Now Grampion was back on his feet. “Lady Evers.”
Was he embarrassed by that slip? Neighbors of long standing grew familiar with each other, particularly in the remote countryside, and yet, Grampion looked uncomfortable.
“You cared for Lady Evers.”
“Yes. Perhaps more than I ought, but when my wife died, Lady Evers took an interest in my welfare. She did not allow me to brood, at which I excel, particularly in winter.” He tugged a bell-pull twice. “I suspect she had an agenda where I was concerned, but I was too grateful for her concern to take much notice of it.”
Lily had no idea what he was going on about, but now she was compelled by manners to share a damned tea tray with him.
“You should order the coach brought around, my lord.”
“When we’ve had our tea. I’m not in the habit of lengthy conversations and must fortify myself accordingly. Are you often burdened with the confidence of others?”
When Uncle Walter told Lily to elicit confidences, she did her best to accomplish that goal. “Sometimes. Young men tend to see me as safe, because Uncle won’t allow them to develop presumptions. I’m not above their touch, but the family fortune means I’m beyond reach all the same. Most young ladies see me as plain and elderly, which makes my fortune less of an injustice in their eyes.”
“If you are elderly, what am I—a fossil? I cannot call to mind any more ridiculous, irrational, tedious organization of creatures than polite society. What do you suppose the girls are up to?”
“Likely delivering old Boney a drubbing.” Lily’s composure was certainly taking a drubbing.
Rapid footsteps thundered overhead.
“The French are doubtless retreating,” Grampion said as a footman brought in a tray. The service was porcelain and pretty. “Will you pour out, Miss Ferguson?”
Lily wanted to leave, not deal with the tedium of the tea tray. And yet, Uncle had told her to curry Grampion’s favor.
“I’m happy to serve,” Lily said, which was half-true. “How goes the wife-hunting, my lord?”
“Wife-hunting?” He sat as well, while overhead, the British gave such enthusiastic chase that the chandelier swayed and bounced. “Oh yes… the infernal countess hunt. No progress, alas. I suppose if I were engaged, Mrs. Braithwaite might be more easily subdued. Scheming women tend to hover like midges until they’ve accomplished their ends.”
Lily nearly dropped the teapot. “You’ve dealt with many women bent on intrigue?”
“My late wife dissembled her way into marriage, but that’s a tale for another time. I’ll take mine plain.”
Lily passed him a full cup. “One woman does not represent the entire gender.” Though one duplicitous wife would be hard to forget.
Grampion waited until Lily had fixed her own tea before he took a sip. The blend was aromatic and rich and the comfort lovely. She troubled Uncle Walter’s staff as little as possible, because every one of them answered to him, reporting when Lily rose, when she dined, where she shopped, and with whom she danced.
“My wife was quite young, and I was an idiot,” Grampion said. “In the end, we both had much to regret. I don’t intend to let Mrs. Braithwaite impose any regrets on me.”
“For Daisy’s sake, I’m relieved to hear it.” Also for his.
“I’ve no doubt that Daisy’s aunt merely wants my money. A woman intent on her own material security knows few scruples.”
Sometimes, she knew no scruples at all. “Another lesson learned from your lady wife?”
Grampion held up the tray of cakes. “Yes, but as you say, that’s no excuse for impugning a whole gender. I am in the company of a woman who neither deceives nor manipulates, and she takes a kindly interest in Daisy without having any ulterior motive at all. Have as many cakes as you please. The children are not on hand to supervise us, and I’ll eat whatever you leave on the plate.”
Lily took two cakes.
Grampion aimed a look at her. His expression was utterly serious, his blue eyes were dancing.
She took two more.
Chapter Seven
* * *
Hessian saw his guests to the door, and while the little girls were whispering and giggling like free traders who’d liberally partaken of contraband spirits, Hessian kissed Miss Ferguson’s cheek. He awarded himself this boon for having been a cordial host who never once raised the topic of clandestine embraces or passionate interludes.
“I’ll come by for you on Wednesday at eleven,” he murmured.
Both children left off conspiring to stare at him.
“You needn’t come by,” Miss Ferguson said. “I’ll collect Bronwyn, and we can meet you at the foot of the Serpentine. My companion can wait for us in the coach.”
For a woman whose kisses embodied reckless abandon, Miss Ferguson certainly seemed concerned with propriety.
“That will suit. My thanks for calling on us today.”
“Mine too,” Daisy said. “On Wednesday, we can have a sea battle.”
“On Wednesday, we will have a decorous stroll in the park,” Hessian said. “Ladies, good day.”
Miss Ferguson and her charge departed, whereupon Daisy darted to the window of the parlor. Much waving and smiling ensued, while Hessian considered options and smiled a bit as well.
“We’re going out, Daisy.”
She turned from the window. “Out?”
“To pay a call on my brother. Worth is forever dropping in on me unannounced. It’s time to return fire.”
“Like Napoleon and Wellington?”
“Similar, but with fewer casualties, one hopes.”
Worth welcomed them graciously, though his brows rose when he spotted Daisy clinging to Hessian’s hand.
Hessian went on the polite offensive. “Miss Daisy, may I make known to you my brother, Sir Worth Kettering. Worth, please make your bow to my ward, Miss Daisy.”
Worth was a big, good-looking devil, with unruly dark hair and blue eyes his wife called impertinent. He offered a silly bow, Daisy dimpled, and then Andromeda insinuated her nose into the child’s palm.
“Meda likes you,” Worth said. “That means you must be a capital little girl, despite keeping company with Grampion. Let’s find my wife and she can introduce you to my niece.”
Worth held out a hand to the girl—he was ever a favorite with ladies of any age—and yet, Daisy hesitated.
“It’s all right,” Hessian said. “He’s hopelessly friendly, and I won’t leave without you.”
“Do you promise?”
Hessian’s heart did a queer little hop, for Daisy’s question had been in complete earnest. “I give you my solemn word. I will not leave this house without you.”
Daisy pelted to his side, gave him a tight squeeze about the middle, then grabbed Worth’s hand.
Hessian was still pondering the child’s first spontaneous display of affection when Worth returned to the study.
“We are forgotten,” he said. “Avery took one look at Daisy and began rhapsodizing in French about the dolls and the tin soldiers, and then a fancy dress ball got underway. Daisy is a dear little thing.”
Worth’s observation held a question, which Hessian ignored. “She’s troubled. Sits up in the dead of night moaning and crying, but doesn’t even seem to be awake, and apparently has no recollection of the drama the next day.”
“That is odd. Avery has nightmares and can often describe them to us in detail for a week afterward. Shall we enjoy the sun while it’s out?”
Typical of English weather, the sky had gone from drizzling to sunshine in less than an hour. “So you’ve never heard of a child having a waking nightmare?”
Worth led the way to the back terrace. “Is that what you came to see me about?”
Well, no, but Daisy’s distress seemed so real in the dead of night, and all Hessian knew to do was take her hand and wait for her fear to pass. The first time it had happened, he’d nigh had an apoplexy, but within minutes, she’d curled up and gone right
back to sleep.
“What do you know about Walter Leggett?” Hessian asked.
Worth looked around at the terrace furniture. “The damned chairs are wet. Let’s visit the mews.”
He was off across the garden—which was also quite damp—showing his usual lack of prudence when any odd notion wafted into his head. Money and the Kettering womenfolk were the only topics that gave Worth pause, and in those arenas, he was brilliant.
Hessian followed more slowly, tempted to turn and wave in the direction of the nursery windows.
“About Leggett?” Hessian prompted when he caught up to his brother in the stable aisle.
“Walter Leggett,” Worth said, stroking the nose of a big, black, raw-boned gelding. “Third spare to the late Earl of Dearborn. Wealthy, likable, widower, one son. Oscar Leggett is the typical university wastrel trying to cut a dash about Town now that his so-called studies are concluded. The niece is rumored to have handsome settlements, but other rumors attach to Miss Ferguson as well.”
A swallow flitted about overhead, and Worth’s horse spooked to the back of its stall.
“Miss Ferguson’s inclinations are not Sapphic,” Hessian said, “at least not exclusively so.”
Worth moved down the barn aisle. “Hess, have you been naughty?”
“Don’t sound so hopeful. Miss Ferguson has taken an interest in Daisy and found her a playmate. Daisy seems to be doing better for having a friend.”
“Screeching in the dead of night is doing better?”
Hessian greeted a mare whose proportions rivaled those of the black gelding. “I think it is, though I know that must sound odd. Daisy would probably also benefit from having a maternal figure in the household.”
The mare brushed velvety lips over Hessian’s palm.
“Gefjon doesn’t like anybody,” Worth said. “Why does she like you?”
I smell good. “My charms are subtle but substantial. I’m thinking of offering for Lily Ferguson.”
Hessian braced himself for the near-violent fraternal behavior that passed for teasing. He and Worth had been estranged at one point for several years, and they still weren’t exactly close.
“You and she would suit,” Worth said. “And not merely because a crooked pot needs a crooked lid. She’s no featherbrain, and neither are you.”
“I’m a boring old stick.”Who would slay dragons to win more of Lily Ferguson’s kisses. “Miss Ferguson seems to like Daisy, and Daisy her.”
“Hess, at the risk of pointing out the obvious, ten years from now, Daisy will be making her bow, and it’s you Miss Ferguson would be seeing over the tea and toast each morning. Do you like her?”
As a younger man, Hessian would have dismissed the question. Marriage, he would have said, was about esteem, respect, and duty. He was a widower now, and he’d been married to a woman who hadn’t particularly liked him, even as she’d spoken her vows.
“I enjoy Miss Ferguson’s company, and we share a common perspective.”
The mare craned her neck, indicating that Hessian was to scratch her great, hairy ear. He obliged, though it would result in dirty fingernails.
“What perspective might that be?”
“That life isn’t an endless exercise in frivolity, that a child’s welfare matters, that polite society is mostly ridiculous.” That kisses should be delightfully unrestrained.
“All people of sense can agree on that last, but if Miss Ferguson is such a paragon of breeding and wisdom, why hasn’t she married previously? She’s an heiress, she’s not hard on the eye, and if nothing else, you’d think Leggett would select a husband for her from the advantageous-match category.”
Wealthy and titled, in other words.
“I’m advantageous,” Hessian said. “Or getting there.”
The mare butted him in the chest. Had she been so inclined, she could have sent him sprawling on his arse in the dirt. Worth too could have dealt a few blows—ridicule, incredulity, dismay—but he was instead looking thoughtful.
“You are in every way an estimable fellow,” Worth said, “and nothing would make me happier than to see you matched with a woman deserving of your esteem, but your first question is about Leggett, and it’s regarding him that I must raise a reservation.”
Hessian scratched the mare beneath her chin, which she also seemed to enjoy. “Miss Ferguson says he runs off the fortune hunters. All I know of the man is that he was a friend of our papa and is quite well fixed.”
“Is he? I have my fingers in financial pots that involve everybody from King George to the seamstresses on Drury Lane, and never once have I crossed paths with Leggett. Now he’s apparently sniffing around at my club, making discreet inquiries about a venture I’m putting together with some Americans. Why?”
“Because you are a genius at making money.”
“Why is Leggett only now coming to need that genius?”
“Perhaps he’s investigated all other possibilities, made a sufficient sum, and hopes by investing with Worth Kettering to make a more than sufficient sum. I have taken every bit of the investment advice you’ve offered, and in a very short time, my finances have come right.”
More than come right. Over the next five years, Hessian would accumulate capital at an astonishing rate, thanks to his brother.
Worth approached the mare, who pinned her ears. “She honestly likes you. You walk in here and command the notice of the most finicky female I know.”
“She recognizes a yeoman at heart when she sees one. I have never thanked you for dispensing that financial advice. I am deeply grateful.”
Worth wandered back to his gelding, who was affecting the horsy version of a wounded look. “You follow my advice. So many ask for it, then ignore it. I owed you after the way I left Grampion Hall in high dudgeon as a young man. You looked after Lannie, you extended the olive branch, you manage the ancestral pile. Had it not been for Jacaranda’s influence, I might still be sticking my figurative tongue out at you and ignoring your letters.”
Hessian had never considered that Worth felt guilty over the rift between them, which had been a case of mutual youthful arrogance more than anything else.
“I’m the earl,” Hessian said, giving the mare a final pat on her nose. “I’m supposed to extend olive branches and all that other. Might we regard the topic of past misunderstandings as adequately addressed and instead return to the issue of Walter Leggett?”
Worth was a jovial fellow, often gratingly so, but for a moment, in the shadows of the stable, he looked very much like their father. The late earl had been dutiful, stern, and nobody’s fool, though kind too. He had loved his children, but he’d lacked a wife at his side as his boys had made the difficult transition to young manhood.
“You have a gift for understatement,” Worth said, “and yes, we can discuss Leggett, except I know very little about his situation. Over the years, everybody’s fortune get an occasional mention in the clubs. This fellow’s stocks took a bad turn on ’Change. That one married his spare to an heiress. Some other man is mad for steam engines—as I am—and yet another just bought vineyards in Spain, of all the dodgy ventures. Leggett’s name doesn’t come up.”
Hessian found a pitchfork and brought the mare a serving of hay from the pile at the end of the aisle. “So he’s discreet. Not a bad quality in a fellow.” The next forkful went to the gelding, and thus every other beast in the barn began nickering and shifting about in its stall like drovers trying to get the attention of the tavern maid.
“Discretion is a fine quality, but I’m nosy,” Worth said. “Will you also sweep the aisle, fill up the water buckets, and muck the stalls for me?”
“I miss Cumberland.”
Worth took up a second pitchfork. “I miss Trysting.”
They worked in companionable silence until all the horses had been given their snacks. The effort, small though it was, resolved a question for Hessian.
“If I’m considering courting Miss Ferguson, learning as much as I can abou
t her situation strikes me as prudent.”
“Stealing a few kisses would be prudent too.” Worth propped both pitchforks beside the barn door. “The wedding night is rather too late to discover that your bride likes your title better than your intimate company.”
“You needn’t instruct me on that point.”
A pause ensued, a trifle righteous on Hessian’s part—only a trifle—and doubtless awkward for Worth.
“Sorry.” Worth stood in the beam of sunshine angling through the barn doors, his gaze on the rain-wet garden. “About Leggett?”
“I’d like to know more where he’s concerned, if you’re comfortable gathering that information. Some of the wealth he’s managing is not his own, but rather, Lily Ferguson’s. What has he done with her money?”
Hessian would rather have lingered in the stables, with the beasts and the good smells and honest labor, but he was promised to a card party come evening—a gathering of earls, of all things, courtesy of his recent acquaintance with Lord Rosecroft—and Daisy might be in need of a nap.
“Most settlement money is simply kept in the cent per cents,” Worth said.
“And most young ladies of good breeding and ample fortune are married off within a year or two of their come out. Lily Ferguson is comely, intelligent, very well-dowered, and as far as I can tell, in every way a woman worthy of esteem.”
“And yet, we heard her insulted at my very club.”
“Precisely. Most doting uncles would be anxious to see a niece well settled in her own household, a devoted husband at her side. If that were Leggett’s aim, he’s had years to achieve it.”
“And those Sapphic tendencies?”
“An exaggeration at best, a ridiculous fabrication more likely.”
Worth was silent while swallows flitted in and out of the barn and horses munched an unlooked-for treat. “Do you recall Vicar Huxley?”
“To my sorrow.” The ordained man of Christ had beat his wife and children, while preaching love, tolerance, and turning the other cheek.
“You deduced what was afoot long before anybody else did,” Worth said. “Does Miss Ferguson’s situation strike you as similar?”
His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen Book 4) Page 9
