The Chaperon Bride. Nicola Cornick
English, ‘look at her hair!’
Adam looked again. Then he stopped. And stared. Loose from the bonnet, Annis Wycherley’s long, blonde hair had come cascading down around her shoulders in a tumble of gold. It shone in the sun like a newly minted coin and framed a heart-shaped face that suddenly looked piquant and pretty.
‘I’ll be damned!’ Adam found that he was smiling. ‘What do you say now, Margot?’
‘Why, I think that she must be an even greater fool to hide such beauty,’ Miss Mardyn said acerbically. She had recovered her poise and now flounced away from the window. ‘Such a thing is incroyable! She would make a passable courtesan with hair like that and a good figure. Not as attractive as me, perhaps, but all the same…’
‘I rather think she disguises herself because she is a chaperon,’ Adam said. He had never met Annis Wycherley in London, but he remembered quite well that she had a reputation for being able to settle even the most unpromising of girls. Now he could see that she had quite a lot of promise herself. ‘No one is going to employ her as a companion if she outshines her charges!’
Miss Mardyn looked uncomprehending. ‘Eh bien, why be a chaperon if one can be a cyprian? I do not understand that, me!’
‘No,’ Adam murmured. ‘I do not suppose that you do.’
He watched Annis Wycherley for a moment, then strolled back to his chair and picked up the paper again as Tranter, the butler, came into the room, accompanied by a footman with the tea tray. There was an item about Samuel Ingram buying the lease to the local turnpike and building new tollhouses on the Skipton road. One of them would be near Eynhallow…
‘What do you think of the current state of the turnpike trusts, my dear?’ he asked Miss Mardyn, as the teacups were handed around.
Miss Mardyn bent a charming smile on the dazzled butler, then turned back to her host. ‘I have no opinion on it, Ashy darling. You should know better than to ask me. Politics, economics…pah! The whole business bores me. I never read the papers.’ She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘If I had realised that you were turning into such a dead bore yourself, I should have agreed to play Cheltenham rather than Harrogate this summer. I hear the shops are better!’
Adam smiled. ‘I do apologise for being such poor company, my dear. Perhaps you will find other gentlemen who please you more. Mr Lafoy, for example.’
La Mardyn dismissed Charles Lafoy with a wave of one white hand. ‘Oh, the conquest would be fun, but after that is over…pouf…I expect he is as dull as ditchwater. Are there no other eligible gentlemen in Harrogate, Ashy? I must amuse myself.’
‘I see that the Earl and Countess of Glasgow are here to take the waters this season,’ Adam said, consulting the paper, ‘though I fear the Earl may be a little infirm for you, Margot, and not very plump in the pocket to compensate. There is Lord Boyles—Boyles by name and by nature, I believe, so again, a gloomy prospect. Ah! Sir Everard Doble. He is a young man, and not ill favoured, if memory serves me. He might be a possibility.’
‘Sir Everard Doble…’ Miss Mardyn repeated. ‘Well, we shall see, Ashy. And how will you amuse yourself?’
Adam’s gaze fell on the paper again. ‘Oh, I have plenty to occupy me, Margot. Estate business will keep me quite busy, I fear…’
From the garden came the sound of feminine laughter, spontaneous and infectious. Adam’s gaze narrowed. He resolved that he would definitely find out more about Annis Wycherley. She seemed a most uncommon chaperon.
‘That sounds lamentably boring, darling,’ Margot Mardyn said, yawning widely.
‘On the contrary,’ Adam said, with a smile. ‘I have the feeling that my stay could be very interesting indeed.’
Chapter Two
Tickets for Miss Mardyn’s performance proved to be the most sought-after items in Harrogate, and it was a whole fortnight before Charles Lafoy could book a box at the Theatre Royal. Thus it was that, on a Thursday evening two weeks later, Annis sat in the theatre and reflected that acting as chaperon to two high-spirited girls at the same time was utterly exhausting. The Misses Crossley had taken to Harrogate society like ducks to water, and every day had been packed with outings and every evening with parties and entertainments. Indeed, a trip to the theatre was a rare luxury, for it allowed Annis to keep an eye on both girls at once and sit down at the same time. On this particular evening she was further blessed, for she had the pleasure of her family’s company as well. Charles, Sibella and Sibella’s husband David had all accompanied them to the theatre that night.
‘That was very…entertaining, was it not?’ she said, joining in the applause as Margot Mardyn executed her final spin and ran gracefully from the stage. ‘Miss Mardyn is really quite talented.’
Annis caught her cousin Sibella’s gaze. Sibella was an indolent blonde who had been an accredited beauty in her youth and still had the fair Lafoy looks, blurring a little into comfortable plumpness now. Sibella glanced towards the men and rolled her eyes expressively.
‘I hear that dancing is the least of Miss Mardyn’s talents!’ she said.
Annis laughed. The sight of the shapely Miss Mardyn in her gauzy finery had transfixed the male members of the audience. Miss Mardyn might not be a particularly skilful dancer or indeed an above average singer, but no one in the audience cared a whit for that, Annis thought. Harrogate had never seen anything quite like her and the whole auditorium was buzzing with excitement. Annis could not help wondering whether it had been a suitable entertainment for the Misses Crossley. Perhaps the more provocative of Miss Mardyn’s dance movements had passed them by. She hoped so.
She consulted her theatre programme. ‘I see that there is an interval now. Would you care to stretch your legs, girls?’
‘No, thank you, Lady Wycherley,’ Fanny Crossley said pertly. ‘Lucy and I shall do very well where we are. We are…admiring these country fashions…’
The two girls dissolved into giggles and Annis sighed inwardly. She knew perfectly well that the Crossley girls were hanging over the edge of the box so that they could assess all the young gentlemen in the audience and be admired in return. Miss Fanny, attired in a fussy dress of yellow silk that Annis privately thought much too old for her, was making waspish observations. Miss Lucy was agreeing eagerly. Miss Crossley and her echo, Annis thought. There was no malice in Lucy Crossley, for her elder sister had enough for two, but Lucy did so like to agree with everyone.
‘Look at that strange gentleman there, Luce—’ Miss Crossley was pointing with her fan into the pit. ‘Why, he is as scruffy as a scarecrow and I do believe the candle wax has dripped on his bald head! How absurd he looks!’ She stifled a giggle.
‘Quite absurd,’ Lucy echoed dutifully.
‘That is the Marquis of Midlothian,’ Annis said. ‘He is a most highly respected gentleman.’
During the first two weeks of the Miss Crossleys’ visit, when Annis had been getting their measure, she had corrected Fanny’s bad manners and barbed remarks. Now, in the third week, she had realised that there was little point in trying to improve the elder Miss Crossley. Fanny was vulgar through and through, and, unlike her sister, was disinclined to accept guidance. Indeed, any attempt to improve Fanny’s behaviour often had the reverse effect, for she was like a wilful small child. As a result, Annis often held her tongue and concentrated instead on the large sum of money that Sir Robert Crossley was paying her to chaperon his tiresome niece. She simply hoped that she would not be tempted to strangle the goose that laid the golden eggs before the egg actually materialised.
‘A marquis!’ Fanny looked put out, then brightened. ‘Oh, but as it is an Irish title one cannot be surprised that he looks all to pieces. I hear the Irish aristocracy are a ramshackle bunch.’
‘They may well be,’ Annis said, ‘but Midlothian is a Scottish title.’
Fanny turned her shoulder to Annis and leaned