by Vanessa Gray
And yet, she had no troubles to speak of. She was possessed of a house, Highmoor, and she could remove there at any time. But she feared loneliness more than she feared her present unhappiness. “Shall we go back?” she said. They strolled back to the picnic site, and Chloe wished she had an appetite for the fare. There was cold chicken, rolled in a special herb-flavored batter of Cook’s own concoction. There were peaches and grapes, and wine. There was ratafia for Chloe and Sophy and Lydia.
Sophy cried out, “I am sharp-set! That fresh air has certainly given me an appetite.”
After everyone was full, Lydia watched the gentlemen drinking wine, “Please, I’d like to taste it. Francis, pour a little out for me. Here’s my glass.”
Francis, recoiling in indignation, refused. “You’re far too young for wine. It’s not the thing.”
Lydia pouted, “I am grown up enough for that. Everybody treats me like a child.”
Edward, tearing himself away from a discussion with Richard, was shocked. “Lydia! What are you thinking of? Even Chloe doesn’t drink wine!”
Francis contented himself with one remark, “Unseemly!”
Lydia gave every sign of imminent tears. Sophy, watching her out of the corner of her eye, hid a malicious smile. Lydia appealed to the arbiter of elegance. “Sir Richard,” she cried, “tell them that I’m old enough to drink wine. You think I am, don’t you?”
All eyes were on Richard. Any man of sense would have agreed with the other men, so thought Edward. But to his great surprise and startled disapproval, Richard said, “Yes, I think you are old enough. This is port, and you will probably like the taste of it. It’s quite sweet.”
In a stunned silence, Lydia reached her glass out. No hand moved to the wine bottle. Richard finally lifted the bottle by the neck. Then, he added, with a deceptive air of casualness, “Many women in London choose to drink lemon squash, for instance, or ratafia. But you are old enough to know what pleases you.” Pouring wine slowly from the bottle, he added, “I know of one young lady who was turned down by Almack’s because Lady Jersey had seen her drinking wine. It wasn’t even port, which of course is more ineligible.”
Lydia cried, unbelieving, “And they snubbed her for that?”
Richard said, “I agree it is totally unreasonable. But there it is. The poor girl left London the next week, for without a voucher at Almack’s nobody invited her anywhere.”
Lydia’s glass was half full. And Richard was pouring even more slowly. She gave a long, shuddering sigh and said finally, “I don’t think I want any after all.”
It had been a near thing, thought Sir Richard, conscious of great relief. He had half expected the girl to drink the wine in sheer defiance of her brother. But Lydia, having a modicum of sense, had come down on the right side and Richard’s reputation was saved.
As though by accident, he glanced at Chloe and caught her eye. He saw, to his satisfaction, glowing approval in her glance. Her gray eyes spoke warmly to him, and he felt cheered by her approval.
Her earlier mood was banished, and he decided not to ask any more about the cause of it.
The day wore to an end, and the party returned to Rothwell Manor. Richard left them at the gates of his own estate. They were weary, after a day in the open air. Francis, especially, had been overtaken by lassitude, and begged a place in the coach. Silence fell upon them. Each was wrapped in thought, and basked in the mild air of contentment.
Lydia, half asleep, had visions of Sir Richard watching over her when she went to London, even Sir Richard at her feet imploring her to have Mercy on him.
Edward, finding his thoughts clear after a discussion with Richard about sheep, knew what he would say to his factor. The culls would go, and Edward would purchase the new stock to upgrade his flock. It was a hard decision, but Sir Richard’s thoughts on the subject were well taken, and Edward was gratified.
Sophy was wondering, with an eye to her own good, whether Edward’s mood was genial enough to mention again the journey that she wished to take with Emma Partridge.
Francis, quite simply, was sound asleep and snoring.
Chloe’s thoughts were jumbled. She tried to put Sir Richard out of her mind, for she knew the trap that lay there when Richard would bring his bride home to the Hall. She had no intention of falling so deeply in love with him that she would be miserable the rest of her life, but now, every time she closed her eyes, she could see his features. His nose was strong, his jaw was firm and would have given rise to speculation that he was a hard man to deal with had it not been for his sweet smile — the smile that could turn her heart over — and his kind, laughing eyes. It was no use. She could not banish Richard from her mind, nor in the long run did she want to.
They turned into the drive and the wheels crunched on the gravel. They rode up to the front entrance, past the stable wall. Edward, his proprietary glance noticing everything about his domain, jolted them all awake. He cried out, “Whose phaeton is that in the stable yard?”
11
The seat of a high-perch phaeton was visible, rising above the wall.
Edward said, wondering, “Nobody in this neighborhood has one. I myself consider them totally unsuitable for country driving.”
Francis, at last aroused by the confusion around him, took one glance at it, and mumbled, “Good God! Did I wake up in Hyde Park?”
Lydia, predictably, was much pleased. She cried out, “Look at all the visitors we’ve had! More than in the whole past year put together.” She reached out to touch Chloe’s hand. “It’s all thanks to you and your legacy!”
Chloe managed to say, “Nonsense.” Lydia bounced a little on the seat and said, “This is only the beginning of how it will be, Chloe, when you take your house in town.” Edward was too far away to hear Lydia’s remarks, but Chloe thought, with a sinking heart, I do not look forward to London!
Her own stay in London was far too vivid in her mind for her to remember it with pleasure. She had been there only briefly, but no matter how kind Lady Rothwell’s sister, Mrs. Hensley, had been, Chloe herself was not pretty enough, nor well enough dowered, to cut much of a swathe. She was shy, and did not show well in company, and although the circumstance of her recall — her father’s sudden death — was overwhelmingly sad, yet she was conscious of a small amount of relief. She knew she would not “take.”
She still bore the scars of what she had fancied as rejection. She did not know that her own charm was sufficient, after one grew acquainted with it, to bring her friends who, while not numerous, would yet be appreciative and steady. She had only the recollection of rejection, and here in her own home, with her own family around her, she felt secure. The legacy that had come to her, while gratifying, yet was unsettling.
No matter what Lydia hoped, Chloe herself would not enjoy the whirl of a London Season five years late. Chloe had a fearful feeling, akin, if she only knew it, to one who hears the distant roar of a cataract downstream.
She was not left in peace to dwell on her sinking feeling about London, for Lydia was climbing over her, the better to see the fashionable rig in the stable yard before the carriage moved on to the front door. Edward, troubled in his own way, said, “A man’s a fool to trust himself to the roads in that!”
Once within doors, they found that Lady Rothwell was entertaining the owner of the vehicle. If Chloe had been troubled before, at the sight of the visitor her heart sank to her toes. She remembered him, without pleasure, from a party in London where she had been on the sidelines and Thaddeus Invers had given her one glance and then forgotten her. Chloe, puzzled, wondered why he had wandered so far from London. Lady Rothwell, glaring at her guest in a most uncivilized way, seemed to share Chloe’s doubts. But Edward, and Francis as well, recognized the purpose that shone from their visitor’s eyes when he caught sight of Chloe.
They had apparently interrupted the newcomer in a recitation of his genealogical attributes. Long known as one of the most voluble of the men one might chance to meet in London, h
e was now demonstrating the accuracy of his reputation.
He was well connected, and possessed of a competence. Clearly he was not a man of conservative tastes, as demonstrated by the high-perch phaeton outside, and one might well question his common sense. To ride in a vehicle of such extreme design from London into Kent was not only uncomfortable but perilous.
For his part, Thaddeus Invers was in Kent only from necessity. His family wished for him to marry. There were no immediate heirs to his uncle’s title, and his own branch of the family was anxious to succeed to the honor. Invers, to do him credit, was possessed of no such ambition, but he was easily swayed, being not of strong will but of a certain shrewdness. His bent was intellectual, but his mind was more mirror than wellspring, reflecting current thought.
He had been on the London scene for some years, and by now had worn out or been refused all avenues of eligible marriage. The news was now beginning to circulate among London salons about an heiress in Kent. Thaddeus, recognizing the desperation of his family and knowing that duty called him, had come down to investigate.
Being essentially a bore, Thaddeus had developed a thick shell of insensitivity that was his sole protection. He took delight in knowing people and dropping their names casually into the most trivial conversation. It was by dint of his imperviousness to insult that he was able to say with all the accuracy of an eyewitness, that the Prince Regent — for example — was fond of a certain gold brocade waistcoat.
In many circles this kind of hobnobbing with the elite gave him entry, and a certain welcome. However, Lady Rothwell, seeing in him a rival for the claims of her nephew Francis, was less than cordial.
He turned toward the newcomers with a look of great relief. Edward, however, disappointed him, for his welcome was no warmer than his mother’s. Thaddeus crossed quickly to Chloe and bowed over her hand. He murmured that he remembered her well from the occasions when he had seen her before, and Chloe barely restrained an exclamation of “Fustian!”
He was passing through on his way to Brighton following the Prince Regent, for Prinny had expressly summoned him to attend him — so he said.
The attitude of his hearers gave no sign that they believed him. He waited hopefully for an invitation to dinner. Since none was forthcoming and he had sufficient perception to realize that they were all exhausted, their cheeks unbecomingly flushed with their exposure to the fresh air, he took his leave. He lingered again over Chloe’s hand, and left gracefully.
Edward said, “I suppose he can’t help it.”
It was a cryptic remark, but Chloe, who had caught Thaddeus’s words as he bent over her hand just before he left, was not so sure. He had told Chloe, with assurance, that he would call on her tomorrow. She was distressed, and said, “Oh, pray” and could not finish.
He was convinced of his own tact and acceptability, and took her reluctance to be merely maidenly embarrassment. She was merely playing coy, and he rather liked that in a woman.
By the next day, Rothwell Manor was a-buzz with speculation about Miss Rothwell’s legacy. Although it had been rumored, there was little said about it after the first surprise. But now the unexpected advent of suitors for her hand and fortune let down the barriers and the servants’ hall was rife with speculation.
Cook said, flatly, “There isn’t a one of them that’s good enough for Miss Chloe. Why, I could tell you of the times that she has gone out of her way to be kind to us all, and I say there isn’t another mistress like her in the world.”
Cook’s husband, Field the butler, automatically taking the opposite view from his wife, said, “She’ll be happier with young Hensley, for he dotes on her. I can’t say the same about the others.”
Cook snorted. “I suppose you know all there is to know about it, Mr. Field,” she exclaimed. “Now what I think is —”
What Cook thought was that Miss should go to her own new home and get away from this family. For they were all leeches, according to Cook, whose recollection of Chloe’s kind hand when she was ill was still vivid. Bess, Chloe’s maid, declared at length her own wish to go with her mistress when she went to Highmoor. But outside the door of the servants’ dining room, two of the footmen were surreptitiously gambling on which of the three suitors would win out.
The gambling fever, no less strong in Rothwell Manor than it was at certain well-known gambling haunts in London, spread from the servants at Rothwell Manor, seeking a wider scope, to the Davenant Hall staff.
Richard, quite by accident, learned of the wagers. His butler, not knowing that Richard had entered the hall, was chastising the footmen for gambling on such an event. Richard moved into the morning room, and Dall served him with his breakfast. Richard passed a remark or two about the weather and then, without changing the tone of his voice, said, “What is it the men are gambling on?”
The butler said, “I am sorry it came to your notice, Sir Richard, for I should keep a firmer hand on the footmen. They are just boys, and need to be taught a great deal.”
Richard said, “I quite agree. But what was the subject?” Dall did not answer at once, and Sir Richard raised an inquiring eyebrow. The butler, having known Sir Richard since he was a boy, recognized that this was no time to evade the truth.
In halting words, he apprised his master of the question, “Which of Miss Rothwell’s three suitors had the inside track?”
Richard, conscious of an anger that was suddenly on the boil, said, “Three suitors?”
It was thus that he learned of Thaddeus Invers’ arrival.
The butler had expected Sir Richard to be irritated by the gambling. But Sir Richard was nearly white with anger. There was a telltale flicker of the muscle of his jaw, and the butler’s heart sank. He knew Sir Richard in this mood, and he wished with all his heart to be elsewhere, instantly. But to his gratification the moment was gone, and Sir Richard smiled again somewhat easily. The butler, thus encouraged, and not averse to picking up some inside information, allowed himself to probe delicately, seeking Sir Richard’s opinion as gently as one’s tongue explores the vicinity of a sore tooth. His own information was that Hensley and Stoddard had not much to recommend them, but Invers was considered quite certainly a dark horse.
Richard, dismissing Dall without real information, gave himself over to reverie. He had much to think about. Apparently the matter was getting more serious than he thought. He had been able to dismiss that idiot Hensley, for no woman in her right mind would marry him. Julian Stoddard, a gambler himself, was merely testing the throw of the dice. Richard could not believe that Stoddard was at bottom serious about offering to marry Chloe. But Thaddeus Invers — that was another question entirely.
He reviewed mentally what he knew about Thaddeus Invers — a snob, a shallow intellectual, very fond of his own voice, and altogether a lightweight. Some people called him, behind his back, and mockingly, a Puritan preacher. They did not know how close they came to the mark.
Richard knew what most people did not know — that Invers was a son of a Puritan divine and was ashamed of it. He was well connected, and his connection with his uncle’s family was genuine. The uncle, a very minor baronet, did not recognize all members of his family, and his cousin, who had married a clergyman, and not Church of England at that, had been cast out of his life. But still the Puritan preacher, his wife, and their thirteen children clung to the relationship, a one-sided affair.
Thaddeus, coming to London to make his fortune, was at once made aware that chapelgoers, as his father was, were not accepted in the best society. But it was clear to Richard and to the few who knew his family that Thaddeus Invers came rightly by his ardent wish to impart information to all and sundry. Richard thought, Once again, heredity tells.
But to think of his Chloe subjected to this kind of rampant fortune hunting — Hensley and Stoddard and especially this newcomer, Invers — caused Richard’s indignation to simmer and then to boil.
This kind of footling procrastination could not be allowed to continue. If C
hloe’s half-brother could not scatter the suitors, then he himself would. He was reminded strongly of Homer’s tale of Penelope and the suitors who importuned her while waiting for Ulysses to return. Richard himself was no Ulysses, he thanked the Creator, but he could scatter suitors.
He dressed with great care, purposely avoiding any dandyish aspect, for he would not compete with Stoddard. Dressed in buckskins suitable for the country, he set out from his front door and headed toward Rothwell Manor. He was cheerful, for he had yesterday felt that he and Chloe understood each other. She had smiled on him then, and he was encouraged. He thought that, when she had held off that first day, telling him she considered him only her Great Friend — she must have been impulsive. Now, on further acquaintance, he was convinced that she regarded him with more than ordinary kindness.
At the Manor, he found Chloe beset, not by suitors, as he half expected, but by a family row. It was not the first row that Richard had been privileged to see, but he devoutly hoped it would be the last.
Hardly conscious of his arrival, Lydia and her mother were talking to Chloe. Lydia and her mother for once were on good terms, with a common goal. They were seeking Chloe’s support, now backed by her inheritance, against Edward.
Edward’s face was becoming alarmingly red, and Richard wondered if there was a tendency to apoplexy in the family. Edward’s father had died suddenly, but Richard, not at home at the time, could not remember the cause.
“Chloe,” said Lady Rothwell, “it is a simple thing. I wish to give a dinner and ball for all our friends and neighbors. It is an entertainment long overdue, and I feel that the time has come to go out in society a bit more.”
Chloe, looking beset, said, “It is not my decision to make. It is yours, Mama, and Edward’s.”
Lydia said, “Well, you can say you’re in favor of it, can’t you?”
Lady Rothwell said, “Of course, Chloe, you must say what you think.”
Her attitude gave rise to little doubt that Chloe’s opinion was to be in favor of the ball.
