The Loves of Lord Granton (The Changing Fortunes Series, Vol. 2)

by M C Beaton

  The Loves of Lord Granton

  M. C. Beaton/ Marion Chesney

  Copyright

  The Loves of Lord Granton

  Copyright © 1997 by Marion Chesney

  Cover art to the electronic edition copyright © 2011 by RosettaBooks, LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  First electronic edition published 2011 by RosettaBooks LLC, New York.

  ISBN Mobipocket edition: 9780795320590

  For Annette Clayton, with best regards

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter One

  Barton Sub Edge was a sleepy Cotswold village. Not much happened there and nobody supposed it ever would. The year of eighteen hundred and twelve saw an exceptionally fine summer, and the village seemed even sleepier than ever as it basked in long days of lazy sunlight where people moved languidly, thick roses clustered round cottage doors, and the thatched roofs of the houses shone like gold.

  Tranquillity outside, however, does not mean tranquillity within, and such was the case in the rectory. The rector of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Dr. Peter Hadley, had four grown-up daughters. The rector considered four unmarried daughters one of the many crosses the good Lord had given him to bear to test his faith. The fact that he had caused some of his burdens by marrying a silly, pretty lady with neither brains nor money to commend her never crossed his mind.

  He should have been grateful that Mary, the eldest at twenty-one, considered herself the mainstay of the family and prided herself on her intelligence. But Mary had a way of giving little martyred sighs when asked to help about the parish, and self-appointed saints are always difficult to live with. Amy, at twenty, was pretty, frivolous, and as empty-headed as her mother. So, too, was the next in line, Harriet, aged nineteen. Then came Frederica, just turned eighteen, shy and damned as “difficult” because of her fey appearance and odd ways.

  Mary, Amy, and Harriet felt that the long days of sunshine were intensifying the fact that they had little social life and no beaux. Frederica often wondered if it might be possible to die of boredom.

  The social life of the village, such as it was, was dominated by “the great house,” Townley Hall, home of baronet, Sir Giles Crown, and his lady. The rector was often invited to dinner, but his family only on general occasions such as balls and fetes to which the rest of the village came.

  Mary Hadley had received a proposal of marriage when she was just nineteen. Her suitor was a local gentleman farmer, but at that time Mary had had her eye on the squire’s son, Jeremy. Jeremy had been inconsiderate enough to join a regiment and take himself off the day after Mary had turned down the farmer, and the farmer had subsequently married little Jenny Pascoe, daughter of a Moreton-in-Marsh solicitor, and was now to all accounts blissfully happy. Only Mary thought she detected looks of lost love in his eyes when they occasionally met. Frederica thought it was wishful thinking on her sister’s part. Mary was handsome in a severe way, with a pouter pigeon figure, a rather sallow skin, and a commanding air. She played the pianoforte and the harp, both competently, and wrote poetry that she read aloud whenever she had a captive audience.

  One day when her sisters were fretting and quarreling, Frederica put on her bonnet and set out for a walk. The sun struck down on her back through the thin muslin of her gown, and she was glad when she reached the road out of the village where the tall hedges met above her head, sheltering her from the sun.

  The girls had been educated at the local school, and Frederica had furthered her education by reading voraciously. She worried often about what her life was going to be. She wished with all her heart that she had been born a boy. She could have joined a regiment like the squire’s son, or she could have read for the bar, or she could have done any number of things denied to women. All she could think of doing when she grew old enough to be considered respectable was to advertise for a post of governess and so escape the stifling hot grave that Barton Sub Edge seemed to be on that fine day.

  Often her own boredom and discontent made her feel guilty. It seemed not so long ago that she had relished the beauty of the countryside and the changing seasons.

  She came out of the shadow of the tall hedges and into the sunshine once more, climbed over a stile beside the road, and headed round the edge of a field of wheat toward Cummin Woods, which lay on the far side.

  She paused once she was among the trees. A breeze far overhead ruffled the leaves. In the center of the wood lay a round dark pool, calm and secretive. Frederica stood by the pool and looked down at her reflection in the water. A thin face with large eyes and fine silvery hair under her sun-bonnet looked up at her until a puff of wind ruffled the water and broke up her reflection.

  She sat down with a little sigh. God, she thought dismally, had not blessed her with a feminine mind. For all their discontent, her sisters could easily become immersed in trivia, the latest bit of gossip, the latest fashion, or the social column in the newspaper, which was a week old by the time it was passed down to them from Townley Hall. In most other parts of the country, she would not be allowed to wander about unescorted, but Barton Sub Edge and the surrounding placid countryside had never been plagued with footpads or highwaymen.

  Unlike her sisters, she never dreamed of beaux or romance. It had been dinned into her that her looks were “unfortunate,” and she knew she was expected to spend the rest of her days at the rectory, after her prettier sisters were married, to be a companion to her mother.

  She had no friends. Her mother was sharply aware of the social pecking order. Annabelle, Sir Giles Crown’s beautiful daughter, would have been rated a suitable companion, but Annabelle was too high in the instep to befriend anyone from the rectory. The squire had only one son and no daughters. Everyone else was considered not socially high enough. She had made friends at school, but after her school days were over, it was borne in on her that such friendships were not suitable and must end, and Frederica had been brought up to believe that daughterly duty and obedience were next to godliness.

  And, as she looked at the water, she had a sudden feeling that her life was to change, that something momentous was about to happen. Despite the heat, she gave a little shiver. Anxious to hold on to this feeling, although she was sure it was all in her imagination and that she would emerge from this wood and go back along the dusty road to home to find everything exactly as it had been, she began to hurry home with a mounting feeling of excitement.

  With a little sigh, she made her way out of the wood. She held her skirts up as she walked around the edge of the wheat field. She was always being lectured on the state of her clothes.

  Then as she reached the road and climbed the stile, she was aware of a damp feel to the breeze against her cheek and looked over to the west. Black clouds were mounting up against the sky. A storm was coming. She rushed along the road. By the time she reached the end of it and came out by the wall of the churchyard, the sky above was black and she heard the first growl of thunder.

  She walked into the churchyard and round the square Norman building of the church to the rectory on the far side.

  The first thing she heard when she entered was the babble of excited voices from the rectory parlor.

  She walked in. Her mother and sisters broke off their con
versation on seeing her, and Mrs. Hadley let out a little shriek. “Just look at you, Frederica! Dusty, like the veriest peasant. What will Lord Granton think!”

  “Who,” demanded Frederica, “is Lord Granton?”

  Viscount, Lord Rupert Granton, sat in the bay window of White’s and stared gloomily out at the sun blazing down on Saint James’s.

  “Did you say Barton Sub Edge?” queried his friend, Major Harry Delisle. “Where in creation is that?”

  “It is a village in the Cotswolds. I have accepted an invitation from Sir Giles Crown to stay, and so I engineered an invitation for you as well.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I am bored out of my wits and regret having decided to go to this forgotten hamlet in the middle of nowhere and decided you should suffer as well.”

  “I say,” protested the major, a round, chubby, shortsighted man sweltering in all the latest fashion of starched cravat, starched shirt points, and skintight pantaloons.

  “Well, we are frying here in the poisonous and disease-ridden heat of a London summer. Everyone has gone to their estates or followed the Prince Regent to Brighton. I am of a mind to get married, and Annabelle Crown is described as a beauty.”

  “When did you meet her?”

  “I didn’t. Just heard about her.”

  “So why have you decided to get married all of a sudden?”

  “I have been racketing around all my life and am still bored. Marriage is the one diversion I have not tried.”

  “Seasons come and Seasons go, and you have had ample opportunity to find a bride,” pointed out his friend.

  “But I never thought of marriage until now,” said the viscount, stifling a yawn.

  Viscount Granton had been described as looking like the devil himself. He had thick black hair that grew in a widow’s peak on his forehead, glittering amber eyes that could blaze yellow when he was angry, a proud nose, and a firm but sensuous mouth in a tanned face. His figure was as lithe and muscular as that of an acrobat. His reputation as a rake did not stop his still being regarded as a marital prize.

  “And what will you do when you are married?” asked the major cynically. “Leave your lady in the country and go back to rattling about Town?”

  “I am weary of rattling. I am searching for something, and I do not know what that something is. I would like sons and perhaps to spend more time on my estates.”

  “You have an excellent agent.”

  “Do I? I suppose I do. Parton keeps saying, ‘Everything is running smoothly, my lord. No need for you to trouble about anything.’ I mention the latest advances in agriculture and ask him if he has tried the new phosphates, and he smiles and says, ‘You must not trouble yourself, my lord. Everything is as it should be,’ and I am left feeling like some dilettante aristocrat who wishes to play like Marie Antoinette. You’re bored, too, aren’t you?”

  “I’m always bored out of Season and away from my regiment. I thought this long leave would be fun, but I confess to feeling jaded.”

  “Then there you have it.” The viscount stifled another yawn. “We may as well go to this remote village and be jaded and bored together.”

  “But I do not understand,” protested Frederica, raising her voice so that she could be heard above the tumult of the storm that was now raging overhead. “Why all the excitement? Sir Giles, it appears, is hopeful that this Lord Granton will propose marriage to his Annabelle, who is rich and beautiful. Why would such a man decide to favor one of the daughters of the rectory?”

  “You see,” said Mary, her voice shrill with excitement, “Annabelle may be beautiful and rich, but she did not take at the last Season because she is very dull. Worldly men such as this Lord Granton prefer women of brains and character. I shall read him some of my poems.”

  “Stoopid,” said Amy with a toss of auburn curls and a contemptuous flash of her blue eyes, “gentlemen do not like clever women; everyone knows that.”

  “Exactly,” agreed black-haired Harriet. “You would prose him to death, Mary.”

  “We shall see,” said Mary complacently. “May I remind you that I am the only one who has received a proposal of marriage.”

  “Never mind all that,” said Amy. “Frederica, you must help me make over my ball gown. Lady Giles has sent us a fashion magazine, and the neck of my gown is too high.”

  “And I must collect my portfolio of watercolors and see that they are all there!” exclaimed Harriet. “He will want to see those.”

  “How old is Lord Granton?” asked Frederica.

  “Early thirties.”

  “And not wed! Why is that?”

  “Oh, he has such a wicked reputation!” cried Amy, clapping her hands. “He is nicknamed Devil Granton. It is said a lady once tried to commit suicide because he had broken her heart. He has fought duels. He has traveled abroad. He is supposed to be a dangerous man.”

  Frederica began to look amused. She turned to her mother. “You are surely not hoping that this wicked man should turn out to be attracted to one of your daughters?”

  “All men are wicked,” said Mrs. Hadley. She was a plump little woman with large blue eyes. “They always reform after marriage.”

  “Is that what happened to Papa?”

  “Frederica, behave yourself. That sarcastic levity you sometimes betray is not at all the thing. Quite unladylike, in fact. Oh, do go and change your gown. What if Lord Granton should arrive early and decide to call at the rectory?”

  “In the middle of a storm, Mama?”

  “Go to your room, now. It is as well that we have no hopes of a marriage for you.”

  Frederica made her way up the stairs. The thunder was now grumbling away in the distance. She opened the window and leaned out with her elbows on the sill. The air was sweet and fresh, full of the scent of flowers and trees. A shaft of sun shone down from behind a black cloud, and all the raindrops hanging from the flowers and bushes in the rectory garden glittered gold.

  A little spark of rebellion burned somewhere deep inside Frederica. She was tired of being damned as plain and unmarriageable. She went back into the room and sat down in front of the toilet table and removed her bonnet. Her silvery blond hair was worn straight down her back. Frederica was of an age to have her hair put up, but with three unmarried elder sisters, she was still considered the baby of the family. She twisted her hair up on top of her head and looked at herself consideringly. Her eyes were large and gray. Her skin was good and her lips well shaped. But she was too slim in an age when the full figure was fashionable; her face was too thin when ladies still plumped out their cheeks with wax pads.

  She gave a little sigh. The strange excitement she had felt at the pool must have been because of the approaching storm. The imminent arrival of a rake in their sleepy village would not alter her life one whit.

  Sir Giles Crown was a portly man, always conscious of his standing in the neighborhood. He and his wife had accompanied their daughter, of course, to the last Season in London. Sir Giles had not enjoyed London one bit. In the countryside he was a big fish in a small pool, but in London he had been considered a very minor luminary. Anna-belle’s beauty, too, had been somewhat eclipsed by an unexpected number of fine-looking debutantes at the Season. That, Sir Giles and his lady had decided, must have been the reason for Annabelle’s strange failure to secure a husband. He had written to Lord Granton, although he had only had a fleeting club acquaintanceship with the younger man, and was now proud and pleased that his invitation had been accepted.

  His wife, thin and fussy, with cold pale eyes and narrow lips that always seemed to be primped up in disapproval, was planning entertainments for the distinguished guest.

  “We shall have a ball,” she said, “but we must make sure it is an elegant affair. Lord Granton would not appreciate a room full of villagers.”

  “I suppose those silly girls from the rectory will be angling for invitations,” said Annabelle. Annabelle Crown had glossy dark brown hair and large liquid brown eyes. H
er mouth was small enough to please the highest stickler and she had a well-turned ankle. But she carried with her an air of cold haughtiness she had learned from her mother. She, too, had hated London, where no one seemed to be impressed by her whatsoever. She had never been in the way of making friends, and so had felt excluded from the gossip and chatter of the other debutantes. She had been relieved and excited to learn of this Lord Granton’s forthcoming visit, which she firmly believed was tantamount to a proposal of marriage, although he had never danced with her once during the Season. She assumed he had seen her and been struck by her beauty but was initially too conscious of his rakish reputation to make any approach.

  “Such as Lord Granton,” said her mother, “is not going to be at all interested in any of the girls from the rectory. Only think what he would make of Mary Hadley, prosing on with her dreadful poems, not to mention the vulgar giggling and ogling and whispering of Harriet and Amy, and Frederica is too young and strange to merit a second glance. I think we may be assured that you have no competition in the county whatsoever, Annabelle.”