Sir Philip's Folly (The Poor Relation Series Book 4) (2 page)

***

Sir Philip that evening looked down wrathfully at the bill Lady Fortescue had just presented to him. “This is outrageous,” he spluttered.

Lady Fortescue’s voice dripped ice. “We are hardworking hoteliers and cannot afford such luxuries as supporting the greedy indulgences of your paramour. There is not only her rent there, but her dressmaker’s bills, her mantua-maker’s demands, not to mention those of perfumer and milliner, and so on.”

“But I have yet to pay Weston!”

“Then you must economize. We were fortunate in letting one suite to Lady Carruthers today. But the other best one lies vacant. You know our guests are at best notoriously slow at paying their bills. Neither myself nor the colonel nor Miss Tonks wants Mrs. Budge here. She lowers the tone of the place.”

“I will not listen to any criticism of my Mary.”

“
Your
Mary. Unless you get rid of that female, I shall sell this hotel from under her!”

“You cannot!”

“It is still my house.”

“But we are partners!”

“The majority decision will hold. Miss Tonks is distressed and the colonel wants me to sell anyway. Perhaps while I am making up my mind exactly what to do, you can begin to attend to your duties here as before. It is time you waited in the dining-room again and gave the colonel an evening off.”

“Is this all the gratitude I get?” howled Sir Philip. “Who raised the wind to get this place started? Who stole—?” He broke off in confusion. He had stolen a valuable necklace from the Duke of Rowcester and replaced it with a clever copy. He had not told any of the other poor relations what he had taken. The jeweller he had sold the necklace to still had it in keeping, and Sir Philip was paying him a weekly sum to do so in the hope that one day he could buy it back and replace it. For sooner or later the duke was going to take that necklace out of its glass case in the muniments room to show someone, and that someone might be sharp enough to recognize a fake.

“Stole what?” demanded Lady Fortescue sharply.

“Never mind,” muttered Sir Philip. He glanced up at her. He still felt a tug at his heart when he looked at her and a desire to please her. He picked up the bill. “If I can find someone to take the other apartment, may I delay payment of this until after I have settled my tailor’s bill?”

“Very well.” Lady Fortescue grasped the silver knob of her stick and leaned forward, her black eyes suddenly kind.

“I can understand a man of your years being easily prey to infatuation, Sir Philip. But try to stand back a little and survey Mrs. Budge as she really is.”

He stood up. “Mrs. Budge is warm and affectionate, ma’am. She cares for me. I have been alone too long. I am… I am thinking of marrying her.”

“If you do, then you must definitely leave the hotel or we must sell,” said Lady Fortescue quietly.

When Sir Philip had left, Lady Fortescue sat and thought briefly about poisoning Mary Budge. She could only hope that Sir Philip would come to his senses.

Miss Tonks walked into the office, looking flustered and nervous.

“Miss Tonks, what can we do for you?” asked Lady Fortescue. She automatically used “we,” not like royalty, but because she was so used to having the colonel next to her.

“I wish to ask Monsieur André to arrange my hair.”

Monsieur André was the court hairdresser.

Lady Fortescue looked surprised. “The decision is yours, Miss Tonks. The colonel showed you how to open an account at the bank some time ago and I believe you to be thrifty. If you wish to spend your money on such luxuries, it is your decision. But why? We have no important social engagements, although”—she gave a sigh—“the only social engagements we have these days is when we are asked to cater at some house.”

“I felt like doing something,” said Miss Tonks, looking flustered.

“I know you had a sad adventure where you shot that highwayman on the road to Warwickshire,” said Lady Fortescue. “But did something else happen? You have not been yourself since your return, Miss Tonks.”

Miss Tonks thought briefly of the journey back with Sir Philip when they had been friends and when she had hoped that they might marry and that at last she would have the right to put the magic title of “Mrs.” before her name. But she said, “I am a little tired, that is all. Did you present Sir Philip with his bill?”

“Yes, but I cannot seem to change his mind about Mrs. Budge. Dreadful woman. She eats like a horse. And her language? I swear she is related to half the costermongers in London. I wonder if Sir Philip is telling her to economize. That should be interesting.”

***

Sir Philip was trying to do just that. Mrs. Budge was sitting before the fire in the sitting-room of the apartment which the poor relations rented. A table was spread with an assortment of pies and jellies and bottles of wine. Sir Philip, who enjoyed his love’s Falstaffian appetite, nonetheless shuddered at the thought of the cost.

“But, my heart,” said Mrs. Budge between mouthfuls, “you told me this was
your
hotel.”

“Well, it is, but in partnership.”

“So who are the others?”

“Why, Lady Fortescue, Colonel Sandhurst and Miss Tonks.”

“But that’s only four of you, and you must be coining money in a place like this.”

He took one of her plump hands in his despite the fact that it was holding a fork. “It costs a lot to keep a place like this going,” he pleaded. “You know what society’s like. Never pay their bills.”

“So why bother about paying yours?”

“Because they are my friends.”

“Fine friends they’ve turned out to be.”

“Now, my heart, I won’t let them criticize you, but I also won’t let you criticize them.”

She leaned forward and gave him a smacking kiss on the mouth which tasted of apple pie from the crumbs on her lips. “You worry too much,” she said softly. “It’s just as well you’ve got me to look after you.”

He smiled at her weakly and placed one of his small, white, well-cared-for manicured hands on one of her enormous breasts. She playfully slapped his hand away. “Let me eat first,” she said.

He got to his feet. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“I’m going to see if I can find a client to take the missing rooms. Limmer’s often has a few dissatisfied guests. I’ll go there.”

“Wait until I finish eating and I’ll come with you.”

“Limmer’s is not the place for ladies. I will not be long.”

After he had gone, Mrs. Budge ate everything in sight. Betty and John, Lady Fortescue’s old servants, were supposed to wait on the poor relations, but Mrs. Budge knew from experience that if she rang the bell they would refuse to answer. Marriage was the solution. But perhaps first she should see if she could get Sir Philip to buy her some jewelry. Jewelry was better than money in the bank any day.

***

Lady Fortescue and Miss Tonks showed Lady Carruthers and Arabella to their new quarters. “Don’t let any of these hotel servants put on airs,” Arabella’s mother had told her. “They may be of good background, but now they are in trade, and don’t you forget it.” So Arabella was amused to see that Lady Fortescue’s grand manner was reducing her mother to something approaching civility.

“We will dine in our sitting-room this evening,” said Lady Carruthers.

“Dinner for all is served in the dining-room, Lady Carruthers.”

“Am I to eat in a common dining-room?”

“The Prince Regent was not too high in the instep to do so.” Lady Fortescue moved to the door. “Dinner is at eight.”

“Eight!” exclaimed Arabella after she had gone. “Dinner in the country is at four.”

“You must get used to London ways.”

“Talking about getting used to London ways, Mama, I have been meaning to ask you: When am I making my come-out?”

“My dear child, you are too young!”

“I am all of nineteen.”

Lady Carruthers winced and then said with an affected vagueness. “You surprise me.”

“But it is true, and I am still in these dreadful frocks and with my hair down.”

Arabella privately thought her mother’s wardrobe of jeune fille gowns should be altered to fit herself while her mother dressed her age.

“The point is,” said Lady Carruthers, “that it is hard to remember your age when I look so young. I am used to the state of marriage and do not like being a widow. That is why we are come to London.”

“I do not understand you, Mama.”

Her mother gave a well-practised trill of laughter. “Why, it is my come-out. I cannot appear at the Season like a débutante. So much more discreet to come to London now. There are plenty of eligible men around.”

Arabella thought of the handsome man she had seen with a sort of despair. She would never get out in society. Mama would fail and they would return to the country for the long winter and then back to Town for Mama to try again while she, Arabella, grew older and dowdier and the earl married someone else. Of course, he might be married already. She almost hoped he were then she would not have to think about him every minute, which is what she had been doing since she had seen him.

She missed having friends. It would be wonderful to have a friend to confide in, to talk to about the earl, to share her dreams.

She thought wearily that she would probably never see the earl again.

***

Sir Philip made his way into Limmer’s coffee room. It was thin of company but he took a table, ordered a bottle of wine and looked about him with his sharp old eyes. Limmer’s catered for the sporting fraternity, and there were two Corinthians slouched at one table. One of them had his muddy boots up on the seat opposite and the other had his teeth filed to a point so that he could spit through them like a coachman. There were three men in the livery of the Four-in-Hand Club at another table, talking horseflesh in loud, drawling voices. Sir Philip knew them all. Not much hope there, he thought.

And then a tall man walked in and stood in the centre of the room, looking about him with an easy air of authority. His golden hair curled under the rim of his curly-brimmed beaver, which he had not removed, showing he did not plan to stay in the coffee room above ten minutes, as did the stick and gloves he held in one white hand. His face was classically handsome. Sir Philip judged him to be in his early thirties. He summoned the waiter and asked in an urgent whisper who the newcomer was.

“The Earl of Denby,” whispered the waiter. “Resident here.”

Sir Philip rose to his feet, bared his china teeth in an ingratiating smile, and said, “Lord Denby! What a pleasure to see you, my lord.”

The earl looked in surprise at the old gentleman who was leering at him. Must be some friend of mother’s, he thought. He crossed to Sir Philip’s table.

“Your servant, sir,” he said. “But I have a poor memory and you have the advantage of me.”

“Sir Philip Sommerville, at your service. Pray join me in a glass of wine.”

The earl sat down reluctantly.

“When did we meet?” he asked. “Was it at my mother’s?”

“Ah, that would be it,” said Sir Philip mendaciously. “I am surprised to see you in a hotel such as this, my lord. Town house being repaired?”

“My mother is in residence there. I mostly spend my days in the country, and so I see no reason to disrupt her household by joining her. But you have a point. This hotel is none too clean.”

“I am part owner of the Poor Relation,” said Sir Philip.

The earl’s handsome face stiffened slightly. “And no doubt you are about to tell me I would be better there?”

“Why not?” demanded Sir Philip with a cheek that the earl found himself admiring. “The food’s the talk of London, the sheets are clean, the rooms well-appointed. You are about to freeze up and say, ‘How dare you tout your wares?’ but I am a businessman now and must make the best of it.”

“You are a very impertinent old businessman,” said the earl. “So what are you offering in return for my distinguished presence? Free meals? Half price?”

“I am not offering cut rates of any kind, my lord. Our hotel speaks for itself. Either you choose to suffer here or you come where the atmosphere is elegant, and the food a veritable poem.”

The earl opened his mouth to refuse but at that moment one of the Corinthians, the one with his muddy boots on the chair, spat noisily on the floor.

“Perhaps I will accept your offer after all,” said the earl faintly. “But I will inspect the accommodation first.”

“Gladly,” said Sir Philip, creaking to his feet, creaking because he was laced into a new Apollo corset, a vanity which had brought down the scorn of Lady Fortescue on his head. She had pointed out that the fatter his love became, paradoxically the thinner Sir Philip seemed to wish to appear.

***

Sir Philip found it pleasant to be in favour again as he handed over his trophy in the form of one elegant earl to Lady Fortescue and the colonel.

The earl declared himself satisfied with the apartment and said he would send his man for his luggage. This proved to be quite a considerable amount even for such a notable as a handsome earl, a fact which puzzled the poor relations, for they had been asking about and no one could remember the earl’s having favoured London much in the past, preferring his estates in the country, which hardly made him a Fashionable. Just before dinner, Sir Philip returned with the intelligence that the earl, although in his early thirties, was a widower. His wife had died four years ago and it was romantically assumed that he had gone into deep mourning for her, although a great deal of luggage in a London hotel suggested the dandy. Certainly the earl was exquisitely dressed, and yet there was little of the fop about him. He did not wear paint and his hair was all his own. At first Sir Philip had said waspishly that such glorious hair must be a wig, and only when the earl was seated at the best table in the dining-room—the Poor Relation boasted separate tables instead of communal long ones—that Sir Philip, by dint of staring very hard at the back of the earl’s head through his quizzing-glass, admitted finally that the hair was real.

The earl looked up as two guests entered the room. The lady, he noticed, was hardly anywhere near the bloom of youth and yet was dressed like a débutante in a white muslin gown with puffed sleeves. The young miss with her looked familiar, and he was sure he had seen her before and recently. This was borne out by the fact that she gave him a slight and surprised smile of recognition before following her mother, who was in turn being led by Colonel Sandhurst to a table in the corner.