Snobbery With Violence - M. C. Beaton [3]
“If Captain Cathcart were the complete gentleman he wouldn’t dream of doing your snooping for you. But you’ll be safe with him.”
Lady Rose was at that moment fretting under the ministrations of her lady’s maid. Having abandoned the Sisterhood—but only briefly, she told herself—Rose had once more subjected herself to the staltifying dress code of Edwardian society. While she had been supporting the suffragette movement, she had worn simple skirts and blouses and a straw hat. But now she was dressed in layers of silk underclothes, starched petticoats and elaborate gowns with waterfalls of lace. Her figure was too slim to suit the fashion of ripe and luscious beauty, and so art was brought to bear to create the small-waisted, S-shaped figure. A beauty had to have an outstanding bust and a noticeable posterior. Rose was lashed into a long corset and then put into a Dip Front Adjuster, a waist-cinch that stressed the fashionable about-to-topple-over appearance. Her bottom was padded, as was her bust. By the time the maid had slung a rope of pearls around Rose’s neck and decorated the bosom of her gown with brooches, Rose felt she looked like a tray in a jeweller’s window.
Geoffrey always praised her appearance but had implied that once she was married, she would be free to wear more comfortable clothes. Rose stared at the mirror as the maid put in pompadours, the pads over which her long hair would be drawn up and arranged. Sir Geoffrey had said nothing about when we are married. But he had stolen a kiss, just the other night, behind a pillar in the Jessingtons’ ballroom, and stealing a kiss was tantamount to a proposal of marriage.
The captain lived in a thin white house in Water Street, off the King’s Road. The earl fervently hoped that the man was a gentleman and not some sort of Neverwazzer who wore a bowler hat or carried a coloured handkerchief in his breast pocket or— horror upon horrors—brown boots with a dark suit. He had never met him but had heard about him in the clubs.
The earl climbed stiffly down from his carriage and waited while his footman rapped at the door. To his rehef, the earl saw that the door was opened by a sober-looking gentleman’s gentleman who took the earl’s card, carefully turned down at one corner to show the earl was calling in person, put it on a silver tray, and retreated into the house.
The earl frowned. His title should have been enough to grant him instant admission.
The captain’s servant returned after only a few moments and spoke to the footman, who sprinted down the stairs to tell the earl that the captain would be pleased to receive him.
The earl was ushered into a room on the ground floor. He was announced, and a tall saturnine man who had been sitting in a chair by the window rose to meet him.
“May we offer you something?” asked Captain Cathcart. “Sherry?”
“Fine, fine,” mumbled the earl, taken aback by the amount of books in the shelves lining the room. His Majesty, King Edward, set such a good example by not opening a book from one year’s end to another. Why couldn’t everyone follow such a fine example?
“Sherry, Becket,” said the captain to his manservant. And to the earl, “Do sit down, sir. I see the sun has come out at last.”
“So it has,” said the earl, who hadn’t noticed. “I come on a delicate matter.” He handed over the brigadier’s card.
“What matter?”
“Well, y’see—” The earl broke off as the manservant reentered the room with glasses and decanter on a tray. He poured two glasses and handed one to the captain and one to the earl.
“That will be all,” said the captain and Becket noiselessly retreated.
The captain turned his fathomless black gaze on the earl, wondering why he had come. The earl was a small round man dressed in a frock-coat and grey trousers. He had a round, reddish face and blue eyes which had a childlike look about them.
“It’s like this,” said the earl, feeling awkward and embarrassed. “I have a daughter, Rose ...”
“Ah, the suffragette.”
“I thought people had forgotten about that,” said the earl. “Anyway, Rose is being courted by Sir Geoffrey