Wife Errant (2 page)

Was Dulcie right about that, too? Had her taking charge turned her parents into these pattern cards of selfishness? No, they were both bone selfish to begin with; she had just made it easier for them to stave off disaster. But disaster had nearly caught up with them this time, despite her efforts.

Why had she let everyone walk all over her? Lacking Mama’s and Dulcie’s beauty, she had tried to curry favor by being the sensible, reliable one. “Tess will take care of it. You can always count on Tess.”
But deep in their hearts, they resented her hold on the reins.

Perhaps it was time for a change. The ascetic face in the mirror took on a sly smile as the brush slid through her black, silky hair. Henshaw, she knew, would be preparing Dulcie for bed. Tess always looked after herself. She saw the shadow of Saint Jerome’s self-righteous expression and frowned. Really, there was something unattractive about those priggish, self-righteous women. Papa’s idea of an insult to a lady was to call her a Hannah More, and there was a streak of the do-gooder Hannah in Tess.

She had given her youth to her mother, and her thanks was that Mama preferred Dulcie. Everyone preferred Dulcie, with her golden curls and her easy smile. Tess studied the face in the mirror and thought it could be quite as attractive as Dulcie’s, if it received the same amount of care. Her eyes, though gray, were as large and lustrous as Dulcie’s. The four years difference in their ages was not sufficient to make Tess old. Maturity had settled on her at a young age, but she was not old.

She just acted old, while her mama played the young flirt. Would Mama change if she had no one at home to do her worrying for her? She had still some inkling of propriety, for she was at pains to keep her plans for a divorce quiet, in hopes that Papa would repent.

Mama did not mind being called a dasher—she gloried in it—but she would not want to be put truly beyond the social pale. Society was her life. It was time for her mama to grow up, and that could only be accomplished by brute force. Tess would try to gain Lord Revel’s help in restraining Lord James as well. Without the distraction of this high flyer, Mama would have more time to worry about her elder daughter.

It was Tess’s custom to go to Dulcie’s room before she retired, to see if her young sister was settled in for the night. She undressed and turned down her counterpane. Her face still wore a sly smile as she climbed between the sheets without visiting Dulcie. It was the first tentative step in her campaign to reform her family. Now she had to consider what larger steps must be taken.

“You forgot to come to my room last night, Tess,”
Dulcie said when she came to breakfast the next morning. “I especially wanted to talk to you. I was feeling so very blue about Mama and Papa, I cried myself to sleep,”
she said, casting an accusing look at Tess.

“When you flounced out of the saloon, I took the idea you did not wish to speak to me,”
Tess replied blandly.

“It was Mama I was angry with.”

“Then you ought not to have taken it out on me.”

A small lecture from Tess was nothing new. Dulcie paid it little heed. They were soon joined by their mama, whose pale cheeks and smudged eyes rendered her less lovely than the night before. She had not yet had a session at her toilette with the formidable Henshaw. She said good morning to her daughters and looked about the table for her mail.

“Have you handled the correspondence already, Tess?”
she asked. “You might at least have left the invitations for me to read.”

“I have not done the correspondence, Mama. I slept in this morning,”
Tess replied.

“There is no hurry. You can do it after breakfast.”

“Mama!”
Dulcie objected. “Tess is taking me to Milsom Street this morning.”

“Bother! As you are going out, pick me up some headache powders and my shoes—they are at the cobbler’s. I wrenched the heel loose. You can do the correspondence this afternoon.”

“Actually, I plan to go out this afternoon as well,”
Tess said. “To visit Lady Revel”

“I suppose we ought to pay our respects, not that she will return the call.”

“Then you will be coming with me?”
Tess asked innocently.

“You know perfectly well I have the coiffeur coming,”
Mrs. Marchant snipped. “You ought to do something about your own looks, Tess. You never spend a penny in that direction, and it shows, my dear.”
Tess looked interested in this idea. She had decided she required a gentleman for optimum misbehavior, and obviously a new hairdo would be required.

When her mother saw her hesitation, she rushed on. “You must pay my respects to Lady Revel. You will know what to say, and don’t tell her why I am staying at home. Keep your ears open for any mention of Lord James. I fear he
is
seeing another lady. He scarcely threw me a word all evening, and brought me home very early. His friends are all such rattles they have no idea of flirtation.”

“I did not hear you come home, Mama,”
Tess said, “and I was awake till midnight, reading.”

“Midnight is early, goose. I don’t doubt he went on somewhere else after. The man is an eel. The masquerade was a dead bore. All the ladies were dressed in Oriental garb, thanks to Lord Byron. I was the only lady there without a black wig.”

Tess soon excused herself from the table.

Her mother said, “Don’t forget to look at the mail. There is bound to be something from Northbay needing a reply.”

“I shall have Crimshaw bring the mail to you.”

“Only the invitations. You can handle the housekeeper’s correspondence.”

“I am so busy today, Mama, I fear you will have to do it yourself,”
Tess said.

“You call gadding about Milsom Street busy?”

“Shall I stay home and do the correspondence then?”

Dulcie set up a wail, and Mrs. Marchant decided the correspondence could wait till the evening.

The morning on busy Milsom Street with Dulcie was uneventful. With a thought to the new role she was about to undertake, Tess bought a few additions to her toilette, the most noteworthy of which was a new bonnet with an arched rim to frame her face and a clutch of ostrich feathers dyed pink. She “forgot”
the slippers at the cobbler’s, but bought the headache powders, as Mama would have ample need for them.

Mrs. Marchant was quite taken with the bonnet when she clamped her eyes on it. “How exceedingly stylish!”
she exclaimed. “Not in your usual mode, Tess. I must have one like it. But you will not want to appear in a bonnet like your mama’s.”
She laughed gaily. “You can buy one similar, with a different color of feather.”
As she spoke, she took the bonnet to the mirror and arranged it on her head.

Tess’s first reaction was pleasure that for once she had chosen something that pleased her mama. Her instinct was to hand the bonnet over, but a second thought told her this was the behavior of a martyr. “Don’t you think pink just a trifle lively for an older lady, Mama?”

Her mother blinked in astonishment. The greater crime was not refusing to hand over the bonnet, but using the word “older.”
Mrs. Marchant was accustomed to being taken for Tess’s sister. Tess took the bonnet and left, with an awful feeling of betrayal in her breast.

“What ails that girl?”
Mrs. Marchant complained to Dulcie. “I swear she becomes more selfish by the day. Older lady indeed! Where did she buy the bonnet?”

“At Madame Jardin’s, on Milsom Street, Mama.”

“I shall dash out this afternoon. Bother! We have the coiffeur coming. Get the fashion magazines, Dulcie, and let us choose our new hairstyles.”

After lunch, Tess put on her new bonnet to call on Lady Revel, but it was Lord Revel’s admiration she was looking for. He was the reigning buck of the county at home. She never had any hope—or even any wish—of attaching such a high flyer. In fact she heartily disapproved of his life-style, but like any maiden, she wanted to look her best in front of him.

The Revels were staying in an absent relative’s house on the elegant Royal Crescent. The Marchants had hired a smaller house on Bartlett Street, midway between their two most favored destinations, the Assembly Rooms and Milsom Street. As she was driven along, Tess had ample opportunity to admire the Palladian architecture of the famous Woods,
père
and
fils,
who had done much of the building in Bath. The town spread out below her in tiers of terraces, squares, and crescents, the whole bound around by the Avon.

Lady Revel held no real terrors for Tess. Despite her title and wealth, she was a plain-looking and plain-spoken country lady. She had lost any interest in her appearance after she had nabbed a husband. Her hair had silvered, and her pale cheeks were always innocent of rouge. It was unlikely that she would be out, or that she would be entertaining company. She came annually to Bath for the waters, declaring, “Anything that tastes this wretched has to be good for you.”
Her complaint was rheumatism, which used to bite at her elbows and neck, but had unaccountably flown to her ankles and toes this year.

Tess found the dame alone before a blazing grate, in a faded gown of blue serge, reading a novel by Fanny Burney and sipping tea.

“Tess!”
she exclaimed. “Aren’t you the Good Samaritan, to visit an old ruin like me. Come and tell me all the
on-dits.
Anthony never tells me anything. Nothing he does is fit to tell, I wager. I daresay he has a new dasher. Have you heard anything about her?”

Tess took up her seat on the sofa and was handed a cup of tea. “Thank you. No, indeed, Lady Revel. I have not heard he has a ladybird under his protection.”

“I don’t
know
that he has, but Figgs tells me he has broken up with his latest one. She was a widow called Esmée, whom, James tells me, is accepted in the less distinguished homes. James would know about less distinguished homes,”
she added acidly. “A Flanders mare, in other words. I never trust a woman who calls herself Esmée. It has a whiff of the theater. I wager she was an actress. Lightskirts ought not to make claims to respectability. I much prefer a simple trollop to one
who puts on airs.”

“Esmée! You cannot mean Mrs. Gardener!”

“Why, yes, I believe that was the name. Why do you stare, child? Is she a gazetted horror? Is she likely to burden us with a paternity suit, or publish her memoirs?”

“Esmée Gardener is the woman Papa—”

“You never mean it!”
the countess exclaimed, clapping her knee in derision. “I had not heard your papa was on the prowl again. The female has catholic tastes. Good God! I wonder if Anthony knows this. How he will hoot to hear it.”

“It is about Esmée and Papa—and Mama—that I have come, Lady Revel.”

The dame patted Tess’s hand and tsked. “It will pass, my dear. Your papa is always taken by a new petticoat, but he soon tires of them and comes home with his tail between his legs. I never paid any heed to my husband’s flirts. I
welcomed the respite.”

“This time it is different,”
Tess said. “Mama is
carrying on with a gentleman as well.”

Lady Revel listened and nodded. “Good for her. I don’t see why a wronged wife ought not to enjoy a few discreet delinquencies, if she has a taste for it. A handsome widower, I wager? A widower will always work his way with older ladies.”

“No, he is not a widower. Mama says she will divorce Papa, and with Dulcie about to make her bows next spring, the scandal will be horrid. Indeed people are already whispering, Lady Revel. Dulcie and I have not been to a single assembly or party since Mama began going about with this gentleman.”

“Selfish creature! She and Lyle are from the same basket. But the divorce is only a threat, depend upon it. Louise Marchant has always been a pea-goose, but she is not fool enough to try to divorce her husband. Who is the scoundrel she is seeing?”

“It’s Lord James Drake. That is why I came to you, hoping you would speak to him.”

Lady Revel drew a long, exasperated sigh. “I might have guessed! They were rolling their eyes at each other when he visited me last summer. The devil of it is, James never pays any heed to me. He would cut up all the harder to spite me. He was the baby of the family, you must know, and was always spoiled rotten.”
She furrowed her brow in thought and said, “Who he might listen to is Anthony. There is no point talking morality to James, but if he could be convinced it is bad ton, he would desist.”

“Is Lord Revel at home?”
Tess asked as calmly as she could. She felt a nervous churning to ask for an interview with Revel. She was by no means on those same easy terms with him as with his mama. He spent considerably less time at Revel Hall, and when he was there, he usually brought his company with him. Revel was not such a high stickler that he avoided the local do’s, at which he was sure to stand up with his neighbor, but the Marchants were not invited to his private parties.

“I didn’t see him go out. I’ll ask Figgs.”
She hollered into the hall, as the bell cord required rising from her comfortable sofa.

A butler who looked strangely like a bulldog in a jacket appeared at the doorway. “You screeched, your ladyship?”

Lady Revel explained to her guest, “I owe Figgs a guinea. He beat me roundly at faro last night, and is feeling full of himself.”
She turned to Figgs, “No, Master Jackanapes, I did not screech. I hollered. Send Lord Revel to me.”

“His lordship is in the bath, madam. And it was a guinea and tuppence. You promised a tuppence for the use of my cards.”

“You never pay
me
tuppence when we use
my
cards. Haul Anthony out and send him down.”

“His lordship dislikes to be interrupted at the bath.”

“This is a matter of urgency, Figgs. And bring us some fresh tea. Bohea, mind. This tastes like dishwater.”

Figgs picked up the tray and marched from the room. “Figgs might possibly be my cousin Gerald’s by-blow,”
Lady Revel explained. “This is Gerald Drake’s house we are using, while Gerald is in London. Figgs was landed on Gerald as a babe. Gerald never knew quite what to do with him. I do not see any trace of the Drakes in him. I believe he was foisted on my cousin in error, or by design. In any case, he is a good cardplayer, but a wretched butler.”