Page 20 of Fortune Favors the Frivolous (Matchmaking Mischief Makers #2)
“Y our aunt is keeping to her bed rather late, Miss Playford, is she not?”
Venetia kept her head down and her voice steady as she replied, “Aunt Pike does like to conserve her energy during long journeys.” She stirred her tea with deliberate slowness, avoiding the piercing gaze directed at her from across the table.
“For she is, as I have known her, a generally busy, rather early-to-rise sort of woman. Would you not agree?”
Venetia raised her teacup and smiled at the abominable woman across the table from her. With an effort, she managed to keep the liquid in the porcelain cup from spilling.
How had she found herself in such a situation? She was exhausted, her traveling dress was crumpled from all those hours of close confinement in Lord Windermere’s carriage, and she was sure she must smell of horse from her race across the countryside with Henry.
Mrs. Gascoyne didn’t seem to notice. The sunlight streaming through the inn’s windows caught the silver threads in her hair, giving her the deceptive appearance of a benevolent matron.
Did the woman believe her? Or did she suspect that Aunt Pike was not in the bedchamber from which Venetia exited with Henry into the passage, and now she was determined to trap Venetia, like a cat toying with a cornered mouse?
“Aunt Pike did complain of a megrim when she went to bed,” Venetia said artfully, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle from her sleeve. “Maybe I should check on her and see if she needs anything.”
“Oh, I’m sure she’d have sent a message down if that were the case.” Mrs. Gascoyne waved Venetia back into her chair, her bony fingers fluttering imperiously. “Or perhaps I could go up and lend a sympathetic ear if she’s feeling so poorly.”
“Oh, there’s really no need,” Venetia protested as sweetly as she could.
She’d certainly learned a lot over the past three years when such an offer under such circumstances would have had her sweating and choking on her response.
“Aunt Pike can get a little testy when she’s not feeling up to snuff.
I shall ask the innkeeper’s wife if she could make up a soothing posset, perhaps. ”
“Yes, that would be a kind thing to do for a kind woman. Mrs. Pike is so very considerate to all others. A godly woman, wouldn’t you say?” Mrs. Gascoyne’s eyes narrowed slightly, her lips pursed in an expression that suggested she was already certain of the answer.
Venetia thought her aunt the last thing from a godly woman she could think of, but she managed a muted, “I believe people are always very different amongst their nearest—”
“And their dearest. And that is what you are, is that not so, my dear Miss Playford? You are your aunt’s closest living relative and, having no children of her own, it must have been a great comfort to her to know she had you to look after her in her twilight years.
I had supposed that a gel like you would not marry, having not been endowed with a fortune.
” She hesitated, her fingers drumming a slow rhythm on the tablecloth.
“But then the events of last night. Well, I’d feared my husband had jumped to conclusions, having seen you in company with the young gentleman Mr. Ashworth—”
“Well, now, I’m afraid it was rather jumping to conclusions since I only met Mr. Ashworth here while Aunt Pike and I were already staying here.
A great coincidence it was indeed, for his sister, Charlotte, is a very great friend of mine.
” Venetia smiled with what she hoped was convincing innocence, though her heart fluttered like a trapped bird against her ribs.
“And as Mr. Ashworth was in such a hurry to expedite a very important personal matter, I’m not entirely sure he understood properly what was being insinuated. ”
“Oh, he certainly did. And if you want to keep it secret for now, then our lips are sealed until it’s made public.
But, my dear…” Mrs. Gascoyne leaned her whole body across the table.
“I’ve no doubt your aunt is delighted you’ve won the interest of a man of such considerable prospects as Mr. Ashworth.
” She hesitated, and her eyes narrowed. “And I’m sure she sanctioned your meeting with him last night, as she was no doubt offering all the required chaperonage.
But she has not been well, has she?” Mrs. Gascoyne cleared her throat and went on, haltingly.
“What I mean to say is… Has your aunt warned you of the dangers of consorting with young men like Mr. Ashworth when she is not physically present?”
Venetia widened her eyes as if the suggestion of liberties was front of mind and something she was at great pains to avoid.
“She has, naturally , but as I said, Mr. Ashworth’s sister is a dear friend of mine.
Really, it is not quite as it appears for Mr. Ashworth happened to be looking in on Aunt Pike when you saw us in the passage, for I had just come out to say goodbye…
at Aunt Pike’s request. I’m afraid… well, Mr. Ashworth is indeed a very eligible potential suitor, but he is not, in fact, my suitor.
Really, he was simply doing a kindness to Aunt Pike, being coincidentally at the same inn.
” The lie tasted bitter on her tongue, but Venetia kept her expression placid.
Mrs. Gascoyne pushed back her chair suddenly, the legs scraping harshly against the wooden floor, and hailed one of the young serving girls who had been hovering near the doorway.
“Enough of this talk about your poor aunt when I know she would be down if she were well. We will ask the kitchen to make a posset and we will take it up to Mrs. Pike and reassure both ourselves that she is well.”
“Oh, really, Mrs. Gascoyne, that won’t be necessary. Did your husband not say he wanted to be on the road shortly?” Venetia’s voice took on a note of desperation that she couldn’t quite disguise.
Mrs. Gascoyne shook her head, her look serene though her eyes were sharp with suspicion. “I do not believe he said anything of the sort, so I can’t imagine where you got that from, my dear. No, let us go up together and see your poor Aunt Pike.”
“But—”
“She will not mind when she sees it is her old friend, Mrs. Gascoyne. And my husband does like a ramble in the countryside when he has the chance. A great bird watcher, is Mr. Gascoyne. And a great upholder of virtue, too, so he will not think of us departing from this inn before we have satisfied ourselves that you are in safe hands, which means ensuring that your aunt is well enough to see that all is right with you, young lady.” She rose, fixing a brook-no-argument look upon Venetia, her thin frame vibrating with moral conviction.
“Come now, we’re going to see your Aunt Pike and I won’t hear another word. ”
“But the posset—” Venetia made one last, feeble attempt at delay.
“Yes, we’ll organize for one to be brought up by and by. However, my concerns are rapidly rising that if your aunt truly was in sufficiently good health to look after you, she’d be well and truly up by now.”
Miserably, Venetia trailed after the woman who’d taken on the self-appointed de facto role of moral arbiter in Venetia’s affairs and who set up an interminable chatter all the way up the stairs about the godly works of the godly Mrs. Pike until Venetia feared she might scream.
Her footsteps on the wooden stairs felt like a slow march to the gallows.
If Mrs. Gascoyne had only spent one week in Venetia’s position, she’d know that Aunt Pike was mean-spirited and that she thrived on malicious gossip and anything that would diminish the respect and dignity of the underlings in her household, namely Venetia, but also of the cowed servants who lived there.
The woman’s thin smiles always preceded her cruelest remarks.
For three years, Venetia had been hoping to meet a nice gentleman who was able to discount the fact she came with no dowry and for whom she felt more than a faint feeling of affinity.
There had been Mr. Bilby who had seemed promising in the beginning but who’d decided he really did need her to come with a dowry.
And then, just a few months later, she’d met the most charming and engaging Mr. Barnett during a provincial assembly she’d attended with her aunt.
His warm brown eyes and gentle manner had made her heart skip when they’d danced.
He, too, was not sufficiently plump in the pocket—Aunt Pike’s words—to support Venetia in a manner that would not harm Aunt Pike’s reputation, and the romance had consequently been nipped in the bud.
But he had been a very nice man and even just thinking about him made Venetia’s heart beat a little more rapidly.
Just as it was now as, with heavy footsteps, she followed Mrs. Gascoyne up the stairs.
Soon her lie would be revealed, and then what would happen?
Mrs. Gascoyne took almost as malicious a delight as her aunt in condemning moral transgressions.
And she would most certainly see the fact that Venetia was alone at an inn as a moral transgression.
In fact, not only was Venetia alone at an inn, but she’d been seen walking out of a bedchamber alone with a young gentleman.
Her skin prickled with dread. Even if there had been talk of a betrothal between them, it was still a moral transgression for a young lady to be alone with a man.