Thank you for your patience, your continued interest and your continued support. I appreciate it.
I do not own Merlin or the characters, neither do I own An Offer From A Gentleman.
LADY MIDDLETON'S SOCIETY PAPERS, 9 JUNE 1817
Pickings have been slim this past fortnight for marriage-minded misses and their mamas. The crop of bachelors is low to begin with this season, as two of 1817's most eligible, the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Mansfield, got themselves leg-shackled last year.
To make matters worse, the two unmarried Pendragon brothers...discounting Harold...who is only sixteen and hardly in a position to aid any poor, young misses on the marriage mart, have made themselves very scarce. Hugh, this author is told, is out of town, possibly in Wales or Scotland, although no one seems to know why he would go to Wales or Scotland in the middle of the season. And Arthur, whose story is more puzzling. He is apparently in London, but he eschews all polite social gatherings in favour of less genteel milieus.
Although if truth be told, this author should not give the impression, that the aforementioned Mr. Pendragon has been spending his every waking hour in debauched abandon. If accounts are correct, he has spent most of the past fortnight in his lodgings on Bruton Street.
As there have been no rumours that he is ill, this author can only assume that he has finally come to the conclusion, that the London season is utterly dull and not worth his time.
Smart man, indeed.
Gwen didn't see Arthur for a full fortnight...
She didn't know whether to be pleased, surprised, or disappointed...
She didn't know whether she was pleased, surprised, or disappointed...
She didn't know anything these days... Half the time she felt like she didn't even know herself.
But she was certain that she had made the right decision in yet again refusing his offer. She knew it in her head, and even though she ached for the man she loved, she knew it in her heart.
She had suffered too much pain from her bastardy to ever risk imposing the same on a child, especially one of her own.
Well, that wasn't exactly true... She had risked it once. And she couldn't quite make herself regret it. The memory was too precious. But that didn't mean she should do it again.
But if she was so certain that she'd done the right thing, why did it hurt so much? It was as if her heart was perpetually breaking.
Every day it tore some more. And every day she told herself that it couldn't get any worse...
That surely her heart was finished breaking... That it was finally truly and fully broken.
And yet, every night she cried herself to sleep, aching for Arthur.
And every day she felt even worse...
Gwen's tension was intensified by the fact that she was terrified to step outside the house.
Penelope would surely be looking for her, and she thought it best if the girl didn't find her.
Not that she thought Penelope was likely to reveal her presence here in London to the countess; She knew her well enough to trust that she would never deliberately break a promise.
And Penelope's nod when she had been frantically shaking her head, could definitely be considered a promise.
But as true of heart as Penelope was when it came to keeping promises, the same could not, unfortunately be said of her lips.
And Gwen could easily imagine a scenario...many scenarios as a matter of fact...in which the girl would accidentally blurt out that she'd seen her.
Which meant that her one big advantage was that Penelope didn't know where she was staying.
For all the girl knew, she had just been out for a stroll... Or maybe she had come to spy on the countess...
In all honesty, that seemed an awful lot more plausible than the truth, which was... she just happened to have been blackmailed into taking a job as a lady's maid just down the street.
And so, Gwen's emotions kept darting back and forth from melancholy to nervous, to brokenhearted, to downright fearful.
She'd managed to keep most of this to herself, but she knew she had grown distracted and quiet. And she also knew that Lady Pendragon and her daughters had noticed it.
They looked at her with concerned expressions and spoke with an extra gentleness. And they kept wondering why she did not come to tea anymore...
"Gwen! There you are!"
Gwen had been hurrying to her room, where a small pile of mending awaited, but Lady Pendragon had caught her in the hall.
She stopped and tried to manage a smile of greeting as she bobbed a curtsy.
"Good afternoon, Lady Pendragon."
"Good afternoon, Gwen. I have been looking all over for you."
Gwen stared at her blankly... She seemed to do a lot of that lately. But it was difficult to focus on anything.
"You have?" she asked.
"Yes. I was wondering why you haven't been to tea all week. You know that you are always invited when we are taking it informally."
Gwen felt her cheeks grow warm. She'd been avoiding tea because it was just too hard to be in the same room with all those Pendragons and not think of Arthur.
They all looked mostly alike, and whenever they were together they were such a family, that it forced her to remember everything that she didn't have...
And reminded her of what she'd never have... A family of her own.
Someone to love...
Someone who'd love her...
All within the bounds of respectability and marriage.
She supposed there were women who could throw over respectability for passion and love. And a very large part of her wished she was one of those women.
But she was not.
Love could not conquer all. At least not for her.
"I've been very busy," she finally said to Lady Pendragon.
Lady Pendragon just smiled at her. A small, vaguely inquisitive smile, imposing a silence that forced Gwen to say more.
"With the mending," she added.
"How terrible for you. I wasn't aware that we'd poked holes in quite so many stockings."
"Oh, you haven't!" She replied, biting her tongue the minute she said it. There went her excuse. "I have some mending of my own," she improvised, gulping as she realized how bad that sounded.
Lady Pendragon well knew that she had no clothes other than the ones she had given her, which were all, needless to say, in perfect condition. And besides, it was very bad form for Gwen to be doing her own mending during the day, when she was meant to be waiting on the girls.
Lady Pendragon was an understanding employer; she probably wouldn't have minded, but it went against Gwen's own code of ethics.
She'd been given a job...a good one, even if it did involve getting her heart broken on a day to day basis...and she took pride in her work.
"I see," Lady Pendragon said, that enigmatic smile still in place on her face. "You may, of course, bring your own mending to tea."
"Oh, but I could not dream of it."
"But I am telling you that you can."
And Gwen could tell by the tone of her voice that what she was really saying, was that she must.
"Of course," she murmured, and followed the lady into the upstairs sitting room.
The girls were all there, in their usual places, bickering and smiling and tossing jokes, although thankfully no scones.
The eldest Pendragon daughter, Dorothy, now the Duchess of Hastings, was there as well, with her youngest daughter in her arms.
"Gwen!" Morgana said with a beam. "I thought you must've been ill."
"But you just saw me this morning," Gwen reminded her. "When I dressed your hair."
"Yes, but you didn't seem quite yourself."
Gwen had no suitable reply, since she really hadn't been quite herself. But she couldn't very well contradict the truth, so she just sat in a chair and nodded when Georgina inquired if she wanted some tea.
"Phoebe Hanbury said she would drop by today," Catherine said to her mother just as Gwen was taking her first sip of tea.
She had never met Phoebe, but she was frequently written about in Middleton, and she knew that she and Catherine were fast friends.
"Has anyone noticed that Arthur hasn't visited in some time?" Morgana asked.
At that, Gwen jabbed her finger, but thankfully managed to keep from yelping with pain.
"He hasn't been by to see the duke and I, either," Dorothy said.
"Well, he told me he would help me with my arithmetic," Morgana grumbled. "And he has most certainly reneged on his word."
"I'm sure it has merely slipped his mind," Lady Pendragon said diplomatically. "Perhaps if you sent him a note..."
"Or simply banged on his door," Georgina said, giving her eyes a slight roll. "It's not as if he lives very far away."
"I am an unmarried female," Morgana said with a huff. "I cannot visit bachelor lodgings."
Gwen coughed...
"You're his sister...the youngest sister too," Georgina said disdainfully.
''Nevertheless!" Morgana replied.
"You should ask the duke for help, anyway," Dorothy said. "He's much better with numbers than Arthur."
"You know, she's right," Morgana said, looking at her mother after shooting one last glare at Georgina. "Pity for Arthur. He's completely without use to me now."
They all giggled, because they knew she was joking. Except for Gwen, who didn't think she knew how to giggle anymore.
"But in all seriousness," Morgana continued. "What is he good at? The duke better at numbers, and Bradford knows more of history. Hugh's funnier, of course, and..."
"Art," Gwen interrupted in a sharp voice, a little irritated that Arthur's own family didn't see his individuality and strengths.
Morgana looked at her in surprise.
"I beg your pardon?"
"He's good at art," she repeated. "Quite a bit better than any of you, I imagine."
That got everyone's attention, because while Gwen had let them see her naturally dry wit, she was generally soft-spoken, and she certainly had never said a sharp word to any of them.
"I didn't even know he drew," Dorothy said with quiet interest. "Or does he paint?"
Gwen glanced at her... Of the Pendragon women, she knew Dorothy the least, but it would've been impossible to miss the look of sharp intelligence in her eyes.
She was curious about her brother's hidden talent...
She wanted to know why she didn't know about it...
And most of all, she wanted to know why she did.
In less than a second Gwen was able to see all of that in the young duchess' eyes. And in less than a second she decided that she'd made a mistake.
If Arthur hadn't told his family about his art, then it wasn't her place to do so.
"He draws," she finally said, in a voice that she hoped was curt enough to prevent further questions.
It was.
No one said a word, although five pairs of eyes remained focused quite intently on her face.
"He sketches," she muttered, even as she looked from face to face.
Catherine's eyes were blinking rapidly... But Lady Pendragon wasn't blinking at all.
"He's quite good," Gwen muttered, mentally kicking herself even as she said it. There was something about silence among the Pendragons that compelled her to fill the void.
Finally, after the longest moment of silence ever to fill the space of a second, Lady Pendragon cleared her throat and said,
"I should like to see one of his sketches." She dabbed a napkin to her lips even though she hadn't taken a sip of her tea. "Provided, of course, that he cares to share it with me."
Gwen stood up.
"I think I should go."
Lady Pendragon speared her with her eyes.
"Please," she said, in a voice that was velvet over steel. "Stay."
Gwen sat back down.
Catherine jumped to her feet.
"I think I hear Phoebe."
"You do not," Morgana said.
"Why would I lie?"
"I certainly don't know, but..."
Right at that moment, the butler appeared in the doorway...
"Miss Phoebe Hanbury," he intoned.
"See," Catherine shot at Morgana, even as Miss Hanbury entered.
"Is this a bad time?" she asked.
"No," Dorothy replied with a small, vaguely amused smile. "Just an odd one."
"Oh. Well, I could come back later, I suppose."
"Of course not," Lady Pendragon said. "Please sit down and have some tea."
Gwen watched as the young woman took a seat on the sofa next to Georgina... She was no sophisticated beauty, but she was rather fetching in her own, uncomplicated way.
Her hair was a brownish red, and her cheeks were lightly dusted with freckles.
Her complexion was a touch sallow, although Gwen had a suspicion that it had more to do with her unattractive yellow frock than anything else.
Come to think of it, she rather thought that she'd read something in Lady Middleton's column about Phoebe's awful clothes. Pity the poor girl couldn't talk her mother into letting her wear blue.
But even as Gwen surreptitiously studied Miss Hanbury, she became aware that the young woman was not-so-surreptitiously studying her.
"Have we met?" the girl suddenly asked.
And Gwen was suddenly gripped by an awful, premonition-like feeling. Or maybe it was deja vu.
"I don't think so," she said quickly.
Phoebe's gaze didn't waver from her face.
"Are you certain?"
"I...I don't see how we could've done."
Miss Hanbury let out a little breath and shook her head, as if clearing cobwebs from her mind.
"I'm sure you're correct. But there is something terribly familiar about you."
"Gwen is our new lady's maid," Morgana said, as if that would explain anything. "She usually joins us for tea when we're only family."
Gwen watched Phoebe Hanbury as she murmured something in response, and then suddenly it hit her...
She had seen her before! It had been at the masquerade, probably no more than ten seconds before she'd met Arthur.
She'd just made her entrance, and the young men who had quickly surrounded her had still been making their way to her side... Phoebe had been standing right there...dressed in some rather strange green costume with a funny hat.
For some reason she hadn't been wearing a mask. Gwen had stared at her for a moment, trying to figure out what her costume was meant to be, when a young gentleman had bumped into her nearly knocking her to the floor.
Gwen had reached out and helped her up, and had just managed to say something like, "There you are," when several more gentlemen had rushed in, separating the two women.
Then Arthur had arrived, and she had eyes for no one but him...
Phoebe...and the abominable way she had been treated by the young gentlemen at the masquerade...had been forgotten until this very moment.
And clearly the event had remained buried at the back of the young woman's mind as well.
"I'm sure I must be mistaken," Phoebe said as she accepted a cup of tea from Georgina. "It's not your looks, precisely, but rather the way you hold yourself, if that makes any sense."
Gwen decided that a smooth intervention was necessary and so she pasted on her best conversational smile, and said,
"I shall take that as a compliment, since I am sure that the ladies of your acquaintance are gracious and kind indeed."
The minute she closed her mouth, however, she realized that it had been overkill...
Georgina was looking at her as if she'd sprouted horns, and the corners of Lady Pendragon's mouth were twitching as she said,
"Why, Gwen, I vow that is the longest sentence you have uttered in a fortnight."
Gwen lifted her teacup to her face and mumbled,
"I haven't been feeling well."
"Oh!" Morgana suddenly blurted out. "I hope you are not feeling too sickly, because I was hoping you could help me this evening."
"Of course," she said, eager for an excuse to turn away from Phoebe Hanbury, who was still studying her as if she was a human puzzle. "What is it you need?"
"I have promised to entertain my cousins this eve."
"Oh, that's right," Lady Pendragon said, setting her saucer down on the table. "I'd nearly forgotten."
Morgana nodded.
"Could you help? There are four of them, and I'm sure to be overrun."
"Of course," Gwen replied. "How old are they?"
Morgana shrugged.
"Between the ages of six and ten," Lady Pendragon said with a disapproving expression. "You should know that, Morgana." She turned to Gwen and added, "They are the children of my youngest sister."
To that, Gwen said to Morgana,
"Fetch me when they arrive. I love children and would be happy to help."
"Excellent!" Morgana said, clasping her hands together. "They are so young and active. They would've worn me out."
"Morgs," Georgina said. "You're hardly old and decrepit."
"When was the last time you spent two hours with four children under the age of ten?"
"Stop," Gwen said, laughing for the first time in two weeks. "I'll help. No one will be worn-out. And you should come, too, Georgina. We'll have a lovely time, I'm sure."
"Are you..." Phoebe Hanbury started to say something, then cut herself off. "Never mind."
But when Gwen looked over at her, she was still staring at her face with a most perplexed expression.
Phoebe opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again, saying,
"I know. I know you."
"I'm sure she's right," Catherine said with a jaunty grin. "Phoebe never forgets a face."
Gwen blanched.
"Are you quite all right?" Lady Pendragon asked, leaning forward. "You don't look well."
"I think something didn't agree with me," Gwen hastily lied, clutching her stomach for effect. "Perhaps the milk was off."
"Oh, dear," Dorothy said with a concerned frown as she looked down at her baby. "I gave some to my daughter."
"It tasted fine to me," Morgana said.
"It might've been something from this morning," Gwen said, not wanting Dorothy to worry. "But all the same, I think I had better lie down." She stood and took a step towards the door. "If that is agreeable to you, Lady Pendragon."
"Of course," she replied. "I hope you feel better soon."
"I'm sure I will," Gwen said, quite truthfully. She'd feel better just as soon as she left Phoebe Hanbury's line of vision.
"I'll come get you when my cousins arrive," Morgana called out.
"If you're feeling better," Lady Pendragon added.
Gwen nodded and hurried out of the room, but as she left, she caught sight of Phoebe Hanbury watching her with a most intent expression, leaving her filled with a horrible sense of dread.
Arthur had been in a bad mood for two weeks...
And, he thought as he trudged down the pavement towards his mother's house, his bad mood was about to get worse...
He'd been avoiding coming here because he didn't want to see Gwen...
He didn't want to see his mother, who was sure to sense his bad mood and question him about it...
He didn't want to see Catherine, who was sure to sense his mother's interest and try to interrogate him...
He didn't want to see...
Hell, he didn't want to see anyone.
And considering the way he'd been snapping off the heads of his servants...verbally, to be sure...although occasionally, quite literally in his dreams, the rest of the world would do well if they didn't care to see him, either.
But, as luck would have it, right as he placed his foot on the first step, he heard someone call out his name... And when he turned around, both of his adult brothers were walking towards him along the pavement...
Arthur groaned. No one knew him better than Bradford and Hugh. And they weren't likely to let a little thing like a broken heart go unnoticed or unmentioned.
"Haven't seen you in an age," Bradford said. "Where have you been?"
"Here and there," he said evasively. "Mostly at home." He turned to Hugh. "Where have you been?"
"Wales."
"Wales? Why?"
His brother shrugged.
"I felt like it. Never been there before."
"Most people require a slightly more compelling reason to take off in the middle of the season," Arthur said.
"Not I."
Arthur stared at him...
Bradford stared at him...
"Oh, very well," Hugh said with a scowl. "I needed to get away. Mother has started in on me with this bloody marriage thing."
"Bloody marriage thing?" Bradford asked with an amused smile. "I assure you, the deflowering of one's wife is not quite so gory."
Arthur kept his expression scrupulously impassive. He'd found some blood on his sofa after he'd made love to Gwen.
He'd thrown a pillow over it, hoping that by the time any of the servants noticed, they would've forgotten that he'd had a woman over.
He liked to think that none of the staff had been listening at doors or gossiping, but Gwen herself had once told him that servants generally knew everything that went on in a household, and he tended to think that she was right.
But if he had indeed blushed...and his cheeks did feel a touch warm...neither of his brothers saw it, because they didn't say anything.
And if there was anything in life as certain as, say, the sun rising in the east, it was that a Pendragon never passed up the opportunity to tease and torment another Pendragon.
"She's been talking about Phoebe Hanbury nonstop," Hugh said with a scowl. "I tell you, I've known the girl since we were both in short pants. Er, since I was in short pants, at least. She was in..." He scowled some more, because both his brothers were laughing at him. "Since she was in whatever it is that young girls wear."
"Frocks?" Bradford supplied helpfully.
"Petticoats?" was came Arthur's suggestion.
"The point is," Hugh said forcefully. "That I have known her forever, and I can assure you I am not likely to fall in love with her."
Bradford turned to Arthur and said,
"They'll be married within a year. Mark my words."
Hugh crossed his arms.
"Bradford!"
"Maybe two," Artur said. "He's young yet."
"Unlike you," Hugh retorted. "Why am I besieged by Mother, I wonder? Good God, you're thirty-one..."
"Thirty!" Arthur snapped.
"Regardless, one would think you'd be getting the brunt of it."
Arthur frowned... His mother has been uncharacteristically reserved these past few weeks, when it came to her opinions on him and marriage and why the two ought to meet and soon.
Of course, he had been avoiding his mother's house like the plague, but even before that, she hadn't mentioned a word.
It was most odd.
"At any rate," Hugh was still grumbling, "I am not going to marry soon, and I am certainly not going to marry Phoebe Hanbury!"
"Oh!"
It was a feminine "oh," and without looking up, Arthur somehow knew that he was about to experience one of life's most awkward moments.
Heart filled with dread, he lifted his head and turned towards the front door. And there, framed perfectly in the open doorway, was Phoebe Hanbury, her lips parted with shock, her eyes filled with heartbreak.
And in that moment, he realized what he'd probably been too stupid and stupidly male to notice... Phoebe Hanbury was in love with his brother.
Hugh cleared his throat...
"Phoebe," he squeaked, his voice sounding as if he'd regressed ten years and gone straight back to puberty. "Uh... good to see you."
He looked to his brothers to leap in and save him, but neither chose to intervene.
Arthur winced, however. It was one of those moments that simply could not be saved.
"I didn't know you were there," Hugh said lamely.
"Obviously not," she said, but her words lacked an edge.
He swallowed painfully.
"Were you visiting Catherine?"
She nodded.
"I was invited."
"I'm sure you were!" he said quickly. "Of course you were. You're a great friend of the family."
Silence...
Horrible, awkward silence...
"As if you would come uninvited," Hugh mumbled.
Phoebe said nothing...
She tried to smile, but she obviously couldn't quite manage it. Finally, just when Arthur thought she would brush by them all and flee down the street, she looked straight at Hugh and said,
"I never asked you to marry me."
Hugh's cheeks turned a deeper red than Arthur thought humanly possible. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out...
It was the first and quite possibly the only moment of Arthur's recollection, that his younger brother was at a complete loss for words.
"You are not going to marry me," Phoebe said hollowly. "There is nothing wrong with that. And I am not going to marry your brother Arthur."
Arthur, who had been trying not to look, snapped to attention at that.
"See," she continued. "It doesn't hurt his feelings when I announce that I am not going to marry him." She turned to Arthur, her brown eyes focusing on his. "Does it, Mr. Pendragon?"
"Of course not," Arthur answered quickly.
"It's settled, then," she said tightly. "No feelings were hurt. Now then, if you will excuse me, gentlemen, I should like to go home."
The three brothers parted like the Red Sea as she made her way down the steps.
"Don't you have a maid?" Hugh asked.
Phoebe shook her head.
"I live just around the corner."
"I know, but..."
"I'll escort you," Bradford said smoothly.
"That's really not necessary, my lord."
"Humour me," he said.
She nodded, and the two of them took off down the street.
Arthur and Hugh watched their retreating forms in silence for a full thirty seconds, before Arthur turned to him and said,
"That was very well done of you."
"I didn't know she was there!"
"Obviously," Arthur drawled.
"Don't. I feel terrible enough already."
"As well you should."
"Oh, and you have never inadvertently hurt a woman's feelings before?"
Hugh's voice was defensive, just defensive enough to make Arthur understand that he felt like an utter heel inside.
Arthur was however saved from having to reply by the arrival of his mother, standing at the top of the steps, framed in the doorway much the same way Phoebe had been, just a few minutes earlier.
"Has your brother arrived yet?" she asked.
Arthur jerked his head towards the corner.
"He is escorting Miss Hanbury home."
"Oh. Well, that's very thoughtful of him. I...Where are you going, Hugh?"
He paused briefly but didn't even turn his head as he grunted,
"I need a drink."
"It's a bit early for..."
His ,mother stopped mid-sentence when Arthur laid his hand on her arm...
"Let him go," he said.
She opened her mouth as if to protest, then changed her mind and merely nodded.
"I'd hoped to gather the family for an announcement," she said with a sigh. "But I suppose that can wait. In the meantime, why don't you join me for tea?"
Arthur glanced at the clock in the hall.
"Isn't it a bit late for tea?"
"Skip the tea then," she said with a shrug. "I was merely looking for an excuse to speak with you."
Arthur managed a weak smile. He wasn't in the mood to converse with his mother. To be frank, he wasn't in the mood to converse with any person, a fact to which anyone with whom he'd recently crossed paths would surely attest.
"It's nothing serious," his mother said. "Heavens, you look as if you're ready to go to the gallows."
It probably would've been rude to point out that it was exactly how he felt, so instead, he just leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.
"Well, that's a nice surprise," she said, beaming up at him. "Now come with me," she added, motioning towards the downstairs sitting room. "I have someone I want to tell you about."
"Mother!"
"Just hear me out. She's a lovely girl..."
The gallows indeed...
It's been a while since I've updated this and other stories, but life is really hectic right now. However, whenever I can I will crank out an update.
Work, work, work! Work tomorrow, Christmas Day, Boxing Day...I haven't had an off day in ages, and it's really not a complaint, but I'm tired. So if there are mistakes, wrong character names etc. please forgive me.
Season's Greetings!
Stay safe!