Amanda counted with Sylvie, in the age-old nursery tradition, and then they let their tops fly.
Even though Sylvie was only a little girl, her complicity with Amanda’s plan was a comfort. They would talk to Papa and to Miss Fletcher. Exactly how they’d go about that task without being able to consult either source of wisdom first was a puzzle.
Amanda enjoyed puzzles. She loved her papa and Miss Fletcher, thus she would find a way to give them the benefit of her guidance—and Sylvie’s and even Lady Higginbottom’s, if that was what she had to do to bring Papa and Miss Fletcher together.
Chapter Five
* * *
Giles Throckmorton had been handsome as a youth, and the years had only improved his looks. A young soldier had matured into a man with some character to his features, a subtle dash to his attire, and gravity in his gaze.
Lucy noted those developments impersonally, for Mr. Throckmorton’s arrival had interrupted some sort of declaration from Lord Tyne—a declaration or a disclaimer. Lucy hadn’t been sure if his lordship had been about to confess a tendresse for her or to warn her not to develop one for him.
A bit late for the warning. Any other employer would have blamed the governess when a child went missing. Lord Tyne had solved the problem, taken responsibility for it, and reassured Lucy most kindly afterward.
“Mr. Throckmorton.” Lucy curtseyed. “Your call is unexpected.”
He bowed. “You are ever tactful. I think what you mean is, my calling upon you is a great presumption. I had to come nonetheless.”
“Lord Tyne will not turn me off for receiving an acquaintance from long ago,” Lucy said. “Shall we be seated?”
Giles took the only wing chair—he’d been shown to the formal sitting room—and he looked quite at home there. The Portuguese sun had burnished his blond hair to gold, and the effect of the elements on his complexion was to make the blue of his eyes more vivid.
He wasn’t as tall as Lord Tyne, not as muscular either.
“You look the same,” Giles said, studying Lucy as if she were a portrait. “As pretty as ever.”
He was up to something. Lucy had brothers, and those brothers had wives, and those wives kept her informed of every scrap of gossip from home. Giles regularly came back to England, and not once had he brought his children or his wife, not once had he called upon or asked about Lucy.
“Mr. Throckmorton, please don’t take this as rudeness on my part, but your opinion of my appearance is of no interest to me. I am happily employed in a very respectable house, and I hope to remain in that blessed state for some time.”
He smiled, and heavens, that smile had matured in Portugal as well. Giles had always had more charm than was fair, and he’d learned to add a dash of regret to his gaze, a soupçon of self-mockery that blended humility with amusement.
“You won’t believe me, Lucy, but more than your affection, more than your lovely appearance, more than your humor, I’ve missed your common sense, and you are right: My opinion of your good looks is of no moment. I merely remark the obvious. How have you been keeping?”
A friend could ask that.
“I do very well, thank you. My work matters to me and allows me to use my gifts for the benefit of others.” Flinging the reality of Lucy’s situation at Giles’s feet felt good. She hadn’t married, hadn’t taken any other lovers, but she’d made a good life for herself. “I trust your family thrives?”
“John is a natural-born diplomat. He sends you his regards, as do my sisters. They’ve kept me apprised of your situation, though I gather they haven’t done the same for you in my case.”
His sisters had never so much as sent Lucy a note after she’d removed to London.
“I did not feel I had the right to inquire after you.” Lucy hadn’t, in fact, spared Giles more than a passing thought since she’d come to Lord Tyne’s household. “You wrote me the once, years and years ago, and I took your letter for a polite admonition not to spin fancies where you are concerned.”
He rose and studied the portrait of the late marchioness that hung over the sideboard. “My children are all in good health, but perhaps you had not heard that I was widowed more than a year ago.”
That explained the sadness in his gaze, the gravity where a high-spirited young man had been. “I am sorry for your loss, and I know your children must miss their mama terribly.”
The thought of those children tugged at Lucy’s heartstrings, and she even felt some genuine compassion for Giles. He’d been a young man going off to war, and Lucy’s choices where he was concerned were her own responsibility.
“The children and I are a little lost.” He sent Lucy an unreadable look. “Sometimes more than a little. I can be honest with you, Lucy. My marriage was not a bed of rose petals, and I know my wife had her frustrations where I was concerned, but we muddled along, and we loved our children.”
“Of course you did. Tell me their names.”
He resumed his place in the wing chair and spoke with fond exasperation about four small children clearly bereft of their mother’s love. Somewhere in the discussion of the children, Lucy recalled that Giles had been her first love, if a very young woman’s foolish fancies could be called love. He was a good man, and according him that honor allowed Lucy more compassion for her younger self too.
Giles was a father, older, wiser, and undoubtedly sadder. Lucy had been desperately upset over his only letter, but eventually, she’d seen that he’d done her a kindness. The war had gone on for years, and too many soldiers had never come home.
Waiting for him could have been so much futility ending in bereavement.
“Twins are always a challenge,” she said. “I’ve noticed that if I make the effort to refer to them as individuals, using their names rather than simply calling them ‘the twins,’ or ‘you two,’ I have fewer problems. I’ve also noticed that always dressing them alike, in the manner of matched footmen on display, isn’t wise.”
Giles sat back as if startled. “I had never thought… I had never considered… But then, in the army, when the drill sergeants are dressing down the recruits, the sergeants refer to the lads in collective insults—‘you lot,’ ‘you disgraces.’ When they praise a man, they always single him out by name.”
“It’s a detail,” Lucy said. “Probably of no significance at all.”
“I doubt that, and yet, none of the nurses, tutors, and governesses I’ve employed ever once put forth these insights.”
An odd moment went by, during which Lucy had the sense she was being reassessed, and that old affection—or whatever Giles had brought to this reunion—was being supplemented by new respect. The clock chimed the hour, and he stood.
“Might I call on you again, Lucy? We haven’t nearly begun to catch up. I have much to tell you about Portugal and about the business of making port. The land is beautiful in a way I can’t describe, not as tame as dear England, and the people are wonderful.”
“I am torn,” Lucy said, rising. “While I am glad to know you prosper, and I wish you every joy, I do not want to create any mistaken impressions. I love my life here, Giles, and I love Lord Tyne’s children. I am prospering too, in my way, and the terms of my employment do not contemplate that I will be socializing with many gentleman callers.”
“I do believe I have just been given a preemptory spanking,” he said. “I understand your situation, Lucy, but even a governess is entitled to meet an old friend on her half day.”
Where was the harm in that suggestion? He’d go back to Portugal, and Lucy would be able to close the door on a youthful indiscretion that she’d never quite come to terms with.
“I can meet you for an ice at Gunter’s on Tuesday at two of the clock. If I’m not there, assume my duties intervened, as they sometimes do.”
Or she might have changed her mind, as she seldom did.
“I’ll look forward to it,” Giles said, bowing over her hand. When Lucy would have withdrawn her fingers from his grasp, he smoothed a ca
ress to her knuckles, then kissed the back of her hand. No other gentleman had ever taken such a liberty—nobody except Giles, who apparently hadn’t lost all of his youthful audacity.
Lucy snatched her hand back, ready to deliver a sound scold, but Giles strode to the door.
“Until Tuesday, Lucy. I’ll be counting the hours.”
* * *
Tyne met Miss Fletcher’s guest at the door, for Captain Throckmorton by rights ought to have called upon Tyne, then asked after Lucy. He ought, in fact, to have brought a mutual acquaintance to make introductions between host and caller too. That he hadn’t observed those courtesies made the whole question of chaperoning the call awkward. The housekeeper was out for the afternoon, and the senior maid enjoyed her half day on Saturday.
Tyne took an interest in these details of the household schedule because Miss Fletcher had informed him months ago that he must. No lady of the house was on hand to maintain domestic order. The staff had to know somebody was in charge or slacking—a transgression sufficient to threaten the peace of the realm—might ensue.
“Captain Throckmorton, good day.”
Throckmorton was a good-looking devil and several years younger than Tyne, damn the luck.
The captain bowed. “Do I have the pleasure of encountering Lord Tyne?”
“You do.” A purely masculine pause ensued. Tyne took control of the figurative snorting and pawing by handing Throckmorton his hat. “Any friend of Miss Fletcher’s will always be welcome under my roof, provided that friend comes in good faith. We cherish Miss Fletcher, and her happiness matters here.”
Throckmorton apparently had little experience with parliamentary flag signals. What sounded like a pleasantry could be a threat, which Miss Fletcher’s caller would understand the instant he misstepped.
“Lucy is an old and very dear friend,” Throckmorton replied. “I’ve been remiss to let the connection lapse in recent years, but my regard for her is of long standing. I rejoice to know that her situation here is so comfortable.”
Tyne all but shoved Throckmorton’s walking stick against his chest. “She is Miss Fletcher to you.”
“I beg your pardon. You are right, sir. Miss Fletcher.”
Never had Tyne wanted so badly to smash his fist into another man’s jaw, but Miss Fletcher would scold him about fisticuffs in the foyer, setting a bad example, and jeopardizing the decorum of a peer’s household. She might even assign him a list of sums. The altercation would be worth the set-down, if she’d scold Throckmorton as well; but, alas, Tyne was the host. Miss Fletcher had firm ideas of how hosts should behave.
Hosts should show a polite interest in every guest. “Will you be in England long, Mr. Throckmorton?” Tyne had consulted with Drummond, who as butler had gleaned that Throckmorton was visiting from his vineyards in Portugal and had known Miss Fletcher before deploying to Spain as a captain in Wellington’s army.
Drummond was overdue for an increase in wages.
“I haven’t decided how long I’ll stay,” Throckmorton said. “I’d forgotten how lovely the land of my birth is, and now that my children are once again in need of a mother, I’ll likely be spending more time here.”
Meaning Throckmorton was in need of a wife. “My condolences. All I can tell you is that the pain of losing a spouse fades, but the ache never entirely leaves you.”
Throckmorton’s expression of genteel sorrow faltered, suggesting he’d alluded to his widower status out of something other than paternal devotion to the children he’d abandoned hundreds of miles away.
He pulled on his gloves. “My thanks for that sage observation. Army life gives a man some perspective where death and loss are concerned, but your view is also appreciated.”
How bloody gracious of him. “My years in Lower Canada afforded me the same perspective. The winter alone cost us many good soldiers.” Tyne had served for only two years and mostly in peacetime. Papa had decreed that a man destined to help run an empire ought to see something besides sheep pastures and ballrooms before he sat in the Lords.
In the military, Tyne had become proficient in all manner of card games, perfected his aim with a rifle, and learned to tolerate cold the like of which no self-important grape farmer would ever encounter.
“I’ll wish you good day,” Throckmorton said, bowing. “Until next we meet, my lord.”
“Until that happy occasion,” Tyne said, signaling Drummond to open the door. “Should I not have the pleasure of encountering you again, safe and swift journey home when you rejoin your children.”
Tyne summoned the same smile he used on junior MPs spouting radical notions. Out you go, lad, and mind your manners around Miss Fletcher.
Throckmorton had no choice but to accept his dismissal, and Drummond closed the door.
“Is Miss Fletcher to be at home to Mr. Throckmorton in future, sir?” Drummond asked.
If Tyne said yes, he was admitting into his home a potential competitor for Miss Fletcher’s services as a governess. A nursery full of bereaved little souls in Portugal would call to her, as they should to anybody with half a heart.
Throckmorton was also a competitor for her affections. His posturing, his attempt to circumvent propriety, his use of informal address… Tyne had every sympathy for a grieving widower, and no patience at all for a manipulative bounder.
And yet, if Tyne said no, that Miss Fletcher was not at home if Mr. Throckmorton called again, then Tyne was disrespecting the lady’s independence. After all she’d done for Tyne and his children, she was owed, and she surely had earned, his respect.
“You must ask Miss Fletcher,” Tyne said, “and inquire of her as well whether our housekeeper ought to join any future calls that Mr. Throckmorton pays on my household.”
More than that, Tyne could not in good conscience do—not until he’d completed the awkward conversation with Miss Fletcher that Mr. Throckmorton’s arrival had so inconveniently interrupted.
* * *
We cherish Miss Fletcher, and her happiness matters here.
Lord Tyne had spoken at sufficient volume that Lucy had heard him in the formal parlor. Giles’s half of the conversation had been harder to discern, which was just as well. Eavesdroppers never heard any good of themselves.
Though, to be cherished… His lordship did not posture for the sake of impressing anybody, least of all a casual caller.
“I have seen Mr. Throckmorton out,” the marquess said, wandering into the formal parlor. “If you’d like a chaperone for any future calls, please let the housekeeper know.”
“Thank you.”
He took the piano bench. “What are you thanking me for, Miss Fletcher?”
Being yourself. “Being protective. Giles is an old, old friend, but I hadn’t seen him for years. People can change over time.”
His lordship spun around and opened the cover over the keys. “You call him Giles.”
What mood is this? “I knew him when I was a girl, and before he left for Spain, we had something of a flirtation.”
“Are you being delicate?”
“Yes.” And euphemistic. A mutual pawing would have been a more accurate description. The thought made Lucy smile, which, where Giles was concerned, was a relief. What a pair of young nodcocks they’d been.
“You recall him fondly, in other words.” His lordship began the slow movement from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, often called Pathétique. The first theme was lyrical and lovely, and he played it at the flowing, calm tempo the composer had intended.
“Mr. Throckmorton would like me to recall him fondly.” Lucy had come to this realization somewhere amid Giles’s recitations regarding his children. Why was he making this effort now?
The marquess played on, and Lucy wished she might simply enjoy the music. Amanda got her musical talent from her papa apparently, and Sylvie showed signs of the same gift. Giles’s visit had further disrupted an already unsettling day, though, and Lucy had questions for the marquess.
“How many
children does he have?” his lordship asked.
“Mr. Throckmorton? Four, including twins.”
“Twins.”
Twins, spoken in that tone, with that expression, suggested somebody had committed a dire offense.
“Will you leave us to help him raise his twins, Miss Fletcher?”
The notion that Giles had been looking for a governess—an English governess experienced at dealing with grieving children—had only begun to form in Lucy’s mind. If so, he’d have been better off approaching her in writing with an offer of a post instead of pretending to call on an old friend.
Much less presuming to kiss her hand, for pity’s sake. “I haven’t been offered that opportunity.”
His lordship brought the music to a sweet, stately close rather than carry on to the more tempestuous, contrasting theme.
“I am confident that you will be offered that opportunity. If it’s in your best interests to pursue such a post, then you should.”
That was what a true friend ought to say, and what nobody ever had said to Lucy. “I thought you sought to keep my services, not toss me onto the first boat bound for Lisbon.”
His lordship closed the cover over the keys. “You will be tempted, by the children in his nursery who are doubtless struggling for want of their mama’s love, by the notion that an old friend deserves your loyalty at a trying time, and—we have always been honest with each other, have we not, Miss Fletcher?—by the excuse to leave a situation here which has come to mean much to you.”
He rose, and Lucy thought he was finished expounding on her motivations, which he’d identified more clearly than she could have herself.
“What is wrong with being useful?” she asked.
Lord Tyne drew her to her feet and again kept hold of her hand. Unlike Giles, he wasn’t flirting. Lucy wasn’t sure exactly what his lordship was about. He didn’t seem angry, exactly, but then again, when Sylvie had gone missing, he hadn’t shown any sign of anxiety either.
Marquesses at the Masquerade Page 33