Page 2 of Lady Ferocity (A Series of Senseless Complications #1)

A Remote Estate in the Yorkshire Dales, 1801

F elicity Nicolet, eldest daughter of the duke, pressed her finger over her lips at the six sisters trailing behind her. They had tiptoed down the stairs to listen at the drawing room doors.

Through the gap between the two doors, she could see Lady Marchfield pacing while her father lounged with his feet up.

“Lady Marching Orders is giving Papa another what-for,” she whispered to Grace.

Grace whispered the message to the twins—Patience and Serenity—who passed the message to Verity, who in turn told Winsome, who finally informed Valor.

Not a one of them was surprised, except perhaps Valor, who was generally surprised by everything. Their Aunt Penelope, known to the wider world as Lady Marchfield, had been giving out her complaints and orders since she’d set foot in the house.

The very first evening she’d arrived, the lady had been shocked that the girls all dined with their father. It was her opinion that Winsome and Valor should have their dinner in the nursery. As there was no nurse in the nursery, there was something faintly ridiculous about the idea.

Then, Lady Marchfield had been shocked when they’d all stayed on at table to keep the duke company while he sipped his port. Further, she’d been shocked at the modes of conversation that took place between them during that pleasant hour.

The duke would tell his daughters that he could not wait to see the backs of them. He’d outline his plan to foist every one of them onto the nearest foolish gentleman and, once gone, they’d better not even return home for Christmas.

They would loudly accuse him of being a terrible liar. Grace would launch a roll at his head, which was perfectly safe, as she was exceedingly clumsy and that item never came anywhere near him. She occasionally hit a footman, though they did not mind, as they’d made it a bit of a game to lay bets on who would be struck down.

All of the duke’s daughters enjoyed these encounters exceedingly. Well, except for Valor, who had just turned seven and was of a skittish and worry-prone temperament. She took everything to heart and could not seem to recall that they’d had the very same nonsensical conversation the evening before.

Valor would not go to sleep until she was assured once more that they would all come back for Christmas, even if they had to break the doors down. Patience would invariably tell Valor that they might break the doors down just for fun, though Valor never seemed particularly cheered by that idea.

Since that first night, Lady Marchfield insisted that all ladies must retire to the drawing room after dinner, while all gentlemen might stay at table with a glass of port. That was how things were done and it was high time the duke’s daughters learned it.

Their poor papa was left to get drunk quite alone.

“Roland,” Lady Marchfield went on, pacing the drawing room, “I very much fear that Felicity is not ready to go to Town. She has no polish, her playing is dreadful and really, the things she says… it would almost be better if she did not speak at all.”

“The house in Grosvenor Square has been opened and the dust shook out of it so we will go. Surely, some young fop will take her off my hands. Then, it’s just six to go—my dream is within reach!”

“Once again, you’ve drunk too much port.”

“Which is why I shouldn’t be left alone with the bottle!”

“I very much fear you do not know what you face in London. You have been too isolated here, the girls have grown up like heathens. Why do they have their own fowling pieces? Why do they ride those Dales ponies as if they were on a military campaign? Why did I find a decanter of Canary in Felicity’s bedchamber?”

Felicity, whose nickname was Ferocity for very good reason, began to get very hot. Everybody knew she liked a half-glass of Canary before bed.

“Heathens, smeathens,” the duke said dismissively. “They have guns to shoot with, the horses in this part of the world like to get going and not dawdle around, and everybody knows Felicity likes a half-glass of Canary before bed. They’ve all got dowries and none of them look like a monster, that ought to do it.”

“For heaven’s sake. May I enquire what you intend to do with the youngers while we are in Town? You cannot possibly leave them alone with Mrs. Right, they run roughshod over the woman.”

“I’d never leave them with the housekeeper, that poor lady can barely stand the sight of them.”

Felicity slapped a hand over her mouth. Her father was an inveterate liar, usually for his own amusement. They were all very fond of Mrs. Right, and she them.

“They’ll all come with us, of course,” the duke said.

“To Town? All of them?” Lady Marchfield asked with incredulity.

“To Town or Timbuktu, one or the other, I leave it to you to select the destination. With that collection of girls, who really cares where we end up?”

“Do not be ridiculous,” Lady Marchfield said. “Now, I must also insist you hire a butler. It will not do to have the footmen trying to manage everything.”

“They manage nothing. Mrs. Right is the general in the servants’ hall.”

“Mrs. Right, affronting creature that she is, cannot answer your door in London, though she makes so bold to do so here. Fortunately, you live in the middle of nowhere, and few people are aware of the aberration.”

“Is there something wrong with the Grosvenor Square doors? Do they not open properly? Do they stick? Will Mrs. Right have difficulty getting them open? I’ll have them repaired!”

“Really, Roland!” Lady Marchfield cried.

Felicity hopped up, as did the line of sisters behind her. They stole up the stairs and then down the corridor to Felicity’s room.

All of them knew by now that when Lady Marchfield cried, “Really, Roland!” she’d reached the end of her tether and would retire to her room to regroup.

They had closed the door to Felicity’s room and stayed quiet as Lady Marchfield huffed down the corridor and slammed her door behind her. Grace rang the bell to the servant’s hall, using the code for tea and biscuits. Two quick pulls for tea, a pause, then three quick pulls for the biscuits.

Mrs. Right, so recently impugned by Lady Marchfield, would manage to get it all up the back stairs without being caught out by the dragon.

They did not wait long, as that good lady had known perfectly well that they would ring for tea and biscuits. They’d already had a very weak tea in the drawing room, but Lady Marchfield did not feel that young people should be eating biscuits so late in the day. Fortunately, Mrs. Right was not one little bit frightened of their recently arrived houseguest.

As the housekeeper set up the tray, Valor said, “Our poor dear Mrs. Right, we must be parted from you as our father says we’re all to go to London.” Valor paused, looking thoughtfully at the stuffed rabbit she dragged everywhere. “Who will check my room before I go to bed? Who will get rid of… you know.”

Mrs. Right, a sturdy and comfortable-looking woman, said, “Nightmares?”

Valor nodded sadly. Their youngest sister was prone to them, and then thinking about them afterward.

“What makes you think I’m not going?” Mrs. Right asked.

“Are you going?” Patience asked.

“Does the sun rise in the east?” Mrs. Right said with a chuckle.

“Does it?” Valor asked, apparently never noticing which direction the sun rose.

“It does, Valor,” Verity said. “Always, unless there is a cosmic disturbance and then it might not.”

“Liar,” Winsome said to Verity.

“Stop with all these clues!” Valor said. “Mrs. Right, are you really going?”

“Of course I am, you dear little mite. I would hardly leave you to face your nightmares alone.”

Valor whispered into her stuffed rabbit’s well-worn ear, apparently alerting her to the idea that Mrs. Right would be on the scene if they experienced any nightmares in Town. The rabbit, going by the name of Mrs. Wendover, stared into the distance with her black and dead button eyes. Of all the nightmares Valor had, Felicity sometimes wondered how Mrs. Wendover never featured in them. There was something inherently unsettling about that rabbit.

However, she could not give much thought to Mrs. Wendover now. The important thing was that Mrs. Right would go with them to London! Felicity did not really think her father would get his way in that, though she supposed she should have. Mrs. Right had been all but running the duke’s life since the butler left.

Always unhappy and beleaguered, Mr. Herring had some sort of breakdown of the mind one spring morning. He’d left in a house-shaking fury, shouting about how he would not tolerate the “duke’s tomfoolery, the disordered workings of the house, and the most wretched housekeeper in England.” That had been over five years prior.

“Does Lady Marchfield know you’re going?” Felicity asked with interest. The two women, as far as she could see, were like oil and water.

“I doubt it,” Mrs. Right said, “but she’ll find out soon enough. The duke will drop it on her when it suits him. Of course, it only makes sense that I go. Wasn’t I there in those early years when His Grace and the duchess used to go to Town for the season? Who else knows that house better than me?”

This bit of information was particularly interesting to Felicity. She had thought the only people who knew anything about London were her father and her aunt. The duke could not be trusted to tell her anything rational and Lady Marchfield only ever talked about manners and rules.

“You know what it’s really like!” Serenity said. “You must tell us, as we do not have the first clue about it.”

Mrs. Right poured herself a cup of tea, as she always did bring an extra cup just in case she was needed. Winsome jumped up from the nearest chair and the housekeeper settled comfortably in it.

“The stories I could tell,” Mrs. Right murmured.

She was immediately beset by pleadings and cajolings, which was rather a tradition. Mrs. Right liked a fuss to be made before she would spill a story.

“They’re different creatures, the ton that haunt London. Never in my life did I see so much prettiness on the outside and rottenness on the inside. Why, I remember a dinner at Pelham House where the Countess of Gentian said, ‘One hears the most alarming things these days.’”

Mrs. Right sipped her tea and nodded. It was abundantly clear that she’d never heard what the alarming thing was. Felicity was at a complete loss as to why that question was emblematic of rottenness on the inside.

Verity had nodded at Mrs. Right knowingly, though she was in the habit of pretending to know things she certainly did not.

Winsome’s brows knit. Valor had seemed to have lost track of the conversation now that the question of nightmares had been settled and put her attention on the tray of almond biscuits.

Grace shifted in her chair and promptly slid off of it, which was very usual and so could not be pinned on Mrs. Right’s opaque storytelling.

Serenity whispered to Patience. Patience nodded and asked, “What does it mean? What alarming thing?”

“Who knows? A sentence like that is a prelude,” Mrs. Right said. “Any lady who says that is really saying—‘I have terrible gossip to share but don’t want you to think I enjoy gossip so you better pull it out of me and then we will happily destroy another lady’s reputation.’”

“It never is,” Felicity said.

“It always is,” Mrs. Right said, nodding vigorously.

“What else?” Felicity asked. “What else do you know about London?”

“The gentlemen are feckless and the ladies are fan-waving furies,” Mrs. Right said, looking supremely satisfied to have condemned the whole town in one fell swoop.

It sounded to Felicity as if they ventured into a regular viper’s pit. “But why should Papa wish to go there if he already knows what it’s like?” she asked.

Mrs. Right set her cup down. “He’s as mad as a spring hare, isn’t he?”

“But what about our aunt?” Grace asked, having settled herself upright once more. “Why does she want to go?”

Mrs. Right sniffed into the air and said, “I reckon she’s one of ’em. I reckon she hears alarming things she’s determined to repeat all the day long when she’s in Town. She was a sour thing when she was young and she’s a sour thing now. London suits her.

*

Mr. Percy Stratton, eldest son of Viscount Denderby, was just now trapped in a conference with his mother and father. He was generally skilled at slipping in and out of the house unseen, but they had been lying in wait.

The dreaded conversation he’d known was coming had arrived. His father was determined that he marry. He was only twenty-four! Three of his friends had been roped into it so far. They did not seem to be having as much fun as they once had and what was left of his set had taken note—avoid the state for at least one more season.

“Now, I do have some requirements,” the viscount said. “As you are second generation and your grandfather was not a viscount all his life—”

“Stop reminding us all,” his wife said. “Nobody else will be able to forget it if we cannot.”

Percy’s grandfather had built a shipping concern that had done some small and some large favors for the crown. He had been rewarded with the title and an estate in Kent.

“I warn you!” the viscount said in a raised voice.

Percy could not imagine who the warning was for, as his mother only looked bored.

“As I said,” the viscount continued, “I have requirements. One, the lady must be decently titled. Do not present us with a Miss So-and-So, daughter of some lowly baronet or, God forbid, the daughter of a tight-lipped cleric. I don’t care if he’s a bishop! Two, choose one with a hefty dowry—the estate could use an infusion. Three, pick a comely girl, I cannot abide ugly offspring.”

The viscountess snorted. “You cannot abide ugly offspring—I’ve seen the portrait of you as a young child. It still gives me the shivers.”

As the viscount was brows-knit and attempting to think up some sort of retort that was not the usual “I warn you,” Percy was thinking as fast as he could for a way round this ghastly situation. Then it came to him.

“I quite agree with you, Father,” he said smoothly.

“Do you really?” his mother asked, with a look of surprise.

“Of course he does, it’s only good sense,” the viscount said, looking far more sanguine than he had been.

“The only wrinkle, if it is a wrinkle,” Percy said smoothly, “is that ladies coming with the lofty qualities we seek are not falling out of the trees. It may take some time. Naturally.”

The viscount’s brows drew even closer together and met at the top of his nose. Percy thought he may have chosen the wrong gambit.

“You’ve got the season,” the viscount said. “That’s it. Come summer, if there is not a bride on your arm, I’ll cut off your funds and throw you out and you can live penniless until I kick off.” The viscount pounded his chest. “Unfortunately for you, I am not planning to kick off any time soon!”

“Well that was dramatic,” the viscountess said. “You’ll probably want to ease up on the port if you’re planning on hanging about long-term.”

“I warn you!” the viscount shouted, his face getting very red.

Percy thought if there were one thing that would kill off his father, it would be his mother. Port would play a very secondary role. As for himself, he had no intention of marrying this season. However, he must placate his father. He must appear as if he were desperately trying.

How hard could that be? After all, there was no end of ways a courtship could seem to be going well and then suddenly take a disastrous turn.

Close calls, jilts, bad timing, bad luck, childhood sweethearts reappearing, diagnosis of the consumption, whispers of questionable parentage, dashing suitors sweeping in at the last moment, rumors of madness in the family line—and those debacles were only what he could think of off the top of his head, there must be hundreds more.

Any or all of those unfortunate circumstances must be his own to avoid a penniless summer trapped in Kent, living in a tent on his parents’ bowling lawn.

Mr. Percy Stratton must appear to be the most doomed and hapless suitor that had ever set foot in London, ending the season as a bachelor through no fault of his own.

*

Transporting one duke, seven daughters, one countess, a bevy of servants, and the piles of trunks associated with them from Yorkshire to London turned out to be not as straightforward as Felicity had imagined.

The proprietors of the various inns that this lumbering convoy descended upon learned an important lesson from the experience. Down to a man, they had hoped and dreamed that such an elevated personage as a duke might turn up someday.

It was a thing they might boast of—they could casually mention it to friends, nonchalantly recall conversations with that illustrious person, and they might even put up a plaque documenting the date of the rarified visit. Further, a duke’s rich friends might begin to stop there.

With prestige would come guests with deeper pockets. There was even the possibility of the prince himself coming. Their fortunes would be suddenly and gloriously on the rise.

Sadly, the sun had set rather rapidly on those happy imaginings, making way for hideously dark nights.

The inns in which the duke sought his repose were turned upside down—maids quit en masse, cooks tossed pots, waiters balled up their fists, grooms threw saddles, and innkeepers’ wives glared accusingly.

Lady Marchfield was never satisfied with the rooms, making the typical operation one of moving three times before going back to the original.

The duke appeared to despise his daughters and was forever vowing to unload them on the next passing stranger. The daughters themselves seemed to find this threat amusing. In response to it, one of those confounded offspring liked to throw rolls in the vague direction of her father, though those floury missiles never came anywhere near him and far too often broke a bottle on a shelf.

There was a diabolical housekeeper who insisted on examining the food stores and throwing out anything she considered not up to snuff. Which was most things.

The duke’s valet might be the only sensible person traveling with them, but what good was he? He said nothing and just backed away and disappeared whenever things seemed to be going in a bad direction.

The duke’s footmen seemed to think they were young lords on a grand tour of the continent, drinking to excess and vomiting in the yard.

Ordering dinner was an excruciating process in which the duke demanded everything that was not to be had. At times, he ordered things that could never be had. Why did he find it so amusing to demand he must have roasted brocabbage pie, which was advertised as a Yorkshire staple? And why was he so amused after a ten-minute discussion on what it was, only to inform the waiter that he’d made it up?

The entire operation was so much confusion that, at three different inns, one of the party had been left behind and had to be retrieved hours later. That one was all three times the youngest who would set to wailing, though why she had been hiding in a linen closet when the carriages departed, she could not say.

One innkeeper after the next learned that they had been entirely stupid to wish for a duke resting his head anywhere near their inn. Mr. Kendall had been particularly affected. He’d gone so far as to inform Lady Marchfield that he was selling up and closing down so she would not think to ever bring her dreadful circus back to darken his doors. He privately vowed that if she did, he really would sell.

Finally, after ploughing a swath of destruction across half of England, this ill-omened caravan limped its way into Town.

Fortunately, the ton could not know of the nervous exhaustion and broken dreams the party had left in their wake. Society was all keen interest concerning the duke’s arrival.

Though the duke was odd by anybody’s standards, he was after all a duke. Word had spread like a wave, dousing every hostess with the news that the Duke of Pelham and Lady Marchfield had brought the duke’s eldest daughter for her season.

The effects of the information on these matrons were varied. Some were delighted and determined that the duke and his daughter would attend their entertainments. Others prayed the eldest daughter was no better looking than a hound, as they had their own daughter to worry about. Others were wary, as if the duke were the last wolf in England—they’d heard him described as wildly unpredictable. Others remembered him from twenty years ago and went round looking as if they required a vinaigrette. Still others wondered if he would host a ball, and whether they would make the list.

Naturally, all this went on without the duke having the first idea of it. The result was a pile of invitations waiting at the house on Grosvenor Square for his perusal.

As the duke had not been to London in years, hardly remembered who anybody was, and never had very good judgment in selecting acquaintances to begin, Lady Marchfield confiscated them.

Since her aunt would dictate which invitations would be accepted, Felicity was certain they would only accept the driest and dreariest of occasions.

Mrs. Right took charge as soon as they entered the house, though there were dark hints from Lady Marchfield that a butler would soon be hired and it would be all up for the housekeeper.

Felicity did not see how it could be so—their last butler had never dared cross Mrs. Right. He’d mentioned her specifically when he’d had his mental unraveling and stormed out of the house.

Lady Marchfield was determined to stay the night and see them settled. On the morrow, she would return to her own house on Bedford Square, where it was presumed her lord was desperately missing his upright lady.

At least, it was hoped that somebody presumed Lord Marchfield was pining for his wife, though the duke was not to number amongst them. The last he said on the subject was: “You can tell Marchfield he can thank me in a heartfelt manner for affording him this break from his bride which was, I am certain, badly needed.”

Lady Marchfield had sniffed over the sentiment as the sisters backed out of the drawing room and raced up the stairs without so much as a by your leave. Their aunt called after them that they ought to walk like ladies and that running was unseemly, but she could not slow any of them down.

Felicity thought that was indicative of how little her aunt knew her nieces. It had been all too predictable that there would be a war over who would sleep where. There were plenty of bedchambers, and plenty to spare. But one does not have six sisters without the occasional battle for an advantage.

Felicity took the last bedroom in the east wing, as she knew her father would be in the west and he snored like thunder, talked in his sleep, and sometimes shouted in his sleep. Grace would have taken the one next to Felicity, but Serenity tripped her in the hall.

Serenity was to see the fates circle back around when Patience knocked her out of the way. Verity told everyone there were cakes in the drawing room, which there certainly was not, but that at least got Winsome out of the way.

By the time Lady Marchfield got to the top of the landing, Patience and Serenity were rolling on the floor of the corridor, Verity had locked herself in her preferred room, and Valor had given up and stood in a corner weeping.

Felicity really did not know what else her aunt had been expecting.

The rest of the night might have gone somewhat smoother, had her father not recalled that he had a fully stocked wine cellar. After the duke had made his way through two bottles of claret and brought a third into the drawing room, Lady Marchfield ordered everybody to bed.

All in all, it could have been worse.