Page 4 of A Hint of Scandal (The Mismatched Lovers #2)
M aria had sent servants on ahead to organize the opening up of Westbury House in Cavendish Square so, when the considerable equipage arrived from Wiltshire at the end of January, their London butler, Allsop, was waiting on the front steps to welcome them.
Julian had, without much difficulty, been persuaded to remain at Bratton Park under the care of Dr. Ellison, in whom Maria appeared to invest great faith. The dowager had decided, at the last minute of course and with Dr. Ellison’s assurances that her oldest son would be well cared for in her absence, that she would accompany her daughter-in-law to Town in order to renew her acquaintances amongst the older ladies of the ton . Although Max harbored a strong suspicion that her real intent was to ensure he found himself a suitable spouse.
So the party consisted of the dowager, Maria, Max and Arabella in the largest carriage, as well as in a second, lesser vehicle, maids for each of the three ladies, Watkins, who was Max’s ex-soldier-servant and now valet, and Mrs. Larkin, the cook from the Dower House at Bratton Park. This latter was because the dowager insisted she couldn’t do without a cook she knew. And behind these two carriages trundled a vehicle containing everyone’s luggage.
The servants’ carriage delivered them to the mews at the back of the house, whereas the carriage bearing the family arrived at the front door just as evening fell and the typical London fog that Max remembered from his boyhood came crawling up the street and into the square.
A liveried footman hurried out to lower the step for the ladies, and Max waited inside the carriage while they descended. A number of weeks had passed since he’d committed himself to escorting the Aubrey ladies for the Season, and he’d grown a little more used to managing everything one-handed. The footman, who no doubt had been briefed by his mother, and possibly by Allsop as well, held out a hand to assist him, but Max waved him away. He wasn’t an invalid yet, even if he looked like he might be, and it grated on him when he was treated as such.
The lamplighter was just in the act of lighting the lamps in the square, their golden light illuminating not just the cobbled road but also the wide garden in the center. Max had stayed here while he’d visited the useless London doctors his army surgeon had recommended to him last autumn.
Allsop, waiting beside the wide front door, bowed to him as he followed the ladies inside. “Good evening, Captain Aubrey. I trust his lordship remains well?”
Max pulled a face. “As well as can be expected, Allsop. Which is why I’m back again. It falls to me to take on his duties and escort the ladies about Town. And no doubt my mother will want to host something here as well.” He heaved a resigned sigh.
Allsop’s gaze lingered for a moment on Max’s arm where it hung in its sling. “If I can be of any assistance, Captain?”
Max shook his head. “Since last I saw you, I’ve grown used to doing everything one-handed, thank you. And Watkins serves me well. I’ll see the ladies settled and then dress for dinner, if you can send Watkins up to me, please.”
Allsop bowed his grizzled head. “Very well, Captain.”
Watkins, who’d been Max’s soldier-servant throughout his military career and had risen to the heady rank of lance-corporal, had already laid out Max’s evening wear on the bed. So Allsop didn’t need to send him up.
“Everything to your liking here?” Max asked, as he divested himself of his sling and Watkins helped him out of his coat. Damn that arm, hanging there by his side like some unwanted appendage. He’d often thought the surgeon would have been better advised to just hack it off. Then it wouldn’t keep on getting in the way. But the musket ball that had severed the nerves and damaged his right shoulder hadn’t sufficiently damaged the arm itself, and the surgeon had worked hard not to have to amputate. “You’re a very lucky fellow,” he’d told Max. “Most musket ball damage I see ends in amputation. Or gangrene. Don’t ever think you’re not blessed by the gods.” As if that could ever be true.
Watkins nodded. “Everything is shipshape and running smoothly below stairs, Captain. I’m pleased to say that Mr. Allsop runs a tight ship and keeps everyone on their toes. I foresee no problems during your stay.” He helped Max into his breeches, something which Max had discovered was nigh on impossible to do one-handed. The ignominy of not being able to fasten one’s breeches oneself wasn’t lost on him.
Watkins, ever tactful, fastened the fall on the breeches for him and reached for his smart evening coat. He held it out for Max to thread his useless arm into the right sleeve using his left hand, then slip his good arm into the other sleeve. Max shifted his shoulders to make sure it was comfortable, and put his sling back on again. A glance at his watch told him it was time to go downstairs for dinner with the ladies.
Less than half a mile away in Great Titchfield Street, and at very much the same time, the Gilbert family were arriving at the house Ogden had secured for them for the duration of the London Season. Theirs, however, was not quite such a well-orchestrated arrival. The party consisted of Sir Ogden and Lady Gilbert, Letty and Serafina, accompanied by just two maids and Sir Ogden’s dour-faced valet, Moorcroft. Lady Gilbert had not thought to send any of their servants from Milford House on ahead and, when they arrived, they found the house shut up and cold. Clearly their landlord had not thought fit to provide them with any household servants to speak of, apart from an elderly and very deaf old lady dressed all in black who appeared to be the housekeeper.
“Where are all the other servants?” Lady Gilbert asked, in the tone of someone who was used to an army of them, which wasn’t at all true, as they made do at Milford with as few as possible. To save money.
“Eh?” replied the old lady, one hand to her ear. “Speak up, can’t you? I’m a little hard of hearing.”
That was an understatement.
“I said,” Lady Gilbert enunciated every word a little more loudly and clearly. “Where are the other servants?”
The woman, her gray hair scraped back from her wrinkled face in a neat bun, frowned in concentration. “Your servants are in the kitchen. I sent them down there.”
Ogden stepped in. “Not our servants, my good woman. The ones that normally keep this house up and running. A footman at least, if not a butler, a few housemaids, a cook. Where are they?”
As he had a deeper voice than his wife, possibly the housekeeper could hear him better. Her eyes brightened in understanding. “Oh, my master doesn’t keep a horde of servants here when the house isn’t let out.” She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “He leaves it to whoever takes the house to organize their own staff. Didn’t he tell you that in his letter?”
Serafina and Letty exchanged glances. “Home from home,” Letty whispered. “I bet there aren’t any fires lit.”
As the house possessed the unlived-in chill of long emptiness, Letty was probably correct in that surmise.
Serafina looked about herself with a critical eye. The house was not large. That much had been evident from the street, with only a single sash window to the left and right of the front door, and three floors rising above that. Five altogether if you counted the basement that must house the kitchen and servants’ hall. The empty servants’ hall.
Araminta also looked about herself and tutted. She did not look impressed.
The tiled front hallway was not large, with doors opening to either side, and a less than magnificent set of stairs rising to the floor above. The house of a middling merchant once, perhaps. But Ogden had never seen the point in keeping a house permanently in London, as the family so rarely journeyed there from Berkshire. When he had occasion to visit himself, a few times a year, he stayed at his club every time.
“Tell her she will need to set about hiring servants for us. Immediately.” Araminta’s voice reflected the strain she must be feeling. “And that she will need to prepare dinner for us tonight. Tell her we’re used to dining at six.”
Ogden for a moment looked as though he might like to suggest that his wife should tell the housekeeper herself, as the woman was standing right there, but wariness got the better of him. He relayed this message to the housekeeper in as loud a voice as possible, and with a shrug of her thin shoulders and a resigned expression of annoyance, off she went to comply. Hopefully. It was always possible what she’d gone off to do was sulk at the imposition of having to cook.
“Goodness knows whether there’s even any food in the house,” Araminta snapped. “Now, girls. Upstairs to find your rooms and see if Roberts is unpacking your clothes.”
Serafina and Letty took advantage of this command to absent themselves from the hall, hurrying up the murky staircase to the next floor. Visibility wasn’t helped by the fact that the windows were all shuttered. A lot of the furniture was still swathed in dust sheets, as though no one had known which day they were to be arriving, if at all. Or that the housekeeper was lax in her duties, which seemed more likely.
“The parlor,” Hetty said, peering inside the first doorway.
Serafina tried the other side of the landing. “Library. Lots of books. That’s good.” Having worked her way through most of the books in what had once been her father’s library, a new set would be a boon.
Hitching up their skirts in a way Araminta would have condemned as unladylike, they ran up the next flight of stairs.
Hetty peered into a room on the right. “This must be Mama and Papa’s room. They won’t like the fact there’s only one bed. Mama says Papa snores far too loudly.”
Serafina pushed open the other door. Two beds. That would make a change. She and Hetty had been sharing a bed since Hetty had left the nursery six years ago. She crossed the room and unlatched the shutters. Folding them back revealed a long sash window with a view from the front of the house onto the foggy street below. The hired carriage that had brought them up from Berkshire had gone, but the street was busy with other types of vehicles, pedestrians and people hawking merchandise. Even at this time of day, it bustled with a vivid life that made her want to run outside and join in, only she had no pin money to spend on the gingerbread the girl across the road was selling, or the hot chestnuts a man further down was shouting about.
Hetty, who’d spent a minute bouncing on one bed after the other to test out their comfort, joined her at the window. “I can’t believe we’re actually here. London. And I’m going to go to real balls. I’m going to wear those beautiful gowns Mama had made for me and dance with handsome young gentlemen who will no doubt all fall head-over-heels in love with me.” She clasped her hands together under her chin. “And if I’m lucky, I won’t ever have to return to Milford and spend another winter nursing chilblains and looking forward to the hot brick in my bed at nights.”
Serafina nodded. “But nevertheless, you must promise me that you won’t accept the first offer you receive. If any young man makes an offer, you must tell me about it and we’ll decide together if he will suit. A little research into their background will be necessary before you commit yourself. After all, you don’t want to end up with a reckless gambler who never has any money to pay the household bills. Or a man who’s so tight-fisted he squeaks when he walks.”
Letty nodded with girlish vigor. “I promise. I shan’t be like the girls in any of the novels I read. I shall act with the greatest of prudence. And don’t worry. I have no intention whatsoever of ending up with a man like Papa.”
Serafina returned her gaze to the street, where already darkness was falling. Despite Letty’s promise, she had little faith in her living up to her words if she took a fancy to some handsome young man, suitable or not. Previous experience of her niece had led her to doubt she possessed much in the way of common sense. No one but Serafina knew, but Letty had nurtured a fledgling passion last autumn for the new young groom at Milford House, whose employment had perforce been very short-lived. Yes, he’d been abnormally handsome, but he’d also been a little too free in his manner, and Serafina had surprised him and Letty wrapped in one another’s arms in the carriage house one afternoon.
She’d threatened the young man in question with revealing all to Letty’s father if he didn’t resign his job, and he’d believed her. Which was just as well as she wouldn’t have told Ogden anything, as it would have entailed revealing Letty’s part in the fiasco. Which would in turn have meant that Letty would never have succeeded in persuading her parents to let her have a London Season if they’d known she’d compromised herself with a lowly groom. Serafina was almost but not quite certain the relationship had gone no further than the furtive embrace she’d disturbed, but with Letty’s impulsive, self-centered nature, one could never be completely sure.
A knock sounded on the bedroom door. Roberts came in holding a single candle, followed by Ogden’s valet with the girls’ trunks. Time to unpack and dress for dinner. Whatever that might entail.