Louise Allen - Regency Pleasures and Sins Part 1

‘Yes!’ Millie glowed with pride. ‘I have a speaking line all to myself and I sing in a trio in the second act. I play one of the village maidens who, with her friends, helps hide the Prince whilst he is fleeing his Wicked Uncle.’

‘What happens in the end?’ Mrs Blackstock enquired, looking up from the account book she was filling in at the other end of the table from Zenna, who was marking her pupils.’ French vocabulary work.

Millie put down the sheet she was hemming, curled up more comfortably on the rather battered sofa and prepared to explain the plot. ‘Well, the Prince falls in love with this village maiden—only she isn’t really, she’s the daughter of the Duke in disguise because he wants her to marry this awful man—and when the Wicked Uncle—the Prince’s uncle, that is, who is trying to murder him—finds where he is hiding, she sacrifices herself by throwing herself from the battlements in front of his troops and—’

The sound of the front door-knocker thudding with great force in a resounding tattoo brought each lady upright with a start, for one moment convinced that the Wicked Uncle himself must be at the door.

‘My goodness, who can that be?’ Mrs Blackstock demanded, putting down her quill.

‘Someone’s very superior footman, I should imagine,’ Tallie replied, getting up to edge the curtain aside and peep out into the dark, wet street. ‘That was a fine example of the London Knock if ever I heard one. It is too dark outside, I cannot make out who it is. Oh, yes, now Annie has opened the door I can see the livery. Why, surely that is one of Lady Parry’s footmen! I wonder why she is sending me a message here, she always sends orders to the shop.’

Annie came in, her sharp face flushed with importance. ‘There’s this footman, mam, and he’s brought this letter for Miss Grey, mam. Cor, he is tall, mam.’

‘Thank you, Annie,’ Mrs Blackstock said repressively. ‘Wait and see if Miss Grey has a reply for him.’

Tallie turned the letter over in her hands, then, realising that she was never going to find out what it was about until she opened it, cracked the seal in a shower of red wax and spread out the single sheet.

‘But how strange!’

‘What?’ Zenna demanded at last, when, after the one exclamation, Tallie fell silent.

‘Why, Lady Parry asks me to call at ten on Monday morning upon a personal matter. Annie, please say to the footman that Miss Grey will be happy to call as Lady Parry asks. Can you remember that?’

‘Yes, miss.’ The maid closed the door behind her, mouthing the words of the message silently.

‘What can it mean, Zenna?’

Tallie handed the letter to Zenna, who scanned it and handed it back with a shrug. ‘I have no more idea than you, goose.’ Her friend laughed. ‘Perhaps she wants to set you up in your own millinery business, producing exclusive hats only for her and her circle of bosom friends.’

‘Now that would be wonderful,’ Tallie agreed, smiling back. ‘But somehow I do not think it likely.’ Rack her brains as she might, she could think of no plausible explanation for the mysterious note and she could not help but feel a twinge of apprehension at the thought of another visit to Bruton Street so soon. What if she met Lord Arndale again? ‘I wish tomorrow were not Sunday,’ she said with a little shiver. ‘I hate mysteries and being kept in suspense.’

Sunday did indeed drag, despite Matins at St Marylebone Church and a damp walk in Regent’s Park. By mid-afternoon Tallie was disgusted to find herself apprehensive and, as she described it to Zenna, ‘all of a fidget'.

‘But what on earth is the matter with you?’ her friend enquired, looking up at Tallie quizzically from her position on the hearthrug where she was burning her fingers roasting chestnuts. They had the parlour to themselves and had settled down to an afternoon of comfortable relaxation before the chilly walk to church for evensong.

Tallie considered confessing that her wild imagination was conjuring up images of Lord Arndale denouncing her to Lady Parry as an immoral and wanton young woman who posed nude for artists, but the words would not form on her lips. ‘I am afraid I may have done something to displease Lady Parry and she is summoning me to say that she no longer requires my services,’ she blurted out at last.

‘What nonsense,’ Zenna stated. ‘Ouch! Oh, do pass that bowl, Tallie—these are so hot.’ She dropped the nuts into the dish and gave the matter some thought while she sucked her fingers. ‘Even if you had displeased her, surely she would write to Madame d’Aunay, not ask you to call?’

Not if Lord Arndale had told her such a scandalous story, Tallie thought miserably. Lady Parry was too kind to spread such a tale abroad, but she would certainly not tolerate continuing contact with such an abandoned young woman.

Zenna twisted round on the rug and studied Tallie’s face thoughtfully. ‘Has this anything to do with that incident at the studio the other day?’ she demanded.

‘Oh! How did you guess? Zenna, I met the man who found me in the closet—I would know his voice anywhere. And he is Lady Parry’s trustee and nephew and he came to the house when I was there last.’

‘And did he cry, “There is that beautiful woman I saw in a state of nature the other day"? Or did he quite fail to recognise you face on, fully clad, with your hair up and a bonnet on your head?’

‘He did not recognise me then, I am sure of it. But, Zenna, he may have thought about it afterwards and something might have jogged his memory …’

‘What nonsense. You told me you had your hair loose and it was falling around your face, did you not? It is a lovely colour, but not such an unusual shade that he could recognise you from it—and you look very different with it up, in any case. Besides, I somehow feel it would not have been your hair he would have been looking at.’

Zenna got to her feet and took the bowl of chestnuts from Tallie’s limp grasp. ‘If you are not going to eat these, I most certainly am. Do you really think that he took so much notice of you? At Lady Parry’s, I mean? He would have had to be made of stone not to take notice before, of course.’

‘No, you are quite right, Zenna. I am being foolish. All he saw at Lady Parry’s was a milliner, not a young lady, or an artist’s model.’

‘Ah, but you rather wish he had.’

Tallie made a face at her friend, but some treacherous part of her mind did indeed wish that those lazy grey eyes had looked at her and seen neither a naked model nor a humble menial, but the real young lady beneath those guises. Stop it, she thought. He is dangerous, and leaned over to take a still-hot chestnut from the bowl.

But a long night tossing and turning did nothing to calm Tallie’s nervous apprehension. She dressed with care and penned a note to her employer explaining that she had been called away for the day unexpectedly and sent little Annie off to deliver it, keeping her fingers crossed that Madame would not take exception to this rare absence.

Tallie took a hackney carriage, reluctant to risk arriving either late or windswept on Lady Parry’s doorstep, but even a safe and punctual arrival did not make her feel any better.

Rainbird opened the front door with his usual stately demeanour, although a spark of something more than welcome showed in his eyes as he regarded the shabby visitor. ‘Good morning, Miss Grey. Her ladyship asked me to show you through to the library.’

Tallie followed across the hall to a door she had never entered on her previous visits and was startled when Rainbird opened it and announced with some emphasis, ‘Miss Grey.’ It was not treatment she was used to and Tallie looked around the room with interest as she entered.