The Undoing Of A Lady

gleam.

“You will be the one who breaks the terms first,” he said softly.

“No, I will not,” Lizzie said.

“Yes, you will because you have no patience.”

Perhaps, Lizzie thought, he knows me better than I imagined. But I will show him.

She smiled into his eyes. “I’ll wager I do not.”

Nat smiled straight back at her and Lizzie felt her head spin. This was different. This was new. Her husband was flirting with her. Nat Waterhouse, whom she had known since she was eleven years old, who had viewed her as the rather troublesome little hoyden whom he was always extracting from scrapes, was actually flirting with her.

This is the bit we missed out, Lizzie thought suddenly. We never had a courtship. We went straight from a rather strained friendship to an even more strained marriage and there was no time to adjust. But now we can change that…

Suddenly she felt light-headed with excitement.

Nat took her hand again and kissed the palm and Lizzie snatched it away from him. She could feel the imprint of his lips on her skin and curled her fingers over the place where the kiss had been. “You are cheating already!” she protested.

“I’ll wager you lose, sweetheart,” Nat said. “I will see you at breakfast.” He strolled away across the grass and Lizzie watched him go, her heart suddenly lifting. He had never called her sweetheart before that morning. He had probably never thought of her in that way. Of course Nat had no idea that she was gambling on far more than he was, on the chance of his love, but suddenly she thought this wager with her husband might prove a great deal more fun than she had imagined.

“SO,” LAURA ANSTRUTHER SAID, “you rode naked into The Granby Hotel, you quarreled passionately with Nat-”

“I’m guessing that you then made love even more passionately,” Lydia put in slyly.

“And now you are refusing to sleep with him again until he falls in love with you,” Alice finished.

“That’s about the sum of it,” Lizzie said. She looked around the circle of her friends. “Well? Do you think I am mad?”

They were sitting in Laura’s library later that morning and the summer sun was streaming in through the long windows. Alice and Lizzie had been into the village and brought back the news and gossip for their friends and now they were taking tea, all except Lydia who was eating a pickled egg.

“I can’t help it,” Lydia said defensively, catching Lizzie’s grimace as she reached for the jar, “I developed a taste for them a few months ago and now I cannot stop. It’s not my fault-being enceinte has given me a liking for all manner of strange food.”

“The vinegar smells horrid,” Lizzie said.

“It tastes wonderful,” Lydia said, beaming as she popped another egg into her mouth.

“No, you are not mad,” Laura said to Lizzie, patting her hand, “but I do think you are very brave in risking your heart like this. I’m surprised that Nat agreed,” she added.

“Well of course he thinks that I am shocked by his demands on me,” Lizzie said, coloring a little. “And he did not precisely agree. He sees it more as a wager and thinks I will lose.”

“And meanwhile he will be falling in love with you,” Alice said.

“If he does not-” Lizzie began. She had not allowed herself to think what might happen if she set out to win Nat’s love and failed. Presumably life would feel as desolate as it did now, only worse.

“He will,” Laura said. “You have had men falling at your feet for years, Lizzie.”

“And the one that I want, my own husband, is indifferent to me,” Lizzie said. “There’s some irony in that.”

“Nat is not indifferent to you,” Laura said thoughtfully. “He cares deeply. He has always been there for you, Lizzie, for as long as you have known him. What he has not done yet-” she paused thoughtfully “-is to let that regard for you grow into love. But I think he is close and now that you have changed the rules of the game, well…” She smiled. “We shall see.”

“There is a horde of people approaching up the lawn,” Lydia commented, peering out of the library window. “Whatever can they want? There is Mrs. Broad, and Mrs. Morton from the dressmakers and the haberdasher and the milliner and the florist-”

“And Mrs. Lovell the solicitor’s wife, and Mrs. James the doctor’s wife, and my mama, and the servants from Fortune Hall-” Alice said.

There was a thunderous crash at the front door as the first of the visitors applied themselves to the knocker, then there was a babble of voices and then Carrington, Laura’s aged butler, staggered into the library followed closely by about forty people.

“A number of ladies from the village wish to speak with you, Mrs. Anstruther,” Carrington shouted, over the tumult. “There is Mrs. Broad and Mrs. Morton and-”

“Pray don’t feel you must announce everyone, Carrington,” Laura said hastily as the butler looked as though he was about to expire with the effort. She raised her hand.

“Ladies, please!” The room fell obediently quiet. “What may we do for you?” Laura added.

“You’ve had the news from the village?” Mrs. Lovell asked, quivering like a greyhound. “We’ve only just heard- Spencer, Sir Montague’s valet, has been found murdered!”

Lizzie gave a gasp. She exchanged a look with Laura. “That is terrible,” she said. “I am so sorry-”

“No one liked him very much anyway,” Mrs. Broad said, pushing to the front of the crowd. “He was always full of airs and graces. But the word is that someone mistook him for Sir Thomas and murdered him by mistake.”

Lizzie could not quite repress a laugh. “Oh dear, I see. Poor Spencer.”

“But that’s not why we’re here,” Mrs. Broad said bluntly. “We need your help. Sir Thomas is a complete bastard, begging your pardon, milady, and we have to stop him. He’s only been the squire for two minutes and he’s eaten my chicken and he’s taxing the shopkeepers to raise money to buy all his fancy clothes and pay for his fancy women-” Here there was a rumble of agreement and discontent from the shopkeepers of the village. “And we thought Sir Montague was bad, but Sir Thomas is worse! Why, he’s levying a tax on death now, taking half our goods when we die. None of us can afford to live and now we can’t afford to die, either!”

“Then it seems in our interests to protect and support one another and to make sure that no one else dies for a start,” Lizzie said.

“Aye,” Mrs. Broad said darkly, “unless it is Sir Thomas. I’ll string him up with my bare hands, so I will!”

Once again there was a murmur of anger and discontent from the villagers and Lizzie remembered Dexter saying that before he was murdered, Sir Montague had received death threats and had been in danger. Clearly Tom had not heeded the example that had been made of Monty and it was tempting simply to allow the villagers to lynch him. Lizzie sighed. She supposed that Nat would not approve of mob justice, nor would Dexter, or Miles for that matter, despite the fact that they all detested Tom, too. And in her heart of hearts she did not want Tom to die, cad though he was.

“What are we to do?” Mrs. Morton asked. “This cannot go on.”

Lizzie looked at Laura, who was smiling gently at her. “Alas there is very little that I can do in this state,” Laura said, gesturing toward her hugely pregnant belly, “but I think that you will take up my mantle admirably, Lizzie.”

“I’ll help you,” Alice added. “On behalf of Laura and Lydia, and everyone else…”

Lizzie looked at Lydia, who was sitting with quiet dignity in her chair, Lydia who more than anyone deserved revenge on Tom. “Do it, Lizzie,” she said.

Lizzie looked back at Laura again. Laura nodded slightly.

“All right,” Lizzie said, suddenly feeling the weight of responsibility. “The first thing I am going to do is to write to the Prince of Wales to see if he can intervene in this matter of the ancient laws. He was a friend of my father and so he may be disposed to help us-”

“The man’s a fool,” Mrs. Broad said trenchantly.

“That’s treason,” Mrs. Morton pointed out.

“It’s still true,” Mrs. Broad said.

“Ladies,” Lizzie said, holding up her hand, “it may be true and it may be treason but if the prince can help us that is good enough for me.”