Sweet Masquerade (The Love and Temptation Series Book 4) Read online

  “And will I travel to this seminary alone?”

  “You will use my traveling carriage. The coachman, grooms, and outriders will go with you. I will find some suitable female to accompany you. And now, if that is all…”

  “Yes,” said Freddie bleakly.

  She studied his handsome face for a long moment, searching for some sign of affection. Then, with a little sigh, she turned and left the room.

  After a week of being turned and pinned and fitted, Freddie was declared ready to depart. All her spare moments she had haunted the rooms and grounds of Berham Court, looking for the earl, but he was never anywhere to be found. The servants were very quiet about Miss Frederica’s forthcoming exile to Lamstowe. It was not for them to criticize their master’s decision. But privately each and every one thought it was very hard on the girl and laid the blame for the choice of a seminary fairly and squarely on Lady Rennenord’s absent shoulders.

  The housemaids who had been engaged to make Freddie’s wardrobe had fulfilled the seminary’s request for “plain, serviceable clothes with nothing included to excite Vanity” but had rebelled when it came to Freddie’s outfit for traveling.

  They had found a riding habit which had belonged to the earl’s mother and had set about refitting it to Freddie’s slim figure. It was made of rich cloth velvet, double-breasted and tightly fitted at the waist. The revers were of scarlet and white silk, a dramatic contrast to the midnight blue of the cloth. It was to be worn with a muslin cravat and a dashing felt bonnet with the crown bound with gold cord tassels.

  Freddie had given up any hope of seeing the earl before she left, but he was waiting for her in the great hall as she descended the stairs in all the glory of her dashing riding suit.

  He looked at her long and wonderingly, amazed that he had ever thought her a boy, even for a moment. Her bosom, freed from its confining binder, was revealed at last by the trim, well-cut bodice of the habit. Her glossy red curls peeped out from beneath the brim of her bonnet.

  Freddie came down towards him and then stood looking up at him shyly.

  “I feared I would not see you again, my lord,” she said.

  “I would not let you go away without saying good bye,” he said. “I have brought your chaperone.”

  Freddie looked nervously beyond him to where a tall woman stood in the shadows of the hall, half fearing to see Lady Rennenord.

  “Miss Manson is a retired schoolmistress,” said the earl. “She is very discreet and trustworthy, and she will engage to see you delivered safely.”

  Freddie was led forward. She made a low bow, having not yet managed to learn how to curtsy.

  Miss Manson was a tall, gaunt, forbidding-looking woman wearing a drab walking dress and a depressed bonnet. She had faded light blue eyes and a large beaky nose which seemed to be pushed to one side. She opened her mouth in a smile, baring strong yellow teeth.

  Freddie nervously murmured her thanks to Miss Manson for electing to accompany her. Miss Manson replied that it was her pleasure. Then all three stood awkwardly.

  “Well,” said the earl at last. “The carriage awaits, Frederica.” He held out his hand and gave Freddie’s gloved hand a polite shake.

  To the earl’s surprise, all the servants had assembled outside to say good-bye to Freddie. Some of the housemaids were weeping openly. The tall liveried footmen stood in a row on either side of the entrance, forming a sort of guard of honor.

  Freddie approached the coach, obviously trying to curb her mannish stride. The sun shone brightly. Golden daffodils on the lawns were bending before a brisk wind.

  One foot on the step of the carriage, Freddie hesitated and then impulsively swung around. She ran to the housekeeper, a stout lady called Mrs. Deighton. “Oh, I trust you will keep well,” she said breathlessly, “and that you will not be sorely troubled by the rheumatism now that winter is over. And Rose, do not cry so. My lord says I may return on holidays, so I will see you all again quite soon.”

  And so Freddie ran from one to the other, shaking hands and giving them all her best wishes.

  The earl thought uneasily that it was as well his beloved was not present to witness this rather shockingly democratic scene, although he had to admit that Freddie seemed to have the knack of being on easy terms with his servants without losing her young dignity one whit.

  Freddie then bowed to the earl. “Thank you for your hospitality and great kindness, my lord,” she said in a voice that wavered a little.

  “It will be Easter soon,” said the earl. “I will send for you then. So you see, you will not be away from us for so very long.”

  “Oh, thank you!” said Freddie. Then she thought that the earl might be engaged to Lady Rennenord by then, and a shadow crossed her face.

  Miss Manson had already settled herself in the coach. Freddie climbed in. The footmen slammed the door. The coachman cracked his whip. The servants gave Freddie three loud huzzas.

  Then, as the coach was only a little way down the drive, Freddie rapped on the roof and called, “Stop! Oh, please stop!”

  The coachman slowed his team to a halt.

  Freddie tore open the door of the carriage and hurtled out. She ran full tilt back to where the earl was standing on the steps, threw her arms about him, and kissed him on the cheek.

  Then, with a little gasp, she swung about, ran back to the coach, and jumped in.

  The earl stood for a long time, his hand to his cheek, looking after the departing coach until it had disappeared from view.

  Freddie sat, unseeing, watching the passing countryside through a blur of tears. Then she realized that there were certain compensations in being a girl. She could cry openly.

  Miss Manson made no comment as Freddie choked and sobbed, until Freddie gave a particularly large and noisy gulp. Miss Manson said, “Please don’t, Miss Armstrong. You must not distress yourself like this. I am very susceptible to grief. My nerves were never strong.” And with that, the chaperone pulled out an enormous handkerchief and burst into tears as well.

  Freddie blew her nose hurriedly. “It is all right, Miss Manson. I am quite recovered. Please do not refine on it too much. I am a trifle exercised with the natural distress of leaving a home I had come to love.”

  “Then I am cheerful now,” said Miss Manson, her tears disappearing as if someone had turned off a tap.

  “Did Lady Rennenord suggest you as a suitable chaperone?” asked Freddie, looking at her strange companion with some curiosity.

  “Yes,” said Miss Manson. “I was most surprised and gratified. I am retired, you know, although I am not precisely old. I taught at the Berham Seminary for Young Ladies, which closed last year owing to lack of pupils. Lady Rennenord had heard I was very strict.”

  “And are you?”

  “Oh, yes. Very,” said Miss Manson with an awful frown.

  Freddie giggled. “I do not think you are strict at all!”

  “But I can appear to be. In fact, I am quite good at it. But since we are to be companions on this journey, it does not seem a very sensible thing to be strict when there is nothing that I can see to be strict about.”

  “Do you know Lady Rennenord well?” asked Freddie, forgetting a little of her distress at being banished from Berham Court in her interest in her companion.

  “Quite well. Mrs. Bellisle brought her several times to one of our tea parties. I am one of the leading members of the Society for Indigent Berham Gentlewomen. She very kindly gave us some clothes and a little lecture on the value of humility.”

  “Really,” said Freddie dryly.

  “I admire her,” said Miss Manson earnestly. “Such a calm and wise exterior, such an enamel of wisdom covering an inside of stupidity and petty spite.”

  “My dear Miss Manson. You are extremely and brutally frank. What makes you think I should not be outraged at your cruel remarks?”

  “Because you do not like Lady Rennenord at all,” said Miss Manson simply. “How could you? It was her idea you should be sent
away. She hoped to marry Lord Berham. You were bitterly distressed at leaving. I thought a few nasty remarks about Lady Rennenord would raise your spirits.”

  Freddie gave a gurgle of laughter. “You are perceptive, Miss Manson. Lady Rennenord has not been very long in the district, and yet you seem to have gauged her character very well. What of Mrs. Bellisle?”

  “A bully, pure and simple. But quite harmless, unless, of course, one has the misfortune to be one of her servants.”

  “And… and Lord Berham?”

  “A fine and handsome gentleman. Upright, honest, charming, and much too good for Lady Rennenord.”

  “Miss Manson,” said Freddie, “I think I love you.”

  “Now, that’s a pleasant thing,” exclaimed Miss Manson with a surprisingly girlish laugh. “I declare you will be forgetting you are not a young man anymore.”

  “Ah, you heard about my masquerade.”

  “Of course. Lady Rennenord was quite shocked.”

  “I hope she did not tell anyone else. I would not like Lord Berham to think he had been compromised.”

  “Neither would Lady Rennenord. It stands to reason, since she wishes to marry him herself.”

  “Did… did she say so?”

  “She talked about what she planned to do to Berham Court when she became mistress there, and so…”

  “I wish there was some way I could stop her,” said Freddie.

  “Perhaps Lord Berham will come to his senses,” said Miss Manson comfortably. “You see, even very worldly and experienced men such as Lord Berham who have escaped marriage for so long are suddenly struck with an impulse to marry, and that is when they usually fall in love with perfectly unsuitable females. In his normal state of mind, Lord Berham would not look in her direction. But he is not married yet.”

  “She will have him,” said Freddie gloomily. “She is a very determined woman.”

  “Are you—forgive me for the personal nature of the question—are you in love with him yourself?”

  “I?” said Freddie, startled. “My dear Miss Manson, I admire Lord Berham with all my heart, but I see him very much as the kind and generous guardian he is. Besides, I am too young and not yet feminine enough to catch his eye, should such a ridiculous notion enter my head!”

  “I think you look very well,” said Miss Manson. “At least you are fashionably and adequately dressed for the weather. I do not approve of the latest fashions. Seminudity seems to be the desired state. All these loose flowing garments are very dangerous. So easy to catch on fire. It is the same with all those ridiculous fashions for children; girls with fluttering ribbons and boys with sashes. It reminds one of that beautiful cautionary poem:

  Little Willy in his brand new sash

  Fell in the fire and was burned to ash.

  Later on the night grew chilly,

  But nobody came to poke poor Willy.”

  Freddie laughed with delight. How furious Lady Rennenord would be if she could hear the seemingly prim schoolmistress now!

  Freddie enjoyed the journey to Lamstowe more than she had enjoyed anything in her life before. It was hard to remember that Miss Manson was a middle-aged spinster. She chattered and laughed like a young girl. Freddie began to entertain high hopes of the girls she would meet at the seminary. Then she began to dream of turning into an elegant young lady so that the earl might be proud of her. And maybe, if she prayed very hard indeed, he would not marry Lady Rennenord.

  Lamstowe was at last reached. They had stayed the night at a posting house on the outskirts so that they would be able to arrive fresh and well rested early the following morning.

  Freddie had long dreamed of her first glimpse of the sea, imagining it spread out blue and glittering, dotted with white sails. But it was a sullen, heaving, restless gray expanse that met her eyes as the carriage rolled along the road on the top of the cliffs above the town of Lamstowe, which crouched at their feet in a jumble of slate-roofed houses.

  A chill wind blew from the east, and the lowering clouds threatened rain. A few sheep cropped at the rough heathland which stretched out on the side of the road from the sea.

  “It is not a very welcoming prospect,” said Freddie. “And it is an odd place for a seminary, so isolated, so far from the town.”

  “The town seems to be in the nature of a large fishing village,” replied Miss Manson. “The seminary would need to be housed in a fairly large mansion, I should think. And there was probably not a large enough house in the town itself.”

  Freddie lowered the carriage window and stuck her head out. A large building rose above a cluster of stunted trees at the next bend in the road.

  “I think we are nearly there.” Freddie sank back in her seat. “There is a house up ahead.”

  A pang of unease assailed her. She had pictured a sunny mansion with spacious gardens.

  The coach swung off the road between two tall gateposts. “Yes,” murmured Freddie. “Journey’s end.”

  The carriage plowed up the uneven surface of the short drive and came to a halt outside the seminary.

  Both ladies climbed stiffly down and stood looking up at the house.

  It was all very gothic. The wind howled mournfully through the trees, and somewhere a broken shutter banged and cracked.

  One of the grooms rang the bell. After a few moments the door was opened by a grim-faced maid who ushered the ladies into a dark hall which smelled of disinfectant and cabbage water. The air was chill and damp.

  Freddie began to wonder hysterically if she was to be the only pupil. There was no sound at all but the wind in the chimneys and that restless bang-bang-banging of the shutters.

  They followed the maid through the shadowy hall. She pushed open a door at the far end, bobbed a curtsy, and left.

  Two ladies rose as Freddie and Miss Manson entered the room. This, then, must be the Misses Hope.

  They introduced themselves as Miss Mary Hope and Miss Cassandra Hope. Miss Mary was tall and thin and dressed in rustling black silk and a large turban. She had an air of perpetual surprise caused by her arched brows and prissed-up mouth. She looked as if someone had just shoved something nasty-smelling under her nose.

  Miss Cassandra was small and plump and dressed in girlish sprigged muslin. She had made an effort to fight the cold of the mansion by wrapping herself around in a number of shawls and stoles and scarves. She had an olive complexion and the shadow of a mustache above her surprisingly full and red mouth. She wore an elaborate lace cap on her head.

  Freddie moved a little closer to Miss Manson.

  “We are pleased to welcome you, Miss Armstrong,” said Miss Mary. She turned to Miss Manson and inclined her head. “You may go.”

  “Go?” said Freddie, startled. “But Miss Manson has come a long way. Surely it is possible to offer her some refreshment, at least.”

  “You are very forward, Miss Armstrong,” said Miss Cassandra meditatively. “But we shall soon correct that.”

  Miss Manson took a deep breath. “Before I leave,” she said. “I would like to see Miss Armstrong’s room, I would like to see the kitchens, and I would like to talk to some of the teachers.”

  Miss Mary went and held open the door. “You are nothing more than a servant, Miss Manson,” she said awfully. “Furthermore, you are presumptuous. We have received instructions from Lord Berham. You are to deliver Miss Armstrong into our care and leave immediately.”

  Freddie ran and threw her arms about Miss Manson. “Oh, do as they say,” she whispered. “Only remember that I shall be home very soon, and I will beg Lord Berham not to leave me here.”

  Miss Manson hugged her back. “I do not like this place at all,” she said in a low voice. “I will return to Berham and get my lord to send the carriage for you as soon as possible.”

  “Miss Armstrong!” said Miss Mary in a commanding voice. Miss Manson left, followed closely by Miss Cassandra, and Freddie turned to face Miss Mary.

  “That will be the last of such undisciplined behavior,
” said Miss Mary. “Come with me and I will show you where you are to sleep.” She led the way back into the hall. “Pick up your trunks and follow me.”

  Freddie looked despairingly at her two heavy trunks. She picked up one in her arms and said, “I will need to return for the other one later. Perhaps one of the servants…”

  “The pupils are the servants,” said Miss Mary. “You are to be trained in housewifery along with the other more genteel arts. It is not necessary to engage servants. Mortification is good for the soul. We have one maid and one cook and two gardeners. That is sufficient for our needs.”

  Mutinously folding her soft mouth into a hard line, Freddie went up the stairs after Miss Mary, staggering slightly under the weight of the leather and brassbound trunk.

  “Where are the other girls?” she gasped to Miss Mary’s back.

  “They are out on the moors, taking their botany lessons.”

  At last Miss Mary gained the top of the house. Doors stood ajar, revealing three dormitory-type rooms with four hard iron bedsteads in each room.

  “Put your trunks over by the window,” said Miss Mary. “The bed by the window will be yours. We do not have wardrobes, so you must keep your clothes in your luggage. There is one drawer in that chest over there in which each girl keeps her personal items. Breakfast is at six in the morning and dinner at two. Supper is served at six in the evening, and you are expected to be in bed by eight.

  “This is a special establishment, as you no doubt know, for wayward girls who have proved themselves to be undisciplined and beyond their family’s control. After two years we hope to return you to Berham Court, sufficiently meek and submissive and ready to take your place in society. We have not failed yet. Discipline is exacted for the slightest offense. Now you may go and retrieve your other trunk. And then you are not to leave this room until the bell sounds for dinner.”

  Freddie was too stunned by this description of the function of the seminary to do more than look at Miss Mary in blank horror.

  “You have a decidedly unfortunate color of hair,” added Miss Mary, surveying Freddie’s flaming curls as she removed her bonnet. “Caps will be worn at all times.”