A Lady of True Distinction

by Grace Burrowes

  “I miss the beautiful scenery,”—he slanted her a smile—"though London hath charms that put any lowly shire to the blush.”

  “I would love to see your corner of Dorset, Mr. Summerfield. You speak of it so fondly. I believe you want to make the next right turn.”

  “Indeed, I do.” Though having changed directions, Bancroft was in fact on uncharted ground. He took the turn, and at the end of the boulevard, the green expanse of the park loomed several streets on. “You seem to know your way about London well, for a lady new to Town.”

  “Because my father dabbles in property, I’ve seen maps and surveys and elevations since I was in leading strings. How many acres is Summerfield House?”

  Bancroft launched into a fairy-tale description of his estate—the views! the charming neighbors! the heavenly peace of rural life!—which lasted until the vehicle was once again forced to halt amid the crowded confines of the park.

  “You planned this, didn’t you?” Miss Pepper said, touching his sleeve. “This same outing would have taken us a mere quarter hour at any other time of day. Very clever of you, Mr. Summerfield.”

  That touch on his sleeve, not quite a caress, but certainly friendly, made Bancroft bold. “You must call me Bancroft. All my friends do.” Nobody save Margaret called him Bancroft, and familiarity from her could not be helped.

  “Would that be proper? I don’t think it would be. I will ask Briggs the instant I am home, but I will ask her where Papa won’t overhear me. I will ask her if you might call me Emily. My name is hopelessly plain, but then, I am plain.”

  “You are the pattern card of feminine pulchritude, I assure you.” Any woman boasting settlements like those rumored to attach to Miss Pepper could never be plain.

  “Flatterer. You always know how to go on, Bancroft. Is there no blot upon your escutcheon? No youthful indiscretion that might make you a less intimidatingly perfect man?”

  The entire carriage parade was halted, probably to allow some dowager to harangue her godson or show off her granddaughter, and yet, nobody was paying any attention to Bancroft and his guest.

  Not now, but they would. “As a matter of fact, I have two youthful indiscretions, both boys. Charming lads who take after their papa in both mischief and looks. One isn’t to mention such situations, though I trust I can be honest with you.”

  A calculated risk, but here in the park, what could even a sheltered young lady do? Demand to be taken home immediately? That would give Bancroft a good half hour to concoct apologies and protestations of remorse.

  Though he wasn’t remorseful. His boys were a pair of devils, and he liked them both tremendously. Their mothers were another story.

  “Briggs warned me about this,” Miss Pepper said, folding her parasol. The carriage was stopped beneath the maples, and afternoon shade blanketed the lane. “Gentlemen of means can afford to indulge their animal spirits, and I am not to remark upon it, but I shall, of course. Do you care for these children?”

  “I provide for their every need, see them regularly, and monitor their well-being as any doting papa must.” Charles had set up annuities for both lads, with the quarterly interest going to their mothers until the boys turned twenty-one, at which point each young man would come into his income. At the age of twenty-five, the principal would be turned over to him.

  Bancroft had borrowed from his sons from time to time, though his solicitors had insisted he repay the loans with interest, of all the ridiculous posturing. He would make the repayments, if for no other reason than it irked him to have to send his own money to the mothers each quarter.

  “How old are these little darlings?” Miss Pepper asked.

  “They are both ten.”

  “Twins?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Miss Pepper opened her parasol. “You were in the grip of young manhood, which Papa maintains is a form of dementia. That you are responsible toward your offspring speaks volumes in your favor.”

  The carriage ahead moved forward at a placid walk. The chestnuts, without any direction from Bancroft, did likewise.

  “As long as I’m taking you into my confidence, you should know that I’m also responsible for a pair of nieces. My sister went too early to her reward, and her girls are now my responsibility.”

  Miss Pepper waved to a carriage passing in the opposite direction, which was not how a young lady conducted herself in public.

  “Those girls must miss their mama terribly. They must be missing you right now almost as much.”

  What a softhearted creature she was. “Greta and Adriana are in the care of their widowed aunt for the moment. Margaret was married to my brother, but the union was not fruitful. I, by contrast, am a parent twice over, a man of means, and a dutiful uncle. Now that the girls are ready for the schoolroom, I’d like to take a more active role in their upbringing.” And a very active role in handling their funds.

  “That is noble of you, Bancroft, to be so concerned for a pair of orphaned girls. I’m sure their aunt will be relieved to see you take them under your wing.”

  Bancroft was relieved at Miss Pepper’s reaction. Not every woman would have regarded a suitor with two dependent females underfoot so benevolently.

  “The aunt is somewhat problematic,” he said. “Margaret never quite got over Charles’s death, and her approach to the children is one of duty rather than real warmth. She’s something of an eccentric. She would never neglect their basic needs, but I fear for the girls if they’re left with her much longer.”

  The carriage ahead turned off onto another lane, and—wonderous to behold!—no others blocked the way. Bancroft nonetheless allowed the chestnuts to toddle along at the walk.

  “You must rescue those girls, Bancroft. I had a few governesses growing up who were motivated solely by duty. Dragons, the lot of them. It’s a wonder I lived to attend finishing school.”

  “Precisely. I must rescue the girls. I was hoping you’d see it that way, but mine is a bachelor household, and these are motherless girls. Even I would not take the children from all that’s familiar to them without providing some sort of maternal figure to ease their transition.”

  “You will think of something.” Another soft pat to his arm, more of a stroke. “You are a resourceful and intelligent man, and I know you care for your nieces. The solution will come to you. I’m sure of it. Tell me more about Dorset.”

  Bancroft regaled her with rhapsodies about endless sunlight, sparkling waterfalls, gay assemblies, and beautiful night skies, so much so that by the time he delivered Miss Pepper back into Briggs’s scowling company, he was the tiniest bit homesick for Dorset himself.

  “Thorne sent you an express?” Casriel asked.

  Valerian moved down the row of jars on the apothecary’s shelves. “He assuredly did. He’s writing to you, Sycamore, Will, and Ash separately, but I might as well tell you…”

  A pair of ladies entered the shop, a mother and daughter from the looks of them.

  “Does half of London subsist on True Daffy’s Elixir?” Casriel muttered, peering at a blue bottle.

  “The half that isn’t stuporous from imbibing Godfrey’s Cordial.” The apothecary had pointed out that one concoction made the bowels seize, while the other inclined them to loosen, so the two remedies were often bought together.

  “And the nature of Thorne’s epistle?” Casriel asked, setting the bottle back among the two dozen like it on the shelf.

  “Let’s finish this discussion outside.”

  The apothecary was absorbed in listening to the older woman’s recitation of symptoms, while the younger lady looked as if she wished to be anywhere but at her mother’s side.

  “I have never spent much time in apothecary shops,” Casriel said when they’d gained the walkway. “What a lot of nonsense.”

  “That nonsense is profitable. People suffer with coughs, grippe, ague, headaches, boils, fevers, melancholia, wind, catarrhs, insomnia, dropsy, hay fever—”

  “Valerian, that
will be quite enough.” Casriel set a brisk pace for the corner.

  “Well, they do. Dances come in and out of vogue. The waltz might be all the rage at present, but two years from now, if the waltz is the only dance a fellow knows, he could well be sitting out every set. Human ailments are always in fashion, and Daffy’s Elixir has been selling for more than a century. If we put Papa’s botanicals into patent remedies, and one of them becomes popular, we could make a tidy sum.” Many tidy sums.

  “Selling opium or brandy by any other name, while avoiding taxes because the use is supposedly medicinal. I cannot believe Papa would want us to use his legacy thus. This is precisely why gentlemen do not engage in trade—because so much of what we call commerce is in truth deception wrapped up in pretty advertisements.”

  “You are more our father’s son than you know.”

  They rounded the corner onto Jermyn Street, as if Casriel were anxious to leave behind even the sight of the apothecary—though doubtless, one or two streets on, another would come into view.

  “Do you know there are entire warehouses of patent remedies?’ Valerian asked.

  “I read the newspaper. One can’t help but see the announcements. A shipment of Lord Fremund’s Celestial Tincture has newly arrived! St. Wigbert’s Balsam to be had for a limited time! Lady Mary’s Finest Black Cherry Comfort now available!”

  “Some of which might even do a bit of good.”

  “If one is taking people’s money, one ought to do so in exchange for the occasional bit of good. People become dependent on Godfrey’s Cordial. They turn babies into little dolls that lie in their blankets, unmoving, for hours.”

  Jermyn Street on such a fine day was crowded with dandies and swells walking arm in arm. Traffic consisted mostly of handsome idlers at the ribbons of a flashy phaeton or yellow-wheeled curricle.

  “Are these objections yours or your lady wife’s?” Valerian asked. They were gentlemanly objections, but Casriel hadn’t made them previously.

  “Her ladyship’s delicate condition predisposes a man to thinking.”

  “To worrying?”

  “That too. Beatitude doesn’t want to use an accoucheur. She’s asked to use her sister-in-law’s midwife.”

  “This is not a topic a bachelor from the shires discusses comfortably, Casriel. We’re out and about to investigate our competition.” More to the point, if Casriel got to airing his paternal anxieties, the entire excursion would likely be for naught.

  “Do you think I am comfortable discussing it?” Casriel retorted. “I am to be a bulwark of masculine calm, a citadel of good cheer and husbandly serenity. Every time I see Beatitude put her hand on her belly, I am seized by panic. She nibbles her toast more slowly, and my own digestion feels tentative. Having a wife in this condition is a torment about which nobody offers any warning. One day, you’re sailing along on a cloud of marital bliss—”

  “Casriel, perhaps this is not the time.”

  “—in charity with all of creation and disrobing rather more frequently than before you spoke your vows. The next, you are wishing your manly humors to perdition, because the peril your dearest spouse faces is unfathomable, and but for your own damned rutting—”

  “My lord, we are in public.”

  “We are in the heart of that masculine preserve known as clubland, and I may worry for my countess any blasted time and any deuced place I please.”

  “Perhaps you need a nerve tonic. I know where you can have your choice of a dozen.”

  “My brother is a wit. Who knew? What is that scent?”

  Casriel came to an abrupt halt outside an emporium that styled itself as providing fashionable haircuts and accoutrements for men.

  “They sell perfumes in there, as well as combs, brushes, shaving soaps, salves, and the like.”

  Casriel had darted through the door before Valerian could stop him. Inside, gentlemen conversed with fresh-faced clerks, all of whom were shaved, trimmed, brushed, and burnished to a high shine. Would a female shop clerk appeal to male customers the way a male clerk was often hired by modistes and milliners? Valerian made a note to discuss that possibility with Sycamore, who, alone among the Dorning brothers, seemed to have an instinct for commerce.

  If a gaming hell could be considered commerce.

  “I will smell like a flower seller when I leave here,” Casriel said, sniffing at a bar of hard-milled soap wrapped in green paper embossed with gold violets. “Beatitude’s sense of smell has become acute lately. She can tell whether I’ve been to the club, the lending library, to call upon Tresham or Sycamore…”

  He trailed off, picking up one bar of soap after another and holding each beneath his nose. “Flowers,” he muttered. “Lavender and jasmine, lavender and citrus, lavender and lavender… All quite lovely, but what if I don’t care to smell like Provence in summer? I’m an Englishman.”

  “You’re an idiot,” Valerian replied, taking a whiff of a pomade that reeked of roses. “But you’re an educable idiot. You expect your brothers to compete with this establishment, the apothecaries, with Truefitt, Harris, and the great Floris himself… And those families have all been in business for years, if not decades. Do you begin to grasp the complexity of the task you’ve set before us?”

  “Let’s get out of here.” Casriel moved toward the door, when Valerian had thought to linger. “You never did tell me about Thorne’s express.”

  They reached the street, and again, Casriel struck off, this time in the direction of home.

  “I’ll part from you at the intersection,” Valerian said. “I must travel toward the City.”

  “Looking at properties for rent? If we’re to cater to gentlemen, this is the neighborhood we need to be in, Valerian. Go where your customers are. Not a complicated concept.”

  “Exactly as I told you. We need to rent shop space in the most expensive quarter of the most expensive city on earth.”

  Casriel kept moving. “We don’t need a large space. Perhaps Sycamore knows of something.”

  “I’ll call upon him later today, just as soon as I finish my errand for Hawthorne.”

  “How is dear Thorne? Up to his elbows in bales of wool, I hope?” Casriel sounded wistful rather than teasing.

  “You are homesick for Dorset. Admit it. Squiring your countess around Mayfair is all well and good, but you will be overjoyed to get back to Dorning Hall.” Valerian was homesick for Dorset, which made no sense when he’d seized the first opportunity to leave the place.

  His lordship examined the handle of his walking stick, a dragon of some sort done all in silver. “I miss home, true enough, but I’m trying to leave you fellows some privacy to sort yourselves out. I didn’t want to hover as you took your personal effects from Dorning Hall, like a landlord evicting delinquent tenants.”

  Like an older brother who did not want to cast his siblings out into the world and might lose his resolve if he had to watch the spectacle firsthand.

  “Smell this.” Valerian passed him a plain square of linen with a sprig of bluebells embroidered into the corner.

  Casriel glanced up and down the walkway, then took the handkerchief and sniffed. His brows rose. He took another whiff. “That is the smell of home. Of Papa’s woods and meadows and… Dorset sunshine? How is that possible? There’s even a hint of moss or ferns, cakes left to cool on a windowsill… Where did you get this?”

  “Thorne sent it along. That is one of Margaret Summerfield’s casual creations. If you entertain any more daft notions about selling off the water meadow, you will also—according to Thorne—lose access to the mind that made that fragrance and can make a dozen more just like it.”

  Casriel tucked the handkerchief into his pocket. “Hawthorne is threatening me?”

  “He is talking business to you, Casriel. Explaining cause and effect, and I, for one, applaud his plain speaking. Now I’m off to Doctors’ Commons.”

  “Valerian, have you news of a matrimonial nature?”

  “In a manner of speaking, ye
s. Hawthorne has become engaged to Mrs. Summerfield, and the nuptials are to be celebrated by special license.”

  For the first time since Valerian had arrived at the London town house, Casriel seemed to truly focus. “Hawthorne is marrying Mrs. Summerfield by special license? He’s doing this to gain access to her perfumes?”

  “Well, somebody had better do something, Casriel, because the owner of Dorning Hall is too busy fretting over his digestion to be bothered. Allow me to remind you, though, that Hawthorne will also accept responsibility for two small children when he takes a wife. He’ll add Summerton to the properties he must oversee, at the same time he’s stewarding Dorning Hall and minding the production of all the scents you seem to think will produce themselves before they magically fly through the air from Dorset to London at no cost.”

  Casriel took out the handkerchief and brought it to his nose again. “I need a nerve tonic made with this scent. Perhaps we all do. I will write to Thorne and tell him the water meadow won’t be sold for the present.”

  “Lovely, and while you’re about it, you might consider congratulating him on his engagement, but he wants no word of this development to trickle back to Dorset. The ceremony is to be very discreet.”

  “I don’t like that, Valerian. When a Dorning marries, the world should rejoice. We have no need to sneak about on the way to the altar.”

  “With Bancroft Summerfield among our potential relations by marriage, I intend to respect Thorne’s request for discretion.”

  The lordly beak wrinkled. “In-laws are like taxes. One understands why they exist, but one needn’t like them. Discretion it shall be. What will you get up to while I’m congratulating the groom on his good fortune?”

  “Thorne has asked me to keep a close eye on Bancroft and any lady who appears to have caught his fancy.”