Bless Us With Content

by Tinnean

  Chapter 8

  That evening, as had become usual after Sir Eustace’s death and the Hoods’ departure, we three sat down to dine. Arabella, exceptionally gay, trilled over the time she’d spent with her dear Mr. Stephenson.

  “He’s such a skilled driver, and never once did I fear he would overturn us, Aunt Cecy!” She glowered at me as if ever she’d been in danger when I handled the ribbons, but that slur on my driving ability disturbed me not a whit, since she and Aunt Cecily were either driven by Thomas Coachman or one of the Hood brothers. She sipped at her lemonade, then continued. “He showed me every courtesy, and he handed me out of his curricle ever so gallantly, but I truly do wish you had suggested someplace other than St. Andrew’s to visit. The graveyard is so gothic; I vow no sooner had we entered than clouds appeared and the place darkened!”

  “Perhaps it is haunted,” I murmured.

  She shuddered delicately, her bow-shaped mouth tipped down in a moue. “I was reminded of Mrs. Shelley’s novel.”

  “I should never have permitted that horrid book in the house, and William should never have given you it to read. You had nightmares for weeks after.”

  “Please don’t mention that name in my presence, Aunt Cecy.” Arabella gave a sniff, then gushed on. “Mr. Stephenson is truly everything that is gentlemanly. It quite makes one overlook the fact that he hasn’t a country estate.”

  “How kind of you,” I remarked dryly. Of course it helped that Geo was plump in the pocket. “Anything else?”

  “Well….” Arabella worried her lower lip.

  “What is it, dear child?”

  “Well, truthfully, Aunt Cecy, I fear seeing the injury that caused his limp will quite put me off on our wedding night.”

  The thought of her with my lover… I couldn’t help myself. “Don’t be common, Arabella!”

  Her eyes widened. “Oooh! I am not common! You wouldn’t say that to me if William was here.”

  “You wouldn’t be thinking along these lines if he were. You’ve been in love with him for donkey’s years.” And she cared nothing for Geo. “Would you condemn yourself and Mr. Stephenson to a loveless marriage?”

  Her eyes narrowed, and her mouth took an unpleasant twist. “I don’t see why it should matter to you, Awful!”

  My hand connected with the table, sounding like a gunshot, and both ladies startled. “You will cease calling me ‘Awful’, Arabella, or you may look elsewhere for a dowry!”

  Her eyes widened. Never once had I raised my voice to her. “Aunt Cecy! Tell him he must supply my dowry!”

  A number of expressions chased across Aunt Cecily’s face, so rapidly I was sure I was wrong about one being guilt. After all, about what had she to feel guilty?

  “Ashton is the head of the household now, dear child. You must accord him a measure of respect.”

  “Very well, but I don’t see why he should care. It’s not he who’ll be involved!” Beyond that sotto voce grumble, Arabella subsided.

  “Tell me, Ashton, do you like Geo?”

  “Well… well, er… that is to say….”

  “I should be very pleased if you did, you know. I was… distressed that you never seemed able to form a friendship with my poor Marian’s boys. If you should become friendly with my dear George’s son….”

  I felt my face go up in flames. The last thing I wanted her to realize was how “friendly” her dear George’s son and I had become.

  “I couldn’t help but notice that he calls you by your Christian name.” She looked… I tried to decipher the expression on her face, but found I couldn’t. “Geo needs a friend as well. He was always a lonely little boy, the more so because his mother passed on when he was so young.”

  “Oh?” I’d been aware that Mr. Stephenson was a widower; after all, what wife would permit her husband to dance attendance on another woman the way he had all these years? But I was interested in learning whatever I could about my lover’s younger years.

  “Was Mrs. Stephenson very beautiful, Aunt Cecy?”

  “Her looks were tolerable enough, although her hair was red—never a fashionable color. She was Irish, you see. Miss Gale Costello.”

  An Irish boy had been in my form at Eton, and he had similar coloring, rich, russet hair and eyes a startling green. I’d found him very appealing, and we’d masturbated each other to our mutual satisfaction a number of times before he’d abruptly been sent home. Collin Donnelly. It had been years since I’d thought of him, and I wondered what had become of him.

  “And Mr. Stephenson married her anyway? He must have loved her very much!” Arabella enthused.

  “Indeed.” Aunt Cecily smiled at her, but it was a mere parting of her lips and did not reach her eyes.

  Arabella, of course, did not notice. “How very romantic!”

  “However did he chance to meet an Irish girl, Aunt?”

  “She was visiting her Godmama, who by happenstance lived in the same square where dear Papa had taken a house for the Season.” She gazed at the painting of a bucolic scene that hung above the sideboard, but I had the feeling she wasn’t seeing the pretty shepherdess and her flock. “George married her after Papa sent the notice of my engagement to Sir Eustace to the Gazette.” She sighed and shook herself out of her reverie. “At any rate, a short time after George and Miss Costello were wed, they learned two things: that George was being given a position in an embassy somewhere in India, I believe, or perhaps it was on the Gold Coast—I can never distinguish the two—and that Mrs. Stephenson was in an interesting condition. He would have to decide whether to leave his bride here in England or take her with him.” Aunt Cecily fell silent.

  “What did Mr. Stephenson decide, Aunt Cecy?” Arabella encouraged after a few moments.

  “Hmmm? Oh, she pleaded not to be left behind, and so he took her with him. However, the journey across the Mediterranean—although perhaps it was the Atlantic Ocean. Oh, dear, I can never recall. Whichever it was, the seas were so violent she lost the babe. And then once they finally arrived, he realized she could tolerate neither the climate nor the natives, and so he had to make arrangements to send her home again almost at once.”

  “A little thing like the climate would not have kept me from the side of the man I loved!” Arabella declared roundly.

  “You are more robust than poor Mrs. Stephenson was, this is true, but there are some places that just aren’t suitable for a woman of quality, no matter how robust her constitution. I seem to recall George telling me that after that, she was never quite the same, always in frail health.”

  “If Mr. Stephenson was in India or Africa, and Mrs. Stephenson was here at home, then is Geo…?” Arabella’s cheeks pinked, and even that she did prettily. “Oh, I could not possibly wed someone with such a stain on his character!”

  Unthinking, I leaped to Geo’s defense. “It seems to me the stain would be more on his parents’ characters than his. He was the innocent in this matter!”

  “No, dear child, you must not be thinking that Geo is some rakehell’s by-blow. I will say this for poor Mrs. Stephenson: she was too in love with George to even look at another man. He would come home on leave and stay for a few weeks in the section of Town where he’d settled her, then make the rounds of house parties, visiting his friends. We crossed paths frequently. Of course, she never chose to go with him.”

  “What happened to her, Aunt Cecy?”

  “George was assigned to assist the governor in Tortola, in the Leeward Islands, this time with the promise that his wife and son would join him. He went on ahead to make sure everything was in readiness. Unfortunately, poor Mrs. Stephenson went into a decline. George returned to her side, of course….”

  “Ventre à terre, Aunt Cecy?”

  “Not quite, since he had to make the journey by boat. It was rather tedious, from what I understand.”

  “And Mr. Geo Stephenson grew up on an island! I should have been in alt, if I could have done that!”

  “Oh, he didn’t. After all
, George could hardly take a small child of six to such a distant land with him.”

  So Geo had lost his mother at almost the same age that I’d lost my parents. I seized gratefully on that scrap of commonality between us. However—“If Geo was too young to go to Tortola with his father, with whom did he stay?” I expected Aunt Cecily to speak of loving relatives who took in the little boy.

  “A friend of George’s who had become headmaster of a rather good, but sadly second rank, school—Ravensgate, I believe was the name—agreed to have the child come to him and his wife.”

  “At six years of age? I say, Aunt Cecily, that’s awfully young! A second rank school indeed! That would not be permitted at Eton!”

  “No, and the headmaster agreed only upon George’s promise to regularly correspond with the boy.”

  “Why did you not take him, Aunt?” After all, she’d done so with all of us. “If Mr. Stephenson was such a dear friend….”

  “Sir Eustace would have refused.”

  Would have? Did that mean she hadn’t even asked? That was indeed odd, for she’d defied him in order to take in her dear Marian’s sons.

  “But why—?”

  David’s entry into the room caused a cessation in the conversation. Aunt Cecily seemed to embrace it thankfully, and once he left, she encouraged Arabella to resume her rhapsodies over Geo.

  And the meal progressed apace.

  Although Geo had been at Laytham Hall for not much more than twenty-four hours, his departure seemed to leave a gap—in the household, in my life, in my bed. The week’s end was taking a hundred years to arrive, and I felt myself becoming testy and out of sorts.

  We were having supper in the rose sitting room one evening, and once again the topic of Arabella’s nuptials arose. After all, it had been more than two hours since she’d last spoken of them.

  “Miss Patricia Colbourne has all her dresses made by a modiste whose shop is in London. I think it would be ideal to have my bride clothes made by Mme. Henriette, don’t you, Aunt Cecy?”

  “You used to be satisfied to have your clothes made in Guilford.” I glowered at her. I was tired of hearing of Arabella’s marriage plans, especially as she hadn’t been asked. “Or could it be that you believe Mr. Stephenson is above William’s touch, that he is worthy of more expensive dresses?”

  “I never…. That wasn’t…. How can you…. Oh, I hate you, Ashton!” Even in a pet, Arabella knew enough not to test my temper any longer by calling me “Awful.” She threw down her needlepoint and ran from the room.

  “Whatever is wrong with you, Ashton? That’s the second time you’ve snapped at Arabella.” Aunt Cecily frowned at me.

  I worried my lower lip. Geo should arrive on the morrow, and when he did…. He’d promised he wasn’t interested in Arabella, but how would he react on finding himself in a position where both she and Aunt Cecily were expecting him to make an offer for her?

  “Quite frankly, Aunt, I don’t know where she expects me to come up with the ready for the wedding gown this Mme. Henriette will design exclusively for her for a mere £500!”

  “My ensemble when I was presented at court cost twice that!”

  “Be that as it may, I do not have a monkey to squander on a dress Arabella will wear but once!” I flushed as the cant term slipped out. “Beg pardon, I’m sure.” I could have spared my breath; she hadn’t noticed.

  “But surely the estate….”

  “No!” I tugged at my cravat, abruptly feeling strangled. “Perhaps if we still had the Flame…. Aunt Cecily, is something wrong?”

  She had turned so pale I feared she was on the verge of fainting.

  “No, I’m… I’m quite all right. I think… I think I shall retire for the evening.”

  “Very well. I beg pardon for distressing you. Goodnight, Aunt.”

  “Goodnight, Ashton.” She walked out, her spine so straight I feared it might snap, leaving me alone in the room. I stared into the fireplace, unlit since the weather had turned warm once more, and pondered the future.

  God in heaven, where was I to come up with the blunt for Arabella’s wedding, for as with every young lady of quality, she would eventually marry, even supposing she accepted the fact that William was gone and Geo had no intention of wedding her?

  Colling came in. “Is there anything I may get for you, sir?”

  “No. Thank you. I think I’ll step outside and blow a cloud, and then I shall retire.”

  “Very good, sir.” He began to gather the supper things. “I’ll see your bed is turned down.”

  “Th… thank you.” It hadn’t taken me long to come to the conclusion that the courtesy he showed me was to the title rather than the man, especially as he’d never done so prior to Sir Eustace’s demise. However, I was still startled each time he did.

  Putting it from my mind, I went to the study. The fashion of having glass in the doors had come over from France, and Sir Eustace had seized upon it to impress his new bride, having the doors installed in two of the rooms on the ground floor, the study as well as the conservatory, and on the first floor the master’s suite, where they opened onto a balcony that was large enough for a daybed and an occasional table.

  I took one of Sir Eustace’s cheroots from its box, opened the French windows, and stepped out onto the small, balustraded area.

  The night air was scented with the blooming rose trees that Aunt Cecily had had planted early in their marriage, and the splashing of a nearby fountain was a soothing counterpoint to the usual coos, trills, and rustles of the night.

  I propped a hip atop the low wall, struck a match, and held it to the tip of my cheroot.

  The moon was in its last quarter now. It wasn’t the clouds that drifted across the sky that obscured it, but rather the smoke that I blew out from between my lips.

  Giffard had assured me that both crops had harvested well. With a portion of the profits, I’d see to my people. They were deserving of some happiness for once, and I planned to see they received some. As for the rest…. I sighed. I imagined that was from where the ready for Arabella’s bride clothes would come.

  “So this is where I find you.”

  I choked on a lungful of smoke, and he limped toward me and pounded on my back. “G… Geo?”

  “Were you expecting someone else?”

  “No! No, I… I thought you wouldn’t arrive until—”

  His lips cut off the rest of my words. The cheroot fell from my fingers, and I sank into his kiss with a sigh. His tongue licked and teased at mine, exploring my mouth, and I shivered and welcomed the sensations. He tasted of ale and tobacco. He must have broken his journey to bait his team and refresh himself.

  Eventually he released me. Once again my spectacles had been knocked askew.

  “Sometime tomorrow.” I straightened them.

  He laughed. “I take it you missed me?”

  “Yes.” I realized what I had said, and I stepped back from him. “That is to say….”

  “No, no, dear boy. You’ve admitted you missed me, and I’m not about to let you refute that.”

  “Well, is it surprising? You’re quite the cocksman, after all.”

  “I see.”

  I wanted to cringe. I’d so easily fallen back into the way I reacted with the Hoods. I stooped to retrieve the cheroot, and went through the French windows, babbling over my shoulder. “You must be hungry. I’ll have Cook prepare you something. Soup. A sandwich.”

  David was just entering the room with a laden tray. “Mr. Kincaid suggested a bowl of soup might be welcome, and I took the liberty of bringing a tray for Mr. Stephenson.” He saw my surprised look. “Mr. Colling has retired for the evening, Sir Ashton.” He set the tray down on my desk.

  “Thank you, David. Geo, if you’ll have a seat?”

  “My man, David?”

  “Cook is feeding Mr. Kincaid in the kitchen, sir.” A faint color mounted his cheeks, and he stared past Geo’s shoulder.

  “Excellent. Thank you.”

&nb
sp; “Not at all, sir. Will there be anything else, Sir Ashton?”

  “Mr. Stephenson’s chambers?”

  “Mrs. Walker is seeing to them.”

  “Splendid. That will be all then.” I waited for him to leave the room, but he lingered. “Was there something else?”

  “I’ll return for the tray once you’re finished….”