Heir to Edenbrooke

by Julianne Donaldson

  When Miss Wingrave pretended to trip and then fell against me in the course of the dance so that I was obliged to catch her, I had suddenly had enough.

  “Allow me to take you to your mother,” I told her with a smile. “You are obviously unwell.”

  “Oh, no, Sir Philip. I am well enough. I was only a little dizzy for a moment.” She was young and silly. It wasn’t her fault that she had seen the example of the other young ladies’ behavior here tonight.

  “I would hate for you to come to harm.” I took her by the elbow and guided her across the crowded ballroom, noticing as I did so that Mr. Colton was smiling idiotically at Miss Daventry during their dance. She did not appear to think he was a good enough catch, though, as she did not return his smile and let her gaze roam across the other dancers. Poor fool. But such was the risk in this game.

  Mrs. Wingrave looked daggers at her daughter when I handed her over, explaining that she was not feeling well enough to dance, and excused myself, intent on escaping to the card room. But as I turned to leave I came face to face with Lady Marsh.

  She had been waiting for me. I could see it in the way she had carved out a space in the crowd. It was apparent in her posture, that self-assured pose of patient expectation.

  “Sir Philip.” Her voice was warm and welcoming. She held out a gloved hand. Her wrist was encircled in the old, famed jewels of her husband’s family, as was her throat. “I was hoping you would cross my path this evening.”

  I raised her hand to my lips, murmuring, “Lady Marsh,” while brushing a kiss over the satin glove. “How do you do?”

  Her lips curved upward. “Very well, do you not think?” She rested her hands at her hips, as if inviting me to examine her figure. I did not accept the invitation.

  Instead I looked into her eyes, noticing how much less beautiful she looked now. The jaded expression she wore was not half as attractive as the innocent happiness of her former self, before she had married the earl.

  “Of course,” I murmured. I wanted to leave. I let my gaze wander over her head and toward the open door that taunted me with the hope of freedom only half a ballroom away. I took a breath to excuse myself, but she put a hand on my arm, stopping me, holding me captive.

  “You know what the Ton is saying about you, Sir Philip.”

  I sighed. “Enlighten me,” I said in a bored voice.

  “Why is this most eligible bachelor still unattached? they ask themselves. The talk is that you must be holding out for a rich heiress.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Why would I need a rich heiress? I have plenty of money myself, as you well know.”

  She lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug. “Other men have been driven by greed.” She moved closer to me. “But do you want to hear the another rumor? The one that I believe?”

  I did not respond, knowing she would tell me anyway.

  She leaned against my arm and lifted her lips to my ear and said in a sultry whisper, “You have lost your heart to someone whom you cannot have. That is why you will not consider any of these eligible young ladies.”

  It was years ago, I reminded myself. I was young and stupid. I had not known her true nature at the time. Thank heavens an earl had come along before she decided to settle for me. Still, I cringed at the memory of how I had once wanted her love. I looked at her contemplatively for a moment, then bent my head to speak quietly to her. As I drew in a breath, I saw her lips curve again into a smile of triumph.

  “If you are referring to yourself,” I said in a low voice, “allow me to put your mind at ease. My heart never did, and never will, belong to you.”

  She froze, her gaze leaping to mine, and I saw a flash of fury in her eyes. Then she pulled away from me and tossed her head back with a high, false laugh, the jewels at her throat catching and reflecting the light of a hundred candles. “Oh, Sir Philip. How droll you are. As if I cared about your heart.”

  I smiled. “Ah, what a relief.” I could see her seething beneath her smiling façade.

  She adjusted her gloves. “Excuse me,” she said, turning away from me with her head tilted to the arrogant angle she had adopted since becoming a countess.

  I bowed my head and watched her glide across the room, ready for a go at a different conquest. My mother caught my eye and started heading in my direction, dragging along with her a young lady I had not met. But I shook my head at her, turned on my heel, and left the ballroom without a sideways glance. Moments later I was walking down the streets of London, a free man at last.

  ***

  I knocked on my mother’s bedchamber door the next morning, holding the breakfast tray I had grabbed from her maid after running down the hall to catch her before she reached my mother’s room.

  “I’ll take it,” I had told her with a smile. She started with surprise but gave me the tray and curtsied before hurrying off.

  “Come in!” my mother called after my knock.

  “What a nice surprise,” she said as I set the tray down on her bed and opened the drapes of her room. It was an overcast morning, and what sunlight came through the windows cast the room in a grey, weak light. She held a letter, which she folded and slipped beneath her bedsheets.

  “To what do I owe this pleasure?” she asked.

  I sat down on her bed, careful not to disturb the tray and spill her morning chocolate. “What a fetching cap that is on you, Mother,” I said, brushing the lace framing her face as I leaned in to kiss her smooth cheek. She was still beautiful, even in her advancing years.

  She picked up her cup of chocolate and looked at me shrewdly over the rim. “Oh, you have come flattering, have you? You must have some terrible news for me. Or else you want something. Which is it?”

  “I flatter you all the time,” I told her, picking up a piece of toast and buttering it for her before I held it out.

  She took it with a look of affection. “You used to flatter me all the time. You also used to tease me and run through the house with your brothers and nearly shake a room to pieces with your laughter.” She paused, her look a little too piercing for comfort. “But that Philip I have not seen since Charles died.”

  I could not tell her where that Philip had gone. I didn’t know myself. Nor did I know how to get him back. I only knew he had deserted me the day I received the letter informing me that Charles had died and I had inherited everything in his place.

  “So, flatterer,” she said, setting down her food and brushing the crumbs off her hands. “What is it you want?”

  I threw her my most winning smile and said in a casual voice, “I thought I would return to Edenbrooke a bit early. I have work I can see to at home. I am sure the steward would appreciate a chance to meet with me, and there is the repair to the roof and the problem with the fence along—”

  She held up a hand, stopping me. I thought for a brief moment of how, even at twenty-five years old, I was still a boy in my mother’s eyes. And it struck me that here I was, trying to win her permission rather than claiming my own independence. But such were the ties of affection and loyalty and respect.

  “What a wonderful idea,” she said.

  I opened and then closed my mouth, surprised by how much more easily this was going than I had imagined.

  “So you are not going to insist that I stay until the end of the Season?” I asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “I am not a tyrant, Philip,” she said, patting my hand. “I can see how miserable you are here. Let’s leave at the end of the week.”

  “Oh.” I was doubly surprised. “You are coming as well?”

  “Yes, I’ve had enough of all of this running about. I’m not as young as I once was. But I think I can leave Louisa with William and Rachel. She is having a good time still, and besides, she and Miss Daventry are so looking forward to the masquerade ball in a fortnight. It will be nice for the two of us to return a week early, though. Did I tell you my sister and her husband are coming to stay with us?”

  I shook my head.

  “I
could have sworn I did. They are having some repairs done to their house, you know, and we have so much space. I knew it would not be an imposition at all.”

  “Of course not.” I said, searching her face for some sign of deception and then shook off my doubts. I had become too suspicious in general. My mother would have no reason to scheme against me, her favorite child.

  ***

  Edenbrooke was not far from London. We could have accomplished the journey in little more than half a day had it not been for two cases of damsels in distress along our road. Miss Sandeford and Lady Agnes, along with their respective mothers, had each felt a great desire to visit the countryside of Kent, but each had suffered an accident that rendered their carriages useless by the side of the road.

  “What a coincidence!” they all exclaimed. “That you happened along this same road at the perfect time to help us!”

  The effort to refrain from rolling my eyes was so great that my face began to ache. I was trying to escape these women, and I had not gone fifty miles before they had entrapped me again.

  “Oh, we wouldn’t hear of your changing your plans for us!” came their next line when I offered to escort them back to Town. “We will just join you in your journey—we know you have room in your carriage, even if it is a bit tight—and, besides, it will give us an opportunity to see your estate while we’re at it. Won’t this be fun? Our own private party at Edenbrooke.”

  They were so happy with Edenbrooke that they could not tear themselves away to return to Town before three days there had passed. The two young ladies and their devoted mothers vied for my attention with so much competitive fervor that I felt like a fox being torn to pieces by ravenous hounds. My smile became a frozen, stiff thing, barely polite. I paced the floor of my room at night for hours before I could fall asleep. On Friday our visitors waited until midday to climb into their newly repaired carriages, and I stood on the gravel drive with my mother, bidding them good-bye with barely restrained impatience.

  It felt like hours for all of the ladies to say their good-byes, to thank us for our hospitality, to compliment the beautiful estate, and to drop hints about how much they looked forward to visiting again in the future. I looked up at the angle of the sun in the sky, wondering how much more of my time on earth they would waste. When they finally drove away, I looked at my mother and said, “Please tell me that was not your idea.”

  Her eyes lit up with surprise. “What? Their visit? Not at all, Philip. Whatever made you think that?”

  I shook my head. “Don’t play innocent. You are just as scheming a mother as those two are.”

  She smiled slyly and slipped her hand through my arm. “No, my dear. I am much more scheming than those two mothers.”

  I laughed reluctantly. “Well, I’m relieved they’re finally gone.” I took a deep breath and blew it out along with some of the impatience that had been burning hotter and hotter within me. “I’ve been anxious to see how my new racehorse is coming along.”

  But just at that moment, the sound of carriage wheels on gravel reached my ears. I looked up and groaned in dismay. It was our nearest neighbors, Mrs. and Miss Fairhurst. Mother squeezed my arm and said encouragingly, “It will just be a short visit, I am sure.”

  Mother was wrong. The ambitious Mrs. Fairhurst was so delighted to see me return from Town still unattached and therefore still, in her mind, available for her insipid daughter that she and her daughter stayed for two hours. The sun was low in the sky when they finally left. The stables were calling to me, but before I could make my escape, Mother put a hand on my arm and said, “Give me a few minutes of your time, Philip. I have something to speak with you about.”

  I looked at her in surprise. “Of course.”

  But before she could say what was on her mind, another carriage pulled into the gravel drive. I stared in disbelief.

  “I vow, if this is another young lady, I will run away and never come back.”

  Mother shushed me. “Nonsense, Philip. Look. It is only your aunt and uncle.”

  In the commotion of the past few days I had entirely forgotten that they were coming to visit. Well, I would still have to play host, but at least they were not after my title and fortune. I once again donned my polite smile as I greeted Mr. and Mrs. Clumpett, knowing it looked unnatural and forced but unable to transform it into something genuine. I wondered if I was capable of a genuine smile or a genuine expression at all anymore.

  Mother and her sister could not look more different. Mother was tall and elegant and lovely. Mrs. Clumpett was small and rounded and looked more kind than beautiful. The sisters embraced as I shook my uncle’s hand, welcomed him, and invited him inside.

  “I thank you, but we have been sitting in that carriage for hours.” He rested his hands on his lower back and bent back and forth. A tall and angular man, he was also the most devoted amateur zoologist I could imagine. “What I need now is a brisk walk through the woods. I am eager to acquaint myself with your creatures.” With that, he picked up his walking stick and set off briskly toward the woods. Mother and Mrs. Clumpett were busy with each other. This was my chance. I slipped away, unnoticed, and made my way to the stables.

  ***

  I set one booted foot on a lower rail of the fence separating the training ground from the stables. Resting my elbows on the top rail, I watched the trainer put Meg through her paces. Nothing had been more on my mind during the London Season than the secret project I had been working on to surprise William. As I stood watching her, sunlight cut through a thick layer of clouds to catch her coat and burnish it copper. She tossed her head, her mane glinting in that warm shaft of light, and I saw her try to pull away from her rider. I grinned. Her beauty was secondary to the real trait I had been searching for when I bought her: spirit. She looked like she wanted to fly. I called the trainer over after he finished his exercises with her.

  “What do you think?” I asked him, knowing what I thought. But I wasn’t the expert in racehorses. In fact, I had only recently begun this venture of acquiring horses with the thought of racing them.

  Quiet excitement lit up his eyes. “I think she could be the one, Master Philip.”

  I did not correct him. He was old and had been with our family for decades. If I was still Master Philip to him, then it was all the better for me. I wished there were more people in my life who had known me as a child and knew my true place in the world.

  I shook his hand. “Keep up the good work. I can’t wait to show her to William when he arrives.”

  “When will that be, sir?”

  “Next week.”

  Ah, to have my brother William at Edenbrooke with me and then to see the races at Newmarket together. It was the brightest point of the whole year. I had seen him in London, of course, but it was different there. It was not home. It was not our childhood and our memories. I turned back to the house and then paused as I saw the sunlight break through the clouds and light up the house the way it had lit up Meg. I stopped to admire the sight—the symmetry of the house, the way the stones looked golden in the evening sunlight, the stretches of windows reflecting the rosy light, the flowers and bushes hedging the house with blues and yellows, reds and oranges, dark browns and vibrant greens. All around the house, the sky was grey with heavy clouds, so that the house seemed like a beacon in a stormy sea. It was unreal how beautiful it was. It struck me again that this was never meant to be mine and in some way I could not really identify, it still was not mine. It was almost like looking at the face of an aunt or an uncle, so similar to those of your own dear parents but so dissimilar at the same time that the wrongness of the face was more disturbing than the rightness of the family resemblance.

  That strange feeling of foreignness followed me inside the house, where I saw my mother as she was coming down the stairs.

  “Oh, there you are! I have been looking for you.” She beckoned to me. “Come into the library. I need to speak with you.”

  She stood in front of the fireplace, be
low the painting of my father, her mouth pressed firmly into an encouraging smile, her hands clasped together in an attitude of both supplication and hopefulness.

  “I have some news,” she began.

  The feeling of foreignness shifted into dark foreboding. My heart picked up speed, my senses sharpened. I was on a battlefield again, facing a formidable foe, and I instinctively rolled my shoulders, feeling the stretch of scar tissue and the slight ache of the old wound.

  “I have invited Miss Daventry to stay with us for the summer.”

  It was a deathblow. I stared at her, stunned.

  “And that is not all,” she continued, her smile brighter than ever. “You remember she has a twin sister? Marianne? Well, I have also invited her to stay with us. She has been living with her grandmother in Bath and hasn’t had a chance to have much sociality this Season.” She paused, bit her lower lip, and added, “She is arriving tonight.”

  I could not find words.

  “You don’t mind, do you, Philip? I promised their mother, you see. When we were young, we made promises to each other, and now that she is gone and those poor girls are motherless and nearly fatherless too (their father has been in France since their mother’s death), I feel such compassion for them. I cannot leave them to fend for themselves, not when I could be like a second mother to them and help them through this difficult time, and I know, my dear boy, I know what I have asked of you recently, but I also know what a good heart you have and that you would understand my motivations. I hope you will not be angry with me.”

  My mother was babbling. My mother never babbled. She was nervous about this. And well she should be. Two Misses Daventry? One was more than I could bear. Two of them—twins! Two ambitious, vain, shallow, forward sisters, each fighting for my attention. Two sets of cunning smiles and large blue eyes. Two calculating minds set on a title and a great estate and a life of luxury. Two cold hearts that would care nothing for me but only for what my inheritance could do for them.