The Viscount Needs a Wife

by Jo Beverley

  And what bonnet? She’d brought only two. One was the plain black and the other gray. That could be trimmed with something brighter to match the blue or the green. With the brown dress, it would have to be the black.

  Oh, she hated to be in such a fiddle. She’d never been quite sure of style or what suited her, but in London she’d had an excellent dressmaker to advise her. Janet Saunders’s premises had been in the next street and she mainly did simple work, but she’d been capable of anything. Together they’d contrived to stretch Kitty’s money to provide a couple of stylish gowns a year, and Janet had firmly steered her away from disasters.

  At school Ruth had been her advisor. Kitty smiled at the memory of once desperately wanting lace-trimmed pink. She went to consult with Ruth and found her checking her inventory of medicines in the aromatic stillroom.

  “You make your own? I always bought what I needed.”

  “London ways,” Ruth said. “Didn’t you help at the manor?”

  “What Lady Cateril has surrendered is done by Sarah. I suppose I could have pushed harder to take part, but I confess this sort of household management has never appealed to me.”

  “As well you’re going to be a great lady, then, but I think even peeresses manage their stillrooms. You’d better learn. You can start by writing my notes.”

  Kitty hadn’t thought ahead to the actual running of a country house and it dismayed her, but she could do anything if she put her mind to it. She sat at the table with the book and the pen and wrote as dictated.

  When Ruth had completed her inventory of potions, Kitty said, “I must have Dauntry take me to the Abbey, so I’ll have an idea of how the place is managed.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “The Abbey?” Ruth said, moving on to shelves of glass jars holding leaves and powders. “I’ve been there only once. When I arrived here as a bride, I was taken to be presented.”

  “Heavens! As at court?”

  “That seemed to be the idea. Lord Dauntry was pleasant enough—the previous one, of course. The dowager was gracious, but she sat as if enthroned. She is a Godyson, you know. The oldest barony in the country.”

  “Makes a point of that, does she?”

  “Always. That visit was far too master-to-servant for my taste.”

  “Do they not invite you to entertainments?”

  “They only ever entertain the aristocracy.”

  “Being a Godyson, you know.”

  Ruth chuckled, but then bit her lip. “We shouldn’t be cruel.”

  “You started it. I’ve met people like that. Quite tiresome. Don’t most country seats have traditional events when the lordly mingle with lesser people? Cateril Manor had some. Harvesttime, Christmas, Twelfth Night, May Day.”

  “Not while we’ve been here. Note that I’m low on woodruff. I’ll see if anyone has an abundance. I gather the dowager used to go to London for long periods when younger. She was a lady-in-waiting to the queen.”

  “My goodness.”

  “Exactly. Far above our touch. Now she’s troubled by an aging hip and doesn’t travel.”

  “Don’t highborn friends visit?”

  “Rarely. That might be because of Lady Dauntry.”

  “She’s haughty with them as well?” Kitty asked.

  “Probably, but I meant the fifth viscount’s wife. She ran off with an actor.”

  Kitty paused, pen in hand. “No!”

  “Yes. Write what I said about fleabane before you forget. I shouldn’t gossip, but you need to know. It was long before I came here—Isabella was young and her brother an infant—but off she went. From servants’ stories, she was constantly squabbling with the dowager and raging at her husband for not taking her side.”

  “So she ran away. Good for her.”

  “Kitty! She ran off into adultery or bigamy and abandoned her children.”

  “She probably had no other choice.”

  “Nonsense. Bryony root.”

  Kitty wrote it down, considering the story. “Are you saying I’m going to face the same challenges?”

  “Probably, but I can assure you of one thing—Dauntry will take your side. He’d like the dowager out of there.”

  “Then why hasn’t he moved her?”

  “Anyone would hesitate to evict a grieving mother and grandmother from the place where she’s lived for forty years.”

  “She expects to stay there forever?” Kitty asked in dismay.

  “So it would seem. You knew part of his reason for marrying is to have someone to manage his female relatives.”

  “I hadn’t quite grasped the extent of it.” Kitty put down the pen. “Yet that’s not reason enough for this rush to the altar. I don’t understand him, Ruth. Our encounter in the lane has to have exploded any idea he had of my being a pillar of stability. It wasn’t my fault. . . .”

  “It never is.”

  “Ruth!”

  “I’m sorry, but you must confess you’ve never been the most conformable woman.”

  “So why is Lord Dauntry continuing with his plan, and why the urgency?”

  Ruth leaned back against the shelves. “Perhaps he decided an unconformable woman would be a good match for the dowager.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “If it came to skirmishes, I’d place my bet on you.”

  “Gambling? Horrors!”

  “Oh, you. I can see Dauntry thinking that way.”

  “So can I. Choosing the piece to play. All life is a chessboard to him. I can see that already. And I can tolerate it, as long as I’m the queen.”

  “With him the powerless king?”

  “Oh no. As I said, he’s the chess player.”

  “He’s simply a beleaguered man, Kitty.”

  They took up their work again, but it left time to think. Kitty had met beleaguered men, and Dauntry was beleaguered in much the same way as Wellington at Waterloo. He was planning for victory, no matter what the cost.

  She’d know better what that might cost her after a week of encounters.

  * * *

  The next day she received a note from Dauntry and rushed off to find Ruth, who was scattering seed for the chickens. “He’s gone to Town!”

  “What?” Ruth turned to her. “Why?”

  “He doesn’t say. Of course. Merely that he’s obliged to go up to Town for a few days, but will return by Wednesday.” Kitty shook the letter. “He’s avoiding me. What doesn’t he want me to learn? And he’s avoiding taking me to the Abbey. What is it? Bowshamp or Beecham?”

  Ruth looked bewildered. “Bowshamp. He probably does have important matters in London. He’s traveled there a time or two.”

  “Is his mistress so irresistible?”

  “What mistress?”

  “What else takes him to Town?”

  “I don’t know, but you always knew London was part of the bargain.”

  “Your reasonableness is unreasonable! He was to go to Town after the marriage. I was depending on this week to learn more about him.” A hen pecked at Kitty’s shoe, and she jumped backward. “Stop that!”

  Ruth continued to feed the demanding poultry. Kitty kept watch on the beady-eyed birds. “I could visit the Abbey without him.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Why not? Are you too trying to hide something?”

  “Of course not. But it would start your time there on the wrong foot. He must formally introduce you to his family and household.”

  Ruth was right, but Kitty didn’t like it. “This is extremely frustrating.”

  Ruth shook out the last of the grain and turned back toward the house. “Would anything you learned there change your mind?”

  “I assume he doesn’t turn into a monster at night.”

  “An
d how would you discover that before the wedding?”

  “Anticipate the wedding. After all, I’m not a virgin.”

  “Kitty!” But Ruth was laughing. “I wonder if Dauntry knows what he’s getting.”

  “As well as I know what I’m getting in him. That makes me think. Marriage settlements.”

  “What?”

  “We never spoke of them, but I’ll have them, providing plenty of pin money, so I’ll have some independence. Isn’t there a solicitor in the village?”

  “Mr. Whitehall, yes. But Dauntry might object to your dealing with such things in his absence.”

  “He obtained a marriage license without my say-so.”

  “Did he? Oh, dear. Talk to Andrew first.”

  Ruth was looking worried again, so Kitty said, “Of course, but I don’t see why he’d object.”

  Andrew didn’t. “I should have thought of it. We can have Whitehall draw them up, and Dauntry can review them when he returns.”

  Kitty relaxed a little. Settlements would give her some financial independence and provide for her in the case of her husband’s death.

  All the same, Dauntry’s running off to London was a bad sign.

  What did he seek to hide until after the knot was tied?

  * * *

  Lord Cateril considered the letter that had arrived that morning. Viscount Dauntry presented a good case for his need of Kathryn as his wife, laying out logical arguments like a lawyer. The postbag had also brought a letter for his wife from Kathryn. He’d thought nothing of it and sent it to her, but now he went to the parlor in trepidation.

  She was sitting by the fire, the letter open in her hands, but staring at the flames.

  “Is Kathryn enjoying her visit to her friend?” he asked.

  She turned to him, seeming puzzled rather than distressed. “I believe so, but . . . She wants to marry again.”

  “Truly?” She seemed calm about it. He sat nearby, hoping for the best. Before he could find the right words, she burst out, “How could she?”

  “She’s a young woman, my dear. With her life ahead of her.”

  “But to replace Marcus!”

  “Never in her heart, my dear. Never that. But perhaps she needs a purpose in life.”

  “That’s what she says”—she rattled the paper—“but if so, I’ll find her a position. As a companion. Not this . . . this sacrilege. I shall write to tell her so—”

  He put out a hand to stop her rising. “Sarah, my dear, think about this. What sensible woman would seek employment when she could be a wife? Unless the man she has in mind is too low for her.”

  “Low! She claims to have an offer from a viscount! Perhaps she’s deranged.”

  He sighed. Did all deranged people fail to see it in themselves?

  “A viscount?” he said mildly. “Odd goings-on, to be sure, but I’m sure Marcus’s wife is worthy of any peer of the realm.”

  He’d just used a sentence from Lord Dauntry’s letter and suspected it had been planted there, but it had an effect.

  “Of course she is. But how could it have come about? She’s not been gone a week.”

  More arguments from the letter came to mind. “Its being so sudden argues against any unseemly passion, don’t you think? Does Kathryn say how they met?”

  “Viscount Dauntry’s seat lies close to Beecham Dabittot, and he was acquainted with Reverend Lulworth in the past. She met him at the parsonage. But for him to make approaches to a woman in mourning!”

  “It’s well over a year since Marcus died, my dear. I believe Lord Dauntry has recently come into the title. There was something in the newspapers about it, because the search for the heir took some time.”

  “Then he has no business seeking a wife in a hurry.”

  “On the contrary. I have the impression that he is the last of the line. It is his duty to try to beget an heir.”

  “An heir!” His wife pressed her black-edged handkerchief to her face. “When she never bore poor Marcus a child.”

  Lord Cateril wasn’t entirely sure Marcus had been able. It was not a matter he could have asked about. “Does Kathryn say why he’s chosen her?” he asked.

  “Only that he needs a helpmeet and finds that she fits his needs. He’s mad, too.”

  “Perhaps not, dear. Kathryn was a good wife, and I’m sure Marcus’s afflictions didn’t always make him easy.” He pulled out another argument from Lord Dauntry’s letter. “Would Marcus have wanted his Kitty to live a half-life here when she could be useful elsewhere?”

  He hoped his wife would see that the words applied to her as well, but she didn’t seem to note it. “I can’t bear her replacing him, Edward. I can’t bear it. It would be as if he died again.”

  “Dead is dead, Sarah!” He instantly regretted the sharp words, for she looked so stricken, but he wanted his wife back. There’d been an argument in the letter that he hesitated to use, but he had to try. “Are you not perhaps expecting Kathryn to bury herself with Marcus, as the poor widows in India are expected to throw themselves onto the funeral pyre?” In better times they’d read about the practice of suttee, and Sarah had been horrified.

  “This is not the same,” she protested.

  He let silence argue for him.

  “It’s not the same,” she repeated. “But she shouldn’t want to marry anyone else. She shouldn’t be able to bear it.”

  He tried a different approach. “It’s time for you to put off black, Sarah. For your own sake. Marcus wouldn’t have wanted this. The grandchildren won’t remember you any other way.”

  “They’ll never know Marcus!”

  “They’ll know him from his picture and from the stories we tell. Happy stories. He’s gone, my dear, but so are many admirable young men who defended us in battle so that we could live freely here. If we don’t live our lives to the full, do we not undermine their victory?”

  “How have you become so eloquent?” she protested. “You’ll be making grand speeches in Parliament next.”

  Of course she’d detect borrowed words.

  “I’m inspired by wanting my Sarah back. I’m only half myself without you, my dear.”

  She cried again, but then blew her nose. “Have I been so very selfish?”

  “You needed time, my love. We all did. But it swallowed you, and you took Kathryn down with you. She’ll never forget Marcus or cease loving him, but she deserves to live a full life. Can you follow her lead?”

  She smoothed her black skirt as if she’d never seen it before. “It will be hard.”

  Dauntry had mentioned addiction in his letter, but Lord Cateril decided not to use that.

  “I will help you,” he said, and rose, holding out a hand.

  She took it and let him help her to her feet. Her look was questioning, but there was a bit of the old Sarah in it.

  “I’m going to take you upstairs and help you choose a gown that’s not black. No, I’m not planning to undress you, my love.” He risked a tease. “Or not yet. But I’ll help you choose. Then when you’re ready, I need your advice about estate matters. There are many difficult decisions these days.”

  “You’ve become very clever all of a sudden, Edward.” He delighted to see her sharp wit again. “But I admit you’re probably right. I have sunk too low for too long. The sage green, perhaps.”

  “The very gown I had in mind.”

  He wouldn’t mention the letter yet—the letter she must write—or the matter of sending Kitty’s belongings off to her new life. He hoped she’d come to that on her own.

  He escorted his wife to the stairs, but left her to mount them alone, black skirts trailing the steps as if to drag her down. She’d never worn skirts of such an impractical length in the past. She paused at the best spot to study Marcus’s portrait, but then nodded as if a decision was made and continued on.
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br />   Good lad, Lord Cateril said silently to his younger son, bright eyed and vital in his scarlet and gold. You watch out for your wife, too. No dog with a bone about it. She’s a grand lass. Let her have as much of a life as she can. I wouldn’t have thought such a lawyerly type quite to her taste, but better than buried alive. Much better than that.

  Chapter 9

  Kitty helped Ruth, trying to learn a bit more about rural household management. She also went with her around the village, alert for anything about Dauntry. She learned little of use. Everyone was interested in him, but it seemed he rarely visited Beecham Dab, and no one knew even as much as she did.

  Some of the village women would smirk and say he was a fine, handsome man. Others judged him too fancy-dressed and haughty. A few were perceptive enough to say he was a London man who’d doubtless not be at the Abbey much, and declared that a shame.

  She visited the Beecham Dab almshouses one day with Ruth and learned in conversation that some repairs were outstanding. A little more “idle” curiosity revealed that the problem was of long standing, but had become worse since the fifth viscount’s death.

  As they walked back to the parsonage, Ruth said, “Once you’re Lady Dauntry, you’ll be able to put that matter in order.”

  “Willingly. I’ll take an active part in the management.”

  Kitty kept alert for other neglect but didn’t find any, and she was constantly aware of needing to make a good impression as a sensible, decent sort of woman in case she did make the marriage.

  “It’s odd,” she said to Ruth one day as they returned to the parsonage from the village shop. “If I were a real viscountess, I could be as eccentric as I liked, but as a prospective one I must strive for perfection.”

  “You soon will be a real viscountess.”

  “But one from low origins. People will be alert for any vulgarity.”

  “You could never be vulgar.”

  “I pray that’s true, but I don’t intend to be haughty with the people here.”