Miss Westlake's Windfall

by Barbara Metzger

  “Gammon. Mother will fuss no matter what, and my solicitor can handle everything else—”

  “No need,” Leo interrupted. “I’ll go.”

  All eyes turned to the usually untalkative smuggler, who was no member of the family, no old friend, not even a fellow gentleman. Jane’s uncle made a rude noise, but he did not offer to go fetch Emery instead.

  Leo straightened his waistcoat, a white one today, with gold threads through it. “I can make better time than any of you, sailing around. My new sloop can outrun any—That is, I’ll be back in jig time. If I miss the masquerade, Lady Ashmead won’t be brokenhearted, not by half.”

  “It might answer,” Chas conceded. “With the autumn rains, making fast time on the roads might be difficult.”

  “What about the seas and bad weather, though?” Ada asked, picturing poor Emery wet and cold, tossed from side to side.

  “Don’t be a goose,” Tess told her. “It’s a ship, not a rowboat.”

  “Aye, and a sturdy one. And my first mate knows more about doctoring than any Army sawbones, if your brother takes a turn for the worse.”

  Tess nodded. “The worst thing for Emery would be a long ride in a drafty carriage over bumpy roads, with stays at indifferent inns at night, and who knows what for meals. I have seen the appointments of Leo’s Challenger, and Emery will be comfortable, however long it takes. Besides, I will be along to nurse him.”

  Jane gasped and Ada shook her head. “I’m sorry, dear, for I would like to go along too, but you must see it wouldn’t be at all the thing. Not even if you took young Sarah with you. Not aboard a smuggler’s—that is, a shipper’s—private boat.”

  “I do not see that at all. My brother needs me, so I am going.”

  “The devil you will, miss,” Leo said.

  Chas more gently added, “The last thing a sick man wants is a female fussing over him. Emery is a soldier, used to rough conditions. You are not.”

  Trying to make Tess see reason, however, was like asking the eyes of a potato to read a book. She raised her chin. “Emery does not know Leo. Our brother will want a familiar face near him.”

  “I always said she was beyond hope,” Jane told the room at large, starting to blubber. “But this is beyond the pale. She’ll bring scandal down on all of us this time, I just know it.”

  Algernon snickered.

  Ada stood up for her sister, as always, frowning at both of them. “What you know, Jane, would not fill a thimble.”

  “Here now, no call to be talking to m’niece that way, Ada. Lady Westlake, and all that. Old enough to know what’s best, what?”

  Everyone glared at him, especially Jane, for the reference to her age.

  Leo’d had enough of words. He was a man of action, used to making decisions, used to being obeyed. He was not used to pitched battles in drawing rooms, so he took Tess’s hand and dragged her out of the room, down the hall to the breakfast parlor, where he slammed the door behind them.

  “Well!” Jane said in a huff. “I see his manners are just as execrable as Tess’s. They deserve each other.”

  Ada looked at Chas and smiled, despite her anxiety over Emery and Tess’s reputation. “Yes, I think they just might.”

  * * * *

  “You are not going aboard my ship, lass, and that is final. I will not have you destroying your good name.”

  Tess was pacing the length of the room, her skirts swirling around her legs. “My good name? Hah! I will never be anything but the mad Miss Westlake. I may as well enjoy the notoriety.”

  Leo grabbed her arm and stopped her, making Tess face him. “Do you know what you are saying? Do you have any idea what will happen on that ship?”

  “Do you? I am asking to be your mistress, you great gossoon.”

  “No.”

  “What, I am not good enough for the position?” Tess tried to pull away. “You’d rather have a tavern wench? You did not seem so reluctant in my studio earlier.”

  “No.”

  “No, you aren’t reluctant, or no, I am not good enough?”

  “No, I will not take you to bed without taking you to wife.”

  “Now who is being daft?” Tess pulled back again, but Leo held her in an iron grip. “You can have my company without donning leg shackles.”

  “No, I cannot. I would not dishonor you, or my sons, by letting them be born as bastards the way I was.”

  “There are ways of preventing children, I have read all about them. You do not want to marry me.”

  “No?”

  “Of course not. The notion is ridiculous.”

  “I have wanted nothing else since I set eyes on you, lass.”

  “Spanish coin if ever I heard it. You can have any woman you want. Oh, not some high in the instep belle like Jane, but you wouldn’t want her anyway. Just look at you though, so tall and handsome, such a success by your own efforts.” Against her will, it seemed, Tess’s hand stroked the gold threads of his waistcoat. “What have I got? A half-finished, half-baked opera. I have nothing to offer a man like you.”

  “No? You have your beautiful self, your talent, your imagination. If I could soar half as high as you I would be content. I think I can, in your arms and in your affection.”

  “What a lovely thing to say. If I had my pad and pencil, I would write it into the second act.”

  “You see, you’ve turned this old salt into a poet already. That’s what I need from you, Miss Westlake, your hand and your heart.”

  ‘Truly? You really want to marry me? I cannot think of anything I would like more, not even seeing Sebastian published, for I do love you, Mr. Tobin.”

  Once again, Leo’d had a surfeit of words. He took Tess in his arms and proved how precious she was to him.

  Some time later, Tess suggested they get a special license, so she could go along with him to Portsmouth.

  “There’s no time, lass. I intend to be off at dawn, for I wouldn’t leave a dog in an Army hospital longer than I had to. I want to do the thing right, too, so we have nothing to be ashamed about later. I will fetch your brother home and ask his blessing. If he cannot accept a common man, a base-born sailor, as fitting husband for you, then I will sail you away to Scotland.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “Aye.”

  “You won’t change your mind?”

  “No.”

  That was Leo’s last word for another long while.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Why do women sell themselves so cheaply?”

  “What, have you been giving Molly a tumble over at Jake’s? I thought you were done with that now that you were courting Tess.”

  “I don’t mean selling their bodies. I do mean Tess, and Ada too. What is wrong with the women of that family that they hold such little value of themselves?”

  Viscount Ashmead and his half-brother were lying on their stomachs atop a cliff, watching Leo’s men unload the cargo from a skiff that had been rowed ashore. The larger boat waited just offshore, a shadow in the night. This was the last boatload to be hauled and no Frenchman had stepped onto dry land. The viscount watched through his spy glass and cursed.

  Both men wore dark clothing tonight, no finery to glimmer in the moonlight, no stark white shirts and neckcloths to draw attention to their presence. Both were heavily armed, also, in case a renegade band of raiders tried to steal the booty. With a pistol in his hand, a knife in his boot, and a rifle at his side, the sight of Leo would have made Tess proud, Chas considered. Then again, if she had known about their activities, Tess would have wanted to come along. The danger was too great to consider giving her a hint of their night’s work.

  They were not armed against the government men, since Chas had personally made sure Lieutenant Nye was busy this evening. His mother was holding a card party to entertain what guests had arrived at the Meadows, and Chas had dragooned the young lieutenant to take his place, claiming he had to stand watch over the orphanage in case the Kirkendals came back. He thought of Qu
intin partnering Lady Esther at whist and had to smile, white teeth flashing in the night after all. Lud, if those two made a match of it, their children would never learn to speak, between the officer’s nervous stammer and the lady’s affected lisp.

  Chas wished for Quintin Nye’s sake—and for his own— that the china dolt would look the lieutenant’s way, but he doubted such a possibility. In fact, the chances of Prelieu swimming ashore were better than Ravenshaw recognizing the riding officer as a suitor for his daughter’s hand. With such a fortune as she would have, the earl would hold out for a barony at least. Which partly answered Leo’s question: “Women are commodities in this world, that’s why they lack confidence.”

  Leo looked down at the barrels and boxes on the shore. “No one buys and sells females, not in this country anyway.”

  “Hah. They might not call it bondage, but women are bartered constantly. They are sold for titles, for fortunes, land, even for votes or political influence. The difference is they become wives, not slaves, but their husbands and fathers reap the profits. They gloss it over by calling them advantageous marriages. My sisters were not encouraged to dally with the dustman. They barely saw a gentleman without a title to his name. Why should my father consider a man who could not keep a wife in style? And why should a rich man not grow richer? Their dowries, not their pretty faces and pretty manners, let my sisters select from the eligibles. Even among the lower orders a woman is pursued for what she can bring to the marriage, what coins her father might dower her with, when she might inherit a bit of land, how many cows.”

  “A poor man cannot always afford to take a poor wife. And a woman would not give her hand to a man who could not feed her and her children. How would they live?”

  “Precisely. In the Westlakes’ circles, the situation is worse. They have no great, hallowed name to bring, no lofty connections to better a gentleman’s place in life. Without the meager dowries Rodney gambled away, they have no bargaining position, and they know it. That is why they consider themselves inferior merchandise, of lesser value than the empty-headed Lady Esthers of the ton. A man with no fortune can marry a woman with one, but he can also go out and make something of himself, the way you did. A woman doesn’t have those options. Too many doors are closed to them, which likely makes them either give up, or dig their heels in.”

  Leo shifted on the ground, considering. “Mayhaps things will get better once the brother comes home. Do you think he can turn their fortunes around?”

  “I pray to God he can. He couldn’t do worse than Rodney, at any rate. If nothing else, Emery would see the need to accept a loan from a neighbor. That reminds me, here.” He handed over the well-traveled leather pouch. “It appears our friend Prelieu is not going to require this to live in London after all. You’ll need it for the trip to get Emery.”

  Leo shoved the purse back. “Nay, I have more than enough of the ready. Asides, it is more my right to fund the cawker’s rescue than yours, this time. More a part of the family, like.”

  Chas slapped his brother on the back. “I take it I am to wish you happy then? I suppose it was your silver tongue that talked Tess round. By Jupiter, I am pleased for you both, Leo.”

  Leo grinned back. “Not official yet. Not till the brother gives his blessing. I wouldn’t come between the lady and her kin, not unless I had to.”

  “How could Emery not welcome you to the family with open arms? You are good for Tess, and you have a bright future ahead of you.”

  “But my past ...”

  Chas tossed the pouch in the air. “Is outweighed by your purse. It’s the money, brother. It is always the money.”

  * * * *

  It was the money, Ada thought, always the money. Suddenly, with word of Emery’s imminent return, the merchants were willing to extend her credit. How they thought a wounded soldier was to make the fields and farms turn a profit when she could not was a mystery to Ada, but she accepted the reprieve from the bank and the shopkeepers. She did not wish to think about what would happen if Emery’s injuries proved worse, if he never made it back. Some American cousin, so far removed she could not count, would inherit the baronetcy and Westlake. He’d most likely petition the courts to break the entail, sell off the acreage and the house, and toss them all out in the snow. Tess and Ada would be living by their wits, which was not saying much, these days.

  Looking on the brighter side, Ada’s sister had become acceptable to the villagers too, now that she and Mr. Tobin were an accepted item. Nothing had been formally announced as yet, also pending Sir Emery’s return, but local gossip had them hitched. The publisher in Dover was newly willing to consider Tess’s epic, and the manager of a traveling actors’ troupe asked if he could see a script. With the hint that the wealthy Mr. Tobin might finance his fiancée’s foray into the arts, Tess had talent. A few days ago she was crack-brained; now she was creative.

  Even Jane was finding it politic to be polite to her sister-in-law. She did not go so far as to pose for the book illustrations—Tess still needed a picture of the evil stepmother—but Jane did label one of the songs “pretty” now that it might be performed with Leo’s backing, and might make a profit.

  Only the viscount’s mother could not be swayed by the promise of money. Of course not, Ada thought; Lady Ash-mead was too fixed in her ways, and too wealthy.

  “Your sister will never be welcomed in my home if she marries that person,” the viscountess warned.

  Tess hadn’t been welcomed—only tolerated—since she’d staged a ballet in the water fountain at the Meadows a few years previously, while the bishop was visiting. Tess with her sheer, flowing gown immodestly plastered to her lithe body was a sight the bishop was not soon to forget, Ada supposed. Certainly Lady Ashmead hadn’t.

  Ada did not know how to answer the viscountess. If her sister was not welcome at the Meadows, how could Ada accept invitations there? Loyalty to her family would keep her away from the house she’d run tame in most of her life. Then again, she wouldn’t have to untangle Lady Ashmead’s embroidery threads anymore either.

  Chas would not let Tess be ostracized. He’d wheedled an invitation to the masquerade for Leo, hadn’t he? Anyway, Lady Ashmead promised to return to Bath when her son married. His wife could entertain whomever she pleased. Ada was not pleased to think of Chas’s wife.

  Perhaps Tess and Leo would move to London, especially if her play was actually to be performed. The approval of Lady Ashmead and her ilk would matter less there, where Tess could establish her own coterie of artists and writers. Leo could find his own circle of smugglers—shippers, she amended. Ada saw no reason Leo could not conduct his legitimate business from London as easily as from Lillington. She meant to talk to Chas about seeing that the smuggling stopped, even if Tess was eager to run the blockade. Especially since Tess was eager to run the blockade. Instead of London, Tess might convince Leo to sail her around the globe, perhaps finding that tropical Eden Squire Hocking had described.

  Then Ada would be alone. Emery would take a wife, she supposed, eyeing the young ladies Lady Ashmead had arranged like so many bonbons on a dish, for her son’s delectation. None were as beautiful as Lady Esther and none were as wealthy, but Emery might find a lesser heiress to wed. Many a gentleman had repaired his finances that way. Of course he’d have to like the girl. Ada was not about to permit her brother to sacrifice himself for the family with a girl who did not make him happy. Heavens, Ada could have been the sacrifice ages ago, wedding Chas for his money. Some sacrifice it would have been, she chided herself, admiring the fine furnishings in Lady Ashmead’s sitting room, the attentive servants, the lavish refreshments. Of course she still believed that Chas would have been the one paying the forfeit.

  Lady Ashmead was going on while Ada was woolgathering, and woolwinding. “Money is not everything, you know.”

  Which was precisely why she had not accepted Chas’s offer, the one she had made him swear not to repeat.

  “No, there’s breeding. Breeding, do
you hear?”

  Two young ladies sitting nearby with their needlework started giggling; Ada did not think Lady Ashmead meant propagating the species.

  “Fortunes can be won or lost; breeding never can. A man of distinction does not need gold to be a gentleman; conversely, no amount of wealth can make a man of low birth into one.”

  Ada looked around the room at the gentlemen who had been invited to even the numbers, so Lady Ashmead’s house party did not resemble an auction of fillies at Tattersall’s. They were well bred, every one. Lord This, Sir That. They were all dressed by the finest London tailors in studied elegance, shod by the same London bootmakers and shined to a fare-thee-well. They all carried an air of boredom along with their quizzing glasses and snuffboxes. Ada would take Leo any day.

  Not that she’d have a choice, of course. These fine gentlemen had barely glanced at her since the introductions, taking in her average looks and unfashionable frock, labeling her a country nobody, beneath their notice. If she’d had a fortune, no doubt they’d be at her feet as they were at Lady Esther’s, composing sonnets to her eyebrows.

  Faugh. Ada’s eyebrows were plain brown. Such insincere flummery ought to disgust any sensible female, which obviously eliminated the little heiress, who was cooing like a dove. At least Ada did not have to watch Chas join the ranks of pigeon handlers, for he was out on estate business, likely giving a bunch of ragged orphans rides on his horse. These fine, blue-blooded gentlemen in Lady Ashmead’s parlor would do the same—when the River Styx froze over and the devil went ice skating.

  How many of these fribbles would let an amateur sculptor make a cast of his face? And then not be able to remove the plaster? How many of them could admire art in eccentricity?

  Then again, how many of them would give up their respectability to aid the war effort? No, money was not everything. Neither was parentage. A good heart was what mattered.

  At least one of the Westlake sisters had made the right choice, for the right reasons.