A Lady of True Distinction

by Grace Burrowes

  Only a woman without children would pose such a question. “Love, Miss Pepper. I love those girls to the depths of my soul. All the liveried servants and London connections in the world are no consolation to a child being raised without love.”

  “Maybe I could love them too.”

  “If your love is only a maybe, that’s not good enough. Particularly when Bancroft has never loved them in the years of being their uncle and merely seeks to gain control of their wealth.”

  Miss Pepper took off her bonnet and turned her face to the sun, something a young lady was taught to never do. “Bancroft has Summerfield. He need not steal from children, or are my perceptions in error?”

  Margaret suspected Miss Pepper’s perceptions were astute and well guarded. Hawthorne had devised a strategy, though, and so far, his approach was working.

  “Do you understand what enclosure is, Miss Pepper?”

  “Fencing off land attached to an estate, even though that land was in common use previously. The land can be better managed by the owner, though the results for those who lose access to it are harsh.”

  “The results are devastating, which is something both Bancroft’s father and brother recognized, so they enclosed only a portion of Summerfield’s common land. Enclosure is also very expensive and requires significant materials and labor. Charles had barely paid off the debt resulting from his father’s enclosures, and then Bancroft inherited and began more enclosures. Other debts came with the estate, and Bancroft does not manage well.”

  Miss Pepper drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. “I haven’t spent enough time in polite society’s country seats to know if Summerfield is well maintained. The house seems dusty and drafty, and the servants look harried rather than happy.”

  Margaret forced herself to recite facts. The staff was smaller by one-third than it had been three years ago. The fields hadn’t been marled in all that time. The crop rotation scheme was decades behind the best practices, and Bancroft had to buy hay every winter because he regarded turnips as the crop of peasants. The house was drafty because the windows should have been regularly reglazed, and the farm lanes at Summerfield were in poor condition because Bancroft didn’t bother to clear his drainage ditches between planting and harvest.

  By contrast, Greta’s and Adriana’s funds, which were managed by solicitors, were growing steadily.

  Miss Pepper appeared to listen, as she also watched the siege going on across the garden. Margaret learned two things from the conversation. First, Emily Pepper was in no way smitten with Bancroft Summerfield. If she was considering his suit, her reasons were practical rather than romantic. Second, Miss Pepper would do her duty by Greta and Adriana at least, and she might even come to love them, but she longed for a family of her own, however well she kept that longing out of sight.

  Miss Pepper’s father eventually appeared on the back terrace, then made his way slowly across the garden. Captain greeted him enthusiastically and left off being a noble steed to remain beside Mr. Pepper throughout the introductions.

  Simply by looking at the older man, Margaret learned a few more things about the Pepper family.

  Mr. Pepper was dying. She didn’t have to smell his breath to confirm that diagnosis. He was pale, and for a thin man, he nonetheless looked puffy about the eyes and hands. He moved with little energy, and most significant of all, his gaze held that combination of courage and resignation Margaret had seen in her late husband.

  Emily Pepper’s father was gravely ill, and Bancroft was presenting her with a family ready-made and in need of love. Bancroft would gain control of a large fortune, and Margaret would lack the resources to battle him in the courts if he chose to never return the children to her.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Hawthorne had counseled that he and Margaret use the visit as a reconnaissance mission, though the urge to grab one girl under each arm and bolt for the gig was making it hard to focus on Bancroft’s blatherings.

  Bancroft was that most detestable of creatures, a man with more wealth than decency. He was also a coward, meaning he would not steal the children unless he was confident his scheme would succeed.

  Given that Summerfield was going to seed, the staff appeared to resent their master bitterly, and Miss Pepper was far from ensconced as lady of the house—settlements and all—Bancroft’s confidence made little sense.

  “Shall we have some brandy, Dorning?” he asked, crossing to the family parlor’s sideboard. “I realize it’s early in the day, but with the brats shrieking in the garden, Margaret glaring daggers at me, and the staff in an uproar over a mere two guests, a man’s nerves need steadying. A few glasses of wine at lunch were not adequate to that challenge.”

  Hawthorne accepted a serving. “To a successful haying.”

  Bancroft lifted his glass, which was full to the brim. “To a successful haying, in every sense of the word. I think Miss Pepper is much impressed with Summerfield, as is Mr. Pepper.”

  I’m fine, thank you, how are you? “She seems a pleasant lady. Country life will be an adjustment for her.”

  “Country life? My dear fellow, if she sees fit to accept my suit, I can guarantee you we’ll let out the ancestral pile and spend most of our time in London. I’m told Paris is lovely in spring, and Lisbon’s winters have much to recommend them.”

  The brandy had been watered, likely by the staff. The adulteration was minor, though the vintage hadn’t been first quality to begin with.

  “I’m sure the children will adore hearing about your peregrinations when you return,” Hawthorne said. “You must write to them regularly as you travel.”

  “Write to the children? They are girls, Mr. Dorning. Perhaps your father wrote occasionally to his sons when he was away on his botanical expeditions, but girls are another matter entirely. They can be packed off to boarding schools until they are old enough to be married advantageously. That’s how it’s done.”

  Bancroft tossed back a bumper of inferior brandy, while Hawthorne set his nearly full glass on the dusty mantel.

  “You’ve raised a number of girls, then, to be an expert on their upbringing?”

  “It’s a simple undertaking,” Bancroft said, refilling his glass, “though it takes more coin than it ought to. Any fool can see that much.”

  “Given that they are such a burden, when do you plan to return them to us?”

  Hawthorne plucked a C major on the spinet—also dusty—but the instrument was so out of tune that the result was minor. G major and F major were equally harsh to the ear.

  “Dorning, I regard you as a man of sense, though your taste in wives is questionable. Why would you want a pair of girls underfoot as you’re trying to thaw the widow’s ice?”

  That Bancroft would fence rather than dismiss the question outright was encouraging. That he would insult Margaret to Hawthorne’s face suggested inchoate inebriation.

  “The lady is my wife, Summerfield. Mind your tongue.” Hawthorne spoke mildly, when he wanted to plow his fist into Bancroft’s face. Pounding a man to dust when he was half drunk wasn’t sporting, nor—in this case—was it good strategy.

  “I keep the pianoforte in the guest parlor tuned,” Bancroft said. “No point bothering with an instrument that’s only for show.”

  “So the girls practice their music in the guest parlor?”

  “The girls, the girls, the girls… You are not their father, Dorning. You aren’t anything to them, and I suggest you keep out of a matter you know little about. That’s a friendly bit of advice you’d do well to heed. I waited to intervene as long as I dared, but I know my duty. What can those women be discussing?”

  Out in the garden, Margaret and Miss Pepper were sharing a bench. Mr. Pepper was conversing with the girls, Captain at his side. Miss Fenner and Ambers occupied another bench. The scene should have been cheerful and relaxed, but was anybody in that garden happy?

  “Maybe the ladies are discussing fashion. Miss Pepper’s attire is quite stylish.”<
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  “She’s the old man’s only child, set to inherit an obscene fortune, and she’s most favorably inclined toward me, Dorning. I can afford to do with the girls as I please.”

  “You mean Miss Pepper can afford to do with the girls as you please, but why bother with your nieces at all? Margaret loves them, she has taken excellent care of them, and I am not without a few connections of my own.”

  Half of Bancroft’s second serving of brandy was already gone. He was either taking inordinate measures to steady his nerves, or he was overly confident of his aims.

  “I had a duty to rescue those girls, Dorning. You might think me heartless, taking them away from Summerton, but nobody is safe in Margaret’s care. She fancies herself quite the healer, or she did, but she’s learned humility on that score. Did you know she killed poor Charles?”

  No, she hadn’t, but the glee with which Bancroft served up his poison was appalling. “That is a serious charge. You will please explain yourself.”

  “Serious indeed, and the statute of limitations on murder will not run out for quite some time, will it? She poisoned him with her quackery. Poor sod had a bad heart. The best physicians in London pronounced his case hopeless. Told him to go home and put his affairs in order, for the end was nigh. He married Margaret instead, of all the damnable notions. Then he changed his will, and what should have been mine ended up going to a bloody lot of worthless females three very long years later.”

  Bancroft’s recitation answered some questions and raised others. “You have all of Summerfield House, when as a younger son, that legacy was never guaranteed to be yours.”

  Bancroft gestured with his drink, sloshing brandy over his knuckles. “I have a bloody

  lot of damned debt, while those wretched children rack up tidy interest every year on sums larger than they’ll ever need. It’s not fair, and a murderess pretends that she’s a better influence on my nieces than I am.”

  So Bancroft was not only greedy, he was vengeful toward females who’d done nothing to harm him.

  What a charmer. Margaret had withstood the threat of Bancroft’s accusations for years, raised the girls in a peaceful and loving home, and set aside everything she knew about medicine rather than call Bancroft to account.

  Thorne passed Bancroft his handkerchief. “This is an interesting tale, but if I’m to believe it, it wants details. How exactly did Charles die?”

  Bancroft mopped at his hand with Thorne’s linen. “I have your attention now, I see. I don’t blame you for marrying Margaret—she’s comely enough, and younger sons must get on as well as they can—but be careful around the tisanes and potions. Charles trusted her, swore by that damned decoction of hers. Made from flowers. Foxgloves or hollyhocks or some such. Vile stuff.

  “Charles was here at Summerfield,” Bancroft went on, “getting the place in order for the next tenants, or taking a few days away from the harpy he’d married. He wasn’t doing well, so I gave him a bit of his magic potion, all to no avail. Gave him a bit more, and he fared even worse, so I gave him more… The footman went in to rouse him in the morning, and he was gone. The medication—if you can call it that—did him in, no question about it.”

  That sad recollection apparently necessitated that Bancroft consume the rest of his brandy.

  Hawthorne made himself focus on the scene in the garden as a sort of tonic against violent impulses. No, not violent impulses, honorable impulses. Before he could act on those impulses, he wanted to confirm facts and strategy with Margaret.

  “You’ve kept this sequence of events to yourself,” Hawthorne said. “Why not bring charges at the time of Charles’s death?”

  “I was grief-stricken, Dorning. Felled by sorrow. I did not want to believe the evidence of my own eyes. That a woman would marry a man, knowing him to be in delicate health, then finish him off… It’s a sad old tale from a Gothic novel, not a drama one expects to extinguish the life of one’s only brother. Then too, one doesn’t want to bring scandal down on one’s house. By the time the medical men finished bickering over the cause of death, who knows what might have happened to my inheritance? Chancery could have tied up the whole estate for eons.”

  “A daunting prospect.” For an heir who had likely been trading on his expectations for years.

  “You see why the children cannot be raised in Margaret’s household?” Bancroft asked. “I must do my dooby… my doo-ty by them.”

  What Hawthorne saw was self-delusion and greed on a virtuosic scale and a man drunk at midday. “And you timed your rescue of the girls for the moment when they could help you win Miss Pepper’s hand—and fortune.”

  Bancroft smiled at his drink. “What can I say? Fortune favors the audacious, and Charles’s will did make the situation unnecessarily complicated, but all is as it should be now.”

  “Not quite,” Hawthorne said. “But soon. Let’s have another brandy, and then I’ll bid farewell to the children.”

  “I knew you’d see the way of it. Margaret will grumble about parting with her little charges, so I suggest you distract her with a baby or two, and it wouldn’t hurt to remind her of the risk she runs if she seeks to thwart my authority on this matter. I regret to admit that Charles never took a firm hand with her—an oversight you can remedy, hmm?”

  “Margaret will insist that we call on you again,” Hawthorne said. “Friday suits. Perhaps by then you and Miss Pepper will have reached an understanding.”

  “Let’s drink to that happy thought, shall we?”

  “None for me,” Hawthorne said, “but help yourself while I rejoin my family in the garden. No need to see us off, and do expect us back at the end of the week.”

  Assuming Hawthorne did not kidnap the children first.

  Margaret’s calm good cheer was shredding by the moment. The children had walked with her and Hawthorne around to the front drive, as had Miss Pepper. Bancroft, thank a benevolent providence, was nowhere to be seen. Ambers and Miss Fenner waited a dozen yards away, chatting with Miss Pepper.

  “We will write to you after you leave,” Adriana said. “We were going to write to you today, but then you visited.”

  “We were going to run away,” Greta muttered.

  “Were you?” Hawthorne asked, scooping Greta onto his hip. “Twelve miles is a great distance to run. How would you have found your way?”

  Greta cuddled onto his shoulder, which had to be about the dearest and most heartrending sight Margaret had ever beheld.

  “Captain knows the way,” Greta said. “We would have taken him with us and worn our boots.”

  “We saved our toast and jam from breakfast,” Adriana added. “Miss Pepper is nice, but Uncle…”

  “He smells bad,” Greta said. “His breath stinks. His clothes stink. I don’t like him.”

  “He acts all smiley and sweet when Miss Pepper is around, but then he goes like this,”—Adriana made a shooing motion with her hand—“when her back is turned, and Fenny takes us back to the nursery. We only get to go outside if Captain needs a walk.”

  “We want to go home,” Greta said. “We want to go home now.”

  That particular tone, that emphasis on the word now, could presage a grand tantrum. Margaret sorted through replies—leaving without notice would be rude, Bancroft’s feelings might be hurt, nothing was packed—but in her heart, she knew those lies for the excuses they were.

  Bancroft had the girls, Miss Pepper was charmed by the prospect of becoming an aunt, and Bancroft would never cede that bargaining chip—much less the funds that came with it—now that he controlled it.

  “I want to take you home with us,” Hawthorne said, “but instead we will content ourselves with calling again on Friday.”

  That was news to Margaret—good news. “The day after tomorrow,” she said. “Not long at all.”

  “Here.” Hawthorne passed Greta his watch. “With every tick of that watch, the next visit comes closer. We can wind the watch together on Friday.”

  “May I have a wat
ch?” Adriana asked.

  Hawthorne set Greta on her feet and stroked a big hand over Adriana’s head. “You are in charge of Captain, who looks to be thriving in your care. You must not, however, allow him to sleep in your bed.”

  Adriana exchanged a look with Greta. “We know. He’s a filthy hound who has no business in the nursery.”

  “A filthy damned hound,” Greta said, nose in the air, hand on her hip in a manner reminiscent of Bancroft. “But Fenny said Captain slept in the nursery at Summerton—he did for one night, so that’s not a lie—and Miss Pepper said Captain should stay in the nursery with us here. I want to go home.”

  “Be patient until Friday,” Hawthorne said. “We will all be patient. I urge you both to practice the pianoforte in the family parlor, take Captain out frequently for a loud game of bold knights, and wear your boots at all times indoors.”

  What on earth was he up to?

  “And no running,” he added, “not indoors anyway. Uncle Bancroft cannot abide the noise of running feet overhead.”

  Oh… Yes, of course. “Inside voices,” Margaret said, slipping her arm through Hawthorne’s. “Inside voices at all times, especially around Uncle Bancroft.”

  Another look passed between the girls.

  “Until Friday.” Hawthorne swept the children a silly bow, then aimed a more formal courtesy at Miss Pepper, Fenny, and Ambers. “Ladies, a pleasure. We’ll see you again soon.”

  Margaret approached Miss Pepper, while Ambers and Fenny collected the girls. “Miss Pepper, a pleasure to have met you.” Do you know your father is dying? In Margaret’s experience, family usually knew the truth of a hopeless case, even when they didn’t acknowledge that truth.

  “I’ll look forward to seeing you again,” Miss Pepper said, dipping a curtsey. “Mr. Dorning, should the occasion arise, please give my regards to your brother Valerian.”

  And then the moment of parting was over, and Hawthorne was steering the horse down the lane.