victoria hinshaw

Least Likely Lovers

      The argument raged for three days.

      "You must come with me to live at Charsley, my dearest Kitty." The insistence in Lady Dunmark's voice edged into pleading with her daughter. "There is no alternative. Our house is let, and you cannot set yourself up somewhere alone."

      "Why not?" Miss Kitty Stone already knew the answer.

      Her mother groaned. "You have no money and neither do I. We spent everything in London, and we owe every cent we will reap from the lease. I know your feelings about living in the duke's house, seeing him every day. But Beatrice needs us."

      "Beatrice needs you, Mama. Not me. Most definitely not me."

      "But there is no other place for you, Kitty. An unmarried girl of two and twenty! You know you must stay with your mother."

      Both knew the other's position by heart, could play either role in the familiar dialogue.

      The two ladies were equally adamant. The younger -- tall, slender and exceptionally pretty -- had been clever enough to endure several months of Society's closest scrutiny, during which her every word and gesture had been discussed, reiterated, and evaluated by every tabby in London. The elder -- her lovely face touched by few indications of her age of three and forty -- had suffered the same examination, which challenged her status as a widow capable of doing the best for her daughters, and which nearly blamed her implied lack of parental abilities as the inexorable foundation of the scandal.

      After their trial by tonnish fire, neither daughter nor mother would give way to the other. The dispute stormed over the breakfast coffee, while strolling the lanes to the village, watching the repairmen trod the roof, packing their belongings for storage. At the dinner table. And during preparations for retiring.

      The disagreement repeated itself on the day the Duke of Charsley's fine chaise, adorned with liveried postilions, waited outside their door, and Nell handed their bandboxes to the footmen from Charsley Hall.

      Lady Dunmark summoned all the authority she could muster. "You must come, Kitty."

      Miss Stone spoke through tightly clenched teeth. "Why?"

      "There is no other place for you."

      Kitty watched their maid, Nell, climb into the coach carrying their luggage. The new tenants for their house were to arrive by five that afternoon. Short of making her bed in the hayloft, where was she to go? Suddenly limp with frustration, Kitty took the footman's hand and stepped into the chaise.

      Once the horses moved off, with mother and daughter side by side on the plush cushions, silence reigned.

      Kitty had lost.

      She was on her way to reside in the home of the man who had courted her for six months, then eloped with her little sister.

      * * *

      Kitty stared out the window at the springtime green as the well-sprung coach carried her farther and farther from her childhood home. Though she had not deigned to admit it to herself, for the last week she had known she would have to accompany her mother to Charsley. Without money, without a convenient aunt or cousin, without a well-established married friend who would welcome her prolonged presence, she had no choice. She would have to make the best of it for a few months, at least until Beatrice was safely through her confinement in November. Six months ought to be bearable.

      Her mother might well choose to remain at Charsley indefinitely. That Kitty could not do.

      The only alternative was to find a position as a governess or a companion. Any other employment necessitated paying for a place to live. In those long months after Bea eloped with the duke and the scandal reverberated through London drawing rooms, Kitty often wished she could disappear into one of the little villages near town, take a new name and make a new life for herself far from the gossip-mongers of Mayfair. In fact, she went so far as to make enquiries, enquiries that vividly showed the cost of maintaining independence. Even if she sold her fine wardrobe and pawned every bauble she owned, she could not afford to keep herself for more than a few months. The salary of a shop girl would never make ends meet.

      Could Kitty see herself as a governess, teaching trifles to little girls? Or trying to tame the wild pursuits of little boys? Or would she rather be a companion, to fetch and carry for some valetudinarian? In either case, she would be a servant, but she would have a place to live and duties to perform.

      The important thing was to have a life for herself. Of her own choosing, however narrow the range.

      After Christmas, Kitty promised herself. After Christmas, she would go to Bath or London and seek a position. Between now and then, she would save every penny that came her way. Was that not better than living in the house of her former suitor tending to the frailties of his wife, who just happened to be her very gooseish sister? But if her mother gained an inkling of her plan, Lady Dunmark would do all she could to put a stop to it.

      "I wonder what sort of society one will find in the neighborhood of Charsley?" Lady Dunmark had wiped away the last tear she had shed upon leaving the estate she would no longer occupy, to which her husband brought her as a fresh young bride almost a quarter century ago.

      Kitty sympathized, not happy herself to be torn from her childhood home. "Being so near London, I would think that most of northern Kent is well populated with agreeable families."

      "With some eligible sons, I hope."

      Kitty took a deep breath before replying. "If you are referring to possible matches for me, Mama, I will say again that I have no intention of marrying anytime soon."

      Ever, she added to herself.

      "But you have said you never loved the duke."

      "You know I never fell in love with him, though I was quite prepared to marry him, to provide for myself, for you, and for Beatrice. He is a wealthy man from a distinguished family. When he ran off with Bea, I gained a reprieve. I do not intend to burden myself with some other man now."

      Especially one as dim as the duke with his never-ending verses. Pretentious, ponderous and preposterous poems, too clumsy to be taken seriously.

      "You do not want to be a spinster, Catherine."

      "I have had enough of making myself perfectly amiable for a man who ultimately jilted me."

      "Kitty!" Lady Dunmark pressed one hand to her heart and clutched at her throat with the other. "Do not say that awful word!"

      "Jilt? That is exactly the word used by all our supposed friends, as you well know."

      "But, really-"

      "Look, Mama, you and Bea will be well taken care of forever. I have the luxury now to do whatever I wish."

      Lady Dunmark fluttered her be-ringed hands in the air. "Oh, you will be soon rid of such nonsensical notions, dear. The first few days living so near Char may be awkward, but I feel sure he is devoted to Beatrice. After all, a baby already on the way . . . perhaps an heir if she is fortunate enough to have a male child."

      "Yes, Mama. I am certain their marriage will be brilliant." Kitty settled back against the squabs. Last winter, while she had ruminated on her apparent future with a dull husband she did not love, Beatrice and Char spent long afternoons together. Char spent hours struggling with a few inelegant lines, lines he enjoyed reciting, reworking and reciting again. And again.

      Apparently Bea had found them more amusing than Kitty had. Sometimes Char taught Bea card games. They both giggled over their hands like schoolroom tots, causing shudders in Kitty. If she had given more consideration to those tête à têtes, she might have been less astounded when, in early February, they snuck off together and married without the knowledge of either family.

      When her initial shock had passed, Kitty felt relief that the welfare of Mama and Bea was no longer her concern. How very wrong she had been.

      * * *

      The dark eyes of the Dowager Duchess of Charsley glittered with disapproval. "I may as well tell you, Lady Dunmark, I did not approve of having you come here. I have had far too many upheavals in my life, and I do not wish to have any more."

      Kitty and her mother shivered on hard stone floors in the cold entrance of Charsley Hall, a mansion of vast size and ancient lineage. Geometric displays of spears, arrows, and muskets covered the walls, enough arms to supply an entire militia. Though large enough to roast a whole ox, the mammoth fireplace held not one glowing coal to break the April chill.

      The dowager spoke in a harsh tone, from a distance. "Your daughters are silly chits, and I blame them entirely for the ridiculous bumblebroth into which we have landed. Charsley had his head turned by one, then the other. Now there will be a child! Unseemly to come so soon!"

      She gave a showy shudder, then continued her harangue. "I maintain strict rules for this house. The first one is that the servants answer to me and to me only. Your maid is included in those rules. Now I will withdraw to my apartments. I do not wish to be disturbed. Dinner is at five."

      Dressed in mourning and looking like a gaunt black crow, she turned quickly and disappeared through a door under the wide marble staircase.

      Kitty snapped her mouth shut.

      Her mother gaped for another moment, then brought her lips together in a moue of disapproval. "Well, I never!"

      "Char always said she was a dragon. An understatement, I believe."

      "A most unpleasant woman. One would think she would be thrilled to have a grandchild on the way. And why is she telling the servants what to do? That is now Beatrice's responsibility."

      Kitty was not surprised. At barely eighteen years of age, her sister was just out of the schoolroom. How could Bea wrest control of the household from a personage such as the dowager duchess? Char had not the spine to stand up to his mother, and his new young duchess was unlikely to insist.

      The very starchy butler reappeared with the housekeeper. "Here is Mrs. Wells. She will show you to your apartments." Before leaving, he made a shallow bow.

      Mrs. Wells's curtsy was equally half-hearted. Her mouth was drawn up in a tight line, echoing the dowager's disapproval. "Your chambers are this way." She stomped up the stairs, leaving Lady Dunmark and Kitty to follow.

      At the end of a long corridor, Mrs. Wells threw open a door. "If you need anything, a footman will be nearby."

      "Thank you." Lady Dunmark put her reticule on a table as the door closed behind them.

      Kitty looked around at the dim sitting room, modestly but comfortably furnished. "I would have thought they might have dressed up this room a bit, at least with a vase of flowers."

      Lady Dunmark moved a chair closer to the grate. "At the moment, all I care about is the fire. This house is icier than the coach was."

      Kitty investigated the two adjoining rooms. "There are fires lit in the bedchambers too. And the cans of water are still warm to the touch."

      "Bea wrote that we would be given the apartments usually reserved for the dowager's brother and his wife at Christmas. Otherwise they would have to open a whole wing. I thought it was to keep us nearby in this huge pile, not because of some nip-cheese cost-cutting."

      "Most likely to put us in our place, if the dowager duchess had anything to do with it." Char's wealth was immense. A centuries-old dukedom holding huge estates definitely had sufficient resources to provide comfortable accommodations for two guests. But these dark rooms seemed downright inhospitable, almost as unwelcoming as the dowager's uninviting attitude.

      Poor Beatrice, what would she have to endure?

      Kitty walked to the window and threw back the draperies. The verdant green park spread to a far-away line of trees. A herd of deer with strange antlers grazed in the distance. As beautiful a scene as it was, she felt grateful it was Bea's prospect, not hers.