Sally James (4 page)

Rather guiltily Prudence decided not to mention that, sorry as she had been for Charlotte, she had invited the girl to walk in the Park on the following day. She was beginning to like her, despite her timidity, and the very idea of her being forced to wed the deplorable Mr Clutterbuck was enough to make Prudence determined to do her utmost to prevent it. The only way was to introduce Charlotte into society in the hope that some more eligible man would be attracted to her, and not be deterred by her frightful stepmother and comparative lack of fortune.

She was seated in the drawing room the following day, weaving these plans, when Tanner announced Lord Mottesford.

'Lady Frome, I came to thank you for a delightful party, and to beg you to permit Miss Lee to give me the pleasure of her company driving in the Park,' he said with a smile.

Instantly determining she would play him at his own game, she agreed, and after donning a charming blue pelisse the colour of which exactly matched her eyes, and a neat bonnet in a darker shade, she allowed him to hand her up into his curricle. He dismissed his groom and soon they were bowling along the carriageway in the Park.

Prudence was reminded that it would be helpful to Charlotte if her cousin were to take her under his wing, and with that in view she related how they had met.

'Poor Charlotte, she was so distressed, and it was not her fault at all. She is a sweet girl, don't you think?'

'I really have no opinion, Miss Lee, nor do I intend to form one. I mean to do my utmost to avoid that scheming woman my poor uncle married, and her entire ménage.'

'But she – Charlotte, that is, is your cousin!'

'If she chooses to associate with people of that order that is her affair. I do not.'

'I doubt if she has any choice!' Prudence retorted heatedly. 'I understand that her father made his wife her guardian, so she has no alternative but to live with her. And how is she to meet suitable men in that household? Even if she had a huge fortune the connection would do her harm.'

'Her fortune? What do you know of that?' he asked sharply.

'Only what Charlotte herself has said. She told me she did not know how much it was, only that it was small, a little from her mother and almost nothing from her father. And I suppose that if Lady Mottesford was left very little she will wish to give her own daughter enough to marry on, and may not be able to spare any for Charlotte.'

'I see,' he responded slowly. 'Have you met the obnoxious Hubert yet?'

'Yes. They brought him to call. Charlotte is afraid she will be made to marry him, so it is even more important to put her in the way of meeting more suitable men.'

'Why do you suppose he is wanting to marry her? That sort of creature is out for all he can get, and would hardly be likely to pursue a girl with no fortune.'

'What he might consider a reasonable fortune could be different from your own estimates,' Prudence pointed out. 'I was not told whether he worked for a living, and what his own circumstances are, but to many such as he even a few hundred a year would be affluence they could never have expected.'

'Possibly. I believe his father is a tailor, but not one of the most esteemed.'

'Not if he made the coat Mr Clutterbuck was wearing when he called!' Prudence said with a gurgle of laughter. 'Aunt Lavinia is convinced he wore corsets, he was so nipped in at the waist!'

'That would not surprise me. He has ambitions to be a dandy, I suspect, but neither the figure nor talent to achieve it.

'Well, I shall make a point of introducing Charlotte to my friends, even if you mean to abandon her,' Prudence said with sudden determination. 'I cannot endure to think of her with no alternative but to marry him! A tailor's son! Was he ever apprenticed in the trade himself?'

'I have no idea. Probably he started life as a footman, expecting to profit by his aunt's recommendation, until she rose in the world. He has that obsequious air some of the more incapable fellows adopt.'

'What was his aunt?' Prudence asked, her avid curiosity overcoming her discretion and sense of what was proper.

'Didn't you know? No, I suppose she would not have wished it known, and has probably enforced Charlotte's silence by all sorts of dire threats. My uncle, you see, was a miserly curmudgeon. None of his relatives would visit him, for they did not relish being ordered out of the house at a moment's notice if they offended him, or disregarded some notion of penny pinching he had acquired, such as having only one candle in each bedroom, and that a tallow one, and being expected to douse it five minutes after retiring!'

'How dreadful!' Prudence commented, startled at learning this about Charlotte's father.

'He could keep only those servants too old to leave, and more often than not Charlotte was without a governess. Then Mrs Potter arrived. She was the cook first of all, then when his housekeeper left he said she could do both jobs. As she had some learning, being able to read and write, and cast accounts, she offered to teach Charlotte until she could be said to be old enough to do without a governess. That was three years ago, and my uncle must have thought he had found the solution to all his problems. He soon realised that if he married her he would not only save her salary, but she would be unable to leave him, and she was very willing to acquire a title. My uncle did not discover Emily's existence until after the knot was tied, when she was brought from some relative and joined the family.'

'Emily. She is called Emma now,' Prudence said slowly.

'No doubt she considers Emily too plebian a name,' he said. 'But I am bored with my relatives. Tell me about yourself. You are a far more delightful topic of conversation!'

Chapter 4

Prudence returned from that drive more determined than ever that Charlotte should be given every opportunity to escape from her dreadful stepmother.

'If that unfeeling cousin refuses to help I must do it myself,' she declared to Netta. 'Although I intend to do my utmost to force him to acknowledge his responsibilities.'

'He isn't her guardian,' Netta pointed out prosaically, 'so why should he be concerned?'

'He inherited what should by rights have been her fortune,' Prudence explained heatedly. 'The very least he could do would be to ensure that she makes a suitable marriage. As well as introducing Charlotte to all my friends and taking her about with me as much as possible, I shall contrive to throw her into Lord Mottesford's way and force her on to his notice whether he wants it or not.'

'That could be difficult,' Netta said slowly.

'Why should it? He has made it plain he will call here, for he invited me to drive again tomorrow.'

'Oh, Pru! Charlotte cannot be dragged along with you then.'

'No, but she could be here when he calls for me.'

'Then you ought not to desert her. Besides, he might not leave his horses to come into the house. Charlotte can hardly wait about on the doorstep until he arrives. She wouldn't agree, for one thing, because she told me she is scared of him.'

'When did you see her?'

'While you were out. I was with James and Harry in the square gardens, and she was taking that wretched Fifi for a walk. Not that the ghastly animal can walk far, she had to carry it back home. Why can't she have a real dog, like Bella?'

'Bella's a hunting dog, you could not have her in town. But that's beside the point. We can ride and walk in the Park, where we are bound to meet lots of people.'

'She doesn't ride,' Netta informed her, her voice full of astonished contempt.

'Not ride? Not at all?' Prudence exclaimed.

'No, it's very poor spirited of her. She says she was thrown when she began and now if she has to travel by horseback she goes by pillion.'

'But everyone gets thrown when learning!'

'That's what I said, but it's too late now, she won't try again. So you can't ride with her.'

'Never mind,' Prudence said, recovering. 'We'll walk, which is probably better for meeting lots of people and chatting to them.'

'But you'd have to rely on accidental meetings with Lord Mottesford in the Park.'

'I could contrive, when he is with me, that Charlotte is there too. Walking in the Park when he drives me, for example.'

'Who with? You don't want the dreadful Emma with her, that would prevent Lord Mottesford from even acknowledging her. And I can't, Miss Francis is already complaining that I don't spend enough time in the schoolroom. Papa has insisted I must spend every morning there, and have horrid piano and dancing lessons as well as doing needlework every afternoon.'

'Aunt Lavinia would invite her here when Lord Mottesford is expected, or to go with us to the Opera, surely.'

'It would be difficult without inviting Emma, too, and she won't do that. And as an unmarried girl you would be considered dreadfully fast if you yourself gave him such invitations.'

Prudence remained deep in thought for a few moments, then smiled gleefully.

'I know, I'll make Sarah do it! She is always entertaining, even though Augustus is not in town. And so is Mrs Buxton. If Sarah asks her she will help, too. And Aunt Lavinia will do it occasionally, so between us we'll contrive lots of meetings so that the wretched man feels guilty, and Charlotte will meet lots of other men, too!'

'Will Sarah do it?'

'Of course,' Prudence replied confidently. 'I've always been able to make Sarah do what I wanted, even though she is older than I am. And if I hint to her that Lord Mottesford is interested in me she'll be contriving occasions to throw us together. Ever since she married Augustus she has considered herself an expert on marriage, and I know she has a list of dozens of men she thinks might make me suitable husbands.'

'All at once?' Netta asked, giggling.

'Don't be a pea-goose! Good, that's settled. I'll go round to Mount Street now and talk to Sarah.'

'And I'd better do some more of that hemming before Miss Francis discovers I am down here with you. How I hate plain sewing!'

Sarah was easily persuaded to fall in with her sister's schemes, their objectives carefully adapted to engage her sympathy. She heartily approved Prudence's wish to detach the gentle Charlotte from her obnoxious family, and robustly declared she would brave Lady Mottesford's displeasure by excluding her and Emma as much as she could from the invitations issued to Charlotte.

'I shall have to ask them occasionally,' she sighed. 'But if you and Charlotte can give me advance warning of when her stepmother and sister are otherwise engaged, I can arrange small parties which she would not think worth attending.'

'Good. Netta can help there. She's always gossiping with the servants. She can discover through Biddy, who has started walking out with one of Lady Mottesford's footmen, what her engagements are.'

Sarah, always an indefatigable hostess, was delighted with her new task, and soon devised a host of entertainments suitable for Charlotte but which she was sure would not attract Lady Mottesford. It was easy for her to meet Lord Mottesford, and invite him to her parties. Prudence meanwhile soon discovered that he rode regularly in the Park during the early mornings and, sacrificing her own preference for riding, to Netta's disgust, persuaded Charlotte to walk there with her.

It proved easy to contrive meetings, and soon Lord Mottesford began to feel he would never find Prudence alone. Only when he could induce her to drive with him was he certain of having her to himself.

True to her first design of encouraging him to think he was on the way to win his wager, she deliberately allowed herself to appear pleased at his attentions, and occasionally exhibited signs of flustered agitation which Netta viewed with all the contempt of her twelve years.

'You blushed, and fluttered your eyelids at him in an utterly revolting way,' that damsel accused one morning when, Charlotte being unable to accompany Prudence on her normal walk, she had ridden out with Netta instead.

'I did not!' Prudence responded vehemently, and then spoiled the effect by adding that she had merely been playing her part in deceiving him with regard to the wager.

'That wasn't how it looked to me,' Netta said with a sniff. 'You'd best be careful you don't allow him to win it!'

'Edward Gregory seems very taken with Charlotte,' Prudence said after a slight pause.

'The man who made the wager?'

'Yes. He lives near to Lord Mottesford in Worcestershire, and they were at school together. He was talking to her for hours last night.'

'Does she like him?'

'It seemed so, from the way she was smiling up at him, with rather a foolish look on her face and as if she couldn't take her eyes from him.'

'Like you with Lord Mottesford.'

'Of course it was nothing of the kind! You are an abominable child!' Prudence raged, forgetting the rules of the Park and urging her mare into a gallop. 'I won't tell you any more if you make such unfounded remarks,' she added when, her hair windblown, she had reined in at the far end of the Park and allowed Netta to come up to her.

'You need me for military intelligence,' Netta replied, unconcerned. 'When you marry him will you persuade him to allow me to drive his greys? He said no when I asked him.'

'I have no intention of marrying a man who thinks he can bring me to heel, merely in order to win a despicable wager, and in any case you know perfectly well he has no idea of marrying me, it's all that wretched wager!' Prudence retorted, and rode home wrapped in an air of offended dignity which disturbed her young cousin not at all. Netta, indeed, seemed to be finding considerable amusement in the situation.

Perhaps because she was already ruffled, and because he himself introduced the topic, Prudence attacked Lord Mottesford directly later in the day when, dressed in a new gown of sprigged muslin and an enchanting bonnet which partly masked her face, she was driving with him.

'It is a rare pleasure to have you to myself,' he remarked as they turned into the Park. 'I find the constant attendance of my poor little dab of a cousin most frustrating. What on earth do you find to say to her? She never has more than a frightened word for me.'