FIFTEEN
No one understood that Maddie was pale and listless for reasons other than illness. Yet she could not explain the heaviness, the lack of energy that clouded her mind and scattered her thoughts. A sojourn to Brighton was not at all the solution to what ailed her, especially when her forced retreat would only serve to isolate her further from society. In a town crawling with fortune hunters and unsavory characters who surrounded the Prince of Wales, Maddie was under orders to take the air, put the roses back in her cheeks, and nothing more.
Madame LaSalle was ever vigilant, to the point that Maddie felt that she was suffocating. How she longed for a conversation with a girl close in age. Not even a harmless shopping excursion was permitted because of the attention that the Admiral was sure Maddie would attract. She was capable of ignoring unwanted advances, skilled at hiding behind the large brim of her bonnet, but none of her protests had any effect in changing the terms of her confinement. After eight days, Maddie took action.
The morning looked to be overcast, a gloomy start to another gloomy day on the shore. With her hat blown off her head and bobbing off the back of her neck, she turned her face up to the sky and watched a gull make lazy circles over the waves. The air was redolent of salt, the scent of the breezes that drifted into the Beauchamp house on King Street in Charleston. The breeze that crept up the Ashley and wound around the big house, where a new Beauchamp would soon arrive. That new baby would be walking before Aunt Maddie would meet it. And then how many more of Ethan’s children would see her as a stranger?
One stone, then another, then five were flung into the surf. If she could build a bridge to Charleston with the stones on the beach, Maddie would pile them up and walk away. “Duty,” she mumbled as she let fly with a rock that skipped three times before sinking. Duty, bound over for two more years. A handful of shingles became the punctuation to her silent tirade.
“Young lady, you should not be out walking alone,” an old man said to her. The accent was that of the peerage, sharp and crisp. “One never knows what sort of outlaw might be encountered in a public place.”
Wild curls blew around her face, and when she tried to replace her bonnet, she found that her hair had come undone. Maddie had slipped out of her lodgings as she once wandered from the big house at Riverside Plantation, but the fact that she was not in Charleston was made clear by the frown on the elderly gentleman’s face.
His veiled threat rankled. Always instilling fear, everything was a warning and a caution to make her afraid of dark shadows and figments of someone else’s imagination. Who had she encountered on the beach but this man and his wife? The idyll was spoiled. She turned to go back, only to approach the couple and realize that she had met this man several times at the Admiralty when she had gone to distribute alms to the injured sailors. Hastily, Maddie dropped a curtsy and imagined what a dreadful report would be given to her stepfather. He would lock her away in the garret for such an infraction.
“Miss Ashford, what would your father say if he saw you wandering unescorted, and before dawn?” Lord Gravier asked.
Easy to ignore a foolish question with a slight feint. Maddie had only to acknowledge the pleasure of meeting Lady Gravier and thereby steer the conversation well away from the Admiral. Indeed, Lady Gravier was most amenable to the tactic, expressing her delight at discovered that Admiral Lord Bransmore’s daughter was not seriously ill or severely disfigured, as was being said in their circle. “Yet I cannot understand why you avoid the gaiety of Brighton, my dear,” Lady Gravier said.
“Rather than risk an association that I would regret, is it not better to avoid all associations?” Maddie asked. So said Lady Jane, at any rate. Maddie thought the premise was completely false.
“Drinking tea with us will hardly constitute such an association.Or are you thinking of your age? I know that you have not yet come out,” Lady Gravier said. “You will be presented at Court, of course, but I can be of much use to you as you prepare for that wonderful day.”
“If it was known that I would be among company so suitable as Lord and Lady Gravier, I am sure that my governess would not have been so strict,” Maddie said.
“What say you, Gravier, will you order Lord Bransmore to release his charming daughter?” Her ladyship spoke in a light tone, but Maddie detected the core of an order within.
“Interfere in a man’s home?” Gravier asked. “What a busy minister I would be, responding to entreaties from young ladies who see much injustice in the wisdom of their elders.”
Lord Gravier offered his arm and the couple escorted Maddie back to her rooms before someone else spotted her alone. Such idle gossip in a place like Brighton, that feasted on rumor of every sort, could take on a life of its own, grow and flourish until a perfectly innocent girl became a scandal. His lordship had a way of speaking that reminded Maddie of her grandmother, a manner that instructed through wit and a light hand.
“Perhaps I should order Lord Bransmore to excuse you for one or two afternoons,” Gravier said. “If you could talk about your stud at Farthingmill Abbey to Lord Sunderland for two hours, that would be two hours I would not have to deal with his mania.”
“Like most dragoons, Lord Sunderland is overly fascinated with horses,” Lady Gravier said. “A very young man as well, with a young man’s tendency to wax passionate over his interests.”
“I would value his opinion in regard to bloodlines,” Maddie said. “If he is knowledgeable, and not merely a hobbyist.”
“Perhaps our grandsons will provide amusement if Lord Sunderland proves too dull,” Lady Gravier said. “Harmless diversions, of course. Until you come out, naturally.”
What Maddie craved was diversion of any sort. Before she was officially available for assault by every British fortune hunter who knew she was an heiress, she could enjoy the light-hearted company of young people who would not be forever instructing her in proper etiquette or correcting perceived errors that did not exist. For one day, one hour, even one minute, she would relish the respite from study. The Admiral could not possibly object.
Even as she awaited that much coveted invitation from Lady Gravier, Sophie packed up Maddie’s possessions and the party was on its way back to London while the rest of society went shooting in the country. The streets in Mayfair were largely deserted in August, which only accentuated the filth that hung like a miasma in the muggy air. A cloud of foul odors permeated every corner, held to the earth by overcast skies. With reluctant steps, Maddie approached the front door near Grosvenor Square. The door was opened, not by the footman, but by the Admiral himself.
“You have left Spithead,” she said as she threw herself into his arms. If he were in London, it had to mean good news. “Is it over?”
“Not quite. Final preparations are underway,” he said. The Admiral pulled away from her embrace and studied her features, to assess her restoration to full health. “Until the ships are packed to the gunwales with powder and shot, I am yours entirely.”
“May we ride the ferry to Oxford?” she asked. Ethan had spoken so longingly of the university there that she had to see such a magical place for herself.
“And we shall feast on ices until our tongues are frozen,” the Admiral said. “Until we deplete Gunter’s entire stock.”
Maddie took her stepfather’s arm and led him to the drawing room. “I have had news from Charleston. You are soon to be old Grandfather Ashford, my dear,” she said.
Waiting for tea, Maddie could not contain her excitement over everything she had seen, done or heard since she last spoke to the Admiral. No incident was too minor, no detail too small for his interest, as if every word she spoke was a gem worthy of collecting.
“You were a favorite in Brighton,” he said.
“How could I be anyone’s favorite? Locked away like a cloistered nun,” she grumbled.
“Was Lord Gravier mistaken? He claimed to have spoken to my most charming daughter during an early morning promenade.”
Composure
would be Maddie’s ally. She handed her stepfather a cup of tea with a steady hand. “I did speak with him, sir, but I have met him many times at the Admiralty and we are not strangers.”
“You created a most favorable impression upon Lady Gravier. In spite of my protest regarding your age, it seems she cannot be deterred. What do you say, my sweet, would you be a part of her triumph at fostering the outstanding match of some future season?”
Matchmaking by strangers who did not know her, who were looking for acclaim rather than considering her best interests, was a risk she had never considered before. Without the Admiral’s guidance, it was unthinkable. “No, I shall engage the enemy and refuse all offers,” she said. “But it is preferable to remaining behind locked doors.”
“We knew this day was coming. Madame LaSalle will move on to other girls who thirst for knowledge while you move forward toward your destiny. No sails aback, as much as I wish I could command time to lay to.”
“If it troubles you so, father, I might hide in the country with my horses.”
“I would never ask that of you,” he said. “What I will ask is something that I suspect would be under your consideration if you were in Charleston, the sister of a prominent businessman with clients to appease and woo. As you dance through the army of eligible gentlemen who will fill your every card, keep the politics of my position in your thoughts. Be gentle as you release those whose hearts you capture. Make no enemies, for me or for yourself.”
The dear man had not the slightest idea how courtship was managed by women. She understood full well how a swooning gallant could be useful to advancing her family, how her charm could improve the impression the Sea Lords had of the Admiral. As a female, Maddie had a position that her stepfather could not match, charming the wives and daughters of influential men and thus bringing her own influence to bear. She patted his hand, to offer a touch of reassurance that she was his best ally on land. How she behaved and how she was perceived were as important to the family’s fortune as his capabilities at sea.
“As for the events that will sweep you up like a rampaging river,” he said. “Your good sense in regard to Lucy’s suitors has won you a firm friend in Lady Jane. She will see to it that your presentation is done properly. The social interactions which follow give me cause for concern.”
“I understand that you cannot be with me. No rash actions will be taken by me, I promise you.”
“While I must put my trust in your aunt, I have a sense that she is trying to match you with her son George. A formidable pairing, to be sure. He will inherit all this one day, and you have interests both here and in America. What Lady Gravier would consider the match of the season, you see.”
“George is much changed by his service,” she said. When last they spoke, he was improved in that his pomposity had been worn down, but something inside him had become hard, almost brittle. “As he is my cousin I would never consider such a union.”
“I must return to sea soon. Quite soon.”
“It’s true, then, that the French fleet was spotted. I had heard rumors.”
“Near Cadiz. Before September is out, we will settle our differences once and for all.” He gave her a smile that was pure bravado. “When I return, my darling, we shall host the most spectacular party this old pile has ever contained. They will speak of the 1806 season in years to come, just you wait and see.”