The Caversham Chronicles ~ the Beginning

Chapter One-1

Chapter One

July, 1812

“So, you’re saying we do not have an actual invitation to this house party?” The vise tightened around Miss Amelia Manners-Sutton’s chest, squeezing the breath from her. Aghast and suddenly ashamed that she had accepted this position as companion to her aunt, she could only stare in disbelief at her mother’s younger sister. “Aunt Katherine, we are in Lord and Lady Merivale’s drive.” Amelia stated the obvious while her aunt turned a peculiar shade of tomato red. But Amelia was not giving in. “A footman is about to open this door and now you say we do not have an invitation?”

Her Aunt Katherine, the Viscountess Rawdon, was attired and coiffed in the absolute height of fashion, as usual. She always made the most perfect appearance no matter where they went. They’d left London before the sun rose yesterday and spent the night at a shabby inn, leaving again this morning before dawn. Twenty minutes back, they’d stopped at a fork in the road where her aunt had her pretend-French maid Marie touch up her hair before she evicted the woman to sit outside the coach with the groom.

For Aunt Katherine it was all about appearances.

“That is certainly not what I said you piteous creature,” the woman hissed.

“Despite your great-grandfather being the previous Duke of Rutland, you understand nothing of society. For that, I blame my sister. She should have instructed you better.”

“I was a child when she died, as you well know. Regardless, I beg you please leave my parents out of this conversation. Before we left Town, you said we were invited here. Now I discover we were not! How else do you expect me to react?” Amelia hated that this is what her aunt had reduced her to. She’d always prided herself on her honest, straightforward presentation, now she was going to surrender to her aunt’s web of lies because it was now too late to turn around and return to London.

“I expect you to behave as a lady’s companion. Do not make me sorry I’ve brought you along.” Her aunt gave her a peevish look.

Amelia might have kept quiet, but the look her deceiving relative gave her, made Amelia want to cut her Aunt Katherine’s lying tongue directly from her mouth.

Aunt Katherine held her back ramrod straight and her head high—so high her coiffure nearly touched the roof of the borrowed coach. And that woman’s cold gaze shot daggers at her. “Lady Merivale was in her cups. She invited everyone at the table.”

The coach lurched as the driver dismounted to hold his horses. Voices could be heard as someone drew closer to their trunk-laden conveyance.

“But you said…” Amelia could not summon words to express her horror and humiliation. “You were not… Oh, dear Lord. You were not even sitting at the same card table!”

Aunt Katherine c****d her head at the sound of crunching gravel. Before plastering a smile on her slightly-weathered face, her aunt gave Amelia a wicked stare and hissed, “She will never remember that. Now speak no more. You are mute for the duration of this visit, or I will send you to Mrs. Wallace’s Workhouse in Birmingham. Do you understand me?”

Oh, Amelia understood all right. Her aunt would stop at nothing to land herself another husband, and this time she had her sights set on His Grace, the Duke of Caversham. The same duke, she’d just informed Amelia, who had recently let his mistress go. The man supposedly had a broken heart over it—though why he’d let the woman go if he was still enamored of her, Amelia did not understand. And her aunt was acting no better than a scavenger after a carcass—swooping in to pick his aged bones clean. Just as she had with her previous two husbands. Aunt Katherine’s behavior was shameful and embarrassing, and Amelia began to think again about any possible way out for her. Even though she was beyond the prime for marriage, at twenty-eight, Amelia still had hopes of finding an honorable man and marrying after she paid her father’s debts. But if a potential husband ever met her aunt he might paint Amelia with the same brush, and she was nothing like this woman she was related to.

She gave her aunt a curt nod and turned away. This event was surely the last straw. She had to quit. Amelia could tolerate the woman’s insults and not paying her salary. There was always food on the table in Aunt Katherine’s home and Amelia had a strong sense of self and her place in the world, so the insults just rolled off.

But Aunt Katherine’s house would be the first place her brother, Harry, would look should he make his way home. Though that was unlikely to happen any time soon now that their country was fighting two wars.

Immediately upon her father’s death, Amelia was forced to sell all the tools and equipment for his book binding business and pay it all toward his debt for Harry’s education. There had been nothing left for Amelia to purchase even a crumb to eat. In fact, she owed Mr. Simpson, her father’s lender, a moderate amount of money yet. She’d been evicted from the house she shared with her father and younger brother, and she’d lived off the generosity of friends in the district for a week, until her aunt hired her as a companion—a position for which she was supposed to receive a quarterly salary so she could repay Mr. Simpson. Her aunt had agreed, and Amelia had snapped up the opportunity. And while she received her salary once, when it was time for her second quarter salary, she received a letter of intent to pay. Without even needing to ask, Amelia knew her aunt’s card habit ate into her pay.

Stepping out of the coach, Amelia followed in the wake of her aunt up the wide, sweeping limestone steps, Aunt Katherine’s maid trailing behind. She found herself standing in the grand foyer of a Tudor-styled manor house that looked as though there might have been an abbey attached to it at one time. Amelia turned her mind away from her aunt’s outlandish explanations to her hostess, who came to greet them. Amelia didn’t want to hear the fabrications her aunt was creating.

Aunt Katherine was an amazing liar when need be. Amelia thought she could have had an astounding career on the stage had she been so inclined. Instead, the woman was wheedling her way into a two-week long stay in the country.

“We would have arrived yesterday, Caroline, but I had to give instructions to my staff for removal from London back to Surrey.” Aunt Katherine patted her hair after removing her hat and handing it to the closest footman, making herself quite at home from the moment she set foot into the place. “When we leave here, we will be going directly to Greenwood Manor because while we were in Town, I had some rooms redone and…” She brought her gloved hand to her breast in an act of false sincerity.

Lady Merivale appeared confused. Amelia didn’t blame her, given that every word out of her aunt’s mouth was total rot.

“I told you, don’t you remember?” Aunt Katherine said. “Then we spoke about how the house wasn’t ready, as the painters were working in my suite and—well, you know how noxious the smell of paint is. Gives me crushing headaches. You then invited me here for a few weeks, as you said you had a few guests coming anyway.

“It took a little reworking of my schedule, for Lady Sylvester had invited me as well.” Aunt Katherine leaned in toward Lady Merivale as if sharing a secret, but Amelia could see that the other woman was trying to place this conversation in her mind. Poor Lady Merivale was putty in the expert’s hands. Of course, it probably didn’t help that she was a little worse for her “afternoon toddy.”

Aunt Katherine followed through with the coup de grace. “You know I’d rather be here with my dear friends than in Gloucester with Henrietta Sylvester! But never tell her I said that, because it would break the dear woman’s heart. Too, I hear she invited Baroness Hopken, and I will not lower myself to be under the same roof as that woman. She is the most notorious social climbing flirt I have ever met.”

The woman knew exactly how to flatter her social betters. Amelia coughed delicately and she hoped her aunt got her message.

The housekeeper arrived and Lady Merivale asked Aunt Katherine how many rooms she’d require. “Just one. My niece can share with my maid. Though I could just as easily send her back to London, if it’s a bother.”

It seemed Aunt Katherine understood her message loud and clear, and wasn’t too pleased with being taken to task.

“No, it’s no bother at all. We should easily be able to manage another room for the dear girl.”

Amelia returned her slightly dotty hostess’s shy smile, while Aunt Katherine silently fumed inside. She hadn’t lived with her relative for the past six months and not learned a thing or two about the woman!

“It needn’t be much. She is used to modest accommodations.” Aunt Katherine leaned in toward their hostess again, and whispered loud enough for Amelia to hear each word. Deliberately, she was sure. “My dearly departed older sister didn’t marry as well as I did.”

That did it. When this fortnight was over, Amelia was leaving her aunt’s employ. Sooner if she could manage it, because she didn’t wish to set foot in Aunt Katherine’s extravagant home ever again. She’d have to ask the servants to inform Harry of her new address when she got one, because Amelia couldn’t trust her own aunt to do the right thing.

With that decision made, she had two weeks in which to find gainful employment. She wondered if Lady Merivale subscribed to Mrs. Petersham’s Weekly. If so, Amelia would love to borrow a current issue. Then she wondered how likely it would be that she found a job without a letter of reference because she seriously doubted Aunt Katherine would write one for her.

She was soon shown to a room on the nursery level. It was modest, yet clean and rather spacious with a small sitting area. It likely was once the governess’s room, and Amelia got the impression that it had been unoccupied for many years. Too, she noticed there were no children or other guests on this floor.

The young maid-of-all-work told Amelia about the meal times for the servants. Amelia informed the girl that she wasn’t a servant, and asked for a tray to be brought up for her meals. Because she’d pushed her aunt too far, the woman was punishing her. Amelia wasn’t invited to the dining room, nor did she belong in the kitchens with the servants. She felt like a misfit. The girl seemed to ignore what she’d said, and continued on about the routine of the staff. As the maid was leaving, Amelia made sure there was a key in the lock on the door. She thanked the girl then locked the door behind her.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Amelia felt tears of frustration and humiliation burning behind her closed lids. But Aunt Katherine had far exceeded the limits of propriety and familial bonds. Amelia could tolerate her aunt’s snobbish behavior and vanity. It was clearly obvious their hostess knew nothing of an invitation to Aunt Katherine. Common courtesy meant a hostess did not turn away someone even though she might not be exactly certain whether she had or had not extended an invitation. Amelia let herself cry for a few minutes, not just because of her situation but also because she missed her father and her brother. One she knew was dead, the other she prayed still lived.

Six whole months and three days since the death of her father, and Amelia still couldn’t help but think that if Harry hadn’t been abducted by the press gang, her father would still be here. He’d died in his sleep just a week after they’d been notified of Harry’s disappearance, likely from a broken heart. That was in January.

It was now July and Amelia still cried over how different and happy her life would have been had she been allowed to continue helping her father in his book bindery. Initially, her father had wanted her younger brother to apprentice with him, but Harry wanted to study anatomy, Latin, and medicine to become a physician. So both Amelia and her father had worked to pay for Harry’s university classes.