The Baron and the Bluestocking

by G. G. Vandagriff

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Cast of Characters

  { 1 }

  { 2 }

  { 3 }

  { 4 }

  { 5 }

  { 6 }

  { 7 }

  { 8 }

  { 9 }

  { 10 }

  { 11 }

  { 12 }

  { 13 }

  { 14 }

  { 15 }

  { 16 }

  { 17 }

  { 18 }

  { 19 }

  { 20 }

  { 21 }

  Epilogue

  Lord Grenville's Choice - Chapter 1

  If You Liked This Book

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  Other Books

  The Baron

  and

  The Bluestocking

  A Regency Romance

  G.G. Vandagriff

  Cast of Characters

  Christian Elliot, Fifth Baron Shrewsbury—A gentleman of the ton, principal patron of an Orphanage and School for Girls.

  Lord and Lady Trowbridge—Friends of Shrewsbury

  Lady Clarice Manton—Benefactress of the Orphanage and School for Girls

  Hélène Whitcombe—Daughter of Vicar of Ruisdell Parish, Schoolteacher

  Beth Hilliard—Schoolteacher

  Mary Jackson—Schoolteacher

  Catherine Flynn—Schoolteacher

  Mrs. Blakeley—Benefactress of Orphanage and School for Girls, landlady to Schoolteachers.

  Samuel Blakeley—Aspiring MP, son of Mrs. Blakeley, heir to Woolen Mill

  Jacqueline Whitcombe—Hélène’s oldest sister

  Monique Whitcombe—Hélène’s middle sister

  Anne-Marie Whitcombe—Hélène’s youngest sister

  Duke of Ruisdell—Duke of Hélène’s Deceased Father’s Parish, Patron of Orphanage and School

  Duchess of Ruisdell—His wife, sister to Lady Trowbridge

  Baroness Shrewsbury—Christian’s widowed mother

  Lady Virginia Mowbray—A young friend of the Baroness

  William Mowbray—Lord Delacroix—Brother of Lady Virginia

  { 1 }

  I KNOW A LADY who would be just what you are looking for,” said Lady Trowbridge to her dinner guest, Christian Elliott, Baron Shrewsbury.

  Shrewsbury blinked. Could she, Lady Trowbridge, the lovely soul he was certain was the love of his life, be serious?

  She gave a gentle smile, as though divining his thoughts. “I am speaking of a teacher for the girls’ orphanage, my lord.”

  With difficulty, he channeled his thoughts away from Lady Trowbridge’s desirability into his charitable occupation. “Oh, yes? Perhaps you should tell me about her.”

  “Her name is Hélène Whitcombe. She is a gentlewoman in reduced circumstances of about four and twenty. The daughter of my sister’s former vicar at Ruisdell Palace. One of eight children.” She leaned forward, her eyes alight with entreaty. “Her father has recently died, so the family has lost the living. The duke is trying to help members of the family find employment and relocate them. Unfortunately, Vicar Whitcombe had a very small estate.”

  He cleared his throat. “You recall that I need someone qualified to teach girls with no education. Someone with a gentle, but firm hand, and a degree of charisma, if possible. These poor waifs from the East End need someone who will be an example to them.”

  Lady Trowbridge nodded in understanding. When she smiled at him she resembled an angel. Indeed that was the appellation by which she was known to his best friend. How was he going to bear her absence from his life?

  She continued, “I think Hélène eminently suitable. She has helped to raise and teach her younger sisters, and her home was an exceptional place of learning. The parish is a small one, and Vicar Whitcombe spent much of his time teaching his four sons and Hélène. He believed strongly in the education of females.” She gave him her saucy smile. “As do I.”

  “What, exactly, is she qualified to teach?” He had his doubts about this Hélène. Why? Perhaps because he wanted someone as perfect as Sophie St. Oswald, Viscountess Trowbridge. She would always be his ideal.

  “Reading, certainly. Deportment. Such history as they might find interesting. The basic skills needed to run a home. Her mother is the daughter of a noble French émigré and was hopeless at managing a household. Hélène, as the eldest daughter, saw to most everything from the time she was twelve, I understand.” Lady Trowbridge, having finished her custard, folded her napkin and put it beside the small ramekin.

  “She sounds as though she has had a dreary life.”

  Frank, her husband, intervened. “I have seen the lady, Shrewsbury. She is a stunner. I am certain all the girls will wish to grow to be just like her.”

  Shrewsbury raised an eyebrow.

  “She is very vivacious,” Lady Trowbridge said with a small laugh. “I can tell you that she actually poked fun at Frank! I think it would be well worth your while to write to the Duke of your interest. Doubtless he can give you a recommendation. Have you any other ladies in mind?”

  “I do not know precisely what progress has been made. Your aunt has been managing that part of the endeavor.” His curiosity was roused. What sort of vicar’s daughter would poke fun at a viscount?

  “Splendid! I shall send a note round to Aunt Clarice before we depart. It would be better for her to conduct the interview. You are so handsome you might completely overwhelm the poor lady.”

  “Steady on!” said Frank. “You are not meant to be making observations like that in front of your husband, Angel.”

  “Well, he is very handsome, Frank,” she said with a twinkle. “But that does not mean that you are not even more so, darling.” Sophie put her hand over her husband’s.

  Shrewsbury felt a pang at their jesting. This meal could not be over soon enough. Why had he accepted the invitation to dine, thereby consenting to torture himself? He would always wonder if he had met the lovely Sophie before his friend had, if he had had the first opportunity to court her, if the lady would not be his wife instead of Frank’s.

  He remembered the morning he and Trowbridge had actually come to blows during the very short courtship. But Sophie had had eyes for no one but her Gorgeous Frank. She had some ridiculous sense that their souls were bound together and that this binding had taken place in some other sphere before the world was. Too much Wordsworth!

  Sophie left them to their port, and Shrewsbury faced his friend alone for the first time since the wedding. “You are a lucky bloke, Trowbridge. And though I hate to admit it, she seems to adore you.”

  “Do not be blue-deviled, Shrewsbury. It is true that my angel and I suit one another down to the ground and are happy as grigs, but it will be the same for you when you find the lady who will bowl you over.” He paused to light a cigar. “If you’ll pardon an observation, you have always admired Sophie in the way a man does when he is shopping. You have checked off all of the characteristics she has that you most want. You value her.

  “But love is different. Rather more about giving than getting. Loving Sophie has taught me to care more for her needs than my own. Don’t carry around your shopping list, Shrewsbury. Burn it. Allow destiny to take hold of you when you suspect it least. Prepare to be surprised.”

  This turn in the conversation was unexpected. Whatever he had learned to expect from Frank, it wasn’t advice about women. Balefully, he supposed his friend had earned the right now that he had Sophie.

  Because he would not see them again before they left for Vienna, Shrewsbury bade a hearty bon voyage to his friends that night, offering his hope that they would indeed be able to
unearth Herr van Beethoven and obtain an audience with him. “I predict the man will compose a concerto for Lady Trowbridge. You must take her violin with you.”

  *~*~*

  Months later, when the orphanage-cum-school was prepared and the teaching staff hired and housed in Chipping Norton, Shrewsbury accompanied Lady Clarice Manton, Lady Shrewsbury’s excellent aunt, on the two-day drive to the wool market town. Lady Clarice, in her role as chief patroness, had organized a series of teas for the purpose of introducing the patrons to the new teaching staff, a prospect which Shrewsbury dreaded. Despite Frank’s assurance that Miss Whitcombe was a stunner, he envisioned young women with shiny round faces, too plain to have caught the eye of a man searching for a bride. Not that he was searching for a bride . . .

  “Mrs. Blakeley will be our hostess today. I have always found her one of those women who run a perfect, comfortable home and who loves to entertain. Her husband has done very well in wool.” Lady Clarice said in her usual competent, if seemingly scattered manner. She worked her fan. “Dear me. It is stuffy in the carriage. I wonder if Sophie and Frank will return for the holidays.”

  “You were telling me about Mr. Blakeley . . .”

  “Yes, Mr. Blakeley has a woolen mill. He has become another patron of the school. Also, since the Blakeley children are all grown and gone, Mrs. Blakeley is donating the use of two of her best bedrooms and an upstairs sitting room for the use of the four schoolteachers. The beds are large enough for them to share.”

  A stout lady, wreathed in smiles, greeted Lord Shrewsbury. “Oh my Lord, such a pleasure to meet you, at last. This idea of yours is excellent! There is a shortage of skilled wool artisans as the demand keeps growing for British woolen goods,” she said, reminding him somewhat of an enthusiastic chicken flapping its wings. “We hope that your orphan girls will train to fill the need.”

  “I hope so as well, Mrs. Blakeley. That is the plan. First a good scrubbing, then some filling meals, and finally a bit of schooling and coaching in deportment.”

  Lady Clarice, dressed in her usual flowing garments, secured his arm. “I see that you have met the excellent Mrs. Blakeley. Now you must meet our teachers.”

  The drawing room was large and decorated by the holder of an enthusiastic taste that had ensured every square inch of wall be covered in paintings. There were so many chairs and sofas that there was barely room for the four ladies who stood in a circle in the middle of the room.

  He approached slowly, listening for snatches of conversation, a maneuver that had served him well among the ton when nearing groups of females.

  Her back to him, a tall woman, nearly his height, with shiny deep brown hair dressed in a plain bun twisted on top of her head, was saying, “I am very glad they are to be taught a trade. It is unfortunate that females in our own class are in large part taught only what they need to know to attract a husband, thereby supposedly obtaining fulfillment and security for the rest of their lives.”

  “But then you admire Mary Woolstonecraft,” said a petite blonde with a winsome face and figure. Her words were spoken evenly and without evident guile. Perhaps this was Sophie’s friend, Miss Whitcombe. He hoped so. She was very comely and seemed amenable.

  “No,” said the tall woman. “You forget. She is a hypocrite. She married when she said she would not. She gave in.”

  “And is marriage such a deplorable state?” asked Shrewsbury as he joined their circle.

  Lady Clarice made a clucking sound and intervened in the conversation to make introductions. It transpired that the curvy blonde was a Miss Hilliard, who was to teach deportment. It was she who answered his question, “Not at all, my lord. Am I right in assuming that you are the initiator of the idea for the orphanage?”

  He gave a bow. “You are correct, though you have yet to meet many of the wealthier patrons who made my dream possible. Are you looking forward to your new position?”

  She smiled. “I imagine that teaching these girls will be quite a challenge. But I am up to it, I believe.”

  Lady Clarice next introduced Miss Flynn, a plain female with a bit of a squint, who said, “I will teach speech and reading to the youngest girls.”

  Shrewsbury privately thought that a worse example of charm and charisma could not have been found and wondered at Lady Clarice’s choice.

  Miss Flynn added, “I will also teach voice to those who wish to learn to sing.”

  An uncomfortable inner nudge told him he was too quick to judge. After all, these were not potential partners at a ball. They were serious teachers.

  A slender, graceful redhead was introduced as Miss Jackson. “I will teach the homemaking arts, which, unlike Miss Whitcombe, I do not hold in contempt.”

  “You would do so if you had been compelled to keep house for seven brothers and sisters,” said the remaining young woman, whom he now deduced to be Sophie’s acquaintance, the vicar’s daughter. Indeed, Lady Clarice presented her as Miss Whitcombe.

  As she turned to face Christian, her beauty smote him at once. Smoky grey eyes smoldered as they surveyed him above the most beautiful mouth he had ever seen. Large, full, and velvety pink, it was set in a perfect oval face. “Lady Clarice,” she said, “I beg your pardon, but I prefer to be addressed merely as Miss Bouvier. In this new post, I should like to go by my mother’s name, not my father’s.”

  Attempting to stifle the attraction he felt, Christian told himself he would be wise to remember this beauty was an out-and-out feminist. She had condemned poor Mary Woolstonecraft, the foremost advocate of women’s rights, for marrying. Annoyed with Sophie for not mentioning the woman’s radical views, he said in his most silken voice, “Ah, yes. Your mother is French, I believe. I recall that Lady Trowbridge said you were the daughter of a noble émigré? Was your mother not known by her father’s name?”

  She raised her chin and looked at him, a challenge in her deep gray eyes.

  He smiled. “Unless you wish to be known only by your first name, you cannot escape being known by the name of some man.”

  She raised the corner of her mouth in a half smile. “Perhaps I should invent a surname. I suppose Hodge would do as well as any other. Would you care to refer to me as Miss Hodge?”

  “Miss Hodge it is,” he said with a grin. Taking her hand, he raised it and bowed over it. Though she wore gloves, he felt a thrill run from his fingertips up his arm to his heart.

  By Jove, she would take the ton by storm. What a shame her position in life dictates that she be beneath my serious interest.

  “Now, ladies, I believe that your excellent hostess has prepared the highest of teas. I will wager she has even obtained Devonshire cream.”

  “I adore Devonshire cream!” The tall goddess smiled her full smile.

  He was nearly shattered by the sight. Swiftly turning to the others, he said, “I feel I should offer someone an arm, but with four such ladies as you are, I would not want to offend by leaving anyone out. I will simply follow you to the tea table.”

  To his discomfiture, during tea the conversation focused on him.

  “Lord Shrewsbury, you are a Whig, I think?” Miss “Hodge” asked.

  “I am.”

  “What is your opinion of Voltaire?” she asked.

  “I believe the man to have been very impressed by England, in comparison to his native land, so of course he is dear to my heart.”

  “But in neither country are women recognized as people of any particular consequence.”

  He should have expected the conversation to go in this direction. What an irritating needle-wit she was! “I hold women in a position of great consequence. Without them, the generations would cease. Life would not go on.”

  “You think of us as breeding stock?” Miss Whitcombe-Hodge’s nostrils flared.

  “No more so than men,” he said calmly.

  Miss Flynn intervened. “Are you fond of music, my lord?”

  “Very fond, as a matter of fact. My closest friend recently married a woman who is an ac
complished violinist. So it happens that I have become very enamored of the violin. As a matter of fact, these friends have gone to meet Herr van Beethoven in Vienna. Are you fond of Beethoven, Miss Flynn?”

  “I am! But I am particularly attached to Bach’s piano concertos. They are so . . . I don’t know. They put my world right somehow. Do you think we might have a piano at the school, my lord? Music is such a civilizing influence.”

  “I think that is a splendid idea. I will see to it.”

  Mrs. Blakeley’s cook had made scones that melted in the mouth. She also had acquired Devonshire cream, along with raspberry preserves, they all discovered with no small amount of coos and delight. Shrewsbury thought he saw a naughty small girl looking out of Hélène’s eyes for just a moment, as she surreptitiously stuck a cream-laden finger into her mouth.

  “Is this not a fine tea?” he asked. “Mrs. Blakeley, you are to be commended.”

  All the women agreed graciously. The stout woman blushed. “You are too kind.”

  Miss Flynn said, “I have never seen Whitcombe enjoy anything quite so whole-heartedly.”

  The feminist’s color rose. She bit her bottom lip, then straightening, she said, “Do you know, if I were a man, and allowed to sit Parliament, I would be a Radical.” She looked at him with those enticing smoky eyes and he read a challenge there. She smiled one-sidedly, obviously having regained her aplomb. “I should extend the voting franchise to include not only men who are not property holders, but women, as well.”