Second Time Around (Runaway Brides Book 5) Read online

  London.

  She had not been there in so long. Would anyone even be surprised at the news that Arthur was dead? Did anyone even remember that his wife, although she lived in the countryside, was very much alive? Tabitha grimaced. She only had herself to blame. She was the one who withdrew from the world, even from her beloved cousin Theodosia, now the current Marchioness of Marquenson. It would have cost her nothing to visit her and her husband David in their country estate or London house from time to time.

  But Arthur’s disappearance had left Tabitha with no wish to subject herself to the curiosity and pitying glances of the beau monde. As a consequence, she had not returned to London in the past four years.

  It was time to rectify that sojourn, Tabitha decided. Micah would one day take his place among his class and in order to make a place for him, his mother must prepare the way.

  Theodosia, who recently wrote to her with the happy news of her second birth, would not be in the capital but as soon as the season concluded Tabitha intended to re-connect with her beloved cousin.

  Her time of mourning was at an end.

  TWO

  “Well, milady, we’ve got our work cut out for us,” said Mrs Burton as they entered the London house. Its furnishings were covered in white cloths, its chandeliers a home for cobwebs, its floors dusty and the entire residence showing signs of neglect.

  “So I see,” Tabitha said. “We shall need to hire staff without delay. I shall speak with Lady Atelia; she comes to London every season and doubtless, will know of reliable agencies from which we may find maids and footmen.”

  “In the meantime,” Mrs Burton said purposefully, “I’m glad I sent me cleaning supplies on ahead. I’m going to give these floors a good scrubbing as soon as I tackle those cobwebs. Mr Sutherland, I shall need your assistance.”

  “I thought to first check the wine cellar and the silver, to make sure that the stores are adequate.”

  “That’ll wait,” declared Mrs Burton who, although subservient to the butler in terms of rank, was a woman who knew her mind and deferred to no one but the Viscountess. “First, we must see that the house is habitable for Her Ladyship and His Lordship. Then will be time enough for checking the cellar and the silver.”

  Sutherland did not contest the housekeeper’s assessment of priorities. She was an indomitable woman and he was a little bit afraid of her. “Very well,” he said with a lack of enthusiasm. “Madame, is there anything pressing that should be seen to first?”

  Tabitha was accustomed to the battle of wills which engrossed her butler and housekeeper and she hid a smile.

  “No, thank you, Sutherland. As my son and Miss Allen will not arrive until the weekend, I believe we may put the nursery and their chambers aside for the moment. Mrs Burton, in the absence of staff, I shall join you in your cleaning. I hope that by nightfall, we may all retire to clean beds.”

  “Milady, ‘tis not for you to be seeing to the cleaning,” Mrs Burton objected. “Mr Sutherland and I will get on with it. It is beneath your station.”

  “Thank you, Mrs Burton, but until we have ridded the house of dust and any other creatures which may have taken advantage of the house’s lack of occupants to make their own homes here, I cannot think of anything more important at hand, my station be damned.”

  Tabitha had been brought up in an affluent household, but she was not lazy, and she knew the duties which were required to maintain a clean home. She set to work with a will and by the end of the day, although the tasks were not all done, they were able to sit down to a meal prepared by Mrs Burton after she had given the kitchen a thorough scouring.

  The servants protested at sitting down to eat with her in the fine dining room with its inlaid mahogany furnishings, but Tabitha insisted. There was little point in dining on ceremony at this stage, she pointed out. Mrs Burton and Sutherland sat down uneasily after Tabitha took her seat.

  “I wish to thank you both,” she said after savouring the first spoonful of mutton stew which Mrs Burton had prepared, “for setting to work with such a will today. I realise that it is not your duty to scrub floors and dust tables. I shall set to hiring immediately tomorrow, after I meet with Lady Atelia.”

  “No more is it fitting for you to be putting your hands to dirt and such,” Mrs Burton replied. “I reckon that we’ll all be glad when order is restored, and we may return to our customary duties. By the time little Lord Micah is here, he’ll never know that ‘twas a right mess.”

  “I thought that Arthur had arranged to have the London house looked after while he was away, at least . . .” Tabitha’s voice trailed off. She had assumed that the London property was being seen to, even though no one lived there. Mr Ochsbury had not indicated otherwise, and she realised that the solicitor had been no more proactive than she in finding out the status of the residence. It was vaguely comforting to realise that, for all his certainty that men let no detail escape their notice, he had failed to ensure that such was the case. It might prove to be a valuable artillery should the hidebound solicitor ever choose to chide her for the failings of her sex.

  “No matter,” Mrs Burton said, concerned that her mistress might be melancholy in thinking of the Viscount, and him leaving her with not so much as a word for all these years. Whether he was dead or not—how could the courts decide what the graveyard hadn’t?—he was no longer disposed to seeing to the household matters and Mrs Burton was determined to give Her Ladyship all the assistance she needed. No London shopkeeper was going to cheat her when she presented her list of purchases; she might be a country woman but she was no fool and any butcher or greengrocer who thought otherwise would soon find out that he was dealing with a woman who’d been working in the Randstand household since she was a kitchen maid.

  “We’ve done our bit and we’re on the right path. This place will be fit for you and the young master before he even gets here, and once you’re settled in, you can receive callers again.”

  Although Tabitha, during the brief time that she had been at Randstand with Arthur, had been engaged in the social scene of the community, she had become less involved after Arthur was gone, until she had become almost a hermit. It had been too discomfiting at first to have to answer for Arthur’s prolonged absence when she had no idea of where he was or why he had left. Uncertain of how to respond, it had become easier for her to withdraw from society, especially as Micah commanded her attention.

  The concept of entering society once more, receiving callers and making calls, accepting the invitations which would inevitably be sent once the ton knew that she was in London loomed as a daunting prospect and yet, Tabitha knew that it was incumbent upon her to take this direction. Micah must be part of the network of others of his station; they would become his school-friends when he was old enough to go to Eton as his father had done, and eventually, he would find a wife, one day, among their sisters. The aristocracy of England was small in number but enormous in influence and Tabitha could not deprive her son of the opportunities that were due to him.

  “It’s a very fine house,” Tabitha said, changing the subject. She had forgotten how elegant the London house was, with its stylish furnishings which reflected the era’s fascination with Egyptian décor. It was a trifle too exotic for Tabitha’s tastes, but that didn’t matter, she supposed. Perhaps, one day, she might make one or two small changes but for now, she would not change anything. It was still Arthur’s residence, even though he was gone.

  She had forgotten Arthur’s fascination with the ancient world. He had done little to indulge it at Randstand, where the furnishings were comfortably worn, and the décor had been the same since his grandparents were alive. Here in London, he had been more adventurous, she supposed. Or perhaps, his parents had been responsible for the look; they had been dead by the time she married Arthur.

  “Very fine, indeed,” Mrs Burton said, “even with all them foreign influences. I suppose that’s what they like here in London.” Her tone indicated that London tastes were a my
stery.

  “I suppose. We shall do our best to bring the house back to its prime.”

  “It’s in very good shape,” Sutherland offered. Although he was in service, he came of carpentry stock and he knew how to judge a building’s state. “It seems very odd, though, that there was no one looking after it all these years. His Lordship was always most particular about such things.”

  “He didn’t know he was going to die now, did he?” demanded Mrs Burton.

  “No, but he knew when he would be using the London house and when he would not,” Sutherland insisted. “He’d have had someone looking after it while it wasn’t occupied, the same as he had Mr Ochsbury taking care of the manor house when he wasn’t at home. It’s very odd, that’s all.”

  It was odd, Tabitha agreed privately and most unlike Arthur to leave anything untended to. He had generally been a man who paid too much attention to such details rather than too little. But there was something in Mrs Burton’s blunt comment as well. He could not have known that he would not be in a position to see to his property.

  That night, as she lay in the immense bed in the upstairs bedchamber, with the curtains freshly laundered and hanging again, she could not sleep. Thoughts of Arthur were invading her mind. How very odd to be preoccupied with him now when, during recent years, she had become accustomed to his absence.

  Tabitha turned on her side so that sleep, which would not come while she lay on her back, might find another position more inviting.

  The last time she had slept in this bed, Arthur had been at her side. They were newly arrived in London for the season. She had told him that she was going to have a child and there had been a brief flowering of intimacy and affection between them. It had not lasted, of course; Arthur was intent on his own manner of doing things and those ways did not include accommodating a wife troubled by morning sickness. He thought her weak for what he described as pathetic self-indulgence when she told him tearfully that she simply could join him for a journey to Bath to visit friends, not when the carriage would jounce along the rutted roads and make her stomach churn even more. In disgust, he had said that he would go alone, and she could stay in London with her maladies.

  She had been devastated by his derision. Too young then to assert herself as a mother-to-be, she had sobbed after he left. When he returned, she had strived to please him, placing his needs above her own to prove that although she was in the family way, she was not weak or ill. Then Micah had been born and Arthur was delighted to have a son and heir. For a time, there had been a halcyon period in the household. It had not lasted, however.

  Tabitha sighed. The marriage had been a mistake, but she was now a widow. There was no point in trying to amend a mistake which could not be rectified. She must look to the future. Her days of rusticating at Randstand were over. She was a widow of six-and-twenty and for the first time in her life, she was free. It was time for her to re-enter society and take her place in the living world again.

  Lady Atelia Warrens, the Countess of Greenville, emphatically agreed when she came to call upon Tabitha later in the week. Lady Atelia was a year older than Tabitha and well acquainted with London society.

  “Oh, Tabby, I’m very sorry for your loss, of course, but I must confess that I didn’t care much for Arthur. Is that terrible of me to say?” Atelia looked stricken, her green eyes wide with recrimination.

  “There were times when I did not care for him myself,” Tabitha confessed. “Father chose him for me, and there was no thought of asking me my views on the matter. It was time for me to marry, and Father was determined that I should marry well.”

  “Oh, Father had ideas of that sort for me as well,” Atelia confided, “but as his choice was an odious one, I soon persuaded him that William would make a much better son-in-law than Lord Aimsbury, who was such a cold fish.”

  “Your father is more readily persuaded than mine,” Tabitha said forlornly. “I cannot imagine either Father or Arthur paying attention to anything I should say.”

  “But that’s done with,” Atelia said, clasping her hands together as if she were about to applaud. She was an enthusiastic young woman who relished her role in society and regarded Tabitha’s arrival in London as quite a lark. “Now that you are here, we must see to it that you are made welcome. There are ever so many engagements; you will be quite busy.” She clapped her hands as a thought struck her. “You shall join William and me at the assembly room this week. How is your purse?’

  “My purse?”

  “Are you hard up for funds?” Atelia asked anxiously. “The subscription is ten guineas.”

  “Ten guineas!”

  “Yes, but it’s quite worth it, I assure you. Everyone goes; there is dancing and cards and refreshments and of course, the very latest gossip. Oh, Tabby, say you’ll come, it will be such a lark to introduce you to the ton. I know everyone and William is related to fully half the members of the House of Lords, I vow—he comes of a very large family—and between the two of us, we shall see that you do not lack for company. You are so pretty that you will attract the gentlemen on your own.”

  “I am not looking to attract anyone. I am only just widowed,” Tabitha replied in alarm. Atelia’s agenda was moving far too quickly for comfort.

  “Oh, bosh. Arthur has been gone for years and the court only just caught up to that fact. Why should you wither on the shelf when you’re still young enough and pretty enough to have suitors? And just think, Tabby; now, you are a woman of means and independence, and you shall decide, not your father, whether you wish to allow a gentlemen to court you. It will be such fun and no more than you deserve after having been quite downtrodden before now.”

  Tabitha did not feel that she had been so downtrodden until coming to London, but nonetheless, there was something alluring about the image that Atelia presented and she agreed that the subscription fee of ten guineas would be worth the price if it meant that she could readily enter society in her current state. The uncertainty of her debut was long past and no more did she need to fear the awe-inspiring judgment of the Patronesses, or the haughty tones of the polished young ladies who had been so secure in their charms.

  It occurred to Tabitha that she was frightfully out of fashion. She had not replenished her wardrobe to any great extent since giving birth to Micah and her gowns, although quite well made, were not the peak of fashion. But Atelia insisted that Tabitha could wear one of her frocks until she had had a chance to shop for a London wardrobe. Tabitha quailed at the thought of what Mr Ochsbury would think if he saw the dressmaker’s bills showing up in her expenses, but then she realised that she did not need to approach the solicitor for permission to spend money. It was hers to use as she saw fit and surely four years of wearing the same wardrobe entitled her to do a bit of shopping.

  Atelia had sent her a lady’s maid who would be able to hem the ball gown so that Tabitha, some inches shorter than her friend, could wear it and dance with ease. Heather Wakefield, who was a relative of one of the Greenville household servants, proved to be most adept with her needle and eager for the opportunity to prove herself in service.

  “My sister is a lady’s maid for Lord William’s sister,” she explained. “I’ve never had a position of my own, and I was very grateful when Lady Atelia suggested that I might want to give this a try. And very grateful to you as well, milady, for giving me the chance.”

  “I am happy to do so,” Tabitha said, watching in the mirror as Wakefield’s skilled hands transformed her from a country mouse into a stylish lady, her dark blonde hair curled into ringlets, her curves accented by the mauve sarcenet dress with the Anglaise bodice and a pair of darling heels which lent her an extra inch or so of height.

  “There!” Wakefield exclaimed as she stepped back from her handiwork. “You look quite fashionable, Lady Tabitha, and I am sure that you will not lack for dance partners.”

  “It is so long since I have danced,” Tabitha said timidly, “I am not sure I remember the steps.”

 
; “Oh, you will remember,” the lady’s maid assured her as she adjusted the position of the diamond necklace circling Tabitha’s throat.

  “Your feet will not have forgotten. Here now, for the evenings get cold and you must not forget your wrap.” She gave a last proprietary touch to the bonnet which adorned Tabitha’s head. “It’s quite chic, you know,” she said as Tabitha brushed away one of the plumes tickling her cheek.

  “You will be used to it in no time.”

  Tabitha hoped so, and as she sat with William and Atelia in the Greenville carriage, she found her anticipation rising faster than her apprehension, so that by the time they arrived at the assembly rooms and were met by the Master of Ceremonies, Tabitha found her nerves giving way to eagerness.

  “William will be going off to play cards,” Atelia said adoringly as her husband scanned the crowd, “and we shall dance and gossip and enjoy ourselves in the ballroom. William, dear, you will remember that you can only lose a very small amount, will you not?”

  “I intend to win, my love,” her husband replied with a wink.

  Atelia grimaced as she watched him walk away. “They all think that,” she said resignation colouring her voice, “but of course, they do lose. Really, gambling is such a tedious pastime. I wonder that so many fall under its spell. Did Arthur gamble?”

  “No,” Tabitha answered as they entered the ballroom where the orchestra was already playing a tune and lively couples were dancing. “He did not care for it.”

  “Then he was a wiser man than most,” Atelia said. “William lost a horrid amount last month and his father gave him quite a scolding. It is very embarrassing, of course, to be lectured by one’s papa-in-law, but I had nothing to do with it. I don’t play at cards. But Papa insists that a wife is to put the reins to her husband’s wallet and so I am scolded for William’s folly. Come, let us stroll about the room so that we may be seen as we look upon the dancers. There are so many people here tonight; this is the perfect occasion for your introduction to London.”