Page 58 of The Chaperone
‘Oh, I do not think I have ever underestimated you.’
‘Perhaps until now, my friend.’ The appellation might be amicable, but the tone was now clearly menacing.
‘Are you warning me off? Do not tell me you have an interest in the refreshing Miss Tyneham.’ Pinkney very nearly sneered.
‘I shall not tell you that, merely that if you think to play upon her … lack of experience … you will find yourself wishing you had limited your interest in chance to cards and horses, and not “gambled” with your life.’
‘That sounds so very like a threat, Fawley.’
‘Not at all, Pinkney. It is, in fact, a promise.’
‘Promises, ah, they can be so notoriously difficult to keep.’
‘So I have heard, in your case.’ Sir Esmond’s eyes glittered.
Lord Pinkney’s hands clenched at the insult, but he refused the bait.
‘You ought not to listen to tittle-tattle, my friend.’
Sir Esmond, upon whom the rigidity of Lord Pinkney’s smile had not been lost, smiled back.
‘And you, my friend, should pay attention to friendly advice. Good day to you.’ Sir Esmond touched the brim of his low-crowned beaver, mounted his bay, and trotted away.
Lord Pinkney frowned in a thoughtful manner. Sir Esmond Fawley was not noted as an aggressive man, but exuded the air of one whom it was unwise to anger. However, Pinkney was a gamester to the core, and cast caution aside. This was just another risk to add to his list. It made the future look rather exciting.
Sir Esmond Fawley left Town the following day to visit his aunt, his father’s eldest sister, which led to speculation in some quarters that Lady Cottingham must be at her last breath and Fawley was hoping to inherit. In fact, that lady was in her customary stout health, much to Sir Esmond’s pleasure. His parents having departed this life within three years of each other during his twenties, his Aunt Cottingham was his closest relative of an older generation, and Sir Esmond had a mind full of questions which only someone of an older ‘vintage’ could answer.
‘Hmmm, I thought there must be a reason for you to abandon the dubious delights of the Capital in the Season and come to visit an old fidget like me.’ Lady Cottingham was a bird-like lady whose apparent physical fragility hid the fact that she was as tough as steel and as sharp as a needle made thereof.
‘You make me sound a very scimble-scamble fellow if all I care about is the social whirl, ma’am, and I was hoping, really I was, that you would be pleased to see me.’ His eyes danced but he managed to look crestfallen.
‘Jackanapes.’
‘I protest. I am the most staid of men, so staid I am contemplating matrimony.’
She sat more upright in her chair and her claw-like fingers gripped the arms.
‘And you want my approval of the chit?’
‘Hardly, ma’am, but I do want your knowledge.’
‘I know nothing of modern misses, sir. I stay cooped up in this rat hole from one year’s end to the next.’
He understood her arthritis must be bad, for the ‘rat hole’ was a very comfortable dower house into which she had removed those pieces of furniture she particularly liked from the main house, along with the elderly butler, five maids, a cook who knew her likes and many dislikes to perfection, and a coachman with an equipage that was as old as it was grand.
‘I would like to know not about modern misses, but old mistakes, ma’am. To be specific, I want you to tell me all you can recall about Rake Rothley and Clarissa Tyneham twenty years ago. You would have been visiting Town in those days, I swear.’
Lady Cottingham pursed her mouth and narrowed her eyes, concentrating. A slow smile dispelled the wrinkles.
‘You make it sound as if I must have already been decrepit. Hmmm.’ She gave him a severe look, but her eyes twinkled. ‘Now Rothley was a careless man in the true sense of the word. Made no difference if you warned a woman about him, he still took what he wanted and then discarded them. Clarissa Tyneham was a fool, but a very lonely fool.’
‘Do you recall her marriage to Tyneham?’
‘Oh yes. Her mama crowed about it, but to my mind her younger sister Honoria made a better match when she hooked Chelmarsh.’
Sir Esmond smiled wryly, wondering if he himself was just another fish. ‘Just so, ma’am.’
‘Tyneham had wealth and wasn’t a bad-looking man, but Miss Clarissa Northam was the sort of beauty who needed love and adulation, and that type of nonsense. Tyneham put himself out long enough to take her to the altar and then ignored her, especially after she presented him with a son. So she pined and grew even more willowy and then, several years later, she managed to persuade him to let her join him in London for the Season. Then he watched as Rothley made a fuss of her. Easy meat she was, for a man like that. Everyone shook their heads, but she was blinkered, right up to the point where he abandoned her. I think she honestly thought he would run away with her. Rothley! Not his style at all.’
