by Amanda Scott
The earl said gruffly, “The fact is that the young woman who handed in the announcement was heavily veiled, but if it was not you,” he added with an accusing glare at his daughter, “then, damme, I should like to know who else it could have been.”
Gillian continued to avoid Thorne’s steady gaze, and her face turned pink when she said, “I am sure it was meant to be a jest, Papa, merely to tease me. Very few people believed my tale of rescue, you will recall. No doubt someone who thought I had made it all up decided to teach me a lesson.”
“I suppose you expect us to believe that,” Lady Marrick said with a sneer, “but I can tell you, my dear Gillian, that it will not serve. It is much more likely that everyone in Devon will believe, as I do myself, that you meant to put yourself forward in a most unbecoming way, merely out of your displeasure at having to take second place to your papa’s new heir. His lordship will, I know, forgive me for speaking so frankly, but I do not believe in letting young women get away with their foolishness so easily as your papa seems bent on doing.”
“Now, see here, Estrid—” the earl began.
But Thorne had had enough. “Forgive me for interrupting you, sir, but the matter is much more serious than you have been led to believe. The fact is that that damned announcement found its way into the London Gazette. Evidently, someone on the Honiton paper who memorizes whole portions of Burke’s Peerage, particularly those pertaining to dukes, sent the announcement, accompanied by his own deductions, to a relative on the Gazette. My reputation, I regret to say, is such that no one even paused to consider the possibility of error before printing the speculation that I had been playing fast and loose with a lady of quality. The fat is well and truly in the fire, you see, and a simple disclaimer printed in the Honiton paper will not, at this point, be enough to stop the scandalmongers.”
A stunned silence followed his words. Thorne saw that Gillian had turned pale, and wondered what she was thinking. No more than Lady Marrick had he believed her suggestion that someone had placed the announcement merely for a jest, or out of vengeance. The way she had colored up led him to believe she knew much more about the matter than she was admitting. No doubt she left honesty to gentlemen—and their inferiors.
“Good God,” the earl exclaimed, suddenly coming to life again, “how could anyone in Devon have done such a thing?”
Thorne replied, “I am sure I cannot say.” That the person in Honiton who had accepted the announcement had believed it was legitimate was unimportant as far as he was concerned, for no one knew better than he that newspapers would print what they thought people wanted to read, and just as news of the Marquess of Thorne was grist for the gossipmongers of London, so must news of Lady Gillian Carnaby be to the people of Devon. Of far more importance was his rapidly increasing willingness to obey his father’s command to settle the thing without scandal. He had not cared much before, on his own account, except insofar as he found it unpleasant to stand in the duke’s black books. Now he did care. He watched silently as the earl began to pace, muttering. Lady Marrick, for a wonder, had not spoken and seemed to be lost in her own thoughts, and Thorne was content to wait, to see what they would suggest. His thoughts were tumbling over themselves, and he tried to sort them out.
He had a strong notion that Lady Gillian disapproved of him. Her remark about gentlemanly honesty had told him much. More than that, it had made him squirm like a guilty schoolboy. He was not certain if he wanted more to punish her for daring to think badly of him, or to exert himself to prove her wrong. What he did know was that he was unwilling now to let the matter end with no more than another line or two in the newspapers, even if it could be ended as easily as that.
A relative of his who had had the good fortune to visit China had once told him, laughingly, that the Chinese believed that if a man saved another man’s life, that life became his responsibility to the end of time. The relative had shaken his head, insisting that when one had exerted oneself to such a purpose, it was but poor payment to be saddled with the person forever afterward. That particular memory had never reared its head before, but now Thorne found himself wondering how Gillian would react if he were to repeat it to her. Something told him she would not find it amusing.
She was sitting silently, making no effort to speak her thoughts aloud, and she was still alarmingly pale. Suddenly the notion of taking control of her life, of protecting her and ordering her as he chose, seemed rather intriguing. She was not in his usual style, and not beautiful. Even her stepmother cast her into the shade in that respect, but she had a charming countenance and those huge, expressive eyes, and her air of quiet dignity was impressive. He believed—indeed, he had seen the signs for himself—that there was fire beneath the cool exterior. It would be amusing, he thought, to stir those coals.
4
GILLIAN WONDERED WHY THORNE was so quiet. He was watching the three of them as though they were exhibits in a menagerie, and she did not like the speculative look in his eye. It looked very much as though he were considering the prospect of poking a lion with a stick through the bars of his cage. And Estrid was entirely too silent. Only her father was behaving normally, stomping about, muttering, because something unpleasant had intruded upon his pleasure.
Suddenly Estrid said, “My dear sir, I wish you would cease pacing about like that. It puts me off, and makes it quite impossible for me to think what is best to be done.”
Marrick growled, “You need not think at all, madam. It’s plain as a pikestaff what must be done. Gillian ought to be soundly thrashed for causing all this upset.”
“Papa, please—”
“Oh, my goodness gracious,” Dorinda said gaily from the doorway. “I did not know you was entertaining, Mama.” She had changed to a frock of tea-green muslin gathered around the neckline and sleeves with lavender ribbon. The matching lavender sash was tied in a becoming bow just beneath her plump breasts, and she wore a lacy muslin scarf draped over her arms at the elbows. Her guinea-gold curls were confined beneath an undress cap of white crape trimmed with green and lavender ribbons and tiny yellow roses. And unless Gillian was much mistaken, she had applied more than a touch of rouge to her cheeks.
Gillian glanced at Thorne, getting quickly to his feet, and noted that his eyes had widened in appreciation of Dorinda’s beauty. Looking away again, she hid a faint smile.
Lady Marrick said, “Come in, come in, child. Here is a fine surprise for you, for we are entertaining a real marquess. Make your curtsy, if you please.” She turned complacently to Thorne, thus missing Dorinda’s widening eyes and the deep flushing of her cheeks. She added, “Marquess, this is my daughter, Miss Ponderby, who is to make her come-out in London this Season.”
Dorinda sank at once into a graceful curtsy, keeping her wide blue eyes fixed upon Thorne until she rose again, then lowering them so that her long, dusky lashes touched her glowing cheeks. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir,” she said. “Are you really a marquess?”
“I am,” he said, smiling at her.
Dorinda looked sharply at Gillian, who gazed steadily back at her, then turned to her mother and blurted, “But I thought Annie said Lord Hopwood was here!”
Lady Marrick said repressively, “There seems to have been a misunderstanding, and Lord Hopwood is really the Marquess of Thorne, but it is not a proper subject for you to be discussing, my dear. Indeed, I am very much shocked that you should have been gossiping with your maid in such a common way.”
“I wasn’t! But a marquess! She just said—” Breaking off, looking around guiltily at the others, she flushed again and said, “Well, I wanted to see him for myself, don’t you know, to see that he really existed. You know, Mama, we none of us believed Gilly.” Turning to Thorne again, she said naively, “You will forgive me, won’t you, sir?”
He made a leg. “To be sure, Miss Ponderby. A gentleman must always forgive when he is asked by a beautiful young woman to do so. I will forgive you, if you will forgive me my title.”
Lady Marrick said, “Pray, sir, do not scold her. It is no wonder she should be curious about him. I own, I am myself. There is more to this business than meets the eye, and there is no reason that dearest Dorinda ought not to stay now that she is here. It will be excellent practice for her to be present in the same room as a marquess. Sit down, my dear. We were merely talking about what ought to be done next, you know.”
Gillian saw Thorne’s lips twitch, and was not in the least reassured, for it was no comfort to think that he considered her stepmother an object of humor. In fact, the thought was a mortifying one, and it was mortifying, too, to have to sit quietly while her future was discussed as though she were no more than thin air. When the marquess’s gaze drifted in her direction, she quickly lowered her lashes and looked at her hands, tightly folded in her lap. With an effort she relaxed them, watching the blood begin to flow back into fingers turned white by the strain of clasping them so tightly together.
As if from a distance, she heard Thorne’s voice, deep and calm, the way it had been the day of the storm. “May I ask when you intend to travel to London, sir?”
Marrick’s voice held a note of surprise. “Me? I don’t mean to go there at all just yet. Still some mighty fine hunting to be had in the ’Shires, you know. Mighty fine.”
Lady Marrick’s tone revealed her displeasure when she said, “But of course you will go with us, my dear sir. Why, I have not even seen your house before! He delights in joking us, Marquess, but he knows that he must be in London for his daughters’ come-out. We leave for the metropolis in a week’s time, and the house is in Park Street, so that is where you will find us until the end of the Season. It is not far from my late husband’s house in South Audley Street near Grosvenor Square, though it is not his house any longer, to be sure, for he died there and is buried in his family’s plot in a nearby chapel churchyard. He was Sir Cedric Ponderby, you know, but the house is now his cousin’s.”
When Estrid paused, Gillian looked up again and found that her stepmother was eyeing her critically. She straightened, aware that she was not behaving as well as she ought, but she did not speak and she did not look at Thorne again.
No one else commented, so Estrid went on, “I cannot think what is best to be done, you know. This is a dreadful coil. To be sure, Marquess, it must be the result of something Gillian did—if she did not insert the notice herself, which of course is the likeliest explanation, and the one you no doubt believe. It was kind of you to pretend that you do not. However, as I was saying, it is most clear that either she did it or that one of the other young ladies did, so jealous they are, you know, of anyone who receives undue attention—and of course Gillian is popular amongst the young gentlemen of her set simply because they have all known her for donkey’s years, so if—”
“Good God, madam,” Marrick snapped, “spare the man a litany of your thoughts. I have already told you what must be done.”
“Yes, you have,” she said in measured tones, “but the fact is, dear sir, that you did not think. Even the marquess perceives that little can be gained from a simple denial sent to the papers. If you want your daughter made the talk of London before ever she sets foot in the place, I can tell you that I do not. It will be bad enough for poor Dorinda to have to make her bow to people who have been stunned by her sister’s odd betrothal to the marquess, but there’s no laughing at dukes and marquesses, to be sure, and if Dorinda is known to be acquainted with Langshire and the marquess here, well, there’s no saying but what it might do her a great deal of good, so long as there is no scandal attached to the relationship. There, that’s the word with no bark on it, Marquess, but I dislike mincing matters.”
“As do I, madam,” Thorne said.
Gillian heard a note in his voice that put her instantly in mind again of their first meeting, but it was not the pleasant note she had heard before. It was a pity, she thought, that he was angry. She wondered what it would have been like to have met him in London, without all this nonsense between them. Would she have liked him? Would he have given her a second glance? Would they even have met? He did not seem to be the sort of man who would exert himself to do what her father called “the fancy.” She tried to imagine him at a cotillion ball like the one she had attended in Honiton at Christmas, and her imagination boggled. She had a notion that he was very much like her father in that respect, preferring gaming, hunting, and shooting to cotillions, routs, or concerts. He knew Mr. Coke of Norfolk, but it was clear enough that he looked upon that gentleman as a source of hospitality and entertainment, just as her father did.
These thoughts passed through her mind in the instant of silence after Thorne’s reply to Estrid, for he continued almost at once, saying, “I asked about your intent, ma’am, because I believe I know what is best to be done. First, I will send a proper, formal notice to the London papers, announcing my betrothal to the Lady Gillian—”
“No!” Gillian cried, then clapped her hand over her mouth and looked guiltily at her father.
The earl glowered at her, but before he could speak, Thorne said pleasantly, “Did you wish to make an observation, my lady?”
She swallowed, wondering why on earth she had lost her customary poise. Clearly it had slipped away altogether, unnoticed, for now she was quaking inside like an inexperienced schoolgirl, something she had never really been at all. Thorne’s note of kindness was almost too much for her to bear. She felt an ache at the back of her throat, and drew a steadying breath before she looked at him and said quietly, “I beg your pardon, sir. I ought not to have interrupted you, but I simply cannot sit quietly by while you decide on such a hazardous course. It would be deceitful, and dreadfully unfair to you.”
Lady Marrick said, “Hush, Gillian. Let the man tell us what he intends to do, and do not make a fuss.”
Thorne said, “Thank you, ma’am, but I did invite her to say what she liked, you know. You have recommended plain speaking, and I mean to take you at your word. I have no notion how this farrago got started. If I ever do find out, I promise you, the person responsible will soon understand his, or her, error, but in the meantime, I propose to deal simply with the accomplished fact. No harm must come to Lady Gillian’s reputation, or to Miss Ponderby’s.” He smiled ruefully. “My own reputation will not suffer, which is the one thing in all this for which I do apologize. Were it not that my past behavior lends credence to nearly anything anyone might choose to say of me, we might be more quickly out of this. As it is, I want to put the best face possible on the business, which means a proper announcement. When you reach London, we will proceed as if there were truly a betrothal. Lady Gillian will be introduced to my parents, and my mother will see to it that she and Miss Ponderby are treated in the manner befitting connections of my family. That means Almack’s, I suppose, and a host of dreary parties as well.”
Dorinda, clapping her hands, said, “Oh, not dreary at all, sir. We shall adore every one of them!”
He smiled at her. “You have not met my mama’s relations yet, Miss Ponderby. I promise you that a number of those engagements will be boring in the extreme. And the deuce of it is that I shall be expected to accompany you to all of them.”
She giggled. “But I think that will be delightful, sir.”
“Do you?”
Gillian said, rather more sharply than was her custom, “I cannot agree that this is at all necessary, my lord. Surely, there must be a simpler means to the same end.”
“There may be,” he said, smiling at her in nearly the same way that he had just been smiling at Dorinda, “but I do not know what that is. Do you?”
“No,” she admitted, “but I do not like this way at all.”
Marrick said testily, “Make the most of it, girl. It is better than
you deserve. And be thankful you are my daughter and not my son, for a good caning is what you’d get for landing us all in the suds like this.”
Thorne chuckled. “If she were your son, sir, we’d not be discussing this business at all.”
Marrick, much struck, laughed and said, “Well, that’s a fact. Are you still for the inn, my lord, or will you stay and take potluck with us? I’ve a fine young foal I’d be glad to show you. Going to make a fine hunter, damme if he won’t.”
Lady Marrick said, “Of course he will stay. What would people say, having learned his true identity, if he were to stay at a common inn? Not at all suitable, I assure you. I will have the peach bedchamber prepared for you, Marquess.”
“You leave me nothing to say but thank you, ma’am.”
Marrick nodded. “You do as you please, Estrid. Come along, my lord, there is no time like the present to see that foal.”
“Yes, I’ll come,” Thorne said, getting to his feet again. “Just let me have a moment with my man, to tell him to collect my gear from the inn, and then I’ll be with you. Do you dine early, ma’am? I’ve only the clothes on my back until Ferry returns.”
“We have ceased to keep country hours,” Lady Marrick said grandly. “I thought it best that the girls grow accustomed to proper town hours before they reach London, so you will have plenty of time, Marquess. We do certainly dress for dinner.”
“Aye,” Marrick grumbled, “and a damned lot of nonsense it is, to be putting on knee breeches and all that claptrap when a man only wants to eat his dinner and get back to more important matters. But there you are—women, God bless ’em.”
Thorne, on the point of following him, turned back and said, “Lady Gillian, if it would be agreeable to you, I should like very much to have a chance to speak more with you about this. Perhaps you will be so kind as to take a turn around the garden with me after your father has shown me his foal.”