Page 6 of Gentleman Jim

“A regular Long Meg,” Bessie agreed without malice.

“And I might have been called the Pocket Venus at the beginning of my come-out season, but before I returned home, they were calling me something quite different, and well you know it.”

“Foolishness,” Bessie grumbled. “And don’t think that makes Miss Jenkins any less envious of me looking after you!”

Maggie stared out the window of the coach as Bessie fitted her bonnet back on her head and tied the ribbons in a jaunty bow at the side of her face.

It had been over four years since Maggie had last traveled to London to visit her friend. She’d fully expected to make the journey the previous spring, but no sooner had she cast off her blacks after a year spent in mourning for her father than Aunt Daphne—in her typically disobliging fashion—had slumped over one morning at breakfast, as dead as the proverbial doornail, and Maggie had been forced straight back into her mourning clothes again.

Aunt Daphne had been the last of Maggie’s family. There were no other relatives living, and consequently, no one left who might eventually need to be mourned. “Burn these,” Maggie had instructed Bessie when she’d stripped off her mourning weeds for the very last time. “I shall never be needing them again.”

For the journey to London, Maggie had donned a dark blue carriage gown. It had once accentuated the generous curves of her bosom and the narrowness of her waist. Now, it hung loosely on her small frame. She’d always been petite. Indeed, after the age of sixteen she’d never grown any taller. But following her illness, and the subsequent years of grief and isolation, there was altogether less of her.

Her mirror didn’t lie. Instead of the voluptuous curves that had once inspired gentlemen of the ton to dub her the Pocket Venus, there was now a fragile delicacy to her face and figure that had never been there before.

She looked—or so she feared—very much like an invalid.

“A bit of good food and good company, and before you know it, Miss Margaret, you’ll be as bonny as you were while your Papa was alive,” Bessie said. “Mind you, you’re still the prettiest young lady I’ve ever seen.”

Maggie gave her maid a wry smile. At six and twenty there weren’t many who would still consider her a young lady. Rather the opposite, in fact. She was well on her way to becoming an old maid.

It wasn’t for lack of choice.

During her come-out season alone, she’d received six formal offers of marriage, including one from an impoverished earl who had hopes that Squire Honeywell’s vast fortune would replenish his ancestral estates.

She had refused them all, just as she’d refused every offer since.

And if she still had any choice in the matter, she would continue refusing.

They arrived at Lord and Lady Trumble’s house in Green Street a short time later. Jane was waiting on the front steps, a colorful Indian shawl draping her tall, slender frame. As a footman handed Maggie out of the carriage, Jane ran down to meet her, both hands extended in greeting.

“My dear friend! It’s been far too long. How was the journey? Are you dreadfully tired?” She kissed one of Maggie’s cheeks and then the other before linking arms with her and walking her into the house. “Aunt Harriet is fast asleep in her room else she’d be here to greet you. She’s meant to be our chaperone, you know. Papa wouldn’t consent to my coming to London otherwise. But you mustn’t think she’ll interfere with our fun. She’s an absolute relic. She falls straight to sleep a moment after sitting down in a chair, and can’t hear a thing without her ear trumpet. It will be as if we have the entire house to ourselves.”

A footman in the entry hall took Maggie’s hat, gloves, and cloak.

Jane chattered gaily all the while. “My eldest brother George is here in town already. You remember George, don’t you? He keeps a set of bachelor rooms in St. James’s Street. He’s agreed to squire us to all of the balls and parties we attend during your visit. But you must be sweet to him, Margaret, for I suspect he’s only being agreeable for your sake. He’s always had a bit of a tendre for you.”

Maggie smiled at her friend. With fair hair that refused to hold a curl, an unremarkable nose and chin, and brown eyes set a bit too close together, Jane Trumble was, as Bessie had said, no great beauty. She was, however, both kind and clever, and when she talked, as she was doing now, her face lit up with such cheerful animation, it was impossible for anyone to think her plain.

They’d met during Maggie’s come-out season in the ladies retiring room at a ball. Maggie’s hem had been torn—trod on by a clumsy partner—and, in the absence of a maid, Jane had offered to mend it. The repairs were executed in a trice, but Maggie and Jane had remained in the retiring room for over an hour, talking and laughing. When at last they’d emerged, they were bosom friends, and had been ever since.

“As soon as you’ve rested from your journey, we must go shopping.” Jane led Maggie up the stairs. “I’d wager that gown you’re wearing is more than three years out of fashion. And your hat! How many times have you made it over? You look an absolute dowd!”

“I haven’t bought any new clothes since Papa died. There’s been little need. I’ve worn nothing but mourning.” Maggie’s mouth tugged into a frown. “Besides, it’s Fred who controls the purse strings now.”

Jane ushered Maggie down the upstairs hall and into the bedroom that was to be hers for the duration of her stay. Bessie had gone ahead of them and was already bustling about in the attached dressing room, seeing to the unpacking of Maggie’s things.

Jane sat down on the edge of the bed and drew Maggie down beside her. Her expression became serious. “Does he really have so much control over your money? I know he was an executor of your father’s will, but surely…?”

Maggie plucked at a stray thread on the skirt of her carriage gown. The mere mention of her father’s will, the provisions of which amounted in her mind to nothing less than the worst betrayal a father ever perpetrated against a daughter, was still enough to send her into the deepest melancholy.

“Fred holds all of my money and property in trust until the date of my marriage. As long as that marriage is with his approval. And he’ll never approve of my marrying anyone but him.”

“How dreadfully unfair it is,” Jane said. “Your father must be turning over in his grave.”

Maggie gave a short, humorless laugh. “On the contrary. It’s just the outcome Papa was hoping for. He couldn’t force me to marry Fred while he was alive. In truth, he didn’t have the heart to force me to do anything. But now he’s dead, he leaves me no choice. If I don’t marry within the time allotted, Beasley Park will go to Fred for good, and I’ll be left nothing but a small income on which to live out my spinsterhood.”

“Oh, Margaret. Your father doted on you so. I can’t comprehend how he could give away your inheritance to a stranger. A man related to you by neither blood nor marriage. It makes no sense at all.”