Infamous

He returned to South Audley Street, as he did frequently, to a house in pandemonium. Bennet heard his head groom sigh heavily as Bennet surrendered the reins to him and mounted the steps, prepared to untangle whatever setback was making his mother shriek in that disconcerting way. Had she only known, she could have gotten better work from the servants if she maintained her dignity rather than screaming at them like an angry fishwife.

For all her pretensions to society, Bennet felt his mother’s plebeian tantrums more of an impediment to the family’s acceptance than his involvement in trade. After quieting the seamstress and bribing her to finish Harriet’s gown by the following day, after soothing the ruffled feathers of Mrs. Marshall, the housekeeper, and convincing Armand, the chef, not to pack up and leave, be cornered his mother and sister in the morning room.

Harriet was sprawled on the sofa, crying over the dress, which she pronounced ugly beyond words. Her tears would have been more convincing if she had not been wearing an expensive new blue walking outfit.

“Then wear one of your other dresses.”

“I have worn them all. The only thing that will make the new dress acceptable is a proper necklace of diamonds.”

“And I suppose you know just the ones to set it off. Very well, write down who has them and his direction and I will have Walters pick them up tomorrow. They will be your birthday present. By the way, you have sent an invitation round to the Walls, haven’t you?”

“Well, I have invited them, though I do not see the need.” Edith spoke now, two spots of color still remaining in her sallow cheeks from her recent tantrum. “They are, after all, just country cousins. What if they embarrass us with their dress or speech?”

“They won’t, Mother,” Bennet assured her absently as he picked up the Times. Just to discomfit her he glanced critically at her black bombazine. It was an affectation, this wearing of black three years after his father’s death, when she would have looked better in some other color. But like the dyeing of her hair, Bennet put it down to bad advice from someone.

“I’m inviting Axel, then,” Harriet said in the subdued silence that followed.

Bennet raised an eyebrow, and was about to say “why not?” but decided too prompt an acceptance of her suitor might make Harriet suspicious. “If you must.” He sat and tried to focus on the financial news.

“If you get to invite the wallflower and company, I should be able to ask my friends. After all, it is my party.” Harriet seated herself at the messy escritoire and pulled a list toward her.

“What did you call her?”

“A wallflower. Those dowdy clothes. And can you imagine her playing nursemaid to a young bride? She must be odd indeed.”

“If I hear that title fastened on Miss Wall I will know where it came from, and I won’t forget your maliciousness.”

“In another day you will not have any say in what I do. I shall be in possession of my own fortune and I may marry Axel if I wish.”

“Yes, I suppose you may, but do you not think you ought to shop around a bit first? Tomorrow you become one of the most marriageable young ladies in London, and I should think you could do a great deal better than Foy. Don’t you think so, Mother?”

“Harriet is in love with Axel. Aren’t you, Harriet? Why else would she have run off with him?”

“It has been four years,” Bennet said, trying to bury himself in the paper. “May I point out Axel has made up to several other women since then, every time he lands back in London, in fact.”

Harriet’s blue eyes were ablaze with anger. “It does not seem like four years. It was my coming-out season and I remember every moment of it.”

“I too recall the entire season with nauseating clarity, especially that bullet I took for you.”

“That was your fault, Bennet,” his mother informed him.

“Don’t tell me you favored that havey-cavey elopement.”

“It was better than having you break Harriet’s heart by not letting her marry Axel.”

“Well, I will no longer be the impediment.”

“What if he does not ask me, Mother?” Harriet rose, clenching her hands together dramatically. “What if Axel’s feelings have changed, or he has been too put off by Bennet?”

“Oh, he’ll ask you all right,” Bennet interrupted. “He needs your fortune more now than ever. Oh, by the way, I have made an appointment for both of us to see Barchester tomorrow morning. The reins of your future will then be put in your hands, Harriet. Have you engaged a man of business?”

“Not...not yet.”

“Do you wish Barchester to recommend someone?”

“Certainly not. Is it necessary to have such a person with me tomorrow?”

“Not really, unless you mean to change banks immediately.”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Let Barchester know when you do and where you want your monies deposited. He can arrange everything.”

“I don’t want him to do anything. He always treats me like a child.”

“He means no harm by acting fatherly. Most women of independent means do not care to handle their own affairs.”

“Most women do not have such an unreasonable guardian. I suppose you will charge me rent now to stay here?”

“Do not be absurd. You are still my sister, but I’ve no doubt you will be married within the month and off my hands for good.”

“Must you both bicker like this?” their mother demanded. “You give me a splitting headache.”

“I have tried bickering alone and it just doesn’t work,” Bennet quipped, sending his mother charging from the room, grumbling to herself.

Harriet waited until their mother was gone before she giggled. “Why do you bait her, Bennet? She cannot defend herself.”

“And I cannot help myself. If only she realized how much we enjoy arguing. Seriously, Harriet, I will be placing a great deal of wealth at your disposal tomorrow. I hope you have considered that it might be wiser to keep control of it yourself than turn it over to a husband—any husband, including Axel.”

“I know what I am about. I am not the green girl I was at seventeen.”

“No, I realize that. There will also be investments to discuss. You will have to decide how you want to manage those.”

Harriet walked dreamily to the window and stared out at the redbrick residences across the way. “I think once I am married I will set up a proper town house. I consider it highly unfair Papa left you both Chesney and Varner House.”

“Hasn’t Axel some residence other than his lodgings and that estate in Yorkshire?”

“He has a house near Epsom, but I require one in London.”

“I am looking for a house for the Walls to rent. I can have Walters make inquiries for you...if you wish to make use of his services.”

“Why are the Walls looking for a house?”

“To rent merely. They cannot stay in that hotel forever, and Mother has made it abundantly clear she does not want them here.”

“But I thought they were on the point of embarking for Europe, at least before you introduced them to the social whirl of London.”

“One invitation can hardly constitute a social whirl—oh. I forgot to tell Mother I asked them to tea today to make her acquaintance before your birthday ball.”

“She won’t like that.”

“Yes, I know, but perhaps you can tell her for me. A diamond necklace should be worth one favor.”

“Very well, I will tell her,” said Harriet, walking in a businesslike way toward the door. “Just make sure my diamonds and my dress are ready by tomorrow afternoon.”

“I have nothing else to concern me at all.”

“Nothing but that nasty shipping business.”

“That nasty shipping business keeps you both in fine gig.”

“But must you flaunt it?” she asked with her hand on the doorknob.

“The world is changing, Harriet. I and other men like me helped win this last war. Don’t ask me to be embarrassed about that. Didn’t Wellington himself come to dine?”

“One evening.”

“Well, he did have a war to fight. Now go and tell Mother the Walls are coming and I expect you both to be polite to them.”

“If we must. But they are such encroaching mushrooms.”

“You have not even met Stanley and Alice yet.”

“Are we expected to entertain every country dowd we are remotely connected with?”

“Why not?”

“Why not? I have better things to do with my time.”

“Just tell Mother.”

Harriet ducked out of the room. Sometimes, just for a moment, Bennet thought he had got through to her and made some impression. There was sense in her somewhere, but then she would quote their mother or one of her fashionable friends and turn his stomach. No, he did not love his sister anymore. She had changed into some creature he disliked exceedingly.

When the Walls were shown into the elegant gold salon there were already two guests present, enjoying their tea, Lady Catherine Gravely, and her daughter, Cassandra. After the coldly polite introductions it became clear to Rose that the other two women were intimates of Harriet’s and had been invited to amuse her, since conversation with the Walls was not expected to. It was also clear who had tempted Harriet to savage her hair so badly, for both women sported a head of tight curls.

Every time Bennet introduced a topic Rose or Stanley might care to discuss, Harriet changed the subject to some personage they did not know, thus shutting them out of the conversation. Poor Alice took everything in with such wide eyes, Rose knew they would put her down as a simpleton. Lady Catherine and Mrs. Varner were no help. The former stared speculatively at Rose any time she opened her mouth and the latter seemed interested only in her daughter’s gossip. If Edith remembered Rose’s mother at all she never made reference to her.

Rose was annoyed and in the mood to show it, but she liked Bennet Varner and did want him for a friend. She admired the way he had charmed her brother and sister-in-law, no matter how much she suspected his motives. And here he was, sending her embarrassed grimaces because his sister and mother were snubbing them. She could at least enjoy that repartee with him. She gazed about the lovely ground floor salon that was used only for tea. She could imagine the elegance of the rooms that must lie above. And yet she felt sorry for Bennet Varner, always having to apologize for his mother and sister. When Stanley cleared his throat meaningfully, Rose gulped her tea and was about to make some excuse to get them away early. Suddenly Harriet did mention a name they all knew.

“Lord Foy?” Alice piped up. “Wasn’t that the man you were engaged to, Rose?”

Stanley choked on a gulp of tea and Rose paused with her cup halfway to her mouth. Bennet looked at her in inquiry.

“Foy...Foy...” Rose pretended to muse. “Is his name Axelrod Barton?”

“Yes,” confirmed Cassie, her red lips parted in surprise, the bodice of her white muslin gown straining as she turned her plump form the better to stare at Rose. Rose was surprised to discover the look of utter disgust Lady Catherine bestowed on her own child. She knew there were women who hated their children, but she had never actually seen it before.

“Yes, it must be the same man,” Rose confirmed “He was a subaltern whom Father brought home one winter. I believe he was recovering from a leg wound.”

“Shoulder,” corrected Stanley, nervously clearing his throat.

Rose shrugged and silently thanked her brother for his attempt to draw talk away from the engagement.

“By engagement,” Cassie asked playfully, “you don’t actually mean...?”

Rose stared at her as though she had not comprehended. The figured muslin Cassie wore was meant for a younger girl, or perhaps a slighter girl, and did not become her.

“I fear it was just a schoolgirl passion,” Rose said lightly. “You must know how entrancing those red uniforms can be. Was I sixteen or seventeen? I cannot recall, but when I considered seriously marrying a soldier, I thought of all the worry Mother had gone through and I backed out of the engagement. Foy understood.”

This speech damped the interest of the others but failed to appease Harriet, who was staring at Rose as though she wished her to disappear from the face of the earth. Bennet’s gaze was not one of condemnation as Rose expected, but one of sympathy and understanding.

“Then there was that dreadful incident,” Alice said, taking a provoking bite of cake so that everyone had to hang on her words until she had swallowed. Stanley gave one of his impatient sighs.

“What incident?” Lady Catherine finally demanded sharply with more than casual interest.

“Colonel Wall’s untimely death,” Alice replied knowingly.

“Yes,” agreed Rose. “The marriage would have had to be put off for a year anyway, so we mutually agreed to part.”

“How did Colonel Wall die?” Harriet asked, her intense gaze darting between Rose and Alice, “if I’m not being too personal?”

“He was trampled by a horse,” Stanley said without elaborating.

“That is why I never ride,” Alice added. “Nasty, dangerous beasts. I wonder you did not shoot the stallion, Stanley.”

“Perhaps I would have, if I had been there, but Rose was right. It was not Redditch’s fault that Father and Foy decided to ride him when they were in their cups. He’s a little wild around men he doesn’t know, anyway. I assure you he behaves perfectly for me.”

Rose wondered if part of Stanley’s tolerance derived from thinking he had tamed a beast his father could not handle.

“Still, to keep a killer horse...” Cassie shook her head in condemnation as though she knew something about horses, when Rose was quite sure from Cassie’s stout figure that she did not even ride.

“But it was an accident,” Bennet said. “I would never get rid of one of my beasts if it accidently threw Harriet and broke her neck.”

“Bennet!” Harriet cried, incensed. “That is the most unfeeling remark you have ever made.”

“No, I don’t think you can be right there. It comes nowhere near the time I compared you to the opera dancer. Then there was the incident at the East India Docks...”

“If you tell anyone about that I shall—”

“Stop it, Bennet,” his mother commanded. “To upset your sister in this way is very ill-mannered.”

“So sorry, Mother. Sometimes I forget everything you taught me about manners.”

Mrs. Varner had the conscience to look abashed at this. “You must excuse my son,” she said finally to the Walls. “Sometimes his rather misplaced wit takes him beyond the bounds of what is pleasing.”

“Humor is always pleasing,” Rose said, giving Bennet a grateful smile for drawing fire upon himself. “And anyone should be able to take a joke so long as it is made in good fun. And as much enjoyment as we are deriving from the tea, I fear we must be going soon. Alice’s dress is nowhere near completion and I am sure you must have a thousand things to see to before tomorrow night.”

They did not linger over their departure. Bennet would have sent them home in his carriage, but Stanley said they would find a hack.

“What an old tartar the mother is,” he said to Rose in the carriage. “I suppose we must go to this thing, seeing as Bennet has been so obliging.”

Alice stared at her husband, her limpid blue eyes outraged. “Surely you do not mean you would rather not?”

“Not if we are to be subjected to so much frostiness from Mrs. Varner and that other old dragon! Those two chits were not much better. I think they might have spoken to you, Alice, just for the sake of politeness.”

Rose sighed. If Stanley noticed being cold-shouldered, then it was blatant indeed. “Perhaps they will when they know her better. Ten to one she will be so busy dancing tomorrow night she will not even have time to converse with them, but there is no real need for me to go.”

“No, I think you must, Rose. After all, she is your godmother,” Stanley said firmly.

Meaning, Rose took it, that if she cried off, he would as well. That would leave Alice in floods of tears and with her to blame.

“Yes, I suppose I must. After all, an evening can last only so long. Then we will finalize our arrangements for Europe.”

“Mmm,” Stanley replied.

Chapter Three

The next day, in spite of Rose’s sporting a new pearlgray riding habit with a modish top hat, Bennet did not come to ride. He did, however, send Stilton with two mounts. Martin conferred with the older groom, making arrangements for returning the horses, Rose supposed.

They sprang Victor and Gallant as soon as they reached Hyde Park, and the carefree ride reminded Rose of their rides together at home. Her feelings for Martin, when she bothered to analyze them, were those of an older sister. She had wrested him and his sister, Cynthie, from a workhouse when their parents had been carried off by influenza. Having made herself responsible for them, she felt closer to them in many ways than to her own brother and mother. At least they had no secrets from each other, which was not the case with her own family.

Martin drew rein first to walk Victor near one of the ponds and let him get a short drink. Rose let Gallant lower his mouth to the water also, but the large gelding only played in it, flapping his lips at the icy ripples. She missed the provoking conversation of Bennet, but was unwilling to say so.

“I imagine Mr. Varner is busy today,” Martin suggested.

“Yes, I am sure that he is always busy, today especially.”

“I made some inquiries about Foy yesterday. He did survive the war.”

“I know. His name came up at tea yesterday. But Stanley and I were so engrossed in distancing ourselves from him, we never got to hear what they were saying about him.”

“He’s on the hunt for a wife, done up, by what I could make out.”

“That’s not much of a change from five years ago.”

“They say he will make a match with Varner’s sister if Varner will give his consent.”

“He will give it.” Rose scratched her mount’s withers then turned to Martin. “I keep feeling I should warn Harriet about Axel.”

“How can you do that without giving yourself away?”

“I do not know. Yet I must do something. Perhaps I should tell Bennet.”

“You can’t do that either.”

“I think I can trust him far enough to tell him how rotten Axel is without going into specifics.”

“I wish we were well out of this town. Now that we know Foy is here, France is looking better and better to me, even if I don’t know the lingo.”

“To me as well. Perhaps we should hope for a disastrous evening. That might convince Stanley that London is not as much fun as he thinks.”

“That depends on how disastrous. If Foy is pursuing the Varner chit he is like to show up at this ball.”

“I am well aware of that possibility, but I will be on the lookout for him. To be sure there will be a hundred people there. I should be able to avoid one man. If all else fails I will hide until it is time to leave.”

Martin nodded and suggested they ride on toward Green Park now that the horses were rested.

“Walters!” Bennet shouted as he came into the office, tossing a paper at his secretary and casting his hat aside. “Trace this shipment back to its source. I want to know who sent it, who paid for it and who delivered it to the dock.”

“Now?” Walters asked as Bennet went into his inner office and attacked his desk, a drawer at a time, making a mangle of the papers inside and finally knocking onto the floor the stack of documents that had been carefully arranged on the blotter.

“It’s only a matter of national security. Yes, of course, now.”

“A trunk full of books?” asked Walters, peering at the bill of lading as he gathered up the contracts.

“With a heavy bottom. There was enough gold under those French plays and poems to finance a small army, or a large army for a few days.”

“Where was it going?”

“Elba.”

“Good Lord!” Walters said, his arms full of documents as he stared myopically at the shipping order. “And on the Celestine.”

“The matter is now in the hands of the Foreign Office. Get cracking, Walters. We need that information.”

“Right away, sir, but you will be terribly late if you wait for this.”

“Late for what?”

“Your sister’s ball, of course.”

“Oh, my God. I had completely forgotten. I’ll rush ’round there and fly up the back stairs to change. You know Leighton at the Foreign Office. Seek him out and give him the information, then come to the house. Oh, did you...?”

“I picked up the necklace and earrings and delivered them to Varner House.”

“Excellent! They had them in good time?”

“Carried them ’round myself before noon.”

“You are a paragon. Give yourself a raise. I must go. Have a footman interrupt me tonight, whatever you learn. I must know.”

Gwen Rose sat observing the dancing couples in utter and unremitting boredom. She looked down again at her ivory silk gown with the scallops of seed pearls. She was impeccably dressed and had her hair gathered up in a Medusan knot of curls, restrained by a silver riband, yet no one had asked her to dance all evening. Nor was any gentleman likely to without an introduction. Several men had cast curious glances in her direction as she sat alone almost within the embrace of a large parlor palm she had struck up a friendship with. She was grateful for its company and it did seem more likely to converse with her than the dozen dowagers who were similarly ensconced in the corners of the Varner ballroom. At least its conversation, if it had any, would have been neither silly nor malicious.

She did not know how it was that she always imagined people to be talking about her. Perhaps because they so often were discussing her at the assemblies around Bristol. Typically it would be the duty of the hostess or even the hostess’s daughter to introduce newcomers about until they had struck up a conversation that seemed promising. Neither Mrs. Varner nor Harriet had made the slightest effort to ease the Walls into society.

Fortunately Stanley had become acquainted with half a dozen men from the clubs and could make Alice known to their wives, one of whom was not much older than Alice and took her under her wing. Rose supposed she could have trailed after them, but since Alice never thought to include her it would have taken some effort to attach herself to them. And she frankly found the palm better company.

The Varner ballroom, which extended out over the ground floor portico, looked much as she had suspected it would, glittering gold in the light of hundreds of candles and richly alive with music. She could see through the far doorway into the refreshment salon, which had red wallpaper. She would dearly have loved to go there to get something cool to drink and to look at the paintings on the wall. But women looked so singular when they moved about a room this size alone. The worst part would be when they had to go in to supper. She would wait until near the end so she would not be so conspicuous for not having a partner, but then it would be hard to find a place to sit. Perhaps Stanley would think to save her a seat, if he remembered to leave the card room at all. Trapped again, she thought as she sighed heavily.

She had hoped Bennet would put in an appearance, not that he would have time to joust with her. Probably his tardiness was what had the Varner women so disturbed as they whispered between themselves, casting occasional dark looks at Rose. Edith looked like a black crow in her silk, and Harriet’s dress was far too old even for a woman celebrating her twenty-first birthday, the bosom revealing the spareness of her breasts. Rose mentally took herself to task for being critical. It did not matter that she did not say these things out loud. She should not even be thinking them.

When the Gravelys arrived Lady Catherine was impeccably dressed in lavender silk and traded insincere kisses with both Varner women. Cassie was wearing a white gown trimmed with scarlet scallops and large red silk flowers to set off, Rose supposed, the exquisite necklace of rubies at her throat. They were jewels more appropriate to an older woman, but would have looked misplaced against Lady Catherine’s stark-white skin. Whatever else one said of Cassie she did have the most creamy skin. On second glance the rubies shone like drops of blood around her neck, and with the cropped hair, the specter of the guillotine loomed in Rose’s mind. Rose wondered if the association was particular to her or an intentional ploy of Cassie’s for attention. A sharp look from this miss warned Rose that she had been staring too long at her, but so had others, so Rose did not take herself to task again. If they were going to bore her, what did they expect?