Romancing the Countess

by Ashley March

  “I shall eat twice as much at dinner,” she replied, hoping at least that they could move on to a different topic quickly.

  Her mother seemed happy with her response. “I’ve already decided what we must do in order to halt the rumors and remove you from the scandal you’ve created.”

  Hopefully it would be to sequester her in a nunnery. Right now that idea sounded much more appealing than living beneath her mother’s roof once more.

  “You will continue to wear your mourning clothes, of course, although I think you should have more bombazine dresses. You are fortunate that it’s autumn and we’re no longer in London. Otherwise I would forbid you to go outside. However, you will have a servant with you at all times should you decide to go for a walk or a ride—and if you do make such a decision, you will act as the lady I have instructed you to be.”

  “You believe the scandal will die down simply because I begin to act like a regular widow once again? That if we ignore the rumors, my reputation might be saved?”

  “Of course not.” Adelaide gave a small humph. “I’m only telling you these things because I fear if I don’t mention them you will believe that you have the freedom to do otherwise. No, my dear, I fear the only thing that will save our family’s name now is for you to marry again once your time of mourning is finished.”

  This time, Leah was unable to keep herself detached. Her entire body flinched at her mother’s words, and she felt her stomach roll—not once, but twice.

  “Since the Season has ended, we don’t have very many choices, but do not worry, my dear. I’ve already selected two potential candidates for your next husband. Fortunately, they both live nearby so that your courting may be done as expediently as possible. You will be engaged quietly, the banns announced as soon as it’s appropriate, and when you are married again, you won’t have to live so far away from us.”

  “Mother, I . . . I cannot marry again.”

  Adelaide stared at her, a frown marring her smooth forehead. “You cannot marry again?” she asked, her tone bemused. Too quiet.

  “Perhaps later, after a few years. When I’ve—I’ve—” Leah stammered to a halt, unable to comprehend the possibility of lying together with another man. So quickly after Ian’s death, and so soon after she had gained her independence from the marital bed. Even a few years seemed too short of a time. “I will not marry again,” she said, then added when her mother’s frown turned into a reproving glare: “Not right now, at least.”

  “Hmm. Well, darling, I’m afraid it’s the only choice you have. While I would thoroughly enjoy you staying with us for as long as you wish, I fear that the little party you gave has made that impossible. We can only work to improve your situation. As you said, ignoring the rumors will do no good, and there is nothing else that can be done to stop them except for you to marry again. Then the gossipmongers will see that you have been taken in hand by another husband, and they will find something else to speak of.”

  Leah swallowed, her heartbeat deafening as it pounded in her ears. “Then, if I understand you correctly, you mean to say that if I do not agree to either one of your suggested husbands, I may not be allowed to live here?”

  Adelaide tilted her head to the side, blinking. “I’m sorry, Leah, but there’s no other choice. If you cannot do this, you must realize your scandal will soon spread to your father and me. Of course, we would not care as much, but it would also affect Beatrice. You wouldn’t ruin her opportunities at such a wonderful marriage as you had with Ian, would you?”

  “Beatrice,” Leah repeated.

  “Your sister.” Her mother gave a small smile, the width of which did nothing to hide her growing satisfaction. Satisfaction that she had caught Leah in her trap, that she would once again direct Leah’s life?

  Inhaling, Leah forced her shoulders to relax. “May I ask who the two men are whom you’ve already selected as candidates for my next husband? And how do you know that they will be amenable to courting me? Will they not have been dissuaded by my actions?”

  “Not at all. Your father has seen fit to provide you with another dowry. A smaller one than you had when you married Ian, to be sure, but a decent one, nonetheless.”

  Leah’s smile felt brittle. Idly, she wondered if she laughed now whether she would break apart into a thousand tiny pieces. “But it’s not a dowry, is it? You mean to pay someone to take me.”

  Her mother raised an eyebrow. “Your reputation is ruined, Leah. We are merely providing necessary inducement for the gentlemen to court you.”

  “Again, may I ask who these men are?”

  “Of course. You know both of them well. First, there is Mr. Grimmons—”

  “Mr. Grimmons? The vicar?”

  Her mother shrugged. “Clergymen need money, too, my dear. I believe his sister and her husband were helping with part of his support, but apparently that has ended.”

  “But my reputation—”

  “Does not matter to him. I’ve assured Mr. Grimmons that you have learned the error of your ways and are more repentant. He believes it is grief which led you to behave so wickedly. And what better way to assure everyone that you are still my good and proper daughter than for you to marry a vicar?”

  Leah inwardly sighed. “And the other?”

  “Mr. Hapersby.”

  Leah stared. “Mother.”

  Adelaide waved her hand. “No, no. He’s an excellent match as well. I might have exaggerated when I called him a gentleman, but butchery is good, somber work. And you cannot be mistaken for a frivolous young woman when you’re helping your husband carve and sell meats.”

  Leah continued staring.

  Finally, her mother had the grace to look abashed. “I must admit, I did try to convince Lord Sommers that you would make a fine wife, but he wanted assurance that you could breed in order to take you on, and since you had no children with Ian—”

  “I understand.” Thank God. For once, thank God she’d never borne a child. Lord Sommers was at least eighty years of age, with a bulbous nose and bulbous eyes and a neck that sagged to the middle of his chest. She might have had to endure Ian’s lovemaking, but at least she hadn’t been physically repulsed by him.

  “Well? Do you agree that you must marry one of these men? Will you act in good faith when they come to call on you?”

  Perhaps it was the frighteningly cheerful lilt of her mother’s voice, or simply that she’d observed too many of Adelaide’s schemes, but dread crept up Leah’s spine at the last of her questions. She didn’t know if she could do this. “And . . . when might they begin calling on me, Mother?”

  Adelaide smiled. “Why, Mr. Grimmons is coming to dinner tonight, my dear.”

  Sebastian lay on his stomach at the edge of the blanket, his elbows propping him up as he moved one of the yellow blocks to the fore of the castle. Of course, Henry had no idea it was a castle. To him, it was simply a pile of wooden blocks to be built up and then knocked down again when it became so high he couldn’t resist.

  Reaching for a blue block, Sebastian locked eyes with Henry and smiled conspiratorially as he lodged this one at the top of the castle. With an answering grin, Henry stepped forward, wobbling a bit as his foot caught on a fold of the blanket, and swiped his arm against the structure, toppling it all but the two lowest sections. Sebastian lifted his arm in the air, and Henry mimicked him, turning in circles and crying out, “Again, Papa, again!”

  For more than a fortnight they’d been in Hampshire at the Wriothesly estate. The countryside seemed to do Henry well. Every day, Sebastian would rescue him from his nurse after going over business with the steward, and they’d roam about the manor or the grounds.

  They played hide-and-seek on the lower floor, where Sebastian chased Henry around and around the sofa in his study, pretending to lose his breath and hobbling like an old man. Where he listened to Henry giggle as he rounded the sofa again and caught Sebastian by his legs.

  They went for walks over the meadows, Sebastian pointing out t
he various insects and flowers that Henry kept stopping to look at and touch. Sebastian even allowed Henry to sit on the pony he’d bought him for his second birthday. By the time Henry was five, he’d no doubt be jumping fences.

  Yet even though Henry appeared to enjoy himself, and Sebastian did everything he could to amuse and distract him, in the evenings when they said their good nights Henry still wrapped his little arms around Sebastian’s neck. Clinging, he would ask in the hushed whisper his nurse taught him was used at bedtime, “When is Mama here?”

  Sebastian separated the blocks by colors as they prepared to build up the castle again. This time, he would try to make the tower ten blocks high. Henry seemed to squeal louder the taller it became.

  “Here. Put the red one on,” he instructed, then watched as Henry took it from his hand and turned toward the castle ruins, his knees bending, leaning forward in that serious, determined little boy way.

  After placing the red block on top, he held out his hand again to Sebastian. “Blue, Papa.”

  Sebastian tried to give him a yellow block, but Henry closed his fist and shook his head. “No. Blue block.”

  Grinning, Sebastian held up a green one. “Is this it?”

  “No.”

  He held up an orange one. “This one, you mean?”

  Henry stared; then his cheeks rounded as he smiled. “No, Papa. Blue block.” Stepping forward, he reached for the blue pile, but Sebastian grabbed him beneath his arms and swung him about, laying him faceup on the blanket. He lifted the green one again.

  “This is blue,” he said.

  Henry giggled and shook his head. “Green.”

  Sebastian tickled him, and Henry rolled from side to side, kicking his legs as he laughed.

  “Blue. Admit it,” Sebastian threatened, “or I’ll continue to tickle you.”

  “Green!” Henry shouted, and laughed again.

  Black boots appeared at the edge of Sebastian’s vision. “What insolent cur is this, to contradict and attack his lordship? Never fear, Viscount Maddows, I will protect you.”

  “Uncle Jamie!” Henry screamed with delight as James pulled him loose from Sebastian’s grasp and swung him around and around.

  Climbing to his feet, Sebastian nudged the blocks into the center of the blanket. After a few more moments of spinning, James set Henry back on the ground. The boy ran to Sebastian, his grin wide, and hugged Sebastian’s legs.

  Sebastian looked at James. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

  The smile on James’ face faded. “I have news.”

  That evening, after dinner and after Sebastian had said good night to Henry, he and James sat in his study. James drank whiskey. Sebastian had nothing. Ever since the experience of being drunk in front of Leah, he had no inclination to imbibe. Even the sting of liquor reminded him of her.

  “There are rumors going around.”

  Sebastian shrugged. “There are always rumors going around.”

  “It’s about Ian’s widow. Mrs. George.”

  Although he tried not to show his reaction, Sebastian couldn’t keep his gaze from flying to meet James’. “I’m not surprised about that, either. I told you what happened at the house party. She’s brought this on herself.”

  James’ foot scuffed against the rug below his chair. “Then this might get your attention, because you are now included in those rumors, dear brother.”

  Sebastian straightened. “Go on.”

  “It appears that several of the guests at the house party are now convinced that you and Mrs. George are . . . How should I put it?”

  “Damn it, James, stop this dithering around. What are they saying?”

  “The rumor is you and she are . . . involved. If not lovers, then close.” James looked down at his whiskey, swirling it around. “Although I suspect soon the gossip will take that final leap.”

  Sebastian clenched his jaw. It was of no use to point out that he’d been the first one to leave the party, or that he’d gone solely to keep her from creating a scandal. The gossipmongers wouldn’t care; in fact, it would probably only feed the fire for him to defend himself. The best thing he could do for the entire situation—for himself, for Leah, and for Henry—was to ignore it.

  Exhaling slowly, he leaned back against his chair. His hands curved over the end of the polished oak arms. “Let them talk as they wish. It will pass eventually—before fox hunting season, if not sooner, I predict. I have no plans to see Mrs. George again, so anything she does now will be on her shoulders alone.”

  James nodded and sipped from his glass. “I trust you are right.” He paused, sipped again. “But if you’re not?”

  Sebastian shrugged, annoyed at their conversation and the reminder of Leah, when he had tried so hard to put her from his mind. “There’s nothing to be done. Let them gossip. It means nothing to me.”

  A month passed, and as the days went by, Leah’s desperation to escape grew stronger and stronger. Especially in moments like these, when she was required to spend time with one of her two suitors. Of the two, Mr. Grimmons the vicar was the least bothersome. He was severe in his appearance and his manners, but he also seemed quite uncomfortable around her, which made the afternoons easier for her. Mr. Hapersby, on the other hand, leered at her the entire time they were together. After having spent twenty years without being the object of lust, his ogling tempted her to do whatever she must to scare him away. But she couldn’t—she knew they both reported to Adelaide after each session, and Leah knew her mother well enough to understand that her threats were not idle. If she didn’t cooperate, she would be required to leave the house. And she had nowhere else to go.

  As she walked sedately beside Mr. Grimmons in the garden, Leah plucked a late-blooming rose from its stem and twirled it between her fingers. Without intending to, she remembered the night she’d found Lord Wriothesly in Ian’s study, and how he’d told her she smelled like roses.

  Hiding her smile, Leah slid a glance at Mr. Grimmons from beneath her lashes. “Do you like roses, sir?”

  The young vicar startled—apparently he’d been lost in one of his reveries again—and looked at her, blinking beneath the glare of the sunlight. “I enjoy all of God’s creation, Mrs. George. Do you not?”

  “Of course,” she murmured. “But I have a particular affinity for roses.”

  “Oh.” They walked a few more moments in silence; then Mr. Grimmons halted. “Wait here, please,” he said. He turned to the side, where a white rosebush bloomed, and snapped off a partially open flower midstem. “For you, Mrs. George.”

  “Thank you.” She looked at him, but he said nothing more. No compliment to compare her skin to the rose, nothing to emphasize his regard for her. He didn’t even blush—as she might have expected—or meet her gaze with his limpid brown eyes that were two inches too close together.

  Instead he stared straight ahead, his arms stiff at his sides. Sighing, Leah held the white rose he’d given her in her hand and dropped the red one to the ground.

  “Mrs. George.”

  Leah waited, but he didn’t say anything else. “Yes, Mr. Grimmons?”

  “I would like to discuss a matter with you. But out of respect to your sensibilities after so recently losing your husband . . .”

  Oh, how she was tempted to tell him that she’d never grieved at all. Would he be horrified? No, he’d probably take that as encouragement. But if she pretended to weep, would he try to comfort her? Leah glanced at his profile—the stern pull of his mouth, the angular line of his jaw. Probably not.

  She sniffed, just to see.

  He looked at her, concern in his expression, and stepped closer to her.

  Oh, God. Leah gave a weak smile. “I think I might be growing ill.”

  He stilled, then subtly stepped back to his side of the garden path. “Perhaps we should go inside. And if you are feeling better tomorrow, would you mind if I call on you again? I would like to . . . discuss something with you.”

  Inwardly sighing, Leah came
to a halt. “Do you intend to ask me to marry you?” Let it be done today, then, so she didn’t spend half the night fearing what the words out of his mouth would be the next afternoon.

  Mr. Grimmons stumbled, then whirled around to face her. This time his cheeks did flush and his mouth hung open. “I—”

  “If that is your intent, sir, then it seems that it might be best to spare us both the time in waiting.”

  His mouth closed, his eyes narrowed, and Mr. Grimmons looked at her as if she were a creature that had, if not crawled from the bowels of hell, then dropped from some bewildering place below heaven. “In truth, Mrs. George, I understand it is your mother’s wish that we might wed, but I do not believe you are the one God has chosen for me.”

  Leah stared, feeling her own cheeks heat. “Oh.”

  “I wanted to ask you about your sister. Miss Beatrice.”

  “Oh.”

  “I wished to discuss my intention of asking for Miss Beatrice’s hand. Although I’m sure you would bring honor and respect to your next husband—”

  He seemed to choke on the words “honor and respect.” Leah smiled, wondering if he was thinking about the rumors of her and the house party.

  “—I have known Miss Beatrice much longer, and I have formed quite an attachment to her. I sincerely apologize if this news distresses you, but—”

  “Mr. Grimmons.”

  His gaze returned from somewhere above her head, and he met her eyes.

  “I will speak to Beatrice, if you wish.”

  He blushed again—and it softened his intense, earnest expression, making him appear almost charming. “Thank you, Mrs. George.”

  Leah stretched out her arm and handed the white rose to him. She winked. “Beatrice’s favorite flower is the calla lily.”

  As she’d done every week since her mother gave her the ultimatum of marrying or leaving the house, Leah pored over Beatrice’s women’s magazine, searching in vain for a job which didn’t require skills she didn’t possess or a reputation she no longer had.