Petticoat Rebellion (4 page)

“In a manner of speaking,”
she replied vaguely, for to tell him she was visiting Penfel might give him an unrealistic notion of her social status. She was only there as a working guest.

As they moved beyond the throng, he stepped up beside her and glanced down at her in a flirtatious manner. “But how intriguing! You must be visiting the vicar. I heard he had a niece visiting.”

“Why do you think that?”

His bold eyes darted over her bonnet, her gown, and back up to her eyes. “An educated guess.”

So that was his assessment of her toilette! Suitable for a vicar’s niece. Well, at least he had not taken her for a schoolmistress. “No, I am not acquainted with the local vicar.”

“Would your host be Mr. Rogers, the solicitor?”
he ventured. She ignored him. “One more guess. One is always allowed three shots in the fairy tales. I have it! You are Sir Harry Felcombe’s new governess!”

“Actually, I am a guest at Penfel Hall,”
she said, omitting “in a manner of speaking”
this time.

His raised eyebrows suggested not only disbelief, but amusement. “The quality of guests at Penfel Hall has certainly improved since last I was there!”

She stopped and looked all around.

“What are you looking for?”
he asked.

“A dog.”

“Any particular dog, or do you merely have a fondness for strays?”

“An ugly brown mongrel, part hound.”
She spotted Kate and Annabelle, pulling Cuddles along by his collar. “Oh, there he is now!”
she said, and ran off without looking back.

The gentleman smiled bemusedly, then his huckleberry eyes turned to examine Kate and Annabelle with the keenest interest. It promised to be an interesting visit.

Using the pretext of Cuddles’s restlessness, Abbie eventually prevailed on Lady Penfel to return home, and take the girls with her. Only Lady Penfel rode in the dogcart; the others walked beside her. The talk was all of O’Leary, his handsome face, his manly physique, his friendly manner. Lady Penfel led the cheering section, which made discouraging this talk difficult.

“What I call a manly man,”
she said with obvious approval.

“Did you ever see such eyes?”
Kate sighed.

Even Lady Susan joined in the chorus. “He is one of those irresistible rogues, quite like Byron’s Corsair.”

“We weren’t allowed to read that!”
Annabelle said.

“Papa, the duke, has a copy at Wycliffe”
was Lady Susan’s reply. There was no arguing with this. What was done at Wycliffe was above reproach.

“Byron! How I should love to meet him!”
Lady Penfel cried. “Every lady ought to have one flirtation with a dasher like that.”

Abbie had a fleeting recollection of the gentleman in the beautiful jacket. What would it be like to have a flirtation with him? She felt it would spoil her for more ordinary gentlemen.

Lady Penfel did have one last, regretful caution, however. “O’Leary would make an excellent flirt, but you must not go falling in love with him,”
she said.

Abbie’s mouth fell open when Lady Susan said, “I disagree, Lady Penfel.”

“You are quite right, Susan, as usual. Such a sensible gel. He is exactly the sort one should fall in love with, but not marry. Why should men have all the fun of lovers and we ladies have none? We ought to set up a petticoat rebellion.”

When they reached Penfel, Miss Spadger, a stout woman of a certain age, had arrived and was unpacking for the ladies. Her hair was bound in such a tight knot on top of her head that it gave her slant eyes. She came to report to Abbie, whom she had known forever. Her sister worked for Colonel Fairchild, and Spadger occasionally gave them a hand when they were giving a party. She had already put an apron over her navy gown and a white cap over her brindle knob.

“May I have a word in private, Miss Fairchild?”
she said, ushering Abbie into her chamber. “I hear there is a circus going on. That will not make your job easy, my dear. You want to keep an eye on Miss Fenshaw. She is up to every rig and racket in town. And poor Miss Kirby! She would be easy pickings for one of those wretched fellows. She hasn’t the wits God gave a rabbit.”

Abbie felt free to speak frankly to this old friend. “The deuce of it is, Lady Penfel has no more sense than Miss Kirby. She is positively encouraging the girls to make cakes of themselves. You must help me keep an eye on them, Spadger.”

“Aye, and I want to see that show tonight as well. Sifton tells me they have all got tickets. But I’ll see to the ladies’
toilettes before I go, and be back in time to get them into their beds, never fear. You are to dine early, as the circus begins at seven. Now, what will you wear for dinner, dear?”

“The dark green gown, but I can take care of myself. You had best go to Lady Susan or she will be in the boughs.”

Spadger went bustling out the door. Abbie put on  her dark green moire gown. It was simply cut to cling to her figure. As she prepared in front of the mirror, she thought it looked rather well with her chestnut hair and hazel eyes. Knowing she would be wearing a bonnet to the circus later, she left her hair in its usual simple arrangement. A bonnet would crush her coiffure if she tried anything fancy. Before leaving her room, she added her necklace, an antique chain of gold links with pendant flowers, set with emerald chips.

At five to seven, Abbie went to collect the girls, who had gathered in Lady Susan’s chamber. They looked like a bouquet of spring flowers in their pastel gowns of modest design and their fresh faces. Young ladies were not allowed to display their shoulders at Miss Slatkin’s Academy. That treat must wait until they made their debuts, but they were allowed to wear simple jewelry. Pearls were the favorite choice. Lady Susan’s pearls, however, were allowed to boast a pear-shaped diamond pendant.

“I shall remove my jewelry before we go to the circus,”
she said. “You should all do the same, ladies. There are bound to be cutpurses there.”

“Why can’t we wear our jewelry, if it’s only purses they cut?”
Annabelle asked.

“It is not only purses they cut, Belle,”
Lady Susan explained. “They are common thieves.”

“I should love to meet a cutpurse!”
Kate said, smiling at such a delightful notion.

Abbie felt a sense of anticipation at the prospect of her first dinner in such a stately home as she led the girls down the gracefully curved staircase, with the marble floor gleaming below. The girandole overhead threw dancing diamond reflections on the marble. She envisaged a vast display of silver and crystal on the table, with footmen lurking at every shoulder and dainty dishes whose ingredients and manner of eating would be a mystery. What never occurred to her was that there would be anyone but themselves for dinner.

When she led the ladies into the saloon, she stopped and emitted an audible gasp. It was him! The lecher from the circus, sitting with Lady Penfel and making himself very much at home. He looked exquisite in a burgundy jacket, with a largish diamond pin sparkling amid the folds of his cravat. His jetty hair and swarthy complexion held some suggestion of the gypsy. Who could he be? She looked about, half fearing O’Leary would be lurking in some corner, but at least he was not there. When she returned her gaze to the stranger, he had lifted his quizzing glass and was studying the girls. As she looked, the glass turned in her direction and stopped.

“Surprise!”
Lady Penfel cried, smiling from ear to ear, and looking more like a lightskirt than ever in a royal purple silk gown that displayed several inches of wrinkled chest that a large diamond necklace did not begin to conceal. “Algie has come home to see the circus.”

Lord Penfel rose and bowed to the ladies. His laughing eyes turned to Miss Fairchild, the quizzing glass held in midair now. “I have been looking forward to this,”
he said. “The ladies were strangely reluctant to reveal their names in the meadow this afternoon. Now, which one, I wonder, can be the schoolmistress?”

“She is the old one,”
Annabelle said nodding at Abbie. Kate pinched her. “Ouch! Oh, do I mean the older one? Older than us.”

“Older than we,”
Lady Susan corrected her.

“Caparisons are odious, ladies,”
Lord Penfel chided, and redirected his gaze to Abbie.

As they approached Lady Penfel, Abbie noticed two other young gentlemen standing by the closer fireplace, talking. One was still in his teens, to judge by his coltish appearance. He was tall and slender, all arms and legs and awkward movements. When he had outgrown his adolescence, he would be handsome. He had something of the look of Penfel around the eyes, and the same dark hair. The other was an older, altogether less prepossessing gentleman with blond hair. A pair of spectacles perched on the end of his nose lent him a bookish air, though his shoulders were broad. The two gentlemen stopped talking and turned to examine the ladies as they entered, then went forward to meet them.

Lady Susan was not tardy to put herself at the front of the line to greet her cousins. Always a demon for propriety, she greeted the older brother first. “Penfel,”
she said. “I had not heard you were to be here. I thought you were at Lewes. Is one to assume Lady Eleanor rejected your offer?”

Penfel’s jaws worked in silent annoyance. “We found we did not suit. Kind of you to ask. Delightful to see you again, Susan.”
It did not help his mood when he noticed Miss Fairchild biting back a smile—not of welcome, but of amusement at the public announcement of his jilting.

Penfel presented his brother, Lord John, and his tutor, Mr. Singleton, who was some tenuous relation, a second or third cousin.

Abbie stared to learn that this awkward young cousin was the man who had written so
haughtily, denying her access to the da Vinci cartoons. She had pictured A. Singleton as an older, austere gentleman who delighted in thwarting her wishes. She had also understood he was Lord Penfel’s secretary, but very likely he filled dual functions at the Hall.

“Johnnie will be going up to Oxford in the autumn,”
his proud mama announced. “If Singleton can ram Latin and Greek into his head,”
she added.

Lord John was smiling a bewitched smile in Kate Fenshaw’s direction.

“Poor you!”
Kate said to him. “I hate Latin and Greek worse than blood pudding.”

Mr. Singleton made a demurring sound in his throat at this heresy. He was a better communicator with pen and paper than with the spoken word. When ladies were present, he did most of his communicating without actually opening his mouth. Once he had muttered, “Happy to make your acquaintance,”
he seemed to fall mute. It was a malady common to tutors and governesses when they were allowed into their employers’
company for a purely social occasion.

“You seemed curious about our schoolmistress,”
Susan said to Penfel. She was a lady much burdened with facts, but not much attuned to people’s feelings. She presented her school friends first, however, as she knew a schoolmistress was only a servant, whereas she and the students were well-dowered ladies. “And this is Miss Fairchild,”
she ended, nodding to Abbie.

“Fairchild?”
he asked, frowning.

Abbie assumed his mama had used some other name. “Fairchild,”
she said, loud and clear.

He gazed into her eyes while a slow smile grew on his lips. “The sins of the parents ought not to be visited on the children—even those older than ten,”
he added, to remind her of their meeting at the tent. “I am not the one who called you Fairychild. You must not hold me to account for the misdeeds of others. No doubt I shall have plenty of my own to account for soon enough.”

Abbie steeled herself against his insidious charm. “You need not feel any need to account to me. You are not one of my pupils.”

“One never knows. We might teach one another something,”
he replied. “I have never been much good at writing, for instance. Singleton is kind enough to be my scribe.”
The words were innocent enough, but the mischief in his eyes left no doubt that he was flirting. Did he know she was the one who had written asking to see the cartoons? She was surprised he would remember her name. Abbie was not accustomed to flirting, certainly not in front of her girls, and especially not with such a dasher as Lord Penfel. With a warm flush rising up her throat to color her cheeks, she turned aside in confusion to speak to Kate.

“Let us eat,”
Lady Penfel said, giving her hand to Lord John to assist her from her comfortable seat. “We don’t want to be late for the circus. I have not seen a circus since I sneaked out on Penfel and went to Astley’s Circus in London. Goodness, it must be more than a decade ago. How you loved the ladies in white face and short skirts, eh, Algie?”

“Ladies in any guise, especially short skirts,”
he murmured.

“And that funny little monkey, Jacko,”
Lord John said.

“And Grimaldi!”
his mama cried, smiling in fond memory. “No, that was at Sadler’s Wells. We took you lads for Johnnie’s sixth birthday. How he had us roaring with laughter at his stunts.”

“What stunts do you do, Lord John?”
Annabelle asked.

Abbie noticed Penfel’s eyebrows rise with interest as he studied Annabelle. He did not laugh at her; she sensed he was just interested in originals of any sort.

It was Kate who laughed. “Lady Penfel meant Grimaldi, Belle,”
she explained.

“Oh. Who is Grimaldi?”

“He was a clown,”
Lord John explained.

Lady Penfel went chattering toward the dining room. “I loathe all that precedence stuff and nonsense, wondering whether a duke’s eldest son precedes an earl, and a duke’s daughter a baroness. As to bishops! What a problem they are, so sensitive of their honors. A batch of schoolgirls will not care about all that stuff.”

Lady Susan apparently cared. The duke’s daughter glided forward and attached herself like a limpet to Penfel’s arm for the trip along the corridor and around the corner to the table. Lord John latched on to Kate. Singleton’s spectacles glinted in Abbie’s direction. She pushed Annabelle forward and walked in last with Lady Penfel. Without waiting to be asked, Lady Susan took the place of honor at her host’s right hand. By some silent ocular message, she indicated to Kate that she was to sit at Penfel’s left hand. Lord John quickly took the seat beside Kate, and the others found places around the board, with their hostess at the foot of the table. Abbie sat beside Mr. Singleton, with Lady Penfel at her right hand.