A swell - a well-dressed gentleman

- The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, by Francis Grose.

 

After giving the link boy a generous tip for both his patience and his information, Ash returned home to hear his grandmother's strident voice echoing from the front parlour. Grimacing, he kept his tread light and prayed she'd not heard the front door, nor him greeting their butler. His prayers, as ever, were not answered, however, and an autocratic demand in the form of his name being barked at high volume moved him in the direction she desired.

He entered the yellow salon to find his grandmother, resplendent in apple green and looking quite in prime twig.

"I say, Grandmama," he said, quite forgiving her imperious tone in the face of such elegance. "If that's not all the crack, I don't know what is." His tone of obvious admiration softened – momentarily, at least - a face which had once been extremely beautiful, but was always, and without fail, fierce and implacable.

"Hmph," Lady Margaret, the dowager Duchess of Chartley, replied with a little sniff, though Felix could see she was pleased. He next turned his attention to his mother and did his best not to wince. How such a beautiful woman could have such lamentable taste was a question which assaulted him almost daily.

Today, she was dressed in orange satin, which might have been acceptable if not for the virulent shade she'd chosen, which was almost painful to look upon. Set against the bold yellow stripes of the wallpaper behind her, the results were quite eye-watering. He was so startled that for a moment he could do nothing but stare.

"I've told her," his grandmother said, before he had the chance to brush over the subject, as he really wasn't in the mood to persuade his mother down from her high ropes for having criticised her taste once again.

"Well, really," Lady Anne replied, her lip trembling a little as she held a lace handkerchief to her delicate nose. "I shan't stay here a moment longer if all you are going to do is bully me."

Ash sighed.

"Come, come, Mama. It's really ... not ... so bad," he said, lying manfully and sitting beside her. He took her hand and patted it before adding in alarm, "I say, you didn't go out in that, did you?"

His mother dissolved into tears whilst Lady Margaret tutted with impatience.

"No, she didn't, but only because I forbade it," she said, green eyes flashing with irritation. "It's time you put your foot down," she added as Ash's heart sank. What she meant, of course, was that he ought to do exactly as she told him to, and then, as he was head of the family - he suppressed an indignant bark of laughter here - force everyone else to do the same.

"Since you've been gone, your mother has quite lost her head," Lady Margaret continued, her tone arctic and disapproving.

"I have not!" Lady Anne wailed, emerging from behind her hanky to disprove the theory that all women were unattractive when they cried. "You don't know him," she added, sounding for once remarkably forceful as Lady Margaret sneered in response.

"I do," his grandmother said, giving her daughter a hard look. "I've known men like that all my life. Can smell them a mile off. I'd lay everything I own on the devil being a blasted fortune hunter."

“He is not, he is not!” his mother shrieked, her voice becoming shrill and hysterical. “And I won’t stay here to listen to you both malign a good and … and honourable man.”

With this, she ran from the room, sobbing and causing his grandmother to curse her idiot daughter in quite an uncompromising fashion.

Ash felt his spirits sink further as he realised that not only was his grandmother well aware of a situation he'd hoped to keep from her, but that his mother was quite obviously much enamoured of her latest beau. Any hopes he may have harboured that the affair wasn't serious dissolved immediately.

"Well, my lord?" Lady Margaret demanded, green eyes which were an echo of his own giving him a sharp-edged look that made him feel as though he was in short coats once more. "What are you going to do about this unfavourable, not to say disastrous, friendship she has encouraged?"

Ash reminded himself in severe terms that he was now four-and-twenty and had no reason to still be in awe of his grandmother.

"Actually," he said, grateful for once at having acted rashly. "If you are speaking of Viscount Rennard, I've just returned from calling on him," he said, meeting her eyes with a little defiance.

He was rewarded with a look of patent surprise which turned to scepticism shortly thereafter. "You've met him?" she said, her voice clearly disbelieving.

Ash faltered. "Well, no ... not as such. Not yet, at least," he said, feeling his confidence ebb as she returned a superior look that suggested she'd known it all along. "Well, he wasn't in, dash it. Not my fault if the man's not at home, is it? I did meet his daughter, however."

"A daughter?" she repeated with little interest. "I hadn't heard of a daughter, not that it changes anything, Felix, you must do something!" she said, banging her hand on the arm of the chair as she grew agitated once more.

"It's Ash, Grandmama, I don't like Felix," he said, though it was as futile as any other argument he'd ever had with her. Not that he was adverse to doing something to protect his mother and family, but what that something was and how it could be achieved without finding himself at the wrong end of a sword, with a bullet in his chest, or with his closest relation hating him forever, he just didn't know.

Lady Margaret favoured him with a withering look. "Felix," she said with particular emphasis. "You must extricate your mother from this disastrous affair before it goes any further. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, I do," he replied with some heat. "Though what the devil you think I can do about it, I can't imagine. She won't even listen to my advice about that blasted puce monstrosity, so why you would think she'd heed me on any other point is quite beyond me."

"For God's sake," she barked, fury turning her eyes a rather startling shade of emerald. "Are you a man or a mouse? You're the Duke of Chartley, may the Lord preserve us," she added with disgust. "You've surely more to occupy your mind than your blasted waistcoats and shiny boots? Show me you've got even an ounce of your late grandfather's backbone, and I'll be satisfied."

Ash felt his cheeks heat at that, and his own insecurities all surfaced at once as they always did when his incomparable grand-sire, the fifth duke, was mentioned. By all accounts, he'd been a mountain of a man, courageous, fierce, witty and clever. His own father had been made in a similar mould, but even with all the distinctions he'd gained in his short life, even he’d never outshone the gallant fifth duke. That Ash resembled neither of them, not a whit, was always a cause for misery.

Ash had taken after the female line, and whilst this had given him no cause for complaint as he had a good and handsome physic and carriage, he was too slender to ever be considered mountainous. He was also of average height, rather than towering well over six feet, and was in no way inclined towards such masculine sports as hunting and pugilism, all of which filled him with horror. His love of fine things, his particular interest in fashion and style, had likewise given his grandmother a disgust of him. In short, he was a disappointment to his family, and whilst he knew that he was loved in spite of these failings, it was a nonetheless a lowering discovery.

"I'll speak to mother," he said at length, once he had calmed himself sufficiently for speech. "Get her to see reason."

Lady Margaret snorted. "That, you'll never do," she said, scornful of the very idea. She shook her head, smoothing out the green silk of her gown with one, fastidious hand, a large emerald glinting on her finger as she did so. "She believes herself to be in love, if you can credit it. You need to go and see the viscount, tell the man that you'll never allow the marriage and so he's wasting his time. Stand up to him."

Ash swallowed as nausea swirled in his stomach at the idea. "Grandmama, it's said that the viscount has killed a man, he's ... he's dangerous ... I ... I ..."

His grandmother got to her feet, staring down at him with a contemptuous sneer. "Well, then, I suppose you'd best just go to bed. After all, it's only the family honour and fortune at stake," she said, stalking past him with a swish of angry skirts. "Not as if it's a matter of any import," she added before leaving the room with a majestic sweep and closing the door with rather more force than was necessary.

Ash sat back in his seat and gave a sigh of dejection. Being torn off a strip by his grandmother was hardly something he was unused to, but this time she did have a point. Something needed to be done. If only he could think of what could be done, preferably without getting him killed.

***

Keziah sat at her dressing table, brushing her hair with long, smooth strokes. The monotony of the act often served to sooth her nerves after a trying day, but this evening it wasn't working.

Her thoughts returned once again to the exquisite vision of the Duke of Chartley when he had presented himself to her earlier that evening. She had deliberately avoided asking any questions about the family to which her father was trying to tie them too. She didn't want to know if they were good, decent people, kind-hearted, stupid, or frivolous. She wanted to know nothing about them that would make them anything more than names. That way, perhaps, she could pretend that her father wasn't a monster who would likely ruin the Ashwickes, or at the very least be the cause of embarrassment and dishonour by association.

But then the wretched man had to turn up at her front door.

Her heart had sunk to her toes and not recovered since seeing him in the flesh. Dressed in what could only be called the height of style, he was certainly a pink of the ton. None but the scrupulous hand of Weston could have outfitted the fellow in the long-tailed coat of dark green superfine, or the perfectly dreadful green and gold waistcoat, which had been hard not to stare at, but had admittedly fitted him like a glove. He was young and handsome in a rather wholesome, sweet-natured manner, and clearly didn't have a thought in his head.

Her father would eat him up and spit out the pieces.

She was gripped by a surge of irritation as she wondered why she even cared. Why should she, after all? The Duke of Chartley was young and wealthy and powerful, and what did he do with his time? He bought ridiculous waistcoats and no doubt fretted himself to death if his boots got dusty.

Well, why should she care for his fate?

But there had been such an open and trusting look in his eyes that for a moment, she had almost confided in him. For one strange and debilitating - and thankfully fleeting - moment, she had been struck with the desire to tell him to pack his mother up and take her on a journey to parts unknown. Anywhere, as long as her father didn't know where it was.

But she hadn't.

Which was a good thing, she reminded herself, dragging the brush through her hair with rather more vigour now. If her father married Lady Ashwicke, Keziah would get her come out. She'd be able to marry and get far, far away from a man who had begun to frighten her more and more.

But then she would be condemning the Chartley family to endure his tempers and his violence.

Keziah put the brush down at last and stared at her reflection in the mirror before her. She was her father's daughter, she reminded herself. She was tainted, his devilish blood ran in her veins, and she had his insufferable temper, besides, so she'd best put her scruples aside and make the best of it. For it would be her that suffered if this venture failed. There would be nothing left for them to live on, nowhere for them to go. But looking back at her in the mirror were the eyes of a mother she'd never known, a woman she had long suspected had met an untimely end when her wicked husband had tired of her.

Keziah swallowed and put her head in her hands.

Whatever was she to do?