by Georgie Lee
‘But of course, money isn’t everything,’ Richard mused.
‘No, it isn’t.’ Silas set his drink on the table, all too familiar with that tone. The promise of a business proposal crackled in the air like the sap from the logs in the fire. What the devil could his friend be about to propose at a time like this?
‘There are other, less tangible things to consider, such as standing, influence, a gentleman giving off the right sort of air when negotiating business or society, as you witnessed tonight.’
‘I don’t exactly smell of the fish market.’
‘But you need that little something extra to raise everyone’s opinion of you even higher.’
‘Is it that low?’ Silas laughed. He occasionally enjoyed a good game of cards at the clubs or a few other carnal pleasures when the need arose, but he’d never been in debt, got drunk or landed a woman, respectable or not, in any difficulty. He’d seen what’d happened to those unfortunate women enough times growing up at the Fairclough Foundation to ensure no woman suffered because of his attention or her situation in life. ‘Given the way the mothers throw their daughters at me at the balls, I thought I was rather admired by Baltimore society.’
‘In every endeavour there is always room for improvement.’ Richard opened the small humidor on the table beside him and held it out to Silas. Silas selected a cigar from the box. He didn’t smoke often, but something in Richard’s manner told him this occasion called for it or a stiffer drink. Richard took a cigar from the humidor and set the box back on the table. He withdrew the silver clipper on the chain from his waistcoat pocket, snipped off the end and set it between his lips. He leaned forward, accepting a light from Silas who held out a small stick from the fire. Richard inhaled deeply as he sat back before taking the cigar out of his mouth and exhaling with a wincing cough that saddened Silas. ‘You need the kind of improved opinion that an impressive and respectable marriage confers on a man.’
Silas choked on the smoke and the unexpected suggestion. ‘The kind of respectability you never sought for yourself.’
‘I almost did once, many years ago when I lived in Mobile. I was in the cotton business back then and on my way to making my first real fortune. We were in love, but yellow fever stole her from me. I never found another like her after that.’
It was the first time Silas had ever heard Richard speak with such affection about a woman who wasn’t his now-departed sister in England. It tightened his chest to realise Richard might be reunited with both women far too soon. ‘Then what’s turned your thoughts to matrimony?’
‘Your future and Lady Mary’s.’ He wheezed as he exhaled smoke. ‘A well-settled woman isn’t a single one at the mercy of every fortune hunter in the States, but a married one with a home and family, one who can successfully host dinners and help further your interests because they are her own.’
Silas took a deep drag off the cigar. He’d never in all their time together ever questioned Richard’s reasoning for anything. He hated to make an exception this far into the game. ‘I give you my word that I’ll make sure she’s well protected from fortune hunters and that she contracts a good marriage.’
Richard threw back his head and laughed, the cheerful sound weighted down by the rattle marring it. ‘Shame on me for not being more direct.’
‘You’re being very direct.’ A little bit too much for Silas’s liking. He’d always imagined himself settling down some day, but not quite this soon and not with a near stranger. Lady Mary was a pleasant enough woman, but he knew almost nothing about her. He wasn’t one to pry into other people’s affairs, at least those not connected to business that could benefit him in negotiations. ‘But the lady and I aren’t well acquainted.’
‘Not a difficult problem to rectify.’
‘She may not be amenable to the idea.’
‘Again, not an insurmountable obstacle.’ Richard leaned towards Silas, the firelight highlighted the growing gauntness in his face. Richard was very sick, there was no denying it or what it meant. Once again Silas would be left alone in the world to make his way through it. He might not be the fifteen-year-old boy who’d taken on the responsibilities of a man far too soon, but it was difficult to hold that old apprehension at bay. ‘This isn’t merely a matter of the heart, Silas, but a very practical union that could benefit you both. I know I haven’t told you a great deal about Lady Mary so I’ll tell you what I can. She’s the Earl of Ashford’s daughter.’
That was nothing to scoff at and plenty of reasons to wonder. ‘Then what’s she doing here? Why isn’t she in London where her mother can marry her off?’
Richard rolled his cigar between his fingers. ‘That’s something you’ll have to hear from the lady herself.’
Silas was certain he didn’t need to ask. There was only one reason a man as high up the social scale as an earl would cast out a daughter. Silas had never met any woman so high, but he’d met plenty of other young women from good families at the Foundation. The details were different, but the story was always the same—a man, a lapse of judgement and a very distinct alteration of their future, fortunes and standing. Silas had never held it against them. His parents hadn’t raised him with such prejudices. Besides, having made more than a few of his own mistakes, he could understand theirs and that the men were as much to blame as the women for what had happened. ‘But what’s the benefit of her over, say, Mr Penniman’s daughter?’
‘One—’ Richard held up a single finger ‘—never mix business with pleasure. Better to keep someone like Mr Penniman as an investor rather than a father-in-law. He’ll have less say in your affairs and it won’t be awkward if things turn sour. Two—’ he held up another finger ‘—her standing as a genuine lady. Americans already think any man who sounds like you is an aristocrat. If you have a wife on your arm and at the head of your table who actually is one, it’ll raise you even higher in their esteem. America is full of younger sons of the nobility trying to make a fortune, but an available young woman with Lady Mary’s lineage is a rare find. The two of you could really make something of yourselves.’
‘We’d make another commoner, like me, the son of an earl’s fourth son who preferred humanitarianism to hunting. I’ve never even met the Lord my grandfather, who probably doesn’t know I exist.’ A fact his father and mother’s passion for philanthropy had reminded him of daily while he was growing up. Silas took a sip of the fine brandy, savouring the sharp flavour. Bless his parents for their altruism. It wasn’t the way he wished to live.
‘But you know he exists. I’ve heard you drop his name during more than one conversation when it’s to your benefit to do so.’
Silas shrugged. ‘A man uses what slender means he has available and I assure you mine are very slender.’
‘With Lady Mary by your side your means will widen considerably. You could affix her family crest to your carriage or have a combination of hers and yours created. Imagine how that would look at the top of your letter head or on calling cards. You could even incorporate it into the Baltimore Southern’s insignia, give the railway a touch of English class to really impress merchants and passengers,’ Richard suggested, the way he did whenever he thought aloud about how to approach investors for a new venture. It was the idea one had to sell, not the business. Never that. It was too ordinary and boring for a man to really picture, but an idea, slightly exaggerated in its aspects but never lied about, something an investor could hold in his mind when he held the stock certificate, that was something else. It was Richard’s gift, one that Silas had worked hard to cultivate over the last five years. He never imagined it being used on him to propose a match as if Richard were some kind of hovering mother at a ball.
Silas took another drag off his cigar, turning the smoke into rings as he carefully exhaled. ‘Even if I was for it, what would the lord and lady think of this match?’
‘They gave up the right to approve or disapprove of her de
cisions some time ago,’ Richard spat, then took a calming puff off his cigar. ‘Besides, they aren’t here to look down their regal noses at you, now are they? Nor are they likely to leave their hallowed estate and venture across the Atlantic to make a stink about it.’
‘No, they aren’t.’ Silas inhaled the weedy smoke of his cigar while he thought over Richard’s proposal as he’d considered every other business decision Richard had ever placed in front of him. Silas wasn’t ready to invest in Lady Mary yet but the benefits of the match, like those of a foundry for the Baltimore Southern, were compelling enough to be considered.
* * *
An interesting idea, Mary mused silently while she stood in the shadows outside the study, listening to the men. This wasn’t the first time she’d hovered out of sight in the darkness while others discussed her future. It was becoming quite the regular habit where her life was concerned. At least this time the proposed plan was kindly meant and to her benefit because Richard genuinely cared about her. It was more than her parents could ever have said about their actions. Their love of reputation and standing had been more valuable to them than their daughter.
She touched the small watch hanging from a ribbon on her dress bodice, a gift from Ruth, Richard’s sister, during Mary’s first Christmas with her. She ran her fingers over the fine filigree, feeling the few strands of the fraying ribbon on which it hung. The watch was one of the many kindnesses Ruth had shown her during the years that Mary had spent with her. She missed Ruth, but she was ashamed to say she didn’t miss the isolation of the country.
Quiet spread over the room, broken by the pop and crackle of the fire and Richard’s occasional cough, one that cut through Mary as sharply as his sister’s final illness had. Richard knew Mary’s secret and, like his sister, he’d given her a chance to reclaim some of the life and future that Preston Graham had stolen from her. It was everything she’d sought when she’d staggered off the ship still green with seasickness and breathed in the salty Baltimore air tinged with smoke. All the training to be a lady and chatelaine of a large house that her mother had drilled into her as a child—how to host a table, draw up menus, guide conversation, the skills she should have used as the wife of a titled man—was finally being put to use in Richard’s house. She’d been awkward and reserved, hesitant and unsure when Richard had initially encouraged her to meet with the housekeeper about dinner or sit at the head of his table. Tonight, it’d all come back to her as the food had been well received and served, and the conversation had run smooth enough to ease Richard and Mr Fairclough’s negotiations. She’d left the dining room with a new confidence and for the first time in many years the belief that her future would finally shake free of her past.
Death was threatening to steal it away from her for the second time. What would she do without Richard to guide her through Baltimore society? She’d be left on her own once again to make her way in a world that was even more foreign to her than the wilds of Devon and an aged spinster’s humble but welcoming cottage.
Mr Fairclough’s deep voice, his accent a touch less refined than her father and brother’s, but far from the roughness of the London streets or fields, cut through the quiet with some matter of business. The tone of his voice held her interest, the notes of it deep and sure the way Preston’s had been during those darks nights in the stable or his carriage, until it’d turned callous and cold like the road to Gretna Green.
Mary slipped away from the door and through the narrow entrance hall of the brick row house with its marble floors and tall ceilings, and up the polished wood staircase to her room. She sat at her dressing table, leaving the bell to summon Mrs Parker, her lady’s maid, untouched. Despite having grown up with a nurse to feed and care for her, a governess to teach her and, when she’d finally come out in society, a lady’s maid to see to her beautiful ball gowns and carriage dresses, the last four years of attending to herself made her hesitant to ring the bell.
No, not any more.
She was no longer a companion but a lady and she would never be anything less ever again. She picked up the bell and shook it, the tinny noise cutting through the still of the room.
‘You’re upstairs early tonight, Lady Mary.’ Mrs Parker beamed as she came in from the adjacent room. Mary smiled at the older woman’s American frankness. If a lady’s maid had ever addressed her mother in so informal a manner she would have been dismissed without a reference. That strict distance between servants and employers had seemed so right and proper to Mary back then. It didn’t any more.
‘It was a successful, if not tiring one.’ It’d taken a great deal of organising prior to the dinner to make everything during it seem effortless and serene, and Mary was eager to sleep. She would need all the rest she could gather to get through the difficulties she was sure to face in the coming months if Richard’s health declined as quickly as his sister’s had. She’d seen the bloody handkerchiefs and heard the rattle in his chest, the same one that had claimed Ruth in the end. Mary clutched the watch on the ribbon, her eyes misting with tears. She was tired of losing people she cared about and who genuinely cared about her.
‘There, there, Lady Mary, what’s the matter?’ Mrs Parker laid a comforting hand on Mary’s shoulder and she didn’t shrug it off the way her mother had when her old housekeeper had tried to comfort her after the death of Mary’s grandmother. Instead, Mary welcomed the kind gesture. It reminded her of Ruth.
‘Nothing, only I’m a little tired from tonight’s excitement.’ There was no point ruining her evening, too. She would learn the truth about Richard soon enough assuming she didn’t already know.
Mrs Parker nodded her head, making the pile of grey hair arranged in a careful twist on top of it shiver with the motion. ‘I’ll get to laying out your nightclothes and have the maid send up the water to wash your face.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Parker.’
‘My pleasure.’ She turned and began to bustle about, removing Mary’s fine linen nightgown from the dresser, the one she’d purchased to replace the plain cotton ones she’d arrived with, and laid it out on the coverlet. ‘It’s so nice to have a young person in the house and a lady’s touch to soften things about the edges, but if you don’t mind my saying, some places, like this room, could do with a little more feminine charm.’
‘Yes, it could.’ Mary hadn’t made any changes to the room since she’d been here, leaving the handsome furniture and even the hunting pictures on the walls exactly as she’d found them when she’d arrived. It was the most comfortable room she’d occupied since leaving Foxcomb Hall, her family’s estate, four years ago, but far more formal and elaborate than her bedroom at Ruth’s had been. Richard had encouraged her to redecorate it. Perhaps it was finally time to learn to properly decorate a room. It was a skill she’d never mastered. Her mother had never been allowed to choose anything except the menus at Foxcomb Hall and even these had come under her father’s irritating scrutiny. ‘Tomorrow you and I can go shopping for some different fabric for the curtains.’
‘That would be lovely, a nice shade of blue, perhaps.’ Mrs Parker eyed the room as if she’d had plans for it for some time and could at last set them in motion. Mary didn’t mind.
‘But no chintz. I detest chintz.’ Her father had made Foxcomb Hall awash in it.
‘So do I.’ Mrs Parker winked in solidarity, then looked about with a disapproving tut. ‘Let me see where that maid has got to with the water. I like the girl, but she’s gone too long without a proper lady to serve. It’s made her forgetful.’ Mrs Parker bustled out of the room in search of the errant pitcher and basin.
A proper lady.
Mary was surprised Mrs Parker had said so. She’d walked in on Mary crying over the last letter from Mary’s sister, Jane, and Mary had told her everything, needing a friend and the comfort that Ruth had once provided. Not since those first few weeks with Ruth had Mary felt so lonely and far from the family she once thoug
ht had loved her. Mrs Parker had proven as sympathetic as Ruth and Richard, not judging or blaming her for having been young and in love and too naive to understanding the consequences of her decisions. It gave her some hope that others in America would be as forgiving, but after her parents’ shameful behaviour, it was a thin hope.
No one here besides those two will ever know. Richard had assured her that there were too many people with questionable histories of their own that they’d conveniently left behind when they’d come to the States to chase their dreams of success and freedom to worry about hers. Mary hoped that was true.
Mary sat at the dressing table where her ribbons, sewing box, stationery and other personal effects had been arranged. These little things were the only effort she’d made to bring any of herself into the room. She moved aside a small book of poetry and studied the letter she’d written on the fine paper beneath it. It was to her mother and father to let them know where she was living, but, try as she might to finish it, seal it and send it, she couldn’t. They’d stopped caring about where she was or what she was doing four years ago. The only one who cared was Jane. Her letters sat tied with a blue ribbon in the top drawer, her longing to see her sister again and share everything that had happened since they’d last been together dripping from each finely formed word. These letters were the only thing Mary ever received from her family, from the only family member who had cared enough to defy their father to correspond with Mary.
Mary took the thickest letter from Jane out of the drawer and opened it to read again about Jane’s wedding at St George’s London last year. Her sister described the cream satin of her dress, the fine lace of her train, the music, guests and every detail of the dishes served at the wedding breakfast. It was everything that would have been Mary’s if she hadn’t been so weak and stupid, if she’d followed her head instead of her heart. It was a mistake she would never make again.