A Lady of True Distinction

by Grace Burrowes

  Oak strolled to the window that overlooked the back garden. A tidy, formal expanse that Mama had insisted be preserved from the craze for reconstructed nature. Papa had indulged her, likely because sculpting entire landscapes to look like paintings cost exorbitantly.

  “I asked Worth to nose around for me,” Oak said. “I am good at restoring old paintings, and I am a creditable portraitist. Worth has mentioned a neighbor from time to time, a lady who lives not far from Trysting. She has a significant collection that needs work. I have the ability to restore it. She’s writing to let me know that I have the post—or that she has declined my services.”

  Well, damn. Sweet, quiet, industrious Oak had stolen a march on them all. “What of our labels and advertisements for the botanical business?” Thorne asked.

  Oak tried to open the window, which squeaked and groaned, and eventually yielded a whole six inches.

  “I have done myriad sketches and paintings for that purpose,” Oak said. “I can continue to support the endeavor from Hampshire.”

  “Hampshire?” Valerian rose from the desk. “You’re off to bloody Hampshire?”

  “Bloody Hampshire is for the most part a day’s hard ride or not-so-hard coaching from us,” Thorne said, slitting open Grey’s letter. “Before you accept the offer, Oak, please do Grey the courtesy of informing him that you’re considering a position. He’s still the head of this family, and he might hear of other posts while in London. His access to London gossip means he might also know something of your prospective patroness that you should be apprised of.”

  “Nobody knows much about her,” Oak said, bracing his backside against the windowsill. “Even Worth, who is legendarily interfering when it comes to ladies without champions, doesn’t know much about her.”

  Valerian snatched up his three letters. “And that fascinates you? This woman has alienated her neighbors, has no proper society, and you’re ready to drop everything and abandon us to become her artist in the attic?”

  “He hasn’t accepted anything yet, Valerian,” Thorne interjected. “Your display of concern—which only looks, sounds, and feels like a jealous tantrum—is unwarranted.”

  The silence that sprang up had a familiar, uncomfortable feel. Ever since Willow had taken a bride, the Dorning brothers had been in a state of unrest. Thorne expected his sisters to marry—Daisy, though among the younger siblings, had married before any of her elders. Jacaranda was too managing not to have a household of her own and had gone into service as a housekeeper with that objective in mind.

  Along Worth Kettering had come, and Jacaranda had promptly had a husband to manage too.

  “Things change,” Thorne said. “Sycamore is thriving in London, Grey has taken a countess, Willow has never been happier. We wish them all the best, and if Oak should become God’s gift to some Hampshire recluse’s attic, then so be it. I will miss him, but rejoice in his good fortune.”

  Valerian recovered his aplomb between one breath and the next. His visage shifted from scowling to genial. His posture changed from that of a man righteously charging into a melee, to the languid saunter of an aristocratic ornament.

  “You are quite right,” he said, “as you are with obnoxious frequency. I stand rebuked and offer Oak my sincerest apologies. Best of luck, dear boy. May all your attics be full of priceless nudes.”

  “Bugger yourself,” Oak muttered, heading for the door. “It’s a fine day. I’m off to do some sketching.”

  “Why every young man should learn to sketch,” Valerian said as Oak’s footsteps faded down the corridor. “So he can make a polite exit from any company and claim the siren song of nature’s beauty compels him to seek the out of doors. He’ll get in a spot of fishing, have a fine nap at the abbey ruins, and dream of pigments and portraits.”

  “What the hell ails you?” Thorne asked.

  “I have developed the ability to read correspondence that has yet to be opened,” Valerian said, taking the spot at the window. “Grey’s letter chides us all for not having products to send to London. We do have products, of course, bundles of lavender, bales of peppermint, but those are wholesale goods. And to the extent we simply turn them over to shop owners or market vendors, we part with substantial coin we might be keeping for ourselves. Grey would know that if he stopped gazing fondly at his countess for so much as a day.”

  Grey was more than fond of his countess. He’d defied the weight of common sense, financial imperative, and patriarchal duty to marry his dear Beatitude.

  “Perhaps Grey is informing us of impending uncledom.” Thorne broke the seal and scanned the contents.

  “He will,” Valerian said darkly. “He’s a Dorning. It’s only a matter of time before the union is fruitful.”

  “So what news did the post bring you?” Thorne said, skipping past all the Town gossip. “You have three epistles, none of them local. None of them in a hand I recognize. You make a great noise about Oak seeking a position in Hampshire, while you quietly carry on your own campaign to leave the Hall.”

  “We’ve already left the Hall.”

  Thorne cast his gaze around the library. “And yet, every day, we’re back under its roof. Consulting with the staff, collecting the post, dwelling here in spirit while we sleep elsewhere.”

  He went back to reading, because glowering at Valerian in the midst of this discussion was pointless. Valerian had a scheme afoot, but he’d part with the details only when he damned pleased to.

  “The widow in Hampshire has been corresponding with Oak for two months,” Valerian said. “I suspect her means are limited.”

  “That is none of our…” Thorne reread the sentence at the bottom of the page, certain he’d mistaken Grey’s meaning, but no. “I must kill my brother.”

  “It’s not my turn to be killed. If you kill Sycamore, we might inherit his gaming hell, and Ash probably has a notion how to run it. Kill Grey and Willow becomes the first earl in the realm to prefer dogs to people. Thank heavens Lady Susannah prefers Willow to almost—Thorne, what is it?”

  “Grey has gone mad,” Thorne said, passing over the letter. “He thinks to sell the pasture and fields bordering Summerton. He further notes that Bancroft Summerfield has conveniently presented himself in Town, and Grey is considering approaching him with an offer to sell the land.”

  “Having Bancroft for a neighbor doesn’t suit, I take it?”

  “Dorning Hall needs that water meadow, Valerian. It’s our best hay, our only guarantee of early grass, and the means by which I drained the pasture below the mares’ field. Bancroft can flood our mares’ field, destroy what little profit the home farm makes… This is the last parcel of land Grey should sell.”

  “But the only one for which he’s likely to find a willing buyer knocking on his very door.”

  And therein lay the difficulty. “I am to call on Margaret Summerfield in three days’ time. I cannot go to damned London. I can send an express, which Grey will put off reading until Beatitude jollies him into it. Then he’ll dismiss my reasoning as old-fashioned clinging to every acre for the sake of tradition, which I most assuredly am not. Without that water meadow… Bloody bleating hell, I must leave for damned London at once.”

  First, Thorne would have to write Margaret a groveling note, which would take only the rest of the day to do properly. She would be most unhappy to find Bancroft holding land across the stream from her, and she would blame Thorne for allowing that to happen.

  As well she should.

  “I find,” Valerian said, wrestling the window open the rest of the way, “that it’s time I made a pilgrimage to the capital. My manly humors want exercising, which one cannot accomplish here amid the splendors of Dorset. My wardrobe needs refreshing. I should have a look in on Ash and Sycamore, knock their heads together for old times’ sake.”

  “They’ll be touched that you’d make the effort.” I am touched. Valerian could not afford a new wardrobe, and he could exercise his manly humors with any number of local widows and prob
ably had. “We also need a place of business, or Grey’s brilliant scheme dies aborning.”

  “That’s easy,” Valerian said, shooting his cuffs and fluffing his cravat. “If we’re selling products aimed at men, we need to be on Bond Street.”

  “Of course we do, but Bond Street is some of the most expensive rental property in the whole of London.”

  “Details, details. My first order of business will be preserving your water meadow from the clutches of Bane-croft. Leave it all in my capable hands and keep your appointment with Mrs. Summerfield.”

  He marched out the door before Thorne could embarrass them both with effusive thanks.

  Margaret allowed herself three days to pretend she’d accept Hawthorne Dorning’s proposal, but a letter from Bancroft put a stop to her nonsense. He’d been in London less than a fortnight and had already made the acquaintance of a Miss Emily Pepper, whom he described as the well-situated only child of a very successful cloth nabob.

  “I should be happy for Bancroft,” Margaret muttered, passing the deck of cards across the table.

  “I’ve never found Mr. Summerfield to be all that objectionable,” Miss Fenner replied, shuffling the deck with deft hands. “He’s a bit thick-headed about some things, or so Mr. Hartley implies—not that Mr. Hartley would be disloyal to an employer—but we’re all thick-headed from time to time, aren’t we?”

  Mr. Hartley’s name found its way into most conversations with Fenny these days. “What does Mr. Hartley say about his employer?”

  “Oh, the usual. Mr. Hartley understands Mr. Summerfield’s position, which I think is quite kind of him.”

  She shuffled again, the sound of the riffling cards plucking at Margaret’s nerves. Hawthorne Dorning was due to call on her today. She’d put on her favorite day dress, banished the children to the garden, fortified herself with a calming pot of chamomile tea, and resorted to playing cards to pass the time.

  I would rather be working in my herbal, except she hadn’t permitted herself that joy since Charles’s death. She’d dusted, reorganized, and updated her stores, but she hadn’t worked.

  “Mr. Hartley does seem to be a very sensible gentleman,” Margaret said, “but what exactly does he see as Bancroft’s position?”

  Fenny dealt the cards using a hair too much force. One of the cards—the eight of clubs—skittered across the table straight into Margaret’s lap.

  “Sorry, ma’am.”

  This conversation rattled the utterly un-rattle-able Fenny, which suggested her loyalties were already unraveling after only two calls from Mr. Hartley.

  Margaret arranged her cards from highest to lowest, as she’d taught the girls to do. “About Bancroft’s position?”

  “Why, he’s the younger son, ma’am. Nobody expected him to inherit, and thus all that business about where to plant potatoes and where to put in corn escaped his notice. Mr. Hartley says a bit of patience is needed, is all, and Summerfield House will soon be in excellent form.”

  Charles had been self-conscious about his illness, but his own brother had known the truth since adolescence. If Bancroft had no idea which crop went into which field, the cause was sheer laziness. Land didn’t farm itself, and the best steward was still an employee who took direction from the owner.

  “What else does Mr. Hartley say about Summerfield House? The girls could end up inheriting that property, too, and one likes to be kept informed.”

  Hell would flood with rose water before Bancroft allowed his nieces to inherit the family seat. He had two by-blows already, quietly being raised by their mothers. Margaret made it her business to know that the boys were adequately cared for and had put in writing to their mamas her willingness to provide additional funds if needed.

  Charles would have done as much, if not more.

  “To be honest, ma’am,” Fenny said, “Mr. Hartley and I find other subjects to discuss besides his duties at Summerfield.”

  “Poetry?” Fenny was a closet poet and a good one. She had Byron’s sly humor, an enormous vocabulary, and a gift for treading the line between wit and cynicism.

  “Mr. Hartley is hopeless when it comes to poetry, but willing to learn. Do you have any sevens?”

  “Alas for you, not a seven to be seen.” Sevens were good luck, not that good luck mattered when a woman was intent on refusing a very tempting marriage proposal.

  Shrieking in the garden had Fenny putting her cards down. “Mr. Dorning must be here. The pickets you posted are sounding the alarm.”

  On the path below the window, Greta stood on one side of Mr. Dorning, Adriana on the other. He knelt beside the dry fountain and passed over a small package to Greta.

  Adriana, bless her kind heart, let the occasion pass rather than start a war based on the unfairness of a parcel given to her sister.

  “How do I look?” Margaret asked, rising to study herself in the pier glass.

  “You look anxious,” Fenny replied, gathering up the cards. “Just recall that Mr. Dorning is likely more nervous than you are.”

  Nervous was not in his nature, which was one of the reasons Margaret had noticed him as a youth. The other boys had been boisterous, shy, arrogant, self-conscious, and all manner of obvious about their emotions. Hawthorne Dorning had a self-possession that had been evident even in adolescence. He was friendly without being effusive. Hardworking but not a Puritan. Physically robust but not crude—never crude—but oh my, he had a way with a kiss.

  “Let’s greet my guest, shall we?”

  “Ma’am, before you go down, there’s something you should know.”

  “If you give notice today, I will write you a glowing character after I bury your dismembered body. At least give me some warning, Fenny.”

  “Of course, ma’am, but I know Mr. Hartley doesn’t call here to court my favor. He probably thinks he’s being subtle, asking me to walk to the stream with him, wondering aloud why your farmers rotate through four crops instead of three, when three crops have served Dorset well for centuries, and so forth.”

  Bancroft was too proud to grow turnips, apparently, which meant Summerfield House did without winter fodder. Charles’s father had instituted a modest acreage of turnips, and Charles had been planning to expand on that.

  “You,” Margaret said, leading the way from the room, “being a mere empty-headed governess, have little insight into why the farmers do as they do.”

  “Precisely, ma’am, but Mr. Hartley is not stupid. He’s very bright, in fact, and I’m sure he’s reporting all that he sees to Mr. Summerfield.”

  “I assumed as much, but I am disappointed for your sake. You fancy him, don’t you?”

  Fenny was silent until they gained the back terrace. “I love your girls, Mrs. Summerfield, love them to pieces, but children grow up, and then it’s off to another post for me, probably one that’s not as comfortable as Summerton. Governesses are supposed to be young and pretty, but not too pretty. I manage the not-too-pretty part well enough, but eventually youth will elude me. What becomes of me then?”

  The perennial question of the sensible woman, a query that had progeny of its own should she have offspring: What will become of my daughters?

  “You don’t have to receive Mr. Hartley if his attentions are unwelcome, Fenny.”

  Over by the fountain, a rapt Greta opened the package Mr. Dorning had brought. Adriana crowded close, while Mr. Dorning perched on the edge of the basin.

  “Mr. Hartley is spying, ma’am, plain and simple. He’s no more interested in taking me to wife than Adriana is in learning Latin.”

  Adriana had begun to make strides with her Latin, provided she was taught every term that applied to centurions, chariots, legions, and conquests.

  “Nothing says that Mr. Hartley’s focus can’t expand, Fenny. You are a lovely, dear, hardworking, frightfully well-educated, endlessly patient woman. Hartley probably underestimates you, but that doesn’t mean you have to underestimate yourself.”

  Greta in particular would miss Fenny, but
Fenny had two younger sisters in the governess line, and Margaret could likely hire one of them.

  “Mr. Hartley is a hard worker too,” Fenny said. “And he’s not bad-looking.”

  “All I ask is that you remain lamentably ignorant about my estate business, Fenny. I don’t want Bancroft getting greedy where Summerton is concerned, but neither do I want him thinking we manage so badly that he’s justified in usurping my authority.”

  Fenny paused at the top of the terrace steps. “He’d do that? Take Summerton from you?”

  “Bancroft would take the girls from me, knowing I’d part with Summerton, my right arm, or the heart in my breast to keep them safe and happy.”

  Now he was courting an heiress, which could only make acquiring sole guardianship of the girls easier. This was not the time to complicate matters with a husband who had little wealth, for all he was reliable, kind, industrious, and honorable.

  And a very good kisser.

  Chapter Ten

  The music box was a success, though Thorne mentally kicked himself for not bringing two.

  Or three. Three would have been brilliant, but Dorning Hall’s nursery had had only the one specimen, a relic of years past that yet played Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

  “I know this song,” Adriana said, making a grab for the music box. “Fenny taught us.” She put her hands at her sides and took a deep breath, like a soprano launching into her third-act aria. “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.”

  The child had a prodigiously carrying voice.

  Greta held the music box to her ear. “Hush, Dree. I want to hear the insides.”

  “Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky! When this blazing sun is gone, when he nothing shines upon! Aunt Margaret! Mr. Dorning brought us a music box! Then you show your little light, twinkle, twinkle through the night!”

  Three more stanzas to go. Thorne joined in, lest the child start at the beginning. “Then the traveler in the dark thanks you for your tiny spark. He could not see where to go, if you did not twinkle so.”