Chapter Four
Kate rose feelingdrained after only a few hours’ sleep. Might Robert have lain awake too and thought of her? She rather doubted it, for she found him looking fresh and eager to begin the last lap of their journey home.
Within hours, they had reached the outskirts of the great metropolis. Rain slapped the carriage windows and black soot belched into the gray sky. The noise astonished her, from hawkers to barrow boys, to the general hubbub of a big city. Kate wrinkled her nose. The smoky air was rank with nasty smells, the streets covered in muck. Filthy water rushed down the open drains. A lady emptied a chamber pot from her window, and a man walking below jumped back, yelled, and shook his fist at her.
A coach and six passed them on its way out of London, its heavy metal wheels splashing through the puddles, slopping putrid water, and sending pedestrians scattering. The streets were busy with peddlers shouting their wares and crowded shops selling all manner of things from oranges to birds in cages. There were ragged beggars on every corner and some were children which tore at her heart. Prostitutes stalking the streets gave Robert the eye when the carriage pulled up in the busy city traffic.
They emerged into a treed area.
“Where are we?” Kate asked, rubbing at the misty window.
“This is Mayfair,” Robert said, leaning close. “So called, since the annual fair in the days of Edward I.”
“It seems very nice,” she murmured aware of his breath, warm on her nape.
Well-dressed people crossed the streets, paying the street sweeper to clear a path for them. The bricks of the mansions were scrubbed clean. Gardeners toiled behind front walls and maids washed the front steps.
The carriage traveled along the edge of a wide expanse of land called Hyde Park. Robert pointed out South Carriage Drive where society gathered to socialize in the early evenings. Riders were exercising their horses along the bridleway called Rotten Row.
The carriage turned onto Curzon Street. They passed a chapel and a market and pulled up in front of a grand, four-story mansion. A high stone wall surrounded it. There was a wide, front garden of trees and plants. A pair of tall footmen in the blue and gold St. Malin livery rushed to open the coach door and put down the steps.
Kate stood on the pavement wanting to stretch her cramped limbs. She stared up at the four elongated statues of Greek goddesses which adorned the giant Doric columns supporting the upper stories.
Robert escorted her inside. The St. Malin residence was as different from Cornwall as the sun was to the moon. A soaring ceiling and marble columns made Kate gape. A gracious staircase rose from the black and white tiled floor to the upper levels. Robert introduced her to the formal butler, Hove, who greeted her without a smile, and told a maid to take her cloak and bonnet. She thanked him and followed Robert up the stairs. Everywhere she looked, superior-looking servants stood about in livery.
Robert bowed to her at the door to her bedchamber. She peeped in to view the richly furnished room, the walls hung with rose damask.
“Kate?”
“Yes?” She turned, hoping he’d decided to come in with her.
He frowned slightly. “Don’t thank the servants. You’re a marchioness now.”
She lifted her chin. “I like to thank people. They don’t seem to mind.”
“They are not your friends, Kate,” he said in an exasperated tone. “They are here to serve you.”
“I’ll try to remember, Robert. But I must do what comes naturally to me.”
She watched him shrug as though his coat was too tight. He continued down the corridor and disappeared through a door. Everything she did and said seemed to annoy him.
He had explained that new clothes must be made for her immediately. They could not accept invitations or receive guests until she was better dressed. He’d arranged for an aunt to call and take her shopping and to the modiste.
After an elaborate luncheon, Robert left her in the care of his aunt and departed for his club. Kate understood that he would not wish to take part in such a venture, but she couldn’t help feeling he’d been a little too eager to leave. And on her first day in London, too. Might he not have taken her around and shown her the sights?
Lady Susan was an elderly widow whose long face and aquiline nose reminded Kate of Robert’s uncle. She looked disapprovingly at Kate. But displaying the exquisite manners of theton, she asked no questions of their sudden marriage, and whisked Kate off to be fitted for a wardrobe of stunning gowns and to shop for accessories. The modiste’s rooms were like an Aladdin’s cave filled with lustrous materials, silks and satins, furs, beads, and feathers. Kate wandered about captivated. She picked up a garment that lay half-completed on a table. It was a nightgown of black lace. She could see her hand through the fabric. The thought of wearing such a garment made her blush. She had never countenanced such a thing. Her nightgowns had always been high-necked and made of white lawn.
*
Robert drove hisphaeton through Vauxhall and along the flat barren lands of Lambeth Marsh. On a rise in the distance, its towers stark against the gray sky, sat the gloomy Jacobean mansion, Osborne Hall, in its small park. Once his Great Aunt Agatha’s family home.
Some ten miles down the road, Robert came to the clay pits near the river. He pulled up his horses and climbed down, throwing the reins to a young lad in the yard. “Walk them and you’ll earn a shilling.”
The pottery factory was little more than a shed and what was being produced was poor and of limited variety. An apologetic manager showed him the ledgers which revealed very little profit. Robert left, wondering what on earth he should do about it. He could carve up the land. But selling land went against the grain with him. If he sold the business as it stood, however, he would get practically nothing for it. Might it be best to sell and cut his losses, though?
It was close to dusk when he left Vauxhall behind. He was to attend a boxing bout between Benjamin ‘Big Ben’ Brain and John Boone taking place that evening in Bloomsbury. He thought of Kate and swiftly buried a twinge of guilt. She would be tired after such a full day, but it was a special event he simply could not miss.
*
