by Mia Marlowe
But he followed the swish of Lady Somerset’s skirts up a broad, polished staircase to a frilly parlor on the first floor.
“Please be seated and make yourself comfortable,” Lady Somerset the younger said.
John perched on the edge of a pink-striped settee. The parlor made him nervous. The furniture seemed too delicate to support him, the space too crowded with knickknacks and oddities for him to move comfortably without knocking some valuable something over.
“How many lumps do you take in your tea, Lord Hartley?”
“None. There was little sugar in Wiltshire. Never developed a taste for it.” He accepted the delicate china cup and saucer and took a sip. The tea was an aromatic blend with a hint of orange. “Where is Lord Somerset?”
The lady’s brows drew together in distress. “You must understand. His lordship waited all day yesterday for you. He even went up to the roof to watch for your approach, though I chided him so much for it that he finally came down. Even after all this time, it still sends cold chills through me to think of him on that roof.”
That still didn’t explain why he wasn’t there to greet his firstborn.
“His lordship and his valet are in the woods now, scouting out good spots for hunting blinds and such.” She added a dollop of milk to her cup and took a refined sip. “He’ll be home in time for supper.”
But not in time to welcome John.
“I gather Richard has told you about his accident,” she continued.
John nodded. “The marquess took a catastrophic fall from the parapet last spring and was only saved from death by a well-placed lilac bush.”
“He’s much better than we have a right to expect, but he is still not quite himself. In fact, he has deteriorated since his initial injury. His memory is…flawed.”
“So you’re saying he won’t know who I am.”
“No, no, he understands that you’ve been found…”
Found? John was never lost. He was misplaced.
“…and that you are coming here,” she continued. “But since he never knew of your existence, he naturally wouldn’t have any memories of your earlier life.”
“I suppose that makes us even, because I have no recollection of him either.”
She didn’t seem to catch the irony in his tone.
“Lord Hartley, what I’m trying to prepare you for is that he has no memory of your mother.”
For a moment, his mother’s face flashed across his mind. She was lovely and young and foolish and sad all at once. It made John’s gut burn that she only lived in his hazy recollections from when he was six years old. He didn’t remember her favorite song or what color she liked or if she wished her life had been different. Surely someone ought to know who Sadie Mae was.
“But I want to tell you something about Lord Somerset,” she went on, as if John’s silence were perfectly normal. He blessed her for not requiring him to hold up his side of this unusual conversation. “My husband is a very proud man, an honorable man, and a man of deep feeling. He must have cared deeply for your mother, even if he cannot remember her now.”
“My lady, I’ve no wish to contradict you, but how can you know something his lordship can’t even remember?”
One of Lady Somerset’s brows quirked up. “I know this because he defied his parents for her. By the time I came to know him, his father was already gone, so I cannot speak to the previous marquess’s temperament, but believe me, one does not cross the dowager with impunity. Your mother must have been quite special.”
It did his heart good to hear someone say something positive about his mother. Too often the Coopersmiths had cast her in the role of Whore of Babylon and weren’t shy of speaking their opinion before John while he was growing up. Passing strange that it should be his father’s second wife who praised his first one.
“Yet he let her go,” John said, meeting her gaze.
“No doubt he was convinced that it was for the good of the estate, or some such noble reason. However, I have it on good authority that your mother was amenable to the separation. In fact, she insisted upon it.” Lady Somerset looked around the room as if it were some gilded cage. “The demands of being a marchioness were perhaps more than she expected. She wasn’t prepared for everything that came with being married to your father. I fear our mode of life seemed…too staid and regimented for her.”
The little John remembered of his early years were a blur of activity and merriment, alternating with squalor and neglect.
“But this is what I most wished to tell you about your father: He loved your mother. He loves me. But most of all, he loves his children.” She set her teacup back into the saucer with a soft click of bone china meeting its mate. “And that, my dear Lord Hartley, will include you in time. I only ask that you give him that bit of it, so he can get to know you.”
His lordship could have had all the time in the world with John if the marquess had fought a little harder to keep John’s mother. However, looking at the composed, generous woman before him, he couldn’t fault Lord Somerset’s choice in his second wife. She was more magnanimous than John had a right to expect.
“I’m sorry for the pain this situation has caused you,” he said, meaning it.
“It is not your doing. And it is not my husband’s either.”
John couldn’t agree with that.
“I think we should chalk it up to bad luck all around and begin afresh. It is my dearest hope that you are willing to give us a try.”
John mumbled something appropriately noncommittal and excused himself.
Bide your time and toss them all out once the old marquess shuffles off, Blackwood had advised him. John wondered if this little introductory tea was Lady Somerset’s first sally in the campaign to see who would still be standing once the title passed from her husband to him.
Part of him didn’t want to suspect this gracious lady, who’d had kind words for his mother, of such subterfuge. Another part of him, the small boy who’d grown up as an unacknowledged bastard, decided to walk wary.
Fourteen
In the spring, a young man’s fancy turns more naturally to hearts and flowers. In the bleakness of early November, it takes a special young lady indeed to bring out a gentleman’s softer side.
—Phillippa, the Dowager Marchioness of Somerset
The chamber John had been allocated in Somerfield Park was bigger than the entire cottage in which he’d grown up. Porter had his bath waiting and a fresh suit of clothing laid out. He chattered on while John bathed, and kept up a steady diatribe as he helped him dress. Mr. Porter even hummed while he tied John’s cravat. Clearly someone was happy to be there.
John still wasn’t. It felt as if his life was happening to someone else, as if he were a Drury Lane player acting the part of heir. He simply wasn’t himself anymore, and he didn’t like it one bit.
“Would you like someone to show you over the house, my lord? I’ll warrant the place is a bit overwhelming at first.”
John had been surrounded by quite enough opulence while he made his way through the grand foyer, and up the even grander stairs to this chamber. He hadn’t dared think for longer than a blink that it would someday all be his. “No, I think I’ll take a walk around the grounds.”
A dry winter garden wouldn’t be as commanding as the rest of Somerfield Park. The very brick and mortar seemed to demand to know who he was and why such a common pretender would dare try to fit into the proud line of Somersets. The house itself was whispering, “What are you doing here?”
John stood immobile while Porter draped his garrick over his shoulders. It still seemed odd to have someone dress him as if he were a helpless child, but this was the way things were done among the Upper Crust—one more oddity of life to which he would have to become accustomed. He wondered if he’d be allowed to blow his own nose if he caught a cold.
“Dinner is served at eight. The dressing gong will sound at seven, my lord,” Porter told him as John headed toward the door.
“I’m to change clothing again?”
Porter shot him a puzzled look.
John could have kicked himself. He’d visited Blackwood’s home once. He knew everyone who was anyone in a great house dressed for dinner.
“Everyone” had just never included him before.
He stomped out of the chamber before he embarrassed himself before his valet again.
* * *
Rebecca needed to stretch her legs after the coach trip from Tincross Bottom with old Lady Somerset and Sophie. Not that she didn’t think the world of those ladies, but being in an enclosed space with two such forceful personalities made her feel as if she were in the middle of a battledore and shuttlecock match. And she was the shuttlecock!
They had launched into ways she might help Lord Hartley, to smooth his way with the higher-ranking young ladies who would be descending on Somerfield Park in a day or so.
“He’ll not have had much experience with polite discourse. Not after growing up in Wiltshire,” the dowager had said with a delicate shudder, as if she hadn’t been instrumental in situating John there in the first place. “He’ll want training in the proper way to woo a lady of quality.”
Rebecca could attest to that. First, he’d spoken to her in the museum without benefit of introduction. Then, even though he had saved her from a terrible situation in that boxing crib in Whitechapel, he’d been surly and taciturn to her in the coach as he took her home. In their next encounter, he’d all but extorted a kiss from her. And at the coaching inn in Tincross Bottom, he contrived for her to remove all her clothing in his presence.
To say that John Fitzhugh Barrett didn’t know how to properly woo a lady was an understatement of gargantuan proportions.
“Of course,” Sophie had added, “it would be best if John were unaware he was being tutored. Men tend to resent female instruction about anything.”
Freddie would have looked at this as a challenge. Perhaps she’d have even seen it as a scientific inquiry into whether human behavior might be drastically altered in a limited amount of time. Freddie would have drafted a plan, designed specific scenarios to elicit the desired response, and then presented her findings in a beautifully footnoted paper.
Freddie enjoyed anthropology far more than Rebecca did. More often than not, the study of her fellow humans depressed her. Rebecca loved the stars. She couldn’t change them. No one would expect her to. All she need do was lie back on her terrace and watch them parade across the sky.
Rebecca wasn’t sure if she could do anything to change John Fitzhugh Barrett. Or if she really wanted to. There was something appealing about a man who was so dreadfully honest, even when it was improper.
She walked along the pea-gravel path that led through Somerfield Park’s extensive gardens. In high summer, it would be a riot of blooms, but now dead vines rattled over a trellised stone bench. She strode toward it, seeking shelter from the occasional breeze.
As she drew near, she saw that the bench was not empty. John was seated there, leaning forward, elbows on his knees and head in his hands.
“Hello, John.”
He rose to his feet and stood to one side to make room for her on the bench. “I trust you’re not wandering the gardens because your accommodations are lacking.”
So far so good—John was polite and solicitous. Even the dowager would have found his behavior impeccable.
“Not at all. My room is splendid.” She was a baron’s daughter and by rights ought to be accustomed to fine things, but her father had pockets to let. The paintings in their ancestral home had been sold to pay his debts of honor. Her mother’s jewelry was paste replicas of her original pieces. After her threadbare chamber at home, her guest room at Somerfield Park was like the difference between a starless night and a meteor shower. “You’re wandering about too. Isn’t your chamber to your liking?”
“Not really. It’s too fine, I suppose. Too big.”
That wouldn’t please Lady Somerset. Nothing was too big or too fine for the future marquess. “You ought to take it as your due. You are the heir, after all.”
“I know something I’d like to take as my due.” He sat beside her and swept her form with his dark-eyed gaze.
This was not at all what the dowager had in mind when she suggested Rebecca school John on how to woo a lady. Still, her insides capered about.
“Taking is not at all the done thing.” She forced herself to frown at him even though a naughty part of her wanted to encourage him to take whatever he wished. “Wouldn’t it be better if whatever it is you want was offered freely?”
“I take your point, but you’re far too intelligent to be so obtuse. You know perfectly well I’m talking about another kiss.” He stretched out his long legs. “And you’re right. As I recall, I did enjoy it immensely when you kissed me of your own accord.”
“Of my—” Rebecca blinked hard. “Of all the cheek. You practically blackmailed me into that kiss.”
“Is that how you remember it?” His mouth spread in a slow grin and the feel of his lips on hers came back to her unbidden, all warm and sure and beckoning her to follow him to darker depths of wickedness.
“I remember kissing you was the only way I could get you to agree to come home.”
“And that’s the only reason you kissed me?”
“No.”
“So you wanted to kiss me?”
“I really don’t want to talk about this with you.”
“Very well. What would you like to talk about? How about why Lady Sophie and the dowager insisted that you travel here with us instead of coming later with your family?”
“I don’t understand. Do you wish me to leave?”
“No, just wondering why you’re staying, that’s all.”
Despite Sophie’s advice to the contrary, she decided honesty was the best policy. “When we first met, you committed a social faux pas by speaking to me before we were properly introduced. Your family is hoping I’ll teach you a more appropriate expression of social discourse with the fair sex.”
“And you agreed?”
“I did. You see, I want to help you.” She couldn’t very well tell him the dowager had privately offered to settle some of her father’s most pressing debts if she succeeded. “Will you let me?”
“I think you know by now that I’ll let you do whatever you like with me.” One of his brows lifted, and a vision of him with that blanket wrapped around his waist flitted across her mind. For a blink, she imagined unhooking the blanket and exploring him in all his splendid nakedness. Yes, indeed, there were certainly things she’d like to do with him, but none that she should. She shook off those naughty imaginings.
“If you’ll allow me to help you, then let me start by pointing out that you mustn’t speak in double entendres to a respectable lady.” Of course, a respectable lady might not even have caught his suggestion.
“I didn’t mean any disrespect.”
He reached over and wound one of the locks of her hair that had escaped her bonnet around his finger. If she weren’t careful, he’d be doing the same thing with her heart. She gently unwound the hair and scooted farther from him.
“All right, Rebecca. What subjects of conversation are permissible with a lady of quality? And please don’t tell me the weather.”
“The weather is always safe, but there are any number of other things. For example, you might discuss books.”
“I doubt I’ve read many a lady would approve.”
“Music, then.”
“I’ve a tin ear.”
“The theatre?”
“I didn’t attend any plays while I was in London. My set tended more toward gaming and cock fights,” he said.
“What about the oper
a?”
“God save me from women who sound like a cat being gutted. How can they call it singing?”
She frowned at him. “You really do have a tin ear. If none of your interests are suitable to discuss, you could ask about the lady’s.”
“Now we’re making progress,” he said, his urbane drawl making him sound more like his friend Blackwood than himself. “Tell me. What are unorthodox debutantes like yourself fascinated by other than the Rosetta Stone and trying to manipulate a rake like me?”
“You are not a rake.” At least she didn’t think he was. It was true that John had sown his wild oats in London, but she didn’t think that behavior was typical for him. Even this haughty “milord” facade he presented to her now didn’t seem believable. She was still looking for another glimpse of that boy from Wiltshire she’d caught once or twice. The man who fought for her in that boxing crib. The gentleman who left her untouched in that coaching inn when they both knew he might well have had his way with her. He was the sort who could command any woman’s heart. “You ought to think more highly of yourself.”
“And you ought to listen more carefully,” he said. “You’re not answering my question.”
John took her hand in his. There was a little opening at her wrist where the glove fastened with a tiny button. He undid it and ran the pad of his thumb in slow circles over that patch of bare skin. Pleasure radiated from the spot. It was as if she were a still pond and he’d just dropped a pebble into her center. Concentric rings of sensation surged and ebbed.
“Please tell me your fancy isn’t wrapped up entirely in feminine gewgaws and folderols, or worse, demands for women’s suffrage.”
“As a matter of fact, my friend Freddie and I are both proponents for the women’s vote.” Rebecca had dozens of cogent arguments in favor of it, but at the moment, all she could focus on were the exquisite tingles John’s strokes sent up her arm.
