She released their hands at last, after looking earnestly at them each in turn and went dashing off to rejoin her new friend.
"Miss Thompson," Lady Connaught said "perhaps you can understand why Lord Staunton is in desperate need of your services—if, that is, your school is sufficiently strict with girls who are difficult."
The lady's interest in her was explained. Eleanor was the one who was to take the Earl of Staunton's precocious daughter off his hands so that Miss Everly as his new wife would not be troubled by her. No doubt there were other plans forming for Robert's future. Oh, it was none of her business, Eleanor thought as they moved onward. Except that she was being drawn into the scheme, which might just possibly be the best option for Georgette anyway if her father really did marry Miss Everly. Oh, was he mad?
"I would not describe Georgette as difficult, ma'am," the Earl of Staunton said, "only as having a greater than usual exuberance of spirit and an insatiable curiosity about the world around her."
"Almost all girls are difficult," Eleanor said, drawing his reproachful glance her way. "Growing up is difficult. At my school I always find myself more concerned about the girls who are not difficult. I try to discover what is wrong with them. As for strictness, well, it is a word that can be defined many ways. We do try, my teachers and I, to keep harsh punishments to a minimum, experience having taught us that they do not often have any permanent effect for the good. On the other hand, for our own peace of mind and for the wellbeing of our girls, we cannot allow anarchy. Teaching is difficult and perhaps one of the most enjoyable and rewarding of careers."
The walk did not last long. Neither Lady Connaught nor her daughter seemed to find her worth knowing after all, Eleanor thought with some amusement—or with what would have been amusement if she had not been feeling half sick with apprehension for those poor children.
And if she had not wanted to shake their papa until his teeth rattled.
Chapter 5
* * *
For his children's sake he was glad he had come, Michael decided after the first week of the house party. They were having the time of their lives. Georgette had become firm friends with Lizzie and Becky, Lord Aidan Bedwyn's adopted daughter, and a few of the other older girls. And she was free to pursue those friendships and be a carefree child of ten, for Robert did not need her constant protection. Oh, he still ran for cover if any adult or older child showed signs of singling him out for attention, but he had gathered about him a small circle of younger children who looked upon him as a leader, and he frolicked all day long with them. Sometimes, though, he needed an adult to observe some feat he was about to perform—floating on the lake without anyone holding him, for example—or to look at something he had found—a ladybird cupped in his palms, perhaps—and then he called out to Miss Thompson as well as to his papa. Once, when everyone was returning from a picnic after a few hours of vigorous play at the far side of the lake and he was tired, Robert took her hand almost absently, it seemed, and walked all the way back to the house with her, just as he might have done with his mother, had she lived.
Michael might have been enjoying the house party with unalloyed pleasure on his own account too if it were not for one fact. The house was comfortable, the park surrounding it spacious, the weather perfect, the company congenial, the activities varied. He had always considered the Bedwyns to be a haughty family, aloof and formidable, even cold. But when thrown into their company as he had been during the past week, he had discovered their more human side and actually liked them. They had forceful personalities and boundless energy, but they all, with the possible exception of Bewcastle himself, had a strong sense of fun too. They all appeared to have contracted happy marriages and adored their children and one another's—and the children of all the other guests too. And even Bewcastle, Michael was interested to discover, was deeply involved in a love match with his unlikely duchess and gazed upon their children in unguarded moments with a certain light in his silver eyes that proclaimed his love for them.
The one fact that marred Michael's pleasure was that he must have given the inadvertent impression in London that he was formally courting Miss Everly. She and her mother appeared to have been invited here upon the strength of that impression since he could not fathom any other reason why they were here. And they were being seen as a couple. Several times another guest had vacated the seat next to him in order to make room for Miss Everly or had stood aside outdoors to allow her to take his arm. Good manners prevented him from spurning her—but why should he anyway? He had liked her early in the Season, had singled her out for some attention, though no more than he had done with a few other young ladies. But he very much feared he was being maneuvered into making an offer he really did not wish to make.
Would he be feeling as disconcerted, he wondered, if he had not met Miss Thompson and if it had not become apparent to him that she was far more suited to caring for his children than a young chit not long out of the schoolroom and still very much under the thumb of a domineering and ambitious mother? And if it had not occurred to him that even apart from his children's needs he might be more comfortable with a woman closer to him in age?
He was thinking altogether too often about Eleanor Thompson. He found himself looking about for her during the day and feeling disappointed if he could not see her and far too aware of her when he could. It was entirely his own doing. She did absolutely nothing to attract his attention or seek him out. He had exchanged scarcely a word with her since that ghastly walk by the lake a week ago. When they had spoken, it had been almost exclusively in the presence of his children, whom she treated with great kindness and patience despite her claim that she was not good with youngsters.
And there were her smiling eyes and the faint laugh lines at their corners, and her quiet, dignified demeanor and understated elegance and… Dash it all, he liked her, yet he felt guilty whenever he felt drawn to seek out her company, as though he were being unfaithful to Miss Everly—a thoroughly ridiculous thought. He had not in any way committed himself to the girl. He had not invited her here. And he deeply resented what Lady Connaught had tried to do that afternoon when she had invited first him and then Miss Thompson to walk with them. He was furious at the memory of her telling Georgette that Annette would have been ashamed of her.
The matter came to a crisis one afternoon when almost everyone was gathered out on the wide lawn to the west of the house, some sitting, others strolling, a large group playing a spirited game of cricket. The duchess was playing a circle game with an army of toddlers, something that involved joined hands and a lot of chanting and falling down with shrieks of merriment. Michael had been talking for a while with Lord Rannulf Bedwyn and the Countess of Rosthorn, his sister, and with Kit Butler, Viscount Ravensberg, an acquaintance of his, and Kit's wife, who had come over with their children from Alvesley, the neighboring estate. He left them in order to watch Robert, who was on one of the cricket teams with two of his young friends. Miss Thompson was strolling some distance away with Bewcastle. He looked around for Georgette. She was not with either Lizzie or Becky. Becky was up to bat at cricket and Lizzie was sitting on the grass close to her mother and father, rocking her sleeping baby brother in her arms.
And then he spotted her. She was seated cross-legged—cross-legged, Georgette?—on the grass looking up at Lady Connaught and Miss Everly, who occupied two of the comfortable chairs that had been carried from the house. His first reaction was alarm for her, but she did not look either trapped or sullen. Nor was she silently listening. She was talking animatedly and looking rather pleased with herself. What the devil? He hurried in their direction.
"Yes," she was saying, "she is going to be our new mama, and Robbie and I can hardly wait. We love her a whole heap."
A whole heap?
"Indeed?" Lady Connaught injected a world of meaning into the one word. "And are we to expect a betrothal announcement any time soon?"
"Oh," Georgette said, smiling sunnily, "he has not ask
ed her yet. He is waiting for the right moment. But it is just a matter of—" But she had spotted him, and what she had been about to say went forever unspoken. She greeted him with that wide smile of hers in recognition of the fact that she knew she was in Big Trouble. "Oh, there you are, Papa."
"Here I am," he agreed. "And poor Nurse would need a heavy dose of smelling salts if she were to see you sitting that way for the whole world to see."
"Oh, not the whole world, Papa," she said, scrambling nevertheless to her feet and smoothing out her dress. "I must go and find Lizzie. Oh, there she is with the baby. I shall go and hold him for a while. Her mama and papa will let me." And off she went, leaving disaster behind her—or a colossal embarrassment at the very least.
"I understand," Lady Connaught said with awful civility while her daughter looked down at her hands in her lap and smoothed out the glove on one hand with the fingers of the other, "that congratulations are soon to be in order, Lord Staunton."
He stood looking down at them, his hands clasped at his back. They were a little apart from everyone else, having had their chairs moved into the shade of an old oak tree. They always seemed to be a little apart from everyone else.
"I heard only the tail end of what my daughter had to say," he said. "I would be interested to know the identity of the new mama she believes she is about to have." Though he suspected he knew the answer.
"Miss Eleanor Thompson," she said, "who has acquired ideas above her station, even if her sister was clever enough to reel in a duke for herself."
"I believe, ma'am," he said, "Miss Thompson would be as surprised to hear the news as I am."
She looked hard at him while Miss Everly changed hands to smooth out the other glove. "Perhaps, Lord Staunton," Lady Connaught said, "it is time for some announcement to be made. Or perhaps it is in your nature to procrastinate. You still seem not to have made up your mind to send your daughter to a school where her shocking behavior will be taken in hand before it is too late. And you still have not taken the step the whole of the beau monde has been expecting any time since Easter. I am a patient woman, but where my daughter is concerned my patience has its limits."
And Michael knew in a flash that his conscience was clear. Yes, he had singled out Miss Everly during the Season, but never to such a marked degree that his interest would be generally seen as a courtship. Several times when they had been in the same theater or picnic party it had been none of his doing, just as the fact that they were together here had had nothing to do with him. He had admired the young lady, he had even considered her as a possible wife, but he had never come even close to declaring himself or compromising her. He had never been alone with her and had never so much as kissed the back of her hand if memory served him correctly. Rather, he had been pursued, persistently and relentlessly. He glanced at Miss Everly, who was looking off toward the cricket game, an expression of faint scorn on her face.
"Miss Everly is fortunate to have a parent so devoted to her wellbeing, ma'am," he said. "As a parent myself I can well understand. Giving due consideration to decisions that will affect the whole of the future of one's child is not procrastination in my vocabulary, however. My dearest wish is to do the right thing for the future happiness of both my children, but it is not always easy to know just what that right thing is. Until I do know, I will not act. As for any expectations the ton may have of me, ma'am, I do not know what they might be and do not normally allow my actions to be dictated by others anyway. I am a widower with two children, and those children's happiness must always come first with me, even before my own inclination if there should ever be a conflict. Fortunately, I do not believe that has happened yet."
"I believe, Lord Staunton," Lady Connaught said, "you have made yourself perfectly clear. My daughter has been much in demand this year. After this house party is over, we will be on our way to that of the Marchioness of Borgland. Her son the marquess—his father died two years ago, you may recall—made a special request of her that we be invited. I believe it will be a more exclusive and refined gathering than this, with children—if there are any—confined very correctly to the schoolroom and the care of their nurses. We accepted the invitation here only because the Duchess of Bewcastle was insistent, but her humble origins have been apparent all week, have they not? There has been much that has bordered upon vulgarity. One can only pity the poor duke."
Robert was still in the thick of the cricket crowd, Michael saw at a quick glance, and Georgette was seated on the grass beside Lizzie, Attingsborough's baby, now awake, on her lap. He had a fistful of her hair in his chubby hand and she was grimacing and laughing. Miss Thompson and Bewcastle were back from their walk and were making directly this way. Michael stood aside to include them in the group.
"Ma'am, Miss Everly," Bewcastle said, addressing both ladies, "it has ever been my observation that young children are able to express their exuberance only in shrill shrieks and squeals. It is remarkably gracious of you to have come out here with the rest of the company to have your ears murdered. Have you attempted the wilderness walk yet? It is not as arduous as it may look, and it offers a number of very pleasing prospects and a measure of peace and quiet. It would be my pleasure to show it to you."
Bewcastle never joined in play, Michael had noticed during the week, as his brothers and sisters all did on occasion, but he was ever the perfect host, unerringly singling out for attention any guest who was for some reason not part of a larger group. Lady Connaught, clearly gratified, rose to her feet and took his arm. He offered his other to Miss Everly and they set off for the wilderness path. Miss Thompson turned away.
"Miss Thompson," Michael called after her. She stopped and turned to look at him, and he felt a sudden lifting of his spirits at the realization that a great burden had just been taken from his shoulders. "Your brother-in-law had a point, did he not?" He grimaced as someone hit the cricket ball with a loud crack, sending it high and long, and the batter's team and its supporters whistled and cheered wildly. "The noise is deafening. Would you care for a stroll about the lake?"
Perhaps she would not care for any such thing. She had just returned from a walk with Bewcastle and might be longing to sit down. She did not answer immediately. But then her lips curved into a smile.
"Yes. Thank you," she said, and he offered his arm.
* * * * *
Wulfric had been in no hurry all week to renew his interrupted conversation with Eleanor. Neither had she. It would be better to leave it, she had decided, until after the house party was over. But today, when almost everyone was settled on the west lawn enjoying the sunshine and the games and one another's company, he had suggested a stroll before leading her far enough from the company to ensure some uninterrupted conversation.
"I believe your final word was but," he said and she looked at him and laughed. "You had finished making an impassioned protestation of love for your school and everything and everyone within its walls. You had assured me that what you do matters. And then came the but a mere moment before we were interrupted. One might call you the mistress of suspense."
"Your memory is all too acute, Wulfric," she said.
"Continue where you left off, if you please," he said. "There is a certain…sadness in you, Eleanor, that is of concern to Christine and therefore to me. What is it, my dear?"
She looked sharply at him. Wulfric was not usually lavish with endearments. And was it true that Christine was concerned about her?
"I fear I must disappoint you," she said. "I fear you will think me lacking in perseverance and a knowledge of what I want of life. I fear you will think me a failure."
"And does my opinion matter to you?" he asked.
She sighed. "And Mama's opinion and Hazel's and Charles's and Christine's too," she said. "But most of all yours because you have invested in me." Also because despite herself she was a little afraid of him, as she suspected all people were except her sister.
"You had better tell me," he said.
"All t
hat I told you about my school and the teachers and the girls is true," she told him. "But…it was a mistake to take over so impulsively from Claudia when she married the Marquess of Attingsborough. There, I have said it. I do not enjoy the administration, the business, the responsibility, the…loneliness. And I have been so endlessly tired. And yes, unhappy. I made a mistake, but you believed in me and made it happen for me with your loan."
Purchasing the school was not the only mistake she had made, she feared. She had botched the whole of her adult life since Gregory's death. She had prided herself upon being the one woman who would be steadfast in her grief over the loss of the love of her life. She had lived by that decision even after the rawness of grief had passed and even its gentler melancholy aftermath. Sometimes she had had to whip up her memories. Sometimes she had not thought of him for days, even perhaps weeks at a time. Sometimes she could not remember either his face or his voice. In the meanwhile she had lost her youth, her chance to find someone else for whom she might feel an affection even if not the passion of her young love, her chance to marry and have children of her own. She had been proud of her devotion to a memory. Yet now her fight against loneliness was almost constant. Her fortieth birthday was creeping up with very little to show for all the years. And now she had fallen in love again—with a man who was probably about to marry a young lady quite unworthy of him.
"It was a gift," Wulfric said. "And I neither regret giving it nor blame you, Eleanor. Sometimes our dreams lead us in the wrong direction and it would be foolish to continue pursuing them out of sheer stubbornness or the fear of disappointing others. There are other dreams waiting to be dreamed—the right dreams, the ones that will lead to contentment."
She turned her head to look at him in some surprise. She had never heard him talk thus before.
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