Hayley Ann Solomon Read online

  The Quizzing-Glass Bride

  HAYLEY ANN SOLOMON

  KENSINGTON e-CLASSICS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Postscript

  Copyright Page

  One

  “Mistress Fern, I am usually as mild mannered as spring time, but if you wear them . . . them . . . spectacles to meet the marquis, it’s handin’ in me notice I am, and that be fact!”

  Mimsy Garett glared defiantly at the little mistress. It was her grand title to be referred to as “dresser,” now, just as if she were living in London, and she took the title most seriously.

  “How am I to arrange your hair, such a beautiful color, the color of spun gold even if it don’t curl the way it ought to? Bless me, we must order in some more curling papers. I must speak to Mrs. Fidget at once about that. . . . But I daresay I am runnin’ off me subject. . . .”

  Fern, sitting docilely in front of the glass, was relieved. If only Mimsy would keep off the wretched subject of her spectacles, she could rest easy. But no! It was too much, of course, to hope. The dresser was rattling on again, playing with Fern’s short, cropped strands in front of the glass, just as if she were in short skirts rather than a lady grown. Her tone was heartily indignant.

  “How, Mistress Fern, am I to arrange your . . . your glorious hair if you persist in wearing them spectacles? It is not possible, and don’t you say otherwise! Oh, I do wish we had not called Jenkins in to cut it! Still, no one can quibble about its condition. . . . Now where was I?”

  Fern muttered something inaudible and rather unladylike, but fortunately Mimsy was too distracted to hear.

  “Oh! The spectacles. Remember the Addingtons’ ball. . . .”

  Fern groaned. She did remember. It was a hideous occasion, chaperoned by Lady Winterton, for Mama had the fever, and it had been an unqualified disaster.

  Somehow, Fern had landed behind a great potted plant all evening, squashed between the dowagers’ chairs and a large trestle of lemonade. She was certain it was the spectacles, for several unkind young ladies actually tittered behind their handkerchiefs and pointed them out to the gentlemen. Those who had subsequently scribbled their names in her dance card had been constrained, almost as if they were doing her some kind of huge kindness. Naturally, in the face of such condescension she had been defiant, though not actually rude, as Lady Winterton would have her mama believe.

  Nevertheless, the whole sad matter was best forgotten. Fern had endured most of her first season in this excruciating manner, then returned shortly thereafter to the country, there to be buried in her beloved books and garden, with only the occasional scold to remind her of her folly.

  Now, however, there seemed to be no way to forget the past as Mimsy hovered over her with a brush, easing out the classically cropped tangles with vigorous strokes that made her eyes sting but added incredible luster to the soft, shoulder-length lashings of spun gold. Unfortunately, of course, it was dead straight, sadly unmodish despite the new cropped style.

  “I shall enhance this mass with a hairpiece and pile it high in a coiffure, just like Lady Winterton and Lady Ashleigh wear theirs in town. Now don’t you pout! You are too old to wear nothing but the odd ribbon; you don’t want Lord Warwick thinking you be naught but a country miss, or worse, a dowd!”

  The dresser clapped her hands to her mouth in horror. Fern merely sat obediently, offering no comment of her own. So Mimsy continued. “I might be old, like, but I am up to the rig, don’t you fear! I have studied all of them London fashion plates, I have, and I know exactly what is required! You shall borrow Lady Reynolds’s amethyst combs, along with the tiara, and I shall pile your hair up in coils, with just a few ringlets dripping down. . . .”

  “Mimsy, your head is in the clouds! I don’t have ringlets to drip down, remember? And if you think curling papers in my cropped hair will help, they shan’t! Remember how we tried last summer. . . .”

  “Now, now, Miss Fern, don’t despair! We shall prevail! Try and try again is what Mimsy always says! And there is no saying wot we can’t find a hairpiece wot have curls, there isn’t! But not with the spectacles! Don’t want the marquis to run off in fright before he has ever even met you!”

  “He has already met me! Five years ago, when I was a scrubby little brat with a toothless grin and nothing to recommend me but my barley sugar, which I gave to his horses.”

  “Mistress Fern! Was he very angry? Gennelmen don’t like nobody fiddlin’ with their cattles’ feed! Most particular they are that way!”

  “He threatened to spank me, I believe, then gave me a tweak upon my chin and confided that Rascal—that was the horse’s name, though I believe it applied equally to the owner—had an infernally sweet tooth and that was why his pockets were always sticky—from sugar lumps.”

  “A whopper if ever I heard one, for Lord Warwick is the greatest nonpareil of our time! Fancy him saying such a thing, when all of London knows him to be fastidious in his dress! Which is why, Mistress Fern, you are to look like a fairy princess. Nothing short of that will hold his eye.”

  Fern thought it would take more than the absence of spectacles to hold the famous marquis’s eye. And why anyone should think she could, a little mouse from the country who was more bookish than bold, just because her mama and his were bosom buddies ever so long ago—not to mention the fact that his land marched upon their own, Evensides—she could not fathom.

  But the whole household seemed to expect it of her, and everyone was murmuring and muttering here and there about bridals and trousseaus, just because Warwick had written a very polite missive to her father.

  The contents she had not been fully apprised of, but anyone would think the man had offered for her, the way the household was topsy-turvy! And he could not have, surely, without at least conversing with her first, or paying his addresses, or even offering to stand up with her at any number of the country balls where he surely must have attended, though she had never actually seen him very well.

  Five years was a long time for a scrubby little child, and all she could really remember of him was whiskers, which he had apparently shaved off when entering the Sixth Hussars. This she knew from Mimsy, who made it her business to know all of London’s on dits and pass them on—sometimes with shocking candor—to the little mistress.

  “Cook is making a grand feast, she is, with cockles and lobster, and of course a partridge pie, though Mrs. Fidget is inclined to think that rather plain, so she has added a perigord to the menu, and the gamekeeper is bringing in pheasant and such . . .”

  “I shall not be able to eat a thing; indeed, my stomach is turning already at the thought,” Fern muttered. “Can I not say I have the headache and be done with it?”

  “Mistress Fern! You must surely be funning, or else the most tiresomely ungrateful chit wot ever needed a great good dustin’ of the rear end . . . Now don’t look at me so. I’ve known you since you were in leadin’ strings. . . .”

  “Mimsy! This is only dinner! What in the world do I have to be grateful for?”

  “Well! When a gennelman such as the rank of marquis, mind, offers for a country chit like you—not that you aren’t passing pleasing, mind, with a beautiful heart when you are not scowlin’ ’orribly, and a rare seat on a ’orse . . .”

  “Mimsy!” But Mimsy was on a roll.

  “Not wot, without those spectacles you have the finest, clearest green eyes I have
ever seen, and the purest skin, though you refuse my lanolin and lime decoctions. However, me not ever bein’ one wot takes offense, like . . .

  “Mimsy!” But Fern was, sadly, ignored by a greater force.

  “I reckon you are rare beautiful, like, with those tanglin’ black lashes wot Lady Winterton would die for, and make no mistake. No need for them newfangled corsetry wot makes you breathe like a stuck pig . . .”

  “Mimsy!” Fern practically bellowed now. Most unladylike, but she had little other option and just cause.

  Mimsy blinked. “You ought not to yell like that, mistress. Be bringin’ the house down you will, and your mama with the headache . . .”

  “I have the headache! What do you mean, Lord Warwick has offered?”

  “Don’t you know?” The dresser, for once, looked speechless.

  “I know nothing except that the Marquis of Warwick is dining with us tonight and I am to wear this horrible flounced creation from Madame Audesley of Bond Street. Also, that I am to behave myself, to speak only when I am spoken to—though that, as you know, Mimsy, is practically impossible—and I am to be gracious, but civil, if you have the foggiest notion what that implies! I did ask Mama, but that was before the headache set in, and she was obliged to seek her chambers with sal volatile and laudanum, I suspect. Oh, Mimsy! What does this mean?”

  “It means, luv, that ’is lordship has asked for your hand. Comin’ to look you over like, before the matter is signed and sealed.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, Nancy, the under maid, had it from Stevens wot works ’cross the boundary, like. On ’is lordship’s estate. I don’t ’old with gossip from the lower orders, but Edgemont whispered it to me this morning, and he, I reckon, had it off the master, ’oo was frettin’ over ’is port and expectin’ Mr. Potters up from London, like.”

  “Mr. Potters the lawyer?”

  “Yes, and you can be sure it is about your portion, and such. Not that Lord Warwick needs anybody’s dowry, mind, but there it is. Now don’t get in a pother over it, love. Doubtless if Lord and Lady Reynolds have not told you, they ’ave their reasons. Maybe thought you’d be afeared.”

  “Run away, more like! This is outrageous!”

  “It is better than a season, luv, where you stand around bein’ nothin’ but a wallflower! And as the Marchioness of Warwick, think of the respect you will receive! And you will ’ave your own carriage, and Lady Willis and Lady Stonecroft and yes, even Lady Winterton, with ’er ghastly pug face, will ’ave to make their curtsies to you, and cede you precedence at table. Oh, Mistress Fern, a rare treat it will be!”

  Mimsy, caught up in the excitement, almost made Fern laugh. She was too shocked to do so, however, so she chose a seat by the window and sat down, more to steel her nerves than to take a rest.

  “Mimsy, you are sure?”

  “Oh, as certain as anything, luv! Now do be a dear and stand still for me while I check those pins. The gown—see how it shimmers—needs some adjustment.”

  “It needs to be burned, more like! It feels heavy with all these hoops—I can’t see why I need them; they are usually only required at court—and flounces. I look like a large green pudding. And I will not marry Lord Warwick!”

  “Mistress Fern!” Mimsy did not know whether she was more shocked by this outrageous statement or by Fern’s callous dismissal of the gown, which had taken hundreds of hours in the sewing.

  “You are funning; ah yes, I see it now. But you really must stand still, luv, this material is thick, and the beading is difficult to pin. . . .”

  Fern’s head swam. It was useless scolding Mimsy. She loved and adored Fern, as Fern was sure her parents did not, or at least, not in the ordinary way. They were civil, but not doting. Mimsy was strict, but Fern could twist her around her little finger and very often did.

  No, she would save her wrath for her papa, or even for arrogant Lord Warwick, who had not even bothered to ask her opinion on the matter. It would serve them both right, she thought defiantly, if she flouted them at the aisle. But that was silliness talking. Fern, very well bred, would not think of making such a scandal. She would just have to see to it that Lord Warwick changed his mind, after all.

  Lord Warwick, the object of this attention, did not seem to be aware of the disaster awaiting him. He threw the reins of a magnificent new stallion at Peters, the groom, and grinned. “She will be a rare goer, that one! Feed her some oats tonight, and we will test out her strength in the morning.”

  “Aye, me lord. Anything else?”

  “No. Just have the carriage sent ’round in an hour, when I am out of all this stable grime.”

  It took Warwick and his valet precisely fifty-nine minutes to announce themselves satisfied. After a steaming bath, brought up hot from the kitchens, wherein Warwick had scanned the Gazette with moderate interest, the ritual of shaving had occurred without incident. Then had come the donning of the doeskin breeches in the lightest shade of buff, and the corresponding matter of the shirt and coat, into which he had been eased with both care and consummate skill. In truth, Warwick preferred the formfitting accoutrements thus described to the more lax attire donned in the country. This might well be because such garments, unpadded as they were, were highly complementary to the marquis’s lithe and muscular person, but was probably more out of force of habit, as he spent the better part of his time in London.

  Be that as it may, he looked, as always, a veritable marvel of understated masculinity in his wine-colored dress coat and his white shirt. This was complemented by a starched cravat that was whiter yet, if such a thing could be possible, and tied with Warwick’s usual visionary grace.

  At his throat was a single, defining pin, an oval-shaped diamond that was almost legendary among the Upper Five Thousand, and a source of great envy to many of his friends and enemies. Yes, enemies Warwick had, since his rapier wit was matched only by his skill with the rapier itself. It was many a man who had felt the edge of his foil, and several who had been wounded for want of tact, or for libeling someone of the fairer sex.

  Now he seemed unconcerned with his dilatory past, checking his fob with a languid air that showed none of his inner qualms. Yes: Warwick, though God-like in stature, was human, too, it seemed. It would be positively insane to suggest that hovering on the brink of marriage he should not feel a trifle curious as to the nature of his bride or what she had become. He remembered only too well the scruffy little brat feeding sugar lumps—or were they barley cubes?—to his prize cattle. Truth to tell, it was this fact that clinched the deal, for the chit must harbor some softer feelings to be so kind, and some courage to be so bold.

  But mostly, of course, it was his mama, the Duchess of Hargreaves, to whom he was the only son and heir. The duke, of course, had indicated several times that it was time for him to settle down, but his mama—oh, his mama of the beseeching eyes, of the wheedling, meddling, muddling ways, oh, it was his dear mama who had led him to such a stand. Not that he minded, terribly—he was raised to believe that duty came before inclination—but he was curious. What had become of that untidy little chit, with her tangle of hair and her bonnet in a riot of feathers—most, he suspected, from the henhouse, rather than from any modish milliner. His lips curved a little at the memory, causing Rivers, his valet, to flutter about him, adjuring him not to spoil the line of his neckerchief.

  Warwick stared at him coldly. “And when, Rivers, have I ever performed such sacrilege?”

  To which Rivers, of course, had no response. Warwick, at all times, was perfect. Simply, unutterably, splendidly, perfect.

  When the carriage rolled off at only two minutes past its appointed hour, a great murmuring arose from within the stately residence. A procession of the butler, the housekeeper, and several of the upper-house staff unbent a little to permit the uncorking of two bottles of Warwick’s finest Madeira. For the lower staff, a dram of fruit punch had been ready stilled, ever since news of the nuptials mysteriously wafted through the servants�
�� quarters. A fitting occasion, they felt, for such deviation from the customary abstinence. Warwick, doubtless to be in his cups upon his return, would surely neither notice nor begrudge them.

  Thus it was, that quite unbeknown to him—or his unwilling bride—Warwick was toasted with due reverence at precisely five minutes before he reached Evensides.

  Two

  Fern set down her spectacles with determination. She sniffed. The hall clock had chimed the hour and Mimsy had already hastened her a dozen times, begging her not to keep Warwick, who had been announced a half hour since, waiting. Even her mama had sent up a message and a little nosegay with some illegible words scrawled upon the note.

  Fern knew she ought to hurry, but somehow, she could not. The swathes of heavy green brocade weighed her down, and the beading, though perfectly stitched, seemed gaudy in the candlelight of darkening dusk.

  Perhaps if she had been permitted a coronet of flowers, she would have felt lighthearted, but the heavy tiara with its thick golden peaks, and the matching set of heirloom sapphires about her neck seemed to do nothing more than add to her gloom.

  As for her spectacles—the abigail had frowned, her mama had frowned, and Mimsy—dear Mimsy had flatly refused to allow them.

  “For once,” she had said firmly, “Miss Fern will look like a lady born and bred. If I have to arrange her hairpiece about them spectacles she will look like a regular quiz and I shall sink, positively sink, from mortification!”

  Such impertinence would ordinarily have earned her a sharp reprimand from Lady Reynolds, with her die-away airs, but tonight it received no more than a nod of approval.

  “Quite right, Garett. Never thought to hear such good sense from you. Gracious, Daughter, you are almost beautiful without them!”

  Fern took no real comfort in this announcement, for it was useless, she supposed, to point out that she was as blind as a bat without the round, metal frames to which she had slowly become accustomed.