by Carola Dunn
“I shall set up his nursery there, and visit him frequently. My mother is in residence, of course."
“A household of females, in fact, and indifferent females at that! Lady Lavinia has not once sought to see her grandson since Gil died. Peter is an orphan, Iverbrook. He needs affection and stability, not to be left with servants!”
“I have no intention of abandoning him. Properly chosen servants are perfectly capable of bringing up a child. That is how Gil and I were brought up, and you expressed your admiration for Gilbert not five minutes past.”
“But none for you! Believe me, my lord, I have heard tales of your rakish life, and if only the half of them are true you are no fit person to have charge of a small boy!”
“So now we come to the meat of the matter! On the basis of scandalmongers’ gossip you would deny me the right to be guardian of my heir!”
“You have no such right. Peter is legally my ward, and I shall never betray the trust your brother and my sister reposed in me.”
“I shall contest the will. The law cannot but consider a Peer of the Realm a more fitting guardian than a totty-headed female.”
“This is Peter’s home. There is no more to be said. As his uncle you may visit him as often as you wish, I assure you. I shall take care to be absent when you call! Good-bye, my lord.”
Selena’s head was pounding, blinding her. As she turned to leave, she tripped on the step. The viscount’s hand was instantly on her arm, steadying her.
“Let me go,” she said icily, and stumbled into the house.
Iverbrook watched her go, torn between fury and admiration. The last thing he wanted was to go to law over the boy, for he was as aware as his lawyer that the case might drag on for years. Damn the wench for forcing him to it! All the same, she was a well-plucked ‘un! Amabel would have coaxed, his mother would have collapsed in hysterics, but Miss Whitton rattled in, game as a pebble, and gave as good as she got. He followed her into the house.
After the sunshine, the room seemed dark. He stood blinking, letting his eyes adjust.
“Borage!” said a voice suddenly. “You must be Gilbert’s brother Hugh. You look hot, and I certainly am. There's nothing more refreshing than a glass of lemonade with a sprig of borage. Do sit down, Hugh, while I ring the bell.”
A small, plump lady, her face very pink under a bonnet cap of Honiton lace, tugged on the bellpull and came towards him with her hand held out. He bowed over it.
“Lady Whitton, how delightful to see you again.”
“Flummery!” she said, a twinkle in her brown eyes. “I believe you had quite forgot my existence. As though a good-looking young man had not better things to think about!”
“I plead guilty, ma’am,” said Lord Iverbrook, laughing, “to the forgetfulness if not the looks! But I see now that I was mistaken not to further our acquaintance. It must be from you that your daughter got her talent for plain speaking.”
“You have seen Selena already then? Oh dear, I hope she behaved unexceptionably. It would be quite useless to try to teach her a maidenly reserve, for she has no idea of hiding her feelings, and I expect she was not quite well. In fact, haymaking and harvest always make her ill, but she will insist that she must be there to oversee the men."
“Miss Whitton was supervising the harvest? I had thought her gone out merely for pleasure, as a spectator.”
“Oh no, Selena has been running the farm since she was eighteen. Sir William bred her up to it, not having any sons. I must make her a tisane for her headache, Hugh, so pray excuse me. Bannister shall bring you some lemonade and if you should like it, I will have Nurse send Peter down to see you. You will stay the night of course.”
“Thank you, Lady Whitton, but I left my luggage and my man at the Crown and Thistle in Abingdon. And besides, I rather doubt that your daughter would welcome my presence."
“Nonsense! The farm may belong to Selena but I am still mistress in my own house, I hope! Bannister shall send to Abingdon for your things, so do you make yourself comfortable and Peter will be with you at once." Not waiting for an answer, Lady Whitton bustled out.
Lord Iverbrook sat down in a comfortable chintz-covered chair. The whole room looked comfortable, not shabby but lived in. Here was no fashionable bamboo furniture in imitation of the Chinese, just solid, well-polished English oak. The French doors through which he had entered provided a wide view of the sunny garden, the river, and the brilliant green of the watermeadows on the far side.
Bannister brought in a tray with a pitcher and three glasses. He was followed by a small boy, tawny-haired and neatly dressed in nankeens and a frilled shirt, who came to stand before his lordship and bowed gravely.
“How do you do, sir,” he said. “Are you my Uncle Hugh?”
“That’s right, Peter. Don’t you remember me?”
“Not much. I was only a baby when I sawed you, Finny says.”
“Who is Finny?”
“My nurse. Her real name is Mrs. Finnygone but she’s not gone so I call her Finny. Do you want some lemonade?”
“Yes, thank you. Shall I pour you some too? Here you are."
“Grandmama put some blue flowers in it. That means it’s good for you. My grandmama is Lady Whitton.”
“What about your other grandmama, Lady Lavinia?”
Peter sat down on a footstool and considered this carefully, sipping his lemonade. “Does she live in a great big house with pigs? My papa taked me to see her once, when I was little.”
“How should you like to go and live with me and Lady Lavinia in the great big house?”
“I liked the pigs,” said Peter, “but it’s better if you come to live with me and Grandmama and Aunt Sena in this house. And Auntie Dee and Finny. I scratched my hands today. I was helping Aunt Sena cut the barley. Do you want to see them?” He carefully set his glass on a small table and displayed his palms. “I only cried a little bit and Aunt Sena said I was a big, brave boy. Finny put witch hazel on.”
The viscount could think of no suitable response to this revelation. Fortunately, they were interrupted at that moment by the arrival of an excessively pretty girl. She was charmingly arrayed in pale green muslin, looked to be eighteen or nineteen years of age, and knew just what to say.
“Did it sting, Peter? I’ll wager you squealed.”
“I did not! Timmy says only girls squeal.”
Iverbrook rose to his feet and bowed.
“I’m Delia Whitton, sir. How do you do.” Her face took on a soulful look as she curtseyed. “How romantic that you rushed home from half a world away to rescue your orphaned heir, my lord!”
“I hardly think Peter is in need of rescue, Miss Delia!” His lordship revised his favourable impression. He had no opinion of sentimental young ladies who looked on life as an extension of the fantastical novels to which they were invariably addicted. The merry tease who had entered the room was more to his taste.
Delia was also revising her idea of the viscount. No gentleman of a truly heroical nature would have said anything but “It was my duty!” in thrilling tones. Lord Iverbrook’s tone was indisputably commonplace, not to say damping. On closer inspection his face, though good-humoured, held neither the ethereal spirituality nor the fiery passion to be expected of a genuine hero.
“You sound just like Clive,” she said bitterly.
“Clive?”
“Clive Russell. His family lives at Bracketts and his sister Jane is my dearest friend. He looks amazingly romantic but he is only interested in farming.”
Iverbrook’s lips twitched. “How very distressing. What an odious wretch the man must be.”
She looked at him with suspicion. “You are hoaxing me,” she sighed.
“I like Mr. Russell,” said Peter. “He’s Timmy’s brother. He taked me on his horse. It’s a gentleman’s horse, not like Pippin and ‘Rion and Lyra. Have you got a proper gentleman’s horse, Uncle Hugh?”
“Lots,” said his lordship promptly. “When you come to live at Iv
er Place, you can ride them all.”
Mrs. Finnegan soon came to bear Peter away to supper and bed, despite his loud protests that it was still daytime and boys do not sleep in the daytime. Iverbrook pulled out his watch.
“I suppose you keep country hours,” he said to Delia. “Your mama pressed me to stay the night but I shall be unable to change for dinner.”
“We don’t dine till eight in the summer, sir, because Selena is often late home. Your servant will be here with your bags long before that.”
“He will?”
“Yes. Mama thought it best to send the postboy back with the hired horses and have your man return.”
“Lady Whitton has a managing disposition, I see!” Lord Iverbrook, unused to having his affairs arranged for him, hovered between annoyance and amusement.
“Well, Papa was never in the least use at managing, so Mama has always ordered everything in the house and Selena on the farm. Clive’s papa says Selena is one of the finest farmers in the county. She knows all about drainage and rotating crops and things.”
“I shudder to think of two such females in one household!”
“Selena generally has the last word, but if Mama puts her foot down everyone does as she says. You see, Selena is a good farmer but Mama is a good person. Besides being our mother and honour thy father and thy mother and all that. Only sometimes she gets a bit absentminded because of her herbs.”
Though admitting to himself a certain curiosity as to whether Miss Delia was about to reveal any interesting skeletons in the Whitton closets, Lord Iverbrook steered the conversation into safer channels.
* * * *
Tom Arbuckle arrived with horses and baggage. When Iverbrook descended to the drawing room in his evening attire, he found the family already assembled. He nearly failed to recognise Selena, transformed from a dusty drab into a slim, elegant young woman in a lavender silk gown. Her pale curls shone in the candlelight, but her face was almost as pale and she was silent and subdued. He would have liked to think that she was regretting her quarrel with him, but it seemed more likely that she was simply not in very plump current. She nodded listlessly in response to his polite greeting, and ate scarce a mouthful when they went in to dinner.
In the absence of other gentlemen, his lordship elected to forgo the port and leave the table with the ladies. At his hostess’s request, he regaled them with tales of the West Indies until the arrival of the tea tray, prompt at half past nine. He was surprised to be offered a choice of peppermint tea or the more usual China tea. In a mood of daring, and remembering the cool flavour of the borage in his lemonade, he chose the former and was rewarded with a glance of approval from Lady Whitton.
“Excellent for the digestion,” she informed him.
Had she known the difficulty he would find in falling asleep, she would have prescribed chamomile instead. Unused to retiring at ten, he tossed and turned until he was sure dawn was about to break. As a result, he awoke long after everyone else had breakfasted and gone about their business.
A maid served him ham and eggs in the dining room. Well fortified, he decided to make another attempt to persuade Miss Whitton to see reason before he went to the horrid lengths of calling in the legal profession. He stepped into the hallway just as she emerged from the passage leading to the side door.
Once again dressed in her worn, outmoded riding habit, she was holding her forehead with one hand while the other struggled with the ribbons of her hat. Her face was white, eyes red-rimmed and swollen with curious brown blotches around them.
“Miss Whitton, are you all right?” Lord Iverbrook asked in alarm. “Let me call your mother to you."
“Don't be nice to me,” she snapped, “or I shall cry and then my head will explode.” She gave up the fight with the bonnet strings, pressed both hands to her temples, and closed her eyes.
“As you wish.” He saw a hand bell on a marble-topped table and rang it, then untied the recalcitrant ribbons and removed her hat. “You are a birdwitted nodcock to insist on going out in the fields when it makes you so ill.”
“I have to. The men will work for me, not for John Peabody. If I leave them they start brangling and brawling and nothing gets done. I must go back.”
“I trust this Peabody knows what needs doing, and that your groom can take me to him. You will go and lie down, or whatever will best aid your recovery, and I shall see that your barley is cut.”
“Why, you high-handed fribble!” Selena wanted to demand just what he thought he knew about harvesting, but the effort of shouting after his retreating back hurt too much. Besides, Mrs. Tooting had appeared and one did not squabble in front of the servants.
“Did you ring, Miss Selena?” she asked, an expression of concern on her rosy-cheeked face. “Oh, you do look ill, dear! Polly! Polly, go and fetch my lady to Miss Selena’s chamber. Now you come on upstairs, dear, and we’ll soon have you feeling better.” Murmuring soothingly, she led Selena upstairs.
Her mother found her pacing up and down the room, with the housekeeper clucking at her.
“Thank you, Mrs. Tooting,” she said, “but you know it never answers to lie down when Miss Selena is like this. I have given Cook some herbs. Pray go and see that they are properly infused, and send Polly up with the tea. Dearest, whatever has happened to your face?”
Selena stopped and looked in her mirror. “I don’t know. Oh, I suppose it is the sage dye you gave me for my eyebrows. It has smeared all over. I look a perfect fright!”
“At least no one has seen you, my love, and now we know it is not to be used in an overheated ballroom. I wonder if walnut juice might be more permanent?”
“But someone did see me: that arrogant court-card Iverbrook. I shall never be able to face him again.”
“Nonsense! And I do not think he can be described as a court-card, for I distinctly recall dear Gilbert saying how fortunate it was that Hugh was too young to be a member of Prinny’s set.”
“At all events, he is arrogant. He said in that odious, toplofty way that I was a fool, and if he dares to go to law to take Peter I shall fight him every step of the way, even if we all go home by beggar’s bush!”
“Of course you will, my love, but I am sure dear Hugh would never do anything so ungentlemanly. Now here is Polly with your tea. Sit down and drink it and you will soon feel more the thing.”
* * * *
Lord Iverbrook, mounted on Orion, followed Jem down the lane in no charitable frame of mind, in spite of his errand of mercy.
“Fribble!” he muttered to himself. “I’ll show her if I’m a fribble!”
Jem looked back. “Did you say something, my lord?”
“This horse is much too high-spirited for a female.”
“Miss Selena can manage him,” said Jem pugnaciously. “Miss Selena’s different nor other ladies.”
“With that sentiment,” said his lordship, “I am in most wholehearted agreement!”
Chapter 5
Lord Iverbrook thoroughly enjoyed his morning in the fields. The reapers responded to his natural air of authority, not to mention the fact that a “real lord” was taking an interest in their labours. John Peabody was inclined to take offense at first, but was won over by the viscount’s deference to his expertise.
When the work stopped at midday and the men gathered in the shade of the hedge to eat their bread and cheese, Iverbrook rode back to the Manor. He found a hired chaise in the stable yard and an acquaintance ensconced in the drawing room.
“Whitton!” he exclaimed. “So you are the black . . . a connexion of the family.”
The exquisite who rose to greet him with a flourishing bow was startlingly handsome, with guinea gold hair and a Roman profile. Also startling were his vermilion coat, its shoulders peaked with buckram wadding, and his peach waistcoat embroidered with hummingbirds.
“My lord Iverbrook! What a charming surprise,” he lisped.
“Sir Aubrey is Sir William’s nephew, Hugh,” explained Lady Whitton, "o
r not precisely a nephew but a third or fourth cousin. Somewhat removed, I collect. Since you are acquainted, you will excuse me while I go to see whether Selena is well enough to join us at luncheon.”
Sir Aubrey’s shirt-points made it impossible for him to turn his head; he twisted at the waist instead to address her ladyship.
“Of course, dear Aunt. My lord and I met in Jamaica. Your lordship was about to say ‘black sheep,’ I believe.” He tittered. “‘Pon my soul, the black sheep was not I but my father, who was exiled to the Indies.”
“And what brings you to England now?”
“La, I have long wished to return to the home of my ancestors, and I recently inherited the baronetcy so the omens seemed favourable. Snuff, my lord?”
“No, thank you.” The viscount watched with scorn as Sir Aubrey produced a snuff box set with what might conceivably be rubies but he rather suspected was coloured glass. With a mincing gesture, the baronet sniffed up a pinch of its contents. “I thought Sir William died several years ago,” Iverbrook went on, “not long after my brother married his daughter.”
“Ah, so you too are a close connexion of dear Lady Whitton. How delightful! Indeed, the late baronet passed on some while since, but the news travelled slowly to Jamaica—I am sure you understand the delay—and then the lawyers proceeded with extreme sloth in verifying my claim to the title. It was scarcely worth the long voyage if I was to find at the end that some closer male relative existed.”
“Indeed. So your title is proved and you are come to claim your inheritance?”
“So I believed, my lord, but I find myself in the most damnable situation! It seems the property is not entailed upon the heir and Sir William was so ill-advised as to leave it to his daughter! What, I ask you, can a flighty female want with a substantial farm like Milford? It can only be a burden to her.”
“You have not met Miss Whitton?”
“Not yet. She is unwell, I collect. However, I trust I have hit upon a scheme which must be acceptable, nay, welcome to all parties. If Miss Whitton will do me the inestimable honour of granting me her hand in marriage, I shall lift the burden from her shoulders while enjoying what is rightfully mine.”
