by Cheryl Bolen
A smile eased across his face. “It’s my hope that your life at Dunton will be so satisfying you’ll scarcely spare a thought for your sister.”
She smiled. “I do hope you’re right. I’m vastly looking forward to meeting the children. You must tell me all about them.”
“You won’t meet the three eldest boys for some time.”
“I want to know all about them. Please start with the three oldest.”
“The oldest is Johnny, Viscount Fordyce.” He unconsciously lifted his index finger. “He’s nineteen, almost twenty, and at Oxford. Next,” he said, raising a second finger, “is Geoffrey, who is a year younger. In physical resemblance they are like twins, except that Johnny’s eyes are brown and Geoffrey’s, green. They’re now separated, as Geoffrey is a captain in the army.”
“Oh, dear, is he in the Peninsula?”
Aynsley nodded, a frown furrowing his face.
“Then I shall pray for his safe return. Tell me, is their hair brown, like yours?”
He chuckled. “Mine used to be brown, but I daresay the gray’s predominant of late.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
Because she had taken so little notice of him. He was every bit the dullard Dorothy had always said he was. For Rebecca, he was merely a means to an end—the end being her highly desired independence.
He would refrain from telling her how completely he understood her, just as he would refrain from telling her he knew of her alter ego. She must come to trust him enough to make an unprompted admission. He hoped she would soon. He prized honesty above all. Especially since he knew firsthand how a wife’s deception could ravage a marriage.
“And the next son?” she asked.
“That would be Mark, who’s twelve and at Eton.”
“Johnny, Geoffrey and Mark—all away. Now, tell me about the lads who are still at Dunton Hall.”
“Spencer is eight.” Aynsley started counting on his fingers again. “Like my daughter and the baby, he is blond. In between Spencer and the baby is Alex, who is quite a unique lad.”
She looked puzzled. “In what way?”
Thinking about his precocious six-year-old made him smile. “For starters, he is the only one of the seven to be possessed of red hair.”
“I adore red hair.”
Red hair and worms. A woman after his own heart. “Unfortunately, he also possesses a redhead’s fiery temperament.”
Her eyes flashed with good humor. “He fights with his brothers, no doubt.”
“Right you are. He’s also the only boy who would rather be reading a book than playing cricket, and he is prone to using language his siblings don’t understand.”
“Big words?”
“Exactly.”
“You could be describing me as a child,” she said with a laugh. “Why do you refer to the youngest as ‘the baby’ when he is three years old?”
“For the obvious reason that he is the baby. There is also the fact that he is less...intellectually developed than the other boys were at three years.”
Her brows lowered. “In what way?”
He frowned. Aynsley had been worried for some time about the little imp who’d so easily wiggled his way into his father’s heart. “He’s only just started to speak in sentences, and he lacks...how shall I put this delicately? Bladder control. He’s forever having accidents.”
“I daresay the little dear only needs a mother’s love.”
Love? Was he hearing correctly? Miss Rebecca Peabody—or actually, the new Lady Aynsley, though she detested the title—had used the word love. His heart melted at the thought—the hope—that this enigmatic girl-woman who sat across from him would come to love Chuckie and his other children. “I believe you’re right,” he said. “He’s the only one who never knew his mother.”
“If I recall correctly, she died shortly after his birth?”
His face was grim. “She died of a fever when he was just four months old.”
Rebecca winced. “And what is the little lamb’s name?”
“His name’s Charles, but we’ve always called him Chuckie.”
“I’m very glad that he’s speaking in sentences.”
As was he. “There is one more thing.”
Her fine brows arched.
“I’m troubled that he lives in his own world.”
“His own world?”
“Allow me to explain. He’s always dressing in costumes and calling everyone he knows by names other than their given ones, names he’s dubbed them. And he doesn’t seem to care for his own name. The last time I was home, his ‘name’ was James Hock.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that, John. From what you’re telling me, I gather that Chuckie’s possessed of a lively mind and acute intelligence.”
“He is intelligent, but I don’t understand why the lad keeps having all those blasted accidents.”
“I daresay he’s just too busy to take time out to...” She stopped, shrugged, then redirected her thoughts. “I don’t profess to be an expert on children, but I think your concerns are not warranted.”
“I hope you’re right.”
He settled back into the squabs and regarded his bride. She really looked quite fetching in her snow-white muslin that was trimmed in sky-blue ribbons. It was the same dress she had worn to their wedding ceremony that morning. She had been so incredibly pretty—and horribly scared. Fortunately, she was more relaxed now. The peach blush had returned to her cheeks, and her stiffness had unfurled.
“What of your nephew?” she asked.
He stiffened. “More often than not, I’m out of charity with Peter.”
“He’s how old?”
“He reached his majority last year and quickly went through every farthing he could get his hands on.”
“So he lacks maturity, steadiness and—I think—your affection?”
“I wouldn’t say that about the affection. If it weren’t for Emily, things might be different.”
“Emily’s your daughter?”
“Yes. She thinks she’s in love with Peter.”
“And you find him ineligible?”
“I gave him a chance. After he was sent down from Oxford—for sottishness—I secured a post for him with Lord Paley at the Home Office and told Peter if he could live on the three hundred a year from the Home Office coupled with the two hundred a year from my sister, I would allow him to marry Emily.”
“I take it he was not successful.”
“Not at all.”
“He could not live within his means?”
“He lost heavily at Brook’s, then the moneylenders got their hooks into him, then he did the unthinkable.”
Her eyes rounded.
“He left his post without so much as a fare-thee-well and fled back to Dunton, professing that he couldn’t live without Emily.”
“And his foolishness did not elicit disgust in your daughter?”
“She thinks I’ve been too harsh on him. He was very close to his mother—my sister—and Emily says I should have been more compassionate to him when he came to Dunton after his mother’s death.”
“How old was he then?”
“Fifteen.”
“A most difficult age.”
“He wasn’t a bad lad,” Aynsley defended. “And despite all his weaknesses, I cannot deny that he truly loves my daughter. Whatever I heard of his heedless activities in London, bedding loose women wasn’t one of them.” He shouldn’t have said that in front of Rebecca. She was such an innocent. He looked up at her. “Forgive me.”
“I beg that you not apologize. We are, after all, man and wife. I wish your speech with me always to be unguarded.”
This was the first time Rebecca in the flesh—not through her elucidating essays—seemed more woman than girl.
“I can understand your wish that your only daughter marry a man more worthy.”
At least his wife understood his fatherly affection. “The problem is my daughter says she wants no one else.”
Re
becca nibbled at her lower lip. “Will she have a Season in London?”
“I mean for her to. She will resist.”
“There is the fact that another man might not love her with such constancy as Peter.”
The same thought had plagued him. Above everything, he wanted what was best for Emily. “Though I’m a wealthy man, I’ve seven children to provide for. Emily’s dowry will not be large enough to compensate for a wastrel husband.”
“Being a parent is no simple matter.” She went to say something else, then clamped her lips.
He studied her pensive expression. The nibbling on her lower lip. The thick fringe of long, dark lashes that swept against the creamy skin beneath her eyes. He had become so accustomed to her spectacles he never noticed them anymore.
A moment later she said, “I want very much to be a good mother to your children. Do you think they will resent that I shall try to replace their own much-loved mother?”
He wished to soothe the worry he saw on her face. “The three youngest have little memory of their mother. I should think they would be most receptive to having a mother of their own.”
The lively smile she tried to suppress told him she had warmed to the idea of being a mother, even though her voice strove for nonchalance. “And the four eldest will, quite naturally, cling to the memories of their own mother,” she said.
“Most likely. But I daresay you will lift a huge burden from Emily’s shoulders.”
His bride eyed him thoughtfully for a moment. “Emily is very dear to you, is she not?”
“Very.”
“You said she is a blonde?”
He nodded.
“I expect she’s quite lovely.”
“You’ll have to judge for yourself. I find her so.”
“As does Peter, obviously. Tell me, how long have they fancied themselves in love?”
“I can’t remember a time when she didn’t insist that she’d grow up and marry him.”
“Oh, dear, a mind-set like that is not easy to break.”
“That’s what worries me.”
She resumed peering out the window, and neither of them spoke for the next half hour. Then she turned back to him and said, “I should like to learn more of you.”
That she was thinking of him was his first chink into her stiff formality. He gave her a warm look as he moved from the seat facing her to sit beside her. Her lashes lowered modestly as he drew her hand into his.
“What would you like to know?” he murmured. Was this to be the breakthrough he sought?
Chapter Five
As Aynsley asked his question, his green eyes twinkled in harmony with his dimpled grin.
“About the reforms you intend to promulgate.”
“There are so very many.”
“Indeed there are. It’s hard to know where to begin to eradicate all the injustices.”
He gazed from the window at a soot-covered old chapel until it disappeared from view. “I’ve given the matter a great deal of thought,” he finally said.
“Which matter?” she asked.
“Reforms. The hierarchy of reforms.”
As much as she had contemplated reforms, she had failed to consider the sequence in which they needed to be implemented. “Go on.”
“Before the social ills like penal reform and abuses of laborers can be addressed, we need to correct the defects in the representative system.”
The sheer brilliance of his words stunned her. Why had she never considered reforms in such a light before? Ideas raced through her mind so rapidly she had difficulty isolating one. She was still reeling from the wisdom of ranking the implementation of reforms when he had bedazzled her with his choice for first priority. “Oh, yes, I see it so clearly!” she said. “Under our present system, a handful of powerful landowners like you control Parliament, and they’re not likely to welcome changes that reduce their own power in order to benefit the lower classes.” She looked up at him with awe. “Are you familiar with the Great Compromise in America?”
“I am. A pity Englishmen would so resist such a perfect democracy.”
She was impressed—and delighted—that Lord Aynsley was so well-informed on political theories and practices. “There would be great resistance to abolishing the king or the House of Lords,” she said, “but do you not think the House of Commons should be set up along the lines of America’s congressional representatives? One representative for every so many voters? I know Commons now supposedly represents particular areas of England, but you and I both know that’s a complete farce. The geographic areas do not reflect the population, and there’s no residency requirement for the members who serve in Commons.”
“I do agree with everything you’ve said. We’re now in a transition from an agrarian society to an industrialized one, and our elective system—inadequate at its inception—is sadly outdated.”
She had never before felt so fully alive, so excited, never before spoken face-to-face with anyone as intelligent or like-minded as Lord Aynsley. John. It suddenly did not seem so very odd to address this man by his Christian name. “There would be a great deal of resistance,” she said.
“We must remember the 1780s and ’90s in France.” His voice was solemn.
“You think the English people will revolt?”
“It’s a possibility. They will certainly want a government that’s more democratic. The manufacturing centers of Birmingham and Liverpool—which aren’t so very far from Dunton—don’t have a single borough in Parliament even though they have large populations.”
“While some boroughs are inhabited only by sheep!”
“We must work to change that.”
We? It was almost as if he knew of her essays, knew she was determined to work to bring about change. She felt wretchedly guilty for concealing her alter ego from the man she had married.
“In Parliament,” he added.
She squeezed his hand, surprising herself. “I know I’m just a woman and incapable of influencing political thought, but I appreciate that you do not find me a muttonhead, that you’re willing to discuss these matters with me as you would with a man.”
He turned to her, their eyes locking. Her heart began to beat unaccountably fast. “And I appreciate that you are not a muttonhead,” he said.
She giggled. “I’m trying to determine if you just complimented me.”
His rakish smile returned. “I complimented you, Lady Aynsley.”
She scowled.
“Forgive me. I should have called you Rebecca.”
“Indeed you should have, John, but I forgive you because you are a beacon of light in the dimness that is the House of Lords.” It suddenly occurred to her that marrying a peer came with an unexpected bonus. Her husband, as a member of the House of Lords, was in a position to actually work toward progressive changes.
She wondered if in the years which stretched ahead of them he would come to seek her counsel. Would he ever solicit her opinion? This marriage business was beginning to sound promising—certainly much preferable to being the peculiar spinster residing in the home of the staid Tory statesman Lord Warwick.
“Are there any peers in the Lords who could be persuaded to our way of thinking?” she asked.
“Let me put it this way. There are many who I think could be swayed.”
“I do hope you can start gathering support for the overhaul of the elective system.”
He looked at her with flashing eyes and a wicked smile. “You do, do you?”
She offered a lame nod. “I would be willing to do anything in my power to assist you.” What an impotent offer! As if there was something a twenty-eight-year-old female bluestocking laughingstock could do. How she wished she could tell him she was P. Corpus and would use her pen to enlighten the masses. Despite that she and her new husband shared so many progressive views, she did not know him well enough to admit her authorship. What if he forbade her to ever write again? She was now obliged to obey her husband. To give up her writi
ng would be to nullify her entire reason for marrying him! Admitting her authorship was too great a risk.
“I shall take that under advisement,” he said.
“Your statement about the hierarchy of implementation of reforms brings to mind a most interesting essay I read. It was written by P. Corpus. I hope you are in agreement with his ideas, for he seems to me to be a very wise man.” Her pulse accelerated as she gazed up at him, fearing he would not agree.
“For an idealist, but he lacks pragmatism.”
“All visionaries lack pragmatism. That can only come with the universal acceptance of their ideas.”
“A most mature observation,” he said.
Under her husband’s praise she soared like a phoenix. “I’m rather interested in political reform.”
“To which of Mr. Corpus’s essays do you refer?” her husband asked.
“The one about classification of crimes.”
“Oh, yes, where he proposes that punishment should suit the crime. Lesser punishments for lesser offenses.”
“That’s the one. His idea is so simple, one wonders why no one else thought of it sooner.”
He did not say anything for a moment. If he maligned P. Corpus she would...well, she didn’t know what she would do, but it would make her decidedly angry.
“I much admire the man’s writing,” he finally said.
For which she was exceedingly grateful.
Until quite late that night they rode on, munching from the basket his cook had prepared, and they never lacked for a topic to discuss. They spoke of labor unions, the Corn Laws, the stodgy lords who controlled Parliament, and were in complete agreement on P. Corpus’s
plan for penal reform.
A few hours after dark, the coach rolled into the inn yard in Milton Keynes. This had been the most exciting day of her life—not because it was her wedding day but because she had found a man she had not thought could exist.
* * *
A light mist was falling. Aynsley did not wish to expose his wife to the damp until they were assured of procuring rooms. “I shall require a private parlor for dinner as well as rooms for myself and Lady Aynsley for the night,” he told the coachman when that servant threw open the carriage door.
