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They arrived in London in the evening of the second day, having spent the previous night at the Cross Keys in Saffron Walden. There were flags flying from all the public buildings and from some private houses, too, in honour of the birth of a princess to the Duchess of Kent on the twenty-fourth of May. In Sophie’s view that augured well for her visit. The city would be en fête. Mark sent his coachman on to his town house in South Audley Street and accompanied them into Lady Cartrose’s Mount Street home.
Her ladyship, rounder than ever and deafer than ever, greeted them warmly. ‘Welcome, child,’ she said, taking both Sophie’s hands and holding her at arm’s length to regard her from top to toe. ‘My, you are a pretty one. We shall have no trouble firing you off.’
Sophie giggled. ‘That sounds painful.’
She was obliged to repeat what she had said twice more before it was heard, and by then the repartee had lost its wit.
Emmeline turned to Teddy and subjected him to the same scrutiny. ‘I cannot remember the last time I saw you, young man. It must have been at your sisters’ weddings. What a happy occasion that was, to be sure. You are not affianced yet?’
‘No, Aunt.’
‘We shall have to see what we can do. I have many friends with beautiful daughters.’
‘I am not in town to find a bride, but to escort my sister,’ Teddy said, shouting into her ear.
‘Pshaw.’ She turned to Mark. ‘My lord, you are very welcome. How is my dear Jane? And little Harry? One day perhaps I shall have the pleasure of making his acquaintance. You will stay for supper, won’t you? Then you can tell me all about him.’
Mark declined supper, but agreed to take tea and spent most of the time answering her ladyship’s questions about Jane and their son. Sophie was impatient to know what they would be doing while she was in London and, in a break in the conversation, ventured, ‘What have you planned for tomorrow, Aunt Emmeline?’
‘I thought you might be a little tired after your journey, so have arranged nothing of import,’ her aunt replied. ‘A carriage ride in Hyde Park in the afternoon if you should care for it, provided it is not too cold, and supper at home.’
Sophie, who had expected a round of social engagements to begin as soon as she arrived, was cast down by this. It sounded as boring as being at home. Mark smiled at her. ‘Never mind, Sophie, you will be all the more ready to spring yourself upon the London scene the day after when you are fully rested. I have no doubt you will take the capital by storm.’
‘Storm,’ her ladyship repeated. ‘Oh, do not say there is to be a storm. We cannot go out in wet weather, it brings on my rheumatism.’
Mark patiently explained to the lady what he had meant while Teddy and Sophie tried not to laugh.
‘Oh, I understand,’ the old lady said. ‘I did not perfectly hear you. To be sure Sophie will shine. My friend Mrs Malthouse has a daughter of Sophie’s age. Cassandra is a dear, sweet girl and is coming out this year, too. I am sure you will be great friends. She is to have a come-out ball later in the Season and I have no doubt you will be invited. In the meantime there is to be a dancing party at the Rowlands’ next week, which is a suitable occasion for a young lady not yet out to practise her steps and no doubt Augusta will procure an invitation for you if I ask her.’
This sounded more like it, and Sophie thanked her aunt prettily and began mentally deciding what she would wear.
At this point, having agreed to dine with them the following evening, Mark took his leave, and as the evening was yet young, Teddy decided he would go out. Left to the company of her aunt and Margaret Lister, her aunt’s companion, Sophie decided to write to her parents and Jane, as she had promised, to tell them of her safe arrival. After that she went to bed to dream of the pleasures to come.
* * *
A few years before, the arrival of Adam Trent, Viscount Kimberley, in town would have caused a stir among the young single ladies of society and some married ones, too. He had been reputed to be the most handsome, the most well set-up young man to grace the clubs and drawing rooms of the capital for many a year. His arrival had sent all the debutantes’ mamas into a twitter of anxiety and rivalry and their daughters sighing after him and dreaming of being the one finally to catch him.
‘Twenty-eight and still single. How have you managed to resist wedlock so long?’ his cousin Mark had asked him.
‘Easily. I have never met the woman I would want to spend the rest of my days with and, besides, I’m too busy.’ At that time he had recently inherited his father’s title and estate at Saddleworth in Yorkshire, which had undoubtedly enhanced his attraction.
Then he had done the unpardonable thing in the eyes of the ton and married Anne Bamford, the daughter of a Saddleworth mill owner. Whether it was a love match or done to enhance his own wealth no one could be sure, but after that no one had much to say for him, thinking of him only as the one that got away.
His father-in-law had died soon after the wedding, leaving him in possession of Bamford Mill, and in the following year tragically his wife had died in childbirth along with his baby son, and he was once again single. To try to overcome his loss, he had thrown himself into his work, both at the mill and on his estate, which was considerable. He was rarely seen in London.
On this evening, he was striding down South Audley Street towards Piccadilly when he encountered his cousin. ‘Mark, by all that’s wonderful! Fancy meeting you.’
Mark, who had been negotiating a muddy puddle, looked up at the sound of his name. ‘Adam, good heavens! What are you doing in town?’
‘Urgent business or I would not have bothered.’
‘I was sorry to hear of your wife’s passing.’
‘Yes, a very sad time. The only way I could go on was to throw myself into work.’ This was a gross understatement of how he had felt, but he was not one to display emotion. It was easier to pretend he did not feel at all.
‘All work and no play is not good, you know. And you are no longer in mourning.’
‘Mourning is not something you can put a time limit on, Mark.’
‘No, of course not, clumsy of me. I beg your pardon.’
‘Granted. I was on my way to White’s. Do you care to join me?’
Mark agreed and they were soon seated over supper in that well-known establishment. ‘How is married life?’ Adam asked his cousin. ‘I am sorry I could not attend your wedding, but at the time I had only recently taken over the running of Bamford Mill and there was a great deal of resentment that had to be overcome. There was, and is, much unrest and I needed to persuade my people not to join the Blanketeers’ march.’
The march to London from the industrial north, which had been organised by the Lancashire weavers two years before, had been for the purpose of petitioning the Prince Regent over the desperate state of the textile industry and to protest over the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, which meant any so-called troublemakers could be imprisoned without charge. They had carried blankets, not only as a sign of their trade, but because they expected to be several days on the march. It had been broken up by the militia and its leaders imprisoned. None of the marchers had reached his goal and the petition was never presented.
‘Did you succeed?’
‘Unfortunately, no. I am afraid nothing will really satisfy them but having a say in their own destiny. I fear some dreadful calamity if they are not listened to.’
‘Surely not your people? You have the reputation of being a benign employer.’
‘I do my best, but that will not stop some of the hotheads persuading the rest that to stand apart will bring down retribution on their heads.’
‘What can you do to prevent it?’
‘I don’t know. I pay them more than the usual wage for the work they do and provide them with a good dinner, but that has brought censure from my peers that I am setting a bad example and will ruin all our businesses. I am in a cleft stick, but hoping to avert trouble by other means.’
‘Militia?’
‘No, that is a last resort. Innocent people are apt to get hurt when soldiers are let loose. I intend to speak in the Lords in the hope that the government will listen to reason and grant at least some of their demands.’
‘Do you think they will?’
‘I doubt it, but I must try. If I can rally enough men of good sense on my side, I might achieve something. Times are changing, Mark, and we must change, too, or go under. Ever since I inherited the mill, I have tried to put myself in the shoes of my workers. I have cut the hours of work of the children by half and have set aside a room as a schoolroom and employed a teacher, so the other half of their day is gainfully employed getting an education. Even that does not always go down well—some parents accuse me of giving their children ideas above their station. I answered that by trying to educate the adults, too. It incensed the other mill owners who fear giving the workers an education will make them even more rebellious.’
‘I would have thought that a man who can read and write would be a better and more efficient worker because of it.’
‘My argument exactly. Everyone should be able to better themselves.’ He paused. ‘But I believe you have been doing something similar.’
‘Ours is a home for orphans, but we have a schoolroom, too, and good teachers. It is my wife’s project more than mine, but I help out when I can. We started with only a handful of children, but there are so many of them now and more in need, we have to expand. I am in town to hire an architect for the project and to try to drum up more funds. Everything has become so dear, it is hard work to keep it all afloat.’
‘You are not wanting in the necessary, surely? I understood Broadacres to be a thriving estate.’
‘So it is, but Jane is determined to make the Hadlea Home stand on its own, and I indulge her wishes and help out in a roundabout way. Besides, it is incumbent on me to keep the estate prosperous for my son’s sake and laying out blunt for the orphans, which seems never-ending, will not help to achieve that.’
‘You are a father now, I collect.’
‘Yes, Harry is ten months old and the darling of his mother’s eye.’
‘And yours, too, I’ve no doubt. I lost my child, you know.’
‘Yes, I did know and I am sorry for you, but you will marry again and there will be other children.’
‘I doubt it. There can only be one Anne.’
‘That is true. We are all unique in our own way, loving and loved for different reasons. It doesn’t preclude a second wife.’
‘When she died, so painfully and so cruelly, I swore not to let it happen again.’ He paused, unwilling to dwell on his loss, which no one who had not experienced it could possibly understand, and wondering how to change the subject. ‘Shall we have a hand or two of whist?’
‘Not tonight, cousin. I brought my wife’s sister to London to stay with her aunt in Mount Street and have not yet been home to Wyndham House. The servants will be expecting me. Where do you stay?’
‘At Grillon’s. I have never felt the need of a town house when I am so rarely in town.’
‘Then stay at Wyndham House. You may come and go as you please while there.’
To have congenial company and a more-than-respectable address while doing what he had come to town to do would serve him very well, Adam decided. ‘Thank you. I shall be pleased to do so,’ he said.
They left the club, Mark to go home and alert his servants that a guest was expected and Adam to go to Grillon’s, settle his account and arrange for his manservant, Alfred Farley, to take his luggage to Wyndham House.
Chapter Two (#ulink_9966b396-fa59-5747-a0eb-876a870a6f1c)
Sophie woke the next day to find the sun was shining, though it was still cold. Bessie was busy about the room, finding warm clothes for her to wear. ‘Such weather for May,’ she said. ‘You would think it was winter, not the beginning of summer. Do you think you will be able to go out today?’
‘Yes, I am determined on it. If Aunt Emmeline cries off, I shall ask Teddy to take me. I did not come to London to sit about indoors.’
On Bessie’s insistence she put on a fine wool gown in a soft blue that was warmer than the figured muslin she had hoped to wear and went down to the breakfast room, where she ate a boiled egg with some bread and butter and drank a dish of hot chocolate in solitary splendour. Lady Cartrose was never an early riser, and when Sophie enquired of a servant if Mr Cavenhurst was up and about, she was told that he had not come back to the house until nearly dawn and was still abed. She was obliged to shift for herself.
* * *
After breakfast she wandered about the downstairs rooms getting in the way of the servants who were busy with housework that had to be done before their mistress put in an appearance. This inactivity was making her impatient and cross and she went up to her room to don a full-length pelisse, a velvet bonnet, walking shoes and a muff and went out into the garden. It was not a very big garden and she had soon seen all she wanted of it. The wider world beckoned.
There was a small gate at the end of the garden that led to the mews where her ladyship’s horses and carriage were kept and her groom lived. She walked past the stables and presently came out on to Park Lane. It was still early in the day, but the road was already very busy. Carriages and carts rumbled by, riders trotted towards the gate into the Park, walkers hurried about their business and children made their way to school accompanied by nursemaids. Three soldiers, colourful in their red jackets, gave her a lascivious look as they passed her on the way to their barracks. One even went so far as to sweep off his hat and bow to her. Haughtily, she put her chin in the air to pass him, and that was her undoing. She slipped on a patch of ice on a puddle and found herself flat on her back with her skirts up to her knees, displaying a well-turned ankle and several inches of shapely calf.
They immediately rushed to her aid. Despite her protests that she was unhurt and could rise unaided, one of them came behind her, bent to put his arms about her under her shoulders and heaved her to her feet.
She stood shaking, not so much with hurt or shock, but indignation that he could have manhandled her in such a way and seemed in no hurry to relinquish his hold of her. ‘Let me go,’ she said.
‘But you will fall again if you are not supported.’
‘Indeed, I will not. I am perfectly able to stand. I insist you release me.’
They might have let her go, but her hauteur made them want to have a game with her. ‘There’s gratitude for you,’ one of them said. ‘Did your mother never teach you manners?’
She did not answer, but repeated, ‘Let me go. I shall call the constable.’
‘Constable? I see no constable, do you, Jamie?’
‘Never a one,’ his companion concurred, picking up her bonnet from the road where it had fallen, putting it on his own head and prancing about in it. They had attracted quite a crowd, none of whom seemed inclined to interfere. Most were laughing.
‘You do realise that your fall broke the ice and your fine coat is wet and dirty. What will your mama say to that, I wonder?’ This from the one who held her firmly in his grasp.
She was well aware of the state of her coat; the cold and damp were penetrating through to her body. ‘Let me go, you great oaf.’ She struggled ineffectually to free herself. It only made him hold her more firmly.
‘Dear, dear, such language, but I take no offence at it, though I fear that if I let go, you would take another tumble and then, as you disdain my assistance, I should feel obliged to leave you sitting in the puddle. On the other hand, if you were to ask me prettily and give me a kiss as a reward, that might be a different matter.’
‘Certainly not.’ Her pride had given way to fear, though she endeavoured not to show it. No one had warned her of the perils of going out without an escort, or if they had, she had not listened, confident of being able to take care of herself. In Hadlea she thought nothing of walking about the village on her own, and no one would have dreamed of molesting her. The onlookers did nothing to help, being too busy laughing at the soldier who was wearing her bonnet and curtsying to them, pretending to hold out imaginary skirts.
She was fighting back angry tears when a gentleman pushed his way through and grabbed the soldier who held her and flung him aside. ‘Off with you, or your commanding officer will hear of this.’
Recognising the voice of authority when they heard it, they flung her bonnet down and fled, leaving Sophie to fall into the arms of her rescuer. He held her a moment to steady her before releasing her. His face had a weather-worn look of someone used to being out of doors and there were fine lines at the corners of his brown eyes, above which were well-defined brows. His hair, under a tall hat, was light brown and curled a little into the nape of his neck. He was stylishly but not extravagantly dressed, but none of that counted with her because he was endeavouring not to laugh, and that annoyed her. She felt obliged to thank him, but it was done in such a superior way, he could have no reason to think his assistance was any more than her due as a lady.
He picked up her bonnet and attempted to brush the mud off it, but it was ruined, and he simply handed it to her. ‘Have you far to go?’
‘Only to Mount Street.’
‘I will escort you there.’
‘That will not be necessary. I bid you good day.’ She walked away, her only purpose at that moment to return to the safety of her aunt’s garden and make up her mind how to explain the state of her clothing.
* * *
Thankfully her aunt and brother were still abed, so she was able to creep up to her room unseen. Bessie was there, unpacking the things from her trunk that had not been taken out the night before. ‘Mercy me, Miss Sophie, whatever happened to you?’ she asked, seeing the state of her young charge.
‘I slipped on the ice and fell into a puddle.’
‘Are you hurt?’
‘No, except my pride.’
‘You had better take off those wet things before you catch cold.’ Bessie bustled about fetching clean clothes for her. ‘Where did this happen?’
‘On the way to the park. I had seen all there was to see of the garden, so I thought I would take a walk.’
‘Miss Sophie,’ Bessie said while busy helping Sophie out of her clothes, ‘you cannot, indeed you must not, go out on your own.’ The maid had been with the family so long, she felt at liberty to speak her mind to the young lady she had known since the day she was born. ‘This is London, not Hadlea. Anything could have happened. Did anyone see you?’
‘Only the people walking in the street, but I soon got up again and came home.’
‘No harm done, I suppose, but you should have come indoors and asked me to go with you, if there was no one else.’
‘I didn’t think of it. I have never had to do it before.’
‘Isn’t that just what I have been saying? What is permissible in Hadlea is not permissible or wise in London.’
‘You won’t tell my aunt, will you? It is too mortifying.’
‘No, of course I will not, but you must not do anything like it again. You could have twisted your ankle or broken your arm. It is fortunate that you did not.’
