A bit of both, if she were honest. Which she only occasionally could be.
“Good morning, Lily.” Oscar sat on the ladies’ mounting block. He held a bottle, likely a final vestige of the previous night’s revels. “You’re looking fine today.”
Oscar was not looking fine. He had a smear of pink across his right cheekbone, his cravat was knotted crookedly, and his cuff sported what looked like a wine stain. When he assisted Lily to dismount, his breath was a foul miasma and his smile lopsided.
“Oscar, you’d best not let Uncle see you in this condition.”
He resumed his seat on the mounting block, while the groom led the horses away. “I’m adept at sneaking up the servants’ stairs. Besides, once Papa gets his nose into the financial pages, Napoleon escaping again wouldn’t get his attention. You must have gone for quite a gallop, judging from the state of your mare.”
Lily took the place beside him, for she was not adept at sneaking up the servants’ stairs, more’s the pity.
“I’ve let my mare get out of condition, but then, she’s no longer young.” Lily had told his lordship she herself was approaching her twenty-eighth birthday, which advanced her age by two years.
Another lie, among the last she’d tell him.
“I get the same lecture from Papa,” Oscar said. “I’m no longer a boy. Care for a nip?”
“No, thank you. You’re barely down from university. Why would Uncle lecture you about your age?”
Oscar was physically maturing, now that Lily took the time to study him. He’d been a chubby boy, fond of his sweets, and good-natured. He’d always had a crowd of equally good-natured wastrel friends, who’d dutifully danced with Lily when prevailed upon to do so.
Harmless boys who’d turn into harmless club men. Oscar was emerging into manhood late, and the result was a blond fellow with decent manners and a nice smile. Doubtless, Uncle Walter had once been much the same sort.
“I’m to make something of myself,” Oscar reported gloomily. “I’m to amount to something. I have no objection in theory, but when my education has been more about tarts than tutors, one does puzzle over the practical implementation of Papa’s notions.”
Oscar had never been an object of his father’s criticism before, while Lily had never known Uncle’s tolerance.
“Uncle grows fixed on his objectives. Can you set aside a portion of your allowance and invest it?”
Oscar tipped the wine to his mouth, shook out the last drops, and set the bottle aside. “My allowance has been late the past two quarters. The fellows are patient about IOUs or standing me to a pint, but my allowance was never late before.”
Was it late, or was Uncle up to one of his stratagems?
Lily liked Oscar, to the extent she could afford to like anybody. They left each other alone, which was a form of kindness.
“How many cravat pins do you have, Oscar?”
“Scads.”
“Lose one or two and take them to the pawnbrokers,” Lily said. “Don’t give them to your valet to pawn. You do it yourself, lest anybody question Lumley about his errand. Take your old boots to another pawnbroker in a different part of Town and claim you lost them as the result of a drunken wager. Try to put the funds where nobody will find them, but if a maid cleaning your room should come upon your money and bring it to Uncle’s attention, say you won it at cards.”
The sounds of a normal morning routine came from inside the stable. Horses munching hay, a groom whistling God Save the King while he swept the aisle. This conversation wasn’t normal, though, not between Lily and her cousin.
“I’m sorry, Lily,” Oscar said. “I know Papa keeps a close eye on you. I hadn’t realized it was that bad.”
Because Lily and Uncle Walter made sure nobody realized exactly how contentious their relationship was.
“I manage,” Lily said. “Once you have a few pounds together, take them to Worth Kettering to invest. He’s discreet and canny, and your small sum will soon grow.”
Oscar burped, perfuming the morning air with stale wine and garlic. “Papa wants to invest with Kettering. I’ve wondered if the Ferguson side of your family does business through him. They have the paternal portion of your inheritance to manage.”
Since leaving her finishing school, Lily hadn’t seen the Ferguson side of the family. Mama’s husband had been a younger son of an Irish ducal family, and they preferred their seat to anything resembling English soil. Once a year, the current duke wrote to her, and he wrote back. All very proper and hopeless.
“How do you know the Fergusons are minding my father’s fortune?” Lily knew it, because Walter had explained the finances to her in detail more than ten years ago.
“I’m lazy,” Oscar said, “I’m not stupid. Any hatpin will open the drawers to Papa’s desk, and if he don’t want me poking about in his study, then he shouldn’t keep our best brandy on his sideboard. Though lately, even the best brandy hasn’t been worth the bother.”
The joy filling Lily as a result of her dawn ride was fading, like a creeping fog obliterates the sun.
“Is Uncle in financial difficulties?”
“How can he be in difficulties when he has the Leggett half of your fortune to bring him right? I’m not saying he’d steal from you, but he might make himself a small loan to weather a rough patch.”
Walter Leggett would steal from Old Scratch himself.
“Get whatever money you can to Worth Kettering,” Lily said. “Do it yourself, don’t trust the servants.”
“Not even Lumley,” Oscar murmured, suggesting he was sober enough to grasp the import of the conversation. “I can be careful. You be careful too, Lily. I’ve heard you’re spending time with Kettering’s titled brother. Is that at Papa’s behest?”
Well, yes. Initially. “I enjoy the earl’s company. Grampion doesn’t put on airs and he’s sensible.”
“And if you can bag that one,” Oscar said, squinting down the neck of his empty bottle, “you’d dwell in Cumberland, far from Uncle’s reach. He’ll never let Grampion pay you his addresses though.”
“You seem quite certain of your conclusion.”
Oscar tossed the bottle into the bushes. “Lily, if Papa’s in dun territory and dipping into your funds to cover his losses, the last thing he’ll do is get into settlement negotiations with the Kettering family. Before a titled lord takes a bride, her family’s finances and his family’s finances are shared in detail. Your Ferguson relations will bestir themselves to get involved, and then you have an earl and a duke peering at Papa’s ledger books. He won’t like that.”
Lily’s hopes—so fragile and new—took a bludgeoning. Oscar, hen-witted bon vivant and fashion plate, had seen what she had not.
“I have been an idiot.”
Oscar patted her arm. “You’re pretty. You needn’t be clever.”
She rose and paced away from the mounting block. She liked Oscar well enough, but she didn’t like him touching her even with tipsy affection. Then too, he needed a bath and a long session with his toothpowder.
“I have been too focused on missing earbobs when I should have seen the larger context.”
“You’re not wearing earbobs.”
And Lily hadn’t been thinking. She’d been dreaming of a serious, passionate earl who intended to make an appointment to speak with Uncle Walter next week. Good God, what a muddle.
“We never had this conversation, Oscar. If anybody asks, we talked about how to bring my mare back into condition.”
“Regular work,” Oscar said. “Fine for a horse, has no appeal for me. Where are you off to?”
“I must change out of my habit. Uncle would scold me into next year if I showed up at breakfast in riding attire.” And Lily felt a desperate compulsion to make sure her small hoard of money was where she had hidden it.
She let herself through the garden gate and took the servants’ stairs up to her room.
* * *
“We’re off to see your Uncle Worth and Aunt
Jacaranda,” Hessian said, extending a hand to Daisy. “At the rate your social schedule is expanding, I shall soon have to find you a pony.”
The nursery maid, a stout, gray-haired bastion of starch and bombazine named Sykes, folded her arms.
Daisy’s grip on Hessian’s hand tightened. “Even if I’m bad, you’d give me a pony?”
Oh, for God’s sake. Hessian hefted the child to his hip. “You cannot be bad, Daisy. You might make a misstep, have a lapse, exercise poor judgment, or do something you regret, but you cannot be bad. And yes, if you’re consistently making poor choices, I might limit your time in the saddle temporarily, but that would take extreme provocation.”
At this, the nursery maid sniffed.
Daisy shrank against him. “I’m not bad on purpose.”
Hessian had had a wonderful ride in the park with Miss Fer—with Lily—not three hours past, and a call on Worth had become pressing. He’d like nothing better than to ignore the nursemaid glowering down her nose at Daisy and ignore the desperation in Daisy’s grip on his neck.
A mess was brewing in his nursery, though, and messes invariably grew worse when ignored.
“Sykes, have you something to say?”
Her glower expanded to include Hessian. “A child benefits from routine, my lord. This haring about all over London when Miss Amy Marguerite ought to be in the schoolroom is why she doesn’t sleep well. If she can’t sleep, of course she’ll be fidgety and difficult come morning.”
“Fidgety and difficult?”
Daisy was absolutely still in his arms.
“And disrespectful. She doesn’t finish her eggs and toast some days, forgets to say grace other days, and spends far too much time staring out the window like a simpleton.”
Hessian wanted to cover Daisy’s ears—and his own. “A simpleton?”
“Mooning about, my lord. Hardly speaks above a whisper much of the time and takes her sweet time answering common questions. She needs routine, order, and discipline, and she’ll soon be showing her elders proper respect.”
Hessian walked to the window, Daisy affixed to him like a barnacle. Sykes sounded like the late Earl of Grampion, and a bit like the present earl too.
Sykes did not, however, speak with a northern accent. “You traveled with Daisy from Cumberland?”
“No, sir. The other nursery maid, Hancock, comes from the north. Your housekeeper hired me because Hancock must have some rest, and the child keeps the household up until all hours.”
With nightmares of routine and discipline, no doubt. “You’re aware that Daisy has recently lost both parents and been taken away from the only home she’s known?”
“All the more reason not to cosset her, my lord. Children must learn to weather life’s trials with stoic gratitude. All the ponies in the world or a trip to the park every day won’t help the girl learn those lessons.”
“Clearly, you have never had a pony.” Though, what excuse could there be for a London-bred maid’s failure to appreciate Hyde Park in spring? “Sykes, I thank you for your suggestions regarding Daisy’s welfare, but find that your approach to child-rearing and my own are incompatible. You will be given generous severance, a decent character, and coach fare to any location in the realm. Take as long as you need to find another position, but remove yourself and your effects from the nursery before sundown. The other maids will make accommodation for you in their dormitory.”
Her mouth fell open, and her eyebrows disappeared beneath her lacy cap.
Daisy peeked up, then tucked her face against Hessian’s throat. The tension went out of her, and Hessian stifled the rest of his lecture.
Children needed routine and order, true—at least, some children did some of the time—but they also needed love, understanding, affection, and joy.
So did titled lords. “I’ll have a word with the housekeeper regarding your wages when Daisy and I return from our call. Good day.”
He left the nursery maid standing in the middle of the playroom and knew a moment of pride in the child, for she hadn’t stuck her tongue out at Sykes, though Hessian could feel the impulse quivering through her.
“She meant well.” He set Daisy on her feet. “She was simply misguided. The poor woman has never raised a child of her own, and her theories are uninformed by parental experience.”
Daisy took his hand. “Was she bad?”
“She was not well suited to her position. We will provide her every assistance in finding a post more in keeping with her skills.” Scrubbing privies in the Antipodes, for example.
Daisy studied the newel post at the top of the steps. The wood was carved in the shape of a gryphon with folded wings.
“She said if I was bad, I’d be sent away.”
“She was wrong.” Good girls went to heaven, bad girls got sent away. Hessian put that conundrum together while Daisy blinked hard at the gryphon. “And you made a small miscalculation too, Daisy.”
“Will you send me away?”
“Never. We are family now. Family is forever.” Though sometimes, family got into stupid, stubborn muddles that took a few years to sort out. “Your miscalculation is understandable, because becoming a family in a situation like ours doesn’t happen in an instant.”
“I made a mistake?”
“We both did. You should have told me that Sykes was spouting stupidities, and I should have asked you how you were getting on in the nursery when we had privacy to air our honest feelings. You will join me for breakfast starting tomorrow, and we won’t make the same mistakes in future.”
Children did dine at the family breakfast table, once they had some manners. At Daisy’s age, Hessian had taken great pride in his breakfast privileges, while Worth had remained in the nursery of a morning.
“You want me to eat downstairs? My brothers ate downstairs.”
“You have fine manners, and mine are in good repair as well. We’ll manage breakfast, as long as you don’t steal the newspaper or the preserves.”
“I don’t care for jam. I like cinnamon.”
“A lady of refined tastes. Would you like to slide down that banister?” Hessian’s good spirits were to blame for that suggestion. This was what came of kisses in the park and sacked nursery maids.
“Slide down the banister?”
“You must never undertake to use of the banister when an adult is about, or even a servant, for they might think you should be tattled upon. A good polishing never hurt a well-made banister, and I have only the sturdiest banisters in my houses.”
Hessian deposited Daisy on the banister, and down she went, grinning the whole way. She scrambled unaided from the bottom newel post and spun around like a top.
“I shall tell Bronwyn and Avery! I shall come down to breakfast every morning on the banister!”
“Mind you, don’t let anybody see you. Decorum has a place in an earl’s household.” What would Lily think of this morning’s work? Hessian couldn’t wait to ask her—he flipped open his pocket watch—in about nine hours. “Let’s be off to visit your uncle.”
Daisy studied Hessian’s outstretched hand. “I don’t have any uncles.”
What could he say to that? “You haven’t any official uncles, but I’m sure Worth would love to be an honorary uncle to such a lovely little girl. I’ll thrash him to tiny bits if he says otherwise.”
“Boys like to fight. Mama said that, and Papa agreed.”
Daisy was mentioning her parents, and that was good. “I’m sure fisticuffs won’t be necessary. Now shall we be on our way?”
Daisy skipped half the distance to Worth’s house, and Hessian got a few odd looks for having a child clinging to his hand. He also saw a few smiles. She bolted from his side the instant she spotted Avery at the top of Worth’s main staircase, and amid much squealing and hopping about, the little girls disappeared to the second floor.
“And to think you said she was a withdrawn child,” Worth muttered as he led the way to his back terrace.
“We sacked a nu
rsery maid this morning. The effect was invigorating.”
Worth paused, hand on the door latch. “You sacked a maid?”
“She had no compassion, no flexibility. Went maundering on about order, discipline, and stoicism. I ask you, when did Greek philosophy ever comfort an orphaned child?”
Worth’s expression was hard to read, as if he’d like to say something, but couldn’t quite find the words. His skills lay more with numbers, and God be thanked for those skills.
“I’m here to discuss a matter of some delicacy,” Hessian went on. “Consultation with a sensible family member might help me see the best way forward.”
Worth preceded him onto the terrace, where the Alsatian crouched like a sphinx on a patch of sun-warmed bricks. “I am ever ready to lend my counsel to your situation.”
“I seek the opinion of a sensible family member,” Hessian retorted. “Yolanda insists on rusticating at Trysting, so I was hoping Jacaranda might spare me a few moments.”
Worth propped a hip against the balustrade. “You just made a joke. A bad joke, but a joke nonetheless.” He scanned the sky. “No airborne swine. Interesting.”
They exchanged a smile, the like of which they hadn’t exchanged for years, then Hessian knelt to pet the dog.
“I’m considering offering for Lily Ferguson.”
The dog rolled to her back, tongue lolling, tail waving even in her undignified position. Hessian knew exactly how she felt. Life was sweet. What mattered dignity?
“You did mention this. I’ve barely started looking into Leggett’s situation, Hessian. When do you intend to begin paying your addresses?”
“I see no reason to hesitate. The sooner I’m engaged, the sooner the merry widows and blushing debutantes will leave me in peace.” And the sooner he and Lily could be married. No need to state the obvious.
“Andromeda Kettering, where are your manners?”
Worth’s stern tone provoked the dog to cocking her head, which made her pose all the more ludicrous.
His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen Book 4) Page 13
