Nicola Cornick: The Scandals Of An Innocent

“I expect that this will be another marriage proposal,” Mrs. Lister said now. “Oh, Alice, you must take this one, no matter who it is! Please! Sir Montague will take half your fortune under the Dames’ Tax in six months’ time if you do not wed! Besides, unless you marry a lord no one in Fortune’s Folly will ever speak to us again! As it is, no one calls on us-”

“Mrs. Anstruther calls,” Alice pointed out. “She used to be a duchess. And Lady Elizabeth is living here with us. She is an earl’s daughter and half sister to a baronet.” She sighed at her mother’s obstinate expression. “We cannot force people to accept us, Mama,” she said. “You should know by now that money cannot buy everything.”

“But why not?” Mrs. Lister wailed. She patted the enormous diamond necklace that she was wearing like an armored chest plate. “I have all this! I am at least as rich as the Duchess of Cole, so why does she not acknowledge me?”

Alice shook her head gently. Mrs. Lister seemed incapable of accepting that she could buy as many diamonds as she liked, she could order a dozen sets of china, she could paint the ceiling of the dining room with gold leaf-which she had done-she could even have her bedroom decorated with Chinese wallpaper featuring painted dragons, and still no one would see her as anything other than a nouveau riche arriviste to be looked down upon by old money and old titles.

“Mama,” Alice said gently, “you are worth more than ten of the Duchess of Cole, and I do not mean in monetary terms-” She broke off, for Mrs. Lister was not listening. She was wearing the same puzzled and hurt expression that Alice had seen on her face before. She had lost the society of her own friends when she had gone up in the world, but now she had nothing to replace it. All the invitations from high society that she had anticipated had never materialized. Alice’s heart ached for her because, for all her snobbery, Mrs. Lister was lonely and unhappy.

Mrs. Lister grabbed Alice’s teacup. “Now, let me see…”

“Oh, Mama,” Alice said. Her mother had read tea leaves all her life, a skill she learned from her mother who had learned it from her mother before her and so on back into the mists of family history. Mrs. Lister took the cup in her left hand and swirled the dregs around three times in a clockwise direction before overturning the cup in the saucer. She held it down for a few seconds before righting it again and setting the handle toward herself as she peered into the depths.

“A parasol!” she declared triumphantly. “A new lover.”

“It looks like a mushroom to me,” Alice said, peering at the splodge of tea leaves in the bottom of her cup. “An upside-down mushroom, signifying frustration-at yet another man courting me for my money.” She had fended off nineteen marriage proposals in the past six months, all from the fortune hunters who had flocked to Fortune’s Folly after Sir Montague Fortune had revived the ancient Dames’ Tax, requiring that all the village spinsters should marry within a twelvemonth or forfeit half their fortune to him.

“The Marquis of Drummond, ma’am,” Marigold said, from the doorway.

Alice heard her mother give a little hiss of satisfaction at the news that the visitor was no less than a marquis. No one of a rank higher than an earl had previously come to pay court.

“It is Lord Vickery,” Mrs. Lister whispered loudly in Alice’s ear, “come to renew his addresses to you. I had heard that he had inherited the Drummond title. I knew he would not be able to keep away from you, now he has returned to Yorkshire.”

Alice turned to see Miles Vickery enter the room. Her heart was racing in a most unfamiliar fashion, her breathing was constricted and butterflies fluttered frantically in her stomach. She fought a desperate urge to run away. This, she told herself sternly, was entirely due to the uncomfortable mixture of guilt and anxiety that her escapade at the gown shop had roused in her. It certainly had nothing to do with Miles himself.

For a moment she found herself wondering if Miles did indeed possess the audacity to renew his attentions to her, for rumor had it that his finances were now in an even more parlous state than they had been in the autumn. In fact, he probably needed to marry at least two heiresses, let alone one, since he had inherited the Drummond debts to add to his own. She thought that he would need to have the hide of a bull elephant even to consider making his addresses to her, but perhaps he was impertinent enough to think that having almost succumbed to his charm once, she would be an easy mark. She drew herself up a little straighter. She would soon remind him that she despised him for his utter lack of respect for her.

Miles came forward and bowed first to Mrs. Lister and then to Alice. He was impeccably dressed with a casual elegance that Alice knew could only be achieved with a great deal of time, and with money he did not have. His coat of blue superfine fitted his broad shoulders to perfection. His brown hair was faultlessly disordered in the windswept style. His linen was an immaculate white, a striking contrast to the golden tan of his skin. His boots had a high polish. And in his hazel eyes was the same wicked, devil-may-care spark that had almost stolen her foolish, susceptible heart back in the autumn.

He smiled at her and Alice felt that traitorous heart skip a beat. She quickly averted her gaze from Miles’s face, and her eye fell on the rather grubby wedding gown he was carrying. It was folded neatly but looked rather the worse for wear. Alice hastily averted her gaze again, desperately searching for somewhere safe to look. She could not look at Miles-he was too disturbing-and she did not wish to display any interest whatsoever in the wedding gown. She fixed her eyes very firmly on the clock on the mantelpiece.

“My lord!” Mrs. Lister was making up in effusiveness for everything that Alice was failing to say. “What a very great pleasure to see you again! You will take refreshment? A pot of tea?”

“Lord Vickery will not be staying, Mama,” Alice said quickly, forestalling any answer that Miles might otherwise have given. She turned back to Miles with a quick swish of her skirts and met the look of quizzical amusement on his face. Many men of rank would have been horribly affronted by her ungracious words, she knew. It was one of the disconcerting things about Miles that it seemed almost impossible to offend him.

“You did not receive my letter, Lord Vickery?” she said coldly.

A delicious smile crept into Miles’s hazel eyes. Alice could feel the color rising in her cheeks. It sprang from sheer annoyance, or so she assured herself. Annoyance was a very heated emotion.

“I did,” he said, his lazy, masculine drawl very much in evidence.

“Then it seems unaccountable bad manners that you would approach me again when I had expressly asked you not to!” Alice snapped. “I never wanted to set eyes on you again.”

“Oh, but you were angry with Lord Vickery when he was only a baron,” Mrs. Lister interposed helpfully. “Now that he is a marquis all is forgiven.”

“Now he is a marquis I daresay he is no more a gentleman than he was before,” Alice said crossly. “Please, Mama, leave this to me. Lord Vickery-”

“I came to bring you this,” Miles said, holding out the wedding gown, “and to beg a few words in private, if I may.”

“That is out of the question,” Alice began, but in the same moment her mother, that most compliant of chaperones, beamed and hurried toward the door.

“Of course!” Mrs. Lister said. “I am sure you have something very particular to say to Alice. I shall be in the parlor if you wish to speak with me afterward, Lord Vickery. A marchioness!” Alice heard her add, as she whisked out of the room. “Eight strawberry leaves in the coronet!”