The School for Heiresses

by Sabrina Jeffries

  When Mrs. Harris had told Grace the truth, she’d been very kind, and had used it as an opportunity to review some fundamentals: Be polite, but a bit mysterious. Be demure, but forthright. Be clever, but circumspect, and so on and so forth.

  Needless to say, as the end of her second Season came and went, Grace still had not received an offer.

  And now Grace was in the post chaise being hurtled toward an audience with her father much as a boulder might be hurtled into the sea, and she dreaded it more and more with every passing mile. By the time they reached Leeds, she could scarcely stand the coach another moment. She needed to walk, to think, to rehearse what she’d say. When the coach slowed for traffic, she was eternally grateful, for even a moment’s delay was preferable to what awaited her at Heslington Park.

  As the coach groaned to a near stop, she quickly shifted forward to peer out the window. They were in the heart of the Yorkshire textile market in the center of Leeds. Mule-drawn carts piled high with cloths of various colors and fabrics, to be traded at the various Cloth Halls, clogged the city square, along with vendors vying for space and the attention of wealthy merchants. Men hurried back and forth carrying bolts of beautifully colored fabrics between the halls.

  If there was one thing Grace had learned to appreciate, it was that fine cloth could be made into a finer gown. “Betty,” she said, reaching across to her maid and her traveling companion, “I’ve in mind a new gown. Tell the driver to let us off here.”

  A few minutes later, she was inside the Cloth Hall, Betty trailing behind as she examined several stalls of rich silks, brilliant satins, and soft brocades.

  “Here you are, madam, blue silk made only in the Cotswolds,” one merchant called out to her.

  Grace turned and saw the bolt he held up. It was indeed a beautiful blue silk, changing hue with the light, and she instantly moved forward to where the merchant had unfurled a long strip of it for her inspection. “T’would make a lovely gown for a grand lady,” he said.

  She glanced up to ask the merchant the price, but her eye caught sight of a broad back and broader shoulders just behind him. On top of one of those broad shoulders were stacked several bolts of thick gray wool, the type used for servants’ gowns.

  But it was not the cloth that caught Grace’s eye; it was the shape of the man’s back, evident through a lawn shirt that tapered into a pair of buckskins that fit his lean hips and thighs admirably well. She knew that back and those hips—she’d admired them more than once in the last few years. They belonged to Mr. Barrett Adlaine, a man who’d built a small but thriving textile mill on the left bank of the River Aire, started with the inheritance he’d received when his father, a cloth trader, had died. The Holcomb market pens were very close to Mr. Adlaine’s mill, and he’d bought sheep from her father on several occasions.

  There was a time, when Grace was a child—before her father had become so wealthy—that she, her two older brothers, and the Adlaine boys had played together in the Cloth Halls. Mr. Adlaine had become an ambitious man, a hard worker…and extremely virile.

  Grace meant to look away, to return her attention to the blue silk where it belonged, but Mr. Adlaine chose that moment to turn around, and for a moment in that crowded and noisy hall, their gazes met, and Grace lost her train of thought.

  He was just as handsome as she recalled, his jaw square, his eyes a blustery blue, his lips spread in an irrepressible smile. His dark blond hair, tied in a queue at the nape of his neck, was a bit longer than what was fashionable in London. He shifted his weight to one hip, put his free hand on his waist and brazenly winked at her.Winked at her, as if they were intimate friends instead of the mere acquaintances that they were now.

  Grace instantly felt herself color, but she did not look away. If anything, her smile turned a bit brighter.

  “How many bolts shall I wrap for you, miss?” the merchant asked.

  “Will you take the cloth, miss?” Betty asked.

  “What?” Grace said, startled, and looked at Betty, who was peering curiously at her.

  “The cloth, miss. Will you purchase it?”

  “Yes, yes,” she said instantly. “Two bolts,” she told the merchant, and glanced behind him again. Mr. Adlaine was gone.

  With a small sigh, she put the cloth to her father’s name and sent Betty to fetch a footman to carry it back to the coach. She turned away from the merchant, and almost collided with Mr. Adlaine, who was now standing before her.

  “Miss Holcomb?”

  His sudden appearance flustered her almost as much as his blue eyes. She felt the blood ripple in her veins. “Oh. Mr. Adlaine,” she said coolly as she surreptitiously glanced around. “How do you do?”

  He looked around, too, but without the slightest bit of discretion. “Very well, thank you.” He still held the bolts of cloth as if they weighed nothing, as if they were a bird on his shoulder. “You must be returned from London.”

  She blinked. “London?”

  “London…rather large town on the banks of the Thames?” he reminded her with a lopsided grin.

  That smile caused her body to tingle violently, and Grace had to struggle to remember that he was not the sort of man she had been raised to admire. “I beg your pardon, sir, but I wasn’t aware that my itinerary was so widely known.”

  “Oh, I think your itinerary is hardly known at all,” he assured her with another knee-melting smile. “But your father mentioned to me this morning that you were due to arrive today.”

  “Ah,” she said, mildly deflated. For a fleeting moment, she had imagined him making polite inquiries as to when she might return.

  “Did you enjoy your stay?” he asked.

  “Of course,” she said, shifting her gaze to her silk again, uncomfortably aware of his body. “I am often in London, you know. One must be in London if one is to be in society.”

  “By that I suppose you meanhigh society.”

  “Of course,” she said with a bit of a frown. What else would she mean?

  “How wonderful for you.”

  “Well,” she said, tracing an invisible line down the silk. “There are so many soirées and assemblies to attend that it’s positively exhausting keeping order of one’s social engagements.”

  “That sounds frightfullytaxing, ” he said, his brows furrowed with concern. “I can only hope that you had some assistance.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I had to do it entirely on my own.”

  “Atragedy. ”

  She realized then that he was teasing her and she blushed as she fidgeted with the cross at her neck…until she recalled Mrs. Harris’s admonishment against fidgeting, and dropped her hand. “Unless you have actuallybeen to London, Mr. Adlaine, you cannot imagine the hubbub.” She glanced at him sidelong. “Have you ever been to London?”

  “I certainly cannot claim to be quite the traveleryou are, Miss Holcomb,” he said. “I’ve only been to London a dozen times, and my social engagements were too few—and, I daresay, too common—to warrant any assistance.”

  “Ah. Well.” Now she felt incredibly foolish—ofcourse he’d been to London! It wasn’t as if it was across the ocean and impossible to reach! “Naturally, I received quite a lot of invitations because I was presented at court.” Really,that made no sense either, but Mr. Adlaine had always had a way of making her feel a bit tongue-tied.

  “I am certain you had far more invitations than my humble beginnings couldever entice,” he said dramatically, but his eyes were shimmering with amusement. He shifted the bolts on his shoulder and moved a step closer to Grace. She instantly stepped back—she meant nothing by it, of course, it was really only a habit, but she could see in his eyes that he believed he repulsed her.

  His gaze flicked over the length of her. “Beg your pardon,” he said, his smile gone. “I will take my leave of you with the hope that you will not find Leeds too tiresome after experiencinghigh society in London.”

  That wasn’t what she’d meant to convey at all,
but Betty and a footman had reached Grace, and she couldn’t think how to extract herself from the little hole she’d dug herself. “Thank you,” she said, and pointed the footman to the bolts of silk cloth she’d purchased. “Good day, Mr. Adlaine.”

  “Good day, Miss Holcomb,” he said, and, shifting the bolts of cloth on his shoulder, he walked away.

  As he left, Grace noticed Betty was staring after him with big round eyes, practically drooling. “For goodness sake, Betty!” Grace exclaimed, nudging her. “He’s not a Christmas goose!”

  “No, miss. He’s not in the least,” Betty said softly, and jumped a little when Grace abruptly moved her along.

  Two

  Grace’s first day back in the bosom of her family turned out to be as miserable as she’d anticipated. Her father paced the hearth, his lanky stride eating up the carpet as he verbally reviewed his suspicions as to why she hadn’t received an offer of marriage, while her brothers, Frederick and Stephen, sat idly by, both of them visibly bored by the proceedings.

  Her mother, as usual, was silent and very solicitous of her husband, rarely speaking except to agree with him.

  That left Grace to fend for herself. “I swear to you, Papa, I did nothing wrong,” she said for the hundredth time since arriving home.

  “But Gracie, love—surely you will agree thatsomething is amiss, or else you would have received an offer. Just this morning, your mother was told that her cousin’s daughter, who has been out only one Season, has gained an offer.”

  Grace looked at her mother.

  “It’s quite true,” she said. “Mary is marrying abaron. ”

  “By your own admission, Gracie,” her oldest brother, Frederick, chimed in behind a yawn, “three young ladies who attended Mrs. Harris’s school received offers this Season. Add those three to the four who received offers last year, and you have seven of Mrs. Harris’s charges who have received offers. How do you account for it?”

  “Idon’t account for it,” she said briskly, chafing at her brother’s remark. When they were children, her brothers had treated her as an equal. But as soon as she’d sprouted a bosom, they had started to act like men who had a say in her life. “I am not in the habit of tallying the number of offers made to graduates of Mrs. Harris’s school, nor am I privy to their unique situations.”

  “Don’t you want to marry, Gracie?” her father asked.

  The question surprised her. Ofcourse she wanted to marry. She wanted to have children and to be mistress of her own house, and to know a man’s kiss whenever she wanted. But she wouldn’t encourage the interest of a man merely because he was of noble birth. She’d encouraged Lord Billingsley, and look what had happened. She’d encouraged Lord Warren, as well, until Mrs. Harris confided in her that he was perhaps too fond of his drink. She had encouraged both men for the wrong reasons. Now she knew better and believed that she should at leastesteem her future husband.

  “Well? Do you?” her father demanded, and four pairs of Holcomb eyes turned to her.

  “Yes, of course I do,” she said. “But I—”

  “And don’t you want to marry well, to a man of means and importance whose connections will help better your family?”

  “Ofcourse —”

  “Then why haven’t you encouraged a proper courtship with a young aristocrat? Mrs. Wells tells me you have had callers.”

  She was really beginning to despise Mrs. Wells, the chaperone her father had hired to stay with Grace in London. She’d believed her to be a kind, grandmotherly woman until she had discovered Mrs. Wells was reporting her every word and deed to her father. Then she’d really begun to dislike the old bag.

  “They were merely friends.”

  “Friends!”he bellowed. “On my word, there is no such beast asfriend between a man and a woman, Grace! If you’d given one of those fellows the least bit of encouragement, you might have had your offer!”

  “Perhaps it is her hair,” Stephen said thoughtfully, playfully studying Grace through his mother’s lorgnette. “I don’t care for the color.”

  “I don’t mind it in the least,” Frederick said.

  “For God’s sake, it is not the color of herhair, ” Papa said irritably. “It is something much more than that. It must be in the way she presents herself,” he said, eyeing her critically.

  “It is because we are intrade, ” Grace exclaimed with great exasperation.

  A collective gasp went up from the other four Holcombs; they all gaped at her.

  “I can see no point in tiptoeing around it,” she defiantly continued. “We all know that there are certain influential members of thehaute ton who believe that it is vulgar to be engaged in business of any sort.”

  “Vulgar?”her father echoed, his face turning red.“Pray tell,” he bellowed, “to what loftyoccupation does this certain influential lot of fops and dandies subscribe? A man’s occupation is irrelevant once he has achieved a certain amount of success, whichI have achieved. And titled men of leisure appreciate the sort of dowry I might put on you. This situation, Gracie, rests onyour shoulders.”

  She could feel herself color and looked helplessly at her mother.

  “He’s quite right, darling,” her mother said. “And it makes me rather ill to think of all the money we have paid Mrs. Harris, and yet youstill do not conduct yourself in a proper manner. I let you run with the boys too long, I fear.”

  “But I—”

  “I’ve got it!” Freddie said, jabbing a finger high in the air. “Everyone is in the country just now, are they not?”

  “Yes?” Stephen asked, having discarded the lorgnette.

  “We should have a soirée. A country dance as it were, and we should invite nobles from the region and see for ourselves what keeps Grace from gaining an offer.”

  “Oh dear God,no !” Grace started, but she was interrupted by the enthusiastic agreement of her father.

  “An excellent suggestion, Freddie!” he exclaimed, clapping his oldest son on the shoulder.

  “Papa, please!” Grace cried. “It’s hunting season, not the time for balls and routs!”

  “A capital idea!” Stephen exclaimed, perking up. “We must combine it with a weekend of hunting that culminates in a ball! We’ve more than enough game to support it, sir.”

  “Yes, of course!” her father gleefully replied. “A ball is just the thing!”

  It wasn’t the thing at all, but as the three of them were already busily planning their grand ball, Grace realized there was nothing she could do to stop them. With a sigh of resignation, she slumped back in her chair.

  Three

  The hunting season was a fortnight old when George Holcomb hosted a weekend of shooting and a ball at Heslington Park. It was attended by the region’s most notable persons, including an earl and some lesser lords, as well as wealthy merchants with whom Holcomb had the pleasure of doing business.

  Included in that number was Mr. Barrett Adlaine, who, Grace had surreptitiously observed, looked even more splendid when dressed in proper clothing. He wore a coat of dark navy superfine, and a patterned waistcoat embroidered with gold thread. His thick hair was brushed over his collar, and his neckcloth was tied in an intricate and handsome knot, which rather surprised Grace—she supposed only men with valets possessed such artfully tied neckcloths.

  She had not found an opportunity to speak to him—her father had kept her quite occupied by introducing her to the earl, and then two barons, a baronet, and a man who had been knighted recently for his work on the canal between Leeds and Liverpool. Moreover, she had worn beautiful satin slippers that matched the blue silk gown she’d commissioned using the cloth she’d purchased in Leeds, but they were a smidgen too tight. Her feet were paining her, so any thought of promenading by Mr. Adlaine with the goal of attracting his attention was out of the question.

  Not that he would have noticed her, Grace thought absently as she observed him across the crowded ballroom. He’d been engaged alternately with Miss Davies or Miss Moorhouse all
night, dancing with one and then the other, and in between, several of the married women in the crowd.

  He danced quite well, actually—very graceful for a man so tall and muscular and not part of society. She’d have thought his lack of experience in the ballrooms of proper society might make him a bit ungainly, but he was not in the least so. He seemed to enjoy himself thoroughly. Every time Grace glanced at him—not that shemeant to glance at him, but her gaze just kept falling on him, inadvertently, of course—he was smiling and laughing and being altogether too charming.

  She was watching him escort a smiling Mrs. Huddersfield onto the dance floor when her father suddenly appeared before her, interrupting her view. “Grace,” he said, his expression radiant, “may I present Lord Prescott.”

  Lord Prescott, whom she knew to be a widower and, from the look of it, older than her father, smiled proudly. Grace pasted a smile on her face and sank into a curtsy as she extended her hand. “How do you do, my lord.”

  “Very well, Miss Holcomb,” he said, taking her hand and bringing it to his thin lips. “Your father did not do your handsome looks justice in describing them to me.”

  “Oh,” she said and gave her father a look. “Perhaps he’d forgotten, as he’s had me in London for quite a long time.”

  “Apparently not long enough,” her father responded with a meaningful look.

  “Perhaps you will do me the honor of standing up with me and relating your experience in London?” Lord Prescott asked.

  She did not want to dance with him, she did not want to touch him, and furthermore, she should have known better than to wear these blasted shoes to a ball. But she could feel her father’s eyes boring into her at that very moment and said, “Of course, my lord,” as politely as she could and tried very hard to look pleased by the invitation.

  Judging by the menacing look her father gave her, she didn’t succeed completely on that front.

  Lord Prescott led her onto the dance floor, and as they began to dance, Grace began to talk, chattering on about her debut—taking particular care to note the expense—then how many assemblies she’d attended in London, and how many hats and gowns she’d purchased. Judging by how often her father railed about her mother’s spending, she hoped it would put the man off. And indeed, when the danced ended, Lord Prescott seemed a little dazed. Grace quickly curtsied. “Thank you, sir—”