The Fortune Hunter Read online

  The dressing gong was sounding when Bay came into the house. He knew that he should change out of his wet clothes, but he thought there was a chance that Charlotte might still be in her studio. He didn’t think that she was the kind of girl who spent more time than she had to changing for dinner. He ran up the stairs two at a time, praying that he would not run into anyone.

  He had reached the first landing when he heard a voice.

  ‘Captain Middleton, where have you been in this weather? You must be frozen.’ Lady Crewe was standing on the other side of the landing.

  Bay chewed his lip. The last thing he wanted was to be waylaid in conversation by his hostess. He said, as curtly as possible, ‘I had to ride over to Althorp. The Earl wanted to speak to me.’

  ‘It must have been very important business for you to go all that way, and on a Sunday too.’ Lady Crewe sniffed; she was a keen observer of the Sabbath.

  Bay knew that if he told Lady Crewe what the Earl had wanted he would never get away. Instead he shook his head and said, ‘I am sorry to say that the Earl is not observant. Why, in Ireland, we would sometimes hold amateur theatricals on a Sunday.’

  Lady Crewe gasped and Bay shook his head.

  ‘You can imagine my feelings, Lady Crewe. Now, if you will excuse me.’

  He did not wait for a reply but dashed off in the direction of the nursery, hoping that she would not remember that his bedroom lay the other way.

  * * *

  Bay sighed with relief when he saw the light under the nursery door. He walked in and saw Charlotte standing with her back to him. She was wearing what looked like an evening dress – white silk trimmed with green velvet – but she had swathed herself in a brown holland apron.

  She was examining a print. Bay noticed that her hands were covered with brown stains. As he reached her, Charlotte gave a little shriek of surprise and then smiled broadly.

  ‘Captain Middleton! You are just in time.’

  ‘I am so glad.’

  He tried to look at the print, but she held it away out of his view, saying, ‘Promise me that you will be honest. I won’t be offended if you don’t like it.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Well, I might be a little piqued, but only a little.’ Slowly she held up the print.

  Bay had never seen a photograph of himself before. He was disappointed to find that he was not as tall or as broad as he had imagined himself. In the picture his head was level with Tipsy’s, the horse nestling into his shoulder. The unspoken bond between horse and rider was quite evident in the photograph. They were undoubtedly a team.

  ‘My dear Miss Baird, Charlotte – can I call you Charlotte? I can’t tell you how happy this makes me.’ Bay found himself blinking. ‘Tipsy is magnificent.’

  ‘And what do you think of yourself?’ asked Charlotte.

  Bay shrugged. ‘Does anyone really like their own portrait?’

  ‘You would be surprised. Fred liked the carte de visite he had done at Gaillevant so much that he ordered three dozen and sent them to all his friends.’

  ‘I only want one copy, but I promise you that I will treasure it for ever.’ Bay took one of Charlotte’s hands in his and touched a brown stain on her forefinger.

  Charlotte blushed. ‘It’s the silver nitrate I use on the plates. I can’t get it off. I must put on some gloves before dinner.’

  ‘Not on my account, dear Charlotte. These stains on your hands are like the calluses I get from riding; they are the price we pay for doing what we love.’ He stroked her palm with his finger. Her hand trembled a little.

  ‘I don’t think Augusta would agree.’

  ‘I don’t care in the slightest what Augusta thinks, or her mother, or anyone else for that matter. Do you?’

  He held her hand tight. She did not pull it away.

  ‘No, I don’t think I do.’ There were two spots of red on Charlotte’s cheeks.

  Bay leant towards her and kissed one of the red cheeks.

  ‘I have made you blush, Will you forgive me?’ he said and kissed the other cheek.

  ‘I think so,’ Charlotte said softly.

  Bay leant forward and kissed her, this time on the mouth. He felt her body soften and lean into his, her mouth opening and the touch of her hand on his arm. He could smell rose water and the tang of chemicals. He wanted to pull her to him, to gather her up completely.

  There was a loud creak from the nursery staircase, followed by the sounds of stertorous breathing.

  Bay and Charlotte were examining the print when Fred reached the doorway.

  ‘Mitten, I just wanted to…’ He saw Bay. ‘Oh, hello, Middleton.’ And then, registering Bay’s riding clothes, he said, ‘Shouldn’t you be changing for dinner?’

  ‘I was just on my way. But I couldn’t resist a glimpse of Tipsy.’ Bay gestured towards the photograph on the table.

  ‘May I suggest that you hurry up? Lady Crewe does not like to be kept waiting.’ Fred fingered the facings of his tail coat, scraping his fingernails against the satin.

  ‘Keeping a lady waiting, that would never do.’ Bay made Charlotte a little bow. ‘Thank you, Miss Baird, for the photo. For everything, in fact.’

  * * *

  As he left the room, Fred turned on Charlotte.

  ‘I am surprised to find you in here alone with Middleton. You know his reputation.’

  ‘Oh yes. Augusta was punctilious in letting me know about that,’ Charlotte replied.

  ‘Then you are either foolish or wilful. A young girl cannot be too careful of her good name. What seems like a harmless flirtation now, could have a major impact on your future.’

  Charlotte smiled. ‘I hope so. I like Captain Middleton extremely. If he proposes, I shall accept him.’

  ‘Of course he will propose. You are an extremely wealthy woman, but there is no question of you accepting him. You cannot marry without my consent and I have absolutely no intention of giving it.’ Fred rose on the balls of his feet to give his point more emphasis.

  ‘That is only true for the next nine months, three weeks and four days, until I am twenty-one. Then I can marry whomsoever I choose.’

  Fred rocked back on his heels. ‘You forget that I am still your trustee for another four years.’

  ‘Oh, I haven’t forgotten, but I don’t care about the money. I can wait.’

  Fred showed his teeth in a facsimile of a smile. ‘You can wait. But what about Middleton?’ He pointed to the picture of Bay and Tipsy. ‘He is a man with expensive tastes.’

  Charlotte said nothing. She was staring at the photograph.

  Her brother continued, ‘Let’s not quarrel, Mitten. I have no desire to play the tyrant.’

  Charlotte looked up at him. ‘I am not your Mitten. My name is Charlotte.’ She unfastened the tapes of her holland apron and folded it neatly, then picked up her reticule and took out a pair of white lace mittens, smoothing them over her hands until all the stains were hidden.

  ‘Come on, Fred. You don’t want to keep Lady Crewe waiting.’

  ‘But you do understand me, Charlotte?’ Fred put his hand on his sister’s arm.

  ‘Of course I understand you. I even promise to think about what you have said.’

  ‘Good girl.’

  ‘But I am not promising to obey you. That will be Augusta’s job when she marries you.’

  Charlotte was the only one smiling as they both contemplated the likelihood of Augusta being an obedient wife.

  Greensleeves

  It was clear from the placement at dinner that Augusta had spoken to her mother. Charlotte was taken into dinner by the Hon. Percy and seated at the other end of the table to Bay.

  It was not a lively meal. Lady Crewe generally liked to restrict the conversation to topics suitable to the Sabbath. But after an almost silent fish course, she could not contain her curiosity any longer.

  ‘Did you see Laetitia Spencer at Althorp this afternoon, Captain Middleton? She had a chill before Christmas and I am hoping that she is
quite recovered. I was thinking that I might call on her this week.’

  ‘I didn’t see the Countess, Lady Crewe. But then the Earl and I were in the stables.’

  ‘In the stables? What on earth were you doing there on a Sunday?’ asked Lady Crewe.

  ‘I fear that the Earl visits the stables every day. We had some business to discuss,’ Bay said, as neutrally as he could.

  But Lady Crewe was not to be put off.

  ‘But what business could be so urgent that you had to go over there at once?’

  By now the whole table had given up the pretence of conversation and twelve heads were looking at Bay.

  ‘The Earl had an assignment for me.’ He paused and, seeing Lady Crewe’s expectant eyebrow, he added, ‘Of a confidential nature.’

  Lord Crewe snorted. ‘I hear that Austrian woman is hunting with the Pytchley tomorrow. Daresay Spencer wants you to pilot her.’ Lord Crewe had little time for Catholics, even royal ones. ‘Am I right, Middleton?’

  Bay bowed his head. ‘I can’t lie to you, Lord Crewe.’

  There was a moment of silence as the assembled company digested this revelation along with their turbot à la crème.

  Hartopp was the first to speak, attempting but not altogether succeeding in keeping the jealousy out of his voice, ‘Quite a last-minute request if she is hunting tomorrow. Do you think someone else dropped out?’

  ‘Very likely,’ said Bay.

  ‘Nonsense,’ interrupted Lord Crewe. ‘Middleton is the best rider in England. Spencer will have been told to get the top man and he has. Congratulations are in order. Quite an honour to pilot an empress, even if she is a foreigner.’

  ‘It is certainly a responsibility,’ said Bay.

  ‘I think it is tremendously exciting,’ said Lady Lisle. ‘But I hope she speaks some English, unless of course you speak German, Captain Middleton.’

  Fred snorted. ‘Of course he doesn’t speak German! But I am sure you will have a way of making yourself understood, eh Middleton?’

  Bay said quietly, ‘I believe the Empress speaks excellent English, but I don’t anticipate much conversation. My job is to guide her during the hunt. There won’t be much time for talking.’

  ‘But we ladies expect a full account of the Empress, Captain Middleton, whether you talk to her not,’ said Augusta. ‘In the Illustrated London News it says that she has taken riding lessons from a circus artist, and that she has been seen to jump through a ring of fire.’

  ‘Well, if I see her jump through a ring of fire when we are out with the Pytchley tomorrow, I will be sure to remember every detail, Lady Augusta,’ said Bay.

  It was fortunate that the footmen were coming round with the salmis of pheasant, so that the sound of Charlotte’s laughter was drowned in the clatter of serving spoons on silver salvers.

  Lady Crewe was still thinking about the Empress. ‘I wonder if she will be attending dinners while she is here. I am sure Laetitia Spencer won’t miss the opportunity to show her off. But it would be a pity if the Empress did not have the opportunity of visiting some of the other important families in the county. Althorp is all very well, but so old-fashioned; it would be such a shame if she went back to Austria without seeing the best examples of the modern style.’ She looked up at the hammer-beamed roof of the dining room with its roundels picked out in scarlet and gold, and the frieze of Sir Galahad in search of the Holy Grail, with great satisfaction.

  ‘You must be sure to tell her, Captain Middleton, that Easton Neston and Althorp are quite old-fashioned. If she wants to see an English country house that is really up to the minute, she should come to Melton.’

  ‘If she’s hunting with the Pytchley she will be here on Tuesday,’ said Lord Crewe, ‘as the meet is here.’

  ‘Of course! Well, Captain Middleton, you must tell the Empress that I would be only too pleased to show her around Melton. She won’t find a house like this in Austria, I daresay.’ Lady Crewe leant forward as she said this and looked directly at Bay, so that he had no choice but to answer.

  ‘If she asks me, I will certainly pass on your invitation, Lady Crewe. But I suspect that we won’t have many opportunities to talk about architecture. And who knows, I may not be to the Empress’s taste and I will have lost my post by Tuesday.’ Bay smiled.

  ‘Nonsense, Middleton. We all know how good you are with the fair sex.’ Fred Baird rolled his eyes at Augusta.

  Lord Crewe looked up from his pheasant and let his fork drop with a clang.

  ‘Middleton, you are not to encourage the woman to come inside the house. If she insists, we can’t stop her, but I don’t want some foreign royal traipsing about Melton. Nothing but trouble. She won’t come alone, I am quite sure, and before we know it the house will be full of Austrians.’

  ‘But George, it would be an honour to receive the Empress,’ protested Lady Crewe.

  ‘No, it would be an honour to receive our queen at Melton. There is no comparison,’ said Lord Crewe, his face reddening.

  Adelaide Lisle, who hated unpleasantness, turned to her host with her most winning smile. ‘Now, you must tell me about the wonderful frieze you have here in the dining room. I am awfully stupid about legends and so forth, and I can’t for the life of me figure out who is the handsome young knight with curly blond hair – the only knight whose name I can remember is Lancelot, and that’s because I have a cousin called Lancelot, but this young man looks rather different.’

  As Lady Lisle chattered away and Lord Crewe began to unravel the Arthurian legends, the other diners began to talk among themselves, tacitly agreeing to avoid all further mention of the Empress.

  * * *

  The men did not linger over their port. Fred and Hartopp felt that they could not talk about the Empress in front of their host and yet it was the only thing they wanted to discuss. Although both men would, if asked, claim to be a friend of Bay Middleton, both of them took the news of Bay’s advancement into imperial circles as a profound injustice. When all three of them had been ADCs to Earl Spencer in Ireland, they had jostled for position on a daily basis. Both men could understand why Bay as the better horseman should have been picked to pilot the Empress, but it seemed quite unfair that mere talent should take precedence over superior birth and breeding. How could a man like Bay, be expected to understand the niceties of imperial protocol? True, the father had been an officer who had died fighting in the Crimea, but the mother had remarried some kind of coal merchant in Co. Durham. There was also a lurking suspicion that Bay had been preferred because he was as good with women as he was with horses. Fred felt this a little less keenly than Hartopp; he still reckoned that his successful wooing of Lady Augusta had been the result of his own charms rather than her increasing desperation. So when Bay rose after one glass of port, nobody protested.

  But in the drawing room, the conversation among the women was unfettered. Augusta, who had seen the look of surprise on Charlotte’s face when Bay had announced his new role, lost no time in asking her what she thought of Bay’s elevation into imperial circles, or as she put it, ‘to be the Empress’s groom’.

  ‘Oh, is a pilot the same thing as a groom? I understood the roles to be quite different. I don’t ride myself, of course, but surely the groom looks after the animal and a pilot guides the rider?’ Charlotte said.

  ‘It’s quite an honour for Captain Middleton,’ said Augusta, ‘and, of course, he is an excellent rider, but I am surprised that Earl Spencer thought he was a suitable escort for royalty, even foreign royalty.’

  ‘What do you mean, Augusta?’ asked Lady Lisle in surprise. ‘Captain Middleton seems to be a very personable young man. What objection could there be?’

  ‘I think some people might say that he was altogether too personable,’ said Augusta, and, lowering her voice, ‘I believe that there are some husbands who would rather he wasn’t quite so charming.’

  ‘Augusta!’ warned her mother. ‘You shouldn’t be talking about such things, and on a Sunday too! May I remind
you that Captain Middleton is our guest. And I am quite sure that Earl Spencer knows what he is doing. Now perhaps you would like to play for us, instead of spreading slander.’

  Augusta, realising that her mother was going to support Middleton so long as there was a chance of being introduced to the Empress, took up her place at the piano and gave her own trenchant version of a Chopin nocturne.

  She had moved on to Beethoven when the men came in. Fred went straight to the piano. Bay walked over to the sofa where Charlotte was sitting and stood behind her. Bending down, he said softly in her ear, ‘I am just trying to remember where we were before we were interrupted.’

  Charlotte looked straight ahead of her and kept her face as bland as if they were talking about the weather. ‘I think you were admiring the photograph of you and Tipsy.’

  ‘Tipsy, as you well know, is the apple of my eye, but she wasn’t the object of my admiration. Now where exactly had we got to in our conversation?’

  Charlotte turned to look at him. ‘I think you were about to tell me about your new role as the Empress of Austria’s pilot.’

  ‘Why would I waste a moment of our precious tête-à-tête, talking about something so uninteresting? I am being asked to be a nursemaid on horseback, running after my royal charge and making sure she doesn’t get her habit too muddy, or get trampled by the pack,’ Bay said, his hand on the back of the sofa, his fingers so close to her bare shoulders that she had goosebumps.

  ‘You can be as dismissive as you like, but it’s an honour to be chosen. Fred certainly thinks so.’ Charlotte looked at her brother, who was standing next to his fiancée at the piano. ‘He was pea green when you made your announcement. Fred would like nothing better than to be at the beck and call of an empress.’

  ‘If you want me to resign my nursemaid duties in favour of your brother, you only have to say the word. I would be more than happy to oblige.’