Lady Adventuress 02 - The Education of Lord Hartley Read online

  She regretted it instantly.

  Of course she was wet. She was wearing most of a pitcher of lemonade.

  What a stupid thing to say, Maggie thought, wincing at her own inanity. Somehow, she found that she often said stupid things in front of Hart.

  The marquess took in her appearance from head to toe. Something in his eyes made her shift restlessly in place.

  He raised an elegant eyebrow. “Yes, rather like a drowned rat.”

  Frederick laughed as he emerged from the trees behind Maggie, having retrieved the shuttlecock.

  “Would you like me to dry you off?” Hart whispered, ignoring Frederick and reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief.

  The insinuation, the question itself, was utterly scandalous, given the situation. Maggie’s eyes flew to his. She was unable, once again, to come up with a reply, momentarily lost in imagining his hands on her body. Perhaps too much sun really was bad for a lady’s well-being – not to mention her virtue.

  When she failed to answer, Hartley gave her a triumphant grin. “Or perhaps I should just throw you in the lake, like old times?”

  “You wouldn’t,” she stammered, preparing to run.

  “I wouldn’t?” he challenged, lifting his eyebrows and tilting his head.

  The challenge in his eyes was very familiar. She’d seen it a hundred times before, usually just before Hart did something terrible and daring.

  She spun around and took off at great speed, running toward the house. Hart gave chase and caught her by the hand in record time.

  It seemed an afternoon for scandal because then, to her utter astonishment, he moved to pick her up and deposit her in the water.

  “Oi!” Frederick exclaimed, stepping forward with the shuttlecock in his hand. “All right, Hart, that is quite enough excitement for today! Do observe some propriety – wouldn’t want to compromise my sister, would you?”

  Frederick and Hart laughed, thinking the very notion of such a thing to be a supreme joke. “Besides, she would never forgive either of us if you threw her in the lake, and then I would be the one to pay the price.”

  Maggie felt her face flame. Before anything else could be said she picked up her skirts and continued running back to the house as fast as she could, leaving her book and spectacles behind on the table. She didn’t stop running until she reached her aunt’s room, short of breath.

  Maggie really wanted to see Aunt Verity – but she wasn’t certain what she could really say. She could hardly walk in and ask her aunt’s advice on getting Hart to see her as a woman.

  She hesitated at the door, adjusting her dress and hair. She tried her best to disguise the signs of her improper haste, and of the even more improper kiss that had preceded it. Was it written all over her face?

  She could smell lemons on her, and the faintest hint of cedarwood and nutmeg. Hart.

  She didn’t wish to disturb her aunt, but suddenly Maggie desperately needed her comfort.

  She knocked on the door, and when her aunt’s voice invited her in, Maggie stepped gingerly into the room.

  Aunt Verity had been staying with them for the last month, invited by Lord Chenefelt in an attempt to ‘reform’ Maggie and help her prepare for her first Season. This meant that she spent a great deal of time writing letters home to her husband, the mild-mannered ornithologist Sir John Compton. Maggie wondered if she would ever find the kind of marital felicity enjoyed by her aunt and uncle.

  She liked her Uncle Compton a great deal for the calm, sensible air he always possessed. He didn’t seem to disapprove of her when she spoke out of turn or accidentally committed yet another gaffe.

  Lady Compton, on the other hand, did disapprove. Maggie knew that she was merely trying to help her become what she ought to be, but this inevitably left her feeling extremely inadequate. Her aunt had made no secret of the fact that she thought training Maggie for society was a task that she ought to have undertaken long ago.

  It was entirely Lord Chenefelt’s fault that things had been left so late because he had always been intolerably dismissive of the whole idea. And now Maggie was a disaster waiting to strike.

  Even when Lady Compton had still been Miss Verity Dacre, a fresh-faced debutante, she had been considered a pillar of society, navigating each tricky turn with the utmost grace.

  If only Maggie could possess even half her elegance!

  It also hadn’t escaped Maggie’s notice that, despite her many social obligations, Aunt Verity had always shown a genuine interest in Maggie and Frederick. Maggie remembered how kind she had been, over the years, to come to Chenefelt whenever Maggie had needed her.

  As Maggie shut the door behind her, still hesitant, Lady Compton looked up from her letters and gave her niece a welcoming smile, which was quickly replaced by a look of concern.

  “Margaret, my dear, whatever is the matter? You’re all flustered. Is your hair wet? And your gown!”

  Somehow, those words were enough to cause tears to cascade out of Maggie’s eyes, and she furiously wiped them away.

  Maggie hated behaving like some silly milksop. “Oh, Aunt Verity,” she cried, coming to sit beside her at her escritoire. “Why does everyone think me a silly child?”

  Before Verity could reply, Maggie continued on breathlessly, “It is simply dreadful. Frederick was playing shuttlecock with Hart on the lawns, and the lemonade got knocked over me, and…”

  “Lemonade? My dear, you are telling banbury stories – slow down, please, and explain. I cannot follow.”

  Maggie stood up and began pacing the room while she recounted the story, her face warm. She made no mention of the kiss.

  Lady Compton listened sympathetically as her niece told her tale, a look of understanding on her face.

  Maggie did her best to explain the embarrassment she’d felt, her eyes flashing with frustration at her inability to stop being so awkward and so hopelessly invisible.

  “It is as though, no matter what I make of myself, I shall never be the lady everyone expects to see,” she finished mournfully.

  She didn’t add that, if she couldn’t become that lady, Hartley would never think of her as anything more than his childhood friend. And did that even matter if he was going to offer for the beastly Lady Alice?

  “Why does he have to be so exasperating and blind? He called me a ruffian yesterday, and asked after my governess today! I abhor him absolutely, and yet… It is cruel that there should be men like the Marquess of Hartley!” Maggie cried.

  “Whatever do you mean, dearest?” Lady Compton asked, amusement in her eyes.

  “I am not entirely certain. I should stop thinking about him. Only – he is so very handsome. One cannot help but notice it, you know. And yet he thinks of me as a…a…a magpie! A clever, scruffy bird!”

  Aunt Verity laughed gently, patting her niece on the hand. “A magpie? What a silly boy. No matter their age, men are always boys, it seems – and often insufferable ones. Do you know, your Uncle Compton wouldn’t even speak to me until the Duchess of Strathavon made him? But I think I understand your trouble, my Maggie. Would it really be so very bad to be clever, do you think? A great many of the most respected ladies of the ton are very clever indeed, and greatly admired for it. I have every confidence that you are just a lily waiting to bloom. Or a nightingale waiting to sing, if it’s birds you want.”

  “Bloom! I cannot even walk a step in my presentation gown.”

  “Even so. You know, men are very absurd creatures – unable to see the treasure right under their noses. It merely takes some guidance, some patience and the occasional show of character to make them see just what they are missing. Perhaps a lovely gown and a new coiffure would not hurt the matter. You do sew such pretty things – I wonder that you never wear them. No matter – we will see about that for you soon, dearest. It will be just the thing to cheer you up. A pretty coiffure cannot but make a young lady feel that much more courageous.”

  “Thank you, Aunt Verity.”

  Maggie did
feel somewhat better at these words, full of fresh hope.

  She would bloom. Surely, any day now, she would bloom. And then Hart would forget all about the dreadfully perfect Lady Alice.

  Maggie spoke with her aunt a while longer, enjoying the quiet, peaceful conversation. They discussed arrangements for going to town and the letters Maggie’s cousins had written their mother in her absence.

  Even though Lady Compton was a tad old-fashioned, Maggie loved having someone like a mother to talk to. There had been too little of that kind of relationship in her life.

  Her father had certainly been no good on that head. He had always been scornful of what he termed ‘female hysterics and fripperies’, and he’d hardly ever been at Chenefelt when she was growing up.

  And now that he was at Chenefelt, Maggie did not know how to go on with him.

  The cessation of the war with France and his subsequent return to shore had certainly done nothing to make Admiral Lord Chenefelt any more approachable.

  Maggie’s father had never been able to form a strong attachment with his son or daughter, feeling that they ought to obey orders without negotiation or explanation. He did not see why they should be allowed to think for themselves, and his character was much too different from theirs to allow for common interests. Maggie knew that he loved them in his own way: this did not, however, make him an easy man to live with.

  Sensing that her aunt wished to return to her correspondence, Maggie reluctantly excused herself to go clean up her sticky face and hair.

  She made her way to her room, meaning to ring down for Cecile, her companion, and ask that she retrieve her glasses and book from the lawns.

  She was momentarily taken aback to discover these items already delivered up to her room and placed on her little escritoire. She called for a maid to draw her a bath and watched the innocuous objects out of the corner of her eye.

  “Cecile?”

  “Yes, Maggie?” Cecile’s lilting French accent had remained unchanged in the years Maggie had known her.

  “The glasses…?”

  “Oh! Lord Hartley sent those up for you. He said you’d forgotten them and may want them later.” Cecile gave the younger girl a warm smile. She had become Maggie’s dearest friend over the years, quite beyond the requirements of her post as a lady’s companion.

  “I see,” said Maggie. Only, she didn’t really.

  Hart had sent up her things. It was such a little gesture, yet strangely thoughtful. Did he mean anything by it? A hopeful warmth spread through her, and clung on as she washed lemonade out of her hair and dressed in a dry, clean gown.

  She even took that warmth with her when she had her afternoon embroidery lesson with the prim Mrs Barton, one of the accomplished former students of Mrs Pawsey’s prestigious school of needlework. Mrs Barton was a punishing task-master, and prickly of temperament, but Maggie found that her skills at needlework more than made up for that.

  Needlework was Maggie’s favourite accomplishment, and the only one she felt she was truly good at.

  Her efforts on the pianoforte were undistinguished, her drawing unremarkable – but her embroidery had always felt like a true art. A way to express herself though complex patterns and silk thread. Needlework had always come easily to her, her fingers quickly mastering complex stitches, confident with the finest threads. She could embroider elaborate patterns and sew new gowns out of bolts of fabric she’d found in her mother’s stores. Over the years, she had accumulated four notebooks’ worth of various designs for the marvellous gowns she still wished to make. It was only a shame that rural England did not give her much opportunity for wearing them.

  She was also very sorry that Lord Chenefelt did not see much worth in this. But at least Lady Compton had insisted that he secure only the very best instructress to improve Maggie’s skill, and for that Maggie was eternally grateful.

  Under Mrs Barton’s sharp eye, Maggie and Cecile had improved in leaps and bounds, working miracles on gowns and trousseau linen alike. Secretly, Maggie had also made some rather daring adjustments to the gowns which had already been purchased for her upcoming Season, improving upon the fashion plates she’d glimpsed in the monthly women’s journals.

  She could not wait to wear them.

  This undertaking was a very closely kept secret: Lord Chenefelt disapproved of his daughter embroidering her own gowns almost as much as he disapproved of the latest fashions for fripperies, and so Maggie felt it best that he did not know of her newly improved wardrobe. Today, Maggie’s joy made her fingers quicker than ever as she expertly executed a fine pattern of vines, practicing the stitch Mrs Barton had taught her the previous week.

  Seated opposite Maggie in a comfortable wingback, Cecile threw her a curious look over her own needlework, though she did not comment.

  The bubble of happiness was still with Maggie hours later when Cecile helped her prepare for bed. Catching a glimpse of them in her cheval glass, Maggie was struck by the similarity in their colouring and build.

  And yet they were very different.

  There was a quiet elegance in Cecile’s movements, a beauty and confidence in her face, that Maggie could not find in her own appearance. Perhaps it was her ceaseless determination that gave her such confidence. Cecile had a great number of dreams and plans – she meant to save up what funds she could, become a couturiere and open her own shop.

  “I would much rather be happy creating gowns then growing old in the sort of dreary, respectable marriage that is the common fate of a lady’s companion,” she’d once confided.

  Cecile’s mother had been well born and had, in her youth, served as a court modiste to the late queen of France. Like many, the family had fallen on hard times during the grim years following the Reign of Terror and had been forced to flee to England. Cecile remembered little of her life in France, but she said that none of this was of any consequence. They had escaped – not everyone had been so fortunate.

  Too impoverished to be able to provide their daughter with sufficient care and education, Cecile had been sent to Chenefelt to be Maggie’s companion after her own mother’s passing. The little girls became fast friends, bonded together by their tragic losses, and Cecile had stayed on with Maggie as they both grew into womanhood.

  A lady’s companion was, by far, not the worst fate that awaited many impoverished young women, but Cecile was determined that life held more in store for her than even that.

  Whenever she had the opportunity, Cecile read a great deal about Paris. She had always told Maggie that one day she would return there. Maggie had not doubted her friend’s assurance for a moment, though she had always been saddened at the thought of her dearest friend going so far away.

  Another part of her had even longed to see Paris for herself – to explore the whole continent of Europe, and discover what treasures it held in store.

  She knew, of course, that this could never be.

  That night, as she drifted off to sleep, Maggie thought of her upcoming Season. Just as soon as her Aunt Verity deemed her ready, they would set out for town. Perhaps she and Cecile would both secure their happiness once they made their mark in London.

  London, after all, could be every inch as wonderful as Paris.

  It was thrilling and a little terrifying. She couldn’t wait to attend the dinners and the dances, to see for herself the wonders of the London Season and the originals who commanded the Season’s fashions.

  She’d heard a great many stories from her aunt, anecdotes of people like the fierce Patronesses and of the glamorous escapades of the Duchess of Strathavon.

  Surely, Hart would be unable to ignore her then, when she danced with dukes and exchanged clever banter with society’s sharpest wits.

  Chapter 2

  Maggie awoke earlier than usual when Cecile came into with her morning cup of chocolate and a message from her father, looking every bit as sleepy as Maggie felt.

  Lord Chenefelt demanded her presence in his study. Immediately. This was
peculiar in itself: he never paid Maggie much heed unless she had done some mischief which he felt warranted a telling-off.

  “I wonder what it is he wants of me,” she mused, while a maid helped her get dressed and Cecile looked thoughtfully out of the window at the wet grounds below. “Was he in a dudgeon?”

  It was all most inconvenient. Maggie had planned to spend the morning finishing work on a dress she had been creating. She’d passed a whole afternoon in the village choosing the perfect length of cream lace for the trim, and she couldn’t wait to see it on the dress.

  “I’m sure I couldn’t guess, but he looked somewhat thunderous.”

  Maggie blurrily peered out of the window, trying to see what had caught Cecile’s attention, but there was nothing. The garden was shrouded in its customary morning fog.

  “Doesn’t he always look thunderous?”

  Maggie supposed that she might have considered the landscape ominous, only she had grown accustomed to it over the years.

  She sighed. “The sun has barely risen. What a dismal hour to meet with papa. Was he very harried?”

  “He seemed impatient, rather. It might be best to hurry.”

  “Perhaps. It’s too much to hope he’ll forget about me, if he’s taken the trouble to send a message.”

  Filled with an unmistakable sense of dread, Maggie made her way down the sweeping grand staircase to her father’s study on the ground floor.

  She hesitated momentarily outside the study door, wondering if there was some way to sidestep whatever ordeal lay ahead, before resigning herself to knock.

  The room was warmly appointed and cosy – a small fire crackled in the grate next to an inviting armchair, and the curtains were yet drawn against the gloom beyond. Maggie thought the room a very curious contrast to her father’s character, which could never be described as cosy.

  Lord Chenefelt was already dressed for the day. He was an extremely tall man, with hair that was more grey than brown, and an expression of unmistakable displeasure across his face. His bearing cast him every inch a navy man, and he had always run his household like one of his fleets.