Lord Fox's Pleasure. Helen Dickson
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living than the turn of a phrase, a beautifully coiffured head and pretty clothes.
To Prudence, the smell in the kitchen was mouth-watering, the combined heat of the cooking range and the summer day intense as finishing touches were put to the many wonderful dishes to be served later. Every surface in the kitchen and the adjoining pantries was covered with elaborate pies, a fricassee of rabbits and chicken, dishes of lobster, carp and cheeses, and a banquet of sweetmeats. The last of the joints of meat and small birds were being roasted on spits in front of the fire, a red-faced, dreamy-eyed kitchen maid—wiping the sweat from her brow with her sleeve—constantly basting them with spiced and seasoned sauce, which dripped off the turning joints into a dish on the hearth to be reused.
Sneaking a delectable-looking mince tart, fresh out of the oven when Goodwife Gilbey’s back was turned, Prudence was about to go to her room, when suddenly cousin Mary appeared in the doorway like a spectre of doom, obstructing her path of escape.
Mary lifted her brows and stared disapprovingly at her young cousin’s attire, her cold grey eyes lingering overlong on a rip in her skirt, caused when it had become snagged on a rose bush. ‘You haven’t changed, Prudence. Still tending your pots I see. There are some young ladies who care about how they look. Go and tidy yourself before you join us on the balcony for the procession.’
Prudence accepted that ill-intentioned rebuke with cheerful indifference. ‘It will take more than soap and water to make a lady out of me, I fear, Mary, but I will do my best. In fact, I’m going to my room right this minute to do just that,’ she smiled, an extremely fetching dimple marking her cheek. Popping the hot mince tart into her mouth she walked away, licking her sugared fingers as she went, her chestnut curls bouncing impudently.
Mary watched her go with profound irritation. Turning to find Arabella watching her, she raised her eyes heavenward and gave one of her exasperated sighs. ‘The sooner that girl is married and under the influence of a husband the better it will be for all of us,’ she retorted acidly, turning haughtily and going to her children, who were already securing their places on the balcony.
Mary was thirty years old, though the plain clothes she wore and unflattering hairstyle made her look much older. In Prudence’s opinion, she was as plain and devoid of warmth and vivacity as it was possible for a human being to be. In the middle of her fourth pregnancy, she had two boys and a girl to her draper husband Philip, who had a shop in the New Exchange in the Strand. They lived in a three-storied house in Bishopsgate, and Mary visited her mother with the children several times most weeks.
Before the Civil War, Sir James Maitland and his wife Lady Julia had cherished hopes that their daughter would make a grand match, but with friends and families on opposing sides, and later the young men who were left fleeing into exile, the choice of eligible young bachelors had been severely curtailed. There were few males with their own royalist beliefs left to marry—only enfeebled youths and old men. Desperate for a husband and fearing that she would go through life as a spinster, poor Mary had finally settled for an ageing, cadaverous-looking widower, Philip Tresswell.
Prudence climbed the stairs to her bedchamber, thinking of her meeting with Adam and wondering what he would think of her now she was grown to womanhood. Her bedchamber was at the back of Maitland House, snug and cosy under the eaves. Built outside the city walls—along with others of well-to-do citizens—it was a fine house, secured from the city’s teeming humanity, pollution and noise by a high wall. The front overlooked the Strand, the windows at the back of the house offering a splendid view of the lively River Thames. Prudence spent a good deal of her time watching small boats and barges of grandees making their colourful way up and down the busy waterway.
After taking a sponge bath she put on a hyacinth-blue, low-necked, full-sleeved dress with a pointed bodice and full skirt, open down the front to show a snow-white underskirt. In her meagre wardrobe this was her finest dress—and would best set off her charms and make her irresistible to Adam, she hoped. It was the first time she had worn it, even though Arabella had made it for her a year ago. She had saved it for today, wanting to look her very best when Adam came home.
Sitting in front of her mirror she combed her hair until it fell about her shoulders in thick, glossy curls. When she had finished she stood up and twisted herself about to get a better view, assessing herself with someone else’s eyes— Adam’s eyes. She wasn’t tall, but she was slender and pleasingly curved and not skinny. She would never be a great beauty, but her face was quite pretty, she supposed—at least Molly told her it was—and Will Price certainly seemed to think so. Involuntarily she shuddered with distaste when that objectionable young man intruded into her thoughts. Dismissing him at once, she bent forward to assess her eyes. They were a curious shade between violet and purple, her eyelids etched with faint mauve shadows.
She frowned when she looked at her hair, for this she considered a problem. The fashionable colour was dark—her own was an odd shade of chestnut with coppery lights, and in her opinion there was far too much of it and it curled all over the place. Some women found they had to purchase extra locks and ringlets to fill out their hairstyles, but she had no need of such artefacts.
When she was satisfied that nothing else could be done to improve her appearance, she left her chamber, meeting Aunt Julia on her way to the balcony on the second storey. Aunt Julia’s round face was still red from the heat of the kitchen, her fading hair escaping its pins.
Julia was pleasantly surprised when she saw her niece and stood and watched as she did a little twirl to show off her dress, laughing gaily. This freshly scrubbed young woman with glowing cheeks and shining hair was in stark contrast to the young ruffian she had become used to seeing—dressed in her old skirt and blouse, stained with dirt and with scratches on her hands from pruning shrubs.
‘Why, Prudence!’ she said, obviously moved. ‘You look lovely. And that colour blue is so becoming on you. Why, you’ll stun every gentleman in the procession.’
Julia remembered when Arabella had purchased the material from Philip to make the dress for her sister, Prudence never having accomplished the skills of dressmaking. They had all been somewhat surprised when Prudence had declared that she wouldn’t wear it until the day King Charles came back to England to reclaim his throne, and Julia had thought it such a shame at the time when it looked so fetching on her.
But on closer inspection she suddenly realised that during the time Prudence had been at Maitland House, she had a figure that had evolved well across the frontier from girl to woman, and that perhaps she should have taken to wearing it sooner, for despite the stiffened bodice it was already a bit snug at the waist, and the neckline lower than she remembered—or was it that her niece’s bosom was fuller?
‘I think you had best go and secure yourself a good vantage point on the balcony, Prudence. My three grandchildren did just that the moment they arrived. The shouting and cheering I hear tells me that the procession will be here at any minute. Word has reached us that it’s moving slowly and is so long that it will be nightfall before we see the end of it. It may be some time before we see Thomas, and he will more than likely be riding close to Lord Fox and Adam Lingard. That young man saw active service with your brother in Europe, I believe.’
Already occupying a special place in Prudence’s mind, it wasn’t the mention of Adam that caused her to look curiously at her aunt, but Lord Fox. ‘Lord Fox? You mean the same Lord Fox whose estate adjoins our own in Surrey?’
‘The same. If you recall, my dear, Thomas often mentioned him in his letters.’
‘I know very little of Lord Fox or his family, Aunt Julia—only that his uncle has occupied Marlden Hall in his absence. I was too young to take in everything that was happening when Thomas left. All I was concerned about was that by supporting the King at that terrible time, if he had not escaped to France he would have been hunted down and hanged.’
‘You are right, Prudence. We must thank God that he got away and that things have turned out the way they have. After being absent for so long, no doubt all three gentlemen will be eager to return to Surrey to pick up the threads of their lives,’ the older woman said. ‘Especially Thomas, now he has a wife. Now—enough gossiping,’ she said, shooing her