The Peculiar Pink Toes of Lady Flora Page 6

  With arthritic fingers Bridget Manderby selfishly clung to these prizes, the one reminder of her long passed youth and beauty. Meanwhile she had other plans to improve her finances and repair those holes in the family fortune, of course.

  After several weeks of preparation, the new Flora was declared ready for exhibit and very soon, they had their first nibble upon the worm. It took them all by surprise.

  "We have caught the Duke of Malgrave's eye," Great Aunt Bridget had exclaimed in near breathless hysteria, waving a letter she'd just received from one of her gossiping circle. "He spoke of you on Tuesday to Lord Tarleton's son."

  As if she'd been mentioned in military dispatches, having distinguished herself in battle with tremendous bravery.

  "His grace has returned from a grand tour of the continent and seeks a bride. How fortuitous! This could be a splendid chance for us! Oh to see his mother's face! Why did you not say you had met the duke?"

  "I did not think I'd made a favorable impression, madam," she admitted sheepishly, remembering his startled, appalled countenance as she removed her blindfold, looked up, and then, to be helpful, tried removing one of her sticky fingerprints from his furrowed brow with a dampened thumb. "But what does it matter to us that he seeks a bride? For sure he is destined for somebody grander, richer and prettier. He could have anybody he wanted."

  Lady Manderby cracked a thin, painful smile, and Rosie once again heard that distant, ghostly, screaming wail. "No matter, girl. It seems your bumbling naiveté has set you apart in a way I had not anticipated. It has caused you to be noticed. You just keep on as you have and leave the rest to us."

  The new Flora said nothing to deflate that lady's smug joy, but she was quite certain that if the Duke of Malgrave had mentioned her to anybody it was only to remark upon her imperfections. At that time, they had spoken only once and then, on one other occasion, shared a dance, the duration of which he spent pointing out her faults and inadequacies.

  Whatever Great Aunt Bridget thought and hoped for in her wildly unhinged fancies, the little imposter was merely having fun while all the treats lasted and why should she not?

  Yet not a soul here questioned her identity. The servants never made eye contact, of course, and many of them had been replaced over the years in any case, since Lady Manderby was a hard task master, exceedingly difficult to please and easy to offend. To the upper classes, servants were no different to cattle and considered, in some cases, even less intelligent. Indeed, the little imposter was shocked to see how the household staff were treated at Wyndham. She tried often, while her guardians were not watching, to make amends for it.

  Other relatives had never taken much interest in Lady Flora and so her replacement barely registered. Even her twelve-year-old brother, home from boarding school after four years away, did not seem to doubt, other than to remark, in some relief, that she was much nicer to him now than she had been in the past. He particularly enjoyed the little cakes and sweetmeats she smuggled home from the parties and balls to which she was chaperoned. She read to him, told naughty jokes and taught him games— all things with which his real sister had never bothered, too tied up in her own unhappiness, busy with her schemes of escape and vengeance.

  But then came that day at Castle Malgrave, when the girl once called Rosie Jackanapes suddenly found herself the focus of a shocking marriage proposal. Which is when it all crumbled, of course, because she knew that getting away with being naughty Lady Flora for fun, games, pretty gowns, and the admiration of a newly acquired little brother was one thing, but agreeing to marry a powerful fellow she had helped deceive was quite another.

  She was, like a fisherman with wading boots of insufficient height, in too deep.

  The reality of her precarious situation and the fact that this was not, in fact, a game, finally set in.

  * * * *

  Great Aunt Bridget soon learned of the rejected proposal and punished the "ingrate" with a riot of slaps and screams in her ear.

  "Did we go to all this effort, girl, to have you throw it back in our face? Why else did we fetch you from that dull mud puddle of a village, dress you up, feed you and give you lessons in etiquette?"

  "Out of the kindness of your hearts?"

  "Kindness! Kindness? We have invested a great deal of time, effort and money in this enterprise and you turn away a duke?"

  "You mean to say that I was supposed to accept his offer, despite the fact that I am not really Lady Flora? That I was meant to spend the rest of my life deceiving my husband?"

  "Good god! Sir Roderick warned me, but I was certain that even a naive country girl, however simple minded, would see the great advantages once the moment was upon her. I expected you to possess some of your mother's ambition. But now it is clear we wagered on the wrong horse. Too late now and we must make the best of it. There will be another offer eventually, to be sure. We know you have at least one other secret admirer— the anonymous gentleman who requested that you sit for that miniature portrait. He paid handsomely for the artist's time. I suppose he must soon declare himself."

  "Do you not think it strange that he hides his identity? He could be a hunchbacked, drooling madman who lives in the belfry among the bats."

  "Whoever he is, we shall not make the mistake of giving you too much rein again. You will take the next suitable man who asks and be grateful."

  By "suitable" she meant rich, of course, whether he lurked in the belfry or not.

  "I do not mind helping you, madam, by pretending to be Lady Flora for a season, but I cannot be her for the rest of my life. I am my own person. I want to marry for love. I want a man who can love me for who I truly am. A humble, good man. One I need not deceive and with whom I yearn to spend the rest of my days."

  "Love? What is love? A mere nothing. You set yourself up for vast disappointment if that is all you want in life, girl. Love in a man is as rare as constancy. It is a wisp of air that does no good for anybody and vanishes as quickly as smoke from a chimney. Love has no place in a marriage, girl. As for deception, life is little else but a series of deceits. We all indulge in the practice. This is business not a fictional romance! Hard facts and practicality, not whimsy! You must marry for status and money. Your role will be to provide heirs and manage your husband's household. That should be enough for any woman. Anything else you require may be found far outside the marriage bed in good time— as I told you before— but it is not the sort of thing with which you need concern yourself until you have first done your duty as a wife. And you shall do your duty, girl. You owe us now. You will do your duty for this family."

  As the days passed, this new Lady Flora became a prisoner of the house and of Great Aunt Bridget's rules. Against this regime she rebelled, just as the former Lady Flora had done, but with one important difference. This Lady Flora came to care a great deal for young Francis, saw how unhappy he had been, how very much isolated from the simple pleasures of life, and decided she would not leave him to the machinations of those bullying, dishonest "guardians". She gave him her promise to stay by his side for as long as he needed her, and this Lady Flora always kept her promises.

  Here, in this life, she was in a better position to do more good for others. She came to realize that as Lady Flora, upon whom great hopes for the future were placed, she held a small amount of power. Not a vast deal, but enough. As long as certain folk needed something from her— needed her to perform in a particular way, like a spaniel— she could win prizes and benefits for others, such as books for Francis and mercy for a hapless servant, who would otherwise be dismissed for some minor error. Yes, she learned how to negotiate, using herself and the promise of good behavior, as a bartering tool for those in need.

  In time this new world grew up around her like a blossoming garden, stretching its tendrils around her limbs until she was a part of it. Her previous life, and any other lives she might sometimes dream about, were gone, buried in the earth to feed her roots. As she was to confess much later, "It is possible, you kn
ow, to tell a lie so oft that you start to believe it yourself."

  She soon realized that the most important thing she had abandoned on the other side of that fog, along with her old name and dear Goody Applegate, was her freedom. She would never again take that most precious commodity for granted.

  As for the Duke of Malgrave, it seemed he was destined never to know that she had saved him from a greedy scheme, planned by folk who thought him a fool to be mocked, deceived, used and easily parted from his coin.

  No doubt he now despised the young girl who had saved him from that wicked game of Blind Man's Bluff. She had wounded his pride and there could surely be no greater sin against a Malgrave. Especially one with strong, uncurbed tendencies toward pompous arsery.

  Chapter Six

  "I never did care much for red-heads," George Tarleton had murmured as they stood together at another dull drawing-room party, "but that Chelmsworth girl— there is something about her. Something. I cannot say what. Different."

  Until then, the young Duke of Malgrave had not realized how his eyes followed her around the room. He thought he hid his interest fairly well. It could be, of course, that Tarleton merely shared his own thoughts aloud, not having noticed the direction of the other man's gaze. George Tarleton was, at the best of times, a self-preoccupied creature who seldom paid attention to anybody else's concerns.

  Now the foolish, idle rake added under his breath, "I must have her. I shall make a conquest very soon, Malgrave. I have made a wager on it."

  At this amusing boast, the duke, known to a very, very few close friends— of which Tarleton was not one— as Maxim, merely raised an eyebrow and slowly scratched the side of his brow with one finger.

  "Oh, yes, she is ripe for a plucking," the ass continued. "Sadly, the Chelmsworth estate writhes in its death throes as we speak, so there is not enough dowry to tempt me into marriage. For that I shall put my bid on a calmer mount. A placid, docile, rich-blooded mare who knows her place and won't try to toss me at the first fence. Plenty more fillies in the paddock, as my father says. But a swift ride around the park on that particular chestnut pony would not go at all amiss in the meantime, what ho? A delightful plaything to chase off the lingering winter doldrums. March is so dreadfully dire without a sweet dalliance and she will, most definitely, warm the bed sheets."

  Maxim wondered why the man felt inclined to tell him all this. It never ceased to amaze him, the amount of private musings some people shared casually in company. "And, might I inquire whether the lady in question is aware of your intention?" he asked softly.

  "She soon will be. See how she smiles at me? That is not the smile of an innocent maid."

  Yes, he had seen. It reminded him of the smile an actress might give to the audience, while her sly accomplice moved among them to empty pockets of their valuables.

  George Tarleton was passionately, and not very discreetly, in lust with a new sweetheart every other week. He was so unsubtle that one did not have to know the man at all well to be aware of this fact. If he was not firmly trapped under his father's stern thumb, he probably would have proposed to half a dozen women already, including "That Chelmsworth Girl", despite her lack of a good dowry. But for all his bluster, the young man was deficient in courage. He could do little more than get up in the morning, without his father's permission. He was also a weak rider with soft hands. Whatever he liked to think of his own charms and abilities, he could certainly never have managed Flora Chelmsworth and made her content.

  Maxim, however, was sure that he could. The more he considered it, the more keen he became. Privately, of course. Unlike George Tarleton he did not bespeak his every thought, but kept them possessively to himself.

  "Her family can do nothing with her," Tarleton continued, whispering in his ear without the slightest encouragement from Maxim. "There were rumors of some untoward business with a groom, while she was a guest of relatives up north, but she was rushed home and it was all hushed up. According to Harriet Seton."

  Harriet Seton. Which one was she? Maxim never could get the names and faces straight. They had a tendency to blur into one amorphous form.

  Except when it came to Flora Chelmsworth. She was unique in so many ways. Disturbingly odd, enticingly unusual. Different, as Tarleton had called her, was not a strong enough word.

  Some untoward business with a groom... For the first time in his one and twenty years he suffered a sharp spur of jealousy. But why even think of that? What did a mere groom's attentions matter to the Duke of Malgrave? It was nothing compared to what he could give her and if she had a brain in her head she would know that.

  A groom was nothing.

  Hastily soothing the wound left by that sudden green prick through the ribs, he turned his thoughts to a lingering, very pleasurable recollection of her waist under his palms, for unbeknownst to the idiot Tarleton, Maxim had already enjoyed an intimate encounter with the scandalous Lady Flora. Been riotously fondled by her, in actual fact.

  He briefly toyed with the amusing idea of dropping that detail into the conversation and shocking the fool into silence. But no. It might risk giving away his own thoughts and feelings in the matter, and he was not ready to expose his intentions yet. Especially not to Tarleton, the biggest scandalmonger he'd ever known.

  Instead he entertained himself with the memory of precisely one week before, when he'd walked unsuspectingly into a candlelit room and found himself thrown into a most uncivilized and rowdy game of Blind Man's Bluff. Not that he knew what it was at the time. He'd mistaken the ruckus for some sort of orgy as he was poked and prodded, whirled about in a sea of laughing, squealing folk. Flora Chelmsworth, bearing the blindfold, had run into him almost immediately, so dizzy from being spun about that he was forced to put his hands on her waist to steady her. Highly improper. But...not unpleasant. As she fell against his chest, her questing, ungloved fingers running over his startled face, Maxim, who had never known an indignity like it, was rendered irately speechless, until she cried out, "Is it Whitworth, the butler? Or—oh!— a wooden hat stand? I feel a protuberance!"

  With her laughing breath blowing soft by his cheek and some very delightful parts pressed against his torso, Maxim had suffered a most inconvenient reaction.

  Setting her swiftly away from him— removing the temptation— he'd managed a tight reply, "No, madam, it is the Duke of Malgrave, and might I inquire what you think you are about, stroking my face?"

  At once her blindfold came up and the laughter was snuffed like a candle flame between two dampened fingertips. He had a habit of causing that effect. Even among his peers, Maxim's presence brought the shadow of an older gentleman come to spoil their game. He didn't know why. Perhaps it was something to do with his own childhood and the fact that he'd spent much of it alone, when he wasn't away at a grim boarding school. There, a "game" consisted of swimming from one end of an ice cold lake to the other, and, if one came last, receiving ten strikes of the cane and no supper. Incentive to excel, they called it.

  Never, since then, had he participated in anything to which there was neither a clear victor nor any apparent point. Or any sport he could not win.

  But this particular sport was new to him.

  Of course he'd had experience of women— it was a necessity of life— but nothing quite like this. Nobody who felt quite like this. Nobody who laughed like this.

  The young woman, with those prying hands tucked hastily behind her back, had let out a disappointed gasp and then a belated curtsey. "Your grace. Forgive my impertinence." Then she turned away to chuckle with her equally addled young companions. She did not look at him again. Not even a coy glance from under her lashes.

  Of course, he was never "pretty" in the effeminate way that was fashionable for young men of the time. He did not wear wigs, powder and perfumes. He did not cover himself in patterned silk, diamond rings and affected manners. That tortuous boarding school he attended as a boy might have "toughened" him up, but it did nothing for his social graces, and nobo
dy else dare attempt to file down his awkward, sharp edges. He had never been one to waste his time practicing poetry, riddles, or asinine and "witty" banter. But he had no need for these things, even as a young man. With his reputation for an uncompromising, unforgiving temper and ruthless success already in all his endeavors, nobody looked to Fortitudo Maximilian Fairfax-Savoy for a joke.

  To his relief, the blindfold and the game had been set aside and respectable, dignified conversation took over. But Lady Flora and a group made up of the livelier guests went off to the far side of the room, setting up the card table for some further entertainment of their own. Much noise soon ensued from that quarter, and although he successfully fought the urge to turn and look at her again, he found the husky tenor of her laughter most distracting.

  From then on she had steadily invaded his tidy world, running through it like a puppy with one of his gloves in its mouth. Deliberately— or so he assumed— seeking his attention.

  Maxim generally rationed his attendance at social engagements. "I am too busy and have too many duties pending," he would say, "to lurk in an over-heated room and do nothing for several hours but listen to the ramblings of imbeciles."

  He was, however, aware of the need for a wife and, subsequently, heirs for the estate. It was one of those "duties pending".

  So this year he had put himself out more often, accepting invitations he would once have consigned directly to his dressing room fire. Several of his acquaintances had recently commented on the duke's livelier social calendar, and he had just realized himself that the change was entirely due to one woman.

  Newly awoken to the novelty of this strange, unlikely attraction, he began studying Lady Flora Chelmsworth as wife potential.