Little Coquette Read online

  “I didn’t think of it. That was remiss of me.”

  “No matter. Congratulations on your catch, Lydia. How did you nab him? He has been the despair of the mamas for half a dozen seasons now.”

  “You misunderstand the matter,” Lydia said at once. She was disappointed in her aunt. She had thought her mind would be above such mundane concerns. “It is not a match. Merely Beaumont was coming to town and offered to bring me.”

  “And take you for a drive this afternoon and to the lecture this evening. I doubt he would do that for—say, a maiden aunt,” Nessie said with a waggish smile.

  “No, truly! We are just friends and neighbors. Pray do not give him the absurd notion I am throwing my bonnet at him.”

  “Oh indeed, no. I am not a complete flat. We must let the lad think he is doing the courting.”

  The ladies settled in for a little chat. As Lydia looked around the room, she was struck by how refined it was compared to her country home. Her mama favored a fussy sort of decor, with many samples of her arts of embroidery and dried flowers from a former craze. The paintings were maudlin narrative scenes, mostly of children and cats or dogs. Here all was classical elegance. The books and journals on the sofa table hinted at more intellectual pursuits than embroidery.

  “What news from the Hall?” Nessie asked. “Will John be returning to London soon?”

  “He says he is feeling stouter, but he is still in bed,” Lydia said. As the biggest news in the parish was the death of Mrs. St. John, she decided she should mention it. She would watch for Nessie’s reaction to the name.

  “We have had a bit of excitement. A dead body was found in the river, just there by the bridge between the Hall and Pontneuf Chase. A Mrs. St. John.”

  “Oh dear,” Nessie said, but she didn’t say it as if she recognized the name.

  “A redheaded woman. A lightskirt, they are saying. She was not a local woman. No one knows what she was doing there.”

  Even this did not rouse Nessie to more than casual interest. “A pity she ended up so close to your home. I daresay it has put Miriam in a pucker.”

  “Yes, Mama was quite upset.”

  They chatted for a quarter of an hour; then Lydia said, “I shall go upstairs now to freshen up. At what time is lunch?”

  “What time is Beaumont coming?”

  “Around two.”

  “Then we shall have a bite early, at one.”

  Lydia’s trunk had been unpacked when she went to her room. The rose suite was kept for Lydia’s use on those rare occasions when she visited London, usually for some formal affair such as a wedding in the family. She noticed that the servants had brought water, fresh towels, and even flowers. Nessie was such a good hostess.

  Lydia didn’t remain long in the room. She darted down the hall to her father’s bedchamber, a smaller version of the master bedroom at home, and began rifling the desk for evidence of his liaison with Mrs. St. John. She found nothing whatsoever. On his dresser sat a small picture in a silver frame of herself when she was ten years old. On his toilet table was an ivory miniature of her mama, looking so different from her present self. Lydia didn’t remember her ever having blond curls and a dimpled smile. She was touched that her papa kept the likeness by his bed. Did he not feel like a Judas every time he looked at it?

  When she heard Nessie go to her room, she ran downstairs to search the study. Its mahogany surface held only the leather-bound blotter, calendar, ink pot, and pens. On one corner of the desk sat a cardboard box. She lifted it and shook it. It was small but heavy. There was no name on it. It could hardly have anything to do with Mrs. St. John.

  She began opening drawers. There, right in the little middle drawer, she found a note written on violet paper in an unformed hand. It was the same color of paper as the note Papa had pushed under the coverlet when she went into his room at home. The note was dated the day before her papa had left London. She took it up and hesitated a moment before reading it. In such dire circumstances as the present, she felt justified. She would skip over the warm bits. She read:

  My Dearest John:

  A wee problem has come up with Dooley. You mind I mentioned him to you. I want to get away from London for a few days. Don’t worry if you come back and find me gone. You know I will never dezert you. I’ll miss you. Call on me as soon as you return. Thank you for the new bonet. Red, my favorite color! I’ll wear it next time we go out.

  As ever, your Prissie.

  Lydia sat a moment, simmering with fury. “My Dearest John” was a cruel blow. The intimacy of “your Prissie,” as if she were a thing to be owned, was even more infuriating. “You know I will never dezert you” was the worst of all. Papa buying bonnets for that vulgar woman who could not even spell! And who the devil was Dooley? She read it again and again, until she had it by heart. Only then did she realize it told her little about the hussy except her name and her lack of education. There was no address, not even a last name. She wondered, too, if her papa had deigned to go home only because his mistress was leaving town.

  She searched the rest of the drawers, but if Prissie had sent more notes, her papa had not kept them. Not here, in any case. She had hoped for an address, that she might go there by herself and find out about the woman. Now she would have to rely on Beaumont. And there was really no relying on him to tell her what he discovered.

  She schooled her expression to one of polite pleasure and went to await her aunt in the saloon. Before long, Nessie returned and they went in to luncheon. Like the saloon, lunch was pleasingly different from the heavy, hot meals her mama favored. A delicate consommé and an herb omelette were more enjoyable than a chop and potatoes in the warm weather.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Nessie said. “If I had known you were coming—”

  “Oh no! It’s fine, Nessie. Delicious.”

  “The truth is, I am watching my waist. If I don’t, no one else will,” she said, laughing. “I’m afraid I have only fruit and cheese for dessert. I’ll ask Cook to make a plum cake for dinner.”

  “Not on my account.”

  “The orange soufflé, then.”

  “Yes, that would be nice.”

  As soon as lunch was over, Nessie said, “You will want to make a fresh toilette for your outing. Even in the curricle, you can wear a more elegant bonnet in town. Beaumont will keep the pace down to a polite trot.”

  “I didn’t bring any other bonnet,” Lydia said, surprised at Nessie’s concern for fashion. Yet as she considered it, Nessie had always been a stylish dresser.

  “Oh dear. An out-and-outer like Beaumont won’t appreciate that pokey thing you wore. Borrow one of mine, or you will look like a country mouse.”

  “I’m not trying to impress anyone,” Lydia said.

  “Then you must wear a different bonnet, or you will most unfavorably impress everyone you meet.”

  Lydia gave her aunt a disparaging look. “I didn’t think you cared about such things, Nessie. It’s so ... feminine.”

  “Thank you very much, miss! You make me sound like a dowd. Everyone likes to look her best. It is not only the ladies who take care to look well. Why, the gentlemen are ten times worse. They spend hours with their tailors, discussing the cut of a lapel or sleeve. They do it to look well for us ladies. It is only fair that we return the compliment.”

  As Lydia didn’t see how wearing a fancier bonnet would impede her search for information about Mrs. St. John, she agreed to wear the borrowed one. When she sat in front of Nessie’s mirror with a stylish concoction of feathers on her head, she was pleased with her appearance.

  So was Beaumont when he called for her. “A charming chapeau, Lydia. I was afraid you planned to wear that hideous scrap of nothing you wore this morning. I would be ashamed to be seen with you,” he said, smiling to show her he was joking.

  She returned an icy little smile. “I had no idea you were so superficial, Beaumont.”

  “Clothes reflect the mind of their wearer. That is an elegant bonnet for
an elegant mind. Shall we go?”

  “You will join us for dinner, I hope, Beaumont?” Nessie said, pleased with the unintentional compliment to herself.

  “Thank you, ma’am. I would be delighted. Eightish?”

  “No, earlier!” Lydia exclaimed.

  “You are not in the country now, dear,” her aunt said.

  “But—but the lecture begins at eight,” she said.

  “Oh yes, the Coleridge lecture,” Nessie said. “It slipped my mind. What is the subject?”

  A guilty flush started on Lydia’s cheeks. She had read that Coleridge was to give a series of lectures and thought it would be interesting to attend, but as it was unlikely, she hadn’t paid much attention. She cast an appealing eye on Beaumont.

  “Shakespeare,” he said. “Coleridge is involving himself in the controversy over whether he actually wrote his own plays. Nonsense, of course, but Coleridge likes a good argument.”

  “That should be very interesting—for bluestockings,” Nessie said with a tsk.

  They made their escape soon after that little contretemps.

  Lydia was disappointed to see Beaumont’s crested carriage waiting at the door. No one would see her in Nessie’s lovely bonnet. She immediately chided herself for this vain thought.

  “Why did you change carriages?” she asked.

  “You expressed disappointment that I had driven my curricle this morning. I did it to please you.”

  “Oh,” she said, her expression making perfectly clear she was not pleased. “Thank you. That was thoughtful of you, Beaumont,” she said, and climbed into the rig.

  “Did you have any luck with your searching?” he asked.

  “Very little, just one note, dated the day before Papa came home. Her first name is Prissie. Papa bought her a bonnet before he left. Red, like the one the lady in the river wore. She said she would be away for a few days. It is odd she didn’t mention it if she was going to Kesterly.”

  “Perhaps she thought your papa would not like it.”

  “Then you think he didn’t know where she was going? It is odd that he returned home himself the very next day.”

  “Coincidence. What else did the note say?”

  “Coincidence, or did he write her and invite her?”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” Beaumont said. “He is too sharp to foul his own nest.”

  “She mentioned a man named Dooley. She was having some trouble with him. She said Papa would know who she meant. Do you recognize the name?”

  After a frowning pause, Beaumont said, “No, the name means nothing to me. Irish, of course.”

  “Oh.” She sat, thinking.

  “You didn’t ask me what I discovered,” Beaumont said, chewing back a smile of triumph.

  She looked at him with interest. “Did you find out something?”

  “I did. Her name was not St. John for one thing. It was Prissie Shepherd. I expect she used an alias at the inn because of its being so close to Trevelyn Hall, in case anyone who knew of her association with your papa should see her name in the register. Or perhaps she had some other reason. If she was having trouble with this Dooley fellow, she might have been trying to avoid him.”

  “I wonder what trouble she was in.”

  “Let us hope we find a clue at her apartment.”

  “I didn’t get her address,” Lydia said, and sighed.

  He gave her a triumphant little smile. “I did.”

  “Where? How?”

  “From a friend.”

  Her eagerness faded to chagrin. “Then everyone knows about her and Papa?”

  “There are few secrets in London, but the friend I got it from is not one of the everyones you are concerned about. It wasn’t Prinny. It was a lightskirt.”

  She pokered up. “I see. How—convenient that you know women like that.”

  “Yes, wasn’t it?” he replied, refusing to take offense. Lydia Trevelyn had become a demmed prude, and it was time someone opened up her eyes. “They make a pleasant change from prudes and bores,” he said.

  “Are you saying Mama is a prude and a bore?”

  He directed a pointed look at her. “No, not your mama,” he said.

  It was Lydia’s turn not to take offense—or to pretend not to. “What is the address?” she asked.

  “Maddox Street, just off New Bond.”

  “That must cost Papa a good deal.”

  “It’s hardly a lavish address. Is it the money he spends on her you resent?”

  “He was very happy when I didn’t want to come to make my debut in April. He said he was a little short. No wonder!”

  “A mistress is cheaper than gambling. A man must have some relaxation.”

  “Does it have to be a degrading relaxation? Did they never hear of books?” she said angrily.

  “Books are a fine adjunct to living. They are hardly a replacement for it, even at Sir John’s age. For youngsters,” he added with a meaningful look, “they are either a waste of time if one reads trashy novels—”

  “I do not read trashy novels!”

  “You didn’t allow me to finish. There is a time for things. The time to read good literature or philosophy is after one has lived a little. Otherwise, such heavy stuff is pretty well meaningless. One has no frame of reference to understand them.”

  Lydia sat digesting this while they drove to Maddox Street. It was true she could not make heads or tails of half the stuff she read. It occurred to her that she spent an inordinate amount of time with her nose in a book or journal, not living but reading about life. If she had been more in the world, she would know about such things as mistresses and gambling. She would have realized the temptation her papa faced, and urged her mama to go to London and keep an eye on him.

  “I believe you’re right, Beaumont,” she said with a glint he could not quite trust in her eyes. “It is time I started living.”

  Chapter Five

  The brown brick house on Maddox Street was not grand enough to infuriate Lydia, but it was by no means derelict, and it was enormous. “Look at the size of it!” she cried. “It must require dozens of servants.”

  “Many of these houses have been divided into flats,” Beaumont explained.

  They left the carriage and went to the front door, where a discreet sign indicated there were four households within, two downstairs and two above. Miss Shepherd occupied flat 2A downstairs. Beaumont tried the front door and they entered a small, tiled foyer with a staircase leading to the next story and doors on either end. The door on the right said 2A. A tap of the acorn knocker brought no servant to admit them. When they tried the door, it was locked.

  As there was no one about, Beaumont drew out a clasp knife and began to work on the lock. When the blade didn’t work, he tried the corkscrew. After five minutes, he said, “I’ll go around to the back and see if I can force a window open.”

  Lydia removed a nail file from her reticule and took a turn at the lock. Beaumont watched her work for a moment, then went out the front door, assured that she would not succeed where he had failed. When he reached the back window, Lydia was there, waiting for him. She unlocked the window and leaned out.

  “Do you want to go around to the door, or come in this way?” she enquired with a triumphant smile that annoyed him to no small degree.

  He clambered into a spotless kitchen without acknowledging verbally that she had outdone him.

  “We’ll have to move quickly,” he said. “The servants may return at any moment.”

  “There is no one staying here.”

  “My dear girl, an empty flat does not mean—”

  “No, but an empty larder does. There is no milk, no butter, no eggs. The stove is cold, and in fact, there is a film of dust on the kettle. I believe Prissie gave her servant a holiday before she left.”

  “I see. Then it seems you’re right,” he said grudgingly

  She went to the window behind him and closed it.

  “Leave it open a crack in case—”
<
br />   She gave him an impatient look. Glancing at the window, he saw she had left it open an inch at the bottom to facilitate entrance in case they should want to return.

  “You must not assume, just because I am a female, that I am an idiot, Beaumont,” she said, and strode out of the kitchen with her head high and her back as stiff as a board. She continued along a corridor to the parlor, which was not large or grand enough to be called a saloon.

  In style, the decor was closer to Trevelyn Hall than the house on Grosvenor Square. Lydia thought her papa must have felt quite at home here, with all those dried flowers and the surfeit of ornaments on the wall. Though not even her mama would have permitted that garish red-and-blue-patterned carpet with a green-and-yellow-striped sofa. One wall held watercolors, mostly of smiling young women. The opposite wall was hung with decorative plates from various resorts. Tunbridge Wells, Brighton, Weymouth. The sort of thing tourists bought because they were there, and had the sense to consign to a cupboard or put a potted plant on when they got home.

  Half a dozen fashion magazines were fanned out on the sofa table beside an empty wine decanter and a crystal bonbon dish with a domed lid. There was nothing to indicate a more serious turn of mind. No books, no journals. What on earth had attracted her papa to such a woman? He was intelligent, worldly, worked with the most important gentlemen in England—and came to this tawdry place for his amusement.

  She just shook her head and continued her exploration. One door led her to a spartan chamber that was obviously a maid’s room. Across the hall she saw Beaumont standing at a clothespress, examining the gowns. She went to the bedroom and stood, gazing around. It was done in white and pink and reminded her of a birthday present. A large bed occupied one corner. Flounces of white lace formed the canopy and seemed to drape the entire bed. A tumble of small pink satin cushions were at the head of the bed. As Lydia walked toward it, she noticed a strong scent of that same musky perfume she had smelled in Prissie’s room at the inn.