Madeleine Robins Read online

  “What fustian! Renna Cherwood, in the months I’ve known you I have never heard you speak such nonsense.”

  “Nonsense it may be, ma’am, but Mr. Bradwell made it quite clear more than once that he considers me a Dragon, and a Managing Female, and that he feels I have the tendency to overstep my authority.”

  “Lyndon said those things to you?” Lady Bradwell inwardly cursed the stupidity of her favorite son.

  “Yes,” Rowena replied simply.

  “Then he is an idiot, which is a shame, as I had always assumed that Jack was idiotish enough to account for the entire family.”

  Miss Cherwood chuckled softly, and Lady Bradwell allowed the topic of her younger son to die for the moment. She had every intention, however, of reading her son a fine lecture at the earliest possible moment. When she finally found him she addressed him not only on the subject of Renna Cherwood, but of Margaret Cherwood as well. His replies, all in all, were satisfactory.

  “I’m afraid Miss Meg isn’t interested in me, except as that amusing fellow who tells the Banbury tales of life abroad, Mother. The same as Jane Ambercot is, and if she and Jack don’t patch things up between them by next week, I shall be extremely surprised.”

  “So Rowena said.”

  Mr. Bradwell flashed his mother a quick glance. “Well, then, I suspect that the Ambercots will be in for a double wedding, for Ulysses seems to have made a mighty impression on Miss Margaret.”

  “So Rowena said.”

  Lyn flushed. “Miss Cherwood has a great deal to say, doesn’t she, ma’am?”

  “When it’s to the point, my dear. After all, I am still partly a prisoner in this room, and I rely on Rowena to keep me abreast of what is going on — under my own roof, at least. Which reminds me, Lyn: Did you say something to Renna about her — her place here?”

  “O, that.” A faint smile and a rueful twist to his eyebrow suggested that Mr. Bradwell had already repented of that conversation. “When I arrived here, Mamma, I met Miss Cherwood in the gardens, and I’m afraid that I was a trifle brusque and she gave me rather a setdown, and when I found out who she was I made a few stupid remarks.... Did she tell you of them?”

  “Indirectly, the other day. Not specifically.”

  “In other words, you don’t intend to answer me yes or no.” Her son lounged back and regarded his mother with amusement.

  “I mean precisely what I say, Lyn,” Lady Bradwell said with asperity. “Do you imagine that she came to me with some tale of ill treatment? I suggested that she address something to you — a question or comment on one subject or another; I forget what,” Lady Bradwell lied gracefully. “And she said that she was afraid you might feel she was presuming.”

  “ Good God, of all the mutton-headed nonsense,” he muttered.

  Lady Bradwell said nothing.

  “Very well, Mamma, I admit that I had no business taking a stranger down on my first night home without seeing first how the land lay with you and her. But I have apologized to her for that remark at least twice, and —”

  “It’s not the sort of remark an apology will erase, Lyn. I fear that Rowena thinks you dislike her.” This was spoken with consummate disinterest, but Lady Bradwell watched her son closely.

  “Dislike her? On the contrary, I rather admire her. Not that that’s anything to the point, since she’s nearly bit my head off half-a-dozen times since we met.”

  “Probably because you bit hers off first,” Lady Bradwell suggested loftily. “I never thought my own flesh and blood could be so stupid. Well, I will leave you to speak with Rowena or not, as your conscience dictates.”

  “My conscience? Good Lord, Mamma!”

  Lady Bradwell remained unimpressed with her son’s protestations. “I am going to dress for dinner,” she informed him, and sailed easily from the room, leaving him to wonder just what his mother had been driving at, and whether Miss Cherwood had truly formed a bad impression of him.

  o0o

  Eliza Ambercot, watching romances springing up between her brother and Margaret Cherwood, and her sister and Lord Bradwell, was highly displeased by the current events at Broak. She had joined Lord Bradwell and Ulysses in urging that Jane not be taken home to Wilesby House in hopes that her own frequent visits to the invalids would attract Mr. Lyndon Bradwell’s attention and favor. At first she had planned to focus her attempts on Lord Bradwell, who after all had the title and the main of the wealth in the family. His growing reattachment to Jane was clear even to Eliza’s self-absorbed eyes, and she dismissed him at last, telling herself that even with the title he was stupid and could only talk of dreadful old horses. Jane was welcome to Lord Bradwell, if she really wanted him. It was, on the other hand, unfair — more than unfair, intolerable — that Mr. Bradwell seemed as infatuated by Margaret Cherwood as Ulysses was. Eliza, had she given the matter much thought, could have argued her own superiority to Margaret in looks, charm, and certainly in importance. After all, Margaret was the cousin of Lady Bradwell’s companion (be she never so wealthy). Eliza was the youngest daughter of a tolerably rich country gentleman; her mother was the third cousin to a Duke. In Eliza’s mind there was no comparison.

  But proximity did not seem to bring to Mr. Bradwell’s attention the manifest charms of the younger Miss Ambercot, and the younger Miss Ambercot was losing patience rapidly.

  Drawing on the advice of acquaintances she had made in Bath, with whom she had spent many hours earnestly considering the tactics of the Marriage Mart, Eliza considered her alternatives. She could give up her plans for Mr. Bradwell’s future happiness and her own; that was ridiculous, plainly. She could wait, quietly, until Mr. Bradwell realized that Margaret and Lully were in hopeless case over each other and that Margaret was unlikely to spare him even a smile. That was a pretty tactic, but a little too uncertain and slow for Miss Ambercot’s taste. She could, on some pretext, bring Margaret’s tendre for Ulysses to Mr. Bradwell’s attention and hope that on reflection he would come to understand Eliza’s greater suitability. Or she could do something more direct.

  Eliza had always been a partisan for the most direct approach.

  Lyndon Bradwell was seated in the library writing letters when Eliza found him. She affected unconcern. He, after rising and bidding her good afternoon, returned to his work.

  “What are you doing, Mr. Bradwell?” Eliza asked breathlessly.

  “Composing a letter to my uncle, Miss Eliza.”

  “Oh.” She thought about this for a moment. “And what shall you do afterward?”

  He gave her a quizzical look. “I shall be writing to some friends of my uncle’s, also in London.”

  “Oh. What are you writing to them?” she persisted.

  “Business matters, I am afraid. Nothing that would amuse you.”

  Eliza took this setback in stride. After some idle drifting around in the room, she picked up a book (it proved to be a travel journal written by a very prosy old woman fifty years before). She regarded it avidly, and read not a word of it. When she was morally certain that she had been absolutely quiet for at least half an hour — that is, some ten minutes later — she stood, stretched, and wandered over to Mr. Bradwell’s side.

  “Still writing letters, sir?” she asked archly.

  “Yes, Miss Eliza. Still writing letters. As I probably shall be for the next half an hour or more.” His words were not unkind, but neither were they particularly encouraging. Eliza would not allow herself to be daunted by his tone, however, and inquired in a tone of awe what sort of business Mr. Bradwell was concerned with. He briefly answered that he was writing someone at the Foreign Office.

  “I do not mean to be rude, Miss Eliza, but I really cannot talk at the moment. It is important that I post these letters today.”

  “Oh.” Eliza compressed a world of bruised but nobly hidden feeling in the word. Lyn Bradwell was not made of stone, and such a sound of mournful respect, issuing from a pretty young girl, made him feel he was every sort of monster of unkindliness.


  “Wouldn’t you be more happily engaged in talking with your sister or Miss Margaret?” he inquired with avuncular gentleness.

  “They are taken up with other things,” Eliza replied with dignity. Lyn had no trouble in guessing from this that Jack was talking stables with Jane, and Ulysses probably amusing Margaret with some sort of foolishness. Of course Eliza must have felt de trop.

  “You know, Miss Eliza, that they mean nothing by it.”

  “O, it’s nothing to me, Mr. Bradwell,” she assured him. “I had by far rather sit here and be quiet with you.” There was a slight emphasis on the terminal word that made Lyn suddenly rather uncomfortable.

  “Indeed? Well, I thank you.” He returned hastily to his letters.

  Five minutes passed.

  “Mr. Bradwell?” He looked up to find Eliza practically in his lap, holding out a broken pen to him. “Do you think you could mend my pen for me?”

  Fighting down a surge of irritation, Lyn took the pen and pointed it.

  “Thank you so much!” She was effusive. “How clever men are!”

  “Mending pens is hardly the exclusive province of my sex, Miss Eliza, nor an exercise requiring much cleverness. I dare say you could achieve the same result as easily as I.” He returned the pen to her.

  “O, no sir, not I,” she breathed. “Perhaps some females might. Miss Cherwood, for instance; I fancy she could do almost anything. She’s such a competent sort of person.” In Eliza’s mouth, competence sounded like a regrettable liability. After all, in her limited experience, only governesses, companions, lower servants and, of course, one’s mother were competent at anything beyond watercolor and ’broidery — probably because these females were ancient, unattractive, and beyond the hope of attracting a gentleman’s notice. Mr. Bradwell, however, did not share her view of the matter.

  “Miss Cherwood is a surprising combination of ability, good sense, amiability, and —” He broke off, realizing that of all people he had no wish to be discussing his mother’s companion with Eliza Ambercot. “She’s certainly an admirable lady,” he finished.

  “And her cousin is so amiable too,” Eliza agreed unenthusiastically.

  “She certainly is.” Bradwell turned to his writing table again.

  “Mr. Bradwell?” She ignored the edge of finality in his voice.

  “Miss Eliza?” A shade of exasperation crept into the polite words.

  “Do you think it will rain today?” Desperately.

  “No, Miss Eliza, I do not.” Lyn stood and folded away his writing in the little desk. “If you will excuse me, miss? I’ve just recalled that I have an appointment in — in the stables.” Making a perfunctory bow, Bradwell left the room before Eliza could claim his attention again.

  She could not run after him, either to tease him for his company or to scold him for his abruptness. That would not be good tactics. Immediately Eliza dropped her travel book behind some cushions and left the library to seek out company — any company, even the unexciting company of her sister and Lord Bradwell. As she climbed the stairs, she found herself wondering if Lyndon Bradwell was not as stupid as his stupid brother Jack. She was rapidly growing out of patience with the whole race of Bradwells, even if Lyndon was dreadfully handsome and Jack bore the title. In fact, she had very little patience with the Bradwells, with her own family, and very nearly none at all with the Misses Cherwood.

  Jane and Margaret, seated in a small parlor off Margaret’s sickroom, were entertaining Lord Bradwell and Mr. Ambercot, and the room was alive with conversation and gentle with laughter when Eliza entered. Both Lord Bradwell and Ulysses rose when she entered; she was settled into a chair, asked a few distracted questions about the weather and what she had found to occupy herself with, and then was completely forgotten. Margaret had been settled half-lying on the sofa, tucked round with blankets and pillows that made her dark, delicate prettiness more distinctive. Eliza saw with positive dislike that Lully had somehow possessed of her hand and was talking — almost murmuring to her, Eliza thought disgruntledly.

  Lyndon Bradwell might admire ladies’ companions, but he saved his smiles for Miss Margaret. Lord Jack hadn’t two brains to rub together — so everyone said! — and preferred solid, prosaic Jane with her square figure and plain talk, to her sister. And Ulysses was taken in by that dreadful, insipid, scheming Margaret Cherwood. It was the stupidest thing Eliza had ever heard of, and the more she considered it, sitting forgotten in the room, the more Margaret’s perfidy, her nasty, missish, deceitful, hateful behavior grated on her. Asked what crimes Meg had committed, Eliza could probably, at that moment, have come up with half a dozen, not the least of which being the possession of a peignoir with more lace than any Eliza owned (borrowed, had she only known it, from Lady Bradwell’s maid Taylor).

  It was not to be borne.

  “Lully,” Miss Eliza said ominously.

  Mr. Ambercot, recalled to the larger world for a minute, looked at his younger sister with surprise.

  “Lully, I should like to go home now.”

  “Certainly, puss. By and by,” Mr. Ambercot assured her, and returned his attention to Margaret Cherwood.

  “Lully,” Eliza insisted. Had he paid attention, Ulysses would have recognized her tone: He had heard it several times before in his life, most notably at the time when Eliza threw a bottle of medicine at his head. She missed her aim, and the bottle smashed harmlessly against the wall, but the room had smelled revoltingly of horehound for weeks.

  “All right, Lizzie, I’ll be with you in just a moment.”

  “Lully.”

  He regarded his sister with amazement. “Come on, puss.” He rose from Margaret’s side and took Eliza’s hand in a firm — authoritarian — grip. They left the room but went no farther than the corridor outside it. Closing the door behind them, Ulysses Ambercot turned to confront his sister.

  “Look here, what the devil do you mean by it, hey? We shall leave in a short while — I don’t wish to tire Miss Cherwood. Or Jane, either,” he added belatedly.

  “O, certainly not,” Eliza hissed spitefully. “While I sit about with no one to talk to and nothing to do, you and that hateful Margaret Cherwood sit and make eyes at each other.” Her voice rose. “You know, she’s nothing but the companion’s cousin, Lully. I don’t care who Rowena might be, she’s the companion’s cousin, and a dependent here, and why you’re wasting your time talking to her and listening to her stupid voice and —”

  “Look here, Lizzie —” Lully broke in with a voice of steel. “Keep your voice down, you silly chit. I don’t know what maggot’s got into your hat, but you’d best watch what you say, both about Rowena and Miss Meg, for Mamma don’t like to have her friends talked about in that fashion.”

  “Mamma! Mamma ain’t even here!” Eliza squeaked. “And at least your stupid old Rowena works for her keep. Why, that Margaret Cherwood just came to visit, and not the family, either, and she’s made a May game of the household with her starting that fire — I suppose you think she didn’t try to do something of the sort to catch your attention? Why, I know her type of female! I’ve met them in Bath. She’s set her cap for you, Ulysses Ambercot, and you’ve tumbled right into the trap. She’s hateful, that’s what she is. Hateful, hateful, hateful —”

  Eliza’s voice, rising to an hysterical pitch, was stopped, suddenly, by a slap across her cheek. Jane Ambercot stood by the door, ruefully holding a bandaged hand and glaring at her sister.

  “Come on, Eliza, I’ll give you some cool water for your face,” was all Miss Ambercot said to her, but in a voice that boded no good. “Lully, you’d best go see to Margaret. We heard everything our sister said in there.”

  “I don’t care,” Eliza wailed stubbornly. “It’s not fair.”

  “Of course it isn’t, goose. Nothing ever is,” Jane answered firmly, and took her sister’s arm gingerly.

  Ulysses peered around the edge of the doorway. Margaret was seated upright on her couch, her face pale and concerned.
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br />   “Is Miss Eliza all right, Mr. Ambercot?” she asked timidly.

  “O, damn Lizzie —” he began. “No, I don’t mean that. Yes, I suppose she’ll be right enough in a moment. I’m terribly sorry you had to hear her, though. If I hadn’t told you already that she was the most fatiguing little nuisance alive I’m afraid I should really have to apologize for what she said. As it is — but you know what it is. Not a scrap of truth in her.” He spoke as lightly as he could. Margaret’s eyes dropped.

  “Is that what everyone thinks?” she murmured at last, haltingly. “That I’m a — what is it? A hanger-on? And oughtn’t to be here? I thought it was all right when Renna talked with Lady Bradwell, and that perhaps I could help in the household somehow and do something to show Lady Bradwell, and Lord Bradwell, and even Mr. Bradwell, how much I appreciated their kindness. And then I had that stupid accident — but Mr. Ambercot, it really was an accident. I couldn’t —”

  “Set yourself on fire? Certainly you couldn’t, and only a little nodcock like Lizzie would even hint at such a thing. As for being a trial to the Bradwells, that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Margaret insisted bravely. She still had not met his eyes. “I could have stayed in my room and caused no one any trouble, and instead here I am, in a larger room, with all sorts of attention and the loveliest food, and Dr. Cribbatt visiting here almost every day. I must be the most horrible expense! I should have gone to my grandmother’s, I know. This only proves —”

  “Nothing,” Lully said flatly. He was at her side now, and had knelt at the head of the sofa in hopes of making her look at him. “But if you really feel this way, there is an alternative you might consider.” He paused to clear his throat.

  “Yes?” Margaret asked distractedly.

  “I do wish you’d look at me, Margaret.”

  She raised her eyes slowly, as if the motion were difficult.

  “You might — hum. Well, could you think of being — uh — engaged to me?” It was out, and now Lully was the one who had difficulty meeting her eyes.