A Fraudulent Betrothal Read online

  ‘No, child.’ Aunt Constance wondered for a moment at the lack of filial feeling demonstrated by the girl, then turned to watch Clarissa’s face. There was no emotion showing in that quarter either and she suddenly realized she might as well have been talking of strangers as their mother and father. The mother they had never known, and the father had always been such a remote, rather severe figure. Not that he had ever been unkind to the girls, or even stern. Really they might as well have been the servants’ children for all the notice he had taken of them. They had still been young when he died too.

  ‘When your mother fell pregnant, we all assumed she’d calm down and turn to providing a home for you and your father. We were soon forced to concede we were wrong and admit that, if anything, she had become wilder, almost uncontrollable. Indeed, your father believed she must have lost her reason, so frenzied were her escapades in society. Eleanor and I fell prey to her excesses, too, for all society appeared to look down on us as well as she. Then, at the last, Eleanor fell in love. Robert was by far the most handsome man any of us had ever seen and he soon began to pay court to Eleanor, wooing her with all the ardour a woman could long for.’

  ‘Mr Markham?’ Marianne’s face held a rapturous smile at such a romantic tale. ‘He sounds the most amiable of men.’

  ‘So he is,’ replied her aunt in coldly quelling tones. ‘He is not, however, named Robert.’

  ‘Oh. Then.…’ Marianne looked uncomfortable for a moment. She didn’t understand. Had Aunt Eleanor married Robert or not?

  ‘Do be quiet, Marianne,’ put in her sister and turned again to her aunt. ‘Please go on. Where do we come into this?’

  ‘Robert and Eleanor were betrothed.’ Aunt Constance swallowed hard, not at all anxious to relate such a disgraceful tale to her innocent young nieces.

  ‘Please tell us.’ Clarissa’s face had taken on a deathly hue. It was almost as if she had already guessed.

  ‘Only days before they were due to marry, Robert went off in the company of your mother. Somehow she’d wheedled her way into his affections and become his lover. She was, after all, quite extraordinarily pretty, and had a way of batting her eyes at a man until he could hardly be said to own his own soul.’ She paused. ‘Eleanor always blamed your father for her bridegroom’s betrayal.’

  ‘And he blamed her,’ replied Clarissa quietly. ‘That would be just like him.’

  ‘Yes,’ admitted Aunt Constance. ‘He more or less threw my sister out of the house before he shut himself in his study for weeks on end. I believe he still loved your mother, or the woman she’d once been. Perhaps even the woman he wanted her to be, and never was. Whatever the reasons, he and Eleanor never spoke again, nor communicated in any other way. I even attended her wedding celebrations without his support.’

  ‘Is that why he never loved us?’ Clarissa’s clear voice asked the question, but both girls were watching their aunt’s face as carefully when she answered.

  ‘I don’t believe he ever went so far as hating you,’ she reflected, ‘but somehow he could never bring himself to think of you as children belonging to him. The full responsibility for your upbringing was laid on my shoulders from that moment.’ She spoke simply. ‘I tried to provide you with the love of both a mother who’d left and a father who couldn’t.’

  ‘And you succeeded.’ Clarissa wound her arms around her aunt’s shoulders. ‘We never once missed either of them.’

  ‘Will Aunt Eleanor dislike me too?’

  ‘No, dear,’ Aunt Constance reassured Marianne on that matter with a smile on her face. ‘She never forgave your father for his cold indifference, but she forgot Robert long ago. Her marriage to Mr Markham might have been one of convenience in the first instance, but it’s most certainly prospered since. Now your father’s dead, she’s ready to take over responsibility for you, and I’m sure she’ll love you just as much as I do once you reside in her house and she gets to know you.’

  ‘I wish Clarissa was coming with me.’

  ‘You’ll soon forget me,’ prophesied her sister, ‘when you’re involved in the pleasures of the season.’

  ‘And our poor life too,’ added Aunt Constance, thankful the tale had been so easily accepted.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Marianne’s Letters

  ‘Good afternoon and well met, Miss Meredew.’ Doctor Pym addressed Clarissa warmly, approving, as always, of her industrious nature and sober good taste.

  ‘Good afternoon, Rector.’ Clarissa, while she greeted him politely, was simmering inside. She’d been meaning to address the pretensions of an awkward clump of nettles for several days, and following a light luncheon in the company of her aunt, she’d donned her oldest gown to complete the task. She might not hold the rector in any special regard, but, like most young ladies, she preferred not to be caught out in her dowdiest clothes. Neither did she wish to allow him any opportunity to declare himself, which, if she read the warning signs aright, he was in every danger of doing. Such a declaration would be an embarrassment to them both when her own feelings could not be engaged.

  ‘I was meaning to take the air upon the Downs,’ the cleric continued blandly, apparently unaware that the object of his desire was itching to rid herself of his company and return to her self-imposed task of decimating the nettle patch. ‘When I saw you toiling so industriously, however, I was unable to prevent myself from approaching to express my admiration for your diligence.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to take a turn, sir.’ The girl waved her hand to indicate a further patch of the troublesome weed some little distance apart.

  ‘I fear,’ answered the rector with a polite smile, ‘that I’m not properly dressed for the rigours of the garden.’ He indicated a pair of pale pantaloons, half obscured by the dark frock coat he habitually wore.

  Nor for the Downs so soon after a rainstorm, Clarissa decided, though she was too well mannered to point out that sentiment aloud. The rector, for whatever reason, had deliberately sought her out, and not just to compliment her on her skills in the garden.

  ‘Miss Meredew.’ The slightest of pauses. ‘Clarissa!’ Doctor Pym spoke her name with such sentiment that the girl could only gape at him. Oh, dear God, she panicked, he’ll be down on one knee in a moment.

  ‘I … we … we received another letter from Marianne this last weekend,’ Clarissa began to gabble, petrified of the scene she was sure was about to be enacted. Oh, on my word, she wondered, why can’t I deal with the rector in the same fashion I would the local squire’s lad. She’d boxed his ears only a day or two before. Not that she wished to box the rector’s ears, she acknowledged, merely to deal him a smart set-down.

  The young squire’s son hadn’t been offering marriage, of course, but simply attempting to steal a sly kiss. Doctor Pym, to give him his due, would never have embarrassed her in that manner, though she wasn’t sure that elevated his character above the common in her eyes. Where was the good in a lover who wouldn’t make an attempt to kiss the one he loved? In any case, her feelings were as little taken by the cleric as his bolder neighbour, despite his worthy, not to mention religious, sincerity. Was it that very worthiness that held her hand from dealing with him in such a cavalier manner?

  ‘Marianne?’ Just as Clarissa had hoped the rector had been turned from his purpose by mention of her sister. In the heat of the moment he’d struggled for a moment to place the name, but a nice sense of propriety turned his purpose and made him ask after her. ‘How is her visit to the metropolis continuing?’ He began to reminisce in a prosy way over his own excursions in the nation’s capital. ‘I do hope she managed to find time to attend services in the Cathedral of St Paul. Its design is not considered universally popular, but I found it awe inspiring and a positive delight.’

  ‘No indeed, I fear Marianne has not yet visited St Paul’s.’ Nor was she ever likely to, decided Clarissa, who had no intention of being drawn into the rector’s recollections either. ‘She has, I believe, made quite a successful entry into Lond
on society. You wouldn’t believe the number of invitations she receives on a daily basis. I declare she could attend half-a-dozen entertainments every night of the week if she so chose.’

  ‘I fear I’m unable to—’

  ‘Mrs Markham is delighted with her reception by the ton,’ Clarissa ruthlessly despatched the rector’s attempt to interrupt her flow, ‘and she’s gained so many admirers I’m quite envious of her.’

  ‘I cannot believe you’d ever envy your sister in such a regard.’ There was a note of disapproval in the cleric’s voice that began to arouse the girl’s slow ire. ‘You, I am sure, care not a whit for such frivolous pleasures. Surely you can conceive that I, that we—’

  ‘Her most constant companion,’ Clarissa cut in, before the rector could develop his theme, ‘is Lord Leighton, who, from what she writes, appears to be wholly smitten and paying court to her. I am sure you must have come across him in your travels to the capital.’

  ‘Indeed!’ The cleric’s colour had risen alarmingly, and the disapproval in his voice was beginning to show in his face. ‘I never cared over much for the frivolous entertainments offered by society hostesses, though I was, of course, often included in their invitations. Thus I never met Leighton in person.’ He shuddered theatrically. ‘But I have heard stories of his exploits that would make your hair stand on end.’

  ‘Really.’ Clarissa stared at her hopeful swain with anticipation written clear across her face. The rector had turned red with embarrassment and there was an undertone of amusement bubbling though her voice that she made no attempt to disguise.

  He evidently decided she didn’t understand such matters and made an attempt to educate her. ‘He is forever seeking out his own amusement without regard for the sensibilities of others. His days are spent in low haunts, frequented by boxers, drunks, beggars and the like, and he even partakes in such despicable activities himself.’

  ‘He begs?’ Clarissa could barely keep her laughter contained.

  ‘No, indeed not. I only meant that he participates in such brutal sports as would be anathema to a high-born lady such as yourself.’ The cleric, driven by his disapproval of such a lifestyle, went on. ‘At night he will attend such dens of iniquity as the opera or the ballet before ending the evening in one of his clubs, gambling for high stakes until the early hours.’

  ‘Is that all?’ There was a faint note of disappointment in Clarissa’s voice. Leighton, it seemed, was not so very far out of the ordinary amongst the London bucks. ‘Marianne writes that he is considered most eligible amongst Aunt Eleanor’s circle.’

  ‘He has a title,’ temporized the rector, ‘and that alone is enough to raise the hopes of the matchmaking mamas of society. His estates are vast and they say he’s as rich as Croesus, but I hope such worldly pretensions will not sway your sister’s regard for his worth.’

  ‘She writes that he pays her much attention, and surely the odd wager can’t hurt. I myself have speculated at loo and even Aunt Constance has been known to lay the odd penny down at whist.’

  ‘You are such an innocent, my dear Clarissa. Leighton does not bet in pennies, nor does he seek out women for any other reason than to ruin them. Marianne has far too lively a turn of mind for my liking, but it will surely prove her undoing if she encourages the advances of such a rake-hell.’

  Clarissa bristled. She was not his dear, and neither did he have any right to criticize her sister. ‘A rake-hell, sir?’ She had the oddest feeling she wished to stamp her feet.

  ‘I should not have sullied your delicate ears with such a term,’ apologized the cleric immediately, ‘but I couldn’t remain silent on the matter when it so nearly affects your own dear self. Lord Leighton’s scandalous amours are the talk of the Town.’

  The normally even-tempered girl was left fuming over the rector’s assumption of protection and may well have been goaded into delivering such a set down as Doctor Pym would have remembered for many a long day if her aunt had not suddenly appeared at the top of the garden.

  ‘Clarissa, my dear,’ she called out excitedly, ‘we have not one, but two, letters delivered to the house and they are both addressed by Marianne for I recognize the handwriting.’

  ‘You must excuse me, Rector.’ In all common politeness Clarissa ought to have invited the cleric to take some refreshment with them, but she was still out of humour with the man. ‘I’m sure you’ll understand when I tell you we wish to learn Marianne’s latest news immediately.’

  ‘Of course. I’m taking up far too much of your valuable time. I’ll say my goodbyes.’ Doctor Pym found himself outmanoeuvred, with no other option left than to retire, but to soothe his sensibilities he added an arch and slightly pompous rider. ‘We will speak again, Clarissa, and if I inform you that meeting must be undertaken in private, perhaps you can guess the reason.’

  ‘Goodbye.’ Clarissa turned and, catching up her skirts, ran nimbly towards her aunt, who was hurrying down the garden, before he could develop the theme any further.

  As soon as the two ladies had comfortably seated themselves in the drawing-room overlooking the front of the house, Aunt Constance began to peruse the envelopes through her spectacles.

  ‘This first letter is addressed to the both of us, my dear.’ She adjusted her eye glasses to sit more comfortably on the bridge of her nose and began to break open the wafer. ‘The other is addressed to you alone, though I cannot for the life of me think of anything she would wish to say that wouldn’t concern myself as nearly as you.’

  Clarissa smiled sweetly, but didn’t elaborate. In all likelihood Marianne had embarked on some mad scheme that would throw their staid, maiden aunt into hysterics if she were to discover it. She’d read the letter out loud, of course; she knew how well Aunt Constance loved to receive news of her erstwhile charge. Some judicious editing of the contents might prove appropriate though.

  ‘My dearest Aunt and sweetest of Sisters,’ Aunt Constance began to read the missive out loud, frowning over the evident jumble of words. ‘I have the most exciting news to impart. You will never guess, but Lord Leighton has made his offer to me. He is the most formal of men, several years my senior, and spoke first to my uncle to obtain his permission. Just as soon as she caught the gist of their conversation, though I had not the slightest idea he was even in the house, Aunt Eleanor escorted me to my room. There I put on the new white jacquard lace over a petticoat of the most subtle shade of pink with a full flounce all around the hem. She has proved the dearest of aunts and purchased several new gowns for me since my visit began, though she is sadly virtuous in the cut of their bodice. I am a positive dowd compared to some of my acquaintance and she insists on my wearing a modest chemisette during the day, even today of all days. Only think how foolish that must seem when Lord Leighton was to ask me to be his bride.

  ‘Mr Markham, the most amiable of men, escorted me to his study where he left me alone with Leighton, though I should now in all conscience call him Richard. I was shy at first, but he spoke most eloquently and conducted himself just as he should. Only think how pink my face became when he dropped to one knee and asked me to be his bride. As you can imagine I clapped my hands with glee and told him I would be honoured. Aunt Eleanor tells me I should be very happy with my conquest for he is the greatest prize imaginable. I am pleased, of course; all my new friends will be pea-green with envy.’

  Aunt Constance looked up with shining eyes. ‘My little baby,’ she began, ‘is to be married.’

  ‘To Lord Leighton.’ Clarissa’s face reflected her feelings.

  ‘Yes, child.’ Aunt Constance stared at her troubled niece, wondering what was so untoward with her.

  ‘I was just this minute speaking with Doctor Pym.’ Her voice trailed off, unsure of how she should continue when she was already half aware that the rector’s aversion to Leighton was driven by his own considerations on what constituted worth in a man.

  ‘I saw him leave. What of it?’ Constance’s face suddenly assumed a quizzical look. ‘He did
n’t offer for you?’

  ‘No, Aunt.’ Clarissa grinned. ‘Not for the want of trying, but I should die of boredom within a se’enight were I to wed him.’ She paused to gather her thoughts. ‘He spoke of Leighton of whom he had some knowledge. I dare say gambling, even for high stakes, is commonplace for a man of his means, but he seems to waste all his talents in the pursuit of pleasure and Doctor Pym hinted that he was also a most notorious rake.’

  ‘I should pay the rector no attention, my dear. No doubt Leighton, like most young men, will have set up liaisons with girls from the opera or the ballet. He may even have kept a mistress; some men do, you know. But you may depend on it that such a practice will end when he marries.’

  ‘Marianne will sometimes lead a man on with her flirting,’ Clarissa offered, astounded that her staid aunt could speak so off-handedly of mistresses and the like. She understood such practices were commonplace amongst the fashionable young bucks of the ton, and had even held whispered, slightly shocking, conversations with Marianne on the subject. But Aunt Constance? ‘You don’t suppose he will think my sister is somewhat less than the innocent she is, and only pursues her to add to his trophies?’

  ‘Leighton would not be made welcome in society if he made a practice of seducing innocent young girls of his own class. Neither would he ask the girl to marry him if that were his aim. No doubt he’s been made aware of his responsibilities; such a man must possess an heir to carry on the family line.’

  ‘What about love?’

  ‘To be in love with the man you marry may be the ideal, but hardly the norm in society. I’m sure Leighton’s attracted to Marianne. What man wouldn’t be? She’s well born and a beauty to boot, but a man like him, who can take his pick from the flower of society, will be looking for a wife to enhance his position and bear him heirs. Very likely their regard will grow comfortably with the years, just like that of Eleanor and Mr Markham. After all, your sister is hardly mooning after the man herself. In the letter she describes her costume with more animation than her husband to be.’