Free Animating Maria by MC Beaton Page B

ageing courtesan.
    So persuasive was she that they were on the point of setting out for London to rescue their daughter when the news of Maria’s engagement to the Duke of Berham broke about their ears. As they stared at the day-old newspaper and cried and exclaimed, a letter from the duke was delivered to say he would be arriving shortly.
    ‘So what have you to say to that, Miss Spiggs?’ crowed Mrs Kendall.
    Miss Spiggs stood her ground. ‘I do not think the Tribbles had anything to do with it,’ she protested. ‘Maria met the duke at that inn. Remember I told you we was stranded there and he gave a ball.’
    ‘But you said he never even looked at Maria!’
    ‘I didn’t want to raise false hopes, but,’ said Miss Spiggs, looking modestly down her nose, ‘I did put in a leetle word with his grace myself. ‘‘You are not married,’’ I said, ‘‘and Maria Kendall is the most beautiful girl in the kingdom and has a good dowry.’’ ‘‘Miss Spiggs,’’ he said, ‘‘you are a wise woman and anyone with a companion such as you must surely be a lady of elegance and refinement.’’’
    ‘If that is the case,’ said Mr Kendall wrathfully, ‘I shall ask them Tribbles to give that money back.’
    ‘Oh, they will say I had nothing to do with it,’ said Miss Spiggs, ‘for they are great liars.’ She felt secure. The Kendalls would never be so vulgar as to ask the duke himself how he came to propose.
    In this, she underestimated the Kendalls.
    A few days later, the duke’s footman arrived on the doorstep to say that the duke was staying with a friend in Bath, a Mr Tarry, and begged leave to call.
    Mr Kendall promptly sent back an invitation to dinner at five o’clock and then opened his purse-strings wide to impress the duke. Although his house was quite small, he hired ten liveried footmen from an agency. They were to line the steps on either side of the entrance when the duke arrived. His butler, Butterworth, had been a mine manager in the old days, a wiry Yorkshireman with a face like a poacher and blunt manners that suited the Kendalls well, but they had the foresight to warn him to guard his tongue when the duke was present. They also hired a French chef, a Monsieur Duclare, a thin, neurotic creature who specialized in elaborate sauces. Then they felt they should have at least one pretty parlourmaid and appealed to Monsieur Duclare for help, considering that gentleman to belong to the upper echelon of servants. But Monsieur Duclare had been unemployed for some time and had been living on the immoral earnings of one Sally Rutger, a successful prostitute with golden hair, blue eyes, and an easy slatternly manner that made her a prime favourite with the gentlemen of Bath, and so he engaged Sally.
    Then, at the last moment, Mr Kendall rushed out and hired a small orchestra. He then wondered where to put them until his wife suggested they house them in the bedroom over the dining room and get them to play very loudly near the fireplace so that the strains of music would filter down the flue. Just before the duke was due to arrive, the household was crammed to bursting point with servants and musicians. Everyone was quarrelling with everyone else, except Sally, resplendent in tight, low-cut print gown, white gauze apron, jaunty cap with streamers, and red-heeled shoes, who ogled everything in breeches.
    The duke felt unusually nervous as he descended from his carriage. He had discounted his mother’s remarks about the Kendalls being pushy mushrooms. She was probably thinking of some other couple. She was very muddled and absent-minded these days. The Kendalls were no doubt a worthy, decent couple.
    He then recoiled in surprise, for at the sight of him a double line of footmen shouted, ‘Huzza! Huzza! Huzza!’ and from an open upstairs bedroom window crashed out the strains of ‘See the Conquering Hero Comes’.
    Feeling dazed, he walked into the hall. The footmen crowded in after him and there was an