by Jane Feather
Elinor shook her head. "Of course not, but I can't help feeling that you would do better to remain at the manor. I'm sure Lord Stoneridge will need your knowledge of the house and the staff."
"I would prefer to come with you, my lady. As would Cook and Mrs. Graves." With a bow he left the room.
Elinor sighed, tapping her fingers on the blotter. Life at the dower house would be so much pleasanter with the butler, the housekeeper, and the cook who'd served her and the old earl for two decades. But was it fair to the new owner to remove the established staff?
Her jaw tightened. The new owner was a Gilbraith. She owed him nothing, and the staff who'd been loyal to Kit and his father owed a Gilbraith no loyalty.
The cook tapped at the door, and Lady Belmont turned her attention to the day's menus, putting aside the thought that she hadn't spoken to Theo yet about Stoneridge's call.
Theo entered the house just before noon. She was ravenous, having been on horseback since seven, but it was clear to her mother and sisters as she entered the paneled dining room that she was in good humor.
"There'd better be baked eggs," she said, sniffing hungrily. "Did you have a good morning… Beaumont had a splendid suggestion for Long Meadow… he thinks we should marl it as Mr. Coke did at Holkham and plant -"
She stopped, running her eyes around the room. There was tension in every face, except Rosie's. Rosie was dissecting a chicken wing with the tip of her knife with all the care and attention of a surgeon.
"What's happened?"
"Nothing unexpected, Theo," Elinor said, helping herself to a slice of ham, her voice level. "Lord Stoneridge is calling this afternoon."
"I see." Theo lifted the lid on the dish of baked eggs and replaced it again. She sat down in her accustomed place and crumbled a piece of bread between finger and thumb, her eyes fixed, unseeing, on the rich patina of the cherrywood table. "Is he evicting us this afternoon?"
"No, of course not. We must discuss arrangements… there's much to organize."
"And a Gilbraith will, of course, be prepared to conduct these matters in a civilized fashion," Theo said acidly. "That wasn't Grandpapa's opinion."
Elinor decided this wasn't a moment for discussion. She said briskly, "I'll expect you to be here, Theo."
Theo pushed back her chair, all appetite vanished. "Would you excuse me, Mama? I promised to visit the Gardners in the village. Joe's injured hand isn't improving, and his wife's close to her time."
"I expect you to be here when Lord Stoneridge calls, Theo," Elinor repeated calmly, her eyes holding her daughter's.
"I understand," Theo said, tossing her napkin onto the table as she rose to her feet. She left the dining room without another word.
She could not… would not… welcome a Gilbraith. He was going to take her house, her land, her tenants… everything that she held dear… everything that embodied the memory and spirit of her father and her grandfather… everything that she had worked to maintain for the last three years, since she'd taken the reins of the estate management into her own hands. The land was fertile, the tenants hardworking and content. It was hers, and he was going to take all that from her. She knew every stick, every plant, every ridge of mud on this land. She knew the tenants, their trials, their triumphs, their grievances. She knew the feckless and the industrious; she knew their children. And they knew her.
Theo realized that she was standing at the foot of the stairs, her knuckles white against the carved newel. The hall was empty, the massive oak front door open, dust motes tossing in the broad path of sunlight. Her eye roamed the room, resting on every familiar object – the bench beside the door, where in distant memory her father would sit to have his muddy boots removed; the long Jacobean table and the burnished copper bowl full of rose petals; the deep inglenook fireplace where, during the winter, the fire was never allowed to die and guests were welcomed with warm spiced wine, where on Christmas Eve the tenants would gather.
Sheuttered a short, savage execration, grabbed her gloves and whip from the table, and went back outside, striding round to the stable. The Earl of Stoneridge could go hang. She had work to do.
There was an uneasy silence in the dining room. "She'll come back, Mama," Emily said with faltering confidence.
"I trust so," Elinor said, laying down her napkin. "Rosie should be presented. Would one of you ensure she looks respectable?"
She left the room, and Clarissa and Emily sighed. "Theo's going to be difficult," Clarissa stated. "It's not fair on Mama."
"It's not fair on any of us," Emily asserted crossly. "I wish Edward would come back from that horrible Peninsular War and we could get married. Then you could all come and live with us and we could tell this… this Gilbraith to go to the devil!"
"Emily!" exclaimed Clarissa, torn between shock and sympathy with her sister's fervent wish.
"Come along, Rosie. You need to change your dress," Emily said with a return to elder-sisterly dignity. "See if you can find Theo, Clarry. She listens to you."
"Not always," Clarissa said, but went off in search of her younger sister.
Theo was nowhere to be found. The groom in the stable said she'd taken the new gelding for an airing. Full of tricks, he was, the groom said. Feeling his oats… it was to be hoped Lady Theo could hold him.
In a contest between Theo and a raw young gelding, Clarissa would back her sister anytime – particularly in her present mood. She returned to the house to change her gown and prepare herself for the upcoming ordeal.
Sylvester rode up the driveway of Stoneridge Manor, his nostrils flaring at the scents and sights of his ancestral home – his birthright. The lime washed, oak-timbered structure stood foursquare at the head of the crescent sweep of the drive – as it had done for three hundred years; the soft red-tiled roof glowed in the afternoon sun; the intricate diamond cuts of the mullioned windows sparkled. His eye took in the neat, well-weeded driveway, the perfectly clipped box hedges, the soft blue water of Lulworth Cove beyond the rose garden.
His – for a price. But this afternoon he'd get an idea of how stiff the price would be. Two sisters – Lady Clarissa, and Lady Theodora. Etiquette dictated that he consider the elder first, and unless there was something radically at fault with Lady Clarissa, he could see no reason to disobey the dictates of convention. It was to be a marriage of interest, on his side if not on the lady's. But the lady, thanks to her ever-loving grandfather, was not to know that.
He was smiling as he dismounted and handed his mount into the charge of a waiting groom.
"He's here!" Rosie catapulted through the long glass doors of the drawing room, her cheeks pink. "I watched him ride up the drive."
"What does he look like?" her sisters demanded in the same breath that their mother said, "That will do. Rosie, come here and sit quietly."
"He's riding an enormous black horse," Rosie confided, sitting beside her mother. "And he has a beaver hat on and a green coat and brown britches -"
"Lord Stoneridge, my lady," Foster intoned from the doorway, bringing a summary halt to Rosie's recitation.
His lordship bowed as the ladies rose to their feet.
"I bid you welcome to Stoneridge, my lord." With a courteous smile Elinor crossed the faded tapestry carpet, her hand outstretched.
The earl bowed over the hand, privately reflecting that Lady Belmont was a handsome woman with her soft brown hair, blue eyes, and elegant figure.
"May I present my daughters?"
Sylvester noted the diamond sparkle on Lady Emily's ring finger as he took her hand. The betrothed sister… but a most attractive young woman, very like her mother. He turned his attention with particular interest to Lady Clarissa.
"My lord." Clarissa twitched her hand from his grasp a moment too soon for courtesy, and Sylvester's lips thinned. Darker than her sister but with the same blue eyes. A shorter, less elegant figure… rather thin if the truth be told. But still passably handsome. Although not in the least friendly.
"And this is Rosalind."
> He shook hands with a child who regarded him with frank curiosity from behind spectacles that completely dwarfed her face. "Are you interested in biology?"
"Not particularly," he said, taken aback.
"I didn't think you would be," she said as if confirmed in some negative opinion. "Gilbraiths probably aren't interested in that kind of thing."
Sylvester shot a startled look at Lady Belmont, who was looking chagrined. "You may return to the schoolroom, Rosie," she said sharply.
Rosie seemed about to protest, but Clarissa, sensing her mother's acute discomfiture, shooed her from the room. Theo's absence was bad enough without Rosie speaking her mind in her usual blunt fashion.
"Won't you be seated, Lord Stoneridge?" Lady Belmont indicated a chair as she resumed her seat on the sofa. "Ah, thank you, Foster. I'm sure Lord Stoneridge will take a glass of claret."
"Thank you." Devoutly hoping that wine would ease the tense atmosphere, Sylvester took an appreciative sip, commenting, "A fine vintage."
"Our cellars are well stocked, sir," the butler said. "The Gentlemen keep us well supplied."
"Oh, I didn't realize there was a smuggling trade on the Dorset coast."
"A very active one," Emily said. "But Theo deals with them. You should ask her if you wish to know how the system works."
"Theo?" He looked puzzled.
"My sister, sir."
"Lady Theodora?" He was still puzzled.
"She had some urgent business to attend to on the estate," Elinor said. "I'm certain she'll return shortly." But she wasn't in the least certain.
Sylvester put down his glass. It was time to come to business. "I wonder if I could have a word or two in private, ma'am."
Elinor rose immediately, relief apparent in her face that this awkward pretense at purely social intercourse was over. "Yes, there's much to discuss. Come into my parlor. Lord Stoneridge." She swept from the room, the earl on her heels.
"Well, what do you think?" Emily demanded as the door closed.
"Satanic," Clarissa said promptly.
Her sister went into a peal of laughter. "You're such a melodramatic goose, Clarry. But I own I can't like him… not that I was expecting to. His eyes are so cold, and there's an impatience… a haughtiness about him."
"That scar," Clarissa said. "A great slash across his forehead. I wonder how he acquired it."
"In the war, probably. I wish I knew where Theo was."
Emily wasn't the only one wishing that. In the parlor Elinor was listening to the earl's succinct proposal in stunned silence.
"I believe such an arrangement will make the transition easier for everyone," Sylvester said at the end of his explanation. "It will be more comfortable for you in the dower house if one of your daughters lives at Stoneridge Manor. And I will undertake to dower my wife's sisters."
"You are most generous, my lord," Elinor said faintly, although she felt that the dispassionate tone in which he'd laid out his plans was anything but warm. But he could have no motive other than generosity and some kind of family feeling.
That was a novel thought – a Gilbraith having family feeling for a Belmont.
"I take it you agree to my plan, then, ma'am?" Sylvester paced the small room, trying to hide his impatience. Four weeks was a very short time to court and wed, but if the knot wasn't firmly tied at the end of the month, the true conditions of the earl's will would be revealed. He needed the absolute support of Lady Belmont from the beginning.
"I'm not prepared to coerce one of my daughters into marriage, sir," Elinor said with some asperity.
"No, of course not. I wasn't suggesting such a thing," he said brusquely. "But I would like to feel I had your approval. My intentions are, after all, of the most honorable."
And so they were in all essentials, he quieted his conscience.
Elinor was silent for a minute, regarding her visitor gravely. His cool gray eyes returned her scrutiny without flickering. There was a restlessness, a pent-up tension in the man, almost like an aura. And something else… some pain, she thought, deep inside him. He had the Gilbraith look – lean features, strong jaw, well-shaped mouth, and the physique of an athlete… a man who took care of himself.
Elinor realized as she took inventory that she was responding to Sylvester Gilbraith as a man – a fiercely attractive man, despite the scar. When had she last recognized a man's sexual attraction?
It shocked her and she stood up abruptly, turning her back on her visitor as she pretended to search for something in her desk.
What kind of husband would he make? Gentle… generous? Not gentle, she decided. Not a husband for Clarissa.
But maybe for Theo. Theo, who'd twisted the gouty, irascible old earl around her little finger. Theo was not intimidated by strong men; indeed, she would not be happy with anyone who always deferred to her own powerful will. She could well become distinctly shrewish, if her challenges went ignored. Elinor couldn't suppress a half smile. A shrewish Theo was not to be contemplated.
And as Lady Stoneridge, she wouldn't lose her beloved house and estate. The earl's proposal was not an outlandish suggestion; such marriages were often arranged in entail situations, and the kinship was so distant there could be no bar there.
But could Theo be brought to accept a hated Gilbraith, even with such powerful inducements?
Elinor turned back to the earl. He'd taken a seat beside the window during her cogitations, and she was pleased to see that he knew when to curb his impatience.
"If you wish to press your suit with my daughter Theo, my lord, you have my approval," she said formally.
Sylvester frowned. "I had thought to address Lady Clarissa, ma'am. She is the elder, it seems only appropriate."
"Maybe so, but you and Clarissa would not suit, sir."
Sylvester absorbed this firm statement in frowning silence before saying, "Forgive me, Lady Belmont, but since I haven't had the honor of meeting Lady Theodora, I don't know how to answer you."
"No, it's most vexing, I agree," Elinor said. "But Theo doesn't bend easily, to my will or anyone else's. However, you'll meet her shortly. You'll find her knowledge of the estate useful to you. She knows more than the bailiff about most matters and has had the management of the estate in her hands since she was seventeen. My father-in-law trusted her judgment implicitly."
"An unusual young woman." Sylvester contented himself with the dry comment.
Elinor smiled. "Something of an understatement, Lord Stoneridge."
"Why is she called Theo?" he asked abruptly. "Thea, I would expect. But Theo is a boy's name."
"She was always an intrepid child, much more interested in a boy's pursuits. Her father always called her Theo… the son he never had."
A strong-willed, managing, tomboy hoyden! Dear God, what was he getting himself into?
"I can't wait to meet her," he murmured.
"Has he gone?" Theo stuck her head round the corner of the door, keeping the rest of her on the terrace.
"No, he's with Mama," Emily said. "You really are too bad, Theo. Mama is so vexed that you weren't here."
"He's very toplofty," Clarissa said. "He looks as if there's a permanent bad smell under his nose." She offered an imitation of the earl, wrinkling her small nose.
Theo chuckled. "Well, I think I'll go back to the stables until he leaves."
"You will not." Emily moved with surprising speed for such a decorous young woman. She caught her sister's wrist and pulled her into the drawing room. They were engaged in a spirited tussle when the hall door opened to admit their mother and the Earl of Stoneridge.
"Emily… Theo!" Lady Belmont exclaimed.
Emily flushed, dropping her sister's wrist. Theo, who was still laughing, turned toward the door, an apology on her lips.
But both laughter and apology died. "You!" She formed the word without speaking it as she stared at the tall figure of Sylvester Gilbraith behind her mother.
"Well… well…," Sylvester murmured, advancing into the room.
"I believe you must be my missing cousin, Lady Theodora." He bowed, mockery glittering in his eyes. "What a surprise. You're quite an actress, cousin."
Theo ignored his outstretched hand. "And you are no gentleman, sir. But I would hardly have expected anything else from a Gilbraith."
Sylvester drew a sharp breath, but Elinor spoke before he could respond. "I don't know what you're talking about, Theo, but your rudeness is inexcusable. Lord Stoneridge is our guest -"
"Hardly that, Mama," Theo broke in, her face white with anger, her eyes blue-black. "I believe we are Lord Stoneridge's guests. If you'll excuse me, I have pressing business elsewhere." She spun on her heel, brushing past Sylvester, dusting off her sleeve where it had touched him, an expression of acute distaste on her face.
"Theo!" Elinor took a step forward, but Sylvester held up a hand.
"I think this is mine to deal with, ma'am," he said, tight-lipped, two spots of color burning on his cheekbones.
Elinor hesitated; then she made a tiny gesture of acknowledgment, and Lord Stoneridge strode out of the drawing room in pursuit of his cousin.
"What's going on?" Bewildered, Clarissa looked after his lordship. "Have they already met?"
"It would seem so," Elinor said, calmly taking up her embroidery.
"But… but Theo never said." Emily ran to the window, looking anxiously across the lawn as if expecting to see a scene of violent mayhem. "How could you let him go after her, Mama? He looked ready to murder her."
"I could cheerfully wring her neck myself," Elinor responded. "I am strongly of the opinion that your sister and Sylvester Gilbraith will be very good for each other."
"What do you mean?"
Elinor smiled, threading her needle with a crimson thread. "His lordship had a proposition to put to me…"
Theo had reached the first landing when Sylvester caught up with her. She turned at bay, her stance apparently relaxed, but he could read her readiness in every muscle.
"You wish to take inventory of the bedrooms, my lord. Don't let me stand in your way," she said through her teeth.
"You're not in my way in the least," he replied, his anger as high and as visible in eye and mouth as Theo's. He moved toward her.
