The Proper Wife Read online

  The countess gave them a brief nod, but the distress in Lady Barbara’s blue eyes belied the calm cordiality of her greeting. After they passed, that young lady turned back twice to gaze after them, a fact, Clarissa recalled with satisfaction, that Lieutenant Standish duly noted, though he was too much the gentleman to comment upon it. With any luck, the attention she and the lieutenant had attracted, added to the reports Miss Maryanne’s party, would certainly circulate should give one dark-haired beauty much to think about.

  Lieutenant Standish was truly a charming man, she concluded warmly. Should Lady Barbara not come to her senses, perhaps she ought to encourage him. She did have such a weak spot for a valiant soldier.

  Prickly unease coursed through her as she recalled her drive with that other soldier. Lucifer’s eyebrow, but Colonel Lord Sandiford could inflame her temper in an instant. Initially admiring his obvious concern for his lieutenant’s welfare, her kind thoughts withered when he proceeded to accuse her, first of recklessly endangering the young man, then of trying to beguile him into losing his already-beaten heart.

  Entice him! She felt anger flush her face anew. Was the man so presumptuously prejudiced he could not give her credit for any unselfish impulses at all? Had his pompous accusations not made her so furious—she smiled again at how she’d nearly unseated him when she whipped her team to a gallop—she might have explained her sudden attentions to Lieutenant Standish. No, she’d let the lieutenant enlighten his mother-hen of a colonel if he chose—she would not do so.

  A wistful sadness dissolved some of the anger. Could the colonel not give her credit for possessing some unselfish impulses? She’d best stop thinking about him and master this foolishly persistent hope that they might one day become friends.

  Friends. She recalled that little episode on the Kensington lane when he’d almost kissed her, and a shudder rippled through her, heating her to her toes. The really awful thing was, had he in fact kissed her she was fairly certain she’d not have wanted him to stop.

  Drat the man! She hated that he elucidated so powerful a response in her, one she seemed unable to suppress or control. Thank Heaven he was also arrogant, managing and prejudiced. Were that much too attractive person coupled to a character composed solely of admirable traits, the colonel might pose a serious threat to her peace.

  Realizing she was still thinking of the man after having just commanded herself to cease, she gave a scornful laugh, causing Lizette, who was helping her into her dinner gown, to glance up in surprise. Assuring her maid that nothing was amiss, she dismissed her and walked the short distance to her mama’s apartments.

  As always, seeing her once gay, giddy mama sitting so pale and still, a lap robe thrown over her legs, caused Clarissa a pang of grief. Ever since the attack that nearly killed her, Lady Beaumont had become a virtual recluse, convinced she was too frail to drive out, to entertain but rarely or to leave the small kingdom of her rooms, much as her daughter urged her otherwise. Clarissa went over to kiss the soft cheek.

  “Did you have a nice drive, darling?”

  “Yes, Mama. The weather was fine, and I’m quite pleased with the new team.”

  Her mama frowned. “I do wish you wouldn’t take that shocking vehicle. To be sure, you’re a capital driver, but it is dangerous, and if anything were to happen—”

  “Nothing will.” Though she knew the endeavor a hopeless one, still Clarissa could not help trying to coax her mama out of her self-imposed exile. “Can I not persuade you to accompany me to the theatre this evening? Many of your friends will be there, as the play is said to be quite amusing. And,” Clarissa added what she knew would be the most telling argument, “a very charming young man shall escort us—a lieutenant newly returned from Belgium.”

  As she expected, her mother’s vacant gaze focused sharply. Having buried a husband and two infant sons, Lady Beaumont’s one remaining goal in life was to see her only surviving child safely wed. “Indeed. Do you like him, dear, this new young man?”

  “He’s quite charming. And a hero no less. Englemere tells me he was part of Lord Uxbridge’s gallant charge, the one that broke the back of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard.”

  Her mama smiled with real enthusiasm. “You must bring him to call on me.”

  “You could become acquainted tonight at the theatre.”

  Lady Beaumont shook her head. “I’m afraid I’m not feeling up to it just yet. Perhaps later in the Season.”

  Clarissa hadn’t really expected her mama to agree, but with that lady distracted by news of a new suitor who might finally be The One to sweep her finicky daughter to the altar, said daughter could press the advantage. “You must let Wapping help you into the garden after breakfast, then. Mornings there are so lovely, with the flowers budding out. I should like to have Lieutenant Standish greet my mother with a blush of sunshine on her cheeks.”

  “Aye, the fresh air will do her good,” Wapping, her mama’s maid and dresser, said as she entered. “And so I’ve been telling her. You listen to Miss Clare, Madam, and we’ll have you dancing again by summer. Now, let’s get you down to dinner.”

  Having planted the suggestion, Clarissa followed as Wapping handed her mama a cane and helped her toward the dining room. Silly and frivolous as she’d often thought her mama back in the days when Lady Beaumont was one of society’s gayest hostesses, Clarissa would give much to have her mama restored to health.

  Later, having seen Lady Beaumont tucked back up into bed, Clarissa joined Lieutenant Standish in the coach that would take them to Covent Garden. For a brief, unsettling moment she wondered what plans Colonel Sandiford had made for this evening. Would he too attend the play all London was discussing—or would he be seated in a Cit’s drawing room, courting his middle-class heiress?

  Irritated that she’d again fallen into musing about him, she shook her head, as if that motion could shake him free. Thanks heavens tonight, instead of the empty flattery of her usual court, she’d have Lieutenant Standish’s witty, attentive company to blot out any further thought of his maddeningly attractive, absolutely unattainable colonel.

  The carriage clattered past the portico of St. Paul’s and into Covent Garden Square. As they passed the alley where she’d been attacked, Clarissa couldn’t prevent a reminiscent shiver. How lucky she’d been that night. And no wonder the colonel despised her.

  She’d just determined to drag her mind from the dismals and make a better attempt to entertain her escort when the carriage suddenly jerked to a halt, throwing her back against the squabs.

  In that moment, she heard the protesting squeal of the horses—and a girl’s high, piercing scream.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Miss Beaumont, are you all right?”

  Lieutenant Standish’s inquiry came over the sounds of stomping horses, the shouts of her coachman and a woman’s strident tones. “Yes, of course. I must discover what—”

  “Allow me.” With surprising swiftness, the lieutenant levered himself out of the carriage.

  Clarissa caught the door before it shut and leaned out. Craning her neck, she tried to discern in the darkness what had occurred at the front of the carriage. She could see little, hear only the lieutenant’s low tones interspersed with the increasing volume of other voices. Though no further screams rent the night, she soon grew too anxious to remain cooped up in the carriage.

  She clambered out to find her coachman exchanging insults with a heavyset, heavily-rouged woman while both of them tried to pull a thin girl, garbed only in a scandalously brief gown, out of a tangle of reins at the center of the traces. A footman held the team’s leads, trying to calm the restive, stamping beasts that threatened at any moment to trample the slight girl under their ironshod hooves. Lieutenant Standish was attempting both to coax the girl out and mediate the argument between the rouged woman and the coachman.

  “Whatever is going on?” Clarissa demanded.

  “Crazy girl done leaped outta nowheres and clamped herself onta the horses, ma�
��am.” John Coachman sent Clarissa a quick look of apology. “Soon’s we get this beldam outta the way and pry the lass free, we’ll be off. Sorry for the delay, Miss Clarissa.”

  “Outta the way?” the rouged woman shrieked. “’Tis my runaway apprentice yer talkin’ of peeling free, ya lunk o’lard, and nowheres she’ll be goin’ but back to my shop.”

  “Ain’t no wonder she don’t wanna go back to no harpy like you!” the coachman returned.

  “Best return to the carriage, Miss Beaumont. I’ll settle this and rejoin you in a trice,” Lieutenant Standish said and gestured to the footman. “You, sir, give me the reins and help Miss Beaumont up.”

  Clarissa waved the footman off, her attention captured by the look of absolute desperation on the grimy face of the struggling girl. “Whatever were you about, miss? You could have been killed!”

  “Don’t pay ’er no mind, ma’am,” the woman abandoned her hostilities with the coachman to make Clarissa a quick curtsey. “Right willful she is, but I promised her dear ma afore she died I’d train her up right, and so I shall.”

  “Train me up right?” the girl suddenly spoke up, her tone near-hysterical. “To be a baud like ye? How dare the likes of ye speak of a godly woman like me ma? No!” she screamed, kicking at the coachman as he attempted to grab her. “Leave me be! Better to be trampled than go back!”

  The painted woman darted past the coachman to deal the girl a stinging slap. “Dontcha lissen to her ravin’, missie,” she told Clarissa as she retreated again out of John Coachman’s reach. “Girl don’t know enough not to bother ’er betters. You jest git yer coachman to let me ’ave ’er and you can be on yer way.”

  The dark square, the tattered, sleazy dress and the girl’s anguish called up disturbing memories of Clarissa’s own struggle in the alley not far from this very spot. A shudder went through her and the fine hair at the back of her neck raised. “John Coachman, stand aside.”

  “Really, Miss Beaumont, I must insist you return—”

  “If you would do something useful, Lieutenant, restrain that…woman. I will speak to the girl.”

  Aiming a triumphant look at the painted woman, who shrilled her disapproval of the proceedings, the coachman stepped away. The lieutenant looked as if he meant to protest as well, but obligingly moved to guard the girl.

  After a sweeping glance at the lieutenant’s height and impressive uniform, the painted woman, still protesting loudly, gave ground.

  “Are you a runaway apprentice?” Clarissa asked.

  “No, ma’am. I’m just a country lass, come to work in the city. I never seen that woman afore the postin’ house where the Mail put in. She seemed so nice-like, offerin’ me tea and askin’ if I needed a ride somewheres. Next thing I knows I wake up in a strange house, all me things gone and me wearin’ a gown me ma would flay me alive for ever puttin’ on. And then a man come…” The girl’s eyes widened until the whites shone in the darkness. She choked on a sob and shook her head violently. “I won’t go back, I won’t! I’ll die first.”

  A small crowd was beginning to gather, their faces condemning as they looked at the girl in the tawdry dress.

  “Send ’er back, I say,” one man called.

  “Whore’s argument,” another offered. “Let the bauds settle it out of sight of decent folk.”

  “That’s right, listen to ’im,” the painted woman told Clarissa, then snarled, “snotfaced weasel” at the man.

  Would such people have condemned her, ignored her cries for help that night, had they come upon her unescorted and struggling with a man who proclaimed her a whore? Revulsion and sympathy coursed through Clarissa, then coalesced into firm purpose.

  “Would you come with me?” she asked the girl.

  For a moment silence fell, even the rouged woman looking at Clarissa with mouth agape.

  “No one shall hurt you, I promise. And I will take you wherever you want to go.”

  The girl glanced up, her frantic eyes searching Clarissa’s. After a moment, she whispered, “Aye.”

  “Here now, ye can’t be stealin’ me apprentice—”

  “Take it up with the magistrate,” Clarissa snapped.

  The painted woman continued to object, the bystanders voiced loud and conflicting opinions, her coachman remonstrated. Even the lieutenant, his voice incredulous, asked “Miss Beaumont, are you sure you want to do this?”

  “With—or without your help, Lieutenant.”

  He lifted an eyebrow, but snapped her a salute. “Then I’m at your service, ma’am.”

  Grateful for his support, Clarissa gave him a brilliant smile. “See her settled in the carriage, if you please. Then John Coachman, I should like to proceed.”

  “To the theatre?” the coachman gasped.

  “Of course not. Back home. Miss—”

  “Maddie, ma’am. Maddie Gray.” Still clutching the reins, the girl bobbed a curtsey.

  “Will you release my horses and come with me, Maddie?”

  For another moment the girl clung to the leather wrapped around her hands, as if it were her lifeline out of perdition. Then she nodded and slowly loosened her grip. As the girl unraveled the reins, Clarissa saw red dripping from the deep grooves the straps had cut into her hands.

  The lieutenant shook his head at Clarissa as he waved the girl to the carriage. “In with you now, Maddie Gray.”

  The footman, who’d gone still as stone, finally recovered himself and sprang to open the door. A few moments later, leaving the baud’s outraged shouts and the exclamations of the crowd behind, Clarissa, Lieutenant Standish and their unusual passenger set off.

  With a dazed look in eyes that stared, unfocused, into the distance, Maddie huddled at the edge of the seat, thin arms wrapped around herself to conceal the plunging bodice of the gown. She was shivering, Clarissa realized. When she put a hand to the girl’s shoulder to offer her cloak, the lass started violently and recoiled. Clarissa drew in her breath, a sharp ache of compassion in her chest.

  Had I not been rich Miss Beaumont of Grosvenor Square, had I been a poor girl from the country that night in the square, this might be me.

  “Here,” Clarissa said, unlacing the ties of her evening cloak. “You are freezing. Wear this.”

  Lieutenant Standish stayed her hand. “Allow me.” Quickly he pulled off his wool jacket, stripping it down over his useless hand with surprising speed. “Would you take this, Maddie?”

  It seemed to take a moment for his words to penetrate. Then dismay registered in Maddie’s eyes. “Oh no, sir, I couldn’t! I’m…I’m so dirty, I’ll muss yer fine coat.”

  “Nonsense.” Waving off her protests, the lieutenant draped the garment over her shoulders. “It’s seen a good deal worse than dirt, I assure you. Now, would you tell us what happened? You’re not a runaway apprentice, are you?”

  The girl laid her cheek against the thick wool and closed her eyes, as if grateful for the simple gift of its warmth. Clarissa’s chest contracted again. Maddie sighed and a single tear tracked down the dirt of her cheek.

  “Nay. ’Twas as I said. Pa’s a farmer on a freehold next to Lord Willoughby’s in Hampshire and me ma is a housekeeper there. She trained me up to be a maid, but I wanted—” her voice trailed off and she swallowed “—I wanted somethin’ more. Me cousin’s a maid here in the city, and I figured if’n I could get a start here, and worked hard, I might be a lady’s maid someday.”

  “Perhaps you shall,” Clarissa said.

  Maddie turned toward her eyes dull with the loss of hope. “Not likely now.”

  As Clarissa had no ready answer to that, she was grateful when Lieutenant Standish intervened. “Where would you like us to take you? To your cousin?”

  Maddie simply stared straight ahead, as if she had not heard. The lieutenant started to repeat the question when she finally said, “I don’t know. I can’t go to Ginnie’s—look at me! No respectable house would have me now. And I can’t go back home. It would kill Ma, and Pa would—” She chok
ed back a sob. “Reckon you might leave me at Lunnon Bridge. ’Tis naught but the river for such as m-me.”

  After those words, the last of them uttered in a bare whisper, Maddie laid her face on her hands and began to weep, her thin shoulders shaking.

  Clarissa felt her heart contract. The girl was hardly more than a child. To think of her tricked, abducted, ruined, and in such despair that she contemplated ending her own life filled Clarissa with outraged fury.

  Heedless of the girl’s grimy condition, Clarissa gathered her close. “There now, you mustn’t give up! We shall think of something.”

  Though she made no attempt to pull herself from Clarissa’s grasp, Maddie’s weeping continued unabated. Patting her back and making soothing sounds, Clarissa held the sobbing girl.

  “What will you do with her?” the lieutenant asked.

  “Take her home with me, I suppose. I cannot leave her wandering about the streets for that baud or,” with a shudder she recalled the hulking man in the freize coat, “someone even worse to discover.”

  “And then? Though one could hardly blame her for what happened, I doubt your household staff will be any better disposed to accept her than the one that employs her cousin. Surely there are institutions for such folk.”

  “None that I know of, save the workhouse. Would you have me send this frail scrap of a girl to such a place?” she asked with a flash of anger.

  “I suppose not,” he admitted.

  It was so unfair, that though Maddie wasn’t at fault, the simple fact of what she had been forced to do would forever taint her.

  But that wasn’t the lieutenant’s fault either, and she shouldn’t have lashed out at him. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, I didn’t mean to be sharp. I appreciate your assistance more than I can say. And you’re right, my own staff will probably disdain her as well. However, they know better than to disobey a direct order, so disapprove or not, tend Maddie they shall. Which will likely result in a domestic scene you can’t wish to witness. Shall I have John Coachman drop you by your rooms?”