O'er The River Liffey (Power of the Matchmaker) Read online

“Papa! I thought you dreaming already!” Caroline said with a merry laugh. “What he means is that none of the Irish lads would have me,” she explained to her friend, “and he cherishes a hope that the English shall have standards lower than my countrymen.”

  “You know well enough, m’dear, ’tis not that a-tall.” Uneasy, Mr. Fulton shifted about. “A man of education, money and sophistication is better placed to appreciate yer charms.”

  “Charms, is it now, Papa?” Caroline asked with a saucy smile. “I do believe you referred to them as quirks when last you held forth on the subject.”

  “Ah, yes,” Fiona said wittingly. “We all know it to be a fact that Caro is full to bursting with eccentricities. Why any Irish lad should wish to marry a woman who sings like a lark, paints like a Gainsborough, and is as good gold, I couldn’t say.”

  “Whisht, now, Miss O’Sullivan,” Mr. Fulton scoffed. “We must take care not to herald her headstrong ways. ’Tis hoped the baron shall take me daughter’s Irishness in stride. For what else should I have spent me blunt on all t’at schooling if not to soften her countrified airs?”

  “Papa! Never say that the Irish lads rebuffed me for my ‘headstrong ways,’ for we both know it is far from the truth.”

  “Aye,” Mr. Fulton said with a finger to the side of his nose. “T’ose aren’t the lads ye are after, me heart.”

  Fiona laughed. “No one is good enough for your papa, Caro, but a man with property and a title.”

  Caroline released her frustration in a sigh. “Why I should be compelled to marry an Englishman for his title and possessions, I cannot reckon. My dowry should be more than enough for myself and my husband.”

  Mr. Fulton coughed his displeasure. “It shall not be your money once the wedding vows are said. Should ye marry a poor man who is fond of betting at the races, how shall ye come by the coins to pay the dressmaker and the chandler, me heart? Besides which, yer funds shall be put to use in the purchase of sheep. The baron has a mind to grow rich on mutton, as has your father.”

  Caroline rather resented these plans for her dowry. “I should never choose to marry such a man.”

  “Ye shall not be doing the choosing,” her father scolded.

  Stung, she turned away to peer through the glass and hide her distress. When she felt her friend’s hand on hers, she took courage. Fiona knew better than any how much Caroline had endured as the daughter of Padraig Fulton. He was an affectionate father but, like most Irishman, he felt too much. The death of her mother and brothers was a crushing blow and she the sole buttress to his sorrow. That he should be willing to marry her off to anyone at all was a notion at which to be marveled.

  As for Caroline, she was desperate to get out from under his roof. A life of her own was all that she desired, one in which she was mistress of her own household. A doting husband and a parcel of children, ones better behaved than Fiona’s nieces and nephews, were all for which Caroline’s heart yearned. That and a man for whom she was capable of feeling some affection.

  After a prolonged and awkward silence, her papa gave a cry. “’Tis Oak View! We have arrived!”

  Caroline looked through the window glass as a grand gatehouse burst into view through the trees. Her stomach rose and fell as if she had jumped her horse over a barrier. She had not expected to be in the least apprehensive over a matter so slight, but she was rattled by the thought that Oak View would become her home should she marry Lord Bissell.

  Her heartbeat quickened as they passed under the gatehouse and the main house became visible at the end of a long drive bordered by massive oak trees. The soaring edifice was punctuated by large tracery windows set above a generous portico. There was a wing to each side of the central building, each adorned with a row of classical columns. She thought it entirely lovely. However, it was even larger than she had anticipated, and her courage somewhat failed her at the sight.

  “Only the best for me darling daughter,” her father crooned. “Have ye yet seen a finer house?”

  “No, Papa. You know I have not,” Caroline said quietly despite the wild pounding of her heart. “Do you suppose he has erred? Surely, my dowry cannot be sufficient to render me worthy of such a house as this.”

  “Ach, me girl! There is no use filling yer head with sums and figures,” her father insisted. “Be assured that it is sufficient to make ye worthy of Oak View and more.”

  “It is simply divine,” Fiona breathed. “I should not care if the baron had a crook for a nose and a humped back if I were mistress of this house!”

  The three of them laughed gaily, and Caroline’s apprehension faded. “I knew I should not be sorry for your company, Fiona. I am all agog to see the interior, every last corner of it!”

  Niall Doherty sat at his desk in the school room at Oak View whilst he waited for the nursery maid to claim her charges. It was a suitable desk, if a trifle small, as it served as the unapproachable barrier betwixt him and Lady Bissell’s hellions. Masters Charles and Christopher had little respect and nary a thought for Niall’s person, his possessions, their books, clothing or the world at large, but somehow Niall had managed to put the fear of God into the lads regarding the desk. Whatever disaster befell the room, Niall was almost certainly safe once he had got himself behind it.

  “Sir,” eight-year-old Charles whined, “Kit ate my luncheon, and I am that hungry. When shall we get our supper? Miss Deakin should have collected us by now.”

  Niall agreed, but hadn’t the least desire to give Charles the slightest cause to mount an insurrection. “You must wait patiently; she shall arrive when she arrives. Once she has, you are both,” he said with a warning eye for Christopher, who never failed to make the most of a failure to be clear, “to proceed with the utmost silence. There are guests in the house and your brother should not like it if you were to make your presence known.”

  Charles’ mouth turned down at the corners, and his eyes narrowed. “I have no wish to be silent. I wish to have dinner with my brother and my mother!”

  “Now, Master Charles,” Niall cautioned, “I shall not have this. You are perfectly aware that you are only allowed to dine with the family on special occasions.”

  “Then why is it allowed for you?” Christopher, aged seven, asked in all innocence.

  “I am only expected when guests are not invited, or, most especially when your brother is in London and your mother does not wish to dine alone.” As little as he had to say to the mistress of the house, any conversation with an adult was a longed-for development.

  “Then you are not to dine with Mama tonight!” Charles proclaimed. “My brother has guests, and you shall remain in your room.”

  Niall hoped he would have no need to employ the switch Miss Deakin had presented to him with a patent air of relief on his first day of service. She had done her best to care for the rapscallions after their governess had quit the premises. Thankfully, they appeared to be settling down under Niall’s tutelage. And yet, it seemed that nothing made as much of an impression on the lads as a sharp whack to an open palm.

  “I shall feign ignorance of your disrespect,” he said in brisk tones. “Meanwhile, you, Master Charles, shall behave as I, Miss Deakin, your mother, and the baron expect.”

  Niall was met with a pair of belligerent glares, but as the nursery maid chose that moment to arrive, he suffered none of the usual ill effects.

  “Mr. Doherty, I regret that I have kept you waiting.” She swept into the room and took each boy by the hand. “I was required to assist with some of the dinner preparations. As you may well suppose, the servants are in an uproar.”

  “I had not thought it possible,” Niall said in some surprise. “In truth, I have not been here long enough to witness an event on this scale.”

  “Well,” the very English nursery maid exclaimed, “it is more than a little appalling. I have never seen a more superstitious body of people in all my days. Which reminds me, I am meant to say that Mrs. Walsh has asked for you.”

  “The coo
k? Me?” he asked warily as he regarded Charles, who had taken to wriggling in an alarming fashion. “What could she possibly have to say to me?

  “I have a supposition, but it is best left to her,” Miss Deakin said with a twitch of her head in the direction of the lads.

  “I shall go down to her directly. Good evening to you,” he said as the nursery maid led the lads from the room. He hadn’t the slightest hope that she should have any such thing, but he pushed the thought aside as he went down the passage to the door that separated the family portion of the house from the servants’ quarters, clattered down numerous flights of narrow stairs, and into the chaotic kitchen. “Mrs. Walsh,” he said upon spying her, “I am told that I am wanted.”

  “Oh, Mr. Doherty; how good of ye to come!” she cried with a blow of her hands to her apron that sent errant flour billowing into the air. “I am sorry; ’tis all for naught, for ye are now to have the words from her ladyship’s own lips. She waits for ye in her chamber.”

  Niall had questions but the cook turned away to scold the eavesdropping scullery maid. He had no choice but to take himself off and retrace his steps. It wasn’t until he once again encountered the baize door that separated one world from the other that his steps slowed. Despite his tendency towards the fanciful, he was not a dishonest man, and was persuaded that the unusual attentions he received from Lady Bissell were of concern. This, however, was the first time he had been expected to enter her boudoir, and his courage nearly failed him.

  Taking a deep breath, he pushed open the door and made his way down the hall. As he regarded the doors he passed, he realized he hadn’t any idea which belonged to her ladyship. “Pardon me,” he asked an approaching maid, “which is Lady Bissell’s chamber?”

  The maid blushed scarlet and looked away as she pointed to the door one down from where he stood.

  Aware that he had made at least one faux pas, Niall was too rattled to offer any word of thanks. Instead, he waited until the maid had entered a room farther down the passageway before rapping on the door. He now felt more confounded than before. The conventions of a large, English-run household were not those to which he was accustomed. He found that he unintentionally and rather regularly spoke out of turn and treated the servants too familiarly. He was essentially a man alone; too low to be regarded as the gentleman he indeed was, and too far above any of the servants to converse with them as a peer. And now he rapped at the door of his mistress without the slightest notion of what to expect.

  Finally, the door swung away from him. To his immense relief, he was greeted by the downcast eyes of another maid. As he had never before seen this particular girl, he realized that her ladyship’s boudoir was where the maid spent the main of her hours. He was not required to explain his presence but was immediately ushered into the room. Niall entered in hopes that he found Lady Bissell appropriately draped.

  She was, fortunately, dressed for dinner in the same hue of lavender he had known her to wear since his arrival at Oak View. The tears on her cheeks, however, were an accessory to her ensemble that he had never before seen.

  “Mr. Doherty. I fear much has gone wrong. This is my first house party since my husband’s death, and I know not how to proceed.”

  Shocked by her weeping, Niall regarded her closely. He was astonished by her tears almost as much as the youthful appearance her usual haughty expression failed to imply. He had never met the old baron but, based on the age of his oldest son, borne to him by his first wife, Niall had assumed Lady Bissell to be on the windy side of forty. As he watched her, taking in the faded blue eyes and pale yellow hair that unduly aged her, he realized she must be at least a decade younger than he had supposed.

  “I daren’t consult with Lord Bissell on this matter,” she said with a sniff. “He shall only find fault with me for not taking great enough care, and I do so wish to create the impression that all has happened precisely as I planned.” She put a handkerchief to her nose and looked up at him expectantly as her eyes filled again with tears.

  “I am at your disposal, Lady Bissell, though I hardly know how I can be of any use.” He hoped the strain he felt did not show on his face.

  “I suppose it is not as bad as all that,” she said with a sigh. “I merely need you to make up my numbers at dinner. It seems one of my guests has brought another young lady as companion to his daughter, and I am all uneven.”

  Niall felt her explanation to be suspiciously simple. “Surely, you should do better to arrange for an extra plate than to risk Lord Bissell’s wrath at my unintended presence,” he suggested.

  “You do not fully understand: the trouble is with the servants. With the addition of Miss Fulton’s companion, there shall be thirteen to dinner. It seems that everyone from the butler to the lowliest kitchen maid refuse to lay dinner with such an unlucky number.”

  The relief Niall felt at her words was almost enough to prompt a smile. “Ah, yes, I perceive your trouble now. We Irish are a superstitious lot. Though, I had supposed you to be Irish, as well, my lady.”

  She gave him an oblique look. “I am, of course! Irish, that is; not superstitious. However,” she explained with a roll of her eyes, “the problem is that I am far too capable a hostess to invite uneven numbers for dinner. It has, quite simply, never occurred.”

  “I do beg your pardon,” he said as he sketched a brief bow. “I ought to have known better. If I do come down to dinner, am I to linger over the port with the men and play cards with the ladies until midnight?”

  “No and yes. Leave the men in order to join the ladies. I should think they will find it most diverting. And do put on a more suitable jacket. You look a farmer in that corduroy, and your cravat is askew.”

  Niall refrained from informing her of the juvenile force that dragged his punctiliously-tied cravat into regular disorder. “I am possessed only of the blue suit I wear when I dine with the family. Will that do?”

  “Hmmm.” She stood and stalked about him as if he were a side table she was considering for the grand salon. “I do believe you are a size with my late husband. His clothes are yet hanging as they were when he died.”

  Niall suppressed a shudder; the notion of donning a dead man’s clothes was anathema to him.

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “I believe the black shall do very well. Have Carter fetch it for you.”

  Niall gave her another bow, this one far deeper than the last, and hastened from the room. As he executed her instructions, he reflected on his good fortune. It had been weeks since he had sat down to dinner with more than the lord and lady of the house. He hoped he remembered how to make polite conversation, but owned that even the chance to listen whilst others conversed was worth any amount of time in a dead man’s suit.

  In the years since her father had grown rich, Caroline had become accustomed to the trappings of wealth. Their house was the largest in the village and her gowns were done up in Dublin, created from fabrics smuggled from France. She delighted in making her morning calls in her very own jaunting car which she tooled herself. None of this prepared her in the least for the sumptuous grandeur of Oak View.

  The chamber that had been given for her use was so entrancing that, upon her arrival, she nearly flew from one thing to the next. The sheer size of it made a thorough exploration impossible prior to dinner, so she set herself to the task of unpacking her trunk. All of the gowns went into the clothes press, save the azure blue silk. She intended to don it for the evening meal, along with her loveliest evening slippers.

  Caroline was startled from her ruminations by a sharp rap at the door. She pulled it open to reveal a woman in a splendid gold gown. The effects of this charming ensemble were destroyed by the addition of a dark cape and black hat with a veil so thick it obscured the wearer’s face.

  “It is I,” Fiona hissed. “Do let me pass!”

  “Hurry and come through, then,” Caroline said in equally muted tones. “What are you about in that silly outfit?” she asked once Fiona had swept into the r
oom.

  “I have come,” Fiona replied as she removed her chapeau, “to do for you and for you to do for me.”

  “But why have you donned a hat? We are about to go down to dinner.”

  Fiona smoothed the curls ruffled by the hasty removal of her headpiece. “I have no wish to meet anyone until I have had my hair properly done up.”

  Caroline laughed. “I shall be pleased to help, but first, assist me into my gown.”

  “Of course!” Fiona dropped the cloak to the floor. “And you must properly tie me up,” she said with a twirl that exposed the limp tapes at the back of her gown.

  Once they were both properly dressed and coiffed, they stood in the pier glass to survey the results. Fiona’s red hair and gold gown were the perfect complement to Caroline’s blonde and azure blue.

  “I do believe,” Caroline said merrily, “that our appearance in no way betrays our lack of a maidservant.”

  “I agree!” Fiona replied, her eyes twinkling. “Ah! And there is the final dinner gong. Shall we be on our way?”

  “We shall!” With a last glance in the mirror, Caroline followed Fiona through the doorway and down the passage to the top of the staircase. As they descended, they joined nearly a dozen ladies and gentlemen. Caroline observed that each was dressed more fashionably than the last.

  “I confess, I feel a country mouse amongst all of this finery,” she murmured into Fiona’s ear.

  “I daresay they are all English and aim to make hay whilst the sun shines.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Caroline asked.

  “Only that now the war is over, they are making the most of it,” Fiona explained. “Indeed, I do believe some of those gowns are rather de trop for a country house party.”

  As Caroline had observed quite a number of wildly plunging décolletage, she rather agreed. “There, now, we mustn’t let it distress us. We shall hold our heads high and look at the bright side; we need not be in the least concerned that a pea might fall from its fork and lodge itself betwixt our breasts.”