Bronwyn sent the boat back toward Daisy. “What is your favorite flower?”
“A daisy, of course. What’s yours?”
“I don’t know. I like delphiniums because Grandmama says they are the color of Grandpapa’s eyes. I like honeysuckle because it’s sweet.”
“I thought it only smelled good.”
The boat was sinking lower and lower. “We should make our next boat out of sticks. Paper boats don’t work very well. When the honeysuckle blooms, I’ll show you how to get the nectar from it. We can pretend we’re bees.”
The tulip now floated on the surface of the water without benefit of a boat. “By the time the honeysuckle blooms, I might be sent away.”
What was the point of making a new friend if she was just going to be sent away? “Have you been bad?”
“Yes, but the earl says I’m making progress.”
Bronwyn rose and dusted off her pinafore. “If you’re making progress, he shouldn’t send you away. That’s not fair.”
Daisy popped to her feet. “I’ll tell you what’s not fair, making us wear white pinafores then sending us outside to play. A brown pinafore would be better for the garden.”
“Or green. Have you climbed that tree yet?” A big maple grew next to the garden wall, and a bench sat beneath it. “We could climb from the bench to the wall to the tree.”
“Is it bad to climb on things like that?”
“Daisy, we’re supposed to be playing. Climbing a tree is playing, and then we can pretend the tree is our pirate ship, or our long boat, or our royal barge.”
“One of the nursery maids is named Sykes. She says if I’m bad, I’ll be sent away.”
“I didn’t have a nursery maid until Mama married Papa. Heavers is jolly and stout and loves me and my sister the best.”
Bronwyn climbed the bench and scrambled onto the wall and into the tree while Daisy stood below, casting glances at the house.
“Come on, Daisy. Unless you want to be in charge of the hold on the royal barge. Even a royal barge probably has rats in the hold. You could be the Royal Ratter and use a great stick to beat all the imaginary rats.”
Daisy stood on the bench. “I don’t understand something. If your papa wasn’t your papa from the day you were born, then how is he your papa?”
“Because he loves me and he loves my mama, and he’s the only papa I know.”
Daisy was an awkward climber, but she made it up onto the wall and sat, her feet kicking against the stones.
“So you can get another papa after your first one dies?”
At this rate, Daisy would never be fit for duty in the crow’s nest. Bronwyn plopped down beside her. “Yes, if he loves you and you love him. I expect you can get another mama too.”
“I don’t want another mama.”
“Neither do I. I don’t want you to be sent away either.”
They pondered that possibility in silence. Bronwyn suspected if they talked it over, Daisy might begin to cry. Daisy cried a lot, which made sense. If Bronwyn had lost both of her parents, she’d cry forever.
“Do you know how you are called Daisy, even though your name is Amy Marguerite?” Bronwyn asked, getting to her feet.
Daisy managed to get herself to a standing position on the wall. “Yes, and my other name is Samantha.”
“Well, my family calls me Winnie, from Bronwyn. You can call me Winnie too. I’ll be Captain Winnie, and you can be First Mate Daisy. Let’s go up to the poop deck and look for pirates.”
“I thought we were the pirates.”
“We’ll be in Lord Nelson’s fleet for now. They got to win all the battles.”
“Lord Nelson was killed in one of those battles.”
Bronwyn swung up into the maple, which was at the lovely, soft stage of growing new leaves. “Everybody dies, Daisy, and then we go to heaven. You can’t worry about that. Lord Nelson got to be a hero because he died fighting for King George. Are you coming?”
Daisy took a moment to choose her route into the tree—she had probably been cautious even before her parents had died—and then she followed Bronwyn into the hold of their seventy-four gunner.
Bronwyn grabbed a sturdy branch and began to climb. “Why do you suppose they called it the poop deck? Why not the pee deck, or the manure deck?”
Daisy started to giggle, and the branch she hung on to shook with her laughter, and that made Bronwyn laugh, and they decided they’d name their ship the HMS Poop Deck.
* * *
Uncle Walter sat at the end of the breakfast table, a cup of coffee in one hand, the financial pages in the other. He was a lean, white-haired gentleman with twinkling blue eyes and a black heart.
Lily stirred a lump of sugar into her tea and waited, for if she’d learned nothing else in the past ten years, she’d learned to deal with Uncle carefully.
He finished his coffee and set the cup on its saucer. “So what have you planned for this glorious spring day, dearest niece?”
He kept despotic control of her social schedule, and when he wasn’t dictating to her outright, he was spying on her through the servants or Oscar.
“I was hoping for some time to speak with you, Uncle. I’ve encountered an unforeseen challenge.”
He poured himself more coffee, the acrid scent reaching Lily, though she sat eight feet down the table. “You excel at dealing with challenges. I’ve every confidence you’ll manage this one, whatever it might be.”
“My challenge is the Earl of Grampion.” And his tender, passionate kisses. His devotion to an orphan, his relentless decency. Lily was capable of admiring men, even of liking them—she liked the Earl of Rosecroft—but Grampion had the power to destroy her.
“He’s a challenge to many,” Uncle said, heaping sugar into his coffee. “He’s about as warm as a Methodist spinster in her shroud. All the charm in that family went to the wealthy younger brother, and he’s my objective. Pass the milk.”
Lily brought her uncle the milk. The command was a reminder: Do as I say. Do everything just as I say.
“I knew you were acquainted with the previous earl, Uncle. I did not realize that he’d brought his heir to Town with him years ago.”
Uncle poured a dollop of milk into his coffee, then another. “And how did you come across that revelation?”
“As a girl, the Lily Ferguson whom Grampion knew detested bugs. I made the mistake of taking an interest in butterflies.”
The milk pitcher was a porcelain rendition of a Greek urn in miniature, wreathed in a gold, pink, and green garland of glazed roses. The parlor was snug thanks to a blazing fire, and the sideboard held fluffy eggs, golden toast, jam, butter, and scones—a veritable feast.
Lily had sold her soul for this feast, and for many others like it.
“I do recall the previous earl dragging his sons around Town on one or two occasions. I first met the heir hacking in the park, as I recall, or possibly at some fencing exhibition. Grampion was a dull boy, never said much, not the sort to cause his pater difficulties. You’ll manage him.”
“Then I have your permission to cut him?” For this was Lily’s technique of last resort. Anybody who might have known “Lily Ferguson as a girl” was shown either impatient indifference or—how she hated what her life had become—frigid stares.
She dwelled on a double-sided precipice. On one side were accusations of extreme eccentricity, on the other was the dangerous truth.
Uncle folded the newspaper and laid it on the table so he could sip coffee and read at the same time.
“You may not cut him, you daft girl. Remind him that you took a bad fall while at that expensive finishing school in Switzerland, and thus many of your earliest memories are hazy. God knows, most of mine are. Pass the butter.”
Once again, Lily rose and complied. “I can dis-remember all day long, Uncle, and have on many occasions, but Grampion notices details. In some small particular, I might falter, and then he’ll ask questions.”
Uncle studied her over the top of his cup of co
ffee. He threatened gently, he managed invisibly, he insinuated and implied until Lily dared not thwart him. To anybody else, he was a doting relation who’d generously taken in an orphaned niece and showered her with every advantage.
To Lily, he was the devil’s man of business, though he’d never raised a hand to her, never even raised his voice to her.
“You have managed well all these years, Lily. I forget to tell you that, but considering your antecedents—perhaps because of them—you have taken excellent advantage of the opportunities before you. I do appreciate it. Nonetheless, I plan to coax Sir Worth Kettering into inviting me to join him in a particularly lucrative investment scheme, and thus his brother’s favor matters. Deal cordially with Grampion, and we’ll all benefit.”
All meant Uncle and Oscar, though Lily benefitted as well. She was alive, wasn’t she?
“And if his lordship should become curious, or note some inconsistency between the Lily he knew and the Lily I am now?”
Uncle beamed at her. “You are a clever young lady, and your active mind will appeal to a dry stick like Grampion. Why else do you think I put you in his path? I’m not suggesting you engage in outright folly, but a lonely bachelor and a difficult spinster have common ground while passing a Season in London. You do so love children, and Grampion is clearly unprepared to raise a child.”
Damn Uncle to the Pit. “I am better able to serve your ends if I know what they are, sir. Grampion hasn’t taken a liking to me, but the girl—Amy Marguerite—has.”
As much as Lily hated to lie, she did not trust Uncle except to operate consistently in his own self-interest. If Uncle believed Lily and Grampion enjoyed each other’s company, then he’d use that to his advantage.
“The girl likes you,” Uncle said, turning the newspaper over, “in a matter of days, you’ve recruited the poor little mite a playmate and brought along your countess friend for a social call on the earl’s household. Neatly done, Lily. If I know you, there’s another outing of the same nature planned. You’ll take the children on a picnic in the park and do doting-auntie things with them. Grampion will be relieved and charmed, and Worth Kettering will look with favor upon my household. All comes right if you do your part.”
No, all did not come right. All unrolled in a progression of years where Lily was told what to wear, with whom to waltz, when to plead a headache, and when to ruin a young man of whom Uncle disapproved.
“I’m taking Bronwyn to visit Amy Marguerite on Monday,” Lily said. “I cannot promise to earn anybody’s favor for you, Uncle, but I will do my best.”
“You always do, dearest niece. I so admire that about you.”
He went back to the mistress who’d held him in thrall since Lily had first met him—the financial pages—while Lily sipped tea and waited for her stomach to settle.
It never did, not entirely. Fear circled her life like a raptor. When she couldn’t spot its shadow on the path before her, she knew it would reappear at the worst moment and threaten every kind of safety a woman held dear.
“I’m off to pay a call on Tippy,” Lily said. “She might remember some details of Grampion’s boyhood visits to London.”
“The very recollections I pay her for. I’m told Grampion likes to hack out on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. The usual predawn lunacy in Hyde Park. Never saw much sense in it, myself.”
“The fresh air is invigorating, and the horses are happier for stretching their legs.”
Lily had given the right answer, the answer that assured Uncle she’d drag herself out of bed at the ungodly hour preferred by London gentlemen for their morning rides. She’d drag herself to whatever balls, routs, Venetian breakfasts, soirees, musicales, and at-homes Uncle put on her schedule. She’d drag herself to the card parties and charity auctions too.
He’d never asked her to compromise her virtue, never asked her to do more than relay gossip word for word, and yet Uncle was her gaoler as surely as if he chained her to the cart’s tail and whipped her through London daily.
Next month, on her twenty-eighth birthday, Lily would gain nominal control of an inherited fortune. Uncle would doubtless continue to manage all of the money and most of Lily’s time.
If she remained under his roof.
With no money in hand, few friends, and a history of felony wrongdoing, Lily’s escape would present many challenges.
She’d faced many challenges and survived. Spending time with Grampion was simply one more torment added to a list that was as long as Lily’s memory, and as near as her own name.
Chapter Six
* * *
Hessian left the library door ajar, not to let the spring breezes waft through his house, but because with the door open, he could hear activity in the foyer and thus avoid an ambush if callers disrupted his day. In Cumberland, one visited back and forth with the neighbors, and that was all very pleasant, but in London, socializing was a more portentous undertaking.
Politicians’ wives held dinner parties that decided every bit as much legislation as did parliamentary committee meetings.
A conversation over cards might put a complicated investment scheme in motion.
Ladies sharing a cabriolet for the Fashionable Hour could plan a match between their grown children.
If Worth came sauntering by, or one of Jacaranda’s host of brothers dropped around, Hessian wanted even the few minutes’ notice that he gained by leaving the library door open.
Monday arrived, and well before the appointed hour for Lily Ferguson’s visit, somebody gave the front door knocker a stout rap. Hessian rose from his desk and donned his jacket. Perhaps the lady was as eager as the children—and Hessian—for this call to begin.
“When last Miss Ferguson called, I did not quite make a cake of myself,” he informed his reflection in the mirror over the library’s sideboard. “Neither did I inspire the lady into rapturous enthusiasms.”
Butterflies were shy creatures and so were certain northern earls. Hessian was rehearsing a gracious smile—charming was beyond him—when a feminine voice came from the direction of the foyer.
Not Miss Ferguson. Whoever had presumed on Hessian’s morning was unknown to him and lacked Lily’s gracious, ladylike tone. Hessian was back at his desk—for he’d got halfway across the room at the tap of the knocker—no smile in evidence, when the butler brought in a card on a silver tray.
“Mrs. Braithwaite has come to call, with her companion Miss Smythe.” Hochman’s tone—utterly correct—suggested the caller hadn’t impressed him.
Hessian took the card, plain black script on vellum. Daisy’s aunt… Drat the luck. “Show the ladies to the guest parlor and let the kitchen know we’ll need a tea tray, please.”
“Very good, my lord. Should I notify the nursery as well?”
God, no. “No, thank you. If anybody asks, the child is resting from a trying weekend.” Daisy had tried the patience of every member of the household, waking three times each night in some peculiar state of somnolent terror.
“Let’s use the good silver, Hochman, and if Miss Ferguson arrives while I’m entertaining Mrs. Braithwaite, please put the library to use. Miss Ferguson might entertain herself and the children by reading them a story on the mezzanine.”
“I understand, my lord.” Hochman bowed and withdrew, the silver tray winking in his gloved hand.
Mrs. Braithwaite was much as Hessian recalled her. Her figure was fuller and her use of henna more in evidence. She was handsome rather than pretty, and her gray walking dress sported a dizzying abundance of lace.
Mourning garb, this was not.
At her side was a lovely, willowy blonde in sprigged muslin, one of those pale, quiet creatures who belonged in some enchanted forest with a book of spells rather than swilling tea in Mayfair.
When the bowing and curtseying had been dispensed with, Hessian led the ladies to the formal parlor and ploughed onward to the civilities.
“Mrs. Braithwaite, please accept my sincere condolences on the loss
of your sister. Lady Evers was much loved by all the neighbors, and we will miss her dearly.”
Had Hessian loved Belinda, Lady Evers? He’d made love with her on three slightly awkward, mostly forgettable occasions. She’d affectionately pronounced him a failure at dalliance—which he absolutely had been—but he’d liked her and had never questioned her devotion to her children.
“You are so kind to say so, my lord,” Mrs. Braithwaite replied. “I know Belinda could be headstrong, which often happens when a pretty child is overindulged. She was fortunate to find an older husband, because mature men can be so tolerant. This is a lovely town house.”
One did not speak ill of the dead, and yet, Mrs. Braithwaite had just called her own departed sister headstrong and spoiled.
“My brother found this property for me,” Hessian said. “I’m quite comfortable here.” He had been quite comfortable here, before Daisy had arrived.
“So much room for one man,” Mrs. Braithwaite said, taking a seat on the sofa. “Though I adore French silk on the walls. So elegant, but not the least fussy.”
Hessian was not prepared to discourse on the topic of French silk wallpaper—if that’s what it was. “The premises are near my brother’s residence and allow me to entertain modestly. I do hope the weather continues mild.”
He also hoped Mrs. Braithwaite had no plans to overstay the thirty minutes prescribed for most social calls. Miss Smythe had settled beside her on the sofa, so Hessian allowed himself to take a wing chair.
“We can never be certain about the weather,” Mrs. Braithwaite replied, “and I came here to discuss with you another topic entirely. I’m told my dearest niece Amy Marguerite is in your keeping.”
Oh, that was subtle, but then, Hessian preferred honesty to innuendo if the lady was intent on verbal pugilism.
“Lord and Lady Evers did me the honor of appointing me guardian of their children,” Hessian said. “Had I known you bided in Town, I would have paid a call on you in due course to appraise you of that fact.”
Whatever due course was.
Mrs. Braithwaite pulled off her gloves and laid them on the low table before the sofa. “My lord, I’m sure you did mean to pay me that courtesy, but my concern for the child will not allow me to wait upon your convenience. Her brothers will bide mostly at school, I’m sure, but she is the youngest and the only girl. I must know when you will allow her to join my household.”
His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen Book 4) Page 7
