by June Calvin
“Miss Ormhill,” he said, bowing to her from the doorway.
“Lord Edmund. Come in, come in. Don’t look as if I might eat you. I know last night’s folly was Jason’s doing. A naughty brat, to be sure, and apt to get up to anything when he is in his cups. Perhaps you may bring him into line, sir, if this marriage goes forward.”
Edmund smiled vaguely and, after a moment’s hesitation, went to the sideboard to fill his plate. When he approached the table, he took a place across from his prospective bride.
“You are in favor of the marriage, then? For I assure you, I would not be a party to anything that smacks of force.”
“As if Jason would, or could, do that! Indeed, yes, I am in favor. I have heard of your reputation as a soldier, sir, and knew your father and mother. Good people. ’Tis a shame you could not have inherited instead of that stiff-rumped half brother of yours.”
Edmund choked on his ham. “That would require displacing a good deal more than merely my brother, Miss Ormhill. I am—”
“I know. Fifth in line, after Heslington, his three sons, and your other brother. Doesn’t matter, though, whether you succeed to the title. A courtesy title will be sufficient. Just so your wife can be addressed as ‘my lady,’ all will be right and tight. Lady Edmund will do nicely.” She smiled at him before addressing herself once again to her breakfast.
Miss Ormhill’s acceptance of her father’s unreasonable requirement for her marriage astounded Edmund. It was as if she were speaking of someone else.
“There is one matter that we must discuss,” he said.
“What is that, Lord Edmund?”
“The question of the management of your land.”
“Of my land? What business is that of yours?”
Edmund grimaced. “Ormhill told me that you had been made quite independent, and I can live with that, but I must have the management of your land.”
“Management?” Miss Ormhill sputtered indignantly. “Management of my land? Why, the nerve!”
“If you were managing it properly, I would say nothing. But the condition of that farm is a disgrace. To be sure, I am no expert, though I would like to be. I will consult young Ormhill’s estate agent, for he clearly knows what is what. You would have been better served to have allowed him to manage your farm. I could not stand by and watch your fields deteriorate further. Nor should you want me to. After all, your prosperity will only be enhanced by better management.”
“But—”
“It is all very well for a female to manage her household, and even to hold the purse strings, if need be, but I feel strongly that the management of your farm belongs in masculine hands. Specifically, in my hands. I must insist upon this point.”
“As a condition of the marriage?” Miss Ormhill asked, her face wrinkled most unbecomingly with an irritated frown.
“Yes. You may well say I am not in a position to lay down conditions, but—”
“Well, you certainly are not in a position to lay down conditions to me, nor why you should wish to do so, I cannot tell. In point of fact, a man is managing my farm, but as you have observed, he makes very poor work of it. So if you require that as a condition of the marriage, I will agree.”
“I do beg your pardon. I thought Jason said that you managed your farm.”
“One, the other, or both of us is indeed confused, young man. But I wish to cooperate in any way necessary to further this marriage.”
Edmund did not really know whether to be pleased or horrified by her acquiescence, but having received it, he had no further choice but to proceed. A man must, after all, pay his gaming debts.
“Well, then, Miss Ormhill, you may consider this an offer in form. Shall we publish the bans or obtain a license? I must warn you, I am quite penniless, so you must decide, as the fee for the license would have to come from your pocket.”
Miss Ormhill half rose from her seat, her expression ominous. “What can you mean?”
“I expect Jason had little chance of explaining matters to you—none at all, I now recall, as he was too far gone to be coherent. You may wish to withdraw once you know I am quite penniless. I lost all I had to him, and then—”
“Don’t, for God’s sake, tell her that tale!” Jason Ormhill’s alarmed voice rang out from the doorway to the dining room. “We must ease into this thing.”
“I’m afraid it is too late. I have explained—”
“You’ve explained nothing.” Miss Ormhill stamped her foot, making the table jump. “Will you please be so kind as to tell me why this . . . this . . . rake has just offered for me? For me! Demanded control of my land, which I thought sufficiently peculiar, and then offered marriage to me!”
“To you?” Jason turned on Edmund. “Now that is a cork-brained thing to do, Lord Edmund.” Jason’s expression became as thunderous as Miss Ormhill’s. “Don’t tell me you have been overcome with passion, for that won’t fadge. As for getting control of her land, well, you shan’t have it! As one of her trustees, I would never give it to a man who reneged on a bet.”
“Reneged? Not I. But she is not competent to manage her land, nor to choose who will, if what I saw this morning is an example. Her trustees must acknowledge that.”
“Explain instantly what is meant by this bet,” Miss Ormhill demanded. “None of your roundaboutation, either, Nephew.”
“Nephew? Thought you said she was your sister.” Edmund began to feel he had landed in Bedlam. The way they were looking at him, the Ormhills thought him a candidate for the same place.
“Is this not Miss Ormhill?” he demanded.
Ignoring him, Jason continued trying to calm his aunt. “Listen to me.” He launched into an abbreviated explanation of the events of the evening before. Edmund listened as closely as Miss Ormhill, hoping to find a clue to his own puzzlement. Jason got no further than Edmund’s financial situation when he was interrupted.
Miss Ormhill looked ever more ominous. “Penniless, a gamester, cast off by his family? You think to bring such as that in here, just like that, and have him accepted?”
“No, that is why I didn’t want him to tell you. Odds are ten to one you’ll go straight to Olivia with it.”
“Better odds than that!” the stout damsel declared, quitting her place and marching toward the door.
Chapter Three
“Olivia?” Edmund mused aloud, beginning to discern the answer to the puzzle. “Who is Olivia?”
Ignoring him, Jason moved to intercept Miss Ormhill, holding her back with difficulty. “Wait, Aunt Lavinia. Just listen, will you? Lord Edmund will suit Livvy very well, you’ll see. But he needs some time to work on her, to court her. She needn’t know about the wager until—”
“Oh, yes, she does, and I will tell her.” Miss Ormhill pushed past Jason and stormed into the hall. “Buckman, has Miss Olivia returned?”
“Yes. She went straight through to her office, though. She asked not to be disturbed.”
“There, you see, Aunt. This will disturb her a great deal.”
“It certainly will. Imagine her brother losing her in a game of cards. Though you have no authority over her, you know.”
Once again the heavyset woman tried to run Jason down. He pushed against her shoulders, and she walked him backward as she progressed down a hallway under the stairs. Edmund was strongly reminded of a bullfighter impaled upon the horns of a stout, angry bull.
“Aunt, listen to me. You want Livvy married, don’t you? You want me to be able to travel; you’ve always said you thought I should. You don’t want her to be an old maid, and me to be tethered in the country the rest of my life, do you?”
His aunt stopped abruptly, almost causing Edmund to run into her from behind. “Well . . .”
“There. You see. Now, it’s not like you think. I didn’t loseher; I won him. So Lord Edmund won’t shab off as Corbright did, even though her fortune is tied up so tight, ’cause he’s honor-bound to marry her. Part of our wager. He’s got no money, so he can’t hope f
or a better marriage elsewhere. It beats the Dutch out of starving, don’t it, Lord Edmund?”
Edmund nodded. Humiliated to be so situated, he nevertheless believed in looking facts straight in the eye. “So you are not the Miss Ormhill I am to marry?”
Miss Lavinia Ormhill turned around to address herself to Edmund. “No. How can you possibly have thought . . . Oh, I see. It can be confusing. Livvy is also Miss Ormhill. Olivia Ormhill.” She eyed him calculatingly. “You must indeed be desperate to offer for me, young man.”
Edmund stammered, trying to say something polite. She stopped him with an imperious lift of her right hand.
“Speak me no nonsense, young man. I cut my eyeteeth many years ago. A plain female of a certain age cannot be your idea of an ideal bride. Don’t feel sorry for me, either. I have no inclination to marry, and not being encumbered by an unhappy brother as my poor Livvy is, I do not need to do so. Now. Let us go back to the dining room and discuss this thing rationally.”
When the events of the evening before had been fully explained, Miss Ormhill came over to her nephew’s side. Indeed, she spoke with some awe in her voice. “Very ingenious, Jason. Astonishing what you can accomplish when you are cast away! I do pity you, Lord Edmund, to be so utterly destitute. Did your father make no provision at all for you?”
“My mother’s estate was to come to me. That and my father’s recommendation that I should be trained and employed as my brother’s estate agent were my only patrimony. Unfortunately, what was to have been my inheritance had to be sold to pay my mother’s debts after she and her second husband died in a carriage accident.”
“Yes, I recall that. Her second marriage was something of a disaster, I think. Beau Gregham was a rake and a gamester.” Lavinia Ormhill continued to regard him suspiciously. “But can you not appeal to your brother?”
Edmond gritted his teeth. “He has disowned me.”
“But why? Just because you gamble? But what gentleman doesn’t?” Miss Ormhill responded. “Ought to be proud of you. Your bravery is well known, and you’ve not been the subject of any notable on dits, that I am aware of.”
“Not because of my gaming. Let us say we agreed to disagree, both as to his manner of handling my mother’s affairs, and as to my choice of a profession. Our parting was quite, quite final, on both sides. I would not ask anything of him even if I had any hope that he would assist me.”
“Ah, yes, I see. Managing estates seemed entirely too tame to you. You would go off soldiering, thus causing your brother to cast you off. Harsh.”
“It wasn’t like that at all.” Edmund shook his head. “I never wanted a military career. I loved the land and meant to make my life in the country from the time I could begin to plan my future. In spite of which, when my father died, Carl bought my colors, outfitted me, and thrust me on a ship bound for Portugal.”
Miss Ormhill protested. “You cannot have been much above twelve then!”
“I was sixteen and utterly his to command. He obtained a commission and packed me off, against my mother’s pleas. I had no recourse.”
“How odd. It would have been an expensive investment for him. To pay out so much blunt to set a boy up in a profession he did not desire seems quite unaccountable to me.”
Edmund turned away, looking blankly out the window. How hard it was to admit the truth even to himself, much less to others. “My brother always hated me. I will not bore you with my family history, but he wished me out of the way. If I had died in combat, he would have been well satisfied with his investment.”
Jason swore softly; Miss Ormhill gasped. “Such perfidy! Did it have something to do with the irregular nature of your parents’ marriage?”
“It had everything to do with that. The scandal of my father marrying his sister-in-law deeply embarrassed Carl.”
“Thought that was illegal,” Jason said, looking alarmed. “You aren’t a bastard, are you? Can’t be called Lord Edmund if you are, even if you are a marquess’s son.”
“Your uncle can explain it all, I daresay. Something of a legal anomaly, I always thought. Marriage to a deceased wife’s sister is not illegal, precisely, but the church frowns upon it, and such a marriage can be voided easily.”
“But it wasn’t voided?”
“No, Carl spared me that. He never let me forget the possibility, though, or how much such an action would devastate my mother. So even after I reached my majority, I stayed in the army as he wished. Doubtless to his chagrin, I didn’t die, as you can see. Came back to England for the premature victory celebrations,” Edmund replied wryly. “Mother had remarried by then, and her husband and I had an instant, mutual antipathy for one another. I had no home or prospects, so I shipped out for America, then returned just in time for Waterloo. That was when I learned my mother had died deeply in debt and my estate had been sold. My brother was her trustee, you see, in accordance with my father’s will.”
Jason groaned. “Feeling as he did about you, he probably did not try to avoid the sale.”
“Indeed, he lost no time doing so. I suspect he was delighted. He knew how much the property meant to me. In fact, the sale did not cover all of the debts: Beau Gregham was an expensive husband. What prize money and other resources I had went to settle them. Still, I resigned my commission, knowing I simply could not soldier anymore. I yearned for the English countryside, for the fresh air, the rural way of life. I went to my brother one last time, calling on him to train me and employ me as father had asked him to do. When he learned I had defied him and left the army, Carl disowned me. As I said, the final interview held animosity enough on both sides to make the rupture quite, quite final.”
Surprised to find he had told these new acquaintances so much about his personal affairs, Edmund apologized for burdening them with his troubles. But both Jason and Lavinia assured him of their sympathy.
Miss Ormhill, in spite of her unfortunate appearance, clearly did not lack sensibility, for her eyes teared over as she contemplated Edmund’s situation. “So cruel! I feel for you, young man. But take heart. You might indeed be the man for our Olivia. You do have a title, after all, even if it is a courtesy title. And you are no fortune hunter.” She paused and frowned, then continued in a musing tone, “Not in the usual way, at least.”
Edmund wondered just how plain the younger Miss Ormhill must be, for both her brother and her aunt to consider him a suitable parti for her.
“I was pretty well-to-go when you explained matters last night, Ormhill. Why are you in such a pelter to marry your sister off, especially to an indigent stranger of whose character you know very little?”
“I know you, sir, by reputation,” Jason protested indignantly. “And every woman needs a husband.”
“Try another,” Edmund demanded, folding his hands across his chest.
“Oh, very well. The matter stands thusly. Just before my father’s death three years ago, he revised his will, including saying, ‘Olivia shall marry a lord. I have ever felt she ought to be called “my lady.” ’ It may have been a jest he made, which our humorless solicitor misunderstood. Or possibly a reference to her titled fiancé, Lord Corbright. Nevertheless, it was signed in front of witnesses. Signed in haste, I might add, without Father’s reading the finished document, because he was dying. He knew I had the wanderlust even then, and asked me remain with her until she was safely wed. Of course, he expected that to be as soon as the mourning period was over.”
Jason stared out at the horizon, blinking away suspicious moisture at these memories.
“Unfortunately, when her husband-to-be saw the will, he cried off. Not that he is a fortune hunter. Rich as the Golden Ball! He felt that he had been insulted, that the will implied he could not be trusted with Livvy’s property. Also, he could not like the thought of a wife being so independent of her husband. By the will, any marriage settlement must give Olivia the right to live on and manage her own land and receive its income in the case of estrangement.”
“It is an unusual
arrangement,” Edmund said.
“Yes, well, my father had a sister who made a disastrous marriage. Her husband treated her terribly, and wasted her fortune while he did it. Father swore such would never happen to his daughter. At any rate, the broken engagement hurt Livvy deeply. She withdrew from society and now declares herself a spinster. She manages my land as well as her own, and fills her days with schemes of drainage and crop rotation, while I am left kicking my heels here in Buckinghamshire.” As he spoke, Ormhill became progressively more agitated. He banged his fist upon the dining table, making the dishes rattle. “I’m bloody well tired of it! So it is up to you, Lord Edmund, to free me.”
“An appalling situation for you, I agree. But it seems to me that your father never intended this outcome.”
“No, but a man cannot break his word to his father, given on his deathbed.”
To this point Edmund had seen Jason as a spoiled, self-centered creature. This response raised the boy in his estimation. He gnawed at his lower lip. “I shall do what I can, of course, to win her over, but it sounds a difficult task. When I agreed to the wager, I assumed she was eager to be wed.”
“As you thought I was your intended, one look at me must have confirmed you in that opinion,” Miss Ormhill said, amusement glinting in her eyes. “But she must be told of the wager, Jason. She will smoke it out soon enough, and then you’ll find her fighting shyer than ever.”
“Once she gets wind of it, the game will be up,” Jason groused. “I thought to present him as a friend, and—”
Edmund responded firmly. “I agree with your aunt. I won’t be a party to force or trickery. Your sister must be told of the wager. Get over the heavy ground lightly, then we shall see.”
Jason wrinkled his nose as if at a bad smell. “She has this cork-brained notion she’d rather be a spinster.”
“Which is not such a terrible fate as you men seem to think,” Miss Ormhill growled. “Still, though right for me, it won’t do for Livvy, no matter what she may believe. And I dislike seeing Jason so discontent. I’ll give you what help I can on the project, gentlemen. But as for your managing her land, Lord Edmund, I know she won’t allow it. She’s made quite a study of the thing, and done well by herself and Jason, I must admit.”