The Earl Most Likely

by Jane Goodger

  After pushing her scrod about her plate for a time, Hedra finally answered. “Not yet, but your father and I do have an understanding with the baron.”

  Clara clutched her napkin in her lap, strangling it. “I do believe you read too much into his kindness,” she said calmly.

  “Oh, posh. You were charming and beautiful, the baron said so himself. But he did note you lacked the social graces and experience a season will give you, and so you shall have one. Who knows, perhaps you will attract an even higher title.”

  “Is that what you hope for me, Mother?” Harriet asked, simply to be contrary.

  Her father let out a bark of laughter, then covered his mouth with his napkin. Harriet tried not to be hurt by this outburst, but wasn’t completely immune to the slights, constant though they were. “I hardly think you should start having silly thoughts of landing a peer, Harriet,” he said kindly, and somehow his kindness was worse.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Harriet had no such thoughts. Even with a sizeable dowry, it was unthinkable that either she or Clara could marry a peer, and that her parents held such lofty goals was embarrassing. Still, it rankled that her father fully believed Clara could attract a peer, but she could not. She imagined that her parents were counting on her to care for them in their dotage, or would foist her off on the first man who showed interest in her. But soon she’d be gone, living in her little cottage by the sea, on the other side of England. Alone.

  “At any rate, I have no desire to go to London. I’m sorry, Clara, I do hope you understand.”

  Harriet waited for her parents to insist she accompany them, but they remained silent, her father no doubt calculating the money he would save by not outfitting two daughters for a season. As it was, they had very little time to prepare and it would cost dearly to have dresses made so quickly. Dresses, Harriet reasoned, that would likely never be seen by anyone of importance. Clara, of course, let out a small gasp of dismay when Harriet made her pronouncement, but remained otherwise silent.

  Later that night, Harriet tapped on her sister’s door and let herself in when Clara bid her enter. Clara sat in bed, a thick volume on botany on her lap, her brow furrowed. Most people thought Clara a bit of a featherhead, and on many subjects she was, but she had a profound and deep interest in all things related to plants and flowers and was quite an authority on the subject.

  “I am sorry about London,” Harriet said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  Clara put the book aside, closing it with an audible thump. “It’s so embarrassing, Harriet. The baron was only being kind when he suggested a season. You should have seen the look on Mrs. Gardener’s face when he mentioned it. She looked as if she’d just swallowed a toad because of course she knows it is impossible. Do you want to know the true reason we were invited to the Gardeners’?”

  “What?”

  “She is looking for a companion for her mother, someone to read and entertain, I suppose. I didn’t tell Mother, of course. She would have been incensed, particularly when she thought the invitation was made because of the baron’s visit.” Clara worried her blanket with her fingers. “The truth is, I like the old lady. She was very pleasant and had the most beautiful garden. It would be far more pleasant to be her companion than to be married to some fat old baron with a hundred children in need of mothering.”

  Harriet let out a burst of laughter and Clara joined in.

  “I had no idea you were so opposed, Clara. You always seem so complacent when Mother thrusts you in front of men.”

  “It was just a game before,” she said quietly. “An easy way to make Mother and Father happy without really doing anything except dance and flirt a bit. Mother actually believes doors will be opened to me, and no matter how many times I tell her I am perfectly content, she will not relent.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Go to London for the little season, of course. Mother will not be swayed, but perhaps when she realizes Father cannot gain entry into Whites and I cannot attend a royal ball, she will finally give up and let me stay home.” Clara let out a puff of air that made the curls on her forehead fly up. “You are so lucky, Harriet. I wish they would ignore me as they do you.” It took a moment before Clara realized what she had said, and then her hand flew to her face, her expression one of horror that she’d said such a thing.

  Harriet laughed. “Please, do not worry about me. I am the lucky one and I know it.” She was tempted just then to tell Clara about her secret, about Costille House and all that money coming her way, but she didn’t want her sister to have the burden of keeping such a secret.

  Clara propped her chin on her hand. “Mother is going to be terribly hurt by all this, but I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Clara, you are the kindest girl in the world to think of Mother’s feelings.”

  Clara looked surprised that she would say such a thing. “Mother only wants the best for me. She’s blinded by it. I don’t know how she got it in her head that I should marry so far above myself. It’s almost as if she’s lost all common sense. How could she possibly believe even Baron Longley would be interested in me?”

  “Perhaps he is.”

  Clara wrinkled her nose adorably. “And perhaps I’m interested in something else entirely.”

  “Like roses?”

  Her sister grinned. “Precisely.”

  * * * *

  Augustus had never felt truly comfortable in London. As a boy, it had been his father’s domain, and it seemed everyone he met sized him up and found him lacking. Born Augustus Nathaniel Lawton III, his father had gone by his middle name to avoid confusion, and kept the tradition of naming his firstborn son after him. He had been a force to be reckoned with, a man who most people respected and more than a few feared. Augustus was neither, a pale shadow, a n’er do well—at least when held up in comparison to his father. In his youth, Augustus had been a trial to his father. He’d been expelled from two schools and once had even ended up in jail for public drunkenness. It had not been his finest hour, but he’d pretended not to care when his father had sent his secretary to bring him home and had not come himself. Now he realized all his antics had been a sad attempt to get attention from a man who hardly spoke to him.

  He remembered feeling hotly envious of one of his classmates, who had talked of fishing and hunting with his father with obvious pleasure. That same lad had bounded out the school door and was embraced heartily by his father for Christmas break. Augustus, on the other hand, had stayed at school that year and spent Christmas with one of the teachers who had taken pity on him. He was not the only lad who had not gone home, and like the others, he’d pretended not to care. But they all had.

  Alas, now that he held the title, he was forced to venture into the city more than he liked, to discuss matters with land agents and solicitors, to resolve issues involving property and employees. He had already been in London two weeks and planned to visit his grandmother in Bristol before heading home to St. Ives and Costille House. For some reason he couldn’t explain, thoughts of Miss Anderson—her vivid blue eyes, her thin face, her shapeless form—visited him again and again. She hardly seemed the type to stand up to Mr. Billings, and the more he thought on it, the more he felt he had made a grave mistake.

  Spontaneity had always been a flaw of his. It was how he’d ended up in America the first time, how he’d agreed to marry Lenore, how he’d returned to America soon after their disastrous wedding night. He acted without thinking, something his father, with much disgust, would comment on during their rare conversations. Now, he’d put his beloved home into the hands of a tin miner’s daughter.

  On the evening before he departed for Bristol, Augustus forced himself to visit White’s, that old-fashioned haven for men of power and a place he’d loathed as a younger man. It was filled with old men who remembered his father, who looked at him with the false expectation that somehow
Augustus would become the man his father had been. With a mix of joviality and restraint, depending upon the dealings the men had had with his father, they greeted Augustus as he entered the main room.

  Augustus made the rounds, shaking hands and accepting banal offers of condolence and questions as to when he would take his father’s seat in the House of Lords, an institution, Augustus thought, that had outlived its usefulness. He would never say so here, of course, in a room of men full of their own self-importance. Though he was born to this world, he had never felt a part of it and had few friends who were members of the ton. His closest friend, Henderson Southwell, was the bastard son of a squire’s daughter, a nobody, but a man Augustus would die for if asked. His only other friend on this side of the Atlantic was Charles Greene, Lord Lansdowne, whom he hadn’t seen since Lenore’s funeral. Charles was another one of those lads left behind at Christmastime. Now whom should he see but Charles, sitting alone, looking into a fire, a glass of port untouched on the table in front of him. The last he’d heard, Lansdowne had been banished to Singapore to oversee his family’s holdings there.

  “My God, Lansdowne, I cannot believe my eyes. You’ve aged terribly.”

  Lansdowne looked up, his expression changing from brooding lord to grinning young man. He stood immediately, unfolding his long, lean body. Augustus had forgotten how tall his friend was, and he was thin to the point of gauntness. “Last I heard, you’d joined one of those savage tribes in the Wild West.”

  “I was tempted. But, alas, I returned not two years ago to do my duty. How long have you been back from Singapore, and why the hell haven’t you contacted me?”

  Lansdowne laughed and motioned for Augustus to join him at his table. “I’ve just returned, in fact, not two weeks ago, and by God, I hope never to go back. So, I heard you’re the earl now.”

  “I am.”

  “I don’t know if I should offer condolences or not.”

  Augustus shrugged. “As you like. So how have you been? It’s been ages.” Now that he was sitting closer to his old friend, he could see his eyes were bloodshot and deep lines bracketed his mouth. He had, Augustus realized, the look of a man who’d led a difficult life. Of all the men he knew, he would not wish Lansdowne to have suffered, for he’d never been particularly robust. He wondered if he’d been ill and that was why he’d returned to England. “Are you back for good, then?”

  “God willing. My father has sent my younger brother to replace me at the consulate. Perhaps John will like that hellish place better than I. And what of you?”

  “I’m still in St. Ives, though I spend far more time in London than I care to. I never did thank you for watching over Lenore when I was in America.” Before he’d left for America, he’d asked Lansdowne to make certain Lenore had what she needed, for he was certain his father would not.

  Lansdowne shook his head. “No need.”

  “These last two years have been particularly difficult, with my wife and then my father dying.” A waiter filled a snifter of brandy from the decanter on the table and Augustus took a thoughtful sip. “I’m getting old, Lansdowne. It’s time I got a wife and started a family.”

  Drawing back in disbelief, Lansdowne said, “But she’s just died.”

  “It’s been two years. You must know there was no love between us. It’s time for me to produce an heir. I cannot believe I’m about to say this, but the responsibility of the title is surprisingly weighty. I’ve come to realize that I do not want to be the Earl of Berkley who let it all fade away.”

  Lansdowne chuckled humorlessly. “Death has a way of changing one’s life. I pray my father stays hale and hearty for many years. I’ve no wish for that sort of responsibility.” He took a long draw from his snifter and swallowed it as if it were water. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, you old mother hen.”

  “Was I looking at you in a particular way?”

  “Yes, you cur. As if you haven’t imbibed until you were blind.”

  Augustus laughed, for in his youth, he had done just that. “Just not lately. I haven’t really had a drink since Lenore…”

  Lansdowne looked down at his glass, as if he found such maudlin thoughts embarrassing. “Perhaps you had stronger feelings for her than you realized,” he said softly.

  “I didn’t. But I was returning to do my duty, to make amends, I suppose. To sire an heir. Obviously, she didn’t care for that plan.” He took a long breath. “What of you? Are you married?”

  “God, no. And no desire to, either. My mother has been hinting that it’s time, though.”

  “Just hinting?”

  “Very well. More than hinting, but she’s not quite at the hysterical bit yet. I think I have at least three or four years before she starts making demands.” He scrubbed his face. “Hate that it’s looming, though.”

  Augustus gave him a quizzical look. “Surely the thought of marrying a pretty girl isn’t so bad.”

  “Marriage,” he said, as if it were a foreign word that did not easily roll off his tongue. “I just don’t have the heart for it.”

  “What does the heart have to do with anything? Marry a girl from a good family, beget your children, and move on to better things. Your heart need never be engaged.”

  Lansdowne let out a bitter laugh. “You can say that only because your heart has never been engaged.”

  Raising one brow, Augustus said, “Someone back in Singapore?”

  Lansdowne shook his head slightly. “Someone from a long time ago.”

  “Young man, America has turned you into a heathen. Sit up straight.”

  Augustus grinned at his grandmother, which only made her scowl. Still, he sat up straight as she asked, for she would not relent until he did, and he rather liked the old girl. Lady Porter was his grandmother on his mother’s side, the only relation he actually did like, not that there were many to pick from. His father’s brothers had all died years ago, before Augustus had been born, and though he had cousins living somewhere in England, he had no real memory of them.

  Grandmamma, on the other hand, had made it her mission to be part of his life. Even those years in America, her letters, great volumes of them, would reach him. It kept him tethered to his homeland, gave him a sense that he belonged to someone other than a father whom he rarely saw, even as a boy.

  She lived in a modest home, considering that she was a dowager countess; Grandmother never had been one to put too much stock in possessions. She was one of those old aristocrats who believed showing one’s wealth was the height of vulgarity. Her needs were few: a warm house, loyal servants, good food, and the occasional snifter of brandy—her secret delight, one she’d shared with her late husband. She set great store on the intangible: honor, duty, tradition. She had been horrified when Augustus had gone off to America, fearing he would never return and do his duty. Though Lenore had been from a good family, Grandmamma had found her pedigree lacking; she was the daughter of a lowly knight, hardly worth notice. As snobbish as his grandmother was, when he was with her, Augustus felt he was home, and he could ignore her stalwart insistence that he take his place in society he was born to. As a boy raised by tutors and servants, those rare summers in Bristol had been special indeed. Without them, he would never have experienced being loved and worried over. He never would have seen a husband and wife happy together. His grandfather and grandmother adored one another and were unapologetically in love—a rarity indeed for a marriage arranged by their parents before they’d even met. “I don’t know what I would have done if I had disliked him,” his grandmother would often say. “My duty, I suppose. As you must do yours.” This last was said with a pointed look.

  Though it was not overly chilly, he found Lady Porter sitting by a fire, stuffed in a chair surrounded by thick blankets. She wore a cap upon her head and her hands were shoved into a mink muff. She looked, to his great dismay, quite ill, and he wondered why she was not abed. The
last time he’d seen her it had been summertime, and she’d been in her garden, a large hat perched upon her head, and had looked robust and happy. Now, seeing her pale, with deep circles beneath her eyes, he realized she would not live forever. Indeed, she might be dying.

  “You are looking more beautiful than ever,” he lied, bringing her hand out of her muff and kissing it.

  Not one to accept false flattery, his grandmother raised an eyebrow skeptically. “I look like death.”

  His stomach clenched at those words, not only the meaning but at how raspy her voice was. “You’ve been ill.”

  “A bit under the weather, yes,” she said, breaking up that short sentence with a breath. Augustus forced a smile even as terror filled his heart. What would he do if the only person in the world who loved him no longer existed? “It’s been too long since you’ve been to Bristol, Augustus.” Her voice was unusually raspy and speaking seemed a great effort. She was ill.

  “Have you seen a physician?”

  She pressed her lips together stubbornly. “Nothing to be done, he says.” She stifled a cough and Augustus grew ever more alarmed. “I am glad you are here, my boy.”

  “I know, Grandmamma, and I am sorry. I’ve been restoring Costille House.”

  “I thought that was a lost cause.”

  Augustus grinned, thinking of Miss Anderson and her remarkable memory. “A local woman with a remarkable memory toured the house before Lenore made her changes and is directing the reconstruction at this very moment. When I return, I hope to see something that more resembles what the old place used to look like.”

  His grandmother pulled a face. “Didn’t much care for the old castle in the first place. I daresay Lenore’s changes were probably an improvement.”

  It was an oft repeated sentiment so Augustus ignored her. “It is important to me, Grandmamma.” She pressed her lips together but did not argue. “You will like the reason for the renovations, of that I am certain.” He smiled when she old lady perked up a bit. “I am throwing a ball the week before Christmas.”