The Waltzing Widow/Smith Read online

  Left alone, Avedon put his head into his hands and sighed. Beyond the window the trees were in full leaf. It seemed only yesterday he had been looking out at blossoms. How quickly the time flew by. He hadn’t really minded missing the season. At one and thirty, he had ceased to find much amusement in it, though he knew he ought to be finding a wife and starting a nursery. His remaining at home had led Lady Beatrice Buckley to hope she might grab him. An unappetizing vision of her spreading girth, invariably robed in outlandish peacock colors, and topped with her black hair arranged in convoluted masses, floated into his mind. He shuddered.

  Yet he had no difficulty setting her down when she came calling. A worse outcome of staying at home was that his sister, Sally—Lady Sara to the rest of the world—came pouncing down on him. By some freak of chance, the worldly Lady Sara had married Dr. Rutledge, a minor ecclesiastic. Over the years he had risen to deacon of St. Giles. Archdeacon Nivens had recently died, leaving the way open for promotion. The difficulty was that there were four other deacons of equal eligibility in the running. She wanted Avedon to secure the place for her husband, but Dr. Rutledge was domiciled in Hampshire, where his own connections were restricted.

  In any case, everyone knew those appointments were political. The Tories would choose, and Avedon prided himself on being one of the more liberal Whigs. He didn’t know just what Sal expected him to do, but her visit was certainly for the purpose of making him do something. She mentioned a dozen times a day that he should “put in a word,” as though his being an earl made him automatically a power in the church.

  Lady Beatrice and Lady Sara were only petty annoyances. The real mischief was Tony. The boy was hopeless. Sally hoped to wed him and his estates to her eldest girl, Prissy, but that was a vain hope. A pity he couldn’t get Tony married off to someone, but the boy always succumbed to the most ineligible women in the parish.

  He’d have to make sure Rose Cottage didn’t fall into the hands of some jaded fortune hunter. How would he word the advertisement to weed out that sort? “Secluded country cottage, suitable for retired couple.” He jotted down the rent and other details and requested a box number to avoid the use of any name or title. When he was satisfied that he had described a cottage that would suit no one but nuns and octogenarians, he sealed the letter up and directed it to the London Observer.

  * * * *

  “Here is one that sounds just the thing,” Mrs. Percy pointed out to her niece. “ ‘Secluded country cottage, suitable for retired couple.’ It is so difficult to find just what we require. It is in beautiful Kent, quiet location, all conveniences. Servants not provided. That is interesting, for I shall want to take at least some of my servants with me. It is quiet and out of the way, just as we want, love.”

  “Yes, I’ll answer it,” Lucy said with no great interest.

  As her heart mended over the passing days, she was beginning to wonder if such total retirement would suit her. On the other hand the solicitude of her friends was wearying. Perhaps she would find someone who loved her for herself in Kent. And the best way to insure that was to go as someone other than an heiress. If she met the right man, he would not be too disconcerted to learn she was unmarried and wealthy.

  Several other replies to the advertisement were received by Avedon as well. He consulted with his sister regarding which to accept. “Here is one from an officer’s wife, Avedon,” she said, picking up Lucy’s letter. “She is suffering from a lung complaint, poor thing. She would come with her husband’s sister— that sounds very respectable. We ought to do what we can for an officer’s wife, don’t you think?”

  Avedon cast a wary glance at his sister. He always suspected any pious utterance from Sally. They were her stock in trade, but at bottom she was moved only by self-interest. Her sweetly smiling face could revert to an expression of sly cunning or mulish obstinacy in the blink of an eye. It had taken him years to figure her out, for she was nearly a decade older than Avedon. She was ostensibly here “to bear him company during his rustication,” but he actually saw little of her and would not have complained had he seen even less.

  Lady Sally had once passed for a beauty, but as she advanced into motherhood, whatever physical charms she had once possessed had been larded over by weight. She disliked physical activity nearly as much as she disliked to spend a penny or waste one.

  The pleasure of her life was to advance the welfare of her family. Her two goals that summer were the promotion for her husband and a rich husband for her eldest daughter. Both could be achieved better at her ancestral home than with her husband, so she had torn herself away, to give him peace and quiet for preparing his sermons, while she endured weeks of grinding leisure at Chenely.

  “I don’t like the sound of a soldier’s wife. She might get Tony after her,” Avedon objected.

  “No, no. She comes with her husband’s sister. That precludes any sort of flirtatious behavior, and if she has a lung complaint, she will want the ass’s milk that is going to waste every day. Such a shame. When I was at home, Papa always gave me the money from the ass’s milk,” she added with a sharp shot from her gimlet eyes.

  So that was it, Avedon decided. It was the couple of shillings from the ass’s milk that had turned Sal into a patriot. “There is one here from a retired vicar and his wife,” he mentioned. “They might be company for you.”

  “Oh, no, Adrian, that is exactly the kind of people I most wish to avoid. They would expect to be invited to Chenely, you know, and you would not like that. They would look for special treatment because I am a clergyman’s wife, depend upon it. And the lady with lung trouble will want the ass’s milk. We must not forget that. Waste not, want not.”

  “The decision ought not to hinge on a quart of ass’s milk a day,” he pointed out with a tolerant smile at her clutch-fisted ways.

  “No indeed, but her husband is out defending the country while she is all alone—except for her chaperon. See what a nice genteel hand she writes. Very fine pressed paper, too. She doesn’t mention her husband’s rank, only that he is an officer. He cannot be a colonel, or she would have said. Perhaps a captain. She might be an elderly woman for all we know. And in any case, with her husband’s sister along, there will be no trouble with Tony. She will pay cash in advance—that is a point to consider. The interest on five hundred over the year comes to twenty-five pounds. The vicar mentions terms, you see. They would likely accept a reduction when they find out John is a deacon. Let us accept the officer’s wife.”

  “Very well.”

  The letter of acceptance was sent out, the Percys’ traveling carriage was loaded up, and they were off to Kent to hide themselves in Baron Bigelow’s secluded cottage, for Lucy to lick her wounds and throw the neighborhood into a tizzy that would make the Lacey affair look tame in comparison.

  Chapter Three

  “We will not be so very secluded,” Lucy said when the carriage turned in at the proper road. “The last signpost said Canterbury twenty miles, but Ashford is only five.”

  Mrs. Percy strained her neck out the window to see their new temporary home. In June the garden was at its peak. The flower that gave the cottage its name grew in profusion. A tumble of pretty pink roses climbed up the lower brick walls of a half-timbered house. Newly cleaned leaded windows gleamed in the sunlight. The honey-colored oak door caught the rays and shone a welcome.

  When the ladies alit, Mrs. Percy’s first destination was the garden behind the house. Here she was disappointed. Jobber’s hasty refurbishing had not extended to the rear. A tangle of toadflax competed with ivy on the wall that partially surrounded the garden, nearly hiding the stone. She entered the rounded arch and stared in dismay at what had once been a cultivated area.

  Mushrooms sprouted amidst the rank grass, and even nettles, those harbingers of wilderness, had established a foothold around the edges. But amidst the jungle her keen eye discerned the bloom of cultivated flowers. The wilted leaves of daffodil and tulip showed where spring’s glory had bloomed
unseen. Phlox and delphiniums and roses vied with the hardier weeds.

  “There is work to be done here,” she said with some satisfaction. Bringing order from chaos was a challenge and the very thing to help pass a long summer of isolation. “Look at the rabbits!” she exclaimed as a pair of cottontails stopped and gave her a cool stare.

  “And the squirrels,” Lucy added. “The place is a regular jungle.” She lifted her eyes and beheld in the distance a soaring mass of gray stone. Chenely was built on a prominence that overlooked Avedon’s domain. “That must be a noble house,” she mentioned to her aunt. “Perhaps there will be balls....”

  Mrs. Percy disliked the interest in Lucy’s voice and spoke on to distract her. “Are those ravens on the battlements? It reminds one of the Tower of London.” As she spoke, a large black bird took wing and soared down from its perch. “Let us go and see if the key is in the door, as the letter said.” She had not been able to make out the signature on the letter, for the very good reason that Avedon had made it illegible.

  They returned to the front of the house, where the servants had already opened the door and were busy taking in the luggage. For the next half hour the ladies wandered from room to room, admiring and disparaging various features. The furnishings were respectable without being distinguished. They both liked the saloon, which was made cozy by the sparkling leaded windows, and both found the bedroom walls slanted a little more than was comfortable.

  On the day appointed for the arrival of the ladies, Lord Bigelow was at Chenely. Still hoping to cajole his uncle into relenting on the rattan curricle, he was on his best behavior. He offered to drive down to Rose Cottage to see if there was anything the ladies required. Lady Sara was the only one of the family with any real interest in seeing the tenants, but she stood too high on her dignity as an earl’s daughter and deacon’s wife to call on a mere officer’s family—at least until she heard an account of them.

  “Take note of what sort of carriage they drive, Tony. See how many servants they bring, and how they dress, and so on,” she ordered.

  “Dash it, Sal, I can’t remember all that stuff. I’ll tell you whether they’re pretty.”

  Avedon scowled and ran a hand over his close-cropped hair. “You’d best go with him, Sal. He won’t give us a notion what they’re like. I hope it wasn’t a mistake to rent Rose Cottage.”

  “It was a mistake for me,” Tony complained. “I didn’t get to see a groat of the five hundred.”

  “You will if the ladies like the cottage,” Avedon said. “I won’t cash their check till they’ve looked the place over and seen if it suits.”

  “They will consider themselves on calling terms if I go,” Lady Sara pointed out.

  “You will soon disabuse them of that idea if you wish,” her brother parried. “Let us not prejudge them. They may be perfectly respectable, in which case you will enjoy their company.”

  “I could mention the ass’s milk,” Lady Sara said consideringly, half looking for an excuse to go. “We might provide them with butter and eggs and greens, too,” she added. Her brother gave her a knowing look. She did not consider it pilfering to pocket the gains of these transactions. “The servants take what is left over out the back door, and you do not keep an eye on them as you should, Adrian,” she scolded. “What you need is a sharp wife. Lady Beatrice was saying just the other day—”

  “I have no need of a sharp wife with you in the house, Sal.” This leveler was received with a satisfied smile. Lady Sara took no offense at being termed sharp. She was proud of her wits.

  “I’ll go, then, just to please you,” she decided, and went off to get her cherry-trimmed bonnet, to impress the tenants.

  Lady Sara never went more than ten yards on foot. For a jog a half a mile down the lane she required the full dignity of her brother’s crested carriage and a liveried footman, besides the groom. Tony spurned such an antiquated form of travel and galloped across the meadow on his high-bred mount. He was already seated in the parlor of Rose Cottage when Lady Sara arrived, making himself very agreeable when he discovered his new tenant to be a ravishing young lady with chestnut-brown hair done up in the first style of fashion.

  It was not her flashing brown eyes that struck Lady Sara, but the fashionable gown of finest lawn muslin, whose price she pegged to within a shilling. Her practiced eye also cast a glance on a mountain of expensive luggage and the number of servants scampering about. She had already remarked the well-sprung carriage standing in the driveway. She entered with a smile on her wide face, and her hand, encased in lemon kid, extended to greet the tentatively acceptable tenants.

  “I am Lady Sara, dear Lord Bigelow’s auntie, come to make you welcome. I hope you find everything to your satisfaction?”

  As Tony had seen fit to introduce himself as Bigelow, Lucy had to adjust her opinion of the lank gentleman who stood before her. That she had wandered into a hive of nobility had not entered her head till that very moment. Her affair with Pewter had kept her removed from higher society during her one season, and she began to feel a little out of her depth. She said what she felt to be correct, introduced her husband’s sister, Miss Percy, and sat down. “I am sorry we cannot offer you some refreshment, Lady Sara, but as you can see, we just arrived five minutes ago.”

  “It is not to be thought of.” Lady Sara laughed it away, while her eyes made a darting examination of the room before returning to Lucy. She began to notice at about that moment that the fine lawn gown encased a rather good figure. “Just the veriest dash of a visit, to make you welcome, and let you know if you want anything, Chenely will be closer than dear Tony’s place. Chenely is my family home—you may have remarked the stone mansion up on the hill? I am visiting my brother, the Earl of Avedon.”

  Lucy was confused trying to figure out so many new names and connections. It seemed odd that the nearer neighbor was not her landlord. “Where do you live, Lord Bigelow? she asked.

  Lady Sara undertook to answer the question not put to her, as she frequently did when she wished to impress her hearer. “Lord Bigelow lives quite three miles away, at Milhaven. It is the larger of his two estates,” she added rather unnecessarily. “He is my elder sister’s son. We are all connected hereabouts.”

  “I see. And you live in the lovely old mansion on the hill, Lady Sara?”

  “I was raised at Chenely—the name goes back to our Norman forebears. Something to do with the oak trees in the park, I believe. I was raised there but am presently living with my husband, Deacon Rutledge, in Hampshire.” She rattled on with the names and ages of her children.

  Lucy’s mind was reeling, but she noticed that her chaperon was nodding her head in the corner, getting the whole of it off by heart. Mrs. Percy was the sort of lady who understood such arcane matters as second cousins once removed and would never say relative when she meant connection.

  “We were sorry to learn your lungs have been bothering you,” Lady Sara continued, playing the gracious lady. “So fortunate for you that we have an ass in milk at Chenely, and no one requires the milk at the moment. We will be happy to let you have it.”

  She realized that this sounded dangerously like a gift, when she meant it was for sale. She rectified it by adding, “In fact, you will perhaps want to purchase your other dairy products and greens from us, too. We have chickens and eggs fresh daily as well. No trouble at all to drop off, for Avedon sends some down to the gatekeeper’s wife, not a quarter of a mile out of the way.”

  “Thank you. You are very kind,” Lucy said. “Certainly we will be happy for the milk and greens, though I do not care for ass’s milk.”

  “But my dear, it is the very thing for weak lungs.”

  “It doesn’t agree with me,” Lucy said simply. She had never tasted it, but the idea was repulsive.

  It was a pity to lose out on the sale of the ass’s milk, but with such a quantity of servants to be fed milk and chicken and eggs, Lady Sara looked forward to a good profit.

  Lord Bigelow was not
happy to have the beauty’s attention diverted from himself and said, “Your husband is in the army, I understand, Mrs. Percy?”

  “Yes, Captain Percy is in the Peninsula,” Lucy replied.

  Lady Sara nodded with satisfaction. Then, remembering that no refreshments were to be forthcoming, she rose to take her leave. She had decided to continue the association and said, “I am giving a garden party on Thursday. I hope you and Miss Percy will do me the honor to attend. It begins at two, but we shall be in touch again before that.”

  “We shall be very happy to come,” Lucy agreed. She accompanied her caller to the door, and her eyes widened at the elegant black chaise, with the crest emblazoned on the door.

  She was beginning to realize that life in the country had more to offer than peace and quiet. Bigelow could not bear to be apart from the incomparable and followed her to the door. The baron, a mere stripling, was not attractive, but he was a titled gentleman and must have interesting friends. Lucy regretted that she had made herself a wife, and in the twinkling of a bedpost, she killed off her husband and became a widow. A memory of the past brought to mind the necessity for mourning, and she pushed her husband’s death back two years, to leave herself free for any merriment the place might offer. The only problem now was to inform her aunt of her changed status, before she made some revealing statement to Lord Bigelow.

  No sooner was Lady Sara out the door than Bigelow returned conveniently to the topic of her husband. “What regiment is Captain Percy in?” he inquired.

  “My husband was in the Light Dragoons,” she said, with a slight drooping of the lips. “He was killed at Salamanca.”

  In Bigelow’s breast joy wrestled with the need for displaying sorrow and won. “Oh, I say, I’m dreadfully sorry.” He beamed. “I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but Sal said you were a soldier’s wife.”