Laura Matthews

by A Very Proper Widow

  A bare nod acknowledged her insincere sorrow.

  “Of course, she’s had more suitors than Mr. Oldcastle, but I think he has frightened them off with his ardor.” Mabel offered an artificial laugh and a sly glance at the earl, who regarded her with astonishment. “Mr. Oldcastle is very wealthy, you know, and comes from a distinguished family, but I worry about his health. One would not wish to see one’s daughter married to a man who would leave her widowed in a year or two. I know the anguish of being a widow, and I cannot bear to think of dear Louisa suffering it at her young age.”

  Louisa finished playing her second piece and rose from the stool with an absent smile in the direction of the earl. Her mother grudgingly decided that perhaps she had given enough of a hint for one evening and sat down to cards with the others, instructing her daughter, who didn’t play cards, to entertain Lord Alvescot. Since the earl was already deep in conversation with Vanessa, Louisa found this a rather odd request and paid no heed to it, seating herself beside William Oldcastle without a second thought.

  This was her usual procedure of an evening at Cutsdean, so she was monstrously surprised when her mother followed her to her room later for the sole purpose of berating her for her behavior.

  “I told you to converse with the earl, Louisa,” she said sharply. “Do I have to write everything down for you in order that you understand it?”

  “But the earl was already speaking with Vanessa,” Louisa protested. “I couldn’t very well intrude on their exchange.”

  “Certainly you could have! What would he want to spend an entire evening with her for? Lord, I don’t know what you use for a brain. He’s absolutely besotted with your music, and what do you make of it? Nothing. Positively nothing. Do you intend to let this opportunity pass you by?”

  Bewildered, Louisa asked, “What opportunity?”

  “The opportunity to nab an earl, my girl. Oldcastle is nothing compared with him! This is your chance to make a splendid match.”

  “Mama, whatever are you talking about? It is Mr. Oldcastle with whom we wish me to make a match. You have said so often enough yourself.” Louisa was feeling grievously wronged and she tossed her reticule on the bed before flouncing down beside it. “You have told me again and again that I must bring Mr. Oldcastle to the sticking point.”

  “That was before the earl made his appearance,” Mabel told her with exaggerated patience. “Can’t you see that Lord Alvescot would make a much more suitable match?”

  “No, I can’t. I don’t know him, and I don’t think I could come to like him so well as I like Mr. Oldcastle. He’s awfully big, you know, and rather stuffy, I think. Oh, he’s polite enough, I suppose, but he hasn’t said above a dozen words to me.”

  “He would if you gave him the opportunity, you silly child. Don’t you understand that his wife will be a countess and will have position in society as well as every luxury she wishes?”

  Louisa stared up at her mother’s angry face. “I don’t want to be a countess and Mr. Oldcastle has plenty of money. You have said so. Lord Alvescot wouldn’t want to marry me, anyway.”

  “Why not? You still have your beauty and he’s quite taken with your music. Louisa, listen to me. Mr. Oldcastle has had twelve years in which to ask you to marry him, and he’s never come to the sticking point. You cannot, at your age, afford to pass up a chance to attach the earl. Do you want to die a spinster?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Then heed my advice, young lady. Men are fools for beautiful women, and if there is one thing I can say for you it is that your beauty is still remarkable. But in this instance you have another virtue which could hold the key to his affection. It is obvious to even the most undiscerning eye that Lord Alvescot loves music, and he is knowledgeable enough to recognize your superb talent. Think of it, Louisa! In the evenings at St. Aldwyns you would play for him, you would soothe his savage breast.”

  Startled, Louisa gasped. “Savage? Surely he is not a cruel man! I had no idea.”

  Mabel lost her temper. “What’s the sense in trying to reason with you? Just do as I tell you, Louisa, and don’t question my decision. You are to have nothing further to do with Oldcastle. He’s a waste of time. If he were going to marry you, he could have done it any time these last twelve years. I will not let you pass up a chance to attach an earl. You are to speak with Lord Alvescot at every opportunity; go riding with him; ask him to take you for a drive in his curricle when it’s repaired; walk with him in the shrubbery. And most especially, Louisa, you are to play for him at every chance you have. Do you understand me?”

  Louisa stared unhappily down at her clenched hands. “Yes, Mama, I understand.”

  “Good. I’ll be watching to see that you obey.” Without another word Mabel turned and walked from the room.

  Chapter Seven

  Both Vanessa and Alvescot were surprised to find Mabel Curtiss and her daughter at breakfast with them the next morning. Neither woman had appeared at such an early hour on any previous occasion, and Louisa at least had difficulty stifling her yawns. Mabel was convinced that this sleepy condition gave her daughter a sultry allure that was lacking at other times of the day, and made a point of drawing Alvescot’s attention to her.

  “Louisa is adorable so early in the morning, is she not, my lord? Like a kitten, really, all cuddly and soft.” Mabel chose to ignore the difficulty her daughter had keeping her eyes open but urged a cup of coffee on Louisa. “She thought you might like to go for a ride after breakfast.”

  Alvescot saw no possibility of Louisa’s staying on a horse in her present condition and glanced over to where Vanessa was watching the interchange with unholy amusement gleaming in her eyes. “I think,” the earl eventually said, “that you will have to excuse me, Miss Curtiss, though I hope we’ll be able to ride another time. This morning I had planned to continue my inspection of the estate.”

  “Then perhaps this afternoon,” Mabel said firmly, completely overriding her daughter’s comment of, “Oh, that’s quite all right.”

  “This afternoon I am taking John to see the canal.”

  “Louisa could accompany you,” Mabel assured him.

  Vanessa set down her piece of toast. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. You know very well Louisa wouldn’t like to be on horseback for that long, Mabel. John’s pony can’t make the trip in under an hour each way.”

  “I suppose you are going with them,” Mabel rasped.

  “Yes, I am.”

  Mabel snorted. “I might have known. It’s not enough that you have Cutsdean and two children. Oh, no, you have to have more. Greed is an ugly vice, you know.”

  “Yes,” Vanessa said with a sweet smile, “I know.”

  Alvescot felt extremely uncomfortable during this exchange, not so much for himself as for Vanessa. But she was apparently untouched by it, picking up her piece of toast and meeting his gaze placidly across the table. If she wasn’t embarrassed by Mrs. Curtiss’s remarks, he would have at least expected her to be angry, but she showed no sign of it. Why did she put up with these meddling fools?

  Turning her attention to Louisa, Vanessa made an effort to put the woman at ease. It was Louisa who was most affected by her mother’s rudeness and interference. Her usually pale cheeks were flushed with distress and she sat staring down at her untouched plate. Much as Louisa would have liked to show her appreciation, Vanessa’s kindness drew forth only brief answers. At times such as these, Louisa found her throat locked with mortification, unable to think of some social discourse to smooth over the unpleasantness.

  When she realized the hopelessness of the task, Vanessa directed her attention to the earl. “Do you think our pasturage could support any more cattle, Lord Alvescot?”

  “Not many. Mr. Burford has explained the limitations of the drainage system and I’m sure he’s right in planning to improve it, for both the crops and the animals. The acreage should come first; there will be plenty of time to build up the herd over the next few years.”


  “Mr. Burford,” announced Mabel, “should be kept in his place.”

  Vanessa regarded the woman with cold eyes. “I’ll decide what Mr. Burford’s place is at Cutsdean, Mabel. He’s as well born as you or I, and I can only respect him for making an honest effort to repair his fortunes. There are those . . .” But she stopped herself before finishing the sentence. Provoked as she was, she refused to go so far as to point a linger at the wastrel Edward.

  Instead, she pushed back her chair, saying, “Excuse me, please. The children will be waiting.” And hostess or not, she felt not the least guilt in leaving the three of them to one another’s company.

  The earl watched her go with some trepidation. He was perfectly willing to snub Mabel Curtiss, but her daughter was another matter entirely. Though it was true that Louisa was not very bright, she was also exquisitely shy and prone to suffer agonies of embarrassment at her mother’s gauche behavior. Alvescot had no desire to further her discomfort, but he had no wish to further Mabel’s schemes, either. His compromise, agreed to with a certain stoicism, was to listen to Louisa play a few melodies after breakfast before he started his rounds of the estate.

  * * * *

  Shortly before noon, Vanessa picked up the picnic basket from the kitchen and joined her son in the Garden Room. John could barely contain his excitement and eagerly reached for the basket.

  “It’s too heavy for you to carry,” Vanessa admonished.

  “I don’t want to carry it. I just want to see what Cook gave us!”

  So much for a wholesale change in his behavior, Vanessa thought, regarding him with indulgent eyes. He was only four, after all, and there was plenty of time to instill a more thorough consideration for others into his makeup. It was not that he was thoughtless, really, but simply that he had a child’s natural inclination to think of himself and his pleasures first. But there were entirely too many adults in her household who acted in precisely the same manner for Vanessa not to be concerned that the child learn consideration as soon as possible. Surely there were too many influences around him that could keep him from developing into the kind of man his father had been.

  And sometimes, though she scarcely admitted it to herself, Vanessa didn’t like to look too closely at even Frederick’s character. Oh, he had been charming and vital, kind and open, but self-indulgent as well. Not in material matters, at least no more than would be expected of a man of his wealth. Frederick’s self-indulgence had run to doing precisely what he wished, with little regard for the responsibilities he had taken on in marrying and producing children.

  Fortunately for him, his actions could be viewed as patriotic, as doing no more than his duty for his country. But Vanessa suspected that had there been no war in Europe, he would still have led a reckless life, gallivanting about the country looking for sport and amusement. She didn’t doubt that he had loved her, but it was a love he held separate from the rest of his life.

  Which was only to be expected, she scolded herself as she walked with John toward the stables. Gentlemen were reared to consult only their own wishes, to assume that their pleasure was the object of a faithful wife. Any resentment she might have felt at his seeming indifference to her when they were apart—the paucity of letters, the infrequent attempt to gain leave—had been washed away in the very real agony of losing him forever. During the three years of their marriage she had spent exactly ninety-three days with him. Barely three months, with memories that had to last her for a lifetime, that had to serve as the foundation of her tales to John and Catherine.

  Frederick had never even seen Catherine, though Vanessa had been assured that word of her birth had reached him before Waterloo. Then why couldn’t he have been a little more careful? she thought rebelliously, as she had hundreds of times since his death. Unfair, she knew, but the question continued to return no matter how often she thrust it aside. Why had he agreed to go to the Congress of Vienna rather than stay at Cutsdean with her? All those months he could have been with her and John, wasted, for the excitement of the peace negotiations, followed by the horror of Waterloo.

  Lost in her thoughts, Vanessa was only aware of Lord Alvescot speaking to her when he lifted the basket from her hands, asking, “Are you all right, Mrs. Damery?”

  “Of course,” she murmured, looking away from his concerned hazel eyes. “I just had a few things on my mind.”

  “If you’d prefer not to go, I could get instructions from your groom.”

  “No, I want to go.” She glanced around for John, who was nowhere in sight.

  “He’s gone to get his pony. Has something happened to disturb you?”

  Vanessa met his eyes. “Not a thing, Lord Alvescot.” What had brought on this bout of self-pity? Probably John had chattered to her all the way to the stables and she hadn’t heard a word he said. Really, for her to be thinking he showed a lack of consideration . . .

  Since her attention seemed to have drifted off again, Alvescot turned his to seeing that the horses were saddled and the picnic basket tied securely on his mount. Vanessa allowed him to hand her up onto her horse without really paying any heed to him, smoothing down the voluminous skirts of her forest green riding habit as she watched John lead out his pony. She smiled when her son offered to guide the party.

  “Very well. Let’s see if you know the way.”

  Rollo started off eagerly enough, frisking about as John attempted to bring him under control. Alvescot rode beside Vanessa in the hope that she had shaken her distraction, whatever it might have been. The thought did occur to him that she had somehow stumbled on Edward’s blackmailing of the captain and he said cautiously, “I’ve noticed there’s some friction between Cptain Lawrence and Mr. Curtiss.”

  Her smile readily appeared. “How very observant of you, sir. Actually, there’s some friction between each of the members of my houseparty. I hope you’ll pardon the little scene at breakfast. Not that I can promise you it won’t happen again.”

  “Mrs. Curtiss suggested that her daughter might play the pianoforte for me after you left.”

  “At eight in the morning?” Vanessa didn’t bother to suppress her gurgle of laughter. “She’s a determined woman.”

  “So I noticed.”

  “Louisa . . . well, there’s no vice in her. Any untoward conduct is entirely at her mother’s instigation, I assure you. Louisa is actually rather sweet, except when her brother provokes her.”

  Sweet, simple, and musically talented, Alvescot summed up mentally. How could her mother possibly think I would be interested in the woman? But it was far from the first time some totally ineligible female had been urged on his notice and he said nothing.

  “Have you had a chance to look at the ledgers?” Vanessa asked.

  “I’ve started going over them. It will take me some time.”

  “There’s no hurry.” Vanessa watched a goldfinch flutter from a thistle at the side of the lane, the flash of its yellow wingbars bright in the noontime sun. “If I’ve seemed inhospitable, I’m sorry. I can’t entertain any suspicions of Paul Burford, but you have the right to make any investigations which seem appropriate to you. And I’m grateful for your attention to the children.”

  He regarded her with a slightly raised brow. “Even if you do think I’m hard on them.”

  “I was thinking about that on the way to the stables. Not about how you handle them, actually,” she confessed, “but how important it was for them to learn to be considerate of people. I’ve seen too many adults who aren’t.”

  Alvescot sternly instructed himself not to take the remark personally. She could as easily be referring to her household. More easily, he decided. The thoughtful expression had returned to her face and he studied her without her awareness. The breeze tossed her black curls against the wide-brimmed bonnet and her eyes looked suddenly sad. Her clear skin was a shade too pale and her lips, in repose, turned slightly down, enhancing the impression of sadness. And yet he could visualize the change a smile wrought on her features, giving
them animation and a subtle beauty. Alvescot felt a strong urge to make her smile, to remove the burdens she carried, at least for the moment, but before he could choose a subject to lighten her mood, she turned to him and said, “I’ve never known exactly how Frederick died. Would you tell me?”

  The question startled him. For a moment he was silent, debating the wisdom of relating so unhappy a tale. Finally, slowly, he spoke. “Wellington had lost most of his officers by dusk. For hours, things had looked hopeless, but Colborne had taken a risk and moved his battalion out of the line, taking the Imperial Guard by surprise. There were heavy casualties for the Imperial Guard and they broke and fled. While the French army’s units recoiled, the British Light Infantry inclined to the right toward La Belle Alliance. Around them, scattered units of British and French cavalry charged and countercharged in heavy smoke. Frederick was one of them. His horse was shot out from under him but he was only slightly injured. It was while he was trying to capture a loose horse that he was cut down. I wasn’t there. One of his men later relayed the information. I arranged for his body to be brought here, but I was injured and it was some time before I was strong enough to leave Brussels.”

  “I see. Thank you, Lord Alvescot. I had a letter from Wellington himself, but it only expressed his regret and not the circumstances. You must think it perverse of me to want to know.”

  “Not at all,” he assured her, his voice gentle. “I would have written more myself if I had known your desire.”

  “I don’t think, at the time, that I did want to know. But one day John will ask, perhaps even Catherine. Wellington was very clear about Frederick’s courage and resourcefulness.”