A Desirable Husband

by Mary Nichols

  ‘Of course you must,’ she agreed. ‘You go, I’ll stay here with Bella for a few days. I think she may need me.’

  He returned downstairs and was in the hall, checking Bradshaw’s Railway Guide when Myles approached him. ‘Leaving, Pendlebury?’

  ‘Yes, I have to return to London.’

  ‘I am going myself. There’s a train to Leicester in little over half an hour, we could travel together if you are ready to go.’

  ‘I have to find my aunt and say my farewells, then we can be off.’

  His aunt had returned to her guests and was bravely circulating among them, thanking them for coming. He waited until she spotted him and then explained that he had to leave, but his mother would stay and keep her company for a while.

  ‘Thank you, Felix, for all your help.’

  ‘It was the least I could do. Edward will take over now.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. I have been urging him to find himself a wife and I believe he means to go to London soon for that purpose.’

  ‘Won’t he be in mourning?’

  ‘Only half mourning. I am sure it was what his father would have wished.’ She paused. ‘Edward has been out of the country so long, he will find it strange. People will have forgotten he existed.’

  ‘Oh, I do not think so, Aunt. Word will soon spread.’

  ‘Well, I hope it is good and not scandal.’

  ‘Oh, do you think it might be?’ he asked, affecting innocence.

  ‘I am not sure I altogether trust Victor. He always used to lead Edward into trouble when they were boys.’ She smiled wanly. ‘Do not tell your Aunt Sophie I said that or we should quarrel.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘But you were always a steadying influence. Can I ask you to look out for Edward if you are going to town?’

  ‘He isn’t going yet, is he?’

  ‘In a few days. He won’t mind leaving me if your mother is here to bear me company.’

  ‘But, Aunt, he is a grown man, older than I am, I could not influence what he does.’

  ‘I know, but just say you will keep an eye on him for me.’

  ‘Oh, I will do that, never fear.’ It was said grimly, but she did not seem to notice that as she thanked him and kissed his cheek.

  He passed his Aunt Sophie on the way out and bade her a hurried goodbye, saying he had a train to catch.

  ‘Your mother tells me you are going back to London,’ she called after him. ‘No doubt we shall see you there.’

  He waved his hand in acknowledgement and rejoined Myles, waiting for him by the door.

  It was only two miles to the station and, as neither had much luggage, they decided to walk. It was no more than a wayside halt, built for the convenience of those who lived at Linwood Park and the village of Gorryham. ‘I built the line,’ Myles told him. ‘From Peterborough to Leicester. It’s all part of the wider network now.’

  ‘Is that how you came to know Viscount Gorridge?’

  ‘Yes. The Earl, too. He did not approve of me at first, because I liked to work with my men and I’m not a member of one of the old families, but he has mellowed in his old age.’

  ‘It is a pity Viscount Trent has not followed his example.’

  Myles grinned. ‘Yes, he is a bit of a stick in the mud, but he means well.’

  They did not have long to wait for the train and were soon settled in a first-class carriage and talking about the progress of the Exhibition. ‘I don’t doubt enough funds will be raised,’ Myles said. ‘Gorridge contributed generously before he died and his example has persuaded others.’

  ‘What do you think of Edward?’

  ‘I try not to think of him at all.’ It was said firmly, discouraging more questions.

  Felix changed the subject. ‘Have you seen any of the designs submitted for the Exhibition building?’

  ‘No, but I’ve been told there have been hundreds, some professionally done, others just scribbled on any old bits of paper, none so far seem to have impressed the judges. I recall you were submitting one yourself.’

  ‘I did think about it, but to be honest I do not have the time or inclination to oversee so large a project.’

  ‘Will you tender for the glass?’

  ‘No, my manufactory is only a small concern, mainly for decorative products. And in any case, I am too close to the organizers—it might be construed as a conflict of interest.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking of putting in for the steel,’ Myles told him with a chuckle. ‘Girders are not so very different from railway lines, are they?’

  ‘No. I wish you luck.’ He paused. ‘I have been talking to my operatives and they are keen to see the Exhibition. It will be no little expense for them, what with the travelling, overnight accommodation and the entrance fee, even when it is reduced to a shilling. They will need to start saving up now, if they are to have enough. I have suggested forming a savings club and have agreed to be its treasurer.’

  ‘I believe other industrial concerns are doing the same thing.’

  ‘I need to arrange the best rates. You could help by discounting the rail fare on your lines.’

  ‘I would be prepared to do that if sufficient numbers are interested. Let me know.’

  ‘Indeed, I will.’

  It was only a short journey to Leicester and a half hour later they were drawing into the station. ‘Come home with me and dine with us,’ Myles suggested as they stepped down on to the platform and Felix discovered he had a long wait for the next train to Rugby where he would have another wait while the London–Birmingham engine was coupled up before they could proceed to London. It would be late when he arrived. ‘Stay the night. I’d like you to meet my wife. You can catch the train in the morning. It will have you at Euston soon after midday.’

  Felix admitted to himself that he was curious to meet the third of the Vernley sisters and happily accepted.

  In spite of having no prior warning, Lucy welcomed him warmly. ‘My husband has often spoken of you,’ she told him. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you. You will have to take pot luck, but I am sure Cook will rise to the occasion.’

  ‘Thank you, my lady.’

  She was a more mature version of Esme, he decided. She was several inches taller and her hair was slightly darker, but their features were very similar and when she smiled, it was almost as if Esme was smiling out at him. Rosemary, he concluded, was the odd one out with her starchy ways, more like her father, the Earl.

  ‘You do not have a personal servant with you?’

  ‘No, my lady. I long ago decided to dispense with a valet. If a man cannot, at the age of twenty-seven, dress himself, then there is something wrong with him.’

  ‘That’s what Myles always says. I’ll have a room made ready for you. If you give your bag to a footman, he will carry it up for you. I’m sure you could do with some refreshment after your journey.’

  ‘Sweetheart, it was only a half hour in a train and a few minutes in a carriage,’ Myles said, laughing. ‘And we were fed right royally at Linwood Park.’

  ‘I am sure you were. Lady Gorridge was always an excellent hostess, but a cup of tea is always welcome, is that not so, Lord Pendlebury?’

  ‘Indeed, it is.’

  ‘Come into the drawing room then.’ She instructed a waiting servant to bring in tea things and led the way.

  The room in which he found himself was bright and comfortably furnished and certainly lived in. A book and a carelessly folded newspaper lay on a side table and there was a board game on the table in the middle of the room. The sound of young voices came from beneath it. ‘Out of there, you two.’ Myles’s voice brought two tousled heads out from under the chenille cloth.

  ‘Papa! You’re home.’ A boy of about five and a little girl, two years younger, scrambled out and hurled themselves at their father.

  He picked them up, one on each arm. ‘We have visitors, children. This is Lord Pendlebury, come to see if you have been good. Say how do you do.’

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nbsp; He put them down. The boy approached Felix boldly and held out his hand. ‘How do you do? I’m Harry.’

  Felix shook it solemnly. ‘How do you do, Harry?’

  ‘This is Vicky.’ The boy pointed to his sister, who had her thumb in her mouth. ‘She is shy.’

  ‘Hallo, Vicky. You aren’t shy, are you?’

  She shook her head but did not speak.

  ‘Off you go back to Miss Lovatt,’ Myles told them, as a servant brought in the tea things and Lucy hurriedly removed the book and paper so that the tray could be set down at her side.

  ‘Well,’ Lucy said, after they were all seated and she had dispensed the tea. ‘How was Linwood Park?’

  ‘Shrouded in black crepe,’ Myles said. ‘But otherwise unchanged.’

  ‘And was the new Viscount there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘As odious as ever, I suppose.’

  ‘My dear,’ Myles said. ‘Be careful what you say, Lord Pendlebury is his cousin.’

  She turned towards Felix. ‘I did not know. You have my condolences, my lord.’

  He laughed. ‘I was never very close to him, my lady, though our mothers are sisters. He has lived abroad for several years.’

  ‘Do you know why?’

  He hesitated. ‘I believe he was involved in a scandal. I assumed it was gambling…’

  ‘That may have been the root cause of it, but I shall say no more. It does not bear repeating.’

  ‘My lady, I overheard his mother advising him to marry and settle down,’ he said, realising that what she said seemed to bear out what his mother had told him. It emboldened him to go on. ‘She recommended him to pay his addresses to Lady Esme.’

  ‘Esme! He’d never do that. Papa would not hear of it for a start and I would never speak to Esme again if she was so foolish as to accept him.’

  ‘When I left Linwood, Edward was in close conversation with the Earl,’ Myles said. ‘I heard him say he was deeply sorry for his past behaviour and was fully resolved to turn over a new leaf and be a model of propriety.’

  ‘He is up to something.’ She turned to Felix. ‘I am sorry to speak so ill of a member of your family, my lord, but if he has designs on my sister…Oh, dear, I wish I could warn her to be on her guard.’

  ‘I will endeavour to do that, my lady.’

  ‘Are you acquainted with Esme?’

  ‘Yes. I find her—’ he hesitated ‘—delightful.’

  Myles laughed. ‘I think it is more than that, Lucy. When I left London his lordship was doing his best to engage her attention and she was certainly interested.’

  She turned to Felix. ‘Oh, if only you would protect her.’

  He smiled a little wryly. ‘I have been given the task of protecting Edward from Victor and Victor from Edward and both of them from a certain French lady and now I must watch over Lady Esme.’

  ‘You do not mind, do you?’

  ‘Not in the least, you do not have to ask, I would have done it anyway. The big problem is Lady Trent and her husband. I have been forbidden to see or speak to Es…Lady Esme.’

  She noticed the slip of the tongue and smiled. ‘Why, whatever have you done?’

  He decided to tell them all that had happened, from the balloon ride to the visit to the theatre, but he did not think it would do his cause any good to confess to kissing Esme. ‘No one knows the identity of the intrepid young lady balloonist,’ he told them. ‘It must, for everyone’s sake, remain a secret. And I do not think there was anyone at the theatre who recognised her, but I am banned from Trent House because of it.’

  The tale made them laugh, though he could see nothing amusing about it. ‘That wasn’t your fault,’ Lucy told him. ‘Esme was always one for mischief and never stopped to consider the consequences, but I am surprised at Rosemary blaming you.’

  ‘No doubt she is guided by her husband and he is an implacable opponent of the Exhibition, so we were on opposite sides right from the start. And they were reluctant to attach any blame to Lady Esme. Nor would I want them to.’

  ‘I have a good mind to write to Rosemary….’

  ‘Oh, no, please do not do that. I must fight my own battles.’

  A footman came to tell them a room had been prepared for Lord Pendlebury and a jug of hot water taken up for him to wash and change for dinner and the conversation was dropped.

  The rest of his visit went by very pleasantly. The dinner was superb, the conversation afterwards was stimulating, ranging as it did from the Exhibition, the state of the railways, questions about glass manufacture and politics to whether he perceived a threat from foreign insurgents ostensibly coming to see what the Exhibition had to offer, to which his answer was guarded. He went to bed that night in the knowledge that he had made two staunch friends on whom he could rely and it made him feel a little better about everything.

  The next morning, Myles took him to the station in his gig to catch the early morning train for London. He was looking forward to renewing his acquaintance with Esme and making her understand that he had kissed her because he loved her. And, given her permission, would do it again. And again, and as many times as breath would allow.

  Esme had missed him and she wished she had not pretended to be so angry with him, when she was not angry but confused. Banny, of course, said it was all her own fault. If she had been patient, her sister might have overcome her prejudice and allowed him to call, instead of which he had been banned and taken himself off somewhere more congenial. ‘He could not defend himself without blaming you,’ she told her charge. ‘And no gentleman worthy of the name would do that.’ Esme did not need Miss Bannister to tell her that; her own good sense told her so.

  She endured more of the Season’s outings and events, going out and about with Rosemary and allowing Toby Salford to fawn all over her and Captain Merton to pay her extravagant compliments while treading on her toes in a dance. As for the pimply youth who was the Earl of Wincombe’s heir, she could not abide him. Rosemary was in despair. And so was Esme, not because she would have to go back to Luffenham without so much as a hint of a betrothal, but because she had let the love of her life slip through her fingers. He had been interested in her, hadn’t he? He had deliberately met her in the park and shown her how to draw a horse; he had said he was glad to be interrupted when they came upon him by the river; he had sketched her, raced others to be the one to go up in a balloon with her, danced a waltz with her and he had kissed her. Surely all of that had meant something? On the other hand, there was the Frenchwoman—Juliette, he had called her—who had disappeared about the same time as he had. The thought of them being together sent her nearly crazy.

  Rosie hardly let her out of her sight, but there were times when a late night left her more than usually tired and she would stay in bed until noon. On those occasions, Miss Bannister accompanied Esme on a walk. Sometimes they went to Hyde Park and watched the riders, but the one she hoped to see was never there. Sometimes they went into Green Park or St James’s, where nursemaids gathered with their aristocratic charges, among them Master John Trent. It made Esme wonder if she would ever have a child of her own. Sometimes they returned to the river. Everywhere she went, she found herself looking in vain for Felix.

  But it was not out of doors she saw him again, but in Lady Bryson’s crowded drawing room. Her heart began a sharp pitter-patter against her chest as he looked up from his conversation with Caroline Merton and caught sight of her. Dressed in a light brown jacket and trousers and a yellow waistcoat above which was a neatly tied dark blue cravat, he did not look any different from the last time she had seen him. He was still as handsome, his greeny-brown eyes just as searching, his mouth…Oh, that mouth. It had covered hers, had made her melt with longing and desire and she could not forget it. Even the memory made her grow hot. She watched, almost mesmerised, as he excused himself and made his way through the throng to stand in front of her.

  ‘Lady Esme, how do you do?’ he asked formally, though formality was the last thing
he had in mind. He wanted to ask her why the brightness had gone from her blue eyes as if someone had snuffed out a candle inside her and why her smile did not light up her face as it once did.

  ‘I am well. And you?’

  ‘I, too, am well.’

  Neither could think of anything else to say, though their heads were filled with unspoken words: words of love, questions, explanations, promises, none of which could be uttered in a crowded room. ‘What have you been doing with yourself?’ he asked at last.

  ‘Oh, nothing out of the ordinary. What about you?’

  ‘I have been home to visit my mother and to do some work in my laboratory.’

  ‘Oh, I thought…’

  ‘What?’

  She could not tell him she thought he had been with Juliette Lefavre. ‘It doesn’t matter. I have been looking for the result of the competition for the Exhibition building in the newspapers and hoped you might have won it.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ It was said dismissively. ‘I decided not to enter, after all.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I needed more time to get it right and somehow I could not put my mind to it. I preferred to work on my exhibit.’

  ‘Is that what you were doing in your laboratory?

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it finished?’

  ‘Not yet—I had to leave it and go to Viscount Gorridge’s funeral.’

  ‘We saw the notice of his passing in the paper. I did not know you knew him.’

  ‘The Viscountess is my mother’s sister.’

  ‘Oh, I see. The late Viscount Gorridge was a great friend of Papa’s, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I met your father there.’

  ‘Oh, did you?’ She suddenly brightened. ‘How was he?’

  ‘He seemed in very good form. I met your sister, too.’

  ‘Lucy? Surely she was not at the funeral?’

  ‘No, but Myles was. He invited me to stop at his home overnight on my way back to London. She is a charming lady and made me very welcome.’

  ‘Unlike Rosemary, you mean.’

  ‘No doubt Lady Trent had her reasons.’ He paused, smiling. ‘I behaved abominably. And plead your forgiveness.’