Baroness in Buckskin

by Sheri Cobb South

  With this performance, the dancing lesson was concluded, and Richard let his hand fall from her waist. “If you are not exhausted from your terpsichorean efforts, Susannah, I should be pleased to show you about the portrait gallery and introduce you to your ancestors.”

  “Exhausted? By dancing?” exclaimed Susannah, who on her Kentucky homestead was accustomed to doing more physical labour by noon than her English cousins, so far as she could tell, did in a week. “Why, no, I’m not tired at all, and I would be very pleased to see my ancestors in the portrait gallery.”

  This proved to be a long passage lined with tall windows on one wall, presumably placed there for the purpose of illuminating the framed portraits on the other. Susannah, rather intimidated by the rows of ruffed, powdered, or bewigged Ramsays glaring down at her from their frames, paused before the likeness of a lady with wide, panniered skirts of deep blue satin balanced by a towering powdered wig adorned with a stuffed bird perched on the edge of a nest containing a trio of open-mouthed hatchlings. The stiff formality of the lady’s pose was belied by the twinkle in her eye, as if she were fully aware of the absurdity of fashion, and invited the viewer to share in the joke.

  “Who is she?” Susannah asked, liking the lady already.

  “My mother,” Richard said with a hint of pride in his voice. “She was held to be a great beauty—said to rival the famous Gunning sisters, in fact—and might have looked a great deal higher than a mere baron, had she not fallen in love with my father.”

  “What a romantic story!”

  “I suppose it was, in some ways.”

  A shadow crossed his face, but Susannah, absorbed in her study of the portrait, did not notice. “She looks as if she must have been a very happy sort of person.”

  “She was—and a very kind one, as well.”

  “I’m sorry I never had a chance to know her.”

  “So am I. She would have liked you very much.” Even as he said the words, he realized they were true. His mother had liked everyone, had even seen the humour in Sir Matthew Pitney’s pompousness. It suddenly occurred to him that the Dowager Lady Ramsay would have laughed aloud at the tale of Susannah and her “riding costume,” much as Jane had done. Resolving to be kinder to his betrothed in the future, he took Susannah’s elbow and led her further along the passage.

  “But is there no picture of your father?”

  “On the contrary. There is a portrait by Reynolds which is said to be very fine—and indeed, it is a very accurate likeness—but it no longer hangs in the portrait gallery. When my father died, it was moved to his bedroom—which became mine, along with the title.”

  This mention of sleeping arrangements reminded him of an aspect of his approaching nuptials which had not yet been addressed. “I must not forget to show you my mother’s bedchamber. Her tastes tended toward the rococo which was fashionable in her younger days, but you may have it redecorated according to your own preferences.”

  This discussion of mutual (and, presumably, adjoining) bedchambers was much too intimate for Susannah’s liking. “You must have loved your father very much, to keep his picture in your bedroom,” she observed, returning the conversation to the less unnerving subject of his parentage.

  “Love?” Richard frowned as he pondered the matter. “I was devoted to him, of course, as a son should be, but he was too distant a parent to inspire true affection in his children. No, his portrait was placed there by my uncle, his younger brother, as a reminder to me of my obligation to my father, and to all the Lords Ramsay who preceded him.”

  “Oh,” said Susannah, rather daunted by this revelation. “But if he loved your mother—”

  “I said she fell in love with him; I never said he felt the same about her. Oh, he was never unkind to her, and certainly not cruel,” he added hastily, seeing shocked dismay writ large upon her expressive countenance. “But I suspect his choice of her as a bride was inspired not so much by the tender passion as it was by my mother’s genteel birth and sizeable dowry—not to mention the satisfaction of snatching the Season’s reigning beauty from under the very noses of gentlemen whose social status was far superior to his.”

  “Your poor mama!”

  “She would be very shocked by your pity, I assure you, for as you yourself noted, she was by nature a happy person. If she was at times neglected by her husband, she compensated by lavishing affection on her children and, later, on her companion, Jane Hawthorne.”

  “Children?” echoed Susannah, noting his use of the plural. “You have siblings, then?”

  “Had,” he corrected her, thinking of the family vault where three tiny bodies lay entombed, none of them having survived beyond their fifth year. Shaking off a sudden sense of melancholy, he took her elbow and led her further down the gallery. “Now that I am to be married myself, I wish Mama were still alive so that I might question her about her marriage. It might have helped me to be a better husband to you. I will do my best, but I fear I did not have the most shining of examples.”

  He stopped before a large painting of a young man astride a prancing black steed. The rider’s curled and powdered wig dated the portrait to the previous century, and his scarlet coat identified him as an officer in His Majesty’s army. “Now, here is a portrait that might interest you.”

  “ ‘Captain Benjamin Ramsay,’ ” she read aloud from the small brass nameplate at the bottom of the frame, then looked up at Richard, wide-eyed. “But that would make him—”

  “Your grandfather,” he said, nodding. “I gather this is the first time you’ve ever seen his likeness?”

  “Yes, for he died before I was born.” She leaned closer, peering intently at the painted face. “I don’t look much like him, do I?”

  “No.” Richard saw no point in denying the obvious. “I daresay you resemble your mother, or perhaps your grandmother.”

  But Susannah had already moved on to the next painting, a man with dark eyes and black King Charles curls hanging down to his shoulders. One hand rested on the hilt of his sword, and the other stroked the head of a sleek greyhound.

  “A very dashing cavalier, don’t you think?” Richard asked. “He was the fourth Baron Ramsay, but I have always thought that if we could cut his hair and shave his moustache, he would look just like Peter.”

  Susannah, determined to put this theory to the test, closed one eye and raised her finger to hide the pencil-thin moustache, then giggled at the result. “You’re right—he does! What a pity this betrothal ball can’t be a masquerade. Peter’s costume would be quite settled!” Her smile faded as she recalled the discussion she’d had with him the previous day during their ride. “Richard, what do you intend to do about Peter?”

  He frowned. “ ‘Do?’ I wasn’t aware that I had to ‘do’ anything about him. What are you thinking?”

  “Surely he can’t wish to remain your steward forever,” she pointed out.

  “Why the dev—why the deuce shouldn’t he?” demanded Richard, taken aback by this hitherto unconsidered possibility. “He is well paid and, being a member of the family, he has a degree of freedom he would be unlikely to find in anyone else’s employ.”

  “I didn’t mean to suggest that he might seek a position elsewhere,” she objected. “But he is young and ambitious, and—and sooner or later, he will want a broader scope for his talents.”

  He regarded her in utter bewilderment. “What do you know of his ambitions, let alone his talents? Why, you’ve hardly known him a se’ennight!”

  Susannah, realizing by now that she was the recipient of confidences to which Richard had not been privy, hastily demurred. “No, but—well, he seems to be very intelligent, and—”

  “Oh, he is,” Richard readily concurred. “That is why I should hate to lose him.”

  “But he wants—that is, he may wish to be the master of his own establishment someday,” she persisted. “I thought perhaps you might, I don’t know, settle something on him that would allow him to marry well.”

 
Richard’s eyebrows all but disappeared into his hairline. “Give him a dowry, you mean, like a bride? My dear girl, he would be insulted at the very suggestion!”

  “Yes,” she said, acknowledging the truth of this assertion with a sigh. “Yes, I suppose he would, wouldn’t he?”

  “But enough about Peter. Tell me, what do you think of this painting? I think you may find its subject strangely familiar.”

  He steered her toward a sixteenth-century likeness, somewhat faded with age, of a young woman whose long, slender neck rose with elegant grace from the stiff folds of her wide ruff. Her hair was dark, but the serene smile, straight nose, and the twinkle in the grey eyes were instantly recognizable.

  “Oh!” Susannah exclaimed, allowing herself to be distracted from the delicate subject of Peter’s future. “She looks just like Cousin Jane!”

  “I have always thought so.”

  Richard’s expression softened as he regarded the familiar features, and Susannah, seeing this unconscious reaction, was emboldened to voice the question that had puzzled her since she’d watched her cousins waltzing together.

  “Cousin Richard, I was just wondering—”

  “Yes?” prompted when she broke off. “What is it?”

  “You may think it impertinent of me to ask,” she cautioned him, reluctant to commit another such faux pas as she had obviously made concerning Peter.

  “Nonsense! You may ask me anything you like, and I will do my best to give you an answer.”

  “Very well, then. When I saw you and Cousin Jane waltzing, it occurred to me to wonder why the two of you have never married.”

  He stiffened and might have given her a stinging set-down, had he not just assured her of his willingness to answer any question she might care to ask. And in this case, it was perhaps best to make a clean breast of the matter, lest she hear of it from some other source and ascribe his silence to some entirely erroneous cause. Yes, it was better to make a full confession and put the issue to rest; it was, after all, ancient history.

  “As a matter of fact, I made her an offer of marriage almost ten years ago, which she very politely declined.”

  “Really?” Wide blue eyes regarded him curiously.

  “Her father had just died, and she was left virtually penniless. I considered it my duty to offer her the protection of my name.”

  Susannah sniffed in disdain. “If you said that to her, I don’t wonder she turned you down!”

  “I said something very similar in my letter to you, and you accepted me!” he retorted, goaded into discourtesy.

  “Yes, but—but that was different.” Her gaze shifted away from his, to drift down the passage toward the fourth Baron Ramsay.

  “How so?”

  “I had been left all alone, much like Cousin Jane, but far from being penniless, I was heiress to a con-siderable fortune, according to Papa’s lawyer. He urged me to marry as quickly as possible, but all the can-didates for my hand—not that there were all that many of them, for we didn’t get out much—were far more interested in my inheritance than they were in me. Then your letter came, and I figured that even if you turned out to be perfectly beastly, at least you wouldn’t be marrying me only for my fortune. And sure enough, you turned out to be not beastly at all—well, except for that first night, and I’ve quite forgiven you for that.”

  “My dear Susannah, such praise! You unman me!”

  She giggled. “Well, you did ask!”

  “So I did.” He took her arm and led her further down the gallery, echoing with a sigh, “So I did.”

  Chapter 11

  These violent delights have violent ends.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet

  The following morning, Susannah sat alone in the drawing room, taking advantage of the light streaming through its tall east-facing windows to illuminate her work as she effected repairs to her borrowed gown. She was halfway finished with the last of the two long side seams, and had just inserted the needle into the fabric for the next stitch when the sound of a gentleman clearing his throat startled her, and she jabbed the point into her thumb. Pressing the offended digit to her mouth, she looked up and saw Richard hovering in the doorway, looking more like an unwelcome visitor than the lord of the manor.

  “Susannah, have you a moment? I should like to speak to you, if I may.”

  His obvious discomfort communicated itself to her, and the fingers of her uninjured hand closed on the pile of figured muslin in her lap. “Of course, Richard.”

  “Yes, well.” He crossed the room with measured steps, and seated himself on the edge of the wing chair facing hers. “I think it is time we set a date for this marriage. I thought perhaps three weeks from Thursday, if that is agreeable to you.”

  “So—so soon?” Her hands jerked convulsively, and the borrowed gown slid from her lap to pool in a heap at her feet.

  “Can you think of any compelling reason to wait? The sooner we are wed, the sooner your rather precarious position is settled.”

  “There is that,” she admitted, casting a furtive glance at her thumb to make sure the bleeding had stopped.

  “By setting the date for three weeks hence, we should be able to hold the ball in a fortnight, and the wedding a week after. Tell me, would you prefer it to take place here at Ramsay Hall, or at the church in the village?”

  “A ball in a church?” exclaimed Susannah, scandalized.

  “Not the ball,” Richard said with some asperity. “The wedding.”

  “Oh. That.” She fixed her gaze on the hands in her lap. “I have no preference one way or the other.”

  “Well then, if it is all the same to you, I think we should marry in church.”

  “Very well.”

  “Will you want Jane to stand up with you, or would you prefer a bridesmaid nearer your own age? The vicar has two daughters who might serve the purpose, as well as a visiting niece from the West Indies who is rumored to be a considerable heiress. The two of you might find you have a lot in common.”

  She shook her head. “Thank you, but I think I should prefer Jane to a stranger.”

  “Very well. I expect Peter will attend me, so we shall be a family party.” He shifted on the edge of his seat. “That only leaves the matter of the wedding trip. Should you like to spend a few weeks in Paris, or would you prefer a longer trip to Rome?”

  “Weeks?”

  He nodded. “Or months, if we sail to Italy.”

  So taken aback was Susannah by the proposed length of such a trip that she forgot, at least for the nonce, its primary purpose. “Surely you cannot wish to be away from your estate for so long!”

  “My dear Susannah, even after the honeymoon we will not remain in the country all the year ’round. I am accustomed to spending every spring and autumn in London, while Parliament is in session. As my wife, you will of course accompany me on those occasions, so we might as well begin as we mean to go on.”

  “But what about the spring planting, and the autumn harvest?”

  He shrugged. “Peter will see to it, as always.” Seeing she was not convinced, he added, “The estate could not be in better hands, I assure you.”

  Of this, at least, she had no doubt. Still, it seemed wrong of Richard to burden Peter with the entire running of the estate while the two of them went gadding about on the Continent. “In that case, I should like to see Paris, if you please,” she decided, although her selection owed more to the shorter duration of such a trip than to the glory of Versailles or the medieval splendour of Notre Dame.

  “As you wish. I shall speak to the vicar about the arrangements for the wedding.” He rose from his chair, bobbed a self-conscious little bow, and left the room.

  Alone once more, Susannah stared blindly down at the gown on the drawing room floor as if wondering how it had come to be there—wondering, indeed, how she had come to be there. Left alone in the world after the death of her father, Richard’s letter had seemed a godsend; in fact, there had been something terribly rom
antic about the idea of crossing the ocean to marry a wealthy and aristocratic stranger. Now that a date for the union had been set, however, her approaching marriage was no longer a vague idea. Now it was real in a way it had not been before.

  And what did you expect? she scolded herself mentally. It’s a marriage, not a public execution. Women do it every day.

  Still, she was thankful for the sewing that demanded her attention and, eventually, was able to set the last few stitches with fingers that hardly shook at all. Having completed this task, she knotted the seam, snipped the thread, and left the room with the repaired gown draped over her arm.

  “Ah, Miss Ramsay,” the butler addressed her as she crossed the hall, proffering a folded paper. “A message just came for you from Madame Lavert.”

  She took the paper, opened it, and scanned the brief missive. “Madame says the first of my new dresses will be delivered tomorrow.” She glanced at the gown hanging over her arm. “I suppose I can return this one to Jane. Will you see that it is laundered?”

  “May I suggest that you keep it to wear today, and return it to Miss Hawthorne upon the morrow? If you will permit me, miss, I will take it to the laundry maid; daresay it will need ironing after its, er, adventures. ”

  “Yes, thank you.” She surrendered the garment to the butler. “I don’t think it has any bloodstains on it, but will you ask her to look and make sure?”

  The butler raised his eyebrows but made no reply before bearing the dress away with a dignity befitting the crown jewels.

  Susannah gazed regretfully at the great curving staircase. Her experience in the stables had been sufficient to inform her that the narrow-skirted gowns she would be expected to wear every day would be just as unsuited for sliding down the banister as they would be for riding. With a sigh of regret for what might have been, she looked down at the note in her hands.