The man glanced in his direction, and their gazes linked. When Marcus stopped in front of the brick facade of his father’s house, he was not surprised to see the man walking toward him. This was most peculiar. Very few strangers ever spoke to the residents of the square. Mayhap the man had moved into one of the empty residences on the opposite side of the square.
“Good morning, Lord Daniston,” the man said. He was a short man with broad shoulders, but his face looked as if it had suffered the blows of a bunch of fives many times in the past. His clothes, which were serviceable, although not made by an excellent knight of the cloth, labeled him as out of place on the square.
“Do I know you?”
“We have not been introduced, but I know you.” He tipped his hat to Marcus. “Allow me to introduce myself. Allen Pennant.”
Marcus handed the reins of his horse to a lad who had run out when he stopped in front of the house. As the boy led the horse away, Marcus asked, “Do you have a reason for approaching me today, Mr. Pennant? I fear I have no time for jabber.”
“No reason other than to bid you a good morning.” Again he tipped his hat. “Have a pleasant day, my lord.”
Andrews rode up as Pennant strolled back toward the garden in the middle of the square. The valet choked, “What is he doing here?”
“Pennant?” Marcus shrugged and walked toward the pair of steps leading to the door of his father’s house. Hearing Andrews scurrying to catch up with him, he paused. “Why are you putting yourself into such a bother over Pennant?”
“I dislike the idea of one of them here.”
“One of what?”
“One of those Bow Street Runners.”
Marcus grasped the iron railing by the walkway and affixed Andrews with his most fierce stare. “How do you know he is from Bow Street?”
Andrews did not answer right away, then mumbled, “He has the look.”
As his frown faded into a smile, Marcus clapped his valet on the shoulder. A sudden suspicion sifted through his head. “Was this your idea?”
“No, my lord.”
“I will not listen to your falsely innocent protestations. Even if he is a Bow Street Runner, as you say and I find impossible to believe, I have enough problems today without looking for more where there is none. Come. With any luck, my breakfast is waiting.” When Andrews did not move, Marcus added, “After all, what would a Bow Street Runner be doing here? There are no criminals to take here, unless you count Mrs. Trench, who should be charged for serving such tasteless wine at her last gathering.”
“I have no idea, my lord,” he said, his long face growing even longer. “But there must be something amiss.”
“There is. My breakfast will soon be cold.” Marcus was laughing as he walked up to the door. Andrews enjoyed a jest. This must be his way of trying to help Marcus forget the day to come. Later, when Andrews confessed to his prank, Marcus would thank his valet.
A Bow Street Runner on Berkeley Square? One that had come up to introduce himself? This was, indeed, the best joke Andrews had ever devised, and Marcus was sure, as he glanced back to see the man who had called himself Pennant—a most unconventional name—standing by the statue, that he and Andrews would be laughing together about it for days to come.
And he was going to need something to laugh about, because he suspected his new wife was sure to complicate his life in ways he had not even considered.
Two
Regina Morrissey Whyte stared out the window of the mail coach and wished she could find some way to convince Mr. William Bobbs to still his tongue. The man had prattled ceaselessly from the moment they had left Dover several hours before.
She did not want to appear uncivil, but the man managed to squeeze more words into each breath than any person she had ever met. And, she had to own, not a single word was worth listening to. The gabble-grinder had enough tongue for two sets of teeth, and now he was babbling on about what his tailor had charged for his new coat.
“You must suffer the same, when you go to call upon your modiste,” he said, leaning toward her as if he was sharing a rare confidence. “You shall find the cost of a new dress much more dear in London than out in grassville.”
Wishing one of the other riders crowded into the rocking coach, which smelled of perspiration, dust, and other things she did not want to examine too closely, would interject some comment to spare her from having to reply to this prattlebox, Regina clenched her hands around the strings of her reticule as her shoulder struck the side of the coach.
She rubbed the tender spot, which might soon be a bruise, then said, “Mr. Bobbs, I thank you for your forewarning.”
Her hope that her cool tone would bring an end to his bibble-babble was for naught, because he hurried to say, “I assume from all you have said—”
All I have said? Regina was certain she had had no chance to say more than a dozen words during the long trip. The rest of the time had been filled with Mr. Bobbs’s endless chatter.
“—that you have never been to Town before.”
“I was once, many years ago.”
“I am sure that you will find it holds many delights for a young woman.” His eye closed in a lazy wink.
This was beyond too much. “I am sure that my husband will be pleased to introduce me to each of them.”
“Husband?”
“Lord Daniston. Mayhap you know him.” She let a condescending smile drift across her lips. “His father is the Duke of Attleby.”
Mr. Bobbs muttered something and subsided into unexpected silence. Regina wondered why she had failed to mention that fact several leagues ago. If she had had any idea that it would muzzle this impertinent man’s commonplaces, she would not have hesitated.
She glanced out the window again and saw that more buildings were crowding the side of the road. Mayhap she should have said nothing. Hurting someone’s feelings unnecessarily, especially when that person was as want-witted as Mr. Bobbs appeared to be, was something she disliked doing. There always should be a solution that left everyone satisfied. How many times had she heard Papa say that? He lived by that axiom, which was why he was one of England’s most well-respected diplomats, even in these troubling years when peace seemed as elusive as when Napoleon and his men had been rampaging across Europe.
“Papa,” she whispered, too low for anyone to hear over the rattle of the wheels and Mr. Bobbs’s voice as he turned to chatter at the man sitting next to him in the crowded coach. “Papa, I wish you were here to help me with this.”
Never let anyone see you are nervous. If you appear calm in an uncomfortable predicament, you will garner the respect of those around you. Papa’s voice filled her memory as clearly as if he was speaking to her now.
In truth, no more than a fortnight had passed since she had bid him farewell at the door of their home in Algiers. She had been shocked when he had come to her only a few days before to inform her that she would marry Lord Daniston by a proxy ceremony that very afternoon. More quickly than she had believed possible, the ceremony was over, her bags packed, and her passage obtained.
Now she was in this strange land. She had seen nothing like the undulating fields flowing off to the horizon and the green hills. The buildings were unlike the ones she was accustomed to in Algiers. In the small villages they had passed through, she had seen churches completely dissimilar from the mosques that had raised their slender minarets high above the city. The houses here were built of timber instead of stone. Even the birds in the trees, which had flitted away as the coach passed, were different.
And she was not sure if she liked any of it, especially the idea of a husband she had never met.
The coaching inn was a dreary place in the thickening fog. Any whitewash that once might have lightened the weathered boards had vanished long ago. The squawk of chickens and dogs and children greeted the coach as it rolled to a stop in a courtyard between the inn and the equally dilapidated stable.
When the door was opened, Regina held h
er reticule tightly. She gave the coachman a smile as he helped her down. As cramped as her knees were from the long trip, she might have fallen on her face without his help.
“My lady, I enjoyed your company,” Mr. Bobbs said, bouncing about like a small bird. He tipped his hat to her. “I hope you enjoy your stay in Town.”
I hope so, too, she thought as she gave him a swift smile. Glancing around the courtyard, she shivered, although the afternoon was sticky with humidity. The fog stank of smoke and droppings from the stable. She carefully picked her way through the passengers to where the trunks were being unloaded from the coach.
“Lady Daniston?”
She turned to see a slim man in bright red livery staring at her. “Yes?”
“Lady Daniston?”
Regina was not surprised that the coachman’s voice was so uncertain. She must look a complete rump after her journey in that crowded mail coach. Drawing what little dignity she had remaining around her, she smiled and repeated, “Yes?”
“The carriage is this way, my lady.” He bowed his head slightly, adding to her unease.
She had known that, when she accepted her father’s wish that she be part of this proxy marriage, she would now be called “my lady,” but the title made her uncomfortable. Mayhap because she knew nothing of Lord Daniston, save what Papa had told her.
The Whyte family had been respected among the peerage for many centuries. The family seat of Attleby Court in Warwickshire was nearly as ancient as the English throne, for it had been held by Anglo-Saxon hands before the invasion nearly eight hundred years before. His Grace, the Duke of Attleby, took his duties in the House of Lords earnestly and was reputed to be a good landlord to his tenants. A serious man who had attended Oxford with Papa, His Grace had corresponded with Papa all the years since the completion of their studies.
But Papa had told her little about Marcus Whyte, the duke’s son. Although Papa had reassured her that such a fine father was sure to have a son as sterling, Regina could not help being curious about the man she had vowed to love, cherish, and honor. Several of the Englishmen who had come to Algiers were of the ton, and she had found most of them arrogant and without any understanding of the ways of any country save their own.
She prayed Lord Daniston would not be so consumed with seeking pleasure and would not care so little about anyone’s needs but his own. Surely, as his father was reputed to be, he would be interested in politics and matters beyond choosing the correct cravat.
Regina followed the coachman to a grand crested carriage. Sure that the Dey himself would be envious of the tufted seats of velvet the same shade as the gray of the sky moments before dawn, she settled back for the ride which the coachman assured her would be short and would begin as soon as her trunk was loaded onto the boot.
She hoped it would be short. Every muscle ached. Unaccustomed to inactivity, she had found the long ride exhausting. She wondered if there would be a garden at the townhouse where she could walk off the nearly endless hours of being cramped in the coach.
Tired tears welled into her eyes, but she blinked them away. Thinking of her beloved garden at home in Algiers was futile. Never again would she sit there while the air grew cooler at sundown and she read to her father over the sweet melodies of water in the brass- and ceramic-tiled fountain.
Looking out the window as she tried to banish unwanted thoughts from her head, she realized they were turning into a city square. The carriage slowed to a stop in front of a tall brick house.
Berkeley Square was even more grand than she had been led to believe. As the coachman handed her from the carriage, she stared openly at the gardens in the middle and the tall trees with their crooked branches arching out from near their bases. A statue was barely visible through the contortions of the fog. A pinpoint of red caught her eye, then she realized it was nothing more than a man smoking a cheroot in the middle of the garden.
A smile pulled at her lips. She understood that women had more power in a British home than any woman could have aspired to in Algiers. Mayhap the man’s wife had tossed him from her sitting room so that she need not suffer the stench while he smoked.
Slowly she walked up the pair of steps to the door set back beneath an arch. It opened as she neared, and she knew her arrival had been watched. She wished she had taken a moment in the carriage to try to pat her hair back under her silk poke bonnet and to smooth the wrinkles out of her light green cambric gown. When her eyes caught the stain from salt spray on her satin slippers, she sighed. There was no way she was going to look presentable after her long journey.
A short man bowed as she entered the octagonal hall. His light brown hair dropped into his eyes, and he swept it aside while he pointed toward the double staircase arching up from two sides of the foyer. “If you will follow me, my lady.”
“Yes. Thank you …?”
“Gardner, my lady.”
As he led the way up the left-hand set of stairs, Regina noticed that his crimson livery was without a spot. She felt even more rumpled.
Double doors were closed on the right side of the long narrow corridor at the top of the stairs. She guessed, from what Papa had told her, they would open onto a ballroom. Gardner walked to a single door on the other side. With a flourish, he opened it and announced her formally.
Regina did not hesitate as she entered the room. Instantly she was comforted to see that she was being received in a sitting room. If the duke and his family had welcomed her in their formal parlor, she would have feared that they shared her apprehension about this marriage. The room was chock-full with furniture and bric-a-brac, a joyous clutter around the marble hearth at the far side of the room. Two tall windows on the wall overlooking the street were draped with gold cloth that matched the upholstery. It was the perfect room for a family gathering … and she hoped she soon would be considered a member of this family.
Do not be a block, she chided herself. The duke had agreed to have his son marry her.
A tall man rose from a rosewood and silk settee. Her heart skipped a single beat, then she realized the man whose hair was graying at the temples must be the Duke of Attleby. Papa had told her that her husband was not yet thirty.
He brushed his hands against his pristine black coat, then held them out to her. “You must be Regina.”
“Your Grace,” she said with a curtsy, “my father sends his greetings and appreciation for the welcome you have offered me.”
The duke put his finger under her chin. “You truly are the image of your mama. The same olive eyes and red-gold hair which caught the attention of many the young buck when she was fired off that Season. But her eyes and heart were only set on your father. What a sorrowful day it was when I heard that she had died!”
“I recall nothing of that.”
“Why should you? You were no more than a babe when she sickened with that fever, but you are certainly more than a babe now. You have your mother’s beauty and that saucy tip to her nose.” Looking over his shoulder, he asked, “Mother, aren’t you going to greet Regina?”
A spritely woman looked over the high back of a chair. Motioning with a wrinkled hand that held a Chinese fan, she watched Regina walk to her. Of a spare height, the dowager duchess did not seem shrunken by age, for her eyes glittered as brightly as the row of rubies around her throat while she appraised Regina openly. She held out her hand.
Regina took it and curtsied again as the duke said, “This is the Dowager Duchess of Attleby.”
“Your Grace,” she said softly, “thank you for opening your home to me.”
“You are my grandson’s wife.” She groped under the chair and picked up a cane. Striking it against the floor, she called, “Gardner, where are you?”
The footman peered back into the room. “Yes, Your Grace?”
“Where is my grandson? He knows he was to be here exactly at—” The clang of the chimes on the mantel clock interrupted her as well as the door which was opening wider.
“Exactly at f
our,” came the rumble of a deep voice. “I told you I would not dawdle at the club, and here I am, Grandmother.”
Regina whirled as the duke said, with unabashed pride, “My son—and your husband, Regina.”
Part of her wanted to stare, to learn more about this man she had wed without ever meeting, but her father had taught her too well. She must always be prepared to meet anyone with a serene smile.
Even my husband, Papa? she thought.
She held out her hand to the tall dark-haired man who was standing as still as the figurines set on the tables about the room. In spite of herself, she could not keep from noting how his perfectly tailored coat and breeches accented the strength of his body. He was a well-favored man, for his jaw was even, and no excess flesh clung to him. “Good day, my lord.”
“Madam,” he said with the slightest nod of his head as he passed his hat and riding crop to the footman.
He scrutinized her from head to toe. She wondered what he was thinking as he looked at her bonnet with its drooping brim—the sea air had been unmerciful on her clothing—and her creased dress. Although she longed to tell him that she usually looked much better—and occasionally had looked much worse—she knew the wisdom of waiting for him to say something more to her.
He moved toward her with the easy grace that must make him an excellent horseman. Taking her hand, he raised it to his lips. He did not meet her eyes as he gave her fingers a cursory brush of his lips. When he released her hand quickly, as if he wanted to touch her no more often than was necessary, she swallowed a gasp of dismay. This was not an auspicious beginning for their marriage.
“Is that any way to greet your wife, Marcus?” scolded his grandmother. “I have seen you receive one of my friends with more warmth.”
“I did not wish to embarrass her when we have just met,” he replied without looking at Regina. “Grandmother, you must give us some time to become acquainted.”
An Undomesticated Wife Page 2
