The Outrageous Lady Read online

  “Listen, Averil,” she said, “you ask no questions. The money that has been settled on your daughters came from Sir Francis and is therefore yours by right. It is no more than what he would have deprived you of over the years after stopping part of your allowance.”

  “How did you make him agree? And why did he give you back my necklace?”

  “Those are questions I am not prepared to answer,” Lady Roysdon said. “You will have to trust me, Averil.”

  “You know I do, but – ”

  “There are no buts,” Lady Roysdon interrupted. “All you have to do, my dear Averil, is to accept both the necklace and the money and never, never speak of it to anyone.”

  Averil’s blue eyes looked at her in a startled manner.

  “You mean not even to – Francis?”

  “Most certainly not to Sir Francis! He is never to know that you have the necklace back. I have put it in a deposit box in the Bank, and I am afraid, dearest, that you will not be able to wear it.”

  “As though I mind that!” Lady Dorridge exclaimed. “But it is there for the girls when they need gowns to make their debut in or for their trousseaux.”

  “That is right,” Lady Roysdon agreed, “but until then just forget it exists. You have an assured income from the capital which will prevent you having to cheese-pare and dispense with your staff as you did yesterday.”

  Lady Dorridge burst into tears.

  “Oh, Galatea, how can I – thank you? How can I tell you what this – means to me,” she sobbed. “I have been so – worried – so distraught – thinking we should move and wondering how I could even afford sufficient – food for the children.”

  “All that is over,” Lady Roysdon insisted. “You will be able to afford to have the same things which you enjoyed when Edward was alive.”

  “But – F-Francis – ” Lady Dorridge stammered.

  “Forget him!” Lady Roysdon said sharply. “I have a feeling, Averil, that he will not inform you of the fact that he is no longer in possession of your necklace. But if he does, you must just look innocent and say absolutely nothing.”

  “I cannot – understand how you – obtained it,” Lady Dorridge said, wiping her eyes.

  “Does it matter?” Lady Roysdon enquired. “I ask you to trust me, Averil, and I shall be very hurt if you will not do so.”

  “But I do! I do!” Lady Dorridge cried, “and I am so grateful, so deeply, overwhelmingly grateful, Galatea. I could not believe that anything short of a miracle could change my whole future and that of the children from the depths of a dark depression to sunshine.”

  She threw her arms round Lady Roysdon as she spoke and kissed her.

  “I shall never forget your kindness and will thank God for you every night on my knees,” she whispered.

  “And I hope keep silent as I have asked you to do,” Lady Roysdon admonished.

  “You know I will do anything you ask of me,” Lady Dorridge said.

  Her happiness, which was like a child’s, was infectious and Lady Roysdon had gone back to her house on the Steine feeling as if, as her friend Averil had said, the world was full of sunshine.

  She was informed on her return that the Earl of Sheringham had called and was thankful that she had been out. She was dreading a scene about her giving him the slip after the ball.

  But she had known that sooner or later she would have to face his reproaches.

  Now indeed she was more concerned by the fact that her air of happiness disturbed him.

  “You look very beautiful tonight,” he said after he had been looking at her for some time. “And now I know what is missing. It is that air of boredom that was unmistakable before we left London.”

  “That is why I left,” Lady Roysdon said sharply. “I was bored, D’Arcy – very bored.”

  “It was hardly an excuse for coming down to Brighton ten days earlier than you intended and without saying goodbye.”

  This was something they had already discussed and argued about the moment he reached Brighton and Lady Roysdon deliberately yawned.

  “If there is one thing I really dislike,” she said, “it is boiling my mutton in the same water twice.”

  This was a cant phrase that she had learnt in the vicinity of Covent Garden and the Earl laughed almost despite himself.

  “I have been thinking up several new adventures for us on our return.”

  “My days of adventuring are over,” Lady Roysdon replied. “I am thinking of turning over a new leaf, D’Arcy, and becoming quiet and respectable.”

  “In the company of your husband?” he asked cynically.

  He saw the expression on her face before she could hide it from him and he laughed beneath his breath as he added,

  “You need me and you would find it very dull without me. Be honest and admit that is the truth.”

  There was a note in his voice that she recognised all too well.

  Just for a moment she glanced at him from under her eyelashes and saw the fire in his eyes and the expression on his lips, which told her that the animal in him that Averil had sensed was almost out of control.

  To Lady Roysdon’s relief she saw the Prince Regent moving across the room towards them and, as she rose to her feet, the Earl said in a voice that only she could hear,

  “We will dine together tomorrow evening. I will take you somewhere where we can be alone.”

  She was glad she could not answer him because the Prince reached their side.

  As she curtseyed, His Royal Highness said,

  “Come and help me choose some music, my dear, for my band to play. I feel, looking at you, that it should be very romantic and yet at the same time spirited.”

  “You flatter me, Sire.”

  Accepting the Prince’s arm she walked with him to where the band was playing in the music room.

  Mrs. Fitzherbert joined them and they argued over the different compositions they liked or disliked.

  The Prince supported his choice with witticisms that made Lady Roysdon laugh, until finally he had his way and only the music he preferred was decided upon.

  “You are looking very beautiful, dearest Galatea,” Mrs. Fitzherbert said as they moved back into the drawing room.

  “I was just going to say the same to you, Maria,” Lady Roysdon answered.

  This was not strictly true, but, although Mrs. Fitzherbert had never been beautiful, since she had returned to the Prince they had been so happy together that, despite her age, she looked more attractive than she had ever done before.

  The Prince’s friends were in fact delighted that the years of estrangement were over. Under Mrs. Fitzherbert’s influence he drank less and seemed far more settled in every way.

  There still remained, of course, the worry over his morally unstable wife and the perennial unpleasantness over his debts.

  But those who were fond of the Prince were thankful that on the whole he seemed for the moment more content than he had been at any other time in his life.

  Someone had actually said to Lady Roysdon that His Royal Highness was “always merry and full of his jokes and anyone would have said that he was a really very happy man”.

  He had put on weight again despite the use of a ‘vapour bath’ that he had bought that summer, but he had lost none of his grace and his charm was more captivating than ever.

  There was no doubt that the Prince Regent was happy at Brighton and, as the evening continued, he kept Lady Roysdon by his side and they laughed about many things and many people.

  Because the Earl was sulking since she was paying so little attention to him, he was seated at a card table and Lady Roysdon saw an opportunity of leaving without his being aware of it.

  She took the Prince into her confidence.

  “Would you permit me to depart, Sire?” she asked. “I had a slight indisposition yesterday and am very anxious for it not to return. Will you help me to slip away without the Earl of Sheringham thinking that he must offer to escort me?”

  Th
e Prince’s eyes twinkled.

  “If I help you to be so ungracious to my friend, will he not be incensed with me?” he asked.

  “I know, Sire, that you will understand, as no one else would, that I wish to leave alone,” Lady Roysdon replied.

  The Prince was delighted to intrigue with her, both because he admired her and because it always pleased him to be taken into his friends’ confidences and feel that he was needed.

  Since his father did not want him, which had been very obvious ever since he grew up, and his country was none too keen on him, he was all the more flattered when his friends sought his assistance.

  “Leave everything to me, my dear,” he said in a conspiratorial tone.

  He ordered her carriage for her and saw her into it so surreptitiously that she had left the Pavilion before the Earl had any idea of what was happening.

  As she drove home, Lady Roysdon was not thinking of the evening she had just enjoyed but the evening she was looking forward to.

  Fortunately next day she was not plagued by visits from the Earl or having to find excuses why she should not be alone with him.

  The Prince expected him to accompany Mrs. Fitzherbert and himself to the Racecourse and Lady Roysdon knew that that would keep him fully occupied until late in the afternoon.

  The Prince Regent had given up going to Newmarket after a row in 1791 over his horse Escape, but he enjoyed the Brighton races and had presented a silver gilt cup, which his horse, Orvil, had won the previous year.

  It had been a very exciting race with Orvil the only outsider and behind the other runners for most of the course. But in the finishing stretch he shot forward and won the race easily.

  Lady Roysdon enjoyed racing and Mrs. Fitzherbert had pressed her to join them in the Prince’s box, but she gave a number of plausible excuses and spent the day relaxing and beautifying herself.

  She sent a note to the Earl by a groom, saying that she could not dine with him as she had another engagement.

  It would infuriate him, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  Lady Roysdon had her long dark hair washed and the coiffeur who was greatly in demand amongst the fashionable ladies in Brighton came early in the afternoon to curl it in a new style that she thought was very becoming.

  Yet for the first time for many years she found it difficult to make up her mind what she should wear tonight when she dined, not with the Royal Prince or any of the aristocrats of her acquaintance, but with a highwayman whose name she still did not know.

  As he had said he intended to return her emeralds and she tried to deceive herself into pretending that was the reason why the evening was so important.

  Her gown must be one that would complement the jewels and she had in fact a number of them in her wardrobe.

  Green, white, silver, they were all a perfect foil for the emeralds that were unique in their size and depth of colour.

  Finally, after changing her mind half-a-dozen times, she wore a gown of white gauze embroidered with silver with silver and green ribbons crossed under her breasts and tied in a long-ended sash at the back.

  “You’ll need your emeralds with that, my Lady,” Hannah said when Lady Roysdon told her which gown she would wear.

  “I am aware of that” Lady Roysdon answered, “and, as I told you, Hannah, I left my emeralds in safe-keeping before I left Lord Marshall’s ball the night before last. Tonight I shall collect them.”

  “It’s wise of you, my Lady, to take such precautions, but unlike your Ladyship, if I might say so,” Hannah commented.

  “Am I so foolhardy?” Lady Roysdon enquired.

  “Shall we say your Ladyship’s a bit over-adventurous at times,” Hannah replied, speaking with the familiarity and at the same time the affection of an old servant.

  “You are not to worry about me, Hannah,” Lady Roysdon admonished her. “You know quite well I can take care of myself.”

  “I’m keepin’ my fingers crossed, my Lady,” Hannah retorted.

  When finally she was dressed and looked at herself in the mirror, Lady Roysdon knew that she not only looked exquisitely elegant, but there was, as the Earl had perceived, something different about her.

  It might have been the expression of her eyes, which seemed unnaturally large or perhaps in the half-smile that curved her red lips.

  But she was certain it was because, as he had said so perceptively, she had come to life.

  Gone was the languor and the boredom that had become almost habitual during the last months in London.

  Instead the whole of her seemed to sparkle and she felt a tingle of excitement that was inexpressible run through her body and come to rest in her breast.

  Hannah put a wrap of velvet lined with swansdown over her shoulders and she ran down the stairs to astound Fulton by saying that she wished to leave not from the front of the house but from the stable yard.

  “The stable yard, my Lady?” he asked, repeating it as if he could not have heard aright.

  “That is what I said, Fulton.”

  She was not going to explain that there were too many eyes on the Steine and among them there might easily be those belonging to the Earl of Sheringham.

  Conscious that the butler was affronted at the very idea of her using the back door, she walked ahead through the narrow flagged passages.

  Her curricle, with Jake driving it, drawn by two of her best horses, was waiting as she had instructed.

  Having bade good evening to the stable boys, who touched their forelocks when she addressed them, she stepped into the curricle and Fulton covered her legs with a rug.

  “Goodnight, Fulton.”

  “Goodnight, my Lady.”

  He was still scandalised, she knew, by the unconventional manner in which she was leaving the house, but she merely smiled at him and Jake set off, driving the horses with more expertise than she had expected.

  She was well aware that the whole stable would be astonished that she had asked for Jake to drive her rather than old Hancocks, who would consider it his right.

  When they were clear of the Mews and proceeding down a side street, Lady Roysdon asked Jake,

  “What excuse did you give for my asking for you to drive me?”

  “I tells Mr. Hancocks, my Lady, that we’re a-goin’ a long distance and your Ladyship had no wish to keep him out late for the third night runnin’.”

  “He believed you?”

  “He thinks it ever so considerate of your Ladyship and different from the treatment he oft receives in London!”

  Lady Roysdon laughed.

  “I shall have to remember in future how old he is.”

  “Yes, your Ladyship,” Jake agreed.

  They were out on the Downs before Lady Roysdon spoke again.

  Then she asked,

  “You have known the highwayman long?”

  “Ever since I were a child, my Lady.”

  “So really you look upon him as your Master?”

  Lady Roysdon was aware that her question disconcerted Jake, but after a moment he said,

  “I’m employed by your Ladyship and I gives me services to them as pays me, my Lady!”

  She knew it was the answer she might have expected, but it did not add to her knowledge of the highwayman.

  After a moment she said,

  “It’s a very dangerous life. If he were caught he would be hanged and doubtless so would your friend Denzil.”

  “Yes, my Lady.”

  “Does that not perturb you?”

  “No, my Lady.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because my Mast – I means the highwayman is clever, my Lady. He don’t take no chances.”

  “And you don’t consider that such a way of life is wrong – as the law says it is?”

  “The money he takes does a lot of good, my Lady.”

  “In what way?”

  There was a pause before Jake replied,

  “There’s an orphanage that benefits and old people and those
as have been injured. He ’elps ’em all.”

  Lady Roysdon gave a little sigh.

  It was what she might have expected, she thought, and she had not missed a note almost of idolatry in Jake’s voice.

  They drove on in silence. Now the wood was just ahead, but they did not approach it by the same route as they had when she and Jake had been riding.

  Instead they drove further along the road then turned up a track that at first was hardly discernible but which gradually as it wound between the trees became more obvious.

  It was, Lady Roysdon thought, doubtless a path used by woodcutters.

  There was room for the curricle and they were climbing all the time towards, she was sure, the same spot where she had met the highwayman before.

  She found that she was right when Jake drew the horses to a standstill and showed her a small path winding inwards between the fir trees.

  Lady Roysdon stepped out and found the moss was soft beneath her feet. Once again there was the fragrance of the pines and the quietness and peace she remembered.

  Now her heart was beating rapidly and she felt a strange excitement that she had not felt for many years, as if she was going to a very special party.

  She walked a few more steps and found the clearing as she remembered it, only this time he was there waiting for her.

  At first glance she realised that, if she had taken trouble in dressing herself for him, he had done the same for her.

  He was wearing evening dress and she thought he looked not only handsome but more elegant than any of the gentlemen she had seen last night at the Royal Pavilion.

  He walked towards her, raised her hand to his lips and, as she curtseyed, he said,

  “Sir Just Trevena is deeply honoured that My Lady Roysdon should have accepted his invitation to dine.”

  “Lady Roysdon thanks Sir Just for his kind invitation,” she replied, “and has much pleasure in accepting.”

  They stood looking at each other, but he did not relinquish her hand.

  “Sir Just Trevena,” she said slowly. “Of course, you are Cornish. I could not place Jake’s accent. Now I know what it is.”

  “And Denzil’s name is Cornish.”

  They were speaking words at each other, Lady Roysdon thought, but their eyes were saying something very different.