions. I can tell you only that what I say is what I mean. I believe you to be a good, kind, well-meaning man. I have enjoyed your company.” She felt the weight of her earnestness, and sought to lighten her little speech. “And I don’t believe you’re as old or as ugly as you seem to think.”

His laugh was more of a grunt, braced as he was for what he thought was to come.

“I cannot accept you,” she said gently. “But nor can I reject you. If you ask me whether I love you, I can say only that I do not. But if you ask me whether I
can
love you, I have to say that I might, with time, learn to do so. I know that is an unsatisfactory answer,” she started to say, but saw that Gerry was beaming. Absolutely beaming, with a smile that took over his entire face.

“By Jove, that’s no sort of rejection at all! Which makes it an absolutely satisfactory answer.”

“Does it?” Alexandra wasn’t expecting this.

“My dear girl,” he said, “when a doddering, uncouth specimen such as myself addresses himself to a beautiful, accomplished young goddess such as yourself, he doesn’t necessarily expect to win the day.” After he said this, he thought that perhaps he had said too much. But to hell with it, he thought. Dissembling had never been in his nature and he wouldn’t start now.

“I thought you’d turn me down flat,” he said, still beaming.

Alexandra thought this admission endearing, and smiled at him tenderly. She liked it that there was no pretense, no airs with this man. He knew who and what he was, and that was all he ever set himself up to be.

“Will you give me some time to get used to the idea, and then perhaps speak to me again?” she asked.

“You can have till the cows come home! I will not press you. If I may spend time in your company while the cows are still out, that’s all I can ask.”

“I should like that,” she said. “I should like it very much.”

“And so should I,” he said, and made his exit.

Just as he was leaving, Miss Mumford returned with the tea. Alexandra thought she’d never in her life been as happy to have a cup of it. Her thoughts were in a muddle, her feelings impossible to sort out. Her stomach was still unsettled, and she thought a cup of tea the very thing.

Miss Mumford, though, was not the very thing. Alexandra was bursting with the news of Gerry’s proposal, but she did not want to confide in her companion.

“Thank you so much for the tea,” she said with real gratitude. “And may I impose on you to ask one more favor?”

“Of course you may.”

“Could you find Lady Georgiana and send her to me? It’s the kind of thing I would ordinarily do for myself, but . . .”

She didn’t need to finish the sentence, or even justify her desire to see the lady of whom Miss Mumford disapproved. “Of course,” she said with surprisingly good grace. “I’m sure I shall be able to find her.”

It couldn’t have been ten minutes later when Lady Georgiana knocked at the door. Alexandra bade her friend enter.

“I hope there is nothing amiss,” Georgiana said, concern furrowing her brow.

“There is. That is, I don’t quite know. But there are also things that are not amiss at all. Oh! I can make neither heads nor tails of it!”

Georgiana sat down. “It’s been only a few hours since I saw you at dinner last night. Perhaps the easiest way to explain this would be to tell me what’s happened since then.”

“Well, I believe I’ve been deliberately served tainted milk, and I’ve had an offer of marriage.”

Georgiana’s eyes widened. “
What?
Then it has been a very eventful few hours! And is it Gerry? I mean, who’s asked you to marry him, not who’s given you the milk.” Because Georgiana could see that her friend had clearly survived the milk, and her health was in no danger, her curiosity about the proposal overrode her concern about that piece of malice.

“It is.”

“And do you mean to accept him?”

“I don’t know. It’s very sudden.”

“It is indeed. We can talk all about it.” Her expression turned serious. “But first you have to tell me about the milk.”

Alexandra told her the story of the milk. When she reached the part about the note, Georgiana interrupted her. “Don’t tell me. The note said, ‘Harlot.’”

“How ever did you know?” Alexandra asked, astonished at her friend’s clairvoyance.

“I have gotten notes along the same line. Although I don’t know who is sending them, I can at least understand why. In your case, though, it does not make any sense. Your character and conduct are beyond reproach.”

Alexandra blushed deeply. “Perhaps not so far beyond as you think.”

Georgiana was a little taken aback. “What is it that you have done?”

“I wore your trousers. I let Freddy carry me. But I think the gist of it is that I have been entertaining thoughts of two men, men who may be suitors. Well, one who certainly is and one who may be, but I’m not quite sure. . . .” She trailed off as Georgiana laughed.

“Entertaining thoughts of two men? Well, that
is
an offense against propriety!” But Georgiana repented her archness when she saw that her friend was genuinely distressed.

“The mere fact that you believe that your thoughts could merit censure is evidence of the purity of your spirit. You must not allow this note to upset you.”

“If it were just the note, I think I could manage that. But whatever was in the milk was awfully unpleasant, and the whole incident makes me feel vulnerable and rather frightened.”

“I don’t blame you, but I would much rather have you angry than frightened,” Georgiana said. “When I got the first note, I felt threatened and vulnerable as well, but I have since been convinced that this . . . this”—she reached for the right word—“stunt is just that. Tainted milk is certainly considerably worse than a dead peacock, but consider what it might have been. There might have been strychnine in your milk. I do believe this is a message, and not a real threat.”

Alexandra thought there might be something in this, but her memories of how she had spent the night made her think that, for a message, it was awfully emphatic.

“Nevertheless,” Georgiana continued, “this has gone beyond mere mischief, and we must get to the bottom of it. Who brought you the milk?”

“I suppose it was Rose—she generally does—but she left it on the table outside the door, and I don’t know how long it was there. It was still warm when Miss Mumford brought it in to me.”

“I saw Rose in the corridor the last time I got one of those lovely little missives, but I think she’s a nice girl and I suspect there is another explanation. Lord Loughlin said he would have a word with her. Is there anyone else you can think of?”

The two women talked at length about their suspicions, and considered almost every person under Penfield’s roof as a suspect, but without making much headway. “As amateur detectives,” Georgiana said to her friend, “I’m afraid we fall below the mark. Perhaps it was Rose after all, and we’re just too soft to believe a woman with a kind face and ingratiating manner could do this.”

Alexandra still couldn’t believe it, but didn’t have a better explanation. Finally, their detecting efforts exhausted, the two women returned to the much more pleasant subject of suitors and offers of marriage.

 

Lord Loughlin had indeed had a word with Rose, upsetting her inordinately. As Alexandra and Georgiana talked over the note, and the milk, and the proposal, Rose went to find the man who’d been the source of that proposal, the man who could establish her innocence.

She found him downstairs, ostensibly reading the newspaper over one last cup of tea, but really staring out the window, marveling that Alexandra Niven had given him hope. As Rose picked up some of the used cups and saucers on the table next to him, she whispered that she needed to see him. He saw the urgency in her expression and gave a slight nod.

“You may take this, too,” he said in a voice any passerby would hear, handing his cup to her. “I’m going up to my room.”

She took the dishes to the scullery, went immediately to his room, and entered without knocking.

“I don’t know what to do!” she said, clearly on the verge of tears.

“My dear girl, what is the matter?”

“It’s Lord Loughlin and Lady Georgiana. She got this terrible note, and a dead peacock, and they suspect me because she saw me in the corridor!” This, of course, Gerry knew, but didn’t let on.

“And what did you tell him?” Gerry asked, with some trepidation. Given his proposal to Miss Niven, this would be an inopportune time for his dalliance with the maid to become public knowledge. Alexandra, he thought, might not be willing to overlook such a thing.

“I told him I was making up the rooms, of course! If I told him I was with you, he would have given me the sack on the spot. But because it was so late, I don’t think he believes me, and he’s going to give me the sack anyway.” Here she burst into tears.

Gerry tried to take her in his arms, but she pushed him away. “This is what I get for getting myself involved in this kind of nonsense. The world would be a better place without men!”

Gerry had to laugh. “That wouldn’t bode well for the human species.”

“Oh, I’m sure we can find a way to have babies without the likes of you.”

“But only girl babies.”

“Of course only girl babies. If we have boy babies they only grow up to be men, and then we’d be back where we started.” Her distress was losing steam.

Gerry took her hand, and she didn’t pull it away. “You can be absolutely sure,” he said, looking at her seriously, “that your job is not in jeopardy. I will speak with Lord Loughlin, and I will manage it so that he knows you are innocent. You have my word.”

“But how can you convince him without telling him the truth?”

“You leave that to me. I will tell him the truth, but not all the truth.” Gerry was confident that, even if his host knew all, he wouldn’t fire Rose, and had no doubt that he could deliver on his promise to the girl.