Perfecting Fiona (15 page)

Soon she began to feel hot and uncomfortable. She was wearing false side-whiskers and her face itched. She had stuffed a pillow under her waistcoat to give herself the portly appearance she considered necessary for the masquerade.

Then she heard the rattle of carriage wheels and creaking of joists. Mr Haddon arrived, then a surgeon, then Lord Peter Havard, and then Mr Jeremy Bessamy. They all stood for a moment in a group talking and examining a box of duelling pistols.

Mr Haddon was wearing a black coat buttoned up to the neck, black knee breeches, and top boots. His hair under his tall beaver hat was tied at the nape of his neck with a black ribbon.

The men and Amy waited and waited. Suddenly Mr Bessamy cried, ‘Here he comes!’ Mr Bessamy was mistaken. It was only a carriage passing along the road beyond the field, but Amy did not know that.

She leaped from behind her tree. ‘Hold hard!’ she cried in a gruff voice. ‘I arrest all of you in the King’s name!’

The pillow under her waistcoat proved too much of a strain for the buttons, which started to pop, and she was waving a large pistol which she had bought for the occasion but did not know had a hair-trigger. It went off with a loud report and put a ball clean through Mr Bessamy’s hat. Mr Bessamy uttered a faint bleating sound and swooned.

Lord Peter rushed to Mr Bessamy and knelt down and then swung round in a fury to face Amy. But the Bow Street Runner was being led away through the trees by Mr Haddon.

‘Help me. I am seriously killed,’ cried Mr Bessamy, recovering and clutching hard at Lord Peter’s lapels and nearly toppling him over.

‘I suggest you stay here in hiding, Miss Amy,’ Mr Haddon was saying severely, ‘and I shall go back and tell them that because of your dangerous behaviour you have decided not to report the matter.’

‘Who’s Miss Amy?’ demanded Amy in a shaky voice.

‘You silly goose,’ said Mr Haddon. ‘Do as you are told.’

Amy waited and waited, feeling ridiculous and dreading Mr Haddon’s wrath. She heard the sound of carriages driving off. Amy trembled, hoping Mr Haddon had left as well. But he eventually reappeared and stood looking at her. ‘Now, Miss Amy,’ he began severely. But his eyes crinkled up with laughter, and he put a handkerchief over his face. It was to no avail. He laughed and laughed as he had not done since his boyhood, while Amy shuffled her large feet and felt ready to die of embarrassment.

‘You ridiculous girl,’ said Mr Haddon, recovering at last, and Amy began to feel a little glow of pleasure despite her distress. It was wonderful to be called a girl. ‘You cannot return to Holles Street in those clothes,’ said Mr Haddon. ‘I assume you said nothing to Miss Effy?’

Amy dumbly shook her head.

‘Then we shall go to some posting house for breakfast and I will try to find you a ready-made gown and bonnet. You are very brave and I thank you, Miss Amy. But there was no need for such heroics. Mr Callaghan appears to have no intention of showing up.’

‘How did you recognize me?’ asked Amy.

But Mr Haddon only began laughing again, so hard that he could not reply.

Lord Peter arrived at last in Tunbridge Wells two days later, put up at the best inn, and sent his card around to the Burgesses.

He decided that once he had secured their permission, he would return to Town and tell Fiona the news and then travel to that property in Kent and see if it was as good a place as Cully had described.

A brief note arrived back from the Burgesses, inviting him to dinner. He sighed with relief. Things looked promising. Provided he behaved in as sober a manner as possible, he felt sure he could persuade them to give him their permission to marry Fiona.

Lord Peter was well aware of the rules laid down for gentlemen dining out. An etiquette book stated that the Diner Out ‘must keep the character of a good-natured fellow. It must be his study to display a certain good-natured dullness.’ Intellect was something one was expected to have but not to display, especially in the company of ladies.

He dressed in his best and made his way to the Burgesses at five o’clock, Mr and Mrs Burgess considering the new later hours of dining but one step removed from decadence.

They lived in a large mansion full of cold, dark rooms. Mrs Burgess had a hatred of dust, and although she would never stoop to do such a menial task as dusting, she never had fires lit after the first of March, whether it was blowing a blizzard outside or not. Fires created dust.

The gardens were dull. Bright flowers were considered immoral, and so the depressing laurel bushes and yew hedges and the marble rocks bordering the lawns gave the gardens all the cheer of a well-kept cemetery.

After the formalities of greeting had been exchanged, Mr Burgess said, ‘We have invited you here, Lord Peter, for we fear you may wish to ask for Fiona’s hand in marriage. Such a marriage would not be suitable. The aristocracy should never marry out of their class.’

‘Just what I am always saying myself,’ said Lord Peter with a look of amiable stupidity.

‘Then why are you come?’ asked Mrs Burgess in surprise.

‘I do not believe in girls’ marrying for money,’ said Lord Peter, ‘and I wish your assurances as to Miss Macleod’s character. I am a very wealthy man.’

‘But Fiona is an heiress!’ exclaimed Miss Macleod.

‘Dash me,’ said Lord Peter with a vacuous laugh. ‘I wondered why it was she appeared to attract every fortune-hunter in London.’

‘Good gracious,’ exclaimed Mrs Burgess. Then she relaxed. ‘I am sure the Misses Tribble would not allow our niece to marry anyone like that.’

‘Still,’ said Lord Peter, ‘the fact remains that Miss Macleod does not seem to like the idea of marriage, and rumour has it she has had several proposals and turned them all down.’ Lord Peter was guessing, but it was a safe guess. In these inflationary days of the Regency, any heiress received a great many proposals.

Mr and Mrs Burgess exchanged glances. They did not want to confess to Lord Peter that they were not quite sure whether Fiona had actually ever received proposals of marriage or had strangely managed to give her suitors a violent disgust of her before they got to the point.

Mr Burgess found his voice. ‘I must confess, Lord Peter, our disapproval of you was based on our first meeting. You were in a curricle race on the London Road.’

‘Egad, what you must think!’ said Lord Peter. ‘I did not want to betray my friend and tell you the truth. I was trying to catch him to give him a horsewhipping. He had been rude and ungracious to an elderly couple at an inn at which we had stopped for refreshment – a vicar and his wife. I did not realize until then that my friend had such a hatred of the clergy. You must understand my horror. He had to be taught a lesson.’

‘Quite so, quite so,’ said Mr Burgess, thawing visibly. ‘But why did you lie to us?’

‘You did not know me; my quarrel was with my friend, and I did not want to betray his bad behaviour to anyone else. Do forgive me.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Mrs Burgess. ‘Your behaviour does you credit.’

Dinner was announced.

Lord Peter was amazed at the paucity of the fare. He would not have allowed such meagre helpings to be served in his own servants’ hall. There was a thin, watery soup, two tiny slivers of plaice followed by boiled mutton and overcooked vegetables, and rather dusty-looking tartlets, all washed down by a canary wine so peculiar in taste that Lord Peter wondered if some vintner had assumed in a mad moment that canary was made from a distillation of those birds rather than hailing from the vineyards of the Canary Islands.

Lord Peter discoursed with amazing stupidity on several topics of the day. Transportation, he said, was too good for criminals and a waste of public money; mass hangings such as they had had at Tyburn in the golden days of the last century ought to be reintroduced. The Burgesses nodded and smiled and ate with a hearty appetite. The Whigs, drawled Lord Peter, were all Jacobites at heart, and had lost his respect when they had supported the American colonists. So amazed and approving were Mr and Mrs Burgess at this piece of wisdom that they failed to observe that Lord Peter had not yet been born at the time of the colonial wars. Slavery, said Lord Peter expansively, was good for trade, and he had no sympathy with the abolitionists. By the end of the dreadful meal, Mr and Mrs Burgess had begun to think this paragon almost too good for their niece. With a gracious smile and a silent nod of approval to her husband, Mrs Burgess retired to leave the gentlemen to savour quite the worst port Lord Peter had ever allowed to pass his lips.

‘I must confess we were sadly mistaken in you,’ said Mr Burgess. ‘I know my wife will now join me in giving our permission to this marriage. But a word of warning. Fiona can be wayward. I have always found the application of the birch rod necessary.’

Lord Peter clutched his glass and with a heroic effort refrained from throwing its contents in Mr Burgess’s face. He reflected that had they not given him permission to marry Fiona, he would have taken her straight to Gretna Green to marry her immediately and save her from ever having to return to monsters such as these.

So enchanted were Mr and Mrs Burgess with him that he found some difficulty in taking his leave. It was only nine o’clock when he returned to the inn and yet he felt he had been locked up in that villa for years.

He was passing through the entrance hall of the inn when he was hailed by Captain Freddy Beaumont. ‘Going back to my regiment,’ said the captain cheerfully. ‘Care to share a bottle of port with me?’

‘Gladly,’ said Lord Peter. Captain Freddy had seemed charmed by Fiona at the ball Lord Peter’s parents had given, but had shortly afterwards left Town. Lord Peter reminded himself that now he had nothing to fear from any competition.

How jolly it was to have sane company and a decent bottle of port, thought Lord Peter, stretching his long legs under the taproom table.

It was only after two glasses had been drunk and the captain was roaring for more that Lord Peter realized Freddy Beaumont was quite drunk.

‘Are you celebrating something?’ asked Lord Peter.

‘On the road back from m’parents,’ said the captain. ‘Gawd. Awful business, parents. Treat me like a toad and then charge me with lack of affection. Eugh!’

‘I haven’t been seeing my parents,’ said Lord Peter, ‘but I think I feel the same as you. As a matter of fact, I was here getting permission to pay my addresses to a certain lady.’

‘Getting married?’ asked the captain. ‘
You?
’

‘Yes, I,’ said Lord Peter. ‘To Miss Fiona Macleod.’

‘Demme, put it there!’ said the captain, stretching out his hand, seizing Lord Peter’s and wringing it fervently. ‘What a lady. Hey, waiter! Another bottle. Stap me, if you ain’t the bestest Trojan ever, Havard. Better’n me any day.’

‘I am glad my choice meets with your approval,’ said Lord Peter, raising his eyebrows.

‘The modern age of liberty is here,’ cried the captain. ‘Your health, b’Gad! Wanted her for m’self. But too old-fashioned and frightened of the parents, don’t you see.’

Lord Peter stared at him in surprise.

‘Yes, when Miss Macleod told me, I was struck all of a heap,’ went on the captain. ‘Yet why should we rakes turn up our noses because a lady falls once from grace? You’re a hero, Havard.’

Lord Peter was about to ask Captain Freddy what the deuce he meant, but he suddenly had a shrewd idea that if the captain knew he had not the faintest idea what he was talking about, then the captain would keep silent.

‘Well, it was a bit of a shock, I agree,’ said Lord Peter. ‘But I’m hardly a saint myself.’

‘Exactly!’ said the now very drunk captain, thumping the table energetically. ‘Mind you, would have been easier to take had it been a gentleman and not some servant.’

Lord Peter relaxed. Charles, the footman. Fiona must have told the captain that lie about being in love with a footman.

‘You could have knocked me all of a heap,’ went on the captain, ‘when I proposed marriage and she looked at me in that sweet way of hers and said she was not a virgin.’

Lord Peter felt himself grow cold.

‘These girlish follies must be forgiven,’ he said with a lightness he did not feel. ‘But I trust you will not breathe a word of this to anyone. I would not like to have to call you out.’

‘On my oath,’ said the captain, ‘if you had not obviously already known her dark secret, I would not have said a thing.’

Lord Peter changed the subject and finally took his leave and went up to his bedchamber. He sat by the open window with his head in his hands and thought hard. Could Fiona have been lying? But she had kissed him with a fierceness and passion not common in ladies, and certainly not in unmarried ones. But what right had he to demand a virgin in his marriage bed when he himself had lost his virginity such a long time ago and had bedded so many?

And yet the intellect could cry one thing and the emotions would not listen. He was fiercely jealous of this footman, shocked and disgusted at Fiona’s behaviour, but he knew he could never give her up.

Morning brought sunshine and sanity. He could not believe it of Fiona. All he had to do was to ask her.

When he reached London, he went directly to Holles Street. The Tribbles were both at home and agreed with great reluctance to receive him.

He told them of his visit to the Burgesses and of how he had secured their permission. All would have gone well from there had it not been for Effy’s vanity. She felt piqued that this lord had gone over their heads, so to speak. People might say that it was Mr and Mrs Burgess themselves who had secured this splendid match. On top of that, her humiliation at the hands of Mr Desmond Callaghan still rankled. Men were cheats and deceivers and not to be trusted.

‘You cannot expect us to welcome your suit,’ said Effy huffily. ‘Fiona is too young for you. Let me speak plain, you are a man of . . . er . . . great experience and much older than she.’

Lord Peter did not notice that Fiona had arrived and was standing in the doorway.

‘May I point out, madam,’ he said icily, ‘that under the circumstances you should be down on your knees
begging
me, begging anyone, to take the girl off your hands.’