“My mother’s people are Highlanders. So between there and here, I’ve always lived in hills or mountains.”
“I envy you. The paintings and engravings I’ve seen of Scotland make it seem such a splendid place.”
He almost said that she must travel there someday and see it for herself, but from her simple garb and ignorance of horsemanship, he suspected she must be a humble poor relation of the Arrington family. Someone, especially a female someone, in so dependent a role might never have the money or freedom to make the journeys that James and his family did every year and took for granted.
Casting about for a tactful topic, he looked around and noticed a sketchbook lying abandoned at the base of the stone wall where Miss Jones had been sitting. “You draw, Miss Jones?”
“A little.”
He indicated the sketchbook. “Do you mind if I look?”
She glanced at him sidelong from beneath downcast eyelashes, modesty and pride warring for control of her expression. “If you’d like.”
He bent to pick it up, then sat on the wall. He opened the sketchbook to the last page she had drawn upon, smoothing the paper where it had been rumpled slightly.
He had expected the usual schoolgirl work, correct yet stilted and lifeless. Instead, he beheld a sketch of his valley—and it was his, for almost all of it belonged to the Selsley estate—unfinished and rough, but with the indefinable vibrancy and spark of a true artist.
“Miss Jones, you do not draw ‘a little.’ You are an artist. This is extraordinary.”
“Surely not extraordinary,” Miss Jones protested, but James could tell she was pleased.
“You must know what a great gift you have,” he insisted.
“My governess did always praise my drawings and watercolors, I suppose.”
“You never had a drawing master, but only your governess?”
“Oh, there was never any question of—that is, yes, Miss Bentley was my only instructor.”
That she had learned all this with no special training! He began to page through the book. She had chosen a wide range of subjects, from careful, close studies of flowers, to drawings of servants going about their duties, to a whimsical sketch of a cat curled beside a hearth. But he liked her landscapes best. They had a yearning focus on distant points—birds soaring above the fens, church spires on the horizon. He got the impression Miss Jones couldn’t help wanting more than life had offered her, and he admired her for it even while rather pitying her. Too often a restless spirit was a burden for a woman, and if his guesses about this girl’s background and position were correct, she was destined for a narrow, hemmed-in existence.
Anna rode up, leading Ghost, just as James turned the page away from a scene of cattle grazing in a field to a portrait of what must be the cavalry cousin. James frowned. Miss Jones had drawn with love, or at least adulation, a splendid officer with fair curly hair, the long mustaches cavalry men tended to affect and features with the same elegant symmetry as her own but infinitely more arrogant. The fellow stood tall and broad-shouldered before an ornate hearth, clad in an immaculate uniform. The Sixteenth had recently sailed for Portugal, and James supposed this was a leave-taking portrait.
“James, you must introduce your new acquaintance,” Anna said.
He looked up to see Anna smiling down at both of them from Shade’s back.
“Anna, this is Miss Jones. She is a cousin of Miss Arrington’s and is staying at the castle. Miss Jones, my sister, Miss Wright-Gordon.”
Miss Jones curtsied, and Anna inclined her head in the horseback equivalent of the gesture.
“We’re to dine at Almont Castle tonight,” Anna said.
Miss Jones smiled. “Yes, Lord Almont mentioned a dinner.”
“I’ll look forward to meeting you and the rest of your family under more formal circumstances,” James said, “though I suppose your cousin there is in Portugal.” He held the sketchbook up so Anna could see. “Miss Jones’s other cousin, Lieutenant Arrington of the Sixteenth. Doesn’t she draw well?”
“Very well,” Anna said abstractedly. “He looks like everything an officer should be.”
“He is,” Miss Jones assured her, her eyes aglow. “Actually, Seb—Lieutenant Arrington is here. He couldn’t sail with the regiment because of a broken leg, but he hopes to join them in another month or two.”
Anna’s eyes developed a sparkle of their own. “In that case I look forward to meeting him, don’t you, James?”
James was surprised either of the young ladies still remembered his presence as anything more than an easel for displaying sketches of handsome blond dragoon officers. “I’m afraid I cannot quite share your interest in a handsome gentleman, sister dear,” he drawled.
“James!” Anna favored Miss Jones with her most engaging smile. “My brother will leave you with a bad impression of me, when I only look forward to meeting someone who serves in the same regiment as our cousin.”
James didn’t believe that for a moment, and from the slight strain in Miss Jones’s answering smile, he doubted she did, either. Why did otherwise clever women lose all their reason when presented with a handsome man in uniform?
“I’m sure my cousin will be glad to give you tidings of Major Gordon,” Miss Jones said.
James decided he’d had enough of Lieutenant Arrington, and he hadn’t even met the man yet. “We’d best be on our way, Anna, and get these horses back to their stable.”
“They’ve certainly had a good run,” Anna said. “I’m very glad to meet you, Miss Jones, and I look forward to seeing you again this evening.”
Miss Jones unbent with a shy but genuine smile. “Thank you.”
James returned her sketchbook with a bow. “Until this evening. Your servant, Miss Jones.”
She curtsied and started back along the hilltop toward Almont Castle, glancing over her shoulder at them once before disappearing into the trees.
“She seems a sweet girl,” Anna commented as James swung back into Ghost’s saddle, wincing as he was obliged to put weight on his bruised shoulder.
“Indeed,” he agreed. “Rather shy, however.”
“No great wonder, at her age,” said Anna, who had never known a day’s shyness from the cradle up.
“Says the worldly woman of not quite twenty.”
“Well, I daresay I do have a great deal more experience of the world than Miss Jones does. I suppose she’s around fifteen.”
James shook his head as he pivoted Ghost about to head downhill toward Orchard Park. “Nearer eighteen or nineteen, I’d say.”
“Really?” Anna considered it. “Yes, I think you’re right, though she has the dress and manner of a schoolroom miss.”
“She has the dress and manner of a poor relation. From certain things she said, or just managed not to say, I gather she’s been kept very close and given few advantages. This is the first time she’s traveled, and would you believe she learned to draw so well with only a governess, never a drawing master?”
“You seem quite taken with her.”
He had thought Miss Jones a pretty young angel, but “taken with her” was going too far. “Hardly that. She’s merely a sweet girl, as you say. I pity her, a little, if her lot in life is what I think it is.”
“Well, I’m sure we’ll see much of her in the next fortnight or so. With a new bride for Lord Almont just arrived, I doubt we’ll have a day without everyone in the neighborhood gathered at some kind of entertainment in her honor.”
“Undoubtedly. It’ll be as busy as the Season. I already have Cook planning our dinner for Tuesday. So much for quiet country rustication.”
“You don’t need it. You managed to rusticate well enough in the city.”
Lucy could hardly believe she had talked so comfortably and familiarly with a lord. If she had known his rank when they began to converse, she doubted she could have been so much at her ease.
She couldn’t quite say he was free from any arrogance or pride, but those qualities had simpl
y been part of his being, not directed at her. No, he had been all that was friendly, and she liked him very well. He was rather handsome, too—nothing in comparison with Sebastian, of course, but Lord Selsley’s dark blue eyes were remarkable, and he had a fine, ready smile, full of mischief.
On her first morning in Gloucestershire, she had found a friend. Two friends, for Miss Wright-Gordon had been kind, as well. Perhaps this visit would pass pleasantly after all. She wished Miss Wright-Gordon hadn’t so obviously admired the sketch of Sebastian, but he was uncommonly handsome. She could hardly expect other ladies to close their eyes to that fact, especially not while she was forced to keep their betrothal a secret.
Morning was well advanced by the time she returned to Almont Castle. She hurried upstairs to her chamber, where she put away her sketchbook and cloak, and smoothed her windblown hair before finding a footman and asking the way to the breakfast parlor. Perhaps by the wedding she would know her way around this castle. It was grand, she thought as she walked down a gallery lined with suits of armor and portraits of Almont ancestors, but on the whole Lucy rejoiced that she would never have a home even half its size. She had not been born for castles, and the sort of tidy country cottage or snug townhouse that an officer like Sebastian could command for lodgings would answer all her dreams.
The breakfast parlor was the smallest common room she had yet seen at Almont, though the dark, heavy table had room for a dozen diners. Only three were at the table now, and Lucy hesitated in the doorway. She had hoped for Sebastian, or at least Aunt Arrington, but instead she must face Lord Almont, his sister Lady Marpool and Portia.
“Good morning, Miss Jones,” her host called cheerily. He was a rotund, red-faced man in his middle fifties, and he always spoke rather more loudly than was necessary.
She curtsied. “Good morning, sir. Lady Marpool. Portia.”
Portia acknowledged her only with the faintest of nods, but Lady Marpool smiled coolly and Lord Almont beckoned to her.
“Do come in, child. Fill your plate.”
Strange that he called her “child” when he was marrying a woman only a little older than she was. But that was one of the many things in the world that it was not her place to remark upon. She crossed to the sideboard and did as she was bid, selecting hot rolls and butter and smoked herring.
“Have my cousin and my aunt breakfasted?” she asked as she took a chair opposite Lady Marpool, who seemed the least of the table’s evils.
“Lieutenant Arrington has eaten and gone already,” Lady Marpool said. “I believe he meant to take a turn about the garden to strengthen his leg.”
Lucy wished she hadn’t been in such a hurry to go out and draw. If she had waited but a little, she could have walked with Sebastian instead—but then she wouldn’t have met Lord Selsley and his sister.
“I was considering sending a tray to Lady Arrington,” Lady Marpool continued. “I daresay she’s fatigued from her journey. What do you think, Miss Arrington?”
Portia shrugged. “You’re very kind, ma’am,” she said. “But Lucy would know better than I what Mama would like. She is her companion, after all, and I did not see her for all the months of the Season.”
“Of course. Miss Jones, how does your aunt break her fast?”
Lucy did not think Portia was endearing herself to Lady Marpool by her indifference to her own mother, but she knew her cousin would ignore any hints or warning looks from her. “She has only a small appetite in the morning, ma’am,” she said. “A slice or two of toast and a cup of chocolate would be more than sufficient.”
“Thank you, Miss Jones,” Lady Marpool said with an air of distant approval. Beckoning to a footman hovering near the sideboard, she ordered him to see that a tray was sent to Lady Arrington’s room as quickly as could be managed.
A short silence ensued as all four of them addressed themselves to their breakfasts. Lucy surreptitiously studied her companions. Portia was a beauty, a feminine version of Sebastian with thick guinea-gold curls, blue eyes and regal features. Lucy had expected her to make a match that was grand in every way, to someone wealthy and titled, of course, but also handsome and young. She had thought Portia would marry someone like Lord Selsley, not a man the same age her father would have been had he lived. Certainly not a man with three daughters grown and married—but, significantly, no living son—who had buried two wives already.
Still, as she journeyed to Gloucestershire with Aunt Arrington and Sebastian, Lucy had imagined that Lord Almont must be a man of some distinction. He would be tall, upright and silver-haired, perhaps a leading figure in the House of Lords. She could imagine Portia even preferring such a man to a younger, more frivolous gentleman. Portia had always been serious and ambitious.
But no, Lord Almont was short, plump and red-faced, with beady yet genial eyes and a rather foolish smile. He was happy and hospitable, kind and straightforward, but there was nothing clever or original about him. Had Lucy been willing to use such blunt and unkind terms for her host and a man of rank, she would have said he was a stupid man and very dull company.
He loved Portia, though. Adoration shone on his honest face every time he looked at her. Whatever his initial motive for remarrying, obviously she was far more than a broodmare to him. But it was equally clear that Portia did not reciprocate his affections. Lucy recognized her cousin’s rigid posture and carefully hidden expression of distaste well enough from having seen similar looks directed at her over the past nine years.
Portia had never been kind to Lucy. She had resented having to share her schoolroom and her governess’s attention from the first. She could not bear it when Miss Bentley had praised Lucy’s drawing or spoken kindly of her singing, and she had been fond of pulling pranks like hiding Lucy’s sketchbook and music. Though the pranks and teasing had diminished as the girls grew older, Portia had never grown kind.
So Lucy felt wonder rather than pity at Portia’s lot. Why hadn’t she drawn the eye of a man more like Lord Selsley? And what had made her decide that marrying Lord Almont was better than coming home unengaged? It was true that they could not afford the expense of another Season, and that their own neighborhood harbored few gentlemen rich or well-bred enough to please Portia. But surely it was better to marry a clever young squire or vicar or officer than a rich man one despised. Lucy recalled a proverb she had heard read in church: Better a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith. Perhaps she pitied Portia a little after all.
Lady Marpool broke the silence. “Miss Jones, I understand you went for a walk this morning.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lucy said. Lord Almont’s sister, the widow of a Devonshire earl, had lived in her brother’s household since the last marchioness had died. Even after less than a full day at the castle, Lucy already realized that Lady Marpool ruled the roost and missed nothing that happened there, even something as small as an unimportant houseguest going for a morning constitutional. Portia would have a difficult time asserting herself as mistress here unless she could persuade Lady Marpool to return to her dower house.
“Where did you choose to walk?” Lady Marpool continued. “We have fine prospects in every direction.”
“To the south, ma’am.”
“You climbed that great hill?” Lord Almont exclaimed. “You must be quite a walker, Miss Jones.”
“Thank you, sir. I had to climb the highest hill so I could admire your splendid countryside. We’ve nothing like it in Essex. And I chanced to meet two of your neighbors, Lord Selsley and his sister.”
“Good man, Selsley,” Lord Almont said between bites of bacon. “Fine horses.”
Lady Marpool sniffed. “Son of a tradesman on one side and a long line of Scotch barbarians on the other. His fortune still reeks of curry.”
“Curry, ma’am?”
“Yes, girl, curry. His father was no one in particular, merely the son of a curate. He grew up in a village not ten miles from here, but was quite beneath our notice. Then he went out to In
dia, got rich, somehow got himself made viscount, came home and built that garish monstrosity in the next valley.”
Lucy hid a smile. Doubtless Lady Marpool had been displeased to see a house almost as large as Almont Castle built so near at hand.
“Next he had to go and marry one of those dreadful Dunmalcolm Gordons.” The lines on Lady Marpool’s face seemed to deepen with her grimace of distaste.
“Dreadful, ma’am?” Lucy asked. Her own temerity in questioning her hostess startled her, but she could hardly imagine anyone less dreadful than Lord Selsley of the blue eyes and beautiful horses.
“I think far too much tolerance has been shown to the old Jacobite families.” Lady Marpool waved her fork in the air, and Lucy braced herself for a tirade. “To my mind, any family who supported the Pretender ought to have been stripped of their lands and transported, if not worse. Barbarians! We’ve too many Scots in the government and the military. I don’t think they’re to be trusted.”
In her eagerness to look anywhere but at Lady Marpool, Lucy met Portia’s eyes. For once united, they exchanged tight, surprised looks. Bonnie Prince Charlie’s rising had been over sixty years ago. Even if Lord Selsley had a rebel for a grandfather, what did that matter? No one worried about Jacobites now, when they had Bonaparte as a far more present and dangerous threat.
Naturally, Lady Marpool noticed. “You young ladies think nothing that happened before you were born is of any importance. I remember the rising. I was only a child, but I remember.”
“Now, now, Augusta,” Lord Almont said. “Whatever his father was, the current earl is as loyal to the Crown as I am myself. Since they’re visiting Selsley along with their niece, I hope you won’t call them barbarians in our own drawing room tonight.”
Lucy blinked. Apparently Lord Almont had a spine after all.
Lady Marpool shook her head. “Nabob Selsley could have married a local girl, but those ramshackle Gordons saw him, decided his fortune was just the thing to shore up theirs and threw their spinster daughter at him. So now we must endure the children of that union—indecently rich and too wild by half.”
A Marriage of Inconvenience Page 3