Grenville 02 - Lord John's Dilemma

by G. G. Vandagriff

  Major Lambeth went straight to Miss Lindsay’s side and asked her to partner him in whist. Soon two tables were set up. Delia partnered Leticia against her sister and the major.

  He was an excellent player, as was Marianne Lindsay. Not fond of cards, Leticia was constantly forgetting which suit was trumps and made one careless discard after another. Delia maintained her temper with difficulty. She was not fond of losing. Somehow divining this, the major gave her more than one amused glance. It was a great relief when the tea tray finally arrived and playing ceased.

  While they awaited the arrival of the tea cart, Lady Grenville said, “My dear Miss Haverley, my husband says you are a great admirer of Blake and Wordsworth.”

  “Oh, yes. I am,” she said, smiling a little.

  The major immediately rose and stood before her, holding his hand to his heart. He proclaimed, She was a Phantom of delight

  When first she gleamed upon my sight;

  A lovely Apparition, sent

  To be a moment’s ornament …

  His eyes were full of merriment, and she knew without doubt that he referred to her dance among the daisies. She very much wanted to quote back the verses from “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” but knew it would be putting herself forward in a way that Lady Lindsay would strongly condemn.

  Instead, she initiated a general conversation about Wordsworth and Blake and the relative merits of each. Unfortunately, none of the Lindsays joined the conversation which ended being between Delia and the Grenvilles.

  Evaluating it later from her narrow bed in the attic, Delia appreciated the impulse that had caused Lady Grenville to include her, but decided that if such an invitation were to come again, it might be prudent to decline. She had very nearly been caught out twice by Lady Anabella.

  This caused her to wonder how long she must keep up this charade. She was only just twenty, and unless she married, which seemed very unlikely in the circumstances, she would not have independence from her uncle nor would she obtain her fortune until she was twenty-five. Five years!

  The feelings which had caused her to flee from her uncle had been so strong, and her need of employment so great, that she had been over the moon about Lady Lindsay’s offer to be governess to her girls. Now she had only been here a matter of weeks, and while her situation could have been far worse, she was already wondering if it would not have been a better idea to live with her old nanny in Nottinghamshire. Of course, that would be the first place her uncle would have sought her.

  And she would have missed knowing Major Lambeth. Lying on her side on her lumpy bed, she fantasized about telling him her true identity. About discussing Wordsworth and Blake in more detail. About politics and life in the country. Sighing heavily, she realized she was just as bad as Marianne Lindsay—caught up in dreams about the man who had rescued her. Twice.

  She remembered his mischievously twinkling blue eyes as he had called her “Sprite” that evening. His private words had warmed her heart. Surely, he was aware that she was no ordinary governess.

  Getting out of bed finally, she went to her small window and looked out at the clear night with its moon hanging to the south—the direction of Grenville Manor. It was absolutely futile for her to be thinking these thoughts. The major was meant for Miss Lindsay, and he would never jilt her for the governess.

  { 11 }

  “There is something very peculiar about that governess,” said Anabella to her brother when the guests had gone. “She is hiding something. I doubt she is from Kent, and that gown of hers was cut by a Parisian modiste, I am nearly certain.”

  “To be sure,” said John. “I have made it my mission to rumble her lay.”

  “You and your thieves’ cant! You must not cost her her job, John. She may be a damsel in distress.”

  “Leticia is of the opinion that she is an heiress on the run from an unsavory guardian.”

  “Leticia has always been the imaginative one in that family. Another thing,” Anabella said as she put the cards away in the breakfront. “Lady Lindsay is trying very hard to bring you up to scratch.”

  “I can hire a manager to see to the harvest, John, while you fix your interests with Miss Lindsay in London,” said his brother. “That is what I have done in the past.”

  “But I mean to do the job and to begin as soon as possible. If Miss Lindsay is to marry me, it is important that she knows I will be fixed in the country for the spring planting and the fall harvest. Unless she wishes to go on her own, there will be no Seasons in Town.”

  “That is very harsh, John,” said Anabella. “Every young woman desires to be courted in Town, with all the balls and routs and Venetian breakfasts to be had. She wants gowns and bonnets.”

  John received this information with misgiving. “Felicity, is this true? Do you think Marianne Lindsay does not want to settle in the country?”

  “Maybe she will, at last, John. But I think the girl is still young. She likes the dash of London.”

  “I do not wish to offer for a woman who will spend her life pining for London,” he said. “I want her to be happy in the country, for that is where we will make our home.”

  Anabella pursed her lips in thought. “The girl is a town person, but torn because she believes herself to be meant to marry you.”

  “Perhaps she can settle her mind in the next few weeks before she is to leave,” John said.

  Felicity ventured, “Miss Lindsay is used to having her way, I believe. She wishes to have her cake and eat it, too. I believe she means to tempt you to take up Town life.”

  “But I have no fortune!” John exclaimed.

  “She does, and it will be yours,” his brother said. “You will be able to live the life you enjoy in the country in the guise of a landowner and a gentleman of leisure in town during the Season.”

  A grey shroud draped itself over John’s ideas for the future, and his melancholy crept upon him. “No offense toward you, Alex, but that life would be abhorrent to me.” So saying, he left the others and climbed the stairs to his rooms.

  Pacing before the window, which remained open to the night, he smelled the summer fragrances of Felicity’s roses and the hay ripening in the fields. He heard the nightingale in the nearby ancient oak and the croak of the frogs on the lake. The air, so clean and caressing, free of coal smoke and the smell of too much humanity, blew over his bare chest as he pulled off his evening wear. He savored the country. He had given his service to his King. Now he wished to settle and commune with the land he had fought for.

  The sight of Miss Haverley waltzing through the yellow daisies returned to him. It had lifted his heart, which had been lost in the abyss of combat—noise, death, dirt. For him, the country was simplicity. Soil for the growth of happiness—a family. A wife to cherish as they wedded themselves to one another and to life’s seasons, raising children who would not know want or greediness. Nature would be their teacher.

  Miss Lindsay would be the perfect hostess. She was certainly lovely. But he did not know yet if she could dance in the daisies. If she could love the country for all the reasons he did, or even if she could love it at all. He really knew very little about whether they would be compatible in their views of life. He was beginning to doubt it.

  The next day came an item of news that disordered all his thoughts and upset his simple plans.

  Dear Nephew,

  I write you this letter with considerable sorrow to tell you that your cousin and my heir, Thomas, has died of the wounds he received at Waterloo. I will not horrify you with the particulars, for his passing was very grim, indeed.

  Your father was the eldest son, but I received my estate in Nottinghamshire through my wife, who inherited it from a bachelor uncle who was in Trade. As such, it is not entailed. Therefore, I am making you my heir rather than your brother, who already has the Grenville Estate. Since you have visited my estate in Nottinghamshire, you know it to be grand. I should like for you to pay me an extended visit, so that you may see what will one
day be yours. In my present grief, I am anxious to see your face again.

  Your loving Uncle,

  Cosgrove

  Thomas dead. John could not take it in. His cousin had been the best of good fellows—fine company, happy, and forthright. At one point, they had even served together. But John had not even been aware that he had been wounded in this last battle.

  And now Thomas’s inheritance was to be left to him. Though he had never expected it, he was to be a man of property. A completely different life than he had imagined as a second son. He was to become part of the gentry establishment whether he liked it or not.

  The Nottinghamshire property was not far from the Grenville estate. He had visited there as a boy. It was vast. According to Alex, their uncle had made a pair with their father, like him always preferring Town. Was the man in debt as his father had been? Would he need to do as Alex had done and marry money in order to rescue the tenants, the land, and the house?

  These questions weighted the bequest with uncertainties. Perhaps Alex would know. He found his brother in his library, attending to his correspondence.

  “Our cousin Thomas has died,” he said heavily. “Wounds from Waterloo.”

  Alex looked up, his brow lowered. “That is grave news indeed. I am sorry to hear it.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Is that a letter from Uncle Cosgrove?”

  “Yes. Add to the shock of Thomas’s death the fact that I am now Uncle’s heir.”

  His brother’s face was still with surprise, and then creased into a big smile. He came to his feet and offered John a hearty handshake and back slap. “It is a sorry way to come into such an inheritance, but congratulations, John! You will now have your own estate, and not far from this one, either.”

  “Thank you. I am staggered, needless to say. But have you any idea of its condition? Will it be as badly left as this one was?”

  “That I cannot tell you. Uncle Cosgrove and Father were quite the pair. As you know, they preferred Town and spent little time in the country.”

  “He has invited me to visit him. The poor man is quite overcome by Thomas’s passing.”

  “Then you must go, of course.”

  “Yes. After my trip to London.” John began pacing the room. “This casts a new light on everything. Providing the estate is in decent shape, I will have my own income and will not be dependent upon you.”

  “I could not be happier for you, though now I shall have to find an estate agent.”

  John tried to express the confusion that he felt. “I do not know exactly why I am not in complete alt. Possibly because I was looking forward to raising my children alongside Jack and Henry and the twins. Sharing with them the happiness you have found in family life.”

  “We shall be near enough.”

  “And I wonder how Miss Lindsay would feel about an estate in Nottinghamshire,” he said, flinging himself into a chair.

  “Don’t forget, Lord Lindsay is counting on you to inherit his property through her. Instead of being a property-poor second son, you would have two estates,” said Alex. “Felicity will be so glad for you. Anabella, too.”

  “If Uncle’s estate is in bad repair, I shall have to come up with the money to overhaul it somehow.”

  “You are purposely looking at the possible deficits of the situation, John. Miss Lindsay comes with a large dowry, as well as the property,” his brother said.

  John reflected to himself that he had never intended to marry for money. The attraction of Miss Lindsay had always been the proximity to Alex’s family. Despite her plans to go to London for the Little Season, he was quite certain both she and her parents were expecting an offer from him. With some surprise, he realized that he was less eager to make that offer now that he might be living in Nottinghamshire.

  “I guess all my plans must remain suspended until I take stock of Uncle’s property.”

  John went to stand before the window and looked out over Felicity’s garden, which he had grown to love. It was nigh impossible to believe that he should have his own estate, complete with gardens and tenants and the elegant Tudor hall he remembered. “I shall, of course, return here to oversee the harvest. In fact, there is no reason for me to remove to Nottinghamshire at the present time unless our uncle needs me.”

  “With his proclivities, it might be in your best interests to serve as his estate agent rather than mine,” Alex observed.

  “You are probably right. However, you are my family, and we have just become reunited for the first sizable block of time in years.” He turned and looked squarely at his brother. “The fact is, Alex, your family is seeing me through a difficult period. Spending time with you is the only thing that seems to assure me that the future has anything good to offer.”

  “I have suspected that you are suffering from melancholia,” Alex said, his voice low and gentle. “When did it begin to manifest?”

  “It has been my dread companion these last four years. It may remain with me forever.”

  “Uncle may live at least ten more years. He is sixty-three. Two years younger than Father,” Alex stood and put a hand on his brother’s arm with unwonted gentleness. “You are welcome to make your home here with us for as long as you like. I am more than glad that it is having a healing influence upon you. Our family and every other one in England owe you a great debt for your service.”

  “Felicity is a wonderful woman, Alex. Would that I could find such an incomparable lady.”

  “Miss Lindsay?”

  John looked out at the garden again and tried to picture Marianne Lindsay as content as Felicity in the nurture of her family and surroundings. He could not. And Felicity had additional qualities the other woman did not possess—an original mind, a quantity of compassion, a lively interest in the world around her.

  A surprising thought entered John’s head. He suspected Miss Haverley of being all those things, yet he scarcely knew her. At the same time, the idea of living with Miss Lindsay as chatelaine of his Nottingham property felt completely wrong. In fact, the only context in which he could picture himself married to her was the present one. Removed from Grenville Manor and Lindsay Hall, where he would have the warmth of his brother’s family to enjoy, the woman held little allure.

  “Now that I picture her living away from this place that I love, I think not,” he said with a sigh. “And I am afraid I have given her hopes.”

  Alex said, “I agree with you on both counts. She is beautiful, but she is no Felicity. And she has nurtured hopes since she was twelve years old.”

  John sat down in the chair again, leaning forward, his elbows on his thighs, his hands linked. “A lot of things are going through my mind right now. Thinking of Miss Lindsay in Nottinghamshire is opening my eyes.” He stared at the Aubusson carpet but saw only Marianne Lindsay’s wistful face as she talked about London. “It occurs to me that I have been blind to her wishes and desires, thinking only that securing her hand would mean raising my children in these surroundings. I have been considering only myself and have been deaf to her desire for London. I thought if we lived here in the neighborhood with access to her family and mine that she would be content.”

  “John, do you love the woman?” Alex asked.

  He looked up at his brother. “I don’t know. I have never been in love, to my knowledge.”

  Alex sighed. “Do you feel that she is the only woman in the world for you? That you would do anything to bring about her happiness? It sounds to me as though you are thinking primarily of yourself.”

  His brother’s words were like a knife thrust. “I am a selfish beggar, aren’t I?”

  Alex sat back behind his desk. “I only know whereof I speak from personal experience. I was the most selfish of all men for the first five years of my marriage. True love in marriage is rare. But I wish it for you above all things.”

  He suddenly felt as though he was in a harness of guilt. “What am I to do about the woman? She and her parents expect an offer of
marriage from me.”

  “Go to London. Go to Nottinghamshire. I will take the liberty of telling the Lindsays about your inheritance. If Miss Lindsay truly thinks she might have to live buried in the country away from her family, she may finally accept one of those offers her mother is always telling us about.”

  John felt a bit of the remorse he was feeling lift. “Thank you, Alex. I will follow your advice.”

  { 12 }

  To Delia’s relief, Molly and Mariah were very glad not to be accompanying the family to London.

  “Last time we went to London, there was nothing for us to do, and we missed Nellie,” said Molly. “I’m so glad we have you as a governess so we can stay here in Lincolnshire.”

  The governess’s feelings on this matter were tarnished somewhat by a conversation with Lady Lindsay in her sitting room the afternoon following the dinner party.

  “Miss Haverley,” she began. “I am beginning to think that your background before you came to us was far grander than you have led me to believe. I will not be deceived. You are not a penniless orphan. I must insist that you tell me the truth about yourself.”

  Delia’s stomach knotted and her thoughts raced. She could not tell the truth. It would surely lead to discovery.

  “While not precisely penniless, I am an orphan,” she said. “I have no relations with whom I care to live. And I am too young to set up my own establishment. I have enjoyed living here with your family and teaching Molly and Mariah very much.”

  Lady Lindsay studied her. “Does Lord John know of your actual social status?”

  Delia was taken aback by the question. “Lord John?” she repeated.

  “I found out that it was he that insisted you be part of the company last night.” Lady Lindsay’s eyes were cold and her lips set in a straight line.

  “Oh.” Delia felt the heat of a furious blush creep into her face.

  “Have you been seeing him on the sly, Miss?”

  Her employer’s insinuations made Delia’s temper rise in an instant. “Certainly not! Whatever you may believe about me, I have been raised to be a lady. I have no secret designs on Major Lambeth, nor he on me, I am certain. I am well aware that he is courting Miss Lindsay.”