Loving Lady Marcia

by Kieran Kramer

  “Well, then.” She pulled her bonnet back up by the strings and tied it under her chin. Her guard was well back in place. “I shall see you tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Yes. I look forward to it.” He left a lingering kiss on her hand before stepping away and tipping his hat to her in farewell.

  It was a good few seconds before he heard her grapple with the gate again and pull it shut behind her.

  At the sound, he couldn’t resist letting his mouth curve up. If she were still thinking about Finn, then Duncan was an Arabian prince. Or a chimney sweep. Or anything but who he was right now—a man who wanted Lady Marcia Sherwood as much as he wanted air to breathe.

  Chapter Twelve

  The case clock in the entrance hall had just struck one in the afternoon, and it was Marcia’s second day of callers. Yesterday, the day after the Livingstons’ ball, had been busy enough. Busy with her first rush of callers, busy shopping, busy with kissing Lord Chadwick for the second time, and busy pretending she didn’t enjoy kissing him at all.

  Today brought a new slew of curiosity seekers because this morning’s newspaper had reported not only on Lady Ennis’s departure to Cornwall to visit Kitto Tremellyn but on certain particulars of the Livingstons’ ball that had involved Marcia. There was also an updated version of the events that had brought her to London.

  Of course, that update, while cringeworthy, was wholly inaccurate: “Marquess’s Daughter Not Chucked from School, After All.”

  But it served Marcia’s purposes well.

  Or so she thought.

  “You’ll cut ties with that woman,” Daddy said at breakfast. “I don’t trust her.” He thrust a finger at the newspaper article. “She did chuck you, and very firmly. What’s this about your being a roving ambassador?”

  “Just what it means, Daddy. I’ll be a friend to the school here in London, recruiting new students.”

  “Why, dear?” Mama had a worried pucker on her forehead.

  “So Lady Ennis won’t close the school,” Marcia said. “Firing me was only the beginning. She intended to shut everything down until I changed her mind the night before last.”

  “The night before last?” Daddy asked her. “She wasn’t at the card party.”

  Marcia bit her thumb. “I—I went to the Livingstons’ ball instead of going home.”

  “You did?” Daddy thundered.

  Marcia nodded meekly.

  “Marcia,” Mama said softly. “I’m disappointed in you.”

  Daddy glared at her. “I’ve a mind to send you to your room without any supper, except that it’s breakfast. What am I to do with you?”

  She winced. “I’m so sorry. But it had to be done. And thank goodness I saw her because now we have a chance to keep the school open.”

  “Oh, no,” Daddy chortled, his face red. “Not we, missy. You’re home to find a husband.”

  “Daddy.”

  “And the sooner, the better,” he said. “Look at you, flagrantly disobeying my rules and those of the society in which you live. Ladies don’t sneak off to balls!”

  She slumped.

  “You need to find a husband,” Daddy said. “Am I right, Caroline?”

  “Yes, my lord,” Mama said airily.

  Daddy threw down his fork on his plate. “Don’t be cheeky with me, wife. I’ve a right to be angry.”

  “Of course you do,” Mama said. “But Marcia was only trying to help the school. Let’s forgive her this time, shall we? She’s a headmistress, remember. She’s gotten used to doing things her way.”

  Daddy’s expression softened a tad. “All right then. But you get yourself busy finding a husband, missy.”

  “I—I’ll try, Daddy.”

  Mama blew him a kiss.

  Marcia saw him soften even more. Which was a good thing. “Could I ask you a favor, please, Daddy?”

  Good heavens. He was making eyes at Mama now. “What is it?” he said without taking his eyes off his wife.

  “I need an introduction to the Duke of Beauchamp. Could you arrange it, please? His granddaughter is who I’m after. If we can get her to Oak Hall, then—”

  Daddy scowled at Marcia again. “No, indeed. Potential husbands. That’s who you’re to seek. Not students for Oak Hall.”

  “Please, Daddy.”

  “Michael, could you?” Mama asked him gently.

  He stood, annoyance written all over his face. “I don’t even know the man,” he pronounced reluctantly, “but if you give me several weeks, I might be able to arrange something.”

  “Oh, thank you, Daddy!”

  “Until then,” he said, “you look for that husband.”

  Marcia smiled. “I will. I promise.” Sort of, she added in her head. Meaning, she’d go through the motions. It was the least she could do.

  “Pah,” said Daddy. “You women always get your way.”

  Mama and Marcia both stood and kissed his cheeks at the same time to restore him to good humor before he left for his office at Whitehall.

  Marcia had barely recovered from that episode when they received an early influx of callers.

  “Good morning, everyone,” Janice said to their visitors. She looked just as a debutante should in her pale yellow and white muslin frock with dainty capped sleeves.

  “It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?” Marcia, garbed in a more sophisticated navy blue stripe, looked round at everyone and smiled. She didn’t recognize a single soul as a close friend. But she did see the Jensen sisters, the ones who’d so enjoyed the trifle at the Davises’ card party.

  Mama made all the appropriate introductions.

  One older woman, Lady Thornton, held up her quizzing glass. “It was in the paper this morning that you’re back for good,” she said to Marcia, “and that all the flurry of gossip about how you’d been dismissed out-of-hand from your job is horribly wrong.”

  Marcia did her best to maintain a calm, pleasant demeanor. “Yes, it is wrong,” she lied, and didn’t feel a bit guilty. Oak Hall’s future was at stake.

  “I don’t understand why you ever went to work in the first place,” Lady Thornton went on. “I told your mother it was a waste of a good debutante. Teaching and becoming a headmistress seems like folly to me when you have a marquess for a father.”

  There were murmurs of agreement all around, except for one young man in a canary-yellow waistcoat.

  He cleared his throat. “I must disagree. Lady Ennis was quoted as saying that Lady Marcia was the most beloved headmistress the school had ever had and that everyone would miss her deeply.”

  Thank God for that young man.

  Of course, Lady Ennis’s motive for speaking so highly of her had had nothing to do with kindness and everything to do with self-interest.

  “The viscountess also said that the noblest service Lady Marcia could offer was to take on the role of roving ambassador for Oak Hall,” one of the Jensen sisters remarked.

  “My goodness, what an honor,” said a matron with red cheeks and three feathers in her hair.

  “I’m in London to do my duty by my family,” Marcia said. “If I can serve as a diplomat for the school in my spare time, what’s the harm?”

  “Indeed, what’s the harm?” at least five people echoed after her.

  “So Lord Chadwick is a family friend?” asked one woman.

  “And his brother, Mr. Lattimore, is as well?” asked another in innocent tones.

  “Yes,” Marcia replied, and sipped her tea. She’d give no further details.

  “I hear they’re both mad for you,” said Lady Thornton. “The papers claim each brother paid you assiduous attention at the Livingstons’ ball.”

  Marcia reddened. “I wouldn’t know if they’re … mad for me. As for assiduous attention, I would hardly call it that.” She tried to suppress the memory of Lord Chadwick’s kissing her that night. And the way Finn had whispered warmly in her ear, his mouth almost tickling hers.

  “They quarreled over her,” someone else said. “At least that wo
uld explain Mr. Lattimore’s swollen jaw, split lip, and drunken claims at the ball that Lord Chadwick was jealous of him.”

  “There was a while there when no one knew where Lady Marcia was,” a joker of a Corinthian said. “Or Lord Chadwick.”

  “Don’t believe everything you read in the papers,” Lady Brady said in faint tones.

  “Indeed.” Marcia glared at him, her palms sweating profusely.

  “Then why did Lord Chadwick pay an extended call on the Sherwood household the day after the ball?” asked another woman.

  “If you’re asking whether she’s caught in a love triangle with Lord Chadwick and Mr. Lattimore, she’s not,” said Janice hotly.

  Marcia threw her a grateful smile. Her sister was always rather direct.

  The room fell into silence, everyone apparently disappointed.

  But Marcia couldn’t care. Her head swirled with thoughts of the drive she would take that day in the park with Lord Chadwick. She resisted dwelling on his kisses and how they’d made her feel: wanton, quite depraved, actually.

  She’d never felt that way with Finn. She’d felt in love.

  It was as if she were ill. Against her will, she kept imagining what would have happened if she and Lord Chadwick hadn’t been in a rhododendron bush by her parents’ house or a cramped sitting room filled with flowers off the Livingstons’ ballroom. What would have happened if they’d had complete privacy with no chance of being discovered while they were kissing?

  “Lady Marcia?”

  She looked up from her perch on the sofa.

  It was Finn. The sparkling chandelier threw little lights all over him. Almost everyone stared avidly at the two of them, including Janice. Mama and the Jensen sisters were the exception. As usual, Mama was her serene self, gently cutting up some strawberries for an elderly baroness who apparently preferred them that way. The Jensen sisters were loudly asking for a pot of jam so they might slather some on their toast.

  “Mr. Lattimore.” Marcia inclined her head. “How good to see you.”

  And it was.

  His splendid good looks weren’t even marred by the slight cut apparent on his lower lip. His jaw was no longer swollen. Or if it was, the height of his collar and the folds of his neck cloth disguised any remaining swelling.

  He bent low and raised her hand to his lips. “Now my day is complete,” he said simply, and took a seat that someone’s godmother vacated just so he could be close to Lady Marcia.

  There were discreet sighs all around the room.

  The small talk had been strained and dull before he’d arrived, but within seconds, he had the room laughing. The next quarter of an hour flew by.

  Marcia was still chuckling at his last remark—he’d been poking fun at his own fondness for pork pies—when he leaned forward and said earnestly to her mother, “My dear Lady Brady, I’ve come to ask if Lady Marcia—and her sister Janice—can be spared this afternoon.”

  “How so?” asked Mama, her expression perfectly polite, which meant that she was just the right amount of friendly and warm—so that no one would feel slighted—but proper, too, so no one would ever dare push their luck.

  “It’s been years since I’ve gone to Astley’s Amphitheatre,” he said.

  There was a murmuring of approval as the circus was well-known and a favorite among Londoners.

  “I have an old friend who said he can get us front row seats,” Finn went on, “and afterward, a personal tour in which Lady Marcia and Lady Janice will be allowed to pet all the horses on their noses.”

  Everyone looked about themselves, their mouths agape, as if this trip to Astley’s were the most special outing a person could ever arrange.

  “They’re like velvet, those noses,” one trembling old viscountess said.

  The crowd nodded their heads as if she’d made an amazing pronouncement. Everyone but Marcia. In her head was an image of a leering horse with huge teeth. She’d always hated walking near the front of a horse, ever since she was a little girl and one had nipped her on the shoulder.

  “I’d love to go, Mama, if it’s all right with you,” said Janice. She beamed at Marcia, assuming, no doubt, that she’d be ecstatic, as well.

  “It’s perfectly fine if Marcia’s schedule allows it.” Lady Brady looked at her for her answer.

  Marcia couldn’t see in Mama’s eyes how she felt about Finn or the idea of going to Astley’s.

  Mama might be demanding that she enter the social whirl to find a husband, but at least she was giving Marcia a fair amount of leeway to enter it her own way, which she appreciated very much.

  She was about to say no—she had business to attend to, after all, imperative business with Lord Chadwick concerning the Duke of Beauchamp and Oak Hall—when she looked at Finn in his chair. He’d a cane propped up in front of him between his spread-eagled thighs. His fists were bunched on top of that cane and his two arms, straining with muscles, extended over it. He dwarfed the walking stick, looked masterful and careless all at once in possession of it.

  With stunning clarity, Marcia remembered being sheltered by those same thighs, how intimate she and Finn had been, how important he’d been to her … and how little she really knew of men, despite their brief romance.

  That youthful interlude, when it was still a heady thing, had been a mere taste, she suspected, of what romance could really be.

  But she’d sworn it off.

  Romance.

  Love.

  Passion.

  For good reason. Why give her heart to any respectable young man when her love was sure to be spurned once he knew of her past?

  But now, looking at Finn, she thought, Loose ends.

  He was a loose end she’d never been allowed to tie up.

  Thanks to the Earl of Chadwick.

  “Y-yes, Mama.” She was vastly aware of Finn’s bristling masculinity, emanating from him in waves. “I can go.”

  Finn grinned at her, and her heart lifted. She was stupid to be afraid of horses and their great, gawping mouths. And one small outing to Astley’s in Finn’s company didn’t mean she would be hurt again. She’d control the situation, which was something she’d had no idea how to do when she was younger.

  At that point, the room seemed unable to bear any more tension. Their guests were also on the point of overstaying their welcome. But Mama enforced the rules of polite behavior so lightly, no one even guessed they were being thrown out a few minutes later.

  Finn was the last visitor to go. He had Janice laughing about the stale cakes and weak lemonade at Almack’s. The two of them ranked the hostesses in order of their likability, Lady Cowper being the clear favorite and Lady Jersey the least.

  It made Marcia happy to see them chatting lightly together. Finn was obviously trying his best to be good to her family, and Janice, beautiful and sought after as she was, still seemed a trifle unsure of her own worth. Having a young man as charming as Finn pay such attention to her—especially sharing moments of merriment with her—could only help her confidence.

  At the front door, he kissed both Mama’s and Janice’s hands with the proper respect and admiration, a certain amount of harmless flirting in his tone. But when he came to Marcia’s hand, he lingered before he kissed it, his face serious, his voice mute.

  Mama backed discreetly away and then disappeared. Janice did, too.

  After Finn gently pressed his warm lips to Marcia’s knuckles, which didn’t make her heart flutter in the least—how could it with Burbank lurking like a ghostly black presence in the corner?—he looked deeply into her eyes. “I’m so glad I’ll see you later today.”

  He should win the blue ribbon for Earnest, Endearing Young Man, Marcia thought, and she meant it. And then she thought of another one he should win: Epitome of Masculine Charm. And then, Best Face and Hair.

  He waited for her response.

  “I look forward to Astley’s, as well,” she said. “Does your brother know we’re going?”

  Finn looked reproachfully at
her. “Why? Do you want him to go with us?”

  She laughed. “The party as it stands is perfectly agreeable.”

  He smiled sweetly as he bowed himself out. Then she shut the door behind him before Burbank even had a chance to get near it, after which she ran quickly upstairs.

  She was so excited! She didn’t even feel guilt that she’d put off discussing with Lord Chadwick the matter of Lord Beauchamp and saving the school. Half a day’s delay so she could go to Astley’s this afternoon would make no difference at all to anyone.

  She could do both. And why shouldn’t she?

  At her desk, just as she sat down to write a note to Lord Chadwick, Gregory walked by her bedchamber door.

  “Gregory!” she called to him, replacing her quill in the inkpot.

  He came back. “Yes?”

  He was an excellent confidant. “Do you think it matters that I’m about to cancel an outing with Lord Chadwick … to go to Astley’s with Mr. Lattimore?”

  Gregory rubbed his jaw. “It depends how skillfully you resolve the conflict.” He sent her a sympathetic grin. “The social whirl can be complicated, can it not?”

  “Yes.” She bit her lip, glad that he understood. “I never really wanted to say yes to Lord Chadwick anyway, and we’re only driving in the park. Besides, I’ve already told Mr. Lattimore yes.”

  “Then keep it vague. Tell the earl you have an unexpected matter to attend to. The fewer details you supply, the less likely you are to get into trouble or hurt someone’s feelings. That’s what I do.”

  “Excellent advice.” She nodded and reached for her quill.

  “Marcia?”

  “Yes?” She heard a bit of reluctance in Gregory’s voice and halted her hand on the quill.

  “Don’t you enjoy Lord Chadwick’s company?” Gregory’s Irish blue eyes registered curiosity. “I rather think he’s a stand-up fellow. I don’t know much about his brother. We’re the same age, but he was out of the country for years, and before that he was only at Oxford long enough to get sent down several times.”