“You’re mad, Mama!” exclaimed Lady Althea. “Why should I ever make up such a tale? I tell you the truth. Sir Bartholomew is a cad of the rankest cut!”
Lady Bottlesby picked at the expensive fabric of her skirt. Her eyes were lowered so that she need not see her daughter’s flushed, indignant face. She was not a woman of strong character and it distressed her to be at odds with anyone. “Surely you must be mistaken, Althea,” she repeated.
Lady Bottlesby braved a quick upward glance at her daughter’s angry expression. She added hastily, “Not that I think you have deliberately misled me, Althea, for I do not! But you are so young still, just out of seminary. You could not possibly be expected to understand gentlemen’s ways. It—it is perhaps natural that you should mistake Sir Bartholomew’s exquisite gallantries for—for something quite different.”
“Different, indeed,” said Lady Althea, very dryly.
At her mother’s helpless gesture, Althea snapped, “You forget, Mama. I am not a dewy-eyed innocent of seventeen. I am nearly nineteen, and though I am not yet presented because Father’s death dictated our seclusion from society, I was in a position from an early age to observe just those sorts of gallantries of which you speak!”
Lady Bottlesby’s face whitened, then crumpled. She averted her head. “How could you be so cruel, Althea? When you know how—how ... oh, my dear!” Her voice was thick with suspended tears.
Althea was at once conscience-stricken. She crossed to her mother’s chair and dropped to her knees beside it. Laying her slim hand upon her mother’s knee, she said contritely, “Don’t, Mama. I am sorry. I should not have spoken so.”
Lady Bottlesby shook her head as she hunted for, and found, a lacy scrap of handkerchief. She delicately wiped her brimming eyes and summoned up a pale, wavering smile. “So foolish of me. It should not hurt so now, I know. The earl is dead.”
Lady Bottlesby raised her head so that she looked directly into her daughter’s face. An intentness came into her soft blue eyes. “Althea, can you not understand? Sir Bartholomew has always had such exquisite concern for my sensibilities that I...”
There was a moment’s silence, in which the mother’s eyes pleaded for her daughter’s understanding.
“Yes.” Althea said it flatly. “I do know.” With a quick, graceful movement and the faint rustle of skirts, Lady Althea rose to her feet. She stepped away, restlessly going to the window. She stared out at a dismal sky, though she did not really see it.
Oh yes, she knew only too well. She had seen firsthand the unhappiness of the loveless marriage that her parents had endured.
Althea had loved both of her parents, but as a child she had been helpless to make things right between them. Her mother was a fading beauty, not particularly intelligent, and needy of emotional support. The earl, ruthless and brilliant, displayed a cruel contempt for her weakness and tears.
The earl had married as society dictated, choosing for his countess a woman whose lineage and background had paralleled his own. If he had thought at all about his bride’s temperament, he had counted himself fortunate that hers was a biddable character. It had not once occurred to him that his own temperament demanded one of equal strength from his mate. As a consequence, he had quickly become contemptuous of and bored with his wife. His cutting tongue had often caused her tears. Her pleading defenses had merely inflamed him further.
Even as a small child, Althea had recognized her father’s hard nature. She had understood that her father detested what he perceived as weakness. Therefore, she had not patterned herself after her mother. She rarely cried. Instead, she had screamed her defiance at authority and had gone to almost any length to gain her objective.
The earl had seen something of himself in the blaze-eyed child. Though she was not the male heir he had desired, Althea came to be indulged to an amazing extent by her father. She was modeled by his careless attention and her own inclinations into a willful personality in her own right.
Through the years the earl had supported a succession of mistresses. The child Althea had seen and heard more than any young girl should have. There had been distressing scenes of anger and bitterness, accusations and cold scorn. Other scenes lodged in Althea’s memory, too, scenes of subtle seduction beneath the earl’s own roof.
The earl had seemed to be driven by the cruel side of his nature to inflict as much hurt as possible upon his wife, as though demanding that she respond. The countess had bitterly resented being displaced, but she had not known how to combat it.
Althea had often thought that if her mother had only stood up to the earl, even if only once, he might have relented in his barbed words and put aside his mistresses. But the countess had never tested the breach between herself and the earl, and so the years had passed in unabated misery.
It was no wonder, then, that Sir Bartholomew Bottlesby had found such rapid favor with the recently widowed countess. The baronet was unfailingly considerate and gentle of voice. He had scarcely ever been seen abroad with a frown fixed upon his florid face. On the contrary, his smiling geniality was a byword. If the gentleman was a trifle short and stout, his taste in small clothes a bit flashy, his compliments of an extravagance that bordered on the ludicrous, then that must all be excused in the face of his reputation as a dependable gallant and his obvious desire to please.
“We are caught finely, are we not. Mama?” asked Althea, without turning away from the window.
There was no answer from behind her, which did not surprise her. Althea reflected wearily that her father’s dominating character had worked to put her into an untenable position from which she saw little hope of escape.
The years with the earl had served to create such a craving for tender regard in Althea’s mother that the lady prized affection above all things. Lady Bottlesby had as good as declared her reluctance to disturb the Utopia of her new marriage, even for the sake of her daughter.
Althea laid her forehead against the cool glass. “If only we had not been forced to leave London,” she sighed.
At last Lady Bottlesby felt able to respond. “There was never any question of doing otherwise, Althea. I had hoped that you would be granted the benefit of a Season, but...” Lady Bottlesby’s voice trailed off.
Althea turned, a faint smile touching her lips. Her green eyes were all too knowing. “But neither my cousin nor his good wife wished to be saddled with me.”
Lady Bottlesby frowned. “That is not at all a well-bred expression, Althea.”
Althea shrugged. “It matters not. I am not likely to grace any high-stickler’s London drawing room. When Harold stepped into my father’s shoes, he was quite definite in what he considered to be the limits of his duty toward us.”
Lady Bottlesby sighed in agreement. “No; your cousin is not a particularly generous gentleman.”
For a moment, both ladies reflected upon the fate that had carried them to Bath. The earl had never willingly associated with his cousins. Whenever he had chanced to meet them in society, he had ignored them as nearly as possible. His lady wife had once timidly questioned him why there was such distance maintained between himself and his heir presumptive. She had been answered so sharply for her pains that she had never again presumed to attempt to satisfy her natural curiosity.
Althea, however, could have enlightened her mother upon one point at least. The earl had thoroughly disliked his heir, and if he had chanced to have gotten himself a male bastard off one of his many mistresses, he would have gone to great lengths to see the boy made his legal heir.
But the earl had not fathered a son, and upon his unexpected death, his heir presumptive had naturally stepped into his lordship’s shoes. Since there had never been any sort of friendly relationship fostered between the families, the new earl had not hesitated to request that Lady Hawthorne and Lady Althea remove themselves without delay from their prestigious London address so that he and his growing brood could take up residence.
Lady Hawthorne and her daughter had gone to Bath, taking a more or less permanent lease on a town house in the fashionable quarter of the town. At one sweep, they had been deprived of home and friends, and as deep mourning precluded going about establishing themselves as open to invitation, it had been a very dull six months indeed. The past few months, when they had observed half-mourning, had scarcely been less trying.
“Damn Father for dying at such a time,” said Althea with suppressed violence.
“Althea!” exclaimed Lady Bottlesby, shocked. “The earl adored you.”
“Did he, indeed?” An odd smile touched Althea’s lips and the amused expression in her eyes made the color rise in Lady Bottlesby’s face.
Lady Bottlesby took to pleating her skin once more. “In-in his own way, of course he did. At least he left you well-provided.”
“There is that,” agreed Althea.
The earl had been affectionate toward Althea in his cold-natured way, and he had proved it by leaving her a considerable heiress. However, Althea had never harbored illusions that she was a beloved daughter in the traditional sense. And so, within the space of a few months, she had done with her grieving and had been more than ready to go on with her life.
It was ironic that on the very eve of her long-anticipated emancipation from her father’s aegis, the earl had died.
Althea had set herself to shine at the select seminary chosen by the earl for its strict curriculum and the drilling of ladylike accomplishments into young misses. She had anticipated her presentation to society because it would have granted her the opportunity to display her accomplishments and her natural attractions. Those, coupled with her substantial dowry, would have made her very eligible in the eyes of unattached gentlemen. In short, Althea had unemotionally planned a strategy that would snare a husband and so gain for herself her own establishment and with it a modicum of freedom.
Then the earl had died, and instead of a brilliant London Season upon her emergence from the seminary, Althea had been plunged into a year’s seclusion.
Lady Hawthorne had not chafed under the period of mourning as had her daughter. For her, it was a time of quiet contentment. There had been so little love lost between herself and the earl that his unexpected death came as a surprising and ultimately welcome release.
Once out of black gloves. Lady Hawthorne and Lady Althea began to emerge from total seclusion and were seen in the Pump Room or out walking sedately around the square.
Little was generally known of the Hawthorne ladies other than the fact that they had been used with regrettable brusqueness by the new earl. It was also thought that they were well-heeled. The latter was obvious from their address in Laura Place and that they were always very well attired. They also maintained a carriage, an extravagance indeed because it was impractical to use it on the steep hills of Bath proper. It was thought, too, that Lady Hawthorne possessed a more than generous widow’s portion and that Lady Althea was endowed of fortune, but the specifics were unknown.
Even though Lady Hawthorne and Lady Althea were still in mourning, there were tentative invitations made to them as various personages made themselves known through the good offices of the Master of Ceremony. The initial overtures were made by ladies, but there soon came to be a few gentleman acquaintances as well.
Sir Bartholomew Bottlesby was one of the latter. He came to call upon the Hawthorne ladies more and more often. It was not long before others began to remark that the baronet seemed to have captured the ladies’ favor.
Althea was not unaware that her mother particularly enjoyed Sir Bartholomew’s extravagantly gallant attentions. Nor did she think it a bad thing. Her mother needed the sort of diversion and coddling that a comfortably aged admirer could bring to her.
Lady Hawthorne had blushed and blossomed under Sir Bartholomew’s unceasing admiration. Althea had been astonished to realize that her mother was still a very handsome woman.
Althea had been unsurprised when her mother announced that Sir Bartholomew had made her an offer. At Lady Hawthorne’s anxious query whether she cared for the match, Althea had said in her forthright way, “The question is hardly whether I care for it, but rather, whether you do, dear ma’am.”
“But do you like Sir Bartholomew?” Lady Hawthorne persisted.
“Come, ma’am, surely you do not mean to cry off if I do not,” said Althea in a rallying tone. She saw from her mother’s expression that was just exactly what Lady Hawthorne had meant, and she abandoned her levity. “Mama, I do not like nor dislike Sir Bartholomew to any strong degree. He has always been unfailingly polite toward me, so that I have nothing whatsoever to complain of in his manners.”
“Yes, Sir Bartholomew treats one’s sensitivities with such exquisite forbearance. Not like—” Lady Hawthorne broke off, a shadow crossing her face. She shook her head. “That tender regard is what particularly appeals to me, Althea. Sir Bartholomew is such a perfect gentleman. But I shall refuse his suit if—if it is repugnant to you, for I know that you felt the earl’s passing, and it is not so very long ago, after all.”
“Nonsense. Why should I object to Sir Bartholomew’s suit for you?” asked Althea, setting aside an unfathomable, vague unease. “I have never seen you appear to better advantage than when you are in his company. I could not deny you that happiness out of some misplaced loyalty to my father’s memory. What a ninny you must think me, Mama!”
Lady Hawthorne squeezed her daughter’s hand. “Thank you, my dear. I am so glad that you do not oppose the match. I have never been happier than at this moment.”
“I suspect that shopping for your bridal clothes will make you happier still,” Althea had said dryly.