“Sir Joseph will soon inherit a barony, Your Royal Highness.”
The Regent set the list aside and motioned for a footman to pour him another serving of wassail. “What barony? I know the titles with only one heir standing between them and escheat, and there are precious few.”
“Sir Joseph’s situation is a matter of abeyance, Your Royal Highness. The only other contender is childless, sickly, and quite old.”
“Abeyance.” Abeyance was tedious, also quite rare. “Why hasn’t he petitioned for it, if there’s only one other possibility? Why haven’t they both?”
“I gather neither party wants to dispossess the other of his chance.”
Hamburg took to inspecting the royal quarters, studying portraits and appointments the little weasel had seen on numerous occasions. His hands remained behind his back, and yet the Regent had a clear sense the man was somehow fidgeting.
His Royal Highness waved a hand again, and the four footmen stationed around the chamber withdrew, the last one closing the door silently in his wake.
“Humbug, what aren’t you telling me?” The Regent used what he privately termed the Royal Confidences tone of voice, part conspirator, part confessor, part long-suffering paterfamilias. Use of it got a damned sight more done than an entire session of Parliament.
“The seat of the barony, Your Royal Highness…” Hamburg took to shifting from foot to foot, like a nervous penguin.
“Go on, and perhaps you might pour yourself a spot of drink. The kitchen pouts when We neglect Our tray, and you might as well sit. We cannot abide to have people hovering about Us.”
Hamburg nodded, sat on the very edge of a red velvet hassock, and when he reached for the china, his hand shook slightly.
“About the barony’s seat, Hamburg?”
“Yes. About that.” He stared at his empty cup. “It seems there might have been a miscommunication some time back before the day of Charles II, or a mistake, perhaps.”
“There were a number of mistakes, regicide among them.”
Hamburg peeked up from his teacup, probably to ascertain if he was supposed to laugh at the royal riposte. What resulted was Hamburg’s version of a smile, a tentative, sickly thing that came close to upsetting the royal digestion.
“Quite, Your Royal Highness. This was a much smaller error, very small, in fact. In the interregnum, the barony’s seat was put to service as a home for urchins, and there being a number of those, the place has seen hard use.”
Finding homes for urchins sounded like a dirty, expensive business, particularly since the urchins themselves were a class of royal subject that had proliferated madly in recent years. “Do We support this school?”
“The realm provides some support, but there are charitable patrons, as well. A few.”
A pair of crotchety widows who no doubt came sniffing around each Christmas with a crate of moldy oranges. “The Foundling Hospital fell into a very sorry state, relying on the generosity of private patrons, Hamburg. It pains Us to consider such a fate for helpless children.”
The Royal Confidences tone was discarded for one presaging a display of Royal Displeasure. Between the yeomen coming to the cities for work and finding none, the soldiers mustering out in the wake of the Corsican’s defeat, and the nobility having an allergy to earning coin in trade, charitable patrons were thin on the ground.
Hamburg was back to studying the many paintings on the walls. “One might hope Sir Joseph could content himself with being an absentee landlord. Many do.”
“You don’t have children, do you, Hamburg?”
He drew himself up on his red hassock. “Certainly not, there as yet being no Missus Hamburg.”
For all the debauchery attributed to the royal court, it pleased His Royal Highness to think at least one Puritan remained in his employ, though not a particularly bright Puritan.
“Do you think, Hamburg, that Sir Joseph won’t notice his estate does not prosper? Do you think he won’t peruse the steward’s reports and see he’s being eaten out of house and home? He won’t notice that children go through shoes at a great rate?”
“I did not think of that. When I first spotted this difficulty, Sir Joseph was a mere mister serving on Wellington’s staff. One could hope the Almighty had a solution to the problem in mind.”
“Ghoulish of you, Hamburg, but practical.”
While Hamburg had a staring contest with some be-ruffed courtier on the east wall, the Regent considered options. The royal brain was of a practical nature when sober, and a sentimental nature at most other times. His Royal Highness felt about half sober, and more than half sentimental, given the Yuletide season.
“Wellington speaks highly of Sir Joseph. Came singing the man’s praises just the other day. The week before that, it was Moreland humming the same tune.”
“Wellington is known to hold his former staff in great affection, Your Royal Highness.”
Having people agree with simple observations was one of the most tiresome aspects of being sovereign. Had there been a footman on hand…
“Fetch Us the decanter, Hamburg, lest this perishing weather give Us a chill.”
Hamburg popped to his feet with the alacrity of a marionette.
“Wellington approves of Sir Joseph—said his marksmanship was without peer—and We approve of Sir Joseph. He raises a mighty tasty pig, and he appreciates fine art far better than most of his titled superiors do. If We cast about for a viscount’s title, Sir Joseph would likely find it in his patriotic heart to take on a few dear little boys and girls who want for some clothes and a prayer book.”
Hamburg turned slowly, the decanter and glass on a tray in his hands. “A viscountcy, Your Royal Highness?”
“At least. We quite appreciate Our pork. Now bring me the damned drink, take yourself off, and send the footmen in. When you’ve some letters patent drafted, you may bother Us again.”
The pruney expression was back. Hamburg set the tray at his sovereign’s elbow, bowed ridiculously low, and backed from the room, list in hand. His Royal Highness added a dollop more spirits to his wassail—it being the season, and so forth—took a deep swallow of his drink, and lay back while the footmen rearranged pillows under the royal foot.
The scheme under contemplation would benefit a deserving knight, please two influential dukes, and relieve a loyal penguin. This was all very good, but what gave the Regent a glimmer of pleasure on an otherwise worthless winter day, was the prospect of keeping a few dozen English orphans fed, clothed, housed, and safe, as well.
All without spending a penny from the public exchequer or the royal coffers.
***
“You asked His Grace if you might propose to me?”
Louisa tried to keep her voice calm, but it was an effort. Joseph looked more serious than usual, also tired.
“One can hope it won’t come to that. May we sit?”
She gestured to the sofa then changed her mind when she saw Sir Joseph was nigh hobbling. “Your leg is bothering you.”
“It is.” He didn’t dissemble. She liked that about him, despite the ridiculous topic he’d broached.
“Does heat help?”
He cocked his head and regarded her. “It does. This weather does not. Grattingly has chosen pistols, though, so if you’re concerned, I might come lame to a battle of swords—”
When Louisa tossed a pair of cushions onto the raised hearth, he fell silent.
“We can sit by the fire, Sir Joseph, while I do you the courtesy of hearing you out.”
He offered her a hand, and Louisa got settled on a pillow. His own descent was awkward, requiring that his right leg be kept straight while he lowered himself to the cushion. He turned to face her, which put his game leg in closer proximity to the hearth screen.
“If you’re going to ring for tea or otherwise engage in evasive maneuvers, my lady, you might as well be about it.”
“No evasive maneuvers, Sir. Joseph. Fire when ready.” He was direct. She liked that ab
out him too. She also wasn’t about to let the ducal staff see her caller sitting on the hearthstones.
“Fire, I shall. Are you in love with Lionel Honiton?”
“What on earth—?” The question had been dispassionate, disinterested in an alarming way.
“He’s a decent young man, Louisa. I have reason to know this because he is a second cousin at some remove to my late wife. His family’s circumstances mean he must make his own way, but he saw enough of what happened in that conservatory and would not hold it against you.”
Louisa wrapped her arms around her knees and rested her forehead on her forearms. “Which explains why, in the four days since, Lord Lace has neither called on me nor danced with my sisters, much less with me.”
“He has called on me.”
Louisa turned her head to peer at Sir Joseph. “You sound surprised.”
“Grattingly is his friend, or crony. Drinking companion, at any rate. Lionel wanted me to know that he’d encouraged Grattingly to offer an apology and warned me the man will not delope.”
“But dear Lionel is not serving as your second, is he?”
Sir Joseph frowned and rubbed his right hand up and down the length of his thigh. “He is not serving as Grattingly’s, either. If I asked it of him, I’m sure he would serve as mine, but the less your future spouse has to do with this mess the better.”
“Now this is odd.” Louisa watched Sir Joseph’s hand as she spoke. “I was under the impression a fellow proposed prior to becoming a spouse, and yet, I do not see Lionel about. Perhaps he’s lurking behind the curtains?”
Not that she’d accept Lionel Honiton under these circumstances—under any circumstances. Patchouli aside, he was precisely the kind of spouse who could not weather a wife with scandal lurking in her past, much less in her present and her past.
“I certainly hope he’s not about. If you’re not interested in tea, may I pour you a tot of something from the sideboard?”
“It’s my sideboard, Sir Joseph. I can pour myself a drink if one is needed. Are you prevaricating?”
A small smile quirked his lips. “Yes. May I be blunt?”
“Of course.”
The smile bloomed a little brighter, making the big, serious man look momentarily impish. Louisa kept her focus on Sir Joseph’s mouth rather than watching the hand Sir Joseph used to massage his thigh.
And then the smile winked out, like a candle in a stiff breeze. “If I take an interest in Lionel’s finances, I’m confident he could be persuaded to offer for you.”
“An interest—” Louisa felt something like a chill, despite the heat radiating from the fire. “You’d buy me a husband?” Were things as dire as that?
“Lionel was a favorite with my wife. Call it a delayed sense of familial loyalty on my part.”
Try as she might, Louisa could not manufacture a sense of insult. Coming from anybody else, she’d greet this scheme with scorn or rage or—on a good day—condescending amusement. Coming from Sir Joseph, it was the act of an honorable man whom she might, in confidence, admit she considered a friend.
Or perhaps the difficulty was she’d begun—in the privacy of a heart that only grudgingly yielded its insights to her brain—to consider him something more than a friend.
“Am I to marry Lionel, or merely remain engaged to him until my sisters have found husbands?”
His hand went still. “Don’t you want to marry him, Louisa? He’s handsome, not stupid, and not particularly given to vice. He’s of suitable rank—”
Louisa pushed Sir Joseph’s hands aside and used the heel of her left hand to stroke down along the belly of his thigh muscle. Doing something—anything—gave her a focus for the queerest sense of disappointment.
Here was her opportunity to marry a handsome, suitable man, a man who danced well and turned himself out beautifully—a man others would consider a catch for a woman such as her—though he was the wrong man.
She knew this in her bones, knew it with her thinking brain, and knew it in her heart. In which moment the knowledge had come to her, she could not say, but knowledge such as this could not be ignored by brains—or a heart—such as hers.
Lionel was the wrong man. Sir Joseph was… not the wrong man, though marriage now even to him wasn’t quite right, either. The image of a little red book popped into Louisa’s mind like a mental bad penny.
When Sir Joseph tried to brush her hand aside, she shifted closer. “I can get a better angle than you. I’m not marrying Lionel, and I’d as soon not gain a reputation for being a jilt as well as a jade.”
“But your sisters… Louisa, you should not—God, that feels good.”
“My sisters are not inclined to marry.” And Louisa was not inclined to suffer missishness from her caller, so she did not turn loose of his leg. She’d spent years watching her brother Victor die by inches, for God’s sake… “You tell Their Graces that Jenny and Eve have shared that confidence with me, and I will put something noxious in your flask, Joseph Carrington. There’s a knot, here, above your knee.” She used her thumb to fish along the corded length of his quadriceps. “Several knots.”
“Louisa, if your sisters are not inclined to marry, then you could be engaged to Lionel for as long as it takes for the talk to die down. An engagement would preserve you from scandal, relieve your parents’ minds, and allow me to tend to a relative in need.”
She dug a little harder into the muscle beneath the fabric of his breeches. “My sisters think they do not want to marry, but they shall marry.”
“You can divine the future?”
His voice sounded off, a trifle strained. Louisa concluded she was hurting him and lightened the pressure. “They are both pining for children, missing our happily married brothers, and contemplating lives tending to aging parents and doting on nieces and nephews. They deserve better.”
“And you do not?” He sounded wonderfully indignant on her behalf.
“I have books, Sir Joseph. I have telescopes. I correspond with literary acquaintances. I dabble at writing myself. I study the calculus when I’m particularly bored. My nature is solitary and simple—what?”
He’d covered her hand with his own. “You are not being entirely honest, Louisa. What is your real objection to this scheme?”
Louisa neither withdrew her hand nor removed it from Sir Joseph’s person. She also did not meet his gaze, lest he see her frustration. The fire was warming her back; Sir Joseph’s hand around hers imparted a different warmth entirely—and the damned man was trying to foist her off on Lionel Honiton.
It wasn’t to be borne. “Somebody told Lionel I like poetry. Would that someone be you?”
“It might have been.” He shifted so their hands were joined. Did he think Louisa was going to get up and start pacing? “Many people enjoy poetry.”
“Lionel isn’t one of them. He accosted me last week—before all this nonsense—in Hirtschorn’s mews and started spouting off that naughty piece by Marvel.”
“‘To His Coy Mistress.’” Sir Joseph sounded puzzled.
“I hope you did not suggest it to him.”
“Of course not, it’s not a decent piece, for all it’s charming, persuasive, and to the point. ‘Had we but world enough and time, lady, this coyness were no crime…’” He frowned and peered at her. “Was it persuasive?”
Louisa permitted herself a sigh, because had Joseph been the one reciting the poem, it would have been persuasive indeed.
“When declaimed like some royal fanfare, it rather loses its impact. It’s a poem written for an ardent swain, not for a determined fortune hunter.”
“So you’re turning dear Lionel down because his oratory skills are wanting? That hardly seems fair. Oratory is fine for the Lords, Louisa, but it won’t avert scandal, and it most assuredly won’t keep you in finery.”
He was gripping her hand firmly as he delivered his scold. Despite her pique, Louisa admitted to herself that she liked the way Sir Joseph held her hand. Nothing tentative or limp
about it. If he ever learned of her unfortunate excursion as a published author, he might just possibly be willing to grip her hand like that regardless.
Her heart missed a beat, then sped up as a thought crystallized: maybe more than possibly. She prayed it was more than possibly.
“Sir Joseph, my own dowry will keep me in finery. I am sure the idea behind Lionel’s recitation was to keep Lionel in finery.”
“You are drawing an important conclusion based on very little information, Louisa Windham. One poem should not a marriage prospect destroy.”
And one question should not a marriage prospect create, but given that her entire future hung in the balance, Louisa asked the question anyway.
“What about one kiss?”
***
“Sir Joseph is going to present Honiton’s suit to Louisa?” Her Grace, Esther, the Duchess of Moreland, did not frown, though a close observer might have said she knit her brow slightly.
“That is what he’d have me believe. More tea, my love?” His Grace made the offer automatically—Her Grace adored a strong, hot cup of tea.
“Half a cup. I wasn’t aware Louisa was more than flirting with Lord Lionel. His family is certainly adequate, but the boy lacks a certain…” She trailed off, accepting a full cup of tea from her husband. “Thank you, Percival.”
His Grace settled in beside his wife, tucking an arm around her shoulders. “What is your real objection to Honiton, Esther? Sir Joseph has a contingency plan, if Honiton won’t do.”
She set her teacup down and rested her head against her husband’s shoulder. “My objections hardly matter, do they? If Louisa wants Lord Lionel, then I will not stand in her way and neither will you. This is not how I wanted to celebrate Christmas, though, Percy.”
“You don’t think she wants him.” More likely, Her Grace knew Louisa’s mind on this, though how she gained such insights was a subject a prudent husband did not pry into very often.
“I am not certain, but I saw something last week that leads me to doubt Sir Joseph’s generous proffer on Lionel’s behalf will be accepted.”
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