“Care to place a wager on it? I got rid of Miss Bromleigh in less than three days, did I not?”
“Miss Bromleigh had the constitution of syllabub—never have I seen an experienced governess with less spine. But you should watch your step, my dear. I believe your mother is soon to be interviewing comportment tutors, and if that doesn’t work she will send you away. To a country asylum—”
“An asylum?” Louisa whispered through suddenly bone-dry lips.
“Yes. To correct your unladylike bluestocking tendencies. She wants you settled by the end of this coming Season and nothing will dissuade her. Now, I’ve never been inside an asylum, but I’d wager there’d be no books on any topic let alone science. Or raspberry cream cakes, pots of spiced chocolate, eiderdown quilts and Aubusson carpets. So if I were you I’d be submitting to the tutor option and minding him or her well and proper.”
Dear God.
Horror chilled Louisa to the bone, like being doused with a bucket of ice water.
Leaping from the window seat she hugged her arms around herself and began to pace the lavishly appointed blue and gold antechamber. She’d actually once overheard an elderly woman talking about her nephew’s experiences in an asylum. The man, a younger son of a minor aristocratic family, had been sent away after he returned from the Peninsula wars suffering nightmares and hallucinations. His treatment included being shackled and locked in a room the size of a privy, saltwater dousings, opium pills, frequent bloodletting and a cleansing diet of plain bread and weak tea. Apparently the man had eventually been released, but said he would never forget the shame and indignity of being utterly powerless...and utterly alone.
Being trapped in a place like that would be an unending nightmare.
Louisa began to chew on a thumbnail, until a sharp smack from Belinda’s fan jolted her back to the present. “Ow! What was that for?”
“Ladies do not gnaw on themselves. Now, let’s get you dressed to meet afternoon callers.”
Hours later, Louisa sat perched on a chaise in her mother’s sumptuous parlor, bracing herself for her last visitor. So far she’d successfully diverted a duke who surely must be at least ninety and spent most of his time conversing with a potted plant between impromptu naps; an earl who spent more time ogling the other gentlemen in the room than her; a rather earnest young lord with sour breath who studied exotic dead insects and insisted she call him Tippy; and an Italian comte whose gaze darted around the room like a crazed butterfly, and jumped whenever anyone spoke above a whisper.
It wasn’t terribly difficult. Most men couldn’t abide a modern-thinking woman, so one or two blunt comments about science or books had them scurrying for cover. Occasionally they were persistent and returned, and she was forced to dress even more eccentrically, mutter Latin incantations over shrubbery like one of Mr. Shakespeare’s witches, and maul their feet while promenading or dancing.
Smoothing the skirts of her deliberately ill-fitting and unflattering dark peach gown, she turned to Belinda. “All right. Who is the last to come here with pure love in his heart and no desire or need for my dowry today?”
Belinda’s lips twitched as she refreshed the tea tray. “The Marquess of Kildaire from Ireland.”
“Well, let’s get this over with then.”
With too-perfect timing, the parlor door swung open to reveal her mother, and on her arm, a handsome, dark-haired man.
Good heavens. An actual possibility?
She straightened her shoulders, her lips widening into a genuine smile.
“Louisa, dear,” trilled Margaret Donovan. “May I present Lord Kildaire. Owns a fair chunk of Ireland, an accomplished rider, and expert fencer.”
“You flatter me, madam. Miss Donovan,” said the marquess, his lilting accent caressing the words as he bowed over her hand. “What a beauty you are, with that fine Irish red hair. And such lovely eyes. Like a silver sixpence.”
Her heart actually skipped a beat. Then Lord Kildaire straightened, and she found herself looking into eyes as cold and dark as an abyss.
Recoiling, she attempted to tug her hand away. “Thank you, my lord.”
“Walk with me,” he replied, but it wasn’t a request, and the damned man still hadn’t released her hand.
“Off you go, Louisa,” said her mother, with a bright smile.
Damnation.
Nodding reluctantly, she began to move around the room with Lord Kildaire.
“Did you have a pleasant journey here?” Louisa asked politely, when the silence grew uncomfortable.
“You are disobedient and willful. Habits that will need to be forcibly corrected,” he said as casually as one might discuss the weather.
Louisa blinked. “Excuse me?”
“The way you tried to tug your hand from mine. I decide. Not you.”
Her heart began to pound, and not in a good way. “Oh?”
“Oh, indeed. I shall enjoy the process of breaking you. Don’t be concerned, you’ll learn to love it. They all do,” he finished softly, his lips curling in amusement.
“You speak prematurely, my lord,” said Louisa, his dead, flat gaze making her want to dive headfirst into a copper tub and scrub herself raw.
“I don’t think so. I always get what I want, Miss Donovan. As do my associates. You’ll learn to love them, too.”
Dear God. One more word and everything she’d eaten today would be decorating the parlor floor.
Turning quickly, she pretended to stumble and drove her heel hard into his instep. “Oh, my lord! How terribly clumsy of me. You need to sit down, and I’ll…fetch help.”
The marquess shot her a look of pure malice, but she smiled, bobbed a curtsy, and fled.
Anything would be preferable to a man like Lord Kildaire.
Anything.
~ * ~
HEIRESS’ HUSBAND SEARCH CONTINUES
George took a gulp of third-rate brandy, grimacing at the taste, as he perused the scandal sheet headline. Searching for and reading articles about Louisa Donovan was a habit he was unable to break himself of, no matter how bad. They were always the same—Miss D, dancing or strolling or taking tea with Lord X or Earl M or the Duke of B— or C— or some other bloody letter of the alphabet. Without fail the writer would gush over her incredible dowry and her lovely eyes, then mock her conversation as shamefully bluestocking and her atrocious gown choices, which were admittedly awful, never the right color to flatter her hair or sized to show off her slender curves. Exactly what he might do the day the article finished with a confirmed betrothal or wedding date instead of “the pair wished each other the best and parted company,” he didn’t know.
“George! George, darling, I need your help. Please, right away.”
Glancing up from his newspaper, George frowned at the way his mother was wringing her hands and chewing on her lip. “What has happened, Mama?”
“I was carrying too many baskets, and I bumped one of Sir Malcolm’s landscapes. It fell to the floor and the frame is dented, and if he sees it he’ll be so angry…”
He repressed a shudder. That was the truth—although anyone with even a modicum of taste cringed at the blue-hued landscape paintings, his stepfather behaved as though they were worthy of a spot in the Sistine Chapel. And after their most recent altercation, the last thing George wanted was that volatile temper unleashed again. Not in his present weakened physical condition, when fighting back would be almost impossible.
“I’m sure it will be fixable,” he said soothingly.
“Silly thing,” Emily replied, her eyes glistening. “I’m usually so c-careful.”
“I know you are. Let’s go attend to it now, before he returns.”
“Oh, darling. What would I do without you?”
George smiled, ready to make some quip about less sewing of waistcoats. Then she unexpectedly flung her herself at his chest and hugged him tightly, and he couldn’t control a wince at the pressure on his various scrapes and bruises. “Easy, Mama. You’ll wrinkle my cravat
.”
She stared hard at him, and tears began to trickle down her cheeks. At that moment he realized she knew about the latest incident, yet another in a row stretching back twenty years that they would never speak of.
Fuck.
His mother’s tears of guilt and self-recrimination and fear were almost worse than the random beatings, punishments and “accidents.” But she was trapped here as much as him. Even if the law wasn’t ridiculous in that it considered ladies nothing more than chattel and physical correction permissible, with Sir Malcolm a senior magistrate, a case for cruelty would never make it to hearing. And the bastard would never agree to living separately—he enjoyed tormenting his wife too much.
George could understand his mother’s increased guilt, too. After Stephen and Caro had married, Stephen had had paid a visit to Sir Malcolm and given him a thorough, pain-filled lesson in what would happen if he ever laid a hand on Caro or Emily again. So now the man’s sadistic rage was focused solely on his stepson, and there wasn’t a person George could tell without losing all face. What kind of man never exposed his back because of the hideous tale it told? Slept with fucking candles lit because of the monsters that lurked in his dreams? Never knew if his body would respond or freeze when faced with violence?
But his mother knew. Whether the servants told her or she simply guessed, she knew. And hated herself for it.
Emily cleared her throat, and he blinked, relieved to leave those thoughts behind.
“I have sewn you a n-new waistcoat for dear Standish’s b-ball tonight,” she said, hastily stepping back and wiping her eyes. “And taken out the seam in your best jacket one quarter inch. Exercise is well and good, darling, but if your shoulders get any bigger, you won’t fit through doors.”
“Hmmm. That is a source of income I hadn’t even considered. Hiring myself out as a bookshelf. Or a wall. Genius.”
“Oh, you,” she replied, her lips thankfully twitching with humor rather than sorrow.
“Direct me to this dented frame, then.”
Once they were in his mother’s sewing room, he carefully removed the painting from the wooden frame and placed it on her desk. The frame wasn’t actually as bad as he’d feared, just a small chunk missing from one corner where it had bounced on the floor. A little sanding, a little carving, and a quick polish to finish, and the mishap would be undetectable.
Peering intently at the corner, George regarded it from a few different angles to check which way the grain went. Then he withdrew a small square of sanding paper from his mother’s odds and ends drawer, and got to work.
“Hand me something sharp, would you?” he said absently, holding out his palm. “A hook or some scissors.”
Instead of receiving an object, all he heard was a ragged indrawn breath, and he glanced up in concern. She was staring at him with such an agonized look on her face, he almost couldn’t look.
“Mama?” he said carefully. “If you give me something sharp, I promise to neither run with it, nor lose an eye.”
Emily didn’t smile. “I’m sorry, darling. You must think me a right twit. But just then…”
“Just then, what?”
Very, very softly, as if the walls had ears, she said, “You reminded me so much of your father I couldn’t breathe. Those words, that gesture…he used to set up a workshop in the kitchen, tools, bits of wood, everything that needed mending. And he’d say to me ‘hand me something sharp, Em.’”
Forcing himself to keep sanding, as if he wasn’t sucker punched by his mother actually sharing a memory of his father, George smiled. “I guess as a sea captain, he was never afraid to roll up his sleeves.”
She hesitated, actually looking at the door as if afraid to answer even the most basic of questions. “Howard could fix anything. I could sew anything. Between us we managed on a small income rather well.”
“But you were happy.”
“So happy,” Emily whispered. “He was my true love. And gave me you and Caro, my greatest joy.”
Without warning, his bruises began to throb, and anger bubbled. “Then how could you marry bloody Sir Malcolm? And so soon after Father died in the shipwreck?”
His mother recoiled, as if he’d slapped her. “You think I had a choice? A penniless widow with two young children? My parents were dead. I had nothing and no one.”
“What about Father’s parents?”
“They arranged the blasted match. I could marry Sir Malcolm, have him adopt you both and survive, or we three could starve on the streets. That was my choice, and I had a week to decide.”
George swallowed hard, his mind spinning. The answer to the question he’d been seeking his whole damned life—who the hell he really was—dangled in front of him like a diamond.
“Who were they? What kind of people could possibly ask that of a young mother just widowed?”
“I can’t say,” she said, closing her eyes as if in terrible pain.
“You mean you won’t,” he replied bitterly.
“No, I mean I can’t. Sir Malcolm and I are both bound by the longest and strictest marriage contract ever written.”
What the bloody hell? A contract? This just got better and better.
“Oh, naturally,” he scoffed. “Because that is common practice amongst poor families, long and strict contracts to stop the sharing of details regarding a first marriage to another poor family. Hell, Mama, if you were going to spin me a web of lies, at least you could have made it interesting. ‘George, darling, you aren’t a penniless nobody, but the rightful heir to a vast kingdom where there are buildings just to store the gold and jewels, a carriage for each day of the month, premium brandy flows like water, and no one is ever cold or hungry.’”
Emily stilled, silent for the longest time. “Quite right,” she said eventually. “If I were to make up a fanciful tale, that would be it. Excuse me, I’ve just remembered I have one more thing to sew for tonight. If you could finish repairing that frame for me, I would be most obliged.”
And then she scooted out the door so fast, it almost created a breeze.
Staring after her, every hair lifted on the back of his neck. Something very, very odd had just occurred. The way her eyes had flared, as if something he’d said hit a raw nerve. But that was ridiculous.
And yet…twenty years of secrecy. The change of surname. The fear.
He couldn’t possibly be someone, a man who belonged in society by birth and not pity, a man truly worthy of the London Lords circle…
Could he?
~ * ~
She was in terrible trouble.
Lifting her chin, Louisa stalked toward the dining room. Today she had been most unlucky—unfortunately a particularly sharp-eyed and supercilious friend of her mother’s had witnessed the crushing of Lord Kildaire’s foot, and had taken it upon herself to share the news. Margaret Donovan had blinked and nodded unconcernedly at the time, but her eyes told a far different story. Suppertime would be the reckoning, and that time was now.
In fact, the fine china bowls of creamy leek and potato soup were barely served when her mother thumped down her sterling silver spoon and turned sideways with an expression of pure rage on her thin, angled face.
“I have tolerated your escapades until now, Louisa, but today you assaulted a senior peer of the realm—”
“It was an accident!”
“Do not interrupt me. You seem to think by behaving disgracefully, you will be triumphant. That is not the case. You will marry a high-ranking peer and do your womanly duty by gracing his table and birthing him children.”
“That is assuming my husband is able,” Louisa shot back, her stomach churning at the thought of life as nothing more than an unloved, unpleasured, brood mare. “With the age of some of the men you have invited, they couldn’t manage a Sunday stroll, let alone marital relations.”
“Now you are being vulgar. But you do make a small valid point. Some of the peers who have offered for you have been, er, a trifle older than expected. I will
be more vigilant in future to ensure the men are no more than thirty years your senior.”
Louisa gritted her teeth. As concessions went, it was hardly a generous one. “So when have you planned your next at-home, then?”
Her mother smiled, and fear curled around Louisa’s heart. She knew that look. Margaret Donovan was on the verge of destroying her world yet again.
“Those are…postponed for a while.”
“Postponed?” echoed Louisa, her dread growing.
“Indeed. Until your character is improved, your wardrobe given a thorough clean out, and your domestic manners refined. I have asked our man in London to start interviewing highly respected and experienced comportment tutors. Once the best is engaged, I expect the successful applicant to arrive within the next week, giving you three months to prepare before the next Season begins.”
“And what…exactly…will this tutor be teaching me?”
“All things unexceptional for a gently bred girl of vastly superior means. How to dress, dance, converse and paint a pleasing watercolor. How to behave like a lady deserving of a duchess’ coronet.”
Louisa barely refrained from rolling her eyes. “And knowing this family’s new money, knowing my unique charm in particular, who do you think will take on such a position?”
Her mother’s lips tightened so much they nearly disappeared. “I have already taken those facts into consideration. Our man has been instructed to hire a tutor under the condition of complete anonymity. They won’t know who they’ll be assisting until they arrive here, and by that stage will have signed a binding contract. All expenses will be met as long as they stay, but no portion of the success fee until you are firstly betrothed and then married.”
Dear God in heaven, her mother was a madwoman.
“Ah, my dears, excuse my lateness,” said a voice from the doorway, and Louisa glanced up in sheer relief to see her father. He probably didn’t know about this latest plan. He would put a stop to the nonsense.
Rake to Riches (The London Lords Book 2) Page 3