The Birth of Blue Satan (24 page)

Then, your mother will sell you to the highest bidder
, were the words that ran through Hester’s mind. But loath to frighten her cousin, she kept this thought to herself. “There are many other gentlemen who would give a fortune to marry you. You must not despair.”

But clearly Isabella believed that her choices had narrowed to Harrowby or the unattractive man closeted with her mother.

An angry voice from behind the parlour door startled them both but was soon silenced. In another moment, they heard Mr. Letchworth’s heavy steps in the hall, accompanied by the sound of his cane striking the floor. Isabella clung tightly to the arms of her chair, but his footsteps passed by the withdrawing room and proceeded to the stairs. Hester and she had barely taken a new breath when Mrs. Mayfield came back to join them.

“Well!” She entered on a triumphant note, though the lines on her face were strained. “I have something wonderful to tell you, my dearest. What will you say when I tell you that Mr. Letchworth has made me a very pretty application for your hand? I cannot tell you how much he has offered, for I have not yet accepted, and it remains to be seen if we cannot do better. But I will tell you that it is a very handsome offer indeed, and you should feel very proud.”

“You will not accept it, Mama?” Isabella’s anxiety was strong. “I thought you wanted me to get Sir Harrowby.”

Her mother’s features hardened. “I
do
want you to get him, and you
will
get him if he comes. But if he does not, I expect you to do as you’re told. That is understood.”

“But—”

“Do not argue with me, child!” Mrs. Mayfield’s voice rose on a note of hysteria. “I will not abide disobedience. We have spoken often enough of your duty. And, God knows, I’ve done everything in my power to see you handsomely wed. But if, in spite of everything, you fail, you will have no one but yourself to blame. So do not anger me with your tears.”

Isabella shrank back, stunned by a tone of voice that had never been directed at her before.

Even Hester was shocked. And if she could be shocked, knowing her aunt for her greedy self, what must Isabella’s feelings be?

“Go upstairs now and lie down on your bed. That’s a good girl,” Mrs. Mayfield added weakly, as Isabella, with a fearful glance, nearly ran from the room. “I will call you when Sir Harrowby comes and you will do as I have taught you.”

“If you do not need me, aunt,” Hester said, “I shall go up, too.”

Mrs. Mayfield turned blindly towards her. She seemed to  be talking to herself when she said, “He’s demanded an answer when he returns from Bedford at the end of the week. He was furious when I would not give my consent immediately.

“But she almost captured a duke! I should have done something else to help her get his Grace. If Sir Harrowby fails to come, I shall have to give her to him.”

Her reasoning made Hester feel sick. It would be useless to point out that Isabella could never come to love Mr. Letchworth, no matter how wealthy he was. “I should go up and make sure she gets the rest she needs.”

“Yes,” her aunt said, beside herself. “Do go up and make sure her eyes don’t turn red. Tell her it won’t matter—tell her she can have any man she wants—just not until after the wedding night.”

As Hester climbed the stairs, she vowed that she would never repeat such cynical words, no matter who had said them. Undoubtedly, they had been true of Mrs. Mayfield. And they were also true of many an aristocrat Hester had met.

But they would not be true for Isabella, were she so unfortunate as to marry Mr. Letchworth.

They had almost despaired of Harrowby when, late that night, a knock sounded at the door, and a few moments later, he entered the drawing room with an unsteady gait and a happy, flushed face.

“I am sorry to appear at this inconvenient hour, and I will not stop. I should have come sooner, had I not been occupied all day with the most astounding business.

“My cousin—Gideon, you know —has escaped his constables and fled. It’s assumed he’s gone to the Continent, although they searched for him at Deal with no success. And the devil of it is that Bolingbroke is missing, too. He was to be called to account for his traitorous activities, but no one has been able to find him since he left the play a few nights ago. And now with poor ol’ Gideon—St. Mars, don’t you know—vanishing—well, they are saying that he must be embroiled with the Pretender, too, and likely the pair of them have gone to join him. There is a motion before Parliament to strip my cousin of his honours, and they say it has every likelihood of passing.”

As Hester gave a distressed gasp, Mrs. Mayfield uttered a cry. “Oh, my dear Sir Harrowby!” Revived, she could hardly contain her elation. With an adoring gaze, she dropped into a profound curtsy. “Forgive me, I should say, ‘Lord Hawkhurst’, for such you will surely be. My most ardent prayers for you have just been answered.”

She turned a beaming face to her daughter. “Isabella, is it not wonderful that our dearest friend in the world should have come by such wonderful fortune?”

Indeed, Isabella was so overcome that tears sprang into her eyes. “Oh, my dear Sir Harrowby.”

“You must not call him that now, foolish girl. He must be ‘my lord’ now.”

Harrowby beamed, with no trace of emotion that remotely approached either guilt or humility. He did not notice that Hester refrained from adding her congratulations to theirs. All she could think was that St. Mars would be unjustly deprived of his rights and possessions.

The travesty made her furious even as she accepted that his flight might have spared him a much worse fate. He would not have to languish behind bars, as she had pictured him half the night. He would not have to face execution, as fantastic as that possibility had seemed. The news that he was gone, however, was very painful. She could never hope to see him again. But at least he was free.

Harrowby—for Hester promised herself never to think of him as Lord Hawkhurst—accepted their praises, then made as if to go.

“No, no!” Mrs. Mayfield quickly stopped him. “You would not be so cruel as to leave us before we have drunk a toast to your good fortune. Let me call for a bottle of champagne. We
must
be allowed to celebrate.”

Hester observed that he had probably drunk a round or two with his friends before coming, but she would not interfere with Mrs. Mayfield’s plans. Whatever her aunt had in mind, it could not be as horrible as the thought of Isabella’s marrying Mr. Letchworth.

Isabella had embraced the role her mother had designed for her. She urged Harrowby to take a chair, then sat on the floor to worship at his feet. She leaned against his knee while, with an engaging innocence, she clutched his hand to her cheek.

With Isabella smiling up at him and occasionally drawing his dangling fingers near her modesty piece, it was no wonder that colour began to infuse his cheeks.

Mrs. Mayfield pressed a glass into his free hand. She watched him drink, then made certain he was poured more and more. Mother and daughter kept up a lively chatter, wanting to hear about his plans for taking over Rotherham Abbey, wondering when he would move into Hawkhurst House, asking him what sort of entertainments he would give. And throughout the merry talk, both women gave him the impression that he was a hero to be adored.

Before long he forgot that he had intended to leave. He stared dazedly into Isabella’s eyes with a happy, half-satiated smile. Isabella alternated between shy, downcast glances and eager gazes filled with rapt admiration and a soft, seductive charm. Taking an occasional sip of her own champagne for courage, she laughed unrestrainedly at Harrowby’s addled jokes, no matter that they were becoming more suggestive with every passing minute.

Gazing on them with a look of indulgent approval, Mrs. Mayfield suddenly turned to Hester. “I would like you to fetch my fur tippet. It is all the excitement, I make no doubt, but I’m getting gooseflesh on my limbs. I left it upstairs in my wardrobe. You should have no trouble in finding it.”

Aside from the unusual degree of courtesy in her aunt’s request, there was nothing in it to take Hester by surprise. She was used to Mrs. Mayfield’s demands. On this occasion, she was even glad for the opportunity to escape from the parlour, for she had never enjoyed the spectacle of intoxicated persons, and it appeared that Harrowby and Isabella were both headed that way.

She wished to be alone to grieve for St. Mars. She felt powerless in a way she never had before. Her one aim had been to help him win Isabella’s love, since that was what he had wanted. Then she had hoped to help him clear his name. She was grateful to know that he was safe, but she could not be happy when she suspected her aunt had done her utmost to encourage Sir Joshua Tate in his suspicions. And since last night, she had known exactly why. Mrs. Mayfield had wanted to rob St. Mars of his fortune so that Harrowby Fitzsimmons could inherit it.

Hester wondered what Harrowby’s part in this scheme had been, whether he had killed his uncle and cast the blame on St. Mars to win himself an earldom. Did a murderer sit in their drawing room now? With a sigh of despair, she asked herself how she could find the truth, and if it were not too late now to help St. Mars.

If only she could find some proof that someone else had killed his father.

But how would she—a waiting woman—ever come by such proof, even if it existed?

Far from eager to return to the drawing room, she took her time in searching for her aunt’s wrap. It was not to be found in Mrs. Mayfield’s wardrobe. After looking carefully through all her aunt’s garments, Hester sighed again at the thought that her aunt might have left it anywhere in the house.

She looked in the bedchamber, her aunt’s privy, and every other closet nearby before deciding she had better resume her search downstairs in the small parlour where Mrs. Mayfield sometimes sat. She walked back through the bedchamber and had almost left it when a flash of brown, peeking out from behind the bolster on the bed, caught her eye.

Hester turned, and there, folded and stuffed behind the high, plumped cushions, lay her aunt’s fur tippet, wedged carefully as if hidden.

A sudden suspicion brought flutters to her stomach.

She could not imagine that an accident had led to the wrap’s being placed there. It had been purposely tucked behind where she would not find it without turning the room upside down.

With a sense of foreboding, she took it from behind the pillows and made her way down to the first floor.

Outside the withdrawing room door all was quiet. There was nothing strange. Undoubtedly, Mrs. Mayfield had meant to get Hester out of the room so that Harrowby might find it easier to declare himself.

To knock on the drawing room door in defiance of all convention would indicate that she suspected something improper was going on. Her sense of tact would not allow her to embarrass Isabella by doing that. She could only be as self-effacing as she knew how to be.

Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and passed quietly into the room.

She would have gasped at the sight in front of her, had her lungs not already been full of air. As a consequence, her entrance made insufficient noise to alert the two tightly wound in the chair. The hinges of the door were well-oiled—too silent to protect her from a scene she would rather not have witnessed.

Isabella lay sprawled across Harrowby’s lap. They must have been locked in their embrace for quite some time, judging by the fact that his hands were no longer visible. The little bit of lace that had protected Isabella’s modesty from probing male glances was no longer in place. It had been tossed aside to provide greater access to the treasures underneath.

Isabella held his face to her breasts and arched her back in a passion that could only be real. Even as Harrowby—in his drunken fog—became aware of Hester’s presence and tried to extricate himself from this compromising position, Isabella whimpered in protest.

Hester felt a jolt of shock, then a warmth beneath her skin. Chagrin at her untimely arrival would have overcome her feelings had it not been for the rapt expression on her cousin’s face.

“Oh, my! Oh, my dear!” From close behind her came a loud, theatrical cry.

Hester whipped around to see that her aunt had entered the room behind her, making no noise. She must have descended the stairs close behind her niece.

But no, Hester realized as, stunned, she watched her aunt walk past. Only seconds had separated their entrances. Mrs. Mayfield must have been waiting for her to come down, lurking perhaps in the small parlour next door, to follow so closely on her heels. Had this been her plan?

Hester turned back to see Harrowby furiously smoothing Isabella’s skirts which had risen well above her knees. With horror, he tried to move her off his lap, but Bella had latched onto his neck to bury her blushes in his disheveled cravat. As she bewailed her shame at being caught in such a compromising situation, he stared at Mrs. Mayfield with round, frightened eyes.

He must have expected her to scream and throw him from the house, but Bella’s mother was far too cunning for that.

She moved to within two feet of the chair and stood looking down at him, her thick arms folded.

“I never should have left you two love-birds alone,” she said, with a mixture of harshness and coyness. “I should have known not to turn my back on you for an instant, but I thought Hester would return soon enough and that I might escape to the privy for one minute without any harm. Thank heaven she did come in time, or my poor chick would be ruined for sure!

“But—” and here her voice turned on a positive note— “nothing’s broke that can’t be fixed.

“You should have applied to me, my lord.” She gave Harrowby a saucy wag of her finger. “If you was desirous of wedding my Isabella, I would not have withheld my consent, not when I know how much her heart has been set on you from the first. Oh, but you’re a shrewd one, an’t you! You wanted to make good and sure of her before you applied to me, and I cannot blame you—not when half the beaus in London have been vying themselves to death for love of her.