When a Lord Needs a Lady

by Jane Goodger

  “What way should I speak? As a maid does to a valet? I’m not that Brighton girl. And you are certainly not that man.”

  Graham let her go, watched her walk stiffly away, knowing there was nothing he could say. He could hardly ask an heiress to become his mistress. But seeing her again was like having the sun come out after a long bout of cold rain. He heard footsteps behind him and closed his eyes wearily. If it was Claudia, he didn’t know whether he could pretend to be pleasant. She was presuming things she shouldn’t, probably encouraged by her ambitious mother.

  “Lord Avonleigh.”

  He nearly visibly winced. It was worse than Claudia; it was her mother. He schooled his features and turned, offering a polite countenance.

  “Mrs. Von Haupt. I trust you are enjoying your evening?”

  “Of course.” Her eyes darted behind him, but Katherine was no longer in sight. Not that he cared whether she’d seen them together or not. He would marry her daughter; she need not have a worry. The Wrights were wealthy, and no doubt Katherine came with an impressive dowry, but it could be no match for the million dollars the Von Haupts had hinted at. As sick as it made him feel inside, he knew he would do just about anything to give the people who depended upon him a better life. John thought he was being foolish, but he’d never seen his tenants go hungry, their roofs letting in rain, the snow blowing through ill-fitted windows. They were proud people who rarely asked for anything, who did their best to pay their rents and keep their homes neat and clean. They did not deserve the poverty they now faced thanks to three generations of tragically shortsighted investments.

  “Your daughter looks very charming this evening,” he said to put the woman at ease. She gave him an assessing look, and Graham realized the mother was far more intelligent than her daughter.

  “I picked out her dress, so thank you. Claudia is a biddable girl, Lord Avonleigh. I’m sure there are times when Mr. Von Haupt wishes he had married a similar girl.” She searched his face for any reaction. “I couldn’t help but notice you spoke with Miss Wright.”

  “Yes. We met in Brighton.”

  Mrs. Von Haupt let out a musical little laugh. “I know of the girl. Her family doesn’t really run in our circles, you see. I think her mother was the daughter of a butcher. That’s the beauty of America, don’t you think?”

  “Americans are very clever,” he said blandly, looking over her shoulder in hopes of seeing some acquaintance waving to him.

  “Your estate is not far from here, is it?”

  He silently cursed his great-grandfather for leaving the estate to his father. His father, of course, had been delighted to have such a grand country home so close to London, but Graham had always preferred their country seat, Avonleigh, even though it was in the wilderness of Northumberland. “Bryant Park is not one hour on horseback.”

  “Perhaps we can all make a visit. Claudia isn’t much for the hunt, though she sits a horse well enough. I understand the Haverslys are planning a hunt the day after tomorrow. If it is a pleasant day, we should visit your home.”

  It was not a question. “An excellent idea. I’m certain there will be others who are also not interested in chasing a fox about. I’ll be sure to extend the invitation.” He gazed down at her, and she pursed her lips but remained silent. She would learn soon enough that he could not be manipulated.

  Katherine dreaded going back into the large sitting room. She knew all eyes would be on her—the girl who’d managed to draw a smile from the Marquess of Avonleigh. She stepped in quietly and was almost immediately accosted by first Marjorie, then her mother, then Marjorie’s mother, who all converged upon her with varying degrees of urgency.

  “Do you know what you’ve done?” Marjorie asked, seemingly delighted to finally have something exciting to talk about.

  “Pray tell, what.” No inflection, no curiosity.

  “My dear, you are the talk of the party,” Katherine’s mother gushed. “Lady Summerfield has just informed me of the great importance of the marquess giving you special attention.”

  “Shall I inform the Times?” Marjorie said, earning an exasperated look from Katherine.

  “My dear, you don’t seem to understand the importance of this evening’s events,” Lady Summerfield said. Katherine looked at Marjorie’s mother and wondered briefly if she had actually borne her own daughter. She was a squarish woman, the kind one might call handsome if one were very drunk. Her hair was a nondescript gray, her eyes dull brown, and she sported a rather thick mustache. She was, in a word, formidable, and Katherine found herself standing a bit straighter. “I’ve known Lord Avonleigh since he was a boy. I’d held out some small hope that Marjorie would catch his eye, but she did not. His great loss, not ours, I assure you. In fact, no one has caught his eye—not even that Von Haupt girl.” It was almost as if Lady Summerfield suppressed a shudder. “He has chosen you.”

  Katherine would have laughed if it weren’t so obvious that this woman was dead serious. She was wrong, but convincing her of that fact would be difficult. “You misunderstand. We were laughing at our own folly. He wasn’t smiling at me as much as he was the predicament we’d found ourselves in.” Unbidden, all those other smiles that had been so freely given while they were in Brighton flashed in her mind like a zoetrope.

  “And what predicament is that?” Elizabeth said, half-alarmed.

  Katherine quickly came up with an ingenious lie that was so close to the truth, it was believable. “You remember how sick you were in Brighton. Always abed.”

  “Of course,” Elizabeth said, her cheeks flushing as if she were embarrassed to have other people know she’d been ill.

  “Clara and I—Clara is my maid, you see—went for a walk along the beach. I was wearing my simplest frock and Lord Avonleigh mistook us for two servants. I had a letter from Lucy, Mother, and part of it blew into the water. Lord Avonleigh rescued it and we spoke for a bit. I suppose he was curious because we were Americans. It was clear to me he thought I was a maid, and I didn’t want to embarrass him by correcting him. And that’s all it was.”

  Three sets of female eyes narrowed. She’d thought it was a logical explanation, but perhaps not.

  “How long was your conversation?” her mother asked.

  “Oh, five minutes. Less. Or more. I can’t recall.”

  “And he remembered you from Brighton, from that brief meeting?”

  “Apparently so. I remembered him.”

  “But you knew he was Lord Avonleigh. Of course you would remember him,” Lady Summerfield pointed out reasonably.

  “I cannot say why. Perhaps we should ask Lord Avonleigh why he has such a good memory.” Katherine pretended to look about the room.

  “Not necessary,” Lady Summerfield said. She gave Katherine another assessing look, and Katherine smiled weakly at her. “Mrs. Wright, let me introduce you about.”

  As soon as the two older women were gone, Marjorie grabbed her arm and pulled her to the side of the room. “Now tell me what actually happened. And do please tell me that Lord Avonleigh is not the man you met in Brighton. Tell me, please. Because if he is, it would be simply too delicious.”

  Katherine grimaced.

  “Oh, he is the man! I knew it. How tragic and wonderful and . . .” She paused, apparently having run out of descriptive words to paint a proper picture. “You love him,” she finally said softly.

  Katherine shook her head. “I could hardly love a man I’ve only spent a few hours with. But I suppose I could have loved him had circumstances been different.”

  Marjorie made a face. “The man you described to me wasn’t Lord Avonleigh. I cannot imagine having any warm feelings toward him at all. Don’t forget, I’ve been out for three years, and I’ve had the privilege of watching him—and watching myriad women make a cake of themselves over him. I simply do not understand his attraction.”

  “He is handsome,” Katherine said, feeling the need to defend him. “And the man I knew in Brighton likely wasn’t at all like the
man you know. He was carefree and happy. You see, both of us for our own reasons pretended to be servants. He introduced himself as a valet and I thought if I told him who I was, he would go away. And he was handsome and charming and I suppose I thought it would do no harm to let a handsome, charming valet believe I was a lady’s maid.”

  Marjorie clapped her hands together. “This is wonderful.”

  “This is not wonderful,” Katherine said darkly.

  “No, no. You misunderstand. Mrs. Von Haupt is already in a tizzy over that smile. You should have seen the look on her face when her daughter approached the two of you. It was priceless.”

  Katherine shook her head, still not understanding what could be wonderful about the situation.

  “I daresay you’ll soon see the silver lining in this very dark cloud,” Marjorie said mysteriously. And no amount of prodding could make her explain herself.

  Chapter 7

  He needed a new textile mill. Better irrigation, certainly. The roads were rutted, the trees diseased, the storage buildings dilapidated. New wells needed to be dug, new fencing erected, new equipment purchased. He did have some rather nice horseflesh and a stable built in the last half century, so there was that. But other than the stable, their lands hadn’t been improved upon in more than seventy-five years. How could they ever compete against American farmers who were using innovative, modern techniques to produce better and bigger crops when his tenants were still using an ox and single-blade cast-iron plows? It was mind-numbing, the amount that needed to be done thanks to decades of neglect.

  Graham had loved his father, but thinking about what needed to be done made him slightly ill. His father had been a lover of the arts. He’d collected violins, even though he hadn’t played. No, he’d attracted the finest musicians to their home so that they could see—and perhaps play—some of the finest instruments ever created. Those violins were long gone—the proceeds used to build a sturdy bridge over the river that ran through Avonleigh. It was difficult to think of his father as being unkind, but wasn’t this neglect a form of cruelty? He could not imagine buying a rare violin when a tenant’s well was dry. And yet his father had done such things over and over again.

  He put his pen in the ink pot and sat back, his head aching. A knock on the door was a welcome distraction.

  “Enter.” A footman appeared.

  “The picnic is about to begin, Lord Avonleigh. Shall I tell the party to wait?”

  Graham pulled out his watch, stunned that it could be time for luncheon. “Indeed it is. Thank you. I’ll be right down so there’s no need to tell anyone to wait. I can catch up, no doubt.”

  He gave himself a cursory look in the mirror, adjusting his cravat and pulling on his jacket, and headed toward the door.

  “My lord, your sleeve,” Mr. Chase said in the same way one might say, “My lord, your arm fell off.”

  Graham looked down and frowned at an ink stain.

  “I have another shirt pressed and ready,” Mr. Chase said, with slightly less panic in his tone. Graham knew it would be extremely difficult for Mr. Chase to let him walk out the door with that stain, so he stripped off his jacket, vest, collar, and shirt. Looking pleased, Mr. Chase took the discarded items and headed toward the wardrobe. Now Graham truly would be late, though he didn’t mind. The fewer minutes spent with the Von Haupts, the better.

  When he finally did reach the outside, he saw a few stragglers behind a larger group of people heading down a footpath that wound its way around a small lake. Two young ladies walked in front of him, with two older ones in the lead. He stopped dead when he heard one of the young ladies laugh, then resolutely stepped forward, his eyes on the back of Katherine Wright’s head.

  It was, perhaps, inevitable that they would hear him behind them and turn to see who was there. And perhaps it was just as inevitable that when Lady Marjorie saw him, she would quickly speak to Katherine then hurry to catch up with their mothers, opening her parasol as she went. Katherine waited for him to catch up, an enigmatic smile on her lovely face.

  Odd, he hadn’t thought her beautiful in Brighton, but the girl standing in front of him took his breath away. She wore a forest green dress with froths of creamy lace at her neck and sleeves, and a jaunty little hat with a large green ribbon tied beneath her chin. Her eyes today were green—and at the moment slightly narrowed.

  “Miss Wright,” he said with a bit of irony, dipping his head in a polite bow.

  “Lord Avonleigh,” she returned, just as ironic, and with a nearly infinitesimal curtsy.

  “Was that a curtsy or did you just have a spasm?” he asked dryly. She laughed, delighted, and any ice between them melted.

  “I’m glad you are straggling behind. I did want to talk to you.” She began walking toward the lake and he fell into step beside her.

  “Oh?” He studied her profile and felt a now-familiar longing.

  “Our discussions in Brighton. I assume everything you told me was the truth, and that it was really about you. And your father.”

  Graham walked a few steps in silence before saying simply, “Yes.”

  “Oh Graham, I am so sorry,” she said, grasping his hand. “You cannot know how horrid I felt last night after I realized everything you’d told me, all those awful things, were really about you. And I knew you might worry about me, worry that I would repeat your stories. I want you to know I have not and I never will.”

  He squeezed her small hand before letting it go, because he knew if he maintained even that small contact, it would be difficult not to haul her into his arms. “Thank you.”

  Ahead of them, the group had turned off the footpath to gather near the lake. Servants had already been there, laying out pristine white cloths and putting a matching basket upon each blanket.

  “At some point I would like to discuss your mendacity, sir.” He laughed, causing nearly every head to turn toward them. “Good grief, is your reputation as the Miserable Marquess truly that widely known? Every time you smile or laugh, it’s as if a momentous event has occurred,” she said just above a whisper.

  “It is only because until recently, no one in the ton had ever seen me laugh,” he said, and watched as a becoming flush bloomed on her cheeks.

  “That cannot be so.”

  “It is. You do have the oddest effect on me, Miss Wright. And now, I cannot blame it on the sea air.”

  Katherine walked over to her mother, feeling the eyes of nearly everyone on her—and rather enjoying it. She got a particularly icy glare from Mrs. Von Haupt, though Claudia gave her a little wave and smile. Claudia had seemed genuinely happy to see her the previous evening, almost as if she were completely oblivious to the harm her mother had done to her. At the time, she’d thought Claudia simply a very good actress, but now she was starting to think that perhaps the girl was rather simpleminded.

  “I do not understand at all how you can still be standing there breathing when so many daggers are being sent your way,” Marjorie said, taking a bite of an apple. “If looks could kill and all that. One might call Mrs. Von Haupt’s fury a silver lining.”

  “Marjorie, you are awful,” Katherine said, not meaning one syllable. Katherine looked over to Mrs. Von Haupt and smiled a greeting. The older woman didn’t change her expression, but said something to Claudia, and the girl jumped up to greet Lord Avonleigh.

  “Katherine, something has just occurred to me,” Elizabeth said, and the way she said it told Katherine it was something her mother had been thinking about for some time.

  “Yes, Mother?” she asked, gracefully sitting on the blanket and opening her parasol after her mother eyed it sternly.

  “Each time Lord Avonleigh shows you even the smallest bit of attention, Mrs. Von Haupt looks like she’s about to have a seizure.”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” Katherine said, laughter in her tone.

  “I fear I can be rather petty,” Elizabeth said aloud to no one in particular. “But I find it’s rather satisfying to see those looks of venom
. A bit of retribution for what she has done to us. I would not discourage you from spending time with Lord Avonleigh.”

  Katherine was a bit confused. She lowered her voice so that only those at their blanket could hear her. “Mother, if you have any delusions about Lord Avonleigh, I would like you to set them aside now.” Katherine looked for support from Marjorie and Lady Summerfield. “I’m afraid Lord Avonleigh feels compelled to marry Miss Von Haupt and the contract is all but signed. She is bringing a rather sizeable dowry to the marriage.”

  Her mother narrowed her eyes. “How sizeable?”

  “One million pounds.”

  Her mother gasped, then frowned. “Oh,” she said, that one word filled with disappointment, disgust, and envy. “Really.”

  “It’s difficult to overcome such a significant obstacle, but I believe it can be done,” Lady Summerfield said with a sharp nod.

  “I wouldn’t want to stop Lord Avonleigh from marrying Claudia,” Katherine said sternly. “Lord Avonleigh wants to help his people, and to do that he needs a large amount of money. I’m afraid we cannot compete with the Von Haupts. I think they would sell their souls for a title as prestigious as Avonleigh’s.”

  Her mother popped a grape in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “Then we’ll simply have to settle on torturing the Von Haupts,” she said with a wicked smile.

  “That’s just what I was thinking, Mrs. Wright,” Marjorie said, clapping her hands together.

  Katherine’s mother quickly explained to Lady Summerfield all that had passed between the families. The lady’s response was not surprising. “Then we have even more reason to make certain Katherine and Lord Avonleigh marry.”

  Katherine suppressed a frustrated groan, but remained silent. If the older women wanted to dream a bit about a wedding between Graham and her, she would let them. They couldn’t know she knew Graham far better than she should; far better than Claudia did, certainly. And it would be gauche to mention that her own dowry was only one-tenth of Claudia’s.